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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 thi

> 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
      > 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. It's certainly not easy to explain. I have no idea what that means. You're basically saying that change of physical state causes pain. Why? Is that some physical law I haven't heard of? > 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. The big difference here is that computers or cars are physical concepts, the definition of a car could be that it's a certain arangement of atoms.
Marazan 12y ago
I think it is an emergent property too but it turns out that philosophers use of the word emergent is not the same as other scientists use of the word. Philosophers use emergent to mean irreducible which isn't very useful.

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
    > 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. It's certainly not easy to explain. I have no idea what that means. You're basically saying that change of physical state causes pain. Why? Is that some physical law I haven't heard of? > 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. The big difference here is that computers or cars are physical concepts, the definition of a car could be that it's a certain arangement of atoms.

Marazan 12y ago

I think it is an emergent property too but it turns out that philosophers use of the word emergent is not the same as other scientists use of the word. Philosophers use emergent to mean irreducible which isn't very useful.