5 ms·
Marvin Minsky, Tegmark and Putnam have nothing to do with neuroscience, and have no authority to speak about the nature of consciousness.
by IWeldMelons 2y ago
Marvin Minsky, Tegmark and Putnam have nothing to do with neuroscience, and have no authority to speak about the nature of consciousness.
- hshshshsvsv 2y agoWhy neuroscience has a monopoly on Consciousness?
- IWeldMelons 2y agoBecause it studies the only known vehicle of consciousness - neurons and their networks.
- hshshshsvsv 2y agoIt's not known. It's a belief hold among some scientists. It also assumes materialisam is true.
- IWeldMelons 2y agoAhaha. No, I am a neural network, and I am conscious. Destroying my network will destroy my consciousness.
- mtarnovan 2y agoNot necessarily, there are plenty of rigorously documented cases of people being conscious without any brain activity. This article is also pretty interesting: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.955594/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.9555...
- dekhn 2y agoI am not aware of rigorously documented cases of people being conscious without any brain activity. Can you point me to some?
- hshshshsvsv 2y agoAre you aware of any documented cases of observing brain activity without using consciousness?
- dekhn 2y agoYes- that's a widely done thing. In particular, brain activity is evaluated using EEG, MRI, reflex response, and many other physiological methods.
- hshshshsvsv 2y agoConsciousness is a primary requirement to see, operate, read results from all of that.
- dekhn 2y agoStop trolling.
- hshshshsvsv 2y agoIs that how your llm model reacts when you can't formulate back a reasonable argument?
- mensetmanusman 2y agoIt’s not trolling, it’s an obtuse reference to the unsolved measurement problem of Quantum Mechanics.
- etiam 2y agoIf that's equivocation as a wisecrack, it's particularly unhelpful in discussion about a pseudodiscipline whose proponents do no small part of their bullshitting by conflating the everyday psychological sense of "observation" with the sense of physical measurement.
- stubish 2y agoWithout brain activity, all that can be demonstrated is the recollection of being conscious. It is well known that we can recall lots of things that never happened, with our brains filling in the blanks with invented details.
- ruthmarx 2y ago> It also assumes materialisam is true. As it should until we have a better theory we can test.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mensetmanusman 2y agoLooking at neurons doesn’t explain the plane of consciousness.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoSo? That doesn't rebut the comment you are replying to, which basically states that currently our only window at all into consciousness is through neurons and their networks. At least neuroscientists are actually looking at the only physical medium we know of that can hold consciousness. Everyone else is just basically philosophizing, at least until anyone can show some other medium capable of holding consciousness.
- mensetmanusman 2y agoOur understanding of physical mediums is also new, it’s fields all the way down :7
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoSure, and if you want to study physics, at some point you need to experiment in the real world. If you want to study consciousness, that means you need to study the only medium we know that can evoke that phenomenon.
- hshshshsvsv 2y agoAgain. We don't know it can evoke consciousness. It's an assumption of materialisam. If consciousness is fundamental you don't need that argument.
- hshshshsvsv 2y agoWhat the hell you mean by neurons holding consciousness lol.
- dekhn 2y ago
- tivert 2y ago> Marvin Minsky, Tegmark and Putnam have nothing to do with neuroscience, and have no authority to speak about the nature of consciousness. Oh come on. Computer scientists and physicists are the pinnacles of humanity, who can speak with authority on absolutely everything, and have status that trumps every other kind of expert.
- etiam 2y agoThat's probably mostly fair, but then would you also agree that a hand-wavy piece of bloviation about purported quantum effects in a ubiquitous cytoskeleton component really doesn't have anything to contribute to the matter either?
- n4r9 2y agoFirstly, I would argue that it is very much in philosophy's remit until we can agree on a definition of "consciousness". Secondly, if a misapplication of Godel's Theorem is used as evidence for the legitimacy of a hypothesis about consciousness, then it is perfectly valid for a philosopher to point out that misapplication.
- Asraelite 2y agoI think we're looking at it from the wrong angle. It's really about psychology and theology. There is no rational reason to even raise the question of why we have free will or consciousness in the first place. We do so because it appeals to our innate human desires that we evolved to follow, such as the desire to feel in control or have purpose. These instincts are so strong and have such an ability to create biases in our mental reasoning that they cause otherwise very intelligent researchers to speak nonsense. The more interesting question IMO is how and why exactly, from a neuroscience point of view, people consistently fail in their application of logic when it comes to questions about the meaning of life like this.
- n4r9 2y agoI think I get what you're saying. It's as if there was still a section of physicists clinging onto the idea of an ether, saying that it's critical to our understanding of electromagnetism and that the transmission of light cannot be explained without it. Meanwhile everyone else is saying we've moved on; the world makes sense without this.
- dekhn 2y agoMarvin's work in neuroscience, in his own words: https://web.mit.edu/dxh/www/marvin/web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/ConfocalMemoir.html https://web.mit.edu/dxh/www/marvin/web.media.mit.edu/~minsky... He invented a very successful sub-area of microscopy specifically to probe brains. I care about Minksy's opinions in a wide range of science since he demonstrated himself as a capable general intelligence.