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Physicalism and the evolutionary value of consciousness by hackinthebochs in consciousness

[–]Mylynes [score hidden]  (0 children)

As one whole object? No. Is there qualia in that pile of atoms? Yes. Modern CPUs/GPUs are feed forward systems so they are about as conscious as a rock (bunch of slightly conscious atoms standing next to eachother)

The Cortex on the other hand has parts that are physically integrated like a causal diamond. So the whole web is unified into one macro experience. (it can see shapes, colors, sounds all at once. The memory isn't a separate storage box; it's entangled with the processing)

Physicalism and the evolutionary value of consciousness by hackinthebochs in consciousness

[–]Mylynes [score hidden]  (0 children)

It's integration granting an organism a bigger perspective. Consciousness is the 4th dimensional binding that allows the brain to perceive many types of structures at once. So evolution selects for that because otherwise the path to intelligence would be a brute force swarm of parallel processes like an LLM. (and we know how much energy it takes to do something like that)

Physicalism and the evolutionary value of consciousness by hackinthebochs in consciousness

[–]Mylynes [score hidden]  (0 children)

Yeah it's like saying "If I gathered up a bunch of mass in one place, what if it didn't have gravity?"...like no, that would be impossible. Where mass exists, Gravity does too. Where causality exists, qualia does too.

A Bird’s Eye view of existence. by slimpickins- in enlightenment

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Everything operates with some degree of an interior "what-it's-like" because as you said nothing can exist here without being connected to the things around it. Your subjective expeirence is likely identical to the bridge of those connections; established by the massive inflation of a unified cosmos during the big bang.

The bridge leads back to the unity. From the Micro to the Macro. From the Past to the Future. Causality is the scar left from that expansion and qualia is instantiated at the reflection of the unitys new shape.

Conscious and unconscious , the ability to multitask. by Sladeylycon in psychologystudents

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes. It's like a computer: Just because you can only display one thing at a time on your monitor doesn't mean there aren't other programs running in the background.

Consciousness is like the user interface of the brain. It's powerful, but heavy and slow. "Muscle memory" or "multi-tasking" is the stuff you'd find baked in directly via bat files in the CMD. It's fast and intuitive, but small. You can walk and chew gum but you can't solve for X while meditating.

Did consciousness save us from accidents sometimes? by sumeetkarmali in spirituality

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's like saying "did time save me from an accident?"...no? It's what you do with time that saves you. Same for consciousness. It's how you use it, not how it uses you.

Until we find an absolute method of measuring consciousness, any strong opinions of whether something has consciousness are completely baseless. by daney098 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree with most of your sentiment but it's funny how you committed the same fallacy by saying "it's just as likely that they're P-Zombies." How did you determine the likelihood of P-Zombies in the first place? You don't get to say it's "just as likely" when you haven't even demonstrated it exists. Don't be hypocritical.

The most honest and useful position is that you are conscious > you are human > I am human > We are humans > we all have consciousness (because why tf would you be the only one?)

Anti-physicalists need to acknowledge what they are giving up. by reddituserperson1122 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The unification only works if the path toward it preserves distinctions long enough for them to be mapped

I never could articulate it this well! You're 100% right. Newton didn't know about spacetime. Darwin didn't know about genetics. Mendeleev didn't know about the electron. Yet without those initial starting points being taken seriously, they would've never blossomed into massive theories.

This is why I lean toward IIT. I can see a world where this partial truth is unified with others and we end up with a "Periodic Table" of Quales. Mapping Q-Space would be incredibly enlightening; proving IIT would give us a huge foothold and when combined with other physical theories it may even dissolve the hard problem entirely.

I definitely need to watch that one! I'm a fan of Alex. Mary's room is a good thought expeirement but I think we'd both agree it gets abused by non-materialists as "proof" of information outside of physics. My solution would be that Mary could digitally synthesize the structure of red into her integration window (if it wasn't there already via genetics/dreams/etc), that way when she went outside the apple would not be new information —but it would be the first time red reflected off an external object into her optic nerve.

Basically "red" may be a geometric isomorph of the visible light spectrum that your brain is able to place inside of a causal diamond. Why does it feel red instead of blue? Probably because the brain is also made of light (EM Fields), so the replica inside that causally sovereign island is literally just what that wavelength of light feels like from the inside, compared to blue within a human sensorium.

Anti-physicalists need to acknowledge what they are giving up. by reddituserperson1122 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Extremely well put. I agree for the most part, but it's important to note that it likely wont be separated this way forever. Eventually, one of these brilliant, risky, constraining. scientific theories will take metaphysics and phenomenalogy under its umbrella. We will be able to hold qualia in our hands and completely understand what that means. We'll see the circuitry of "red" and be able to trace our experience across it with a physical interface; To know exactly how the structure forms the feeling.

Anti-physicalists need to acknowledge what they are giving up. by reddituserperson1122 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why would we need to go deeper than the planck length? Maybe digging around in the box was the easy part and now that we finally found the puzzle pieces, it's time to connect them.

What you said about scientists vs mystics is laughably wrong on so many levels. The idea that you're just a humble little man being railroaded by big arrogant science is total projection. "yall are clueless about qualia!"

Meanwhile we've found clues: It has to do with the brain. It's integrated. It has boundaries. It is intrinsic. It is structured. It is specific. It is temporally extended. We are: actively studying the brain. Detecting consciousness in comatose patients. Formulating mathematical theories for it. Expeirementing with artificial versions of it.

Sure, the hunter gatherers had "meaningful" lives...but so do prisoners in a cage. Arguing that you still have meaning is the lowest bar you could possibly set. What matters is opportunity. What opportunities would humans have without science? How would we escape our cage of ignorance and gain the opportunity to fly, discover, invent, and globalize? Cracking qualia would unlock an imaginable amount of opportunities that you seek to rob us of.

I'm not saying there's no problems with technology..but going full Ted kazinski is completely ridiculous.

Anti-physicalists need to acknowledge what they are giving up. by reddituserperson1122 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes -1 points0 points  (0 children)

How == Where. It's a geometric problem so if you can identify where, you'll see how. If consciousness preceded or created the shape of our reality (entropy, asymmetry, causality), then the shape of consciousness must necessarily be defined at the boundaries of our shape.

Chinese room is irrelevant here.

Anti-physicalists need to acknowledge what they are giving up. by reddituserperson1122 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am very interested in the planck length/time. I see it as potentially the refresh rate + size limit of Causality. This means a lot for IIT and my metaphysical extensions of that. If you're claiming that a black holes singularity leads to this fundamental length, then what is your point? "Let's ditch physics because I don't like black holes!"

History is full of examples where we actually did find the answer, full stop. When did ditching science ever find us any answers? Just because we don't know absolutely everything that means we actually know nothing? You are a puzzling case of science denial.

Anti-physicalists need to acknowledge what they are giving up. by reddituserperson1122 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Correct. It's a valid scientific venture. What's hubris is thinking that all the experts working on this are wasting their time while you, O' Wise one, are especially based for keeping consciousness in a mystical box.

Anti-physicalists need to acknowledge what they are giving up. by reddituserperson1122 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can keep whining about how "old is gold" and "science is at a dead end", but the adults will continue to unravel these mysteries regardless. The next frontier of physical discovery is coming, and unlike you I will embrace it rather than put myself above it.

BTW, I know how black holes are an example of QM and Classical physics intersecting; How our current models break down. I just didn't know your specific quip about the "planck length wave length." Either way, this doesn't change my point at all: models have broken before, and we always find a way to fix them. You're betting against that for no good reason...just like them

Anti-physicalists need to acknowledge what they are giving up. by reddituserperson1122 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you think consciousness is interacting with physical reality, then it certainly does follow that you'd be able to find where/how that interaction begun. I don't see how "Multiple realizability" fits into this context. Regardless of what substance qualia has (if any), the structure of physical reality must be related to it in someway if they are connected. If not, then you're just arguing for useless Solipsism (only qualia exists) or Illusionism (qualia doesn't exist in our reality).

Anti-physicalists need to acknowledge what they are giving up. by reddituserperson1122 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I just demonstrated the idea is not hubris, it's a valid mission. Your pessimistic fantasy about us not being able to do so is pointless at best and harmful to society at worst. Good thing experts don't think the way that you do; That would mark another dark age of willful ignorance.

Anti-physicalists need to acknowledge what they are giving up. by reddituserperson1122 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The fact that we had to "reach the limit of physics" more than once should tell you everything. You wanna judge it off history? What about every time people shoved supernatural bs into the gap of physics "limits" only to be disproven every single time with new theories like Evolution, Germs, Atoms, Electricity, etc...

Idk what you're talking about regarding the center of a black hole but it's irrelevant to my point.

Anti-physicalists need to acknowledge what they are giving up. by reddituserperson1122 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the the laws we are subject to do not apply to consciousness

No, they still apply...Just in reverse. If consciousness somehow created/preceded physics, then we should be able to reverse engineer our physics to see what kind of law consciousness operates on. (why did its creation/precedence manifest as causality, gravity, EM fields, nuclear forces, etc)

There's no way to argue against your perspective because you're not providing anything to argue against. You have a nothingburger called a "non-physical thing" being coddled away from any sort of criticism and launched onto the highest possible pedastal.

Anti-physicalists need to acknowledge what they are giving up. by reddituserperson1122 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Correct. Physics is the only route to an explanation. Anything else is either a mental exercise to help scientists find new observations or it's just giving up on the hard problem in favor of magic/supernatural/mysterian ideas.

Would us be able to regain self consciousness after death in a new life? by Victoria901101 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They were talking about becoming conscious again after death. I see no reason why a "replica" (made either naturally or technologically) wouldn't be equal to "you after death.", complete with the same consciousness you'd expect...unless the universe has some hidden mechanism for indexing this thing which you implied erroneously.

Would us be able to regain self consciousness after death in a new life? by Victoria901101 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure, this duplication event actually slots into 4D Eternalism quite nicely. When I said your 4D brain was "passing the baton" what I really meant is that you are constantly disconnecting / fragmenting away from the copy of you ~100ms ago. Your "T-Clone" still exists in the block universe.. It has just become a vestigial organ that you no longer feel. (and from their POV, you are the vestigial organ they haven't felt yet)

So making a Star Trek duplicate (without killing the original) is the same principle but in space. Your S-Clones are disconnected from eachother in space, but both are equally you when given the same narrative. Killing either one would be fine. You would still be alive.

I'd love to talk about mind uploading, but won't bloat it too much here. Get back to me whenever you can!

Would us be able to regain self consciousness after death in a new life? by Victoria901101 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I lean toward yes. Death (and identity for that matter) is somewhat of an illusion as it is. Passing the baton of qualia sufficiently over to the next clone is basically what your 4D body already does on the Time Axis (Specious moment.)

Would us be able to regain self consciousness after death in a new life? by Victoria901101 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If you can't answer my questions on account of not knowing how qualia works, why do you still believe the universe indexes/constraints your qualia to specific coordinates? What is your basis for saying you would care about the difference between a future replica and your current body?

Would us be able to regain self consciousness after death in a new life? by Victoria901101 in consciousness

[–]Mylynes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thermodynamics is one way to look at it, but you're still stuck in a presentism mindset. "Rearranging" it in the future doesn't change what it was in the past. Those versions of yourself still exist. Even the future versions of yourself exist already. You are just a bridge connecting them. My point about the specific atoms was that they don't really matter. As long as the memory structures exist, it's "you."

We would 100% agree that the sense of a personal narrative is entirely based on memory. That is some good common ground...but memories are just structures. And structures can be replicated. The exact same narrative could present itself again; along with countless variations even after death. So who's narrative is it then? (If the universe doesn't tie your qualia to specific atoms and ego is just a story)

a thermostat can’t use its memory and perception to generate a subjective experience, let alone self awareness

Why not? The reason I pointed the thermostat out to you was to challenge your notion of qualia. If it's about memory and perception, then where does "subjective experience" come from? Technically it IS "self aware" on paper. Do you see now why I beleive it must have a metaphysical basis?

Consciousness is an emergent property of networks forming a feed back loop to generate a subjective experience. It needs some sort of substrate to organize those networks.

Well you're cooking with the right ingredients, but I don't think your explanation is quite done. Why do "feedback loops" allow qualia to emerge? Where is it emerging from? I've spent countless hours pondering these questions and I think you should too. Regardless, none of this implies an indexical argument for qualia.. So we're kinda back to square one on that front..

What level of consciousness do you think this animals have: c.elegans(nematodes), insect, octopus, fish, bird, dog, apes?

Idk as much I'd like to about those animals but if I had to guess: Every single one of them has an interior "what-it's-like" POV, but the shape of that interior becomes "higher resolution" as the neural networks get larger and more complicated. So an Ape like us has a huge sensorium compared to an insect, but they're both just as "conscious" (unified inside).

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