The recursive nature of the mind creating a model of itself in order to reason about itself is very likely what we perceive as consciousness.
This is such a massive leap, though. Don’t you see that? Why is it very likely? What effects the probability? What aspects of recursion lend themselves to consciousness? Where have we seen analogs elsewhere that provide evidence for your probabilistic claim? What aspects of the nature of models lend themselves to consciousness? Same questions.
These constructs form the basis for the patterns of thought that underpin our conscious experience
Again, a significant ontological leap. As Hume would say, at best you have constant conjunction. There is no argument that patterns of thought underpin our conscious experience that isn’t inherently circular.
The same concept is mirrored in the realm of computing. The physical complexity of transistors within a silicon chip plays no direct role in the functioning of programs that it executes.
This is an entirely inappropriate analogy. The physical complexity of transistors is physically connected, contiguously, with voltage differentials. The functioning of a program is entirely expressed in the physical world through voltage differentials. The very idea of a program or the execution thereof is a metaphor we use to reason about our tools but do not bear on the reality of the physics. Voltage differentials define everything about contemporary silicon-based binary microcomputers.
the underlying technology can vary dramatically while still supporting identical computing environments
Only if we limit ourselves severely. Underlying technology varying greatly has a severe impact on what sorts of I/O operations are possible. If we reduce everything to the pure math of computation, then you are correct, but you are correct inside an artificial self-referential symbolic system (the mathematics of boolean logic), which is to say extremely and deleteriously reductionist .
it’s a process arising from the dynamic patterns formed by the flow of electrochemical impulses across synapses. These patterns, emergent properties of the system as a whole, are what gives rise to our thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Again, incredibly strong claim that lacks sufficient evidence. We’ve been working on this problem for a very long time. The only way we get to your conclusion is through the circular reasoning of materialist reductionism - the assertion that only physical matter exists and therefore that consciousness is merely an emergent property of the physical matter that we have knowledge off. It begs the question.
These processes, much like the laws of physics or mathematics, can be described using a formal set of rules. Therefore, the essence of our minds lies in the algorithms that govern their operation as opposed to the biological machinery of the brain. Several lines of evidence support this proposition.
Again, I think this is entirely reductionist and human experience has plenty of evidence that runs counter to this, from mystical experiences to psychedelics to NDEs, there is sufficient evidence that is counter to that theory.
In physics, when we have such evidence, we work to figure out what’s wrong with the model or with our instruments. But in pop psychology, AI, and Western philosophy of mind, we instead throw out all the evidence in favor of the dominant narrative of the academy.
Scientific history shows us we’re wrong. Scientific consensus today shows us we’re wrong.
Before we understood the EMF, we relied on all the data our senses could gather and as a Western scientific community, that was considered 100% of what was real. We discarded all the experiences of other people that we could not experience ourselves. Then, we discovered the EMF and realized that literally everything in our entire Western philosophy of science accounted for less than 0.000001% of reality.
Today, we have a model of the universe based on everything Western science has achieved in the last 600 years or so. That model accounts for about 3% of reality in so far as we can tell. That is to say, if we take everything we know, and everything we know we don’t know, what we know we know makes up 3% of what we know, and what we know we don’t know makes up about 97% of what we know. And then we have to contend with the unknown unknown, which is immeasurable.
To assume that this particularly pernicious area of inquiry has any solution that is more or less likely than any other solution is to ignore the history and present state of science.
However, even more to the point, the bioware plays a massively important part that digital substrates simply cannot mimic, and that’s the fact that we’re not talking about voltage differentials in binary states representing boolean logic, but rather continuums mediated by a massively complex distributed chemical system comprising myriad biologics, some that aren’t even our own genetics. Our gut microbiota have a massive effect on our cognition. Each organ has major roles to play in our congition. From a neurological perspective, we are only just scratching the surface on how things work at all, let alone the problem of consciousness.
Therefore, the specific biology of the brain isn’t essential for cognition; what truly matters is the system’s ability to express computational patterns, regardless of its underlying mechanics.
This is the clearest expression of circular reasoning in your writing. I encourage you to examine your position and your basis for it meticulously. In essence you have said:
patterns of thought underpin our conscious experience
neurons are merely conduits for information, creating the patterns and rhythms that constitute our mental lives
any system capable of performing a certain set of basic logical operations can simulate any other computational process
Therefore, patterns of thought underpin our conscious experience
This is such a massive leap, though. Don’t you see that? Why is it very likely? What effects the probability? What aspects of recursion lend themselves to consciousness? Where have we seen analogs elsewhere that provide evidence for your probabilistic claim? What aspects of the nature of models lend themselves to consciousness? Same questions.
I think there is a clear evolutionary reason why the mind would simulate itself since it’s whole job is to simulate the environment and make predictions. The core purpose of the brain is to maintain homeostasis of the body. It aggregates inputs from the environment, and models the state of the world based on that. There is no fundamental difference between inputs from outside world and the ones it generates itself, hence the recursive step. Furthermore, being able to model minds is handy for interacting with other volitional agents, so there is a selection pressure for developing this capability.
I think Hofstadter makes a pretty good case for the whole recursive loop being the source of consciousness in I Am a Strange Loop. At least, I found his arguments convincing and in line with my understanding of how this process might work.
Again, a significant ontological leap. As Hume would say, at best you have constant conjunction. There is no argument that patterns of thought underpin our conscious experience that isn’t inherently circular.
I disagree here, as I’ve stated above, I think patterns of thought arise in response to inputs into the neural network that originate both from within and without. The whole point of thinking is to create a simulation space where the mind can extrapolate future states and come up with actions that can bring the organism back into homeostasis. The brain receives chemical signals from the body indicating an imbalance, these are interpreted as hunger, anger, and, so on, and then the brain formulates a plan of action to address these signals. Natural selection honed this process over millions of years.
This is an entirely inappropriate analogy. The physical complexity of transistors is physically connected, contiguously, with voltage differentials. The functioning of a program is entirely expressed in the physical world through voltage differentials. The very idea of a program or the execution thereof is a metaphor we use to reason about our tools but do not bear on the reality of the physics. Voltage differentials define everything about contemporary silicon-based binary microcomputers.
And how is this fundamentally different from electrochemical signals being passed within the neural network of the brain? Voltage differentials are a direct counterpart to our own neural signalling.
Only if we limit ourselves severely. Underlying technology varying greatly has a severe impact on what sorts of I/O operations are possible. If we reduce everything to the pure math of computation, then you are correct, but you are correct inside an artificial self-referential symbolic system (the mathematics of boolean logic), which is to say extremely and deleteriously reductionist .
I don’t see what you mean here to be honest. The patterns occurring within the brain can be expressed in mathematical terms. There’s nothing reductionist here. The physical substrate these patterns are expressed in is not the important part.
Again, incredibly strong claim that lacks sufficient evidence. We’ve been working on this problem for a very long time. The only way we get to your conclusion is through the circular reasoning of materialist reductionism - the assertion that only physical matter exists and therefore that consciousness is merely an emergent property of the physical matter that we have knowledge off. It begs the question.
I don’t believe in magic or supernatural, and outside that one has to reject body mind dualism. The physical reality is all there is, therefore the mental realm can only stem from physical interactions of matter and energy.
Again, I think this is entirely reductionist and human experience has plenty of evidence that runs counter to this, from mystical experiences to psychedelics to NDEs, there is sufficient evidence that is counter to that theory.
Again, I fundamentally reject mysticism. All these human experiences are perfectly explained in terms of the brain simulating events that create an internal experience. However, there’s zero basis to assert that these experiences are not rooted in physical reality. Just the same way it would be absurd to say that there’s some mystical force that’s needed to create a virtual world within a video game.
Today, we have a model of the universe based on everything Western science has achieved in the last 600 years or so. That model accounts for about 3% of reality in so far as we can tell. That is to say, if we take everything we know, and everything we know we don’t know, what we know we know makes up 3% of what we know, and what we know we don’t know makes up about 97% of what we know. And then we have to contend with the unknown unknown, which is immeasurable.
This statement is an incredible leap of logic. We know that out physics models are incomplete, but we very much do know what’s directly observable around us, and how our immediate environment behaves. We’re able to model that with an incredible degree of accuracy.
However, even more to the point, the bioware plays a massively important part that digital substrates simply cannot mimic, and that’s the fact that we’re not talking about voltage differentials in binary states representing boolean logic, but rather continuums mediated by a massively complex distributed chemical system comprising myriad biologics, some that aren’t even our own genetics.
There’s absolutely no evidence to support this statement. It’s also worth noting that discrete computation isn’t the only way computers can work. Analog chips exist and they work on energy gradients much like biological neural networks do. It’s just optimizing for a different type of computation.
This is the clearest expression of circular reasoning in your writing. I encourage you to examine your position and your basis for it meticulously. In essence you have said:
There is absolutely nothing circular in my reasoning. I never said patterns of thought underpin our conscious experience as a result of any system capable of performing a certain set of basic logical operations being able to simulate any other computational process.
What I said is that patterns of thought underpin our conscious experience because the brain uses its own outputs as inputs along with the inputs from the rest of the environment, and this creates a recursive loop of the observer modelling itself within the environment and creating a resonance of patterns. The argument I made about universality of computation is entirely separate from this statement.
This is such a massive leap, though. Don’t you see that? Why is it very likely? What effects the probability? What aspects of recursion lend themselves to consciousness? Where have we seen analogs elsewhere that provide evidence for your probabilistic claim? What aspects of the nature of models lend themselves to consciousness? Same questions.
Again, a significant ontological leap. As Hume would say, at best you have constant conjunction. There is no argument that patterns of thought underpin our conscious experience that isn’t inherently circular.
This is an entirely inappropriate analogy. The physical complexity of transistors is physically connected, contiguously, with voltage differentials. The functioning of a program is entirely expressed in the physical world through voltage differentials. The very idea of a program or the execution thereof is a metaphor we use to reason about our tools but do not bear on the reality of the physics. Voltage differentials define everything about contemporary silicon-based binary microcomputers.
Only if we limit ourselves severely. Underlying technology varying greatly has a severe impact on what sorts of I/O operations are possible. If we reduce everything to the pure math of computation, then you are correct, but you are correct inside an artificial self-referential symbolic system (the mathematics of boolean logic), which is to say extremely and deleteriously reductionist .
Again, incredibly strong claim that lacks sufficient evidence. We’ve been working on this problem for a very long time. The only way we get to your conclusion is through the circular reasoning of materialist reductionism - the assertion that only physical matter exists and therefore that consciousness is merely an emergent property of the physical matter that we have knowledge off. It begs the question.
Again, I think this is entirely reductionist and human experience has plenty of evidence that runs counter to this, from mystical experiences to psychedelics to NDEs, there is sufficient evidence that is counter to that theory.
In physics, when we have such evidence, we work to figure out what’s wrong with the model or with our instruments. But in pop psychology, AI, and Western philosophy of mind, we instead throw out all the evidence in favor of the dominant narrative of the academy.
Scientific history shows us we’re wrong. Scientific consensus today shows us we’re wrong.
Before we understood the EMF, we relied on all the data our senses could gather and as a Western scientific community, that was considered 100% of what was real. We discarded all the experiences of other people that we could not experience ourselves. Then, we discovered the EMF and realized that literally everything in our entire Western philosophy of science accounted for less than 0.000001% of reality.
Today, we have a model of the universe based on everything Western science has achieved in the last 600 years or so. That model accounts for about 3% of reality in so far as we can tell. That is to say, if we take everything we know, and everything we know we don’t know, what we know we know makes up 3% of what we know, and what we know we don’t know makes up about 97% of what we know. And then we have to contend with the unknown unknown, which is immeasurable.
To assume that this particularly pernicious area of inquiry has any solution that is more or less likely than any other solution is to ignore the history and present state of science.
However, even more to the point, the bioware plays a massively important part that digital substrates simply cannot mimic, and that’s the fact that we’re not talking about voltage differentials in binary states representing boolean logic, but rather continuums mediated by a massively complex distributed chemical system comprising myriad biologics, some that aren’t even our own genetics. Our gut microbiota have a massive effect on our cognition. Each organ has major roles to play in our congition. From a neurological perspective, we are only just scratching the surface on how things work at all, let alone the problem of consciousness.
This is the clearest expression of circular reasoning in your writing. I encourage you to examine your position and your basis for it meticulously. In essence you have said:
I think there is a clear evolutionary reason why the mind would simulate itself since it’s whole job is to simulate the environment and make predictions. The core purpose of the brain is to maintain homeostasis of the body. It aggregates inputs from the environment, and models the state of the world based on that. There is no fundamental difference between inputs from outside world and the ones it generates itself, hence the recursive step. Furthermore, being able to model minds is handy for interacting with other volitional agents, so there is a selection pressure for developing this capability.
I think Hofstadter makes a pretty good case for the whole recursive loop being the source of consciousness in I Am a Strange Loop. At least, I found his arguments convincing and in line with my understanding of how this process might work.
I disagree here, as I’ve stated above, I think patterns of thought arise in response to inputs into the neural network that originate both from within and without. The whole point of thinking is to create a simulation space where the mind can extrapolate future states and come up with actions that can bring the organism back into homeostasis. The brain receives chemical signals from the body indicating an imbalance, these are interpreted as hunger, anger, and, so on, and then the brain formulates a plan of action to address these signals. Natural selection honed this process over millions of years.
And how is this fundamentally different from electrochemical signals being passed within the neural network of the brain? Voltage differentials are a direct counterpart to our own neural signalling.
I don’t see what you mean here to be honest. The patterns occurring within the brain can be expressed in mathematical terms. There’s nothing reductionist here. The physical substrate these patterns are expressed in is not the important part.
I don’t believe in magic or supernatural, and outside that one has to reject body mind dualism. The physical reality is all there is, therefore the mental realm can only stem from physical interactions of matter and energy.
Again, I fundamentally reject mysticism. All these human experiences are perfectly explained in terms of the brain simulating events that create an internal experience. However, there’s zero basis to assert that these experiences are not rooted in physical reality. Just the same way it would be absurd to say that there’s some mystical force that’s needed to create a virtual world within a video game.
This statement is an incredible leap of logic. We know that out physics models are incomplete, but we very much do know what’s directly observable around us, and how our immediate environment behaves. We’re able to model that with an incredible degree of accuracy.
There’s absolutely no evidence to support this statement. It’s also worth noting that discrete computation isn’t the only way computers can work. Analog chips exist and they work on energy gradients much like biological neural networks do. It’s just optimizing for a different type of computation.
There is absolutely nothing circular in my reasoning. I never said patterns of thought underpin our conscious experience as a result of any system capable of performing a certain set of basic logical operations being able to simulate any other computational process.
What I said is that patterns of thought underpin our conscious experience because the brain uses its own outputs as inputs along with the inputs from the rest of the environment, and this creates a recursive loop of the observer modelling itself within the environment and creating a resonance of patterns. The argument I made about universality of computation is entirely separate from this statement.