4 ms·

Conciousness as a Delivrery Platform for Feelings

20 points by dmbche 3y ago

iammjm 3y ago
Quite an interesting read! "consciousness arise when brain's predictions fail" - so would placing ourselves in an environment of absolute uncertainty result in absolute consciousness? How about a consciousness training involving, say, staring into the evolution of wolfram’s rule 30 trying to predict its next outcome? (impossible)
- stevenhuang 3y ago
  For a bit more on the free energy minimization see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding A lot of parallels to machine learning
dangitnotagain 3y ago
Under the “consciousness is the inflection upon the substrate of existential being” argument, feelings are analog signals with “chemical smoothing.” Firstly this proposition asserts that consciousness underlies our biochemical machinery (it does not arise from it.) Consciousness would then be the quantum sieve acting as a scoped “singularity” (of which there are simultaneously many), a part of the feedback loop of biotechnology. The biotechnology produces the electrochemical “feeling” which is encoded/decoded as signal in the quantum sieve. In this way, consciousness would be the carrier platform for feelings.
pelorat 3y ago
You don't need feelings for consciousness. Feelings are a biological mechanism to increase odds of survival in a potentially hostile environment. They have nothing to do with consciousness or intelligence.
- hackinthebochs 3y ago
  Feelings have a behavioral component that can conceivably operate without consciousness. But they also have a self-explanatory component. I fled because I was fearful. I intrinsically understand this, which is why there isn't an incongruity between my willed actions and my more automatic behaviors. It allows my ability to process contextual information and evaluate action plans to be congruent with my low-context immediate (i.e. unconscious) processing. Consciousness is a part of the boundary between low context processes and high context decision-making. It's not clear to me you can have high context decision-making without consciousness. It certainly isn't an issue that can be settled just by noting that feelings help survival.
  - dangitnotagain 3y ago
    To reiterate how free will may be considered from an earlier post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262418 It is not that will cannot be coopted, or controlled, or predictable based on common patterns, it is that will is arbitrarily available at the discretion its possessor that makes it “free.” Will, is the determinate resolve (of our “potential of being”). Will, the determination of resolve. That you may exercise your determination at your discretion is your free will. That you may be under some other influence is a psycho-intellectual complexity that is each’s lot to resolve, those who would be “masters” of their own. As an aside, determinism in general fails by lack of account (always an encompassing scope of interceding unknown variance), and decay (it is falling apart consistent only by eventuality.)
Aqueous 3y ago
It seems like a lot of writing, including this, that might otherwise aspire to ‘solve the hard problem of consciousness’ instead attempts to explain why experience is needed, or how it came to be advantageous and evolve, and not how it is possible at all. It therefore sheds very little or no light at all on consciousness. Any attempt to ‘solve’ the hard problem of consciousness that doesn’t explain how conscious experience is possible at all is a failed attempt. And explaining how it is possible at all would need to refer to some mechanism by which matter (or some other thing) can experience anything and not just be experienced. Nobody in the physical sciences or philosophy has truly attempted this because the answer may in fact live at some epistemological boundary that we can't access in part due to our own subjectivity. I still hold hope that some future experiment (i.e. a discovery of a real and verifiable ability to transfer consciousness) can shed some light on this fundamental mystery, but it may very well be impossible. In the meantime, I am not sure that speculation of the kind that exists in this article is of any use at all.
nh23423fefe 3y ago
Seems like category error to me. the purpose of perception is to replicate faster, spread farther, alter gene frequencies, etc. nervous systems evolved in multicellular animals from their cell to cell signalling systems. i think its error to imagine there is a "bottom" that grounds consciousness. its just an emergent phenomenon only describable from the inside. saying consciousness requires needs is like saying "motherhood" is grounded in "love." its just infinite regress. consciousness is a behavior, selected for over 100Myears because having an world model is a better way of spreading than performing a random walk for some creatures. diatoms seem to be doing just fine without it.

20 points by dmbche 3y ago

Quite an interesting read! "consciousness arise when brain's predictions fail" - so would placing ourselves in an environment of absolute uncertainty result in absolute consciousness? How about a consciousness training involving, say, staring into the evolution of wolfram’s rule 30 trying to predict its next outcome? (impossible)

stevenhuang 3y ago
For a bit more on the free energy minimization see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding A lot of parallels to machine learning

dangitnotagain 3y ago

Under the “consciousness is the inflection upon the substrate of existential being” argument, feelings are analog signals with “chemical smoothing.” Firstly this proposition asserts that consciousness underlies our biochemical machinery (it does not arise from it.) Consciousness would then be the quantum sieve acting as a scoped “singularity” (of which there are simultaneously many), a part of the feedback loop of biotechnology. The biotechnology produces the electrochemical “feeling” which is encoded/decoded as signal in the quantum sieve. In this way, consciousness would be the carrier platform for feelings.

pelorat 3y ago

You don't need feelings for consciousness. Feelings are a biological mechanism to increase odds of survival in a potentially hostile environment. They have nothing to do with consciousness or intelligence.

hackinthebochs 3y ago
Feelings have a behavioral component that can conceivably operate without consciousness. But they also have a self-explanatory component. I fled because I was fearful. I intrinsically understand this, which is why there isn't an incongruity between my willed actions and my more automatic behaviors. It allows my ability to process contextual information and evaluate action plans to be congruent with my low-context immediate (i.e. unconscious) processing. Consciousness is a part of the boundary between low context processes and high context decision-making. It's not clear to me you can have high context decision-making without consciousness. It certainly isn't an issue that can be settled just by noting that feelings help survival.
- dangitnotagain 3y ago
  To reiterate how free will may be considered from an earlier post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262418 It is not that will cannot be coopted, or controlled, or predictable based on common patterns, it is that will is arbitrarily available at the discretion its possessor that makes it “free.” Will, is the determinate resolve (of our “potential of being”). Will, the determination of resolve. That you may exercise your determination at your discretion is your free will. That you may be under some other influence is a psycho-intellectual complexity that is each’s lot to resolve, those who would be “masters” of their own. As an aside, determinism in general fails by lack of account (always an encompassing scope of interceding unknown variance), and decay (it is falling apart consistent only by eventuality.)

Aqueous 3y ago

It seems like a lot of writing, including this, that might otherwise aspire to ‘solve the hard problem of consciousness’ instead attempts to explain why experience is needed, or how it came to be advantageous and evolve, and not how it is possible at all. It therefore sheds very little or no light at all on consciousness. Any attempt to ‘solve’ the hard problem of consciousness that doesn’t explain how conscious experience is possible at all is a failed attempt. And explaining how it is possible at all would need to refer to some mechanism by which matter (or some other thing) can experience anything and not just be experienced. Nobody in the physical sciences or philosophy has truly attempted this because the answer may in fact live at some epistemological boundary that we can't access in part due to our own subjectivity. I still hold hope that some future experiment (i.e. a discovery of a real and verifiable ability to transfer consciousness) can shed some light on this fundamental mystery, but it may very well be impossible. In the meantime, I am not sure that speculation of the kind that exists in this article is of any use at all.

nh23423fefe 3y ago

Seems like category error to me. the purpose of perception is to replicate faster, spread farther, alter gene frequencies, etc. nervous systems evolved in multicellular animals from their cell to cell signalling systems. i think its error to imagine there is a "bottom" that grounds consciousness. its just an emergent phenomenon only describable from the inside. saying consciousness requires needs is like saying "motherhood" is grounded in "love." its just infinite regress. consciousness is a behavior, selected for over 100Myears because having an world model is a better way of spreading than performing a random walk for some creatures. diatoms seem to be doing just fine without it.