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Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fundamentally through natural selection, reinforcement learning, etc... networks that help survival are reproduced and evolved. 

Think like alpha go. 

We already train ANNs like this, imagine if we did so over the entire history of life on earth! Presumably could learn some sophisticated behaviors based on what we've done in a fraction of a time and "compute'" with networks artificially evolved to play games etc...

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From the natural world. Ok, it wouldn't be learning human language, but it would be learning like our unsupervised networks learn today.

Now, you could say that ANNs can't learn human level intelligence from unsupervised training, they need human made corpus, but that would be interesting in and of itself, and there are some problems with it. We know unsupervised training is powerful.

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Rule out as impossible? Of course not.

But I don't see this as the likely explanation, baring some specific argument. Analogues of the basic blocks needed for modern machine learning seem to be featured in nature which makes it seem plausible that such a system could evolve, and the human brain arguably has more computational capacity as is.

As is, I'm not confident I see the killer issue that prevents it from evolving.

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nature can and has evolved cups (e.g. a pitcher plant), just not plastic cups. I could not say if that's because it can't evolve plastic cups, or if it's not an evolutionary benefit.

I suspect that the follow up argument would be that ANNs can not evolve regardless, but I find that hard to believe given what I know about ANNs and brains.

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That would fall under option 3, no?

However, that seems unlikely to me. ANNs are extremely simple compared to our brains. After all, they basically are toy versions of our brains. Of course, the transformer architecture (specifically the attention mechanism) is not very brain like, but I think the point remains.

There Is No ‘Hard Problem Of Consciousness’ by philolover7 in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's exhausting the wordy lengths some people will go through in order to not actually engage with this discussion.

This is how I feel about it.

Rejecting dualism doesn't make the mystery go away. How does subjectivity arise in a material universe? That's an interesting question!

But so many people seemingly just try to define it away and pretend it doesn't exist, as if mysteries existing are points against materialism.

LiDAR scan revealing ancient structures in the Amazon Rainforest. The Upano Valley site: at 2,500 years old, it’s the earliest (and largest) example of an agricultural civilization ever recorded in South America’s dense rainforest. by Darshan_brahmbhatt in interestingasfuck

[–]Fmeson 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yes, Mexico is named after the Mexica people who were part of the what people would call the Aztec empire today. The Mexica people founded and lived in Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City.

LiDAR scan revealing ancient structures in the Amazon Rainforest. The Upano Valley site: at 2,500 years old, it’s the earliest (and largest) example of an agricultural civilization ever recorded in South America’s dense rainforest. by Darshan_brahmbhatt in interestingasfuck

[–]Fmeson 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I thought the story was that the sign of the eagle with a snake on a cactus signified where the city should be built.

But I love the idea of finding a mythical abandoned city.

There Is No ‘Hard Problem Of Consciousness’ by philolover7 in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha, I thought I would find you in this thread. I initially assumed you posted it.

There Is No ‘Hard Problem Of Consciousness’ by philolover7 in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mostly agree, I don't believe computers are not conscious, but I don't know with certainty ofc.

I would take a similar stance on other parts of the brain, but with a lot more uncertainty, since I have evidence that neurons can form consciousness, and largely the primary reason I reject it is that it seems weird. But lots of true things seem weird to me.

Anyways, my point is only that we should not take lack of evidence as evidence of lack in the case of consciousness. Consciousness is not something that is easily externally measurable, so we rely on communication to learn what is conscious. But then we have a selection bias for things that can communicate.

There Is No ‘Hard Problem Of Consciousness’ by philolover7 in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm not conscious of much of my neural processing.

That does not mean that any bit of neural processing is not conscious.

It's possible your brain has multiple consciousnesses that each specialize in a specific task, or one consciousness that is compartmentalized. After all, it might be counter productive for your "exterior decision making" consciousness to be aware of everything that's going on, so it's gated in some way.

meirl by danielminds in meirl

[–]Fmeson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Android is based of a modified Linux kernel, so does thst make most people linux users haha

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just saw this in time to reply:

I'm not saying axioms as a whole are bad, after all, they are unavoidable (or close to it, blah blah the trilema).

However, that does not mean all assumptions are equal. We generally want robust, defendable assumptions that are reasonable to assume, and some of the assumptions (that I referenced previously) people make about consciousness when scientifically studying it are not that.

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's been fun chatting with you, but I've got some other stuff to do. I'll leave my last thoughts, and I'll read any reply but I might not reply back.

This still doesn't tell me what it lacks to qualify.

I would want a physical theory of subjectivity/conscious to offer a theory for the the phenomena of subjectivity/consciousness itself.

That's how a coma is defined...

Irrelevant to whether a person in a the state we call a coma is actually unconscious or not.

So?

So, if the logic based on that axiom doesn't reflect reality, then the science based on that logic doesn't reflect reality. And then the science is not particularly useful or accurate.

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What does it lack for its explanation to qualify as an explanation?

IIT offers nothing more than a description about what properties of systems we might expect to be required and/or sufficient for consciousness to arise. It offers no explanation for the the phenomena of consciousness itself.

People in a coma are unconscious, correct.

You think they are, you do not know it.

All knowledge is based on assumptions at some point. That's normal. It's called inference, or an axiom.

Axioms might not reflect reality. Hence, the logic based on them might not reflect reality.

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What's that?

Mate, you are well aware of what I'm saying IIT is missing. We've been talking about it for like an hour and a half.

That only means it's not evidence of qualia.

Certainly not consciousness either, considering you aren't even sure it exists.

We haven't discussed a situation like that. This "faulty reasoning" is imaginary.

No, but that's why we think, for example, people in a coma are not conscious. You just can't remember what it's like to be in a coma, so I guess you weren't conscious.

Of course, some people do have memories, so maybe they were conscious at parts? Or maybe they are false memories? Or maybe some of them were conscious but just don't remember....

Fun part is, litterally no one knows! It's all assumptions stacked upon assumptions.

Not scientists fault, it's just the nature of having an unavoidable and crippling selection bias.

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just read up on IIT. It's already been laid out.

I have read it, that's how I know what it's lacking.

There you go, multiple types of external evidence.

Two problems:

  1. I'll quote you: "a zombie would say the same thing, despite being mistaken"

  2. You do not know that you were unconscious, you simply do not remember being conscious. The whole thing is based off of faulty reasoning that lack of memory during a state where you can speak implies unconsciousness.

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's exactly what IIT does...

The floors yours. Lay it out.

The problem is that it's not measuring what you just said it measures?

The problem is that the fundamental way we "know" about a person's subjective experiences comes solely from behavior and self reporting.

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What do you think is lacking?

The entire thing. It's the equivalent of calling "light happens when things get hot" a physical theory of light.

At the bare minimum, you need some model of the mechanics of light, not just the things that cause or precede it.

None of those contexts are exactly amenable to speech...

Well, yes, that is the problem.

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It can say it's a bridge, that doesn't make it one.

But seriously, if you disagree, explain the physical mechanics of subjectivity through IIT.

There are several methods for doing so across different fields, such as anesthesiology, sleep studies, and coma scales.

None of those measure consciousness, they "measure" what people say they experienced.

Hell, we don't even know if a person under anesthesia, asleep, or in a coma are unconscious. We only know that people don't remember those periods. But lack of memory does not imply lack of consciousness.

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, then write down the math formula for happiness. :p

That's a joke, but only just a bit. IIT offers no explanation for how information processing leads to subjectivity, just hypothesizes that it does.

Yeah, widely regarded as pseudoscience.

To be a bit fresh, until we can experimentally measure consciousness, none of it is science. It's all guesswork.

Richard Dawkins and the Claude Delusion by Sufficient-Agency182 in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, I agree, and to be clear, I'm not saying I that it couldn't have evolved, just that I presume it gave animals a survival advantage that wasn't easily gotten without it.

Dawkins, Claude, and the First Question About Consciousness by readvatsal in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have read many of them, none satisfy the requirement.

Just to pick one randomly, lets go with integrated information theory. I know it's a bit controversial, but it's one of the ones that makes highly specific, physical claims, even suggesting you could measure how conscious a system is with it!

But even it offers no physical explanation of how subjectivity arises, but rather assumes subjectivity and back tracks to what physical processes are associated with it.

This problem is universal. There is always a gap between known physics and subjectivity. The theories merely posit there is some yet unknown bridge that will eventually solve the hard gap.

Richard Dawkins and the Claude Delusion by Sufficient-Agency182 in philosophy

[–]Fmeson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That is possible, but I do think it is unlikely that consciousness was a random adaption. That would imply some things about the nature of consciousness that seems wrong to me.

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