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"In vertebrates the capacity for subjective experience is supported by integrated structures in the midbrain that create a neural simulation of the state of the

• amelius 8y ago
  Yes, before we solve consciousness, we first need to get the nomenclature right.
  • bencollier49 8y ago
    To be fair, as soon as we go near anything really subjective, the nomenclature seems to fall apart across most disciplines. For obvious reasons, I suppose. For example, the term "Nous": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous
    • TelmoMenezes 8y ago
      I would argue that consciousness is the least subjective phenomenon there is. I think that the difficulty in defining it comes for the fact that good definitions are so fundamentally simple that people miss their depth. My favorite one is this, and please give it a chance before rejecting it. See if it distinguishes consciousness from all other concepts: Consciousness is that which cannot be doubted.
      • tylerjwilk00 8y ago
        I disagree. The problem is that we are convinced that any experience or object can be defined within language. The truth is that somethings are undefinable. And as soon as you attempt to define it, label it, you have already lost it.
        • rrdcfff 8y ago
          I agree with that. But the conclusion is very interesting. If something cannot be expessed within a language, it also cannot be described used any formal system, or mathematics in general. Which should be very distrurbing to modern naturalists, to whom (to the first approximation) everything is just clouds of particles (whose behavior can be described using mathematics).
      • bencollier49 8y ago
        That's a great definition. I think we can all objectively agree on that definition, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the thing being described by the definition is any less subjective.
        • mfoy_ 8y ago
          Actually I think it's quite possibly the worst definition of consciousness I've ever seen. At best (assuming conscious cannot be doubted) it's like saying "Cars are those things which move fast". In the sense that it describes one property of cars, or consciousness, but not a unique property. Other things move fast, not just cars, other things could be beyond doubt than just consciousness. At worst (assuming consciousness can be doubted) it's like saying "Cars are those things which flap around", which is utterly nonsense, and unhelpful. Plenty of things "flap around", but cars don't... My point is, if you don't already have a strong preconception of what "consciousness" is, that definition is worse than no definition at all.
      • naasking 8y ago
        > Consciousness is that which cannot be doubted. There are many propositions that cannot be doubted, so that's insufficiently precise. For instance, I do not doubt that I perceive things via my senses, but perception doesn't require consciousness. It also leaves entirely undefined what "doubt" means. Your attempted definition would seem to assume that only conscious entities can "doubt", but is that really true?
• TuringTest 8y ago
  > we're being asked to credit the robot as somehow being conscious How do you differentiate a robot from a philosophical zombie, and this one from a human? We can not be sure that other humans apart from myself (yours truly writing these lines); we only make estimated guesses that, because we share the same physical structures, our experience will also be similar. Therefore, we could as well extend that presumption to a being sharing structures with similar functions. It may be the case that insect structures are too simple for that (maybe, as you point out, it requires complex coordination among subsystems and not just a spacial model), but at least it provides a lower bound.
  • TelmoMenezes 8y ago
    > Therefore, we could as well extend that presumption to a being sharing structures with similar functions. This is more or less the current mainstream stance. I think it's fine to do it for practical purposes, for example deciding that animals cannot be ethically subjected to certain treatments by virtue of the complexity of their nervous systems. But this is reasonable doubt + principle of precaution. I'm fine with that. What we cannot do is make this presumption and pretend that we are still within the realms of serious science or philosophy. The technical name for this presumption is emergentism, that consciousness somehow arises from the interactions of matter. I believe that the reason why this hypothesis is so popular, and even confused with scientific fact, is that it is the less weird. Avoiding weirdness is a common pitfall in the history of science, it leads to temporary dead-ends.
    • hopler 8y ago
      It's fine to say that science does not support the claim that animals have consciousness, as long as you also agree that science does not support the claim that humans have consciousness. I don't understand what you are saying about emrgentism being non scientific. Emergentism is the reason the reason that the Universe today has so many properties that it didn't have when it was a miasma of isolated hydrogren or whatever around the time of the Big Bang.
      • 8y ago
• chr1 8y ago
  Why do you think that consciousness is different from a self image in a neural network which is configured to use some effective learning algorithm? Of course there are other theories but they are just as unproven as this one.
• naasking 8y ago
  > I once went to a talk at the Royal Society which was supposed to be about consciousness. The bloke just spoke for an hour about things like optical illusions. Perhaps he was trying to convey that apparent subjective experience is an analogous perceptual illusion. > By the same token, if I were to create a processing system for a robot which integrated visual, haptic and auditory feedback to create a representation of the robot in space, we're being asked to credit the robot as somehow being conscious. Perhaps it depends on what you mean by "integrated". Consciousness must serve a functional, adaptive purpose, and if your integration does not perform the same function, then it wouldn't be conscious as we understand it.
  • goatlover 8y ago
    > Consciousness must serve a functional, adaptive purpose, Why? Not all of evolution is adaptive. It's also possible that consciousness is something more fundamental that strongly emerges when the right sort of physical activity takes place. On Chalmers view, it's rich information processing that results in consciousness. Evolution would only provide the means for how that information processing came about in animals. But it could also came about because of Boltzman Brain randomly popped into existence or human design.
    • simonh 8y ago
      I'm not really clear what Chalmers means by 'rich information processing' though, and yes I have read some of his stuff and IMHO he doesn't seem to either. He's super smart and well worth reading, but I happen to disagree on this. >It's also possible that consciousness is something more fundamental that strongly emerges when the right sort of physical activity takes place Since brains seem to be physical and are conscious, yes they seem to be performing the right sort of activity but that's pretty much tautological. At least the idea that self image and self awareness are key is a concrete theory that we have a chance of testing. Maybe it's a sort of self-modeling feedback loop. Our brains model our physical bodies, mental state and the mental state of others. At some point, this modeling becomes sophisticated enough to become recursive. The model includes cruder approximations of those models, etc like being between two mirrors facing each other. The symbolic representations expand beyond our ability to perceive them. We become aware of our awareness. Bang! You're conscious.
• coldtea 8y ago
  >Whoah there! I think this might be another case of semantic creep. It's very easy to conflate consciousness with self-image in the brain But it's very hard to say why consciousness shouldn't be conflated with self-image in the brain!
  • mjburgess 8y ago
    A conscious agent believes, desires, wants, feels, etc. A "self-image" is more-or-less just proprioception, and it seems very easy to ditch that and still be conscious.
    • acqq 8y ago
      > A conscious agent believes, desires, wants, feels, etc. Then, when I just observe how an ant behaves, I can definitely see that he "believes, desires, wants, feels etc." He sees and/or smells the crumb that I've made while eating a sandwich. He "desires" and "wants" it, runs to it. He "believes" it can lift it and "feels" it can do it. He tries, more than once. Then he has to adjust his belief: the crumb is too heavy. So he gives up trying to lift, now he "believes" he should bite a peace of it. And he does that. Then, he has a new "desire" to carry the bitten-off peace back to the "house" in the hole where other ants are. And he "feels" he can do this, and he will eventually do this. If another ant tries to take the crumb he carries, he will "feel" hat he "has to fight" but he can also "decide" it's "not too interesting" and it's "better to search for another crumb." Now tell me how is that behavior different from a person which is unable to speak, and where you would describe it with "beliefs, desires etc."
    • simmanian 8y ago
      What is consciousness without the concept of self, though? "I think, therefore I am" is the basis of how we view human existence, and there is no reason to not think that the concept of self is just another illusion created by our pattern recognizing brain.
      • porpoisely 8y ago
        Consciousness without the concept of self is general consciousness. Like animals or infants. A consciousness that can experience and react to the environment, but has no idea of itself. Consciousness with the concept of self is self-awareness. It's a more "advanced" form of consciousness. Where the consciousness is aware that it is conscious. I might be wrong, but that's how I understand it. As for the self being an illusion, we don't know for sure, but I think that's the most likely case.
• mrfusion 8y ago
  The map is not the territory.
• modzu 8y ago
  to be fair, the claim is, "supported by...". this is not the same as equality.