Pantheism and panpsychism

[veclock]

No. 2D modeling using intelligence will never be an exact replica of 3D objects surviving in a 3D environment.

Who said it has to be 2D? It's equally possible to do it in 3D in a computer. Just more convenient to do it in 2D because it can run faster.
Who said it has to be an exact replica? I think you get bogged down with irrelevant details.
Evolution is a mechanistic process that acts on anything that is self replicating with mutations. Evolution is like an algorithm that can run either in the real world, or in a computer.
It can even run in our heads. Religions, memes are the product of evolutions, then subdivide into species, evolve, compete. There's no "true" evolution.
Evolution as a phenomena is like a natural law that will emerge when the right conditions are met, in ANY system, be it physical, memetic, artificial.

It's like whirlpools appearing in water simulations in a computer, they appear out of hydrodynamics whether it's digital or physical. It's still a whirlpool even though it's in your computer.

Is this work you get paid for?

Not currently but I have plans for it. Unfortunately I have lots of other stuff going on.

I don't see you explaining anything about evolution to me.

It is a directionless process.

The second you limit outcomes to pre-determined "results" you have moved away from evolution.

I'm telling you evolution simulations are as directionless as real biological evolution. The racing cars is a genetic algorithm, which is not an evolutionary simulation.
An evolutionary simulation is with creatures roaming freely artificial creatures according to how they are genetically instructed to do, and whatever behavior and body shape combination that leads to better survival will be selected by natural selection. No human intervention, only natural selection.

Here's an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uIpxSoND6Q
It's not predetermined that these creatures should grow taller, and longer branches to reach food/light (what is falling down from above giving them energy and allowing reproduction),
evolution aimlessly selects these features because it allows these artificial creatures to better survive and reproduce in this artificial world.

It is a 2D model of a worm that appears to moving as a 3D worm might move.

But who knows?

It is not a 3D worm. And who knows how closely the activity of real life neurons has been replicated?

You're not paying attention. It's a 3D worm, all the worms cells are mapped out in 3D, along with its 302 neuron large nervous system. Even all the connections between all the neurons.

Here's an image of it:
View attachment 33790

Here's a TED presentation of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY2-0-QsuTE&t=571s

That's not a question any human can answer.

True. But one can have a favorite hypothesis in an unsolved problem! But if you're taking the totally agnostic approach it's understandable and respectable.
I have no clue either, just trying out different ideas although I lean towards some ideas more than others. Not as some kind of belief though but more philosophical perspective.

Look at the brain of a bee.

Now look at the incredible complexity of it's productive behavior.

Yes. Insects show lots of complex behavior for sure.

You ignore my comments about MRI.
If electricity were involved in consciousness MRI would distort it.

No, we already dealt with MRI on page 4, I answered that line of argument until you chose to not respond to it anymore.

I certainly don't think that consciousness is made up of matter.

But the activity of neurotransmitters and the internal activity of cells is what creates consciousness. The electric current along the cell membrane just quickly causes neurotransmitter to be released. The all-or-nothing feature of the membrane probably is why MRI has no effect on it.
In my opinion consciousness has nothing to do with electricity and the electrical activity we can record with EEG.

When I use electromagnetism I'm referring to the fact that all chemical processes in the end is about molecules exchanging electrons and bonding due to electromagnetical forces.
So that's the force that drives everything you listed: activity of neurotransmitters, internal activity of cells, electric current along the cell membrane.
So if you don't think consciousness is made out of matter (which I don't think either) then stop coming back to what molecules are involved and let's discuss the forces, because then it seems we both would agree that the forces involved in everything is a better candidate. Agree or disagree?

I think the electrical activity is just a side effect from the real activity, the cellular activity creating consciousness. Just like the blood flow is probably just a needed side effect and not involved in the production of consciousness.

Agree about blood flow. But electrical activity? Neurons sending signals between each others seems to be very central? At least, that is what is running the "algorithms" of the brain.

People looking at possible quantum effects look inside the cell. They speculate that something or some activity inside the cell is involved in the creation of consciousness.

So consciousness may have something to do with the architecture within a neuron and not from anything that can be observed from outside the brain.

Interesting. Ok I think I see your point. So other quantum effects happening inside the cells (stuff like quantum tunneling, entanglement etc I assume?) would occur inside the cells and follow the same brain activity, although they themselves would not be driving the brain activity.

That's a very valid point, thank you for bringing it up.

The pheromone is a stimulus to activity.

So it can direct activity and move activity around.

It is a shortcut to humans shouting "Hey come here and do this". More efficient.

This efficiency probably costs the insect "intelligence" and "consciousness".

When consciousness becomes more efficient than behavior guided by pheromones it will expand.

Humans have culture and cultural evolution.

The ant has no cultural evolution.

Yes, I understand what pheromones are for.
So you were putting forward that the consciousness emerges in a:
system consisting of neurons - with their internal cellular activity - emitting neurotransmitters to other neurons. (Simplified)

What I'm now putting forward is: the ants nest is a system of neurons too, neurons inside an ant emitting neurotransmitters inbetween, leading to pheromones being released, sensed by an organ in another ant, leading to neuron activity in that ants brain, emitting neurotransmitters, and so on. So the chain of neurons having their activity is true for the whole nest, if you view the pheromone step as a large and more time consuming neurotransmitter with extra steps.

Culture is just a matter of intelligence and behavior, not consciousness. Dogs do not have culture. Not even all primates have culture. So that seems irrelevant to the discussion.

 

[veclock]

For those who didn't listen to the podcast with Sam Harris and David Chalmers, here's a TED talk with Chalmers explaining the subject:
[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhRhtFFhNzQ[/YOUTUBE]

 

[DrZoidberg]

That would only be ridiculous if we would currently know what consciousness is. We don't, so it's not ridiculous at all.

How isn't this argument from ignorance?

Consciousness doesn't need to have a function at all. It could just be a side effect of our brain activity.
Just imagine the brain totally mechanistic, materialistic, deterministic by the laws of physics, all the behaviors leading from the activity. But also the "inner experience" is a result from the physics. The "inner experience" / consciousness wouldn't communicate back to the physics.

Yes, the Steven Pinker hypothesis. The current human brain as a beta release. Since we're so much smarter than the second smartest species there's little evolutionary pressure to improve upon weaknesses that are shared among all humans. As long as all human brains are garbage in the same way it'll be retained in the genome.

It's still not a support for your idea of consciousness "If consciousness is a fundamental part of physics, then our consciousness might not go totally black after death. If we can share and overlap consciousness with others, it would create a feeling of union compared to today's individuals and separates minds. The whole universe would not only consist of physical laws... it would consist of physical laws and experience of it."

Which is just simply loony IMHO.

Your statement is also self contradictory. If consciousness is a fundamental part of physics it would be part of our physical laws. If the world is dependent of our experience of it then it would be part of what we call physical laws.
Where do I contradict myself? Yes, if consciousness for example is a complex form of electromagnetism, it is part of our physical laws. It would even be those laws. That doesn't mean the world is dependent on our experience.
You seem to argue or think that I'm arguing physics <---> consciousness. I'm arguing physics -> consciousness but also consciousness = physics.

It's contradictory because you've introduced a new scientific particle that, if it existed, would already be showing up all over science, and we'd know about it already. There's just so much we can drill ourselves down to smaller and smaller particles and redraw the entire map of physics. Good luck with that. I'm not saying it won't happen. But it'll come from CERN. Not from a philosopher or a guy on a forum.

Also, I'm not religious. This is a philosophical discussion. I only believe in the universe.

Scientologists also claim they're not religious. They're just doing science. Nobody else is buying it.

I suggest you read up on what the Egyptians believed about the soul(s). Or the ancient Greeks. Or the Australian Aborigines. They had a very different concept of our inner lives than we do today. Christianity is quite specific. How isn't your idea of an eternal consciousness just the Christian idea of the soul and dressed up in modern scientific language?

Do you remember the intelligent design people and their attempts to sneak in Christianity through the scientific back door. I think you're doing the same thing now.

I'm not saying you are lying. But I wonder if you are aware of how coloured your thinking is of Christian thought?

"I feel you're making the common religious mistake of positing God outside of the physical universe."
I think you've misunderstood the whole subject of this thread then. The whole discussion is about placing consciousness within the laws of physics, so much so as to find it on a quantum level.

I only brought up the Christian God because it looks to me like your eternal consciousness idea sounds an awfully lot like yea olde Christianity dressed up. You're not going to impress me by throwing in the "quantum". I know physics. I'm a science guy.

I also know practicing pantheists. The whole point of pantheistic practice is worshiping the universe as it is. No magic or eternal souls required. Sure, there's plenty of stupid pantheists. But the smart pantheists understand when colourful metaphors are just that... metaphors. It's the understanding that ritual and faith are important to humans. So we're going with a religious practice that works within the known scientific paradigm. We don't need to add extraneous shit, just to make ourselves feel a little bit more special. We're already special enough. We exist. Isn't that good enough for you?

 

[veclock]

How isn't this argument from ignorance?

Very simple:
An argument from ignorance is saying something is true because it has not been proven false.
I didn't say it was true.
I said it's not ridiculous to speculate about it since no one has a clue about what consciousness is.
Saying something is not ridiculous is not the same as saying it is true.

Yes, the Steven Pinker hypothesis. The current human brain as a beta release. Since we're so much smarter than the second smartest species there's little evolutionary pressure to improve upon weaknesses that are shared among all humans. As long as all human brains are garbage in the same way it'll be retained in the genome.

Dude, that had nothing to do with what I said.

It's still not a support for your idea of consciousness "If consciousness is a fundamental part of physics, then our consciousness might not go totally black after death. If we can share and overlap consciousness with others, it would create a feeling of union compared to today's individuals and separates minds. The whole universe would not only consist of physical laws... it would consist of physical laws and experience of it."

Which is just simply loony IMHO.

So overlapping consciousness is probably already a reality in conjoined twins that share their brain. Not loony.
I guess you're mainly concerned with the after death statement. So when I said "not going totally black" that is nothing I hold as a belief. It could be a consequence of consciousness at a quantum level, but then the "not totally black" would be almost black. Like a infinitesimal above black, since we're talking about such a small scale.

It's contradictory because you've introduced a new scientific particle that, if it existed, would already be showing up all over science, and we'd know about it already. There's just so much we can drill ourselves down to smaller and smaller particles and redraw the entire map of physics. Good luck with that. I'm not saying it won't happen. But it'll come from CERN. Not from a philosopher or a guy on a forum.

Strawman argument, never have I ever in this thread or anywhere else suggested a new particle for consciousness. I've been very clear that it would arise out of current physics alone.

Scientologists also claim they're not religious. They're just doing science. Nobody else is buying it.

Haha, huge difference. Religion is having sacred texts, belief systems, symbols, traditions, etc. It's a cultural thing.
Even someone saying they are a theist doesn't make them religious until they start practice it. Pure atheism, theism and pantheism are all philosophical standpoints.
Depending on how you practice it, what culture you build around it, then you get religion.

See how absurd your comparison is with scientology?

I suggest you read up on what the Egyptians believed about the soul(s). Or the ancient Greeks. Or the Australian Aborigines. They had a very different concept of our inner lives than we do today. Christianity is quite specific. How isn't your idea of an eternal consciousness just the Christian idea of the soul and dressed up in modern scientific language?

I believe that the universe (multiverse, rather) is eternal, big bangs are just an event in an eternal flow of energy.
If there's a inner experience of physics then that would follow along with the eternal universe, but inner experience does not lead to behavior, intent, will, the ability to act. To get that, you'd need biology, or perhaps computers/robots with complex neural networks.

The christian idea of a soul is that this mysterious substance has all the thoughts, will, feelings, etc. That is ridiculous. I'm only talking about the "inner experience". I don't know how many times I have to repeat it.
Did you listen to the TED talk with David Chalmers above?

Do you remember the intelligent design people and their attempts to sneak in Christianity through the scientific back door. I think you're doing the same thing now.
I'm not saying you are lying. But I wonder if you are aware of how coloured your thinking is of Christian thought?

Intelligent design people believe 100% what they are saying. I'm not certain at all. But leaning towards it until someone comes with a better argument.
You know, I've been a materialist atheist all my life. I'm all for emergent phenomenas, only pure physics leading to everything in the universe. Even consciousness. But the nature of inner experience is nothing like matter, you can't go touch someone elses inner experience with your hands to see if it's there, then you'd already have done so with a computer or a micro organism.

All I'm saying is consciousness as an emergent phenomena should have a building block.
That building block could be the neuron, as I discussed with untermensche. But that doesn't seem completely satisfying (it could be), but since the neuron is just a bunch of atoms in a configuration, and forces between them, I asked the question if the forces fundamentally is letting the emergent phenomena of consciousness to appear. And then I ask, what is it about these forces that leads to our large scale consciousness? Is there a quantum level consciousness to build from?

I know we're on a theist vs athist forum but it's clear many of you are so used to that discussion that you try to apply the same counter arguments here too. I know because I've been in the atheist vs theist debate, on the atheist side, for years.

I only brought up the Christian God because it looks to me like your eternal consciousness idea sounds an awfully lot like yea olde Christianity dressed up. You're not going to impress me by throwing in the "quantum". I know physics. I'm a science guy.

A christian god has a will, ability to act etc. And he created the universe. I would argue against that any day. You're confusing the term consciousness with other phenomenas like behavior etc. A christian god would behave in a way when he decided to create the universe.

I'm saying it's been physics and only physics all along.
I'm not using quantum in the spooky way.

Physicists wants to explain gravity at a quantum level to, for good (and better) reasons.
I don't have to go quantum with consciousness, the neuron could be the fundamental building block. I just find that, at the moment, to not be a good explanation.

I also know practicing pantheists. The whole point of pantheistic practice is worshiping the universe as it is. No magic or eternal souls required. Sure, there's plenty of stupid pantheists. But the smart pantheists understand when colourful metaphors are just that... metaphors. It's the understanding that ritual and faith are important to humans. So we're going with a religious practice that works within the known scientific paradigm. We don't need to add extraneous shit, just to make ourselves feel a little bit more special. We're already special enough. We exist. Isn't that good enough for you?

Yeah, I'm in with that. It really comes as a counter argument against theists. When they say something divine by definition must exist, I go:
"ok, the universe is the eternal ultimate truth, I guess that makes the universe divine". I think that is true.

I don't believe in magic or souls. I see divine only as a word, and if I ever used the word god it would be as a metaphor.
I hope you see how many straw man arguments you've pulled against me now.

 

[untermensche]

It's contradictory because you've introduced a new scientific particle that, if it existed, would already be showing up all over science, and we'd know about it already. There's just so much we can drill ourselves down to smaller and smaller particles and redraw the entire map of physics. Good luck with that. I'm not saying it won't happen. But it'll come from CERN. Not from a philosopher or a guy on a forum.

What are Muon's and Tau's doing?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Very simple:
An argument from ignorance is saying something is true because it has not been proven false.
I didn't say it was true.
I said it's not ridiculous to speculate about it since no one has a clue about what consciousness is.
Saying something is not ridiculous is not the same as saying it is true.

You're going down a very specific and oddly specific path here.

Nah, bro. It's argument from ignorance. We do not know X, therefor Y. That's the form of argument from ignorance. It's establishing that something is a mystery and then venturing far off left field down some bizarre path barely connected to the premise. Which is what you are doing.

So overlapping consciousness is probably already a reality in conjoined twins that share their brain. Not loony.

Do you think the shared consciousness of conjoined twins might have something to do with them being physically connected and sharing the same nervous system? That was a weak support of your argument.

I guess you're mainly concerned with the after death statement. So when I said "not going totally black" that is nothing I hold as a belief. It could be a consequence of consciousness at a quantum level, but then the "not totally black" would be almost black. Like a infinitesimal above black, since we're talking about such a small scale.

Please stop saying "quantum level". It makes you come across as a New Age hippie. They're always, without exception, phenomenally ignorant. Stuff having an impact on other stuff on some level requires energy transfer and transformation. Whatever we find on the quantum level is not going to fix your consciousness problem. If the brain was somehow communicating through hippie magic, we'd still be able to detect it. Just because we don't know how it works, doesn't mean we haven't found all the bits that are in the brain. We have a great handle on how to make humans stop having consciousness. That's a great clue.

Scientologists also claim they're not religious. They're just doing science. Nobody else is buying it.

Haha, huge difference. Religion is having sacred texts, belief systems, symbols, traditions, etc. It's a cultural thing.
Even someone saying they are a theist doesn't make them religious until they start practice it. Pure atheism, theism and pantheism are all philosophical standpoints.
Depending on how you practice it, what culture you build around it, then you get religion.

See how absurd your comparison is with scientology?

I don't think it's absurd at all. Your way of thinking about consciousness stinks of religion IMHO.

I believe that the universe (multiverse, rather) is eternal, big bangs are just an event in an eternal flow of energy.

Only religious people think this way. Why would you even have an opinion on something which is cutting edge science? I'm not a theoretical physicist. I don't have the education to pick a team here. While I have an interest in science and read a lot. I'd never pick a belief around it or express myself in those terms.

For laypeople, this is all just speculation. Highly speculative.

If there's a inner experience of physics then that would follow along with the eternal universe, but inner experience does not lead to behavior, intent, will, the ability to act. To get that, you'd need biology, or perhaps computers depending on where you stand in the question of whether computers/robots has/will have a consciousness.

There's a lot of deductions here that don't necessarily follow from the premises.

The free will debate is hampered by that all the words in the debate are vague and wide open to interpretation. What is it that wills something? What does it mean to will something? What is that will free from? All these three terms are on wheels. And will roll wildly back and forward to defend each persons pet theory without ever proving anything.

I'm a computer engineer. I have been a computer scientist. I took a course in machine learning. Creating a computer with consciousness is trivially simple. Whenever people challenge the idea of computers being conscious or having feelings it always lands on that the requirement is that the computer feels in the exact same way humans feel. What does that even mean? Nobody can ever answer that. We want to be special and feel we are special. But nobody can be bothered to formulate how we are special. Our feelings are a pretty blunt tool our genes use to control us in order to help them spread. It is a complicated system. But it is NOT a sophisticated system.

But how our consciousness fits into our will is still a huge mystery for science. It doesn't seem to be making any decisions. It doesn't seem to control anything. It's more preoccupied with creating a logical self aggrandizing internal narrative, ie self delusion, rather than helping us accurately navigate the world and make wise decisions. It's anyone's guess why such a function is retained and spread in the genome. One would have thought that accuracy would be something our genes should be gunning for? And that that would be advantageous somehow.

The christian idea of a soul is that this mysterious substance has all the thoughts, will, feelings, etc. That is ridiculous. I'm only talking about the "inner experience". I don't know how many times I have to repeat it.

It's actually not specified in Christianity. It's left pretty vague.

All I'm saying is consciousness as an emergent phenomena should have a building block.
That building block could be the neuron, as I discussed with untermensche. But that doesn't seem completely satisfying (it could be), but since the neuron is just a bunch of atoms in a configuration, and forces between them, I asked the question if the forces fundamentally is letting the emergent phenomena of consciousness to appear. And then I ask, what is it about these forces that leads to our large scale consciousness? Is there a quantum level consciousness to build from?

"emergent phenomena" is another one of these popular New Age hippie words. It's just so that you don't have to explain, nor show, the causal chain from biology to will. Emergent phenomena still has to emerge from somewhere. Just because you can't do the maths doesn't mean anything is possible. No, it's not.

 

[untermensche]

You're not paying attention. It's a 3D worm, all the worms cells are mapped out in 3D, along with its 302 neuron large nervous system. Even all the connections between all the neurons.

A 3D rendering is an abstraction of a 3D object.

They will never be the exact same thing.

When I use electromagnetism I'm referring to the fact that all chemical processes in the end is about molecules exchanging electrons and bonding due to electromagnetical forces.

When you start talking about up quark fields and down quark fields and electron fields it gets even more complicated.

So that's the force that drives everything you listed: activity of neurotransmitters, internal activity of cells, electric current along the cell membrane.

The idea I oppose is the idea that the neurons act like a wire transmitting electrons.

You are right that the binding force and any protein deformation force must be EM energy.

But the action potential is not connected to the action of the transmitter. It is connected to the release of the transmitter.

So if you don't think consciousness is made out of matter (which I don't think either) then stop coming back to what molecules are involved and let's discuss the forces, because then it seems we both would agree that the forces involved in everything is a better candidate. Agree or disagree?

Changing the molecule, like flooding the brain with LSD, is not changing the EM behavior of the receptor.

It is changing the overall stimulation the cell is getting.

It is changing the internal behavior of the cell as a result.

So when I say the neurotransmitter is involved I am not saying the external transmitter is involved.

I am saying the behavior of the cell that occurs from the transmitter is involved.

Interesting. Ok I think I see your point. So other quantum effects happening inside the cells (stuff like quantum tunneling, entanglement etc I assume?) would occur inside the cells and follow the same brain activity, although they themselves would not be driving the brain activity.

I think it could even be some undiscovered quantum effect.

But experience is not something I can imagine being created. It is a subjective, internal experience.

I would not have any clue how any quantum effect could do it.

What I'm now putting forward is: the ants nest is a system of neurons too, neurons inside an ant emitting neurotransmitters inbetween, leading to pheromones being released, sensed by an organ in another ant, leading to neuron activity in that ants brain, emitting neurotransmitters, and so on. So the chain of neurons having their activity is true for the whole nest, if you view the pheromone step as a large and more time consuming neurotransmitter with extra steps.

I do not agree that a complete ant acts as a neuron.

It acts as a member of a group.

The brain does not attack the enemy itself. It has no idea the enemy is there.

Culture is just a matter of intelligence and behavior, not consciousness. Dogs do not have culture. Not even all primates have culture. So that seems irrelevant to the discussion.

You cannot subtract language from human consciousness.

 

[veclock]

You're going down a very specific and oddly specific path here.

Nah, bro. It's argument from ignorance. We do not know X, therefor Y. That's the form of argument from ignorance. It's establishing that something is a mystery and then venturing far off left field down some bizarre path barely connected to the premise. Which is what you are doing.

I'm not saying it's true, I'm saying it's worth speculating about. You don't read what I say, you only seem to be interested in ridiculing ideas as religious and hippie.
I honestly don't know if it's worth trying to discuss with someone who refuses to listen. There will not be an honest debate.

You seem to just wanna argue, debunk, having a "war or ideas". That's so unproductive it's getting on my nerves. There's a reason why people like Dawkins transferred to having conversations rather than debates.
I've been trying to have a nice tone but let's try your way then.

Do you think the shared consciousness of conjoined twins might have something to do with them being physically connected and sharing the same nervous system

YES, THAT IS EXACTLY WHY. That is why I bring it up. You're not reading. Or you're just too preoccupied with what you think I say, rather than taking in what I actually say.

Please stop saying "quantum level". It makes you come across as a New Age hippie. They're always, without exception, phenomenally ignorant. Stuff having an impact on other stuff on some level requires energy transfer and transformation. Whatever we find on the quantum level is not going to fix your consciousness problem. If the brain was somehow communicating through hippie magic, we'd still be able to detect it. Just because we don't know how it works, doesn't mean we haven't found all the bits that are in the brain. We have a great handle on how to make humans stop having consciousness. That's a great clue.

Hahah, well I guess that physicists that explain dark matter as quantum black holes are also new age hippies in your view.
Did you listen to the TED talk by Chalmers yet? I guess both Chalmers and Sam Harris are religious new age hippies in your view also, because they take this idea seriously.

I don't think it's absurd at all. Your way of thinking about consciousness stinks of religion IMHO.

Only religious people think this way. Why would you even have an opinion on something which is cutting edge science? I'm not a theoretical physicist. I don't have the education to pick a team here. While I have an interest in science and read a lot. I'd never pick a belief around it or express myself in those terms.

So you claim, you can't explain why. Your way of discussion comes of as very arrogant. Especially when you say ideas "stink", you do not seem like a person that can have an open discussion and try out different perspectives with.
Ever heard of the saying "When you're a hammer, everything is a nail"?
That's you. When you're an "atheist vs religion internet debater", then everyone becomes religious hippies that needs to be debunked.

The free will debate is hampered by that all the words in the debate are vague and wide open to interpretation. What is it that wills something? What does it mean to will something? What is that will free from? All these three terms are on wheels. And will roll wildly back and forward to defend each persons pet theory without ever proving anything.

Agree, the word will is a made up word. I don't think it's a helpful word in this discussion. Will is a behavior in the end.

Creating a computer with consciousness is trivially simple.

?

But how our consciousness fits into our will is still a huge mystery for science. It doesn't seem to be making any decisions. It doesn't seem to control anything. It's more preoccupied with creating a logical self aggrandizing internal narrative, ie self delusion, rather than helping us accurately navigate the world and make wise decisions. It's anyone's guess why such a function is retained and spread in the genome. One would have thought that accuracy would be something our genes should be gunning for? And that that would be advantageous somehow.

EXACTLY!!! And that's why no new particle is needed. It's all from the physics of our brain.
Consciousness is not affecting physics, but physics gives rise to consciousness.

"emergent phenomena" is another one of these popular New Age hippie words. It's just so that you don't have to explain, nor show, the causal chain from biology to will. Emergent phenomena still has to emerge from somewhere. Just because you can't do the maths doesn't mean anything is possible. No, it's not.

Dude, are you serious? Emergence is all around us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

For a science guy you're quite ignorant. But then again, you mostly seem to be interested in categorizing people as loony rather than being interested in ideas and thinking about stuff.

Emergent phenomena still has to emerge from somewhere.

Hahah, yeah, that's been my argument this whole thread.

Just because you can't do the maths doesn't mean anything is possible.

Dude, there is maths behind this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory

Is there a quantum level consciousness to build from?

No, it's not.

Wow, how scientific of you. Maybe you're the one sounding religious.

 

[veclock]

A 3D rendering is an abstraction of a 3D object.

They will never be the exact same thing.

I didn't claim it was the exact same thing, only that the neural activity would be very similar.
But since you now revealed what you think is involved in consciousness, then I see why you respond to the computer argument the way you do.

But I need to ask you again, since you didn't answer. Do you see our consciousness as absolute proof that we do not live in a simulation?
Because that needs to follow from your reasoning.

When you start talking about up quark fields and down quark fields and electron fields it gets even more complicated.

I'm all for that discussion.

The idea I oppose is the idea that the neurons act like a wire transmitting electrons.
You are right that the binding force and any protein deformation force must be EM energy.

Fair enough, it's a very simplified and cartoonish description.
It's the EM energy I held as being an interesting candidate.

I think it could even be some undiscovered quantum effect.

Maybe, or perhaps current physics from another perspective. String theory presents lots of interesting areas like particles being in 12 dimensions, that there are small curled up dimensions at the quantum level of our 3D world, strings attached to branes in higher dimensions.

But experience is not something I can imagine being created. It is a subjective, internal experience.

I would not have any clue how any quantum effect could do it.

Yep, that's the hard problem in a nut shell, as Chalmers put it.

I do not agree that a complete ant acts as a neuron.

It acts as a member of a group.

The brain does not attack the enemy itself. It has no idea the enemy is there.

Culture is just a matter of intelligence and behavior, not consciousness. Dogs do not have culture. Not even all primates have culture. So that seems irrelevant to the discussion.

I'm not saying ants are like neurons. I'm saying ants have actual neurons. So if you view the ants brain as a system of neurons that have consciousness. You could view the whole nest as a system of neurons. Only that the neurons comes packed together in small ant brains, and that the communication from neurons in one ant brain to the next ant brain is transmitted by a more time consuming process involving pheromones.

You cannot subtract language from human consciousness.

How do you arrive at that conclusion? You could lose the ability to process language if you damage that part of the brain. Are speechless people lacking an inner experience? Or infants?
That doesn't hold up.

 

[untermensche]

I didn't claim it was the exact same thing, only that the neural activity would be very similar.
But since you now revealed what you think is involved in consciousness, then I see why you respond to the computer argument the way you do.

Yes.

To explain it you must model an internal activity of the cell, not the external activity.

A question that arises is how do you know when a simulation is having a subjective internal experience and therefore has a mind?

But I need to ask you again, since you didn't answer. Do you see our consciousness as absolute proof that we do not live in a simulation?

I say that we do experience simulations of the world.

We do live in simulations.

We have no access to the "real" world.

All we can do is experience with our minds the simulations our brain creates for us to experience.

The idea that some higher intelligence is responsible for all our experiences and the experiences are some Matrix-like simulation is an idea on the level of some god creating us in his image.

It is a wild egocentric idea.

The alternative is we are evolved animals with evolved capacities. This does not involve some higher creature creating our experiences. It is a more reasonable speculation due to parsimony.

I'm all for that discussion.

I don't think the very best minds in physics can reduce the activity in cells to the action of fields.

It's the EM energy I held as being an interesting candidate.

And I said it has been looked at for decades.

In the US the 1990's was called "The decade of the brain" at the time. Massive funding into brain research was begun. And the whole world has joined in and research using that hypothesis (consciousness is some unknown EM effect) has gone on for decades.

String theory presents lots of interesting areas like particles being in 12 dimensions, that there are small curled up dimensions at the quantum level of our 3D world, strings attached to branes in higher dimensions.

It may take a transformation of physics to something like String Theory to understand consciousness.

I do not think our current understandings explain the least bit of the phenomena of experience.

I'm not saying ants are like neurons. I'm saying ants have actual neurons.

It's an interesting idea but I don't think an internal subjective experience arises from the action of many ants. So I don't see a consciousness in their activity. I do see interesting evolved behavior of individual ants.

You cannot subtract language from human consciousness.

How do you arrive at that conclusion? You could lose the ability to process language if you damage that part of the brain. Are speechless people lacking an inner experience? Or infants?
That doesn't hold up.

A speechless person can have language. Sign language is a language.

I think for you and me language in intertwined in many, not all, of our experiences.

I think human language is a key to understanding human consciousness.

 

[The AntiChris]

Very simple:
An argument from ignorance is saying something is true because it has not been proven false.
I didn't say it was true.
I said it's not ridiculous to speculate about it since no one has a clue about what consciousness is.
Saying something is not ridiculous is not the same as saying it is true.

Nah, bro. It's argument from ignorance. We do not know X, therefor Y.

You're wrong. He's made clear that this is not what he's saying.

His speculations about consciousness might be quite preposterous (I've no idea, I haven't been following this thread) but he's not making an argument from ignorance. All speculation starts from a position of ignorance.

 

[untermensche]

A thing must have a reason to have consciousness.

It must be using it in some way.

If there is no use for it to think it is there is irrational.

The sun has no need for consciousness. It is not hunting or avoiding capture. It is not seeking food and a mate.

A tree has no need of consciousness.

An ant does, so it is rational to speculate it might have it in some form.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I'm not saying it's true, I'm saying it's worth speculating about. You don't read what I say, you only seem to be interested in ridiculing ideas as religious and hippie.
I honestly don't know if it's worth trying to discuss with someone who refuses to listen. There will not be an honest debate.

You seem to just wanna argue, debunk, having a "war or ideas". That's so unproductive it's getting on my nerves. There's a reason why people like Dawkins transferred to having conversations rather than debates.
I've been trying to have a nice tone but let's try your way then.

YES, THAT IS EXACTLY WHY. That is why I bring it up. You're not reading. Or you're just too preoccupied with what you think I say, rather than taking in what I actually say.

I'm genuinely interested in the discussion. I'm myself an actively religious atheist. I love religion, while also being an atheist. I'm a friend of pantheism and, while not an card carrying pantheist, am in the orbit of the Stockholm pantheist community. Which sucks, since I now live in Copenhagen.

What I'm reacting against is that you're triggering all the red flags. Based on the way you are discussing, the terms you use, and your arguments from ignorance you're like a stereotype of a New Age hippie. I don't like when they do it, because they make Pantheists look bad.

If you stop using oft poorly understood long sciency words in order to enhance vague pseudoscientific concepts, (to give them some gravitas) like what Deepak Chopra.

You can say all the same stuff without the pseudoscience. If you understand the words you are using. Do you? Or are you just a New Age hippie spouting all the old hippie nonsense? I'm not convinced you are not.

Agree, the word will is a made up word. I don't think it's a helpful word in this discussion. Will is a behavior in the end.

We agree on something.

Creating a computer with consciousness is trivially simple.

?

Self awareness and meta cognition isn't magic. It's the ability to self reflect and explore your inner life and adapt to your environment based on what you learn. All but the most simple computer programs can do that.

But how our consciousness fits into our will is still a huge mystery for science. It doesn't seem to be making any decisions. It doesn't seem to control anything. It's more preoccupied with creating a logical self aggrandizing internal narrative, ie self delusion, rather than helping us accurately navigate the world and make wise decisions. It's anyone's guess why such a function is retained and spread in the genome. One would have thought that accuracy would be something our genes should be gunning for? And that that would be advantageous somehow.

EXACTLY!!! And that's why no new particle is needed. It's all from the physics of our brain.
Consciousness is not affecting physics, but physics gives rise to consciousness.

But you're taking this and running with it... very very far away from the above.

"emergent phenomena" is another one of these popular New Age hippie words. It's just so that you don't have to explain, nor show, the causal chain from biology to will. Emergent phenomena still has to emerge from somewhere. Just because you can't do the maths doesn't mean anything is possible. No, it's not.

Dude, are you serious? Emergence is all around us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

For a science guy you're quite ignorant. But then again, you mostly seem to be interested in categorizing people as loony rather than being interested in ideas and thinking about stuff.

By posting that link, as if it defeats my arguments, makes you come across as more clueless. You'll have to do better than that.

Just because you can't do the maths doesn't mean anything is possible.

Dude, there is maths behind this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory

Um... yeah. There it came. I'm not impressed. How isn't this just an overly complicated version of the Chinese Room? How isn't this simply built around trying to prove the specialness of human consciousness? How isn't this pseudo science?

Is there a quantum level consciousness to build from?

No, it's not.

Wow, how scientific of you. Maybe you're the one sounding religious.

I think it's argument from ignorance. Quantum physics behaves very strangely compared to macro physics. But strange is just just that. It's strange, but it's still got rules of it's own. It's not a free pass to insert whatever nonsense you feel must be true.

 

[untermensche]

Self awareness and meta cognition isn't magic. It's the ability to self reflect and explore your inner life and adapt to your environment based on what you learn. All but the most simple computer programs can do that.

The phenomena of subjective experience is not understood at all.

Where are you experiencing the things you experience? What are experiences made of?

There would be no way to know if a computer had consciousness even if it told us about it.

Just like I can't know for certain what anyone else is experiencing.

 

[veclock]

Yes.

To explain it you must model an internal activity of the cell, not the external activity.

A question that arises is how do you know when a simulation is having a subjective internal experience and therefore has a mind?

Ok then I know where you stand on that. But I don't think you answered my questions about quantum computers. So if we could simulate the network of neurons along with its inner quantum particles using a quantum computer, do you think a complex enough network inside the quantum computer could give rise to consciousness?

I say that we do experience simulations of the world.

We do live in simulations.

We have no access to the "real" world.

All we can do is experience with our minds the simulations our brain creates for us to experience.

True. Our brains interpret and simulates to build up our view of the world.

The idea that some higher intelligence is responsible for all our experiences and the experiences are some Matrix-like simulation is an idea on the level of some god creating us in his image.

It is a wild egocentric idea.

The alternative is we are evolved animals with evolved capacities. This does not involve some higher creature creating our experiences. It is a more reasonable speculation due to parsimony.

I agree that the simulation argument is quite similar to a creator god. I don't believe in simulation theory, although I take it more seriously than a theist god.

We would still be evolved creatures in a simulated world though. Simulation theory is just simulating physics and letting it happen.
We are quite good at it already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBS3jDeSlSs
Although far from the resolution needed to get to planets or atoms. If we had the theory of everything, then who knows, we might be able to do it.
With limited computing power, it would run much slower than our universe but from their point of view wouldn't be noticeable since they have their own reference of time.
Speculation of course. But also nothing says one has to simulate the exact same universe as your own, one could make up a bunch of physical laws and see what universe comes out of it.

I believe we live in the actual world though. There are a few (one, at least) good arguments for simulation theory though.

I don't think the very best minds in physics can reduce the activity in cells to the action of fields.

Aren't physicists reducing everything to fields? Aren't quantum particles just disturbances in their respective field?

It's the EM energy I held as being an interesting candidate.

And I said it has been looked at for decades.

In the US the 1990's was called "The decade of the brain" at the time. Massive funding into brain research was begun. And the whole world has joined in and research using that hypothesis (consciousness is some unknown EM effect) has gone on for decades.

Fair enough. And is the hypothesis disproven yet? Did they find more interesting hypotheses along the way?

String theory presents lots of interesting areas like particles being in 12 dimensions, that there are small curled up dimensions at the quantum level of our 3D world, strings attached to branes in higher dimensions.

It may take a transformation of physics to something like String Theory to understand consciousness.

I do not think our current understandings explain the least bit of the phenomena of experience.

That may be the case.

I had a thought the other night;
Can objective reality exist without subjective experience of it?
Ironically, a universe without consciousness to experience it seems a bit imaginary.

I'm not saying ants are like neurons. I'm saying ants have actual neurons.

It's an interesting idea but I don't think an internal subjective experience arises from the action of many ants. So I don't see a consciousness in their activity. I do see interesting evolved behavior of individual ants.

But this is where it gets even more interesting. Because our bodies are just cell colonies. We are not a single organism, we are made up of trillions of organisms, individual cells with their "interesting evolved behavior" as you said.
So we as a colony experience consciousness, what is the difference?

The ant colony, is a superorganism, and compared to a single ant it is more intelligent and more aware of its surroundings. It seems plausible that it could be more conscious too.

You cannot subtract language from human consciousness.

A speechless person can have language. Sign language is a language.

I think for you and me language in intertwined in many, not all, of our experiences.

Yes but now we are just playing with semantics. Anything could be classified as language. A flower signaling with colors to a bee could be viewed as a language. A bee hive performing threatening displays is a language.
Any micro organism that emits a pheromone is communicating.

I think human language is a key to understanding human consciousness.

Why?

A thing must have a reason to have consciousness.

It must be using it in some way.

If there is no use for it to think it is there is irrational.

The sun has no need for consciousness. It is not hunting or avoiding capture. It is not seeking food and a mate.

A tree has no need of consciousness.

An ant does, so it is rational to speculate it might have it in some form.

If a being is "using" its consciousness then consciousness has to be able to affect physics.
I'm not sure if I agree with this, I think physics gives rise to consciousness.

About trees, you should get up to speed with the science of plant intelligence, it's fascinating. There's an immense communication between plants. And between plants and fungi. They are extremely interconnected.

An ant does need consciousness, but an ant colony needs it even more. Wouldn't you agree?

 

[veclock]

I'm genuinely interested in the discussion. I'm myself an actively religious atheist. I love religion, while also being an atheist. I'm a friend of pantheism and, while not an card carrying pantheist, am in the orbit of the Stockholm pantheist community. Which sucks, since I now live in Copenhagen.

Are you from Sweden originally or Denmark?
I'm not practicing any religion and I'm not a part of any community of that sort, didn't know there was a pantheist community. Thanks for mention it, might read up on it. All though for me it's not about the community, I've always found existential problems interesting to think about.

What I'm reacting against is that you're triggering all the red flags. Based on the way you are discussing, the terms you use, and your arguments from ignorance you're like a stereotype of a New Age hippie. I don't like when they do it, because they make Pantheists look bad.

Why aren't you absorbing the information I'm communicating to you, I don't hold these ideas as a strong belief, I'm trying them out to see how well they hold up.
A stereotype new age hippie believes in "forces", "magic crystals", "spirits". I believe in the universe. And the only two things I can reduce the universe to is physics and consciousness. The whole point of this thread is to see where to go from there... are they the same thing, does one give rise to the other.

If you stop using oft poorly understood long sciency words in order to enhance vague pseudoscientific concepts, (to give them some gravitas) like what Deepak Chopra.

Haha I don't take Deepak Chopra seriously for a second.

You can say all the same stuff without the pseudoscience. If you understand the words you are using. Do you? Or are you just a New Age hippie spouting all the old hippie nonsense? I'm not convinced you are not.

I understand the words I'm using yes. I've read a multiple of books about physics, probably watched all documentaries on physics and string theory out there, listened to hundreds of hours of online lectures on the subject by physics professors like Krauss, Brian Greene, Michio Kaku. Probably listened to all the content out there from all of these public intellectual scientists, and in particular Dawkins and Sam Harris. Spent hundreds of hours debating theists and magical thinkers that magic doesn't exist and that physics is the foundation of everything.

You don't seem to know the difference between philosophy and pseudoscience.
It's ok to view me as an opponent in the discussion, but to try to dumb me down makes you come off as dumber your self, because you're proving that you're not having what it takes to meet my actual arguments. So you must pretend me to be a new age hippie who is saying stuff I'm not saying. Not intellectually honest at all, it makes you weak. And by having me repeat this again and again you also come off as quite dense.

Now, either you read and accept what my views are, or you ignore it or purposely misinterpret it again.
But then I wont continue the discussion with you, because it will be pointless to have a discussion with someone who can't read.

We agree on something.

Could you please share your thoughs on consciousness, so I know where you're coming from?

Self awareness and meta cognition isn't magic. It's the ability to self reflect and explore your inner life and adapt to your environment based on what you learn. All but the most simple computer programs can do that.

So you claim you know computers have an inner subjective experience. That's running further than I've ever done in this discussion.
I've argued on a philosophical level that certain things might be possible, now you claim you know it. How ironic.
Can you prove this?

But you're taking this and running with it... very very far away from the above.

Not really. I'm not claiming anything. I'm asking questions. If A, then wouldn't B be a reasonable consequence?

By posting that link, as if it defeats my arguments, makes you come across as more clueless. You'll have to do better than that.

No actually, you're the one who comes off as totally clueless.

Um... yeah. There it came. I'm not impressed. How isn't this just an overly complicated version of the Chinese Room? How isn't this simply built around trying to prove the specialness of human consciousness? How isn't this pseudo science?

Trying to prove the specialness of human consciousness? It's doing the opposite. It's a theory about applying consciousness to any system meeting the necessary criteria, as it tries to define. How would that have anything to do with humans?

I think it's argument from ignorance. Quantum physics behaves very strangely compared to macro physics. But strange is just just that. It's strange, but it's still got rules of it's own. It's not a free pass to insert whatever nonsense you feel must be true.

Again, notice how you interpreted a question as a claim that something is true, just to be able to call it an argument from ignorance, pseudoscience, new age hippie.
Step up your discussion skills or I'm done with you.

 

[untermensche]

Simulation theory is just simulating physics and letting it happen.

Why?

We have the real thing doing that already.

Why do we need a fictional simulation of some non-existent universe?

In the US the 1990's was called "The decade of the brain" at the time. Massive funding into brain research was begun. And the whole world has joined in and research using that hypothesis (consciousness is some unknown EM effect) has gone on for decades.

Fair enough. And is the hypothesis disproven yet? Did they find more interesting hypotheses along the way?

A hypothesis that has produced nothing is no better than any other hypothesis that has produced nothing.

Can objective reality exist without subjective experience of it?

What counts as a subject?

But this is where it gets even more interesting. Because our bodies are just cell colonies. We are not a single organism, we are made up of trillions of organisms, individual cells with their "interesting evolved behavior" as you said.
So we as a colony experience consciousness, what is the difference?

We started as one cell and now we are a single multi-cellular organism with cells that have differentiated.

We do have bacteria on our skin, in our nose and mouth and in our GI tract.

The difference is an ant is not a neuron and we are not a colony of ants.

The ant colony, is a superorganism, and compared to a single ant it is more intelligent and more aware of its surroundings.

Individual ant's having a means of mass communication is not the colony having an intelligence.

It seems plausible that it could be more conscious too.

I see no plausibility in it.

Yes but now we are just playing with semantics. Anything could be classified as language. A flower signaling with colors to a bee could be viewed as a language. A bee hive performing threatening displays is a language.
Any micro organism that emits a pheromone is communicating.

Language is not the same thing as communication.

Human language is specifically structured with defining features and all human languages turn out to be the same thing when looked at hierarchically as opposed to lineally.

Animals use vocalization for communication but it is not language.

Things similar to human language are found in some song birds and some whales.

But there we can only look at the vocalization. We have no idea how the vocalization is being experienced by a bird or whale.

I think human language is a key to understanding human consciousness.

Why?

Because so much is connected to language.

Memory is connected to language.

There is an invisible underlying process that enables us to comprehend and produce language. This process can be knocked out by a stroke.

The auditory system is connected to language as well as the musculoskeletal system, when we hear and speak language.

Language is connected to the intellectual abilities and the creative abilities.

If a being is "using" its consciousness then consciousness has to be able to affect physics.

There is no reason to have a consciousness unless it can act.

A consciousness that does not act is superfluous and not needed.

If all action is done reflexively by a brain the brain has no need of a consciousness.

There's an immense communication between plants.

Communication implies intent and desire.

Reflexive behavior is not communication.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Are you from Sweden originally or Denmark?
I'm not practicing any religion and I'm not a part of any community of that sort, didn't know there was a pantheist community. Thanks for mention it, might read up on it. All though for me it's not about the community, I've always found existential problems interesting to think about.

I'm originally from Stockholm. There's a Pantheist/Syntheist community centered around Blivande in Frihamnen. I was a founding member. We started it in 2012. We built a massive church in the old Akzo Nobel building. I was one of the people who built it. But it was just a temporary thing. The building is gone now. We moved to Blivande in Frihamnen. This is now a permanent church. But it's not the regular kind of church. By design there's no priests or any figures of authority. Our religious texts is the entire body of human literature. It's a doacracy. Ie, whoever takes initiative to something is in charge. We have a festival each year called Borderland (not last year nor this) and it's swollen beyond just the religion and it's now it's own thing. There's thousands of people who show up, many who have no clue about it's origins or function. Which is also by design. It's by design the opposite of a cult. It's radically inclusive. So you can go to Blivande for years and never understand what all the workshops, prayers and religious stuff are about.

The only rule is that you need to be an atheist to join. Some Syntheists, me included, do talk about God and refer to God. To me it's purely a poetic metaphor. Which, I'm sure you, as a Pantheist, understand all about. But we are very nice to the odd theist who hangs out with us. So it can be a bit confusing to some atheists who join and get the God talk.

We're also not missionaries. We don't talk anybody into converting to atheism or our brand of atheism. That's also by design.

I can't really explain the secret sauce to this or why it's keeping going or why it keeps growing and continuing being successful beyond my wildest dreams. I just thought we'd be a group of 50-100 guys talking philosophy and staring up at the sky in awe together. Now it's a fully functioning and very healthy corporation spawning all manner of successful and lucrative projects. When Covid-19 hit the church was almost immediately converted into a factory for protective gear. I haven't really been a part of it since I moved to Copenhagen in 2017.

My current theory for why it's been so successful is that it's very middle class. It attracts well educated, intelligent and highly effective people, who are good at getting shit done. I could be wrong. Another theory is that it's the zeitgeist. A conservative reactionary movement has hit back against the worst excesses of postmodernism (ie Hegel, thesis, antithesis and Synthesis). But the old timey religion is adapted for iron age goat herders. Not level 50 paladins and people who buy biodegradable glitter online. So the moment anybody mentioned what a lot of people were thinking at the same time it all just exploded.

Me personally I'd been a Syntheist/Pantheist in practice all my life. I've always been a staunch atheist. I've always felt that the supernatural/litteral interpretation of god theories always have been preposterous.

I've travelled extensively all over the world. And my favourite part of travelling is exploring religions around the world. I love temples.

Placing religious temples side by side with secular temples (universities, shopping malls, power stations, bridges etc) the secular counterparts are not very spiritually uplifting. They fill me with stress, pressure and the need to go somewhere. While the religious temples calms me down and helps me reflect. I've known all my life that I prefer the traditional religious temples.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntheism

I can recommend two Syntheist temples that we built. These are very Pantheist.

We got permission to build a permanent structure. This will stand for a hundred years in a beautiful spot. There's no information on it. It's just a temple for whatever you want it to be for.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/T...20f5b77ca8c93e2!8m2!3d55.6260625!4d12.1684375


But there's a second temple in the woods. Right here.

https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6300169,12.1698146,145m/data=!3m1!1e3

It's well hidden in the deep forest and made to blend into the forest around it. Very Pantheist indeed. Equally impressive with Tokamak.

Why aren't you absorbing the information I'm communicating to you, I don't hold these ideas as a strong belief, I'm trying them out to see how well they hold up.
A stereotype new age hippie believes in "forces", "magic crystals", "spirits". I believe in the universe. And the only two things I can reduce the universe to is physics and consciousness. The whole point of this thread is to see where to go from there... are they the same thing, does one give rise to the other.

To break it down:

1) I don't believe these things
2) Repeats the things.

If you're reducing the universe to "consciousness" you are going full on hippie. It's an absurd belief on par with anything Christians ever came up with. Trying to come across as slightly humble by inserting "it's not a strong belief" is just a rhetorical trick. You're still going very far down an deductive road where, at no point, during your journey have you reached anything that might suggest consciousness further down the road. None.

Hippies start by feeling something. Usually self aggrandizing. They then decide it's true. And proceed to filter reality around it, warping logic itself. Completely bullet proof to any rational argument. How isn't this what you are doing?

If you stop using oft poorly understood long sciency words in order to enhance vague pseudoscientific concepts, (to give them some gravitas) like what Deepak Chopra.

Haha I don't take Deepak Chopra seriously for a second.

Could it possibly have something to do with his liberal use of scientific words in absurd contexts? Hint hint.

You don't seem to know the difference between philosophy and pseudoscience.

If you're doing philosophy then why bring in the science? You don't sound like you are talking philosophy. You sound like you are talking science.

This is something hippies do all the time. They suck at philosophy and can't argue their case if their life depended on it. So they use scientific language, because we all know that the scientific method and peer review give science much greater gravitas than philosophical ideas. It's essentially argument from authority. They use all the longest words they can find in the hopes that their audience doesn't understand it. Arguably nobody fully understands quantum theory. So by throwing in Quantum Theory any random hippie idiot can make even the greatest scientist a bit insecure about their position and back down from a fight. It looks to me like this is exactly what you are doing. I'm not convinced at all you're not. I'd say your way of arguing is stereotypical of hippies.

We agree on something.

Could you please share your thoughs on consciousness, so I know where you're coming from?

As a layperson I'm just going with whatever the scientific community agrees on. If they can't agree on anything my belief is that nobody knows. Therefore my current position is that consciousness is still a mystery.

We don't really know it's function. For all we know it could be some sort of strange evolutionary remnant from an earlier stage of evolutionary development of the mammalian brain. Like the appendix. Or the human equivalent of peacock feathers. Useless to anything but help us get laid. But I am highly dubious that it's anything but a creation of the human body. Once it dies I'm convinced it takes our consciousness with it.

Self awareness and meta cognition isn't magic. It's the ability to self reflect and explore your inner life and adapt to your environment based on what you learn. All but the most simple computer programs can do that.

So you claim you know computers have an inner subjective experience. That's running further than I've ever done in this discussion.
I've argued on a philosophical level that certain things might be possible, now you claim you know it. How ironic.
Can you prove this?

An inner subjective experience is subjective and can therefore cannot be proven, nor compared. Who the fuck knows if computers have an inner subjective experience? I'm an ex computer scientist. I have built a working computer from scratch. I've done machine learning and programmed computers who can learn and adapt. And I have no damn clue what goes on in that computer brain that is it's subjective experience. Just because we can't extract it somehow and share in the experience doesn't mean it's not there. For all you know you're the only human with a inner subjective experience. The rest of us could all be part of an elaborate theater of zombies conspiring to deceive you. Everybody agrees that Qualia is a thing. But we struggle with even constructing experiments to show how we experience colour differently. We all know that we do. But there's fundamental practical obstacles to constructing the experiments. Even the simplest aspect to it is almost impossible.

When Descartes said "I think therefore I am" he was wrong. Thinking doesn't prove shit.

All we know is that computer programs collect information about the world, create an image of if and then and act on it according to rules we have created. But we don't know what they're feeling about it.

When people in these conversations talk about "inner subjective experience" what they're usually talking about is the specialness of humans/mammals. And it all is reduced to a No True Scotsman conversation. I think it seems like you are also doing that.

I agree with Searle that computers and humans think differently. The Chinese room doesn't think like a human. But it's not a hierarchy where human thought is more advanced, and the Chinese room is simpler. It's just different.

Neuroscience has shown that the consciousness (of languages we are fluent) isn't involved at all when it comes to language processing. It's a separate process we are not normally consciously aware of. So how can we compare human brains to computers when it comes to language processing?

Um... yeah. There it came. I'm not impressed. How isn't this just an overly complicated version of the Chinese Room? How isn't this simply built around trying to prove the specialness of human consciousness? How isn't this pseudo science?

Trying to prove the specialness of human consciousness? It's doing the opposite. It's a theory about applying consciousness to any system meeting the necessary criteria, as it tries to define. How would that have anything to do with humans?

How aren't you taking human consciousness and generalizing it as the model for universal consciousness? If you are not talking about human consciousness then you have no idea what you are talking about. Then why call it "consciousness"?

 

[untermensche]

Two ideas go together.

1. Human consciousness is the brain trying to recreate "reality".

2. Human consciousness is just what any advanced consciousness would look like.

Both ideas are wrong.

 

[veclock]

Why?

We have the real thing doing that already.

Why do we need a fictional simulation of some non-existent universe?

Well I agree that it's very far fetched. Maybe to feel like a god, or just for entertainment? I'll pass that question to people who actually argues for simulation theory.
All I'm saying is that in simulation theory we would/could still be evolved creatures.

Fair enough. And is the hypothesis disproven yet? Did they find more interesting hypotheses along the way?

A hypothesis that has produced nothing is no better than any other hypothesis that has produced nothing.

That is true.

Can objective reality exist without subjective experience of it?

What counts as a subject?

Good question. Especially if panpsychism is true.
What I meant was, can objective reality exist without consciousness?
Imagine a universe that was real but no consciousness was ever there to experience it, sounds like a totally imaginary place.
But also, one might ask what is objective reality. Some aspects of quantum physics are "subjective", some things that are true for a stationary observer can be different to an observer in movement, so it depends.

But this is where it gets even more interesting. Because our bodies are just cell colonies. We are not a single organism, we are made up of trillions of organisms, individual cells with their "interesting evolved behavior" as you said.
So we as a colony experience consciousness, what is the difference?

We started as one cell and now we are a single multi-cellular organism with cells that have differentiated.

We do have bacteria on our skin, in our nose and mouth and in our GI tract.

The difference is an ant is not a neuron and we are not a colony of ants.

Ants starts from the queen, and differentiate too (in some species at least). Why would that be a relevant factor to bring up though? Isn't more mathematical aspects of a system more relevant than how it came to be?
Because it seems you get stuck on details that are quite easy to go around. Just imagine an alien insect colony where they start from one and and ant-divide into a fully grown colony.
The question still remains, so don't get stuck on irrelevant details.

"The difference is an ant is not a neuron and we are not a colony of ants"
No shit sherlock
The ant colony has a large number of neurons working together, neurons that would involve whatever physics needed for consciousness. What is your counter argument really? Is the neurons too spread out? Are the pheromone step too time consuming? Does the whole system lack some fundamental structural property / degree of complexity? I'm finding myself arguing against myself more effectively right now.

The ant colony, is a superorganism, and compared to a single ant it is more intelligent and more aware of its surroundings.

Individual ant's having a means of mass communication is not the colony having an intelligence.

It is. It's called swarm intelligence. Individual ants don't know what they are doing (I would assume), but collectively they are building air ventilations, farms, egg chambers.

It's a different form of intelligence. And if the swarm is conscious it would be in a different way too.

Would you also argue against that artificial intelligence is intelligence?

Yes but now we are just playing with semantics. Anything could be classified as language. A flower signaling with colors to a bee could be viewed as a language. A bee hive performing threatening displays is a language.
Any micro organism that emits a pheromone is communicating.

Language is not the same thing as communication.

Ok I'll buy that. Not all communication is language but all language is communication though.

I think human language is a key to understanding human consciousness.

Why?

Because so much is connected to language.

Memory is connected to language.

There is an invisible underlying process that enables us to comprehend and produce language. This process can be knocked out by a stroke.

The auditory system is connected to language as well as the musculoskeletal system, when we hear and speak language.

Language is connected to the intellectual abilities and the creative abilities.

I'm not convinced. Memories can be experienced as sounds, like inner movies of what it looked like, you can remember a taste, a smell. Intuitively, without putting words to it.
Scientists are doing experiments placing false memories in mice. Then mice must have language if your statement is true.

But also, things like memories, behavior are not consciousness.

There is an invisible underlying process that enables us to comprehend and produce language. This process can be knocked out by a stroke.
Yes, and from your argument it would follow that a person like that would lack consciousness.

There is no reason to have a consciousness unless it can act.

A consciousness that does not act is superfluous and not needed.

If all action is done reflexively by a brain the brain has no need of a consciousness.

So from a materialistic point of view, where our brains are processing everything and making all decisions deterministically, it seems like consciousness is not involved at all in the process, but rather a side product of the fully functional system. An epiphenomenon. There's neurological evidence to support this: https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2008.751
Because how could consciousness be a part of the decision making if it it's already determined what you will decide before you're consciously aware of it? Seems consciousness can be a copilot at best.

There's an immense communication between plants.

Communication implies intent and desire.

Reflexive behavior is not communication.

It is. The hair standing back on an afraid cats back is communicating "I am big", while also being a reflex.

Two ideas go together.

1. Human consciousness is the brain trying to recreate "reality".

2. Human consciousness is just what any advanced consciousness would look like.

Both ideas are wrong.

Agree.