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Tags artificial intelligence , consciousness

View Poll Results: Is consciousness physical or metaphysical?
Consciousness is a kind of data processing and the brain is a machine that can be replicated in other substrates, such as general purpose computers. 81 86.17%
Consciousness requires a second substance outside the physical material world, currently undetectable by scientific instruments 3 3.19%
On Planet X, unconscious biological beings have perfected conscious machines 10 10.64%
Voters: 94. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 18th July 2012, 04:30 AM   #2201
Dancing David
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Originally Posted by Clive View Post
Did Einstein believe the space-time continuum was quantised?
Do you know the difference, I am sorry the math of tensors is beyond me, can you show where the energy pf particles is not quantised?

Asking about the TOE is not a free pass on evidence, where is the evidence that consciousness is not just biochemistry?
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Old 18th July 2012, 04:32 AM   #2202
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Originally Posted by Clive View Post
I think you need to read what I asked more carefully.

Let me put it in a slightly different way.

I claim that it is at least possible that biological brains (including obviously, human brains) may be able to accomplish something that a Universal Turing machine cannot, even in a theoretical sense. I'm not talking about purely "plumbing" type capabilities such as being able to absorb nutrients from blood or whatever, but rather the kinds of things (whatever they may be) that may be needed to achieve consciousness, self-awareness, and similar.

I'm not saying that I have any reason to believe this is necessarily very likely - just that it at least possible.
And how would you know this, how are you defining consciousness?

It is possible that there are little monkeys on motor scooters instead of electrons as well, but there are reasons to believe that is not a valid theory.

Magical thinking about consciousness?

A dog is conscious, does this apply to dogs and hamsters or just humans?
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Old 18th July 2012, 04:43 AM   #2203
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Originally Posted by Clive View Post
Says who? Oh. Yeah. PixyMisa.
You seem to have missed out on at least a hundred years of physics. I'll give you time to catch up.

Quote:
Would you bet your life that all relevant attributes of the Universe are "quantised"?
I do, every day.
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Old 18th July 2012, 04:55 AM   #2204
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Originally Posted by Clive View Post
I claim that it is at least possible that biological brains (including obviously, human brains) may be able to accomplish something that a Universal Turing machine cannot, even in a theoretical sense.
I have three replies to this:

1. No it's not.

2. You can't define such a thing.

3. You can't propose a mechanism for such a thing.

What you're talking about is known as a hypercomputerWP. They're very interesting, and entirely impossible.
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Old 18th July 2012, 06:41 AM   #2205
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Originally Posted by Clive View Post
You (and PixyMisa) appear to believe that humankind has basically got it all figured out already...
No.

Quote:
Do you believe that there is necessarily a finite "Theory of Everything" waiting to be discovered, and that when/if that is finally uncovered then (in principle) there will be nothing within "the Universe" that cannot be fully understood and perhaps even "perfectly" simulated?
Probably.

Quote:
If yes, why?
There is a finite number of physical principles and phenomena in the universe.

Quote:
I mean, why are you drawn to that idea as opposed to the alternative that there is no "bottom level" set of rules and so it really is a case of "turtles all the way down"?
Parsimony.
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Old 18th July 2012, 06:44 AM   #2206
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Originally Posted by Clive View Post
I think you need to read what I asked more carefully.
So do I, apparently, because his explanation is exactly why I answered what I did.

Quote:
I claim that it is at least possible that biological brains (including obviously, human brains) may be able to accomplish something that a Universal Turing machine cannot, even in a theoretical sense.
Then you need to explain yourself very precisely because it sounds like you don't understand what a Turing machine is.
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Old 18th July 2012, 07:04 AM   #2207
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Originally Posted by Dancing David View Post
There is no evidence of any events in consciousness that are not biochemistry.

…except the as yet undefined fact of consciousness itself. Pixy will, I'm sure, take grave exception to this conclusion as well....convinced as he is that various of his computerized contraptions have achieved the quality known as consciousness without resort to biochemistry of any kind (elctro-chemistry perhaps....is that related?).

That is what’s referred to as a category error. Consciousness is consciousness. Biochemistry is biochemistry. The relationship between the two has yet to be understood. A comparison could be made to physics. There are no events in biochemistry that are not physics. That particular relationship is well understood. The equivalent consciousness / biochemical relationship barely exists even as a question….and this fact is acknowledged by just about any neuro-biologist currently working in the area.

Originally Posted by Dancing David View Post
A dog is conscious, does this apply to dogs and hamsters or just humans?

A dog is conscious ???? Where has this fact been definitively established? From what I understand…consciousness itself has yet to achieve anything remotely resembling a universally accepted definition so it is likely premature to assign the category to dogs or anything else.
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Old 18th July 2012, 08:00 AM   #2208
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Originally Posted by Clive View Post
Did Einstein believe the space-time continuum was quantised?
I have no idea; given his work, I'm sure he would have thought about it.
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Old 18th July 2012, 08:11 AM   #2209
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Originally Posted by annnnoid View Post
…except the as yet undefined fact of consciousness itself.
If you can't define it, how do you know? And if others have defined it, how can it be undefined?

Quote:
A dog is conscious ???? Where has this fact been definitively established?
Dogs are certainly conscious by minimal definitions - as would likely be true of all mammals and most vertebrates (but would not be true of many insects) - but they don't pass the mirror test. The mirror test is a specifically visual test, and dogs aren't primarily visual creatures, but it does mark them as slightly dim.

Quote:
From what I understand…consciousness itself has yet to achieve anything remotely resembling a universally accepted definition so it is likely premature to assign the category to dogs or anything else.
No, that's just you.
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Old 18th July 2012, 08:36 AM   #2210
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Originally Posted by annnnoid View Post
…except the as yet undefined fact of consciousness itself.
1) How is consciousness undefined ?
2) Aren't you just projecting, here ?
3) Assuming it is undefined, how does that make it not biological ?

Quote:
That is what’s referred to as a category error. Consciousness is consciousness. Biochemistry is biochemistry.
Flying is flying. Sleeping is sleeping. Love is love. Eating is eating. Oh, wait...

Quote:
The relationship between the two has yet to be understood.
The exact mechanics of flying were not fully understood but we knew that flapping wings was pretty much the way to go a long time ago, etc.

Quote:
A dog is conscious ????
See, there's your problem. You have no idea what the word means (not 'dog', but 'consciousness'.) Of course a dog is conscious. I've yet to see a definition of consciousness that would exclude dogs. It might not be conscious like a human, but that's beside the point.
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Old 18th July 2012, 08:47 AM   #2211
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Originally Posted by Clive View Post
I think you need to read what I asked more carefully.
I did; the question you actually asked was answered. The question below is different.

Quote:
Let me put it in a slightly different way.

I claim that it is at least possible that biological brains (including obviously, human brains) may be able to accomplish something that a Universal Turing machine cannot, even in a theoretical sense. I'm not talking about purely "plumbing" type capabilities such as being able to absorb nutrients from blood or whatever, but rather the kinds of things (whatever they may be) that may be needed to achieve consciousness, self-awareness, and similar.

I'm not saying that I have any reason to believe this is necessarily very likely - just that it at least possible.
I agree it is possible, in the sense that anything, short of magic, is possible. But AIUI there is no evidence of such non-computable functioning in the brain, no evidence that it is necessary for consciousness or self-awareness, and no evidence of any mechanism to support it. Having said that, I wouldn't be totally stunned if some form of 'super-Turing computation' is shown to occur, i.e. computational function beyond the standard Turing model; neural networks can apparently be configured this way (although there are some pragmatic doubts). I don't really see this as a problem, but it does lead into potentially murky waters of how we define computation and computational equivalence and the limitations of the standard Turing model.

It seems to me that until we understand more of the function and capabilities of the complex neural networks in the brain, the reasonable view is that they account for consciousness and self-awareness by computational means, be it Turing Complete or super-Turing. It should go without saying that it is a provisional explanation, as for all scientific explanations.
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Old 18th July 2012, 08:57 AM   #2212
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Originally Posted by annnnoid View Post
A dog is conscious ???? Where has this fact been definitively established?
Are you saying that all the money people spend on rendering their dogs unconscious during surgical operations is money wasted?
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Old 18th July 2012, 08:57 AM   #2213
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Wouldn't that just redefine the Turing model ?
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Old 18th July 2012, 09:01 AM   #2214
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Originally Posted by annnnoid View Post
From what I understand…consciousness itself has yet to achieve anything remotely resembling a universally accepted definition so it is likely premature to assign the category to dogs or anything else.
Originally Posted by PixyMisa View Post
No, that's just you.

.…and, apparently, the folks behind this statement who can reasonably claim to represent a significant cross-section of the cog-sci community.

"We have no idea how consciousness emerges from the physical activity of the brain and we do not know whether consciousness can emerge from non-biological systems, such as computers... At this point the reader will expect to find a careful and precise definition of consciousness. You will be disappointed. Consciousness has not yet become a scientific term that can be defined in this way. Currently we all use the term consciousness in many different and often ambiguous ways. Precise definitions of different aspects of consciousness will emerge ... but to make precise definitions at this stage is premature."

There are, quite obviously, fundamental disagreements. Which is the point. Dennet didn’t ‘explain’ it, he simply tried to (…explain it away…). Hofstadter tried as well. There is as yet no consensus on the issue, as the above statement clearly indicates. The achievement of an explicit adjudication of the condition of human consciousness would be news multiple orders of magnitude greater than the Higgs Boson. Short of discovering evidence of God, such a thing would likely be regarded as the most significant discovery in the history of history. A Nobel would be a formality.

I have yet to notice an event of this magnitude. Have you?


Originally Posted by Belz... View Post
1) How is consciousness undefined ?
2) Aren't you just projecting, here ?
3) Assuming it is undefined, how does that make it not biological ?

Flying is flying. Sleeping is sleeping. Love is love. Eating is eating. Oh, wait...

The exact mechanics of flying were not fully understood but we knew that flapping wings was pretty much the way to go a long time ago, etc.

See, there's your problem. You have no idea what the word means (not 'dog', but 'consciousness'.) Of course a dog is conscious. I've yet to see a definition of consciousness that would exclude dogs. It might not be conscious like a human, but that's beside the point.

Y’know Belz….there was a brief period after Tensor gave you that unexpected compliment that you started sounding like someone other than Pixy. That period appears to have expired. I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
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Old 18th July 2012, 09:03 AM   #2215
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Originally Posted by steenkh View Post
Are you saying that all the money people spend on rendering their dogs unconscious during surgical operations is money wasted?

"We have no idea how consciousness emerges from the physical activity of the brain and we do not know whether consciousness can emerge from non-biological systems, such as computers... At this point the reader will expect to find a careful and precise definition of consciousness. You will be disappointed. Consciousness has not yet become a scientific term that can be defined in this way. Currently we all use the term consciousness in many different and often ambiguous ways. Precise definitions of different aspects of consciousness will emerge ... but to make precise definitions at this stage is premature."
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Old 18th July 2012, 09:11 AM   #2216
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Originally Posted by steenkh View Post
Perhaps it could mean mathematically and logically false? In that case I believe we can say it does not exist. Correct me if i am wrong, but Gödel's incompleteness theorem is not an uncertainty theorem; it does not say that there are some false statements that are true, it says that there are some true statements that we cannot derive with a formal system.
Yes, correct.

But in the case of a five-cornered-square, is that mathematically false, or logically false? Or is it an impossibility? And what is the distinction?

The statement "a square has five corners" is false. You could say a mathematical formulation of that statement is a falsehood. The proof isn't consistent. Whatever.

But the statement "I am imagining a square with five corners," is not necessarily false, because it includes non-trivial references to "I" and "imagining," the definition of which is variable and vague. In particular, a full expansion of the formal defintion of "imagining" will implicitly define what the meaning of the statement is. If it turns out that what I mean by "square with five corners" is actually a pentagon, then my statement is true in a sense, because I am indeed imagining a pentagon.

So I would instead in that case say that a five-cornered-square is a mathematical impossibility, not merely a mathematical falsehood, so whatever I am imagining, it definitely isn't that.

If that makes any sense....

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Old 18th July 2012, 09:14 AM   #2217
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Originally Posted by annnnoid View Post
Y’know Belz….there was a brief period after Tensor gave you that unexpected compliment that you started sounding like someone other than Pixy. That period appears to have expired. I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
That's an interesting way to address my points -- that is, by not addressing them at all.

Don't you want to try again and not appear like you're dodging, this time ?
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Old 18th July 2012, 09:26 AM   #2218
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Originally Posted by Clive View Post
Do you claim that is it strictly "physically impossible" for any human brain to do any kind of "computations" or "cognitive tasks" that can't be achieved by any theoretical Turing Complete computing system?

How about the same question but substituting "logically impossible" or "mathematically impossible"?

Note that I've use the words "strictly" and "impossible" to be as clear as I can that a positive response from you will not actually mean that you think it's just "unlikely", or "very unlikely", or "impossible according to current knowledge", or some such similar variation, but in fact absolutely, completely, "I'll-bet-my-life-on-it" impossible, now and for always.
Yes.

However, this has nothing to do with consciousness -- it is impossible to even define a physical analog to a computation or cognitive task that can't be achieved by any theoretical Turing complete computing system.

Meaning, if you have a system of particles, they ain't ever gonna do any hypercomputation.

And before you go all Penrose on me, you should know that quantum computing is not hypercomputing. It is understood that if a quantum computer is ever realized, it will also be merely Turing equivalent, no more.
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Old 18th July 2012, 09:40 AM   #2219
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Originally Posted by annnnoid View Post
…except the as yet undefined fact of consciousness itself.
If it is undefined then how do you refer to it?
Quote:

Pixy will, I'm sure, take grave exception to this conclusion as well....convinced as he is that various of his computerized contraptions have achieved the quality known as consciousness without resort to biochemistry of any kind (elctro-chemistry perhaps....is that related?).
Hypothesis that such an entity as a computer could be similar to consciousness is still a hypothesis.
Quote:

That is what’s referred to as a category error. Consciousness is consciousness.
Then explain where exactly is consciousness that is not a product of biochemistry.

It is not a category error, it is a flase dichotomy on your part.

And more sophistry.
Quote:
Biochemistry is biochemistry. The relationship between the two has yet to be understood.
That is ********, there are part of it that are well understood and parts that aren't, but are making up some vague problem of consciousness.

So where is this consciousness without biochemistry?
Quote:
A comparison could be made to physics. There are no events in biochemistry that are not physics.
Duh
Quote:
That particular relationship is well understood.
yes and no, but you want to say that some magic word named 'consciousness' is different. Which is either dualism or sohistry.

So where is consciousness without biochemistry, with the invisible pink unicorn in my garage?
Quote:
The equivalent consciousness / biochemical relationship barely exists even as a question….
Says who, not neruobiologists, maybe philosophers making desperate grasps as a declining position of sophistry, where is a neuroanatomist who studies attention and arousal saying that?

Or just one person?

Really, a lack of perfect understanding does not mean a lack of some understanding.

Or are you a 'brain as TV receiver of consciousness' type of person.

Where are the hordes of neurologists saying this, or is this where you will find the equivalent of climate change deniers and deniers of evolution.

Put you cards on the table.
Quote:
and this fact is acknowledged by just about any neuro-biologist currently working in the area.
********, who said what exactly. or is this just some over generalization and false dichotomy on your part. Who exactly says that?

A lack of complete understanding is not a lack of understanding, so who made these claims, exactly? Where and when?
Quote:



A dog is conscious ???? Where has this fact been definitively established?
So you don't even know the common medical definition of consciousness and you think that a dog is not conscious? You brag about you knowing about what neurobiologists commonly think and you make such a naive statemet?

What you mean is that you want consciousness defined in some special way but are a sophist at heart and can't present direct evidence of your weak argument.

I will mark that down as special pleading, magical thinking and ignorance.

We are in the SMT forum, so the standard common definition of medical consciousness would apply.

Not some Vague Problem of Consciousness.
Quote:
From what I understand…consciousness itself has yet to achieve anything remotely resembling a universally accepted definition
So you don't know squat about neurology? Why did you say something about neuro biology and common beliefs?

There is a common definition, just not a magical one.
Quote:
so it is likely premature to assign the category to dogs or anything else.
Argue from ignorance much?
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Old 18th July 2012, 09:41 AM   #2220
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Originally Posted by steenkh View Post
Are you saying that all the money people spend on rendering their dogs unconscious during surgical operations is money wasted?
Or that they are a believer in the the Vague Problem of Consciousness.
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Old 18th July 2012, 09:44 AM   #2221
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Originally Posted by annnnoid View Post
… From what I understand…consciousness itself has yet to achieve anything remotely resembling a universally accepted definition so it is likely premature to assign the category to dogs or anything else.
Including humans.
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Old 18th July 2012, 09:47 AM   #2222
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Originally Posted by annnnoid View Post
.…and, apparently, the folks behind this statement who can reasonably claim to represent a significant cross-section of the cog-sci community.

"We have no idea how consciousness emerges from the physical activity of the brain and we do not know whether consciousness can emerge from non-biological systems, such as computers... At this point the reader will expect to find a careful and precise definition of consciousness. You will be disappointed. Consciousness has not yet become a scientific term that can be defined in this way. Currently we all use the term consciousness in many different and often ambiguous ways. Precise definitions of different aspects of consciousness will emerge ... but to make precise definitions at this stage is premature."
Oh, quotes out of context that you don't give a citation for are just that.

Quotes out of context.
Quote:


There are, quite obviously, fundamental disagreements. Which is the point. Dennet didn’t ‘explain’ it, he simply tried to (…explain it away…). Hofstadter tried as well.
And how does this become common to neuro-biologists or is this just some global warming/creationism style of argument.

Where is this a common belief held by neuro-biologists or will you admit that you are ignorant?
Quote:
There is as yet no consensus on the issue, as the above statement clearly indicates.
WT Fred, are you really now making an argument from authority based upon a small sample of one?
Quote:
The achievement of an explicit adjudication of the condition of human consciousness would be news multiple orders of magnitude greater than the Higgs Boson.
********. It just shows you don't know what neurologists and biologists call consciousness and have some magical phrase of special pleading.
Quote:
Short of discovering evidence of God, such a thing would likely be regarded as the most significant discovery in the history of history. A Nobel would be a formality.
Did the discovery of anesthesia get a Nobel?

Do you know anything about neurology and medicine?
Quote:

I have yet to notice an event of this magnitude. Have you?
Argument from popular media and incredulity.
Quote:




Y’know Belz….there was a brief period after Tensor gave you that unexpected compliment that you started sounding like someone other than Pixy. That period appears to have expired. I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I guess you don't have any data, evidence or an argument, when did Dennet become the Pope of Neuro-biology?
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Old 18th July 2012, 09:49 AM   #2223
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Originally Posted by annnnoid View Post
"We have no idea how consciousness emerges from the physical activity of the brain and we do not know whether consciousness can emerge from non-biological systems, such as computers... At this point the reader will expect to find a careful and precise definition of consciousness. You will be disappointed. Consciousness has not yet become a scientific term that can be defined in this way. Currently we all use the term consciousness in many different and often ambiguous ways. Precise definitions of different aspects of consciousness will emerge ... but to make precise definitions at this stage is premature."
More citations out of context.

More argument from ignorance, neurologists use the term consciousness everyday.

Global warming denial is not pretty when dressed up as consciousness denial.

So all the *********** professionals who use the term consciousness explicitly defined everyday don't matter compered to a quote out of context.
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Old 18th July 2012, 10:16 AM   #2224
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DD take a chill pill or something your getting a bit too excited
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Old 18th July 2012, 11:12 AM   #2225
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Originally Posted by Belz... View Post
Wouldn't that just redefine the Turing model ?
If that was for me - yes, effectively it would extend the functional definition. It's just not the canonical version. I get the feeling there's some controversy about the whole Turing / super-Turing / computational semantics.
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Old 18th July 2012, 11:17 AM   #2226
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tensordyne View Post
OK, tell me how you show that the way I experience red is the same as the way you do using what you think science is about.

Originally Posted by tsig View Post
Have you ever taken a test for color blindness?
Originally Posted by Jeff Corey View Post
I've given tests for color blindness. What is your point?
Originally Posted by tsig View Post
Since we can test for color blindness we have a scientific way to determine what red is perceived as by humans.
Originally Posted by Jeff Corey View Post
Not really. The test tells whether a particular human can discriminate between certain visible wavelengths when apparent brightness is controlled for. It completely relies on the measurement of observable behavior and can be accomplished in nonverbal animals such as the pigeon..
Originally Posted by tsig View Post
Are you saying that seeing red is more than discriminating between certain visible wavelengths?
Originally Posted by Jeff Corey View Post
No, I don't think so. What's your point?
The claim was made that we can't scientifically prove what red is I pointed out that color blind tests do just that and you questioned that by saying that the tests only tested human perception of red so I asked you if you thought red was something physical, at that point you seemed to lose the point of the discussion.
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Old 18th July 2012, 11:20 AM   #2227
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Originally Posted by Jeff Corey View Post
Originally Posted by annnnoid View Post
…consciousness itself has yet to achieve anything remotely resembling a universally accepted definition so it is likely premature to assign the category to dogs or anything else.
Including humans.
Interesting point...
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Old 18th July 2012, 11:23 AM   #2228
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Originally Posted by PixyMisa View Post
No, that's just you.

It seems to be a popular argument lately "We don't know everything therefore god*".

*or whatever woo you are peddling.

Kind of a scorched earth approach to argumentation.8
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Old 18th July 2012, 11:28 AM   #2229
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Originally Posted by tsig View Post
The claim was made that we can't scientifically prove what red is I pointed out that color blind tests do just that and you questioned that by saying that the tests only tested human perception of red so I asked you if you thought red was something physical, at that point you seemed to lose the point of the discussion.
I guess it helps to clarify precisely which meaning of 'red' is being used. For example, after-image colours allow one to perceive red (the sensation of redness) without the retina being stimulated by light primarily in the red frequencies of the spectrum (look at a bright green object for a while, then at a plain white surface).
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Old 18th July 2012, 01:22 PM   #2230
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Originally Posted by !Kaggen View Post
DD take a chill pill or something your getting a bit too excited
Whatever, it was still a stupid statement, the term consciousness is used everyday by professionals, including neurologists, the basis of consciousness is biological, it is biochemistry.

But the people who ascribe some foolish magical property to consciousness are still foolish. There is no dragon hiding under the carpet, there is nothing magic about consciousness, it is a process of the brain, it is biochemistry. It is not absolutely understood but there is no freaking mystery either.

If someone wants to make up **** I will call them on it, Dennett included.

I suppose these people are all idiots?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?t...0consciousness

Maybe some of these are:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?t...0consciousness

There are plenty of other professionals using the term consciousness all the freaking time, sp just because some foolish person wants to redefine it as some ineffable magic quality and say there is no common consensus in its usage does not mean that they are right.

"Consciousness' is a set of *********** behaviors, it is not some stupid Kantian meta-state that defies definition.

Now if this was in R&P I would ignore and argue with crap like that but in SMT I will attack magical thinking for its muddle headedness. Consciousness it not some entity of magical proportions that defies definition, it is a set of behaviors, and the fact that some people reify is nonsense.

There is nothing mysterious about consciousness, it has degrees of being understood but it is not magical and impossible to define. It is defined and used everyday, those who wish to say that it is not need to use another term.
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Old 18th July 2012, 02:04 PM   #2231
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Originally Posted by tsig View Post
The claim was made that we can't scientifically prove what red is I pointed out that color blind tests do just that and you questioned that by saying that the tests only tested human perception of red so I asked you if you thought red was something physical, at that point you seemed to lose the point of the discussion.
Whether or not one can discriminate between two colors is not the same as what those colors actually look like. Maybe it doesn't matter. Different people have different favorite colors, but that might be more because of association than how their color qualia are manifesting for them.
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Old 18th July 2012, 02:06 PM   #2232
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Originally Posted by Dancing David View Post
Put you cards on the table.
Yes, there certainly are some god and/or woo cards that are being held close to the chest here.
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Old 18th July 2012, 02:22 PM   #2233
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Originally Posted by steenkh View Post
Are you saying that all the money people spend on rendering their dogs unconscious during surgical operations is money wasted?
Semantic error. Different definitions of consciousness.

The thread is about the seemingly magic ongoing process of awareness going on in human and, most likely, most vertebrate brains.

It's not about the consciousness of a wasp, for example, we'd need to knock out so it'd stop fidgeting during some kind of operation. The difference between an unconscious wasp and a paralyzed wasp would be important because we wouldn't want it to be on attack after an upsetting procedure, but that does not suggest it's consciousness is like a person's or a hedgehog's.
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Old 18th July 2012, 02:24 PM   #2234
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If we had a drug that temporarily altered the brain so that nothing at all became remembered, even for a split second, how different would that be from being unconscious, or a p-zombie?
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Old 18th July 2012, 02:39 PM   #2235
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Originally Posted by tsig View Post
The claim was made that we can't scientifically prove what red is I pointed out that color blind tests do just that and you questioned that by saying that the tests only tested human perception of red so I asked you if you thought red was something physical, at that point you seemed to lose the point of the discussion.
And I pointed out I have given those tests and you don't know what you are talking about, I didn't see an answer then, nor now.
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Old 18th July 2012, 02:47 PM   #2236
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Originally Posted by Mr. Scott View Post
If we had a drug that temporarily altered the brain so that nothing at all became remembered, even for a split second, how different would that be from being unconscious, or a p-zombie?
Well, various high mucky-mucks of Bhuddism might suggest that such a state would be Nirvana.
Evidently, you need to go through some time with memory and sequence first, so you know what you're getting into.
Raw observation is a possibility, with no storing or inner reflection or dialog concerning the perceptions implications.

Is there such a thing as anti-magical thinking?
Wherein you're so scientific and pragmatic, that the default state is one of rejecting everything that doesn't fit well into your prior understanding?

Somewhere between magical and anti-magical thinking, with luck, we'll learn new stuff. We'll be objective, but we won't have to become storm troopers or flower children.

From the onset, I thought this thread should have been in R&P.
Now, its devolved into petty insults and arrogance, as is often the case amongst all us geniuses.

Hippy chicks, under 25 years of age, to my mind, were the pinnacle of human achievement. The flowers were rather tolerable.

And you hard science dicks want to wreck that?


If you seek biological relevance, sometimes you need to go for a woo ride.
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Old 18th July 2012, 09:51 PM   #2237
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Originally Posted by annnnoid View Post
.…and, apparently, the folks behind this statement who can reasonably claim to represent a significant cross-section of the cog-sci community.
Yep.

Quote:
There are, quite obviously, fundamental disagreements.
Nope. There are disagreements, but not fundamental ones. Neuroscientists may disagree on the details, because after all this is an area still under study. But you are simply wrong

Quote:
Which is the point. Dennet didn’t ‘explain’ it, he simply tried to (…explain it away…). Hofstadter tried as well.
What you mean is that he didn't invoke magic, which is precisely why his explanation is valid. Consciousness exhibits no magical attributes and requires no magical causes, just computation.
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Old 18th July 2012, 09:54 PM   #2238
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Originally Posted by dlorde View Post
I agree it is possible, in the sense that anything, short of magic, is possible. But AIUI there is no evidence of such non-computable functioning in the brain, no evidence that it is necessary for consciousness or self-awareness, and no evidence of any mechanism to support it. Having said that, I wouldn't be totally stunned if some form of 'super-Turing computation' is shown to occur, i.e. computational function beyond the standard Turing model; neural networks can apparently be configured this way (although there are some pragmatic doubts).
Yeah, sorry, no. Hypercomputers need to be able to complete infinite amounts of work in finite time, and that's physically impossible. Anything less - anything finite - is "only" Turing-complete.
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Old 18th July 2012, 11:50 PM   #2239
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Originally Posted by Mr. Scott View Post
Yes, there certainly are some god and/or woo cards that are being held close to the chest here.
Has it not dawned on you yet, what is going on here?

Its quite simple, there are a few posters who presume that consciousness can be produced through computation.

In opposition to this are a few posters who are pointing out that this presumption cannot at this point be made.

Accompanied by a few posters who are not falling into one of these two camps, but taking an interest in points made here and there.

No woo anywhere as far as I can see.
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Old 19th July 2012, 12:00 AM   #2240
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Originally Posted by annnnoid View Post
As simply as possible....King Lear meant something.

As for your questions...I'd speculate that something that exists cannot examine the existence of something that doesn't. As far as I know, 'nothing' has never been known to occur (at least nowhere near where I live). But then there is the nagging question of...out there. What actually does occupy all that empty space? How empty is it? Are there regions of....nothing? If so...what would happen if 'something' went there?
Exactly, as existing limited finite beings we are not in a position to examine "nothing", or "existence" or how one came out of the other or not.

We are entirely oblivious of the existence upon which our house of cards is balanced.

What is fascinating is that we are able to reason, to examine "nothing" and "existence" theoretically and create out of nothing a philosophy of metaphysics.

So we can say something about "nothing" after all, unfortunately we have no idea if what we say is correct or pie in the sky. Or if in fact we actually know anything at all.

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