5 ms·

True, but what is surprising is that there is something "it is like" to be that interior. As an example: CPUs can perform calculations on data we consider "repr

True, but what is surprising is that there is something "it is like" to be that interior. As an example: CPUs can perform calculations on data we consider "representations". The outcome of those calculations, in turn, affect the world. We suspect that they do this without there ever being something it is like to be a CPU. At first blush, we would suppose that neurons firing this way and that to create actionable representations would have the same property. Evolution would be happy. But there's something extra there: it FEELS like something to be a neural network in a sequence of evolving states. Why? The heretical hypothesis is that the feeling itself had a purpose and was part of the system.

david-given 10y ago
> True, but what is surprising is that there is something "it is like" to be that interior. I don't know; is there? How do I tell? I mean, I know what I experience, but I'm not an objective observer. There's evidence that what we perceive as the continuous stream of events is actually assembled in our memory after the fact from various out-of-order sensory inputs. How do I know that what I perceive as consciousness (and remember, I have no way of knowing whether it's the same as what anyone else perceives, or whether they perceive it at all) is anything more than just wishful thinking? And that's a serious question to which I really want an answer.
- projektir 10y ago
  That seems more relevant to the quality of information being felt, not the feeling itself. Even if it's just assembled in memory later, it's still felt, there is still a "it is like". The presence of feeling is rather obvious when you feel things like pain. Can't exactly make that up. That's definitely there. A lot of problems are grounded in feeling itself and wouldn't exist if nobody felt anything. Proving its presence in other people is impossible, but it would seem very strange that you work one way and everyone else works a completely different way without some outside system tinkering with it.
  - david-given 10y ago
    > The presence of feeling is rather obvious when you feel things like pain. Can't exactly make that up. At the risk of repeating myself --- do I feel it? I cannot remember pain. I can remember being in pain, I can remember second-order things about the pain, like where it is or what kind it is. I can remember that it makes me unable to concentrate, and even a mild headache will make me useless even though I'm not physically debilitated. I can remember that cutting myself feels different to toothache, which feels different from that ghastly time when I had shingles (second-stage chickenpox. The most pain I had ever been in my entire life. And I had a mild case). I know it was nasty, and I'm certainly going to avoid it, but when I'm not actually in pain, I cannot summon up even a shadow of a sensation of what the pain itself was actually like. Which is weird, because I can remember other sensations. But not pain. So it's not obvious that I feel pain. Maybe it doesn't exist at all, and all it is is an illusion formed by my brain's negative reinforcement signal ('this is bad. Stop doing this'). That would at least explain why it doesn't show up in my memory.
    - gnaritas 10y ago
      > I know it was nasty, and I'm certainly going to avoid it, but when I'm not actually in pain, I cannot summon up even a shadow of a sensation of what the pain itself was actually like. That's physical pain, but if you try that with emotional pain I'll be you can feel it just fine and quite literally re-live it.
      - AgentME 10y ago
        I think that's more that you can literally re-inflict emotional pain by thinking about it, rather than that you're just remembering the pain itself.
    - sooheon 10y ago
      I share your bafflement at trying to recall pain, I can't do it to any fidelity either. But I actually think that this is not unique among sensations, and most of our memories are about as hazy as this. I can remember that I did or saw or smelled things, but I can't exactly reproduce the sensations/images. I also have to disagree with the logic of the following: > Maybe it doesn't exist at all, and all it is is an illusion formed by my brain's negative reinforcement signal ('this is bad. Stop doing this'). That would at least explain why it doesn't show up in my memory. It doesn't matter whether pain is an illusion, we can easily recall visual illusions.
projektir 10y ago
Perhaps feeling is a more effective way to convey information.
- breckinloggins 10y ago
  I suspect you're exactly right.
AgentME 10y ago
>We suspect that they do this without there ever being something it is like to be a CPU. Maybe there is, and every process has an interior. The ones that lack concepts like learning, feelings, memories, building representations, etc, aren't fundamentally different but are just boring and don't tend to affect the world in self-reflective ways. Like comparing a cellular automata where all cells start dead and stay dead to Conway's game of life. The mathematical universe hypothesis[0] and the novel Permutation City by Greg Egan don't put it this way but I can't help feeling they're related and worth looking into. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...

david-given 10y ago

> True, but what is surprising is that there is something "it is like" to be that interior. I don't know; is there? How do I tell? I mean, I know what I experience, but I'm not an objective observer. There's evidence that what we perceive as the continuous stream of events is actually assembled in our memory after the fact from various out-of-order sensory inputs. How do I know that what I perceive as consciousness (and remember, I have no way of knowing whether it's the same as what anyone else perceives, or whether they perceive it at all) is anything more than just wishful thinking? And that's a serious question to which I really want an answer.

projektir 10y ago
That seems more relevant to the quality of information being felt, not the feeling itself. Even if it's just assembled in memory later, it's still felt, there is still a "it is like". The presence of feeling is rather obvious when you feel things like pain. Can't exactly make that up. That's definitely there. A lot of problems are grounded in feeling itself and wouldn't exist if nobody felt anything. Proving its presence in other people is impossible, but it would seem very strange that you work one way and everyone else works a completely different way without some outside system tinkering with it.
- david-given 10y ago
  > The presence of feeling is rather obvious when you feel things like pain. Can't exactly make that up. At the risk of repeating myself --- do I feel it? I cannot remember pain. I can remember being in pain, I can remember second-order things about the pain, like where it is or what kind it is. I can remember that it makes me unable to concentrate, and even a mild headache will make me useless even though I'm not physically debilitated. I can remember that cutting myself feels different to toothache, which feels different from that ghastly time when I had shingles (second-stage chickenpox. The most pain I had ever been in my entire life. And I had a mild case). I know it was nasty, and I'm certainly going to avoid it, but when I'm not actually in pain, I cannot summon up even a shadow of a sensation of what the pain itself was actually like. Which is weird, because I can remember other sensations. But not pain. So it's not obvious that I feel pain. Maybe it doesn't exist at all, and all it is is an illusion formed by my brain's negative reinforcement signal ('this is bad. Stop doing this'). That would at least explain why it doesn't show up in my memory.
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    > I know it was nasty, and I'm certainly going to avoid it, but when I'm not actually in pain, I cannot summon up even a shadow of a sensation of what the pain itself was actually like. That's physical pain, but if you try that with emotional pain I'll be you can feel it just fine and quite literally re-live it.
    - AgentME 10y ago
      I think that's more that you can literally re-inflict emotional pain by thinking about it, rather than that you're just remembering the pain itself.
  - sooheon 10y ago
    I share your bafflement at trying to recall pain, I can't do it to any fidelity either. But I actually think that this is not unique among sensations, and most of our memories are about as hazy as this. I can remember that I did or saw or smelled things, but I can't exactly reproduce the sensations/images. I also have to disagree with the logic of the following: > Maybe it doesn't exist at all, and all it is is an illusion formed by my brain's negative reinforcement signal ('this is bad. Stop doing this'). That would at least explain why it doesn't show up in my memory. It doesn't matter whether pain is an illusion, we can easily recall visual illusions.

projektir 10y ago

Perhaps feeling is a more effective way to convey information.

breckinloggins 10y ago
I suspect you're exactly right.

AgentME 10y ago

>We suspect that they do this without there ever being something it is like to be a CPU. Maybe there is, and every process has an interior. The ones that lack concepts like learning, feelings, memories, building representations, etc, aren't fundamentally different but are just boring and don't tend to affect the world in self-reflective ways. Like comparing a cellular automata where all cells start dead and stay dead to Conway's game of life. The mathematical universe hypothesis[0] and the novel Permutation City by Greg Egan don't put it this way but I can't help feeling they're related and worth looking into. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...