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How do you think brains work? There's no magic in the goo. It's all information processing, and we know this very well.

by epgui 4y ago

nurettin 4y ago
Perhaps "Information processing" isn't very well defined. More appropriate would be "neuro-electrical activity". But then, people have simulated that at high scales and still only got parrots. So there is still a missing process that turns organisms into self-sufficient survival bots and also gives brains some level of consciousness as a consequence and it isn't trivial to recreate. Otherwise we would be crawling in artificial minds with their self-induced purposes by now.
- epgui 4y ago
  > But then, people have simulated that at high scales People have thrown vast amounts of neurons in a bag, and have tried organizing networks in highly regular ways, but we have yet to apply what we know about brain tissue organization. We've done the equivalent of throwing a bunch of wood and concrete into a pile, so it should be no surprise that it doesn't look like a home. IMO it's quite remarkable that this approach has taken us so far!
  - nurettin 4y ago
    That's fun to read, but not sure what you mean by brain tissue organization.
    - epgui 4y ago
      I recommend Blumenfeld's neuroanatomy textbook.
antonvs 4y ago
Why do you think "information processing" is what causes consciousness, as opposed to some other process that brains perform? Do you think a Raspberry Pi, a 1970s electronic calculator, or a simple analog thermostat is conscious? They all do information processing. If they aren't conscious, what is it about the information processing that brains do that produces consciousness? This is an obvious false dichotomy: > There's no magic in the goo. It's all information processing It doesn't have to be magic. Just to take an example, Penrose and Hameroff proposed that microtubules in neurons are structured in a fractal pattern which would enable quantum processes to occur that (somehow!) explain consciousness. This proposal is little more than a guess, but it's an example of something other than information processing, that's not "magic", that could be a cause for consciousness. > It's all information processing, and we know this very well. How do we "know this very well"? The real answer is we certainly don't know that, but perhaps if you try to justify your position, you'll realize that.
- epgui 4y ago
  > Why do you think "information processing" is what causes consciousness, as opposed to some other process that brains perform? Because the second part of this question is absurd. There is no "process", biochemical or otherwise, that can't be described in terms of information. Information describes the substrate of the "process". My specific area of expertise is extracellular vesicles, and even that is often described as "enabling the horizontal transfer of information", even in non-brain contexts. As far as the rest, I never claimed that "processing information" was a sufficient condition for consciousness to emerge. I said that information processing is the thing from which consciousness emerges, and this should not be controversial. If you understand what "emergence" means (in the context of complexity science) then you'll understand the difference between "conscious" things and calculators. For more perspective on what things we know about how the brain works and how it's organized, I recommend reading a functional neuroanatomy textbook. You don't even need to go as far as reading research papers to gain a basic perspective. Blumenfeld is a good one.
  - antonvs 4y ago
    > There is no "process", biochemical or otherwise, that can't be described in terms of information. There's more than one definition of information, and you should be able to tell by context which one is being used. However, if you want to take this perspective, it just underscores how content-free your claim is. You're then making no claim beyond the basic metaphysical assumption of physicalism, i.e. that consciousness has a physical basis. It also refutes your own original statement: > once you accept that our conscious experiences just emerge from information processing in the brain, and that there is nothing stopping such emergent behaviour from happening in computer systems. You've acknowledged that you don't think calculators are conscious, for example, but they do information processing. This implies that not all information processing systems are capable of generating the proposed emergent behavior of consciousness. That means the you don't, in fact, know that there's "nothing stopping such emergent behavior from happening in computer systems." Without an evidence-backed theory to explain the relevant distinctions between brains and lesser information-processing systems, you simply don't know that. If you consider yourself a scientist, you should think twice about making claims for which you have neither theory nor evidence. > I said that information processing is the thing from which consciousness emerges, and this should not be controversial. And I've pointed out that this is essentially a faith-based position. You have no reason to believe this other than that you assume that's how it must work. You can of course resort to an inductive argument, but those have inherent uncertainty. To claim the kind of certainty you seem to want to, you need to bridge the knowledge gap with faith. > If you understand what "emergence" means (in the context of complexity science) then you'll understand the difference between "conscious" things and calculators. If you understand what emergence means, you'll understand that (a) calculators have emergent behavior and (b) you haven't in any way explained, speculated about, or even handwaved a reason that calculators don't have consciousness while brains do. > For more perspective on what things we know about how the brain works and how it's organized, I recommend reading a functional neuroanatomy textbook. Why do you think that's relevant? No neuroanatomy textbook provides any explanation of the causes of consciousness. The fact that you're saying this suggest that you don't understand the key problem at all, or why emergence may not be a very convincing solution in this case. While we're recommending things, try Chalmers: https://consc.net/papers/facing.html https://consc.net/papers/facing.html

How do you think brains work? There's no magic in the goo. It's all information processing, and we know this very well.

by epgui 4y ago

How do you think brains work? There's no magic in the goo. It's all information processing, and we know this very well.

Perhaps "Information processing" isn't very well defined. More appropriate would be "neuro-electrical activity". But then, people have simulated that at high scales and still only got parrots. So there is still a missing process that turns organisms into self-sufficient survival bots and also gives brains some level of consciousness as a consequence and it isn't trivial to recreate. Otherwise we would be crawling in artificial minds with their self-induced purposes by now.

epgui 4y ago
> But then, people have simulated that at high scales People have thrown vast amounts of neurons in a bag, and have tried organizing networks in highly regular ways, but we have yet to apply what we know about brain tissue organization. We've done the equivalent of throwing a bunch of wood and concrete into a pile, so it should be no surprise that it doesn't look like a home. IMO it's quite remarkable that this approach has taken us so far!
- nurettin 4y ago
  That's fun to read, but not sure what you mean by brain tissue organization.
  - epgui 4y ago
    I recommend Blumenfeld's neuroanatomy textbook.

antonvs 4y ago

Why do you think "information processing" is what causes consciousness, as opposed to some other process that brains perform? Do you think a Raspberry Pi, a 1970s electronic calculator, or a simple analog thermostat is conscious? They all do information processing. If they aren't conscious, what is it about the information processing that brains do that produces consciousness? This is an obvious false dichotomy: > There's no magic in the goo. It's all information processing It doesn't have to be magic. Just to take an example, Penrose and Hameroff proposed that microtubules in neurons are structured in a fractal pattern which would enable quantum processes to occur that (somehow!) explain consciousness. This proposal is little more than a guess, but it's an example of something other than information processing, that's not "magic", that could be a cause for consciousness. > It's all information processing, and we know this very well. How do we "know this very well"? The real answer is we certainly don't know that, but perhaps if you try to justify your position, you'll realize that.

epgui 4y ago
> Why do you think "information processing" is what causes consciousness, as opposed to some other process that brains perform? Because the second part of this question is absurd. There is no "process", biochemical or otherwise, that can't be described in terms of information. Information describes the substrate of the "process". My specific area of expertise is extracellular vesicles, and even that is often described as "enabling the horizontal transfer of information", even in non-brain contexts. As far as the rest, I never claimed that "processing information" was a sufficient condition for consciousness to emerge. I said that information processing is the thing from which consciousness emerges, and this should not be controversial. If you understand what "emergence" means (in the context of complexity science) then you'll understand the difference between "conscious" things and calculators. For more perspective on what things we know about how the brain works and how it's organized, I recommend reading a functional neuroanatomy textbook. You don't even need to go as far as reading research papers to gain a basic perspective. Blumenfeld is a good one.
- antonvs 4y ago
  > There is no "process", biochemical or otherwise, that can't be described in terms of information. There's more than one definition of information, and you should be able to tell by context which one is being used. However, if you want to take this perspective, it just underscores how content-free your claim is. You're then making no claim beyond the basic metaphysical assumption of physicalism, i.e. that consciousness has a physical basis. It also refutes your own original statement: > once you accept that our conscious experiences just emerge from information processing in the brain, and that there is nothing stopping such emergent behaviour from happening in computer systems. You've acknowledged that you don't think calculators are conscious, for example, but they do information processing. This implies that not all information processing systems are capable of generating the proposed emergent behavior of consciousness. That means the you don't, in fact, know that there's "nothing stopping such emergent behavior from happening in computer systems." Without an evidence-backed theory to explain the relevant distinctions between brains and lesser information-processing systems, you simply don't know that. If you consider yourself a scientist, you should think twice about making claims for which you have neither theory nor evidence. > I said that information processing is the thing from which consciousness emerges, and this should not be controversial. And I've pointed out that this is essentially a faith-based position. You have no reason to believe this other than that you assume that's how it must work. You can of course resort to an inductive argument, but those have inherent uncertainty. To claim the kind of certainty you seem to want to, you need to bridge the knowledge gap with faith. > If you understand what "emergence" means (in the context of complexity science) then you'll understand the difference between "conscious" things and calculators. If you understand what emergence means, you'll understand that (a) calculators have emergent behavior and (b) you haven't in any way explained, speculated about, or even handwaved a reason that calculators don't have consciousness while brains do. > For more perspective on what things we know about how the brain works and how it's organized, I recommend reading a functional neuroanatomy textbook. Why do you think that's relevant? No neuroanatomy textbook provides any explanation of the causes of consciousness. The fact that you're saying this suggest that you don't understand the key problem at all, or why emergence may not be a very convincing solution in this case. While we're recommending things, try Chalmers: https://consc.net/papers/facing.html https://consc.net/papers/facing.html