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Personally I think consciousness, perception, and free will are a great unknown, and likely involve the makeup of the cosmos including quantum interactions. Th

by seiji 13y ago

Personally I think consciousness, perception, and free will are a great unknown, and likely involve the makeup of the cosmos including quantum interactions. They are not great unknowns. They are kinda dull knowns and they get more known-er by the year. Nothing in the brain (or the "cosmos") requires quantum juju for our conscious experience. There's lots written about perception: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_detection_(nervous_system) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_detection_(nervous_syst... (and all of Hinton's biologically-inspired artificial neural network work) And consciousness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Metzinger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Metzinger And free will: http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/programming_the_moist_robot/ http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/programming_the_moist_robot/ and http://dilbert.com/fast/2012-03-18/ http://dilbert.com/fast/2012-03-18/ All you are is a three pound analog ASIC in your skull. If it gets squished, infiltrated, inflamed, or explodes, you cease to exist completely (save, any memories other people have of your behaviors or any output you left behind recording your brain state under various priors).

d23 13y ago
> They are not great unknowns. They are kinda dull knowns and they get more known-er by the year. Nothing in the brain (or the "cosmos") requires quantum juju for our conscious experience. Oh great one, please tell me your all encompassing theory of consciousness and how existence came to be! Then we can all gather around the Altar of the Great Seiji and marvel at his linking to a couple of wikipedia articles! What a wondrous time to be alive and in your presence!
summerdown2 13y ago
CS Lewis explored the idea of a shed with a window onto the sun. Looked at from the doorway, you see a shaft of light with dancing dust motes. But if you step inside and become bathed in sunlight you get quite another experience. Likewise, looking at a brain from the outside, it's a squishy biological construct with some electrical stuff going on. Viewed from the inside, though: what a difference!
aneth4 13y ago
Your implication is that a computer of sufficient power and proper programming can develop an illusion of self and qualia. Perhaps that is true, but it is far from "dull" or "known."
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
You can consider the precise workings of the brain to be known and dull when you can build one from scratch, in the lab, without reference to the normal process of human-organ production.

by seiji 13y ago

d23 13y ago

> They are not great unknowns. They are kinda dull knowns and they get more known-er by the year. Nothing in the brain (or the "cosmos") requires quantum juju for our conscious experience. Oh great one, please tell me your all encompassing theory of consciousness and how existence came to be! Then we can all gather around the Altar of the Great Seiji and marvel at his linking to a couple of wikipedia articles! What a wondrous time to be alive and in your presence!

summerdown2 13y ago

CS Lewis explored the idea of a shed with a window onto the sun. Looked at from the doorway, you see a shaft of light with dancing dust motes. But if you step inside and become bathed in sunlight you get quite another experience. Likewise, looking at a brain from the outside, it's a squishy biological construct with some electrical stuff going on. Viewed from the inside, though: what a difference!

aneth4 13y ago

Your implication is that a computer of sufficient power and proper programming can develop an illusion of self and qualia. Perhaps that is true, but it is far from "dull" or "known."

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

You can consider the precise workings of the brain to be known and dull when you can build one from scratch, in the lab, without reference to the normal process of human-organ production.