6 ms·

Careful. "Consciousness" may just be a language issue. It seems like a profound concept but it's really just a word with a very vague and complex definition. I

Careful. "Consciousness" may just be a language issue. It seems like a profound concept but it's really just a word with a very vague and complex definition. If someone tried to formalize "consciousness" it would be a technical book about 1000 pages long or something and all we're doing is debating about what goes in the book. It's very similar to the question what is "life?" I mean we understand that biology is just carbon based molecular machines, debating what "life" is as a general concept outside of biology is not a profound issue, it's just a language issue and you'd just be debating what the definition of a word "life" should encompass.

roughly 6y ago
I agree. The ultimate question of consciousness regards the phenomenological experience of being - what is it? Where does it come from? What does it mean about us? Who else shares it? Any theory of consciousness that doesn’t address those questions may indeed be addressing some version of how we might define consciousness, but it’s redefining the mountain from the foothills - justify it all you like, but nobody’s giving you credit for the summit.
- matt-attack 6y ago
  > Who else shares it? Or what else shares it?
  - roughly 6y ago
    At the point at which we can determine with certainty something else shares a phenomenological experience of consciousness, I think we're obligated to grant it personhood.
    - matt-attack 6y ago
      Not sure about that. There is a hypothesis that what you describe is simply a fundamental property of matter: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism
- dangoljames 6y ago
  Before any of THOSE questions can be asked, we first have to arrive at some sort of consensus concerning what constitutes a phenomena...
animanoir 6y ago
I agree with the language part you said. I find worrying that Wolfram is not talking enough about it.
- barefeg 6y ago
  It’s because it’s probably not possible to define within the standard “toolset”. Look at for example the thoughts of the definition of energy by R. Feynman. You might think us physicists for sure can define energy. After all it’s one of the basis of physics. But it turns out it’s not possible without circular arguments
  - neonological 6y ago
    It's possible that energy is a sort of axiomatic property. Meaning it can't be further deduced or explained similar to a mathematical axiom. I doubt consciousness is such a thing though. Asking "what is Consciousness?" is like asking "What does it mean to be American?" Being American is purely a made up phenomenon and my argument is that although it is may not seem this way, the word consciousness is largely the same thing, just a complex category.
theknocker 6y ago
Every single living person has a priori knowledge that it's not just a language issue.
networkimprov 6y ago
The essential feature is subjective experience of sensations, referred to as qualia. I've seen no debate about that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  I'm not an expert, but I strongly suspect that you haven't looked for debate very hard. I strongly suspect that there is a fair amount of debate on that question. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen debate on that question, right here on HN.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  The problem with that definition is that it’s subjective. You can only know for yourself, but not for anyone else. That makes it completely useless.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Of course it's subjective. That's the whole point. And knowing for yourself still needs an explanation.
- fatsdomino001 6y ago
  Qualia is actually only a subset of consciousness, generally referring to the coarsest types of consciousness (i.e. that which is readily identifiable). But qualia is by no means the entirety of consciousness.
- neonological 6y ago
  The first sentence on that Wikipedia page: "In philosophy and certain models of psychology, qualia (/ˈkwɑːliə/ or /ˈkweɪliə/; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience" Shows that qualia is defined in terms of "conscious experience." If qualia is an essential feature of consciousness then the Wikipedia definition is a recursive definition. The definition of the word "Sword" is "Sword" which is true but tells me nothing at the same time.
simiones 6y ago
That's precisely the problem - we can't yet formalize the concept we understand as "consciousness", and so any attempts to find a physical/mathematical definition are almost doomed to fail, as they can't really guarantee they are defining the actual concept we have in our minds when we say "consciousness".
- neonological 6y ago
  My argument is a bit more subtle. I'm saying asking what "consciousness" is like asking "what does it mean to be American." Does it make sense to attempt to find a mathematical definition of "American." No because being American is largely a made up concept. It's a complex category no doubt but it is not fundamental to the structure of the universe. I'm saying "Consciousness" is the same thing. It's an ingrained concept we feel is fundamental, but if you think about it, it's really just a made up word.
  - simiones 6y ago
    To have a complete accounting of the entire universe, we need at some point to have a mathematical model of the human mind and human society. If we did, we could then give a formal definition of "what it means to be American" or "what does seeing green feel like", and indeed "what is consciousness". Regardless of what you think the mind is (if you believe, like me, that it is fundamentally a physical computer, or if you believe it is something else entirely), our picture of the universe is never going to be satisfactory until we can account for how we integrate with it. So yes, for every made up human notion, there needs to be some way to physically define that human notion, if we had a physical model of the human mind (even if that definition is as simple as "an illusion caused by such and such series of events"). It may well be that consciousness is not a fundamental concept in the sense that it is a uniquely human illusion, not something that could not be properly extended to non-human agents. But even if that is true, it doesn't mean that there can't be a precise definition of how the feeling of consciousness arises in humans, what properties of our minds make us think that we have this property and that it is important.
    - 6y ago
loopz 6y ago
Right Now reading this text, who is reading this and do you truly know yourself? If not, fuck off!
- neonological 6y ago
  Don't tell me to fuck off.
  - neonological 6y ago
    Dang. this guy told me to fuck off and I flagged him and you're completely ignoring this?
    - loopz 6y ago
      I'm sorry. Was hoping it was motivational to know oneself better.
      - neonological 6y ago
        Mods, You've warned me before to not aggressively respond to attackers and flag them but, ignoring this is wrong. The guy just flagrantly delivered an insult to my face.
        dang 6y ago
        If I read the GP comment correctly, it was intended more as a philosophical point (albeit a bizarre way to put one) rather than as a personal insult.
      - dang 6y ago
        Please do a better job of disambiguating your points from personal insults. It's not surprising that your comment landed as an insult. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=disambiguate%20burden%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
airhead969 6y ago
English is an awful for scientific communication due to its inherently complex rules and ambiguous lexicon. It's great for marketing and business though!
- neonological 6y ago
  I would argue you're talking about "human language" itself as all languages have some word that is similar to consciousness. That being said, I largely agree with your overall point.
patcon 6y ago
> debating what "life" is as a general concept outside of biology is not a profound issue I'm not sure this is true. I think I disagree with much of your neat frame-setting here. For example, some of my favourite recent podcasts from complexity science involve clever folks like Sara Imari Walker discussing "life" as what emerges from a dense information well.[1] These questions are not just simple inventories. But yes, I do agree that this may be just "a language issue". But there are other streams of thought that are actively promoting language into a more respectable realm of complexity science, where "just a language issue" actually downplays what may be going on in that "resolving" process of language itself[2] (h/t Nicole Creanza, whose research in birdsong & human cultural evolution is profiled) tl;dr - I would argue that these questions are "profound" all the way down, if we start looking at it in the right way. [1]: https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/40-ImRdTdBt https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/40-ImRdTdBt [2]: https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/22-yTXhvGCS https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/22-yTXhvGCS
- neonological 6y ago
  >Walker discussing "life" as what emerges from a dense information well This is still a language thing. Nothing new is uncovered here. All Walker did is imbue complexity onto a vocabulary word. No new information was introduced. The profoundness is an illusion.
  - patcon 6y ago
    I'm grateful for the reply :) I respectfully disagree. You have me asking myself why though. I'm thinking about this quote by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: "For the simplicity that lies this side of complexity, I would not give a fig, but for the simplicity that lies on the other side of complexity, I would give my life."[1] I'm also thinking about Copernicus and how people were actually modelling planetary motion in workable ways before him, though perhaps with a few more variables. Lastly, I'm thinking of "Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything", by Graham Harman. I don't subscribe to it fully, but it raises a case for how a truly explanatory theory of our universe MUST encompass fiction and metaphor and language as "real". So if true, then physics must have explanatory power over what happens in language. So I really don't vibe with the downplay of "just a language spin for the same thing", because new terms/framings are crucial to the ecology of science/tech/progress. Discovering "a language thing" is sometimes no less a discovery than finding a new sub-species of toad. The toad is just an instantiation of information in a different substrate, if you get my drift :) a dense network of biochemical interactions vs a distributed network of neural interactions. The universe doesn't care that we find one substrate more intuitive and innate (language). The objective universe "sees" each as a manifestation of novel information that self-reinforces and persists its structure through time Thanks for giving me the opportunity to work through this thought :) Disclosure: My background is not just tech, but biochemistry: the nitty gritty chemical mechanics of life. I'm wondering if this gives me different context on how important Imari's discovery of these new framings and models. [1]: http://www.jonkolko.com/writingSimplicityComplexity.php#breadcrumbNav:~:text=%22For%20the%20simplicity%20that%20lies%20this,complexity%2C%20I%20would%20give%20my%20life.%22 http://www.jonkolko.com/writingSimplicityComplexity.php#brea...

roughly 6y ago

I agree. The ultimate question of consciousness regards the phenomenological experience of being - what is it? Where does it come from? What does it mean about us? Who else shares it? Any theory of consciousness that doesn’t address those questions may indeed be addressing some version of how we might define consciousness, but it’s redefining the mountain from the foothills - justify it all you like, but nobody’s giving you credit for the summit.

matt-attack 6y ago
> Who else shares it? Or what else shares it?
- roughly 6y ago
  At the point at which we can determine with certainty something else shares a phenomenological experience of consciousness, I think we're obligated to grant it personhood.
  - matt-attack 6y ago
    Not sure about that. There is a hypothesis that what you describe is simply a fundamental property of matter: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism
dangoljames 6y ago
Before any of THOSE questions can be asked, we first have to arrive at some sort of consensus concerning what constitutes a phenomena...

animanoir 6y ago

I agree with the language part you said. I find worrying that Wolfram is not talking enough about it.

barefeg 6y ago
It’s because it’s probably not possible to define within the standard “toolset”. Look at for example the thoughts of the definition of energy by R. Feynman. You might think us physicists for sure can define energy. After all it’s one of the basis of physics. But it turns out it’s not possible without circular arguments
- neonological 6y ago
  It's possible that energy is a sort of axiomatic property. Meaning it can't be further deduced or explained similar to a mathematical axiom. I doubt consciousness is such a thing though. Asking "what is Consciousness?" is like asking "What does it mean to be American?" Being American is purely a made up phenomenon and my argument is that although it is may not seem this way, the word consciousness is largely the same thing, just a complex category.

theknocker 6y ago

Every single living person has a priori knowledge that it's not just a language issue.

networkimprov 6y ago

The essential feature is subjective experience of sensations, referred to as qualia. I've seen no debate about that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
I'm not an expert, but I strongly suspect that you haven't looked for debate very hard. I strongly suspect that there is a fair amount of debate on that question. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen debate on that question, right here on HN.
amanaplanacanal 6y ago
The problem with that definition is that it’s subjective. You can only know for yourself, but not for anyone else. That makes it completely useless.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Of course it's subjective. That's the whole point. And knowing for yourself still needs an explanation.
fatsdomino001 6y ago
Qualia is actually only a subset of consciousness, generally referring to the coarsest types of consciousness (i.e. that which is readily identifiable). But qualia is by no means the entirety of consciousness.
neonological 6y ago
The first sentence on that Wikipedia page: "In philosophy and certain models of psychology, qualia (/ˈkwɑːliə/ or /ˈkweɪliə/; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience" Shows that qualia is defined in terms of "conscious experience." If qualia is an essential feature of consciousness then the Wikipedia definition is a recursive definition. The definition of the word "Sword" is "Sword" which is true but tells me nothing at the same time.

simiones 6y ago

That's precisely the problem - we can't yet formalize the concept we understand as "consciousness", and so any attempts to find a physical/mathematical definition are almost doomed to fail, as they can't really guarantee they are defining the actual concept we have in our minds when we say "consciousness".

neonological 6y ago
My argument is a bit more subtle. I'm saying asking what "consciousness" is like asking "what does it mean to be American." Does it make sense to attempt to find a mathematical definition of "American." No because being American is largely a made up concept. It's a complex category no doubt but it is not fundamental to the structure of the universe. I'm saying "Consciousness" is the same thing. It's an ingrained concept we feel is fundamental, but if you think about it, it's really just a made up word.
- simiones 6y ago
  To have a complete accounting of the entire universe, we need at some point to have a mathematical model of the human mind and human society. If we did, we could then give a formal definition of "what it means to be American" or "what does seeing green feel like", and indeed "what is consciousness". Regardless of what you think the mind is (if you believe, like me, that it is fundamentally a physical computer, or if you believe it is something else entirely), our picture of the universe is never going to be satisfactory until we can account for how we integrate with it. So yes, for every made up human notion, there needs to be some way to physically define that human notion, if we had a physical model of the human mind (even if that definition is as simple as "an illusion caused by such and such series of events"). It may well be that consciousness is not a fundamental concept in the sense that it is a uniquely human illusion, not something that could not be properly extended to non-human agents. But even if that is true, it doesn't mean that there can't be a precise definition of how the feeling of consciousness arises in humans, what properties of our minds make us think that we have this property and that it is important.
  - 6y ago

loopz 6y ago

Right Now reading this text, who is reading this and do you truly know yourself? If not, fuck off!

neonological 6y ago
Don't tell me to fuck off.
- neonological 6y ago
  Dang. this guy told me to fuck off and I flagged him and you're completely ignoring this?
  - loopz 6y ago
    I'm sorry. Was hoping it was motivational to know oneself better.
    - neonological 6y ago
      Mods, You've warned me before to not aggressively respond to attackers and flag them but, ignoring this is wrong. The guy just flagrantly delivered an insult to my face.
      - dang 6y ago
        If I read the GP comment correctly, it was intended more as a philosophical point (albeit a bizarre way to put one) rather than as a personal insult.
    - dang 6y ago
      Please do a better job of disambiguating your points from personal insults. It's not surprising that your comment landed as an insult. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=disambiguate%20burden%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

airhead969 6y ago

English is an awful for scientific communication due to its inherently complex rules and ambiguous lexicon. It's great for marketing and business though!

neonological 6y ago
I would argue you're talking about "human language" itself as all languages have some word that is similar to consciousness. That being said, I largely agree with your overall point.

patcon 6y ago

> debating what "life" is as a general concept outside of biology is not a profound issue I'm not sure this is true. I think I disagree with much of your neat frame-setting here. For example, some of my favourite recent podcasts from complexity science involve clever folks like Sara Imari Walker discussing "life" as what emerges from a dense information well.[1] These questions are not just simple inventories. But yes, I do agree that this may be just "a language issue". But there are other streams of thought that are actively promoting language into a more respectable realm of complexity science, where "just a language issue" actually downplays what may be going on in that "resolving" process of language itself[2] (h/t Nicole Creanza, whose research in birdsong & human cultural evolution is profiled) tl;dr - I would argue that these questions are "profound" all the way down, if we start looking at it in the right way. [1]: https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/40-ImRdTdBt https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/40-ImRdTdBt [2]: https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/22-yTXhvGCS https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/22-yTXhvGCS

neonological 6y ago
>Walker discussing "life" as what emerges from a dense information well This is still a language thing. Nothing new is uncovered here. All Walker did is imbue complexity onto a vocabulary word. No new information was introduced. The profoundness is an illusion.
- patcon 6y ago
  I'm grateful for the reply :) I respectfully disagree. You have me asking myself why though. I'm thinking about this quote by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: "For the simplicity that lies this side of complexity, I would not give a fig, but for the simplicity that lies on the other side of complexity, I would give my life."[1] I'm also thinking about Copernicus and how people were actually modelling planetary motion in workable ways before him, though perhaps with a few more variables. Lastly, I'm thinking of "Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything", by Graham Harman. I don't subscribe to it fully, but it raises a case for how a truly explanatory theory of our universe MUST encompass fiction and metaphor and language as "real". So if true, then physics must have explanatory power over what happens in language. So I really don't vibe with the downplay of "just a language spin for the same thing", because new terms/framings are crucial to the ecology of science/tech/progress. Discovering "a language thing" is sometimes no less a discovery than finding a new sub-species of toad. The toad is just an instantiation of information in a different substrate, if you get my drift :) a dense network of biochemical interactions vs a distributed network of neural interactions. The universe doesn't care that we find one substrate more intuitive and innate (language). The objective universe "sees" each as a manifestation of novel information that self-reinforces and persists its structure through time Thanks for giving me the opportunity to work through this thought :) Disclosure: My background is not just tech, but biochemistry: the nitty gritty chemical mechanics of life. I'm wondering if this gives me different context on how important Imari's discovery of these new framings and models. [1]: http://www.jonkolko.com/writingSimplicityComplexity.php#breadcrumbNav:~:text=%22For%20the%20simplicity%20that%20lies%20this,complexity%2C%20I%20would%20give%20my%20life.%22 http://www.jonkolko.com/writingSimplicityComplexity.php#brea...