3 ms·

Can you define consciousness in a material way? Is it an energy or a feedback system? Can it be observed or quantified?

RikNieu 7y ago
Can you define material properties without consciousness observation? How would you quantify with out observation? Not only empirically but personally?
- throwaway35784 7y ago
  I can't observe a bacterium without a microscope and I can describe all the material properties of a microscope. I know a microscope exists. I can see it.
erikpukinskis 7y ago
I think any system that responds as if it is modeling another system is conscious. But there are levels of consciousness, what differentiates “higher consciousness” is maybe the question you’re getting at. That unfortunately is an largely ascientific question. Like “what’s a good map of Seattle?” there is no such thing as a map of Seattle, so there’s nothing for science to study. Seattle exists for sure. Some maps will help you meet different ends in Seattle. But there is no such thing as an objective map. List n things a map gets right, and I will tell you n things it gets wrong. But if you want a starting place, you could temporarily accept, e.g., Timothy Leary’s map of consciousnesses. That one is quite materially grounded. Within that orientation you can do all kinds of science and learn many things about consciousness.
- throwaway35784 7y ago
  You pointed me to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-circuit_model_of_consciousness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-circuit_model_of_consc... Very interesting. I'm finding patterns in explorations of consciousness. The first four levels Leary describes could be Freud's id. The next 4 contain his super ego. Compared to id = Dąbrowski's first level and super ego = 5th level. Like you said these are all maps of consciousness. Psychological models that describe the actual physicality of a material mind. I suppose I'm trying to determine how to physically recreate the material that will lead to a new consciousness. We can't recreate Seattle from maps of Seattle to continue your analogy. Is it possible to recreate consciousness from our maps of consciousness? It seems like that is what we have been trying to do in our pursuit of AI, when we know no more about what consciousness is than we know what Seattle is.
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    There are no roads where you are going. But I can offer you some pointers: Consciousness requires sensation and action. Without action animals don’t learn to perceive anything at all. If I were trying to make a conscious artificial being the first thing I would do would be to sign them up for a fast paced online FPS and teach them to play. Next give them emotions (0 dimensional precepts). Any time your codebase starts to feel big, delete most of it. Your end goal will be maybe 1000 lines total. Use matrices.

Can you define material properties without consciousness observation? How would you quantify with out observation? Not only empirically but personally?

throwaway35784 7y ago
I can't observe a bacterium without a microscope and I can describe all the material properties of a microscope. I know a microscope exists. I can see it.

erikpukinskis 7y ago

I think any system that responds as if it is modeling another system is conscious. But there are levels of consciousness, what differentiates “higher consciousness” is maybe the question you’re getting at. That unfortunately is an largely ascientific question. Like “what’s a good map of Seattle?” there is no such thing as a map of Seattle, so there’s nothing for science to study. Seattle exists for sure. Some maps will help you meet different ends in Seattle. But there is no such thing as an objective map. List n things a map gets right, and I will tell you n things it gets wrong. But if you want a starting place, you could temporarily accept, e.g., Timothy Leary’s map of consciousnesses. That one is quite materially grounded. Within that orientation you can do all kinds of science and learn many things about consciousness.

throwaway35784 7y ago
You pointed me to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-circuit_model_of_consciousness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-circuit_model_of_consc... Very interesting. I'm finding patterns in explorations of consciousness. The first four levels Leary describes could be Freud's id. The next 4 contain his super ego. Compared to id = Dąbrowski's first level and super ego = 5th level. Like you said these are all maps of consciousness. Psychological models that describe the actual physicality of a material mind. I suppose I'm trying to determine how to physically recreate the material that will lead to a new consciousness. We can't recreate Seattle from maps of Seattle to continue your analogy. Is it possible to recreate consciousness from our maps of consciousness? It seems like that is what we have been trying to do in our pursuit of AI, when we know no more about what consciousness is than we know what Seattle is.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  There are no roads where you are going. But I can offer you some pointers: Consciousness requires sensation and action. Without action animals don’t learn to perceive anything at all. If I were trying to make a conscious artificial being the first thing I would do would be to sign them up for a fast paced online FPS and teach them to play. Next give them emotions (0 dimensional precepts). Any time your codebase starts to feel big, delete most of it. Your end goal will be maybe 1000 lines total. Use matrices.