Can Everything be Reduced to Pure Physics?

[vanesch]

Cognitive awareness. http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/awconlang.html
.

I've read (part of) the article, and I think it completely misses the point. Not that I say that the scientific part of the article is wrong, but - unless I misunderstood it, I my opinion, it doesn't address the issue of consciousness as it has been adressed here on this forum. It is a technical description of brain functions.


Some quotes:
"On the other hand consciousness is an ordinary fact of life - babies are born without it and develop it over the first few years of life."

"The question of consciousness can therefore be approached by considering the general phenomenon of awareness, of which consciousness is one particular example. "

"And awareness has a quite exact definition: it is the ability selectively to direct attention to specific aspects of the environment, and to be able cognitively to manipulate these aspects over a more prolonged timescale than usual cognitive processing will allow. To hold in mind selected aspects of the perceptual landscape. Technically, awareness is attention plus working memory - ie. the ability to attend selectively among a range of perceived stimuli and a short term memory store into which several of these attended items can be 'loaded', held simultaneously, and combined. "
...
"While awareness is found in animals right across the animal kingdom; consciousness is of much more limited distribution. I suggest that consciousness is probably confined to a small number of recently-evolved social animals such as the great ape lineage - especially common chimpanzees and bonobos - and perhaps a few other recently-evolved social mammals such as elephants and dolphins."


"Consciousness arises when body state information becomes accessible to awareness. "
----

My comments:
Clearly, awareness as defined above has nothing to do with what has been meant here with consciousness. I need something that can hold information for a rather long time in memory, and access it selectively, and I have to be able to select amongst several stimuli.

In that case, I can make a machine with "awareness" using a PC, and, say, a webcam on a motor !

Moreover, if I write regularly information about power consumption, memory and CPU usage, temperature, fan speed etc... into the working memory of my PC, it is now conscious !

Come on !

 

[Philocrat]

I do not agree. I do not see the link between intelligence (the ability to solve difficult problems) and consciousness.

Does it matter? Or are you implying that when you are solving complex problems (given that this is all what the term 'intelligence' means) you are not conscious of the complex problem that you are solving, let alone of the fact that you are actually doing so?

Hehe, yes, they have to solve the hard problem :-)
Because it is not the problem category, nor the problem solving strategy, that will indicate this. So what remains of the intelligent act on which we base the separation ? What will be the criterion ? Also, assuming we're talking about a Turing machine, do you mean it is the _software_ that is conscious ? Independent of the machine on which it runs ? When it is written on a CD ?

The schemas that I am suggesting make no claims about anything. They are a mere guide setting the stage for further arguments. Or you could say that it's an invitation for those going around in circles to commit themselves and commence the process of landing the argument in safer grounds. Either we accept that consciousness has some accountable relationship with intellgent or thinking acts or that there is no such relationship. Either way, we still have to say what counts as intelligence or thinking and subsequently state whether other systems, other than the a human system, are capable of possessing such an ability. I am inviting those involved in this subject to come clean of this fact. We cannot just let lose the argument and just let it run without taking a concrete stand and take stock. It is therefore irrelevant whether such an ability (intelligence) is successfully replicated as a software or as a hardwired system or as a combination of several kinds.

I have a hard time believing that a Turing machine, no matter how complex, can be conscious. But I agree that I cannot prove or disprove this.

As I have pointed it out above, the original Turing Machine does not presuppose consciousness...and it may not rule it out either. That's why I am calling for an agreement on the whole subject. We cannot just independently and non-directionally debate it away without eventually agreeing on something. Either consciousness is part of an intelligent system or it is simply not.

But we should avoid the confusion between intelligence and consciousness here. Now it might very well be that certain levels of intelligence are only attainable if the entity is conscious. But personally, I do not see a link, especially if consciousness is just sitting there passively watching. You could just as well look at power consumption and say that if you reach the density of power consumption of a human brain, the machine is conscious, and then jump into the research on power resistors. I think that "intelligence" (the ability to solve difficult problems) is a property just as power consumption, when related to consciousness.

Well, this drags you into interactionist nightmare!..."especially if consciousness is just sitting there passively watching". It seems as if you are inviting me to think that when aspects of physical states or events approache critical functional states mysterious immaterial entities manifest to interplay. Right? Critical functional states of the physical material world do not necessarily presuppose non-physicality, nor non-existent, nor any independence from their physical sources. I do not want to go down that route of the so-called 'existence and indendence' of immaterial, or non-physical or any mysterious kinds of states. That route is just too messy and delusory for me.

 

[vanesch]

Either we accept that consciousness has some accountable relationship with intellgent or thinking acts or that there is no such relationship. Either way, we still have to say what counts as intelligence or thinking and subsequently state whether other systems, other than a human system, are capable of possessing such an ability.

Intelligence (defined as the ability to solve "difficult" problems) has, to me, no a priori relationship with consciousness. When I solve a difficult integral with paper and pencil, I absolutely have not the feeling to go through an "algorithmic mantra", but creatively find substitution rules etc... to solve it. It is an intellectual challenge as any. Well, if I type in the expression in Mathematica on my PC, it solves the same problem. I think that if you would have told someone in the 19th century that a machine could solve an integral, they would have classified that as an "intelligent act". So I'm pretty convinced that no matter where you put the bar for "human intelligence", a computer program will pass it, now, or in the near future.
So I think that the answer to your request above, is clearly that "other systems than the human system can possesses this ability".

But it doesn't indicate at all anything about consciousness. I think from an engineering point of view, you don't give a damn about consciousness. You want intelligence! You want your machines to behave in certain ways. It doesn't matter if they behave "as if they were conscious" or if they "are conscious". My point here is that we don't know how to find out ! So we could ignore the problem and we don't need an IEEE standard for consciousness. But a moral issue comes up: if machines ARE conscious, should they have rights ? Is the concept of "torturing a conscious being" applicable ? Nobody in his right mind would be shocked of "torturing an intelligent being" because the concept doesn't make sense.

cheers,
Patrick.

 

[vanesch]

It seems as if you are inviting me to think that when aspects of physical states or events approache critical functional states mysterious immaterial entities manifest to interplay. Right?

I do not necessarily claim that. Call it an "emerging property", in the same way phonons are an emerging property in the solid state. My hope is that it is somehow part of physics, but it is not sure. But the problem is not whether or not it IS physics, the problem is that we have no way of finding out, once we realize that consciousness has no necessarily link to behavior.
In ALL "solutions" I've seen proposed, people end up _redefining_ consciousness as something else, in order to have an operational definition.
Computer science people who work on artificial intelligence usually redefine it as 1) intelligence or 2) pure behaviorism, usually as a social intelligence (the Turing test, for instance).
If you read the article by the psychiatrist, to him, consciousness is "working memory that has access to internal body information". If you give that to a computer engineer, he quickly solders you some SRAM and a few sensors on a PCB :-)
Moreover, these people do useful work with their definition, because the concept they define IS interesting. But they miss the original meaning of consciousness. I think the philosophical problem stands there, untouched.

cheers,
Patrick.

 

[Philocrat]

Intelligence (defined as the ability to solve "difficult" problems) has, to me, no a priori relationship with consciousness. When I solve a difficult integral with paper and pencil, I absolutely have not the feeling to go through an "algorithmic mantra", but creatively find substitution rules etc... to solve it. It is an intellectual challenge as any. Well, if I type in the expression in Mathematica on my PC, it solves the same problem. I think that if you would have told someone in the 19th century that a machine could solve an integral, they would have classified that as an "intelligent act". So I'm pretty convinced that no matter where you put the bar for "human intelligence", a computer program will pass it, now, or in the near future.
So I think that the answer to your request above, is clearly that "other systems than the human system can possesses this ability".

But it doesn't indicate at all anything about consciousness. I think from an engineering point of view, you don't give a damn about consciousness. You want intelligence! You want your machines to behave in certain ways. It doesn't matter if they behave "as if they were conscious" or if they "are conscious". My point here is that we don't know how to find out ! So we could ignore the problem and we don't need an IEEE standard for consciousness. But a moral issue comes up: if machines ARE conscious, should they have rights ? Is the concept of "torturing a conscious being" applicable ? Nobody in his right mind would be shocked of "torturing an intelligent being" because the concept doesn't make sense.

cheers,
Patrick.

The answers to the moral questions are already automatically expected. It's just a matter of when, and not if. There will be no surprises. If many intelligent groups within the human system have faught for their rights in the past and succeeded, what would make computers or other systems who possesses genuine consciousness or something equivalent to it not to do the same? Human beings have always had prejudices of this kind because of fear or lack of understanding of change. Well, that's normal.

Yes, in a way it doesn't make sense and what is even worst about this whole episode is why we want to replicate human intelligence or thinking or consciousness or whatever you wish to call it in other systems first before setting about the pressing need of correcting structural and functional errors and inadequacies in us. Why build these imitations machines first before re-engineering our own originally erroneous reality? This for me is puzzling bit and the most difficult one to comprehend.

 

[Philocrat]

I do not necessarily claim that. Call it an "emerging property", in the same way phonons are an emerging property in the solid state. My hope is that it is somehow part of physics, but it is not sure. But the problem is not whether or not it IS physics, the problem is that we have no way of finding out, once we realize that consciousness has no necessarily link to behavior.
In ALL "solutions" I've seen proposed, people end up _redefining_ consciousness as something else, in order to have an operational definition.
Computer science people who work on artificial intelligence usually redefine it as 1) intelligence or 2) pure behaviorism, usually as a social intelligence (the Turing test, for instance).
If you read the article by the psychiatrist, to him, consciousness is "working memory that has access to internal body information". If you give that to a computer engineer, he quickly solders you some SRAM and a few sensors on a PCB :-)
Moreover, these people do useful work with their definition, because the concept they define IS interesting. But they miss the original meaning of consciousness. I think the philosophical problem stands there, untouched.

cheers,
Patrick.

But this is one discipline's response which must be welcomed. Though physicalist and behaviourist in scope, that guy does have something to contribute. He is stating a physicalist-bahviourist argumnets and you know as well as I do that, as inadequate as this might seem, it's never completely ruled out. In fact no one can successfully rule it out. His memory interpretation gives memory a better and more realistic role to play. From my own investigation, the natural functions of genes and memory centres in our physical material bodies are the most underated and neglected as very powerful multi-function, multipurpose coding and display systems. We naively but negligibly annex to them less than they are capable of doing. That is the problem that has tormented me over the years. Another area of gross negligence in the subject is wrong classification of conscious states that I have been struggling in this very thread and elsewhere to draw everyone's attention to without much success.

I am saying that the time for debate is over...we should start classifying and then schematically map the results into the underlying states. There some real links should be found. I have also looked at the whole concept of independence, non-existence, non-physical, interactionist or immaterial nature of consciousness, but I have always found it quantitativelly, analytically and logically absurd. Call me naive or any name you might wish, I just have not found the link, that's why I find it very difficult to accept.

Don't forget that consciousness is now a multi-discilinary project. It's no longer exclusive to philosophy. Nearly every discipline now wants a slice of it. And that's why we can no longer afford to be snobbish. I urge that all the research data from all the disciplines must be respected and rigorously but cautiously looked at and collated.

 

[Philocrat]

Natural Law, Man-made Law and Consciousness (Part I)

In the Book of Nature there are many classes of laws that are interfaced with man-made laws, when it comes to things and what natural laws govern or affect them, consciousness in my opinion is no exception. The fundamental law that I specifically intend to invoke from the book of nature that governs consciousness is the ‘LAW OF RATIONALITY’. This law does not in any way assumes the falsity or truthfulness of any type of explanations or notions that we may already have about consciousness, rather it merely states the fundamental purpose and logical specification of it as applied at the practical human level (see the notes below for its clarification).

In the first part of this piece, I deliberately make blind logical assumptions that collect into what looks like a logical argument about the nature of thinking or intelligence. In the second part I am interested in finding out not only about what counts as consciousness but also whether any of the things listed about thinking or intelligence in the first part is conscious. So is a thinking or intelligent act a conscious act?

What are the things that count as Intelligence or Thinking?

I will start this marathon task by making very simple but very open-minded assumptions:

1) That any act of intelligence or thinking must be construed as an ability of some sort (presumably a functional kind)

2) That this ability allows anything that possesses it to function and behave the way it was originally designed to do, regardless of if such a thing was self-created, randomly or accidentally created, or created by the so-called intelligent designer.

3) Intelligent acts are purposive, empowering and progressive.

4) Storing and recalling information (memorising and remembering) is a thinking or intelligent act.

5) Feeling something and reacting to or acting upon that thing is a thinking or intelligent act.

6) Seeing something and reacting to or acting upon it is a thinking or intelligent act.

7) Hearing something and reacting to or acting upon it is a thinking or intelligent act.

8) Counting and calculating are thinking or intelligent acts

9) Following rules is a thinking or intelligent act.

10) Reasoning and making choices is a thinking or intelligent act.

11) Anything that possesses some or all of these abilities is intelligent or can think

12) Machines possesses some or all of these abilities

13) Humans possesses some or all of these abilities

14) Other living organisms possesses some or all of these abilities
_____________________________________________________________
Therefore, machines, humans and other living organisms are intelligent or can think.

NOTE: The problem of seeing, or hearing or feeling something and reacting to it is that it is fundamentally governed by the Law of Rationality upon which Man-made law itself is based. The Law of Rationality says that there must be sufficient time intervals between seeing something, thinking about that thing, forming a belief about it, memorising it and physically acting upon it. But in practice this is never really the case. For example, in man-made law this is even more problematic as the law of rationality is not clear by interpretation. This implies that the time intervals between the listed mental and physical events can collapse into oblivion where they become temporally and functionally inadequate for a rational being to exercise self-restraint or control. In criminal law no crime is committed unless premeditated or intended, hence a criminal act devoid of intention (the mental aspect), unless proven otherwise, is no crime. Conversely, a criminal intention devoid of a criminal act (the physical aspect), unless proven otherwise, is no crime. And the standard presumption here is that to commit a physical criminal act one ought to have thought of it and formed a clear intention to do so. When the prosecution raises this charge in court, the burden of proof is upon the defence to proof otherwise. However, there is a controversial aspect of this with regards to the idea of ‘seeing and thinking before you act’. There is an aspect of the law, which assumes that there is an occasion when we can act without thinking such as during ‘provocation’. When provocation is raised in a criminal case, if successfully proved, the immediate consequence is to either acquit the accused or limit the severity of the punishment. It seems therefore as if though the law makers believe that the coincidence of thought and action as is in the case of provocation is a violation of the law of rationality, and hence anyone who finds him or herself in this situation has no case to answer. I see no benefit in intensifying this controversy, but it is important to understand the correct sequence of things in the process of seeing, thinking and acting. The correct sequence is this:

(1) You see something or experience something;
(2) You think using the contents of your experience (immediate, historical or a combination of both);
(3) You memorize by forming a belief or beliefs from your thought about that thing;
(4) And you act for or against the thing on the basis of that belief or beliefs.

According to the law of rationality not only are there clearly quantifiable time intervals between thinking, forming and memorizing the resultant beliefs and acting on those beliefs, but also these time intervals must be sufficient. However, what is not clear is whether the lawmakers believe that during provocation there is a complete absence of time intervals between thinking, belief formation and action, or whether they believe that although the time intervals do exist during provocation but nevertheless they are insufficient for a rational man to exercise self-control. The question I have always asked is this: does it make any difference whether the law as it currently stands is based on the former or the latter? This is the question that has occupied my mind for some years now.

Continue in par II below...

 

[Philocrat]

Natural Law, Man-made Law and Consciousness (Part II)

What are the things that count as consciousness?

I will equally make the following open-minded assumptions without any commitment to their falsity or validity. I am merely setting the stage for classification and analysis proper to begin:

1) Consciousness is an ability to be aware of what you are doing. If you are thinking, you must be aware not only of what you thinking about but also of the fact that you are thinking. If you are acting in an intelligent way, you must also be able to be aware not only of what you are intelligently acting upon, but also of the fact that you are doing so.

2) To see is to be aware

3) To hear is to be aware

4) To feel is to be ware

5) To store and recall (memorise and remember) is to be aware

6) To Repeat a task or a set of tasks a number of times is to be aware

7) To follow rules is to be aware

8) To pass information from one position in space and time to the next (communicate) is to be aware

9) To count and calculate is to be aware

10) To reason following a set of logical steps or procedures is to be aware

11) To make a choice or a decision from a list of alternative choices is to be aware.

12) Anything that can see, feel, hear, store and recall information, count and calculate, reason, and make choices is conscious

13) Human beings can do all these things

14) Computers can do all these things

15) Animals, insects and fishes can do all these things

16) Microscopic organisms can do all these things
____________________________________________________________
Therefore, Human beings, Computers, Animals, insects, Fishes and Microscopic organisms are conscious.

I am not claiming that this argument is accurate, let alone any of its premises so. But I think the amount of information that I have packed into it is enough for us or those involved in this subject to start classifying, analysing and making concrete judgements about the nature and purpose of the human consciousness, and to state whether other systems other than the humans can have and make a purposeful use of it.

NOTE: The problem that we have in this discussion is that man-made law recognises the distinction between mental events and physical events and treats them as outwardly purposive and useful for measuring, monitoring and controlling rational behaviour needed for administering and enforcing ‘COLLECTIVE RESPOSNSIBILITY’, without making judgements about their true natures, causal roles, causal relations and origins. The Law of Rationality, though scientifically reducible and clear, seems to be given a very limited interpretation at the outer practical level. Perhaps this is the reason why scientific opinion is usually sought in some very hard and complicated cases, such as sleepwalking and mental illness cases. The lawmaker leaves the gab between the mental and the physical unclosed and does not pretend in any shape or form to close it, but nevertheless assumes a substantial degree of consciousness in the process. For the lawmaker, to commit an offence, both the MENTAL CONTENT (Intention) and the PHYSICAL CONTENT (Action) must exist and one must flow from the other …..and one devoid of the other is no crime. Either way the lawmaker assumes existence of consciousness…and in terms of the provocation example that I gave above, it seems as if the lawmaker takes provocation, if proved, to be an absence of consciousness – that is, absence of a conscious, fully thought out, decision to bring about a criminal or an unlawful act. In other words the lawmaker does not wait to establish or know how, say, pain is represented in the minds or bodies of both the offender and the offended before stating and enforcing the law, nor neither does he waits to know whether both the offender and the offended feel pain in the same way or differently before acting as so stated. He resumes his interpretation and enforcement of the law from the point (practical, non-scientific level) where he thinks ‘reasonable’ and ‘fair’, without assuming any knowledge of what is going on at the scientific level.

This problem that I have just highlighted is summarised in law as:

“everyman is presumed to intend the consequence of his act”

The fundamental question that confronts all the multi-disciplinary researchers on this subject is this:

When will they turn ordinary assumptions into hard scientific facts?

If we consider the lawmaker’s standpoint (the interpretation and enforcement of collective responsibility by a device of behaviourism alone) as functionally inadequate, then we ought to look for a way of correcting the occasional errors in the process scientifically, such as those errors that usually plaque the system and subsequently manifest into wrongful convictions and miscarriage of justice. Conversely, if we reject the system as being structurally and functionally fatalistic or very dangerous in scope and in substance, then we ought to consider the total overhauling and re-engineering of it at the structural underlying level. I cannot imagine anyone immediately opting for the former, let alone the latter……but they are unquestionably very important issues that sooner or later we would have to unavoidably confront in a multi-disciplinary manner.

And so is the notion of 'COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS’, if at all it is structurally and functionally possible in the first place.

 

[vanesch]

Don't forget that consciousness is now a multi-discilinary project. It's no longer exclusive to philosophy. Nearly every discipline now wants a slice of it. And that's why we can no longer afford to be snobbish.

*We* cannot be snobbish as philosophers, because I'm not a philosopher, for the record, I'm a physicist :-) However, the "multidisciplinary" effort seems to me, for its own convenience, to *redefine* consciousness in the behavioral way. I can very well understand the idea: otherwise one quickly runs out of "things to do", and at the end of the year, one needs to write papers!
In a lot of situations, as with the psychiatrist, "awareness" is set equal to "having access to data and responding in a "thoughtfull matter" to these data". And, as I said, all this is fine and well, and gives rise to useful scientific knowledge.

But what all these people seem to miss, is that the ONLY reason for consciousness to exist as a concept, is that *I AM CONSCIOUS*. If I weren't conscious, as far as any scientifically falsiable statement goes, the concept doesn't make sense, exactly because it doesn't have any operational definition, besides the obvious fact that I know I'm conscious. And the strategy in all these multidisciplinary efforts is to, rather randomly, add an operational definition to it (memory function/Turing test/behaviorism/intelligence...) in order to render it a concept that can enter into falsifiable theories. The funny thing is that each discipline has its own added operational definition and they are sometimes incompatible. I'm sure that, if one follows your way of reasoning, we will soon have an IEEE standard of when a machine is conscious.

But the contents of the hard problem is untouched, exactly because of this: without adding an operational definition, consciousness hasn't got any, because its operational definition is purely subjective. It is this notion, by itself, the fact that what we call consciousness is inherently subjective, that makes that it cannot be part of a falsifiable scientific theory. Normally one rejects such notions. The only reason I cannot reject it is that subjectively, the concept that I'm conscious DOES make sense. In fact, it is the ONLY scientifically non-falsifiable notion that cannot be rejected.

Now I'm a physicist, so I can also contribute to the multidisciplinary effort :-) I'm very happy, because in physics, there is another _hard problem_. It is called the measurement problem in quantum theory.
A well-known strategy of impressing your environment is to take two impossible-to-solve problems, and say that they are the same thing, so that's what I do, for the moment. I think - but I'm open to it - that, just as Penrose, there is a link between the measurement problem in quantum theory and the problem of consciousness.

cheers,
Patrick.

 

[Nereid]

Now I'm a physicist, so I can also contribute to the multidisciplinary effort :-) I'm very happy, because in physics, there is another _hard problem_. It is called the measurement problem in quantum theory.
A well-known strategy of impressing your environment is to take two impossible-to-solve problems, and say that they are the same thing, so that's what I do, for the moment. I think - but I'm open to it - that, just as Penrose, there is a link between the measurement problem in quantum theory and the problem of consciousness.

cheers,
Patrick.

The difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes just a little longer.

Other than that they're both 'impossible-to-solve', why link the two? Does linking the two allow you to have an objective criterion for determining the presence of consciousness? For example, "if it says it's conscious, and there's clearly some quantum measurement thingy involved in how it works, then it truly is conscious."

 

[selfAdjoint]

It's just a search strategy - parsimony. Suppose all our unsolvable problems are unsolvable for the same reason. Penrose made quite a run with it, but seems to have become seduced into doing QFT on microtubules.

 

[Philocrat]

*We* cannot be snobbish as philosophers, because I'm not a philosopher, for the record, I'm a physicist :-) However, the "multidisciplinary" effort seems to me, for its own convenience, to *redefine* consciousness in the behavioral way. I can very well understand the idea: otherwise one quickly runs out of "things to do", and at the end of the year, one needs to write papers!
In a lot of situations, as with the psychiatrist, "awareness" is set equal to "having access to data and responding in a "thoughtfull matter" to these data". And, as I said, all this is fine and well, and gives rise to useful scientific knowledge.

But what all these people seem to miss, is that the ONLY reason for consciousness to exist as a concept, is that *I AM CONSCIOUS*. If I weren't conscious, as far as any scientifically falsiable statement goes, the concept doesn't make sense, exactly because it doesn't have any operational definition, besides the obvious fact that I know I'm conscious. And the strategy in all these multidisciplinary efforts is to, rather randomly, add an operational definition to it (memory function/Turing test/behaviorism/intelligence...) in order to render it a concept that can enter into falsifiable theories. The funny thing is that each discipline has its own added operational definition and they are sometimes incompatible. I'm sure that, if one follows your way of reasoning, we will soon have an IEEE standard of when a machine is conscious.

But the contents of the hard problem is untouched, exactly because of this: without adding an operational definition, consciousness hasn't got any, because its operational definition is purely subjective. It is this notion, by itself, the fact that what we call consciousness is inherently subjective, that makes that it cannot be part of a falsifiable scientific theory. Normally one rejects such notions. The only reason I cannot reject it is that subjectively, the concept that I'm conscious DOES make sense. In fact, it is the ONLY scientifically non-falsifiable notion that cannot be rejected.

Now I'm a physicist, so I can also contribute to the multidisciplinary effort :-) I'm very happy, because in physics, there is another _hard problem_. It is called the measurement problem in quantum theory.
A well-known strategy of impressing your environment is to take two impossible-to-solve problems, and say that they are the same thing, so that's what I do, for the moment. I think - but I'm open to it - that, just as Penrose, there is a link between the measurement problem in quantum theory and the problem of consciousness.

cheers,
Patrick.

I understand all what you are saying and what your key concerns are about the 'hard problem' of consciousness...and I appreciate your own effort on the subject totally. But the questions that still bother me are these:

1) SUBJECTIVITY

If consciousness or an aspect of it is wholly subjective why does it make persistent objective demands on the physical world? Why does it interplay in the public realm?

2) PRODUCTION AND FORM

If Consciousness or an aspect of it has no physical orgin, where does it come from? What produces it? If it is non-physical, what is it made of?

3) INDEPENDENCE AND INTERACTION

How does it in its non-physical, non-material state interact with a purely but clearly accounable physical system like the human?

I am sorry to be this persistent, but my main concern is that by dwelling too much on the hard problem of consciousness, we may waste so much time such that we lose touch of the fact that the volume of research data accumulated in different disciplines on the subject must start converging. These data must start converging, not yesterday, but now!

Or we might as well retire into ourselves and admit that qualia needs a brand new discipline to expalin it.

 

[vanesch]

The difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes just a little longer.

Other than that they're both 'impossible-to-solve', why link the two?

As I said, because that's a technique to impress your environment

Does linking the two allow you to have an objective criterion for determining the presence of consciousness? For example, "if it says it's conscious, and there's clearly some quantum measurement thingy involved in how it works, then it truly is conscious."

No, it is not in that way that I saw the link. The problem in QM is the fact that apparently, you need "other physics" for observers than for "systems", namely the Born probability rule (and projection) versus unitary evolution. You could argue that the observation is not made by a conscious being but by a measurement apparatus, but - as you know - decoherence theory shows us that you can simply allow unitary evolution, and then your system+measurement apparatus becomes in a superposition of states which, for all practical purposes, will not interfere anymore. We call the non-interfering component vectors, branches. If on a higher level, a projection is made and probabilities are assigned, then we will select a probable branch.
In that case we will also find that the measurement apparatus, as selected by that projection, applied exactly the same scheme. So you're free to postpone the projection up to conscious observation, or to consider that it happened already at the level of the apparatus. But you need a projection between here and there, because it is the only way to get out probabilities in the von Neuman way. (the MWI says otherwise, but I think it is flawed, in that whenever they find that you should have a history according to the von Neuman rule, they have sneaked in a preference for a high-probability state according to von Neuman!)

Now let us compare.
The essential element of consciousness (that made it difficult to handle) was that there was a subjective "observation". The essential difficulty in QM is that somewhere along the chain, you need to postulate "an observation".
Allow me to point out that it is tempting to say that both are linked. So consciousness is "that which applies the projection in QM". In that case, there is needs only be one consciousness in the world, namely mine (and I should stop talking to you guys about it, because you haven't got any and so you can't possibly know what I'm talking about ).
The nasty thing is that decoherence has then also as a corrolary that anything else which applies the projection (and hence has a consciousness) cannot be recognized (because once branches decohere, everything happens exactly in the same way whether we consider that a machine projected or not, as long as we project, afterwards). So associating consciousness with "that what projects" also links the fundamental difficulty of recognizing something similar somewhere else (a consciousness has difficulty recognizing another consciousness, and a projector has difficulties recognizing another projector).
I don't claim "truth" for my statements here, but I think they are intriguing, no ?

cheers,
patrick.

 

[misogynisticfeminist]

How true is the claim that everything in the whole universe can be explained by Physics and Physics alone? How realistic is this claim? Does our ability to mathematically describe physical things in spacetime give us sufficient grounds to admit or hold this claim? Or is there more to physical reality than a mere ability to matheamtically describe things?

You can always talk about sounds in waveforms, and yea, you can get a pretty much complete picture, but you can never understand how to use a harmonic minor, or how abstract art is interpreted.

 

[Nereid]

As I said, because that's a technique to impress your environment

No, it is not in that way that I saw the link. The problem in QM is the fact that apparently, you need "other physics" for observers than for "systems", namely the Born probability rule (and projection) versus unitary evolution. You could argue that the observation is not made by a conscious being but by a measurement apparatus, but - as you know - decoherence theory shows us that you can simply allow unitary evolution, and then your system+measurement apparatus becomes in a superposition of states which, for all practical purposes, will not interfere anymore. We call the non-interfering component vectors, branches. If on a higher level, a projection is made and probabilities are assigned, then we will select a probable branch.
In that case we will also find that the measurement apparatus, as selected by that projection, applied exactly the same scheme. So you're free to postpone the projection up to conscious observation, or to consider that it happened already at the level of the apparatus. But you need a projection between here and there, because it is the only way to get out probabilities in the von Neuman way. (the MWI says otherwise, but I think it is flawed, in that whenever they find that you should have a history according to the von Neuman rule, they have sneaked in a preference for a high-probability state according to von Neuman!)

Now let us compare.
The essential element of consciousness (that made it difficult to handle) was that there was a subjective "observation". The essential difficulty in QM is that somewhere along the chain, you need to postulate "an observation".
Allow me to point out that it is tempting to say that both are linked. So consciousness is "that which applies the projection in QM". In that case, there is needs only be one consciousness in the world, namely mine (and I should stop talking to you guys about it, because you haven't got any and so you can't possibly know what I'm talking about ).
The nasty thing is that decoherence has then also as a corrolary that anything else which applies the projection (and hence has a consciousness) cannot be recognized (because once branches decohere, everything happens exactly in the same way whether we consider that a machine projected or not, as long as we project, afterwards). So associating consciousness with "that what projects" also links the fundamental difficulty of recognizing something similar somewhere else (a consciousness has difficulty recognizing another consciousness, and a projector has difficulties recognizing another projector).
I don't claim "truth" for my statements here, but I think they are intriguing, no ?

At the risk of horribly oversimplifying (or maybe distorting?) - and leaving completely aside the problem of you (or me, or Radar, etc) determining that there's only one consciousness in the universe - this QM measurement thingy just moves the objective criterion a tiny bit on from what I said earlier (which was (Version001): "if it says it's conscious, and there's clearly some quantum measurement thingy involved in how it works, then it truly is conscious.")
Version002: "if it says it's conscious, and says that every time it looked, there was either a dead cat or a live one (never a superposition of dead and live cat), and there's clearly some quantum measurement thingy involved in how it works, then it truly is conscious."

 

[vanesch]

Version002: "if it says it's conscious, and says that every time it looked, there was either a dead cat or a live one (never a superposition of dead and live cat), and there's clearly some quantum measurement thingy involved in how it works, then it truly is conscious."

No, because of decoherence. If you are conscious, and you observe the thing that looked at the cat, it will have said that it is either alive or death.
But that doesn't mean that the thing itself wasn't in a superposition of states (correlated with a dead cat and with a live cat) ; in fact it was YOU who selected one of the two branches. Decoherence theory simply states that all possible measurements you can do give exactly the same results. So you'll never find out.

cheers,
Patrick.

 

[Rader]

I've read (part of) the article, and I think it completely misses the point. Not that I say that the scientific part of the article is wrong, but - unless I misunderstood it, I my opinion, it doesn't address the issue of consciousness as it has been adressed here on this forum. It is a technical description of brain functions.

There was a reason why I posted it. Well, so this article and whole lot more, using technical descriptions of brain functions, are only useful to explain how a ghost in the machine, observes and has subjective experiences After all at least I can say that about explanations of myself.

My comments:
Clearly, awareness as defined above has nothing to do with what has been meant here with consciousness. I need something that can hold information for a rather long time in memory, and access it selectively, and I have to be able to select amongst several stimuli.

In that case, I can make a machine with "awareness" using a PC, and, say, a webcam on a motor !

Moreover, if I write regularly information about power consumption, memory and CPU usage, temperature, fan speed etc... into the working memory of my PC, it is now conscious !
Come on !

Would it make a difference what components, a consciousness would use to interact with it? If its purpose was only, using the components to peer and act through?

As I pointed out, I don't think that consciousness has much to do with behavior. I even envision the possibility that consciousness IN NO WAY influences our behavior which is probably dictated by the running of a biochemical computer program. Even our thinking is not influenced by our consciousness. Our consciousness just subjectively observes what our (non-conscious) body is doing and thinking.
I acknowledge that this is an extreme viewpoint, but I consider it an interesting thought that consciousness CANNOT influence the behavior of a human being. It's just there passively observing what's being done, said and thought. And undergoes feelings.

Then what do you think consciousness is, physical or nonphysical, or both?

For instance, I am pretty convinced that trying to factorize big numbers on my PC does pain to my PC (it gets hot, it takes a long time to answer, everything seems to run slowly etc...). My PC even regularly reboots in order to avoid it (or I might have a virus). But I don't think my PC FEELS the pain. Although my program prints out that it does if the number is really big...

The creation of particles to humans use the same physical laws, by what physical law do we make this assumption? There is no reason why my brain processes should create subjective experiences, why would anything else not produce them?

 

[Nereid]

No, because of decoherence. If you are conscious, and you observe the thing that looked at the cat, it will have said that it is either alive or death.
But that doesn't mean that the thing itself wasn't in a superposition of states (correlated with a dead cat and with a live cat) ; in fact it was YOU who selected one of the two branches. Decoherence theory simply states that all possible measurements you can do give exactly the same results. So you'll never find out.

cheers,
Patrick.

So, let me understand quite clearly ... if 'the thing' is Philocrat, there's no way for you (or me) to determine that "[Philocrat] wasn't in a superposition of states (correlated with a dead cat and with a live cat)"?

If so, I'm not sure how bringing in the quantum measurement thingy helps in any way; as I understand it, those who discuss this consciousness thingy in great seriousness do not doubt that (most?) humans have consciousness.

 

[Rader]

So, let me understand quite clearly ... if 'the thing' is Philocrat, there's no way for you (or me) to determine that "[Philocrat] wasn't in a superposition of states (correlated with a dead cat and with a live cat)"?

If so, I'm not sure how bringing in the quantum measurement thingy helps in any way; as I understand it, those who discuss this consciousness thingy in great seriousness do not doubt that (most?) humans have consciousness.

There seems to be more than one way to understand this.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-decoherence/

 

[vanesch]

If so, I'm not sure how bringing in the quantum measurement thingy helps in any way; as I understand it, those who discuss this consciousness thingy in great seriousness do not doubt that (most?) humans have consciousness.

Well, it brings us back to case 1: it is impossible to find out if Philocrat is conscious or not. We only assume it, because it is a human being, and by induction we think that he is conscious just as we are.
(maybe Philocrat is a bot on a server somewhere :-)

I didn't pretend to SOLVE 2 problems, I just wanted to indicate a relation, because one must admit that there is some similarity to both problems (the consciousness problem and the measurement problem in QM). Moreover, it would completely incorporate the concept of consciousness into physics: consciousness is the projection of the wavefunction.

cheers,
Patrick.

 

[vanesch]

The creation of particles to humans use the same physical laws, by what physical law do we make this assumption?

Well, the physical process is clearly process I by von Neuman (random selection of quantum projection). So certain measurement systems are conscious. We'll never know which ones. The problem is that the projection operator itself is absolutely not related to a physical quantity itself, so it is hard to say "where" it is located. In a Matrix-like situation, it is "not of this physical world".

cheers,
Patrick.

 

[Philocrat]

You can always talk about sounds in waveforms, and yea, you can get a pretty much complete picture, but you can never understand how to use a harmonic minor, or how abstract art is interpreted.

Sounds in all their forms and variations have multi-valent pigeonholes both in the physical space-time and in abstract logical space. It's just a matter of abstractions and compositional arragements of which the instrument of understanding is a mere vehicle that obeys completely causal and relational laws just like everything else. To treat this vehicle of abstractions and systematic arragements as unique and beyond the ordinary is fundamentally flawed. Abstract entities are real and are pictorial copies of reality produced by the physical things themselves, whose lives begin and end in the memory centres of our physical bodies. To treat them as separate, non-accountable entities that are merely intervening or looking in, as it's currently being suggested, is absurd. As I have suggested many times, if we think of consciousness or any aspect of it as something over and above the physical, then we are better off dissolving our current physical human form and redesigning it from scratch.

 

[Philocrat]

I have asked this question before and I am going to ask it again: Is there a 'PROBLEM-FREE FORM' that things can take that would make them fully explainable? If such a form did exist, would this amount to what may be truly called 'THE PERFECT STATE OF BEING'?

 

[Philocrat]

The Information Theory of Consciousness

...Inforamtion theory says that you can compose information or an idea from the immediate data that are available to you regardless of sources, display that information for your own self to see and validate, display the same information for the outside world to see (if you wish or are physically configured to do so), memorise it in the most sensible form possible and recall it whenever and wherever you want it...

The question now is does this apply to all systems, including man and machines? Is the Information Theory comaptible with consciousness?

 

[Philocrat]

THE CURRENT RESULT OF THE VOTE: What Does This Mean?

Can Physics Explain Everything? (45.24%)

Well, the result suggests that there is a strong believe in this, but nevertheless this result alone is insufficient to completely ground it.

Can Religion alone Explain? (2.38%)

The voting result of this tends to suggest otherwise, but is this really the case? What about many strong arguments in the debate which tend to suggest that the possibility of an INTELLIGENT DESIGNER is not ruled out either? Many claims in science or physics in itself are as mysterious and inexplicable as the notion of an Intelligence Designer. So why are people ignoring this possibility in the Vote?

Can any other Discipline on its own Explain Everything? (2.38%)

Someone did vote on this and the result is very discouraging. It would be interesting to know who voted on this and which discipline is the person suggesting. I am not quite sure which discipline makes such a claim...is it a Voodoo Discipline? Biology on its own does make similar claim but I do not know of it being strong enough to warrant it.

Can Multi-disciplinary efforts alone do so? (50.00%)

Yes, the current result seems to suggest this. Many arguments given in favour of the 'OVER AND ABOVE THE PHYSICAL' theory seems to have contributed to this result. Perhaps, equally due to a high level or disagreement with physics on it as well.

QUESTION: Are we to leave this debate as it is and take my advise that we should stop debating and start converging on what is already known about consciousness or the over and above the physical thesis?

 

[Fliption]

QUESTION: Are we to leave this debate as it is and take my advise that we should stop debating and start converging on what is already known about consciousness or the over and above the physical thesis?

No. We will continue to debate it.

 

[Philocrat]

I am glad you think so because by converging I am merely suggesting that we should (1) stop neglecting data from other disciplines and (2) start co-operating more on the subject. We may even tumble across something very concrete, or we may very well continue on the current footing. Who knows? But it's worth trying!

 

[Rader]

THE CURRENT RESULT OF THE VOTE: What Does This Mean?

Can Physics Explain Everything? (45.24%)

Well, the result suggests that there is a strong believe in this, but nevertheless this result alone is insufficient to completely ground it.

Can Religion alone Explain? (2.38%)

The voting result of this tends to suggest otherwise, but is this really the case? What about many strong arguments in the debate which tend to suggest that the possibility of an INTELLIGENT DESIGNER is not ruled out either? Many claims in science or physics in itself are as mysterious and inexplicable as the notion of an Intelligence Designer. So why are people ignoring this possibility in the Vote?

Can any other Discipline on its own Explain Everything? (2.38%)

Someone did vote on this and the result is very discouraging. It would be interesting to know who voted on this and which discipline is the person suggesting. I am not quite sure which discipline makes such a claim...is it a Voodoo Discipline? Biology on its own does make similar claim but I do not know of it being strong enough to warrant it.

Can Multi-disciplinary efforts alone do so? (50.00%)

Yes, the current result seems to suggest this. Many arguments given in favour of the 'OVER AND ABOVE THE PHYSICAL' theory seems to have contributed to this result. Perhaps, equally due to a high level or disagreement with physics on it as well.

QUESTION: Are we to leave this debate as it is and take my advise that we should stop debating and start converging on what is already known about consciousness or the over and above the physical thesis?

Your answer might be in Penroses new book. I have not read it yet but from what I have heard, I will read it.
The Road to Reality ~ Roger Penrose -- (Paperback - September 1, 2005)

 

[arildno]

Why is it always talk about whether everything could be REDUCED to pure physics??
This is, IMO, sheer negative rhetoric about physics!
Why not:
Can everything be ENRICHED through a pure, applicable physical theory about it?
I mean, will we stop loving, remain unawed at the sight of Grand Canyon just because of a valid, mathematical/physical theory of consciousness?
Is it not more probable that a good physical theory about some existent could more easily point out to us hitherto unexplored territories and untapped potentials?
just a thought..

 

[Philocrat]

Your answer might be in Penroses new book. I have not read it yet but from what I have heard, I will read it.
The Road to Reality ~ Roger Penrose -- (Paperback - September 1, 2005)

Thanks for this info...i'll check it out. I just hope that the book tells us how to reduce everything to physics, or how an alternative discipline can explain the remainder, if any.

 

[Philocrat]

Why is it always talk about whether everything could be REDUCED to pure physics??

Good question...but to be honest with you, I have no idea.

Can everything be ENRICHED through a pure, applicable physical theory about it?

I am a great believer in this, and this is what has puzzled me all along. In fact, that's why I have complained many times in this forum and elsewhere as to 'why the need to explain the so-called remainder' before proceeding to execute what you are proposing here. By this, I am taking it to imply that by enriching things through proper conduct of the physical theory, the remainder itself may consequentially be altered. My own prediction is that, through doing what you are suggesting, we may even end up writing off the vexing remainder itself, or even discover the the connection of it to the physical. Who knows?

An even more problematic aspect of the whole episode is lack of co-operation in the study of the remainder and in the evaluation of the resulting multi-disciplinary data. The logic is this: if something remains, we must find a solid way to study it and all the data resutling from it from different disciplines must be equally but rigorously looked at and converged where significant relations are found.

 

[Fliption]

Why is it always talk about whether everything could be REDUCED to pure physics??
This is, IMO, sheer negative rhetoric about physics!
Why not:

I don't think the word "reduced" is intended in a negative way. I think it is just referring to the reductionist methods of physics.

 

[Fliption]

I'm not sure I understand the objection being posted here. This is a philosophical discussion. It is not the authority that is keeping science from exploring it's potential in anyway it sees fit. The idea that "the remainder" may be able to be explained or dismissed via some other approach that science hasn't entertained is always a possibility. But this can be claimed to justify almost any belief. At the moment we have good philosophical reason to believe that certain aspects of reality will likely never be explained by the current paradigm of physics. Could something happen one day to change that position? Perhaps. But the possibilities of science should not stop us from practicing good philosophy, should it?

 

[Philocrat]

The Job of philosophy is not to extend or revise the scope of any discipline, but only to inspect and examine their methodologies and statements of facts. Is Phyiscs, for example, extendable, or revisable to accommodate the remainder, if any?

 

[Fliption]

The Job of philosophy is not to extend or revise the scope of any discipline, but only to inspect and examine their methodologies and statements of facts. Is Phyiscs, for example, extendable, or revisable to accommodate the remainder, if any?

Isn't that what this conversation is about? I don't think anyone has tried to change the scope of science. Most of the threads on this topic are similar to this one in that they are discussing whether science "can" explain the gaps. All this seems within the realm of philosophy to me.