Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[smcder]

I've finished re-reading Being and Nothingness as well as Nausea, which is actually one of my favourite books.

And while I dearly love his writing, I'm left with more than a little feeling like I just listened to the Cure's Disintegration album one too many times; it's clearly coloured by his feeling of angst about the whole matter.

And on existentialism, Heidegger actually criticized him, as did other existentialists along the following lines:

"Existentialism says existence precedes essence. In this statement he is taking existentia and essentia according to their metaphysical meaning, which, from Plato's time on, has said that essentia precedes existentia. Sartre reverses this statement. But the reversal of a metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement. With it, he stays with metaphysics, in oblivion of the truth of Being."
​

And, at any rate, I utterly and completely fail to see what this has to do with consciousness itself, or how to recreate it, or how it's generated by the brain. How he deals with authenticity and concepts of free will, however, I have always found to be fascinating:
Bad faith (existentialism) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

His struggle with "two modes of consciousness" I have always found to be far, far more simply explained by thinking about consciousness as a parallel, multithreaded activity. One thread only becomes aware of the other when signalled.

This also, of course, gives far less rise to angst, and far fewer Morrisey albums, so isn't as cool to talk about while wearing black turtlenecks and smoking clove cigarettes over glasses of absinthe.

I actually anticipate working with AIs hopefully within my lifetime that contemplate existence at a far higher plane of understanding that we humans currently possess.

I actually anticipate working with AIs hopefully within my lifetime that contemplate existence at a far higher plane of understanding that we humans currently possess.

What will these AI look like?

Here's some questions about AI that I have, that may be very naïve:

Embodied cognition tells us that the world we live in, how we think and communicate comes from the kind of bodies we have - so if a robot is going to live in our world and make sense of it and communicate intelligibly with us, it's going to have to be a lot like us - if not exactly like us.

\We say dolphins are smart and chimps, but we haven't had much luck ... now maybe that's a bad example, but human intelligence is what it is because it is in a human body. A dolphin is never going to appreciate chess or a slam dunk. And I can't imagine having sonar. As for the chimp, how long could you make it in their society? I bet you'd break all kinds of rules ....

So, if it isn't physically like us, it could be inscrutable to us - truly alien, with no basis for communication and only basic goals in common (survival, reproduction, resources) ... if it's wheeled or has six legs or four eyes or radar, it isn't going to think like us, if it doesn't feel pain like we do, if it doesn't have moods, doesn't sleep or enjoy food or go to the bathroom or get embarrassed .... then how will we work with such creatures? What will we have in common? Their world, this world, currently our world - will look very different to such beings.

Another reason it has to at least look like us and behave like us - if it's too weird, we aren't going to put up with it and vice versa. We don't do such a good job putting up with one another as it is. So suppose we do create some new kind of AI with emotions and everything but very different from us or very similar but superior physically and mentally, emotionally suppose it's response to us then is disgust? Or, perhaps worse, pity. Empathy will be hard to come by the more difference there is.

If it's AI in a box, OK - you simulate the human platform, a virtual world - but you better never - let it figure out it's in a box you built ... Chalmers hits that note with the no red pills clause. Good luck, if it's as smart or smarter than us ... prisoners escape because they have all day to think of one thing, my dogs get out of my locked house for the same reason. Now you've got something with computing resources and unlimited time that is just like us only smarter ...

And speaking of resources, if it's going to be like us and live in our world, be the same size and weight as us - it's going to be made of the same materials ... if AI is going to be cheap and plentiful, it will be made of the same cheap and plentiful elements we are ... which means it will compete for our resources.

People say in a few years robots will be doing all the mundane tasks - cleaning, cooking and even dirty and dangerous jobs. But to do those things it takes a human level of intelligence - and not just close, either.

Take waiting tables, sure "anyone" can do it, but it takes skill and intelligence (and patience, tact, wit, thinking on your feet, physical stamina, a good attitude, communication skills, memory etc etc) to be good ... so we're going to put a human like AI made of human like materials with human level intelligence to work waiting tab- ... you see where I am going.

I am going here: Why? I read that humans consume about the same energy as a 60 watt light bulb, humans fit in any human sized space, access energy the way humans do (eat), can withstand tremendous compression forces on their structure (bones, etc) - porters in Greece traditionally carried several hundred pound loads on a daily basis - muscular strength and efficiency has been optimized over billions of years in terms of the materials they are made of - making more effective actuators will be a challenge - humans interface with humans in a familiar format (speech, writing) ... and for many jobs they will work for minimum wage and much less.

Given the above, what kind of machine would you design to do these jobs .... fireman, policeman, soldier, doctor, psychologist? I bet it would look an awful lot like a person.

Aha! But let's let AI worry about all that, we make AI and it makes AI+ solving all these problems (assuming AI accepts the task we give it) ... we're assuming a better mouse trap can be made ... the constraints stand in terms of energy and materials, try and make a better 70kg bipedal system with the available materials, not just one from titanium or special alloys but hundreds and thousands and millions to serve man - then you'll have to use plentiful materials - then you'll have increased, effectively, the biomass of the planet ...

OR, more likely the AI says, "screw that" and nano-engineers fabulous materials from ... what? From what's around it, what's plentiful, from anything it wants to ... including the kind of stuff we are made of - or us ourselves, 7 billion people, that's a lot of carbon and calcium and water ... free for the taking by a superior force. And why stop there? Animals, plants, water ... but then, isn't that just evolution?

Believe me, I'm open to a much more optimistic vision!

 

[smcder]

No, I see it as:

(1) Phenomenal Experience (Awareness)
(2) Phenomenal Experience of Phenomenal Experience (Meta-Awareness)

It seems that Chalmers has made a distinction between phenomenal experience and cognition, but I view them both as aspects of mind. As we've noted in this thread, thoughts/cognition do have a phenomenal "feel" to them. I don't think phenomenal experience and thoughts are ontologically (?) different. They are both constituted of information.


Another way of conceptualizing what I am saying (and there are a few) is to say:

(1) A physical organism (structure) has a corresponding informational structure. The physical body is "aware" in the sense that it has phenomenal experiences.

(2) A self-aware physical organism has a corresponding informational structure that is aware of itself! That is, the physical body has phenomenal experiences (awareness), and this awareness is able to be aware of itself.

A tentative outline/timeline might be:

Physical structure - Proto-Mind
Living Physical structure - Mind
Self-Aware Physical structure - Meta-Mind

I will need to think more about it, but I do believe that meta-mind has causal influence on the organism. Thus, I would not be an epiphenomenalist in the strong sense. That is to say, I do think mind can have causal influence on the organism.

This may be of interest, the interview can be downloaded as mp3.

Eric Schwitzgebel, “Perplexities of Consciousness” (MIT Press, 2011)

How much do we know about our stream of conscious experience? Not much, if Eric Schwitzgebel is right. In his new book Perplexities of Consciousness (MIT Press, 2011), Schwitzgebel argues for skepticism regarding our knowledge of the phenomenology of conscious experience.

We don’t know if we dream in color or black and white, we don’t know whether tilted coins look elliptical or round,

and we don’t know whether conscious experience is confined to what we are paying attention to or more abundant.

Schwitzgebel’s position is based on close examination of historical philosophical texts and current psychological experiments that show radical variability in reports of experience that seem unlikely to reflect radical differences in the experiences themselves. In this wide-ranging interview, Schwitzgebel considers whether psychologist Edward Titchener was on to something with his training of expert introspectors, why current theories of the neural correlates of consciousness are question-begging, and how reports of conscious experiences may be grounded in analogies to familiar media.

 

[Soupie]

That depends on what information 'feels' like.

You seem to be adding an extra "layer" to consciousness. The phenomenal experience of touching a silky fur coat is one thing, but you seem to be suggesting that the phenomenal experience (consciousness) of soft fur has yet an additional feel to it.

Information itself doesn't have a feel to it, it is the "feel." The feel is constituted of information.

Consciousness doesn't have a feel to it, it is the feel.

If Tononi's theory traffics in 'experienced reality' to any extent he would have to be able to identify kinds of 'information' we receive through phenomenal experiences had through consciousness (at levels from protoconsciousness upward).

We don't receive information through phenomenal experience. Phenomenal experience is information. The physical body receives physical energy from within and from the surrounding environment. The physical body, environment, and energy all simultaneously have an informational state. It is this informational state (or pattern of information) that constitutes what we know as "consciousness."

Another reason I love the IPoM is that information is the universal language, right? There is all kinds of matter and energy out there, so how does it all come together? It comes together as information: phenomenal experience and cognition.

I've asked since we first began discussing Tononi for someone who supports his theory to flesh it out with some tangible, concrete experiential details. It's fallen to you to do so if you wanted to, since you've been the longstanding advocate for IIT. You haven't provided it yet despite my asking you to do so. Maybe @marduk can make this attempt if he's persuaded enough by Tononi's theory to undertake the effort.

And as I've answered several times, my affinity for IIT has more to do with the concept that information = mental. That's it. I can't vouch for the specifics of his theory, as I don't know the specifics. Do I think living organisms do something "special" with information? Yes, I do.

As I've noted, I believe:

Physical structures = Proto-Mind

Living physical structures = Mind

Have you read the Panksepp papers, Varela and Thompson, Gallagher and Zahavi, Merleau-Ponty? Any introduction to phenomenology, such as the one I posted from Sartre's Being and Nothingness in Part I of this thread? What I mean would be clear if you had, since my posts apparently haven't helped.

I would prefer if you could articulate your views in your own words. However, nothing I have read of those thinkers indicates that consciousness cannot be constituted of information. Even the Spread Mind model could work with the concept of consciousness as information. (However, I do think there are issues with the model.) As smcder noted, otherwise it doesn't address the hard problem.

ps: do you actually anticipate sitting at the knees of an AI that can explain to you the nature of your own experienced being? Or even your unexperienced being, whatever that might consist of?

No. But until a conscious, self-aware, non-organic being exists, the Luddites would never be convinced, even if it turned out to be true. And they still wouldn't be convinced until it was unequivocally demonstrated for them (as it should be). (For the record, I do believe there are already some non-organic structures/systems that are generating phenomenal experience. It's possible that video cameras, audio records, etc. are generating some very basic, low-fidelity phenomenal experiences. Of course, these structures are not consciously aware of these experiences and have no way of reporting them.)

@Constance, let's imagine that consciousness is one day discovered to be constituted of a fundamental property or substance known as Phen. Will this discovering in any way change how your consciousness currently "feels?"

 

[marduk]

In this instance, I am referring more to Grey goo. The idea is that it is the simplest machine that self replicates and so it rapidly consumes all available matter ... something life has not yet done. As far as we know.

This idea came out of early work in nanotechnology, it may have been one of Drexler's ideas ... I'm not sure.

Yup, I'm familiar with the concept, and agree with the concern.

However, I still think life follows the same general vector; it's just not as fast as we might be able to make it artificially.

It took about a billion years for single-celled life to cover the earth, it's just been bounded by photo/chemical processes so moves at a certain speed.

Take away that constraint, who the hell knows what might happen? Life generally multiplies geometrically to fill a certain niche until something makes it stop... like killing it's host, running out of food, or running out of space.

 

[marduk]

First off, I'm still committed to moving on to other topics. But ...

Yes, Panpsychism asserts that consciousness is a fundamental property of matter. (take a deep breath and keep reading)

I'll give you two things:

1. you acknowledged "scientific hand waving" - hand waving is hand waving, be it philosophical or scientific
2. you were careful to note: "At least how we know it."

I'm not selling anything. I've been through this several times and it's all posted here on the thread, have a look (with an open mind) or don't. And to anticipate every possible cause for limbic response, as far as I know, there are no necessary religious implications of Panpsychism.

I'm not the spokesperson for Panpsychism (the idea that "there is something it is like" to be an electron is deeply weird to my sensibilities, but it has some theoretical advantages) - I just wanted a succinct account of Panpsychism on the thread for reference.

Why can't it do anything if it emerges? ... that is the part you are still missing. I can't explain it any better than I have ... I've never been very successful at getting it across, that's why I am writing Nagel. All I can do is say do the readings on emergentism and epiphenomenalism. It is hard to have an emergent theory of mind which does not entail epiphenomenalism and causal impotency.

OK, I'll drop the emergence problem for the moment and go and stew on it.

If consciousness is a fundamental property of matter, where is it? Is there a consciousnessiton that conveys it to matter and space-time just like there are particles and waves that transmit every other force in the universe?

A serious question, I'm not poking at you.

Further, as a thought experiment, does mass-energy conversion events (like nuclear weapons) convert consciousness to energy? Are we "killing" consciousness?

If we run mass-energy conversion events in the reverse, "freezing" mass out of energy, are we creating consciousness?

Are hyper dense objects like neutron stars hyper conscious?

If our brains are the seat of our consciousness, why aren't they more dense?

Is there a mass limit to consciousness like there may be a event horizon for black holes? Like, a critical mass for consciousness, or is a single quark conscious?

Since a bose-einstien condensate can be thought of as a single atom, is it less conscious than the equivalent mass that is trillions of atoms?

I don't expect you to have answers to these, of course, I'm just running thought experiments through my mind to understand the position.

 

[marduk]

If you found out tomorrow that you have free will, what would you do differently?

Nothing, and that's one of the problems with free will.

 

[marduk]

That depends on what information 'feels' like.

Information doesn't necessarily feel like anything. Isn't that a category error?

 

[marduk]

I actually anticipate working with AIs hopefully within my lifetime that contemplate existence at a far higher plane of understanding that we humans currently possess.

I will wager a modest sum that you will not.

So you assume that contemplating existence at a far higher plane of understanding would lead to benevolent action? In Buddhism, the analogy is to the realm of "the gods" and Devas which I think you could take as a similar concept - i.e. superior beings ... and the Buddha indicates this superiority actually hampers them in terms of seeking enlightenment ... the Buddha in a few instances actually has to go and line out Brahma!

A more practical question is what does a far higher plane of understanding mean and how would we measure that? How would we avoid the "guru problem"? By that I mean the AI simply assuring us it is on a far higher plane of understanding and we should trust anything it does as being in our best interests?

Insightful, hadn't considered that.

I was thinking that our minds are bounded by our biology and it's information storage and processing ability. Take away that limit, and apply moore's law to it, and in a few cycles it could be 'contemplating' the whole planet at once.

That's what I meant.

I wonder, though, after considering your comment, if we aren't creating a tulpa with AI...

 

[marduk]

Only reading more and later Sartre will disabuse you of your current notions about him and his philosophy. I suggest Existentialism is a Humanism, The Age of Reason (and the subsequent two novels in that trilogy), the Critique of Dialectical Reason supporting the development of "We-subjects" who work together to create a more just world, and Anti-Semite and Jew along with Sartre's introduction to Franz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, as well as Fanon's work itself, inspired by Sartre.

Illogical.

This is akin to saying the solution to Sartre is more Sartre. As a metaphor, Bush-era geopolitics thought the solution to war was more war.

I'm pretty sure I've read almost everything he wrote that was translated into english, and as I thumb my dog-eared copy of The Age of Reason, I know I'm not going to make that slog again. At least so soon as I went through the page-turner that is Being and Nothingness.

Yes, Merleau-Ponty's critique of Sartre was especially far-reaching concerning his early obsession with nothingness. But so what? The major philosophers in phenomenology and existentialism critiqued one another in various aspects of their work, like all the top thinkers in any field do. Many phenomenologists have criticized Heidegger as well. No tin gods there but an intricately reasoned and ultimately coherent effort to think through to the conditions of human existence and the social and personal choices required to redeem it.

My point is that there is no point. My point is that for all the pontification and back and forth, nothing has been done, no conclusions made, no satori.

What's the source of that quote? The later H was trying to overcome all metaphysics and provoke 'the end of philosophy'. If you want to follow him there, Steve can give you a reading list concerning the late Heidegger.

Google. I don't have the exact link handy but I'm sure it's easy to find.

Your current assumptions about Sartre won't enable you to see what he contributed to phenomenology. I mentioned above only the introduction to the first section of B&N (which I cited months ago to Soupie). You can learn much from reading it concerning the meaning of authenticity and the grounds on which it is required of us. It was linked, and a good deal of it copied, here:

I get the problem of authenticity and what it says about free will.
What I don't get is what you do about it.

? By "two modes of consciousness" are you referring to Sartre's descriptions of authenticity and inauthenticity as representing two reasonable 'threads' operating in some brain system? Sartre speaks of authenticity and inauthenticity as 'original choices' of how one relates to, regards, and treats one fellow humans, and how one takes upon oneself his or her "radical freedom" and the responsibility it lays upon us. Authenticity and inauthenticity are not 'modes of consciousness'. One doesn't change from one to the other as easily as one changes one's shoes. All of that is explicated in Being and Nothingness.

No. I'm talking about the "in-itself" and the "for-itself."
Where I'm with Sartre deeply is his assertion that existence precedes essence... by which I mean that we existed before we became aware of our existence, and we have nothing here to blame, and nothing here to look for except ourselves.

Where I'm still not 100% with him is free will.

What gives "far less rise to angst"? Living authentically some days and taking it easier on others?

For me, it was stopping reading philosophy and listening to Morrisey.

Btw, Existentialism was not a post-war life style or 'meme' requiring black turtlenecks, cigarettes, absinthe, and 'being cool', though that was the trivial impression of it carried to popular culture in America.

I'm poking fun at myself there. I was that guy until I woke up one day realizing that although I felt deep, read heavy philosophical tomes, and got to date girls with very pale skin and pouty faces, that didn't actually make me deep, and I was getting nowhere and contributing to nothing.

To quote Sartre:

“I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven's name, why is it so important to think the same things all together. ”​

Existentialism, and philosophy in general, has become the very system that it is claiming to undermine. And become circular and self-referential.

And, to me at least, dead.

That would be nice. Where will they get their values, and why will they adhere to them?

They would get them from us. And that scares the hell out of me.

 

[marduk]

I actually anticipate working with AIs hopefully within my lifetime that contemplate existence at a far higher plane of understanding that we humans currently possess.

What will these AI look like?

That's a great question. I would surmise that in the beginning, it wouldn't look like anything but some pixels on the screen and perhaps sound coming out of a speaker.

Are you talking about it's UI?

Here's some questions about AI that I have, that may be very naïve:

Embodied cognition tells us that the world we live in, how we think and communicate comes from the kind of bodies we have - so if a robot is going to live in our world and make sense of it and communicate intelligibly with us, it's going to have to be a lot like us - if not exactly like us.

I would agree that we may find it more natural to interact with a human-like AI -- like something out of Ghost in the Shell. But maybe not.

In the movie Her, it was a smartphone with a voice. And it seemed pretty natural.

I'm not sure.

We say dolphins are smart and chimps, but we haven't had much luck ... now maybe that's a bad example, but human intelligence is what it is because it is in a human body. A dolphin is never going to appreciate chess or a slam dunk. And I can't imagine having sonar. As for the chimp, how long could you make it in their society? I bet you'd break all kinds of rules ....

I think the difference is in the semantic layer. Chimps and dolphins and whales and such may be intelligent, but we lack the ability to semantically relate concepts -- if indeed they conceptualize like we do (which I suspect they do).

We evolved a certain way that gave us the ability to talk. I suspect we had great conversations with neanderthals, maybe. Chimps 'n dolphins, that's a big evolutionary divide.

If it were me, I'd approach it using math. Math is math. Math is universal.

Chimps can understand math. Dolphins can understand math. At least rudimentary stuff.

Wasn't there an ape that could talk via sign language?

So, if it isn't physically like us, it could be inscrutable to us - truly alien, with no basis for communication and only basic goals in common (survival, reproduction, resources) ... if it's wheeled or has six legs or four eyes or radar, it isn't going to think like us, if it doesn't feel pain like we do, if it doesn't have moods, doesn't sleep or enjoy food or go to the bathroom or get embarrassed .... then how will we work with such creatures? What will we have in common? Their world, this world, currently our world - will look very different to such beings.

I suspect it will start with a master/servant relationship, then I hope it evolves into a partnership.

Then, and I admit I'm reaching and hand waiving here, I hope we become one with our creation. By which I mean, we can abstract ourselves and exist directly in an artificial substrate.

Because then we could open up the universe.

Another reason it has to at least look like us and behave like us - if it's too weird, we aren't going to put up with it and vice versa. We don't do such a good job putting up with one another as it is. So suppose we do create some new kind of AI with emotions and everything but very different from us or very similar but superior physically and mentally, emotionally suppose it's response to us then is disgust? Or, perhaps worse, pity. Empathy will be hard to come by the more difference there is.

This is known as the Uncanny Valley and a difficult UI problem.

If it's AI in a box, OK - you simulate the human platform, a virtual world - but you better never - let it figure out it's in a box you built ... Chalmers hits that note with the no red pills clause. Good luck, if it's as smart or smarter than us ... prisoners escape because they have all day to think of one thing, my dogs get out of my locked house for the same reason. Now you've got something with computing resources and unlimited time that is just like us only smarter ...

And speaking of resources, if it's going to be like us and live in our world, be the same size and weight as us - it's going to be made of the same materials ... if AI is going to be cheap and plentiful, it will be made of the same cheap and plentiful elements we are ... which means it will compete for our resources.

People say in a few years robots will be doing all the mundane tasks - cleaning, cooking and even dirty and dangerous jobs. But to do those things it takes a human level of intelligence - and not just close, either.

Take waiting tables, sure "anyone" can do it, but it takes skill and intelligence (and patience, tact, wit, thinking on your feet, physical stamina, a good attitude, communication skills, memory etc etc) to be good ... so we're going to put a human like AI made of human like materials with human level intelligence to work waiting tab- ... you see where I am going.

I am going here: Why? I read that humans consume about the same energy as a 60 watt light bulb, humans fit in any human sized space, access energy the way humans do (eat), can withstand tremendous compression forces on their structure (bones, etc) - porters in Greece traditionally carried several hundred pound loads on a daily basis - muscular strength and efficiency has been optimized over billions of years in terms of the materials they are made of - making more effective actuators will be a challenge - humans interface with humans in a familiar format (speech, writing) ... and for many jobs they will work for minimum wage and much less.

Given the above, what kind of machine would you design to do these jobs .... fireman, policeman, soldier, doctor, psychologist? I bet it would look an awful lot like a person.

Aha! But let's let AI worry about all that, we make AI and it makes AI+ solving all these problems (assuming AI accepts the task we give it) ... we're assuming a better mouse trap can be made ... the constraints stand in terms of energy and materials, try and make a better 70kg bipedal system with the available materials, not just one from titanium or special alloys but hundreds and thousands and millions to serve man - then you'll have to use plentiful materials - then you'll have increased, effectively, the biomass of the planet ...

OR, more likely the AI says, "screw that" and nano-engineers fabulous materials from ... what? From what's around it, what's plentiful, from anything it wants to ... including the kind of stuff we are made of - or us ourselves, 7 billion people, that's a lot of carbon and calcium and water ... free for the taking by a superior force. And why stop there? Animals, plants, water ... but then, isn't that just evolution?

Believe me, I'm open to a much more optimistic vision!

I'm more in line with William Gibson's vision of AI. Where it's abstracted, online, and very much the other.

"Neuro from the nerves, the silver paths. Romancer. Neuromancer. I call up the dead. But no, my friend," and the boy did a little dance, brown feet printing the sand, "I am the dead, and their land." He laughed. "​

But only because I'm a romantic.

 

[Constance]

This may be of interest, the interview can be downloaded as mp3.

Eric Schwitzgebel, “Perplexities of Consciousness” (MIT Press, 2011)

How much do we know about our stream of conscious experience? Not much, if Eric Schwitzgebel is right. In his new book Perplexities of Consciousness (MIT Press, 2011), Schwitzgebel argues for skepticism regarding our knowledge of the phenomenology of conscious experience.

We don’t know if we dream in color or black and white, we don’t know whether tilted coins look elliptical or round,

and we don’t know whether conscious experience is confined to what we are paying attention to or more abundant.

Schwitzgebel’s position is based on close examination of historical philosophical texts and current psychological experiments that show radical variability in reports of experience that seem unlikely to reflect radical differences in the experiences themselves. In this wide-ranging interview, Schwitzgebel considers whether psychologist Edward Titchener was on to something with his training of expert introspectors, why current theories of the neural correlates of consciousness are question-begging, and how reports of conscious experiences may be grounded in analogies to familiar media.

Thanks for this link Steve. It looks to be a significant book despite its beginning and ending in perplexities concerning what consciousness is and does, what it adds to the world, what we can learn from it about ourselves and the world. I'll listen to the interview with the author when I get home tonight. The link to the book at amazon provides generous slices of the book:

Perplexities of Consciousness (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology): Eric Schwitzgebel: 9780262014908: Amazon.com: Books

 

[Constance]

You seem to be adding an extra "layer" to consciousness. The phenomenal experience of touching a silky fur coat is one thing, but you seem to be suggesting that the phenomenal experience (consciousness) of soft fur has yet an additional feel to it.

Information itself doesn't have a feel to it, it is the "feel." The feel is constituted of information.

Consciousness doesn't have a feel to it, it is the feel.


We don't receive information through phenomenal experience. Phenomenal experience is information. The physical body receives physical energy from within and from the surrounding environment. The physical body, environment, and energy all simultaneously have an informational state. It is this informational state (or pattern of information) that constitutes what we know as "consciousness."

It's an interesting question whether, approaching consciousness from the perspectives of phenomenology, I am "adding an extra "layer" to consciousness." Let's pursue this discussion, which I can't add to until tonight. In the meantime, though, my first question is whether information theory as applied to consciousness by Tononi and by you does not seem to attempt to dissolve the layers of awareness that exist in consciousness and thus draw attention away from the project of distinguishing these layers to better understand the complexity of consciousness.

 

[Soupie]

If consciousness is a fundamental property of matter, where is it?

If we believe, roughly speaking, that consciousness is the pattern of information that is generated by firing neurons, then we are saying that consciousness is information. Information is a fundamental property of matter. Ergo, consciousness/information is a fundamental property of matter. It is everywhere and yet seemingly nowhere all at once.

The way I view it is just as not all matter combines to realize life, not all information combines to realize mind. But we know that some matter does combine to realize life, and I also believe that some information does combine to realize mind.

Whether this combination was pulled off by unguided or guided evolution, I don't know...

 

[marduk]

If we believe, roughly speaking, that consciousness is the pattern of information that is generated by firing neurons, then we are saying that consciousness is information. Information is a fundamental property of matter. Ergo, consciousness/information is a fundamental property of matter. It is everywhere and yet seemingly nowhere all at once.

I wouldn't agree with that assessment. I mean, I think I know where you're going, but it's a huge leap.

Some physicists think that the entire universe is information, and they may be right. It sure explains entropy and the arrow of time. However, there's lots of information that isn't conscious, and lots of matter that isn't conscious.

Consider a rock. Your standard chunk of the earth's crust - basalt. Quartz, silicon, carbon, all that stuff.

Is it conscious? It certainly doesn't act like it. Does it contain energy? Well, according to Einstein, a whole hell of a lot of it.

If I freeze the rock, I take away part of it's energy. Let's say I take it down to absolute zero. It still has energy in terms of it's mass-energy equivalence, but that's it. It's, like, potentially energy "frozen" in it's ability to distort space-time and exist, but currently at it's lowest base state.

Did I kill it's consciousness?

Furthermore, matter isn't everywhere and nowhere. The universe is kinda chunky. So if consciousness exists in all matter, it too, should be chunky.

The way I view it is just as not all matter combines to realize life, not all information combines to realize mind. But we know that some matter does combine to realize life, and I also believe that some information does combine to realize mind.

Oh, I'm with you there. I can accept that statement. But it's kinda contradictory to what you said above about it being a fundamental property of matter, and everywhere.

 

[marduk]

Oh, and a core problem with the "everything is conscious" position is entropy.

In short, consciousness needs structure to exist. At least how we understand it. To be self aware means that you need awareness and a self to be aware of. So, structure.

To maintain any kind of structure you need energy to do so, otherwise entropy takes it away. Our brains consume energy -- a lot of it in fact (20% of our metabolic energy). We can even show that thinking hard takes more energy than not thinking hard. And being conscious takes more energy than not (like, in a coma).

So, if all matter was conscious, it would need to consume energy to remain so. Where's it coming from? If it derived it from itself, soon it would cease to exist because it would be eating itself.

And don't say zero point energy. Please don't say that.

 

[Jeff Davis]

I have a question for the consciousness research aware segment of this board. I know that there are several studies that bear out the theory that consciousness is represent of a zero point field state. I also know that there are also those contending that consciousness is at least partially synonymous with what is black matter. I am now starting to see much of what I have been hypothetically contending with respect to UFOs being bandied about in UFO discussions here and there. Especially the aspect of UFOs being operative environmentally relative field state "submarines". It's my opinion that what they enter or submerge into, is what I have referred to many times over the last several years as being environmental consciousness. The same field that we interact with cognitively to displace experience based in linear time. I have also contended for some time that UFOs are interactively utilizing consciousness to travel from "here to there", wherever that is. Now it seems, that this "thing" that I have been referring to as environmental consciousness is being referred to by some prominent guessers as being "dimensions" beyond the 4 that we routinely interact with. The bottom line, and the question that I have for those more so familiar with the various eccentric consciousness considerations, is which of these zero point relevant consciousness studies bares the most credulity? I cannot help but believe that this is the actual singularity, not the meshing of machine and mind to produce more "intelligence" (like we need that!), but rather the meshing of mind via machine with the environmental aspect of consciousness to bridge, or create navigational entry into, and out of, the realm of the distance and speed irrelevant universe. Most of what is discussed and hypothesized concerning UFO technology is basic to the physical state. That in and of itself does not seem possible. I get that it's how UFOs interact environmentally once "here" within the physical state of our routine existent environment, but it is meaningless with respect to space travel. There has to be a conversion from material to immaterial in order for this transcendence of field states/dimesnions to occur. This is where consciousness comes into the picture and the only reason that it's overlooked and confused more times than not, is like the electromagnetic spectrum, we know of no escape and existence apart from as much. The study of consciousness will bear out this awareness conversion or transcendence of personal consciousness. These UFOnauts are utilizing it on a technological level IMO.

 

[Soupie]

In short, consciousness needs structure to exist. At least how we understand it. To be self aware means that you need awareness and a self to be aware of. So, structure.

Ok. I think we're on the same page. And I say that not in the rah rah sense, but for the sake of clarity.

I don't believe quarks have experiences like green, pain, or soft. The experience or "mind" they have/generate is basic. In fact, it's so basic, we don't call it mind, we call it proto-mind.

Other than the fact that it too is information, we wouldn't say it is anything like our mind.

It's a bit like saying a quark is not much like the city of Paris; except that Paris is made out of quarks.

So one "bit" of mind isn't much like our mind, except that they are constituted of the same thing.

So, just as I don't think one electron = a brain; I don't think one bit of information = a mind.

 

[Soupie]

In the meantime, though, my first question is whether information theory as applied to consciousness by Tononi and by you does not seem to attempt to dissolve the layers of awareness that exist in consciousness and thus draw attention away from the project of distinguishing these layers to better understand the complexity of consciousness.

No, it does not attempt that.

Phenomenology is the study of self-awareness by self-awareness. It's a worthy pursuit, but as I've already said, I personally do not think it is the only nor the best approach for discerning the origin and nature of consciousness. For instance, try as it might, I don't see how phenomenology on its own could solve the hard problem.

Furthermore, I get the sense from the way you try to steer the conversation is that you're more interested in the forest than the trees.

I get the sense that you feel I focus too much on the trees, while you want to talk about the forest, the canopy, and climate change, if you follow.

I am interested in all those other exciting aspects of (human) minds, but so far in this thread, most of my attention has been on phenomenal experience and the hard problem.

So it's possible that you perceive my current lack of interest in such topics to be a dismissal of them. It's not meant to be.

That is, discussion of the hypothetical informational constitution of consciousness is not to dismiss ethics, morality, free will, mental illness, and all that other good stuff you and smcder want to discuss.

 

[marduk]

Hmm...
Do you mean quarks arranged into atoms a very specific way can give rise to a mind?

If so, sure. But I'm missing the point, because a quark wouldn't just be proto-mind, it would be proto anything. Proto-stapler, proto-Paris, proto-new Coke.

 

[Soupie]

Hmm...
Do you mean quarks arranged into atoms a very specific way can give rise to a mind?

If so, sure. But I'm missing the point, because a quark wouldn't just be proto-mind, it would be proto anything. Proto-stapler, proto-Paris, proto-new Coke.

Yes. But it's important to note that consciousness is not constituted of the neurons, but of the pattern of information neurons create. Or at least that's the hypothesis of the information philosophy of mind.

It's a subtle, but important, difference.