Consciousness in a robot? (America, reject, scientific, experience)

[TRANSPONDER]

That is rather a tangent, Mystic. I have never denied the reality of your experience or that of OOB experiences - whether they have a certificate or not. What I have questioned is whether their explanation or impression about what they experienced is to be taken as the only explanation.

The science as distinct from a doctor claiming that his musings to put medical clothing on his clothes -horse of first impressions is to say that we don't know what causes this, and until we do, it is not scientific to claim that it is either a soul floating away, or indeed the mind accessing the cosmic consciousness field.

Indeed, if dr Alexander is the bod I watched in a you -tube, all he got was an impression of intense mental activity while in a state of effective death. The event I do not dispute. without knowing the mechanics, the 'This is the only explanation - I have a soul' claim is not a scientific conclusion.

[Sophronius]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

• In our world, there are conscious experiences.
• There is a logically possible world physically identical to ours, in which the positive facts about consciousness in our world do not hold.
• Therefore, facts about consciousness are further facts about our world, over and above the physical facts.

Any world physically identical to this world , could only be this world Otherwise at least an idea is required about how this proposed other world got to be identical to this world.

Is there some idea somewhere how, a world physically identical to this world --could be, without being this world ? Or how in the world and where, did this notion come from and how could it ever be justified?

So conscientiously and politely as usual some reasoning is required for above statement, the scientists aren't even close to finishing understanding how this world came to be and how it fully operates.

[Sophronius]

One of chemistries largest discoveries came to be understood juring sleep by a chemist.

The brain can problem solve while sleeping , because while at deep sleep the brain is organizing information.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by Sophronius

Any world physically identical to this world , could only be this world Otherwise at least an idea is required about how this proposed other world got to be identical to this world.

Is there some idea somewhere how, a world physically identical to this world --could be, without being this world ? Or how in the world and where, did this notion come from and how could it ever be justified?

So conscientiously and politely as usual some reasoning is required for above statement, the scientists aren't even close to finishing understanding how this world came to be and how it fully operates.

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

• In our world, there are conscious experiences.
• There is a logically possible world physically identical to ours, in which the positive facts about consciousness in our world do not hold.
• Therefore, facts about consciousness are further facts about our world, over and above the physical facts.

I get the point that the parellel world is just a hypothetical one to make a philosophical point. It does not have to exist nor even be logically likely, but just logically possible.

But what made me say that it made no sense was that the premise did not follow the implied conditions of proposing logically possible parellel worlds.

It bothered me all along that a critter had been handily imagined as lacking qualiative experiences so as to make the case that there needs to be 'Something More' about consciousness. I mentioned that this seemed to prove the failure of physicalism no more than imagining limbless critters (Limbies, I thing Gaylen called them) proved that anatomical physicalism had failed.

I was told that limbless humans is logically impossible, but turning it around in my head. I can't help but think that if it is possible to imagine a race of humanoids without qualia, it is possible to imagine a race of humanoids without limbs. in short one is declared logically possible to prove a point and the other is declared logically impossible to stop the point being invalidated.

Further, I don't see that it follows that positive facts about consciousness in our world not holding in the zombie world proves that materialism has failed or dualism (There is something more to consciousness than the material) is the logical conclusion.

As I say it is easily stated that qualia -less humans are logically possible but limbless humans are not. But, when I think about it, the logical possibility of a race of critters having no consciousness or not being able to access it seems to recede. Think about zombies (as described in fantasy about Voodoo) or about people brain -damaged so they cannot access their feelings and about people who have lost limbs and ask whether one proves something about mental physicalism and the other doesn't about anatomical physicalism.

This is why all along I have felt there was something fishy about Chalmer's zombies. It was constructed out of nothing to prove a point, and if it doesn't work in practical terms, being told that, as a tyro not to say ignoramus in philosophy, I don't understand that the practical aspect don't apply in philosophical constructs, does not reassure me.

The point about applying practical facts to philosophical propositions may be inconvenient, just as it is inconvenient to Zeno's paradox that in the actual world, the arrow does move. The error in Zeno - but only because we know - in practical terms - that it is wrong - is the implied premise that there is an indivisible and irreducible existent point at which the arrow is at rest is invalid. This I wonder whether the practical objections to the Chalmer zombie premise imply a false premise somewhere.

I'm not saying that just because I want to save monism (He said ) , I am saying it because that proposition above didn't make sense to me, because it did not seem to Follow nor be based on justified assumptions. As I said, just because you can imagine it doesn't make it so, read, logically possible, while something equally weird like Limbies is conveniently not logically possible. Why not, if we can imagine it?

If what seems to make sense as I set it out isn't applicable to philosophy, then perhaps the philosophy ought to be declared inapplicable to our real world.

Not making declarations here so much as expressing puzzlement about the argument being made.

P.s. I wonder whether the problem may be in the rather vague (not to say blunderbuss) term 'do not hold'. Does that mean they do not logically work, or do not logically exist in that other world, or the zombies cannot access those qualia or feelings even through they are there? A race of beings without experiences rather than one that cannot access them (unlikely as that sounds) is surely logically impossible - or factually impossible, and being able to imagine the factually impossible making it logically possible feels wrong to me right down in my practical psyche.

[KCfromNC]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

• In our world, there are conscious experiences.
• There is a logically possible world physically identical to ours, in which the positive facts about consciousness in our world do not hold.
• Therefore, facts about consciousness are further facts about our world, over and above the physical facts.

You seem to keep missing the central point of the zombie argument.

The central point is that it assumes its conclusions. The pZombies fabricated in step 2 are only conceivable if dualism is true, which also happens to be the intended conclusion of this argument. If one were fair and remained open to the idea of monism being true then the questions of pZombies being conceivable is undecided. That means that claims that they are logically possible are wrong and the whole argument falls apart into a mush of maybe, maybe not.

Obviously the possible world in which zombies exist is a "made up" world. No one disputes that. Chalmers does not believe that zombies are naturally possible in our world, and neither do I. The zombie argument is intended to show that zombies are logically possible, given our current concepts of physics (or, given our current definition of 'physical').

Insisting that zombies are logically possible even though everyone agrees that they can't exist seems to me to be the same as saying that someone's logic is wrong. What good is your logic if it tells you something exists which everyone knows can't?

The question you need to ask is: How does the logical possibility of zombies cause a problem for reductive materialism?

In no way at all, since as you've said being logically possible in some fantasy universe says nothing about how reality works in ours.

Notice that the zombie world is defined as physically identical to our world.

And I define materialism in this world as immune to the pZombie argument. And insist by divine fiat that this state of affairs is logically possible. So there's nothing to worry about. If you just take those claims at face value, like we're supposed to for Chalmer's ideas, then problem solved. But both approaches suffer from the same issue of assuming the conclusions we want to reach so neither are particularly interesting.

If you are going to defeat the zombie argument, you will need to show why a zombie world that is physically identical to our world is logically impossible.

Because if it were physically identical, pZombies would have consciousness since physical brains doing physical things are the source of consciousness.

Hey, if Chalmers gets to implicitly assume dualism in his definitions, his opponents should have the same leeway in assuming monism.

To show logical impossibility, you need to give a logical argument showing that the definitions of the key terms used in the zombies argument (i.e., the terms "physical" and "identical" and "zombie" and "possible") lead to contradiction

What argument shows that these zombies are possible in a physically identical world in the first place? What mechanisms are used to fill in the gaps of whatever magic is presumed to be missing? Or if there's no gaps to be filled, why is there a conclusion that physicalism is missing something?

In your statement above, you seem to already accept that a zombie world is logically possible.

It is both logically possible and not logically possible all at the same time. That's the great thing about pure logic unrestrained by reality - you get to make up whatever pretend assumptions you feel like on order to continue playing the game. If you assume there's something more than physical forces at work, you get to conclude that they exist. If you don't assume that, you conclude something else. This approach is great to get papers published but doesn't have much bearing on the people actually doing the heavy lifting in this field of research.

The interesting part of "logically possible" comes about when you're able to link arbitrary assumptions with actual observations. That's where you move from philosophy into science, and that's where actual results start happening. So Chalmers or whoever needs to get on with it an conjure us up a pZombie to study rather than just writing about them. At least if he wants to be taken seriously by the professionals in this area.

[KCfromNC]

Originally Posted by Will J

Absolutely no way. Machines thoughts are all built on "yes or no." If you ask a machine how it feels, it's response will be based on a collection of yesses and nos that it senses in itself. That's entirely different from a person saying "I feel a tight sadness in my chest because my spouse left me."

Here's a good example of the "consciousness must be different because it feels like it should" intuition that we need to be cautious of. The truth is that our conscious mind isn't privy to how much of the brain works. It could be that all of these things which feel all fuzzy really are just a collection of neurons giving various yes or no answers. That fact isn't communicated to whatever our consciousness is, so it fills in the blanks with all sorts of vague feelings about how things "must" be working. But these feelings tell us little of how the rest of the brain is actually working.

[Arach Angle]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

G
This is where we part company, Arach. "We" cannot be stored in the molecules in the brain because "We" are an abstraction that exists in the energy form (not matter) of the unified (consciousness) field. Analogously, you are suggesting that EM radiation is contained in the molecules of the TV set that displays the program.

I guess where we part is that energy is unknown. So I do not draw conclusion on what is unknown. What we do know is that energy is conserved like "red" and at our level of understanding conserved using particles (or fields). But even the fields are a description to define a point in space. So I use this to say that consciousness is an "emergent property". I really only use the words "emergent" like I use the word "god". Just as a reference point for others. there is no "emergent", that implies we know more than we do. our region of space is acting just like it is able too. We just don't know everything about its ability.


What Witten does is call it a philosophy because there is no math yet to describe life. I do not agree with everything you said here but the parts about awareness being fundamental property are being explored today.


sorry that wondered a little. I assign no value to this understanding. I don't pray to a superior universe anymore than I would ask hemoglobin to pray to me. But I understand why other's might and I will not mock them. humans are an emotional mix. So some have more "gratitude" and they express that. I am ok with that.

I just do see how it is possible for us to have something the universe does not. The brain IS NOT the most complex thing, not even close. It is not even a separate entity at all. So exactly what emerges from what exactly? The answer is nothing emerged ... it is more likely it is conserved because that is all we have.

[Arach Angle]

Originally Posted by Mistermobile

My two cents. Once 'puters become self aware and self programming, I am out of here.

lmao ... mr modile out of here ... I get it.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

At the risk of creating too much of a tangent . . . I think that the experiences of Dr. Eben Alexander more accurately reveal the nature of consciousness as I view it. EBEN ALEXANDER, M.D., has been an academic neurosurgeon for the last 25 years, including 15 years at the Brigham & Women’s and the Children’s Hospitals and Harvard Medical School in Boston. Visit him at Eben Alexander**.

These excerpts from Dr. Eben Alexander's book suggest that what he experienced parallels my deep meditation experiences . . . except that he seemed unable to distinguish between those that were from his unconscious and those that were real. The lack of a functioning neo-cortex due to E-Coli infection is the likely reason for this deficit. Nevertheless, I see his experiences as confirmatory of my own which had the advantage of conscious control and the ability to discriminate between unconscious content and reality. I extracted some pertinent parts from his book . . . but I recommend reading the entire book using the caution that he was unable to distinguish between unconscious content and reality. One of his conclusions follows:

We see the universe as a place full of separate objects (tables and chairs, people and planets) that occasionally interact with each other, but that nonetheless remain essentially separate. On the subatomic level, however, this universe of separate objects turns out to be a complete illusion. In the realm of the super-super-small, very object in the physical universe is intimately connected with every other object. In fact, there are really no “objects” in the world at all, only vibrations of energy, and relationships.

As I have stated many times . . . it is possible to "do science" in these altered states provided you retain conscious control. The drawback is that the only way to get second-hand confirmation is for any reproducer to enter the same altered states under the same conditions with the same control. Alexander experienced the direct "knowing" and certainty that accompanies these experiences and bemoans the same issues I have with skeptics who do not consider their consciousness a relevant aspect of reality itself:

But when I left my physical body behind, I experienced these facts directly. In fact, I feel confident in saying that . . . I was actually “doing science.” Science that relied on the truest and most sophisticated tool for scientific research that we possess: Consciousness itself. The further I dug, the more convinced I became that my discovery wasn’t just interesting or dramatic. It was scientific. Depending on whom you talk to, consciousness is either the greatest mystery facing scientific enquiry, or a total nonproblem. What’s surprising is just how many more scientists think it’s the latter. For many—maybe most—scientists, consciousness isn’t really worth worrying about because it is just a by-product of physical processes. Many scientists go further, saying that not only is consciousness a secondary phenomenon, but that in addition, it’s not even real.

His overall conclusions are cogent about NDE's and other out-of-body experiences and the reason skeptics and other scientists do not even consider them:

Like many other scientific skeptics, I refused to even review the data relevant to the questions concerning these phenomena. I prejudged the data, and those providing it, because my limited perspective failed to provide the foggiest notion of how such things might actually happen. Those who assert that there is no evidence for phenomena indicative of extended consciousness, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the
contrary, are willfully ignorant. They believe they know the truth without needing to look at the facts.

I am reproducing for your edification, Arq . . . his Appendix explaining the neuroscientific explanations for his experiences that he ultimately had to reject.

Neuroscientific Hypotheses I Considered to Explain My Experience
(In sum: these were rejected because he simply did NOT have a functioning neo-cortex where these experiences arise.)

In reviewing my recollections with several other neurosurgeons and scientists, I entertained several hypotheses that might explain my memories. Cutting right to the chase, they all failed to explain the rich, robust, intricate interactivity of the Gateway and Core experiences (the “ultra-reality”). These included:
1. A primitive brainstem program to ease terminal pain and suffering (“evolutionary argument”—possibly as a remnant of “feigned-death” strategies from lower mammals?). This did not explain the robust, richly interactive nature of the recollections.
2. The distorted recall of memories from deeper parts of the limbic system (for example, the lateral amygdala) that have enough overlying brain to be relatively protected from the meningitic inflammation, which occurs mainly at the brain’s surface. This did not explain the robust, richly interactive nature of the recollections.
3. Endogenous glutamate blockade with excitotoxicity, mimicking the hallucinatory anesthetic, ketamine occasionally used to explain NDEs in general). I occasionally saw the effects of ketamine used as an anesthetic during the earlier part of my neurosurgical career at Harvard Medical School. The hallucinatory state it induced was most chaotic and unpleasant, and bore no resemblance whatsoever to my experience in coma.
4. N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) “dump” (from the pineal, or elsewhere in the brain). DMT, a naturally occurring serotonin agonist (specifically at the 5-HT1A, 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptors), causes vivid hallucinations and a dreamlike state. I am personally familiar with drug experiences related to serotonin agonist/antagonists(that is, LSD, mescaline) from my teen years in the early 1970s. I have had no personal experience with DMT but have seen patients under its influence. The rich ultra-reality would still require fairly intact auditory and visual neocortex as target regions in which to generate such a rich audiovisual experience as I had in coma.
Prolonged coma due to bacterial meningitis had badly damaged my neocortex, which is where all of that serotonin from the raphe nuclei in the brainstem (or DMT, a serotonin agonist) would have had effects on visual/auditory experience. But my cortex was off, and the DMT would have had no place in the brain to act. The DMT hypothesis failed on the basis of the ultra-reality of the audiovisual experience, andlack of cortex on which to act.
5. Isolated preservation of cortical regions might have explained some of my experience, but were most unlikely, given the severity of my meningitis and its refractoriness to therapy for a week: peripheral white blood cell (WBC) count over 27,000 per mm3, 31 percent bands with toxic granulations, CSF WBC count over 4,300 per mm3, CSF glucose down to 1.0 mg/dl, CSF protein 1,340 mg/dl, diffuse meningeal involvement with associated brain abnormalities revealed on my enhanced CT scan, and neurological exams showing severe alterations in cortical function and dysfunction of extraocular motility, indicative of brainstem damage.
6. In an effort to explain the “ultra-reality” of the experience, I examined this hypothesis: Was it possible that networks of inhibitory neurons might have been predominantly affected, allowing for unusually high levels of activity among the excitatory neuronal networks to generate the apparent “ultra-reality” of my
experience? One would expect meningitis to preferentially disturb the superficial cortex, possibly leaving deeper layers partially functional. The computing unit of the neocortex is the six-layered “functionalcolumn,” each with a lateral diameter of 0.2–0.3 mm. There is significant interwiring laterally to immediately adjacent columns in response to modulatory control signals that originate largely from subcortical regions (the thalamus, basal ganglia, and brainstem). Each functional column has a component at the surface (layers 1–3), so that meningitis effectively disrupts the function of each column just by damaging the surface layers of the cortex. The anatomical distribution of inhibitory and excitatory cells, which have a fairly balanced distribution within the six layers, does not support this hypothesis. Diffuse meningitis over the brain’s surface effectively disables the entire neocortex due to this columnar architecture. Full-thickness destruction is unnecessary for total functional disruption. Given the prolonged course of my poor neurological function
(seven days) and the severity of my infection, it is unlikely that even deeper layers of the cortex were still functioning.
7. The thalamus, basal ganglia, and brainstem are deeper brain structures (“subcortical regions”) that some colleagues postulated might have contributed to the processing of such hyperrealexperiences. In fact, none of those structures could play any such role without having at least some regions of the neocortex still intact. All agreed in the end that such subcortical structures alone could not have handled the intense neuralcalculations required for such a richly interactive experiential tapestry.
8. A “reboot phenomenon”—a random dump of bizarre disjointed memories.

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA

That is rather a tangent, Mystic. I have never denied the reality of your experience or that of OOB experiences - whether they have a certificate or not. What I have questioned is whether their explanation or impression about what they experienced is to be taken as the only explanation.

That would be why I excerpted his Appendix detailing those OTHER possible neuroscience explanations, Arq . . . not just his opinions.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by Mistermobile
My two cents. Once 'puters become self aware and self programming, I am out of here.

Where are you proposing to go to?