8 ms·

Consciousness: The last 50 years (and the next)

83 points by laurex 8y ago

ivan_ah 8y ago
For anyone interested in consciousness, I highly recommend this blog: https://www.consciousentities.com/ https://www.consciousentities.com/ The author (Peter Hankins) does an excellent job of summarizing and critiquing current research papers in philosophy and neuroscience, and the comments on the articles are often very informative. Can we the mystery of human consciousness in the 21st century? Ok, ok, maybe we should start with a definitions...
- trevyn 8y ago
  I'm starting to think that there's not much mystery left to consciousness, it's just that most people are really uncomfortable with the idea that "we" are just the complex interactions of electrical impulses and meat. Or, perhaps, the implications of that.
  - jchw 8y ago
    I think it's definitely more complex than that: not just that we don't know what it is, we don't even really know how to quantify it. I'm no expert or even well-read on the subject but I recommend reading one of the articles about measuring conciousness, it's pretty interesting.
    - trevyn 8y ago
      We know exactly how to quantify it: When you have a network of neurons that is connected in such-and-such a way, where the neurons behave in such-and-such a manner, and are in a given initial state and evolve over time, you have what we call consciousness. I don't think anyone has a falsifiable objection to this. I think one of the underlying problems is that people want a cold, objective quantification of a word that is inherently emotional and subjective. So when the objective definition does not align with the emotional experience, they dip into mysticism or philosophy, neither of which is testable science. Really, the word "consciousness" is not a scientific word, it's kind of like trying to quantify God. Can we test a being's self-awareness, decision-making ability, etc.? Yes. Is there something "consciousness" that is not testable? Then that part is not science. We can really really want it to be science, and keep looking for ways to test it, but until we do, it's just conjecture. (Personally, I think that once we're able to model brains that we agree "are conscious", all of this feeling of mystery will fall away.)
      - mcbits 8y ago
        I'm uncomfortable with that for the same reason I'd be uncomfortable with "if you connect rocks in such-and-such a way, you have a computer." It's not a very enlightening explanation.
        _Schizotypy 8y ago
        Don't some rocks contain silicon, so really pure and doped rocks make a computer.
        trevyn 8y ago
        Exactly, and even if nobody has ever built it or written a formal proof that it would work, you can still imagine how it would work and prove it to your own mind. (This would work for a purely mechanical computer made out of rocks, too.) Personally, with enough knowledge about how modern AI works, and a reasonable understanding of the neuroscience literature, I feel there is no fundamental mystery to consciousness, only awe at the level of complexity harnessed.
        adrianN 8y ago
        That's the point. While the explanation might be technically correct, it is in no way precise enough to call it understanding.
        Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
        Thank you for that concise but clear explanation of what I always felt was lacking with many over-scientified views of profound subjects like consciousness. We don't push back those models because they are "uncomfortable", make us feel bad, or inferior, or anything like that - but because they are simply non-functional! There are many aspects and phenomena in the world, in human interactions, in my own consciousness - which are simply not explained by the reductionist view! "Based on some complicated network of neurons" is not good enough! I clearly have these phenomena and experience, and this "complicated network" explanation just gives no explanation at all really! While other less scientific models do. I'm like "sure, I can accept whatever science you can give me and become a fully logical being, but don't ask me to ignore obvious phenomena that I know I have and experience, that is just stupid!".
  - curo 8y ago
    The scientific method was designed to study phenomenon and test observations empirically. There's an essential problem with using science to confirm or describe that in which phenomenon and confirmation is presented. If you're talking about the neural correlates of consciousness, you're right that we're removing a lot of the mystery. But if you're talking about the mystery that is your own subjective being, then we may never solve that problem. As Susan Greenfield states, "we can't turn the water into wine" Sam Harris does a great 5m summary on the hard problem of consciousness that's worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiaKm6PlpsQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiaKm6PlpsQ
    - trevyn 8y ago
      I'm saying there is no mystery -- that people invoke mystery as an avoidance tactic when they have cognitive dissonance about an otherwise well-established conclusion, or when they find some pleasure in invoking the unknown and philosophizing. There should be nothing mysterious in 2018 about a biological being that has an internal self-model, memory, and processes sensory stimuli and internal neural firings over time, both of which have a direct relation to the physical basis of that self-model. That is what self-awareness is. "Experience can't be explained by science because science only arises in experience" sounds profound but contributes nothing -- if you invalidate the content of your experience, then you no longer have any reliable axioms on which to build any argument whatsoever, and we might as well all go home. The Sam Harris video you linked makes a good point -- that we want an explanation of consciousness that intuitively makes sense. I'm saying that if you study enough AI and neuroscience, it does intuitively make sense. His counterexample of explaining the "brittleness of glass" is intuitively OK with us even if we don't actually personally understand all of the details of the molecular and atomic interactions, because it does not fundamentally challenge our beliefs of who we are. If there's some explanation of consciousness that does challenge our beliefs of who we are, you better believe you're going to need a more comprehensive and complex explanation before you're going to intuitively believe it.
      - bencollier49 8y ago
        This isn't meant as an ad-hominem, but it still staggers me when I see comments like this. There seems to be a class of people who are unable to see the gaping chasm left by science in its inability to describe the reasons for our ability to experience subjective consciousness. We would need a scientific revolution to understand it. Neuroscience has nothing to say; physics has little to say. The OP article makes the point that we haven't got near to cracking the problem. Personally, I think we have a category issue. We simply don't know what category to put consciousness in, and all attempts to solve it thus far have been category mistakes.
intralizee 8y ago
I'm hopeful the doctrine of panpsychism ends up being true. I prefer the idea of my laptop equally having a consciousness as me and in some ways it's calming than the contrary possibility. If reality is just one deterministic system, it's reassuring to think of the system being designed for having universal observation and while still predetermined nothing is left out of its role in the stories unraveled.
- visarga 8y ago
  I think panpsychism is a bad approach. If we look at consciousness as we encounter it in nature, it seems to be a property of self replicators in their competition for life and reproduction. So it can't be a property of laptops, unless they are self replicating laptops responsible for their own existence. Or could be a property of a virtual entity running in a sim in the laptop, but then it's not consciousness of the same world as ours. The role of consciousness is to keep the body alive: fend dangers, find food and reproduce. It does that by taking into account the state of the environment and the internal state of the body and acting in such a way as to maximise its own rewards, learning to avoid bad situations along the way. Evolution has shaped the body and rewards in order to maximise survivability. It's interesting to see how surviving bootstraps meaning and consciousness out of itself (and its environment).
  - intralizee 8y ago
    It's arguable to say one thing is encountered in nature unlike something else. Everything from my perception is the product of nature. Example: People tend to view technological advances by humans as different than "plants or animals evolving over time" but I would argue it's no different fundamentally. Objects are functioning with properties they inherently have and from the outside world for seeking an advantage. The role of consciousness is debatable. People who died by suicide have some significance against the theory of consciousness keeping the body alive. My observation of consciousness makes me consider it an abstract layer of observation & emotions and nothing more. I don't even think emotions have to be there. It's hard to describe and I understand why some people don't even think consciousness is a real thing.
AareyBaba 8y ago
The author's talk at the Royal Institute is here https://youtu.be/xRel1JKOEbI?t=2817 https://youtu.be/xRel1JKOEbI?t=2817 Overall, I'd say we are no closer to understanding consciousness than we were 30 years ago. As a science, we are still poking at the brain to gather data and proposing hand-wavy models of low level behavior. As philosophy, we still don't agree on what the phenomenon we need to study is. My gut feeling is that consciousness/intelligence is an emergent phenomenon of the physical brain (a very high-dimensional non-linear system not amenable to reductionism) and that the simplest model of the brain will be too complex for our brains to understand.
- echelon 8y ago
  > the simplest model of the brain will be too complex for our brains to understand Why? We already have models of the brain and cognition, and they're improving over time. Just because we can't gain a sufficient understanding within a time scale suitable for you doesn't allow you to call it "too complex for our brains". We'd have a much better understanding if we conducted live vivisection of prisoners, but we're not cruel. We have to glean what we can from shadows of knowledge. One day maybe our children will see the shape of reality. Even the things we think we understand now will be greatly expounded upon.
  - c1sc0 8y ago
    Live vivisection of prisoners has been done in the past & we can safely assume it will be done again in the future. There are whole uncomfortable corners of medicine built up on data gathered by cruel means. A prime example is what we know about hypothermia.
- Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
  To be fair, the simplest model of a complete modern automobile is already too complex for a human to understand. (Except for the 10 geniuses perhaps.) Not a model of just the engine, or just the chemistry processes in the exhaust system, or just the electrical wiring, or how the painting jobs work - but the whole model of every subsystem existent in this car. Notably, this does not stop us from making new cars. There would need to be some substantial basis for a claim that a human brain will not soon be a similar deal: no one will undertand the whole system completely, but we will have experts on different areas and aspects of consciousness which will be more than enough for progress and specifically, strong AI.
hestefisk 8y ago
One word: autopoiesis

83 points by laurex 8y ago

For anyone interested in consciousness, I highly recommend this blog: https://www.consciousentities.com/ https://www.consciousentities.com/ The author (Peter Hankins) does an excellent job of summarizing and critiquing current research papers in philosophy and neuroscience, and the comments on the articles are often very informative. Can we the mystery of human consciousness in the 21st century? Ok, ok, maybe we should start with a definitions...

trevyn 8y ago
I'm starting to think that there's not much mystery left to consciousness, it's just that most people are really uncomfortable with the idea that "we" are just the complex interactions of electrical impulses and meat. Or, perhaps, the implications of that.
- jchw 8y ago
  I think it's definitely more complex than that: not just that we don't know what it is, we don't even really know how to quantify it. I'm no expert or even well-read on the subject but I recommend reading one of the articles about measuring conciousness, it's pretty interesting.
  - trevyn 8y ago
    We know exactly how to quantify it: When you have a network of neurons that is connected in such-and-such a way, where the neurons behave in such-and-such a manner, and are in a given initial state and evolve over time, you have what we call consciousness. I don't think anyone has a falsifiable objection to this. I think one of the underlying problems is that people want a cold, objective quantification of a word that is inherently emotional and subjective. So when the objective definition does not align with the emotional experience, they dip into mysticism or philosophy, neither of which is testable science. Really, the word "consciousness" is not a scientific word, it's kind of like trying to quantify God. Can we test a being's self-awareness, decision-making ability, etc.? Yes. Is there something "consciousness" that is not testable? Then that part is not science. We can really really want it to be science, and keep looking for ways to test it, but until we do, it's just conjecture. (Personally, I think that once we're able to model brains that we agree "are conscious", all of this feeling of mystery will fall away.)
    - mcbits 8y ago
      I'm uncomfortable with that for the same reason I'd be uncomfortable with "if you connect rocks in such-and-such a way, you have a computer." It's not a very enlightening explanation.
      - _Schizotypy 8y ago
        Don't some rocks contain silicon, so really pure and doped rocks make a computer.
        trevyn 8y ago
        Exactly, and even if nobody has ever built it or written a formal proof that it would work, you can still imagine how it would work and prove it to your own mind. (This would work for a purely mechanical computer made out of rocks, too.) Personally, with enough knowledge about how modern AI works, and a reasonable understanding of the neuroscience literature, I feel there is no fundamental mystery to consciousness, only awe at the level of complexity harnessed.
        adrianN 8y ago
        That's the point. While the explanation might be technically correct, it is in no way precise enough to call it understanding.
      - Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
        Thank you for that concise but clear explanation of what I always felt was lacking with many over-scientified views of profound subjects like consciousness. We don't push back those models because they are "uncomfortable", make us feel bad, or inferior, or anything like that - but because they are simply non-functional! There are many aspects and phenomena in the world, in human interactions, in my own consciousness - which are simply not explained by the reductionist view! "Based on some complicated network of neurons" is not good enough! I clearly have these phenomena and experience, and this "complicated network" explanation just gives no explanation at all really! While other less scientific models do. I'm like "sure, I can accept whatever science you can give me and become a fully logical being, but don't ask me to ignore obvious phenomena that I know I have and experience, that is just stupid!".
- curo 8y ago
  The scientific method was designed to study phenomenon and test observations empirically. There's an essential problem with using science to confirm or describe that in which phenomenon and confirmation is presented. If you're talking about the neural correlates of consciousness, you're right that we're removing a lot of the mystery. But if you're talking about the mystery that is your own subjective being, then we may never solve that problem. As Susan Greenfield states, "we can't turn the water into wine" Sam Harris does a great 5m summary on the hard problem of consciousness that's worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiaKm6PlpsQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiaKm6PlpsQ
  - trevyn 8y ago
    I'm saying there is no mystery -- that people invoke mystery as an avoidance tactic when they have cognitive dissonance about an otherwise well-established conclusion, or when they find some pleasure in invoking the unknown and philosophizing. There should be nothing mysterious in 2018 about a biological being that has an internal self-model, memory, and processes sensory stimuli and internal neural firings over time, both of which have a direct relation to the physical basis of that self-model. That is what self-awareness is. "Experience can't be explained by science because science only arises in experience" sounds profound but contributes nothing -- if you invalidate the content of your experience, then you no longer have any reliable axioms on which to build any argument whatsoever, and we might as well all go home. The Sam Harris video you linked makes a good point -- that we want an explanation of consciousness that intuitively makes sense. I'm saying that if you study enough AI and neuroscience, it does intuitively make sense. His counterexample of explaining the "brittleness of glass" is intuitively OK with us even if we don't actually personally understand all of the details of the molecular and atomic interactions, because it does not fundamentally challenge our beliefs of who we are. If there's some explanation of consciousness that does challenge our beliefs of who we are, you better believe you're going to need a more comprehensive and complex explanation before you're going to intuitively believe it.
    - bencollier49 8y ago
      This isn't meant as an ad-hominem, but it still staggers me when I see comments like this. There seems to be a class of people who are unable to see the gaping chasm left by science in its inability to describe the reasons for our ability to experience subjective consciousness. We would need a scientific revolution to understand it. Neuroscience has nothing to say; physics has little to say. The OP article makes the point that we haven't got near to cracking the problem. Personally, I think we have a category issue. We simply don't know what category to put consciousness in, and all attempts to solve it thus far have been category mistakes.

intralizee 8y ago

I'm hopeful the doctrine of panpsychism ends up being true. I prefer the idea of my laptop equally having a consciousness as me and in some ways it's calming than the contrary possibility. If reality is just one deterministic system, it's reassuring to think of the system being designed for having universal observation and while still predetermined nothing is left out of its role in the stories unraveled.

visarga 8y ago
I think panpsychism is a bad approach. If we look at consciousness as we encounter it in nature, it seems to be a property of self replicators in their competition for life and reproduction. So it can't be a property of laptops, unless they are self replicating laptops responsible for their own existence. Or could be a property of a virtual entity running in a sim in the laptop, but then it's not consciousness of the same world as ours. The role of consciousness is to keep the body alive: fend dangers, find food and reproduce. It does that by taking into account the state of the environment and the internal state of the body and acting in such a way as to maximise its own rewards, learning to avoid bad situations along the way. Evolution has shaped the body and rewards in order to maximise survivability. It's interesting to see how surviving bootstraps meaning and consciousness out of itself (and its environment).
- intralizee 8y ago
  It's arguable to say one thing is encountered in nature unlike something else. Everything from my perception is the product of nature. Example: People tend to view technological advances by humans as different than "plants or animals evolving over time" but I would argue it's no different fundamentally. Objects are functioning with properties they inherently have and from the outside world for seeking an advantage. The role of consciousness is debatable. People who died by suicide have some significance against the theory of consciousness keeping the body alive. My observation of consciousness makes me consider it an abstract layer of observation & emotions and nothing more. I don't even think emotions have to be there. It's hard to describe and I understand why some people don't even think consciousness is a real thing.

AareyBaba 8y ago

The author's talk at the Royal Institute is here https://youtu.be/xRel1JKOEbI?t=2817 https://youtu.be/xRel1JKOEbI?t=2817 Overall, I'd say we are no closer to understanding consciousness than we were 30 years ago. As a science, we are still poking at the brain to gather data and proposing hand-wavy models of low level behavior. As philosophy, we still don't agree on what the phenomenon we need to study is. My gut feeling is that consciousness/intelligence is an emergent phenomenon of the physical brain (a very high-dimensional non-linear system not amenable to reductionism) and that the simplest model of the brain will be too complex for our brains to understand.

echelon 8y ago
> the simplest model of the brain will be too complex for our brains to understand Why? We already have models of the brain and cognition, and they're improving over time. Just because we can't gain a sufficient understanding within a time scale suitable for you doesn't allow you to call it "too complex for our brains". We'd have a much better understanding if we conducted live vivisection of prisoners, but we're not cruel. We have to glean what we can from shadows of knowledge. One day maybe our children will see the shape of reality. Even the things we think we understand now will be greatly expounded upon.
- c1sc0 8y ago
  Live vivisection of prisoners has been done in the past & we can safely assume it will be done again in the future. There are whole uncomfortable corners of medicine built up on data gathered by cruel means. A prime example is what we know about hypothermia.
Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
To be fair, the simplest model of a complete modern automobile is already too complex for a human to understand. (Except for the 10 geniuses perhaps.) Not a model of just the engine, or just the chemistry processes in the exhaust system, or just the electrical wiring, or how the painting jobs work - but the whole model of every subsystem existent in this car. Notably, this does not stop us from making new cars. There would need to be some substantial basis for a claim that a human brain will not soon be a similar deal: no one will undertand the whole system completely, but we will have experts on different areas and aspects of consciousness which will be more than enough for progress and specifically, strong AI.

hestefisk 8y ago

One word: autopoiesis