5 ms·

We know a ton about the brain but so little about the mind itself. We still don't have definitive answers to what consciousness is, why it's here, what's useful

by debt 13y ago

We know a ton about the brain but so little about the mind itself. We still don't have definitive answers to what consciousness is, why it's here, what's useful for, etc. Some people debate whether the mind exists at all. Also, there's still very little understanding of the difference between the conscious and unconscious mind. I think building an artificial consciousness is going too far. Artificial intelligence is simpler; it's just fake intelligence. Seems easy enough right? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it's intelligent. We don't need to make it "conscious" necessarily, again whatever that means, in order for it be intelligent. I feel like we can build artificially intelligent software pretty "easily" relative to making it "conscious".

igravious 13y ago
You've got that exactly backwards. For the longest time it was not even known that the mind inhabited the brain. We've only known about the biology of the brain beginning with cell theory and onwards. Yet we have an entire vocabulary relating to mental states receding so far into the distant past that we don't know how far back language predates using language to speak about mental states. When you really think about it neuro-biology is very recent and still nascent, we've been thinking about thinking for a long long time.
- debt 13y ago
  Thinking about thinking but not finding empirical evidence to validate that thinking. There's no science regarding the mind. Nor is there science distinguishing between consciousness and unconscious thought.
  - sizzle 13y ago
    "Consciousness is data. [...] The data of consciousness--the way things seem to me right now--are data too. I am having a certain sensation of red with a certain shape right now. I am hearing a certain quality in the tone of my voice and so on. This is undeniable as the objective data in the world of science. And science ought to be dealing with that." David Chalmers excerpt- Conversations on Consciousness by Susan Blackmore.
- sizzle 13y ago
  yup, mind-body problem is a fascinating topic I've had the pleasure of reading into.
mtrimpe 13y ago
The problem is that we haven't adopted the definition of consciousness that's useful long term yet: that consciousness is best interpreted as a property of reality. If everything is conscious then some parts of it are just more dynamic (intelligent?) than others. Physical reality least, plants more [1], animals even more and humans most. Defined like that human consciousness just becomes that part of all consciousness which we recognize as similar to our own. In that view AI is just making a small part of reality, a computer, more dynamically conscious and, very importantly, more similar to our own so as to be more useful. [1] http://vimeo.com/69225705 http://vimeo.com/69225705
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  If we're to adopt that theory, we need a basically physical or metaphysical theory of what consciousness actually is rather than a theory which explains consciousness as a process atop biology.
sizzle 13y ago
"The zombie hunch is the idea that there could be a being that behaved exactly the way you or I behave, in every regard--it could cry at sad movies, be thrilled by joyous sunsets, enjoy ice cream and the whole thing, and yet not be conscious at all. It would just be a zombie."
nzp 13y ago
> We know a ton about the brain but so little about the mind itself. We still don't have definitive answers to what consciousness is, why it's here, what's useful for, etc. Some people debate whether the mind exists at all. Also, there's still very little understanding of the difference between the conscious and unconscious mind. One of the really, really bad consequences of the Cold War was the scientific divide between East and West. By that I mean serious lack of scientific data exchange between the blocks. The consequences are still felt and this area (the problem of consciousness) is the one that suffered. The problem of "consciousness" was basically solved, at least at a conceptual level, by Soviet psychology and neuropsychology. Here I refer, of course, to the work of Vygotsky and Luria. What is consciousness? Almost nothing at all by itself. Consciousness as found in humans is a consequence of our cognitive development and the advanced symbolic capabilities of humans. The subjective perception we have of the thing we call consciousness is "simply" (it's not really simple when you get into details) a product of humans acquiring language skills (I'm simplifying). This is not to say the subject is trivial, it takes volumes to describe what is happening, but the thing we informally call "consciousness" is really nothing at all in and of itself, and the perception we have of it is just a result of the very complicated process of cognitive development. Thin air, like Lisp's cons. If you want to read on it I can recommend Vygotsky's Language and Thought (actually, it's his only book) and Luria's Language and Consciousness (I'm not sure it was ever translated into English, it's a collection of his lecture notes from a university course he did on the subject) or possibly The Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundations. Why this line of thinking is mostly ignored in the West I have no idea. Why do we still cling to metaphysical (even religious I would say) phantasies about "consciousness" is an interesting topic itself. Is it because it's romantic to think there's something special, transcendent, about our minds? Are we really that sentimental? I have some hypotheses, but it's a different topic.
- code4life 13y ago
  Well, there are other ideas. As science leads you to believe that your consciousness is nothing at all (according to your description), bible based christianity tells you that your conscious is part of your soul, which is the part of you that lives forever. It is independent of your body, which will eventually be replaced with a perfect body.
thibauts 13y ago
The unconscious may simply be related to responses to stimuli repeated and internalized enought in neural structures for us to not have to supervise them anymore. This mecanism could be put on par with abstraction in my opinion, for the role it plays in enabling us to control our environement with limited attention resources.

by debt 13y ago

igravious 13y ago

You've got that exactly backwards. For the longest time it was not even known that the mind inhabited the brain. We've only known about the biology of the brain beginning with cell theory and onwards. Yet we have an entire vocabulary relating to mental states receding so far into the distant past that we don't know how far back language predates using language to speak about mental states. When you really think about it neuro-biology is very recent and still nascent, we've been thinking about thinking for a long long time.

debt 13y ago
Thinking about thinking but not finding empirical evidence to validate that thinking. There's no science regarding the mind. Nor is there science distinguishing between consciousness and unconscious thought.
- sizzle 13y ago
  "Consciousness is data. [...] The data of consciousness--the way things seem to me right now--are data too. I am having a certain sensation of red with a certain shape right now. I am hearing a certain quality in the tone of my voice and so on. This is undeniable as the objective data in the world of science. And science ought to be dealing with that." David Chalmers excerpt- Conversations on Consciousness by Susan Blackmore.
sizzle 13y ago
yup, mind-body problem is a fascinating topic I've had the pleasure of reading into.

mtrimpe 13y ago

The problem is that we haven't adopted the definition of consciousness that's useful long term yet: that consciousness is best interpreted as a property of reality. If everything is conscious then some parts of it are just more dynamic (intelligent?) than others. Physical reality least, plants more [1], animals even more and humans most. Defined like that human consciousness just becomes that part of all consciousness which we recognize as similar to our own. In that view AI is just making a small part of reality, a computer, more dynamically conscious and, very importantly, more similar to our own so as to be more useful. [1] http://vimeo.com/69225705 http://vimeo.com/69225705

eli_gottlieb 13y ago
If we're to adopt that theory, we need a basically physical or metaphysical theory of what consciousness actually is rather than a theory which explains consciousness as a process atop biology.

sizzle 13y ago

"The zombie hunch is the idea that there could be a being that behaved exactly the way you or I behave, in every regard--it could cry at sad movies, be thrilled by joyous sunsets, enjoy ice cream and the whole thing, and yet not be conscious at all. It would just be a zombie."

nzp 13y ago

> We know a ton about the brain but so little about the mind itself. We still don't have definitive answers to what consciousness is, why it's here, what's useful for, etc. Some people debate whether the mind exists at all. Also, there's still very little understanding of the difference between the conscious and unconscious mind. One of the really, really bad consequences of the Cold War was the scientific divide between East and West. By that I mean serious lack of scientific data exchange between the blocks. The consequences are still felt and this area (the problem of consciousness) is the one that suffered. The problem of "consciousness" was basically solved, at least at a conceptual level, by Soviet psychology and neuropsychology. Here I refer, of course, to the work of Vygotsky and Luria. What is consciousness? Almost nothing at all by itself. Consciousness as found in humans is a consequence of our cognitive development and the advanced symbolic capabilities of humans. The subjective perception we have of the thing we call consciousness is "simply" (it's not really simple when you get into details) a product of humans acquiring language skills (I'm simplifying). This is not to say the subject is trivial, it takes volumes to describe what is happening, but the thing we informally call "consciousness" is really nothing at all in and of itself, and the perception we have of it is just a result of the very complicated process of cognitive development. Thin air, like Lisp's cons. If you want to read on it I can recommend Vygotsky's Language and Thought (actually, it's his only book) and Luria's Language and Consciousness (I'm not sure it was ever translated into English, it's a collection of his lecture notes from a university course he did on the subject) or possibly The Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundations. Why this line of thinking is mostly ignored in the West I have no idea. Why do we still cling to metaphysical (even religious I would say) phantasies about "consciousness" is an interesting topic itself. Is it because it's romantic to think there's something special, transcendent, about our minds? Are we really that sentimental? I have some hypotheses, but it's a different topic.

code4life 13y ago
Well, there are other ideas. As science leads you to believe that your consciousness is nothing at all (according to your description), bible based christianity tells you that your conscious is part of your soul, which is the part of you that lives forever. It is independent of your body, which will eventually be replaced with a perfect body.

thibauts 13y ago

The unconscious may simply be related to responses to stimuli repeated and internalized enought in neural structures for us to not have to supervise them anymore. This mecanism could be put on par with abstraction in my opinion, for the role it plays in enabling us to control our environement with limited attention resources.