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I don't understand why this notion of subjective experience keeps being raised. Why is it important? Once we know enough to create a synthetic brain, it reall

by tux1968 9y ago

I don't understand why this notion of subjective experience keeps being raised. Why is it important? Once we know enough to create a synthetic brain, it really doesn't matter what its subjective experience is, we will judge it the same way we judge our fellow humans. And this is fine since we have no way to truly know the subjective experience of say color for any other human either. Yet we don't question each others claim of consciousness. It's enough that we can both say "blue" to name the ~ 490–450nm wavelength of light regardless of our personal subjective experience of it.

marcoperaza 9y ago
Because subjective experience is not a one way affair. It clearly plays at least some functional role. The proof of that is that we're having a conversation about it.
- tux1968 9y ago
  But the same conversation could be had with a synthetic brain. It's no more important than any other feature of brain functionality. What I don't understand is how this concern about subjectivity limits us in understanding consciousness and brain functionality. It doesn't mean we can experience the subjective states of a synthetic brain or another human, but we can definitely replicate the physical aspects of the brain that produce them.
  - marcoperaza 9y ago
    I think it's likely that the brain violates the Church-Turing thesis. It doesn't seem possible that a Turing machine can produce subjective/conscious experience. This strongly limits our ability to make a synthetic brain via solely computation. Update: I'm not sure I'd say supernatural. I think consciousness is different in kind from the rest of how we understand the universe to work. It seems likely that it's a fundamental property of the universe. I see this all pretty much the same way that the philosopher David Chalmers does. He probably does a better job of explaining it than me. It's worth looking at his thinking on the matter.
    - tux1968 9y ago
      So you believe that consciousness is supernatural and not the product of a physical brain. I don't see any reason to believe that, but it definitely makes it clear why we hold differing opinions. Edit: I think all that philosophy is going to have to be updated when we eventually start having conversations with synthetic brains that can tell us about their sense of consciousness ;-) Edit 2: If we had a device that could instantly make a carbon-copy (unintended pun) of a human (let's say me), identical down to the last atom, what you're saying is that copy would NOT be conscious. That it is not enough to capture the physical nature of someone to capture the state of consciousness.. that it is beyond physical. I just don't know how to come to terms with that idea. To me consciousness simply must be a product of our physical bodies and thus within the purview of rational study and comprehension.
      - marcoperaza 9y ago
        That's not what I mean actually. If we could make a carbon copy of a person, it would be presumably be conscious too. But I do think that an attempt to model the brain mathematically and run a computer simulation of it would fail to create consciousness.
        tux1968 9y ago
        Ah, then we're much closer together than I thought. However, there is no reason future computers will be limited to current (Turing) technology instead of being a collection of many co-processors with differing capabilities. The main point though, is that since consciousness is housed in the physical brain, we can dissect, understand, and recreate fully-functional synthetic versions. While each person is in their own subjective world, the brain which is responsible for it is an objective object that is open to study.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        marcoperaza 9y ago

marcoperaza 9y ago

Because subjective experience is not a one way affair. It clearly plays at least some functional role. The proof of that is that we're having a conversation about it.

tux1968 9y ago
But the same conversation could be had with a synthetic brain. It's no more important than any other feature of brain functionality. What I don't understand is how this concern about subjectivity limits us in understanding consciousness and brain functionality. It doesn't mean we can experience the subjective states of a synthetic brain or another human, but we can definitely replicate the physical aspects of the brain that produce them.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  I think it's likely that the brain violates the Church-Turing thesis. It doesn't seem possible that a Turing machine can produce subjective/conscious experience. This strongly limits our ability to make a synthetic brain via solely computation. Update: I'm not sure I'd say supernatural. I think consciousness is different in kind from the rest of how we understand the universe to work. It seems likely that it's a fundamental property of the universe. I see this all pretty much the same way that the philosopher David Chalmers does. He probably does a better job of explaining it than me. It's worth looking at his thinking on the matter.
  - tux1968 9y ago
    So you believe that consciousness is supernatural and not the product of a physical brain. I don't see any reason to believe that, but it definitely makes it clear why we hold differing opinions. Edit: I think all that philosophy is going to have to be updated when we eventually start having conversations with synthetic brains that can tell us about their sense of consciousness ;-) Edit 2: If we had a device that could instantly make a carbon-copy (unintended pun) of a human (let's say me), identical down to the last atom, what you're saying is that copy would NOT be conscious. That it is not enough to capture the physical nature of someone to capture the state of consciousness.. that it is beyond physical. I just don't know how to come to terms with that idea. To me consciousness simply must be a product of our physical bodies and thus within the purview of rational study and comprehension.
    - marcoperaza 9y ago
      That's not what I mean actually. If we could make a carbon copy of a person, it would be presumably be conscious too. But I do think that an attempt to model the brain mathematically and run a computer simulation of it would fail to create consciousness.
      - tux1968 9y ago
        Ah, then we're much closer together than I thought. However, there is no reason future computers will be limited to current (Turing) technology instead of being a collection of many co-processors with differing capabilities. The main point though, is that since consciousness is housed in the physical brain, we can dissect, understand, and recreate fully-functional synthetic versions. While each person is in their own subjective world, the brain which is responsible for it is an objective object that is open to study.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        marcoperaza 9y ago