Justification of conciousness

[azrael]

yeah you're right, strike out free will.

buddy of mine in response to this said "consciousness - you are aware that you are aware" but didn't like it, just was the best available.

imo computers can in theory be conscious. to extend that, I'd say consciousness is some threshold of complex problem solving. ie once something can solve problems to 'some' degree of complexity, it is conscious.

The belief that consciousness is a “byproduct” of biological complexity (or complexity in general) is a form of epiphenomenalism.

If you believe that consciousness arises out of complexity, then you’re left to explain how this happens. A computer, at some level of complexity is not conscious, yet when it becomes just a bit more complex, consciousness suddenly springs into existence. How?

And as I already stated, this also means that you must accept complex arrangements of plumbing parts as conscious. It is possible to simulate the operations of a computer using post-it notes and a pencil, so you must also conclude that a sufficiently complex arrangement of post-it notes can be conscious (independent of the people writing on them!)

I find epiphenomenalism to be an unsatisfactory explanation of consciousness.

I said the ability to problem solve beyond a certain degree of complexity is consciousness, not that "if is complex enough consciousness emerges". To restate with other words, it's not the complexity of the system that defines it's consciousness, it is it's ability to successfully solve problems beyond a degree of complexity. Maybe the first computer program to achieve consciousness will be relatively simple, assuming that or anything else is speculation and does not stand against the definition of "being able to problem solve past a given degree of complexity."


Let's call this threshold for solving complex problems 'C' to save on typing. i.e. once a system is capable of solving problems of this given, arbitrarily defined, level of complexity ('C') then that system is conscious.

A computer may approach consciousness as it approaches 'C'. Once it reaches or exceeds 'C', it is conscious by definition of 'C'. It does not suddenly spring into existence, it took a lot of work to get up to and pass this threshold 'C'. The fact that we then label it as 'conscious' is a result of having defined the word as such.

Think of it like an IQ test where a score below 30 labels a person "idiot". Say for some reason a person who takes an IQ test scores very low, 40, and as they are subsequently tested their score decreases by a small amount. As a person's scores go from 40 to 35 to 34 to 33 to 32 to 31 to 30 to 29 they do not suddenly become an "idiot" when achieving the score of 29, it is merely a marker on a spectrum used to define a specific threshold.

Similarly a "consciousness test" of complex problem solving may be constructed with a defined marker at 'C' where any system that meets or exceeds it is "conscious".


With this clarification the reductio ad absurdum analogies of pipes and notes clearly do not apply.

 

[gibran2]

...With this clarification the reductio ad absurdum analogies of pipes and notes clearly do not apply.

Not correct!

The plumbing parts and post-it notes are not used as analogies. Real, functioning digital computers can be contructed from plumbing parts and post-it notes. Read about Turing machines and you’ll see why I used these examples.

Follow the logic:

A human being is conscious, and (according to your definition) conscious because of their ability to solve problems of a certain degree of complexity.

Human beings owe their problem solving capacity to the physical/chemical makeup of the human brain.

A computer can in theory simulate the physical/chemical structure and processes of the human brain.

Logic gates can be constructed using plumbing parts or post-it notes. (Again, read about Turing machines.)

The logical sequence is: plumbing parts --> logic gates --> digital computer --> brain simulation --> consciousness

 

[azrael]

ah, I see. I was referring to a complex design not having any bearing on the issue. If this plumbing system could solve problems of the given degree of complexity it would indeed be conscious. It's just hard to visualize

 

[polytrip]

...With this clarification the reductio ad absurdum analogies of pipes and notes clearly do not apply.

Not correct!

The plumbing parts and post-it notes are not used as analogies. Real, functioning digital computers can be contructed from plumbing parts and post-it notes. Read about Turing machines and you’ll see why I used these examples.

Follow the logic:

A human being is conscious, and (according to your definition) conscious because of their ability to solve problems of a certain degree of complexity.

Human beings owe their problem solving capacity to the physical/chemical makeup of the human brain.

A computer can in theory simulate the physical/chemical structure and processes of the human brain.

Logic gates can be constructed using plumbing parts or post-it notes. (Again, read about Turing machines.)

The logical sequence is: plumbing parts --> logic gates --> digital computer --> brain simulation --> consciousness

when i think about it rationally i tend to agree with this. However...i just get the feeling that there's something we're missing. Something we fail to see.

 

[1664]

There you go, consciousness explained and justified based on real re-testable solid factual science.

can you post a link to this text? This is quite hard to read here.

 

[Czepa]

can you post a link to this text? This is quite hard to read here.

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j46/hameroff.asp

 

[dropofahat]

survival is the most inate desire of conciousness

remember this

 

[blue_velvet]

Consciousness is attributed to a system. If humans are conscious, then human consciousness can be explored through several systems. The human brain is one, and more broader are the human body and society. If you go the route of using complexity to determine consciousness, then all systems are conscious; it is just a matter of degree. If a prehistoric human picks up a rock, it becomes a more complex system. That human may use the rock as a tool or a weapon. It might just drop it and forget it. Nonetheless, the rock, merely by its intrinsic qualities of being a rock, has influenced the human's causal chain of events by being added to the system.

The broadest possible system is the total, absolute universe. This system must be the most complex as it includes every existing microsystem and becomes more complex still by possessing the relationships between each and every one of these systems.

 

[azrael]

when i think about it rationally i tend to agree with this. However...i just get the feeling that there's something we're missing. Something we fail to see.

I feel this too, strict rationality feels dry and lifeless (even though it's rationally complete ;p). The feeling has to be put into clear terms though, for (complex ability)+(some feeling)=consciousness could vary on the second part depending on the individual's subjectivity or whathaveyou. Maybe at it's core this feeling is fundamentally the same for each of us, but without laying it clearly and distinctly out there's the chance that people will attach other qualities to it.

...
The broadest possible system is the total, absolute universe. This system must be the most complex as it includes every existing microsystem and becomes more complex still by possessing the relationships between each and every one of these systems

Nice. What would be a (the?) minimal system which has the quality of consciousness?

 

[blue_velvet]

Nice. What would be a (the?) minimal system which has the quality of consciousness?

That is a really good question. Ideas, anyone? Physically, probably something the size of Planck's constant, made of a singular material, probably a wave or someting.

We probably can't know at present. There are many microcosms that we are totally unaware of. Totality, infinity, everything. Though we don't know the nature of the universe, we do know that at least one of these terms means something. Everything is everything. Trying to quantify one (possibly unheard of) object/system in the completeness of existence like trying to find a needle in a black hole.

 

[Virola78]

survival is the most inate desire of conciousness

remember this

Survival of consciousness?
Or survival of conscious life?

:?

btw nice post blue_velvet. I like your angle..

 

[Enoon]

A question that immediately jumps into my mind when considering the whole plumbing parts and postit notes is this: if this theoretical machine did have a consciousness, how could we measure it? and could we interact with it at all? would we ever know?

I am a believer of the idea that consciousness not only arises out of complexity but is generally inherent in all of existence. You want to define some kind of threshold of consciousness by which to define it, but what is there below this threshold. And what exactly is problem-solving?
A univesral Turing-machine doesn't solve problems in the sense that it knows it solved a problem - this is a level of abstraction and we have no way of measuring or finding out if the Turing machine possesses this meta-pattern of awareness when it solves a problem. All we can see is information going in, in the form of say a pattern, if you were working with a Universal Cellular Automata, and a pattern coming out. If the system was very complex and hat a lot going on *inside* while it processed the information, we would still have no idea if these interactions within had any kind of awareness of their doings. How could you tell? The pattern, the form of information that it can deal in can't very well suddenly speak our language and tell you, I'M ALIVE!!
So beyond not really having a good definition of consciousness we also have no real way of telling whether something is conscous at all. The time-scale of a different kind of consciousness could be completely different from ours so that a thought could take a million years to form. We have no way of knowing.

But what I don't understand is that if you don't believe that consciousness is a property of matter/energy/space or the physical comsos in general, and the complex interactions of the different stages of energy, what in the world is it then??? For me it is inseparable from existence itself.

 

[gibran2]

A question that immediately jumps into my mind when considering the whole plumbing parts and postit notes is this: if this theoretical machine did have a consciousness, how could we measure it? and could we interact with it at all? would we ever know?

I am a believer of the idea that consciousness not only arises out of complexity but is generally inherent in all of existence. You want to define some kind of threshold of consciousness by which to define it, but what is there below this threshold. And what exactly is problem-solving?
...

It’s interesting to think about the possibility of machines having consciousness, and wondering how we might go about proving if they are conscious or not.

But even more interesting is this: It is not possible for any human being to prove that another human being is conscious. Consciousness is inherently subjective, and it is not possible to perceive the subjective experiences of another. We all know (or at least assume) that we ourselves are conscious, yet we can’t ever know if anyone else is.

 

[cellux]

But even more interesting is this: It is not possible for any human being to prove that another human being is conscious. Consciousness is inherently subjective, and it is not possible to perceive the subjective experiences of another. We all know (or at least assume) that we ourselves are conscious, yet we can’t ever know if anyone else is.

I beg to differ... Once I did just that. I looked out from my own eyes and the eyes of a friend, being aware of both subjective experiences at the same time. It was like stepping up to the meta-level of the group mind where the witness can participate in all of its parts simultaneously.

 

[Enoon]

cellux I sort of agree, with humans one can relate to another human. To prove that our perception is of something real and not just imaginary, to prove that the other human is truly conscious however is a bit more tricky and I'm not sure is possible...
But what of a consciousness that is based on completely different input/output parameters, built on completely different grounds. would we even be able to suspect that consciousness exist there? How could we find this out in a non-intuitive way.

 

[gibran2]

But even more interesting is this: It is not possible for any human being to prove that another human being is conscious. Consciousness is inherently subjective, and it is not possible to perceive the subjective experiences of another. We all know (or at least assume) that we ourselves are conscious, yet we can’t ever know if anyone else is.

I beg to differ... Once I did just that. I looked out from my own eyes and the eyes of a friend, being aware of both subjective experiences at the same time. It was like stepping up to the meta-level of the group mind where the witness can participate in all of its parts simultaneously.

Let me re-phrase a bit: It is not possible for any human being to prove scientifically that another human being, with whom there is not a “mind-meld” type of connection, is conscious.

8)

 

[dropofahat]

survival is the most inate desire of conciousness

remember this

Survival of consciousness?
Or survival of conscious life?

:?

btw nice post blue_velvet. I like your angle..

of conciousness.

I don't necessarily believe that only the forms that we currently inhabit are the only vessels of conciousness. There are many degrees (for lack of a better term) of conciousness from the primitive to complex. If you prescribe to the principal that we are all conciousness (all of existence and beyond) experiencing itself, then there may be a baseline level that we share throughout all planes which some would describ as primitive in its behaviour (again, lack of a better term).

The question that I want to ask is that many people are focused on ego death, and the ego in general as it appears to have become out of control? is it because we let it? or is it because as a principle of our own survival the ego has become personofied or has actually seperated from ourselves and placed itselft in and adversaerial position against what we may think our aims are. Cain and Abel? Lucifer and Jesus? I am inclined to believe that the adversarial archtypes of good and evil are being played out more than a billion times over every moment between two lost brothers which I cannot describe here fully.

 

[blue_velvet]

Ah, ego death...for some reason I hadn't even pondered the question of consciousness expansion! Perhaps the expansion is just that, an extrapolation of the [human] system.

Cain and Abel? Lucifer and Jesus?

Positive and negative charge? Matter and antimatter?

 

[dropofahat]

expound on extrapolation, I would like to hear more.

ah, yes the two principles of attraction/repulsion, but in my most recent events I appear to be focusing on personifications and their connections to archetypes and symbols. Now, when I think of entities or physical beings that have different goals of survival that are pitted against each other ( as in some of my trip thoughts recently) I don't necessarily see them as representative of the extremes, but more similar but with different goals juxtaposed, or the same goal of annihilation of the other.

I have been trying to make sense of many of these ancient stories and how they came to be. I see these old myths, and even the newer ones (certain movies and books that come out) as being stories with real meaning, but stories that must be velied in symoblism to not attract too much attention,but to convey an idea to an individual.

Now, many people here and elsewhere are very stuck on the idea that it "is all in your head", which I can agree to a point. But I believe that at certain levels we may be in more of a battle mode then we would like to think, and our decision to engage or not my not be our decision at all, and we may be able to rise above at some point, or maybe never.

Now, as far as conciousness ( I will try and connect this if possible), what I refer to is possibly ego as the construct of our own conciousness as a mechanism of survival which has taken on a life of it's own and it may have come to the realisation ( or did we? I can never tell) that we are the useless portion of the equation and are a better fit as a tool of the ego then the other way around.

I think i sound crazy.

 

[blue_velvet]

I decided to do a quick review of the connotation of "extrapolation" beyond the mathematical one to avoid semantic arguments and found this:

Extrapolation may also apply to human experience to project, extend, or expand known experience into an area not known or previously experienced so as to arrive at a (usually conjectural) knowledge of the unknown

Damn, that sounds familiar!

Assuming "entheogenic" is an apt description of certain mind-altering substances (i.e. the "visions" are real in an objective sense), entering these altered states is synonymous with expanding the boundaries of the system (the human mind). Even if the implications are not as profound, if it really is just in your mind, the system is expanded nonetheless like my example of the human and the rock. The alteration of consciousness is elicited from without and undeniably alters the original system itself if only through vague memories of the experience.

dropofahat, you spoke of a potential "baseline level" of consciousness. In this sense, philosophical ideas and ancient stories or myths are describing characters that hold this baseline level with the rest of the universe. If this baseline applies not only to Lucifer and Jesus, but to subatomic particles, perhaps they are manifestations of some primordial idea.

I don't necessarily see them as representative of the extremes, but more similar but with different goals juxtaposed, or the same goal of annihilation of the other.

Cain and Abel were both men with human brains and emotions. Two electrons juxtaposed may be made of the same material, but spin in opposite directions. Yet, this opposition is an harmonious complement.

Now, as far as conciousness ( I will try and connect this if possible), what I refer to is possibly ego as the construct of our own conciousness as a mechanism of survival which has taken on a life of it's own and it may have come to the realisation ( or did we? I can never tell) that we are the useless portion of the equation and are a better fit as a tool of the ego then the other way around.

I like Huxley's take that the senses are eliminative and not productive. If the ego is a construct of our consciousness, then this betrays a heirarchy. No matter how much our egos assert themselves, they know who's really running the show. The ego and the limit of our senses are a perfect tool to evolve thinking organisms. The next evolutionary step is surviving without its aid. I don't think the ego could ever win in that struggle. The constant search for novelty shows this (see McKenna on variety, spices, art, etc.). There's another concept you can (if you haven't already) study: the Apollonian vs. Dionysian manifestations of art. That's two levels up. A struggle within a struggle. Look at the form of expression of these ancient stories and archetypal manifestations. Keep following that logic up the tiers and you won't sound crazy but be crazy.