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> But it is not the same question as: how is it possible that we have any experience at all? Let me send this ball straight back to you. In the morning when y

> But it is not the same question as: how is it possible that we have any experience at all? Let me send this ball straight back to you. In the morning when you wake up what happens? You might take something to eat. How would you find the kitchen, how would you recognise the food, or even know you need it? Of course, you are conscious. That's how. It is possible to be conscious because otherwise your body wouldn't be able to survive. It's essential for avoiding death. We are self replicators in a limited resource environment, after all. This balance between self replication and death evolved consciousness as an evolutionary advantage. Being exposed to your internal and external environment is the source of consciousness. Even a single cell can seek nutrients or avoid bad places, or decide when to replicate, it has a rudiment of consciousness. But panpsychism? It's one step away from new age babble. Stones are just stones.

Dylan16807 5y ago
You don't think it's possible to seek nutrients without having experiences?
- abletonlive 5y ago
  I don't believe it is. This is the problem w/ the philosophical zombies, they are self defeating examples and can't exist in anything but a thought experiment. The fact that you're seeking nutrients at all means you can distinguish between sensory input, and therefore are experiencing something. If you can't distinguish between sensory input, then you are not experiencing anything. How can you be an effective seeker of nutrients if you don't experience anything and get feedback on whether you've found the nutrient or not? This is why I think the hard problem of consciousness is silly and only exists because language is so imperfect that philosophers have invented a problem which they can't even decide is actually a problem or not. Can any of us even agree on what an "experience" is? You can tell this is so because every conversation about the hard problem of consciousness starts off by trying to convince people there is a problem to talk about and use the same tired examples. We can "experience" red. There is an "experience" of being a bat.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    If I have a material that tightens or loosens based on temperature or chemical gradient, does that count as "sensory input"? I wouldn't say so, since nothing is receiving a signal from it to distinguish, and I also wouldn't say it's causing experiences, but it is enough to seek nutrients for a bacteria or a jellyfish-like creature.
    - visarga 5y ago
      You're right, a bacteria would sense and follow chemical gradients and light. And that would be a primitive form of consciousness. A piece of material is not conscious because it doesn't need to. You see, bacterias are self replicators, humans too. And self replication is resource intensive, while resources are limited. So life becomes a competition. That is why agents need to become more attuned to their state and possible actions and outcomes. Is that good enough to be called consciousness? Taking sensory inputs, representing your state, taking actions, observing effect, learning from it. Your goal - to exist, to make copies of yourself. If you're not aware of essential information, or don't understand your situation, you die. If you live, it's because you are aware.
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        If it's only one protein, is that protein primitively conscious? It's not interacting with anything else to make those decisions, it's completely autonomous. > observing effect, learning from it If something is meaningfully doing that, then we're getting to consciousness. But I'll note that I don't count natural selection as "learning" here. And observing the results of decisions and learning is not mandatory to survive and reproduce.
        visarga 5y ago
        Natural selection is the outer loop, reinforcement learning the inner loop. Agents, by living or dying, send signals into the system, guiding the process.
_moof 5y ago
You're talking about a different sense of the word "conscious." What you're describing might better be called "reactivity" or something. (Don't get too hung up on the specific word; the point is there are several different meanings of the word "conscious" and the distinctions are critical.) There is no obvious reason why useful interaction with one's environment requires conscious experience, which is the phenomenon we're discussing here.
simonh 5y ago
This is an argument that an amobea must be concious, no?
- visarga 5y ago
  Any self replicator can be. I am not sure about non-replicating agents like some AIs. Besides having a way to copy what it learns into the future, self replication also provides a goal, a guiding force - of course, the goal is to avoid death before replication. Another great quality of self replication is its open-endedness. It can become anything as long as it keeps replicating. For these three qualities I consider self replication the basic process behind consciousness. They create the means by which open ended learning can evolve.
  - simonh 5y ago
    Prions self-replicate. Are they concious?
mensetmanusman 5y ago
“ It is possible to be conscious because otherwise your body wouldn't be able to survive.” False, we can program a roomba to seek out electricity to ‘survive’. E.g. zombies

Dylan16807 5y ago

You don't think it's possible to seek nutrients without having experiences?

abletonlive 5y ago
I don't believe it is. This is the problem w/ the philosophical zombies, they are self defeating examples and can't exist in anything but a thought experiment. The fact that you're seeking nutrients at all means you can distinguish between sensory input, and therefore are experiencing something. If you can't distinguish between sensory input, then you are not experiencing anything. How can you be an effective seeker of nutrients if you don't experience anything and get feedback on whether you've found the nutrient or not? This is why I think the hard problem of consciousness is silly and only exists because language is so imperfect that philosophers have invented a problem which they can't even decide is actually a problem or not. Can any of us even agree on what an "experience" is? You can tell this is so because every conversation about the hard problem of consciousness starts off by trying to convince people there is a problem to talk about and use the same tired examples. We can "experience" red. There is an "experience" of being a bat.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  If I have a material that tightens or loosens based on temperature or chemical gradient, does that count as "sensory input"? I wouldn't say so, since nothing is receiving a signal from it to distinguish, and I also wouldn't say it's causing experiences, but it is enough to seek nutrients for a bacteria or a jellyfish-like creature.
  - visarga 5y ago
    You're right, a bacteria would sense and follow chemical gradients and light. And that would be a primitive form of consciousness. A piece of material is not conscious because it doesn't need to. You see, bacterias are self replicators, humans too. And self replication is resource intensive, while resources are limited. So life becomes a competition. That is why agents need to become more attuned to their state and possible actions and outcomes. Is that good enough to be called consciousness? Taking sensory inputs, representing your state, taking actions, observing effect, learning from it. Your goal - to exist, to make copies of yourself. If you're not aware of essential information, or don't understand your situation, you die. If you live, it's because you are aware.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      If it's only one protein, is that protein primitively conscious? It's not interacting with anything else to make those decisions, it's completely autonomous. > observing effect, learning from it If something is meaningfully doing that, then we're getting to consciousness. But I'll note that I don't count natural selection as "learning" here. And observing the results of decisions and learning is not mandatory to survive and reproduce.
      - visarga 5y ago
        Natural selection is the outer loop, reinforcement learning the inner loop. Agents, by living or dying, send signals into the system, guiding the process.

_moof 5y ago

You're talking about a different sense of the word "conscious." What you're describing might better be called "reactivity" or something. (Don't get too hung up on the specific word; the point is there are several different meanings of the word "conscious" and the distinctions are critical.) There is no obvious reason why useful interaction with one's environment requires conscious experience, which is the phenomenon we're discussing here.

simonh 5y ago

This is an argument that an amobea must be concious, no?

visarga 5y ago
Any self replicator can be. I am not sure about non-replicating agents like some AIs. Besides having a way to copy what it learns into the future, self replication also provides a goal, a guiding force - of course, the goal is to avoid death before replication. Another great quality of self replication is its open-endedness. It can become anything as long as it keeps replicating. For these three qualities I consider self replication the basic process behind consciousness. They create the means by which open ended learning can evolve.
- simonh 5y ago
  Prions self-replicate. Are they concious?

mensetmanusman 5y ago

“ It is possible to be conscious because otherwise your body wouldn't be able to survive.” False, we can program a roomba to seek out electricity to ‘survive’. E.g. zombies