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> It's not even clear exactly how our brains work so its hard to imagine that they couldn't be implemented with a sufficiently powerful computer... Not comment

> It's not even clear exactly how our brains work so its hard to imagine that they couldn't be implemented with a sufficiently powerful computer... Not commenting on what OP said, but I don't think this is correct. Even in principle, how can any computational process produce conscious experiences, which are by nature subjective and unquantifiable?

deleted 6y ago
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jkhdigital 6y ago
Calling consciousness “subjective” feels kind of like calling water “wet”. But anyways, life itself is built on computational processes. Most of these processes are “purpose-built” to accomplish very specific tasks, but in humans the development of a massive cortex created something of a general-purpose computer. Consciousness seems to be the necessary compromise to run such an embodied computer on top of all the other functions of the brain that serve to keep us alive.
- happythomist 6y ago
  I don't think you can say that life is built on computational processes unless you use a definition of "computation" that is so vague and all-encompassing that it becomes effectively meaningless. The Wikipedia definition of "computation" is "any type of calculation that includes both arithmetical and non-arithmetical steps and which follows a well-defined model". But this only makes sense in the context of a designer or observer external to the computation who can identify what that model is and thereby make sense of the output. So you can't say that brain processes are computational, much less life itself, without committing some variation of the homunculus fallacy. John Searle (famously known for his Chinese Room thought experiment) made this argument in a paper called "Is the Brain a Digital Computer?" [1] He points out that "if we are to suppose that the brain is a digital computer, we are still faced with the question 'And who is the user?'" A related problem is qualia. There is no computational process that will produce the sensations of colour or sound or touch. At best you will have some representation that requires having actually experienced those sensations to understand it. So a computational process cannot be the basis of or an explanation for those sensations, and therefore consciousness generally. [1] https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Is%20the%20Brain%20a%20Digital%20Computer%20-%20John%20R.%20Searle.pdf https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Is%20the%2...
  - astrophysician 6y ago
    > I don't think you can say that life is built on computational processes unless you use a definition of "computation" that is so vague and all-encompassing that it becomes effectively meaningless. I mean, there's nothing physically stopping us from simulating a brain, right? It's a finite object with a finite amount of physical ingredients, and therefore with a finite amount of computing power we can simulate what it does. To me personally, that's a computational process. Maybe that's an overly broad definition of computation, but I think these debates tend to be about whether there is something fundamentally different about "life" (by which I assume you include consciousness). But maybe that's not what you're saying. > He points out that "if we are to suppose that the brain is a digital computer, we are still faced with the question 'And who is the user?'" What does that question even mean? I think it seems deep because we humans have a tendency to ascribe some sort of supernatural aura to our lived experience. Life is something incredible but that (at least to my knowledge) is not uncomputable... > There is no computational process that will produce the sensations of colour or sound or touch. Got one: the brain! > At best you will have some representation that requires having actually experienced those sensations to understand it. Why does a computer not "experience" something?
    - happythomist 6y ago
      I think you're missing the central point, which is that computation is observer relative. Anything can be interpreted as a computational process. Searle: "Thus for example the wall behind my back is right now implementing the Wordstar program, because there is some pattern of molecule movements which is isomorphic with the formal structure of Wordstar. But if the wall is implementing Wordstar then if it is a big enough wall it is implementing any program, including any program implemented in the brain." That's why Searle asks "who is the user?" At some point things have to stop being observer relative and have an intrinsic meaning or essence of their own. > Got one: the brain! That's circular reasoning. The point is that qualia are not something which, in principle, can be the subject of computation. There is no way to represent the fullness of sensation itself, like the redness of red or the softness of silk, as information. So how can our brains be "computing" it?
AnHonestComment 6y ago
I always find this a bit like “do submarines swim?” Dunno, don’t care, just want a functional machine. If it gets from A to B, “swimming” is irrelevant. ———— As a matter of philosophy, the typical response is qualia happens to everything, but we only recognize it in things with dense computation and self-awareness similar to ours. Like a cat or a dog or a whale. We can maybe see hints of it in birds, insects (colonies), etc. We’re starting to discover some of the complex signaling pathways in, eg, old growth forests — but they’re so out of scale and unlike us, we have trouble comprehending whatever experience, eg, the giant fungus under Oregon might have.
michaelmrose 6y ago
If you can't define consciousness beyond self awareness and self reference I don't see how I can prove that a computer can't have it.
michaelmrose 6y ago
Trivial what you think of as subjective and unquantifiable are simply so because your brain is too complicated to be taken apart while its running to inspect it effectively with our present level of technology. A subjective experience is just how your brain models your own program in order to produce a progressively refined program that will have a higher chance of successful reproduction. The magical thing you think is beyond comprehension just isn't real.
- happythomist 6y ago
  How do you go about quantifying the sensory experience of red, then? You can observe that red light has a wavelength of 620 to 750 nm, or that we've assigned it the RGB colour code of #FF0000, but neither fact actually captures or explains the sensory experience. Even trying is a fool's errand, because sensory experiences are inherently qualitative, not quantitative.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    That's an assumption. Perhaps if we were able to understand the brain's inner workings, we could see that 'the experience of red' is precisely 'these 3 neurons firing ever 0.0112 seconds at an intensity of X while receiving 0.001 micrograms of serotonin' (completely made up, obviously). Until we start understanding how the brain encodes and 'computes' thought, we can't really claim to know if it is or isn't simply a computer.
    - happythomist 6y ago
      > Perhaps if we were able to understand the brain's inner workings, we could see that 'the experience of red' is precisely 'these 3 neurons firing ever 0.0112 seconds at an intensity of X while receiving 0.001 micrograms of serotonin' (completely made up, obviously). Even if we knew that a person saw red when such and such neurons fired, the neurons firing would still just be a material correlate. It would be in no way equivalent to or explain anything about the sensation itself.
tsimionescu 6y ago
We don't understand yet, in any formal sense, what consciousness and subjective experience are. It may turn out that they are fundamentally different than mathematics and computation, but the vast majority of scientists believe today that they are not. The most common belief is that consciousness is simply the self-introspection of a sufficiently powerful computer that can form models of other agents. That is, this computer is able to infer what other agents may do using a model of their inner state, such as beliefs about the world and desires; then, if it applies the same model to itself, it comes up with a similar image of an agent which it calls its own consciousness. Qualia and such are then just illusions, theoretical properties of these models, not fundemantal properties of this world (somewhat equivalent to saying that in fact we are all philosophical zombies, no one has any qualia). I am not claiming that we know for a fact this is true. But we also don't know anything that can conclusively disprove these hypotheses for now, certainly not something as simple as the idea of qualia.
- AnHonestComment 6y ago
  Saying “no one has any qualia” is the kind of thing that gives philosophy a bad name — it’s obviously false to everyone who hears it, by the very fact they feel something in response.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jkhdigital 6y ago

Calling consciousness “subjective” feels kind of like calling water “wet”. But anyways, life itself is built on computational processes. Most of these processes are “purpose-built” to accomplish very specific tasks, but in humans the development of a massive cortex created something of a general-purpose computer. Consciousness seems to be the necessary compromise to run such an embodied computer on top of all the other functions of the brain that serve to keep us alive.

happythomist 6y ago
I don't think you can say that life is built on computational processes unless you use a definition of "computation" that is so vague and all-encompassing that it becomes effectively meaningless. The Wikipedia definition of "computation" is "any type of calculation that includes both arithmetical and non-arithmetical steps and which follows a well-defined model". But this only makes sense in the context of a designer or observer external to the computation who can identify what that model is and thereby make sense of the output. So you can't say that brain processes are computational, much less life itself, without committing some variation of the homunculus fallacy. John Searle (famously known for his Chinese Room thought experiment) made this argument in a paper called "Is the Brain a Digital Computer?" [1] He points out that "if we are to suppose that the brain is a digital computer, we are still faced with the question 'And who is the user?'" A related problem is qualia. There is no computational process that will produce the sensations of colour or sound or touch. At best you will have some representation that requires having actually experienced those sensations to understand it. So a computational process cannot be the basis of or an explanation for those sensations, and therefore consciousness generally. [1] https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Is%20the%20Brain%20a%20Digital%20Computer%20-%20John%20R.%20Searle.pdf https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Is%20the%2...
- astrophysician 6y ago
  > I don't think you can say that life is built on computational processes unless you use a definition of "computation" that is so vague and all-encompassing that it becomes effectively meaningless. I mean, there's nothing physically stopping us from simulating a brain, right? It's a finite object with a finite amount of physical ingredients, and therefore with a finite amount of computing power we can simulate what it does. To me personally, that's a computational process. Maybe that's an overly broad definition of computation, but I think these debates tend to be about whether there is something fundamentally different about "life" (by which I assume you include consciousness). But maybe that's not what you're saying. > He points out that "if we are to suppose that the brain is a digital computer, we are still faced with the question 'And who is the user?'" What does that question even mean? I think it seems deep because we humans have a tendency to ascribe some sort of supernatural aura to our lived experience. Life is something incredible but that (at least to my knowledge) is not uncomputable... > There is no computational process that will produce the sensations of colour or sound or touch. Got one: the brain! > At best you will have some representation that requires having actually experienced those sensations to understand it. Why does a computer not "experience" something?
  - happythomist 6y ago
    I think you're missing the central point, which is that computation is observer relative. Anything can be interpreted as a computational process. Searle: "Thus for example the wall behind my back is right now implementing the Wordstar program, because there is some pattern of molecule movements which is isomorphic with the formal structure of Wordstar. But if the wall is implementing Wordstar then if it is a big enough wall it is implementing any program, including any program implemented in the brain." That's why Searle asks "who is the user?" At some point things have to stop being observer relative and have an intrinsic meaning or essence of their own. > Got one: the brain! That's circular reasoning. The point is that qualia are not something which, in principle, can be the subject of computation. There is no way to represent the fullness of sensation itself, like the redness of red or the softness of silk, as information. So how can our brains be "computing" it?

AnHonestComment 6y ago

I always find this a bit like “do submarines swim?” Dunno, don’t care, just want a functional machine. If it gets from A to B, “swimming” is irrelevant. ———— As a matter of philosophy, the typical response is qualia happens to everything, but we only recognize it in things with dense computation and self-awareness similar to ours. Like a cat or a dog or a whale. We can maybe see hints of it in birds, insects (colonies), etc. We’re starting to discover some of the complex signaling pathways in, eg, old growth forests — but they’re so out of scale and unlike us, we have trouble comprehending whatever experience, eg, the giant fungus under Oregon might have.

michaelmrose 6y ago

If you can't define consciousness beyond self awareness and self reference I don't see how I can prove that a computer can't have it.

michaelmrose 6y ago

Trivial what you think of as subjective and unquantifiable are simply so because your brain is too complicated to be taken apart while its running to inspect it effectively with our present level of technology. A subjective experience is just how your brain models your own program in order to produce a progressively refined program that will have a higher chance of successful reproduction. The magical thing you think is beyond comprehension just isn't real.

happythomist 6y ago
How do you go about quantifying the sensory experience of red, then? You can observe that red light has a wavelength of 620 to 750 nm, or that we've assigned it the RGB colour code of #FF0000, but neither fact actually captures or explains the sensory experience. Even trying is a fool's errand, because sensory experiences are inherently qualitative, not quantitative.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  That's an assumption. Perhaps if we were able to understand the brain's inner workings, we could see that 'the experience of red' is precisely 'these 3 neurons firing ever 0.0112 seconds at an intensity of X while receiving 0.001 micrograms of serotonin' (completely made up, obviously). Until we start understanding how the brain encodes and 'computes' thought, we can't really claim to know if it is or isn't simply a computer.
  - happythomist 6y ago
    > Perhaps if we were able to understand the brain's inner workings, we could see that 'the experience of red' is precisely 'these 3 neurons firing ever 0.0112 seconds at an intensity of X while receiving 0.001 micrograms of serotonin' (completely made up, obviously). Even if we knew that a person saw red when such and such neurons fired, the neurons firing would still just be a material correlate. It would be in no way equivalent to or explain anything about the sensation itself.

tsimionescu 6y ago

We don't understand yet, in any formal sense, what consciousness and subjective experience are. It may turn out that they are fundamentally different than mathematics and computation, but the vast majority of scientists believe today that they are not. The most common belief is that consciousness is simply the self-introspection of a sufficiently powerful computer that can form models of other agents. That is, this computer is able to infer what other agents may do using a model of their inner state, such as beliefs about the world and desires; then, if it applies the same model to itself, it comes up with a similar image of an agent which it calls its own consciousness. Qualia and such are then just illusions, theoretical properties of these models, not fundemantal properties of this world (somewhat equivalent to saying that in fact we are all philosophical zombies, no one has any qualia). I am not claiming that we know for a fact this is true. But we also don't know anything that can conclusively disprove these hypotheses for now, certainly not something as simple as the idea of qualia.

AnHonestComment 6y ago
Saying “no one has any qualia” is the kind of thing that gives philosophy a bad name — it’s obviously false to everyone who hears it, by the very fact they feel something in response.