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I appreciate the notion of a "pretty-hard" problem of consciousness; it nicely captures what people in the field, philosophers and scientists alike, are actuall

by apl 12y ago

I appreciate the notion of a "pretty-hard" problem of consciousness; it nicely captures what people in the field, philosophers and scientists alike, are actually looking for. His counterarguments appear sound, especially the technical concerns. (That's not particularly exciting, though: formalisations of philosophical arguments often crumble under the mathematician's lens. Even the best ones!) They're not exactly new, I'd say, but their rigour is refreshing. My key problem with the overall approach remains the shitty test set we have for any theory of consciousness. It ultimately consists of two elements. If we're being generous, there's three. Namely, almost everyone except for the philosophical extremist agrees that we are conscious and that a stone isn't. IIT works quite well for these cases. Some people would include, say, a cat as a conscious being while maintaining that its "level" of consciousness is reduced. This boils down to C_stone < [C_cat <] C_human which isn't much. There's no real hope for extending it. Any other cases like the ones Aaronson discusses are ones for which we don't even have strong intuitions. Sure, we'd like to think that none of the entities he describes are in fact conscious. But if that's the bullet I have to bite in order to get a decent theory of consciousness, then I might be OK with that.

Udo 12y ago
There is little doubt that the cat is conscious, and the idea that consciousness is a gradient with more than one dimension is not really in dispute. In fact, you can build a very simple gradient model by observing nothing but humans: a human baby is scarcely conscious at all, a toddler is pretty much on par with the cat, and a grown human has a higher level still. The reason why we think this is true is based on at least two things: awareness and meta-awareness (which includes the ability to reason about one's own existence as well as the world in general). The cat and the toddler are clearly conscious in the sense that they do have a recognizable life experience. They don't just react to the environment, they make models of it, and they have a limited ability to abstract observations. They experience life, and they have complex dreams and emotions. However, they still lack a deeper understanding of causalities, and they can grasp the subjective realities of other beings only on an instinctive level. Adult humans are less limited in this regard, but it's easy to imagine hypothetical beings who perform better still. That's bad news for the validity of consciousness as a concept, since it seems to be interlinked with intelligence, which itself is a fuzzy idea at best. So these observations amount to the position that "consciousness" isn't a fundamental property at all, it's the result of other processes and it can come in different flavors. Likewise, the concept of "intelligence" is similarly flawed. In both, we tend to make the mistake of looking at them as simple scalar values. They're not. They're a name we give for a collection of different capabilities. As such, I believe a mathematical model of consciousness is actually pretty unscientific, since consciousness is not an objective property. It's an artificial label we're obsessed with.
- apl 12y ago
  That's not the notion of consciousness we're dealing with when talking about the "hard" problem of consciousness. You're describing its psycho-functional interpretation: the ability to see yourself as a "self". Qualia are a largely orthogonal issue. Specifically, it's imaginable that an entity we'd consider unintelligent has a rich and detailed subjective internal life.
  - Udo 12y ago
    I agree it's a psycho-functional interpretation (I would call it duck typing), but my argument is that everything else looks like a pseudo-scientific attempt at philosophy to me. It's not clear that we need a theory of consciousness at all, how is something as ill-defined as consciousness even viable in a mathematical context?
    - apl 12y ago
      > I would call it duck typing Ha, that's a fairly apt comparison. > It's not clear that we need a theory of consciousness at > all, how is something as ill-defined as consciousness even > viable in a mathematical context? That's not clear to me either, but there are some convincing arguments in favour of treating it at least logically if not quantitatively (like IIT does). I recommend the work of David Chalmers in this context because it's mathematically sound and written from the perspective of a dualist. Definitely worthwhile...
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Specifically, it's imaginable that an entity we'd consider unintelligent has a rich and detailed subjective internal life. Yes, just as its possible that an entity we'd consider intelligent doesn't, but since it's subjective, its not subject to empirical -- and, hence, scientific -- verification. Anything we are going to say objectively on issues related to consciousness isn't going to address that, because that's a question outside the scope of science.
    - KC8ZKF 12y ago
mtrimpe 12y ago
> Namely, almost everyone except for the philosophical extremist agrees that we are conscious and that a stone isn't. I really don't get why it's so hard for people to imagine consciousness as a property of the universe rather than people. Everyone seems to intuitively agree that consciousness is a continuum with monkeys having quite a bit, cats having some; plants probably a bit too and stones virtually none. Given that, it makes much more sense to me that consciousness is an inherent property of the universe, perhaps even the mere passing of time, and that what we traditionally call 'consciousness' is just the degree to which some subset of consciousness is similar to our own.
- jerf 12y ago
  "I really don't get why it's so hard for people to imagine consciousness..." You name the crazy idea, it's been proposed and taken seriously by someone. I cut off your quote there quite deliberately. However, as Scott observes, most of them (and I'd daresay including yours) are so vague that it's difficult to even imagine what would falsify them. What does "consciousness is an inherent property of the universe" really mean? Can I bottle some of this inherent consciousness? Can I pour it out of one person and put it in another? Could a universe have exactly equivalent physical laws but lack this "inherent consciousness"? (If not, where in our physical laws does this "inherent consciousness" reside?) Can I talk to disembodied consciousness somehow? Can I build a device (with any theoretical level of complexity you like) that can concretely measure the amount of consciousness embedded in some system? Can you answer these questions in some way that can actually be manifested in some device or practice which can be demonstrated to produce real information of some sort, and not just more handwaving that plays shell games with the fact that it never ever quite gets down to the level of a theory that could even be slightly proved or falsified? That's the problem. In practice, all vague murmurings about consciousness that have absolutely no ability whatsoever to be used for anything are, ultimately, equivalent. "Pretty words strung in a row with no reference to reality" is one of the most venerable of philosophical traps.
  - mtrimpe 12y ago
    I'm saying that what we call consciousness is merely a qualitative, subjective, signifier (correct word?) which describes the degree to which we consider the dynamic behaviour of parts of our universe to be similar to that of our own. Essentially consciousness is nothing more than the mere passage of time; change itself. And if the universe is not deterministic that the required 'magic spark' is unlikely to be reserved to just (our) brains and is more likely a universal property of the universe.
NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
> almost everyone except for the philosophical extremist agrees that we are conscious and that a stone isn't. It is possible for me to imagine a conscious being that, mute and immotile, can't give any outward indications of consciousness. I am not an extremist. So "almost everyone" is not thinking rationally on the subject. I doubt very much that stones are conscious, it's not worth exploring that question in a practical sense. But to dismiss a theory, even an outlandish one, based only on my admittedly-flawed intution... that's highly unreasonable. The trouble is that this is no longer a philosophical question, that it can't be a scientific question until we have an objective definition, and worst of all... it's very much a political question now. How is that you say? It's a political question for many reasons. The abortion controversy touches on it, animal rights touch on it, etc. Everyone's groping for an answer that proves chickens are soulful and shouldn't be eaten, or that it's ok to scrape away their unborn child with a curette because they couldn't be bothered to figure out how to use a condom or take a pill. > Sure, we'd like to think that none of the entities he describes are in fact conscious. But if that's the bullet I have to bite in order to get a decent theory of consciousness, then I might be OK with that. What's decent about it? This theory is useless in a scientific sense. Can you construct an artificial consciousness if this theory is true? No. Can you test consciousness with it, if it is true? Again, no (though some will dispute this, naturally). Can it lead to other theories that are themselves useful? Well, that remains to be seen, but it's difficult to imagine why that might be so... this doesn't seem like a rough idea that merely needs refinement.
- rictic 12y ago
  Even knowing the chemical makeup of a stone as being a simple lattice of inert unchanging material? I don't think it's anyone's position that something could be mute and immotile yet conscious, but we know a lot more about rocks than that. As far as applications, one of the early uses of a practical theory of consciousness may be to determine the effectiveness of anesthesia on a moment by moment basis.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
    > I don't think it's anyone's position that something could be mute and immotile yet conscious, Until someone tells me what consciousness is, that's impossible to say one way or the other. Do you know what it is? I can make some vague descriptions myself that I think are supportable (it's related to intelligence), but past that I'm willing to admit we don't even have a starting point to work with. It seems to me to be the modern not-quite-atheist-hipster soul. The term is used most often when someone wants to prove to me that it's a sin to eat meat (that chicken was a conscious being!). I see quite a few headlines that are mangled, claiming that a neurologist has proven the honeybee or an orca to be conscious, but when I read the articles themselves it always turns out that the MRI machine has similar readings to those of a human. None of this is meaningful. > As far as applications, one of the early uses of a practical theory of consciousness may be to determine the effectiveness of anesthesia on a moment by moment basis. If we're daydreaming, sure. But that's one of dozens. We're probably looking at the basis for AI too, if we get one. Whether or not that can be accomplished in software. Education will benefit... you'll be able to determine whether a student is learning, or how best to accomplish that. Intelligence testing, personality tests (don't elect him, he only scored an 8 on the non-sociopath test!), lie detection, etc. But I've yet to see a theory of consciousness (debunked or not) that could lead to any of this. Even if the author is wrong, and that theory is correct... even if it is only preliminary and needs to be polished, where will it give us any of this? It doesn't even point us in the direction of a more complete theory, and none of them do.

by apl 12y ago

Udo 12y ago

There is little doubt that the cat is conscious, and the idea that consciousness is a gradient with more than one dimension is not really in dispute. In fact, you can build a very simple gradient model by observing nothing but humans: a human baby is scarcely conscious at all, a toddler is pretty much on par with the cat, and a grown human has a higher level still. The reason why we think this is true is based on at least two things: awareness and meta-awareness (which includes the ability to reason about one's own existence as well as the world in general). The cat and the toddler are clearly conscious in the sense that they do have a recognizable life experience. They don't just react to the environment, they make models of it, and they have a limited ability to abstract observations. They experience life, and they have complex dreams and emotions. However, they still lack a deeper understanding of causalities, and they can grasp the subjective realities of other beings only on an instinctive level. Adult humans are less limited in this regard, but it's easy to imagine hypothetical beings who perform better still. That's bad news for the validity of consciousness as a concept, since it seems to be interlinked with intelligence, which itself is a fuzzy idea at best. So these observations amount to the position that "consciousness" isn't a fundamental property at all, it's the result of other processes and it can come in different flavors. Likewise, the concept of "intelligence" is similarly flawed. In both, we tend to make the mistake of looking at them as simple scalar values. They're not. They're a name we give for a collection of different capabilities. As such, I believe a mathematical model of consciousness is actually pretty unscientific, since consciousness is not an objective property. It's an artificial label we're obsessed with.

apl 12y ago
That's not the notion of consciousness we're dealing with when talking about the "hard" problem of consciousness. You're describing its psycho-functional interpretation: the ability to see yourself as a "self". Qualia are a largely orthogonal issue. Specifically, it's imaginable that an entity we'd consider unintelligent has a rich and detailed subjective internal life.
- Udo 12y ago
  I agree it's a psycho-functional interpretation (I would call it duck typing), but my argument is that everything else looks like a pseudo-scientific attempt at philosophy to me. It's not clear that we need a theory of consciousness at all, how is something as ill-defined as consciousness even viable in a mathematical context?
  - apl 12y ago
    > I would call it duck typing Ha, that's a fairly apt comparison. > It's not clear that we need a theory of consciousness at > all, how is something as ill-defined as consciousness even > viable in a mathematical context? That's not clear to me either, but there are some convincing arguments in favour of treating it at least logically if not quantitatively (like IIT does). I recommend the work of David Chalmers in this context because it's mathematically sound and written from the perspective of a dualist. Definitely worthwhile...
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Specifically, it's imaginable that an entity we'd consider unintelligent has a rich and detailed subjective internal life. Yes, just as its possible that an entity we'd consider intelligent doesn't, but since it's subjective, its not subject to empirical -- and, hence, scientific -- verification. Anything we are going to say objectively on issues related to consciousness isn't going to address that, because that's a question outside the scope of science.
  - KC8ZKF 12y ago

mtrimpe 12y ago

> Namely, almost everyone except for the philosophical extremist agrees that we are conscious and that a stone isn't. I really don't get why it's so hard for people to imagine consciousness as a property of the universe rather than people. Everyone seems to intuitively agree that consciousness is a continuum with monkeys having quite a bit, cats having some; plants probably a bit too and stones virtually none. Given that, it makes much more sense to me that consciousness is an inherent property of the universe, perhaps even the mere passing of time, and that what we traditionally call 'consciousness' is just the degree to which some subset of consciousness is similar to our own.

jerf 12y ago
"I really don't get why it's so hard for people to imagine consciousness..." You name the crazy idea, it's been proposed and taken seriously by someone. I cut off your quote there quite deliberately. However, as Scott observes, most of them (and I'd daresay including yours) are so vague that it's difficult to even imagine what would falsify them. What does "consciousness is an inherent property of the universe" really mean? Can I bottle some of this inherent consciousness? Can I pour it out of one person and put it in another? Could a universe have exactly equivalent physical laws but lack this "inherent consciousness"? (If not, where in our physical laws does this "inherent consciousness" reside?) Can I talk to disembodied consciousness somehow? Can I build a device (with any theoretical level of complexity you like) that can concretely measure the amount of consciousness embedded in some system? Can you answer these questions in some way that can actually be manifested in some device or practice which can be demonstrated to produce real information of some sort, and not just more handwaving that plays shell games with the fact that it never ever quite gets down to the level of a theory that could even be slightly proved or falsified? That's the problem. In practice, all vague murmurings about consciousness that have absolutely no ability whatsoever to be used for anything are, ultimately, equivalent. "Pretty words strung in a row with no reference to reality" is one of the most venerable of philosophical traps.
- mtrimpe 12y ago
  I'm saying that what we call consciousness is merely a qualitative, subjective, signifier (correct word?) which describes the degree to which we consider the dynamic behaviour of parts of our universe to be similar to that of our own. Essentially consciousness is nothing more than the mere passage of time; change itself. And if the universe is not deterministic that the required 'magic spark' is unlikely to be reserved to just (our) brains and is more likely a universal property of the universe.

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago

> almost everyone except for the philosophical extremist agrees that we are conscious and that a stone isn't. It is possible for me to imagine a conscious being that, mute and immotile, can't give any outward indications of consciousness. I am not an extremist. So "almost everyone" is not thinking rationally on the subject. I doubt very much that stones are conscious, it's not worth exploring that question in a practical sense. But to dismiss a theory, even an outlandish one, based only on my admittedly-flawed intution... that's highly unreasonable. The trouble is that this is no longer a philosophical question, that it can't be a scientific question until we have an objective definition, and worst of all... it's very much a political question now. How is that you say? It's a political question for many reasons. The abortion controversy touches on it, animal rights touch on it, etc. Everyone's groping for an answer that proves chickens are soulful and shouldn't be eaten, or that it's ok to scrape away their unborn child with a curette because they couldn't be bothered to figure out how to use a condom or take a pill. > Sure, we'd like to think that none of the entities he describes are in fact conscious. But if that's the bullet I have to bite in order to get a decent theory of consciousness, then I might be OK with that. What's decent about it? This theory is useless in a scientific sense. Can you construct an artificial consciousness if this theory is true? No. Can you test consciousness with it, if it is true? Again, no (though some will dispute this, naturally). Can it lead to other theories that are themselves useful? Well, that remains to be seen, but it's difficult to imagine why that might be so... this doesn't seem like a rough idea that merely needs refinement.

rictic 12y ago
Even knowing the chemical makeup of a stone as being a simple lattice of inert unchanging material? I don't think it's anyone's position that something could be mute and immotile yet conscious, but we know a lot more about rocks than that. As far as applications, one of the early uses of a practical theory of consciousness may be to determine the effectiveness of anesthesia on a moment by moment basis.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  > I don't think it's anyone's position that something could be mute and immotile yet conscious, Until someone tells me what consciousness is, that's impossible to say one way or the other. Do you know what it is? I can make some vague descriptions myself that I think are supportable (it's related to intelligence), but past that I'm willing to admit we don't even have a starting point to work with. It seems to me to be the modern not-quite-atheist-hipster soul. The term is used most often when someone wants to prove to me that it's a sin to eat meat (that chicken was a conscious being!). I see quite a few headlines that are mangled, claiming that a neurologist has proven the honeybee or an orca to be conscious, but when I read the articles themselves it always turns out that the MRI machine has similar readings to those of a human. None of this is meaningful. > As far as applications, one of the early uses of a practical theory of consciousness may be to determine the effectiveness of anesthesia on a moment by moment basis. If we're daydreaming, sure. But that's one of dozens. We're probably looking at the basis for AI too, if we get one. Whether or not that can be accomplished in software. Education will benefit... you'll be able to determine whether a student is learning, or how best to accomplish that. Intelligence testing, personality tests (don't elect him, he only scored an 8 on the non-sociopath test!), lie detection, etc. But I've yet to see a theory of consciousness (debunked or not) that could lead to any of this. Even if the author is wrong, and that theory is correct... even if it is only preliminary and needs to be polished, where will it give us any of this? It doesn't even point us in the direction of a more complete theory, and none of them do.