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Please no, no more 'Theory of Consciousness' pseudoscience. If we can't even get a solid consensus on what consciousness is we're not going to have a theory fo

by kneel 9y ago

Please no, no more 'Theory of Consciousness' pseudoscience. If we can't even get a solid consensus on what consciousness is we're not going to have a theory for it anytime soon. Every time this comes up we have a split between actual neuroscience and everyone's subjective interpretation of consciousness.

nefitty 9y ago
Do you propose researchers continue looking for answers exclusively in a bottom-up fashion? Should the question just be scrapped?
- mannykannot 9y ago
  The idea that the answer is being sought in an exclusively bottom-up fashion is one of the many straw men in this article. The recognition that consciousness is some form of emergent phenomenon has been around for a long time.
lefnire 9y ago
I too hate when people dare to dream out loud about interesting unsolved riddles in the universe. For some, sci-fi psuedoscience is their inspiration into the field, boosting their achieving the impossible - take Musk. I recently landed my first machine learning job, brought here precisely because I think synthesized consciousness is possible, swayed by none other than this community's most hated quack: Ray Kurzweil. Many choose science because they're inspired to achieve incredible (literally "not credible") things. If journalists should shut up, I wouldn't have my rewarding job. I've learned to ignore psuedoscience whistle-blowers, they just sound curmudgeonly to me.
- mannykannot 9y ago
  People who dare to dream out loud about interesting unsolved riddles in the universe are fine, but all too often in these articles, what we get is an unjustified claim that the riddle has been solved (or that a whole class of possible answers are ruled out), resting on little but straw-man arguments, appeals to intuition dressed up as objective facts, and attempts to rule issues out of consideration by definition, through wordplay. This is not the way to a true understanding. Of the authors I have read on the subject, Scott Aaronson stands out as someone who tries to (and succeeds in) avoiding this form of argumentation.
cscurmudgeon 9y ago
> If we can't even get a solid consensus on what consciousness That is what the damn problem is. This is like saying since we don't understand gravity full, we should not study it.
- monocasa 9y ago
  We come come up with a test that detects the presence of gravity. Can we do the same with consciousness?
  - lioeters 9y ago
    That's an interesting question, and I think it reveals something about the difficulty of studying consciousness strictly in a "scientific" way, i.e., based on experimental results, empirical evidence, falsifiability, reproducibility.. How can we test the existence of a wholly subjective/interior experience? This seems to relate to, for example, if it's possible to measure and quantify pain (or pleasure I suppose) objectively.
- maverick_iceman 9y ago
  We understand gravity very well. General relativity is a beautiful and highly tested theory of gravity.
  - cscurmudgeon 9y ago
    We understand it very well but not completely! https://beyond.asu.edu/workshop/unsolved-problems-gravity https://beyond.asu.edu/workshop/unsolved-problems-gravity We don't go around declaring that "No talk about gravity till we know everything about it and have solved all open problems."
- monktastic1 9y ago
  Not really. With gravity, we always basically agreed on what we were trying to explain: why things fall or attract each other. With consciousness, we don't have anything much better than "why is it _like something_ to be conscious?" Even if we agree on such a definition, what do we do with it? And the more objective our definition ("why do organisms respond to their environment?") the further we get from the thing we seek to explain.
collyw 9y ago
Consciousness is entirely subjective. There is no objective element to it.
- naasking 9y ago
  > Consciousness is entirely subjective. There is no objective element to it. Conjecture!
  - monktastic1 9y ago
    Is it? Sounds like a definition to me. Consciousness is the sheer fact of subjectivity (i.e., that it is "like something" to be you).
    - mannykannot 9y ago
      Definitions are not explanations. Anyone wanting to claim that subjective phenomena cannot have objective causes needs to justify that claim.
      - monktastic1 9y ago
        I was responding to the above comment saying that it's a conjecture that consciousness is subjective. I'm saying it's a definition not a conjecture. That fact makes objective investigation very hard. If I don't know whether a person is a p-zombie, I cannot know whether any objective events cause his consciousness. And if it's my consciousness we're talking about, I cannot be there to investigate the objective causes of it.
        mannykannot 9y ago
        I believe the conjecture lies in the claim that there is no objective element to it. The fact that objective investigation is difficult does not make the case. BTW, your specific arguments for it being hard seem to me to border on solipsism.

by kneel 9y ago

nefitty 9y ago

Do you propose researchers continue looking for answers exclusively in a bottom-up fashion? Should the question just be scrapped?

mannykannot 9y ago
The idea that the answer is being sought in an exclusively bottom-up fashion is one of the many straw men in this article. The recognition that consciousness is some form of emergent phenomenon has been around for a long time.

lefnire 9y ago

I too hate when people dare to dream out loud about interesting unsolved riddles in the universe. For some, sci-fi psuedoscience is their inspiration into the field, boosting their achieving the impossible - take Musk. I recently landed my first machine learning job, brought here precisely because I think synthesized consciousness is possible, swayed by none other than this community's most hated quack: Ray Kurzweil. Many choose science because they're inspired to achieve incredible (literally "not credible") things. If journalists should shut up, I wouldn't have my rewarding job. I've learned to ignore psuedoscience whistle-blowers, they just sound curmudgeonly to me.

mannykannot 9y ago
People who dare to dream out loud about interesting unsolved riddles in the universe are fine, but all too often in these articles, what we get is an unjustified claim that the riddle has been solved (or that a whole class of possible answers are ruled out), resting on little but straw-man arguments, appeals to intuition dressed up as objective facts, and attempts to rule issues out of consideration by definition, through wordplay. This is not the way to a true understanding. Of the authors I have read on the subject, Scott Aaronson stands out as someone who tries to (and succeeds in) avoiding this form of argumentation.

cscurmudgeon 9y ago

> If we can't even get a solid consensus on what consciousness That is what the damn problem is. This is like saying since we don't understand gravity full, we should not study it.

monocasa 9y ago
We come come up with a test that detects the presence of gravity. Can we do the same with consciousness?
- lioeters 9y ago
  That's an interesting question, and I think it reveals something about the difficulty of studying consciousness strictly in a "scientific" way, i.e., based on experimental results, empirical evidence, falsifiability, reproducibility.. How can we test the existence of a wholly subjective/interior experience? This seems to relate to, for example, if it's possible to measure and quantify pain (or pleasure I suppose) objectively.
maverick_iceman 9y ago
We understand gravity very well. General relativity is a beautiful and highly tested theory of gravity.
- cscurmudgeon 9y ago
  We understand it very well but not completely! https://beyond.asu.edu/workshop/unsolved-problems-gravity https://beyond.asu.edu/workshop/unsolved-problems-gravity We don't go around declaring that "No talk about gravity till we know everything about it and have solved all open problems."
monktastic1 9y ago
Not really. With gravity, we always basically agreed on what we were trying to explain: why things fall or attract each other. With consciousness, we don't have anything much better than "why is it _like something_ to be conscious?" Even if we agree on such a definition, what do we do with it? And the more objective our definition ("why do organisms respond to their environment?") the further we get from the thing we seek to explain.

collyw 9y ago

Consciousness is entirely subjective. There is no objective element to it.

naasking 9y ago
> Consciousness is entirely subjective. There is no objective element to it. Conjecture!
- monktastic1 9y ago
  Is it? Sounds like a definition to me. Consciousness is the sheer fact of subjectivity (i.e., that it is "like something" to be you).
  - mannykannot 9y ago
    Definitions are not explanations. Anyone wanting to claim that subjective phenomena cannot have objective causes needs to justify that claim.
    - monktastic1 9y ago
      I was responding to the above comment saying that it's a conjecture that consciousness is subjective. I'm saying it's a definition not a conjecture. That fact makes objective investigation very hard. If I don't know whether a person is a p-zombie, I cannot know whether any objective events cause his consciousness. And if it's my consciousness we're talking about, I cannot be there to investigate the objective causes of it.
      - mannykannot 9y ago
        I believe the conjecture lies in the claim that there is no objective element to it. The fact that objective investigation is difficult does not make the case. BTW, your specific arguments for it being hard seem to me to border on solipsism.