4 ms·

Just a thought. If physical information is stored as bits in a computer. And the universe is essentially that memory plus a compute unit, Is consciousness the

by aa0 13y ago

Just a thought. If physical information is stored as bits in a computer. And the universe is essentially that memory plus a compute unit, Is consciousness the derivative of information with respect to the difference of information (ie. a clock cycle -- time?)

eru 13y ago
Almost probably not, at least not like that. You might like to read The User Illusion (http://www.amazon.com/The-User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousness/dp/0140230122 http://www.amazon.com/The-User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousnes...) for some more thought along these lines.
- leod 13y ago
  I quite enjoyed The User Illusion (the author has a great way of looking at the world). I think its chapters on consciousness are mostly about what consciousness gets to see. Building up from the idea that there is a very limited amount of information (as in Shannon) going to consciousness per second, plus some other experimental evidence (e.g. Benjamin Libet's experiments), to his thesis that consciousness is essentially a "user illusion". But if I recall correctly, the book doesn't touch the question of how consciousness can arise to begin with, other than making a passing reference to GEB's strange loops. I can see some value, for example, in the idea that consciousness (maybe I should rather say subjective perception or awareness) somehow emerges out of a reasonably complex system. But that wouldn't explain what it is in our universe that allows awareness to emerge to begin with. I think some fun questions to think about are: * Can we create awareness in a circuit by making it complex enough? What are the requirements? * If we simulate a universe, does it inherit the ability to create awareness from our universe? * How the heck do you validate any of these answers? Well, I'm confused now, consciousness is too hard. Sorry if I sound like gibberish. EDIT: This isn't meant to be a criticism of the book, which I can only recommend to anyone.
  - bonobo 13y ago
    This idea that consciousness emerges from complexity is the study field of Giulio Tononi[1], and I find his point of view particularly interesting. This is not to say that we have something concrete in hands yet, but I like his approach nonetheless. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/science/21consciousness.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/science/21consciousness.ht...
RivieraKid 13y ago
> And the universe is essentially that memory plus a compute unit Thats is a completely meaningless statement. If we added this to our model of the world, the model wouldn't predict any new phenomena. > Is consciousness the derivative of information with respect to the difference of information You can define consciousness like that. But it would be something different then our intuitive understanding of consciousness.
- aa0 13y ago
  Completely meaningless because it wouldn't predict new phenomena? That sounds like a logical fallacy, mate. Or at least an extremely biased outlook on discussion
  - RivieraKid 13y ago
    It's on the same level as saying "There are gazillions of unicorns outside of our universe." It's just an idea in our heads. It doesn't tell us anything about our universe, about what we can ever possibly experience. Occams razor would remove this from our model of the world. Also, when we're talking about what could hypothetically be outside of our universe, unreachable to us, there are millions of possible theories. (All of them meaningless.) Why choose a simulation on a computer from our universe?
    - aa0 13y ago
      What is anything but an "idea in our heads?" Even physical sensations are just ideas of tactility. It seems silly, as someone who isn't omniscient, to claim that our universe being a 'simulation' has no bearing upon experience. For all you know, light's speed is based on the clock-speed of a higher-dimensional crystal. It's interesting to think about, and there actually are consequences to this even if they aren't immediately discoverable. For a guy with a username like RiveriaKid..you sure have a closed mind unlike a child.
      - RivieraKid 13y ago
        > What is anything but an "idea in our heads?" Even physical sensations are just ideas of tactility. Perceptions (I see an elephant) are different than ideas or thoughts (I think there are pink elephants in parallel universe). > It's interesting to think about, and there actually are consequences to this even if they aren't immediately discoverable. What consequences? If there are consequences than yes, we can add "we're in a simulation" to our model of the world. But there can be much simpler explanation of the phenomena. Models of the world should be as simple as possible. See Occams razor. > For a guy with a username like RiveriaKid..you sure have a closed mind unlike a child. I have a very open mind but I'm also very rational. The username is a reference to one great sci-fi sitcom by the way.
augustl 13y ago
One interesting aspect of modelling the universe is that the universe is not a single atomic entity. Speaking of what happens 8 lightyears away from us "right now" makes no sense - there's no way information 8 light years away can reach us faster than 8 (of our) years, so the shared "now" between us is just theoretical. We can imagine that it's there, but we cannot know what's there, or measure it in any way. The only atomic thing is the way I percieve the universe right now. Someone else will percieve it differently. I'm _not_ talking about the fact that your blue might not be my blue, I'm talking about the fact that time might move at a different pace (if you've accelerated or decelerated) and that you're a long enough distance away from me that our lack of a shared "now" is not negligible in calculations. So a digital model of the universe would have to take into account that the whole universe, again, isn't an atomic entity, and rather model that we have different entities perceiving things as the universe has propagated to their point of view, in their speed of time.
- GrantS 13y ago
  This is a very person-centered view of the universe, no? We're made of the same fundamental particles as everything else, no need to make special cases for when perception and cognition arise in the universe -- they/we follow the same physical rules as everything else. So as long as you're simulating the right universe (i.e. the laws of physics are the actual laws of physics that we experience), everything you're talking about just happens by definition, right?
  - eru 13y ago
    I think augustl just used person-centric language for ease of expression.
  - augustl 13y ago
    I should have said "an observer" instead of "I" to make it clearer that I'm talking about any physical observer, not brains and interpretations.
- chriswarbo 13y ago
  Interestingly this is still related to information: the fundamental thing which cannot travel faster than light is information, for example if I trace a circle in the sky with a laser pointer then the "dot" (when it eventually hits something) will be moving around a vast circle at far faster than light speed, but it cannot send information between the points on the circle so that's fine. Similarly, the effect of measurement ("collapsing the wavefunction") is just a propagation of information from inside the system to outside the system. Actually, it's an increase in the size of the system: first we have an atom that does or does not decay, then we have an atom that does decay and is detected or does not decay and is not detected. Then we have all that along with a vial of poison which is or is not broken. Then we have all that along with a cat that is alive or dead. Then we have a human who sees a living or dead cat. Then we have a paper which reports either a living or dead cat. Then we have a news report about the cat living or dying. And so on. Schroedinger's cat is always in an alive/dead superposition, but at some point that superposition expands (due to information flow) to include an Earth which is in a superposition of knowing it lived or died.

by aa0 13y ago

eru 13y ago

Almost probably not, at least not like that. You might like to read The User Illusion (http://www.amazon.com/The-User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousness/dp/0140230122 http://www.amazon.com/The-User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousnes...) for some more thought along these lines.

leod 13y ago
I quite enjoyed The User Illusion (the author has a great way of looking at the world). I think its chapters on consciousness are mostly about what consciousness gets to see. Building up from the idea that there is a very limited amount of information (as in Shannon) going to consciousness per second, plus some other experimental evidence (e.g. Benjamin Libet's experiments), to his thesis that consciousness is essentially a "user illusion". But if I recall correctly, the book doesn't touch the question of how consciousness can arise to begin with, other than making a passing reference to GEB's strange loops. I can see some value, for example, in the idea that consciousness (maybe I should rather say subjective perception or awareness) somehow emerges out of a reasonably complex system. But that wouldn't explain what it is in our universe that allows awareness to emerge to begin with. I think some fun questions to think about are: * Can we create awareness in a circuit by making it complex enough? What are the requirements? * If we simulate a universe, does it inherit the ability to create awareness from our universe? * How the heck do you validate any of these answers? Well, I'm confused now, consciousness is too hard. Sorry if I sound like gibberish. EDIT: This isn't meant to be a criticism of the book, which I can only recommend to anyone.
- bonobo 13y ago
  This idea that consciousness emerges from complexity is the study field of Giulio Tononi[1], and I find his point of view particularly interesting. This is not to say that we have something concrete in hands yet, but I like his approach nonetheless. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/science/21consciousness.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/science/21consciousness.ht...

RivieraKid 13y ago

> And the universe is essentially that memory plus a compute unit Thats is a completely meaningless statement. If we added this to our model of the world, the model wouldn't predict any new phenomena. > Is consciousness the derivative of information with respect to the difference of information You can define consciousness like that. But it would be something different then our intuitive understanding of consciousness.

aa0 13y ago
Completely meaningless because it wouldn't predict new phenomena? That sounds like a logical fallacy, mate. Or at least an extremely biased outlook on discussion
- RivieraKid 13y ago
  It's on the same level as saying "There are gazillions of unicorns outside of our universe." It's just an idea in our heads. It doesn't tell us anything about our universe, about what we can ever possibly experience. Occams razor would remove this from our model of the world. Also, when we're talking about what could hypothetically be outside of our universe, unreachable to us, there are millions of possible theories. (All of them meaningless.) Why choose a simulation on a computer from our universe?
  - aa0 13y ago
    What is anything but an "idea in our heads?" Even physical sensations are just ideas of tactility. It seems silly, as someone who isn't omniscient, to claim that our universe being a 'simulation' has no bearing upon experience. For all you know, light's speed is based on the clock-speed of a higher-dimensional crystal. It's interesting to think about, and there actually are consequences to this even if they aren't immediately discoverable. For a guy with a username like RiveriaKid..you sure have a closed mind unlike a child.
    - RivieraKid 13y ago
      > What is anything but an "idea in our heads?" Even physical sensations are just ideas of tactility. Perceptions (I see an elephant) are different than ideas or thoughts (I think there are pink elephants in parallel universe). > It's interesting to think about, and there actually are consequences to this even if they aren't immediately discoverable. What consequences? If there are consequences than yes, we can add "we're in a simulation" to our model of the world. But there can be much simpler explanation of the phenomena. Models of the world should be as simple as possible. See Occams razor. > For a guy with a username like RiveriaKid..you sure have a closed mind unlike a child. I have a very open mind but I'm also very rational. The username is a reference to one great sci-fi sitcom by the way.

augustl 13y ago

One interesting aspect of modelling the universe is that the universe is not a single atomic entity. Speaking of what happens 8 lightyears away from us "right now" makes no sense - there's no way information 8 light years away can reach us faster than 8 (of our) years, so the shared "now" between us is just theoretical. We can imagine that it's there, but we cannot know what's there, or measure it in any way. The only atomic thing is the way I percieve the universe right now. Someone else will percieve it differently. I'm _not_ talking about the fact that your blue might not be my blue, I'm talking about the fact that time might move at a different pace (if you've accelerated or decelerated) and that you're a long enough distance away from me that our lack of a shared "now" is not negligible in calculations. So a digital model of the universe would have to take into account that the whole universe, again, isn't an atomic entity, and rather model that we have different entities perceiving things as the universe has propagated to their point of view, in their speed of time.

GrantS 13y ago
This is a very person-centered view of the universe, no? We're made of the same fundamental particles as everything else, no need to make special cases for when perception and cognition arise in the universe -- they/we follow the same physical rules as everything else. So as long as you're simulating the right universe (i.e. the laws of physics are the actual laws of physics that we experience), everything you're talking about just happens by definition, right?
- eru 13y ago
  I think augustl just used person-centric language for ease of expression.
- augustl 13y ago
  I should have said "an observer" instead of "I" to make it clearer that I'm talking about any physical observer, not brains and interpretations.
chriswarbo 13y ago
Interestingly this is still related to information: the fundamental thing which cannot travel faster than light is information, for example if I trace a circle in the sky with a laser pointer then the "dot" (when it eventually hits something) will be moving around a vast circle at far faster than light speed, but it cannot send information between the points on the circle so that's fine. Similarly, the effect of measurement ("collapsing the wavefunction") is just a propagation of information from inside the system to outside the system. Actually, it's an increase in the size of the system: first we have an atom that does or does not decay, then we have an atom that does decay and is detected or does not decay and is not detected. Then we have all that along with a vial of poison which is or is not broken. Then we have all that along with a cat that is alive or dead. Then we have a human who sees a living or dead cat. Then we have a paper which reports either a living or dead cat. Then we have a news report about the cat living or dying. And so on. Schroedinger's cat is always in an alive/dead superposition, but at some point that superposition expands (due to information flow) to include an Earth which is in a superposition of knowing it lived or died.