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Consciousness...

kelly1

Hello, long time no speak

Let me start by saying I'm not sure how exactly to formulate the question I'm trying to ask...

My question concerns how consciousness/sentience is a property of matter.

At what level is matter self-aware? Is it a proper of quarks, protons/neutrons and/or electrons?

A brain, in the materialistic view, is nothing more than a complex arrangement of molecules which in turn are composed of atoms, electrons, protons/neutrons etc. Is the brain essentially an organic computer? If so, who/what programs the computer?

How is choice possible? It's clear (to me) that we all have the ability to make choices. Computers can only act according to pre-programmed instructions. We humans are capable of making decisions in unforeseen situations. Why doesn't our brain "crash" in these situations?

Is it possible for matter to be self-aware?

Thoughts welcome.

Thanks,
Noel.

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Other books in this area that I thought were good are "Freedom Evolves" by Daniel Dennett and "How the mind works" by Steven Pinker (Although "The Blank Slate which covers similar area is a better book in my opinion). Great stocking fillers this Winterval season.

kelly1

All, sorry I'm up to my eyes in work today, will post later.

Tim Robbins

kelly1 wrote: »

Is it possible for matter to be self-aware?

Thoughts welcome.

Thanks,
Noel.

I think some parallels can be drawn with the evolution of the eye. Something simple, becomes something complex after millions of years of evolution.

Matter arranges into lifeforms which react to external conditions, even if the reactions are very simple and predictive. After a few more millions years, we have brains, then more complex brains which make more complicated decisions and that's all it is.

Goduznt Xzst

kelly1 wrote: »

All, sorry I'm up to my eyes in work today, will post later.

It's ok I'll post for you

kelly1 - "AH HA!!! So God must exist because science doesn't yet fully understand Consciousness. I'll go one step further and let you's know that this God is clearly the Christian God... pwnt, ktnxbye :pac:"

on another note, Descartes walks into a bar, the bartender approaches him and askes, "Ah, good evening sir, shall I get you the usual drink?" Descartes replies "I think not..." and promptly vanishes.

Myksyk

I think Robin's points are well made. The fact is that matter in and of itself is not 'sentient'. Dawkins and Pinker talk about this quite a bit. Individual cells are mindless biobots. However, when evolved over millions of years, some collections of these biobots have been seen to produce an emergent property of consciousness. In the same way, no individual cells see in three dimensions but the experience of sight is a result of millions of these cells working together. There are endless amounts of human experience which are ALL mediated and controlled by collections of cells (and reducing downward ... by collections of atoms). These are wondrous in themselves (e.g. sight, hearing, facial recognition, humour, language, music etc etc etc) yet no-one would argue they are not the result of brain activity. I think consciousness is unlikely to be any different.

stevencarrwork

kelly1 wrote: »

How is choice possible? It's clear (to me) that we all have the ability to make choices. Computers can only act according to pre-programmed instructions. We humans are capable of making decisions in unforeseen situations. Why doesn't our brain "crash" in these situations?

It often does.

kelly1 wrote: »

Is it possible for matter to be self-aware?

I have never known anything else to be self-aware.

Why do you think you have a brain?

Why do you think people who have their brains blown out with a bullet seem to be not as capable of self-awareness as they were before their stream of consciousness was interrupted?

deleriumtremens

Like everybody else in here, I would imagine, I believe that conscious thought and (in my opinion, the illusion of) choice arises from the physical activity of the brain.

I believe that our thoughts, and, therefore, our actions are the result of a long chain of causality, and as a result are unchangeable. Even if you suddenly jerk your elbow right now, you were always going to do that!

Also, I dont think we should act as though there are distinct unconscious and conscious parts of our brains. These are, after all, only words invented by man to try to describe something. Clear boundaries are rare in nature.

Just as other animals work off instincts so do we. Our brains were obviously pre-programmed to have a certain nature to begin with eg. the universality of the concept of what tastes nice, whats beautiful etc.

I think consciousness is just the mental image that the brain keeps re-updating for itself, the information used to produce these images being extracted either from sensory information taken from the enviroment or taken from the bank of information already present in the brain (ie.memory). I think until the brain has acquired enough information in its "memory bank", the person/ other animal will simply work off the instincts ingrained into it's nervous systen during the processes of embryology. This is why children are entirely selfish and why they appear to work off instinct :pac:
Also, I think that because the retrieval of information from the brain itself is not something that "seems physical" to us, we attach some kind of indeterminism to it...ah its hard to say what im trying to say, so i'l stop!!:cool:

kelly1

dioltas wrote: »

In my opinion the human brain is very like a computer, a very complex one though. It makes decisions, has storage, input / output etc.

A computer though, can only follow instructions, it's can't actually think for itself and question the programmer. No computer has awareness of anything. It blindly follows instructions.

dioltas wrote: »

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Sorry for the length of my waffle...

Thanks for the reply.

robindch wrote: »

Well, let me rephrase: "I know of no neuroscientists who doubt that consciousness is an emergent property of billions of neurons reacting together simultaneously chemically and electrically."

Isn't that just a theory?

robindch wrote: »

I didn't say that "complexity" (however you define that) produces consciousness.

Clearly the brain is complex and we know of no other organism which supposedly produces consciousness. Presumably nobody believes cells to be conscious?

robindch wrote: »

What does "sentient" mean? This isn't hair-splitting, but as with the last time that this topic came up, I don't believe that you have a clear and concise idea of the question you're asking.

Isn't sentient very similar to conscious but with more emphasis on the senses?

I stated at the outset that I wasn't sure how best to formulate my question. I'm not sure if I'm asking the correct question.

In simple language, I'm saying that I don't see how it's possible that matter, regardless of its complexity or form, can produce such things as consciouness, awareness of its surroundings and itself, intelligence, creativity, decision-making or love. I just can't get my head around it and never could. This reductionist view has always gone against the grain for me.

Do any athiests here see where I'm coming from? Does everyone really believe that science will some day answer these questions? I know I'm not being rigorous at all, but I think I'm making a fair point.

Zillah

kelly1 wrote: »

A computer though, can only follow instructions, it's can't actually think for itself and question the programmer. No computer has awareness of anything. It blindly follows instructions.

In terms of complexity and sophistication, modern computers/software are to the brain as a pendulum is to a BMW.

Even with that in mind, they have already begun designing computers that have rudimentary decision making abilities, learning, planning and creativity.

Have you actually done any reading on the subject? Here is a good start.

In simple language, I'm saying that I don't see how it's possible that matter, regardless of its complexity or form, can produce such things as consciouness, awareness of its surroundings and itself, intelligence, creativity, decision-making or love. I just can't get my head around it and never could. This reductionist view has always gone against the grain for me.

What I don't get is what kind of answer you would give? I say human sentience is a result of the complex interactions of the brain. You say...it's magic? It's the soul? God did it? How are these answers any more satisfactory?

How can an immaterial thing be self-aware?

kelly1

Zillah wrote: »

Even with that in mind, they have already begun designing computers that have rudimentary decision making abilities, learning, planning and creativity.

Do these computers ask why they're doing what they do?

Zillah wrote: »

Have you actually done any reading on the subject? Here is a good start.

I know very little about AI, thanks.

Zillah wrote: »

What I don't get is what kind of answer you would give? I say human sentience is a result of the complex interactions of the brain. You say...it's magic? It's the soul? God did it? How are these answers any more satisfactory?

Yes, naturally I'd say it's the spirit which produces will, reason, intellect, consciousness etc. I find that to be a satisfactory explanation but obviously not on a scientific level.

Zillah wrote: »

How can an immaterial thing be self-aware?

Because self-awareness is a property of spirit just as mass is a property of matter.

Zillah

kelly1 wrote: »

Do these computers ask why they're doing what they do?

Not yet.

Yes, naturally I'd say it's the spirit which produces will, reason, intellect, consciousness etc. I find that to be a satisfactory explanation but obviously not on a scientific level.

I'd argue that it's not satisfactory on any level. You're not explaining the origin of sentience at all, you're just saying it's magic. That's not an explanation.

Because self-awareness is a property of spirit just as mass is a property of matter.

That's a baseless assertion. I could just as easily assert that sentience is a property of complex systems of matter in the same way mass is a property of matter. At least I can prove that matter exists and can form complex systems, whereas you are not only claiming that spirit exists without evidence, but also baselessly dictating the inherent qualities of this...stuff.

We don't know yet. Sure you make up an answer that satisfies you but it is just that; made up. You haven't answered the question, you've just found an excuse to stop asking it.

Dave!

kelly1 wrote: »

A computer though, can only follow instructions, it's can't actually think for itself and question the programmer. No computer has awareness of anything. It blindly follows instructions.

Yes, a computer has limited capabilities, and only responds appropriately in certain circumstances/given specific stimuli. But if you programme it with millions of different reactions to millions of stimuli, then it's capabilities become less limited, you agree?

Well guess what! The mind only has limited capabilities too! A few examples... Humans can hear sound right? Any sound? NO! Our range of hearing is between roughly 20Hz and 20,000Hz. Beyond those ranges, we can't hear the sound even though it's there. So there's one limitation.

What about vision? Humans can only see EM radiation of wavelength 400-700 nanometers. We can't see microwaves, radiowaves, x-rays, etc. We only see a teeny tiny range of the waves that are zooming around the world. There's another limitation on our brains.

Our brains are also easily tricked and manipulated. Check out any visual illusions for evidence of this. Our brains f*ck up all the time, and it can affect us in the real world. check out www.dothetest.co.uk . Another limitation.

I'm sure you're aware that driving whilst on the phone is more dangerous than without. This is because the brain finds it difficult to concentrate on the road whilst having a conversation. It's a very real limitation on our perception.

Point being -- you seem to write off the computational view of the mind because you know that computers are limited and finite, but you think that the brain is not. Well it is, as I have just shown you. There are lots and lots of situations where our brains (a) don't work as they should, (b) don't work at all, or (c) crash/f*ck up.

Computers have only been around in any significant way for 40 years or so. So whatever programming was put into the computer has to have been done in that time, which means it obviously has a very limited range of capabilities. Even if someone spent the last 40 years just giving a computer different reactions to specific stimuli, it would still have a finite amount.

Well try millions of years via evolution. You'll find the capabilities of the computer increase exponentially, though they'll still be finite.

kelly1 wrote: »

In simple language, I'm saying that I don't see how it's possible that matter, regardless of its complexity or form, can produce such things as consciouness, awareness of its surroundings and itself, intelligence, creativity, decision-making or love. I just can't get my head around it and never could. This reductionist view has always gone against the grain for me.

Well you really have to accept the theory of evolution for it to make any sense... AFAIK you don't.

Do you accept that plants can come about organically through evolution? They have their own various specific 'skills' (for want of a better word) such as photosynthesis, etc. Plants react to their environment in their own ways. For example some plants curl around whatever they touch, e.g.:

They can climb all the way up a building:

And what about the Venus fly trap?

THIS IS WITHOUT A NERVOUS SYSTEM!!!!!

Bacteria are capable of locomotion too. These are really primitive lifeforms compared to humans. No nervous system, no brains, etc.

Again you have to accept evolution for it to make any sense really, so I don't know why the hell I'm bothering.

kelly1 wrote: »

Do any athiests here see where I'm coming from? Does everyone really believe that science will some day answer these questions? I know I'm not being rigorous at all, but I think I'm making a fair point.

I'm fairly confident that neuroscience will be able to explain consciousness eventually, yeah. It's still a relatively young field, but with all the fancy technology being used now, there's been a tonne of research done.

Zombrex

kelly1 wrote: »

Because self-awareness is a property of spirit just as mass is a property of matter.

Says who? According to what?

You might as well say peanut butter is a property of the spirit...

You have absolutely no idea what is or what isn't a property of the "spirit", nor do you have any proper definition of what the "spirit" is nor how it is actually supposed to work. The Bible doesn't even discuss these matters (not a science book as we keep being reminded on the Christian forum), so where you got the above statement from I've no idea.

You can certainly tell us all the things that you would like to be true, that you guess are true, but that is as pointless as someone saying it is little imps in our brains talking to each other that control consciousness.

Again all this is simple an excuse to stop asking the questions, rather than an answer. Saying the spirit does it tells you nothing since you don't know what the spirit is, what it is actually supposed to do or how it is actually supposed to do it.

stevencarrwork

kelly1 wrote: »

Because self-awareness is a property of spirit just as mass is a property of matter.

How come during my operation my 'spirit' lost self-awareness, when it was my brain that was being given chemicals?

Would you like to tell me what you use your brain for?

CerebralCortex

kelly1 wrote: »

A computer though, can only follow instructions, it's can't actually think for itself and question the programmer. No computer has awareness of anything. It blindly follows instructions.

No computer yet.

kelly1 wrote: »

Isn't that just a theory?

Isn't that enough?

kelly1 wrote: »

Clearly the brain is complex and we know of no other organism which supposedly produces consciousness. Presumably nobody believes cells to be conscious?

Dophins, whales and monkeys.

kelly1 wrote: »

I stated at the outset that I wasn't sure how best to formulate my question. I'm not sure if I'm asking the correct question.

Let me try:
"How come you can't accept God into your hearts? Don't you know your consciousness is a result of your immortal soul?"

Thats probably what you wanted to ask?

kelly1 wrote: »

In simple language, I'm saying that I don't see how it's possible that matter, regardless of its complexity or form, can produce such things as consciouness, awareness of its surroundings and itself, intelligence, creativity, decision-making or love. I just can't get my head around it and never could. This reductionist view has always gone against the grain for me.

Thats because you have closed your eyes and outsourced your reason to someone else real or imaginary.

kelly1 wrote: »

Do any athiests here see where I'm coming from? Does everyone really believe that science will some day answer these questions? I know I'm not being rigorous at all, but I think I'm making a fair point.

No you're not you are completely biased towards the hope that we have a non material soul.

CerebralCortex

stevencarrwork wrote: »

How come during my operation my 'spirit' lost self-awareness, when it was my brain that was being given chemicals?

Would you like to tell me what you use your brain for?

I have had the same experience twice (had my nose broken needed two ops

)
and for all intensive purposes I was brain dead 4 hours of my life with absolutely no consciousness completely lights out. What a rush!!!!!

dioltas

That spirit comment was a bit ridiculous tbh. Just because you don't understand how you are self-aware you explain it by saying it's the spirit that produces will and reason. I don't want to question your beliefs, but I though we were having a semi-scientific discussion.

Thats like thousands of years ago when people didn't know what the sun was, so they explained it by a god travelling accross the sky. I could just as easily say "we were created by super-aliens who programmed us to be able to think and have self awareness" or " there's a little bit of god in in all of us and that's where we get our reason".

I heard before that if we ever became intelligent enough to properly understand the human brain, it would need to be that more complex, so that we could never really understand it. Something along those lines anyway. Don't know if there's any truth to that though!

kelly1

Dave! wrote: »

Yes, a computer has limited capabilities, and only responds appropriately in certain circumstances/given specific stimuli. But if you programme it with millions of different reactions to millions of stimuli, then it's capabilities become less limited, you agree?

Yes but it still has no consciousness.

Dave! wrote: »

Point being -- you seem to write off the computational view of the mind because you know that computers are limited and finite, but you think that the brain is not.

I never said the brain or mind wasn't finite! It clearly is finite in its powers.

Dave! wrote: »

Well you really have to accept the theory of evolution for it to make any sense... AFAIK you don't.

I do accept evolution.

Dave! wrote: »

Again you have to accept evolution for it to make any sense really, so I don't know why the hell I'm bothering.

What gave you the idea that I don't accept evolution? I certainly don't reject it, I believe man could have evolved from apes but I'm not totally convinced.

Dave! wrote: »

I'm fairly confident that neuroscience will be able to explain consciousness eventually, yeah. It's still a relatively young field, but with all the fancy technology being used now, there's been a tonne of research done.

You have a lot of faith in science!

AtomicHorror

kelly1 wrote: »

Yes but it still has no consciousness.

How would you test that I have consciousness rather than merely behaving as if I do?

robindch

kelly1 wrote: »

A computer though, can only follow instructions

Neural networks don't follow instructions, per se. Instead, they receive complex multi-channel input, and produce various kinds of output. It is not procedural or instruction-based.

kelly1 wrote: »

Clearly the brain is complex and we know of no other organism which supposedly produces consciousness. Presumably nobody believes cells to be conscious?

There are plenty of other organisms which, for very good reasons, are believed to be conscious in the same manner that we humans are.

kelly1 wrote: »

In simple language, I'm saying that I don't see how it's possible that matter, regardless of its complexity or form, can produce such things as consciouness, awareness of its surroundings and itself, intelligence, creativity, decision-making or love. I just can't get my head around it and never could. This reductionist view has always gone against the grain for me.

I suggest that you try to think of the problem of consciousness in terms other than the "reductionist" model that you're currently assuming we use. We don't assert reductionism. Instead, we start at the bottom -- cells, electrical impulses, chemicals moving back and forth -- and try to work our way up from there. It's slow as hell, but it's produced some remarkable findings over the last thirty years or so.

Not the least of which is the observation that certain primitive parts of the brain seem to know about upcoming actions before the higher-level stuff is aware of it. In short, that something in the brain is fooling itself into thinking that the higher-level conscious controls something, when in fact it doesn't. This brain-fooling-itself is see in other places too, especially in the brain's visual processing.

BTW, neurons not being conscious does not mean that they cannot contribute to consciousness -- as I said it seems to be an emergent property of billions of them interacting. But exactly how this interaction produces what appears to be the illusion of what we refer to as "consciousness" is currently unknown.

Perhaps you would understand the viewpoint better if you considered that, depending on how you look at it, a Bach cantata could be seen as a bunch of paper and some black marks, or a large collection of vibrating air molecules. But that doesn't mean that's it's something a whole lot more than that too.

The whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.

seamus

kelly1 wrote: »

Yes but it still has no consciousness.

Not yet. The analysis of heuristics suggests that it's possible to define problem-solving as set algorithms or processes. If you accept that we operate simply by reacting to various stimuli, then it's theoretically possible to program a machine in such a way that it appears to act almost indistinguishably from any living human.
If you think about how we get to our current point, we're basically pre-programmed with a few basic abilities and then we spend the rest of our life learning. If a child is isolated and fails to learn to speak by their teens, for example, it's unlikely that they will ever learn to communicate properly using speech.
Programming a machine to learn in this way should be possible, we just have to figure out how.

You have a lot of faith in science!

It hasn't failed anyone yet

OK-Cancel-Apply

We have to decide what consciousness actually is. I doubt it's anything more complex than the subjective experience of our intelligence. Will computers ever have the same level of self-awareness as we do? I believe so!

robindch

seamus wrote: »

Programming a machine to learn in this way should be possible, we just have to figure out how.

Swiss researchers have been working for some years on building a realistic simulation of a neocortical cortex, a small, frequently-occuring component of mammalian brains:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Brain

So far, they've simulated -- with a reasonable degree of success -- what happens a rat's brain, at around 1% of real-life speed.

Pretty cool.

kelly1

CerebralCortex wrote: »

I have had the same experience twice (had my nose broken needed two ops )
and for all intensive purposes I was brain dead 4 hours of my life with absolutely no consciousness completely lights out. What a rush!!!!!

Same could be said of when we're asleep.

dioltas wrote: »

I heard before that if we ever became intelligent enough to properly understand the human brain, it would need to be that more complex, so that we could never really understand it. Something along those lines anyway. Don't know if there's any truth to that though!

That did occur to me before. How can the brain extend beyond its own ability? Trying to understand the mind in material terms is a bit like trying to catch a rainbow - i.e. very elusive.

AtomicHorror wrote: »

How would you test that I have consciousness rather than merely behaving as if I do?

That's the Turing test isn't it? Probably impossible but each of us knows that we have consciousness, we don't need to question others.

seamus

kelly1 wrote: »

That did occur to me before. How can the brain extend beyond its own ability? Trying to understand the mind in material terms is a bit like trying to catch a rainbow - i.e. very elusive.

It's a very "logical" notion (in that it feels like it makes sense), but I see no reason why we would require any additional brain capacity to understand it. That is, if we can successfully understand other natural processes (such as mitosis of the cells or reproduction), then we can infer that we should have no problem understanding how the brain works - once we figure it out.

The idea that we would somehow require a new "level" of consciousness to understand the brain just panders to the idea that there is some unknowable agent bestowing consciousness on us.

AtomicHorror

kelly1 wrote: »

That's the Turing test isn't it? Probably impossible but each of us knows that we have consciousness, we don't need to question others.

The Turing test is quite task-specific though, so I'm not sure it's a great test. And if some day a machine appears to have comparable consciousness to ours by all means that we can test human consciousness, then are we able to make the claim that they do not possess consciousness? If no meaningful difference is measurable, what then?

CerebralCortex

kelly1 wrote: »

Same could be said of when we're asleep.

When you're asleep you dream, you actually have a perception there is brain activity. When I was under nothing you go under you wake up no complete shut down of the senses which is good because they were breaking bones in my nose.

kelly1 wrote: »

That's the Turing test isn't it? Probably impossible but each of us knows that we have consciousness, we don't need to question others.

Turing test has to do with AI afaik?

stevencarrwork

Kelly1 still won't say what a brain is for.

kelly1

stevencarrwork wrote: »

Kelly1 still won't say what a brain is for.

IMO, the brain is the interface between the nervous system (or whatever makes muscles contract) and the spirit. I think the activity that we see in the brain is the result of instructions given by the spirit. So I don't believe the brain is the ultimate source of the higher faculties.

stevencarrwork

kelly1 wrote: »

IMO, the brain is the interface between the nervous system (or whatever makes muscles contract) and the spirit. I think the activity that we see in the brain is the result of instructions given by the spirit. So I don't believe the brain is the ultimate source of the higher faculties.

I see. Why is your spirit not able to control the muscles directly, but can control a brain directly?