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I rarely see IIT characterized as complete junk. Personally, I don't see much value in it as I don't think it answers, or even grapples with, the hard problem o

I rarely see IIT characterized as complete junk. Personally, I don't see much value in it as I don't think it answers, or even grapples with, the hard problem of consciousness. Tell me how integrated information gives rise to subjective experience and maybe I'll start buying what they're selling.

rvcdbn 3y ago
You could ask the same kind of question about General Relativity. Sure mass/energy causes the curvature of spacetime but tell me how it does or your theory is worthless. Even without the “how” GR still makes testable predictions that are born out by experiment. And this is the shape of all our physical theories. I think this is the kind of theory IIT is trying to be.
- mrtranscendence 3y ago
  Well, there's a reason it's called "the hard problem of consciousness" and not "just some incidental observation about models of consciousness". When evaluating general relativity it's not important to ask how mass/energy causes the curvature of spacetime; that's not the point of general relativity. But a theory of consciousness that doesn't explain the most intriguing, important component of consciousness doesn't explain what's important to me.
photonthug 3y ago
I think what they are selling is not answers, but more like a non-metaphysical platform to propose answers within, i.e. a decent start at a scientific framework. Frameworks shouldn't be confused with answers, although they might represent some way of getting closer to answers. Besides IIT, is there an alternative scientific/quantified framework that could even try to grapple with your question? For purposes of comparison, here's another approach that's super interesting ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4168033/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4168033/ ). So both frameworks are looking at system structure/dynamics and then attempting to deduce/quantify some aspect of them that (hopefully) gives us some insight into "Mind" or "Consciousness". But to me, grounding such inquiries directly in neuroscience seems awkward, because brain only runs Mind. Uncovering a bunch of implementation details about that from FMRIs probably won't give us a lot of interesting insight at the right level. To an extent some implementation details are important and might shed light on the architecture/algorithm of Consciousness/Mind, but evolved systems are also going to be cluttered up with total hacks that evolution brute-forced where implementation is kinda arbitrary. All of which is to say, IIT being "platform agnostic" and proposing stuff like a thermostat is more conscious than a rock, a dog moreso than a thermostat, and a human more than a dog is not just a cool trick. Being able to approach this kind of intuitive problem in a somewhat rigorous way seems like a necessary requirement for a serious scientific theory of mind. I like the Ising and graph theory modeling approach, but the implementation details of {neuron-counting, FMRI, lesions on functional areas, etc} is probably a distraction if you're trying to understand mind rather than medicine.

rvcdbn 3y ago

You could ask the same kind of question about General Relativity. Sure mass/energy causes the curvature of spacetime but tell me how it does or your theory is worthless. Even without the “how” GR still makes testable predictions that are born out by experiment. And this is the shape of all our physical theories. I think this is the kind of theory IIT is trying to be.

mrtranscendence 3y ago
Well, there's a reason it's called "the hard problem of consciousness" and not "just some incidental observation about models of consciousness". When evaluating general relativity it's not important to ask how mass/energy causes the curvature of spacetime; that's not the point of general relativity. But a theory of consciousness that doesn't explain the most intriguing, important component of consciousness doesn't explain what's important to me.

photonthug 3y ago

I think what they are selling is not answers, but more like a non-metaphysical platform to propose answers within, i.e. a decent start at a scientific framework. Frameworks shouldn't be confused with answers, although they might represent some way of getting closer to answers. Besides IIT, is there an alternative scientific/quantified framework that could even try to grapple with your question? For purposes of comparison, here's another approach that's super interesting ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4168033/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4168033/ ). So both frameworks are looking at system structure/dynamics and then attempting to deduce/quantify some aspect of them that (hopefully) gives us some insight into "Mind" or "Consciousness". But to me, grounding such inquiries directly in neuroscience seems awkward, because brain only runs Mind. Uncovering a bunch of implementation details about that from FMRIs probably won't give us a lot of interesting insight at the right level. To an extent some implementation details are important and might shed light on the architecture/algorithm of Consciousness/Mind, but evolved systems are also going to be cluttered up with total hacks that evolution brute-forced where implementation is kinda arbitrary. All of which is to say, IIT being "platform agnostic" and proposing stuff like a thermostat is more conscious than a rock, a dog moreso than a thermostat, and a human more than a dog is not just a cool trick. Being able to approach this kind of intuitive problem in a somewhat rigorous way seems like a necessary requirement for a serious scientific theory of mind. I like the Ising and graph theory modeling approach, but the implementation details of {neuron-counting, FMRI, lesions on functional areas, etc} is probably a distraction if you're trying to understand mind rather than medicine.