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While the argument that our self-models and social models evolved from our early "covert attention" mechanisms may in fact be valid, it still doesn't explain wh

by hliyan 6y ago

While the argument that our self-models and social models evolved from our early "covert attention" mechanisms may in fact be valid, it still doesn't explain what consciousness is. Without introducing panpsychism [1], these explanations of consciousness fall prey to the Chinese Room argument [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

trevyn 6y ago
Is there a term for an argument that is so convoluted and makes so many assumptions that in order to even start to make any sense of it, you are forced to accept its flawed premises?
- trevyn 6y ago
  Actually, I take that back. >A program ... knows where to put the symbols and how to move them around, but it doesn't know what they stand for or what they mean. At a certain level of complexity, it must "know what they stand for or what they mean" in its encoding of how to move them around in order to move them around correctly. Axiom failed. This sounds like it might be a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake Edit, references to refutations of Chinese Room argument: Hofstadter, D., 1981, ‘Reflections on Searle’, in Hofstadter and Dennett (eds.), The Mind's I, New York: Basic Books, pp. 373–382. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/#ReplChinRoomArgu https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/#ReplChinRoo... "Margaret Boden (1988) raises levels considerations. “Computational psychology does not credit the brain with seeing bean-sprouts or understanding English: intentional states such as these are properties of people, not of brains” (244). “In short, Searle’s description of the robot’s pseudo-brain (that is, of Searle-in-the-robot) as understanding English involves a category-mistake comparable to treating the brain as the bearer, as opposed to the causal basis, of intelligence”. Boden (1988) points out that the room operator is a conscious agent, while the CPU in a computer is not – the Chinese Room scenario asks us to take the perspective of the implementer, and not surprisingly fails to see the larger picture."
est31 6y ago
I think one can have more views than "everything, including stones have consciousness" and "there is something special about our brains, an element that isn't on the periodic table". The best explanation I've heard is that consciousness is an emergent property. The components are easily understandable but their complex interactions become increasingly hard to understand the more components you add. Also, humans love to think they are special. And in some certain way we are. We are a big step of the evolutionary process of life. Usually, once such a big step happens, the first species (group) which figures it out becomes incredibly successful. E.g. the first plants that managed to live outside of water pools could colonize the barren landscape because there was no competition. Usually after such a step, this incredibly successful species then drifts and diversifies into multiple different sub-species and after a while there is a large ecosystem of species. We humans have discovered intelligence and now believe we are special, but in a few hundred years there'll likely be many types/kinds of intelligent structures we've built (not neccessarily our "biological" descendants, but this distinction matters little to life itself, which has a multitude ways of creating "biological" descendants anyways including things that don't involve any descendants at all like bacterial conjugation). Some of those structures we'll regard as conscious, others we won't. Consciousness will also vary in type and form, just how there are different ways for plants to vary in type of form. We are that first moss that colonized the lands. If you told that moss how plants could look like in 2020 (and it would understand the question), it would probably react similarly as people do to the Chinese Room argument.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  Be careful to not conflate consciousness with intelligence. The question of whether other animals or people are consciousness is a minor question, after you've answered the hard questions of what is intelligent and th nearly impossible question of what is consciousness. No one can explain their own consciousness, so explaining someone else's consciousness isn't even ready to be discussd.
wildermuthn 6y ago
The hard-problem of consciousness might be the most ironic problem of all, because it may be that consciousness is the only thing that exists. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism I suppose you’d get the hard-problem of matter if that was the case? Or wouldn’t you? It seems that idealism doesn’t run into the same problem. It’s easy to see how matter could simply be simulated in consciousness (we feel that every day). Especially if individual consciousnesses are simply child processes of a parent consciousness. But it’s harder to see how consciousness comes from matter.
- sooheon 6y ago
  How is this distinct from solipsism? > It’s easy to see how matter could simply be simulated in consciousness (we feel that every day) And we are incorrect or imprecise in these simulations all day, every day. For the physical world to depend on our consciousness (and not the other way around), it would have to be a lot more chaotic. The earth orbited the sun when humans believed otherwise, even when there were no humans to think one way or the other.

by hliyan 6y ago

trevyn 6y ago

Is there a term for an argument that is so convoluted and makes so many assumptions that in order to even start to make any sense of it, you are forced to accept its flawed premises?

trevyn 6y ago
Actually, I take that back. >A program ... knows where to put the symbols and how to move them around, but it doesn't know what they stand for or what they mean. At a certain level of complexity, it must "know what they stand for or what they mean" in its encoding of how to move them around in order to move them around correctly. Axiom failed. This sounds like it might be a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake Edit, references to refutations of Chinese Room argument: Hofstadter, D., 1981, ‘Reflections on Searle’, in Hofstadter and Dennett (eds.), The Mind's I, New York: Basic Books, pp. 373–382. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/#ReplChinRoomArgu https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/#ReplChinRoo... "Margaret Boden (1988) raises levels considerations. “Computational psychology does not credit the brain with seeing bean-sprouts or understanding English: intentional states such as these are properties of people, not of brains” (244). “In short, Searle’s description of the robot’s pseudo-brain (that is, of Searle-in-the-robot) as understanding English involves a category-mistake comparable to treating the brain as the bearer, as opposed to the causal basis, of intelligence”. Boden (1988) points out that the room operator is a conscious agent, while the CPU in a computer is not – the Chinese Room scenario asks us to take the perspective of the implementer, and not surprisingly fails to see the larger picture."

est31 6y ago

I think one can have more views than "everything, including stones have consciousness" and "there is something special about our brains, an element that isn't on the periodic table". The best explanation I've heard is that consciousness is an emergent property. The components are easily understandable but their complex interactions become increasingly hard to understand the more components you add. Also, humans love to think they are special. And in some certain way we are. We are a big step of the evolutionary process of life. Usually, once such a big step happens, the first species (group) which figures it out becomes incredibly successful. E.g. the first plants that managed to live outside of water pools could colonize the barren landscape because there was no competition. Usually after such a step, this incredibly successful species then drifts and diversifies into multiple different sub-species and after a while there is a large ecosystem of species. We humans have discovered intelligence and now believe we are special, but in a few hundred years there'll likely be many types/kinds of intelligent structures we've built (not neccessarily our "biological" descendants, but this distinction matters little to life itself, which has a multitude ways of creating "biological" descendants anyways including things that don't involve any descendants at all like bacterial conjugation). Some of those structures we'll regard as conscious, others we won't. Consciousness will also vary in type and form, just how there are different ways for plants to vary in type of form. We are that first moss that colonized the lands. If you told that moss how plants could look like in 2020 (and it would understand the question), it would probably react similarly as people do to the Chinese Room argument.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
Be careful to not conflate consciousness with intelligence. The question of whether other animals or people are consciousness is a minor question, after you've answered the hard questions of what is intelligent and th nearly impossible question of what is consciousness. No one can explain their own consciousness, so explaining someone else's consciousness isn't even ready to be discussd.

wildermuthn 6y ago

The hard-problem of consciousness might be the most ironic problem of all, because it may be that consciousness is the only thing that exists. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism I suppose you’d get the hard-problem of matter if that was the case? Or wouldn’t you? It seems that idealism doesn’t run into the same problem. It’s easy to see how matter could simply be simulated in consciousness (we feel that every day). Especially if individual consciousnesses are simply child processes of a parent consciousness. But it’s harder to see how consciousness comes from matter.

sooheon 6y ago
How is this distinct from solipsism? > It’s easy to see how matter could simply be simulated in consciousness (we feel that every day) And we are incorrect or imprecise in these simulations all day, every day. For the physical world to depend on our consciousness (and not the other way around), it would have to be a lot more chaotic. The earth orbited the sun when humans believed otherwise, even when there were no humans to think one way or the other.