What is Conscious? (Split from 'Morality in Bible stories that you don't understand')

[excreationist]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

It's called "the Dunning-Kruger Effect".... not sure how accurate it is though...

 

[DBT]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

Just curious, who or what are you referring to? What I posted....or do you agree with Jarhyns claim that computers have consciousness and will?

 

[DBT]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

It's called "the Dunning-Kruger Effect".... not sure how accurate it is though...

What exactly are you disputing?

 

[Jarhyn]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

It's called "the Dunning-Kruger Effect".... not sure how accurate it is though...

What exactly are you disputing?

Look at which of us has the more nuanced and complicated view of how reality and consciousness function, and you're probably* going to see your answer.

One of us says discussing consciousness requires actually considering what "consciousness of" is being discussed, and discussed truth tables and the primitive elements of "awareness", how phrases construct within systems through the progressive assembly of switches, and thus how a system fundamentally becomes aware of "a line" from awareness of facts along that line.

One of us says it's complicated and that figuring it out is NOT easy.

The other waves their hands and says "how could you possibly believe that, that's stupid."

I'll leave it up to you to figure out where the people involved sit on that chart.

*Who am I kidding, no you won't.

 

[excreationist]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

It's called "the Dunning-Kruger Effect".... not sure how accurate it is though...

What exactly are you disputing?

I'm just agreeing with Politesse's statement about people who have a literal crumb of knowledge that they are certain of.... e.g. about a flat earth or some conspiracy theories

 

[DBT]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

It's called "the Dunning-Kruger Effect".... not sure how accurate it is though...

What exactly are you disputing?

Look at which of us has the more nuanced and complicated view of how reality and consciousness function, and you're probably* going to see your answer.

One of us says discussing consciousness requires actually considering what "consciousness of" is being discussed, and discussed truth tables and the primitive elements of "awareness", how phrases construct within systems through the progressive assembly of switches, and thus how a system fundamentally becomes aware of "a line" from awareness of facts along that line.

One of us says it's complicated and that figuring it out is NOT easy.

The other waves their hands and says "how could you possibly believe that, that's stupid."

I'll leave it up to you to figure out where the people involved sit on that chart.

*Who am I kidding, no you won't.

You don't have a coherent view.

On the one hand you appear to deny that the brain is responsible for generating consciousness, and on the other you make the outrageous and unsupportable claim that computers have consciousness and will.

Frankly, it's bizarre. You reject basic descriptions of brain function, yet make fantastic claims about computers.

 

[Jarhyn]

You don't have a coherent view.

Says the person who can't spot a Modal Fallacy...

On the one hand you appear to deny that the brain is responsible for generating consciousness

So, here's yet another one of your dishonest tactics in discussions designed to make you LOOK right instead of actually being right. "The brain" is no more responsible for generating consciousness as "that specific x86 over there" is. The brain, nor the specific x86, is not the sole fountain. This does not mean that brains, as in brains in general do it have consciousness among their parts; in fact from my definition many things have many forms of consciousness, in the same way a collection of particles does not merely have a single way of interacting.

It is not the brain that is responsible as an element, but rather the switches the brain is composed of, the individual neurons, which together construct a large and complicated system of phrases about whatever data happens to come in. All such systems containing such syntaxes are "conscious".

I think you are rather the one who makes rather fantastic claims though seeing as between the two of us, I'm the one who actually knows how to put neurons together to achieve specific computations and form phrases and syntax explicitly among the network that satisfy the basic requirements of "awareness", namely reactivity to things pertaining to change of some input vector.

It is those who claim it is more than that who have always shirked their burden, and now after millennia of not being expected to pick up their rightful burden, such shirkers balk at the expectation.

 

[Elixir]

… is "eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" a metaphor for the rise of subjective consciousness?

I have always understood it that way. Some wonks have tied it to the nascent ability to measure time, which led to longer term planning and eventually, nukes and Twitter.

Goes along with the observation that for all we know, intelligence is a lethal mutation.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Cosciousness almost surely is not a uniquely human trait.

https://aeon.co/essays/are-we-ready-to-study-consciousness-in-crabs-and-the-like

 

[Swammerdami]

… is "eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" a metaphor for the rise of subjective consciousness?

I have always understood it that way. Some wonks have tied it to the nascent ability to measure time, which led to longer term planning and eventually, nukes and Twitter.

As an example of the difference between animal thinking and human subjective consciousness, Jaynes discusses holding a grudge and plotting revenge. A chimp will forget a grudge after an hour or so. Human ... not so much.

Goes along with the observation that for all we know, intelligence is a lethal mutation.

You may be right.
I'm not sure which emoticon to use for a reply here!

 

[Swammerdami]

Cosciousness almost surely is not a uniquely human trait.

https://aeon.co/essays/are-we-ready-to-study-consciousness-in-crabs-and-the-like

... have we even defined the word "consciousness"?

 

[excreationist]

Recall that in Julian Jaynes' terminology, animals did not have "(subjective) consciousness." Neither did humans until certain complexity-related conflicts, typically in the Late Bronze Age.

I don't remember if Jaynes makes this claim, but is "eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" a metaphor for the rise of subjective consciousness?

It seems he talks about the "voice of God" people can hear which is relevant to the Bible.

Overview of Julian Jaynes's Theory of Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind - Julian Jaynes Society

Learn more about Julian Jaynes's theory of consciousness and the bicameral mind, why it's important, and resources to better understand the theory. ...

www.julianjaynes.org

BTW language in the mind allows people to think about abstract things like the far future and recall specific memories of events, etc.

 

[excreationist]

I don't remember if Jaynes makes this claim, but is "eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" a metaphor for the rise of subjective consciousness?

I doubt that was the intention of the writers of Genesis. I think the tree is similar to this:

Learning Right From Wrong

children have the requisite moral sense--the ability to tell right from wrong--by age 7 to 15, depending on which state they live in, and so can be held responsible for their actions

 

[Swammerdami]

I again recommend that Infidels read Julian Jaynes' book. He has rich interesting ideas closely related to topics of interest at IIDB.

Read the actual book. Controversial books attract detractors, but many of the critics are incompetent, and didn't even pay attention to or understand the book they criticize. In fact I know multiple examples of controversial books where the top Google hits for "Explain or criticize <insert controversial book>" are from people who obviously briefly skimmed the book or didn't read it at all!

To give a little context, I'll now give a brief summary of Jaynes' view of the development of "consciousness" but PLEASE:

• Note that this is MY viewpoint. Where my view or emphasis differs from Jaynes', HIS view is probably more intelligent and more correct.
• No brief summary can do justice to such rich ideas. Read the actual book.
• Jaynes' book is filled with detailed evidence for his thesis; I can't do that here.
• Read the actual book.

Jaynes divides the prehistory and history of human cognition into five phases:

1. Animal brain. Early man's cognition resembles that of other apes. Animals have no concept of good and evil; they just follow their leader(s).
2. Development of language. Jaynes spends a few pages on a conjectured sequence of language development: -- the sort of excess speculation that attracts detractors. Usage of personal names was a key step in Jaynes' view. (How well are chimpanzee's gruntings understood? Is anything known about their limited lexicons?)
   Associated with language are dedicated cerebral centers, typically in the left hemisphere. (What about counterparts in the right hemisphere?)
3. Bicameral mind. When a community becomes so large that members are too distant from the leader to get direct instruction, they rely on memory to set tasks. This memory takes the form of auditory hallucinations; some of this brain activity may take place in the right-hemisphere counterparts to left-hemisphere speech and hearing centers. (Detailed understanding of brain has advanced since Jaynes' day. Do we know whether schizophrenia, for example, involves right-hemisphere activity?) People hallucinate instructions from their deceased parents, or from a living chieftain. That chieftain hallucinates instructions from his own ancestors, often promoted to be "gods."
   We still see vestiges of bicameral cognition, for example schizophrenia and "speaking in tongues." Susceptibility to hypnosis correlates with right-hemisphere activity and -- this is MY view, not Jaynes' -- bicameral man may have been easily "hypnotized."
   A bicameral community eventually develops a "religion" derived from the "gods" whose "voices" they follow.
4. Breakdown of bicameral mind. Eventually society becomes too complex for unconscious bicameral cognition. Problems arise when interacting with neighboring community with a different "god." Much of Jaynes' book is devoted to discussion of, and evidence for, such "breakdown."
5. Subjective consciousness. Ability to narratize, coping with long time periods, viewing oneself as agent.

I've scribbled this in haste, and doubtless omitted or misrepresented much of importance. Read the actual book.

Recall that in Julian Jaynes' terminology, animals did not have "(subjective) consciousness." Neither did humans until certain complexity-related conflicts, typically in the Late Bronze Age.

I don't remember if Jaynes makes this claim, but is "eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" a metaphor for the rise of subjective consciousness?
Yes, Jaynes makes this specific claim in a longish chapter on the Hebrew.

It seems he talks about the "voice of God" people can hear which is relevant to the Bible.

Overview of Julian Jaynes's Theory of Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind - Julian Jaynes Society

Learn more about Julian Jaynes's theory of consciousness and the bicameral mind, why it's important, and resources to better understand the theory. ...

www.julianjaynes.org

BTW language in the mind allows people to think about abstract things like the far future and recall specific memories of events, etc.

Yes, the effect of language on cognition is a key part of Jaynes' ideas.

 

[DBT]

You don't have a coherent view.

Says the person who can't spot a Modal Fallacy...

So say the man who makes extravagant claims he can't support. The so called fallacy is a construct of your fertile imagination and dismissal of basic principles.

On the one hand you appear to deny that the brain is responsible for generating consciousness

So, here's yet another one of your dishonest tactics in discussions designed to make you LOOK right instead of actually being right. "The brain" is no more responsible for generating consciousness as "that specific x86 over there" is. The brain, nor the specific x86, is not the sole fountain. This does not mean that brains, as in brains in general do it have consciousness among their parts; in fact from my definition many things have many forms of consciousness, in the same way a collection of particles does not merely have a single way of interacting.

That's ridiculous. Another of your absurd claims. That the brain generates consciousness unlike your consciousness and will in computers, is well established and easily tested.

It is not the brain that is responsible as an element, but rather the switches the brain is composed of, the individual neurons, which together construct a large and complicated system of phrases about whatever data happens to come in. All such systems containing such syntaxes are "conscious".

Oh, boy. The damn 'switches,' neurons, glial cells. synapses, axons, dendrites, etc, make up the neural networks of the lobes and regions of a brain.

When someone says 'the brain,' that obviously includes everything that forms the architecture and function of a brain.

And you talk about fallacies, JHC! Give it a rest.

I think you are rather the one who makes rather fantastic claims though seeing as between the two of us, I'm the one who actually knows how to put neurons together to achieve specific computations and form phrases and syntax explicitly among the network that satisfy the basic requirements of "awareness", namely reactivity to things pertaining to change of some input vector.

It is those who claim it is more than that who have always shirked their burden, and now after millennia of not being expected to pick up their rightful burden, such shirkers balk at the expectation.

You are arguing against a strawman of your own making.

 

[Jarhyn]

That the brain generates consciousness unlike your consciousness and will in computers, is well established and easily tested.

Outside of formalist physicalist theories of consciousness that are entirely compatible with IIT and consciousness in computers, the idea of consciousness has not even been suitably defined to ANY form of semantic completeness.

You are simply popping off with lies you have been taught (or acquired all on your own which you are not strong enough to fight clear of). Every system of consciousness is different. Systems of consciousness are not fungible unless some phrase in the system shares identity.

And you claim this with ZERO involvement in anything constituting research about it.

All systems we have ever observed come from the widespread interrelationships of small, primitive elements from which behavior emerges depending on the intricate structure of those small things working together, and that such complexity "accumulates" as the system grows, but the principle of one simple thing being conscious of only one simple thing scares you so much to look at!

You will always have some quality to point to in any brain to say it's not "true" consciousness until you put down your childish fallacies and sophistry and accept that, like everything else, all large scale complex phenomena are actually compositions of much more simple activities.

You are looking for consciousness of specific things, and the declaring consciousness of those things to be consciousness, excluding for no reason consciousness of all the things that you particularly wish to exclude.

It's like talking to a creationist... Which I suppose I am seeing as your argument is dangerously close to KCA.

 

[excreationist]

I don't remember if Jaynes makes this claim, but is "eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" a metaphor for the rise of subjective consciousness?
Yes, Jaynes makes this specific claim in a longish chapter on the Hebrew.

Are you talking about the "voice of God" hallucination? As far as knowledge of good and evil goes are you talking about a superego? (a voice telling them what they "should" do?) When they realized they were naked I wonder if it was a feeling or a voice? Though it says "who told you you were naked?" (like the superego could have told them)
As far as the book goes it seems it is from 1976 and is 500 pages. Maybe I can skim read it....
And there's this:

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"A growing number of publications discuss and expand on Julian Jaynes's theory. These include" (from 2007-2022)
and "There have been a number of conferences and symposiums dedicated to Julian Jaynes's theory"

 

[DBT]

That the brain generates consciousness unlike your consciousness and will in computers, is well established and easily tested.

Outside of formalist physicalist theories of consciousness that are entirely compatible with IIT and consciousness in computers, the idea of consciousness has not even been suitably defined to ANY form of semantic completeness.

Crock. You have no evidence to support the notion of mind, consciousness or will in computers.

We know what it means to be aware of ourselves and our environment, to conscious. We can recognize it in other people and other animals, but there is no sign of it in computers regardless of their sophisticated software.

You still conflate mechanical function with mind and consciousness.

You are simply popping off with lies you have been taught (or acquired all on your own which you are not strong enough to fight clear of). Every system of consciousness is different. Systems of consciousness are not fungible unless some phrase in the system shares identity.

Lies? GFY. Take your sour ignorance and shove it.

And you claim this with ZERO involvement in anything constituting research about it.

You have no idea. You talk through your arse.

All systems we have ever observed come from the widespread interrelationships of small, primitive elements from which behavior emerges depending on the intricate structure of those small things working together, and that such complexity "accumulates" as the system grows, but the principle of one simple thing being conscious of only one simple thing scares you so much to look at!

That's Idiotic. Complexity and function alone doesn't equate to consciousness.

It's the sort of claim a crank makes. No researcher of repute makes the claim that computers are conscious or have a will of their own, just you.

It's a claim that's off with the Pixies. The stuff of Flat Earth belief. Either produce evidence to support your claim, or stop asserting it.

 

[Jarhyn]

Crock. You have no evidence to support the notion of mind, consciousness or will in computers.

Other than the fact that they render behavior and inference on information such that practical phrases are formed and stated within the system between its parts?

Complexity and function alone doesn't equate to consciousness.

No, function alone equates to consciousness. Complexity equates to complex consciousness, whereas constrained and regular function defines simple consciousness, specifically according to that function.

If you would like to claim there is something more than that happening you will have to provide evidence that your definitions have useful meanings.

That's what people who are foolish about the "hard problem" seem to fail to grasp: definitions have to actually be useful, and you haven't developed a useful definition of consciousness and awareness, nor supported this through outcome related investigation.

Using my definitions I can execute the statement "build a system which is aware of the color gradients and focal length of a lens, has control based on that awareness over the focal length, and conscious of the existence of lines according to value gradients with linear curves, and whose awareness of these lines creates a preliminary awareness of 'off track/line/path/vector' such that this encodes a response to veer in a direction that places the line into the center of the awareness."

Which is to say "build a robot that is conscious of a line, that is ONLY conscious of the single crispest line, and whose sole predilection on is to follow that line"

I can prove that's happening according to my definitions and use my definitions to produce exactly that thing. The definitions are useful.

You could likewise expand this into "is conscious of whether there is a line, and is conscious of the decisions it makes to steer" would involve using an iterative and verbose process, for example. Additional awareness of internal states may be built up as well through this schema of understanding. Indeed all of software and hardware and AI engineering is built up effectively on this premise, of being able to just state what you want something to do in language and expound on that language until it's encoded in "machine language" as the determinant for the composition of switches that implement all the phrases of the system together into consciousness defined by those contingent mechanisms and their configuration.

It's been done, is being done now, will be done again, because neurons are, and have always only ever been (switches) and that's why your brain works the way it does.

Any kid who has ever taken a ML course should be able to understand that much, that formal theories, when they are correct, generally tend towards complex arrangements of simple units.

As it is, one of the first things you learn in ML is how to construct an AND gate from perceptron neurons, so you understand that they are just switches forming state diagrams and processes, albeit ones with non-binary activation thresholds, allowing a single switch in the network to represent a quantity rather than merely a quality.

 

[bilby]

You have no evidence to support the notion of mind, consciousness or will in computers.

Mate, we have no evidence to support the notion of mind, conciousness or will in other himans. We just assume that, as they're very similar to ourselves, their mental experience is very similar to our own.

Which would be a reasonable assumption, if it were not undermined by the fact that we also have no reliable evidence to support the notions of mind or will in ourselves, either. The question of consciousness, I think we can delegate to René Descartes.