What Is Consciousness?

[Retro Rob]

We already have things similar to this. We have robots that learn how to walk on their own. That can make decisions of good or bad based on past experience. We have computers that can recognize different objects and know what it is based on past examples. Make these much more powerful and expanded to have more sensors that are very sensitive, along with other connections. You are on your way to build a consciousness.

Good I rest my case.

 

[Paul98]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1...man-evolution-hdtv-****-afg_tech#.Ue63RI03veF

 

[Zodiark1593]

To be more specific, philosopher David Chalmers coined the term "hard problem" of consciousness, and it is this hard problem of consciousness that seems to be the toughest to understand, and perhaps the most interesting to ponder. A common school of thought is to attribute consciousness to computation in the brain. Then there are those who disagree, such as Sir Roger Penrose who argues that the known laws of physics are inadequate to fully explain the phenomenon of consciousness, but are they?
Could it be that consciousness today is hard to understand in the same way that life was hard to understand before modern biology? Its easy to see why people wondered how a bag of flesh, blood and bone could be animated without a soul.
So how does matter become self aware? Will it lead us to a new branch of science?

The brain is made up of many billions of nerve cells, each alone have no consciousness, nor even combined, rather, the energy that fuels the brain, in essence is our being. In a way, we're little different from a fire as energy is constantly converted from different forms, and transferred. Energy alone cannot hold memory, so the brain provides a physical medium to store information.

In death, the brain can no longer sustain the continuous conversion and flow of energy, so conversion stops. However, following the law of conservation, energy cannot be destroyed, so I doubt death is truly the end.

Further, following my hypothesis, it is entirely possible for computers to be self aware so long as memory and compute capabilities allow.

So, hope I explained my viewpoint well enough.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

In death, the brain can no longer sustain the continuous conversion and flow of energy, so conversion stops. However, following the law of conservation, energy cannot be destroyed, so I doubt death is truly the end.

Isn't most of that energy dissipated as heat? Its not like we can't follow the physics of where brain-chemistry ends up.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I like David Chalmers. I don't think enough people take his challenges seriously. I actually swapped a few emails with him back in the day. I suggested that he explore the dichotomy between solipsism and panpsychism, and consider a line of argument proposing that they are actually identical due to the fact that they are indistinguishable.

I don't see any of those ideas reflected in his work, though. :whiste:

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

You are on your way to build a consciousness.

You are on your way to something which can do tasks better than its predecessors. How many lines of code does it take? How many processors? If I had a book which outlined Einsteins thought processes and I read it following the "code" would the book be Einstein?

It's not merely a matter of computational power, where one more thing makes a rational self aware being. There's nothing to suggest that at all.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

The folly in all of your arguments about computers and consciousness is that you baselessly assume that they are without consciousness already.

 

[bradly1101]

The folly in all of your arguments about computers and consciousness is that you baselessly assume that they are without consciousness already.

My phone is conscious of what I'm likely to type next based on what it has learned from my usage and the grammar of my language.

When it starts to argue with me, that's when I'll worry.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

My phone is conscious of what I'm likely to type next based on what it has learned from my usage and the grammar of my language.

When it starts to argue with me, that's when I'll worry.

My next door neighbor has three rabbits.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

My next door neighbor has three rabbits.

yep.

 

[Paul98]

You are on your way to something which can do tasks better than its predecessors. How many lines of code does it take? How many processors? If I had a book which outlined Einsteins thought processes and I read it following the "code" would the book be Einstein?

It's not merely a matter of computational power, where one more thing makes a rational self aware being. There's nothing to suggest that at all.

It is a matter of computational power, and an array of sensors and ways to connect them. You wouldn't write a code so that the machine would automatically come up with relativity. You would have code telling the computer it wants to learn new things. It wants to understand the world around it. You have sensors in the robot that allow it to view the world around it. Programs that allow what the robot sees to be connected with previous information. You have sensors that allow the robot to feel and tell it what feels good and what feels bad. Allow movement and the ability to learn from both moving well and making mistakes. You take these sort of things to their basics of connection, good or bad, wants, movement,... and get them working together. What you specifically tell the computer about the world would be minimal, it would be able to learn from the environment.

Just look at our nerves and how our brain interprets the impulses from them. Or how the brain sends signals for the body to move. Why something tastes good or bad, feels good or bad,... these come from our brain interpreting signals from different parts of our body these are wired into our brain when we are born. We can program a robot to do the same thing. Now that won't make the robot conscious, as it's only a single part. It's when all these things I talked about above and more come together and are highly connected so connections can be made between all sorts of experiences the robot has.

 

[moonbogg]

The folly in all of your arguments about computers and consciousness is that you baselessly assume that they are without consciousness already.

This brings me to a very unoriginal thought, but I still find it interesting. Imagine if the day comes when we can detect the unmistakable signature of consciousness in a brain. Imagine it being a certainty because we just have that good of a grasp on exactly what causes consciousness. Now imagine the following.
It turns out that, like planets that harbor complex life are very rare, so are brains that harbor consciousness. Like many planets, all brains have a similar shape and at least brains are made of the same stuff, but a planet has to evolve in a special way for complex life to form. Likewise, only a few branches of the tree of life gave rise to conscious brains while all the rest are, on the surface, identical. But they don't contain that unique difference that makes them self aware.
So, we discover that many people operate on a strictly cause and effect basis as do most life forms. They act conscious, but it is later discovered that only a few genetic branches are actually conscious and most people are not conscious. How would we treat our unconscious, but on the surface identical human friends?

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I think we make the baseless assumption that we aren not a simulation of reality:

http://phys.org/news/2012-10-real-physicists-method-universe-simulation.html

 

[dank69]

I think we make the baseless assumption that we aren not a simulation of reality:

http://phys.org/news/2012-10-real-physicists-method-universe-simulation.html

The original link stated near the end that they could only detect a specific simulation and that, even if they didn't detect that one, it is still possible that we are part of a simulation.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

The original link stated near the end that they could only detect a specific simulation and that, even if they didn't detect that one, it is still possible that we are part of a simulation.

We all know that we live in a personal psychic projection that is, at times and to a limited extent, influenced by a VERY limited set of all physical phenomenon.

 

[Muse]

Consciousness can only be appreciated when it is achieved. If that doesn't resonate with you, you aren't there.

One of my favorite quotations:

‘Though it seems that I know that I know,
What I would like to see, is the I that knows me,
When I know, that I know, that I know.’ - Alan Watts