Why Consciousness is Not the Brain

[Mistletoe Minx]

@ gibran2

>> It seems that those who claim that consciousness arises out of complexity must accept that everything is potentially conscious, from brains, to computers, to plumbing pipes, to rolls of paper tape. (Panpsychism?)

In the scenario you describe consciousness would be restricted to the set of devices that are 'Turing complete' or capable of implementing any kind of well formed algorithm. In other words, you're saying that if computers can be conscious then anything that can be a computer can be conscious. But that isn't really going to trouble an AI enthusiast who would likely agree.

Another implication has deeply Platonic undertones. The mind in being identified now with software rather than hardware, is no longer identifiable with the brain. Mind becomes an abstract pattern defining outputs according to inputs which can be instantiated in, amongst other things, brains, digital computers and complex organizations of pipes and valves. This pattern can be realized in any number of different substrates and consequently this is a form of dualism rather than materialism.

To draw out the Platonic element here, any piece of software can be represented as a long but finite sequence of 1s and 0s, as we know. But any string of 1s and 0s is also a representation of a real number. Consequently, if its true that minds are programs, then it follows that in the infinite series of real numbers between 0 and 1 there are numbers that when written out in binary are equivalent to your mind, my mind, anyone else's mind.

So would my mind exist in a universe where the only things that existed were abstract numbers? It seems as though in some sense it would. I don't really see how an AI 'materialist' can avoid this.

 

[acacian]

what are numbers though? and are they real things or are they perhaps just minds way of getting to grips with a concept or idea.. a name to a principle?

 

[Mistletoe Minx]

@acacian

Well, Im possibly being naive but I'ld argue that numbers are mind independent objects and it is because of this mind independence that we can make true statements about them.

The truth conditions for mathematical statements are satisfied in the same way that the truth conditions for any old statement are satisfied. So, if I say 'The King of France is bald' the statement is false not because the king of France has hair but because France is a republic, right? There is no King of France.

Likewise, if there were no number 1, then an obviously true statement like 'there are at least 2 numbers greater than 1' would be false on the same principle. But I really don't want to defend the idea that the statement 'there are at least 2 numbers greater than 1' is false.

Consequently, I accept that numbers really exist and that the relationships between them are mind independent. I don't know how one accounts for mathematical truths in the absence of numbers.

 

[--Shadow]

It seems that those who claim that consciousness arises out of complexity must accept that everything is potentially conscious, from brains, to computers, to plumbing pipes, to rolls of paper tape. (Panpsychism?)

Yes, but 'Potentionally' is very different from it actually being plausibly conscious.
Back to my sarcastic flying pig - it could 'potentially' fly if it was born with the necessary gene mutation's to grow a pair of wings

 

[thymamai]

..the 'receiver' of the information is not the specific information itself..

..it is the distinguisher of cognition..

How so?

What is the receiver if not a gestalt apart but composed of information also?
I'm curious of how you would put it more than anything, if you are still interested.
I have a feeling we are more or less speaking the same English anyhow, and can read what you put easily enough, namely your second paragraph.

if you can tell me the rhyming slang for consciousness i'll buy you a drink..
but in materialist language! leave-it-out..haha

heheh
Then in Faulkner, because I think he makes a more expressive drunk

"I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire. . . . I give it to you not that you may remember time,
but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it.
Because no battle is ever won. . . . They are not even fought.
The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools."

 

[nen888]

^..good to be reminded of Faulkner..

What is the receiver if not a gestalt apart but composed of information also?

..i did ponder this when typing the response, but this takes us out of 'materialist'..

in terms of defining the 'consciousness' on a materialist level, it may well be composed of information, but it is not the 'external' incoming information nor the manipulator of it..it's the final 'checksum' if you like..

ultimately i feel the thing being perceived and the perceiver are 'made' of the same thing..
but in materialist terms, no you are not the screen you are looking at..nor the retina inverting the image..or other processing..

and beyond materialist, it may all be the same thing.. (though not any individual thing)
but it's a science thread...i just wanted to get closer to a definition of consciousness (not cognition)

i think i'll read some more Faulkner..thanks thymamai