Poke holes in my logic. Please. I'm trying to come up with a general theory

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First, understand that this reading operates under the assumption that the universe is not Solipsistic. This is because no observation made about physical law can be affirmed if the universe itself is simply imagined; any scientific laws would be subject to change.

What is consciousness? A definition does not work, because definitions are built upon the framework of language, which is a tool used to communicate with others. However, consciousness cannot be observed externally; it has no discernible volume, mass, or chemical composition. This is why Solipsism cannot be disproven. That said, the ability TO observe is in itself proof of its existence despite it being unobservable by any other means. Its inherent connection to a physical body suggests that consciousness inhabits a geographical location. However, according to physics, it is impossible for an object to move without being acted on by a force, suggesting consciousness does has a relationship with matter. Thus, my theory is that rather than being a particle itself, consciousness is instead a property of matter. Moreover, since no single cell in the body is necessary for consciousness to exist, it appears as if human consciousness is not indivisible, but rather a collective consciousness despite human behavior normally suggesting singularity.

Unfortunately, this is where language fails. Consciousness is synonymous with awareness, and human awareness is dependent upon senses such as sight, smell, and touch. Referring to so-called inanimate objects as conscious despite lacking a nervous system challenges the idea of what consciousness is, begs the question of what an iron beam is aware OF, and asks what links this nebulous property to the nervous system when objects such as robots are not conventionally considered aware. Unfortunately, conversation relating to awareness is completely dependent upon communication, and an iron beam is unable to communicate, putting further observations out of reach.

Too smart, request a lock and make it again!

shut up

At 3/12/16 03:32 AM, Gremlin wrote: Too smart, request a lock and make it again!

Yeah, like re-post on a more condusive day.
I always defaulted to, "I think, therefore I am" and left it at that. If nothing else, advanced AI might teach us more about awareness, if and when we can program it... it all comes down to reverse engineering God's work.

At 3/12/16 03:59 AM, VicariousE wrote: I always defaulted to, "I think, therefore I am" and left it at that. If nothing else, advanced AI might teach us more about awareness, if and when we can program it... it all comes down to reverse engineering God's work.

The old "cogito ergo sum" phrase refers to the question of whether or not oneself exists, although solipsism is the complete inverse, saying that oneself is the ONLY thing assured to exist. This discussion isn't about either, though. Rather, it's about what makes us conscious. Though if you believe in God you most likely think that this comes from a soul. Nevertheless, this still raises a question of whether or not a soul occupies physical space, what keeps it in or by your body, and whether or not it's a divisible entity.

At 3/12/16 04:09 AM, Kwing wrote:

At 3/12/16 03:59 AM, VicariousE wrote: I always defaulted to, "I think, therefore I am" and left it at that. If nothing else, advanced AI might teach us more about awareness, if and when we can program it... it all comes down to reverse engineering God's work.

The old "cogito ergo sum" phrase refers to the question of whether or not oneself exists, although solipsism is the complete inverse, saying that oneself is the ONLY thing assured to exist. This discussion isn't about either, though. Rather, it's about what makes us conscious. Though if you believe in God you most likely think that this comes from a soul. Nevertheless, this still raises a question of whether or not a soul occupies physical space, what keeps it in or by your body, and whether or not it's a divisible entity.

Well that sure boils it down. I'm sure a soul occupies some physical space, though we're still too primitive to observe and/or quantify it fully. Something in that bio-chemical soup of a body must be holding something that's more than just the sum of its parts.

What do you mean by a divisible entity? Something that can be mathematically explained?

At 3/12/16 03:29 AM, Kwing wrote:

What is consciousness? A definition does not work, because definitions are built upon the framework of language, which is a tool used to communicate with others.

See: Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein, translation by G.E.M. Anscombe. Sections 70-77. Section 390 for a nice bit about consciousness.
His conclusions disagree with what you've stated here, and you'll probably have to read the entire text; disagree might be a misleading word here, Wittgenstein thinks consciousness is a very hard to define, but it is describable, and only through language.

However, consciousness cannot be observed externally; it has no discernible volume, mass, or chemical composition.

I think your definition of consciousness might be a bit hazy here, I've always viewed it as a product of the brain, which definitely gives it volume, mass, and chemical composition; we just don't understand how those variables come together to get what we have.

This is why Solipsism cannot be disproven. That said, the ability TO observe is in itself proof of its existence despite it being unobservable by any other means.

This just gets back to Descartes, check out the Discourse on Method, and probably John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Check the Philosophical Investigations section 402-403 for a brief discussion of Solipsism and an inevitability of it. Keep in mind that if something cannot be disproven it isn't a very good description of things and is by definition a tautology.

Its inherent connection to a physical body suggests that consciousness inhabits a geographical location. However, according to physics, it is impossible for an object to move without being acted on by a force, suggesting consciousness does has a relationship with matter.

You might want to clarify that this is specifically a law of Newtonian Physics, Quantum physics is a bit more bizarre, although I don't think Quantum Physics has much to do with consciousness. Another point to consider is that if you are going with this characterization of physics that consciousness is necessarily causally determined, and that there would be no suggestion that consciousness has a relationship with matter, it necessarily does unless you want to be a dualist.

Thus, my theory is that rather than being a particle itself, consciousness is instead a property of matter. Moreover, since no single cell in the body is necessary for consciousness to exist, it appears as if human consciousness is not indivisible, but rather a collective consciousness despite human behavior normally suggesting singularity.

I'd love for you to elaborate on this, as I think I largely agree.

Unfortunately, this is where language fails. Consciousness is synonymous with awareness, and human awareness is dependent upon senses such as sight, smell, and touch.

Are mollusks and plants not aware of things coming into contact with them? They certainly have responses to stimulus, a clam will close its shell if it feels a touch, as a plant will close its bulb (if it's a flower). Certainly I would't call a plant or mollusk conscious, but you get my point; making consciousness synonymous with awareness is problematic. Enhanced awareness being a product of consciousness might be better, as there are degrees of awareness.

Referring to so-called inanimate objects as conscious despite lacking a nervous system challenges the idea of what consciousness is, begs the question of what an iron beam is aware OF, and asks what links this nebulous property to the nervous system when objects such as robots are not conventionally considered aware.

The convention will and is changing, the things that neural networks are doing now are fascinating, absolutely and utterly fascinating. Computers are very close to achieving sentience, and they probably have, it just hasn't been released to the mainstream yet; I have a friend who is NDA'd about a lot of neural network stuff he works on, and what he can talk about makes me very curious about the things he can't talk about, because what he does talk about it amazing.

Sorry if some of the things I addressed were talked about later, I responded as I came to things.

At 3/12/16 04:37 AM, VicariousE wrote: What do you mean by a divisible entity? Something that can be mathematically explained?

A body can be chopped up into pieces. Can a soul be chopped up into pieces? Bees, ants, and coral reefs are collective entities that more or less appear to have a collective consciousness. Collectives can be divided.

At 3/12/16 09:41 AM, Hoodie wrote:

At 3/12/16 03:29 AM, Kwing wrote: consciousness is instead a property of matter.

If it was matter it would have mass and if it had mass we would be able to study it. I mean we can study anti-matter yeah?

Right, so I'm not saying consciousness has mass, I'm saying it's a property of it. For instance, gravitational force is a property inherent in all matter but it's a pain in the ass for scientists to study because it's so hard to observe. Mass is also just a property of matter, but the technical definition of it sounds extremely strange: It's a scalar quantity that resists movement.

At 3/12/16 02:44 PM, Ganon-Dorf wrote: I think your definition of consciousness might be a bit hazy here, I've always viewed it as a product of the brain, which definitely gives it volume, mass, and chemical composition; we just don't understand how those variables come together to get what we have.

That's not exactly what I'm getting at, but it's somewhat close. If someone doesn't have the kind of consciousness I'm talking about, they would behave exactly like any other person. They would respond to situations with fear or laughter, but there would be no "receiving end" to actually feel. Basically, you would have no reason to empathize with this person because there is no identity that is affected by what happens to them; they are simply a shell that responds. The brain is not adequate proof of consciousness because all it actually does is allow you to sense and respond. But a computer can do that too. The fact that most people don't view artificial intelligence as sentient suggests that people see this distinction and draw a line somewhere.

This just gets back to Descartes, check out the Discourse on Method, and probably John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Check the Philosophical Investigations section 402-403 for a brief discussion of Solipsism and an inevitability of it. Keep in mind that if something cannot be disproven it isn't a very good description of things and is by definition a tautology.

I will definitely check this out later but I just want to say that I only brought up Solipsism to illustrate the issue, not to start up some inclusive Russell's teapot argument.

Its inherent connection to a physical body suggests that consciousness inhabits a geographical location. However, according to physics, it is impossible for an object to move without being acted on by a force, suggesting consciousness does has a relationship with matter.

You might want to clarify that this is specifically a law of Newtonian Physics, Quantum physics is a bit more bizarre, although I don't think Quantum Physics has much to do with consciousness. Another point to consider is that if you are going with this characterization of physics that consciousness is necessarily causally determined, and that there would be no suggestion that consciousness has a relationship with matter, it necessarily does unless you want to be a dualist.

I wish I could say more on this but I know where my own limitations lie. I could attempt to make a claim about how quantum mechanics are too unpredictable for us to retain the same consciousness throughout a lifetime, but I can't really prove that. I might wake up in a different body every day, lacking the memories to know it. Although this is drawing uncomfortably close to Last Thursdayism.

I'm not sure what you're saying about causal determinism though; I always thought this had to do with a sequence of events? That doesn't make much sense. It's like saying matter started existing and then gravity formed around it. I don't think this is your argument though, so please feel free to tell me what I've misread.

Thus, my theory is that rather than being a particle itself, consciousness is instead a property of matter. Moreover, since no single cell in the body is necessary for consciousness to exist, it appears as if human consciousness is not indivisible, but rather a collective consciousness despite human behavior normally suggesting singularity.

I'd love for you to elaborate on this, as I think I largely agree.

I'm not sure what else there is to say on the matter. That's my hypothesis, but I don't think I could attempt to say what that MEANS without taking massive logical leaps.

The convention will and is changing, the things that neural networks are doing now are fascinating, absolutely and utterly fascinating. Computers are very close to achieving sentience, and they probably have, it just hasn't been released to the mainstream yet; I have a friend who is NDA'd about a lot of neural network stuff he works on, and what he can talk about makes me very curious about the things he can't talk about, because what he does talk about it amazing.

Definitely - I always find it funny when people think of machines as being incapable of reaching consciousness. How long did it take meat creatures to reach self-awareness... A few billion years? Speaking generously, the logical framework for machines has only been around a few hundred years, and the hardware itself is only present in the past century.

At 3/12/16 03:23 PM, Kwing wrote:

At 3/12/16 04:37 AM, VicariousE wrote: What do you mean by a divisible entity? Something that can be mathematically explained?

A body can be chopped up into pieces. Can a soul be chopped up into pieces? Bees, ants, and coral reefs are collective entities that more or less appear to have a collective consciousness. Collectives can be divided.

No I don't think a soul can be divided, but it can die and get reabsorbed back into Universe. I do think a soul can ascend after the body dies, and be reborn into a different consciousness that spans more dimensions than normal mortal creatures can perceive (minus some animals and fucked up humans).

Anyway, I tend to agree with your theory about (for lack of a better phrase) a collective consciousness, but that sort of goes against what I said earlier... Maybe if the Illuminati had their way, and there were only a few million people left on Earth, the souls that did exist would have more substantial souls? I wonder how @jordand would respond to this...

Between science and religion, reality exists, and we're only mere specks trying to narrow the gap between the two.

At 3/12/16 03:23 PM, Kwing wrote:

I'm not sure what you're saying about causal determinism though; I always thought this had to do with a sequence of events? That doesn't make much sense. It's like saying matter started existing and then gravity formed around it. I don't think this is your argument though, so please feel free to tell me what I've misread.

Just that once causal determinism is applied to the brain the mind necessarily becomes causally determined. No brain for chemical reactions to take place means no mind.

At 3/12/16 10:15 PM, Ganon-Dorf wrote: Just that once causal determinism is applied to the brain the mind necessarily becomes causally determined. No brain for chemical reactions to take place means no mind.

This goes back to what I was saying about the brain not necessarily being connected to consciousness or being. Sure, the brain has an awareness of things and an ability to respond, but what identifies that brain, mind, and body with YOU?

At 3/12/16 03:08 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote: irrelevant because you believe the universe is not solipsistic, ergo you believe what you observe is real, ergo you believe the people you observe are real, ergo you believe your communications with them are real.

Keep in mind solipsism is not the real issue here; it's only an example I've used to demonstrate that we can only be aware of our own consciousness. The problem is that language is normally used to describe things that can be observed from multiple sources, like a tree. Even things like color and emotion can be described as shared experience, despite us not perceiving them exactly the same. Describing consciousness is difficult because the only thing observable about it is its presence. Most people argue for a binary distinction between conscious and unconscious (ie. living and nonliving,) but I've never seen the word be attributed with other qualities. If a person is described as "very conscious" it usually has something to do with their observations and intellect.

nothing can be "disproven". you can refute a set of qualifiers, such as my "if i set myself on fire as i am now, will other people see me come back to life like a phoenix?" line, but to completely disprove the entire concept is impossible.

You have a point, but I'm making a more specific argument about why a specific line of reasoning cannot disprove solipsism. That is, you can't say, "That person looks and behaves just like me, therefore they must be conscious the way I am conscious," because under the theory of solipsism, your perception of yourself is not necessarily accurate. Nothing you observe can disprove solipsism because your observations are subject to a perspective that solipsism accounts for.

consciousnes is data. data travels through energy, like zeros and ones travel through electricity in a computer, or in this case, your experiences traveling through bioelectical impulses fired between synapses and receptors in your brain.

This is where we disagree. Again, there is a reason that we do not hesitate to kill people in video games but (typically) show adversity to harming each other in our so-called reality. Information reaches both the simulated person and the 'real' person, and both people respond (sometimes with an uncanny level of similarity,) but the 'real' person has a quality that makes us believe we can actually do harm to them and causes us to recognize a difference. One of them is conscious, the other is not.

humans arent all-knowing, and they'd have to be in order to interpret what they observe correctly and with absolute certainty.

That's very Socratic of you, but I'm not attempting to make a conclusion; I'm merely pointing out what I can reason. Sure, there's no way to completely disprove that human consciousness is bound to a single organic cell in the body, but I've provided evidence that makes the argument against it more logically sound, if only in a relative sense.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s07uyJk7S5h1

Language fails. Therefore, we use math.

At 3/12/16 03:29 AM, Kwing wrote: Poke holes in my logic. Please. I'm trying to come up with a general theory

With great pleasure!

What is consciousness? A definition does not work, because definitions are built upon the framework of language, which is a tool used to communicate with others.

A definition is all that is possible. Therefore it will have to do. Communication is imperfect, but you don't solve that by obliterating all communication and relying on, what, psychic ability?

However, consciousness cannot be observed externally;

I disagree entirely. I don't know about you, but I can recognize when someone or something is conscious versus when it isn't. For example, I recognize great differences between a rock and a slug and a dog. In fact there are levels of consciousness, but there's also a base level at which something must meet bare minimum consciousness. As for humans, I can tell the difference in consciousness between a normally-functioning fully-alert person, a mentally defective person with partial functioning, and a "human vegetable" or severely mentally handicapped person who appears to have no awareness yet still lives. All are living humans. Of course dead humans would not have any observable consciousness, obviously.

it has no discernible volume, mass, or chemical composition.

Irrelevant. You're cherry picking arbitrary measurements. You may as well say stationary water cannot be observed because it gives off no audible sound and doesn't show up on some infrared meter. Arbitrary and irrelevant.

Thus, my theory is that rather than being a particle itself, consciousness is instead a property of matter.

It's not a property of matter. It's intrinsic to certain configurations, but absent outside those. You can take all the matter that you want and none of it will have any consciousness whatsoever if it's not in a proper configuration. On the other hand, take a properly-functioning model of an appropriate configuration, and that model possesses consciousness, for example a normally-functioning human. That human is more than merely the matter he or she is composed of. You must have the appropriate system (for example, a human), and such a system must be functioning to some extent (for example, not dead and not "human vegetable" state).

Moreover, since no single cell in the body is necessary for consciousness to exist, it appears as if human consciousness is not indivisible, but rather a collective consciousness despite human behavior normally suggesting singularity.

It is a collective consciousness of the one body, if you want to think of each individual cell as separate entities. But specifically only some of the body is responsible for consciousness. Do your fingernails contribute to consciousness? Does your skin contribute to consciousness? Do your bones? Your liver? Your kidneys? Somehow I don't think so. Instead it will be somewhere in your brain and nervous system exclusively. So it is a collective consciousness of your brain cells, when they're functional, yes.

But what it is not is a collective consciousness of all humans. You can't "think" into another person's brain nor can they into yours unless maybe you're a conjoined twin connected at the head, or you're doing some mad science where you literally connect electrodes from your brain directly to another or something of the sort.

Consciousness is synonymous with awareness, and human awareness is dependent upon senses such as sight, smell, and touch.

False. One can be blind, deaf, without a sense of touch, without a sense of taste, and without a sense of smell and still be very very aware. This in fact would be obvious to other observers though the extremely handicapped person would have no way to observe the others observing his or her awareness. For example, such a person could speak coherently, and perform various mental tasks aloud, which would indicate to others, though such person has no means of sensory input, yet is still aware and thus conscious.

what an iron beam is aware OF

It is aware of nothing by itself.

what links this nebulous property to the nervous system when objects such as robots are not conventionally considered aware.

The specific configuration of the nervous system, or, rather, any suitable nervous system. Many animals also are conscious to various extents. Anything beyond stimulus response. AI is at best advanced stimulus response -- it doesn't actually know what it's doing but it just does it because it's programmed that way. Of course to the untrained eye perhaps it can be convincing.

Unfortunately, conversation relating to awareness is completely dependent upon communication, and an iron beam is unable to communicate, putting further observations out of reach.

True. Though I doubt communicating with an iron beam will prove very insightful. But you can try. You can try all day if you like. Everyone else will just look at you like you've lost what little sanity remained.

At 3/12/16 02:44 PM, Ganon-Dorf wrote: You might want to clarify that this is specifically a law of Newtonian Physics, Quantum physics is a bit more bizarre, although I don't think Quantum Physics has much to do with consciousness.

It might. Unless you fully understand the finer details of how consciousness works, what makes you disregard this?

Are mollusks and plants not aware of things coming into contact with them? They certainly have responses to stimulus, a clam will close its shell if it feels a touch, as a plant will close its bulb (if it's a flower). Certainly I would't call a plant or mollusk conscious, but you get my point; making consciousness synonymous with awareness is problematic. Enhanced awareness being a product of consciousness might be better, as there are degrees of awareness.

Simple semantics. Stimulus response is not sufficient for consciousness. Consciousness and awareness being synonymous, I'll agree, and there are degrees of it (a human is more conscious than a dog, which is more conscious than a slug) but there is some base level bare minimum and stimulus response doesn't meet it.

The convention will and is changing, the things that neural networks are doing now are fascinating, absolutely and utterly fascinating.

I agree.

Computers are very close to achieving sentience, and they probably have, it just hasn't been released to the mainstream yet

I disagree entirely. What you have are simulations of consciousness, but not actual consciousness. AI programs can never become sentient because they don't know what it is they do. The best they can become is good fool tests -- people who don't know better can perhaps be fooled if the AI is good enough.

I have a friend who is NDA'd about a lot of neural network stuff he works on, and what he can talk about makes me very curious about the things he can't talk about, because what he does talk about it amazing.

I have no doubts. Having also worked in artificial intelligence however, I can confidently tell you there is no way any of that stuff is becoming sentient or ever can. Anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn't have any experience with it, does have the experience with it but is trying to "sell" you on some idea they don't even believe, or is delusional. It won't happen.

At 3/12/16 03:08 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote: nothing can be "disproven". you can refute a set of qualifiers, such as my "if i set myself on fire as i am now, will other people see me come back to life like a phoenix?" line, but to completely disprove the entire concept is impossible.

False. Some things can be disproven. The only true statement is that not all things can be disproven. If you have a closed system and you know all the rules of the system and you know certain conditions and you are given a possible state for such a system, you can prove or disprove such a state existing in such a system.

What you can't disprove is the nonexistence of things in a system for which you do not have all the rules. This is why a deity cannot be proven or disproven -- we don't have all the rules giving us all the data of everything in existence at all times.

consciousnes is data. data travels through energy, like zeros and ones travel through electricity in a computer, or in this case, your experiences traveling through bioelectical impulses fired between synapses and receptors in your brain.

Close. So very very close. It's not really the data so much as it's the flow of control. it is like the electricity moving through a circuit board. That part is correct. Data isn't really active -- it's passive -- it exists. Flow of control acts on that data. Flow of control would be a better analogue of where to look for signs of consciousness. Also a mere flow of control is not consciousness, because it has no awareness of what it's doing -- it just blindly does it. But it is a necessary prerequisite. So how do we make that flow of control *aware* that it's doing what it's doing? That would be consciousness and that would be what separates true consciousness from AI, for example.

humans arent all-knowing, and they'd have to be in order to interpret what they observe correctly and with absolute certainty.

True statement.

But while we aren't all-knowing in the system of the universe, we can be all-knowing in other, more limited, systems. If I invent a simple game and I know all the rules to the game and all states of the game and all possible moves and exactly what will happen when, then I am all-knowing in context of that game.

At 3/12/16 03:29 AM, Kwing wrote: Poke holes in my logic. Please. I'm trying to come up with a general theory

Turtles...all the way down

At 3/14/16 12:31 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote:

At 3/14/16 05:24 AM, NeonSpider wrote:
But while we aren't all-knowing in the system of the universe, we can be all-knowing in other, more limited, systems. If I invent a simple game and I know all the rules to the game and all states of the game and all possible moves and exactly what will happen when, then I am all-knowing in context of that game.

you know how the game is played.

you don't know what the game is made of. or if you do, you don't know the properties of what the game is made of. or if you do, you don't know how they came to be that way, or if you do, you don't know why they are what they are.

because nobody does.

Irrelevant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_physics

your game is made of matter and energy, same as everything else.

False. A particular instantiation of a game may be made of matter, energy, etc, but that's not the same thing as the game itself. Important distinction. A game exists in theory alone. Any physical implementation is at best an imperfect approximation of that game but not the game itself. Theory is not made of matter, energy, or anything else. It exists in concept-form only.

Here, let's make a simple conceptual game. It won't qualify as what anyone would consider fun, but that's actually not a requirement of just any game, only a requirement of a good game, and I don't claim this is a good game but only that it is a game.

So the game proceeds as follows. You have two states, state 1 and state 2. At any point in time you are in one of these states. Should you be in state 1 at point of observation, the game proceeds to state 2. Should you be in state 2 at point of observation, the game proceeds to state 1. These shall be defined as the rules of the game.

Now, suppose you are in state 1 and you observe the board. What will happen? That's right -- you will go to state 2, then state 1, then state 2, then state 1, and so on until infinity, but you will know this exact order.

If, on the other hand, you are in state 2 and you observe the board, what will happen? That's right -- you will go to state 1, then state 2, then state 1, then state 2, and so on until infinity, but you will again always know this exact order because that is how the game is defined.

As to the goal of the game in regards to the player, it has none, but I don't see that being a requirement for games these days. See for example MMOs that have no goal.

As to actually needing to do something yourself to play the game, I don't see that being a requirement of games these days either. See for example any game which is basically a movie. You did the bare minimum of simply observing the game itself.

And we have perfect predicting power. If you are in state 1 you know you will be in state 2. If you are in state 2 you know you will be in state 1. You know these with 100% certainty. You could play psychic to anyone who did not know these rules and somehow could not figure them out, and you would amaze them every single time.

At 3/14/16 05:09 AM, NeonSpider wrote: A definition is all that is possible. Therefore it will have to do. Communication is imperfect, but you don't solve that by obliterating all communication and relying on, what, psychic ability?

Based on the context of the rest of your post, I think we disagree on what we're viewing as consciousness. I'll elaborate on this in a second.

I disagree entirely. I don't know about you, but I can recognize when someone or something is conscious versus when it isn't. For example, I recognize great differences between a rock and a slug and a dog.

As I've mentioned earlier, this isn't a measurement of consciousness; all you're determining is how something responds to stimuli. That may have some relation to awareness, but one of the things I've been saying is that these describe two different things. Is an 8 megapixel camera more "aware" than a 5 megapixel camera? Is video game AI more "aware" if it has path-finding rather than moving as the crow flies in your direction?

There is a psychological barrier that makes most of us pause before we inflict pain on someone. It's usually tied to the thought that we wouldn't want to be treated that way ourselves. Having this thought is a speculation that the person in question has the capacity to experience pain the way we experience pain, but it is only speculation because we cannot actually have someone else's experience. That is the limitation I'm referring to when I say it can't be defined, because we cannot describe it to other people the way we can describe an apple or a pencil.

Irrelevant. You're cherry picking arbitrary measurements. You may as well say stationary water cannot be observed because it gives off no audible sound and doesn't show up on some infrared meter. Arbitrary and irrelevant.

Not really. I could have listed any other unit and I would have come up empty of a valid measurement. Volts, ohms, amps, Hz, meters, etc. whereas water can still be measured using some of these. If you empathize with animals and see them as 'real,' not even the Turing test will work.

Consciousness is synonymous with awareness, and human awareness is dependent upon senses such as sight, smell, and touch.

False. One can be blind, deaf, without a sense of touch, without a sense of taste, and without a sense of smell and still be very very aware. This in fact would be obvious to other observers though the extremely handicapped person would have no way to observe the others observing his or her awareness. For example, such a person could speak coherently, and perform various mental tasks aloud, which would indicate to others, though such person has no means of sensory input, yet is still aware and thus conscious.

This makes absolutely no sense to me. If a person is speaking, it is because they have learned a language through observing, therefore they must have some sense the enable that learning as well as being able to perceive the world around them at least well enough to know what the words they are saying represent.

The specific configuration of the nervous system, or, rather, any suitable nervous system. Many animals also are conscious to various extents. Anything beyond stimulus response. AI is at best advanced stimulus response -- it doesn't actually know what it's doing but it just does it because it's programmed that way. Of course to the untrained eye perhaps it can be convincing.

This is exactly the dividing line I've been trying to illustrate: A computer "doesn't actually know what it's doing because it's programmed that way." To a large extent, our own behavior is governed the same way, based on biology and environment. But you still recognize there's a difference, and that difference is what I am using to define conscious versus unconscious. Although again I think the disagreement comes from having different definitions.

I have no doubts. Having also worked in artificial intelligence however, I can confidently tell you there is no way any of that stuff is becoming sentient or ever can. Anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn't have any experience with it, does have the experience with it but is trying to "sell" you on some idea they don't even believe, or is delusional. It won't happen.

Hypothetically speaking, do you think an unconscious person could fool one of these tests?

At 3/14/16 05:24 AM, NeonSpider wrote: It's not really the data so much as it's the flow of control. it is like the electricity moving through a circuit board. That part is correct. Data isn't really active -- it's passive -- it exists. Flow of control acts on that data. Flow of control would be a better analogue of where to look for signs of consciousness.

I really like this response, but it opens up another question. What exactly is control? When you make a decision such as what to wear, what car to buy, or where to go to college, your decision making process is dictated by a set of parameters. Perhaps you're sick of living in the middle of nowhere, so you choose a larger college to change that experience. Perhaps you go off-road driving a lot, so you want a car with four wheel drive. These are all conditions that a computer is capable of comparing. If you prioritize how important each condition is, a computer can even make a decision based on conditions that contradict each other.

At 3/14/16 12:26 PM, uhnomal3 wrote: Turtles...all the way down

The turtle couldn't help us.

At 3/14/16 11:53 AM, Chemich wrote: I know you asked for something to poke holes in your logic, sadly I find your logic (perspective of so) sound although slightly different to my understanding. Would offering my personal perspective on the subject be good enough? If not, then sorry for not being of any real help.

I'd be interested in hearing that since I believed almost the exact same thing as you at one point. What changed my mind was how simplistic it seemed to think of the soul as something unbreakable or indivisible, while our bodies can be severed into many pieces. I do believe in things like past lives, but I consider these to be similar to how bones can be dug up as fossils; they are remnants, but not complete representations of their original entity.

(Give me a minute guys, I'm still catching up.)

At 3/14/16 11:33 AM, mysticvortex13 wrote: so it should follow that even if we were ever to do something as crazy as create a truly sentient or even sapient artificial intelligence and put it into a video game and killed it like any other npc, we still wouldnt feel guilty about it, because we knew what went into it's making and could easily reconstitute it.

What about cloning? Would you kill someone if they could be brought back to life? Maybe this is an irrelevant question because you can't replace that person's memories and experiences, but suppose you could reproduce someone from a "human fax machine" similar to Gantz. Is there a 'real' and irreplaceable individual? Does only one of them experience pain, while the rest simply imitate the experience by reacting to it?

because there are no notable changes in how the universe functions, and because boredom exists... i'd say the universe probably isnt imagined by any entity who's fully aware they're imagining it.

I don't think solipsism has ever been about probability, but rather the idea that (like Last Thursdayism) our perspective is limited, and we occupy our own minds rather than an objective reality, regardless of whether or not one exists.

At 3/14/16 07:02 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote: the theory exists only within you. you are data. that theory is part of that data. your experiences are literally a part of you.

Actually, theory exists outside of any particular entity. It exists in a sort of theoretical realm. The physical realm can at best approximate it. That would be instantiation.

A theoretical chair is absolutely perfect in every way. Some actual chair has at least some flaws, no matter how good of a chair it is. Further, whoever conceived of such a theoretical chair does *not* need to exist and can cease existing at any time, and yet the theoretical chair remains. It doesn't exist in terms of matter and the universe. It exists only as a concept.

you've described quantum physics. observe a particle and it changes places. cease observing it and it returns to where it was before you were observing it.

Not really. What I described was an arbitrary, though boring, theoretical game. It is true observing things changes their state in quantum physics, but it is not true that as soon as you stop observing, the state jumps back to where it was before. That part is incorrect.

no. because you don't know state 2 exists, because you can't perceive state 2 without it reverting to state 1.

As per the rules of the game, though, you would know. You could correctly fill out truth tables to any degree given any starting conditions. You know if it's state 1 it becomes state 2 and if it's state 2 it becomes state 1.

you created it, so you know what you tried to create, but you don't know if you succeeded at creating it.

we don't have that "perfect prediction power" you speak of.

In that exact system or other specially-constructed systems, we can. If we know all possible states and we know all possible state transitions and we know starting state, we have full knowledge of the entire system at all points in time. This is perfect prediction power. Now, as to the world we live in, we do not know all possible states nor all possible state transitions, nor do we even know the starting state precisely. In short, we lack the information necessary in the case of the observable world.

give me a "for instance".

Space Ace
Dragon's Lair (arcade game)

These are interactive movies labeled as games. The entire game experience is watching a movie.

At 3/14/16 11:07 PM, Kwing wrote: As I've mentioned earlier, this isn't a measurement of consciousness; all you're determining is how something responds to stimuli. That may have some relation to awareness, but one of the things I've been saying is that these describe two different things. Is an 8 megapixel camera more "aware" than a 5 megapixel camera? Is video game AI more "aware" if it has path-finding rather than moving as the crow flies in your direction?

Neither camera is more aware than the other because neither camera has awareness. And I am not just determining stimuli response. Can you not tell the difference between an actor following a script and an actor acting of its own accord? It is the difference between what isn't or what is consciousness.

There is a psychological barrier that makes most of us pause before we inflict pain on someone. It's usually tied to the thought that we wouldn't want to be treated that way ourselves. Having this thought is a speculation that the person in question has the capacity to experience pain the way we experience pain, but it is only speculation because we cannot actually have someone else's experience. That is the limitation I'm referring to when I say it can't be defined, because we cannot describe it to other people the way we can describe an apple or a pencil.

You don't have to have someone else's experience to be able to conceive of it. You may not be able to adequately explain or communicate this conception to others, but it's there. This is intuitive.

Not really. I could have listed any other unit and I would have come up empty of a valid measurement. Volts, ohms, amps, Hz, meters, etc. whereas water can still be measured using some of these. If you empathize with animals and see them as 'real,' not even the Turing test will work.

Those are all just as arbitrary. I know consciousness exists because I am conscious. I know some other entity possesses consciousness or not based on if the entity is following a script or if the entity is choosing for itself. There's a valid test right there -- if it can be shown an entity is following a script and has no choice in the matter, such entity is not conscious. Also Turing test is overrated.

False. One can be blind, deaf, without a sense of touch, without a sense of taste, and without a sense of smell and still be very very aware. This in fact would be obvious to other observers though the extremely handicapped person would have no way to observe the others observing his or her awareness. For example, such a person could speak coherently, and perform various mental tasks aloud, which would indicate to others, though such person has no means of sensory input, yet is still aware and thus conscious.

This makes absolutely no sense to me. If a person is speaking, it is because they have learned a language through observing, therefore they must have some sense the enable that learning as well as being able to perceive the world around them at least well enough to know what the words they are saying represent.

It makes no sense to you because you make a bad presumption -- that such a person *never* had these to begin with. That is a condition I never imposed. We will assume a normally-abled person had some kind of grievous accident, leaving him or her with no further means of sensory input. Yet such person can still be aware of their situation and what is happening, and thus conscious. At that point in time, they have no sensory input. So it disproves your assertion of possession of sensory input being necessary for consciousness.

This is exactly the dividing line I've been trying to illustrate: A computer "doesn't actually know what it's doing because it's programmed that way." To a large extent, our own behavior is governed the same way, based on biology and environment. But you still recognize there's a difference, and that difference is what I am using to define conscious versus unconscious. Although again I think the disagreement comes from having different definitions.

Simple test. Is one following a script and does one have a choice in the matter? If the answers are "yes" and "no", respectively, one does not possess consciousness. Of course, if the answers were "no" and "yes", this is not sufficient for consciousness either, but is but one prerequisite.

Hypothetically speaking, do you think an unconscious person could fool one of these tests?

Not at all unless someone else was manipulating them behind the scenes, like a magician trying to fool an audience. Either that or the test was faulty and poorly-designed. People can be fooled. But those who know the "behind the scenes" shouldn't be fooled. The magician knows everything is just a trick, for example.

I really like this response, but it opens up another question. What exactly is control? When you make a decision such as what to wear, what car to buy, or where to go to college, your decision making process is dictated by a set of parameters. Perhaps you're sick of living in the middle of nowhere, so you choose a larger college to change that experience. Perhaps you go off-road driving a lot, so you want a car with four wheel drive. These are all conditions that a computer is capable of comparing. If you prioritize how important each condition is, a computer can even make a decision based on conditions that contradict each other.

A computer is capable of comparing and it certainly can compute a whole hell of a lot faster than you or I ever can. But it has no understanding of what it does. This understanding is what makes consciousness. Something can appear to be something that it's not -- this is just called a trick, for example a magic trick, or perhaps an illusion or a deception.

I differ from a computer because I have understanding and I (mostly) consciously make decisions. Sure, we are influenced by others and there are subconscious influences and etc... but for the most part, you still decide what you want to do and you can choose not to do it, and you may choose to follow a script (for example following directions) but you could just as easily choose not to (for example, I don't need no stinkin' directions!).

At 3/14/16 05:09 AM, NeonSpider wrote:

Leaving out what I posted earlier to keep this from being a huge eye sore to read, scroll up for context if you're following this.

It might. Unless you fully understand the finer details of how consciousness works, what makes you disregard this?

It might, it might not, these aren't really statements of certainty, at some base level the particles are interacting with our observable matter, but I view it as the same as a baseball, I've yet to see a quantum effect do anything funny to a baseball being thrown, and I see no reason to make the brain an exception. I'd rather believe we can study consciousness meaningfully rather than probabilistically.

Simple semantics. Stimulus response is not sufficient for consciousness. Consciousness and awareness being synonymous, I'll agree, and there are degrees of it (a human is more conscious than a dog, which is more conscious than a slug) but there is some base level bare minimum and stimulus response doesn't meet it.

I didn't actually say stimulus response equates to consciousness, just that it's a degree of awareness and that's why I don't think awareness is a synonymous term with consciousness.

I disagree entirely. What you have are simulations of consciousness, but not actual consciousness. AI programs can never become sentient because they don't know what it is they do. The best they can become is good fool tests -- people who don't know better can perhaps be fooled if the AI is good enough.

This is the really interesting stuff, if you haven't read Thomas Nagel's "What it's like to be a bat" I highly suggest you do, it's great for the topic at hand. What criteria would a computer have to meet before you decided it wasn't simulating consciousness?

At 3/15/16 01:31 AM, Ganon-Dorf wrote: I didn't actually say stimulus response equates to consciousness, just that it's a degree of awareness and that's why I don't think awareness is a synonymous term with consciousness.

I disagree. I would not say stimulus response is awareness of anything at all. Awareness is not present. Consciousness is not present. It has more in common with the domino effect than awareness. Would you say the dominoes are aware they will be hit and that they fall, or would you say it makes more sense to simply say it is cause and effect, with no awareness component? I say no awareness component involved.

This is the really interesting stuff, if you haven't read Thomas Nagel's "What it's like to be a bat" I highly suggest you do, it's great for the topic at hand. What criteria would a computer have to meet before you decided it wasn't simulating consciousness?

It must not be strictly following a script (including a self-modifying script) and it must have actual choice in the matter, and not just perceived choice. So, free will is a requirement.

All existing AI is script-following and has no choice in this. Typically these scripts are self-modifiable, but they're still scripts. If you have a copy of the script and follow along precisely, you will arrive at perfect conclusions of exactly what the AI would arrive at and when. Of course the logistics of this make it impossible -- too many calculations too quickly and it would take lifetimes to work some of the stuff out by hand, but presuming you had the time to do so, you would arrive at identical conclusions to the AI, given identical start conditions and starting scripts and inputs.

In short, the AI makes absolutely no decisions of its own. And thus it is not conscious.

Making your own decisions (whether physically or even just strictly in your own mind) is a requirement of consciousness. The AI makes none of its own decisions.

At 3/15/16 01:46 AM, NeonSpider wrote:

I disagree. I would not say stimulus response is awareness of anything at all. Awareness is not present. Consciousness is not present. It has more in common with the domino effect than awareness. Would you say the dominoes are aware they will be hit and that they fall, or would you say it makes more sense to simply say it is cause and effect, with no awareness component? I say no awareness component involved.

It's not conscious awareness, dominoes don't close their shells when their touched, mollusks do, a chain of dominoes have to be set up by an actor as well, so I think it's an unfair comparison unless I'm missing your point. At the base level yes it's cause and effect, but the mollusk needs a it's ganglia to process this information and close it's shell.

This is the really interesting stuff, if you haven't read Thomas Nagel's "What it's like to be a bat" I highly suggest you do, it's great for the topic at hand. What criteria would a computer have to meet before you decided it wasn't simulating consciousness?

It must not be strictly following a script (including a self-modifying script) and it must have actual choice in the matter, and not just perceived choice. So, free will is a requirement.

All existing AI is script-following and has no choice in this. Typically these scripts are self-modifiable, but they're still scripts. If you have a copy of the script and follow along precisely, you will arrive at perfect conclusions of exactly what the AI would arrive at and when. Of course the logistics of this make it impossible -- too many calculations too quickly and it would take lifetimes to work some of the stuff out by hand, but presuming you had the time to do so, you would arrive at identical conclusions to the AI, given identical start conditions and starting scripts and inputs.

In short, the AI makes absolutely no decisions of its own. And thus it is not conscious.

Making your own decisions (whether physically or even just strictly in your own mind) is a requirement of consciousness. The AI makes none of its own decisions.

I don't believe we have free will so I don't really see a difference in brains and computers other than grey matter and compilers being the differentiating criteria. Cause and effect applies to the brain just as much as it does to anything else, we just don't fully understand it yet.

At 3/15/16 01:28 AM, NeonSpider wrote: You don't have to have someone else's experience to be able to conceive of it. You may not be able to adequately explain or communicate this conception to others, but it's there. This is intuitive.

Right. You can imagine it, especially the more similar someone is to you, but you can't actually prove that their experience is even there. What you imagine might be complete fiction... Or it might just be an inaccurate recreation of what you think someone else is going through. This is what I'm saying about other peoples' experiences being out of reach. Yes, we can imagine them, but that's *all* we can do.

Those are all just as arbitrary. I know consciousness exists because I am conscious. I know some other entity possesses consciousness or not based on if the entity is following a script or if the entity is choosing for itself. There's a valid test right there -- if it can be shown an entity is following a script and has no choice in the matter, such entity is not conscious. Also Turing test is overrated.

This brings up a whole new issue about decision making, since I'm not sure it's an accurate test of consciousness, especially because of how susceptible people can be to operant conditioning to an extent where their decisions are predetermined by someone or something else. I don't want to get into a discussion about free will, but I don't see it as something that can sufficiently act as evidence of consciousness. Your decisions come from things you were exposed to at a younger age. When you changed your opinions growing up, they changed according to other values and experiences, but no part of your psyche is truly "original."

Yet such person can still be aware of their situation and what is happening, and thus conscious. At that point in time, they have no sensory input. So it disproves your assertion of possession of sensory input being necessary for consciousness.

That's only partly true; you would be aware of your past and your memories, but you would not be aware of anything to have happened since the accident. To be precise, I was saying that sensation is necessary for awareness, not consciousness. The senseless person we're talking about can still stimulate themselves using the power of thought, so I agree with you that they still have consciousness.

A computer is capable of comparing and it certainly can compute a whole hell of a lot faster than you or I ever can. But it has no understanding of what it does. This understanding is what makes consciousness. Something can appear to be something that it's not -- this is just called a trick, for example a magic trick, or perhaps an illusion or a deception.

So where do you think this understanding comes from? Is it just that the brain has certain interpretational capabilities that computers lack? At what point do you think this developed? The bacteria we are descended seem to be aware of very little and do virtually nothing in the realm of decision making. I see no reason why computers can't eventually make the same leap.

At 3/15/16 03:03 AM, Ganon-Dorf wrote: It's not conscious awareness, dominoes don't close their shells when their touched, mollusks do, a chain of dominoes have to be set up by an actor as well, so I think it's an unfair comparison unless I'm missing your point. At the base level yes it's cause and effect, but the mollusk needs a it's ganglia to process this information and close it's shell.

Yes you are missing the point. The point is to illustrate cause and effect, and that, effectively, there is no difference between a row of dominoes lined up and an end domino flicked to start the chain and stimulus response. In both cases there is no thinking involved, and no decision-making involved, and the end result happens without requiring consciousness.

I don't believe we have free will so I don't really see a difference in brains and computers other than grey matter and compilers being the differentiating criteria. Cause and effect applies to the brain just as much as it does to anything else, we just don't fully understand it yet.

We have free will, to an extent. Your body will, of course, limit what you can do, as well as your environment. But your mind can be free at least. I think without free will, Stephen Hawking would go mad because just about all he has is his mind, as his body is nearly useless except it keeps him alive.

Sure, there's cause and effect in the brain. Lop off half someone's brain and there will be very measurable very extreme immediate effects. But that's not to say it operates on the same principles as a row of dominoes. It's much more complex than that. Provided basic needs are met, it acts independently. Of course if basic needs aren't met, you may suffer brain damage or death. The brain does need oxygen and certain cell-building materials.

The computer never operates independently. Always someone ordered and it obeys perhaps complex instructions, but it understands nothing that it does and it can never make a choice. You can perhaps throw a random number generator in there to simulate choice, but still it's just picking something at "random" and not truly choosing. It is fully-determined.

Show me a script that a human will always follow perfectly. Or even show me a script that a dog will always follow perfectly, to simplify things. (Surely the case for the dog should be the easier case). I don't think you will find such a script. Whereas such a script is always present when AI are involved. You could literally read the script and, provided you were familiar with the AI programming and the script programming, you would immediately know exactly how it would be interpreted, and especially you would know what the AI definitely would not do. Can you know what a human definitely will not do? (Other than things which are physically impossible due to body limitations)? I don't think so.

At 3/15/16 05:13 AM, Kwing wrote: This brings up a whole new issue about decision making, since I'm not sure it's an accurate test of consciousness, especially because of how susceptible people can be to operant conditioning to an extent where their decisions are predetermined by someone or something else. I don't want to get into a discussion about free will, but I don't see it as something that can sufficiently act as evidence of consciousness. Your decisions come from things you were exposed to at a younger age. When you changed your opinions growing up, they changed according to other values and experiences, but no part of your psyche is truly "original."

Free will is inherent in consciousness though. You really can't have one without the other. Consciousness is intent. You can't have intent without free will. You must have at least some component of it and not be controlled exclusively by outside actors. Else you have no intent and cannot be held accountable for your actions, as it would instead be controlled by others exclusively.

I disagree on your psyche evaluation. Your psyche is to a degree unique. It takes things from other sources, but is there any other psyche in all of history which is exactly identical to your own? Is there any personality precisely identical to your own *except* for your own? Because I would find that extremely unlikely. You can be similar to others. Even conjoined twins don't have precisely identical personalities though, and I really don't know how much more similar one being could be to another than the conjoined twins case -- literally the same organism but split into two but didn't fully split, sometime during the development process.

So where do you think this understanding comes from? Is it just that the brain has certain interpretational capabilities that computers lack? At what point do you think this developed? The bacteria we are descended seem to be aware of very little and do virtually nothing in the realm of decision making. I see no reason why computers can't eventually make the same leap.

Yes. The brain has certain capabilities computers lack. How should I know how or when this developed when nobody knows this information? Can I tell you at exactly which point in the evolutionary tree an organism gained some piece of consciousness? How am I supposed to find such a point? We need to have an ancestor organism which lacks consciousness, and its direct child descendant has it. I don't have that information. But that would be where one might look.

Humans and animals were grown, for the most part, organically. Computers are programmed by humans (or by other programs or other computers through some long chain which does have humans in there somewhere). Therefore there is always the human interference on computer AI, and the computer AI can never think for itself.

I suppose if a computer AI were to somehow spontaneously appear and evolve and was *not* created by humans or other intelligent life anywhere along the path, it's possible it could have consciousness. Is there some alien AI like that somewhere in the universe, which somehow evolved without a creator? That's an unanswerable question.

But if we're talking AIs developed by humans, using traditional computer equipment (and not bio-computers) then I find it quite impossible for such traditional AI to ever gain sentience.

Now, can a bio-computer gain sentience? That's perhaps an interesting avenue. That may be possible. But then usually when AI is mentioned, it isn't in the context of bio-computers, but rather traditional computers and robots.

I don't believe sentience can be programmed-in. At best it needs to appear by complete accident. I don't believe traditional computers have what it takes, no matter the software running. Bio-computers might, but then again bio-computers are organisms in their own right, even if artificially created. You manipulate DNA and you're manipulating life itself. Some life forms have been shown to have consciousness. Where does that come from? That's the only avenue I see perhaps of any value to the question of true consciousness. Unless you plan on waiting around for some as-yet unknown and perhaps nonexistent alien AI to present itself.

Consciousness really isn't something you can program.

At 3/15/16 06:38 AM, NeonSpider wrote:

Yes you are missing the point. The point is to illustrate cause and effect, and that, effectively, there is no difference between a row of dominoes lined up and an end domino flicked to start the chain and stimulus response. In both cases there is no thinking involved, and no decision-making involved, and the end result happens without requiring consciousness.

To this point I think we're arguing about different things, so I'd like to move on from it.

We have free will, to an extent. Your body will, of course, limit what you can do, as well as your environment. But your mind can be free at least. I think without free will, Stephen Hawking would go mad because just about all he has is his mind, as his body is nearly useless except it keeps him alive.

I guess if we're going to continue here I have to ask, how do you define free will?

Sure, there's cause and effect in the brain. Lop off half someone's brain and there will be very measurable very extreme immediate effects. But that's not to say it operates on the same principles as a row of dominoes. It's much more complex than that.

More complexity doesn't mean it's all of a sudden not deterministic.

The computer never operates independently. Always someone ordered and it obeys perhaps complex instructions, but it understands nothing that it does and it can never make a choice. You can perhaps throw a random number generator in there to simulate choice, but still it's just picking something at "random" and not truly choosing. It is fully-determined.

With the point you just made in mind, if you take my view of the brain can you see why I think that a computer would be conscious?

Show me a script that a human will always follow perfectly. Or even show me a script that a dog will always follow perfectly, to simplify things. (Surely the case for the dog should be the easier case). I don't think you will find such a script. Whereas such a script is always present when AI are involved. You could literally read the script and, provided you were familiar with the AI programming and the script programming, you would immediately know exactly how it would be interpreted, and especially you would know what the AI definitely would not do. Can you know what a human definitely will not do? (Other than things which are physically impossible due to body limitations)? I don't think so.

Back to the first point I made, with a full description of the brain I believe that yes, we would be able to know what a huma would do in any given situation.

I'll let you have the last word on our discussion, I'll read your next replies but will refrain from replying myself.

Since we're on the topic of awareness and consciousness I think it's reasonable to let everyone know that Hilary Putnam passed away last week.

At 3/15/16 10:44 AM, Ganon-Dorf wrote: I guess if we're going to continue here I have to ask, how do you define free will?

At least some independence of thought. If you have at least some ideas that are truly yours and not just planted there by someone else.

More complexity doesn't mean it's all of a sudden not deterministic.

No, but I'm not convinced it's deterministic either. The universe seems to work in a deterministic sort of way, but quantum physics seems to suggest perhaps some nondeterminism in there somewhere. Unless or until you can prove to me exactly how a brain works and can prove it's entirely deterministic, I remain unconvinced. Again, present me with a script which accurately predicts exactly what any given human will do and exactly how such human will act in all circumstances, such that all question of free will is removed (if they're strictly following a script and with no choice in the matter, they lack free will) and you will convince me. Anything less and I remain unconvinced.

With the point you just made in mind, if you take my view of the brain can you see why I think that a computer would be conscious?

If you think human brains work deterministically, yes, from your point of view there should be no difference. This has not been sufficiently shown to my satisfaction, and I am inclined to view human minds as at least to an extent nondeterministic. You can of course prove me wrong by presenting me with such a script as I have described.

Back to the first point I made, with a full description of the brain I believe that yes, we would be able to know what a huma would do in any given situation.

You believe humans are deterministic and that free will doesn't exist. That is consistent. I have no reason to believe that though, when experience suggests otherwise. How is my every thought predetermined? I may as well be a rock if that's the case. No, I don't believe it's predetermined. Dominoes knocking over are predetermined, but not the human mind.

I'll let you have the last word on our discussion, I'll read your next replies but will refrain from replying myself.

If you wish. I think we are having a reasonable discussion, however. Neither side is angry. Both sides present their points and views. Each side is willing to say they could possibly be wrong. I even presented a criteria for proving my side wrong. Granted it would be very difficult to procure, but should be possible, if I am indeed wrong.

Since we're on the topic of awareness and consciousness I think it's reasonable to let everyone know that Hilary Putnam passed away last week.

RIP Hilary Putnam

At 3/12/16 05:22 PM, VicariousE wrote:

At 3/12/16 03:23 PM, Kwing wrote:

At 3/12/16 04:37 AM, VicariousE wrote: What do you mean by a divisible entity? Something that can be mathematically explained?

A body can be chopped up into pieces. Can a soul be chopped up into pieces? Bees, ants, and coral reefs are collective entities that more or less appear to have a collective consciousness. Collectives can be divided.

No I don't think a soul can be divided, but it can die and get reabsorbed back into Universe. I do think a soul can ascend after the body dies, and be reborn into a different consciousness that spans more dimensions than normal mortal creatures can perceive (minus some animals and fucked up humans).

Anyway, I tend to agree with your theory about (for lack of a better phrase) a collective consciousness, but that sort of goes against what I said earlier... Maybe if the Illuminati had their way, and there were only a few million people left on Earth, the souls that did exist would have more substantial souls? I wonder how @jordand would respond to this...

Between science and religion, reality exists, and we're only mere specks trying to narrow the gap between the two.

How cool is it that Newgrounds tells me when i'm mentioned in a comment on the forums?! Man, it's been ages since I was in here! I hope everyone is well :) I love conversation like this!

It's hard to even quantify if a soul can be split because we can't even identify what a "soul" is with modern science yet.

If we go back to the ancient belief systems of the past, and i mean like Animism (which is well beyond any form of Abrahamic Faith, ie: Judaism, Christianity, Islam), they talk about the idea of the Soul being something that literally EVERYTHING has, and is eternally connected to everything else as a part of a large infinite spirit of God.

Based on those traditions, we might come to the conclusion (as best we are able) to assume that a soul, much like water, can be equally split, expanded, divided, changed its form, and MAYBE even forcibly divided with the right technology which we have not yet discovered (or at least, the mainstream public does not know about ;) ) . However, the natural progression of the soul is ultimately the choice of that soul.

Maybe someone dies and then they come back in multiple bodies, more "spread out" across the consciousness of mankind. That would be a harmonious split, but its not really "Split" in the traditional sense because its not separated from itself, it only appears separated physically. If we were to look at it from a multidimensional spectrum, it would probably look like 2 or more tendrils flowing off of a piece of Coral, but still connected to the same source.

If what is described about the nature of the Lucifer Experiment is real (or just Lucifer in modern Christianity's), then it seems fair to suggest that if you do forcibly disconnect a soul from the rest of spirit (whether a small piece of the soul or a large one), it will struggle against itself because it no longer acts in connection and understanding with the rest of Everything in the Cosmos (aka: God, or Atum, I like the Ancient Egyptian names myself, Atum literally means "the One that is All")

Anyways, if you asked JordanD thats probably what he'd say about it ^_^

One Love!

PS. I'm covering ALL of the worlds faiths because it's ridiculously interesting to me! I can't post them on NG because they're not animated :( But if you're interested in that stuff, you can see them here.

PPS. Shameless plug i'm SO sorry about that :P