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> Consciousness is a physical property of matter, as any other. Phrased as a fact, but citation needed. > neither can it think. Again, phrased as a fact, as

> Consciousness is a physical property of matter, as any other. Phrased as a fact, but citation needed. > neither can it think. Again, phrased as a fact, as if this can be proven. > I don't know from where this new computational mysticism has come For me, a lot more mysticism is required to hold the belief that our brain is anything else than a computational platform. I don't think there's anything mystic about it. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turns out that consciousness arises as emergent property from any sufficiently complex loop.

sirsinsalot 4y ago
I think maybe what they're trying to say is that while CFD can model wind in a complex system to a useful degree of accuracy ... the model will never be wind. With AI that application of logic is an argument around the semantics of interface. That's the most compassionate take on their words I could muster.
- mannykannot 4y ago
  This seems to be correct - it appears to be the "a model is not that which it models" argument, which is Searle's only response to the Simulation Reply to his Chinese Room - but a model of a thing can have properties of that thing (a model boat can float, create a wake etc.), and an informational process can be modeled by another. Are minds informational processes instantiated by brains? It is plausible, and the model argument does not rule it out.
  - sirsinsalot 4y ago
    If it was the ops intent, they mangled it to the point I'm not even sure.
  - tacitusarc 4y ago
    Interestingly, a model of a boat is, in itself, a small boat.
    - mannykannot 4y ago
      To be clear, that doesn't refute the point I am making. For anyone who suspects it might (I'm not sure how...) consider this: a model of the Titanic (or a replica, for that matter) is not the Titanic. A model of your brain would neither be your brain nor necessarily a brain at all, but whether it could think is a different question.
      - tacitusarc 4y ago
        I was only observing that while the model of a thing is not always that thing, sometimes it is.
EricMausler 4y ago
(This is the most ridiculous thing I've put on the internet, but ah well whatever) Personally, I feel pretty strongly that consciousness is an emergent property of parallel processing among cooperating agents in a way that is completely at odds with the entire idea of what an "algorithm" is. We feel multiple things at once. Yes there is some research that provides evidence that we can't multi-task for real, that we just switch between tasks, but I am not talking about what we are able to do WITH our consciousness. Our brains are very obviously not firing 1 neuron at a time. Take vision for example. We can focus on one thing at a time, but the image itself is an emergent property in our brains of many different cells firing at the same time. It seems bound to the information feeding it in a way devoid of sequence. I know matrices are used to replicate this, and the input matrix is processed in layers to simulate the parallel processing, but i dont think that really cuts it. Time is still applied in discrete intervals, not continuous. Every algorithm has "steps" like this and I would be surprised if you can ever have enough of them to achieve the real thing. You can probably get infinitely closer from an observational standpoint, but no matter how many edges we give it, it'll still be a polygon instead of a circle so-to-speak. It'll have a rational valued circumference instead of pi, metaphorically speaking. Whether a Turing machine is sufficient or not to replicate the amount of concurrent processing an actual cell network of millions of Neurons is capable of every moment, I can't know, but today's computers feel way off from even blurring the lines. A Turing machine seems insufficient to replicate the mechanisms for which our consciousness appears to emerge from - even ignoring the substrate. I don't know much about quantum mechanics or quantum computers but my bet is on the qualities that differentiate them from normal computers to be critical. Then again we could just define consciousness as a spectrum and then claim everything is on it, so a sufficiently complex loop might be enough for us to categorically claim it as conscious. For all we know, rocks are conscious. Maybe it isn't an emergent thing at all, and there is only 1 wave of consciousness in the universe for which all matter taps into and our chaotic nature is actually at odds with that comsciousness. Maybe this creates a tension that allows for us to observe it, akin to how we can't look at ourselves but we can see our shadow. In which case we wouldnt have consciousness, consciousness would have us. Maybe we are all the same literal consciousness observing different forms of chaos, and it is the chaos, not the order, which happens to be sufficiently complex enough for us to entertain an identity. /s

sirsinsalot 4y ago

I think maybe what they're trying to say is that while CFD can model wind in a complex system to a useful degree of accuracy ... the model will never be wind. With AI that application of logic is an argument around the semantics of interface. That's the most compassionate take on their words I could muster.

mannykannot 4y ago
This seems to be correct - it appears to be the "a model is not that which it models" argument, which is Searle's only response to the Simulation Reply to his Chinese Room - but a model of a thing can have properties of that thing (a model boat can float, create a wake etc.), and an informational process can be modeled by another. Are minds informational processes instantiated by brains? It is plausible, and the model argument does not rule it out.
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  If it was the ops intent, they mangled it to the point I'm not even sure.
- tacitusarc 4y ago
  Interestingly, a model of a boat is, in itself, a small boat.
  - mannykannot 4y ago
    To be clear, that doesn't refute the point I am making. For anyone who suspects it might (I'm not sure how...) consider this: a model of the Titanic (or a replica, for that matter) is not the Titanic. A model of your brain would neither be your brain nor necessarily a brain at all, but whether it could think is a different question.
    - tacitusarc 4y ago
      I was only observing that while the model of a thing is not always that thing, sometimes it is.

EricMausler 4y ago

(This is the most ridiculous thing I've put on the internet, but ah well whatever) Personally, I feel pretty strongly that consciousness is an emergent property of parallel processing among cooperating agents in a way that is completely at odds with the entire idea of what an "algorithm" is. We feel multiple things at once. Yes there is some research that provides evidence that we can't multi-task for real, that we just switch between tasks, but I am not talking about what we are able to do WITH our consciousness. Our brains are very obviously not firing 1 neuron at a time. Take vision for example. We can focus on one thing at a time, but the image itself is an emergent property in our brains of many different cells firing at the same time. It seems bound to the information feeding it in a way devoid of sequence. I know matrices are used to replicate this, and the input matrix is processed in layers to simulate the parallel processing, but i dont think that really cuts it. Time is still applied in discrete intervals, not continuous. Every algorithm has "steps" like this and I would be surprised if you can ever have enough of them to achieve the real thing. You can probably get infinitely closer from an observational standpoint, but no matter how many edges we give it, it'll still be a polygon instead of a circle so-to-speak. It'll have a rational valued circumference instead of pi, metaphorically speaking. Whether a Turing machine is sufficient or not to replicate the amount of concurrent processing an actual cell network of millions of Neurons is capable of every moment, I can't know, but today's computers feel way off from even blurring the lines. A Turing machine seems insufficient to replicate the mechanisms for which our consciousness appears to emerge from - even ignoring the substrate. I don't know much about quantum mechanics or quantum computers but my bet is on the qualities that differentiate them from normal computers to be critical. Then again we could just define consciousness as a spectrum and then claim everything is on it, so a sufficiently complex loop might be enough for us to categorically claim it as conscious. For all we know, rocks are conscious. Maybe it isn't an emergent thing at all, and there is only 1 wave of consciousness in the universe for which all matter taps into and our chaotic nature is actually at odds with that comsciousness. Maybe this creates a tension that allows for us to observe it, akin to how we can't look at ourselves but we can see our shadow. In which case we wouldnt have consciousness, consciousness would have us. Maybe we are all the same literal consciousness observing different forms of chaos, and it is the chaos, not the order, which happens to be sufficiently complex enough for us to entertain an identity. /s