What is Consciousness?

[psychoslice]

I think ants and other animals like earthworms have a completely different type of brain, but not like us.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I think ants and other animals like earthworms have a completely different type of brain, but not like us.

This is a bit like asserting they have livers but not like us. The brain is an organ. Whatever one believes about the existence of the mind, consciousness, even the soul, the brain is an organ that requires particular structural and functional properties. You might assert that ants and so forth have "minds" different than us or that they "think" differently, but they don't have brains. I would disagree with the aforementioned assertions about ants having minds or thinking, but you could certainly make the argument without such a clear contradiction (actually, you can make the argument that ants have "brains", but this is normally the kind of neuroanatomical portrait painted for undergraduates or in popular sources which make brains into something less than primate spinal cords).

 

[Runewolf1973]

Actually the majority don't. I think it might be true that most have a nervous system. But actually, even animals with brains aren't necessarily capable of conceptual processing or even the unconscious awareness that we are capable of (procedural memory).


A mouse is capable of a kind of qualitatively different awareness than the best artificial intelligence systems in the world. Computational intelligence paradigms (e.g., artificial neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, gene expression, swarm intelligence, statistical learning algorithms, etc.) use the reactionary "awareness" most living systems are capable of combined with human intellect and unmatched (mindless) computational power to do things like process linguistic input, recognize faces, mine datasets, or win Jeopardy! as IBM's "Watson" did. But it is all just syntactic processing, all mindless, all purely reactionary. Same with almost all living systems.


I said "brain" rather than humans or human minds because the earliest demonstrations that behaviorism and purely algorithmic, reactionary (rule-based) learning/awareness used rats. In two experiments in particular, Tolman, Ritchie, and Kalish (and Tolman and Ritchie) showed that rats (or possibly mice; it's been years since I read the studies) are able to represent spatial maps of mazes internally (in their brains) such that they can solve mazes they have learned not by recalling "rules" (i.e., as a series of turns: left, left, right, left, right, right, right, left, etc.) but by a mental, conceptual "map" of the maze which enables them to solve it even when the starting place (and thus the sequence of turns necessary to solve the maze) is changed.


Have you heard of an amoeba? Ants? Earthworms?

From very simple interactions to very complex interactions. I don't see it as anything more than this.

 

[psychoslice]

This is a bit like asserting they have livers but not like us. The brain is an organ. Whatever one believes about the existence of the mind, consciousness, even the soul, the brain is an organ that requires particular structural and functional properties. You might assert that ants and so forth have "minds" different than us or that they "think" differently, but they don't have brains. I would disagree with the aforementioned assertions about ants having minds or thinking, but you could certainly make the argument without such a clear contradiction (actually, you can make the argument that ants have "brains", but this is normally the kind of neuroanatomical portrait painted for undergraduates or in popular sources which make brains into something less than primate spinal cords).

But they have a ganglion system that remembers, for how could they find their way back home, its not a brain, but it certainly is a form of brain.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

From very simple interactions to very complex interactions.

How are you defining complexity?

I don't see it as anything more than this.

And yet, some 50+ years after we were first promised that artificial intelligence was just around the corner, we are no closer to understanding how animals with brains capable of conceptual processing actually process concepts. But we do know that there is a qualitative difference between the reactionary "awareness" that a venus flytrap or an amoeba is capable of, and the conceptual awareness that pigs, dogs, mice, or humans are capable of. We have created enormously powerful computers built from the ground-up for learning and loaded with massive specially organized databases as well as a slew of incredibly complicated learning algorithms, and despite all this complexity, these enormously powerful systems are incapable of learning the kinds of things rats are. I call it sea slug learning for a reason (Kandel's work). We can take tissues samples from humans and other animals and make them react the way that most living systems do, meaning that your skin cells are as "aware" as most living systems, and samples taken from your nervous system more so. Yet your nervous system minus your brain is completely incapable of anything remotely resembling consciousness.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

But they have a ganglion system that remembers, for how could they find their way back home, its not a brain, but it certainly is a form of brain.

Memory is a misleading concept (Are there 256 different kinds of memory?). Every living system encodes/represents "memories" via internal configurational dynamics (every cell in your body does this). Ants, amoebas, flowers, skin cells, etc., all are capable of remembering in ways that computers are not (living systems have nothing like a computer's memory systems because there is no distinction between processor and memory and because memory isn't stored but represented through the system's dynamics). Once we start saying that this property entails a brain, the term becomes meaningless.

 

[Runewolf1973]

How are you defining complexity?


And yet, some 50+ years after we were first promised that artificial intelligence was just around the corner, we are no closer to understanding how animals with brains capable of conceptual processing actually process concepts. But we do know that there is a qualitative difference between the reactionary "awareness" that a venus flytrap or an amoeba is capable of, and the conceptual awareness that pigs, dogs, mice, or humans are capable of. We have created enormously powerful computers built from the ground-up for learning and loaded with massive specially organized databases as well as a slew of incredibly complicated learning algorithms, and despite all this complexity, these enormously powerful systems are incapable of learning the kinds of things rats are. I call it sea slug learning for a reason (Kandel's work). We can take tissues samples from humans and other animals and make them react the way that most living systems do, meaning that your skin cells are as "aware" as most living systems, and samples taken from your nervous system more so. Yet your nervous system minus your brain is completely incapable of anything remotely resembling consciousness.

Isn't nature humbling? We think we know so much, yet we really know so little. That is why I keep my explanations simple. I would hate to be the one to claim to know everything there is to know about how a turtle or an ant's brain works only to be proven wrong fifty years down the road.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Isn't nature humbling?

Well, given that it seems the fundamental "layer" of reality acquires properties through observation and can violate the most fundamental laws of logic, I'd say "yes".

We think we know so much, yet we really know so little.

True. But the more we learn, the more we know what it is we don't know. About ~100 years or so ago, we had almost finished everything with physics except for Kelvin's two dark clouds. Turns out that these insignificant remaining problems were so insurmountable that we had to discard classical physics as valid for anything other than a good approximation in certain circumstances. 50+ years ago, it was widely thought that all we needed was to figure out what algorithms were necessary for consciousness, that it made no difference what "hardware" a system used (a different system just meant using a different algorithm), and that Hebbian learning along with McCulloch & Pitts ANN had ensured we would create intelligent systems in no time. Today, we are still using these Hebbian learning and the McCulloch & Pitts model.

However, while we haven't made qualitative progress in artificial intelligence, we have made progress in understanding non-conceptual learning as well as better and novel learning algorithms. Swarm intelligence algorithms are capable of using the kind of learning ants are capable of to do far, far, far more than any ant colony could.

That is why I keep my explanations simple.

Perhaps, given that you yourself state how important complexity is here, you might consider how adequate simple explanations are.

I would hate to be the one to claim to know everything there is to know about how a turtle or an ant's brain works only to be proven wrong fifty years down the road.

We don't know enough about single cells to definitely state whether or not computable models of any living system, including a cell, are possible. But we are capable of using the kind of awareness ant colonies are capable of to exploit them and improve upon them. Yet we don't get any closer to consciousness by doing so.

 

[Runewolf1973]

You may not agree with me about this and that is fine... My simplistic view of consciousness being a product of highly evolved, complex interactions is perfectly acceptable the way I see it because in reality, all explanations to date have thus far proven inadequate.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

You may not agree with me about this and that is fine

I concur. Disagreement has led to more progress than agreement (in general and since the early modern period, anyway). However, disagreement without constructive dialogue hasn't yielded so much.

My simplistic view of consciousness

But your view isn't simplistic. Or rather, you view consciousness as the result of complexity, yet somehow see consciousness as simplistic. This appears to me to be contradictory. How is it that a simplistic explanation can serve to explain that which is, as far as I understand you, defined by complexity?

all explanations to date have thus far proven inadequate.

Agreed. But doesn't that suggest that simplicity isn't an adequate approach? After all, were consciousness simplistically explained by simplistic interactions that quantitatively increased in complexity, why would it pose such a problem (why would definitions "thus far proven inadequate")?

 

[Runewolf1973]

I concur. Disagreement has led to more progress than agreement (in general and since the early modern period, anyway). However, disagreement without constructive dialogue hasn't yielded so much.


But your view isn't simplistic. Or rather, you view consciousness as the result of complexity, yet somehow see consciousness as simplistic. This appears to me to be contradictory. How is it that a simplistic explanation can serve to explain that which is, as far as I understand you, defined by complexity?


Agreed. But doesn't that suggest that simplicity isn't an adequate approach? After all, were consciousness simplistically explained by simplistic interactions that quantitatively increased in complexity, why would it pose such a problem (why would definitions "thus far proven inadequate")?

Regarding consciousness, there has yet to be shown any truly adequate approach to understanding it...but I think we are both on the right track despite how differently we may approach it.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I find it kind of funny when people talk about "consciousness" as though it were something so mysterious, compelling and inexplicable, but that's just me...

Consciousness is not a mystical, inexplicable thing, nor is it the ground of all being, nor is it a fundamental property of the universe. It is described as the ability to be aware or have feelings, emotions, senses, but that doesn’t really explain what specifically it is or what causes it from a physical standpoint. This is my explanation… From a physical standpoint, consciousness is the ability to interact with our environment in a complex manner. Everything interacts with the environment in some way, even rocks and plants. The ability for energy forms to interact and change form is fundamental to all of existence. That is why we have such thing as the Fundamental Interactions. Interaction is the fundamental driving force behind our universe, not consciousness. A rock or tree interacts with its surroundings, but what makes something “conscious” however, is the complexity of those interactions. A human interacts in a far more complex manner than a tree or a rock. Humans interact with the environment in a number of ways…light, sound, touch, taste, smell, etc… A rock interacts with its environment also, but on a much more basic level. Consciousness therefore is no more than a complex form of interaction, or a combination of several complex interactions working together, which evolved over millions of years from much simpler forms of interaction. Of course this is an extremely simplified explanation, but it really doesn't take a novel to explain what consciousness is.

The fundamental difference being: free will. No matter how complex the interactions in the most sophisticated computer program, the computer does not make conscious choices of free will, it is bound pre determined interactions.

Similar position were held on the physical universe -that classical physics was able to account for all physical reality- Before Max Planck, the idea of mysterious unpredictable forces behind it all- used to be considered religious pseudoscience.

the simplest explanation is a tempting rule of thumb, but reality often doesn't cooperate, because simple rules = simple outcomes. Life, consciousness, the universe, simply can't operate on simple interactions alone. It needs free will, purpose, desire, creative intelligence, the only phenomena which can truly create

 

[Runewolf1973]

The fundamental difference being: free will. No matter how complex the interactions in the most sophisticated computer program, the computer does not make conscious choices of free will, it is bound pre determined interactions.

Similar position were held on the physical universe -that classical physics was able to account for all physical reality- Before Max Planck, the idea of mysterious unpredictable forces behind it all- used to be considered religious pseudoscience.

the simplest explanation is a tempting rule of thumb, but reality often doesn't cooperate, because simple rules = simple outcomes. Life, consciousness, the universe, simply can't operate on simple interactions alone. It needs free will, purpose, desire, creative intelligence, the only phenomena which can truly create

If you can explain consciousness any better with a complex approach as opposed to my simplistic approach then go hard...I'm waiting.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

If you can explain consciousness any better with a complex approach as opposed to my simplistic approach then go hard...I'm waiting.

Again, that's exactly what they said about the physical universe and quantum physics, simple classical physics was far more appealing. That's why the 'ultraviolet catastrophe' was so named.
And quantum physics is still very messy, complex, difficult to nail down.

But it is necessarily so, because of entropy, the universe would quickly collapse into it's simplest state under simple laws alone.

How best to explain a guy being dealt 10 royal flushes in a row in a casino? simplistic chance or complex creative cheating?

 

[Runewolf1973]

Again, that's exactly what they said about the physical universe and quantum physics, simple classical physics was far more appealing. That's why the 'ultraviolet catastrophe' was so named.
And quantum physics is still very messy, complex, difficult to nail down.

But it is necessarily so, because of entropy, the universe would quickly collapse into it's simplest state under simple laws alone.

How best to explain a guy being dealt 10 royal flushes in a row in a casino? simplistic chance or complex creative cheating?

I'll take that reply as an admission of inadequacy. I never described consciousness as simplistic chance, I described it as a complex series of interactions which evolved over time. My explanation may be simple, but the actual mechanism behind it is far from simple.

 

[outhouse]

Have you heard of an amoeba? Ants? Earthworms?

Besides that we have plants who reach for sunlight without the use of consciousness.

Many life forms do not require consciousness for survival.

 

[outhouse]

. I never described consciousness as simplistic chance

Agreed.

It evolved simple enough though in brains.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I'll take that reply as an admission of inadequacy. I never described consciousness as simplistic chance, I described it as a complex series of interactions which evolved over time. My explanation may be simple, but the actual mechanism behind it is far from simple.

The mechanism of evolution? it depends on random chance, random mutations creating millions of accidental improvements. That's not simplistic chance?

I don't think you are inadequate, you just have different beliefs like many of us here.

 

[Runewolf1973]

The mechanism of evolution? it depends on random chance, random mutations creating millions of accidental improvements. That's not simplistic chance?

I don't think you are inadequate, you just have different beliefs like many of us here.

For me to say that consciousness is the result of many complex interactions may not be very descriptive and it is also admittedly quite inadequate, but I wouldn't say it is entirely inaccurate.

 

[outhouse]

The mechanism of evolution?

Yes and it is factual.