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Because that's the same as giving up and saying "we don't understand." What is mind emerging into? When a video game experience emerges from the combination of

Because that's the same as giving up and saying "we don't understand." What is mind emerging into? When a video game experience emerges from the combination of processing, display, sound, and controller input, it emerges into a level of organization that a mind can participate in. It emerges into a system of organization emanating downward from the mind experiencing it. It can't just "emerge" into existence on its own. If a game falls in the woods, its not a game. If you call the mind an emergent phenomenon but can't describe the context into which it emerges, you've added nothing to our understanding.

layer8 2y ago
Emergence has no “into”, IMO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
- heyjamesknight 2y ago
  All of those examples are emergence "into". The snowflake emerges into the mathematical patterns emanating downward. The termite cathedral emerges into the architectural context of the observer. Without emanating structure, there is no "emergence"—just a proliferation of chaos and error.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    Not to butt in, but if the emergent phenomena only exists in the mind of the observer, and the mind is a material phenomenon, the where in the observer-snowflake system is there anything not fully decomposable to atoms, particle motion, so on?
    - heyjamesknight 2y ago
      The mind is not a material phenomenon, in the same way that a video game is not a computational one. The emergent experience exists at the level into which it emerges. It's constructed at a lower level of organization, but not decomposable to them in a way that's meaningful without their recomposition—that's what makes the phenomenon emergent. The qualitative experience of a film does not meaningfully break down to the bits in the video stream, the compressed sound waves carrying the dialog, the photons hitting your eyes' rods and cones, or the biochemical signals in your brain. The mind is not in the brain, but on the brain.
      - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
        But we have to classify it as an “appears to” rather than an “is,” don’t we? It’s perfectly fine to do categorize out emergent phenomena that have practical utility, eg its useful to see the snowflake over its constituent parts, or the film over the bits, but what underlies the choice to see it as a film rather than an improbably corrupted png? When talking about the mind, then, why is it we choose to see the mind at all, and how does this constitute more than a convenient framing device, ie how can it explain qualia?
        heyjamesknight 2y ago
        Because our entire perception system functions as a mediation between the teleological affordances an object presents at a given level of organization/analysis and how those affordances relate to our motivational system's current objective and directed action. The emergence only "is" at a certain level of analysis and its emergence at that level is dependent entirely on the perception of an observer. If a car is hurtling towards you, you don't perceive its handle. But if you're trying to go somewhere, you have to open the door. "Threat", "vehicle", or "handle" aren't just convenient framing device, but an accurate depiction of the object within your perceptual/motivation systems based on the current level of organization and analysis you're participating in. We choose to see the mind because we are minds. Consciousness is. There is something which it is like to be. Denying our emergent experience of it, or reducing it to a "convenient framing device" tosses out the most fundamental empirical experience we have: to exist.
        BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
        I completely agree with you, I’m just being more reductive when I say it’s a practical categorization rather than essential reality. Certainly it’s also reasonable to say there’s no essential reality, just subjective levels of analysis, so everything is practical categorization. The issue is that we’ve gotten nowhere in explaining why we seem to exist. A video game is relatively easy, at least seemingly, to reduce down to its underlying principles. The content dissolves the more closely I look at the game. The issue here isn’t whether the game still exists (it does, in the place I’m no longer looking), the issue is in seeing why the game arises from its component parts, and not something else. Easy-ish for the game, it follows directly from what we know about physics and such, but hard for the mind. Why do neurons together produce pain that exists, rather than pain as a purpose-driven internal signal to help organize the escape from a predator? Emergence doesn't tell us why one or the other, just that whatever it is must emerge from constituent parts.
  - corimaith 2y ago
    Sounds similar to Plato's Theory of Forms.
    - heyjamesknight 2y ago
      Close! Emergence/emanation is particular to Neoplatonism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism
ryandvm 2y ago
I agree with GP. Consciousness isn't so hard to explain if you don't enshroud it with mysticism. Consciousness is the emergent, graduated phenomenon of an information processing system when that information processing system has achieved significant complexity to model itself with relation to the various systemic inputs. It's not binary, it's a gradient. I have more developed consciousness than my dog, which has more developed consciousness than a rat, and then a fish, then an insect, etc. Somewhat disturbingly it also goes the other way, AIs may achieve a more profound conscious experience than humans - same for aliens. What does it mean for inferior forms of consciousness that have always placed themselves on a pedestal in relation to the rest of the animal kingdom simply because they have the most developed consciousness?
- heyjamesknight 2y ago
  Welp, that does it. Pack it up, Cognitive Scientists: we've solved the hard problem of consciousness right here on HN. What you're describing is what's been proposed by Giulio Tonini as "Integrated Information Theory" (IIT) [1]. I quite like the framework and the math behind it is beautiful. Unfortunately, it hasn't been supported well empirically. Re: AI, IIT actually gives basis for AI not being conscious. Not to mention that all conscious systems we can currently observe are dynamic/continuous, not discrete. The difference there is qualitative—there's no reason to assume that because a dynamic system is conscious that a discrete system approximating it is conscious too. [1: https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.44 https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.44]
- wat10000 2y ago
  It's a nice idea but there's no evidence for it. Not only is there no evidence, but nobody has any idea what such evidence would even look like. We can't even conceptualize an experiment that would support or refute this theory.
  - heyjamesknight 2y ago
    That's not true, the authors of IIT [1] propose a number of experiments that would support or deny the underlying theory. To my knowledge, those experiments haven't shown much support. But there are aspects of it that are absolutely empirically falsifiable. [1: https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.44 https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.44]

layer8 2y ago

Emergence has no “into”, IMO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

heyjamesknight 2y ago
All of those examples are emergence "into". The snowflake emerges into the mathematical patterns emanating downward. The termite cathedral emerges into the architectural context of the observer. Without emanating structure, there is no "emergence"—just a proliferation of chaos and error.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  Not to butt in, but if the emergent phenomena only exists in the mind of the observer, and the mind is a material phenomenon, the where in the observer-snowflake system is there anything not fully decomposable to atoms, particle motion, so on?
  - heyjamesknight 2y ago
    The mind is not a material phenomenon, in the same way that a video game is not a computational one. The emergent experience exists at the level into which it emerges. It's constructed at a lower level of organization, but not decomposable to them in a way that's meaningful without their recomposition—that's what makes the phenomenon emergent. The qualitative experience of a film does not meaningfully break down to the bits in the video stream, the compressed sound waves carrying the dialog, the photons hitting your eyes' rods and cones, or the biochemical signals in your brain. The mind is not in the brain, but on the brain.
    - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
      But we have to classify it as an “appears to” rather than an “is,” don’t we? It’s perfectly fine to do categorize out emergent phenomena that have practical utility, eg its useful to see the snowflake over its constituent parts, or the film over the bits, but what underlies the choice to see it as a film rather than an improbably corrupted png? When talking about the mind, then, why is it we choose to see the mind at all, and how does this constitute more than a convenient framing device, ie how can it explain qualia?
      - heyjamesknight 2y ago
        Because our entire perception system functions as a mediation between the teleological affordances an object presents at a given level of organization/analysis and how those affordances relate to our motivational system's current objective and directed action. The emergence only "is" at a certain level of analysis and its emergence at that level is dependent entirely on the perception of an observer. If a car is hurtling towards you, you don't perceive its handle. But if you're trying to go somewhere, you have to open the door. "Threat", "vehicle", or "handle" aren't just convenient framing device, but an accurate depiction of the object within your perceptual/motivation systems based on the current level of organization and analysis you're participating in. We choose to see the mind because we are minds. Consciousness is. There is something which it is like to be. Denying our emergent experience of it, or reducing it to a "convenient framing device" tosses out the most fundamental empirical experience we have: to exist.
        BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
        I completely agree with you, I’m just being more reductive when I say it’s a practical categorization rather than essential reality. Certainly it’s also reasonable to say there’s no essential reality, just subjective levels of analysis, so everything is practical categorization. The issue is that we’ve gotten nowhere in explaining why we seem to exist. A video game is relatively easy, at least seemingly, to reduce down to its underlying principles. The content dissolves the more closely I look at the game. The issue here isn’t whether the game still exists (it does, in the place I’m no longer looking), the issue is in seeing why the game arises from its component parts, and not something else. Easy-ish for the game, it follows directly from what we know about physics and such, but hard for the mind. Why do neurons together produce pain that exists, rather than pain as a purpose-driven internal signal to help organize the escape from a predator? Emergence doesn't tell us why one or the other, just that whatever it is must emerge from constituent parts.
- corimaith 2y ago
  Sounds similar to Plato's Theory of Forms.
  - heyjamesknight 2y ago
    Close! Emergence/emanation is particular to Neoplatonism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism

ryandvm 2y ago

I agree with GP. Consciousness isn't so hard to explain if you don't enshroud it with mysticism. Consciousness is the emergent, graduated phenomenon of an information processing system when that information processing system has achieved significant complexity to model itself with relation to the various systemic inputs. It's not binary, it's a gradient. I have more developed consciousness than my dog, which has more developed consciousness than a rat, and then a fish, then an insect, etc. Somewhat disturbingly it also goes the other way, AIs may achieve a more profound conscious experience than humans - same for aliens. What does it mean for inferior forms of consciousness that have always placed themselves on a pedestal in relation to the rest of the animal kingdom simply because they have the most developed consciousness?

heyjamesknight 2y ago
Welp, that does it. Pack it up, Cognitive Scientists: we've solved the hard problem of consciousness right here on HN. What you're describing is what's been proposed by Giulio Tonini as "Integrated Information Theory" (IIT) [1]. I quite like the framework and the math behind it is beautiful. Unfortunately, it hasn't been supported well empirically. Re: AI, IIT actually gives basis for AI not being conscious. Not to mention that all conscious systems we can currently observe are dynamic/continuous, not discrete. The difference there is qualitative—there's no reason to assume that because a dynamic system is conscious that a discrete system approximating it is conscious too. [1: https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.44 https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.44]
wat10000 2y ago
It's a nice idea but there's no evidence for it. Not only is there no evidence, but nobody has any idea what such evidence would even look like. We can't even conceptualize an experiment that would support or refute this theory.
- heyjamesknight 2y ago
  That's not true, the authors of IIT [1] propose a number of experiments that would support or deny the underlying theory. To my knowledge, those experiments haven't shown much support. But there are aspects of it that are absolutely empirically falsifiable. [1: https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.44 https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.44]