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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 11, 2015 - 08:32am PT
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JL,
You seem to be letting what you are against (scientism? materialists?) get in the way of what you are for: talking about what consciousness is?
I don't think the words we use here are going to allow us to compare our 'subjective' experiences, which you insist are not 'things.'
You could look for a way to improve the conversation. Your earlier takes on awareness, focus, etc., were good. Can you take those explorations further in written form or is that as far as you can go with words?
You have chosen examples from math and physics to illustrate a few of your points, perhaps in consideration of part of your audience. Here are a couple of other ideas you might find worthwhile:
There is thus more to the method than the mere logic involved in deduction. There is also less to the objects than their intuitive or instinctive origins suggest.
It is in fact a distinctive feature of mathematics that it can operate effectively and efficiently without defining its objects.
Points, straight lines, and planes are not defined. In fact, a mathematician of today rejects the attempts of his predecessors to define a point as something that has "neither length nor width" and to provide equally meaningless pseudo-definitions of straight lines or planes.
But while one may operate reliably with undefined (and perhaps even undefinable) objects and concepts, these objects and concepts are rooted in apparent physical (or at least sensory) reality.
Mathematics and Logic
Mark Kac and Stanislaw M. Ulam
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 11, 2015 - 10:25am PT
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Awareness / consciousness is sort of like electricity: an unprovable unknown for what IT IS, but ostensible and rather obvious for communication purposes for anyone who has it.
Electricity, as an energy, can run machines. Would we look at a machine as a life force? Would we look at electricity as a life force?
If a machine becomes damaged, then should we say that since its functionality is apparently no longer available then what we thought was its functionality is dead / gone? Should we say that the machine was its own life force? What if we have a sense about electricity (which we sort of do today). Would we then say that a broken machine is not a life force or functionality, but the electricity (which was somehow no longer available)?
And of course, what IS electricity seems to be a question worth asking—even though we apparently can’t say exactly.
As Werner continues to point out, arguing that consciousness and / or awareness is neural activity might well be confusing what we cannot say working through something else that we can’t quite say.
Endless speculation. Lots and lots of theories and interpretations. Everyone could look for themselves, since awareness and consciousness are right there (I assume) in front of everyone.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 11, 2015 - 10:34am PT
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Ed, I am not saying that we cannot objectify sentience, only that you cannot START with objectifying before a long period of observing the phenomenon itself. When I say, "itself," I mean subjectivity/experience itself. Just as it is. It is quite natural for you to want to default out of this observation and start calculating what you believe are the material constituents that "cause" or source consciousness, but again what you are really describing is objective functioning, NOT subjectivity. This process works well with normal things (material objects with no consciousness), because they do not feature more than the sum of their material parts. Consciousness is that extra that all other things do NOT have, so the old methods fall short because they are not even focued on this extra.
When I say that consciousness is not a thing, I am not suggesting that consciousness is separte from material things, but as we have seen with that which has no dimensionality, no physical extent, and no mass, even our most trusted things, at bottom, reduce down to no-thing (no material extent). So with subjectivity, we are simply stuck with this dual nature - we have a physical brain (that reduces down to no-thing), and a quixotic subjectivity that itself is not strictly physical - any more than the actual experience of climbing at Josh is a physical entity.
Now you go on to talk about awareness, focus and attention in machine terms. That is, as objective tasks, and you mistakenly conflate this with human experience. Of course machine "awareness" is entirely different than human awareness because the former enjoys no experiential/subjective quotient to the process, and can be looked at as simply a mechanical, stimulus-response mechanism. For example, a machine is programmed to respond to this kind of input in that way. It is an entirely blind, unknowing and mechanical process that has no dimension (like a subjective dimension) beyond the computation or task element. The only "awareness" the machine shows is that it responds to input by way of its programing.
"Awareness" in the human/sentient context revolves around the actual subjective EXPERIENCE of being aware, in addition to the "tasking," or what I call the technical element of how awareness operates as a component of "mind."
What's more, and this is where the experiential gets pretty esoteric - we can think of machine awareness only as a task in response to a digital stimulus. In humans, awareness can be encountered "neat." When we "shut up and stop calculating," and simply sit and observe, neither moving to or away from content (people, palces, things, and phenomenon of sentience), there is no "tasking" involved, and in fact we are for the moment letting go of all efforting to DO anything, including responding to internal and external stimulus. This is when "presence" jumps up, something entirely outside the purview of present-day machines.
Now if you are going to hold onto the hope that the experience of this real time "self-presence" can be objectified, trying to find a fascimile in current day computational models seems unlikely since they lack the experiential quotient. So my hunch is that you cannot start with the ojjective and try and work toward the subjective, hoping to magically find out what it is and how it is "created" by working on computations. Instead you need to isolate out and objectify the subjective till the common elements are defined so we at least know what the hell we are talking about. And using computational models sans the experiential quotient seem like an ass-backwards way to go about this.
JL
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 11, 2015 - 10:54am PT
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Dingus, when the man said this, what part of it do you disagree with:
"Electricity is generated by the movement of electrons, and we physicists consider electrons matter – but this is a metaphorical use of the word, not a literal one because electrons don't have any of the properties of matter like mass and volume. In the strictest sense, when we define matter from a chemical perspective, electricity is neither a solid, a liquid, nor a gas. Therefore, it is not matter."
JL
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 11, 2015 - 12:16pm PT
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The thing that I found curious about those twins was the mention that the connection they shared wasn't automatic but had to accessed with some effort. As if the level of connection was unknown and could be explored and perhaps increased by volition alone.
This connection that twins seem to possess even without being physically attached is just as curious and might make for some interesting research.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 11, 2015 - 01:10pm PT
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Dingus, I am not harping on it, those are professors at Caltech who are saying as much. Quite trying to put their words in my mouth. It won't play.
You said: "If you can detect it, it has physical extent."
This is not remotely so. Are you refuting that physicists have stated in the clearest possible language that there are phenomenon out there that have - to quote them directly - "no dimensionality, no physical extent, and no substance."
If you want to refute this, have at it dingus. But know you are not refuting me, but the very scientists you claim to uphold.
I asked my friend how you could be so turned around on this - a most obvious fact - and he said you were making the common mistake of conflating an effect (perhaps a measurement) with some imagined physical source for said effect. Common enough error, as is desperately grabbing onto your imagined "thing."
JL
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jun 11, 2015 - 01:33pm PT
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I just wasted an hour watching Scruton's talk "Scientism and the Humanities".
Scruton says that science should stay away from the human mind. Thus, when scientist try to develop theories how it works, he calls that scientism.
His agenda ip pretty obvious, discredit science and preach duality.
Thorough and Insightful critique, thanks.
He is pretty full of himself, too. He labels Warhol's work as pseudo art, for example. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it?
Is it?
Yeah, it's hard to take folks that are too full of themselves. Unlike the egoless geniuses here on the old ST.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 11, 2015 - 01:46pm PT
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DMT: If you can detect it, it has physical extent.
What is the method of detection? Your senses? I’m pretty sure “detection” such as you’re referring to comes through devised instruments.
“What” is measured is inextricably conflated with metrics, devices, and theory.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 11, 2015 - 01:59pm PT
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DMT: This is not a metaphor.
Everything you can say is metaphorical because what you say is not the thing that you are talking about. Again, the map is not the territory. Words are just . . . words.
Words cannot help but only provide metaphor for the things that a person might point to. It’s the pointing that matters, not the terms or concepts.
There is no literal language. There is no concrete definitive definition for ANYTHING in reality. We are pointing to everything.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 11, 2015 - 03:25pm PT
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You wanna play with the Caltech boys, here you go, Dingus. I had them respond. Note, this is NOT my work in any way shape or form. At this point it is between you and them. Good luck on that one, amigo.
Per the whole "massless' thing - here ye go:
Your friend is getting flumoxzed by refuting that an existing piece of what he consideres to be matter - which has to be made of physical substance--could have zero mass at rest (though a photon is never at rest). If a piece of matter made of nothing had zero mass, that seems to be an oxymoron, and "nothing" would equate to nonexistent, right? But the assumptions here are all wrong.
In technical terms, mass is the norm (=length) of the energy-momentum vector, and therefore invariant and conserved. The square norm of the energy-momentum vector for an object with energy E and momentum p is E2−p2. The square root of this expression is mass (m). A photon has E=p, and hence zero mass. A massive particle at rest has p=0 and hence E=m, Einstein's most famous equation.
Forget about 'relativistic mass.' This is a confusing term that does not add any understanding. Whenever you see the term 'relativistic mass,' replace it with the term 'energy,' as that is what it really is. A photon has energy (in proportion to its frequency), BUT NO MASS.
Do you really think it is remarkable that there can be energy without mass? Why? You are holding onot a classical understanding. Science has moved on. Long ago.
Note: In the above insert factors c when not working in natural units (i.e. replace m with mc2, and p with pc)
And from another:
Photos don't have rest mass, or simply, mass. None. Whatsoever. However, they have so-called relatvistic mass, although the term is hardly used. The relation between the relativistic mass M and the mass (Rest mass) m is simply given by:
M=γm=m1−β2−−−−−√.
Here, β=vc0 and γ=11−β2√ is the lorentz factor.
However, when v=c0, and m=0, as for a photon of light, this equation goes to 00, i.e., which is undefined/indeterminate. So, how do we overcome this problem? Simple..
M=m1−v2c20−−−−−√=m2c20c01−v2c20−−−−−√=mc0c20−v2−−−−−−√
M2=m2c20c20−v2=mc0(c0−v)(c0+v)
Use partial fractions. Let mc0(c0−v)(c0+v)=Uc0−v+Vc0+v
mc0(c0−v)(c0+v)=(U+V)c0+(U−V)v(c0−v)(c0+v)U+V=mU−V=0}U=V=m2
M2=m2c202(c0−v)+mc02(c0+v)
But this isn't going anywhere. So let's try another method.
γ=11−β2−−−−−√
β=1−1γ2−−−−−−√
1−1γ2=β2
γ2−1=γ2v2c20
(γ2−1)m2=γ2m2v2c20
M2−m2=p2c20
M2=p2c20+m2
Now, no indeterminate/undefined stuff. At all.
Now, consider the case for a photon:
M=pc0=ℏkc0
So, in conclusion, a photon is massless (no rest mass). This is the current understanding as of 6/11/2015.
JL
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Jun 11, 2015 - 04:59pm PT
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 11, 2015 - 07:23pm PT
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Largo
"I am not saying that we cannot objectify sentience, only that you cannot START with objectifying before a long period of observing the phenomenon itself. When I say, "itself," I mean subjectivity/experience itself. Just as it is. It is quite natural for you to want to default out of this observation and start calculating what you believe are the material constituents that "cause" or source consciousness, but again what you are really describing is objective functioning, NOT subjectivity. This process works well with normal things (material objects with no consciousness), because they do not feature more than the sum of their material parts. Consciousness is that extra that all other things do NOT have, so the old methods fall short because they are not even focued on this extra."
You have to explain to me how we can start with observing "subjective/experience" and end up with something that is objective. The problem is, of course, that "subjective/experience" as you've been defining it is an individual thing. Your "subjective/experience" may have nothing at all in common with my "subjective/experience." The extent that they share some commonality has been thoroughly explored probably over the entire existence of humans. So we already start at a place where there has been a long period of observing, essentially all of history.
If you will please distinguish between "objective functioning" and "subjective functioning"? in some sense, it doesn't matter, I am, by definition, not privy to your "subjective functioning" and no one else is either. How do you use that as a basis of anything?
As far as things being "more than the sum of their material parts" there are many trivial examples in physics, some less than trivial examples exist also, but perhaps I need to understand a bit more how you actually determine that.
When I say that consciousness is not a thing, I am not suggesting that consciousness is separte from material things, but as we have seen with that which has no dimensionality, no physical extent, and no mass, even our most trusted things, at bottom, reduce down to no-thing (no material extent). So with subjectivity, we are simply stuck with this dual nature - we have a physical brain (that reduces down to no-thing), and a quixotic subjectivity that itself is not strictly physical - any more than the actual experience of climbing at Josh is a physical entity.
We have not seen that "at bottom" things "reduce down to no-thing (no material extent)." what is a better characterization of what happens at the bottom is that we don't know how to describe what is going on... we don't have the language. No physicist actually believes that the electron has no-extent, we don't know what causes it to have extent. You can describe it better as "not yet a thing" which is different than "no thing" which is a good provisional description, but doesn't correctly describe the situation. If we take String Theory as a model then the electrons have finite extent.
"Now you go on to talk about awareness, focus and attention in machine terms. That is, as objective tasks, and you mistakenly conflate this with human experience. Of course machine "awareness" is entirely different than human awareness because the former enjoys no experiential/subjective quotient to the process, and can be looked at as simply a mechanical, stimulus-response mechanism. For example, a machine is programmed to respond to this kind of input in that way. It is an entirely blind, unknowing and mechanical process that has no dimension (like a subjective dimension) beyond the computation or task element. The only "awareness" the machine shows is that it responds to input by way of its programing.
"Awareness" in the human/sentient context revolves around the actual subjective EXPERIENCE of being aware, in addition to the "tasking," or what I call the technical element of how awareness operates as a component of "mind.""
It is not a mistake to conflate the two. The people who create these "aware" machines are quite aware of the attribute of their own "awareness." And the process by which the machines are built are patterned after the experience of humans becoming aware of the very same things they create the machines to be aware of, including providing to the machines the necessary experience. The experience in this case is objective, not subjective, and the machines perform as well or better than the humans do, and certainly (and most importantly for the experiments) the machines do it on a time scale much shorter than the humans.
You can define awareness to require some subjective elements, but it is not necessary, and learning to become aware is something that is taught. Most of what we are aware of "instinctually" clearly falls into a more machine like description.
Your conclusion that machines do not include some "experiential quotient" in their awareness is incorrect.
What's more, and this is where the experiential gets pretty esoteric - we can think of machine awareness only as a task in response to a digital stimulus. In humans, awareness can be encountered "neat." When we "shut up and stop calculating," and simply sit and observe, neither moving to or away from content (people, palces, things, and phenomenon of sentience), there is no "tasking" involved, and in fact we are for the moment letting go of all efforting to DO anything, including responding to internal and external stimulus. This is when "presence" jumps up, something entirely outside the purview of present-day machines.
But that you can describe a "phenomenon" which is readily recognizable to anyone that has undergone the act (in this case of meditation) it ceases to be a "subjective" phenomenon, it is something we can agree upon. It is achieved in a very prescribed manner. It has been known for centuries. It is teachable. In that sense, it is far from "subjective."
As an example, I could say to you that when I mediate, none of these things happen. Your response would be that I'm not doing it correctly. That I should seek the help of a teacher to guide me through the proper technique and help me recognize the state. That isn't a "subjective" process.
A large part of what we have to do as biological systems is mechanical in the very sense you describe... a set of tasks that respond to stimuli. You cannot stop breathing for an indefinite length of time, that task is not, ultimately, up to your "consciousness" to have to be involved. Many (actually most) of living is going through the mechanical set of tasks.
Now if you are going to hold onto the hope that the experience of this real time "self-presence" can be objectified, trying to find a fascimile in current day computational models seems unlikely since they lack the experiential quotient. So my hunch is that you cannot start with the ojjective and try and work toward the subjective, hoping to magically find out what it is and how it is "created" by working on computations. Instead you need to isolate out and objectify the subjective till the common elements are defined so we at least know what the hell we are talking about. And using computational models sans the experiential quotient seem like an ass-backwards way to go about this.
Once again, the reality of "machine learning" is a counter example to your claim that machines lack an "experience quotient" as you put it. Not only that, but much of human behavior depends on a mechanical means of transmitting the evolutionary "experience quotient," which is not only genetic but epigenetic. DNA is a memory storage device that builds every living thing on the Earth. It is mechanical. And it is susceptible to a computational description. From that point of view it is not a stretch at all, and certainly no magic is involved, to invoke a computation model for human behavior in its entirety.
We might not know what the hell we are talking about now, but that doesn't have any relevance to whether or not we will in the future.
I am not at all persuaded by your line of argument. While I do believe that experience is an important part of our existence, I don't see why it cannot be incorporated into our "materialistic" description of life, it is already there.
You will now ask me to describe some experience, when I do, you will claim it cannot represent the "true" experience, and conclude that an "experience" cannot be described, scientifically, in principle, ever. That is not a refutation of the scientific approach, it is simply a criticism that we don't currently know how to provide that description.
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WBraun
climber
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Jun 11, 2015 - 08:28pm PT
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The machine has no life.
A human being has life.
and the machines perform as well or better than the humans do
A human being is not a machine.
A machine has no soul ......
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jun 11, 2015 - 08:46pm PT
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Everything you can say is metaphorical because what you say is not the thing that you are talking about. Again, the map is not the territory (ML)
Can't we ever let Kant rest in peace?
John, maybe you would restate your definitions of mind, awareness, and no-thing since I seem to have forgotten them . . . (JG)
Foolish question since he and others can only point to their meditative mental states and plead ineffable. Why then keep haranguing the science types for something they themselves cannot deliver? This romance JL and cohorts have with science is practically Shakespearean.
Stop flirting with physics and start being original - create words or expressions, a lexicon, a novel kind of logic, etc. to "describe" your experiential adventures. This whole fascination with particle physics is some sort of game that has no winners, and it looks like you are desperate, grasping at straws. Only frustration. But I bet it keeps your Prodigies in stitches.
Exercise your imagination and give us something that hasn't been recycled a hundred times. You're smart.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 11, 2015 - 08:51pm PT
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But I bet it keeps your Prodigies in stitches.
Yes. I too wonder whether JL is looking beyond appearances in that collaboration.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Jun 11, 2015 - 09:01pm PT
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Thanks to fructose for the reference to the Wheatley lectures. I watched three of them today and found two others of more interest.
Scientism and the Religion of Science
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFVARio4pAk
and
Science as Cultural Performance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB1JB833ieo
And I can't express my own views any better than what another reviewer of these videos did.
Personally, I disagree just a bit with the talk in that I don't really see the need to have the dogmas of scientism OR the dogmas of traditional organized religions. In my opinion, the best philosophy is to view the universe, natural and spiritual, with open minded humility and wonder. And to not accept any worldview that purports to explain "everything," whether they justify their explanation by virtue of it being written in an old book, or by faith that materialistic science will eventually explain everything so it must be right.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jun 11, 2015 - 10:04pm PT
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Jan, that was a repost of Paul's interest. In part to serve as a reminder to me to check it out. It was a very busy day, so I still haven't had a chance to get to it.
It seems Moose gave it a poor review?
I hope to get to it still, maybe tomorrow.
.....
Moose, if you have time check out the Pinker Wright conversation video I posted. I originally saw it around 2003 I think. I thought it was chock-full of good stuff. I downloaded it again yesterday, hope to watch it again maybe tomorrow.
Moose, if you have time check out the exchange on AGI between Harris and Rogan. It's at Youtube. Great ideas / insights there too.
Time. I need more time!!!1
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Jun 12, 2015 - 01:28am PT
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I watched the Pinker Wright post also which was excellent.
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