6 ms·

Not really a definition, but my very personal take on what conciousness is: Evolution has brought about creatures that are more successful (in regard to surviv

by mh-cx 10y ago

Not really a definition, but my very personal take on what conciousness is: Evolution has brought about creatures that are more successful (in regard to survival and reproduction), the more predictive power they have about their environment[1]. One could say, the better a species can simulate it's environment, the more likely it will continue to exist and be part of the ongoing evolution. Our brains are of course also just products of this evolutionary process and meanwhile very good at simulating their environment. Now if we think about Plato's cave we could say, that all our experience is just an illusion. It's all just a projection of reality, that our brain creates. I'd go a step further and say: Experience or qualia is what the process of simulation of reality feels like. Or to put it in another way: Conciousness is the process of simulation of reality. The "better" the simulation or the more complete and closer to "reality" it is (whatever that means) - the higher the form of conciousness. Taking this definition one must also concede that even animals and "lower" life forms have some degree of conciousness. It probably feels like something to be a streptococcus. Of course all this is just blind speculation - but it somehow feels right to me. [1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151119-life-is-information-adami/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151119-life-is-information-...

Xcelerate 10y ago
> Conciousness is the process of simulation of reality. The "better" the simulation or the more complete and closer to "reality" it is (whatever that means) - the higher the form of conciousness. So would you say that a supercomputer in the process of calculating the gyromagnetic ratio of an isolated electron to 12 digits of accuracy is a higher form of consciousness than we are? After all, it is performing a much better simulation of reality than our brains in that case.
- mh-cx 10y ago
  No, because it only simulates a very small part of reality. For example it could never estimate the weather for the next 2 hours by looking at a formation of heavy clouds.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - mh-cx 10y ago
    Dreaming is really an interesting case. I'm not sure if I'd agree that it's a weak form of consciousness. It's maybe just some sort of play that the simulator does when it's not used for the outside world. It wildly tries out new things. If you consider that it has a whole physical and cultural universe at it's disposal, it's not really a surprise that this playing creates very bizarre stories sometimes. By doing so we may check for complex cross connections and gain new insights. Actually I vividly remember waking up from dreams and suddenly realizing that I have a crush on a girl. I didn't really the day before (or was not aware of it) but during dreaming my brain seemed to say "I've checked all information that we have about this specimen and my simulations so far look promising!" I sometimes also dream of deceased persons. The brain maybe again and again tries to make sense of this deeply unsettling experience and to somehow integrate that unexplainable into the simulation. (BTW sorry for misspelling consciousness all the time in my post above - it was a little too late here)
    - lttlrck 10y ago
      Really interesting. Imagination/visualization would be enabled by this simulation. For example I can visualize what is obscured by a wall.
- vectorpush 10y ago
  Perhaps the supercomputer does experience a kind of proto-consciousness.
  - mh-cx 10y ago
    Right, as far as I understand it that's also close to how Tononi's and Koch's Integrated Information Theory[1] try to explain conscious phenomena. In their parlance the computer would have a low value of phi. I was surprised that this theory is not even mentioned in the article, even though Aaronson has quite some opinion on it.[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory [2] http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799
filoeleven 10y ago
If you read fiction, you will probably enjoy Anathem by Neal Stephenson. "Consciousness is the process of simulation of reality" is a starting point. The question is asked "How does the simulation work?" Why are we so good at simulating certain kinds of counterfactual scenarios? Why do we consider some to be plausible (e.g. worrying about a friend moving away) while others we disregard as immediately absurd (e.g. worrying about being attacked by pink nerve-gas-farting dragons)? Like most of his books, it's a great yarn in an interesting world. The ideas he's exploring are rooted in platonism (how can a theoretical mathematical abstraction affect physical systems?), quantum physics, and the nature of consciousness. It takes a while to really get rolling, and when it does it snowballs fast, but I found it to be very enjoyable from the start.
- mh-cx 10y ago
  I really do, thanks. It's on my todo list now, right after Philip K. Dick's VALIS trilogy and Mark von Schlegell's Venusia.

by mh-cx 10y ago

Xcelerate 10y ago

> Conciousness is the process of simulation of reality. The "better" the simulation or the more complete and closer to "reality" it is (whatever that means) - the higher the form of conciousness. So would you say that a supercomputer in the process of calculating the gyromagnetic ratio of an isolated electron to 12 digits of accuracy is a higher form of consciousness than we are? After all, it is performing a much better simulation of reality than our brains in that case.

mh-cx 10y ago
No, because it only simulates a very small part of reality. For example it could never estimate the weather for the next 2 hours by looking at a formation of heavy clouds.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- mh-cx 10y ago
  Dreaming is really an interesting case. I'm not sure if I'd agree that it's a weak form of consciousness. It's maybe just some sort of play that the simulator does when it's not used for the outside world. It wildly tries out new things. If you consider that it has a whole physical and cultural universe at it's disposal, it's not really a surprise that this playing creates very bizarre stories sometimes. By doing so we may check for complex cross connections and gain new insights. Actually I vividly remember waking up from dreams and suddenly realizing that I have a crush on a girl. I didn't really the day before (or was not aware of it) but during dreaming my brain seemed to say "I've checked all information that we have about this specimen and my simulations so far look promising!" I sometimes also dream of deceased persons. The brain maybe again and again tries to make sense of this deeply unsettling experience and to somehow integrate that unexplainable into the simulation. (BTW sorry for misspelling consciousness all the time in my post above - it was a little too late here)
  - lttlrck 10y ago
    Really interesting. Imagination/visualization would be enabled by this simulation. For example I can visualize what is obscured by a wall.
vectorpush 10y ago
Perhaps the supercomputer does experience a kind of proto-consciousness.
- mh-cx 10y ago
  Right, as far as I understand it that's also close to how Tononi's and Koch's Integrated Information Theory[1] try to explain conscious phenomena. In their parlance the computer would have a low value of phi. I was surprised that this theory is not even mentioned in the article, even though Aaronson has quite some opinion on it.[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory [2] http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799

filoeleven 10y ago

If you read fiction, you will probably enjoy Anathem by Neal Stephenson. "Consciousness is the process of simulation of reality" is a starting point. The question is asked "How does the simulation work?" Why are we so good at simulating certain kinds of counterfactual scenarios? Why do we consider some to be plausible (e.g. worrying about a friend moving away) while others we disregard as immediately absurd (e.g. worrying about being attacked by pink nerve-gas-farting dragons)? Like most of his books, it's a great yarn in an interesting world. The ideas he's exploring are rooted in platonism (how can a theoretical mathematical abstraction affect physical systems?), quantum physics, and the nature of consciousness. It takes a while to really get rolling, and when it does it snowballs fast, but I found it to be very enjoyable from the start.

mh-cx 10y ago
I really do, thanks. It's on my todo list now, right after Philip K. Dick's VALIS trilogy and Mark von Schlegell's Venusia.