> On 15 May 2019, at 01:14, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On 5/14/2019 1:20 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> >> On Tue, May 14, 2019, at 00:55, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote: >>> >>> >>> On 5/13/2019 4:18 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>> 3) Or maybe it's "what the brain does", as many physicalists like to say. >>>> My body as mass, because the atoms that make up my body amount to that >>>> mass. What amounts to my consciousness? What are the building blocks? >>>> There is no accounting, there is no description in yours or van Neumann's >>>> sense. >>> >>> But there are models that work. That was my point in citing AI projects >>> like Watson >> >> I mention this outside of our main discussion: Watson is mostly IBM >> marketing hype for scientifically-illiterate business executives. I say this >> as an AI researcher, not an AI-denialist. It does not deserve a place >> alongside serious research endeavors in the field. The Jeapordy player was >> cool, some nice papers came out of it (I have them and have read them all), >> but that is about it. The rest is just a bullshit business brand around >> cloud-stuff and old-fashioned business IT. >> >> https://www.computerworld.com/article/3321138/did-ibm-put-too-much-stock-in-watson-health-too-soon.html >> >> <https://www.computerworld.com/article/3321138/did-ibm-put-too-much-stock-in-watson-health-too-soon.html> >> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2017/07/02/is-ibm-watson-a-joke/ >> <https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2017/07/02/is-ibm-watson-a-joke/> >> https://gizmodo.com/why-everyone-is-hating-on-watson-including-the-people-w-1797510888 >> >> <https://gizmodo.com/why-everyone-is-hating-on-watson-including-the-people-w-1797510888> >> https://www.techrepublic.com/article/stop-the-hype-the-real-value-of-ibm-watson-is-driving-small-incremental-business-value/ >> >> <https://www.techrepublic.com/article/stop-the-hype-the-real-value-of-ibm-watson-is-driving-small-incremental-business-value/> >> https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/08/you-can-call-it-hype-but-watson-is-getting-marketers-roi/ >> >> <https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/08/you-can-call-it-hype-but-watson-is-getting-marketers-roi/> >> >> Etc. >> >>> and AlphaGO. >> >> AlphaGO is pretty cool. My feeling is that you are doing with AI what >> physicists tend to accuse outsiders to the field of doing with quantum >> physics: mysticism. I'm not accusing you of being the Deepak Chopra of >> AI-mysticism, I hold you in much higher regard than that, but I think maybe >> you lack the depth of understanding to see that there isn't as much there >> there as you might assume. >> >> AlphaGO is essentially a minimax decision tree. Go is infamous for leading >> to combinatorial explosion even more severely than chess, so decision trees >> where considered a no-go for a long time. The genius move here is to train a >> feed-forward neural network to prune the tree, providing something akin to >> intuition and making the decision tree both tractable and effective against >> expert human players. Reinforcement learning was used to train the tree by >> having the agents play against themselves (not in the first iteration of >> AlphaGO, but I think we can simplify a bit for the purpose of this >> discussion). >> >> This is all very neat and clever, but nothing was discovered in terms of >> computer science that wasn't already well-known in the 1980s. It just so >> happens that these approaches finally became feasible due to sufficiently >> powerful hardware. Now, this is no small achievement, and I have maximum >> respect for the AlphaGO team. But I failed to see what was learned in terms >> of how intelligence works, let alone what this has to do with consciousness, >> anymore than say, performing some linear algebra with NumPy or whatever. >> >>> The building blocks are perception, information processing, values, and >>> action. >> >> Well, if "perception" is a building block then there is already an implicit >> perceiver, so you are begging the question. Reminds me of this joke: >> >> Easy way to make your own megaphone! >> You just need: >> >> 1- Some duct tape >> 2- A megaphone >> >>> You say "there is no accounting" but that's because you're using >>> "accounting" as a synonym for "explain". The accounting in scientific >>> theory is in terms of a model that works. You're demanding of a theory of >>> consciousness that will do for consciousness what general relativity does >>> not do for the metric or for the stress-energy tensor, what Darwin did not >>> do for reproduction with variation. >> >> Darwin didn't have the full story, but now the main things are accounted >> for. We know how nucleic acids can be sequenced in very long molecules, thus >> digitally encoding the shape of proteins, that then fold into 3D shapes >> according to the laws of physics and can interact and compose themselves in >> ways that eventually generate complex organisms, that can interact to mix >> their respective strands of nucleic acids and create incubating environments >> for new, similar organisms to be generated. >> >> There are several scientific fields dedicated to the numerous details that I >> am glossing over in the silly explanation above. > > That's why people tend to think science explains more than it does. In well > developed fields the explanations can get very deep and go thru a lot of > diverse fields. Our explanation of consciousness is still shallow.
“Our explanations” ? Which one? Do you agree with the quasi-axiomatic definition I gave? (Consciousness is the immediately knowable truth that is indubitable, non provable and non definable in the language of the machine/entity concerned). Here, for a simpler Löbian machine than us, with such a definition, it is a theorem in slight extension of PA that the sound or even just the consistent Löbian machine have to be conscious. (Even without mechanism, if you agree with the meta or quasi-definition given). Truth and knowledge here cannot be defined in Arithmetic, but can be defined in ZF. > it's pretty much limited to what will shut off consciousness or give > halluciantions, and some mapping of functions in the brain. But when the > explanation gets deep and detailed, will you still notice that it leads to a > "dead end"? Do you notice that general relativity "dead ends" with no > explanation of why mass-energy curves spacetime? Here mechanism explain consciousness and notably why it seems to lead to a dead end, when it is not. > >> >> Under physicalism, for consciounsness, we have nada. Unless we start with >> the megaphone. >> >>> Maybe someday Bruno's theory will yield some interesting prediction (of >>> the future), but until then it's a theory doesn't do any work. So far it >>> doesn't even account for the effect of holding your breathe too long or >>> ingesting LSD. >> >> You know I appreciate Bruno and his work very much, but this is besides the >> point here. I am not arguing that Bruno has the answers (or not), just that >> physicalism accomplishes nothing that idealism does not, and in fact seems >> to lead to a dead end when it comes to consciousness. I am not even arguing >> that idealism provides the answers. I am just insisting on our ignorance, >> and I find it bizarre that scientifically-minded people such as you will be >> so reluctant to admit it. > > My point is that ignorance is relative. We've got a lot of good models in > physics and engineering, but to a metaphysician they all have dead ends. > >> >>> The physical model that says consciousness is the brain processing >>> information by neuron's firing at synapses...a very successful model. >> >> Successful at doing what? > > Predicting what will affect consciousness. I know you, and others on this > list, will think, "Oh that's just the 'easy problem'.", but notice that it's > not a problem Cosmin or Bruno even come within sight of. To predict an eclipse, you need assumption like there is a physical reality where either I am alone, or I am in the same situation everywhere, but this cannot work with mechanism. Physics has zero predicting power, except by cheating in the cognitive science. It is like Quantum Filed Theory, which works up to infinite error that we abstract from. It works FAPP, but not conceptually. It is a symptom that we don’t have the right theory. > >> >>> But the mysterians of consciousness >> >> This is something I really have a hard time understanding. We might disagree >> on some things, but I always assumed that we had more in common than what >> sets us apart: that we developed a passion for science because we are >> curious and reject bullshit authorities, such as that adult man who dresses >> like a white wizard in the Vatican or anyone who thinks that bronze-age >> people suffering from sun stroke in the desert somehow have something so >> profound to say that no other book is needed. That we believe that reality >> is intelligible, and that we can reason and talk about it, and that this can >> lead to some progress in our understanding. >> >> But here you are, name-calling those who are curious and refuse to stop >> asking the big questions, because the big questions that show cracks in your >> favorite word-view make you uncomfortable... Beware of spending too much >> time fighting monsters and so on... >> >>> want to pooh-pooh that because it doesn't talk about how their >>> consciousness "feels". >>> >> >> Yes. I don't understand the scare quotes. If you don't talk about how >> consciousness "feels" you are not talking about consciousness. You are just >> hiding from the big question. >> >> Also, you are accusing of "woo" those who insist on the reality of the only >> experience that can be directly verifiable, and remain sceptical of anything >> else. If that is "woo", then "woo" is better than what you call "science". > > Well, how does "life" feel? Remember when 'elan vital was the big mystery? > My point is that we didn't solve that problem. We circumvented it. Yes, but that circumvention is not applicable to consciousness, especially if we use it in biology. Life becomes a mechanism, but then physics becomes a non computable statistics on number’s first person plural experiences. > We learned so much about the detail of molecular biology we don't even know > where the line is between life and not-life. I think the problem of > consciousness won't be solved either because it is has been defined as giving > an objective, sharable account of qaulia which are defined as subjective and > personal. But I think the problem of consciousness will be dissolved into > many technical subfields, just as the problem of life has been. I gave an argument why this can’t work. No problem, it is enough to listen to the unprogrammed universal machine, having some induction beliefs, to get its own sound theory of consciousness, which works, which explains why there is a physical reality, and where it comes from, qualitatively and quantitatively. We have just to derive the rest of physics, and if it contradicts nature, then we will have evidence that mechanism is wrong, and we will need to find a different theory of consciousness, and matter. Bruno > > Brent > >> >>> But neither does Bruno's . He talks about "arithmetic, seen from the >>> inside" as though that was more than a Platonic metaphor. >> >> Well, that's another discussion, and I'm sure Bruno is available to answer >> your questions, but even if you are right, it does not refute my point. >> >> Telmo. >> >>> >>> Brent >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to [email protected] >>> <mailto:[email protected]>. >>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/6d7eae1d-f2b7-3fe9-2643-cd0db62b915e%40verizon.net >>> >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/6d7eae1d-f2b7-3fe9-2643-cd0db62b915e%40verizon.net?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/98d87abf-ac74-4ddc-a656-97e424ff9f28%40www.fastmail.com >> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/98d87abf-ac74-4ddc-a656-97e424ff9f28%40www.fastmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/f43e48ee-137a-5077-336a-9dd3404e531d%40verizon.net > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/f43e48ee-137a-5077-336a-9dd3404e531d%40verizon.net?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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