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Always hilarious to me how many educated humans will actually go argue that they are p-zombies rather than face the paradoxes of consciousness. I guess all I'l

by themgt 9y ago

Always hilarious to me how many educated humans will actually go argue that they are p-zombies rather than face the paradoxes of consciousness. I guess all I'll say is, physics seems capable of explaining the evolution of our universe and e.g. the emergent complex phenomena of solar systems and planets and such. Physics and the other hard sciences do not seem to lend a lot of clarity as to how a self-organizing piece of the universe developed into beings that believe themselves to be conscious, believe they in some sense have the power of mind-over-matter, and in fact have constructed a globe-spanning civilization that appears to demonstrate the ability of billions of minds to understand to some degree themselves, each other and the universe, and to willfully bend matter to suit its purposes. aka Hofstadter's "who pushes whom around inside this cranium?" question. We have not come anywhere close to constructing an artificial system with similar capabilities nor to understand how or why they arise in our own brains. It's presumptuous in the extreme to hand-wave away this conundrum with an "information processing" metaphor.

joe_the_user 9y ago
You're mobilizing a different argument here - since we can't construct it, there must be some transcendent property. I can't see how that evokes any of the paradoxes of consciousness. I mean, 200 years ago, humans didn't have a plausible idea how the sun work, should they have assumed God was behind it? Edit: and humans certainly broadly have a decent idea of the physics and chemistry that gave rise to life even if the function of the brain is so far beyond us. So we're certainly not confronting life as something wholly unexplained. Some parts are still beyond us, some things we don't know yet. But un-knowledge usually isn't evidence for any specific thing.
- bobbington 9y ago
  The sun is a physical body, so a physical explanation makes sense. The problem is, our subjective experience isn't actually physical. It has no mass, no shape, no size. It may correspond to movements in the brain, but the experience itself is not material. For all we know we could be in the matrix, and our subjective experpence could be just as real. In fact Elon musk thinks it's a very high probability that we are in the matrix. Since our experience of the world is not material it doesn't seem to follow that there must be a material explanation for it.
- ableton 9y ago
  The sun is a physical body, so a physical explanation makes sense. The problem is, our subjective experience isn't actually physical so the same logic doesn't apply. Our subjective experience has no mass, no shape, no size, and can't be measured. It may correspond to movements in the brain, but the experience itself is not material. For all we know we could be in the matrix, and our subjective experpence could be just as real. In fact Elon musk thinks it's a very high probability that we are in the matrix. Since our experience of the world is not material it doesn't seem to follow that there must be a material explanation for it.
  - Smaug123 9y ago
    Ponder this: the number 15 exists but isn't material. It is an extrapolated common property of physical systems. The number $2^789 - 53$ exists but isn't material; and you've never seen a physical system which embodies that number, but there could plausibly be one. Why could your consciousness not similarly be an extrapolated property of a physical system, without being physical itself?
    - placebo 9y ago
      That's a good question and the answer is that both the sun and the number 15 are concepts created by the mind because creating concepts has great survival value. You are conscious of these concepts. "Consciousness" itself is also a concept you are conscious of. We tend to confuse the map with the territory - perhaps because believing the reality of the map makes us more real and gives a sense of control over things - I wouldn't know. What I am convinced of is that consciousness (and I'm not referring to the concept of it) is not a product of the mind, but vice versa.
      - andrepd 9y ago
        The sun is a physical body that exists despite us, 15 exists only on the mind.
        placebo 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Puts 9y ago
The why I think is quite clear from an evolutionary standpoint. Whithout self consciousness all our actions would only be triggered by surrounding events, hungry - eat, tired - sleep and so on. But with the ability to reason about our self we can for example find and cure diseases long before we feel any pain which is an evolutionary benefit.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sjeohp 9y ago
  Is it so clear? For one thing consciousness is not necessarily synonymous with the ability to reason. Observe your own consciousness; observe the generation of each individual thought and experience. Are you conscious of their origin or do they simply arise in a stream from the darkness of your subconscious? If the later is true (IE if your subconscious is doing the real work), then is consciousness essential to reason or merely coincidental?
- antonvs 9y ago
  > But with the ability to reason about our self The ability to reason about ourselves does not automatically imply consciousness. Programs can be written that reason about themselves, but we have very little reason to believe they are conscious.
biofox 9y ago
Maybe the fact that these opinions exist is evidence that p-zombies walk amongst us?
- dilemma 9y ago
  I know one exists, and it is pretty well-known: Daniel Dennett.
  - red75prime 9y ago
    He lacks p-consciousness (logical construct, which is used to guess existence of p-zombies), not a phenomenal one.
eli_gottlieb 9y ago
>Physics and the other hard sciences do not seem to lend a lot of clarity as to how a self-organizing piece of the universe developed into beings that believe themselves to be conscious Look, the theories aren't definitive yet, but we've definitely got them: http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/86/20130475 http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/86/2013047... https://www.umsu.de/wo/2013/600 https://www.umsu.de/wo/2013/600 >believe they in some sense have the power of mind-over-matter Any reasonably embodied mind is going to rightly believe that it has a measure of control over its body.
visarga 9y ago
You seek an explanation from physics which should have better been sought from psychology, neurology or AI. I prefer to see consciousness as the ability of agents to adapt in relation to the external world. In the end, what matters is not consciousness, but the whole "game" the agent is playing. Humans play the game called "life" where reward is to exist and reproduce. Other agents play other games with other rewards - the concept is general, agents can be people, animals, AIs and other complex systems. So, it feels like something to see a sunset because you have eyes connected to a visual area that creates a model of the external world. This image has a meaning to you because it represents a certain probability of getting rewards. Rewards matter because they guide your actions. That's the root of why it feels like something to see a sunset. People who don't have the right reward/values structure don't get to reproduce and enjoy sunsets. So it's not so much a brain thing, but an "agent vs the world" thing.

by themgt 9y ago

joe_the_user 9y ago

You're mobilizing a different argument here - since we can't construct it, there must be some transcendent property. I can't see how that evokes any of the paradoxes of consciousness. I mean, 200 years ago, humans didn't have a plausible idea how the sun work, should they have assumed God was behind it? Edit: and humans certainly broadly have a decent idea of the physics and chemistry that gave rise to life even if the function of the brain is so far beyond us. So we're certainly not confronting life as something wholly unexplained. Some parts are still beyond us, some things we don't know yet. But un-knowledge usually isn't evidence for any specific thing.

bobbington 9y ago
The sun is a physical body, so a physical explanation makes sense. The problem is, our subjective experience isn't actually physical. It has no mass, no shape, no size. It may correspond to movements in the brain, but the experience itself is not material. For all we know we could be in the matrix, and our subjective experpence could be just as real. In fact Elon musk thinks it's a very high probability that we are in the matrix. Since our experience of the world is not material it doesn't seem to follow that there must be a material explanation for it.
ableton 9y ago
The sun is a physical body, so a physical explanation makes sense. The problem is, our subjective experience isn't actually physical so the same logic doesn't apply. Our subjective experience has no mass, no shape, no size, and can't be measured. It may correspond to movements in the brain, but the experience itself is not material. For all we know we could be in the matrix, and our subjective experpence could be just as real. In fact Elon musk thinks it's a very high probability that we are in the matrix. Since our experience of the world is not material it doesn't seem to follow that there must be a material explanation for it.
- Smaug123 9y ago
  Ponder this: the number 15 exists but isn't material. It is an extrapolated common property of physical systems. The number $2^789 - 53$ exists but isn't material; and you've never seen a physical system which embodies that number, but there could plausibly be one. Why could your consciousness not similarly be an extrapolated property of a physical system, without being physical itself?
  - placebo 9y ago
    That's a good question and the answer is that both the sun and the number 15 are concepts created by the mind because creating concepts has great survival value. You are conscious of these concepts. "Consciousness" itself is also a concept you are conscious of. We tend to confuse the map with the territory - perhaps because believing the reality of the map makes us more real and gives a sense of control over things - I wouldn't know. What I am convinced of is that consciousness (and I'm not referring to the concept of it) is not a product of the mind, but vice versa.
    - andrepd 9y ago
      The sun is a physical body that exists despite us, 15 exists only on the mind.
      - placebo 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Puts 9y ago

The why I think is quite clear from an evolutionary standpoint. Whithout self consciousness all our actions would only be triggered by surrounding events, hungry - eat, tired - sleep and so on. But with the ability to reason about our self we can for example find and cure diseases long before we feel any pain which is an evolutionary benefit.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sjeohp 9y ago
Is it so clear? For one thing consciousness is not necessarily synonymous with the ability to reason. Observe your own consciousness; observe the generation of each individual thought and experience. Are you conscious of their origin or do they simply arise in a stream from the darkness of your subconscious? If the later is true (IE if your subconscious is doing the real work), then is consciousness essential to reason or merely coincidental?
antonvs 9y ago
> But with the ability to reason about our self The ability to reason about ourselves does not automatically imply consciousness. Programs can be written that reason about themselves, but we have very little reason to believe they are conscious.

biofox 9y ago

Maybe the fact that these opinions exist is evidence that p-zombies walk amongst us?

dilemma 9y ago
I know one exists, and it is pretty well-known: Daniel Dennett.
- red75prime 9y ago
  He lacks p-consciousness (logical construct, which is used to guess existence of p-zombies), not a phenomenal one.

eli_gottlieb 9y ago

>Physics and the other hard sciences do not seem to lend a lot of clarity as to how a self-organizing piece of the universe developed into beings that believe themselves to be conscious Look, the theories aren't definitive yet, but we've definitely got them: http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/86/20130475 http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/86/2013047... https://www.umsu.de/wo/2013/600 https://www.umsu.de/wo/2013/600 >believe they in some sense have the power of mind-over-matter Any reasonably embodied mind is going to rightly believe that it has a measure of control over its body.

visarga 9y ago

You seek an explanation from physics which should have better been sought from psychology, neurology or AI. I prefer to see consciousness as the ability of agents to adapt in relation to the external world. In the end, what matters is not consciousness, but the whole "game" the agent is playing. Humans play the game called "life" where reward is to exist and reproduce. Other agents play other games with other rewards - the concept is general, agents can be people, animals, AIs and other complex systems. So, it feels like something to see a sunset because you have eyes connected to a visual area that creates a model of the external world. This image has a meaning to you because it represents a certain probability of getting rewards. Rewards matter because they guide your actions. That's the root of why it feels like something to see a sunset. People who don't have the right reward/values structure don't get to reproduce and enjoy sunsets. So it's not so much a brain thing, but an "agent vs the world" thing.