/edu/ - Education

A spook

>>9853
it’s funny how the repurposing of a term traditionally used to mean collective knowledge into a more introspective, mystical meaning coincided with the rise of the bourgeoisie

>>9853
>>9854
This is fascinating stuff but it leads to a pet peeve of mine when it comes to discussions of consciousness. It always devolves into an argument of semantics of what is exactly meant by consciousness. That means the word consciousness has an insufficiently clear definition and more damningly an insufficiently scientific definition.

>>9855
it's not semantics, it's philosophy

>>9849
only the bourgeois spend time on such drivel

>>9855
the issue of definitions is probably the most important issue

all in all, what people are meaning in a general way when they talk about consciousness, is a secular version of Spirit or Soul. So - is the soul in your ability to observe? Or is it in your action? Or is it in your ability to think and choose? Is this thing confined in your body, or does it transcend your body?

The definition is literally the whole point. The more you expand on the concept, the more you narrow down the definition.

On another note, i have a question >>9854
What would be a good source of reading about this stuff? I think that one of the most important and underlooked facets of class consciousness is the consciousness. You can see people's ontology reflected in their demands - the economist demands more, the socialist demands a reciprocal relationship between worker and society, for example. The difference is in what you think you and your relationship to the world are defined by, ownership of property and sensation, vs labor, and the dialectical relationship of becoming between individual and society.

one thing i've noticed is that lots of spiritualism shit talks about consciousness as perception, which is kind of besides the point, because the pressing problem for me has always been agency. These are two sides of consciousness, but for "some reason" it's always boiled down to perception, which seems bullshit to me. Who cares. Like they are all problems of essence and the problem of essence when you divide the self, examining it. But it's clear that when you take away the ear you can't hear, when you take away the eyes you can't see, etc. The pressing problem is that once you divide the self, you find not just non-perceptive matter, but non-purposeful matter. Our whole life is built around laboring for purpose. Anyways this is just my rambling. My point is to affirm that the question is answered based on your class position.

>>9849
it's probably just a case of quantity into quality. Many different outputs from systems oriented towards certain goals or senses (speech, sight, hearing, motor control, recall, thought, etc.) are shoved into a central space to share the info, and it just leads to some viewer of these things. Maybe an overgrowth of some particular system, but either way just an emergent quality which can't be predicted beforehand, due to the fundamental qualitative difference between it and its cause.

consciousness is awareness, no?

>>10266
Consciousness is the ability to have qualitative experiences.

consciousness is a self-aware, self-reconstructing, feedback loop with emergent properties

yes, machines can become conscious, but not to the extent that humans are. Give it a while.

>>10035
somebody's never smoked weed around a campfire

>>9855
I think what people usually mean by consciousness is the subject of the subject-object distinction, i.e., the "I" that actually sees, tastes, feels things. Note that in this sense a statement like "I see a cat" is completely different from "someone sees a cat".
This is also why I think the hard problem is insoluble: consciousness is the one thing you don't know as an object so it would be absurd to point to something in the world and "recognize" it as consciousness. We may identify what areas of the brain are required for it, for example, but we'll never be able to complete our understanding of the mechanism in a satisfactory manner.

>>10273
Isn't the 'extent' qualitative in this case, then?
So there is, in some sense, a kind of emergent particularity within the human psyche which is qualitatively distinct enough to be non-replicable within machines as of yet, no?

>>10283
it's replicable. It will just take time. A long time, from your perspective, but less time than it took evolution to make it the first time.

>>9849
>very interesting thread
do you mean the bunkerchan one? im so sad no one web archived it (here would have been the link to the thread https://bunkerchan.net/edu/res/400.html#1114)!? it was such an interesting thread with multiple cool perspectives and one of the things that attracted to this imageboard. whoever was the anon that posted pic rel, you have anymore to say?

anyways i have a theory of consciousness (and intelligence in general!) that has gotten increasingly sophisticated. it is attempting synthesize ideas ranging from fichte and bergson to hegel. i wrote some rudimentary ideas here (https://alogs.space/robowaifu/res/11102.html#11103) but all of this stuff is pretty basic compared to now (much less refined too)… ive also slowly taken seriously the development of form to be central to my overall system. if you were to ask me what phenomenal consciousness was, i would probably answer "the moment to moment generation of form in a non-isotropic (i.e. non-homogenous, not all potential states are as probably as being reached) non-markovian (i.e. a state does not just depend on the immediately previous moment, but on the entire history of the process) medium of potential and in dialectical unity with a larger context (thereby forming an umwelt)". it is a mouthful and very ideosyncratic, but i feel is far more sophisticated than many other ideas. something that is obscured in this definition is connections to analog computing, direct realism, and mind-object identity (no, not the idealist idea that the world is ideal, but rather an externalist theory of mind… check out the text 'Consciousness and Object: A Mind-object Identity Physicalist Theory')

tbh, i lean to some sort of physicalism, but whether it is really materialist is debatable. such a question isn't really interesting to me though. i personally separate theories, those that are "waifu-constructable" and those that are not. most idealist theories foreclose the possibility of synthesizing consciousness, or at the very least they do not leave much to the imagination on how one could possible do it. as such i have a strong impulse to dismiss them out of hand. at the same time, i feel as though many analytic philosophers do not take consciousness as seriously as it could be. of course, i am open to it not needing to be taken as seriously, but the contrary is more aesthetically attractive to me… at any rate, i am not really interested in talking much about my own system here. rather, i would like to stretch my mind further and conceptualize a properly materialist theory of consciousness

i suspect that if we such a materialist theory seriously, it can not be isolated from practical activity. thus i believe the go to ideas are embodied cognition, extended mind thesis, and ecological psychology. a facile mind brain identity just recapitulates cartesianism. an article that i have recently read that seems to characterize phenomenal consciousness following these ideas is 'The Mind-Body-Body Problem' by Robert Hanna and Evan Thompson. the basic idea is to make use of the phenomenal distinction between Leib and Körper. it is technically a dual-aspect monist theory, though there are some more hard-core materialist thinkers like adrian johnston who takes this guy seriously

>>9854
>>10203
it is funny you guys say this because i am personally interested in both understandings of consciousness i.e. on one hand the agentive/practical/ego one and the other one relating the phenomenal awareness. continentals often refer to the former as the subject. i believe there is a continuity between the two notions of consciousness, but it is extremely subtle

anyways, on the topic of the construction of the subject in particular, i am interested in adrian johnston's transcendental materialism and negarestani's neo-rationalism. i haven't really read their work yet tho, but when i get to it maybe i will try to start a reading group. johnston is a strong emergentist who follows zizek while at the same time bringing to the table his own ideas. negarestani builds off hegel, but gives a functionalist reading of him as opposed to a metaphysical one. both very interesting and building off hegel though different emphases

>>10280
>consciousness is the one thing you don't know as an object so it would be absurd to point to something in the world and "recognize" it as consciousness
it is not as absurd as you think. i think schelling's objective idealism was a decent effort. by elaborating the necessary structures of both consciousness and nature, he was able to gesture to some sort of isomorphism. hegel might do it in a more sophisticated manner though, idk. on the analytic side of things, armstrong's arguments for his causal theory of mind (as as way to explain intentionality) are not bad. i can't really say i am a representationalist, but if you are then you get phenomenal states for free

Speaking of consciousness, has anyone of you looked into Integrated Information Theory (IIT) by Giulio Tononi? It‘s a theory in the making since roughly two decade ago. Its characteristics are that it is panpsychism. That means theoretically everything posses consciousness, just to varying amounts. Of course, things we would deem to be unconscious based on conventional understanding would have little or no to speak of even according to IIT. Additionally, it‘s a theory that starts from subjective experience and derives its axioms from there, instead of looking in from the outside, trying to deduce what is consciousness starting from there. I watched videos on it, both by him and his collegues supporting the idea and I also watched videos of his critics. Though I don‘t think the critics fully understood the idea and tend to bring up these memorized, and kind of meme-afied arguments. Kind of like with socialism „Marx did not consider human nature!“ Instead here they say stuff like „According to IIT a bunch of photo diodes have consciousness, and the more of them you slap onto them the more consciousness they have.“ which is a misrepresentation of IIT since, holistically, they don‘t produce more than the sum of their parts. The input and output of the device remains the same. That‘s as far as I understand the counter-argument to it. But I will be honest, I haven‘t read Tononi‘s writings. I merely watched a bunch of his presentations. So take what I said with a grain of salt and inform yourselves.

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Integrated_information_theory

>>10302
Very interesting, Anon. But word of advice, pay attention that you write in a way that is intelligible for other people. Both in style but also content. Because you are presenting reasoning and definitions here that are not immediately obvious what they mean or how you are drawing a connection to the rest of what you are talking about.

>>10305
my issue is with iit is that while it does give us some necessary conditions for consciousness, i do not believe it gives us sufficient ones. any analog feedback system should have positive integrated information, so it does not restrict much. furthermore the idea that consciousness has a quantitative degree is to me asinine. iit might provide some interesting tools to analyze phenomenal states though (at the same time i believe ecological psychology is still the superior framework)
>According to IIT a bunch of photo diodes have consciousness, and the more of them you slap onto them the more consciousness they have
it doesn't make sense to dismiss a mathematical result of the theory (https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=1799) as a misrepresentation. it is not even something tononi objects to
https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=1823
>He affirms that, yes, according to IIT, a large network of XOR gates arranged in a simple expander graph is conscious. Indeed, he goes further, and says that the “expander” part is superfluous: even a network of XOR gates arranged in a 2D square grid is conscious
worse, koch (a collaborator with tononi) doubles down:
>Even a 1-D array of XOR gates has a non-zero Phi. Indeed, in the limit, a single photodiode connected to a 1-bit memory has an elemental quale
>>10306
yeah i have some trouble with this sometimes. on one side i think i am just bad at communicating things. on the other side, what i am thinking about might be resting on too many things at once for me to properly account for everything. ive occasionally written things in my notes and when i come back to them, i have trouble understanding what i was thinking at the time lmao

>>10311
>it doesn't make sense to dismiss a mathematical result of the theory (https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=1799) as a misrepresentation. it is not even something tononi objects to
I see. Wasn‘t aware of that. But surely the amount of consciousness increasing could not be linear this way, right? Otherwise attaching enough XOR gates could theoretically reach the same value as a, for example, a human.

>>10316 (me)
Preferably, the value would increase asymptotically against a relatively low limit. Otherwise the result is bonkers to me.

>>10316
it is not linear but it scales sqrt(n) so the amount of phi still tends to infinity and thus we can reach human level phi

>>9849
>>10302
oh yeah i found an archive of the original thread but forgot to post:
https://archive.ph/LSgow

Consciousness is formed by the environment.

>>10757
Awesome. Thanks so much.

>>10757
>https://archive.ph/LSgow
Damn, reading my post from nearly 2 years ago feels weird.

>>10765
thats your post?

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as consciousness, is in fact, the in-itself organism/consciousness, or as I've recently taken to calling it, the in-itself organism plus consciousness. Consciousness is not an emergent property unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning neurological system made useful by the in-itself organism's sensory processing, involuntary muscle control and vital nerve clusters comprising a full neurological system as defined by scientists.

Many humans run a modified version of the in-itself organism's neurological system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of the in-itself organism which is widely used by humans today is often called consciousness, and many humans are not aware that it is basically the in-itself organism's neurological system, developed by evolution.

There really is a consciousness, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Consciousness is the reflexive understanding: the component in the neurological system that keeps track of internal states and relates other components to each other. The reflexive understanding is an essential part of a neurological system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete neurological system. Consciousness is normally used in combination with the in-itself organism's neurological system: the whole system is basically in-itself with consciousness added, or the in-itself organism/consciousness. All the so-called consciousness creatures are really creatures of the in-itself organism/consciousness!

>>9849

it's a neurological feedback loop resulting from the brain perceiving, interpreting, learning from, remembering, integrating, and responding to stimuli.

>>10851
sadly all answers won't/can't touch the hard problem, the problem of why experience exists, why there is a sensation of being, this is prior to any self-understanding, any interpreting and learning, memory, or as some (imo nicely thought out) theories put it that our experience of consciousness rests on top of a structure or some system for the interconnection of high level outputs (e.g. ocular output, after heavy modification) with other high level outputs, along with language and other things. But even this doesn't answer - why is this experience? I think when people express perplexity about consciousness, usually experience or subjective qualia is what they're talking about. Either, why are we not just a system running "blind", with all the outputs plugged into inputs, all the information having the same work done on it, but without a "vision" of it - or, we take it that is what we are, why is consciousness/phenomenal experience produced from this? And how?

Like even memory, logical thought, perception, etc. all happen outside of my consciousness. I can say "what is 2 plus 2?" but i dont do anything to receive the answer, 4. It just comes. You the conscious observer are not in control of this. It is beyond consciousness. So it's not that we need consciousness to do this, right? I mean we don't choose what we remember at a given time, we don't choose what to think about. The one thing is maybe sustained attention, but even then, why am I seeing from the POV of this observing/oversight system and not from the POV of other systems, or all systems, or none?

>>10765
Seriously. Which posts are yours? I'm 404, 609.

>>10852
not really a hard problem

>>10942
https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/
what does that have to do with this?

>>10852
>the problem of why experience exists
i am >>10302 and this is NOT the hard problem. the hard problem is to establish the synthetic necessary connection between objective existence and phenomenal experience. this framing often leads to abstract modal/substance metaphysics being used to approach the problem

however, the deeper issue is of course why is there any experience at all? assuming we are not eliminativists, then we need a more bold approach to solving this problem. for me, this consists in two parts. for a why question to be properly answered, it presupposes that phenomenal actually plays some explanatory role in a process. this requires a strict rejection of epiphenomenalism, and many approaches to the hard problem that basically amount to it (for instance, russellian monism). on the other i need to show the systemic necessity of phenomenal states. by systemic necessity, i mean the sense of "deduction" used by Fichte and Schelling to show why an element of a system is needed. this should be done in a way that it explains important phenomenology including the meta-problem of consciousness. combining these together you get a genuine answer as to the why. i believe i have at least a decent idea of the answer here which i have written in my notes

then we move on to the hard problem. this requires a deeper analysis of nature than what is done contemporaneously. i think schelling's naturphilosophie is a useful asset here. it's especially useful if we also look at the requirements for any genuinely robust theory of perception. this preconditions have the potential to not only inform the nature of physical reality, but they furthermore inform our thinkings of what may be the explanatory efficacy of phenomenal states. this is also something i have good ideas on…

what i wrote in my original post is an extreme distillation of my ideas that have been taken from numerous places. if i ever write a book, it would be probably elaborate on it in more depth. i am selfish though, and don't want to share my full thoughts on stuff bcs idk who's reading. honestly i think ive basically solved the basics of the hard problem, to a level that is pretty deep already, so i plan to take a break from it and focus on other problems i need to solve for agi waifu (e.g. subjectivity, normativity)

(i dont even remember saving this pic, it's sho cute)

>>10772
>>10939
431,471,606 among others. When do we break out of this place?

Read "Being no one" by Thomas Metzinger

Standard philosophical reading in cognitive science classes worldwide.

>>10965
on what grounds do you assume that phenomenal states are needed? Or do I not understand? Things can be understood as necessary in retrospect and with deeper understanding, but to say its "needed" to me implies intelligent design for a purpose or certain complete state. Am I misreading you?

Also if you have notes, share. BTW in order to establish connection between (assumed) non-conscious matter and experience, you would need a deep understanding of both- water and ice may seem to be in contradiction, until atoms and crystalline structure are understood. Do you have a new understanding on this level? If so, share

>>10971
>we break out of this place?
what do you mean?

>>10978
i am partly being vague on purpose, but…
>on what grounds do you assume that phenomenal states are needed?
they are needed for the generation of form and the formation of structured behaviour (think the ideomotor theory of action). in some sense i am reifying attempts to deflate qualitative experience using tropes and nominal resemblances. what i am saying is that there is a real activity binding together these resemblances. this activity is also what is responsible for the perception of optic flows and hence affordances. so i see a continuity between the hard problem of consciousness and the frame problem. this then establishes an evolutionary advantage
>but to say its "needed" to me implies intelligent design for a purpose or certain complete state
needed in this context only implies reference to teleology, and evolution is already an adequate explanatory context in which teleology may be ascribed. consciousness is important for the behaviour and growth of organisms
>Also if you have notes, share
i don't want to spill too much lol. i have over 200 pages of notes now, so if i write a book, it might turn into a tome lol
>BTW in order to establish connection between (assumed) non-conscious matter and experience, you would need a deep understanding of both
indeed, i think we probably need new physics to properly understand how this works. i have some ideas on some promising areas to look, like bohmian mechanics and [REDACTED]

>>10965
>>10981
100% pseud. Why did you come here just to say "actually i can't tell you anything, buuuuut i have personally solved one of the hardest problems of philosophy, and i think made some great contributions to physics, but it'd be #spoilers to tell you guys rn so [REDACTED]"

literally just "look at me" posting
be ashamed

>>10984
>i can't tell you anything
i just gave a very brief gist of what ive been thinking. i don't want someone to plagiarize what i have been working on for the past year. what i have written already in this thread and the references i have made is already pretty deep. you could possibly piece together my thoughts just from what i have said so far if you wanted to. i've posted here and there about little pieces of what ive been thinking, for instance here: http://web.archive.org/web/20220320072021/https://leftypol.org/leftypol/res/857172.html#861221
>made some great contributions to physics
i haven't made such contributions. just noticed promising places to look

>>10972
Boring representationalist drivel akin to Dennet's premise that it's all more or less illusory in ultimatum. Although it attempts to address the problem of cartesian subjective irreducibility, it still doesn't penetrate beyond the question of what it is like to be a bat other than by assuming that there is no bat, yet the experience still remains; to assert that such a remnant is, once more, illusory and only epiphenomenally sustained, is, once again, to obfuscate around the problem of the actuality contained in said experience, i.e. that there is still a persistently, infinitely self-recursive problem of *what it is like to be*, qualitatively.

>>11002
>self recursive
Strictly speaking a bad infinity an absolute one

>>10985
I'm looking forward to reading your ideas in a more put together fashion.

>>11006
>Does consciousness require a radical explanation? What causes consciousness? Our inner sense of awareness is at once most mundane and most bizarre. No explanation makes sense.
lmao

>>11006
Consciousness is in the brain as an electrochemical phenomenon , there is no hard problem of consciousness, qualia is an illusion. Introspection is a useful mental tool for your psychological well-being, but it is fucking useless to learn anything about reality.

>>10965
>the hard problem is to establish the synthetic necessary connection between objective existence and phenomenal experience
>however, the deeper issue is of course why is there any experience at all?
>for a why question to be properly answered, it presupposes that phenomenal actually plays some explanatory role in a process.
Well the function that experience has is to serve as a step in the process from sensory input toward the organism's response. In a simpler organism without a brain (but still a nervous system) there are direct responses to the sensory input presumably without an experiential middle ground in which reality is simulated. The utility of a more complex organism having that simulation is fairly obvious, since it allows all sorts of derivative cognitive processes to happen and creates a platform for hypothetical situations to be experimented with (which is probably related to why dreams exist). The fact that we know our internal simulated reality through experience (that is seems real and direct to us even though it is a highly mediated and constructed simulation) is probably either necessary or simply the most direct way it was able to evolve, because the sort of "spontaneous" responses that a "mindless" organism has to stimuli are ultimately still important to have in a much more complex organism. We react to our simulation as if it was directly real because it would be more computationally expensive to always be aware of the disconnect between experience and reality. We can of course partially disconnect from this and enter a more reflective state of mind, muting some of our more basic responses or "getting into our own head" as it were. And a dramatic way of seeing how important processing speed is, is to see the fight or flight response provoked. In fact, we do not have a single processing system, even for something as specific as vision. Instead we have many sub-systems that all have to ultimately be integrated into a coherent "experience" for us to get what we have. Some of the processing happens without reaching the "top level" of the simulation (which is what we experience), like noticing the shape of a snake on the ground and jumping reflexively, or reeling after you stub your toe. But even these events get integrated into our experience after the fact, with our mind putting the pieces together well after everything happened and sorting it out in the formation of memory. Memory is itself probably a major component of this, because instead of simply relying on classical or operant conditioning, animals with brains have the ability to form memories of their experiences and therefore to learn not merely by association but by filtering information and drawing conclusions from these experiences. As with most evolved biology, there tends to be more than one function fulfilled by any given thing, since that is more efficient. So the way that experience works is perhaps an artifact of both the need for speedy reaction to our internal simulation and our ability to form memories to learn from our environment.

>>11009
very very nice post anon

one thing i still don't get is how (not why) anything is experienced, simulation or not. Does a wire experience electrical current moving in itself? I don't get how the experience of the simulation gets to the point of actually being experienced.

>>11010
maybe i can give some illustration of what i meant before by synthetic necessary connection. from what we experience, time has a qualitative character. moments are determined by temporal wholes, and the succession of events is irreversible. this same qualitative feature of time can also be observed in the corporeal existence of organisms. their behaviours are indivisible, and they embody a linear direction of time. so there is a connection here between phenomenality with corporeality. this much i think has already been thought. the trick is to think all of this generally

>>11009
1) "simulated" to me doesn't immediately entail phenomenal experience. it seems like it does due to the usage of figurative language, however when we look at what is meant by the term carefully, we see the issue. presumably, what is entailed by the term "simulation" is some systematic connection of representations. representations however are just internal structures which operate as signs through the habitual firing based upon cues. so when we say "simulation" we really just mean some system of signs which have some causal connection with one another. maybe there is an added element of "integration" at hand in this system, but this just takes us to the binding problem which rarely has a satisfying solution. it also isn't clear why such an "integration" would be at all related to be phenomenality. the synthetic connection still hasn't been established, rather the objective element has been deferred to a new structure

2) as we are talking about representations, the frame problem naturally comes in as well. stoping at "simulation" fails to penetrate into the issue of how relevance realization occurs and also doesnt actually give us any real theory of perception. all it states is that there is an interconnected internal diversity within the organism that somehow "mediates" stimulus-response

3) the mediation at hand is also obscure. you seem to think that there is no mediation between stimulus and reaction within an organism that has a nervous system yet no brain. this is not obvious to me. on the one hand, it is unclear what that really entails ontologically. when you press on a clam, it closes, which is something it would not do if it were mere inorganic matter. is this not an instance of mediation? it might be objected that this is a mere "reaction", but i am unable to understand what is the distinction which we are here trying to make. by reaction, presumably we mean something that is mechanism, however everything in the explanatory picture that ends up in the construction of a "simulation" is mechanism. is it the case rather that there is no interconnected inner diversity? this doesn't seem true either. maybe the keyword is "integration"? this one is tougher to deal with because this would depend on criterion of integration at hand. if what is in mind is something like integrated information, it is unlikely that a clam is a purely feed-forward system thus it should have a significant amount of phi. this is just for a simple activity taken in the abstract and we are finding difficulties. we have ignored the fact the clams, like pretty much any other organism, don't behave in the same way every time to stimulus. they habituate to repeated stimulate and have differential response to situations based upon risk. if the mere closing of a clam seems to have some mediation already, this definitely does

4) more generally, this way of understanding mediation seems too complex (probably due to the unjustified assumption that consciousness is in the brain specifically as opposed to the whole organism). really by the time we have autopoiesis we already have mediation, as in such a system its relation to the environment is selective. of course, this wouldn't need to be some complex construction but rather something filtrative

5) a possible refinement of "simulation" might entail some sort of stratification within the organism between anatomical features which perform actions that interact with the environment, and those that do not. this doesn't especially deal with "mediation" nor obviously relate to phenomenality, but it does possibly relate to experimentation with hypothetical situations. i do think such anatomical features might be important for imagination though they probably don't only involve the brain alone. when people for instance imagine mental imagery, they have different eye saccades than normal. it should be noted that what here specifically is creativity (both convergent and divergent thinking) which of course leads us back to the frame problem. note as well that the import of this creativity isn't quite "mediation", rather it is related to the process of restructuring (production of/switching to a new frame) as opposed to explaining why there is structuring at all

6) you explanation for why this "simulation" needs to feel spontaneous is unnecessary and also a product of figurative language. direct vs indirect experience does not have any immediate qualitative experience. the latter only becomes intelligibly distinct from the former through the refinement of our concepts then applied back to our perceptions. put another way, the thing in itself is an essential component in the thinkability of indirect perception, but as a limit concept it is not something that can be actually experienced. we must reach it through conceptualization

7) you mention "top level" of the simulation, but it is unclear how exactly the implicit stratification could be actually implemented. im guessing what you are thinking about is global workspace theory. idk if you are familiar with it, but it seems interesting

in these points i am trying to be rather moderate. i think (2) actually forces us to reject representationalism, and also treat attempts at looking for memory engrams in the brain with suspicion. lashley's lesion studies further stress this latter conclusion. to me, what we might call representations have their genesis from a deeper process which i associate with phenomenality. i decided it would prove more fruitful to sit down and meditate on the more vicious abstractions though rather than just be boring

>>11011
>related to be phenomenality
*related to phenomenality qua specific qualia
to be fair, there is some relation to it phenomenality, in so far as integration is related to the unity of experience. what i really meant here was that it fails to give us a general account for the connection to more specific qualia

>>11010
>>11011
NTA but while I don't want to come off as disrespectful, as it's clear you've given this a lot of thought and aren't a stupid person by any means, the answer provided here:
>"maybe i can give some illustration of what i meant before by synthetic necessary connection. from what we experience, time has a qualitative character. moments are determined by temporal wholes, and the succession of events is irreversible. this same qualitative feature of time can also be observed in the corporeal existence of organisms. their behaviours are indivisible, and they embody a linear direction of time. so there is a connection here between phenomenality with corporeality. this much i think has already been thought. the trick is to think all of this generally" still doesn't address the actual question >>11010 posted; you've done a proper job at establishing the 'animate quality' of the process which, consequentially, engenders consciousness, but this is a mere description after the fact, which is to say, you still haven't addressed the nascent problem of 'why', uniquely-experientially-speaking, to begin with. Is it simply about the requisite of being able to perceive time to begin with (therefrom establishing consciousness phenomenally)? Inferentially, this seems to be the conclusion to draw here, but I want to press for specificity.

>>11013
gah sorry, severe formatting error, let me correct:
NTA but while I don't want to come off as disrespectful, as it's clear you've given this a lot of thought and aren't a stupid person by any means, the answer provided here(…):
>"maybe i can give some illustration of what i meant before by synthetic necessary connection. from what we experience, time has a qualitative character. moments are determined by temporal wholes, and the succession of events is irreversible. this same qualitative feature of time can also be observed in the corporeal existence of organisms. their behaviours are indivisible, and they embody a linear direction of time. so there is a connection here between phenomenality with corporeality. this much i think has already been thought. the trick is to think all of this generally"

(…)still doesn't address the actual question >>11010 posted; you've done a proper job at establishing the 'animate quality' of the process which, consequentially, engenders consciousness, but this is a mere description after the fact, which is to say, you still haven't addressed the nascent problem of 'why', uniquely-experientially-speaking, to begin with. Is it simply about the requisite of being able to perceive time to begin with (therefrom establishing consciousness phenomenally)? Inferentially, this seems to be the conclusion to draw here, but I want to press for specificity.

>>11010
What we experience is the simulation, which includes us. The "us" that we understand and identify as is not the "real" us but our self-image. Experience in that sense the the relating of the simulation's events to our "avatar" in the simulation. It's all an illusion. Like for instance if you stub your toe, you feel the pain, but that isn't actually real pain (yet) because nerve signals from your toe won't even reach your brain for a couple seconds or so. Your world-simulation is giving you the illusion o pain based on past experiences stubbing your toe. This is all so that the simulation feels real (which is the qualia of experience) and your more basic/autonomic nervous system will respond to this simulation directly (like your whole body lurching in response to pain that it can't possibly feel yet). Think of it like in computer programming, where you might have a legacy system (basic reactive functions of your nervous system) that is too simplistic to be able to process all the complicated inputs (let alone things that involve pattern recognition, association, abstractions) on its own. So you have a separate system that is able to process all of that and then create an output that the older system can read. You also have different levels of simulation (just read up about how complicated our visual processing system is) that can do simpler processing and feed the information to the basic responses in our brain stem even faster. That's how you can recognize the general silhouette of a possible threat and go on alert before you realize that it's actually an innocuous object with a passing resemblance to the threat. This same stratification is present in all the processing that we do, because the degree of sophistication and/or fidelity needed for a given moment's task varies quite a lot, and evolution tends to be both iterative and cumulative, leaving us with both our more advanced faculties and the more simplistic ones of our ancestors (for better or worse). This is probably the neurological basis for the subconscious.

So no a wire doesn't experience anything. Neither does a very simple animal like idk a snail that doesn't have a brain and doesn't knit together its senses into a narrative of some kind. A simple enough nervous system has minimal mediation happening. Some are so simple they might as well be a pulley system connecting a sensor to a flexor. It's hard to say what the minimum threshold would be for an organism's nervous system to be running a simulation of the world, not just scientifically but also philosophically, because there would have to be quite a large gradient in terms of complexity and detail of a simulation like that. One key feature though is simulating the self and having awareness of the self as such, which we know we have and have good reason to believe several other animals have. The mere presence of a simulated self through which behavior is mediated is all we're looking for but that's a lot harder to recognize behaviorally than self-awareness per se through experiments like the mirror test. I would posit that an internal simulation of the outside world would be most useful (perhaps only useful) if there is a self-image within that simulation, so that the organism's more basic functions would have a means to interact with that simulated world. The whole point, after all, is to be able to process more complex information but then parse it in a way that the simpler systems can recognize and use. Consciousness btw is probably quite separate from this, more along the line of self-awareness and reflectivity than simply self-image. One does imply the other, though, and both imply a simulated internal world.

>>11011
Mediation exists even in purely chemical form below the level of an individual cell. There are single-celled organisms with organelles that detect light and translate that information chemically to induce motor functions in other organelles that can move the cell. It's not mediation I'm talking about, but specifically a system of representation inside the organism (which may involve interfacing with other parts besides the nervous system but chiefly happens there, since that's where information processing happens). Read the above in this post to see why I'm linking simulation with experience. The whole point of having that internal world of representations is to be able to create stimuli for the more basic neurological structures that govern the actual behavior of the organism's body. No matter how big your brain get's it's still got to pass its instructions through the brain stem and spinal cord.

>>9850
fpbp

>>11016
Stirner fagoids adding nothing to the conversation as usual

>>11013
>>11014
>but I want to press for specificity
np, i will answer because i don't remember if i ever wrote the connection explicitly in my notes
>Is it simply about the requisite of being able to perceive time to begin with (therefrom establishing consciousness phenomenally)
it is time's qualitative form that structures events in a way that isn't merely atomic. this structuring helps provide the organism the means to realize novel affordances. basically this sort of quality functions as a meta-causal principle for building corporeal patterns. i think what you might be unable to understand from my analysis is why these qualities are presented to us as individuals

as i have pointed out, there is reason to think that our phenomenal experience of time exists in an objective fashion, however this would only imply some transpersonal qualitative experience. the question is really how we could move from that to specific experiences. contemporary strains of metaphysical idealism run into this issue, which is may be termed "the problem of dissociation" (i have seen someone else term it "the problem of the one and the many"). imo, this is the inverse of the "hard problem" and is just as hard. there are two components to its solution (note how i am basically weaving between solutions of every problem posed by established metaphysical positions of philosophy of mind… this is very intentional):

1) first we must recognize qualitative time (i.e. duration) as not just some abstract principle, but also rather a concrete universal (pic somewhat related). it is manifested only though its particulars, and this manifestation takes diverse forms. this diversity implies that there are localized instantiations of this objective quality. the existence of such localizations entail finite experiences to match which pair with every organism
2) there will still be a diversity of these objective qualities which must still be bound together for a "unified experience". so the issue of integration or the binding problem remains. i have my own theories on how this may be solved, again by examining the properties of modern conceptions of matter

idk i think i am getting too much into my own thoughts here. i am more interested rn, as i said, in a theory of consciousness that does dialectical materialism proper justice. that is, consciousness thought purely in how it relates to concrete sensuous activity. so one that is purely practical and more sympathetic to behaviourism

>>11015
>I'm talking about, but specifically a system of representation inside the organism
that's what i assumed was the real meat of things. the mediation language you (probably accidentally) used isn't so helpful in contrast. i suspect my other criticisms still hold though.

i will just say that i dont really like there being a gradient of mediation or whatever. it seems too arbitrary. at that point you might as well bite the bullet and be a panpsychist. maybe there might be some deeper way of establishing some threshold but i think that would require deeper philosophical thinking (for one, we would probably have to work off of mao's deflation of the principle of quality from quantity). i haven't bothered going down this line of thought though because again, i am not a representationalist. i believe physics and an analysis of matter itself will provide answers for these sorts of issues

>>11014
i might have misread your question. if that's the case i will just write this as well. maybe your question is instead why we do such phenomena exist at all as opposed to something else. this is basically a subset of the question of "why is the universe this way rather than any other?". if this is what you meant, we are really asking a question which is cosmological. i can list solutions to this problem:

1) principle of facticity: this particular contingent reality exists merely because something had to exist rather than another thing. the existence of these things is just a brute fact
2) anthropic principle: if the universe wasn't this way, our particular kind of being wouldn't exist
3) participatory anthropic principle: observation is required for the universe to come into being
4) teleological anthropic principle: the universe is "designed" to generate observers

i have sort of thought about (3) a bit, but honestly its justification is very very abstract. for an article that gropes you might want to check out this:
http://bergsonian.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/bergsons_paradox.pdf

actually this site its from is a cool theoretical physics project that has inspired the approach that i want to take (despite its flaws). though yeah i try not to think too hard about the cosmological side of things as my concern is largely practical

>>10302 (me)
>>11022 (me)
oh shit i keep forgetting to mention the article where the image of the concrete universal is from despite me intending to. im not sure how much i subscribe to this theory but it really deserves a mention. i already made a post about it from the site which shall not be named. i think i will just copy and paste what i wrote there ad verbatim:

hello anons, do you guys think that dialectical holism is confluent with dialectical materialism? here is a link to a dissertation summarizing it:
https://mobt3ath.com/uplode/books/book-50878.pdf

if you want a decent summary, check out pages 299-310 of the pdf. i believe it presents a solution to the problem of consciousness that is more continuous with cybernetics than many other approaches…

<II. Metaphysical Pillars
>(1) Nominalism – This system is anti-realist about abstract structures including: (i) propositions; (ii) properties; (iii) universals; and (iv) worlds. In the case of (i), (ii), and (iii), the dialectical holist relies upon a coherence theory of knowledge (see below) that considers these terms conceptual tools that do not directly correspond to anything independent in the world. Concerning (iv), the ‘possibilities’, or counterfactual ‘worlds’ are converted into hypotheses. In all cases, a great deal of effort is exerted to distinguish between these linguistic structures and the empirical phenomena to which they refer, or from which they are derived.
>(2) Process Ontology/Dialectical Relations – What exist in nature are relatively stable, modes of organization instantiated through dialectical processes. This is to say that nothing exists intrinsically, but only as interdependent dynamical relations (i.e. mutually contingent or interdependent). While universal patterns (i.e. forms, unifying principles, or implicate orders) of respective spatiotemporal scales may be identified, they are granted no independent ontological status, but are believed to exist in and through intra-relational processes of the whole within which they obtain.
>(3) Neutral Monism – Natural evolution, just as the advance of scientific and philosophical theories, are both recapitulated as the self-differentiation of a single whole or Concrete Universal. Mind and matter are considered two modes of a single whole that is not to be identified with either the qualities of matter as empirically observed, or with phenomenality. Importantly, while respective forms are understood to be emergent with respect to one another – matter exists as a plurality of unifying principles or organizations – each of which is not an addition to, but abstractions from the neutral whole, i.e. a scale of forms or holomovement. The resulting “dialectical whole” is considered a synthetic a priori presupposition of science, philosophy, and phenomenology, i.e. this structure-process is fundamental to our knowledge (paradigms) and in Nature (ontology).
<IV. The Universe as a Complex System
>(1) Process/structural ontology – Process ontology in combination with OSR is a viable (if not preferable) foundation for understanding complex systems. Accordingly, relational processes constitute entieis at all scales though the two are ontologically equal and interdependent.
>(2) Emergent constraints – Forms arise through self-organization that both restrict and enable future states, dynamics, structures, and relations.
>(3) Deterministic function – The components of a complex system are interrelated/coupled such that if one of the constituents is absent the function (or evolutionary trajectory) is incomplete.
>(4) Historicity – Complex systems are path-dependenent meaning small events can become locked-in to constrain future dynamics and emergent structures.
>(5) Hierarchical levels – Nested structures obtain within complex systems, each requiring different (irreducible) descriptions.
>(6) Situated dynamics – The constituent states/structures depend upon the environment within which they are embedded.
>(7) Intricate and cycling behaviour – Complex systems obtain between simple order and total chaos, which instantiates periodic behavior that does not exactly repeat.
>If the Universe is a complex system, its function is identified with a space of determinant forms/states that obtain throughout its evolution (E).
<IV – b. Revised Criteria for Scales (ϕ)
>(1) Identification of ϕs should involve at least three parameters, whose combined values are unique to the respective scale: (i) structure – a-temporal relations within an identifiable boundary; (ii) kinetics – capacity to do work via energy transference (ET chain of a particular form); and (iii) periodicity (relatively stable self-organized spatiotemporal dynamics).
>(2) While some relations will be multiply realized across scales, i-iii results in a function that arises at a global level for each ϕ that is indicative of emergent laws, formal governance, or a PSE). Importantly, the emergence of such laws should be explicable in terms of symmetry breaking.
>(3) The formal governance of a given scale ϕa, will permit certain (thermo-) dynamic relations and phase transitions both within and beyond its bounds (e.g. order parameter and some self-organized boundary conditions), that permit the (at least second-order) emergence of scales ϕa 1 , ϕa 2 , ϕa 3 … ϕa n , dependent upon ϕa.
>(4) As a result of their irreducibility, it should be impossible to conduct a priori investigations from a given ϕ to its neighbors. While common principles will be discovered that unite identifiable ϕ with increasing systematization, their discovery and relationships will require ongoing a posteriori observation.
>(5) Just like the investigation of states within an infinite dimensional phase space or structures within a fractal curve, it is hypothesized that the discovery of scales (i.e. phases) will be ongoing.

i think the weirdest part is the teleological anthropic principle which ive honestly not looked too deep into
<III – e. Dialectical Argument for the TAP
>(P1) Teleology (in dialectical holist terms) obtains iff particular entities X bear a dialectical relation to their wider system Y such that the physical nature of Y depends upon the physical nature of X and the nature of X depends upon the dynamical constraints of Y.
>(P2) Some material phenomena (X) bear a dialectical relation to their superordinate system (Y).
>(P3) X instantiates irreducible relations (laws) that are necessitated by the constraints of Y.
>(C1) If ∃R instantiates irreducible dynamics (laws), then this phenomenon can be considered the result of a teleological process (E) instantiated by U

anyways what do you guys think?

(… in response to a post …)

>You can't really justify consciousness as an irreducible a posteriori on physicalist terms
his solution goes back to his thinking on scale of forms. again, it is very cybernetic in its approach
>He maintains that no matter the marker of consciousness, it is “not sui generis but emerges from processes, which are of the same general kind and may with equal right be called mental, but which occur on a level of activity which is not conscious” (1965, p. 295). Judgment then is considered to be scalar, arising from numerous unconscious dynamics that provides a necessary contextualization (or “synthesis”) that renders some sensation, impression, or conception conscious (p. 374)
>– Harris hopes to dissolve the problem by investigating consciousness as a phase of evolving material systems on the one hand and of non-conscious mental processes on the other (1965, p. 296). Harris assumes that “this is not a relationship between two different substances or separate entities. It is the relationship between different phases of a continuous organic process” (ibid). To support this line of reasoning Harris follows the Gestalt form of neural-identity theory, which he uses to depict both mental and physical domains as respective fields:
<neither behavior nor experienced phenomena can be adequately explained in terms of the conjunction and conglomeration of single units, whether simple reflexes or single sensations […] both the physiological aspect and the phenomenal must be treated as Gestalten, wholes of parts which exist inseparably and only in the whole (p. 302).
>Harris hereby dismisses any corpuscular conception for the units of mind or matter maintaining there is an “identification of the psychological with the neural ‘field’ […] an identity of structural order – an isomorphism” (pp. 302-3). 204 In further agreement with Gestalt psychology he maintains the sensum is created by a selective activity of attention and it is never simple, rather it is “constituted by interrelations” of neural and psychical fields, each exerting internal (albeit unconscious) “‘forces’ of organization” (p. 334).
>Dynamic constraint – Harris reasons that neural and sensory processes are subject to thresholds of impulse intensity resulting from what he calls “a fusion – a summation of subliminal pulses” (1965, p. 305). Although it is not yet know how this process of summation takes place, he suggests it may be “rooted in the metabolism of the cell body” (ibid).205 Likewise, he claims that the nervous system acts as an organic whole that is governed by the wider whole of the total organism, which is in turn “governed by an auturgic principle which unifies it in all its multiform variety…” (ibid). He goes on to say that “at a definite level of integration this unity can only be expressed as, and become effective in, behaviour which is ‘informed’, in both the senses ‘given form’ and ‘guided by knowledge’”
>Harris later elaborates that although form and structure are generally synonymous, as complexity increases in the scale of forms the difference between these terms becomes significant and “mere spatial pattern is transcended […] The proposition now being advanced is that the integration of physiological processes at a high degree of complexity and intensity assumes a new form, the experience of feeling” (1991, p. 105). This claim may be more fruitfully cashed out to say that as a kind of organization, conscious behaviour is not so much a matter of capability – since, as noted above, all capacities of a particular level might be mechanically instantiated – but a matter of dynamical constraint across numerous levels of activity:
<There are not two agencies influencing each other, but two or more levels of activity, the lower ancillary to, sublated in, and integrated with, the higher, which at a certain stage of development is conscious (or mental) activity. Each level, of course, has effects upon every other for they all (in the higher phase) belong to a single, though complex, dynamic totality (1965, p. 309).
>This is to say that “feeling” (phenomenality) and “knowledge” result from, and eventually guides, the sublation of disparate phases or wholes (both biological and mental). The “form of organized physiological functioning”, is what Harris considers conscious behaviour (2000, p. 180).
i think irreducibility is more tenable if consciousness is understood to be dialectical. this shouldn't be too much of a problem for dialectical materialists (as opposed to vulgar materialists). im not sure if this would be my approach though since it makes use of the term "complexity" which is always hand wavy

>>11022
You clearly put a lot of thought into this, but how knowledgeable are you about neuroscience? Couldn‘t whatever you come up with now and might sound plausible be debunked by specific realities in brain anatomy if you aren‘t cautious in that regard?

>>11027
>how knowledgeable are you about neuroscience
not as much as id like but some of my ideas relate to concrete disciplines/observations:

<anti-representationalism
ecological psychology
<skepticism of engrams
lashley's brain lesion experiments, holonomic brain theory, general failures to find such an engram
<skepticism that the brain is the locus of consciousness
embodied psychology, extended cognition, michael levin's work on morphogenesis
<importance of duration
ecological psychology, optic flow perception, extracting novel affordances

so it's not completely taken from the metaphysical aether at least

>Couldn‘t whatever you come up with now and might sound plausible be debunked by specific realities in brain anatomy if you aren‘t cautious in that regard
maybe, but i dont want to think about stuff that's safe and never thinks outside the mould. that just sounds boring

>>11028
(also to add, you could be wrong about pretty much anything. that risk is always there)

>>11028
Interesting. Can you direct me to the literature I should read up on to make sense of all the stuff you said so far? I'm guessing for one the Errol Harris dude and his dialectical holism?

>>11030
i posted a small reading list thing in this document
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KGQUzrTWjUoMHAwP4R3WcYpBsOAiFyHXo7uPwWsQVCc/edit?usp=sharing
i should probs update it, lol

<stuff written by michael turvey e.g. http://commons.trincoll.edu/robertshaw/files/2016/02/realism.pdf
<stephen robbins has a lot of useful articles here
http://www.stephenerobbins.com/
<systemic necessity
term i made up. it makes sense if you have read stuff written by fichte or people coming out of fichte. maybe check out fichte's 'The Science of Knowledge'
<needing to establish synthetic necessity
'The Mind-Body-Body Problem' by evan thompson
'Materialism and Qualia: The Explanatory Gap' by levine
<optic flows
definitely should check out gibson, for instance 'Ecological Approach to Visual Perception'
<binding problem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem
<issue finding engrams
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK3919/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFaEzqYiFRc
<importance of non-markovian systems
bergson generally stresses this but not explicitly. this barry smith stresses the importance of this in his criticisms of ai (he says a book is underway but i dont it has been published yet… also have a yt video. i mention this guy in my original post here):
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356249568_An_argument_for_the_impossibility_of_machine_intelligence
<non-isotropic
idk if i should share. has to do with more specific criticisms of evolution and ontogeny
<medium of potential
idk if there is any specific source for this. think morphogenetic fields in developmental biology
<concrete hegel
idk ig hegel's science of logic or something lol
<finding novel affordances a problem for computationalism
'What Is Consciousness? Artificial Intelligence, Real Intelligence, Quantum Mind, And Qualia' by kauffman
<nominal resemblance
this article mentions resemblance nominalism here:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/
<frame problem
i believe dreyfus talks about it quite a bit. the issue is also summarized here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frame-problem/

idkkk maybe im spilling too much. btw there is a fbi.gov server in the docs (currently not using that acc till i finish hegel) and im on leftypol matrix if u ever want to contact me and im not browsing here igg

>>11034
why does the anime girl have such realistic hair and clothes

>>11035
bcs she's real

>>11034
Very interesting, thank you. Definitely will check it out, but I have a pile of shit I still have to read for the year, so it will take time to get to it. I‘m majoring in comp sci and wanted to get into research for artificial intelligence, and your material has been very outlandish and unheard of for me. Really something, unlike the glorified matrix multiplications I‘m used to from machine learning. I‘ve been struggling for a while to take the mainstream approach towards true artificial intelligence and artificial consciousness seriously. There is something substantial lacking. Probably because the philosophical outlook is wrong. There doesn‘t seem to be a real explanation for how it is achievable besides hoping that using more computation, deeper neural nets and utilizing more data will somehow accomplish it one day.

>>11035
why not

Is artificial intelligence and consciousness with the philosophical outlook of Western capitalist society unachievable?

>be ancient farmer
>"hmm, consciousness is pneumatic, like the wind"
>be bronze age doctor
>"actually consciousness is clearly hydraulic, like the bodily humors"
>be enlightenment philosopher
>"actually consciousness is clearly mechanical, like clockwork"
>be 20th century modernist
>"actually consciousness is clearly electronic, like semiconductors"
>be current year scituber
>"ackshually consciousness is clearly digital, like computer algorithms"
Don't worry though, this era's technological metaphor for consciousness is totally true, unlike all those other metaphors, which are false.
>source
Dude trust me.

>>11090
They are all correct. All of these models can be construed in any way, they are all turing complete. This is part of what lets them be unfalsifiable. The modern algorithmic view is the best of these because it abstracts away unnecessary analogies.
The other reason these are unfalsifiable is that the intended meaning is not scientific.
The idea behind this post is that the components used in the theory determine its nature. But from a scientific perspective there are neither sense-bearing components nor natures of theories like this post implies.
You either approach the scientific problem scientifically or you abandon science entirely and obfuscate the question with quantum magic or something. There is no middle ground.

>>11096
You have no idea what you are talking about and I would be surprised if you ever seriously spent time studying Marxist philosophy and adjacent philosophy relating to dialectics.

>All of these models can be construed in any way, they are all turing complete.
Irrelevant, since the road towards artificial consciousness through computation is a dead end.

>The modern algorithmic view is the best of these because it abstracts away unnecessary analogies.
You will not grasp the nature of things by abstracting away the detail that essentially distinguishes one thing from the other and gives them their higher order qualities. This only makes sense to you because you‘ve already settled on computation being the solution, hence why reducing all these widely different systems seems sufficient to you for an equivalence, because you can build logic gates with them and by extension a computer.

>The idea behind this post is that the components used in the theory determine its nature.
Yep.

>But from a scientific perspective there are neither sense-bearing components nor natures of theories like this post implies.
>You either approach the scientific problem scientifically or you abandon science entirely and obfuscate the question with quantum magic or something.
Damn, you really like the word science. #science #geekculture
And on what philosophical grounds do you conduct your science? Let me guess, you haven‘t given that any thought and are entirely unaware of the cultural influences that you have been shaped by, which have lead you to approach the subject from a certain perspective. Worse yet, a culture made by capitalism including its philosophical underpinnings, which also necessitates rejecting philosophies from which emerges thought that threatens capitalism. Whatever pile of shit this culture deems to be „AI“ will be some autistic perversion like you see in Western sci-fi tropes when they depict robots. Beep boop this is logical. Beep boop that is illogical. What are emotions? My calculations say that. My calculations say this.
Read Reason in Revolt and Ilyenkov‘s essays before you post in this thread again.

>>11104 (me)
>>11096
And read Gödel‘s incompleteness theorem while you are at it. Give it a long hard thought before you talk to me about some shit like Turing completeness.

>>11104
>Irrelevant, since the road towards artificial consciousness through computation is a dead end.
You have at least not shown that with >>11090 but if you weren't actually trying to say anything and were just elucidating on your position then that's fine. I just showed how it's not an argument against digital consciousness, from a scientific position.
>You will not grasp the nature of things by abstracting away the detail that essentially distinguishes one thing from the other and gives them their higher order qualities.
We have no access to these essential details. This is equivalent to dualism which only delays the question.
>Damn, you really like the word science. #science #geekculture
You're not going to address the first sentence?
>And on what philosophical grounds do you conduct your science?
This approach only requires that observation is possible. If your position does not allow for this or has some interfering dependencies on observation or its processing then you must reject science as we know it entirely.
>You have no idea what you are talking about and I would be surprised if you ever seriously spent time studying Marxist philosophy and adjacent philosophy relating to dialectics.
>Read Reason in Revolt and Ilyenkov‘s essays before you post in this thread again.
You are right I just posted in this thread to say something about the nature of science.
You can just ignore what I said anyway, if you have a concept of science that bypasses my point entirely.
>>11105
>And read Gödel‘s incompleteness theorem while you are at it. Give it a long hard thought before you talk to me about some shit like Turing completeness.
I have, and given it a long hard thought. Or do you want me to read the original proof?
If you want to continue you could explain how the Incompleteness Theorems affect this.

>>11106
>We have no access to these essential details.
Why not?

>>11107
The senses of terms in a theory are not a part of the theory. Bindings beyond those to observations do not affect predictions, so assignments of "essential details" to terms cannot be founded in observation. This makes the sphere of essential details a separate sphere from observable reality, which can only aligned with reality through magical means. This is dualism.

>>11108
sorry now i am more confused. what are "senses of terms" and "binding"? Why can't you observe essential details and how is that even different from abstracting away what is unnecessary?

>>11109
The senses of terms are what we mean by the terms. In the theory itself a term is just a word or variable with just logical relation to other terms in the theory.
Binding means corresponding a term in a theory to some sense. What is unnecessary, or unobservable, is what does not affect the theory's use. That is whatever is not binding to observations.
Imagine a theory something like this: C consists of the combination of two components A and B. A and B are never found separately but how C behaves depends on the way in which A and B are combined in it.
We can bind C to "Color" (let's say that's the content of our observations, in reality it is not that simple ofc) and now use the theory to make predictions. However, binding A or B to anything would be pointless because they do not correspond to anything in observation. If we said A was "goodness" or "lightness" and B was "badness" or "heaviness" that would not be scientific, without additional ways to observe A or B directly.
Metaphors for consciousness are like A or B. If they were taken literally (the behaviors we attribute to consciousness are a result of a pneumatic/hydraulic/mechanical/electronic system) they would be incorrect or at least incomplete in their descriptions of the brain's operation. One of these is not like the others in that case, calling it "digital" wouldn't be talking about the physical processes in the brain, but higher level structure. However, these are all called metaphors so we can ignore the literal interpretation. What matters to a scientific description of consciousness is describing its behavior. If consciousness is computable, a pneumatic/hydraulic/mechanical/electronic analogy can describe its operation, though the algorithmic interpretation is most direct. The "essential details" of the physical process used in the analogy are not relevant to predicting the behavior of consciousness, so seeing them as more than different notation describing the same algorithm is not scientific.
>But consciousness isn't computable haha
Then what complexity does it have? What evidence do you have for this?
Computability is a property of the function describing the behavior of consciousness. It has nothing to do with the arbitrary assignment of senses or "essential details".
The example above is somewhat inspired by https://www.princeton.edu/~fraassen/abstract/PutnamParadox-published.pdf though with a different point.

>>11110

When you say we have no access to these essential details, it sounds like you are implying something like that it is not possible to know a thing fully in totality. It makes it seem like you are a kantian or dualist and unaware of it.

When that anon said
>You will not grasp the nature of things
I took that to mean things in general, not consciousness in particular.
and
>abstracting away the detail that essentially distinguishes one thing from the other
means reducing the whole into parts that are relevant for a certain use case, like modelling something into a finite number of variables to make an algorithm.

Things have properties that make them different from other things and that is how we tell different things apart. So if you have a tree one of its essential details could be that it is made of wood, and this is helpful for building things. If we want to investigate something like consciousness we need to define the concept by properties that only apply to it, what makes it different from other things.


>Computability is a property of the function describing the behavior of consciousness.
What evidence do you have for this? And how do you know that the function describing the behavior of consciousness corresponds to consciousness itself? Are you saying that an essential property of consciousnesses is computability?

>>11109
Another maybe clearer example of why not to assign senses to terms unnecessarily is quantum wave/particle duality. Instead of calling things "particles" or "waves" you have a mathematical wavefunction and operators that give you probability distributions for observables. It is not scientifically meaningful to ask "is it actually a particle or a wave" and the uncertainty principle makes keeping that intuition that worked under classical physics impossible. Classically there are things which correspond to the intuition of particles and waves which is why they were called that, but the mathematical model comes before the convenience of assigning senses. This is why it is unscientific to demand mechanical explanations of gravitation.

>>11111
>When you say we have no access to these essential details, it sounds like you are implying something like that it is not possible to know a thing fully in totality. It makes it seem like you are a kantian or dualist and unaware of it.
I am saying that what you call essential details do not exist from a scientific perspective. I don't agree that they exist at all either.
>Things have properties that make them different from other things and that is how we tell different things apart.
This is an oversimplified view. Wood is made out of matter which acts according to laws of physics regardless of whether you call it "Wood". Consciousness is a description of behaviors and a function that models those behaviors does not care whether you call it pneumatic/hydraulic/mechanical/electronic or interpret it as having whatever implementation.
>What evidence do you have for this?
Computability is a property of functions. Do you have a different definition of computability?
>And how do you know that the function describing the behavior of consciousness corresponds to consciousness itself?
From a scientific perspective the behavior is all that is relevant. If you want to differentiate them you need dualism.
>Are you saying that an essential property of consciousnesses is computability?
No I'm saying that computability is a property of functions. An argument for consciousness being uncomputable must use this. If consciousness cannot be described by a function then you must abandon science.

>>11113
>I am saying that what you call essential details do not exist from a scientific perspective.
Then how does "science" differentiate between two objects?
>Wood is made out of matter which acts according to laws of physics regardless of whether you call it "Wood"
Wood is a specific mixture of matter in a certain order and pattern, but this is an oversimplified view. Matter is a concept invented by humans to describe observable phenomena.
>Consciousness is a description of behaviors
Can you prove that?
>From a scientific perspective the behavior is all that is relevant. If you want to differentiate them you need dualism.
Why? People can differentiate between a dog and a tree without dualism just fine. It sounds like you are just making things up that no scientist would actually say.

>>11114
>Then how does "science" differentiate between two objects?
A and B are differentiated without having any essential details.
All we know about A and B are that they are distinct terms and the positions they have in the logical structure of the theory. That is sufficient.
>Wood is a specific mixture of matter in a certain order and pattern, but this is an oversimplified view. Matter is a concept invented by humans to describe observable phenomena.
I was indicating that physics deals with more fundamental objects than wood. If you wanted to ask scientifically about the properties of wood you would need to develop a sense of wood relevant to observation eg what kinds of wood from what trees tested under what conditions.
>Can you prove that?
What are you looking for the word "consciousness" to mean?
>Why? People can differentiate between a dog and a tree without dualism just fine. It sounds like you are just making things up that no scientist would actually say.
It is impossible to differentiate a function describing the behavior of consciousness and consciousness unless you consider something other than the behavior. I don't see how you jumped to the idea that no distinctions are possible without essential details.

>>11111
I'll clarify (I hope).
>means reducing the whole into parts that are relevant for a certain use case, like modelling something into a finite number of variables to make an algorithm.
Yes and the essential details are not relevant for the scientific use case. They are independent of it.
>Things have properties that make them different from other things and that is how we tell different things apart. So if you have a tree one of its essential details could be that it is made of wood, and this is helpful for building things. If we want to investigate something like consciousness we need to define the concept by properties that only apply to it, what makes it different from other things.
It should be sufficient to have a term T which has certain logical relations eg to term W and that the logical relations alone completely specify T as what we mean when we use the word "tree". The binding of T and tree cannot itself be part of the theory, we need to develop T within the theory in such a way that it lines up with what we call trees, relative to observation.
If we want to construct a term C in the scientific theory that aligns to "consciousness" it cannot use things outside the theory such as other bindings or essential details. It must simply have a position in the logic so that it aligns itself when we bind some base terms to observations.

>>11115
I don't know why you keep saying essential details.
Anon said
>You will not grasp the nature of things by abstracting away the detail that essentially distinguishes one thing from the other and gives them their higher order qualities.
So what we are talking about is details, which are properties of objects.
Say you have cats and dogs. Cats have retractable claws. Thats a property that cats have that dogs don't, its an "essential detail" that helps you tell apart A from B.

>>11117
C (cats) W (have the following type of claws) R (retractable claws)
R … (logical relations of retractable claws to biological structures etc)
W … (describes how to select the claws of an animal)
C … (identifies cats, maybe that includes the first sentence)
It's not "essential" because it's not part of the essence, or sense, of C.
(lol making a giant ontology)
The implementation of behavior is not a detail of the behavior.

>>11116
I really think you are just describing the limits of logic and mistaking it for science. Science isn't reducible to math or physics. I keep trying to get you to use terms correctly and instead you basically admitted that it is impossible your version of "science" to know anything.

>the essential details are not relevant for the scientific use case.
I didn't even say essential details, I said reducing the whole into parts. You are taking this and running without understanding what it means. When you model something you take all of its properties and you make them into variables and you exclude the ones that are not relevant for the particular experiment, not for knowing about that object in general.

If you want to predict how far a ball will go you need to know its speed and direction but you don't need to know its temperature. That doesn't mean that a ball is speed and direction. In your modelling you lost some of its "essential details", which are its properties. If now you want to do another experiment and need to know the circumference of the ball, speed and direction tell you nothing so you still need to measure that property on the actual ball, you can't rely on the model. You seem to be arguing that a ball is the model.

>>11119
> instead you basically admitted that it is impossible your version of "science" to know anything.
I don't see how.
>When you model something you take all of its properties and you make them into variables and you exclude the ones that are not relevant for the particular experiment, not for knowing about that object in general.
>You seem to be arguing that a ball is the model.
If we have no way of measuring the circumference of the ball then the ball does not have circumference. You can only make sense of the circumference of the ball after there is an experiment that can measure it.
A particular consciousness may have some measurable physical implementation but that is not relevant to consciousness as a property of observed behavior.
This implies a definition of consciousness where only observed behavior is relevant oh right that's like the Turing test.
But you can define the word "consciousness" to be whatever you want.
>I really think you are just describing the limits of logic and mistaking it for science. Science isn't reducible to math or physics.
Why?

>>11120
>I don't see how.
If A and B have no properties then you can't know anything about them they are just abstract nothing.

>A particular consciousness may have some measurable physical implementation but that is not relevant to consciousness as a property of observed behavior.
This seems extra absurd with the inclusion of "measurable physical" that is "not relevant". Why is behavior the only thing that matters? That is incredibly arbitrary.

>Why?
Because of your description of how to construct "scientific theory" terms and the limits you imposed on them. You are basically invoking Godels Incompleteness to say reality is defined by the limits of your model instead of realizing it is proof of the limit of models to describe reality.

>>11121
>If A and B have no properties then you can't know anything about them they are just abstract nothing.
The properties of A and B are entirely in the surrounding logical structure and their distinguishability. They do not have no properties, but they have no arbitrary sense. The logical structure precedes the intuition about the objects.
What you know about A and B comes from the bound terms which are the observations. Science cannot provide senses to things, only predictive models for observation. But why do you want to assign senses a priori so much?
>This seems extra absurd with the inclusion of "measurable physical" that is "not relevant". Why is behavior the only thing that matters? That is incredibly arbitrary.
You cannot tell that you are not a brain in a vat or an ancestor simulation.
If you have some definition of consciousness in mind say.
>Because of your description of how to construct "scientific theory" terms and the limits you imposed on them. You are basically invoking Godels Incompleteness to say reality is defined by the limits of your model instead of realizing it is proof of the limit of models to describe reality.
This has nothing to do with Godel's Incompleteness. If you want to prove me wrong state it and explain the connection.
I'm not saying you can't abandon science I'm saying you need to abandon science when you do.
>Science isn't reducible to math or physics.
Why?

>>11106
>You have at least not shown that with >>11090
I‘m not that guy. I‘m also not the other person or perhaps people you replied to afterwards. I might respond some other time.

>>11122
Quite simply, because of emergent properties, and abstraction.

When you consider the way things interact, you suddenly get behaviour that is much more complex than the constituent parts are capable of in isolation. If I gave you a book and asked you to look at only the letters in isolation, would you be able to understand the book? Nope.

Chemistry is the study of the emergent properties of interactions of particles, this emergence presents behaviour so complex that you literally do require a whole new field of study to study it. Just as books are the emergent properties of the interactions of letters on a page. If you try to read a book by looking at the individual letters, you'll not only waste your time, but you'll also fail to understand the book because you're too busy looking at the letters to see the meaning on the page.

Physics is the branch of science that studies how matter and energy behave, in a general sense. To do so, physicists often use simplified versions of real-world systems.

For example, to predict where a ball is gonna fall once you kick it, you can think of that ball as a single point containing the entire mass of the ball. You can get pretty accurate results doing this. The problem is, sometimes you have to make your representation of the real world a little more complex in order to suffice your needs. If you kick a ball, it can start moving forward or it can spin (if you kick it on the side). Now you need to account for the shape of the ball. You have to take into consideration the different forces acting on it to predict where it's going to fall.

You can imagine that more complicated questions require more complicated models. For example, it's relatively easy to predict what happens when two bodies orbit each other, but as soon as you have three bodies, it becomes a great problem.

Now, take a look at what chemists study. Atoms can be fairly simple (as a hydrogen atom, with only one electron moving around a proton) or really, really complex. To predict the behaviour of a single atom you have to take into consideration how protons and electrons will atract each other. Also, you have neutrons, which have no electrical charge. Electrons move really fast, so you have to take into consideration relativistic effects (which explain, for example, why mercury is a liquid). There are a lot of issues when you try to simulate an atom using a computer.

But chemists rarely work with single atoms. They work with molecules, which can be a lot more complex.

I just made a test. My computer needed 26.7 seconds to tell the most stable conformation for a simple organic molecule (1,2,3,4,5,6-hexamethylcyclohexane). It's made out of 12 carbon atoms bonded with as many hydrogen atoms as possible.

I'm using a normal computer, working at full speed. Things like these would've been very difficult until not so long ago, but chemists already knew the result I obtained before computers even existed. How?

Chemists just work with different tools. A chemistry students learns about 1,3-diaxial interactions, and about the different hybridizations that a carbon atom can attain. They learn about conformations, and about equilibria, and about Gibb's free energy and its relation with spontaneity.

That's the key. As you work with more complex systems, you need different tools. If you want to study how energy and matter behave in simple systems (and not-so-simple ones, now that we have computers), physics is the right thing to use. If you move up in the complexity scale, chemistry works well for atoms and molecules. As atoms and molecules start to conform bigger things (like cells and living organisms) you have to move on to biology. When a lot of different tissues create organs (like the brain), you need to use neuroscience and psychology. When a lot of humans live in society, it's very difficult to predict what they will do, so you have to use sociology and economy. Of course, as you move up the complexity ladder, predictions become harder to make and while some physical theories can predict phenomena with an astonishing accuracy, anyone would be skeptical about an economist who said that they know exactly how a certain country is gonna develop through the next 10 years.

That's the key: different systems, different tools. Since physicists work with simpler systems, they can also apply mathematics more rigorously, and that's why physics has that fame of being 'so difficult'. It's not inherently difficult, it's just more mathematically approachable.
https://www.quora.com/Is-chemistry-just-a-sub-field-of-physics-Why-do-scientists-separate-the-two

In theory everything is explainable in terms of fundamental forces and laws, but in practice, no. Remember the three-body problem in physics class? Relatively simple systems like that and double pendulums show chaotic behavior.

I am not sure if physics can explain turbulence yet.

Even if it were possible, description at such a detailed level is not always useful. Classical biology is the best science for describing the difference between a chicken and cow, not theoretical physics.
https://www.quora.com/Can-all-sciences-be-reduced-to-physics

>I began my reply by saying that nobody denies the amazing success of theoretical physics in the last four hundred years. Nobody denies the truth of Einstein’s triumphant words: “The creative principle resides in mathematics. In a certain sense, therefore, I hold it true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed.” It is true that the fundamental equations of physics are simple and beautiful, and that we have good reason to expect that the equations still to be discovered will be even more simple and beautiful. But the reduction of other sciences to physics does not work. Chemistry has its own concepts, not reducible to physics. Biology and neurology have their own concepts not reducible to physics or to chemistry. The way to understand a living cell or a living brain is not to consider it as a collection of atoms. Chemistry and biology and neurology will continue to advance and to make new fundamental discoveries, no matter what happens to physics. The territory of new sciences, outside the narrow domain of theoretical physics, will continue to expand.

>Theoretical science may be divided roughly into two parts, analytic and synthetic. Analytic science reduces complicated phenomena to their simpler component parts. Synthetic science builds up complicated structures from their simpler parts. Analytic science works downward to find the fundamental equations. Synthetic science works upward to find new and unexpected solutions. To understand the spectrum of an atom, you needed analytic science to give you Schrödinger’s equation. To understand a protein molecule or a brain, you need synthetic science to build a structure out of atoms or neurons. Greene was saying, only analytic science is worthy of the name of science. For him, synthetic science is nothing but practical problem solving. I said, on the contrary, good science requires a balance between analytic and synthetic tools, and synthetic science becomes more and more creative as our knowledge increases.

>Another reason why I believe science to be inexhaustible is Gödel’s theorem. The mathematician Kurt Gödel discovered and proved the theorem in 1931. The theorem says that given any finite set of rules for doing mathematics, there are undecidable statements, mathematical statements that cannot either be proved or disproved by using these rules. Gödel gave examples of undecidable statements that cannot be proved true or false using the normal rules of logic and arithmetic. His theorem implies that pure mathematics is inexhaustible. No matter how many problems we solve, there will always be other problems that cannot be solved within the existing rules. Now I claim that because of Gödel’s theorem, physics is inexhaustible too. The laws of physics are a finite set of rules, and include the rules for doing mathematics, so that Gödel’s theorem applies to them. The theorem implies that even within the domain of the basic equations of physics, our knowledge will always be incomplete.
Freeman Dyson May 13, 2004 issue https://archive.ph/2LvBv

>>11113
>Consciousness is a description of behaviors
No, consciousness is not a description of behaviours. It is for a living subject to experience qualia. You made a leap to the mechanisms that govern responses to stimuli. If human beings were limited to playing chess, do you think a chess playing algorithm qualifies as being conscious like a human being?

>>11309
>How does the brain produce the mind?
Brain = Mind
problem solved

>>11311
Things that affect the brain also affect the mind, like drugs for example.

>>11313
shut up you fucking midwit, stop barging in without having engaged the prior contexts, you're so fucking stupid

>>11310
That's not even remotely close to what they're trying to answer, you DK.

>>11310
>>11313
Wow those were the most groundbreaking posts in this thread so far

Bump. Has been an interesting thread so far.

>>11759
computational theory of mind incels blown the fuck out again

Computational theory of mind uyghas be like "We just need more computational power and deeper neural nets"
Heh

#emergence #mattermatters

>>11761
Computational theory of mind uyghas be like “According to my calculations the singularity will be in 2050”
According to my calculations you have roughly zero bitches

#emergence #fuckbertrandrussel

>>11759
If it was possible to make a detailed enough computer simulation of a brain, it might actually work.
However emulating software that was written for a slightly different type of hardware is already really hard.
Bridging the gap from organic brains to silicone chips seems rather daunting.
Keep in mind that no 2 people have identical brains, and that means you need to create an emulation layer per brain.

Also right now scanning a brain with the necessary detail would mean slicing it into hundreds of millions of very thin brain slices and then scanning each of those with an electron microscope.

>>11862
They already did that for the entire nervous system of a worm and they weren‘t successful with that either. You will not achieve consciousness emulating a brain in a digital system and you can‘t produce consciousness in an isolated manner either. Your consciousness can only exist in tandem with an outside world you are constantly interacting with.

>>11864
>They already did that for the entire nervous system of a worm and they weren‘t successful
I did say that i considered this too hard.
>You will not achieve consciousness emulating a brain in a digital system
I agree insofar that i think it's too impractical, but it should be possible in principle.
>you can‘t produce consciousness in an isolated manner either. Your consciousness can only exist in tandem with an outside world you are constantly interacting with.
I don't know how consciousness works exactly, but it does appear to be a reasonable assumption that it needs environmental input.

>>11866
No, you dweeb. I‘m not reasoning it on being hard, I‘m saying this approach doesn‘t create consciousness.

>I don't know how consciousness works exactly, but it does appear to be a reasonable assumption that it needs environmental input.
You don‘t get it. You likely believe in a static isolated notion of the matter and just imagine a program on standby ready to receive and process some input. I‘m saying the very existence of a consciousness is dependent on perpetual exchange with an outside world.

>>11864
Could you cite the study/source/whatever for the worm experiment? Sounds important

>>11869
I think the project is referred to as OpenWorm.

Does anyone here have something to say about Roger Penrose‘s theory on consciousness which is called Orchestrated Objective Reduction Theory?

https://www.wm.edu/as/physics/documents/seniorstheses/class2015theses/Collins_Amanda.pdf

>>10850
>another free component of a fully functioning neurological system made useful by the in-itself organism's sensory processing, involuntary muscle control and vital nerve clusters comprising a full neurological system as defined by scientists
Is consciousness the capacity to feel pain, then?

>>12406
thank you for the (you) astute leftypole
i guess the question of consciousness basically is the question of feeling as a subjective phenomenon in general

>>10971
>When do we break out of this place?
Soon hopefully. I'm getting antsy.

I will just post this here from another thread on the mainboard. Has anyone looked into his work here?

>>12927
Here is a presentation by him where he explains his theory.

>>10850
>>11759
>>11090
What a disaster. It's obviously ones and zeros
And why would anyone want to be conscious anyway, what a drag