What is "Mind?"

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MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Feb 12, 2017 - 12:42pm PT

MikeL,

It was Largo who referred to a computational model of consciousness. He is wisely silent.

If you have an example of what you consider to be a computational model of consciousness, I would be interested to hear about it.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Feb 12, 2017 - 01:29pm PT

Seriously? Consciousness evolved and it is plain to see that both in extant species and the evolutionary taxonomy of life. Again, how it emerged is, like life itself, a mystery, but that it evolved and evolved in an observable manner is not arguable.

Yep seriously:

Consciousness must have existed as a potential perhaps even inevitable function of a mediated universe at the instant of its creation. How could it not? The proof being it is here. Evolution is not the final term here; the final term is the physical structure of the universe that allows for some things, including evolution, and disallows for others and that is a sublime mystery.

The bible puts it metaphorically: "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God."

If you read the term word as structure and the word God as the final term you get a fairly brilliant statement of reality.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Feb 12, 2017 - 01:47pm PT

Consciousness must have existed as a potential perhaps even inevitable function of a mediated universe at the instant of its creation. How could it not?

Easily, but there are plenty of takes and spins along those quasi-religious lines:

“God is the light of the world and may his light shine before all”

Wayno

Big Wall climber

Seattle, WA

Feb 12, 2017 - 02:27pm PT

The bible puts it metaphorically: "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God."

If you read the term word as structure and the word God as the final term you get a fairly brilliant statement of reality.

Interesting idea. The Bible also speaks of thought, word and deed. A trinity if you will, god being the thought, the son being the word and the Holy Spirit being the deed.

God thought it, the Son spoke it and the holy spirit cooked the meal. but you have to throw in that it all just happened at once, the potential that is, and in space with time, it all becomes actual, in a very grand scale that is beyond the comprehension of one small piece, until that piece can grow large enough to encompass more and more. Which then brings to us to the unformed space regions beyond the current Master Universe that folds back on itself in sublime eventuation.

Just kidding.

Paul, I like how you think. I appreciate what you bring to the table. I also sense a certain nobility to this soup of endeavor we classify as humanity.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Feb 12, 2017 - 02:43pm PT

Consciousness must have existed as a potential perhaps even inevitable function of a mediated universe at the instant of its creation.

this may be a profound observation, or it may be trite... but writ a bit larger, it is the essence of the "anthropic principle" that states that the universe is the way it is because were it otherwise, we would not exist.

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

another twist on this was presented in the paper:
"Predicting the Cosmological Constant from the Causal Entropic Principle"
Raphael Bousso, et al., Physical Review D 76.4 (2007): 043513.

To calculate the cosmological constant (which exists in observation as the phenomenon of the accelerating expansion of the universe via "dark energy," of which the cosmological constant [CC] is a candidate) they take the tack of estimating the conditions for observers to exist, which they define in terms of "maximum entropy production" (you can read the paper if that captures your imagination).

Putting in reasonable values gets them very close to the observed value of the CC... without having to answer the question "what is mind?" which is equivalent to their requirement of an observer.

"The Causal Entropic Principle is based on two ideas: any act of observation increases the entropy, and spacetime regions that are causally inaccessible should be disregarded."
...
"The same result also explains the so-called coincidence problem or “why now” problem. According to the Causal Entropic Principle, typical observers will exist when most of the entropy production in the causal diamond occurs."

"...we find that dust heated by stars dominates the entropy production, demonstrating the remarkable power of this thermodynamic selection criterion. The alternative approach—weighting by the number of “observers per baryon”—is less well-defined, requires problematic assumptions about the nature of observers, and yet prefers values larger than present experimental bounds."

what they are saying is that an apparently banal measure of the entropy production gives a range of values in agreement with observation, where as their attempt to answer the OP question in detail, fails.

The implication is that the likelihood of observers is best calculated not on the "special" attributes that defines an observer (per their attempt) but on "simple" thermodynamic considerations.

So there is the universe, with the potential to have "observers" from the get-go, but not through some ennobled accession ending in the crown of creation, but more emblematic of dust scattering star light.

Go figure...

Wayno

Big Wall climber

Seattle, WA

Feb 12, 2017 - 03:00pm PT

I'm not sure I could get through the paper you mentioned Ed, so thank you for putting it in simpler terms.

I hate to be the one to say it but I think the OP is a "trick question", unanswerable on so many levels. And so many levels and nuances that can easily bog down any serious inquiries, that in the end we may actually need the help of some kind of intelligence we lack at this point in time. AI? or do we just need to grow up a little.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Feb 12, 2017 - 03:04pm PT

AI?

Don't hold your breath or you'll pass out into pure awareness.

Wayno

Big Wall climber

Seattle, WA

Feb 12, 2017 - 03:33pm PT

It was an attempt at humor. Did I fail?

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Feb 12, 2017 - 05:01pm PT

The implication is that the likelihood of observers is best calculated not on the "special" attributes that defines an observer (per their attempt) but on "simple" thermodynamic considerations.

But the problem is what constitutes an observer? And what is an observation? Is a camera recording an event automatically, observing that event? Any observation, in the strictest sense, requires a human witness as any mechanical observation not comprehended by the human mind is simply a record to be ingested later into the human consciousness. No doubt machines might react in the manner that safety valves and smoke detectors and computers do but such reactions are hardly the observational comprehensions human beings realize and are ultimately designed to facilitate the interests of humanity. Machines do not gain the satisfaction of their observations and that's because they are not conscious.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Feb 12, 2017 - 05:07pm PT

But the problem is what constitutes an observer? And what is an observation?

Kind of have enough semantics going on already...

satisfaction of their observations

Hmmm.....

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Feb 12, 2017 - 06:28pm PT

they are physicists, so they consider a definition broader than "human" for "observer"

but what they mean is basically that the "observer" is asking the same question: how to calculate the value of the cosmological constant?

This requires that those "observers" know that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, and that they have some theoretical interest in why that might be.

Aside from that, they don't presume to define "observer."

I suggest you might try to do the same.

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Feb 12, 2017 - 08:01pm PT

Consciousness must have existed as a potential perhaps even inevitable function of a mediated universe at the instant of its creation. How could it not? The proof being it is here. Evolution is not the final term here; the final term is the physical structure of the universe that allows for some things, including evolution, and disallows for others and that is a sublime mystery.

The bible puts it metaphorically: "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God."

If you read the term word as structure and the word God as the final term you get a fairly brilliant statement of reality.

Further Evidence That God, or Consciousness, or The Universe, or The Word is a Comedian

Once upon a time I looked up the definition of 'supervenience' and forgot it a few seconds later. Now I have looked into 'hermeneutics.'

Hermeneutics began innocently, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It had to do with interpreting texts. Perhaps these texts had been written long ago, or translated from a foreign language. When trying to determine the meaning of the texts, several questions were important:

Who wrote it?
What was it about?
Why was it written?
How was it composed?
When was it written or published?
Where was it written or published?
By what method was it written or published?

Those seem like simple questions, so how did this happen?:

The scope of the more recent discussions on interpretation has become broader, often starting with the question whether human actions are to be viewed as physical phenomena or not and how they should be treated.

The disagreement concerns the issue as to whether it is constitutive for a human action to have meaning or not

from the first paragraphs of the introduction:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics/

And the meaning of 'constitutive?'

having the power to establish or give organized existence to something.

Humans are good at that. If there were no non-physical phenomena we would invent them.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Feb 12, 2017 - 08:32pm PT

I zoned out on "hermeneutics" also. You see the same thing in mathematics where layer upon layer of abstraction and generalization are added to provide research opportunities, especially for PhD students.

If you silently say supervenience one hundred times in the space of five minutes it will become part of your everyday conversation. Adranni Krishnanovase discovered this factoid. It was part of his thesis.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Feb 12, 2017 - 08:47pm PT

Aside from that, they don't presume to define "observer."

Well that's a shame, since the observations of humans are no doubt different than those of machines. The fundamental difference being the polarities of information and knowledge. Whereas a machine may record information and process that information it remains unaware of same. Awareness of information on the other hand is the unique property of living, conscious beings and in that awareness is the satisfaction of knowing as well as the initial desire to know.

Recorded information requires sentient interpretation in order to become knowledge.

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Feb 12, 2017 - 08:48pm PT

Healyje:

I didn’t mean to call you out specifically, but that’s how it went. The attribution was meant to be broadly shared.

. . . the best places to look for answers to the question lie in the evolutionary adaptations driven by increasingly sophisticated predator / prey relationships . . .

Yeah, I have a problem with that line, too. It seems there is so much that is not knowingly driven by evolutionary adaptations. After the fact, we can stipulate it, but if it’s not in our realm of direct experience, then we do not seem to be talking about the mind we experience. THAT’s the so-called entity that *we are talking about,* no?

Ed: . . . Nothing → Something . . .

Isn’t this something similar to what the physicists are promoting?

Healyje: . . . but that [life] evolved and evolved in an observable manner is not arguable.

A small point: it is. Who observed life evolve?

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Feb 12, 2017 - 09:23pm PT

Isn’t this something similar to what the physicists are promoting?

perhaps, but I think physicists think that the dichotomy is Everything/Nothing, with the caveat that we don't know everything, and all of that that we don't know is lumped into the nothing. The way we know more things is twofold: 1) we predict with our theories of "everything," and 2) we observe phenomena that were not previously known (and therefore in the "nothing" category).

For instance, in the early days of studies of radioactivity (a "modern" phenomenon) experimental techniques improved sufficiently to determine that the process known as beta decay violated energy conservation.

For instance the neutron decayed to the proton and an electron (which was earlier identified as "β-rays":

n → p + e⁻

if you add up all the energy you find that there's a bunch missing.

Now this new phenomenon of radioactive decay, and the ways of dealing with it quantum mechanically hadn't been entirely worked out, so there was a very real possibility that energy wasn't conserved in this system, opening the door to some truly strange physics.

This was a crisis in physics, for sure, and there wasn't a way out...

Pauli thought about this for a while and came up with a solution, basically, that there was a third particle produced, it was a neutral particle and it had all the necessary attributes to conserve the various quantum mechanical quantities that need to be... and it's existence would solve the energy conservation problem,

n → p + e⁻ + ν

measuring the energy spectrum accurately provided additional information, that is that this new particle, dubbed the neutrino by Fermi (later) had to be very light.

In 1934 Fermi extended this idea with a theory which allowed the transition rates for beta-decay to be calculated. But there was still no observation of the neutrino.

That happened in 1956 when the reaction:

ν + p → n + e⁻

was observed using neutrinos from a radioactive decay in a nuclear reactor.

Before Pauli "Everything" didn't include neutrinos... they came from "nothing" to be included... but not without the details that described how that bit of nothing had to work.

Fermi theory works well, but is subsumed in unification with electrodynamics: electro-weak theory as a part of the "standard model" around 1970.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Feb 12, 2017 - 09:42pm PT

We're talking about mind and consciousness and by extension its origins and development. Continuous predator / prey interactions have driven an incredible range of adaptations that are plain to see. And I have no doubt it was escalations in predator / prey interactions which drove early adaptations related to consciousness. The balance of power around attack / threat perception, recognition, anticipation and response times by themselves represent a significant driver let alone the myriad of other defensive mechanisms such mimicry and camouflage.

A small point: it is. Who observed life evolve?

"Observable" as in examining the extant species we share the planet with and evolutionary taxonomies of species via numerous means.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Feb 13, 2017 - 10:46am PT

Look, the issue isn't evolutionary processes, the issue is the very real idea of the predicate nature of consciousness as a logical possibility or probability in a mediated physical realm we call the universe. The processes of evolution are a given, the error is to believe evolution is the final term behind the creation of consciousness when evolution is predated by a sympathetic structure allowing for the inevitability of that consciousness. The same, of course, can be said for life and in this sense atheism cannot rely on the notion of a universe of chance manifesting life as simply arbitrary and accidental, since without a very specific and sympathetic order that life cannot be.