A Discord Chat on Consciousness.

The following conversation was a talk I had with a friend (PhD, not actually a PhD) on the nature of consciousness. It's rather long, but it goes over a complex problem over banter and a friendly, Discord-toned chat. It was motivated by the contents of this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GLgZvTCbaA), and I intend to store it along particularly cool conversations I get to have. Hope you enjoy :D

{Video}

PhD

already saw'd it

correct computation assumes knowledge of the rules, still also does not get around transcendentalism and mind-body phenomenalogical sollipsism shenanigans

Induction is a fad.

What I was referring to was also not the inability to compress a universe, and compute - but the ability to compress a universe, and compute something that contains a computer that contains a computer that contains a computer that contains.... (this would be the configuration of the universe at the moment of turning the thing on, say).

you run into a halting-like problem

(even if you stumble across a correct set of rules, even if quantum state changes are at the bottom of everything, even if it's possible to reliably shift information into such a computer (it isn't)...) ..even if all that was true, this model does not take into account the apparent recursive computation of the computer itself. While it might be fun and useful for validation of certain things, it would only provide additional confidence for rules as rules-of-thumb. Admittedly good rules of thumb, but ultimately, not knowledge of rules themselves or their universality.

Cucked by the halting problem, d'oh!

technological computation was a mistake :tardito:

What is it

I am not familiar with it

PhD

it might not be the right name

PhD

there's the problem of consciousness (i.e. experience)

There's more interesting nondual approaches too, like pansychism and non-local consciousness.

Nomad

>non-local consciousness

bruh

I am personally not very aware of this thing, so I can't really add to it.

I'll add it to my curiosity list of the week and maybe come back with an answer by May

PhD

I guess what I was originally getting to, though, was that: moving forward from Descartes' demons is very much impossible if consciousness arises from something not in matter - and to top that off, even if it is possible to move forward, induction itself is just a fashion statement. You cannot escape your mind.

Nomad

You cannot escape your mind, pleb :triumph:

PhD

It's obvious that physical configuration of brains and sensors is necessary for our experience particularly. But what actually permits that experience itself?

Nomad

It's a good question, and one that I'm not really sure I have an immediate answer to since this isn't something I've ever bothered myself to ask.

I am inclined to say it's all a biological process. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the brain can exist without states of mind but no state of mind can exist without the brain, and going by that alone I think I'd settle for that answer.

I'll agree that induction is a "passing trend" if we reach its limits but I doubt that'll be the case.

PhD

It's clearly different from biology. Chinese rooms don't make "experience".

Nomad

Just make a bigger computer :pehpeh~1:

PhD

That said, another idea is that chinese rooms do in fact generate experience :ssdfs: . In that case, the consciousness is definitely still outside the physical, but generated by larger amounts of information Integration.

It's one spin on the panpsychic angle.

Nomad

If it can suck my dick and call me gay it's conscious.

ez

PhD

If integration creates experience, then atoms (for instance) have very low amounts of experience due to integration and retransmission of absorbed photons. As the information moves up larger levels of integration, so the story goes, something something consciousness.

Nomad

I'd define conscious as something capable of a degree of self-awareness in relation to its programming.

In that sense if a machine can reach that, then it's conscious.

PhD

that would be very weak

doesn't grapple with experience

Like, aware of its surroundings?

PhD

if I'm a machine, self aware, why do I have to be shown a continuous stream of that?

Nomad

Because being conscious is a state. The moment you quit the state, you're no longer it.

PhD

no

you're still removing experience from the equation

Nomad

Would you argue that a blind, deaf person isn't conscious?

Even if they're still alive?

PhD

they're still experiencing

if you built a machine to compute equivalent human brain function in every way, for the sake of argument (probably not possible but whatever), would that machine experience as we do? Would it, like a child acquire qualia and an internal movie to accompany it's mentation?

I'm self aware, but how foes self awareness generate all this!?!?!

Hell, I'd bang it if it was hot

Put that shit in some dolls mate

PhD

you've not explained experience still

I am just not sure what you mean by experience.

Like, would it feel?

PhD

processing information != experience

a computer, when it uses a camera, "senses" insofar as it processes numbers from the camera.

we have elements of that in our visual systems too, but somehow magically it is felt and experienced.

How are photons reacting through the lens of a camera different from photons reacting in cone cells?

I don't think it is

PhD

read what I said

I don't see what you're getting at

PhD

then where does the experience come from?

Nomad

"Somehow magically it's felt and experienced"

Well, it's the result of an organism reacting to its medium :pehpeh~1:

PhD

that's the abstract definition

not reality

PhD

they will have experience

Nomad

Put someone in an environment and they'll experience.

PhD

consciousness, being alive, all mentation ties to an apparent "movie show"

Nomad

Yes

Do you think you're fundamentally different from an AI, is what you're saying?

Are you a RACIST or something mate??

PhD

I didn't think people could not understand this.

As we all are.

As I see it

PhD

I'm having a hard time explaining, because I assumed it was obvious.

you seem to think that sensation is guaranteed

whenever there are sensors, and reactions, and information Integration in between

Nomad

Yes. Perception begets sensation, though the experience of it might depend on the ability of an information processor to run through stuff.

PhD

what we call "sensation" in machines with "sensors" is an analogy

completely analogous

it doesn't mean they are sensing

it's only a useful abstraction in terms of designing information flow

Nomad

I think your question is along the lines of like

If I put my super-smart microwave in the fire

Does it feel pain

Am I right?

PhD

i don't know

I don't know what you mean by that so still idk

Nomad

If being capable to process and having the means to get information begets something similar to feelings.

PhD

any monkey can design a system which "feels pain"

under your ideas

Nomad

I mean, monkeys design other monkeys and it takes them what, six months? :chael~1:

Nomad

It implies self-awareness too, I think.

PhD

self awareness can be created in a machine

that's easy

that's the weak aspect of consciousness

Nomad

But if you tell me "what is consciousness asides self-awareness and information reaction," I would struggle to say.

PhD

experience

Nomad

I'd say it's always a combination of those two, and some entities are better than it than others, and it that being better the quality of experience grows.

PhD

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

Hard problem of consciousness

The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why sentient organisms have qualia or phenomenal experiences—how and why it is that some internal states are felt states, such as heat or pain, rather than unfelt states, as in a thermostat or a toaster....

Nomad

I'd call experience "the exercise of self-awareness and information reaction."

fails to grapple with the hard problem

experience = phenomena

it's what everyone is on about when they're talking about phenomenology

Nomad

This says the existence of the hard problem is disputed :pehpeh~1:

PhD

it's not the representation of information, but it's experience altogether

PhD

it's disputed, and I would say people who dispute it are retarded - don't @ me

Nomad

The state of going through something?

lol

PhD 

that's not enough

Nomad

Then do tell me smh

PhD

I don't know, like I said, I thought it was obvious.

it's rather ineffable

unless both parties somewhat agree

PhD

I don't understand it, I don't think anyone does, that's the wholw point

Nomad

Then how are you so certain a phenomenon you cannot describe nor assert has any relevance, or even so, a reason to be?

PhD

ok, I get what you mean, however, I should be able to formulate the question itself

but, again, I assume it's obvious

Unless you want to contemplate the possibility for its sake

PhD

no, this is real

Nomad

For political purposes :ree:

PhD

I hate Dan Dennet fags like you :ree:

Nomad

lmfao

I'm memeing but I am indeed listening to you

PhD

"what is consciousness?" "uhh it's don't real it's just computers"

computers do not experience, most neurological life we know of seems to, on the other hand

Nomad

If you can formulate it I'll give it a parse but so far I'm getting nothing to formulate

PhD

with the raising of neurological life, and self awareness (efference and afference) comes heightened complexity of the experience

but what permits the experience to begin with

that permitting factor is the interface to consciousness

Nomad

Okay, let me put it one way.

Are worms conscious?

PhD

maybe partially

PhD

no

Nomad

What if the answer is no, and I managed to reinsert that brain into a biological structure, given that it's not too hard to do.

PhD

or (we don't know)

PhD

whhhhat?

Say it like this

I take a worm

It's alive

I take its brain

Now it's dead

I put the brain in a machine

It's still dead

I take the brain back into bio

It's alive????

PhD

if you manage to make it alive then, of course?

what has this got to do with what we're discussing?

Like, what was its information processing while out of a bio body.

Is it not real?

PhD

this totally doesn't work in my worldview

PhD

I was thinking about that 10 years ago

Nomad

What was your conclusion

PhD

urgh, ok..

under my framework, so far:

- is the worm conscious? - the worm is a bit conscious

- take the brain from the worm - this separates things, I don't think consciousness is fully about the brain

- put that in a machine - ok then...?

- put an identical copy of the brain back in using the stored information - assuming you can make it alive, what I'm talking about has no bearing on whether or not it will become "the same worm", experience does not embed memory within it, memory comes from somewhere else (and we actually don't know where that is, but whatever)

PhD

the brain is a large part, but not everything, the entire nervous system is involved.

among other things, potentially

Is it SOULS

PhD

chemical/pheromonal systems, RNA, DNA, proteins

all of these can work for information attainment

at the very least

Nomad

Well, perhaps a better way to frame my question would be: what other things asides the mechanism of perception and the object being perceived

PhD

and indeed, original life forms which didn't have neuronal systems would have relied solely on these.

well I can't know, but it's the mechanism of perception I'm trying to focus on

PhD

no, I said I can't know "what other things"

Nomad

'xactly

PhD

nonono

back up

Nomad

So what if no other things exist

Kk

PhD

you said "what other things are involved in information and perception apart from the brain"

I say: well I'm still talking about the brain, in addition to rna dna, proteins etc, just for example.

and "I can't know what else" is true, but that's not what I'm talking about at all.

it's beside the point

I have to wake up in six hours to present something. My line of thought is influenced by some topics like: David Chalmers, non-duality, the hard problem, Alan Turing vs. John Searle, the Chinese Room, Raymond Tallis...

but mainly my own thought

I doubt what I see as right is encapsulated by all their views.

David Chalmers does a good coverage of the landscape of competing theories, but I think I maybe still disagree with him on something fundamental, can't remember what it was.

good day

don't let the bed bugs bite