Re: Consciousness: what's the problem?

casey <jgkjcasey@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 1, 10:17=A0am, c...@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) wrote:

I hope I'm not doing a double reply here. I wrote I reply but I think I
decided to throw it out (too much rambling even for my tastes).

CW:
Well, to start, you and I are likely using a
slightly different definition of sensing. We
would have to start with a discussion of what
sensing is. I'll start by saying to me, it's
the fairly well understood use of the word
in engineering. That is, it's the act of a
sensor transforming one type of signal into
another (like light into electrical signals).
To me, this is all there is to "sensing"
whether it'd done by a human, or by some man
made machine.

JC:
But can you report such things at that level?
When you become aware of something, that is,
when you can respond to the thing you are
aware of in the form "I see an apple", it is a
little more, I would suggest, than light energy
being transduced to electrical energy although
such a translation is required. Your camera is
not aware of an apple in that sense.

Right, the camera has no understanding or ability to recognize and respond
to apples. Though some of them it seems are developing an awareness of
faces.

The camera has awareness of pixels, and focus, and exposure levels, but no
awareness of apples.

Humans aren't special because we are aware. Cameras are aware. Even rocks
have a very low level of awareness. We are special because of the very
large number of things we are aware of and because how we react to that
awareness is adjusted by an advanced and strong reinforcement learning
system which creates goal directed purpose in our behavior. Cameras for
the most part don't include reinforcement learning systems adjusting their
behavior so even though they are aware, they don't do anything interesting
with that awareness other than take pictures.

CW:
From there, we move on to what subjective experience
is. It's hard to define because the people who think
it's something other than an act of sensing can't in
fact define it. They say, "it just is because I say
it is but it's not sensing". So what can anyone do
with a statement like that? Nothing. It's just total
nonsense at every level.

JC:
I was just listening to a program on the radio
on the subject of people in a vegetative state
after brain trauma. They put one such subject
in an MRI scanner and asked the subject to
imagine playing tennis. Even though the subject
was unresponsive physically the brain scan was
the same response that they would get with a
person who was not in a vegetative state. Was
that person having a "subjective experience"
of playing tennis?

No clue what was happening in that person's brain nor do I have a enough
understanding of brain physiology to even hazard a good guess.

At best however, he was probably having a subjective experience of
"thinking about playing tennis" or maybe, "a subjective experience of
dreaming about playing tennis".

CW:
If John (for example) says that he is "aware"
of his own "subjective experience" we are then
left trying to figure out what human awareness is.

JC:
I think I would have said I *have* subjective
experiences for being aware means much the same
thing. The problem here is words are used in
rubbery way and we can only hope that the other
person can infer by reference to their own
subjective experiences what is being talked about.

:)

That of course is what I try to do. For the most part, I can understand
what people are talking about in these debates because I've shared many
similar views in the past as well. Then I figured out my own self-image
created by these ideas of conscious was just bull *** I was talked into by
society combined with an illusion created by how my brain works.

I used to see myself as existing "inside" my body looking out (so to say).
I was the think inside the body doing the private talking to myself. But I
also happened to be a body. It a few similar to being a person driving a
car. You are the person, and the car is an extension of you in that you
have full control over it. I saw my body in a similar view such that "I"
was this "thing" (didn't want to call it a soul) inside the body, which had
a mind of it's own, and which controlled the body as need be.

This was a view which existed less out of logic, and more simply by
default. It's was a self image that just naturally seemed to form in me
which I had never really gave much thought to until people here kept
bringing up all these issues in AI debates (which I always saw as nothing
more than an engineering problem which found many people saw it as
something far different).

The more I understood these ideas, the more I understood how distorted an
illogical my own self image was (it was a dualistic view of a "self" of
some type existing separate from the body).

But my reason made it clear to me that this view was just wrong, and that I
wasn't a "think inside a body" but instead, I was just a body with a brain
and nothing else. For the most part, that old self image has now been
conditioned out of myself, and what's left is a self image that fits
reality. I'm just a biologically created body with a brain that walks and
talks and types Usenet messages.

Anyone who is still stuck with any sort of distorted view like the one I
had, will naturally point to it as what "consciousness" is. Because the
"I" in my own self view felt like "something else" from the body, the
concept of consciousness gets linked to having that self image. We feel
conscious because we have an image of ourselves which seems to be separate
from, or above, your non-conscious body. It's this distorted view of
ourselves that everyone is talking about when they talk about
consciousness. It's why so many people like to throw in the ideas of "self
awareness" as a key component when they grasp at straws to try and figure
out how to describe consciousness. It's out imiage of ourselves which is
distorted, and it's the distortion (the illusion created by the brain)
which they should actually be describing.

I'm fairly sure I know exactly what people are talking about when they talk
about their own self awareness and subjective experience and consciousness
because I too used to have the same odd sorts of feelings about myself
until I realized where they came from and what they were really about.

If you have no subjective experiences to make
that connection you cannot know what it means.

Well, you can know what it means if someone correctly explains what it is.
But it would be very touch to figure out what they were talking about if
you didn't have your own subjective experience to explore and if you
couldn't explore the operation of other brains which were reported to be
having subjective experience. :)

You are essentially autistic like with regards
to the meanings as an autistic person is to the
meaning of a smile or an chess program is to
the meaning of anything beyond chess.

CW:
The known laws of physics requires this to be true.
To be aware, we must be able to talk about something,
and to talk about something, there had to be physical
effect which triggered that language.

JC:
So the person in the vegetative state would not be
aware in your opinion even though the brain scan
indicates otherwise?

No, that was not what I was saying above. I was saying "talk about" just
in the sense that our brain is normally wired to allow all our behavior,
including our talking behavior, to be regulated by the things we are aware
of inside our brain.

CW:
To me, everything that can exist is what we call
"physical". If it exists in our reality, it's
physical.

JC:
Essentially I agree with that. I would put it
another way by defining physical to mean it has
an effect. This covers I think things like light
and magnetic fields and other exotic discoveries
of physics. If something has no effect then it
may as well not exist for there is no way we
could tell one way or the other.

Yeah, to have an effect works as well. However, it's only the effects that
exist. Everything is made up by the brain to explain the effects.

CW:
Their mouth only moved like that because of the
laws of physics - which means whatever it was in
them that triggered those words to come out, was
some physical effect.

JC:
At the lowest level that may be true but you then
make the mistake of saying because a "conscious"
behavior is, at that level, the same as any other
behavior then everything must be conscious. But
we use the word "conscious" to refer to one set
of behaviors and not others. A practical example
is in the medical practice when they anaesthetize
the subject to produce "unconscious" behaviors.
I think they would be surprised by your statements
that the people they were slicing up were in fact
still conscious.

Yes, we do use the word that way. But does that word usage reflect some
important and true effect of the universe, or just a human belief about the
universe which is wrong?

I think the belief that consciousness exists as something in us, all comes
from this confusion of "feeling" like _we_ are separated from our body.
It's an illusory image of ourselves which the brain naturally tends to
create in all humans.

So, if this is true, what does the word consciousness actually label here?
Is it the illusionary aspect of how our thoughts seem to exist in a
separate realm? And that we see ourselves as existing in this same odd
domain as the "I" which is the source of these thoughts?

Of, should I assume they are describing something other than the illusion
when they talk about consciousness, such as our awareness, which is not in
itself an illusion. But our awareness is nothing special - as I have
pointed out, cameras are aware. So if I decide people want to call their
awareness as consciousness, I have to point out to them that everything has
some level of awareness and hence consciousness by that definition.

If only the illusion is what we should label with the word, then cameras
aren't conscious because they aren't advanced enough in there awareness to
have that type of illusion.

My goal here is not to define the word, but to try and help some people
(like you) understand what it is you are actually talking about - to help
people understand the true nature of the universe and the human brain. You
can then decide for yourself how you want to use these words.

CW:
To me, "subjective experience" means, "The signal
processing function that happens in a brain".

Ok, but if the signal processing function is 99% the same as the signal
processing function that happens in a camera, does the camera have
subjective experience? It seems to me we should say it does based on how
people want to use the word.

The only reason not to do that is if you want to it mean "what it's like to
be a machine with this illusionary self image to sense stuff". If that is
how you want to define it, then we would not say the camera was having
subjective experience because it's just sensing without being confused
about itself at the same time.

None of what I write here will probably click with you until the day you
understand your own self image is an illusion created by how the brain
works. I've not yet seen any indication that you understand this yet.

JC:
I am sure it is "signal processing" of some kind
that takes place in the brain. However I don't
think all "signal processing" in the brain is in
the form of a subjective experience.

Again, until you understand the illusion, (aka the specific fact of what,
and why, humans tend to think of themselves as disconnected from their
body), you won't understand any of my attempts to talk about terms like
"subjective experience" or consciousness.

CW:
John is positive he is not a dualist. Only I say
he is a dualist - it's really just sort of a closet
dualist. I say it because he thinks subjective
experience exists and is something real (aka exists
in this universe) and that it hasn't been explained
and that no on understands it.

JC:
I don't see how claiming something hasn't been
explained makes me a dualist. Once we could not
explain the appearance of a rainbow but this did
not mean people started believing the rainbow
was not physical.

Because it has been explained, and I've taken the time to explain it to you
many many times, and you don't understand the explanation. Sure, one or
two or three times could just show how bad I am at explaining. But when I
take this much time to explain it to you maybe 20 different ways over the
years, and you have never once understood what I'm talking about, and you
actually think it hasn't been explained, this is why I call you a dualist.

It's because even though you want to monist, and you think of yourself as a
materialist, and a large part of your thoughts and beliefs are
materialistic, part of your brain and your beliefs are still stuck thinking
like a dualist and it's those old preconceived dualistic ideas still stuck
in your brain that's preventing you from understanding what I've been
talking about all this time.

If you didn't still have that bias in your thinking, you would have been
able to figure out what I was talking about by now no matter how bad I am
at explaining it.

CW:
I understand it fully. This duality is something
that exists only in our _perception_ of realty,
not in how the universe actually works or is.
John doesn't grasp this yet. He still thinks it
is something that is a basic nature of the universe
and not just something in his brain created in it's
model of reality.

JC:
There you go again making statements about what
you think I believe.

Yeah, and I did it again in my response to the previous paragraph above.

Actually I found your notion
of everything being conscious as akin to it being
a basic nature of the universe rather than my
view that is was a brain behavior, but not just
any brain behavior. I understand, and have
understood for a long time, why people who don't
know about the brain will experience mind/matter
as a duality when in fact there is only mind
which we now know is what the physical brain *does*.

Using the excuse that mind is what the brain does helps adjust that
dualistic way of thinking so it's not in direct conflict with materialism,
but it doesn't fix the root problem that you are still thinking like a
materialist.

Humans are the things we do, and that's all a human is. Rocks are what
they do - that's how we know they are rocks.

But yet, just because rocks are what they do, doesn't mean we make up a
different name for the collection of all the things they do.

Nouns are the names we give to the collection of effects we associate
together into a "thing". Why did we collect together all the effects
created by the brain and call it a "mind" instead of just using it's real
name - the brain?

Or of the word "Mind" was created first, when they figured out what that
stuff inside the skull was doing, when then they call it the mind isntead
of making up a new name for called the brain?

It's all because of the illusion that thoughts exist as a type of stuff
disconnected from all the other stuff we call the physical world. It's
that disconnect which prevented them from calling the brain a brain and
left us with two names for the same thing.

Saying the mind is what the brain does doesn't remove the error of dualism.
Removing the error of dualism requires you call the mind the brain. It
requires that you eliminate the idea that there are two things here instead
of one. Until you understand why this is right, you won't understand why I
keep using the word "dualist" about you and everyone else which doesn't
understand this (which is just about everyone).


CW:
John just calls it "a pattern". That is, when he
talks about what "he" is, he says he's a pattern,
and not a physical person.

JC:
If you arrange a set of stones in in one configuration
you might have a pattern called a circle. You can then
move them about and have a pattern called a square.
The circle and the square are "nothing but" stones in
the physical sense but the effect they have can be
very different due to the pattern in which they
are arranged.

You can't separate the stones from their location in space. When I say
it's "just stones" I imply (without having to say it), that "it's just
stones which are existing in a specific location in space relative to all
other stones and all other stuff in the universe and that do what stones do
which means their effect on everything else depends on what other stones
are near them as is always true). But even though I write a lot, I feel
that's excessive even for me, so I don't do say all that every time I say
"it's just stones".

Again, you inability to understand why I turn to the "nothing but" argument
is just more indication you still don't have a clue what I'm talking about.
You think you have a fine and consistent view of a material world and you
still haven't grasped that you have dualistic thinking mixed all through
your beliefs and that if you could fix and/or remove those dualistic
thoughts your view of reality would be even clearer and better than it
currently is. But so far, I've been unable to help you see where your
thoughts are dualistic. Though I do think you are making progress on how
you write about it all - getting more in line with what I see as a valid
materialistic view.

A conscious person and an unconscious person
are the same in terms of the physical neurons
but the activity of the neurons are very
different even if you can't see that and insist
all matter is conscious whatever that strange
belief may mean.

No, they are not the same. Like your stone examples, the arrangement of
the stones effects how the stones as a group act.

Same is true for people. IF they are acting different, their "stones" MUST
be arranged differently. They can't be the same in terms of the physical
neurons that they are made of because something is different about - some
of th e neurons are in a different state of some type.

CW:
There is plenty of validity in talking that way,
and I wouldn't mind it if he showed he understand
what he was talking about, but he hasn't yet.

JC:
Maybe I haven't shown it to you but then you
tend to have a low level way of looking at
things as if the whole is always nothing but a
duplication of the parts. That a whirlpool is
the same as a section of calm water because
they are "nothing but" water molecules.

CW:
He seem so close to understanding it, but yet, I
can't seem to push him over that final hump.

JC:

:) The feeling mutual.

The essential difference I see between our views
is the level of explanation and that you see a
conscious person as a physical body whereas I
see a conscious person as what a physical body
is doing.

Yes, this is a subtle, but important way dualistic thinking still exists in
you. You have hidden the old "mind body" split of dualism into the corner
of "noun vs verb" thinking. You are holding on to the belief in the split
by saying "if I use as what it is vs what it does, it's OK and it's not a
belief in the soul". But it is still a belief in an odd form of the soul
in that you think there is a valid split where which in fact isn't valid
and doesn't actually exist in the universe.

Physical bodies are always DOING SOMETHING. They don't stop being a
physical body when they are sleeping, or talking or writing Usenet posts or
dead. It's still a physical body.

Though it's fine to give a behavior like ruining a name (to create verbs),
it doesn't mean that the running is something separate from the physical
body.

When we use the term "unconscious" we are using it to label a type of human
behavior, we are labeling the act of being motionless and unresponsive (but
not dead) with the word "unconscious". But when a human is conscious, NO
ONE that I know of any any of these debates, think the terms means nothing
more than "acting like an awake human". The very fact that the issue of
zombies is a key point in the hard problem of consciousness is simple and
direct proof that no one confused about consciousness things the word is
nothing more than a label for all normal human behavior.

I don't suspect you see it that way either because I think you have
indicated it might be possible to create a robot that seemed to act like a
human but which wasn't conscious. Anyone that thinks consciousness means
nothing more than "acting like a human" wouldn't have spent so long
debating this with me.

A physical body (not a soul) is required
but dead bodies are not conscious in my opinion,
even if you want think dead bodies and rocks are
conscious.

Well, again, my use of the word "conscious" in that respect was an attempt
to show people their own confusion and show how consciousness could be
defined so it actually matched what is actually happening instead of what
people thought was happening. But if you can't fully grasp the illusion
and what it's about, you will never be able to fix your own distorted self
image and learn to stop clinging to dualistic ideas such as "the mind is
what the brain does".

The brain is what the brain does.

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@xxxxxxxx http://NewsReader.Com/
.

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