(August 17, 2014 at 2:55 am)FallentoReason Wrote: I remember doing a thread like this over a year ago now, but I thought it might be best to start with a clean slate, and see how we go. Also, I really like discussing this topic especially on an atheist forum because being in the minority is more fun. Here we go:

I don't believe consciousness can be explained by way of a naturalistic account. Why? Because I don't think particles have it in them to act in such a way as to recreate what we mean by consciousness i.e. our thoughts, beliefs, attitudes etc.

Let's use an example; my belief that spoons are curved. So to make things easier, let's call this belief p. Now, how can we possibly arrange particles in such a way that they would express p? How could some physical arrangement *ever* describe p? I don't think it's possible to physically arrange particles in such a way that would then inherently possess the belief that other sets of particles - aka spoons - have the property of being curved.

Maybe we could place a spoon on the kitchen counter, and put beside it a piece of paper pointing to it, saying "curved". But I wouldn't say the particles of lead forming the word "curved" are arranged in a way that make them hold p. The reason being that it takes an already conscious being *to make that connection*. The already conscious being has the ability to give meaning to such an arrangement of lead, and mind you, it has to be a being that speaks English. Therefore, in no way is the arrangement of lead inherently a beholder of p, since not even all conscious beings can arrive at that conclusion to begin with.

As we can see, for a particle to be "about" another particle, consciousness is a prerequisite... almost as if it weren't made up of particles in the first place

Don't confuse "I can not think of a way for particles to act in a way to create consciousness", with "particles can not act in one of countless ways that is beyond my current capability to think of that would create consciousness".

I don't know how, therefore it can't be done. Really?

@Rhythm

To long to respond in kind, so let me make a couple brief observations.

1) There are a lot of value statements: robust, useful, reliable, complexity, and so on. But the universe is robust and complex, usefulness is an imposition by an existing consciousness (us) as is reliable. But I think the simplest definition of a gate is any mechanism which has inputs, and which is capable of subsequently triggering other mechanisms in a deterministic way.

If something must seem robust, useful and reliable TO US to be said to have mind, then we are gods, and whatever we observe to be mindful is imbued with this quality only by us-- generating a who made who infinite regression, and taking us into theology.

2) "The 'erratic' behavior at the level of QM doesn't facilitate this sort of operation. It's the difference between deterministic and probabilistic operation."
--It doesn't, or it's not knowable (and therefore not robust, useful, etc.) to us?

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Maybe you should describe exactly (or again?) what you mean by a gate. I take it to mean only that a given input should produce the same output every time. To me, this includes simple logic switches (OR, XOR, etc.), but also could include mappings: 0--> 0, 1-->10, 2-->3, etc., something perfectly possible with a simple ANN.

But given a deterministic universe, any given system must necessarily produce the same output every time it has the same input. Now, the possibility of that actually happening is infinitesimal, since all non-macro systems are dynamic, and no input is ever perfectly repeatable (except maybe in careful, and very simple, lab experiments). But still, I'd argue that EVERY subdivision of matter must be a gate in the sense I just described, and that the choice of specific systems is still a matter of our arbitrary conceptualizations, rather than a description of any existential reality.

(August 31, 2014 at 11:53 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I want to talk about about whether QM events can be considered in Rhythm's gate-based model of mind, and whether my idea that all energetic exchanges may be said to involve a kind of fundamental "mind stuff"-- i.e. single-substance, dual-property physico-idealism, is compatible with his view. If you have something useful to say about QM in this context, which I don't know, then I'm all ears, and I'll swallow my pride and learn something.

For QM to create gates (i'm assuming logical gates like on/off, and, or, etc...) it would have to be in some overall structure. For example, a quantum computer. The gates would have to be fixed positions if you want the same results. Otherwise, the wavefunction would change and you'll get completely different results like.

(September 1, 2014 at 12:15 pm)bennyboy Wrote: @Rhythm

To long to respond in kind, so let me make a couple brief observations.

1) There are a lot of value statements: robust, useful, reliable, complexity, and so on. But the universe is robust and complex, usefulness is an imposition by an existing consciousness (us) as is reliable. But I think the simplest definition of a gate is any mechanism which has inputs, and which is capable of subsequently triggering other mechanisms in a deterministic way.

More like technical statements that can have a variety of meanings outside the setting, sure. A simple gate being a benchmark. A gate with redundant inputs, extra outputs, steady states (memory) would be "more robust". Their usefulness only describes what sorts of logical operations they can perform - and whether or not they have to opportunity to do so. Reliability is the insistence that the mechanism be able to abstract -logical operations- If we can't rely on the gate producing the proper output it's not a useful gate - or it is a "less" useful gate.

But yes, the universe is all of those things - but we may be talking about different "things".

Quote:If something must seem robust, useful and reliable TO US

Not to us, in reference to -any- computational system. It must be robust and useful to perform functions, it must be reliable because computation is a process. You can't give the sum of 1 + 1 in an absolute sense if either variable changes from pulse to pulse. That's where most things fall as gates. They might have the structure, but they don't have the function (for a variety of reasons).

Quote:--It doesn't, or it's not knowable (and therefore not robust, useful, etc.) to us?

Not directly useful to architectures that rely on deterministic operations. Think of it like a compatibility issue between systems. The architecture is different. You're jumping ahead a bit. I think that all of these things have to be present to describe -any computer - any computational system that would be fully accounted for.

Quote:Maybe you should describe exactly (or again?) what you mean by a gate. I take it to mean only that a given input should produce the same output every time. To me, this includes simple logic switches (OR, XOR, etc.), but also could include mappings: 0--> 0, 1-->10, 2-->3, etc., something perfectly possible with a simple ANN.

In electronics, a logic gate is an idealized or physical device implementing a Boolean function;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_gate

What you're talking about is a specific -function- that we could implement -with- a gate, btw.

Quote:But given a deterministic universe, any given system must necessarily produce the same output every time it has the same input.

No, it "mustn't". A program counter receives the same input pulse (the output of a clock - for synchronization) over and over, but works precisely -because- different outputs can flow from that interaction. -Architecture- "How can I get multiple disparate outputs from a single input?" - wouldn't that be a powerful little mechanism eh? Isn't it fortuitous that we were just talking about comparators? In a computational system, you get the output you define with whatever system you've created. The system only recalls the same output when you make that request. You can specifically engineer a system to give a different output with any number of repeated identical inputs. The gates (in one model) need to exhibit this behavior, but not systems comprised of gates.

Quote:But still, I'd argue that EVERY subdivision of matter must be a gate in the sense I just described,

The principles of gate construction are the principles of abstracting logic - so, gates would be possible at any level or subdivision in which logic was possible - in theory. Wherever logic gets dicey, different architecture (from the type I'm always droning on about) would be required/possible. Wherever we're just interested in effect rather than process - my comments would also lack substance (or rather, I'd offer you a different line.. - I'm not as familiar with NN or QM computing- it was after my time, lol).

Quote: and that the choice of specific systems is still a matter of our arbitrary conceptualizations, rather than a description of any existential reality.

Its the choice of effects, not systems. You "experience" a mind, you assume that I do as well (and it;s a bit more than "just" an assumption). After all, you can watch me do it, I appear to be a thinking thing, no? I do all of this "stuff" that seems like mind simply must be behind it. When we compare what sorts of systems we might expect to find "mind" in, we naturally favor effects such as those we observe in others, or experience ourselves ( I think, in part, because that would be particularly compelling evidence to us, eh?). We don't have to (and shouldn't), I've raised that point many a time. But, I'll say this, -if- we both have mind (the beach and myself) then we're going to need a different word for whatever subdivision of mind I must have - because it's clearly not the same as any mind that beach sand might have, eh? Any theory that describes beach sand mind doesn't seem to describe human minds - we just don't see similar effects, we have no reason to even make the assumption. I think we'll need another theory.

(September 1, 2014 at 2:15 pm)Rhythm Wrote: No, it "mustn't". A program counter receives the same input pulse (the output of a clock - for synchronization) over and over, but works precisely -because- different outputs can flow from that interaction.

Different clock values represent different states. You could also have used an interferometer.

But that's not the point. You've identified a lot of outputs that we as people would identify as important. But what's to say the sum total of a galaxy's interactions, with near-infinite complexity, leading to a supernova with a burst of photons heading off to an observer in a distant galaxy, isn't communicating the result of a simple binary gate: light = galaxy known to exist there, lack of light = galaxy not know to exist there? Or that even lacking an observer, those few photons' effect cascade via a Butterfly Effect to a major event in that distant galaxy?

Or at a smaller level, who's to say that the assimilation of a photon's energy into an electron isn't both a gate and a memory device: a gate, because it represents a boolean truth: that the photon bears the right quantum energy to be absorbed; and a memory device because that electron's energy level is sustained until a future interaction?

As a practical view of AI, I think your model works very well. However, as a philosophical expression of reality, it seems too anthropocentric and arbitrary. It's one thing for you to define a gate, but how would the mind-spawning universe define it?

(August 17, 2014 at 4:53 am)Michael Wrote: As a scientist I think most often using a materialistic framework, especially regarding anything biological. So the position of 'consciousness is a product of matter' is almost axiomatic in biological pursuit.

And yet, I have to say, I find the opposite argument, the philosophy of idealism, equally compelling, that what we call matter is a product of consciousness; matter only has any meaning within consciousness.

But while I am well versed, experienced, and trained, in the methods of the materialist, I am almost completely unskilled as an idealist. I perhaps just catch glimpses of truth about which the idealist has a much greater depth of understanding.

I'd like to think there is benefit to understanding in exploring both paths: consciousness from a naturalistic philosophy, and naturalism from an idealist philosophy. I'm not convinced that they must necessarily be mutually exclusive; I suspect that they may be complementary.

So what of the universe for the 13,7 billion years before out consciousness appeared? "Matter a product of consciousness" is an incoherent concept.

(September 1, 2014 at 3:17 pm)bennyboy Wrote: But that's not the point. You've identified a lot of outputs that we as people would identify as important. But what's to say the sum total of a galaxy's interactions, with near-infinite complexity, leading to a supernova with a burst of photons heading off to an observer in a distant galaxy, isn't communicating the result of a simple binary gate: light = galaxy known to exist there, lack of light = galaxy not know to exist there? Or that even lacking an observer, those few photons' effect cascade via a Butterfly Effect to a major event in that distant galaxy?

Entropy destroys the detail intricacies. So on large scales like a galaxy, you only have to worry about gravity and not how many supernova's went off.

Quote:Or at a smaller level, who's to say that the assimilation of a photon's energy into an electron isn't both a gate and a memory device: a gate, because it represents a boolean truth: that the photon bears the right quantum energy to be absorbed; and a memory device because that electron's energy level is sustained until a future interaction?

The amount of energy an electron can absorb from a photon is not 0 or 1, it is a continuum (0, 0.00001, 002, ... 0.9999, 1, 1.222, 999999, etc). Google "compton scattering" for an example.

(September 1, 2014 at 3:17 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Different clock values represent different states.

The only states for the simplest timer are 1 or 0. It's 1 when pulsing, o when not - no matter how many times it pulses (and the program counter shifts) the output of the clock is identical (which is the input for the larger system of a program counter), the output of the system is not. It's different as often as we build it to be. A comparator can tyake a 1/0 signal and parcel it out based on any abstraction. Call it "signal strength" - and you can get a great many outputs from a single input (or vv) There's a practical limit, generally.

Quote:But that's not the point. You've identified a lot of outputs that we as people would identify as important.

All in an effort to help -people- understand, yeah. There are tons that don't seem intuitively important to us. But I digress.

Quote:As a practical view of AI, I think your model works very well. However, as a philosophical expression of reality, it seems too anthropocentric and arbitrary. It's one thing for you to define a gate, but how would the mind-spawning universe define it?

There's nothing anthropocentric about it. I'm describing gates of a particular architecture and why they behave the way that they do. We aren't made of that type of gate - all that applies is principle. It's about as far from arbitrary as it -can be- largely because of the subject matter. I'm not proposing that we are -actually- logic gates, but that whatever we are uses the same principles (or a convincing approximation of those principles). That's what computational theory of mind is all about - not finding chipsets in the human head, though, admittedly, it would be convenient if we did find that. Perhaps it seems arbitrary to you because the application of those principles are broad (as part of the nature of the principles)?

I don;t know how such a thing would define anything (as I'm not such a thing). Perhaps you should ask the mind spawning universe that question? I'm a patient man....we might not get the answer back to quick on that count, eh?

The question, if my model works well as a practical view of AI, is whether or not it might also have something to say about our intelligence. We're back to what the difference between AI as in artificial, and AI as in actual - could be? If there's a difference, it doesn't seem like it would be the effect. More like a difference in process. Would you agree to that?

(September 1, 2014 at 6:40 pm)Rhythm Wrote: The question, if my model works well as a practical view of AI, is whether or not it might also have something to say about our intelligence. We're back to what the difference between AI as in artificial, and AI as in actual - could be? If there's a difference, it doesn't seem like it would be the effect. More like a difference in process. Would you agree to that?

It depends whether you consider the subjective experience of qualia an effect. I'm not convinced that any amount of processing, of any type, necessarily causes or implies actual subjective experience a la qualia. But if you're talking input/processing/output (i.e. the only things we can observe in each other), then I'd say we're only talking about a difference of process-- and that the details of that process shouldn't matter.

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(September 1, 2014 at 4:50 pm)Surgenator Wrote: Entropy destroys the detail intricacies. So on large scales like a galaxy, you only have to worry about gravity and not how many supernova's went off.

I think there's an exception-- mind. Along Rhythm's lines, you could see a mind as a kind of transistor of unlimited power. A single mind could, based on just a little information, decide to push a big red button and destroy a planet. Or that same information could be that last drop in the bathtub that draws a "Eureka!" and changes the mental functioning of billions of beings through the spread of a new idea.

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(September 1, 2014 at 6:40 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I don;t know how such a thing would define anything (as I'm not such a thing). Perhaps you should ask the mind spawning universe that question? I'm a patient man....we might not get the answer back to quick on that count, eh?

No, we are unlikely to get that answer.

So to answer the question: "What causes mind to exist rather than not," how can you separate any given complex physical system as a meaningful processor (and therefore having a mind) and any other system as not? It seems to me that all particles in the universe are necessarily brought into relation with each other, and that any randomly-selected set of particles, no matter where they are, could be seen as outputting "meaningful" results.

(September 1, 2014 at 6:59 pm)bennyboy Wrote: It depends whether you consider the subjective experience of qualia an effect.

An immense interplay of effects, more like, but yeah.

Quote:I'm not convinced that any amount of processing, of any type, necessarily causes or implies actual subjective experience a la qualia. But if you're talking input/processing/output (i.e. the only things we can observe in each other)

I don't see any difference. When you say "qualia" I think "bundle of effects, robust computation".