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You'll have to be a bit more specific in terms of what exactly people are saying that "belittles the question of consciousness", I haven't see anything in this

You'll have to be a bit more specific in terms of what exactly people are saying that "belittles the question of consciousness", I haven't see anything in this thread that I took as such. As to your other statement, Newtonian physics was wrong. It broke down under certain circumstances which are not (largely) encountered under daily live, so our intuition was useless to deceive the faults in it's laws, yet this did not stop people of the time from thinking it was the end-all-be-all set of rules that described physical reality. Newtonian physics is certainly not the branch of physical that would help you understanding free will and agency. Then Einstein came around, and amended (some of) Newtons problems. Then Quantum Mechanics came around and filled in some gaps in Relativity. QM and Relativity still don't play nice together so in the future, someone else will most likely make further amendments and get us closer to the answer. But anyways, what I'm getting at, is there seems to be a reaction, perhaps innate to the human psyche to ... hmm... blow a fuse, when faced with an problem perceived to be intellectually intractable. But progress comes, inevitably. Sometimes slowly, and sometimes quick, but always inevitable. My own thoughts on consciousness is that, of course its generated by the brain, of course it is caused by things that remain solely in the realm of physical reality. Of course (assuming we don't blow ourselves up or the like, as this may take quite some time) we'll not only understand what's going on in the brain, but will be able to build conscious machines, machines which we will quickly find resemble us more closely than machines and at this point will see that the amazing phenomenon we call consciousness is the not the sole domain of humanity, but just the sole example(let's exclude other animals from this thought for simplicity) of such up until that point. It might take awhile though, evolution took a billions of years to get consciousness to this point, I think it's only fair to give humanity a bit more time before we call it a lost cause.

thoman23 12y ago
> You'll have to be a bit more specific in terms of what exactly people are saying that "belittles the question of consciousness", I haven't see anything in this thread that I took as such. When I first opened the comments, the first few comments I saw were: dominotw 58 minutes ago | link[-] > i can't take anyone who uses the word "consciousness" seriously, given noone has any idea what it actually means. Marazan 57 minutes ago | link[-] > Predicated on the concept that the Hard Problem of Consciousness is actually a problem. crimsonalucard 44 minutes ago | link[-] > How can we solve a problem about a word that isn't clearly defined? Regarding my other comments, I focused on deterministic Newtonian physics because that is what first sparked my interest in the question. Yes, since that time I have learned a bit of quantum mechanics and relativity. Around the time that I found myself trying to grasp string theory is when I gave up the physics thread (pun intended). I'm not a physicist, and frankly I'm not smart enough to fully grasp modern physics. For what it's worth, I'm in the "emergent property" camp. I certainly don't think there is anything non-physical necessary to explain consciousness. I just think it's a fascinating topic and was shocked at the early dismissiveness I saw. Even in the original article, there's at times an undertone of "consciousness is an illusion and therefore not interesting". Just because we don't need to resort to the supernatural to explain consciousness doesn't make it less interesting. To me, that's exactly why it is interesting.
- protonfish 12y ago
  I think the derision is not from pondering the actual question of consciousness (or strong AI) but the nebulous, fuzzy definition of consciousness by some in the philosophy camp. I think that better work is being done by those focusing on well-defined problems and holding off on the "hard" question until we are in a better position. Also, this article is based heavily on Koch's pansychism which I find very unconvincing. There is talk about consciousness relating somehow to mental simulations and I believe this is where the answer lies (and an explanation that was not included in the article.)
  - RivieraKid 12y ago
    > fuzzy definition of consciousness by some in the philosophy camp When discussing consciousness I like to focus on the feeling of pain, which is much more clearly understood by people. So the question is, why do I feel pain when my brain is in a certain physical state?
    - deeviant 12y ago
      I think that's pretty easy to explain. The change of state in your brain modulates the thing that it both creates and controls (consciousness) state to "feel" pain. Consciousness is a emergent property of the incredible complex organ we call a brain. At first it may seem too odd to think that something as incredibly surreal and deep as consciousness can spring forth some arrangement of atoms, atoms identical to those make up the inanimate objects around us, it because less weird when you think about a car just being made up of nuts, bolts, and a bunch of metal, or a space shuttle out of ceramic, composites and what have you. Computers are just made up of transistors, capacitors and the like, and have tremendous capabilities. Humans are just the most extreme example we have of this phenomenon of complexity through composition, but that makes a certain kind of sense as humans are the product of billions of years of evolution. We've only been seriously studying consciousness for a good hundred years or so (people have thought about it for quite some time, but I think it's fair to say no clear progress was made on the subject until the 20th century).
RivieraKid 12y ago
> Of course (assuming we don't blow ourselves up or the like, as this may take quite some time) we'll not only understand what's going on in the brain, but will be able to build conscious machines, machines which we will quickly find resemble us more closely than machines and at this point will see that the amazing phenomenon we call consciousness is the not the sole domain of humanity, but just the sole example(let's exclude other animals from this thought for simplicity) of such up until that point. Why of course? I completely disagree, I've come to the conclusion that consciousness is not a normal physical phenomenon. Let's say that we can create consciousness on a computer. We can simulate a computer with pen and paper. Can we create pain just by scribbling something on paper? We can also simulate a computer by moving sand grains. And there's practically an infinite way of encoding the computer state into configuration of sand grains. So when we just toss sand grains around, are we creating 100% real pain?
- deeviant 12y ago
  What is a "normal physical phenomenon" and what is a "non-normal physical phenomenon"? It would seem to me that something is either physical or metaphysical. Not once in the entire history of human inquiry has something turned out to be provably "because magic". Lightning was not Zeus having a fit, plagues were not the vengeance of the gods, birth defects are not the disdain of our ancestors, and humanity did not get created from clay. The scenario you put forward is the "Chinese Room" argument, and it's incredibly flawed but is a great example of flawed philosophical thinking regarding consciousness. It's main problem is that it was directed at Alan Turing's "Turing Test" which was also flawed. The Turing test boils down to, "If a machine can make you think it's a human, it's true artificial intelligence". The Chinese Room argument rebutted and put forward the idea that if you have some in a rule with a algorithm to associate symbols from one language to another(lets say english to chinese), and another room with somebody who actually speaks Chinese and English, externally they would be indistinguishable but these is clearly a difference between the two. I, for one, totally agree with this sentiment, but it doesn't really speak to consciousness, but just how bad the Turing Test was as defining artificial intelligence. The problem is that the philosophers then applied to Chinese Room Argument to not just the very narrow (and completely wrong) definition of AI outlined by the Turing Test, not just to artificial intelligence (which would be incorrect), but consciousness in general (which is a horrendous error), no matter how defined, it's just a plain logical incongruence. You ask questions such as "are we creating 100% real pain", while not describing exactly what IS pain? I think it's pretty hard to say that thing A(let's say an artificial intelligence living in some super computer cluster), is not equal to B(A fully conscious entity), when we can not yet even define what B is. While I think it's pretty safe to say that such a AI would never know what it is like to be you, and you it, that hardly means it's not (fully, real, actual, insert whatever word you want to call it here) consciousness. Once or if total mastery of artificial is achieved it seems reasonable that you would be able to create a artificial intelligence with capabilities very similar to the humans. With the same sensors, neuronal network capabilities, even an artificial human body and at this point the differences between the way a human experiences reality this theoretical human-like robot experiences reality would more resemble the differences between the way I perceive reality/exercise consciousness than the differences between a pile-of-sand computer and a human.

thoman23 12y ago

> You'll have to be a bit more specific in terms of what exactly people are saying that "belittles the question of consciousness", I haven't see anything in this thread that I took as such. When I first opened the comments, the first few comments I saw were: dominotw 58 minutes ago | link[-] > i can't take anyone who uses the word "consciousness" seriously, given noone has any idea what it actually means. Marazan 57 minutes ago | link[-] > Predicated on the concept that the Hard Problem of Consciousness is actually a problem. crimsonalucard 44 minutes ago | link[-] > How can we solve a problem about a word that isn't clearly defined? Regarding my other comments, I focused on deterministic Newtonian physics because that is what first sparked my interest in the question. Yes, since that time I have learned a bit of quantum mechanics and relativity. Around the time that I found myself trying to grasp string theory is when I gave up the physics thread (pun intended). I'm not a physicist, and frankly I'm not smart enough to fully grasp modern physics. For what it's worth, I'm in the "emergent property" camp. I certainly don't think there is anything non-physical necessary to explain consciousness. I just think it's a fascinating topic and was shocked at the early dismissiveness I saw. Even in the original article, there's at times an undertone of "consciousness is an illusion and therefore not interesting". Just because we don't need to resort to the supernatural to explain consciousness doesn't make it less interesting. To me, that's exactly why it is interesting.

protonfish 12y ago
I think the derision is not from pondering the actual question of consciousness (or strong AI) but the nebulous, fuzzy definition of consciousness by some in the philosophy camp. I think that better work is being done by those focusing on well-defined problems and holding off on the "hard" question until we are in a better position. Also, this article is based heavily on Koch's pansychism which I find very unconvincing. There is talk about consciousness relating somehow to mental simulations and I believe this is where the answer lies (and an explanation that was not included in the article.)
- RivieraKid 12y ago
  > fuzzy definition of consciousness by some in the philosophy camp When discussing consciousness I like to focus on the feeling of pain, which is much more clearly understood by people. So the question is, why do I feel pain when my brain is in a certain physical state?
  - deeviant 12y ago
    I think that's pretty easy to explain. The change of state in your brain modulates the thing that it both creates and controls (consciousness) state to "feel" pain. Consciousness is a emergent property of the incredible complex organ we call a brain. At first it may seem too odd to think that something as incredibly surreal and deep as consciousness can spring forth some arrangement of atoms, atoms identical to those make up the inanimate objects around us, it because less weird when you think about a car just being made up of nuts, bolts, and a bunch of metal, or a space shuttle out of ceramic, composites and what have you. Computers are just made up of transistors, capacitors and the like, and have tremendous capabilities. Humans are just the most extreme example we have of this phenomenon of complexity through composition, but that makes a certain kind of sense as humans are the product of billions of years of evolution. We've only been seriously studying consciousness for a good hundred years or so (people have thought about it for quite some time, but I think it's fair to say no clear progress was made on the subject until the 20th century).

RivieraKid 12y ago

> Of course (assuming we don't blow ourselves up or the like, as this may take quite some time) we'll not only understand what's going on in the brain, but will be able to build conscious machines, machines which we will quickly find resemble us more closely than machines and at this point will see that the amazing phenomenon we call consciousness is the not the sole domain of humanity, but just the sole example(let's exclude other animals from this thought for simplicity) of such up until that point. Why of course? I completely disagree, I've come to the conclusion that consciousness is not a normal physical phenomenon. Let's say that we can create consciousness on a computer. We can simulate a computer with pen and paper. Can we create pain just by scribbling something on paper? We can also simulate a computer by moving sand grains. And there's practically an infinite way of encoding the computer state into configuration of sand grains. So when we just toss sand grains around, are we creating 100% real pain?

deeviant 12y ago
What is a "normal physical phenomenon" and what is a "non-normal physical phenomenon"? It would seem to me that something is either physical or metaphysical. Not once in the entire history of human inquiry has something turned out to be provably "because magic". Lightning was not Zeus having a fit, plagues were not the vengeance of the gods, birth defects are not the disdain of our ancestors, and humanity did not get created from clay. The scenario you put forward is the "Chinese Room" argument, and it's incredibly flawed but is a great example of flawed philosophical thinking regarding consciousness. It's main problem is that it was directed at Alan Turing's "Turing Test" which was also flawed. The Turing test boils down to, "If a machine can make you think it's a human, it's true artificial intelligence". The Chinese Room argument rebutted and put forward the idea that if you have some in a rule with a algorithm to associate symbols from one language to another(lets say english to chinese), and another room with somebody who actually speaks Chinese and English, externally they would be indistinguishable but these is clearly a difference between the two. I, for one, totally agree with this sentiment, but it doesn't really speak to consciousness, but just how bad the Turing Test was as defining artificial intelligence. The problem is that the philosophers then applied to Chinese Room Argument to not just the very narrow (and completely wrong) definition of AI outlined by the Turing Test, not just to artificial intelligence (which would be incorrect), but consciousness in general (which is a horrendous error), no matter how defined, it's just a plain logical incongruence. You ask questions such as "are we creating 100% real pain", while not describing exactly what IS pain? I think it's pretty hard to say that thing A(let's say an artificial intelligence living in some super computer cluster), is not equal to B(A fully conscious entity), when we can not yet even define what B is. While I think it's pretty safe to say that such a AI would never know what it is like to be you, and you it, that hardly means it's not (fully, real, actual, insert whatever word you want to call it here) consciousness. Once or if total mastery of artificial is achieved it seems reasonable that you would be able to create a artificial intelligence with capabilities very similar to the humans. With the same sensors, neuronal network capabilities, even an artificial human body and at this point the differences between the way a human experiences reality this theoretical human-like robot experiences reality would more resemble the differences between the way I perceive reality/exercise consciousness than the differences between a pile-of-sand computer and a human.