3 ms·

The reason why this is likely not possible is because consciousness appears to require a notion of time passing by and having a constant experience means that t

by quonn 3y ago

The reason why this is likely not possible is because consciousness appears to require a notion of time passing by and having a constant experience means that there is no time. For time to exist some sort of motion is needed, including either internal motion like the perception of breathing or a heartbeat or a train of thought or external ones like a clock or a change of color from red to blue.

vidarh 3y ago
We have no way of knowing whether there is any time even with the "notion of time passing", as that notion depends on a notion of memory of a past, and we have no way of knowing if that is real, including whether or not there is a train of thought or any change.
- quonn 3y ago
  You are misunderstanding what I wrote.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    I don't think so. The point being that we can't tell whether we're having a "constant experience" or not, and we can't tell from that whether or not there's any time or no time, or punctuated time, nor can we for that matter tell whether consciousness requires any notion of time. It's all pure speculation because we have no way of assessing it outside of our own frame of reference. E.g. I see you in another answer saying that "the fact is that all kinds of state changes happen", but we don't know if any state changes ever happen. We have no way of telling a dynamic universe apart from a static one where we're all just suspended in a single unchanging moment. We can choose to handwave a lot of this away ordinarily because as long as the experience is reasonably consistent it makes sense to assume it is objectively real, because we have nothing better. It doesn't matter if the world didn't exist a second ago when e.g. considering whether gravity work, because it appears as if it did. But when trying to determine the nature of consciousness we run headlong into the fact our observation of consciousness is direct only in the case of ourself, and even then heavily limited. We have no direct measure that puts us in a position to prove consciousness even in other people. We can show that within our perceived world we can measure brain activity that correlates to though, but not whether that reflects merely the operation of an automata, or the existence of consciousness, or if there is a distinction at all. As such, it's meaningless to suggest we have a way of saying much about the limitations of consciousness at all.
    - sigmaml 3y ago
      > We have no way of telling a dynamic universe apart from a static one where we're all just suspended in a single unchanging moment. I am curious to know why you think so. What would you say about repeatably observable causality, in that case?
      - vidarh 3y ago
        If the universe is static, then there is no "repeatably observable causality" or indeed any causality at all. In that scenario any perception of time and causality would inherently have to just be our perception lying to us about a past that we have had not part in, if it exist in any sense at all. If so, we have not had this conversation, and your experience of it is just a static momentary perception of having had it. Maybe time is a spatial dimension, and there are infinite moments of consciousness fixed in the same spatial location with no time passing. Consider how you'd tell if a drawing is an individual drawing or a frame from a cartoon if all you have to go by is that single frame. You can argue that the drawing hints convincingly at motion, but that does not require that this motion has taken place. Or consider a trace of a simulation, sliced and diced into snapshots of individual moments. We can argue that it's unlikely any entities in such snapshots would have consciousness, but if we're arguing on the basis that we appear to experience the motion of time, we'd equally make that argument if we were wrong about consciousness and indeed locked in snapshots of individual moments. We can even construct simulations where individual parts look causally connected but where the existence of one calculated frame tells us nothing about whether any individual other frames have even ever been instantiated (e.g. imagine a very complex function over time, where only punctuated values have ever been calculated). I'm not saying I believe that is our situation - I'm saying we can't distinguish between that and an infinite set of other possible options, because "from the inside" there is an infinite set of possibilities that could all look the same from our vantage point. We can debate which possibilities seem more likely, but they will always be speculation as long as we're locked inside the asylum, so to speak... Incidentally, this is an argument for a materialistic view of the universe, not against it, on the basis that absent a way of "peeking out" and seeing our situation from the outside, it's meaningless to treat the world as anything but what we measure and perceive - it doesn't matter whether or not this world is what it seems like to us or not as long as it is the only view we have of it. We just can't say if it is some inherently true objective view of the universe, and most likely it won't make any difference to us. It only makes a difference when we tinker with philosophy around the edges, like these conversations about whether what we experience can tell us anything about the experience of other entities.
krzat 3y ago
IMO those are details, we could drop the constatness and just ask - what is required to have a single moment of redness? Or even simpler, a single moment of one tingle. BTW experienced mediators apperently can experience no time and no space, no idea how that tastes like.
- quonn 3y ago
  > BTW experienced mediators apperently can experience no time and no space, no idea how that tastes like. Sure, they might feel so, but the fact is that all kinds of state changes happen, so time goes on.

by quonn 3y ago

vidarh 3y ago

We have no way of knowing whether there is any time even with the "notion of time passing", as that notion depends on a notion of memory of a past, and we have no way of knowing if that is real, including whether or not there is a train of thought or any change.

quonn 3y ago
You are misunderstanding what I wrote.
- vidarh 3y ago
  I don't think so. The point being that we can't tell whether we're having a "constant experience" or not, and we can't tell from that whether or not there's any time or no time, or punctuated time, nor can we for that matter tell whether consciousness requires any notion of time. It's all pure speculation because we have no way of assessing it outside of our own frame of reference. E.g. I see you in another answer saying that "the fact is that all kinds of state changes happen", but we don't know if any state changes ever happen. We have no way of telling a dynamic universe apart from a static one where we're all just suspended in a single unchanging moment. We can choose to handwave a lot of this away ordinarily because as long as the experience is reasonably consistent it makes sense to assume it is objectively real, because we have nothing better. It doesn't matter if the world didn't exist a second ago when e.g. considering whether gravity work, because it appears as if it did. But when trying to determine the nature of consciousness we run headlong into the fact our observation of consciousness is direct only in the case of ourself, and even then heavily limited. We have no direct measure that puts us in a position to prove consciousness even in other people. We can show that within our perceived world we can measure brain activity that correlates to though, but not whether that reflects merely the operation of an automata, or the existence of consciousness, or if there is a distinction at all. As such, it's meaningless to suggest we have a way of saying much about the limitations of consciousness at all.
  - sigmaml 3y ago
    > We have no way of telling a dynamic universe apart from a static one where we're all just suspended in a single unchanging moment. I am curious to know why you think so. What would you say about repeatably observable causality, in that case?
    - vidarh 3y ago
      If the universe is static, then there is no "repeatably observable causality" or indeed any causality at all. In that scenario any perception of time and causality would inherently have to just be our perception lying to us about a past that we have had not part in, if it exist in any sense at all. If so, we have not had this conversation, and your experience of it is just a static momentary perception of having had it. Maybe time is a spatial dimension, and there are infinite moments of consciousness fixed in the same spatial location with no time passing. Consider how you'd tell if a drawing is an individual drawing or a frame from a cartoon if all you have to go by is that single frame. You can argue that the drawing hints convincingly at motion, but that does not require that this motion has taken place. Or consider a trace of a simulation, sliced and diced into snapshots of individual moments. We can argue that it's unlikely any entities in such snapshots would have consciousness, but if we're arguing on the basis that we appear to experience the motion of time, we'd equally make that argument if we were wrong about consciousness and indeed locked in snapshots of individual moments. We can even construct simulations where individual parts look causally connected but where the existence of one calculated frame tells us nothing about whether any individual other frames have even ever been instantiated (e.g. imagine a very complex function over time, where only punctuated values have ever been calculated). I'm not saying I believe that is our situation - I'm saying we can't distinguish between that and an infinite set of other possible options, because "from the inside" there is an infinite set of possibilities that could all look the same from our vantage point. We can debate which possibilities seem more likely, but they will always be speculation as long as we're locked inside the asylum, so to speak... Incidentally, this is an argument for a materialistic view of the universe, not against it, on the basis that absent a way of "peeking out" and seeing our situation from the outside, it's meaningless to treat the world as anything but what we measure and perceive - it doesn't matter whether or not this world is what it seems like to us or not as long as it is the only view we have of it. We just can't say if it is some inherently true objective view of the universe, and most likely it won't make any difference to us. It only makes a difference when we tinker with philosophy around the edges, like these conversations about whether what we experience can tell us anything about the experience of other entities.

krzat 3y ago

IMO those are details, we could drop the constatness and just ask - what is required to have a single moment of redness? Or even simpler, a single moment of one tingle. BTW experienced mediators apperently can experience no time and no space, no idea how that tastes like.

quonn 3y ago
> BTW experienced mediators apperently can experience no time and no space, no idea how that tastes like. Sure, they might feel so, but the fact is that all kinds of state changes happen, so time goes on.