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So far the only answer I've seen people give to the question is "what problem? There's no problem". Basically, there are many people who don't (or also have con

So far the only answer I've seen people give to the question is "what problem? There's no problem". Basically, there are many people who don't (or also have convinced themselves that they don't) perceive an incongruity between their personal subjective experience and the idea that consciousness is just an emergent phenomena of a physical system. I haven't found a good way to explain it, I just know that there's something wrong or missing. So basically it seems there's three camps: Those that feel the incongruity and don't know a solution. Those that feel the incongruity and have found their own solution (which is usually what people will call "religion"). Those that do not feel the incongruity. I don't personally see a way to justify it if someone doesn't feel the problem in their bones.

nickelpro 5y ago
I don't understand how someone can not understand the problem. You and I have conscious experience, we have a meaningful sensation of qualia. A billet of 4140 steel does not, or so we assume. Both are governed by physical laws of the universe, so there must be some distinction beyond these physical laws that differentiate them. In this framing, there are typically four camps, three of them line up with your camps: 1) I am not like a block of steel, but I don't know why. 2) I am not like a block of steel, but I know why ("religion") 3) I am like a block of steel, neither are conscious (no incongruity/consciousness is an illusion) 4) I am like a block of steel, both are conscious ("it from bit"/Chalmers's universal conciousness) Of course this implies the existence of a 5th and 6th camp that believes the block of steel is conscious, but we are not. I find these camps throw the best parties.
- callesgg 5y ago
  7) I am a model of a primate created/executed by the actual brain of the primate that the model is modeling. Ie, the primate is not like a block of steel cause it is modeling its own existence, while the block of steel is not modeling it’s own existence.
- joeberon 5y ago
  Well we do know emergent phenomena that occur as abstractions. Probably the most obvious example is a computer program. At a basic level, the computer really doesn't look like it's doing useful work, it just processes lists of rules and stuff, but actually the emergent behaviour is that I am browsing Hacker News. What is the difference between a computer and a rock? Well there isn't actually a fundamental difference, other than that the computer is physically arranged such that it is doing some complicated calculation resulting in this rich UI experience. I think it's the same with the brain. Why is there consciousness in this brain and not in a rock? Well because the brain is set up to perform a complicated "calculation" and the rock is not. Just like the program's behaviour only exists as an emergent property of the computer's physical state, so does consciousness arise as an emergent property from the brain's physical state. EDIT: to clarify this is why it is justified to say there is not a problem, but I do not personally find it satisfying
  - daseiner1 5y ago
    But the question is when and from where does “experiencing things” (qualia) arise. When does calculation become sensation?
    - joeberon 5y ago
      Those same people might say that it is just the experience of "being the computer" rather than seeing it from afar. But I don't know, because personally it isn't an argument I find convincing. As an aside, I think you have to be a bit arrogant or closed minded to assert that they actually can see the problem. I really don't think my wife is lying or being nefarious when she says she doesn't see a problem. I trust her and others when they say they don't see a problem.
      - GonzaloRizzo 5y ago
        So if there's such a thing as "being the computer" could we say that a computer experiences qualia and it is somewhat conscious?
- ivanbakel 5y ago
  The trouble with the "hard problem" of consciousness is that it's predicated on the possibility of the existence of p-zombies. Even if you don't know how a complex physical system gives rise to consciousness, you understand that a block of steel is not a complex physical system - so the fact that it isn't conscious isn't that contentious. If p-zombies could exist as complex systems without consciousness, then there would be a problem. But it's not so obvious that their existence is a possibility - or even, as Chalmers puts it, that they are "conceivable". To me, the leap of faith involved in the "hard problem" is really this first one.
  - joeberon 5y ago
    Yeah I think a more interesting problem is asking what the difference between an electronic robot that behaves in every way like a human, and a human, is. Or further, an electronic robot where every single neuron in the human was completely simulated. I thought about this a lot when I was a teenager lol, surely in this case such a robot must have a subjective experience just as we do, but why?
  - nickelpro 5y ago
    Really? A sufficiently advanced computer is a perfect P-zombie to me. This is the Chinese Room problem restated. A computer is capable of behaving as a conscious actor without any concept of knowledge or qualia as we would recognize it. But again this gets into a faith-based discussion. To me a sufficiently complex computer doesn't suddenly cross a "consciousness threshold" of complexity, but if to you it does there's no problem, which we could call "camp 3" in this discussion.
    - joeberon 5y ago
      A vast majority of people who believe that consciousness is an emergent property would also say that a sufficiently advanced computer is exactly as conscious as you or I. At least when I believed that human consciousness was an emergent property I believed that an advanced robot would be totally conscious.
      - 5y ago
- eli_gottlieb 5y ago
  Blocks of steel don't have nervous systems of any kind, let alone complex brains. Hell, they aren't even alive at all: they lack the underlying physiology for a nervous system to sense and control in the first place. Seems like a bit of a hint for why we're conscious and they're not.
  - GonzaloRizzo 5y ago
    Why are you so sure about consciousness emerging from the brain?
    - eli_gottlieb 5y ago
      I didn't say "from the brain". I also didn't say "emerging". I mentioned the nervous system as a whole, and physiology (eg: internal bodily control systems) to boot.
- tim333 5y ago
  I'd go with a variation on 2: 2a) I am not like a block of steel, but I know why ("evolution") In the same way that a camera takes pictures while a block of steel doesn't because someone designed it that way, we are conscious because evolution designed us that way. Conscious people survive better than those knocked unconscious.
  - nickelpro 5y ago
    But then you are like a block of steel, you are deterministically governed by the laws of physics. Any block of matter arranged just so is conscious in that framing, which differs from the religious framing.
    - joeberon 5y ago
      > Any block of matter arranged just so is conscious in that framing, which differs from the religious framing. That is literally the secular materialist view of consciousness, yes.
    - PKop 5y ago
      >you are deterministically governed by the laws of physics Yes.
- danielheath 5y ago
  In nature, there are many instances of systems which change drastically as they pass a tipping point. I suspect the human (and many animal) brain has an information density sufficient to pass such a tipping point. That could even explain why observating quantum phenonema changes the outcome (due to multiple extremely-low-entropy states being unstable). There could, of course, be many other explanations. Which camp is "I'm unlikely to figure out the answer, and I'm unclear on how it would help me if I did, so I'll continue to disregard the question".
- GlennS 5y ago
  I think the opposite problem - or rather the assumed explanation - is harder. Start with empiricism: conciousness appears when we add other mental capacities, so probably it is built upon them. The idea that conciousness (or abstraction) is a fundamental building block (as espoused by neoplatonists) is a much more unlikely explanation to me. > I am not like a block of steel, but I don't know why. Let's start from here. This is obviously correct, I think? Why should I know why? Most of my conciousness is build on top of unconcious processes that I can't control and only receive input from.
  - CuriouslyC 5y ago
    That's a nice looking dead end, because your subjectivity biases you. Instead, step outside your own consciousness. Based on objective observation, you are dynamic and reactive, steel is static and mostly unreactive. Beyond that, you might as well be the same. You claim to experience your existence, but what evidence do you have? And what evidence do you have that a bar of steel doesn't experience something of some sort?
    - GlennS 5y ago
      > That's a nice looking dead end, because your subjectivity biases you. Instead, step outside your own consciousness. Don't understand, sorry. > You claim to experience your existence, but what evidence do you have? Others also make that claim. We appear to each-other to be similar. > And what evidence do you have that a bar of steel doesn't experience something of some sort? Magnetic scanners. Strong evidence in my opinion. I think you shouldn't start with steel, you should start with chemicals that produce nervous signals.
      - nickelpro 5y ago
        > Magnetic scanners. Strong evidence in my opinion. > I think you shouldn't start with steel, you should start with chemicals that produce nervous signals. The idea being that none of this is direct evidence of consciousness. These give you evidence for answers to soft problems, a block of steel cannot see because it does not have eyes to see. If you attached eyes it would not see, because it would not have an optical cortex. If you gave it an optical cortex it would not see because it does not have... etc. You can solve all of these soft problems, but they would never tell you how the block of steel experiences the color red, the "qualia" of vision. That's the hard problem. All of the soft problems are "minor" by comparison.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- disambiguation 5y ago
  I think (4) gets more interesting if we replace "block of steel" with "fetal tissue" at various stages of development i personally lean towards (4) for this reason. if we say "soul assignment" is not the answer, then we have to explain how some unconscious cells eventually acquire consciousness, and then go back to unconscious again. one solution is that its been there all along, and is every where. Perhaps the human brain (any brain?) is just a lens for something quantum, or a radio for some signal? or maybe there are some immaterial forces that we can never observe under a microscope.
- NoGravitas 5y ago
  I agree about the best parties. But what about the idea that consciousness exists on a continuum — that everything that processes information has a scope of consciousness that corresponds to the complexity of what it processes? A block of steel doesn't really process any information, but a thermostat does, and so does a paramecium. I'm happy to grant qualia to a paramecium, even if I don't think those qualia are very substantial or interesting in human terms. I feel a little weirder about the thermostat, but, um, sure, why not, I guess? I guess I'm siding with group 4, but just saying that quantity has a quality all its own. Or that universal consciousness doesn't have to be spooky.
  - nickelpro 5y ago
    Asking "how is consciousness quantized?" definitely would put you in (4) and is favored by Chalmers I believe. The idea that consciousness can somehow be "aggregated" by sufficiently complex or anti-entropic systems lends itself to this view.
  - Hayarotle 5y ago
    I like that option. You don't have to find something that would give a hard border between "conscious" and "unconscious" entities, nor claim qualia doesn't exist, nor claim a rock has a level of consciousness equivalent to that of humans.
  - joeberon 5y ago
    This is personally my feeling of it too. I think the boundaries between us are illusory, and that it is all continuous and fuzzy. So a universal consciousness is no issue for me, one that is neither singular nor separate.
  - suzzer99 5y ago
    I agree with this. IMO any theory wrt to consciousness has to first and foremost consider that no hard line can be drawn along the continuum from human beings to elephants to ants to yeast cells.
- rmah 5y ago
  Consider the weather. Weather exists, I think everyone can accept this. But what is weather? Is it simply an aggregate emergent property of many interacting atmospheric and geological systems? Or is it something more? How can emergent properties of even a complex system create self-organizing and self-perpetuating semi-stable phenomenon like tornadoes? What controls the weather? Consider consciousness. Everyone can accept that it exists. But what is consciousness? Is it really just an emergent property of brain-body activity? Or is it something more? How can an emergent property of a complex system create semi-stable behaviors and self-awareness? What controls consciousness? IMO, consciousness is just an emergent property of brain-body activity (mostly brain). More recent studies of animal behavior have shown that consciousness is not a binary -- you have it or you don't -- thing. It is a gradient. Different animals possess different levels of cognitive ability, consciousness, self-awareness, social-awareness, etc. In short, there is (again IMO) nothing special about human consciousness: I submit that any sufficiently complex trainable associative-memory neural network (like a biological brain) will possess some level of consciousness as an emergent property. Just like any sufficiently large atmospheric + geological environment will possess weather. Thus, there is no problem to understand (or not understand). As an aside, are humans even "fully self-aware"? How would we know if we're not? What does that even really mean?
  - anthk 5y ago
    Tornadoes are not that huge or complex if you compare them to the whole size of the planet.
- mr_overalls 5y ago
  7) A purely phenomenological viewpoint (such as the one held by some schools of Mahayana Buddhism) would claim that the only reality is one's own mind. The steel block along with all other aspects of perceived reality, are akin to a magical illusion or dream.
- munificent 5y ago
  I think a variation of the Sorites paradox [1] should be sufficient to argue that 4) is closest and that there is a continuum of consciousness: You and I are (I presume) conscious and have a meaningful sensation of qualia. If you were to take a high powered laser and destroy exactly one neuron, we still would be. Given how many people survive and do relatively fine after traumatic brain injuries, you can probably extend that to some number of fried neurons while still preserving consciousness. If the laser destroyed all of our neurons and left our brains a smoking lump of cinder, we would not be conscious. If the laser destroyed all but one neuron, we probably still would not be conscious. That's probably equally true of five or ten neurons. Now, it may be that if you extend those two scenarios then at some number of neurons, the two will meet and frying just one more neuron completely flips your brain from "as conscious as a fully functional human" to "as inert as a block of steel". But the existence of that magic number seems highly unlikely to me. It would require some explanation for what is special about that exact quantity of neurons that one more or less completely lacks. It seems then that the most likely reality is that consciousness is a continuum where cognitive machines and living beings can have relatively more or less of it and any threshold that we define to mean "conscious" is mostly as arbitrary as the names of colors. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox
53r3PB9769ba 5y ago
I’m quite firmly in the “do not feel the incongruity” camp. What I'm about to say might make no sense at all, but I seem to remember (or at least think I do, it might be a false memory arising from thinking too much about it) slowly gaining consciousness in early childhood. I have a birthmark on the back of my hand and some of my earliest memories are triggered by noticing it and realizing I’m a separate being from other people and can influence my actions, stop being a mere observer of my body running on “autopilot”. I have only passing knowledge of lucid dreaming, but from what I’ve read I’d say becoming a lucid dreamer is not at all dissimilar to developing consciousness in childhood. So maybe that’s a potential avenue for consciousness research.
- joeberon 5y ago
  Yeah that's a pretty common experience actually. There are a lot of memes on tiktok and twitter joking about "gaining consciousness" as a child. I think a lot of people remember moments as young children where they first truly felt like real separate beings.
- mtberatwork 5y ago
  I think a lot discussion around consciousness focuses too much on the binary (e.g. either you have it or you don't), but I like to think of consciousness as a spectrum, with organisms falling into various points along that spectrum. Your take fits nicely into that picture I think.
  - jdmichal 5y ago
    This is precisely one of the reasons I prefer attention schema theory as an explanation of consciousness. It actually has a progressive build up, with each individual stage conferring an advantage while also leading to the next stage. Evolution does not like big-bang progression. And it's also very hard to explain big-bang progression in multiple, drastically-unrelated species -- such as humans and octopuses. Attention schema instead builds gradually. It starts with selective signal processing, advancing to body schema, then to attention schema, then to social schema (modeling other's bodies and attention). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_schema_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_schema_theory https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consciousness-evolved/485558/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-cons...
robotresearcher 5y ago
> I just know that there's something wrong or missing. We know with certainty - since you tell us - that you have that feeling. People have strong feelings about lot of things. People disagree about things of the most intense importance to them, such as the existence of god. I won't list any more examples to avoid arguing about them. But since people have mutually exclusive very strong intuitions/knowledge/feelings, it seems very clear to me that the presence of the feeling entails absolutely nothing about the further reality of the thing being believed. A simple and complete explanation is that you have this feeling, and the feeling is all there is to it. Maybe the feeling has some functionality in a social ape. The feeling entails nothing. Susan Greenfield has a nice expression of a similar idea: the only known functionality of consciousness is that when you ask yourself 'am I conscious?' the answer seems to come back 'yes'. [edit: typos]
- joeberon 5y ago
  It may not reflect reality in any way but I still have this fundamental "worry" or feeling regardless. This machine is still worrying about it.
trevyn 5y ago
>I just know that there's something wrong or missing. I'm starting to think that the thing that feels "wrong" is just that it directly contradicts foundational elements of your current belief system. And it's perfectly natural to avoid updating a belief system that has and continues to serve you reasonably well, even if you know deep down that it's inaccurate. Because you also know that updating it will have a significant cost as the implications unfold. I don't think it's a coincidence that the "religion solution" contains a lot of brute-force belief-writing and evidence-avoidance techniques. Coming from someone who no longer feels the incongruity, and has paid for that update.

nickelpro 5y ago

I don't understand how someone can not understand the problem. You and I have conscious experience, we have a meaningful sensation of qualia. A billet of 4140 steel does not, or so we assume. Both are governed by physical laws of the universe, so there must be some distinction beyond these physical laws that differentiate them. In this framing, there are typically four camps, three of them line up with your camps: 1) I am not like a block of steel, but I don't know why. 2) I am not like a block of steel, but I know why ("religion") 3) I am like a block of steel, neither are conscious (no incongruity/consciousness is an illusion) 4) I am like a block of steel, both are conscious ("it from bit"/Chalmers's universal conciousness) Of course this implies the existence of a 5th and 6th camp that believes the block of steel is conscious, but we are not. I find these camps throw the best parties.

callesgg 5y ago
7) I am a model of a primate created/executed by the actual brain of the primate that the model is modeling. Ie, the primate is not like a block of steel cause it is modeling its own existence, while the block of steel is not modeling it’s own existence.
joeberon 5y ago
Well we do know emergent phenomena that occur as abstractions. Probably the most obvious example is a computer program. At a basic level, the computer really doesn't look like it's doing useful work, it just processes lists of rules and stuff, but actually the emergent behaviour is that I am browsing Hacker News. What is the difference between a computer and a rock? Well there isn't actually a fundamental difference, other than that the computer is physically arranged such that it is doing some complicated calculation resulting in this rich UI experience. I think it's the same with the brain. Why is there consciousness in this brain and not in a rock? Well because the brain is set up to perform a complicated "calculation" and the rock is not. Just like the program's behaviour only exists as an emergent property of the computer's physical state, so does consciousness arise as an emergent property from the brain's physical state. EDIT: to clarify this is why it is justified to say there is not a problem, but I do not personally find it satisfying
- daseiner1 5y ago
  But the question is when and from where does “experiencing things” (qualia) arise. When does calculation become sensation?
  - joeberon 5y ago
    Those same people might say that it is just the experience of "being the computer" rather than seeing it from afar. But I don't know, because personally it isn't an argument I find convincing. As an aside, I think you have to be a bit arrogant or closed minded to assert that they actually can see the problem. I really don't think my wife is lying or being nefarious when she says she doesn't see a problem. I trust her and others when they say they don't see a problem.
    - GonzaloRizzo 5y ago
      So if there's such a thing as "being the computer" could we say that a computer experiences qualia and it is somewhat conscious?
ivanbakel 5y ago
The trouble with the "hard problem" of consciousness is that it's predicated on the possibility of the existence of p-zombies. Even if you don't know how a complex physical system gives rise to consciousness, you understand that a block of steel is not a complex physical system - so the fact that it isn't conscious isn't that contentious. If p-zombies could exist as complex systems without consciousness, then there would be a problem. But it's not so obvious that their existence is a possibility - or even, as Chalmers puts it, that they are "conceivable". To me, the leap of faith involved in the "hard problem" is really this first one.
- joeberon 5y ago
  Yeah I think a more interesting problem is asking what the difference between an electronic robot that behaves in every way like a human, and a human, is. Or further, an electronic robot where every single neuron in the human was completely simulated. I thought about this a lot when I was a teenager lol, surely in this case such a robot must have a subjective experience just as we do, but why?
- nickelpro 5y ago
  Really? A sufficiently advanced computer is a perfect P-zombie to me. This is the Chinese Room problem restated. A computer is capable of behaving as a conscious actor without any concept of knowledge or qualia as we would recognize it. But again this gets into a faith-based discussion. To me a sufficiently complex computer doesn't suddenly cross a "consciousness threshold" of complexity, but if to you it does there's no problem, which we could call "camp 3" in this discussion.
  - joeberon 5y ago
    A vast majority of people who believe that consciousness is an emergent property would also say that a sufficiently advanced computer is exactly as conscious as you or I. At least when I believed that human consciousness was an emergent property I believed that an advanced robot would be totally conscious.
    - 5y ago
eli_gottlieb 5y ago
Blocks of steel don't have nervous systems of any kind, let alone complex brains. Hell, they aren't even alive at all: they lack the underlying physiology for a nervous system to sense and control in the first place. Seems like a bit of a hint for why we're conscious and they're not.
- GonzaloRizzo 5y ago
  Why are you so sure about consciousness emerging from the brain?
  - eli_gottlieb 5y ago
    I didn't say "from the brain". I also didn't say "emerging". I mentioned the nervous system as a whole, and physiology (eg: internal bodily control systems) to boot.
tim333 5y ago
I'd go with a variation on 2: 2a) I am not like a block of steel, but I know why ("evolution") In the same way that a camera takes pictures while a block of steel doesn't because someone designed it that way, we are conscious because evolution designed us that way. Conscious people survive better than those knocked unconscious.
- nickelpro 5y ago
  But then you are like a block of steel, you are deterministically governed by the laws of physics. Any block of matter arranged just so is conscious in that framing, which differs from the religious framing.
  - joeberon 5y ago
    > Any block of matter arranged just so is conscious in that framing, which differs from the religious framing. That is literally the secular materialist view of consciousness, yes.
  - PKop 5y ago
    >you are deterministically governed by the laws of physics Yes.
danielheath 5y ago
In nature, there are many instances of systems which change drastically as they pass a tipping point. I suspect the human (and many animal) brain has an information density sufficient to pass such a tipping point. That could even explain why observating quantum phenonema changes the outcome (due to multiple extremely-low-entropy states being unstable). There could, of course, be many other explanations. Which camp is "I'm unlikely to figure out the answer, and I'm unclear on how it would help me if I did, so I'll continue to disregard the question".
GlennS 5y ago
I think the opposite problem - or rather the assumed explanation - is harder. Start with empiricism: conciousness appears when we add other mental capacities, so probably it is built upon them. The idea that conciousness (or abstraction) is a fundamental building block (as espoused by neoplatonists) is a much more unlikely explanation to me. > I am not like a block of steel, but I don't know why. Let's start from here. This is obviously correct, I think? Why should I know why? Most of my conciousness is build on top of unconcious processes that I can't control and only receive input from.
- CuriouslyC 5y ago
  That's a nice looking dead end, because your subjectivity biases you. Instead, step outside your own consciousness. Based on objective observation, you are dynamic and reactive, steel is static and mostly unreactive. Beyond that, you might as well be the same. You claim to experience your existence, but what evidence do you have? And what evidence do you have that a bar of steel doesn't experience something of some sort?
  - GlennS 5y ago
    > That's a nice looking dead end, because your subjectivity biases you. Instead, step outside your own consciousness. Don't understand, sorry. > You claim to experience your existence, but what evidence do you have? Others also make that claim. We appear to each-other to be similar. > And what evidence do you have that a bar of steel doesn't experience something of some sort? Magnetic scanners. Strong evidence in my opinion. I think you shouldn't start with steel, you should start with chemicals that produce nervous signals.
    - nickelpro 5y ago
      > Magnetic scanners. Strong evidence in my opinion. > I think you shouldn't start with steel, you should start with chemicals that produce nervous signals. The idea being that none of this is direct evidence of consciousness. These give you evidence for answers to soft problems, a block of steel cannot see because it does not have eyes to see. If you attached eyes it would not see, because it would not have an optical cortex. If you gave it an optical cortex it would not see because it does not have... etc. You can solve all of these soft problems, but they would never tell you how the block of steel experiences the color red, the "qualia" of vision. That's the hard problem. All of the soft problems are "minor" by comparison.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
disambiguation 5y ago
I think (4) gets more interesting if we replace "block of steel" with "fetal tissue" at various stages of development i personally lean towards (4) for this reason. if we say "soul assignment" is not the answer, then we have to explain how some unconscious cells eventually acquire consciousness, and then go back to unconscious again. one solution is that its been there all along, and is every where. Perhaps the human brain (any brain?) is just a lens for something quantum, or a radio for some signal? or maybe there are some immaterial forces that we can never observe under a microscope.
NoGravitas 5y ago
I agree about the best parties. But what about the idea that consciousness exists on a continuum — that everything that processes information has a scope of consciousness that corresponds to the complexity of what it processes? A block of steel doesn't really process any information, but a thermostat does, and so does a paramecium. I'm happy to grant qualia to a paramecium, even if I don't think those qualia are very substantial or interesting in human terms. I feel a little weirder about the thermostat, but, um, sure, why not, I guess? I guess I'm siding with group 4, but just saying that quantity has a quality all its own. Or that universal consciousness doesn't have to be spooky.
- nickelpro 5y ago
  Asking "how is consciousness quantized?" definitely would put you in (4) and is favored by Chalmers I believe. The idea that consciousness can somehow be "aggregated" by sufficiently complex or anti-entropic systems lends itself to this view.
- Hayarotle 5y ago
  I like that option. You don't have to find something that would give a hard border between "conscious" and "unconscious" entities, nor claim qualia doesn't exist, nor claim a rock has a level of consciousness equivalent to that of humans.
- joeberon 5y ago
  This is personally my feeling of it too. I think the boundaries between us are illusory, and that it is all continuous and fuzzy. So a universal consciousness is no issue for me, one that is neither singular nor separate.
- suzzer99 5y ago
  I agree with this. IMO any theory wrt to consciousness has to first and foremost consider that no hard line can be drawn along the continuum from human beings to elephants to ants to yeast cells.
rmah 5y ago
Consider the weather. Weather exists, I think everyone can accept this. But what is weather? Is it simply an aggregate emergent property of many interacting atmospheric and geological systems? Or is it something more? How can emergent properties of even a complex system create self-organizing and self-perpetuating semi-stable phenomenon like tornadoes? What controls the weather? Consider consciousness. Everyone can accept that it exists. But what is consciousness? Is it really just an emergent property of brain-body activity? Or is it something more? How can an emergent property of a complex system create semi-stable behaviors and self-awareness? What controls consciousness? IMO, consciousness is just an emergent property of brain-body activity (mostly brain). More recent studies of animal behavior have shown that consciousness is not a binary -- you have it or you don't -- thing. It is a gradient. Different animals possess different levels of cognitive ability, consciousness, self-awareness, social-awareness, etc. In short, there is (again IMO) nothing special about human consciousness: I submit that any sufficiently complex trainable associative-memory neural network (like a biological brain) will possess some level of consciousness as an emergent property. Just like any sufficiently large atmospheric + geological environment will possess weather. Thus, there is no problem to understand (or not understand). As an aside, are humans even "fully self-aware"? How would we know if we're not? What does that even really mean?
- anthk 5y ago
  Tornadoes are not that huge or complex if you compare them to the whole size of the planet.
mr_overalls 5y ago
7) A purely phenomenological viewpoint (such as the one held by some schools of Mahayana Buddhism) would claim that the only reality is one's own mind. The steel block along with all other aspects of perceived reality, are akin to a magical illusion or dream.
munificent 5y ago
I think a variation of the Sorites paradox [1] should be sufficient to argue that 4) is closest and that there is a continuum of consciousness: You and I are (I presume) conscious and have a meaningful sensation of qualia. If you were to take a high powered laser and destroy exactly one neuron, we still would be. Given how many people survive and do relatively fine after traumatic brain injuries, you can probably extend that to some number of fried neurons while still preserving consciousness. If the laser destroyed all of our neurons and left our brains a smoking lump of cinder, we would not be conscious. If the laser destroyed all but one neuron, we probably still would not be conscious. That's probably equally true of five or ten neurons. Now, it may be that if you extend those two scenarios then at some number of neurons, the two will meet and frying just one more neuron completely flips your brain from "as conscious as a fully functional human" to "as inert as a block of steel". But the existence of that magic number seems highly unlikely to me. It would require some explanation for what is special about that exact quantity of neurons that one more or less completely lacks. It seems then that the most likely reality is that consciousness is a continuum where cognitive machines and living beings can have relatively more or less of it and any threshold that we define to mean "conscious" is mostly as arbitrary as the names of colors. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox

53r3PB9769ba 5y ago

I’m quite firmly in the “do not feel the incongruity” camp. What I'm about to say might make no sense at all, but I seem to remember (or at least think I do, it might be a false memory arising from thinking too much about it) slowly gaining consciousness in early childhood. I have a birthmark on the back of my hand and some of my earliest memories are triggered by noticing it and realizing I’m a separate being from other people and can influence my actions, stop being a mere observer of my body running on “autopilot”. I have only passing knowledge of lucid dreaming, but from what I’ve read I’d say becoming a lucid dreamer is not at all dissimilar to developing consciousness in childhood. So maybe that’s a potential avenue for consciousness research.

joeberon 5y ago
Yeah that's a pretty common experience actually. There are a lot of memes on tiktok and twitter joking about "gaining consciousness" as a child. I think a lot of people remember moments as young children where they first truly felt like real separate beings.
mtberatwork 5y ago
I think a lot discussion around consciousness focuses too much on the binary (e.g. either you have it or you don't), but I like to think of consciousness as a spectrum, with organisms falling into various points along that spectrum. Your take fits nicely into that picture I think.
- jdmichal 5y ago
  This is precisely one of the reasons I prefer attention schema theory as an explanation of consciousness. It actually has a progressive build up, with each individual stage conferring an advantage while also leading to the next stage. Evolution does not like big-bang progression. And it's also very hard to explain big-bang progression in multiple, drastically-unrelated species -- such as humans and octopuses. Attention schema instead builds gradually. It starts with selective signal processing, advancing to body schema, then to attention schema, then to social schema (modeling other's bodies and attention). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_schema_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_schema_theory https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consciousness-evolved/485558/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-cons...

robotresearcher 5y ago

> I just know that there's something wrong or missing. We know with certainty - since you tell us - that you have that feeling. People have strong feelings about lot of things. People disagree about things of the most intense importance to them, such as the existence of god. I won't list any more examples to avoid arguing about them. But since people have mutually exclusive very strong intuitions/knowledge/feelings, it seems very clear to me that the presence of the feeling entails absolutely nothing about the further reality of the thing being believed. A simple and complete explanation is that you have this feeling, and the feeling is all there is to it. Maybe the feeling has some functionality in a social ape. The feeling entails nothing. Susan Greenfield has a nice expression of a similar idea: the only known functionality of consciousness is that when you ask yourself 'am I conscious?' the answer seems to come back 'yes'. [edit: typos]

joeberon 5y ago
It may not reflect reality in any way but I still have this fundamental "worry" or feeling regardless. This machine is still worrying about it.

trevyn 5y ago

>I just know that there's something wrong or missing. I'm starting to think that the thing that feels "wrong" is just that it directly contradicts foundational elements of your current belief system. And it's perfectly natural to avoid updating a belief system that has and continues to serve you reasonably well, even if you know deep down that it's inaccurate. Because you also know that updating it will have a significant cost as the implications unfold. I don't think it's a coincidence that the "religion solution" contains a lot of brute-force belief-writing and evidence-avoidance techniques. Coming from someone who no longer feels the incongruity, and has paid for that update.