4 ms·

For all we know, it might be that consciousness is not fully contained in the physical structure of the brain. It might as well be something that partially exis

For all we know, it might be that consciousness is not fully contained in the physical structure of the brain. It might as well be something that partially exists on another layer of reality we have no idea about yet.

codetrotter 2y ago
True. Which leads one to wonder, could those same kinds of consciousness that inhabit us also be capable of inhabit an AI. Or even, could there be other kinds of consciousnesses in those or other dimensions that are not currently able to exist on earth because there doesn’t exist anything yet that they are able to inhabit. But that our computers would eventually, when we arrive at some specific combination of hardware and software, enable them to inhabit those. Bringing a new kind of consciousness from outside of the universe to earth that is unlike all others outside already present here (in us, the animals, the plants, etc).
- grishka 2y ago
  Is it still an "artificial" intelligence if it's made with real consciousness, though?
  - T-A 2y ago
    Intelligence != consciousness
    - southernplaces7 2y ago
      Agreed on this to a certain extent. Right here on earth in the present day and without taking into account innovative technological advances in AI, we have examples of highly sophisticated intelligence (at least in a functional way) belonging to things that have little or no known consciousness. First example, large hive insect nests, such as those of termites and certain ants. Their internal construction is extremely complex and often built in useful (to them) ways that would challenge even the abilities of smart human engineers trying to do the same with similar tools (sharp digging instruments, organic cementing liquids, raw scavenged building materials and nothing else) Yet any individual termite in a nest of millions shows only, maybe, the most minuscule and debatable signs of consciousness. They instead act like biological, physical pieces of an algorithmic process. Second, obvious example, evolution itself: Here we have a process that produces organic, biological systems of such complexity and self direction that we with all our cognition are barely capable of grasping them robustly let alone emulating any major part of them, yet it's entirely mindless. Sure, it has billions of years to do its thing through the imperatives of brute survival mechanisms, but it's still incredible how on a macro scale none of it involves the least bit of known cognition.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    Yeah
danielbln 2y ago
It might be a pink elefant that lives in the 7th dimension and contains every person's consciousness in the shape of a magic peanut. Or it may not.
- strogonoff 2y ago
  Gödel’s incompleteness theorem says that pink elephants may indeed well exist.
  - exe34 2y ago
    no it doesn't.
    - strogonoff 2y ago
      This is only true if you reject the pink elephant argument as straw man in the first place. As long as you consider it a figure of speech (a charitable interpretation indeed), then existence of pink elephants (or ghosts, or what have you) is exactly the implication of the theory in context of scientific method.
      - exe34 2y ago
        Gödel's theorem deals with the axioms of mathematics. the scientific method deals with the physical universe. a small part of mathematics is useful in describing the universe, but most of it isn't.
        strogonoff 2y ago
        The theorem is about formal systems in general. You may want to take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#Science_of_complex_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#Science_of_c..., though I recommend to read, for example, GEB to inderstand the implications of the theorem.
  - anon291 2y ago
visarga 2y ago
> For all we know, it might be that consciousness is not fully contained in the physical structure of the brain. It might as well be something that partially exists on another layer of reality we have no idea about yet. Yes, but not another layer. Just the environment around us - physical and social. Every sensation comes from the environment, our perceptions are trained on this data stream, every value is dependent on environment, our emotions reflect it, language and society are part of the environment, we base our thoughts on language and our actions on other people. Our brain is made from environment signals, just like GPT-4 is made from its language corpus. The unsung hero of consciousness is actually the environment with its reach data stream and feedback. Consciousness, language, genes, internet, LLMs and the evolution of intelligence are all social processes. They don't make sense individually, only as part of an evolutionary population. They can only evolve if there are many agents. Now, I know this doesn't sound as sexy as quantum consciousness, but it is a more parsimonious and better grounded position. It accounts for the data engine that actually creates consciousness. Don't be looking for consciousness inside the brain or in exotic physics when the magical ingredient is outside.
- danans 2y ago
  > Yes, but not another layer. Just the environment around us - physical and social. Every sensation comes from the environment, our perceptions are trained on this data stream, every value is dependent on environment, our emotions reflect it, language and society are part of the environment, we base our thoughts on language and our actions on other people. This is also my understanding of consciousness. We are overly focused on the human brain's capabilities as a generic information processing mechanism (because of its remarkable adaptability), that we ignore how fundamentally dependent it is on its environment, leading us to seek a metaphysical explanation for its functioning, when it's actually all around us. Language, culture, and abstract thought capabilities that we use to describe consciousness are symbolic overlays upon the physical environment, but ultimately emerge from it, and their objectives ultimately tie back to it. Human consciousness - especially its group/cultural aspects - has been a tremendous advantage to the species, which is why we are even in a position to be fascinated by it today.
whoitwas 2y ago
I thought we did know this now. I can't quote exactly what science I read, but the science latest I saw showed consciousness arrises in the nerves outside the brain.
mytailorisrich 2y ago
Human consciousness has logically to be a product of the physical structure of human beings.
- grishka 2y ago
  Except the "physical structure" might extend into dimensions we don't know about.
  - fuzzfactor 2y ago
    How about energy that's associated with the physical structure?
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    Then this is either general physics theories about extra dimensions that apply to the universe as a whole probably applied to quantum physics in this case, or it is random quackery.
- Llamamoe 2y ago
  To be fair, there is absolutely nothing within known physics that would explain why we're more than a complex biological computer and how subjective experience and qualia arise from it. So we genuinely cannot even begin to guess as to what actually imbues consciousness into our neural processes. It could be anything from "it's actually just the physical processes" through "there's a soul piloting our brains by influencing quantum noise" to "the brain is basically an antenna for our metaphysical self and death/disability is the loss of connection"
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    > why we're more than a complex biological computer Are we more than biological "computers"? I think we are complex biological systems that we do not fully understand yet but that does not mean anything supernatural or beyond our understanding of physics is at play.
  - PeterisP 2y ago
vinceguidry 2y ago
I've heard reliable reports of Jeffrey A. Martin and his fellow research participants moving visual perception out of the eyes and the rest of the body into the surrounding environment. Literally seeing behind him. I don't think his eyes stopped working, he just moved his subjective awareness outside of his body. I found it hard to believe until I used his techniques to contain 'all of reality' into a small space (the visual field) and then 'move' it to my chest. Feeling like music, sight, and body sensations are all happening within a tiny space-contained field is a very startling experience.
- harha_ 2y ago
  You've heard "reliable records"? Can you link it/them? I can't find via search engines, I tried.
  - vinceguidry 2y ago
    Reports, not records. People who I know who know him sharing privately. Jeffrey doesn't and can't publish everything that he comes across and has to be very circumspect with the stuff he does.
    - hovering_nox 2y ago
      ROFL
- Thiez 2y ago
  There's always 'reports' of people being able to do these magical things that cannot be explained through modern science. And yet challenges such as these https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prizes_for_evidence_of_the_paranormal#List_of_standing_prizes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prizes_for_evidence_... never seem to have winners. It seems that these abilities inherently come with the luck of never having financial problems that could me resolved with a generous cash prize.
  - vinceguidry 2y ago
grantcas 2y ago
[dead]
EasyMark 2y ago
that's the kind of musing that leads you off into the weeds. Sure, anything is possible, but science is useful for observing, cataloging, and utilizing knowledge that is provable or at least "approximately" provable to the point it's useful. Spiritual talk of what the mind "is" really doesn't have much of a place when talking about AGI, I don't think. We need repetitive outputs for given inputs into a system. I can make up "what might be" all day long, but it's not really useful, unless I can prove it or use it.

codetrotter 2y ago

True. Which leads one to wonder, could those same kinds of consciousness that inhabit us also be capable of inhabit an AI. Or even, could there be other kinds of consciousnesses in those or other dimensions that are not currently able to exist on earth because there doesn’t exist anything yet that they are able to inhabit. But that our computers would eventually, when we arrive at some specific combination of hardware and software, enable them to inhabit those. Bringing a new kind of consciousness from outside of the universe to earth that is unlike all others outside already present here (in us, the animals, the plants, etc).

grishka 2y ago
Is it still an "artificial" intelligence if it's made with real consciousness, though?
- T-A 2y ago
  Intelligence != consciousness
  - southernplaces7 2y ago
    Agreed on this to a certain extent. Right here on earth in the present day and without taking into account innovative technological advances in AI, we have examples of highly sophisticated intelligence (at least in a functional way) belonging to things that have little or no known consciousness. First example, large hive insect nests, such as those of termites and certain ants. Their internal construction is extremely complex and often built in useful (to them) ways that would challenge even the abilities of smart human engineers trying to do the same with similar tools (sharp digging instruments, organic cementing liquids, raw scavenged building materials and nothing else) Yet any individual termite in a nest of millions shows only, maybe, the most minuscule and debatable signs of consciousness. They instead act like biological, physical pieces of an algorithmic process. Second, obvious example, evolution itself: Here we have a process that produces organic, biological systems of such complexity and self direction that we with all our cognition are barely capable of grasping them robustly let alone emulating any major part of them, yet it's entirely mindless. Sure, it has billions of years to do its thing through the imperatives of brute survival mechanisms, but it's still incredible how on a macro scale none of it involves the least bit of known cognition.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  Yeah

danielbln 2y ago

It might be a pink elefant that lives in the 7th dimension and contains every person's consciousness in the shape of a magic peanut. Or it may not.

strogonoff 2y ago
Gödel’s incompleteness theorem says that pink elephants may indeed well exist.
- exe34 2y ago
  no it doesn't.
  - strogonoff 2y ago
    This is only true if you reject the pink elephant argument as straw man in the first place. As long as you consider it a figure of speech (a charitable interpretation indeed), then existence of pink elephants (or ghosts, or what have you) is exactly the implication of the theory in context of scientific method.
    - exe34 2y ago
      Gödel's theorem deals with the axioms of mathematics. the scientific method deals with the physical universe. a small part of mathematics is useful in describing the universe, but most of it isn't.
      - strogonoff 2y ago
        The theorem is about formal systems in general. You may want to take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#Science_of_complex_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#Science_of_c..., though I recommend to read, for example, GEB to inderstand the implications of the theorem.
- anon291 2y ago

visarga 2y ago

> For all we know, it might be that consciousness is not fully contained in the physical structure of the brain. It might as well be something that partially exists on another layer of reality we have no idea about yet. Yes, but not another layer. Just the environment around us - physical and social. Every sensation comes from the environment, our perceptions are trained on this data stream, every value is dependent on environment, our emotions reflect it, language and society are part of the environment, we base our thoughts on language and our actions on other people. Our brain is made from environment signals, just like GPT-4 is made from its language corpus. The unsung hero of consciousness is actually the environment with its reach data stream and feedback. Consciousness, language, genes, internet, LLMs and the evolution of intelligence are all social processes. They don't make sense individually, only as part of an evolutionary population. They can only evolve if there are many agents. Now, I know this doesn't sound as sexy as quantum consciousness, but it is a more parsimonious and better grounded position. It accounts for the data engine that actually creates consciousness. Don't be looking for consciousness inside the brain or in exotic physics when the magical ingredient is outside.

danans 2y ago
> Yes, but not another layer. Just the environment around us - physical and social. Every sensation comes from the environment, our perceptions are trained on this data stream, every value is dependent on environment, our emotions reflect it, language and society are part of the environment, we base our thoughts on language and our actions on other people. This is also my understanding of consciousness. We are overly focused on the human brain's capabilities as a generic information processing mechanism (because of its remarkable adaptability), that we ignore how fundamentally dependent it is on its environment, leading us to seek a metaphysical explanation for its functioning, when it's actually all around us. Language, culture, and abstract thought capabilities that we use to describe consciousness are symbolic overlays upon the physical environment, but ultimately emerge from it, and their objectives ultimately tie back to it. Human consciousness - especially its group/cultural aspects - has been a tremendous advantage to the species, which is why we are even in a position to be fascinated by it today.

whoitwas 2y ago

I thought we did know this now. I can't quote exactly what science I read, but the science latest I saw showed consciousness arrises in the nerves outside the brain.

mytailorisrich 2y ago

Human consciousness has logically to be a product of the physical structure of human beings.

grishka 2y ago
Except the "physical structure" might extend into dimensions we don't know about.
- fuzzfactor 2y ago
  How about energy that's associated with the physical structure?
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  Then this is either general physics theories about extra dimensions that apply to the universe as a whole probably applied to quantum physics in this case, or it is random quackery.
Llamamoe 2y ago
To be fair, there is absolutely nothing within known physics that would explain why we're more than a complex biological computer and how subjective experience and qualia arise from it. So we genuinely cannot even begin to guess as to what actually imbues consciousness into our neural processes. It could be anything from "it's actually just the physical processes" through "there's a soul piloting our brains by influencing quantum noise" to "the brain is basically an antenna for our metaphysical self and death/disability is the loss of connection"
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  > why we're more than a complex biological computer Are we more than biological "computers"? I think we are complex biological systems that we do not fully understand yet but that does not mean anything supernatural or beyond our understanding of physics is at play.
- PeterisP 2y ago

vinceguidry 2y ago

I've heard reliable reports of Jeffrey A. Martin and his fellow research participants moving visual perception out of the eyes and the rest of the body into the surrounding environment. Literally seeing behind him. I don't think his eyes stopped working, he just moved his subjective awareness outside of his body. I found it hard to believe until I used his techniques to contain 'all of reality' into a small space (the visual field) and then 'move' it to my chest. Feeling like music, sight, and body sensations are all happening within a tiny space-contained field is a very startling experience.

harha_ 2y ago
You've heard "reliable records"? Can you link it/them? I can't find via search engines, I tried.
- vinceguidry 2y ago
  Reports, not records. People who I know who know him sharing privately. Jeffrey doesn't and can't publish everything that he comes across and has to be very circumspect with the stuff he does.
  - hovering_nox 2y ago
    ROFL
Thiez 2y ago
There's always 'reports' of people being able to do these magical things that cannot be explained through modern science. And yet challenges such as these https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prizes_for_evidence_of_the_paranormal#List_of_standing_prizes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prizes_for_evidence_... never seem to have winners. It seems that these abilities inherently come with the luck of never having financial problems that could me resolved with a generous cash prize.
- vinceguidry 2y ago

grantcas 2y ago

[dead]

EasyMark 2y ago

that's the kind of musing that leads you off into the weeds. Sure, anything is possible, but science is useful for observing, cataloging, and utilizing knowledge that is provable or at least "approximately" provable to the point it's useful. Spiritual talk of what the mind "is" really doesn't have much of a place when talking about AGI, I don't think. We need repetitive outputs for given inputs into a system. I can make up "what might be" all day long, but it's not really useful, unless I can prove it or use it.