Comments

  • What motivates panpsychism?
    ↪I like sushi
    But what's the relevance to panpsychism?
  • What motivates panpsychism?
    I assume that you don’t regard a single cell as ‘being alive’ in the same manner that multicellular organisms are alive. — I like sushi

    But you think of a single-celled bacteria as being alive.
  • What motivates panpsychism?
    How do you know bacteria aren't conscious? — RogueAI


    A bacterium can swim towards a desirable chemical, say a food source. To do this it needs to able to tell whether the concentration of the chemical is rising or falling over time, which seems to require a memory, which is an aspect of consciousness.

    However, we know in astounding detail how the bacterium does this, we can describe the process fully in terms of chemical reactions, without having to talk about the bacterium feeling, experiencing, being conscious. There's an explanation here: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/comments/S0960-9822(02)01424-0
  • What motivates panpsychism?
    I am assuming that you accept the fact that you are made up of multiple living cells. I assume that you don’t regard a single cell as ‘being alive’ in the same manner that multicellular organisms are alive. — I like sushi

    A bacterium is a single-celled organism which I regard as being alive.

    ...we know so very little about consciousness and that it may just be that the rudiments of consciousness exist in a singular neuron just like a single cell is rudimentary to a living organism. — I like sushi

    We know an astounding amount about consciousness. We know enough about the biological mechanisms of memory, an aspect of consciousness, to allow us to implant false memories in the minds of mice.

    I'm not clear what point you're making with the talk of "rudiments", or your remarks about language.
  • What motivates panpsychism?
    I don't see why robotic entities can't be created through non-biological processes. — RogueAI

    Well, my idea is that there is something special about biological entities, in that they are separated from their environment. That's what I mean when I say they have an inside and an outside. And a robot isn't separated from its environment in the necessary way.

    When did consciousness first arise? — RogueAI

    After bacteria, before baboons. Maybe around 500 million years ago? Why do you ask?
  • What motivates panpsychism?
    ↪RogueAI
    No, because:

    Entities arise through biology. Before single-celled organisms there was nothing with an inside and an outside, so to speak. That "individuation" is a precondition for consciousness, which arrives later, as an evolutionary development of non-conscious "sensing" processes in the organism. — Daemon
  • What motivates panpsychism?
    There is a difference between pure fantasy and highly speculative ideas. Sadly it seems some think the line is somewhere I don’t. — I like sushi


    What gets panpsychism out of the realm of pure fantasy?
  • What motivates panpsychism?
    ↪theRiddler
    There are no particles.
  • What motivates panpsychism?
    there is no harm in thinking outside the box and proposing something like panpsychism really … it is just not something that anyone can offer up a testable hypothesis for right now so it is mostly a speculative idea. — I like sushi

    So, no motivation!
  • What motivates panpsychism?
    ↪I like sushi
    I don't follow your reasoning. Just because life isn't easy to pinpoint doesn't mean it's everywhere.

    In any case my idea is that life can be pinpointed, it starts when an organism is distinguished from its environment, initially by the cell wall.

    And because consciousness only happens in biological organisms, we can pinpoint it to that extent too.
  • What motivates panpsychism?
    I thought this was well known? The motivation is bound up in the problem of understanding ‘consciousness’. — I like sushi

    I'm really wondering more about the motivation for putting consciousness everywhere, rather than where we actually have evidence for it.

    My own theory is that consciousness is a biological phenomenon, so it's found only where and when there are biological organisms. Consciousness to my way of thinking needs a locus. Some entity is conscious, has experiences.

    Entities arise through biology. Before single-celled organisms there was nothing with an inside and an outside, so to speak. That "individuation" is a precondition for consciousness, which arrives later, as an evolutionary development of non-conscious "sensing" processes in the organism.

    Organisms, entities which can have conscious experiences, aren't everywhere in space and time, so why does panpsychism want to put consciousness everywhere?
  • What motivates panpsychism?
    Hi Bert1,

    Thanks for the descriptions of the various panpsychisms. I think I have the same problem with all the versions, and additional problems with some of them.

    When I ask what is gained by losing the distinction between conscious and non-conscious, I mean that a panpsychist loses that distinction in their description of the world. But it seems to me that the more distinctions there are in your description, the better.

    We want to explain why some things are conscious and some things aren't. Saying that everything is conscious doesn't make any contribution to that.

    Some panpsychists take a very conceptual approach think that it impossible to make sense of the idea of the emergence of consciousness because the concept does not seem to admit of degree — Bert1

    It's not clear to me why emergence would require "degree". I'd suggest that consciousness initially emerged as a (chance) development of non-conscious biological processes. As well as being able to unconsciously sense, some organism was able to feel heat or to see light.

    perhaps consciousness is a property of space. This has some intuitive appeal for me as it fits with the phenomenology quite well. — "Bert1

    How do you mean?

    The IIT is a very different kind of panpsychism, and very differently theoretically motivated. — Bert1

    I've looked into that, in my opinion it's a total failure.

    take out the role God plays in maintaining the existence of the external world of ideas, and substitute panpsychism - everything exists in a vast web of mutually perceiving and mutually defining subjects, then I think that is close to Sprigge's view — Bert1

    Sounds pretty wacky. These mutually perceiving subjects, do they include, like, rocks? And does "perceive" mean what it means when we perceive something?

    When we switch consciousness on and off, are we switching consciousness? Or are we switching identity on and off? — Bert1

    Both. Well, there are two types of identity (in my way of thinking), there's the felt identity you get through consciousness, but also an unconscious organism like a bacterium has an identity: it is an entity, separated from its environment.

    the only causation we actually know happens is psychological - we cause our arm to go up, for example. But this seems to compete with other, physical, causal accounts involving neurons firing. — Bert1

    Descriptions at two different levels. That's good. The more distinctions, the more we understand. What's the problem?




    Well, that's very interesting. You have the start of a theory, or at least line of enquiry. I would question whether we can explain their behaviour through non-conscious processes - when we get to the level of forces, we end up saying 'that's just what happens'. But if those forces are wills, we can go, perhaps, one step further into something we can understand - 'because that's what they will'.     — Bert1


    A bacterium can swim towards a desirable chemical, say a food source. To do this it needs to able to tell whether the concentration of the chemical is rising or falling over time, which seems to require a memory, which is an aspect of consciousness.

    However, we know in astounding detail how the bacterium does this, we can describe the process fully in terms of chemical reactions, without having to talk about the bacterium feeling, experiencing, being conscious. There's an explanation here: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/comments/S0960-9822(02)01424-0

    Here's a snippet:

    Increased concentrations of attractants act via their MCP receptors to cause an immediate inhibition of CheA kinase activity. The same changes in MCP conformation that inhibit CheA lead to relatively slow increases in MCP methylation by CheR, so that despite the continued presence of attractant, CheA activity is eventually restored to the same value it had in the absence of attractant. Conversely, CheB acts to demethylate the MCPs under conditions that cause elevated CheA activity. Methylation and demethylation occur much more slowly than phosphorylation of CheA and CheY. The methylation state of the MCPs can thereby provide a memory mechanism that allows a cell to compare its present situation to its recent past.

    There's not, I submit, any "will" in this scenario either. It looks like will, but the real driver is chance, natural selection. Only organisms equipped with the biochemical machinery that gets them swimming in the right direction will survive.

    Distinctions like these, between living and non-living and conscious and non-conscious items are necessary elements of our description of the world.
  • Question regarding panpsychism
    That the substance that the universe is composed of is essentially consciousness? — Watchmaker


    That's what I think, yes. — bert1


    I wonder what the motivation is? I mean, I look around at the world, and I see that some things are conscious, you and me, my dog, and I see that the mechanisms for consciousness are in our brains, we can switch them off and on. I see that some things are not conscious, rocks, dead people or dogs. I think bacteria for example aren't conscious (because we can explain their behaviour through non-conscious processes), but they do have something which is a prerequisite for consciousness, they are individuals, separated from their environment.

    This stuff is surely super-important?! Whether we ourselves and other items are conscious or not really matters to us.

    So I'm wondering what is gained by losing the distinction between conscious and not conscious.     — Daemon
  • Question regarding panpsychism
    ↪universeness
    So by "we" do you mean panpsychists?
  • Question regarding panpsychism
    That the substance that the universe is composed of is essentially consciousness? — Watchmaker


    That's what I think, yes.     — bert1

    I wonder what the motivation is? I mean, I look around at the world, and I see that some things are conscious, you and me, my dog, and I see that the mechanisms for consciousness are in our brains, we can switch them off and on. I see that some things are not conscious, rocks, dead people or dogs. I think bacteria for example aren't conscious (because we can explain their behaviour through non-conscious processes), but they do have something which is a prerequisite for consciousness, they are individuals, separated from their environment.

    This stuff is surely super-important?! Whether we ourselves and other items are conscious or not really matters to us.

    So I'm wondering what is gained by losing the distinction between conscious and not conscious.
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    Hi, may I say something. I was taught that neurons are either on/off (action potential or no action potential). That's digital architecture, oui? Why can't computers, digital machines, be conscious? — Agent Smith

    Well I've already given you one killer reason above, which is actually quite deep and fascinating if you will only engage with it. A computer can't be conscious because it isn't an entity of the appropriate kind. You get to be an entity of the right kind by separating yourself from the environment, which is something only living beings seem able to do.

    The architecture of the brain is not digital. There's the strengthening and weakening of the activity of populations of neurons, neuronal activity is significantly influenced over longer timescales (minutes, hours, days, weeks...) by a bath of many different neuromodulators. There's also wavelike activity right across the brain. I suspect there are other crucial phenomena still awaiting discovery.

    I have lots of other reasons why computers can't be conscious. To be honest, I think it's really very obvious that they can't, and it fascinates me that other people find it so hard to see that.
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    Computers dont have this feature. — EugeneW

    Still sounds mad I'm afraid, or just incorrect: the matter in the computer was created in the big bang, same as the matter in our grey matter.
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    ↪EugeneW
    Ok, I guess I agree with that, but it doesn't make a difference to the discussion about computer consciousness.
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    Consciousness, of every creature, contains the history of the whole universe. — EugeneW

    That sounds mad. What do you mean?
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    Consciousness happens in the whole organism. — EugeneW

    Maybe so, but specific regions of the brain are dedicated to specific aspects of consciousness. Mark Solms points to a large amount of evidence, from surgery, animal studies, injuries, disease and interviews with his neurological patients to argue that the brain stem and the feelings it deals with are where consciousness started and starts.

    There are many unconscious bodily processes, does consciousness happen in them?
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    I don't think digital computation has any relation to the biological machinery of consciousness. It's a (recent) product of consciousness, not a cause.

    The mechanisms in the brain involve such things as the biochemical reactions at synapses, which are significantly affected by slower-acting neuromodulatory molecules.

    The mechanisms in a computer involve such things as transistors, resistors, LEDs, fans, electrical current, copper wires and cables. Really nothing to do with what happens in the brain.

    To make a mechanical functional equivalent to a working brain you would need to replicate whatever it is about the neural activity and so on that sets consciousness in motion. We don't know exactly what that is yet. A book I'm reading plausibly suggests it may happen in the upper brain stem rather than in cerebral cortex. The upper brain stem is found in much more primitive organisms and is associated with basic emotions like pleasure and displeasure.

    So if you did make a mechanical functional equivalent to a working brain, you could be making something that could feel pleasure and pain. Would we really want to do that? You could be making a being that felt nothing but agony.
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    ↪RogueAI
    I don't think a computer can be conscious by means of digital computation.
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    Ok, explain what I'm supposed to get out of it.

    Do AI researchers use the concept of individuation to prove that their work is misguided?

    Yes. Then what?

    No. Then what?
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    The question should've made sense. — Agent Smith

    But it doesn't mon ami. How do I know what AI researchers do? How could they use the concept of individuation to prove that their work is misguided? If they had, I suppose they would have stopped their work, but then does that mean all AI researchers? Maybe some of them have realised their work is pointless and moved on, maybe some just don't like to think about it. You don't seem to like to think about it.

    What do you mean by General AI? You've seen the two options above, in the Wikipedia definition. Which do you have in mind, as a goal of AI?
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    ↪Agent Smith
    What's individuation? Do any AI researchers use this concept to prove that their work towards creating General AI is misguided, finished before it even begins? — Agent Smith

    To be honest I thought of saying this question doesn't make sense, but I decided to establish what you mean by General AI, in order to make some progress.

    Do AI researchers use the concept of individuation to prove that their work is misguided? What kind of answer are you looking for?

    What do you mean by General AI?
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    No let's not start over: what question am I evading?
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    Which question am I evading?
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    What's individuation? Do any AI researchers use this concept to prove that their work towards creating General AI is misguided, finished before it even begins? — Agent Smith

    Wikipedia: Philosophically, "individuation" expresses the general idea of how a thing is identified as an individual thing that "is not something else". This includes how an individual person is held to be different from other elements in the world and how a person is distinct from other persons.

    I think my earlier message made it quite clear what I mean by "individuation". It's about there being an entity, initially a single cell, much later us. And my central point is that this individuation is a prerequisite for consciousness, and for personhood.

    Wikipedia: Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the hypothetical ability of an intelligent agent to understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can. It is a primary goal of some artificial intelligence research and a common topic in science fiction and futures studies. AGI can also be referred to as strong AI,full AI,or general intelligent action (although some academic sources reserve the term "strong AI" for computer programs that experience sentience or consciousness.)

    What did you mean by "General AI"?
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    I don't quite get the resistance to such a simple and intuitive idea. — Agent Smith

    You need to understand the other person's argument before you can counter it.
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    If something is unclear I will happily explain it. But I don't really think that's the problem.
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    ↪Agent Smith
    It seems you didn't understand what I said.
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    Well, I have several ways to show that I'm not underestimating computers — Daemon


    I change my mind, out with it.     — Agent Smith

    Ok, we will start with what is perhaps the most fundamental reason why computers will never attain personhood. The story begins around 3.5 billion years ago, with the appearance of single celled organisms.

    Now for the first time (that we know of, on Earth) there was something with an inside and an outside, the organism itself, and its environment. For the first time there were entities.

    Without this "individuation", you don't get human style consciousness (after 3.5 billion years), and personhood. Individuation provides a locus for consciousness. Consciousness always happens to an individual.

    Non-living objects are not individuated, there's no (non-arbitrary) boundary between the object and the environment.

    This applies to computers. There's no individuated entity there to become a person. No locus for a mind.
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    ↪Agent Smith
    Well, I have several ways to show that I'm not underestimating computers, but if you don't want to argue the point...
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    I've noticed that people who talk about "an AI" in this kind of context overestimate the capabilities of computer programs. Calling it "an AI" makes it sound like it's an entity, like a person, a mind. It isn't any of those things.

    People like this also overestimate the significance of the Turing Test. Passing the test doesn't confer personhood.
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    I've noticed that people who talk about "an AI" are rarely to be taken seriously. It's a computer program.
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness
    But can we not also include the automatic reactions of organisms to their environment as a kind of reading? To understand is perhaps best understood as reacting appropriately (which brings it issues of the goals or values of an organism.) — lll

    It baffles me why you want to think of things this way.

    To respond automatically is to respond without understanding.

    I'm a translator, I use software to assist me in my work. The software responds automatically: when it sees a word or phrase it's seen before, it suggests translations based on how I've translated the word or phrase previously. It often reacts appropriately, but it has no understanding. I understand the words, the computer doesn't.
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness
    Regarding DNA as 'conveying information'- how could it be doing anything else? — Wayfarer

    Really don't know if you are being disingenuous here. You don't seem to be stupid.

    What it's doing is chemical reactions. How could it be conveying information?

    If you're talking about the ordinary usage of the term, information is conveyed between persons, it's something mental.

    If you're talking about the use of the term in communications engineering, information is a measure. A measure isn't something that can be conveyed.
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness
    Warren Weaver: The word information, in this theory, is used in a special sense that must not be confused with its ordinary usage. In particular, information must not be confused with meaning. https://www.panarchy.org/weaver/communication.html — Daemon

    So maybe you can summarize or quote the part of the article that information and meaning are not the same thing because the way people use the terms indicates that they are the same thing     — Harry Hindu

    Oh man!

    That part I quoted is the part of the article where the author, one of the pioneers of Information Theory, specifies that "information" is being used in a special sense that must not be confused with its ordinary usage.

    Maybe you need to do some reading around this topic.
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness
    For the most part, you and Daemon use the word "information" in its colloquial sense, where I would use the phrase "semantic information". — Galuchat

    Warren Weaver: The word information, in this theory, is used in a special sense that must not be confused with its ordinary usage. In particular, information must not be confused with meaning. https://www.panarchy.org/weaver/communication.html
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness
    ↪Wayfarer
    Don't understand the "don't bother" part.

    The ascription and interpretation of meaning takes place in minds. The interactions of living cells and biochemicals are mindless. When we talk about "interpretation" in genetics, and computation, it's a metaphor.
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