4 ms·

Where Is My Mind?

7 points by brycehalley 7y ago

chupa-chups 7y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVFLgx8o7XM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVFLgx8o7XM
visarga 7y ago
I think trying to essentialise consciousness is a wrong move. Consciousness is just an advanced strategy employed by self replicators in order to keep on replicating. It is the result of the environment and competition/cooperation for resources. Concretely consciousness is a loop including environment, perception, deciding on an action and then acting and observing the results. The agent has to fight against external perturbations and for that it learns the value of various states and actions. It learns from positive and negative reenforcement. It feels like something because it has perception (internal and external) and these sensations hold value because they represent the path towards life. Agents that don't properly assess the value of the states they are in and don't select good actions perish, thus only those who act in accordance with the needs of the body survive. Feeling is just a way to assess the best next action. The real magic of consciousness is not just in the brain but in the self replication abilities of the agent and in the complex challenges presented by the environment.
- arnoooooo 7y ago
  I think the vedantic approach makes more sense. Can you (or can anyone) experience something outside of consciousness ? Why assume any such thing exists if we don't need it to explain our experience ? In the vedantic approach, matter is not primary : consciousness is, as in our experience. And consciousness is the only thing there is. Matter is a representation of what happens in consciousness at large, an interface humans use. Humans are localised bundles of consciousness, like "whirlpools" in a "stream of consciousness" if you will.
  - visarga 7y ago
    I used to have the vedantic viewpoint. But now I think it has no power, it's just a convenient explanation. On the other hand evolutionary methods and reinforcement learning proved they can lead to intelligent behaviour. They can both explain and produce human like actions, and are much more parsimonious. They don't require a cosmic consciousness as the source of individual consciousness, instead they require environment, agent and self replication, which are concrete things that remain within the laws of physics. AI has proven how perception, attention, memory, imagination and reward based learning could be implemented in neural nets.

7 points by brycehalley 7y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVFLgx8o7XM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVFLgx8o7XM

I think trying to essentialise consciousness is a wrong move. Consciousness is just an advanced strategy employed by self replicators in order to keep on replicating. It is the result of the environment and competition/cooperation for resources. Concretely consciousness is a loop including environment, perception, deciding on an action and then acting and observing the results. The agent has to fight against external perturbations and for that it learns the value of various states and actions. It learns from positive and negative reenforcement. It feels like something because it has perception (internal and external) and these sensations hold value because they represent the path towards life. Agents that don't properly assess the value of the states they are in and don't select good actions perish, thus only those who act in accordance with the needs of the body survive. Feeling is just a way to assess the best next action. The real magic of consciousness is not just in the brain but in the self replication abilities of the agent and in the complex challenges presented by the environment.

arnoooooo 7y ago
I think the vedantic approach makes more sense. Can you (or can anyone) experience something outside of consciousness ? Why assume any such thing exists if we don't need it to explain our experience ? In the vedantic approach, matter is not primary : consciousness is, as in our experience. And consciousness is the only thing there is. Matter is a representation of what happens in consciousness at large, an interface humans use. Humans are localised bundles of consciousness, like "whirlpools" in a "stream of consciousness" if you will.
- visarga 7y ago
  I used to have the vedantic viewpoint. But now I think it has no power, it's just a convenient explanation. On the other hand evolutionary methods and reinforcement learning proved they can lead to intelligent behaviour. They can both explain and produce human like actions, and are much more parsimonious. They don't require a cosmic consciousness as the source of individual consciousness, instead they require environment, agent and self replication, which are concrete things that remain within the laws of physics. AI has proven how perception, attention, memory, imagination and reward based learning could be implemented in neural nets.