8 ms·

Someone like Daniel Dennett would argue that meta-cognition and consciousness are pretty much the same thing.

by codeulike 10y ago

jsprogrammer 10y ago
Maybe they will come here and do so?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- codeulike 10y ago
  Perhaps start with this: http://cogprints.org/254/1/quinqual.htm http://cogprints.org/254/1/quinqual.htm (1988)
adrianratnapala 10y ago
I think Denett is right about that -- and yet I side with Chalmers saying there is a "hard" problem. Or if not a hard one, at least one that is a different problem from what neuroscientists work on. Meta-cognition or any other natural process might be "the same thing" as conciousness; but is nontheless a physical thing that somehow has qualia. Where that equivalence comes from is an interesting question that Dennet & co. seem determined to dodge.
- abritinthebay 10y ago
  Until someone proves that qualia are even coherent it's a bit moot. Qualia are a great shorthand but they aren't even shown to exist in any real capacity other than the euphemistic way they are defined. The fact that qualia lead to incoherent rubbish like p-zombies should be enough to place the concept solidly in the same place as most of Deepak Chopra's ramblings.
  - adrianratnapala 10y ago
    Ok, I put my hand up to using "qualia" as a shorthand -- as concrete entities I expect they are indeed incoherent. But in a discussion with poeple who have it least heard the term, saying "qualia" is a lot clearer than stumbling about with terms like "subjective reality", "bare expereince" and whatever. But those who determined to dodge Chalmers' hard problem can always choose to say "bare expereince, I don't know what you mean!" It's still a just a dodge.
    - codeulike 10y ago
      But if you accept that consciousness arises within the brain and we posit that there's no special unknown branch of physics involved ... then the only possible explanation is that a complex enough system arranged in the right way can become self aware. What would it be 'like' to be a self-aware system? Would it be 'like' anything at all? I guess it would.
      - mh-cx 10y ago
        This. Blatatantly quoting myself [1]: "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 simulating reality." So I'd agree: If you reach a certain complexity in your inner model, qualia will "magically" emerge. Another interesting point the article makes is the relation to the theory of mind. I wonder if you could even say, that we first had an inner model for the complex inner model of others and then, by applying that inner model on ourselves developed what we call conscioussness. You could probably assume that many animals are not able to take this final step and that this is what separates our consciousness from those of animals. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11826593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11826593
        ffwd 10y ago
        >> "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 simulating reality." >> So I'd agree: If you reach a certain complexity in your inner model, qualia will "magically" emerge. It's the only logical hypothesis we can have at the moment, but it doesn't mean it's the only solution. There could be properties of matter that maybe need to be simulated at a lower level that have to be present that we're not aware of. If the brain simulates reality, why does our experience seem so 'atomic'? Like that simulation is so small in scale that our brain can basically simulate any visual field, hear any sound, feel any combination of textures on the skin and so on. There doesn't seem to be any abstraction in the simulation itself, but rather it is created by the nerves and retina on point of 'capture' in the sensory apparatus and then the brain is able to project it to the mind. In other words it seems like each individual neuron / nerve is 'conscious' and then any arbitrary combination of activations in those neurons can create the subjective simulation of reality. I'm not sure if that's true from a scientific perspective or what the implications are if it's true, but this bottom-up simulation is far more powerful than a top-down one where details would be lost, and simulations usually start top-down, especially since the universe came first, and then our brain came later. It's basically inconceivable to us how a signaling system is conscious versus how it is not conscious but still receives signals, like a CCD chip in a camera can have a high resolution and show an accurate image of reality.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    What's incoherent about p-zombies? I can imagine that the nature of conciousness might mean they're not possible, but that doesn't make the concept incoherent.
    - pas 10y ago
      It's not incoherent, just vacuous, because most critics see the difference as nothing. There's nothing they lack. There's no difference between behaving identically and behaving identically and experiencing it. Because if you ask a p-zombie to describe what it experiences (what you feel, etc..) and they tell you that they experience nothing, then there's indeed a difference, so their behavior is not identical, if they lie, then we can spot that with an fMRI, or eventually they somehow have extra information (so they are magical zombies, so eveything is possible).
      - aninhumer 10y ago
        Of course there's no observable difference, that's the definition of a pzombie, and the whole point of the concept. Just because we can't observe a lack of consciousness doesn't mean it's not meaningful difference.
        naasking 10y ago
        Can you point to another such property, whereby it's not observable but is a meangingful difference? If not, why should qualia qualify?
        aninhumer 10y ago
        I'm not sure how absence of other examples refutes one that exists? Experience is meaningful because it's the difference between saying "ow" and actually suffering.
        naasking 10y ago
        The question is whether we have justification to believe that it actually exists as a legitimate example. Every other property that we granted such special ontological status has been soundly refuted. Why should I expect this to be any different?
  - RivieraKid 10y ago
    The thing is that qualia can't be objectively measured, they're subjective. The reason why so many people just don't get qualia or hard problem of consciousness is that it requires a complete change of perspective on science. I.e. that subjective experience is in a way above science.
    - Marazan 10y ago
      The "hard problem of consciousness" is just yet another way of Dualists to pretend they aren't Dualists while saying Dualists things. Either couciousness is the result of physical processes or it is the result of magic. If it is the result of physical processes there is no hard problem. If it is a result of magic then just come out and say you believe I magic.
      - daveguy 10y ago
        > If it is the result of physical processes there is no hard problem. I'm not sure if a less true statement has ever been uttered. My guess is no.
        codeulike 10y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11853118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11853118
      - collyw 10y ago
        "Either couciousness is the result of physical processes or it is the result of magic." Why is it the result of magic? Because you can't understand it?
        codeulike 10y ago
        Because if its not the result of physical processes then magic is all that is left.
        10y ago

Someone like Daniel Dennett would argue that meta-cognition and consciousness are pretty much the same thing.

jsprogrammer 10y ago

Maybe they will come here and do so?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
codeulike 10y ago
Perhaps start with this: http://cogprints.org/254/1/quinqual.htm http://cogprints.org/254/1/quinqual.htm (1988)

adrianratnapala 10y ago

I think Denett is right about that -- and yet I side with Chalmers saying there is a "hard" problem. Or if not a hard one, at least one that is a different problem from what neuroscientists work on. Meta-cognition or any other natural process might be "the same thing" as conciousness; but is nontheless a physical thing that somehow has qualia. Where that equivalence comes from is an interesting question that Dennet & co. seem determined to dodge.

abritinthebay 10y ago
Until someone proves that qualia are even coherent it's a bit moot. Qualia are a great shorthand but they aren't even shown to exist in any real capacity other than the euphemistic way they are defined. The fact that qualia lead to incoherent rubbish like p-zombies should be enough to place the concept solidly in the same place as most of Deepak Chopra's ramblings.
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  Ok, I put my hand up to using "qualia" as a shorthand -- as concrete entities I expect they are indeed incoherent. But in a discussion with poeple who have it least heard the term, saying "qualia" is a lot clearer than stumbling about with terms like "subjective reality", "bare expereince" and whatever. But those who determined to dodge Chalmers' hard problem can always choose to say "bare expereince, I don't know what you mean!" It's still a just a dodge.
  - codeulike 10y ago
    But if you accept that consciousness arises within the brain and we posit that there's no special unknown branch of physics involved ... then the only possible explanation is that a complex enough system arranged in the right way can become self aware. What would it be 'like' to be a self-aware system? Would it be 'like' anything at all? I guess it would.
    - mh-cx 10y ago
      This. Blatatantly quoting myself [1]: "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 simulating reality." So I'd agree: If you reach a certain complexity in your inner model, qualia will "magically" emerge. Another interesting point the article makes is the relation to the theory of mind. I wonder if you could even say, that we first had an inner model for the complex inner model of others and then, by applying that inner model on ourselves developed what we call conscioussness. You could probably assume that many animals are not able to take this final step and that this is what separates our consciousness from those of animals. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11826593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11826593
      - ffwd 10y ago
        >> "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 simulating reality." >> So I'd agree: If you reach a certain complexity in your inner model, qualia will "magically" emerge. It's the only logical hypothesis we can have at the moment, but it doesn't mean it's the only solution. There could be properties of matter that maybe need to be simulated at a lower level that have to be present that we're not aware of. If the brain simulates reality, why does our experience seem so 'atomic'? Like that simulation is so small in scale that our brain can basically simulate any visual field, hear any sound, feel any combination of textures on the skin and so on. There doesn't seem to be any abstraction in the simulation itself, but rather it is created by the nerves and retina on point of 'capture' in the sensory apparatus and then the brain is able to project it to the mind. In other words it seems like each individual neuron / nerve is 'conscious' and then any arbitrary combination of activations in those neurons can create the subjective simulation of reality. I'm not sure if that's true from a scientific perspective or what the implications are if it's true, but this bottom-up simulation is far more powerful than a top-down one where details would be lost, and simulations usually start top-down, especially since the universe came first, and then our brain came later. It's basically inconceivable to us how a signaling system is conscious versus how it is not conscious but still receives signals, like a CCD chip in a camera can have a high resolution and show an accurate image of reality.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  What's incoherent about p-zombies? I can imagine that the nature of conciousness might mean they're not possible, but that doesn't make the concept incoherent.
  - pas 10y ago
    It's not incoherent, just vacuous, because most critics see the difference as nothing. There's nothing they lack. There's no difference between behaving identically and behaving identically and experiencing it. Because if you ask a p-zombie to describe what it experiences (what you feel, etc..) and they tell you that they experience nothing, then there's indeed a difference, so their behavior is not identical, if they lie, then we can spot that with an fMRI, or eventually they somehow have extra information (so they are magical zombies, so eveything is possible).
    - aninhumer 10y ago
      Of course there's no observable difference, that's the definition of a pzombie, and the whole point of the concept. Just because we can't observe a lack of consciousness doesn't mean it's not meaningful difference.
      - naasking 10y ago
        Can you point to another such property, whereby it's not observable but is a meangingful difference? If not, why should qualia qualify?
        aninhumer 10y ago
        I'm not sure how absence of other examples refutes one that exists? Experience is meaningful because it's the difference between saying "ow" and actually suffering.
        naasking 10y ago
        The question is whether we have justification to believe that it actually exists as a legitimate example. Every other property that we granted such special ontological status has been soundly refuted. Why should I expect this to be any different?
- RivieraKid 10y ago
  The thing is that qualia can't be objectively measured, they're subjective. The reason why so many people just don't get qualia or hard problem of consciousness is that it requires a complete change of perspective on science. I.e. that subjective experience is in a way above science.
  - Marazan 10y ago
    The "hard problem of consciousness" is just yet another way of Dualists to pretend they aren't Dualists while saying Dualists things. Either couciousness is the result of physical processes or it is the result of magic. If it is the result of physical processes there is no hard problem. If it is a result of magic then just come out and say you believe I magic.
    - daveguy 10y ago
      > If it is the result of physical processes there is no hard problem. I'm not sure if a less true statement has ever been uttered. My guess is no.
      - codeulike 10y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11853118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11853118
    - collyw 10y ago
      "Either couciousness is the result of physical processes or it is the result of magic." Why is it the result of magic? Because you can't understand it?
      - codeulike 10y ago
        Because if its not the result of physical processes then magic is all that is left.
        10y ago