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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

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Constance said:
Christof Koch has a new book coming out in September, which can be pre-ordered at the amazon (link below). The title is The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed (MIT Press, 2020).

The table of contents and samples from most of the chapters can be accessed at this page:

The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed (Mit Press): Christof Koch: 9780262539555: Amazon.com: Books
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The samples amazon provides from Koch's new book are generous. Begin with his Preface and Introduction and read on through much of chapter after chapter. He talks about everything we are interested in here. And he writes very well.
 
smcder said:
For my purposes in that post, even if the whole body and more are involved - that doesn't necessarily mean a problem of self reference is fatal to the understanding of consciousness.
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I can’t speak for MA of course, but I wouldn’t say the problem of self reference need be fatal to reaching a (course grained) understanding of p consciousness. That is, understanding how p consciousness and matter relate to one another.

Understanding human consciousness, which emerges from p consciousness, is another story.

The problem of self reference is typically not characterized as such in the literature I have found. Although there are some exceptions.

One accessible characterization of the problem of self reference is know as the hard problem of matter:

m.nautil.us

Is Matter Conscious? - Issue 47: Consciousness - Nautilus

The nature of consciousness seems to be unique among scientific puzzles. Not only do neuroscientists have no fundamental explanation…
m.nautil.us m.nautil.us

“The hard problem of matter arises for any structural description of reality no matter how clear and intuitive at thestructural level. Like the hard problemof consciousness, the hard problem of matter cannot be solved by experiment and observation or by gathering more physical detail.”

“No matter what structure we are talking about, from the most bizarre and unusual to the perfectly intuitive, there will be a question of how it is non-structurally implemented.”
 
smcder said:
You must be going to the wrong doctors.
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Not really. It's more the case that the situations have been where a doctor could provide more information e.g. an x-ray or an MRI, but knowing in advance what my options would be for the various possible outcomes, there are no outcomes that would change the immediate circumstances. Therefore, there is no point in finding out more unless the current self-treatment fails, as it would just be a waste of my time and add to the burden on the health care system. That speaks to the earlier point about more information not always being necessary or advantageous to working out a problem.
 
USI Calgary said:
Not really. It's more the case that the situations have been where a doctor could provide more information e.g. an x-ray or an MRI, but knowing in advance what my options would be for the various possible outcomes, there are no outcomes that would change the immediate circumstances. Therefore, there is no point in finding out more unless the current self-treatment fails, as it would just be a waste of my time and add to the burden on the health care system. That speaks to the earlier point about more information not always being necessary or advantageous to working out a problem.
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"...but knowing in advance what my options would be for the various possible outcomes, there are no outcomes that would change the immediate circumstances."

I don't think you mean to suggest that this is a common situation ... having full knowledge to include the knowledge that you have full knowledge? (if, in fact, you do ;-)

In terms of painkillers, additional information on addiction could have been advantageous. I would say that if addiction or addiction potential and habituation is involved in "how" pain killers work, if effective painkillers always have an addictive potential, then I would say that painkillers weren't understood, that we didn't know fully "how" they work, even for a practical implementation.

You could then argue that we knew how they stopped pain but we just didn't know what the cost was. (or maybe "we" did, I don't know) In fact, if you look at the pain involved in addiction, then you could argue that in a sense pain killers don't work, that they in fact increase pain over the long run. Or you could put that over the implementation and say if taken as prescribed, pain killers do work, and what we didn't know was how to properly implement them or how difficult it would be. etc etc

So back to machine consciousness ...

I also don't think you are suggesting that we stop thinking about (or I would say "toward") the ultimate understanding ... here the philosophical and scientific pursuit of the fundamental nature of minds and bodies in lieu of "a practical understanding" rather it seems to me one informs the other.

You mentioned not thinking that machine consciousness was necessarily a good idea. So what general rule do you apply to decide if knowing how something works (in the immediate sense) is reason enough to do it? How do we determine that we have a practical enough understanding of the situations that involve minds and bodies sufficient to proceed to an artificial implementation? It seems to me you can only do this by trial and error ... and historically there has been no stopping the process. But also historically you have outcomes like you do in the case of painkillers.
 
smcder said:
I don't think you mean to suggest that this is a common situation ... having full knowledge to include the knowledge that you have full knowledge ...
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I made no claim to having "full knowledge". I claim to usually having enough knowledge to make a reasonable decision about whether or not I need the assistance of a doctor.
In terms of painkillers, additional information on addiction could have been advantageous. I would say that if addiction or addiction potential and habituation is involved in "how" pain killers work, if effective painkillers always have an addictive potential, then I would say that painkillers weren't understood, that we didn't know fully "how" they work, even for a practical implementation.

You could then argue that we knew how they stopped pain but we just didn't know what the cost was. (or maybe "we" did, I don't know) In fact, if you look at the pain involved in addiction, then you could argue that in a sense pain killers don't work, that they in fact increase pain over the long run. Or you could put that over the implementation and say if taken as prescribed, pain killers do work, and what we didn't know was how to properly implement them or how difficult it would be. etc etc
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Points taken, but we're veering away from relevance to the discussion, which was that the discovery of painkillers are an example of a medicine that wasn't understood, but worked anyway. Since their discovery, a lot has been learned, but apparently painkillers are still not entirely understood, if not only for the reason that we still don't know how nerves and brain cells create the experience of pain. We just know it happens. If we can make the same sort of practical advancements with respect to consciousness, we don't really need to solve the metaphysical questions.
So back to machine consciousness ...

I also don't think you are suggesting that we stop thinking about (or I would say "toward") the ultimate understanding ... here the philosophical and scientific pursuit of the fundamental nature of minds and bodies in lieu of "a practical understanding" rather it seems to me one informs the other.
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What I'm saying is that because it appears to be impossible to acquire a verifiable and accurate answer to the nature of consciousness on a metaphysical level, that focusing on practical answers would be more productive. At the same time, I don't want to discourage metaphysical discussion. As you point out, "one informs the other". So anyone working on practical research should IMO have a enough understanding of the various issues to benefit from being so informed.
You mentioned not thinking that machine consciousness was necessarily a good idea. So what general rule do you apply to decide if knowing how something works (in the immediate sense) is reason enough to do it? How do we determine that we have a practical enough understanding of the situations that involve minds and bodies sufficient to proceed to an artificial implementation? It seems to me you can only do this by trial and error ... and historically there has been no stopping the process. But also historically you have outcomes like you do in the case of painkillers.
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I would suggest that the general rule would be to identify what ways a practical scientific understanding of consciousness would be of benefit for humanity. At the most basic level, anesthetics would seem to fall under that umbrella. The next level is restoring normal sleep/consciousness cycles to people with abnormal conditions e.g. comas. Engineering conscious machines where none were before, is IMO inadvisable.

However as you point out, it will probably happen anyway. There may even be some good that comes of it. I am just personally of the opinion that the level of responsibility that goes along with creating a conscious being ( machine or otherwise ) isn't something humanity is ready for. We can't even manage that responsibility with our own children ( globally ).
 
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A few weeks ago I linked one or two papers on the progress made by phenomenologically informed psychotherapists and psychologists in uncovering the roots of schizophrenia in 'self-disorders' manifesting very early in life and developing in the prodrome to full-blown schizophrenia in schizotypal teenagers and young adults interviewed prior to the point at which extended treatment in psychiatric hospitals has been necessary. The paper linked below is even more successful in identifying and exemplifying the manifestations in the consciousnesses of incipient schizophrenics as 'self-disorders' and 'relational self-world disorders' that cannot be accounted for by the modular and 'theory of mind' approaches favored by cognitive neuroscientists. Here is the paper:

https://www.academia.edu/6332504/Pa...ophrenic_Delusions?email_work_card=view-paper
 
Constance said:
What work do you or MA want that observation to do? That is, what conclusions do you think you can draw from it? . . . ETA: Aside from MA's argument that AI/AC projects should proceed full steam ahead despite the radically limited understanding in our time of the complexity of consciousness and mind as these phenomena have evolved and developed in nature -- a position which many people, including insiders at high levels in those projects, consider to be short-sighted and risky).
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Sorry for being out of touch -- had a lot of simultaneous personal crises to deal with :(

What I want the "observation to do" is stew a bit in our "heads" (or whatever). I don't actually push for any "project" to proceed. Such "projects" will proceed on their "own" with or without our intentions. The same can be said for our own bodies, which are full of "results" that greatly exceed any lower form of life's "embrace" of the future as it is today...
 
Constance said:
Wondering about how all of you here are coping with the Covid-19 pandemic and the changes it is making in how we've been living our lives. Randel and others have a thread on the subject at this link:

Coronavirus... what if ?
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A bit of irritation on my part...it is as if the US woke up last week. I am more afraid of the actions of panicked humans than the actual virus threat. That being said, I am keeping to the "best practices" and will probably be working from home for a few weeks.

China is recovering already...but I've nicknamed 2020 as the "Year that was Cancelled"
 
Soupie said:
It probably is wrong, but not for any reason so far identified. And despite this fact, it is regarded by many as our most potentially fruitful approach to the problem. Certainly more fruitful than any current theories of emergence.

From your article:

“Panpsychists hold that consciousness emerges from the combination of billions of subatomic consciousnesses, just as the brain emerges from the organization of billions of subatomic particles. But how do these tiny consciousnesses combine?”

Many attacks on panspychism use straw man arguments. A la Pharoah lamenting the idea that electrons can have headaches about being late for tea.

Panpsychists argue that p-consciousness is the intrinsic nature of what physics identifies as quantum fields. No panpsychists are arguing that elementary particles have rich, complex minds with streams of consciousness like humans.

The following might be helpful.

m.nautil.us

Is Matter Conscious? - Issue 47: Consciousness - Nautilus

The nature of consciousness seems to be unique among scientific puzzles. Not only do neuroscientists have no fundamental explanation…
m.nautil.us m.nautil.us

Note that I’m not trying to evangelize. Carry on with your search for emergent theories of p-consciousness.
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Interesting...why not just accept the point that conscious matter exists...if we are 100% matter that is. The problem is that some have already placed matter alongside another fundamental that isn't "matter"...but why?

Occam's Razor...matter has the potential to self-organize and experience consciousness. Rather than Consciousness from nothing invades "unthinking" matter...
 
Michael Allen said:
Interesting...why not just accept the point that conscious matter exists...if we are 100% matter that is. The problem is that some have already placed matter alongside another fundamental that isn't "matter"...but why?

Occam's Razor...matter has the potential to self-organize and experience consciousness. Rather than Consciousness from nothing invades "unthinking" matter...
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I don't understand the argument "why not just accept" followed by a hedging "if" it's the case, by a "if we are 100% matter" ...well, are we?

Re-writing: why not just accept what's likely the case?

Why? Because of that "if we are 100% matter that is." Do we know that? If we do, let's move on. If we know that then we are only asking that people accept what is true not what is likely true. So what are we asking?

Your last sentence is unclear, so my response is contingent on its clarification.

Occam originally applied his razor to support the idea of miracles. And it worked!

So maybe there are three fundamentals or seven. We have the rule of three in college papers I suspect due to human cognition or habit not because of correspondence to reality...so maybe monism and dualism ... well, you see my point.

:)
 
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smcder said:
I don't understand the argument "why not just accept" followed by a hedging "if" it's the case, by a "if we are 100% matter" ...well, are we?

Re-writing: why not just accept what's likely the case?

Why? Because of that "if we are 100% matter that is." Do we know that? If we do, let's move on. If we know that then we are only asking that people accept what is true not what is likely true. So what are we asking?

Your last sentence is unclear, so my response is contingent on its clarification.

Occam originally applied his razor to support the idea of miracles. And it worked!

So maybe there are three fundamentals or seven. We have the rule of three in college papers I suspect due to human cognition or habit not because of correspondence to reality...so maybe monism and dualism ... well, you see my point.

:)
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Accept the re-writing "what is [likely omitted] the case?"

"Do we KNOW that?" No...point made. Question remade = "if we are 100% ___ that is "
"Do we know ___?"

I am only applying the razor in it's literal sense:

"Entities should not be multiplied without necessity."

What kind of miracle is mind....does it require two or one fundamental?
 
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