Quantum consciousness...

[bennyboy]

-and in the context of that idea, what sense does it make to say that we can;t observe consciousness?  In that context, it's even easier to observe than a less looney explanation of the same.  All I have to do is look at -anything- and I've observed consciousness. Ta-Da.  In your pathological need to object, you've created a caricature in your own positions of exactly what you object to. Gratz.

You don't have access to my context. That's what "subjective" means, and no amount of double talk gets around that fact.

If you want to do science of the mind, you need some access to multiple mental contexts. But you have direct access to only one: your own. Your solution is to call a physical correlate the thing it correlates to, and move on. This is a flawed methodology, for pretty obvious philosophical reasons.

[I_am_not_mafia]

There.  Finished it.  Consciousness is more than computation.  Couldn't agree more.  

I actually agree with this. The brain does not function by computing. That's not to say that it cannot compute. We can do maths and you can even do mathematical computations using synaptic trees, but that's not why the brain functions that way it does.

I came across this article recently and it has been immensely refreshing to see someone else argue that we should not attempt to explain the brain as if it was a computer.

The empty brain
Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer

I argue that the brain is a biophysical, chemical self organising system, and like all other naturally occurring self organising systems it settles into a stable state by minimising disturbance of free-energy. So in the same way we won't get a useful understanding of consciousness if we see it merely as a form of computation. But it makes sense if we understand it as a way of helping the organism settle into a stable state over time.

We can understand both life and intelligence this way. Life is thermodynamically far from equilibrium, yet it self organised by minimising free energy. This is because an organism can produce more entropy over time by producing off-spring than by existing for a finite time and then dying off. In my last paper I demonstrated that a self organising agent that performs temporal sequence learning rather than a stimulus / response agent can choose costly actions that increase disturbance in the short term to settle into more stable states in the long term. In other words intelligence increases entropy over time even if it needs to minimise it in the short term.

Seen this way consciousness aids in increasing in entropy over time and is a natural result of the development of complexity through the arrow of time (e.g first there was radiation, then matter,  stars, chemistry, planets, biology, life, intelligence, consciousness, societies, economies etc)

Explaining it in terms of quantum mechanics has no explanatory power at all and is a homunculus argument in that it pushes the explanation away to an ever smaller scale in order to avoid trying to understand it.

[ignoramus]

All the answers are in folks ... no more mystery! yay!

The universe is quantum by it's very nature. That's how the big bang happened in the first place. In fact they're going on all the time. Always have been.
The universe IS conscious due to its quantum complexity among other things.

All life plugs into this quantum universal flux to varying degrees based on pay grade (complexity ID). EG; simple life, attaches to the lower levels of consciousness, etc.
It works because life evolved naturally to become in sync with this flux, hence our quantum minds. Birds use it for navigation, plants use it for photosynthesis, etc

Feelings of spirituality, for example is just a sensation caused by your quanta bouncing in an out of the next higher level of the flux.
So when we die, no our consciousness doesn't die, obviously, because it was never ours, we just plug into it on loan. simples.

So, theists, yes, there is a "soul" and an afterlife, etc but sadly there is no judgment in any way shape or form. And no, the higgs boson and his other subatomic brethren do not care where you stick your dick! Terribly sorry to disappoint on that important issue.

So there you go folks!

Shit, Deepak just rang to tell me to stop bullshitting, apparently he has a patent on it?

[The Grand Nudger]

You don't have access to my context.  That's what "subjective" means, and no amount of double talk gets around that fact.

....?

If you want to do science of the mind,  you need some access to multiple mental contexts.  But you have direct access to only one: your own.  Your solution is to call a physical correlate the thing it correlates to, and move on.  This is a flawed methodology, for pretty obvious philosophical reasons.

You're not commenting on an inability to observe consciousness, Benny- you're commenting on an inability to fully interpret it. Voltimeters don't directly observe electric current - they also have a fudge factor (called tolerance, btw, lol), so I guess we're just sol on pretty much every front. / shrugs

---

I came across this article recently and it has been immensely refreshing to see someone else argue that we should not attempt to explain the brain as if it was a computer.

The empty brain
Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer

What isn't refreshing, is to see that he argues by means of strawmanning the computer analogy, rather than commenting on any computational theory of mind, after a long series of "we've been wrong befores".  That the presenter then goes on to make absolutely incompetent arguments regarding dollar bills as though this established, of all things, that we do not possess or store memories - here again strawmanning computational theories of mind by arguing against the notion that a memory must be stored in a single neuron - that we will never find a dollar bill in a neuron.  That former is not true of human beings -or- of computers, nor is it a necessity of comp mind...and the latter is almost comically true in it's inanity - no one expects to find a dollar bill in a neuron. I'm guessing he couldn't find one in the machine he used to make that image, either....

I argue that the brain is a biophysical, chemical self organising system, and like all other naturally occurring self organising systems it settles into a stable state by minimising disturbance of free-energy. So in the same way we won't get a useful understanding of consciousness if we see it merely as a form of computation. But it makes sense if we understand it as a way of helping the organism settle into a stable state over time.

 I'm not sure what the "just"s and "merely"s so commonly employed in reference to this should be taken to mean?  There's plenty going on in a brain that we do know about - think of all the processes that maintain the cells, for example -alongide any number of non-conscious processes and involuntary this or thats.  We know that these also have an effect of cognition ( the greatest scientific experiment ever will establish this for any interested party - getting drunk).  So, if it's things like that which (and much more, ofc, even things we don't know about - for what that's worth) that you would add as what lies beyond the merelys, then yeah, sure ofc.  A comp mind proponent (or theory) isn't telling you or anyone else that computation is all that's going on in a brain, but that computation - information processing, is chiefly and meaningfully responsible for the organization of what we call a mind.  What you argue the brain to be and what comp mind theories argue that consciousness is are complimentary, not contradictory - right?

We can understand both life and intelligence this way. Life is thermodynamically far from equilibrium, yet it self organised by minimising free energy. This is because an organism can produce more entropy over time by producing off-spring than by existing for a finite time and then dying off. In my last paper I demonstrated that a self organising agent that performs temporal sequence learning rather than a stimulus / response agent can choose costly actions that increase disturbance in the short term to settle into more stable states in the long term. In other words intelligence increases entropy over time even if it needs to minimise it in the short term.

How did you propose that the agent perform temporal sequence learning?  How does it learn to predict an event, or perform an action, for example?  Having done so, what then accounts for it's ability to do so again - to recognize some pattern, accurately classify it as an indicator of a previously categorized outcome, and take appropriate action?  In short, where are these plans of action, these algorithms.... stored? Juxtapose the idea of sequence learning with the author of that papers stated view that brains do not store, access, or recall - that they do not have memory, and that they do not leverage algorithms.

Seen this way consciousness aids in increasing in entropy over time and is a natural result of the development of complexity through the arrow of time (e.g first there was radiation, then matter,  stars, chemistry, planets, biology, life, intelligence, consciousness, societies, economies etc)

Explaining it in terms of quantum mechanics has no explanatory power at all and is a homunculus argument in that it pushes the explanation away to an ever smaller scale in order to avoid trying to understand it.

That's the fundamental criticism of quantum consciousness as an argument.  However, explaining it in terms of unspecified complexity or temporal sequence learning absent a mechanism has no explanatory power, either.  

This is -why- computational theories of mind are dominant, why IP metaphors are used.  Regardless of what we think the aim of the brain is, or even what consciousness, itself, is - a comp/ip framework offers us a method by which that aim or that product at least could be achieved.

[bennyboy]

Explaining it in terms of quantum mechanics has no explanatory power at all and is a homunculus argument in that it pushes the explanation away to an ever smaller scale in order to avoid trying to understand it.

Well, either consciousness is in some sense foundational, or it is supervenient. If it is supervenient, then we'll need some explanation of how it supervenes and at one level. At any rate, I think we can all agree that whatever consciousness is, it must rest on the foundations set up by interactions at the smallest level, no?

[I_am_not_mafia]

While Robert Epstein, the psychologist who wrote that article I posted didn't always make his argument particularly well, I think he is on the right track in pointing out the limitations of describing the brain as a machine. You need to see it in a historical context. Since computers became useful, scientists have been trying to describe the brain as a machine, but decreasingly so the more we understand how the brain actually works. I have read some truly painful papers from the 60's in this regard.

The brain is a self organising system. All evidence points to that and there is no reason to suggest that it isn't. There is absolutely no evidence of a non-corporeal soul directing the brain, and even if there was then that soul and the brain should together be considered a self organising system. Dendritic trees self organise. Neurons self-organise (e.g. habituation). Emotions can be understood in terms of self organisation. There is no reason to think that consciousness is any different.

The computational framework does not adequately explain self-organising systems. Natural scientists such as chemists, geologists and physicists do not describe naturally occurring self organising systems in terms of computation. A geologist will not describe how plate-tectonics push up mountains in terms of information theory. It is just not a useful concept for describing such things. Natural scientists understand self organising systems in terms of pressure, minimising the flow of free energy, settling into stable states, minimising entropy locally but maximising it globally and in terms of thermodynamic gradients.

Information theory was derived from the concept of entropy. It is a higher level of abstraction. What information processing is required for a snow flake to form? The brain is also a naturally occurring self organising system so why do we make a special case and describe that in terms of information flow and computation? Possibly because it is so complex and an information theoretic approach allows us to abstract over the details more. For example, you wouldn't describe a steam engine in terms of information theory but if you had millions of little steam engines all working together in a complex way then I can imagine how it would be useful. It is still an open question as to what stage an information theoretic / computational approach becomes useful and why.

Describing the brain in terms of computation may allow us to reason about what it is doing, but not why. For that you need to recognise what it fundamentally is and why it came about.

Khemikal, you misunderstood what I was saying about temporal sequence learning. I was not explaining consciousness in terms of temporal sequence learning (TSL). I was using TSL as an example of intelligence that can be seen to aid self organisation. My point was that consciousness should also be seen as a way of aiding self organisation. It is a product of the brain and that is what the brain does. The development of consciousness is after all part of the same arrow of time where complexity has increased since the Big Bang. I am not saying that unspecified complexity complexity explains consciousness, I am saying that the increase in complexity over time is the result of naturally occurring self organisation which happens because of the laws of thermodynamics. The development of consciousness is another step in this process that has been occurring since the Big Bang and which has continued on to give us societies and economies. Consciousness allows us to act more intelligently.

[ignoramus]

Do you think consciousness is unique to us (only comes about with a certain level of brain/neuron density) or a natural product (byproduct) to all living things with a brain?
As far as animals go, do all animals require it for survival? Maybe it is the only manifestation of the brain which ensures ultimate survival of the species?


One smart guy from a panel of 4 on a doco I watched last night said that it is quite possible that our brains are curious enough to ask lots of questions but not evolved enough to ever be able to answer them.

Too many questions. sorry.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Do you think consciousness is unique to us (only comes about with a certain level of brain/neuron density) or a natural product (byproduct) to all living things with a brain?
As far as animals go, do all animals require it for survival? Maybe it is the only manifestation of the brain which ensures ultimate survival of the species?

I personally think that the more intelligent the animal, the more conscious it is likely to be, and to know what it is doing and why. Particularly if it is a pack animal and needs to know where it is in relation to others in order to hunt or to anticipate the actions of your fellow species.

---

How did you propose that the agent perform temporal sequence learning?

I gave it a signal that told it how well it was doing. I did not specify what to do with that signal, but the strength of that signal could only be changed by temporal sequence learning.

 How does it learn to predict an event, or perform an action, for example?  Having done so, what then accounts for it's ability to do so again

I don't know. I didn't tell it what to do. It self organised.

Actually I have since visualised it in action and now have a vague idea as to what it is doing, and it surprised me, but I don't want to say because it's the basis of my next paper. It's also somewhat complex to explain.

In short, where are these plans of action, these algorithms....  stored?

There is no algorithm specifying how it should perform temporal sequence learning. What I did was create a system that would settle into a stable state. The trick was in creating the right components. I have no doubt that I could have used my neural networks to do it instead, and if so then I could recreate it my garden using a system of pipes and water cisterns. Such a system would not be adequately described using an algorithm but by the changes in water pressure within it.

[bennyboy]

I personally think that the more intelligent the animal, the more conscious it is likely to be, and to know what it is doing and why.

I'm interested in this sentence, because I think it lies at the heart of one's view about consciousness. It seems to me that consciousness is binary-- it's like a light switch that's either on or off. The particular ideas, sensations, and so on that one might experience seem to me to exist IN consciousness, or perhaps to be objects OF consciousness. I wouldn't say that something is more conscious, but rather that it is more mentally active, and I wouldn't equate mental activity with consciousness-- at least, not exactly as synonymous.

On the other hand, what would a conscious agent be like if there was NO perception or sensation? Would it still be conscious, or is that simply an oxymoron? I do have some interest in meditation-- certainly those guys, whatever you think of their spiritual or religious beliefs, are really walking close to that line between consciousness and a lack of it.

[The Grand Nudger]

While Robert Epstein, the psychologist who wrote that article I posted didn't always make his argument particularly well, I think he is on the right track in pointing out the limitations of describing the brain as a machine. You need to see it in a historical context. Since computers became useful, scientists have been trying to describe the brain as a machine, but decreasingly so the more we understand how the brain actually works. I have read some truly painful papers from the 60's in this regard.

OFC, and I loved that part of the article actually.  While, ultimately, our historical explanations for consciousness have as yet turned out to be failures - they were good steps into the unknown.  I think that you take an uneccessarily dim view of the mechanical.  So long as we are attempting to explain the mechanism of consciousness, we are explaining the brain as a machine.  It may be a machine unlike any other, but it's still a machine. I;ve seen terrible computer analoigies as well, but I;ve never seen a terrible comp theory.  

Consider this, even the theory of "humors" was a step in thew right direction.  We observed complex behaviors being accomplished by pnuematic devices, and it dawned on us that - rather than some ephemeral spirit, perhaps their were physical interactions within our bodies that produced our own observed behaviors.  For all that this truly painful theory (at least, to our eyes) got wrong...it got that much right - and this was a revolutionary concept of consciousness in and of itself.

The brain is a self organising system. All evidence points to that and there is no reason to suggest that it isn't. There is absolutely no evidence of a non-corporeal soul directing the brain, and even if there was then that soul and the brain should together be considered a self organising system. Dendritic trees self organise. Neurons self-organise (e.g. habituation). Emotions can be understood in terms of self organisation. There is no reason to think that consciousness is any different.

-and a comp theory would be the -how- of that self organization as it applied to consciousness.

The computational framework does not adequately explain self-organising systems. Natural scientists such as chemists, geologists and physicists do not describe naturally occurring self organising systems in terms of computation. A geologist will not describe how plate-tectonics push up mountains in terms of information theory. It is just not a useful concept for describing such things. Natural scientists understand self organising systems in terms of pressure, minimising the flow of free energy, settling into stable states, minimising entropy locally but maximising it globally and in terms of thermodynamic gradients.

Comp sci doesn't adequately explain the properties of the materials that form the computational architecture either.  For a moment, imagine that one of the many comp theories had merit - that it was meaningfully accurate - it would still require a unifying theory of biology to explain how it was that the material of the computational architecture, the brain, came to be in a state capable of performing the stated actions.  

Information theory was derived from the concept of entropy. It is a higher level of abstraction. What information processing is required for a snow flake to form? The brain is also a naturally occurring self organising system so why do we make a special case and describe that in terms of information flow and computation? Possibly because it is so complex and an information theoretic approach allows us to abstract over the details more. For example, you wouldn't describe a steam engine in terms of information theory but if you had millions of little steam engines all working together in a complex way then I can imagine how it would be useful. It is still an open question as to what stage an information theoretic / computational approach becomes useful and why.

I wouldn't describe a steam engine in that manner..but I could design, build, and describe a steam computer in that manner.  

Describing the brain in terms of computation may allow us to reason about what it is doing, but not why. For that you need to recognise what it fundamentally is and why it came about.

It's more the how than the what.  The "what" is what compels us to refer to comp theory.  It -seems- as if the brain is processing information.  From the inputs of our sensory system to it's own internal memories - and the product of this processing is not only reliable - but somehow standardized between individuals.  This l;eads to vast and compelling similarities of behavior and even our ability to understand and predict each others response and "interior experience".  It also leads to our ability to store and transfer those interal experiences - in a variety of media, to other individuals in which this "x" is substantiated and even to machines in which we don't think this "x" is substantiated - albeit in a very limited way.   The brain has likely been as you say it;s been for a very long time, long before it ever developed into something that we would recognize as a conscious system. Long story short, it's productive and systematic.  

What accounts for the difference between the simplest brains and our own - unspecified complexity in a self organizing system, or specific complexity in the form of computational ability?  This is thew question posed and an answer tentatively given...with regards to comp theories.

Khemikal, you misunderstood what I was saying about temporal sequence learning. I was not explaining consciousness in terms of temporal sequence learning (TSL). I was using TSL as an example of intelligence that can be seen to aid self organisation. My point was that consciousness should also be seen as a way of aiding self organisation. It is a product of the brain and that is what the brain does. The development of consciousness is after all part of the same arrow of time where complexity has increased since the Big Bang. I am not saying that unspecified complexity complexity explains consciousness, I am saying that the increase in complexity over time is the result of naturally occurring self organisation which happens because of the laws of thermodynamics. The development of consciousness is another step in this process that has been occurring since the Big Bang and which has continued on to give us societies and economies. Consciousness allows us to act more intelligently.

Agreed, however, there is no comp theory that sets itself in contradiction to any of the above.  

I gave it a signal that told it how well it was doing. I did not specify what to do with that signal, but the strength of that signal could only be changed by temporal sequence learning.

What is "it"?  

I don't know. I didn't tell it what to do. It self organised.

Actually I have since visualised it in action and now have a vague idea as to what it is doing, and it surprised me, but I don't want to say because it's the basis of my next paper. It's also somewhat complex to explain.

I'd love to read it when you get around to it.  

There is no algorithm specifying how it should perform temporal sequence learning. What I did was create a system that would settle into a stable state. The trick was in creating the right components. I have no doubt that I could have used my neural networks to do it instead, and if so then I could recreate it my garden using a system of pipes and water cisterns. Such a system would not be adequately described using an algorithm but by the changes in water pressure within it.

The stable state, if the stable state is what allows it to reliably perform some action x in future, would be a machine implemented algorithm, the structure of the machine itself would be a form of memory.  Stable states are a requirement of discrete and reliable memory.  Overshadowing this entire business is that your net model is most definitely playing itself out on a computational architecture.

Neural net theory is a computational theory.....the connectionist comp theory.........there is a current of thought that asserts that, as far as the human brain and human behavior is concerned, connectionist theorists are indispensible - and likely account at least in some way for what -any- brain is doing...even ones that do not seem to produce a recognizable consciousness. Theyre much better than formal comp theories at explaining motor response and perceptual frameworks - but they fail to explain or account for productive, systematic, and standardized manipulation of precepts. This is why many consider the next "productive" comp hypothesis to be some synthesis between nueral biology, connectionist comp - and some as yet undetermined symbol manipulation theory. Maybe one that's already been floated, maybe not. Consider, for example, the seamless amalgam of a connectionist mechanism applied to dennets multiple drafts model - a model which emphatically -denies- what many of us take consciousness to be. I don't propose this as the answer, only to highlight how different types of comp theory compliment each other.

Or maybe it;s all as wrong as "humors" - and if that were the case, if the comp framework is inadequate, so too are NN's as a representative subset of that class. As, in the compter analogy, giant bundles of memory substantiating machine implemented algorithms.

---

I'm interested in this sentence, because I think it lies at the heart of one's view about consciousness.  It seems to me that consciousness is binary-- it's like a light switch that's either on or off.  The particular ideas, sensations, and so on that one might experience seem to me to exist IN consciousness, or perhaps to be objects OF consciousness.  I wouldn't say that something is more conscious, but rather that it is more mentally active, and I wouldn't equate mental activity with consciousness-- at least, not exactly as synonymous.

On the other hand, what would a conscious agent be like if there was NO perception or sensation?  Would it still be conscious, or is that simply an oxymoron?  I do have some interest in meditation-- certainly those guys, whatever you think of their spiritual or religious beliefs, are really walking close to that line between consciousness and a lack of it.

Human beings subjected to extreme sensory deprivation report, in addition to many other things, a loss of self or conscious experience.  OFC, they also report all manner of conscious experience.  It;s almost as if the brain plays itself out for as long as it can (sometimes terrifyingly) and then, at some point, deprived of stimulus it throws in the towel. In that context, it doesn;t seem binary, more a gradual loss of fidelity ultimately terminating in an interuption. Consider, again, what is reported upon leaving a dep chamber. A sudden "reawakening" and rush of experience. At least in this sense, I don't know if consciousness can be accurately described as being on or off. Is it on or off when you sleep? At what point, in sleep - as another example, do you go from dreaming to "blank"?

On an esoteric note, this degradation, loss, and resumption of conscious experience is precisely the aim of a great many ritual forms....down to simple reps like a traditional lakota sweat lodge...but it's also a part of recreational drug use(lol).