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>The idea that there's something going on in a wet, warm, mushy brain that has a macroscopic effect, What kind of complex computation simulates the subjective

by zarmin 4y ago

>The idea that there's something going on in a wet, warm, mushy brain that has a macroscopic effect, What kind of complex computation simulates the subjective experiences of wet, warm, and mushy? EDIT: my account appears to be rate limited, so i am unable to post a reply until idk when.... By "subjective" I am referring to my conscious inner life, that there is something it is like to be me. I am an experiencer because I can experience things. My experiences are subjective and qualitative. When I see something red, there actually is no "red" in reality, there is just an electromagnetic wave vibrating at a certain frequency. But I still have a "red" experience. In the same way, I can also have a wet, warm, or mushy experience. How do the subjective qualities of my experience arise from quantities like spin, charge, mass, etc?

epgui 4y ago
The same kind of computation as is performed by the wet warm and mushy computer. Be careful with the term “subjective”, because it’s a can of worms: it doesn’t imply chaos and lack of information. Your subjective experiences are merely called “subjective” because they aren’t computed the exact same way as other brains. It doesn’t mean they’re not the product of computation, or that they have magic properties!
epgui 4y ago
Reply to your edit: I know it would be ideal if there was a simple, short answer, but this question is nearly the equivalent of "please explain all the core ideas of neuroscience/neurology/neuropsychology to me". It's a good question, but it's a big question. This is why in the other thread [1] I've tried to point you in the direction where you will find the answers you are looking for: the answers exist and are for the most part known, but you have a lot of reading ahead of you, and there's no way around that. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31806312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31806312
- zarmin 4y ago
  First, I'm a little embarrassed because I didn't realize I had started another comment thread with you, I thought it was a different user. I may have done that twice on this post. Sorry to have split the discussion like that. Anyway.... >the answers exist and are for the most part known I deeply disagree with this. I am not afraid of doing some reading, but I challenge you to find a single study that demonstrates how a certain combination of neurons firing leads to the experience of tasting vanilla.
  - epgui 4y ago
    Read the book and come back if you still feel like you have the same objection!
russdill 4y ago
You've spelled out quite well that there are things about our internal subjective experience we don't understand to a discomforting degree. But we understand really well the substrate from which those experiences arise. Imagine it this way. Imagine that mathematicians are trying to solve some problem, they don't even know if the problem is computable or not. Some genius comes around with a computer that given the necessary input, provides the solution. He refuses to explain how the program works and the program itself is gigabytes of incomprehensible spaghetti code. So they are no closer to understanding the problem, but now they do know that it's computable.
- zarmin 4y ago
  To be clear, I am talking about phenomenal consciousness — which is simply the ability to subjectively experience the world and ourselves. This is distinct from metaconsciousness. Bernardo Kastrup on phenomenal consciousness: >Our phenomenal consciousness is eminently qualitative, not quantitative. There is something it feels like to see the colour red, which is not captured by merely noting the frequency of red light. If we were to tell Helen Keller that red is an oscillation of approximately 4.3^1014 cycles per second, she would still not know what it feels like to see red. Analogously, what it feels like to listen to a Vivaldi sonata cannot be conveyed to a person born deaf, even if we show to the person the sonata’s complete power spectrum. Experiences are felt qualities — which philosophers and neuroscientists call ‘qualia’ — not fully describable by abstract quantities. >Some genius comes around with a computer that given the necessary input, provides the solution...but now they do know that it's computable. Can you give me a concrete example of input/output and how we would validate any output? You are suggesting the that the brain is the program, the physical world is the necessary input, and consciousness is the output (correct me if I'm wrong). But if I wrote a program to make a perfectly accurate simulation of a kidney, would you expect it to pee on my desk? Of course you wouldn't, so I'm not sure why we would expect that of the brain and consciousness. Going back to your example, which I like, even if we had access to the code, the code is not the actual reality. It is an abstraction. We can dig through the code all we want, but we will never reach electricity and transistors, the true reality of the program. I think this is analogous to our own reality, where we can dig into spacetime at smaller and smaller distances, but never find "true reality". A hint that this is the case is the lack of operational meaning to distances < 10^-33cm and times < 10^43 sec (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz-Ve_1LX8w); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz-Ve_1LX8w); the amount of energy required to probe those sizes creates a black hole. So something </i>must* be underlying spacetime. I think that something is phenomenal consciousness, mind-at-large, pure subjectivity, call it what you like. Spacetime is the source code, and phenomenal consciousness is the electricity and transistors. (Also just to reiterate, my HN account is rate limited, so I may not be able to reply in a timely manner to any subsequent comments).

by zarmin 4y ago

epgui 4y ago

The same kind of computation as is performed by the wet warm and mushy computer. Be careful with the term “subjective”, because it’s a can of worms: it doesn’t imply chaos and lack of information. Your subjective experiences are merely called “subjective” because they aren’t computed the exact same way as other brains. It doesn’t mean they’re not the product of computation, or that they have magic properties!

epgui 4y ago

Reply to your edit: I know it would be ideal if there was a simple, short answer, but this question is nearly the equivalent of "please explain all the core ideas of neuroscience/neurology/neuropsychology to me". It's a good question, but it's a big question. This is why in the other thread [1] I've tried to point you in the direction where you will find the answers you are looking for: the answers exist and are for the most part known, but you have a lot of reading ahead of you, and there's no way around that. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31806312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31806312

zarmin 4y ago
First, I'm a little embarrassed because I didn't realize I had started another comment thread with you, I thought it was a different user. I may have done that twice on this post. Sorry to have split the discussion like that. Anyway.... >the answers exist and are for the most part known I deeply disagree with this. I am not afraid of doing some reading, but I challenge you to find a single study that demonstrates how a certain combination of neurons firing leads to the experience of tasting vanilla.
- epgui 4y ago
  Read the book and come back if you still feel like you have the same objection!

russdill 4y ago

You've spelled out quite well that there are things about our internal subjective experience we don't understand to a discomforting degree. But we understand really well the substrate from which those experiences arise. Imagine it this way. Imagine that mathematicians are trying to solve some problem, they don't even know if the problem is computable or not. Some genius comes around with a computer that given the necessary input, provides the solution. He refuses to explain how the program works and the program itself is gigabytes of incomprehensible spaghetti code. So they are no closer to understanding the problem, but now they do know that it's computable.

zarmin 4y ago
To be clear, I am talking about phenomenal consciousness — which is simply the ability to subjectively experience the world and ourselves. This is distinct from metaconsciousness. Bernardo Kastrup on phenomenal consciousness: >Our phenomenal consciousness is eminently qualitative, not quantitative. There is something it feels like to see the colour red, which is not captured by merely noting the frequency of red light. If we were to tell Helen Keller that red is an oscillation of approximately 4.3^1014 cycles per second, she would still not know what it feels like to see red. Analogously, what it feels like to listen to a Vivaldi sonata cannot be conveyed to a person born deaf, even if we show to the person the sonata’s complete power spectrum. Experiences are felt qualities — which philosophers and neuroscientists call ‘qualia’ — not fully describable by abstract quantities. >Some genius comes around with a computer that given the necessary input, provides the solution...but now they do know that it's computable. Can you give me a concrete example of input/output and how we would validate any output? You are suggesting the that the brain is the program, the physical world is the necessary input, and consciousness is the output (correct me if I'm wrong). But if I wrote a program to make a perfectly accurate simulation of a kidney, would you expect it to pee on my desk? Of course you wouldn't, so I'm not sure why we would expect that of the brain and consciousness. Going back to your example, which I like, even if we had access to the code, the code is not the actual reality. It is an abstraction. We can dig through the code all we want, but we will never reach electricity and transistors, the true reality of the program. I think this is analogous to our own reality, where we can dig into spacetime at smaller and smaller distances, but never find "true reality". A hint that this is the case is the lack of operational meaning to distances < 10^-33cm and times < 10^43 sec (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz-Ve_1LX8w); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz-Ve_1LX8w); the amount of energy required to probe those sizes creates a black hole. So something </i>must* be underlying spacetime. I think that something is phenomenal consciousness, mind-at-large, pure subjectivity, call it what you like. Spacetime is the source code, and phenomenal consciousness is the electricity and transistors. (Also just to reiterate, my HN account is rate limited, so I may not be able to reply in a timely manner to any subsequent comments).