How do atoms build thoughts and emotions?

[A.T.]

I don't see that having the same conception of the colour red has anything much to do with consciousness.

As I already explained to you:

Experiencing colors is an example of a subjective sensation, just like consciousness is. The example demonstrates, that such sensations cannot be described and compared objectively.

 

[gentzen]

As I already explained to you:

You are talking about „subjective sensation“, but PeroK wants to talk about

Consciousness is about the ability to recognise, think and reason about oneself.

The word „consciousness“ certainly can be interpreted in both ways.

What PeroK writes only makes sense for his interpretation of the word „consciousness“:

Perhaps all I'm saying is that consciousness results from organic chemistry and we need nothing more.

They wouldn't be a zombie, but a lower mammal. Perhaps like a deer, that lives largely by instinct and herd mentality. I suspect that a deer has little or no consciousness.

Not sure whether discussing with PeroK in this thread makes much sense, beyond clarifying which interpretations of the word „consciousness“ are allowed in this thread.

 

[PeroK]

As I already explained to you:

I don't see that as an explanation. Rather as an idiosyncratic, subjective point of view.

In fact, if consciousness is subjective, then there is nothing you can explain to me; nor I to you. Everything you or I perceive internally to be objective and rational, by your own assertion, is subjective and is impossible to prove is rational. What you say might be just gibberish to me, and vice versa.

Your explanations, which appear rational to you, cannot be expected to appear rational to me.

If you really believe what you say, then there is no point trying to explain your ideas to me!

 

[A.T.]

If you have a theory of subjective measurements that says that you will have a measurable preference for blue and I will have a measurable preference for red, and if we measure our preferences and the result is as predicted, then the theory is validated.

If I understand correctly, you mean this part:

We can confirm this survey using some brain scans that measure "happiness levels", while the colors are shown to us. So the objective measurement says we disagree on which color is more pleasant.

So, yes: As long as theories stick to those parts that can be objectively measured, they can be validated.

But you still won't know, if the measured color preference disagreement is due to different individual taste, or different subjective perception of colors (or both). So some aspects will remain beyond scientific theories.

 

[A.T.]

In fact, if consciousness is subjective, then there is nothing you can explain to me; nor I to you.

Yes, just like I cannot explain to you how red looks to me. Some subjective experiences cannot be communicated.

 

[PeroK]

Yes, just like I cannot explain to you how red looks to me. Some subjective experiences cannot be communicated.

In principle, the effect on your optic nerve and the subsequent transmission to the brain could be measured. That could then be compared to mine.

Consciousness cannot be about the perception of the colour red. Otherwise, a light sensitive cell would be conscious.

In any case, as I've already explained to you, the whole argument over the colour red is irrelevant to the question of whether thoughts and emotions can be studied scientifically.

IMO, AI will sweep away the cobwebs from a debate like this by proving there is nothing fundamentally unphysical about human intelligence and consciousness. An AI, for example, can't possibly perceive the colour red in the same way as a human eye or brain. But, that is irrelevant to whether they can achieve consciousness. And whether that consciousness can be studied.

 

[Motore]

Unless you are born blind, you should know what red looks to you. This is your "subjective experience" of the color red

Saying "you know what it looks like" isn't a definition, it's just pointing at the phenomenon. To me, that experience simply is the physical process happening in the neural network.

How would you validate that measurement?

The same way we validate anything in science. If my exact neural pattern when looking at red structurally matches your pattern when looking at blue, that is the objective proof that my red is your blue.

You might argue this only validates the physical mechanics, not the "feeling." But if two brains could have the exact same physical processing and outputs, yet somehow experience something different, it means the "feeling" has zero causal effect on the real world. If a hidden variable makes absolutely no difference to the physical outcome, there is no scientific reason to assume it exists. To claim there is an unmeasurable, fundamentally unknowable difference on top of the physical state, then this is dualism.

 

[BillTre]

Unless you are born blind, you should know what red looks to you. This is your "subjective experience" of the color red.

There are medical conditions where people are not able to see colors, n particular several kinds of color blindness.

They wouldn't be a zombie, but a lower mammal. Perhaps like a deer, that lives largely by instinct and herd mentality. I suspect that a deer has little or no consciousness.

As an animal that clearly has a concept of its local environment and where it is in that environment (like a player on a stage) I think that a deer, or a dog, or a cat would have some self-awareness of itself in its environment. In addition, they probably also have a self-awareness of themselves with respect to other actors and what their mental status is (theory of mind: cognitive term for awareness of the mental states of others). Some consider this indicative of consciousness.

Spending time with various animals can give you a feel for what they might perceive (including internally). Granted doesn't seem all that scientific, but closer observation can give you a better awareness of animal capabilities.

In general I don't consider deer all that lowly biologically. They have similar brain structures to humans, mostly the same parts but smaller in size with different connections.
Big jumps in brain organization (versus people) occur in reptiles (which mammals evolved from; simple cortex), amphibians (which reptiles evolved from; no real cortex), and fish (which amphibians evolved from; much simpler brain). Invertebrates have vastly different nervous systems which makes comparisons very conjectural. Some think octopi are conscious.

 

[Dale]

So some aspects will remain beyond scientific theories.

That is true of all scientific theories.

@Demystifier related this to the “hard” vs “easy” problems of consciousness. I would relate it to philosophy vs science.

When you ask questions that you define as being unmeasurable (in principle, not just in practice) then those questions cannot be addressed by the scientific method. They are not scientific questions, they are philosophical.

A scientific theory is not expected to answer philosophical questions. Even a hypothetical complete and correct scientific theory of the mind would not need to answer those questions. All it would need to answer are questions about measurable quantities.

 

[javisot]

Nothing in this response is remotely related to my actual arguments or statements.

Would you prefer to try to address my actual statements on this topic, or would you prefer for me to address your strawman mischaracterization? I am willing to do either, but I do feel that the former would be more productive.

There must be a misunderstanding, Dale; my comment 102 wasn't directed at you, in the sense of replying to anything you had said. It seemed appropriate to remind everyone that there are too many open problems in neuroscience to fully address the question posed in the thread. I commented on which problem from that list seemed especially important to me, whether the answer was a definite yes or a definite no.

Even so, you reply in your message 103: "To my knowledge there is neither any theoretical nor any empirical reason to believe that this question is likely to be answered “yes”", referring to the problem of quantum effects.

Finally, I reply in my message 105: "I find it hard to believe that my brain is the only place in the universe where quantum effects do not exist.
Etc..."

There must be something I'm not understanding about this sub-conversation we're having, sub-conversation directly related to the thread's topic.

 

[javisot]

Did I say that? In the very next sentence I explicitly said "in my opinion," which I would presume people can read to mean it's just my opinion that we don't need quantum mechanics to explain it.

I’m still not clear on your point; are you saying that only a classical description of consciousness, the brain, etc, is possible, or what exactly do you mean?

I always speak in terms of correspondence, but it is not clear to me in what terms you speak.

 

[Dale]

There must be something I'm not understanding about this sub-conversation we're having

Let me be very clear then.

This post is a strawman fallacy:

I find it hard to believe that my brain is the only place in the universe where quantum effects do not exist.

I certainly never claimed that quantum effects do not exist in the brain. And nothing that I did claim implies it.

Insinuating that it represents my opinion is obnoxious.

 

[PeroK]

@BillTre I said deer. I didn't say dog or cat. A quick Google search suggest there is a gulf in intelligence between the former and the last two.

For example, during the rutting season, the stags fight day and night. As soon as it's over, they hang out together through the winter. There is no sense of any comprehension that were fighting each other relentlessly.

Unlike a dog or cat, a deer seems driven far more by instinctive behaviour. Maybe there is a weak personality in there, but not like dogs or cats, who have different personalities.

 

[Motore]

I’m still not clear on your point; are you saying that only a classical description of consciousness, the brain, etc, is possible, or what exactly do you mean?

I mean that everything we know about how the brain functions can be fully explained with classical physics and biology. We simply don't need quantum mechanics to describe any of the brain's physical processes. Since consciousness is an emergent property of those exact same processes, it's my opinion that we won't need quantum mechanics to explain consciousness either.

 

[Lord Jestocost]

Perhaps all I'm saying is that consciousness results from organic chemistry and we need nothing more.

No problem with such a statement. As David J. Chalmers remarks in his article “Strong and Weak Emergence”^[1]: “The existence of unexpected phenomena in complex biological systems, for example, does not on its own threaten the completeness of the catalogue of fundamental laws found in physics. As long as the existence of these phenomena is deducible in principle from a physical specification of the world (as in the case of the cellular automaton), then no new fundamental laws or properties are needed: everything will still be a consequence of physics.”

To proceed further, however, physics, needs an operational definition, which unambiguously specifies concrete, replicable procedures by which the concept of ‘consciousness’ could be quantitively measured. Until that has been accomplished, I doubt that physics really has anything to say about ‘consciousness’.

[1] in the book “The Re-Emergence of Emergence The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion”, edited by Philip Clayton and Paul Davies

 

[BillTre]

or example, during the rutting season, the stags fight day and night. As soon as it's over, they hang out together through the winter. There is no sense of any comprehension that were fighting each other relentlessly.

Unlike a dog or cat, a deer seems driven far more by instinctive behaviour. Maybe there is a weak personality in there, but not like dogs or cats, who have different personalities.

A rutting season is a period of hormonally driven different behaviors from normal, not an overall lack of "comprehension" or of possible consciousness. It is similar to a flight or fight response. A temporary change of behavioral mode.
If Mr. Spock goes into the Vulcan rutting season (whatever that's called), would that make him not able to be conscious.

 

[PeroK]

A rutting season is a period of hormonally driven different behaviors from normal, not an overall lack of "comprehension" or of possible consciousness. It is similar to a flight or fight response. A temporary change of behavioral mode.
If Mr. Spock goes into the Vulcan rutting season (whatever that's called), would that make him not able to be conscious.

Mr Spock isn't real. There are no Vulcans. And, even if there were, there would be no possibility of a Vulcan mating with a human.

 

[BillTre]

Mr Spock isn't real. There are no Vulcans. And, even if there were, there would be no possibility of a Vulcan mating with a human.

Its a thought experiment pointing out your argument's flaws.
Or to put it in more real terms, if an ape or monkey (which I assume you think are conscious) were to have such a breeding period, then would that make them incapable of having consciousness?

 

[PeroK]

Its a thought experiment pointing out your argument's flaws.
Or to put it in more real terms, if an ape or monkey (which I assume you think are conscious) were to have such a breeding period, then would that make them incapable of having consciousness?

You're misrepresenting all my arguments. Mr Spock is the last straw.

Read what I've written, not what you think I've written.

I'm out.

 

[symbolipoint]

Mr Spock isn't real. There are no Vulcans. And, even if there were, there would be no possibility of a Vulcan mating with a human.

Mr. Spock seems more a fiction than a fantasy. Others could try to fill in the details either way.

 

[symbolipoint]

We can at least find to say that, when One is stuck in a rut, he is not thinking.


edit: adjusted for "correct" spelling. Rut is for the condition and behavior; Rutt is a given or a surname for a person.

 

[BillTre]

You're misrepresenting all my arguments. Mr Spock is the last straw.

Read what I've written, not what you think I've written.

I'm out.

Please explain how I am misrepresenting your views.

Here is an even less far out comparison:
If a human person has a fit of some kind and goes into the equivalent rut behavior to what you describe for deer, would they (by you) be considered:

1. not conscious, at all ever, or
2. not conscious at the time of that behavior, but conscious at other times?

Perhaps this is misrepresenting your views but I don't see how that is. It seems to me to be a pretty good parallel to your deer situation.
How is it not?

Why is Mr. Spock a last straw? Using fiction situations just allows concepts and their potential flaws to standout more clearly.

 

[A.T.]

Consciousness cannot be about the perception of the colour red.

To me, that experience simply is the physical process happening in the neural network.

Statements like the above just confirm the doubt I expressed initially:

I don't even know if anybody besides me actually perceives to be conscious, in the same sense I perceive to be conscious, or perceives to be conscious at all.

 

[A.T.]

You are talking about „subjective sensation“, but PeroK wants to talk about

Consciousness is about the ability to recognise, think and reason about oneself.

To me „subjective sensation“ and "self reflection" are both aspects of consciousness. And I can only hope for @PeroK, that their experience of consciousness isn't just the latter.

 

[Matterwave]

Statements like the above just confirm the doubt I expressed initially:

I don't even know if anybody besides me actually perceives to be conscious, in the same sense I perceive to be conscious, or perceives to be conscious at all.

Is this conversation pushing you towards Solipsism?

But I suspect (though I can not prove) the problem is definitional. It seems different people attribute different qualities to be part of the definition of "consciousness".

 

[gentzen]

To me „subjective sensation“ and "self reflection" are both aspects of consciousness.

This is a matter of language, not of "different aspects of the same coin". In the German language, what PeroK wants to talk about is called "Selbstbewustsein". You can try to translate that word into English as "self-consciousness". But then you get different connotations:

Self-consciousness is a heightened awareness of yourself, often with worry about how others may see your appearance or actions. It can feel uncomfortable or nervous, and it’s sometimes linked with shyness or embarrassment.

In fact, the plain word "consciousness" comes closer to the right connotations:

Consciousness is being aware of something internal to one's self, or ...

However, the trouble is the stuff after "or ...", so basically you have a single word which can be interpreted in multiple incompatible ways.

Of course, this is written from the perspective of a German native speaker. For some English native speaker like you, the different interpretations of that single word don't feel incompatible.

 

[A.T.]

But I suspect (though I can not prove) the problem is definitional. It seems different people attribute different qualities to be part of the definition of "consciousness".

I suspect the motivation for the narrowing down of the definition of "consciousness" is the urge to claim that it can be fully objectively described / measured. So "subjective perception" is excluded from "consciousness".

This of course doesn't solve the "hard problem of consciousness". It just becomes the "hard problem of subjective perception".

 

[A.T.]

If my exact neural pattern when looking at red structurally matches your pattern when looking at blue, that is the objective proof that my red is your blue.

No it isn't objective proof that we have the same subjective perception, because our brains are not identical, so "structurally matches" is not well defined.

If you observe exactly the same state in exactly the same brain at different timepoints, then you can assume (based on physicalism) that the subjective perception (if any) is the same. You can do that without having an objective description of that subjective perception, or even knowing if there is one.

But for two different brains, you cannot quantify how the subjective perception will differ without having an objective description of subjective experiences.

 

[Dale]

the urge to claim that it can be fully objectively described / measured

Regardless of whether or not the entire conscious can be measured, it is only the measurable portion that needs to be predicted by a complete scientific theory of the mind.

No it isn't objective proof that we have the same subjective perception, because our brains are not identical

Suppose that a complete theory of the mind did include some unmeasurable subjective aspects of consciousness. Suppose further that they serve as postulates from which the measurable aspects were derived. Then you might indeed consider such evidence to be objective proof of the subjective experience.

 

[A.T.]

When you ask questions that you define as being unmeasurable (in principle, not just in practice) then those questions cannot be addressed by the scientific method. They are not scientific questions, they are philosophical.

That is one way to categorize it.

The alternative is to interpret it analogous to Gödel's incompleteness theorems:
- No self-consistent formal system can be complete
- No correct science can be complete
In both cases self-reference plays a role:
- Statements about the statement itself
- Sentient beings describing sentience