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> Consciousness must serve a functional, adaptive purpose, Why? Not all of evolution is adaptive. It's also possible that consciousness is something more funda

> 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.
- goatlover 8y ago
  > 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. I don't see how sensations like color, sound, pain arise from a feedback loop. And those sensations are what make up our conscious experiences. It's an interesting way of approaching the problem, but it honestly sounds like a bunch of functional words strung together to magically produce qualia, because mirrors are a neat analogy.
  - simonh 8y ago
    >I don't see how sensations like color, sound, pain arise from a feedback loop. And those sensations are what make up our conscious experiences. Neither do I, but you have to start somewhere and 'rich information processing' is so broad it's pretty much nowhere. I suspect qualia are a red herring. I'm not always aware of qualia while I am thinking. When I pay attention to things, sure, I experience them very vividly, but I don't think that's a defining thing about consciousness. It's an open question for me though and not something to just dismiss.
- benji-york 8y ago
  This discussion reminds me of the first chapters of Greg Egan's Diaspora. I suspect Amazon's free sample would cover the pertinent parts.
naasking 8y ago
> Why? Not all of evolution is adaptive. Because a) humans have been wildly successful, and b) the fact that our brain is inordinately expensive, so if a new class of non-conscious humans that were equally adept as conscious ones ever arose, they would easily outcompete us for resources. Given our numbers, presumably such non-conscious people would already exist. If so, where are they? > It's also possible that consciousness is something more fundamental that strongly emerges when the right sort of physical activity takes place. Depends what you mean by "more fundamental". All of our behaviour emerges when the right sort of physical activity takes place. Our entire brain is filled with "rich information processing", so that's an insufficient qualifier.
- goatlover 8y ago
  > Because a) humans have been wildly successful, and b) the fact that our brain is inordinately expensive, so if a new class of non-conscious humans that were equally adept as conscious ones ever arose, they would easily outcompete us for resources. Assuming that there's an extra cost to consciousness. The problem here is that nobody knows how to fit consciousness into the physical picture. There's clearly a correlation, but we don't know how and what that entails.
  - naasking 8y ago
    There's definitely a cost to consciousness if it's not some innate property of matter ala panpsychism. There's no free lunch. But at least we can agree that we don't know how it fits, but I think the attention schema theory is a great start on a mechanistic account: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00500/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0050...
- salthound 8y ago
  In humans, the optic nerve routes in front of the retina, creating a 14 degrees wide blind spot in our vision. The nerves could equally well route behind the retina, eliminating the blind spots essentially for free. Given how important vision was in our evolutionary past, and given our numbers, presumably people without blind spots would already exist. If so, where are they? "Evolutionary Occam's razor" arguments do not work, because evolution gets stuck in local optima all the time. There might simply be no short evolutionary route between "conscious" humans and equally fit "non-conscious" ones (whatever that means).

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.

goatlover 8y ago
> 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. I don't see how sensations like color, sound, pain arise from a feedback loop. And those sensations are what make up our conscious experiences. It's an interesting way of approaching the problem, but it honestly sounds like a bunch of functional words strung together to magically produce qualia, because mirrors are a neat analogy.
- simonh 8y ago
  >I don't see how sensations like color, sound, pain arise from a feedback loop. And those sensations are what make up our conscious experiences. Neither do I, but you have to start somewhere and 'rich information processing' is so broad it's pretty much nowhere. I suspect qualia are a red herring. I'm not always aware of qualia while I am thinking. When I pay attention to things, sure, I experience them very vividly, but I don't think that's a defining thing about consciousness. It's an open question for me though and not something to just dismiss.
benji-york 8y ago
This discussion reminds me of the first chapters of Greg Egan's Diaspora. I suspect Amazon's free sample would cover the pertinent parts.

naasking 8y ago

> Why? Not all of evolution is adaptive. Because a) humans have been wildly successful, and b) the fact that our brain is inordinately expensive, so if a new class of non-conscious humans that were equally adept as conscious ones ever arose, they would easily outcompete us for resources. Given our numbers, presumably such non-conscious people would already exist. If so, where are they? > It's also possible that consciousness is something more fundamental that strongly emerges when the right sort of physical activity takes place. Depends what you mean by "more fundamental". All of our behaviour emerges when the right sort of physical activity takes place. Our entire brain is filled with "rich information processing", so that's an insufficient qualifier.

goatlover 8y ago
> Because a) humans have been wildly successful, and b) the fact that our brain is inordinately expensive, so if a new class of non-conscious humans that were equally adept as conscious ones ever arose, they would easily outcompete us for resources. Assuming that there's an extra cost to consciousness. The problem here is that nobody knows how to fit consciousness into the physical picture. There's clearly a correlation, but we don't know how and what that entails.
- naasking 8y ago
  There's definitely a cost to consciousness if it's not some innate property of matter ala panpsychism. There's no free lunch. But at least we can agree that we don't know how it fits, but I think the attention schema theory is a great start on a mechanistic account: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00500/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0050...
salthound 8y ago
In humans, the optic nerve routes in front of the retina, creating a 14 degrees wide blind spot in our vision. The nerves could equally well route behind the retina, eliminating the blind spots essentially for free. Given how important vision was in our evolutionary past, and given our numbers, presumably people without blind spots would already exist. If so, where are they? "Evolutionary Occam's razor" arguments do not work, because evolution gets stuck in local optima all the time. There might simply be no short evolutionary route between "conscious" humans and equally fit "non-conscious" ones (whatever that means).