4 ms·

> Does a quantum superposition of a single molecule somehow make the nodes of this neural network any more powerful I think you meant this question to be rheto

> Does a quantum superposition of a single molecule somehow make the nodes of this neural network any more powerful I think you meant this question to be rhetorical but I think this is a reasonable question to consider. It's speculation without evidence but it is interesting (to me) speculation. > Quantum mechanics adds no explanatory power Occam's Razor indicates that we should prefer the simplest explanation that explains a phenomenon. Unfortunately we don't have anything like a good explanation for consciousness so discarding hypotheses for not being simple enough isn't necessarily helpful. > No electrical activity, no consciousness. It seems that this is necessary, but that doesn't mean it is sufficient, to explain consciousness. > or we meet something we really cannot explain, it does not make sense to obsess over it. Like the hard problem of consciousness? This is something we really can't explain with our current level of knowledge (unless you are in the "there is no hard problem" camp). It may well be the case that consciousness can be explained within our current understanding of physics but given the uniqueness of the phenomenon it doesn't seem unreasonable to keep something of an open mind.

titzer 10y ago
> Like the hard problem of consciousness? This is something we really can't explain with our current level of knowledge (unless you are in the "there is no hard problem" camp). Yeah, I am with Dennett and the others that think the Hard Problem is basically made up. My thinking is pretty close to what Thomas W. Clark has written on the subject (http://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/consciousness/the-explanatory-gap); http://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/consciousness/the-expla... basically, that your consciousness and awareness actually _is_ the experience that your physical brain is having in response to stimuli and self-reflection.
- chimprich 10y ago
  I read your link, but I don't find Clark's argument terribly convincing. He writes in the conclusion: "If indeed qualia are identical to certain functional informational processes, then the hard problem of consciousness (what Chalmers more or less takes to be the easy problem) is the empirical one of discovering just what these processes are." But why should certain "functional informational processes" be a certain experience? Even if Clark is correct it doesn't seem to really explain anything. I'm not sure it's even scientific; is it at all testable? It seems to me that no one has come up with a good explanation of what consciousness is, or even made any sort of dent in the problem. Saying that consciousness is the physical experience of the brain, or that it's quantum mechanics, or it's an illusion or whatever are interesting guesses but they haven't led us anywhere.
  - titzer 10y ago
    Maybe I just latched onto his argument because it already agreed with it in some sense. It boils down to a hypothesis, not a proof: If the brain's activity _did_ somehow give rise to experience, wouldn't _this_ experience--the one you are having right now, reading this sentence, thinking these thoughts, breathing, etc, even the sensation of the redness of red--have to be exactly that? Moreover, if the brain's activity gave rise to a _different_ experience, then we'd experience _that_ instead. In other words, _if_ there is an experience that is _produced_ by the signaling behavior of brain, then _this_ must be it.

titzer 10y ago

> Like the hard problem of consciousness? This is something we really can't explain with our current level of knowledge (unless you are in the "there is no hard problem" camp). Yeah, I am with Dennett and the others that think the Hard Problem is basically made up. My thinking is pretty close to what Thomas W. Clark has written on the subject (http://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/consciousness/the-explanatory-gap); http://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/consciousness/the-expla... basically, that your consciousness and awareness actually _is_ the experience that your physical brain is having in response to stimuli and self-reflection.

chimprich 10y ago
I read your link, but I don't find Clark's argument terribly convincing. He writes in the conclusion: "If indeed qualia are identical to certain functional informational processes, then the hard problem of consciousness (what Chalmers more or less takes to be the easy problem) is the empirical one of discovering just what these processes are." But why should certain "functional informational processes" be a certain experience? Even if Clark is correct it doesn't seem to really explain anything. I'm not sure it's even scientific; is it at all testable? It seems to me that no one has come up with a good explanation of what consciousness is, or even made any sort of dent in the problem. Saying that consciousness is the physical experience of the brain, or that it's quantum mechanics, or it's an illusion or whatever are interesting guesses but they haven't led us anywhere.
- titzer 10y ago
  Maybe I just latched onto his argument because it already agreed with it in some sense. It boils down to a hypothesis, not a proof: If the brain's activity _did_ somehow give rise to experience, wouldn't _this_ experience--the one you are having right now, reading this sentence, thinking these thoughts, breathing, etc, even the sensation of the redness of red--have to be exactly that? Moreover, if the brain's activity gave rise to a _different_ experience, then we'd experience _that_ instead. In other words, _if_ there is an experience that is _produced_ by the signaling behavior of brain, then _this_ must be it.