Prashna suggested my starting a thread on mind and matter brought up by Penrose.
This is a problem that has philosophical aspects, and religious aspects too.
Religious, because mind-matter, or mind-body problem is the same thing, I think, as that soul-body problem. The Greek word psyche means mind, but NT translators would usually render it 'soul'. In European philosophy, Liebnitz spoke about the soul rather than the mind. I will speak about mind rather than soul, but the question about whether I have a soul or not and what it might be, is just a short distance from the question at hand.
The relationship between mind and matter in writing of sanatanadharma and Buddhism are fairly extensive and goes back a long way.
It is a bit confusing in sanatanadharma -- because there are six philosophical viewpoints (the ) there are many different takes on the issue. And there is a precise terminolgy which distinguishes, say, between mind and intelligence and sense of identity and consciousness.
Prashna will remember we recently discussed what the difference in meaning between the Sanskit verbs 'j~naa' to know, and 'vid' to know!
In English we tend to use words loosely. 'Awareness', 'consciousness', 'sentience' etc etc are used almost interchangably -- but in some Hindu scriptures one may read things like ' the mind is not conscious'.
What is the hard problem of consciousness?
In the words of David Chalmers who coined the phrase:
The word ‘consciousness’ is used in many different ways. It is sometimes used for the ability to discriminate stimuli, or to report information, or to monitor internal states, or to control behavior. We can think of these phenomena as posing the "easy problems" of
consciousness. These are important phenomena, and there is much that is not understood about them, but the problems of explaining them have the character of puzzles rather than mysteries. There seems to be no deep problem in principle with the idea that a physical system could be "conscious" in these senses, and there is no obvious obstacle to an eventual explanation of these phenomena in neurobiological or computational terms. The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. Humans beings have subjective experience: there is something it is like to be them. We can say that a being is conscious in this sense—or is phenomenally conscious, as it is sometimes put—when there is something it is like to be that being. A mental state is conscious when there is something it is like to be in that state. Conscious states include states of perceptual experience, bodily
sensation, mental imagery, emotional experience, occurrent thought, and more. There is something it is like to see a vivid green, to feel a sharp pain, to visualize the Eiffel tower, to feel a deep regret, and to think that one is late. Each of these states has a phenomenal character, with phenomenal properties (or qualia) characterizing what it is like to be in the state.
There is no question that experience is closely associated with physical processes in systems such as brains. It seems that physical processes give rise to experience, at least in the sense that producing a physical system (such as a brain) with the right physical properties inevitably yields corresponding states of experience. But how and why do physical processes
give rise to experience? Why do not these processes take place "in the dark," without any accompanying states of experience? This is the central mystery of consciousness.
David Chalmers 'Consciouness and its Place in Nature'
The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious
thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.
It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience:
the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.
David Chalmers 'Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness'
TSHuxley said:
How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of initiating nerve tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp in the story, or as any other ultimate fact of nature..
But why does the question come up from someone like Penrose? Penrose is a mathematician and a physicist. He made contributions to our understanding of General Relativity. There is a currently hot contender as a Theory of Everything, called quantum loop gravity which was built on some of his ideas about 'spin networks' in quantum systems. So why is he having a holiday from physics to talk about mind and brain?
Firstly: we have powerful computers, know a lot about mathematical logic. We already have computers able to play chess, write music, recognise speech, hold a conversation; expert systems can do a lot of things as well as their creators! It may not be long before computers can routinely pass the Turing test -- that is to trick people into thinking that they are dealing with another human being and not a computer.
We also know a lot about neuroscience and information processing in the brain ... even to the point where we can almost tell what someone is thinking about by looking at regional brain activity.
So: our own understanding of our brain, together with our technological wizardry, forces us to ask ourselves: if we are sentient and our machines are not sentient, how and why can that be so?
Some proponents of artificial intelligence do talk as if their creations really are conscious. The title 'The Emperor's New Mind' is Penrose own response to beliefs that we are close to creating or are creating minds.
(In case anyone is unfamiliar with it, there is a children's story called 'the Emperor's New Clothes', in which an unethical tailor accepts a large amount of money for producing clothes for the emperor. The tailor tells the emperor that the clothes are not only made of the finest materials, but have the magic virtue that an unworthy person cannot see them at all. He gives the emperor an empty chest, knowing the emperor can't admit to not seeing the clothes. The emperor praises the fine workmanship -- and parades around naked. And all his subjects loudly extol the emperor's fine new clothes. Except one little boy who asks his mum too loudly why the emperor is not wearing anything.)
A second reason for a mathematical physicist's interest in minds and brains: we know a lot of things about the natural world that we did not know a hundred years ago. In particular, we have quantum mechanics (especially Penrose) and for many people this seems to hold some promise in explaining consciousness. Someone said wryly that Quantum Mechanics is mysterious, and the relationship between mind and matter is mysterious, so by Occam's of Mystery razor we might lump them together as one thing.
But QM does have one interesting feature that is not present in classical view. Quantum systems are indivisible; they do not have separated parts. From a QM viewpont, the universe is a single thing; it does not really have separated parts that interact with one anorther -- that's just an approximation.
(Another possible reason for QM's relevance is that some interpretations of QM say a conscious mind is necessary to cause 'collapse of the wave function' -- but I think these are deservedly going out of fashion. Penrose does not try to make any mileage out of it.)
Penrose spends a lot of time talking about mathematical logic, Godel's theorem. He mentions other aspects of consciousness, but only in passing.
Just because he is drawn to such things as a mathematician-physicist?
He is anxious to prove with some degree of formal logical rigour that there is some aspect to human mind that is not captured mechanically. He wants to make it inescapable. Is consciousness just the same as computation or calculation, or is it something else? Computation seems to be able to mimic consciousness, but is there a difference between simulated consciousness and real consciousness?
Intuitively, we feel it does, but it's hard to see the hows and whys.
A summary of his argument is that if one were to program a computer to produce mathematical theorems, there would be some truths that it could not reach -- Godel was the first to prove this, and Alan Turing found another version that involves computers.
But Penrose adapts the argument to try to show that a human being possesses something machines do not. Penrose imagines conversing with an intelligent robot about some of the mathematical truths that it could not reach. He concludes that there would be something missing from mechanised intelligence. This has been done before; a philosopher called Lucas came up with similar arguments.
Penrose however tries to understand what might be difference in physics between a human mind and a machine.
On one hand: everything points to the fact that my consciousness is intimately connected with information processing within my brain.
The effects of drugs, electricity, sharp and blunt objects, disease processes, slips of butterfingered neurosurgeons -- all point to the fact that the brain is connected with what is otherwise called mind.
Yet if I could look at someone's brain, say my own brain, a complete detailed schematic -- I should conclude that there was no awareness really present -- it would just be the mechanical workings of an automaton, a Turing machine designed by evolution.
It seems inconceivable that anyone could look at their own brain and say, by examining the characteristics of the neurones involved and their pattern of connections 'ah now I understand why blue looks blue and red looks red, now I understand why honey is sweet and vinegar is sour, it's just the pattern of neuronal connections'?
Most people who think of it say no, it is not understandable in principle; even if knowledge of physics, neuroscience, computation advanced, there would be something fundamentally wrong with our understanding, something important is missing at a basic level of our description. Our scientific understanding of the universe can not explain where subjective experiences come from.
This is the dilemma -- I can't escape from the conclusion that some matter is sometimes aware (eg myself); but when I look at it from the outside I find my self saying 'it's just a machine acting so as to simulate consciousness but without real consciousness. This nerve cell connects to these, and these to those ones ... '
I can imagine a machine -- -- that simulates me in every way, but does not have subjective experience. So why do I have subjective experiences? Why am I and everyone else not 'Turing machines'? We would work every bit as well!
Somehow reality has two aspects, objective and subjective one. And there does not seem any easy way to bridge them.
How does Penrose analyse the problem?
A) consciousness is the result of the physical process of the brain, which executes algorithms; and these processes are computable or mechanisable, that is, an engineer can in principle build you something that mimics the brain down to the whatever level of accuracy you demand -- to the level of individual nerves, to level of ion channels that cover the cell membranes, even to the level of individual atoms, or to the level of fundamental particles; one and the same consciousness results whenever the algorithm is executed -- it doesn't matter whether you make a model brain from transistors, or hydraulic valves, or cogs -- it is just as conscious as it would be if it was made out of wet and gooey stuff.
If this view of consciousness is correct, we should be able to construct machines that mimic consciousness perfectly -- and they would actually be conscious.
B) consciousness results from the physical process of the brain, and these processes are computable; but consciousness does not always appear when a certain algorithm is executed, it is somehow dependent on the material of the computer. (For example the brain uses parallel processing .... although anything that can be done with a parallel processor can be done with a serial processor, nevertheless consciousness may require parallel processing ... Similarly, the brain has both analogue and digital methods ........ one can do with a digital computer anything that can be done with an analogue computer, but maybe consciousness requires an analogue processing. Similarly, (Penrose mentions) quantum computers (ie those making use of quantum indeterminacy and entanglement) can't do any problems that can't be done otherwise ... and yet at the same time maybe consciousness requires some sort of quantum effect.
If B is correct, we should be able to construct machines that mimic consciousness perfectly -- and they would sometimes be conscious -- it would depend on the hardware employed. But it would be completely impossible for an outside observer to tell the difference.
C) consciousness results from the physical process of the brain; but there is some sort of noncomputable process at the heart of matter in general. For this reason, one cannot actually build a computer that properly calculates the way matter in general behaves.
How could this be? (It is Penrose's own viewpoint so he discusses it at length.) He notes that some very simple questions such as "every even number greater than 2 is the sum of two prime numbers" or "any even number can be written as the difference of two primes in an infinite number of ways" are sometimes beyond our formal systems of reasoning.
He suggests -- maybe the laws of the universe are underpinned by mathematical or geometrical truths that lie beyond formal methods of reasoning -- even if they are completely deterministic. He implies that nature could be directly in touch with truth in a way that does not depend on computation. The image that the universe is like a giant computer (the great hope of western science) is fundamentally wrong.
If C is correct we could not build a machine that is conscious in the same way we build other types of machines -- but if consciousness is more or less ubiquitous we could learn how to let nature do most of the work.
D) consciousness cannot be explained in terms of any physical process.
There are a host of otherways ofanalysingthe problem.
Here a 4 broad categories of belief:
Dualists believe that the mind and matter are two body separate, quite different things.
It has always been favoured in Christian Europe because philosophical dualism sits well with religious dualism. Liebnitz and Descartes were good xian dualists.
There are still some dualists around, but not many. Some people favour it, not for religious reasons, but because some of the conclusions of nondualistic theories do seem strange.
The problem for dualists has always been to explain how mind and matter become closely associated and mutually influence each other!
If the mind interacts with matter at all, is it not by definition material?
Materialistic monists say that there is only one thing there -- it is matter. There really isn't anything like mind.
Materialistic monists say there really is no hard problem of consciousness. When we understand the laws of physics completely, we automatically understand all there is to understand. Consciousness just the same as computation or calculation, nothing else.
They say that all we need to explain are how the mind does accomplishes various jobs: recognise faces, read, speak, write, compose music, compose poetry ...
What about explaining the qualia of sensation? They say that all we need to explain is why people report qualia and express beliefs about them. If we understand this, it suffices.
One of the arguments they put forward comes from asking: what does consciousness actually do? What difference does consciousness make? What good is it after all?
That is, if a mechanical intelligence could do everything that I do, without being conscious, perhaps all this talk of consciousness is mere twaddle, and our questions about it are just not 'well posed'.
Mentalists say that there is only one thing -- it is best described as mind. There is no objective universe.
Bertrand Russell (who probably did not ascribe to the idea himself) put forward a simple reason for not scoffing at it: all we really know about is our own mental impressions of the world, in the end, everything takes place in our mind.
It is not very fashionable nowadays.
(I thought that Buddhists believed in this type of monism but reading a Buddhist site, the phiolosophy seemed dualistic.)
It does not well explain why the universe does not respond well to wishful thinking, but does respond well when approached with scientific objectivist philosophy. It does not well explain how things can be without my understanding or knowing them.
Neutral monism (panpsychism or panexperientialism) is the belief that both mind and matter are equally real (and that reality is not describable as either). It says that subjective experience, qualia are relevant at all levels from 'protons to people' (Dennet).
I think panexperientialism wins hands down. Does anyone else have any views?
A really good site:
Crikey.....Thank you bhavvanidasa!!
I suppose I conceive consciousness a little like..Nagels bat.......many echoes..but not really knowing any one, or any thing.
this is why I meditate....not to understand to much
but to try not to judge others!!.....everything has it's place within our universe!!..
peace and love
Consciousness
Hi all,
First of all, I would like to thank Bhavanii for starting this post.
Secondly I have to beg your leave, because in 5 minutes I must be out of my home to catch a bus.
I have an appointment at the Hospital that I must not miss.
But I shall be back.
Live long and prosper.
Prashna
Hi all,
I am back.
In case you are unduly concerned, I went to hospital on my own behalf.
And mine is NOT a life-threatening condition, yet!
In theory, there is no reason why I should not live for another 20 years!
On the other hand a colleague that I worked with for 30 years died last year! He was only 2 years older than me and was in good health, until he had a stroke!
So how can I be sure?
Anyway, back to Bhavanii's excellent post:
Bhavaanii wrote
But QM does have one interesting feature that is not present in classical view. Quantum systems are indivisible; they do not have separated parts. From a QM viewpont, the universe is a single thing; it does not really have separated parts that interact with one anorther -- that's just an approximation.
Sanatana Dharma declared more than 2 Millenias ago,
[url]Brahma satyam, jagat mithya, jeevo brahmaiva napara[/url]
=> Brahman is the truth, world is an illusion and there is no difference between individual and god(?).
Let's examine it a bit further:
Somehow reality has two aspects, objective and subjective one. And there does not seem any easy way to bridge them.
Hi Bhavaanii,
Shankaracharyya explained the phenomenon more than 1200 years ago now.
And you are absolutely correct.
Shankaracharyya's Brahma Sutra Bhasya remains to date one of the classics of Hindu philosophy and very few Hindu's even are able to understand its beautiful but intricate arguments.
So where are we now?
Why, isn't it obvious?
If you have not read Roger Penrose's seminal work, you could read it for free by simply borrowing the book from your local public library.
If you are at all interested, you need to do it fast, before the Public Librarues cease to exist under the inexorable pressure of 21st century commercialism!
The last diagram in Roger Penrose's book is so reminiscient of everything I have learnt and adore about the Sanatana Dharma, that I know and love, that it hurts me even to think about it.
I know nothing about Quantum Theory, certainly far less than Bhavaanii.
But I do know this.
Everything that Roger Penrose says is so, so in tune with everything I know about Sanatana Dharma.
Regards.
Prashna
subjective aspects of the elements
Question for you, Prashna,
in sanatanadharma's scriptures, when describing the emergence of the pa~nchabhutas (5 elements -- ether, air, fire, water, earth), the subjective aspect of the element is described as if it is as primary as the objective aspect.
What I mean is that, 'hearing' is described as if it is as intrinsic to the nature of ether -- even though the organ of hearing (the ear) has not yet come into being, as if hearing was responsible for the ear, and not the other way around.
What do you think?
Sometimes the 5 elements are said to have a subtle (sukSma) aspect as well as a gross (sthula) aspect -- are subtle and gross the same as subjective and objective?
svasti te .stu
three levels of reality
:)I should add, Prashna,
Penrose, towards the end of his books talks about his own beliefs -- like many mathematicians he is a Platonist. I understand a Platonic belief in an ideal world -- but then he makes a comment about three (not 2) realms of existence.
You made a comment to me that you understood this from the perspective of sanatanadharma.
Now, in sanatanadharma's scriptures there is also mention of 3 levels of existence: gross, subtle, and causal; but is that what you meant?
svasti te .stu
Now, in sanatanadharma's scriptures there is also mention of 3 levels of existence: gross, subtle, and causal; but is that what you meant?
svasti te .stu
Precisemont, Bhavaanii...
More tomorrow.
Meanwhile,
Jiiva aritta cha!
Hi Bhabaanii,
That tomorrow is now today, and I feel obliged to respond to respond to you, even though I have so little time!
And am faced with so many opponents of sanatana dharma, who would love nothing better than to find holes in my reasoning!
Since I have no intention of depriving my nearest and dearest of what little lifespan I have been allocated, I shall limit my response to the absolute minimum.
Sanatana Dharma does indeed speak of the 3 levels of existence.
1. The material one- in which you and I are immersed.
And just as it is impossible, for the blind to realise truly the significance of the full range of colours, it is also impossible for humans immersed in material considerations as they are, to realise the true significance of the Infinite.
2. the Spiritual one-
Humans try in vain to reach this plane.
Most do not even realise what it means, let alone realise its significance.
3. The causal one.
Now, we are really in the exotic zone.
How can we, with our extremely limited senses, even begin to perceive the causal zone?
You are qualified medically, Bhavaanii!
[url]How many humans that you have tested can even hear a sound emitted above 20kHz or below 20Hz?[/url]
[url]How many humans that you have tested can even see a light emitted at a wavelength longer than 1mm or shorter than 0.1 mm?[/url]
So why are we so hung up about the causal plane?
Let's face it!
We do not even have the equipment to realise the causal plane,
let alone pontificate about it!
I am not interested in the causal plane!
I try to do what I can!
And when I cannot, I beg forgiveness from the Infinite!
That's ALL, I can do.
Jiiva ariita cha,
Prashna
And am faced with so many opponents of sanatana dharma, who would love nothing better than to find holes in my reasoning!
I should know better and ignore this statement, but find I have to question why you feel the need to write such provocative words, prashna? I can't believe there are any 'opponents' of sanatana dharma here on HP. Nor is there any member who would 'love nothing better than to find holes in my reasoning'.
I have to ask if you are looking to stir up another argument? And if so, why?
xxx
I can't believe there are any 'opponents' of sanatana dharma here on HP. Nor is there any member who would 'love nothing better than to find holes in my reasoning'.
xxx
I hope you are correct, sunanda.
Well, I can't claim to have any great knowledge of Sanatana Dharma but was interested by the thread. Although it's a very long read, I've managed to formulate some sort of response of my own thoughts on it...
In English we tend to use words loosely. 'Awareness', 'consciousness', 'sentience' etc etc are used almost interchangably -- but in some Hindu scriptures one may read things like ' the mind is not conscious'.
I agree with this mostly. Commonly people do use the terms interchangably in English, although I think it simply depends on the field they are working in or the context in which they are speaking as well as how interested they are at the time for distinguishing between them.
In my ongoing persuit in studying the mind, I myself, have an understanding and differentiation of awareness, consciousness and sentience. This understanding is growing all the time the more I turn information I have gathered into knowledge.
What is the hard problem of consciousness?
In the words of David Chalmers who coined the phrase:
The word ‘consciousness’ is used in many different ways. It is sometimes used for the ability to discriminate stimuli, or to report
The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processingWhy is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience:
the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.
If I'm understanding this right, we are asking why we put subjective qualities against a sensory input; why one smell stirs up a certain emotion whilst another smell doesn't etc. (or something along those lines)
My understanding is that this is due to the way out memory stores all the sensory inputs that we experience throughout life (and pre-life if you wish). As we experience a sensory input it is filed away in our memory (maybe not straight away, but in the long term) through the associative nature of the other sensory inputs. We may have already learnt visually of a green round thing with a stalk on top, then when we taste it we associate that taste input with the green round thing, and then we are informed through our sense of hearing that this is an "apple" and we associate the visual and the taste inputs with that sound/name. At the same time our memory records all the senses that we had at the time of this occurence, whether we were hot or cold, happy or sad etc. Later, if we experience any one of the same senses, it can bring the associated memories up from our unconscious to our conscious and feedback to our senses, allowing us to experience the same sensations and likewise associate those sensations with the present ones that we are experiencing. Our memories are a complexly weaved web of associated senses.
To me, personally, the consciousness is this continuous recall, feedback, association and re-association of the senses.
However, I do not perceive this to be the "I" that is the "Self". That's something completely different (*see end)
David Chalmers 'Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness'
TSHuxley said:
How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of initiating nerve tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp in the story, or as any other ultimate fact of nature..But why does the question come up from someone like Penrose? Penrose is a mathematician and a physicist.
He is anxious to prove with some degree of formal logical rigour that there is some aspect to human mind that is not captured mechanically. He wants to make it inescapable. Is consciousness just the same as computation or calculation, or is it something else?
Computation seems to be able to mimic consciousness, but is there a difference between simulated consciousness and real consciousness?
I would say not. If the 'simulated' consciousness can respond to sensory input, make the necessary associations in it's 'memory' and provide suitable feedback to influence itself then, IMHO, as far as consciousness per se goes, it is conscious.
Intuitively, we feel it does, but it's hard to see the hows and whys.
A summary of his argument is that if one were to program a computer to produce mathematical theorems, there would be some truths that it could not reach -- Godel was the first to prove this, and Alan Turing found another version that involves computers.
But Penrose adapts the argument to try to show that a human being possesses something machines do not. Penrose imagines conversing with an intelligent robot about some of the mathematical truths that it could not reach. He concludes that there would be something missing from mechanised intelligence. This has been done before; a philosopher called Lucas came up with similar arguments.
Penrose however tries to understand what might be difference in physics between a human mind and a machine.
Intersting. IMVHO, I would suspect it's something to do with the vast storage capacity of the human memory and it's ability to cross-associate. I don't believe that memory is merely stored within the physical brain and therefore, for a machine to reach such complex associations as we achieve as humans would take some great masterpieces of mechanics.
On one hand: everything points to the fact that my consciousness is intimately connected with information processing within my brain.
The effects of drugs, electricity, sharp and blunt objects, disease processes, slips of butterfingered neurosurgeons -- all point to the fact that the brain is connected with what is otherwise called mind.
Connected, yes. Equal to, IMHO, no.
Yet if I could look at someone's brain, say my own brain, a complete detailed schematic -- I should conclude that there was no awareness really present -- it would just be the mechanical workings of an automaton, a Turing machine designed by evolution.
Agreed.
Awareness is not consciousness. Being truly aware is to know the "Self".
It seems inconceivable that anyone could look at their own brain and say, by examining the characteristics of the neurones involved and their pattern of connections 'ah now I understand why blue looks blue and red looks red, now I understand why honey is sweet and vinegar is sour, it's just the pattern of neuronal connections'?
Most people who think of it say no, it is not understandable in principle; even if knowledge of physics, neuroscience, computation advanced, there would be something fundamentally wrong with our understanding, something important is missing at a basic level of our description. Our scientific understanding of the universe can not explain where subjective experiences come from.
Scientifically, it's difficult to put a 'proof' to. Scientific proof generally requires mathematical formulations and, unfortunately, peer review (if the peers don't agree it can't be true? Pah!)
How does Penrose analyse the problem?
A) consciousness is the result of the physical process of the brain,If this view of consciousness is correct, we should be able to construct machines that mimic consciousness perfectly -- and they would actually be conscious.
Agreed. I see no reason why not
B) consciousness results from the physical process of the brain,
If B is correct, we should be able to construct machines that mimic consciousness perfectly -- and they would sometimes be conscious -- it would depend on the hardware employed. But it would be completely impossible for an outside observer to tell the difference.
Not Sure about this, it's a possibility, but doesn't fit with my own personal view.
C) consciousness results from the physical process of the brain; but there is some sort of noncomputable process at the heart of matter in general.
If C is correct we could not build a machine that is conscious in the same way we build other types of machines -- but if consciousness is more or less ubiquitous we could learn how to let nature do most of the work.
Interesting concept, but I feel there is a confusion between consciousness and awareness creeping in here.
D) consciousness cannot be explained in terms of any physical process.
Disagree. I believe it is possible.
There are a host of other ways of analysing the problem.
Here a 4 broad categories of belief:
Dualists believe that the mind and matter are two body separate, quite different things.The problem for dualists has always been to explain how mind and matter become closely associated and mutually influence each other!
If the mind interacts with matter at all, is it not by definition material?
Tricky one this, because it depends what is meant by "mind". "Mind", IMHO at present, is more than just consciousness, it is also the unconscious, the memory and the "Self" as well as the physical inputs and feedback. I feel the "mind" in this description is confusingly referring to the "Self" and not the mind per se.
Materialistic monists say that there is only one thing there -- it is matter. There really isn't anything like mind.
Materialistic monists say there really is no hard problem of consciousness. When we understand the laws of physics completely, we automatically understand all there is to understand. Consciousness just the same as computation or calculation, nothing else.
They say that all we need to explain are how the mind does accomplishes various jobs: recognise faces, read, speak, write, compose music, compose poetry ...
What about explaining the qualia of sensation? They say that all we need to explain is why people report qualia and express beliefs about them. If we understand this, it suffices.
One of the arguments they put forward comes from asking: what does consciousness actually do? What difference does consciousness make? What good is it after all?
That is, if a mechanical intelligence could do everything that I do, without being conscious, perhaps all this talk of consciousness is mere twaddle, and our questions about it are just not 'well posed'.
So Materialistic monists, for example, have no fear of death and do not place blame on murderers? After all, these are just mechanical processes that are responding to other mechanical processes in the universe, therefore there is no choice and no blame... it just happens. However, if they are correct, then even the act of placing blame is purely mechanical, in fact the whole universe is pre-determined/deterministic and therefore. with this understanding we can let the universe continue as it is without a worry as to any actions that happen, whether they are perceived to be negative or positive.
Mentalists say that there is only one thing -- it is best described as mind. There is no objective universe.
Bertrand Russell (who probably did not ascribe to the idea himself) put forward a simple reason for not scoffing at it: all we really know about is our own mental impressions of the world, in the end, everything takes place in our mind.
It is not very fashionable nowadays.
(I thought that Buddhists believed in this type of monism but reading a Buddhist site, the phiolosophy seemed dualistic.)
The Buddhist belief, as I understand it, is not that everything takes place in the mind. It believes in mind and matter (dualistic) but teaches, in laymans terms, that the material world is only as our mind perceives it. e.g. You see a person as ugly and I see a person as beautiful, therefore the beauty is not an inherent attribute of the person themselves, but a manifestation within our mind. (We can also say that, because one can see beauty in that person, then beauty does exist in them, and the person who sees them as ugly has a mind that is covering the beauty and not allowing them to perceive it. As such, everything has beauty; if we can't see it then that is not because of the thing itself, but because of the mind with which we perceive.
It does not well explain why the universe does not respond well to wishful thinking, but does respond well when approached with scientific objectivist philosophy. It does not well explain how things can be without my understanding or knowing them.
What is "wishful thinking"? Who has shown that the universe does not respond well to wishful thinking? What is to say that the results of scientific objectivist philosophy are not due to wishful thinking on their part? 😉
Neutral monism (panpsychism or panexperientialism) is the belief that both mind and matter are equally real (and that reality is not describable as either). It says that subjective experience, qualia are relevant at all levels from 'protons to people' (Dennet).
I think panexperientialism wins hands down. Does anyone else have any views?
Yep, panexperientialism is general enough to cover most of the bases.
* coming back to the "Self". What is the "Self"? (or Who Am "I"?)
Throughout our lives we observe the changes that we undergo. The cells in our body continually die and are replenished with new cells, allowing us to grow. The emotions also change on a continual basis, as does the information in our memory and the thoughts in our unconscious and conscious. We can observe each of these things... we observe the body changing, we observe our emotions, we observe our memory and we observe the thoughts passing by (and, more often than not, grab hold of some and bring them to our conscious). Throughout all of this there is one thing that doesn't change, and that is the observer of all these things. This observer cannot be observed itself but, like scientists "knowing" that electrons exist because of the observation of the consistent effects they have, we know the observer exists due to the observing of the changing aspects of our existence. This is our "unchanging observer" or the true "Self".
--
Also, can I ask which of Penrose's books we are referring to in this thread? I have "Road to Reality - A brief explanation of the Universe" (I think that's the title). Thanks.
Love and Reiki Hugs
Also, can I ask which of Penrose's books we are referring to in this thread? I have "Road to Reality - A brief explanation of the Universe" (I think that's the title).
Hi Energylz;465060,
I know that Bhavaanii, unlike me, is a practising physician and therefore can spare even less time to HP than me.
I am sure he will not mind my answering for him!
But of course, the final response remains his, as always.
The particular seminal work under reference is
Shadows of the Mind:
ISBN-10: 0099582112
ISBN-13: 978-0099582113
Price £6-99 [url]from here [/url]
But of course, you can always borrow the book from your nearest public library, as I did.
Regards.
Prashna
Thanks for the details on the book Prashna. I'll probably order a copy and add it to my pile of books to read. If I borrow it from the library, I'll only have to keep renewing it till I get around to reading it. 🙂
Love and Reiki Hugs
Hi Bhavaanii,
I am singularly unqualified to comment on the topic you have raised.
But I see no one on HP who is better placed than I am, except perhaps Shankara 108, who is a precious and rare visitor, and Chankya01, who has now been banned!
All I can say is this!
Shankaracharryya did try to explain the nature of Maayaa!
His Brahma Sutra Bhasya remains to date the finest treatise on the subject!
The material plane is an obvious one, and indeed the one seized upon by Chaarvaaka, among others!
Ramanujacharryya and Madhavaachaarryya did indeed try to explain the Spiritual plane. Subsequently followed by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, among others.
But it was not until, Ramakrishna Paramahansa came along that once again the true brilliance of Shankaracharryya was revealed, yet again.
It's not as though the dvaita and the advaita are mutually exclusive!
The fact is that the perceived reality is both real and unreal!
Simultaneously!
As Shankaracharyya tried to explain over 14 centuries ago.
And as Roger Penrose has tried in this seminal book of his,
based on the latest advances of Quantum Theory.
Regards.
Prashna
HiEnergyIz,
In my ongoing persuit in studying the mind, I myself, have an understanding and differentiation of awareness, consciousness and sentience. This understanding is growing all the time the more I turn information I have gathered into knowledge.
From what you say, I understand that you use these terms with some special definition; but in English we use them interchangably. It's a bit hard for me to follow what you mean when you say:
I would say not. If the 'simulated' consciousness can respond to sensory input, make the necessary associations in it's 'memory' and provide suitable feedback to influence itself then, IMHO, as far as consciousness per se goes, it is conscious.
and later
Interesting concept, but I feel there is a confusion between consciousness and awareness creeping in here..
You seem to be saying that there is no difference between ''consciousness'' and ''simulated consciousness".
But yet you obviously differentiate between awareness and consciousness.
But what is the difference -- can you put it into words? And at what level does it enter the equation?
This is really the question.
Is it because you are made out of organic matter rather than crystallised silicon-germanium-arsenic?
Suppose I modeled someone's brain out of cogs and levers, or out of hydraulic valves. Does it make a difference. I could make them precisely equivalent in terms of information processing.
Let me ask you, can you imagine a universe with the laws of physics like ours, where there are beings like us who are zombies?
They act like us. Walk and talk like us. They enter into philosophical arguments like us.
But zombies are not aware. They are just automatons. They do not see or hear or think or feel. From the outside they seem to -- they're constructed just like us, so it's not surprising. They do everything they do -- with no awareness.
Is such a thing conceivable?
Or again: Imagine some advanced race of beings who decide to run simulations of universes on their supercomputers. Sometimes they implement the actual laws of physics. Sometimes they modify them a bit... Why? They're curious about the conditions under which sentient beings evolve out of inanimate matter, and the activities such beings perform.
When they run their simulations, every so often, as galaxies, stars, planets emerge from the murk, they do see life emerge and evolve into intelligent beings. Of course it's all just a simulation on a computer.
Very occasionally these beings (who exist within a supercomputer) might do what technologically advanced beings do to entertain themselves: they decide to run simulations of universes on their supercomputers. Sometimes they implement the actual laws of physics -- as they understand them. Sometimes they modify them a bit... Why do all this? They're curious about the conditions under which sentient beings evolve out of inanimate matter, and the activities such beings perform.
And every so often when they run their simulations, as galaxies, stars, planets emerge from the murk, they do see life emerge and evolve into intelligent beings. Of course it's all just a simulation on a computer of a simulation on a computer.
Do simulated beings have subjective experiences -- are they aware (in the way you use the word aware)?
But if not, does that imply that there is something special, magical in fact, about ordinary matter, or is there something nonphysical that brings in the magic of ''awareness'' into the mere ''consciousness'' of matter.
If I'm understanding this right, we are asking why we put subjective qualities against a sensory input; why one smell stirs up a certain emotion whilst another smell doesn't etc. (or something along those lines).
Not quite.
Qualia of sensation are called the raw feel of a sensation, not any emotional connotations.
Have you ever wondered: when you look at the sky and see what you call blue, does the person next to you see the same colour?
Perhaps they have the subjective experience that you call 'seeing green', but through linguistic convention say 'sky is blue'.
The qualium is just the subjective experience of blueness.
Dennett describes them as private, ineffable.
I think sentience is the best word to use when talking of qualia because it just implies sensory perception (sentio = I sense or perceive).
I don't believe that memory is merely stored within the physical brain and therefore, for a machine to reach such complex associations as we achieve as humans would take some great masterpieces of mechanics.
But if not in the physical brain then where?
Neuroscientists would disagree with you. And ''masterpieces of mechanics'' are pretty close.... And many people says a software problem, and we have enough hardware.
And how do my physical senses and brain access this nonphysical realm?
This may be all correct -- but it is uncompromisingly dualistic. It is certainly not monistic.
* coming back to the "Self". What is the "Self"? (or Who Am "I"?) ...
Throughout all of this there is one thing that doesn't change, and that is the observer of all these things. This observer cannot be observed itself but, like scientists "knowing" that electrons exist because of the observation of the consistent effects they have, we know the observer exists due to the observing of the changing aspects of our existence. This is our "unchanging observer" or the true "Self".
In the end, is there more than one Self for all of existence, reflected over and over like a hall of mirrors, or are there many Selves?
Religious monism (advaita) is not the same as philosophical mind-matter monism, but seems most conformable to it, and it asserts that the Self is One.
Penrose's 2 books: As well as the one Prashna mentioned there is , which pretty much covers the same ground.
I've heard the one you mention is truly excellent.
David Chalmers site is excellent:
The Buddhist one I mentioned is back:
svasti te .stu
one or two
hi Prashna,
I am singularly unqualified to comment on the topic you have raised.
A fibbing Vulcan! I thought they didn't exist!:)
It's not as though the dvaita and the advaita are mutually exclusive!
The fact is that the perceived reality is both real and unreal!
This is one of the best facets of sanatanadharma. And not easy to explain. But the truth is ultimately alogical.
As you know, Adi Shankaracharya is only known not for his works on the philosophy -- he was a very prolific writer of hymns:
Ananda Lahari/Saundarya Lahari
Tripurasundari stotra
Devi aparada ksamapana stotra ('Alas, I know neither thy mantra nor yantra..')
Annapurna stotra
to name just a few.
What would be his most widely read work? At a guess I'd say Saundaryalahari! (Everyone else, except for you Prashna, is content to read books by someone who read someone who read someone who read Shankara, but Saundaryalahari you want to read yourself.;))
And Ramakrishna is of course the perfect example of one who had absolutely no difficulty at all in harmonising bhakti and j~nana, or dvaita and advaita!
When you list all the different strands of dvaita and and all those of advaita, they almost form a continuous spectrum of philosophies.
And often they will use the very same metaphors or images.
Arthur Avalon/Sir John Woodroffe wrote a lot about various shakta tantras in which the philosophy is advaita but the imagery is very beautifully devotional.
As I said: what's the best thing about sanatanadharma? -- it's that the guy who wrote Brahma Sutra Bhasya is the just same guy who wrote Saundaryalahari. There is no other way to explain it. But you know what mean!
svasti te .stu
** With moderator's hat on **
We regret to advise everyone posting on this thread that Prashna is no longer a member of Healthypages.
However, if other members wish to continue discussing the topic, please feel free to do so.
Holistic
On behalf of the Moderating Team
In my ongoing persuit in studying the mind, I myself, have an understanding and differentiation of awareness, consciousness and sentience. This understanding is growing all the time the more I turn information I have gathered into knowledge.
From what you say, I understand that you use these terms with some special definition; but in English we use them interchangably.
LOL! I am English. 🙂
I think it's fair to say that a lot of people use them interchangably, but not always, whether they are English or not. 😉
It's a bit hard for me to follow what you mean when you say:
I would say not. If the 'simulated' consciousness can respond to sensory input, make the necessary associations in it's 'memory' and provide suitable feedback to influence itself then, IMHO, as far as consciousness per se goes, it is conscious.
and later
Interesting concept, but I feel there is a confusion between consciousness and awareness creeping in here..
You seem to be saying that there is no difference between ''consciousness'' and ''simulated consciousness".
That is correct. My belief is that it would be possible to create consciousness, hence "simulated" consciousness (created consciousness) would be the same as consciousness.
But yet you obviously differentiate between awareness and consciousness.
But what is the difference -- can you put it into words? And at what level does it enter the equation?
I'll try. In the simplest words...
Awareness is the observer (the aforementioned "Self") that can observe the consciousness. Hence Awareness is not Consciousness.
This is really the question.
Is it because you are made out of organic matter rather than crystallised silicon-germanium-arsenic?
Suppose I modeled someone's brain out of cogs and levers, or out of hydraulic valves. Does it make a difference. I could make them precisely equivalent in terms of information processing.
No difference. Consciousness could be created IMHO.
Let me ask you, can you imagine a universe with the laws of physics like ours, where there are beings like us who are zombies?
They act like us. Walk and talk like us. They enter into philosophical arguments like us.
But zombies are not aware. They are just automatons. They do not see or hear or think or feel. From the outside they seem to -- they're constructed just like us, so it's not surprising. They do everything they do -- with no awareness.
Is such a thing conceivable?
IMHO, yes, but awareness is the tricky thing here, which I'll discuss more lower down.
Or again: Imagine some advanced race of beings who decide to run simulations of universes on their supercomputers. Sometimes they implement the actual laws of physics. Sometimes they modify them a bit... Why? They're curious about the conditions under which sentient beings evolve out of inanimate matter, and the activities such beings perform.
When they run their simulations, every so often, as galaxies, stars, planets emerge from the murk, they do see life emerge and evolve into intelligent beings. Of course it's all just a simulation on a computer.
Hmmm, very Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. 😉
Anything's possible.
Very occasionally these beings (who exist within a supercomputer) might do what technologically advanced beings do to entertain themselves: they decide to run simulations of universes on their supercomputers. Sometimes they implement the actual laws of physics -- as they understand them. Sometimes they modify them a bit... Why do all this? They're curious about the conditions under which sentient beings evolve out of inanimate matter, and the activities such beings perform.
And every so often when they run their simulations, as galaxies, stars, planets emerge from the murk, they do see life emerge and evolve into intelligent beings. Of course it's all just a simulation on a computer of a simulation on a computer.
Ah, the old concept of e.g. our solar system being an atom in the body of a 'giant' who may be themselves standing on a planet in a solar system which is an atom in their 'giant'.
Do simulated beings have subjective experiences -- are they aware (in the way you use the word aware)?
But if not, does that imply that there is something special, magical in fact, about ordinary matter, or is there something nonphysical that brings in the magic of ''awareness'' into the mere ''consciousness'' of matter.
As "subjective" means that the reaction of an individual is based on previously stored information in the memory/mind, then yes, as far as I'm concerned, simulated beings would have subjective experiences. As for being aware... tricky, but here's my present thoughts...
If we believe that everything in the Universe is energy and that all energy is interconnected, then it is possible to posit that awareness is energy and also this energy may connect to all things. As such, anything in the Universe can have awareness, even a simulated consciousness. Could we every tell that something else has awareness? Not easily. For example, we can observe another person and observe their consciousness, their physical body etc. through our senses, but can we ever observe their awareness? If we are all connected and their awareness is therefore our own, then this would be like trying to observe your own "Self" (observer); we know it exists because we are observing, but we can't observe the observer as much as we can't look at the back of our own head. 😉
If I'm understanding this right, we are asking why we put subjective qualities against a sensory input; why one smell stirs up a certain emotion whilst another smell doesn't etc. (or something along those lines).
Not quite.
Qualia of sensation are called the raw feel of a sensation, not any emotional connotations.
Have you ever wondered: when you look at the sky and see what you call blue, does the person next to you see the same colour?
Perhaps they have the subjective experience that you call 'seeing green', but through linguistic convention say 'sky is blue'.
The qualium is just the subjective experience of blueness.
Yes, I have thought of this. Likewise I have thought "would the pain I experience, be experienced the same by someone else, or would they find it excrutiating and unbearable or would they not even notice it".
Dennett describes them as private, ineffable.
Yes, private and ineffable. This is the awareness, the "Self", the unchanging observer.
I think sentience is the best word to use when talking of qualia because it just implies sensory perception (sentio = I sense or perceive).
I think sentience best describes those that have sensory input (as you say it says it in the name). Perception is another word altogether and is perhaps too general to use as it may relate to sensory perception or it could equaly but mutually exlusively relate to awareness. We could even say that a stone has sentience because, for example, if it is touched, then the atoms and the bonds that hold those atoms together will respond to make it remain solid. Often though, most people would want to say that sentience is some sort of sensory, nervous system connected to a brain of some sort type of thing. 🙂
I don't believe that memory is merely stored within the physical brain and therefore, for a machine to reach such complex associations as we achieve as humans would take some great masterpieces of mechanics.
But if not in the physical brain then where?
Neuroscientists would disagree with you. And ''masterpieces of mechanics'' are pretty close.... And many people says a software problem, and we have enough hardware.
And how do my physical senses and brain access this nonphysical realm?
This may be all correct -- but it is uncompromisingly dualistic. It is certainly not monistic.
I believe that the memory is stored in patterns of energy that are connected to us; that the brain is merely a complex interface between the physical body and the non-physical energy that is the memory and the observer that is our Self.
Let the neuroscientists disagree, that is their concern, not mine.
I also recall studies that have been done (I think it was in New scientist or Scientific American I read it) where they showed that people who have undergone brain surgery or had brain damage to an area of the brain suffered apparent memory loss. The first thought was that the loss of brain tissue was the result of this but, after time, even though that area of the brain remained damaged and unusable, the persons found that their memory started coming back to them; in my terms... the interface of the brain had re-routed itself to the energy that was the memory which was previously interfaced through the brain tissue prior to being damaged. As with most science, a lot is theoretical and it could be a long time before anything is proven.
In the end, is there more than one Self for all of existence, reflected over and over like a hall of mirrors, or are there many Selves?
Religious monism (advaita) is not the same as philosophical mind-matter monism, but seems most conformable to it, and it asserts that the Self is One.
Indeed an interesting question.
Maybe we each have a Self, maybe we are one self that is reflected over and over, or maybe even we are one self that parallel processes with each other but ultimately all connect. Just as a computer can run multiple processes at the same time, each process is not necessary aware of the others, yet they are all the computer.
Love and Reiki Hugs
This thread reminds me of the deep Western analysis of all this engaged in by Sir John Eccles, and also with Popper in one book of dialogue.
So far the thread has been more along the lines of what might be called 'pure philosophy,; however science in theory and factual findings has a strong role to play in many philosophical questions.
It appears to be quite true, as Giles indicates above, that memory is not actually discovered to be 'contained' within the brain. And back in the 1950s, neurosurgeons became somewhat excited when they found (wasn't this another 'Penrose' doing this? Edit to add: Penfield?) that the electrical stimulation of a very small part of the brain did lead to very vivid and specific recollections ... however the same recollections were later found to be accessible from quite different parts of the brain.
I have a copy of Fortean Times which amazingly lists a number of cases of apparently normal people who, upon death and autopsy, had little but fluid and non-brain substance within the cranium! So where's the 'thinking brain' there?
If we look at the brain, though it holds many subtle mysteries, its parts are not such a mystery. Here is where homeostasis is maintained - here is the visual cortex - and so forth, Its parts are roughly understood, yet they all add up to just bits of a machine. There's no 'Self' within that machine. No area or place where the Self resides. It reminds me of the PC in front of me: there's a monitor, a keyboard, a processor, a provision of electrical supply, a fan to cool it, ... which is all very well for, say, an instrument by which I can communicate with people on HP, and people on HP can communicate back to me. And I can also see the world through various webcams, etc.
But I am not in the computer, as you are not in yours. So we use them as a means to communicate and interact with the world (along with other uses). A decent analogy for a self that simply uses the machine-brain.
Back in the 1970s parapsychologists realised that of course the brain is the most sophisticated instrument in the universe. I wouldn't even compare it to the best of computers, as it's far more subtle with emotion and many responses we can only programme into computers. What they postulated from a point of view near to dualism but with interaction combined, is that the brain is precisely what it is because of its subtlety. One single quantum event, the smallest event we can possibly think of, is enough to trigger the firing of a synapse, by which the neurons then suddenly can change throughout much of the brain into a whole new pattern. In other words, the changing patterns within the brain's activity, which a materialist would put down as being "thought", can be started and continuously changed and influenced by events at the smallest possible sub-atomic level.
This to some parapsychologists, and to myself, is key. It points to a mind-body system wherein we don't quite have dualism (for how could something 100 percent 'other' to our physical brain and world interact with it? - it is as if it doesn't exist). But it points to mind or the 'Self' as being extremely apart in 'vibration' or its form of reality from the physical world - yet not completely so. Pulling on my own background, it's absolutely and precisely what esotericism talks about with its terms of 'the human aura', or 'finer bodies' and the different planes or octaves of existence.
In Theosophy, Theosophical investigators of the late 1800s and early 1900s felt that they had discovered that the finer or 'higher' bodies of man/woman, existing in finer or 'higher' planes of existence, were simply made up of matter-energy of an extremely subtle nature. But it was still matter-energy which, as it densifies and collects together, forms plasma, air, fluid, and solid form.
The model all this suggests is that the brain is a wonderfully subtle "sending and receiving station" through which the Self interacts with the physical world, by moving the body in all ways in one direction, and by picking up all the perceptual senses in the other direction. What we 'see' in much brain activity is not thought itself, but thought 'arriving into the brain'.
In I think 1908, Henri Bergsson wrote Creative Evolution, within which he pointed out that the whole physical body appears to exist only to sustain and give life, and the ability to move about, to the brain. The physical form provides blood, oxygen, nutrients, a protective form, the ability to move and to sense, etc. So he pointed out that all of Life seems to exist that consciousness may enter in (from wherever), into the physical world. In Sanatanadharma, and Western esotericism, this parallels the belief that there is a purpose to incarnation, and that the physical body in some way houses a Self which is non-material (or almost so, to be precise).
So, since our finer bodies are so subtle, they need something equally subtle in its functioning in order to 'be in' the world. This something seems to be the brain, since one quantum event - an event as subtle as that - can completely change what's happening within the brain by triggering the firing of one synapse.
Years ago a friend did his PhD on the presupposition that if he could build a machine capable of as many electrical firings as a brain, 'ghosts' might be able to communicate through it. It didn't work, and we'd both suggest this is because computers are (a) not subtle enough - one quantum event doesn't change what they are doing; and (b) the wrong 'shape' - meaning that the human aura fits into the human brain and body, and is in fact the source or creator of the body. So no machine can ever be the physical outpost for a Self with consciousness - because consciousness exists first, before birth and the formation of the nervous system.
And we can add to all this the ongoing studies into out-of-body-experiences, which some researchers are attempting to verify in the cases of heart-attack patients who survive, yet who have observed all about them in the room, usually from above, while technically dead. (Death, sleep, and all unconscious states seem to be but the Self having departed the body.)
V