What is consciousness?

[butterbattle]

So it's not known what it is, or how it works, but the general concensus is that it must be caused by physical processes?

Well, it's a word. We'll know what it is once we can actually find a coherent definition for it. Until then, I think it's just people trying to describe (poorly) a type of awareness. We know what that is. We sort of know how it works.

You have senses, senses pick things up. It's essentially just that.

The organs are physical, the stimulus is physical, the impulses are physical. There's nothing more to it.

The idea that you're an individual who is picking up these signals is an illusion, if you didn't pick anything up - you wouldn't experience anything. For example, dreamless sleep. Dreams are just fake signals.

Least, that's the way I see it. I don't know if others would agree.

Eh...I don't completely agree.

Ultimately, it's just complex algorithms from our brain + stimuli, but there's a lot of unscientific luggage. People only talk about consciousness when referring to humans and maybe a few other animals, and the general impression I get is that is you're "fully" conscious, you can imagine yourself being "inside" your physical body. So, it implies something of higher intelligence and that is "aware."

 

[Worldquest]

Is a comparison with, for example, technology, appropriate?

For example, a TV picks up what basically amounts to an electrical signal, then the technology inside the TV takes that information and uses it to construct a picture and a sound. But the TV doesn't experience any of it, we do. The TV has no consciousness, it's just a machine following instructions. We have the consciousness because when the image hits our eyes and gets translated into whatever it gets transalted into, and when the sound waves that travel from the speaker, through the air, and hits the tiny hairs inside out ears which vibrate and are then turned into electrical signals in our brain, at some point there's awareness. That awareness is the experience. Machines don't experience anything. And I think there's different levels of awareness. Animals are aware to a point, and we are aware to a further point. Our consciousness is more sophisticated, we're aware of more.

The question is, how much is there to be aware of? You ould say that we can't do a lot with that question because we'd be asking it with limited awareness of what one could be aware of. We'd have a hard time even conceiving of that. But the fact that we're aware of the question shows quite a high level of awareness already.

Another question is, do we already have the means of knowing what there is to be aware of? Is the fact that we are aware of these questions and are ready to ask them a clue that maybe we can know, but we don't yet know "how to know it"? t would seem a bit pointless to have the ability to conceive of the questions without having any means of finding the answers or to understand them. That's why I say that our conscious ability goes further than what we take for granted.

 

[SchrodingersFinch]

Perhaps we are ultimately unable to understand our own consciousness. We might be able to understand the consciousness of a fly, but maybe to understand human consciousness we need a much more superior consciousness, which in turn wouldn't be able to understand itself.

Machines don't experience anything.

How do you know? It could be that the machines we've created so far are only at the level of an earthworm. I'm actually quite confident that in the future we will be able to create machines with a level of consciousness close to our own.

 

[Worldquest]

Perhaps we are ultimately unable to understand our own consciousness. We might be able to understand the consciousness of a fly, but maybe to understand human consciousness we need a much more superior consciousness, which in turn wouldn't be able to understand itself.

Machines don't experience anything.

How do you know? It could be that the machines we've created so far are only at the level of an earthworm. I'm actually quite confident that in the future we will be able to create machines with a level of consciousness close to our own.

Why do you think it's possible for humans to create consciousness?

 

[SchrodingersFinch]

Why do you think it's possible for humans to create consciousness?

Because our consciousness is a product of evolution. If it can evolve naturally, I don't see how it couldn't be created artificially.

 

[Worldquest]

How you do know that? The impression I'm getting is that it isn't known what consciousness is.

 

[SchrodingersFinch]

How you do know that? The impression I'm getting is that it isn't known what consciousness is.

I don't know it, I just think there's plenty of evidence to suggest it.

There is no evidence of any supernatural forces. Evolution is a completely natural process and it's the best explanation of how we got here. Our brain, like our entire body, is the product of evolution. There is no evidence that consciousness could exist separate from the brain. We can create robotic bodies that resemble our bodies. To me, all this strongly suggests that some day we could also create artificial brains with consciousness.

There is no clear answer to what consciousness is, but it strongly seems that it is simply a product of the brain. Similarly, before we knew anything about DNA, people still knew that heredity had something to do with the organism itself and its cells.

 

[OnkelCannabia]

Isn't consciousness just an emergent function of our ability to think recursively and process information in parallel?

 

[Andiferous]

How do you know? It could be that the machines we've created so far are only at the level of an earthworm. I'm actually quite confident that in the future we will be able to create machines with a level of consciousness close to our own.

Do you think? It seems to me that to do that we'd have to essentially "create" ourselves, which is a bit of a loopy concept. If we had those sort of powers we could probably also sustain ourselves forever and play Frankenstein.

Isn't consciousness just an emergent function of our ability to think recursively and process information in parallel?

It's also tied into identity. It's not enough that I can think, process and observe. I also realise I am me, I am separate from everyone else, and I have personality.

 

[SchrodingersFinch]

Do you think? It seems to me that to do that we'd have to essentially "create" ourselves, which is a bit of a loopy concept. If we had those sort of powers we could probably also sustain ourselves forever and play Frankenstein.

If the current scientific progress continues, I think it's just a matter of time. How long it would take, I have no idea.

 

[Demojen]

It's also tied into identity. It's not enough that I can think, process and observe. I also realise I am me, I am separate from everyone else, and I have personality.

If you have no memory, experience or role, you have no identity of self.

Your identity is created by your memory of experiences, your understanding of events and your role in a culture.

Your identity changes as you develop, lose memories, gain new ones, grow and experience new things. By the age of thirty(30) your body has replaced nearly every single cell you were born with.

How you see who you are changes.

What is consciousness?

I'd agree with a combination of different thought processes.

Isn't consciousness just an emergent function of our ability to think recursively and process information in parallel?

 

[Worldquest]

Consciousness is awareness of your existence.

 

[Andiferous]

Identity is one as opposed to all, or me as opposed to everything. I'd agree consciousness is in part awareness of ones' existence.

 

[Worldquest]

Identity is one as opposed to all, or me as opposed to everything. I'd agree consciousness is in part awareness of ones' existence.

Would you agree or not that there are different degrees of consciousness? For example, being aware in general that something exists, and being specifically aware of oneself as being separate from something else?

 

[MRaverz]

Consciousness is awareness of your existence.

Information from your senses.

Nothing more.

What's so special about that? If you didn't have this consciousness, you'd simply have no need for senses.

 

[Worldquest]

Consciousness is awareness of your existence.

Information from your senses.

Nothing more.

What's so special about that? If you didn't have this consciousness, you'd simply have no need for senses.

I wouldn't call consciousness information. Consciousness is awareness. If you're a conscious thing, you're conscious of information and of yourself. But you're not the information.


And I can almost feel Hackenslash typing away there. Boy am I in trouble.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Actually, you are information, depending on which particular rigorous definition of information you employ.

I've already given as good a definition of consciousness as is actually possible from the evidence currently available. For anybody who thinks it's anything other than I defined it as, I invite you to attempt my experiment and report your results back here. If you undertake the experiment and we don't hear back from you, we can be fairly confident I was right.

 

[Worldquest]

What is transmitting and receiving me, Hack?

 

[Deleted member 619]

What is transmitting and receiving me, Hack?

So now you've exposed your definition of information. Unfortunately, that isn't the only rigorous definition of information. Information doesn't actually require a transmitter or a receiver and doesn't necessarily contain any sort of message. Allow me to demonstrate:

Edit: Crap! Spoilers aren't working here. No matter, I made this one into a video:

 

[Worldquest]

I see what you're saying. Information basically amounts to the possibility to glean meaning from something, anything at all. And that for that to be possible, you don't necessarily need intent from anywhere. So in that sense, everything is information. I actually agree with you on that. And from watching that, I'm vaguely aware of two models of information, one where a transmittor and receiver are necessary, and one where they're not. I can't say I disagree with that either. So maybe there are two words for "information", or if not, there should be. I'll have to ponder about that (what you say in your video).

Anyway what do you make of this, which I've just pulled from internetland...

Stephen Marquardt, an American doctor who has studied Fibonacci and phi sequences with regard to the human face, correctly concluded: 'All life is biology. All biology is physiology. All physiology is chemistry. All chemistry is physics. All physics is math'. He could have added that all maths is energy and all energy is consciousness.


Just so you know, I'm not posting that as an argument, I'm just asking what you think of it.