/sci/ - Science & Math

ITT babys first intellectual thought

>>7419116

>Why

so that we may be conscious of God.

>>7419116
We have bad luck

>>7419116

I like how everyone talks about free will and how it's a right, and yet we weren't even able to choose whether we wanted to exist or not. It just happened too all of us one day against our will.

>>7419116
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a6.htm

cuz brains yo

>>7419116
Your brain can read some limited part of its own state as input. This is useful for a couple of things. Big whoop.

>>7419781
You could make a computer do that as well. Does that make it self-conscious?

Because you are in a simulation where only you have a conciousness.

>>7419902
Explain language and communication

>>7419116
Its nothing more than the collection of memories your brain has gathered over time.
You consciousness is you continuing to add to that collective mass of memories

Quantum mind is one theory

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

The Description and Criticism sections are probably the most interesting on that page.

>>7419116
Why is conciousness such a confusing thing for so many people? There's nothing special about it.

>>7420096
Do you not know what a fucking simulation is?

>>7420126
When you can say something like "there is nothing special about consciousness", I really must wonder if you even have consciousness.

Our brains are nothing more than a lot of very complicated chemical reactions. So with that hard fact in mind, where does the subjective experience come from? This video probably explains it better than I can:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhRhtFFhNzQ

The simple truth of the matter is that the idea we have of the world making sense is none more than an illusion. Logic and sense really don't exist outside of the quasi-delusional realm of "thought" initiated by cause and effect having a semblance of "meaning" to us due to memory. But why is memory real? Why is there a real that can "make sense"? There's no grasping it. This reason itself is probably why shit happened. Everything is a
"what" that just fell out of God's mouth in sheer confoundment.

>>7420143
Because that subjective evidence happens due to chemical effects,I guess.
Sure our consciousness is unique.

>>7419120
>babby's first babby shit post

>>7420126
I would tell stories of this epic bait to the children of my homeland but they'd never believe me

>>7420126
fuck off dickbrain

Consciousness is the experience of learning; the sensation of the encoding of information in your memory.

Through the action of paying attention to the most salient information, consciousness helps you to store it for future use.

Consider what happens in alcohol-induced amnesia. When you blackout, you lose consciousness yet you are still functioning. You do things but you have no recollection of doing them. You have stopped paying attention to what you're doing entirely, and so you have stopped 'recording' it.

>>7419879
>You could make a computer do that as well. Does that make it self-conscious?

Unfortunately, mounting evidence suggests that that's all there is to it.

We have been flattering ourselves.

But that doesn't mean we should lie down and die. The sooner we accept this, the sooner we'll be able to move past it and focus on what's really important.

>>7420254
>focus on what's really important.
please continue to elaborate

>>7420254
>the sooner we'll be able to move past it and focus on what's really important.

Dragon dildos?

>yfw time itself is consciousness

>>7420254
>mounting evidence

>my opinion is evidence

>>7420143
>Our brains are nothing more than a lot of very complicated chemical reactions. So with that hard fact in mind, where does the subjective experience come from?

A lot of very complicated chemical reactions. That's it, the biology that evolved with the rest of us.

>>7420337
What if my life depended on it and I'm not allowed extra time like a whole day to study it? What's the best bet

>>7420359
Wrong thread.

>>7419168
> godfag

>>7420337
But how can those reactions add up to something more than just the reactions themselves? Thoughts, memories, and emotions of a person can be explained by bio-chemistry, but not self-consciousness, because there is just no reason for it to be there.

The fact that some system can processes inputs isn't interesting. In a sense a window processes inputs when a rock is thrown into it and it provides an output by breaking. That's not what interests you.

The crazy thing is that for some reason you are inextricably aware of the inputs that your mammalian system is processing. You find yourself connected to it and no other. You didn't have to exist at all, yet here u are.

The interesting thing is NOT the chemicals mediating some biological systems' inputs but the fact that you are privy to those inputs, attached to them intimately. Every mammal has consciousness but you are only riding around in one, why? Why did this happen at all? Millions of mammals exist that aren't you, you have no access to their inputs, why do u have access to your mammal at all? What mapped you onto it?

>>7420415
why do you think it isn't explained by bio-chemistry?

>>7420553
That's an easy question to answer. You don't have receptors for touch or degrees of heat and cold in the wall nearest you. If it did, and were laced up to you, that wall would become "you". The question ITT is how the wall had the capacity for such a thing.

It's one of the hardest problems that science and philosophy has dealt with.

We can understand the CNS pretty well. But it's hard to break down the subjective experience to physical phenomenon. You run into problems when you want to examine the tool you use to understand the universe by using that same tool.

>>7420337
Yes retard. The question is, what sort of physical phenomenon adds up to the subjective experience. It's hard to answer because even talking about it has its inherit difficulties.

>>7420556
Then tell me, how can bio-chemistry explain subjective experience of itself? It feels like you're confusing self-consciousness with the medical definition of consciousness, which just means being awake.

>>7420415
>Thoughts, memories, and emotions of a person can be explained by bio-chemistry, but not self-consciousness, because there is just no reason for it to be there.

What evidence do you have for consciousness being inexplicable through biochemistry? I mean, besides "I just don't think it is."

>>7420553
This problem goes away completely if you actually believe consciousness comes from the brain and not a mysterious soul.

I am not riding around in this mammal. I *am* this mammal. I couldn't be privy to the thoughts of other mammals for the same reason my computer isn't privy to the contents of any other computers if I don't plug in a network cable.

>>7420571

There are millions of mammals with unique receptors and chemicals I'm their unoque brain but you aren't mapped to any of them, only to one. What determines which unique system u get mapped onto? Why are u mapped onto one at all?

A system can be conscious just fine without YOU being the one who is conscious. Why were you awoken from your slumber, from the void of non-existence prior to birth?

>>7420633
>Then tell me, how can bio-chemistry explain subjective experience of itself?

Self-reference and feedback. Your brain's neural network can take its own activity as an input.

Is this a hand-wavy and controversial explanation? Sure - but so are all the biochemical explanations for where memory comes from. There's a lot we don't know about the mechanisms of the brain.

>>7420625
Simple: Picture, Expression, and Conceptual
Any 2 of those makes the context of the third and so on and so fourth, while each individual precept divides itself into the other two identities and makes for the basis of subjective experience!

>literally not believing in a personal god

>>7420641
>What determines which unique system u get mapped onto?

This is a non-question. I *am* a unique system. I have no independent existence.

You may as well ask

>"There are millions of books with unique stories and characters in their unique text, but the book you're reading isn't mapped to any of them, only one. What determines what unique text this story gets mapped onto? Why is it mapped onto one at all?"

And the answer is: Because if this story had different text, it wouldn't be the same story. You can't tell the story of Huckleberry Finn using the text of War and Peace. And if the story wasn't mapped on to any words, I couldn't be reading it.

>>7420649
That still doesn't answer the hard problem of consciousness. You can't describe the essence of experience by reduction to synapses in the brain.

>>7420657
>You can't describe the essence of experience by reduction to synapses in the brain.

I personally can't, sure. I don't know enough about the brain. Nobody living does.

But you don't either. So on what grounds do you declare that it is impossible to explain subjective experience in terms of physical phenomena? How did you get so knowledgeable about what physical phenomena can and cannot do?

>>7420643
Wait what? I'm so high right now, and I feel like you have something really important to say that I'm not understanding. Could you explain?

>>7420645
>not believing in an independent god
bro you got a paradox on your hands there

ITT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

>>7420657
Who says there is a problem? What EXACTLY is the problem? Try to define it as clearly as possible; make it meaningful, and if possible, falsifiable.

>>7420635

It doesn't matter 'where' your consciousness comes from, the question is why did it come at all? Why did it come as such?

If you were a conscious robot that I made you would ask the same question. Why are u this robot as such? Why not a different robot or an animal or human? If I told you well "I put these specific circuits together and bam you became conscious" it wouldn't really answer your question. It would just reform it.

The question is deeper...why do you have a robot consciousness as such? At all? How come when circuits are arranged in this pattern you emerge and awaken? Why am I this particular pattern instead of another, or none at all? Why am I even a pattern?

>>7420665
I misspoke. I meant that nobody can currently reduce it to physical phenomenon. I'm sure it will eventually be solved in some capacity, but would be nearly impossible to test as you'd never know what affects the subjective experience unless you yourself are affected.

>>7420677
Oh, OK. You're talking about encoding, why this particular pattern produces a particular consciousness.

I don't know! I am pretty sure it has to do with the structure of the brain somehow, though. There's all kinds of weird specific brain damage that cause *very specific* changes in people's subjective experience. People can become blind - but unable to believe that they are not blind, insisting in the face of all evidence that they can see perfectly fine. People can become completely unable to read - but still retain the ability to write just fine. Their personalities can change dramatically. They can suddenly begin experiencing colors as sounds. They can even be split into two, apparently completely independent, consciousnesses if their hemispheres are severed.

>>7420676

Can't detect subjective experiences in brains. We can detect chemicals and electrical impulses but not experiences. So you have to ask the person to tell you what its experiences are. That's a big problem.

Its like only having access to hardware on a computer but no access to software and no monitor. The only way to access software is by asking some dude what he sees on his secret hidden monitor. And for all we know he's lying or unable to describe all the details.

Science wants access to the guys' monitor and software directly...but how? Even if we build our own monitor and hook it up it might not be 1:1 exact. Maybe the other guys monitor is different. Some say the only way to view his monitor is to be him. Which makes the problem intractable.

>>7420683
But those aren't changes in the subjective experience itself, just a change in what is experienced.

The question becomes why is there experience at all in the first place.

>>7420702
I don't know the answer to that question. I suspect that the answer is simple, but I do not know what it is.

>>7420705
>I suspect the answer is simple

The question has plagued humanity forever.

>>7420705
If I had to guess, it would be something like:
-As humans, we create a model of the world in our heads to help understand and predict the sensations we receive and how they respond to our outputs.
-But we also have inputs that give us some sense of what's happening inside our own brains, and we can see that there is this strange thing our eyes appear to be attached to which corresponds to our outputs.
>So we create a model of *ourselves* as well, and thus gain awareness of our own thoughts - and awareness of the fact that we are aware of the world around us.

>>7420707
So are many many questions that plagued humanity forever and were eventually answered. Why do things fall down? Why do the Sun and Moon exist? Why do some stars move and others don't, and why do they move in the ways they do?

Answer to all of these questions: "All matter attracts other matter with a force inversely proportional to the distance between them."

>>7420702

Ya but let's be honest. We dont care so much about the biology or science of it in general. What we care about is how we fit into the equation.
This is personal. Why is it that I am conscious at all? And why this modality and not another? And why this time period? Why did I have no say in the matter? Who is in charge here? I'd like to have a word with the Architect!!

>>7420712
But you're still not getting to the meat of the problem. How does the brain, which is electrically charged physical matter, produce such experience.

The problem with all of this is that talking about the subjective experience is incredibly difficult. It's akin to describing color to a blind man.

Anyone who has ever been into lucid dreaming knows that consciousness is not a binary state. You are never 0% or 100% conscious, it varies. When you dream, some parts of your brain is "turned off", and thus your consciousness isn't as strong. When you become lucid (aware that you're dreaming) you're reactivitaing parts that were sleeping and get "stronger" consciousness, but mostly not close to that of waking life.

Doesn't that reinforce the idea that the more complex a system is, or the more information (in the quantum level) is processed, the more conscious something is? Thus, anything complex enough will be conscious, like a computer for example. I think we need to dig deeper into quantum mechanics (or even lower) to understand why we have consciousness.

>>7420720
I am not convinced that question is even answerable. I can't even imagine what a satisfactory answer would look like.

I suspect that somewhere we are thinking about this in a fundamentally muddled or incorrect way. But it's not like I have any better ways to go.

>>7420726
There are philosophers who argue that all matter is conscious.

>>7420733
Maybe the reason some people don't understand the problem is because they are not conscious themselves, and can't reflect on what true subjective experience is.

>>7420720
Maybe the reason some people don't understand the problem is because they are not conscious themselves, and can't reflect on what true subjective experience is.

>>7420698
We can't currently (actually we can, to a degree), but soon enough all of the functions of the brains neural network will be well known about and each subjective experience labelled to each pattern or happening, plus some other future theories about brain-conscious relationships we probs can't even speculate yet. From this you could potentially know anything about a person, simulate this person, wtvs. Of course you can't be this person, because you only have access to your own brain, and your brain is wired to produce this feeling of myself. It probably has some benifits we're not aware of yet (or maybe some of us are). It's kinda like a really convenient story. This feeling of myself may be reduced to brain networks too, in this hypothetical future.

As for the rest of your post, presuming you're not talking about souls or anything even remotely spiritual, you're basically agreeing that the problem is finding the correlations between consciousness and some other thing. Why not the brain? That's worked extremely well so far.

>>7420698
Also see >>7420712

>>7420741
Maybe you're the only one who is conscious

>>7420763
Nope, I am conscious as well. But I don't have any proof.

>>7420767
Send us at least 10 seconds of your 3D brain image to prove you're conscious or gtfo

>>7420771
I'm writing this, ergo I have read, proccessed and politely declined your (stupid) request.
This means that I am conscious.

>>7420826
>I shuffled around the 1's and 0's in my processing unit.
Proof is required on this one mate, sorry.

>>7420309
>>7420313
this thread is pure gold.

>>7420893
I solved more than three captchas in this thread, so I'm not a robot. Irrefutable proof.

>>7420717
Because the particular pattern of atoms that creates "you" is the only one that could have formed "you" and was done so as a result of a near infinite amount of circumstances which preceded you. The reason you couldn't have been anything else or anyone else is because the particular circumstances which created you and the thought you are having right now is near-impossible to replicate.

>>7419116
What isn't it?

now what is novelty? is a good question

>>7421408
kill urself nobody in the world likes you

>>7420677
Because parts of your brain have the ability to recognize the world and yourself in certain ways. And after some time of development, your brain expands upon while trying to learn better ways to do things based off of gene encodings that gear the human brain to develop in a certain way in the first place. That's all. It's literally no big deal.

>>7420379

exactly ;)

>>7421382

not really, most of the atoms that form your pattern are irrelevant, for example you can lose your arms and legs, you could've been born a different gender, or blind or have amnesia, or have an IQ of 80 or IQ of 180

most of your body is irrelevant, the only thing that really matters is the atomic sequence that executes your consciousness, and whatever that sequence is, it happened out of "randomness" so it could happen again.

>>7420642
>Self-reference and feedback.

That's the best answer that is there to this subject, but you have to mention that with it's own activity memories and opinions of your own are included.
good work, anon

>>7421438

that's not an answer that's just calling self-awareness self-reference

lol

Thjs is my view on it. Everyone agrees that the brain is just an object that get information from sensors and can make complex tasks, being aware of one self etc out of that. The brain should explain everything about how we think and how i can be self aware of being self aware of being self aware of my thoughts etc.. Howewer, the seemingly unecessary subjective inner view to "feel" all that stuff aswell is the weird thing. I should be able to create a machine as complicat ed as my brain, that has all the functions of a human brain, but, will I also say that he is "feeling it", its impossible do describe, but i guess everyone knows what im talking about, its not "black". You feel the corresponding brain function exacly, so, a human without this subjective view wouldnt differ one bit. One interesting question is, then, would that human also think about conciousness and try to describe it, e ven though he does not acctualy have it, just the corresponding physical processes, it shouldt make a difference. The study is of correlations between the physical process and the corresponding "feeling" of it. IF something would differ from being conscious and not conscious, that would be a huge fucking thing and on the right track, otherwise you cant really do anything or know what it is.

>>7420642
Wrong answer, thats not what he means by subjective experience. He agrees that the brain is self aware from biochemicals. He is perplexed that a subjective experience is accompanying it. Get rid of subjective experience and seemingly nothing is changed and the organism would still go on with his life with his physical brain and th ink about "conciousness"-

>>7421453
That's pretty much what it is. We evolved to be self-aware as an evolutionary strategy, self-reference is an important concept that separates us from a lot of other life forms.

>>7421676
So how is that the process that creates self awareness (and many other complex or simple brain functions, same shit really) is correlated with a corresponding subjective experience.

Erwin shrödinger: "The sensation of color cannot be accounted for by the physicist's objective picture of light-waves. Could the physiologist account for it, if he had fuller knowledge than he has of the processes in the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so." In other words, you can fully describe the brain if you know all the parts and interactions, you can understand why a fella likes the color green and why he chooses to describe how it is fruitfull and nice, and why he gets certain associations with that particular color, and even how he is making constant self awaring processes of every thought about the color green as well, but we do not have his inner subjective view.

>>7419116
An emergent property of our nervous system.

>>7420241
By this definition, my electronic devices are all conscious.

>>7421698
What if we had technology that allowed us to view this person's subjective experience through visors, speakers, touch-pads, etc? Or even better yet, what if we linked up his brain to our brain in such a way that all of the same neural patterns happen in both our brains? Sure, our brains grew differently so it wouldn't be exact, but wouldn't it be physically possible to grow two genetically identical people in a lab and give them the exact same life and experiences, they'd more or less have the same brain. And if you linked their brains up, they'd feel no difference.

This is an experiment I'd like to see, even at the cost of ethics.

>>7420962
>I'm a pocket calculator that accidently got three captchas in a row correct and accidently said sentences that seemed like they were in reply to me, but were really blind accidents.

>My 1's and 0's shuffling skills are so keen I solved three captchas in a row.

Refuted.

>>7421843
You made me laugh. Thanks.

@echo off
if reading_this then you_are_a_faggot
echo gr8 b8 m8 I r8 8/8 you'll receive much h8
pause
exit

>>7421698
In my mind, subjective experience differs between people due to differences in their life experiences and their genetic makeup.

Green is a perfect example. To me, green is a vibrant and really "alive" color, because I associate it with plants and leaves and the environment. This association could have formed because of what I see in nature. It could also have formed because advertisers shove "green" down your throat and link it to being Eco-friendly. Or maybe from an evolutionary standpoint green might mean plants I can eat or trees I can find cover in. I think that the mental associations people make are different because they all developed them slightly differently. We are all shaped by unique experiences. No two lives are the same, so no two people have an identical "bank" of mental associations.

I personally believe that different genetic traits, psychological mechanisms, worldviews, experiences, etc. All come together in an enormously complex perfect storm to create what we call subjective experience.

As a final example, consider a poisonous red frog in the Amazon. Animals ninstinctively know it's dangerous because it's red, so they avoid it. What would be more accurate, saying the animals dislike the color red, or that their behavior is dictated by a survival mechanism that avoids red? In much the same way, I believe that our affinity for certain things is partly predetermined (in a way unique to everyone). It is also parly learned (in a way unique to everyone).

>>7421891
Also worth noting that the precious "I" people cling to is a psychological construct and is the sum of many near-meaningless biological impulses, the same way a beautiful sonata is comprised of meaningless individual notes. The sonata itself is not a physical thing (other than the soundwaves if you want to get spergy). The subjective experience from hearing the sonata is also not a physical thing (other than electron patterns in the listeners brain). However through this intangeable thing we can feel very strong feelings, become inspired, etc. The human "I" is much the same, posessing only trace physical presence but still extremely powerful.

What if replica brains were made - if every single atom was put in the exact same configuration as another brain? They would then be the same person, right? Then you could see how the same person would react to different things and different developments.

I wonder what the chances are of having the same brain as someone. I wonder what subtle changes in the biological structure of the brain would correspond to what changes in the consciousness.
I imagine very small changes in the physical structure of the brain correspond to large changes of consciousness because of the huge complexity of the brain. So consciousness (or, subjectivity) is just these small changes manifest.

>>7420117
quantum conciousness is psuedoscience, the reasoning basically comes down to "conciousness is weird, quantum mechanics is weird, they must be related"

>>7421893
>>7421891
I agree with you, what you are doing is talking about the physical description of the brain, no one disagrees on that. It may be a fault on my part not using the correct terms on the subject, when I say subjective experience i am not referring to the physical description that answers the diversity of each individuals collective experience stored in memory and the like that gives an explanation as to how our personalities differ. We, or I assume that the brain is nothing special and is consistent with physical laws, it can be measured, and our whole psychology is determined by it. Although, it does not give an answer as to how each physical process is accompanied by the "qualia", which i think is the interesting part and not how the brain gets aware of itself etc.

>>7421748
>>7421817

>tfw we are the universe becoming aware of itself

>>7423370
greetings fucktards. nope. replace this waste of thought with entangled physical and biological systems. utility fog. atomic and subatomics in conjunction with 5 named forces and the remaining unnamed forces.

>>7420712

But that's not how it works. The failing in everyone's reasoning I've seen so far seems to be everyone is assuming that what they perceive is actually in existence. Here's a good thought experiment to help you understand it better: When you close your eyes, is the sky still blue? It's isn't, contrary to what some in this thread seem to believe. The "blueness" of the sky is a property that emerges from the changed state in your brain contrary to the state your brain had when the sky was not "blue".

What I mean is, when the photons from the atmosphere interact with the rhodopsin in your eyes, and produces the signal that travels to your brain, "the color blue" isn't what's produced. Nothing is produced or conjured up. The blue you see is LITERALLY the neurons in your brains that have responded to that signal becoming active. I'm trying to find a simpler way to put this... There are neurons in your brain that only become active when a certain rod/cone on your retina become excited. And there is a certain neuron (or set of neurons) in your brain that will only become active when a certain photoreceptor in your retina comes into contact with blue-wavelength light.

And yeah, you might ask how can you perceive the fact that that neuron was activated at that time. The fact is, you see blue because you're not seeing red, or green, if you can understand that. Because every single perception arises from a single or combination of neural activity, what you're actually perceiving is the different neurons that are active at that time.

>none of this sounds like it makes any sense

Fuck this man I'm not a neuroscience professor.

no more is time. no more is feeling. all is unimportant. none is felt. what was it like before i was born?

>>7423373
"utility fog"?

>>7419116
Some day computer scientists and neuroscientists will figure this out.

>>7419116
Define "we" and "consciousness" please.

>>7423946
top lel

>>7423426
whatsup faggot?

what's consciousness to that little shitbird raisin brain, let's hear it?

>>7423426
speak up fucktard, consciousness, what the fuck is it?

And if it has to look anything up to explain that shitty little bumbling in that empty head, it doesn't belong here.

>>7423373
>>7423963
>>7423971
Being this insecure with your own opinions that you rage over an online board, even before posting.
Also, you forgot to tip your fedora.

And I'm not even >>7423426

>>7424009
chump

>>7419116
Consciousness is the awareness of the situation at hand. We need this so that we may consider it and decide on the best course of action to take.

>>7423426
>>7424009
is this you: >>7424017
oh my fucking goodness. cute answer though.

I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures that should not exist by natural law…We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, a secretion of sensory, experience, and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody

So it seems that we've established in this thread that the hard problem of consciousness is unimportant.

If that's the case, what is the single MOST important thing for life (particularly intelligent life) to focus on?

My vote goes to "how do we continue to survive on this planet without drowning ourselves in our own shit?"

>>7424200
Incorrect guess.
Thanks though.

>>7424219

let's consider the sheer, unwavering stupidity that you've just spewed:

>we became too self aware

Maybe I misunderstood: please explain the degrees of self-awareness that one can have. Are you not either self-aware of not self-aware? Is it not the equivalent of saying I'm "too human"?

>nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself

so it's both a facet of nature and not a facet of nature? Your tautologically false rantings are literally panic-inducing.

>We are creatures that should not exist by natural law…We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self,

much aphorism, much warranted presupposition

The stress produced from reading and responding to your mindless bullshit makes me want to die. Please just crawl into a ball and give up on everything

>>7424244, this has got to be you:
>nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself
uh ho man, just too much already

>>7419168
>2015
>Believing this un-ironically

>>7424249

its a quote from a tv show, bud

no need to get your panties all in a bunch

>>7423419
You're just arguing semantics. "Blue" is just what we've named certain wavelengths. How exacly the brain "recreates" and represents blue is irrelevant.

>>7423419

you're like Berkeley, except you actually think your tireless ramblings are original, you sarcoma-ridden glob of curdled feces.

What's particularly fascinating about your post is the number of sentences needed to sum up that baby-tier thesis.

your argument is literally unverifiable and "2subversive4me". You actually can't distinguish your argument from Cartesian skepticism. It's also fairly irrelevant to the context of this thread.

But thanks for sharing.

>>7424257

Did you think that would make you clever or cool? Did the thought of doing that just inexplicably enter your tiny brain, followed by the thought "this would be a great idea"? Did you think you would be contributing or was it just a spur of the moment decision? How much of this decision and other decisions in your life do you plan out in advance?

Did you think your /sci/ friends would approve and like you and accept you?

Did you think that replying would save your strong rep on /sci/?

Thanks!

>>7424269
>>7424265
>>7424257
>>7424254
>>7424251
>>7424249
>>7424219
>>7424200
>>7423963
>>7423971

>yfw the 4chan servers are conscious and has to endure this eternal shitposting

>>7424269
I don't know man, I don't know the guy and I thought it was pretty cool the way he savaged you.

>>7424272
these are all you, aren't they:
>>7424269
>>7424265
>>7424257
>>7424254
>>7424251
>>7424249
>>7424219
>>7424200
>>7423963
>>7423971
huh, huh...yeah come on, you know you're a little dumb cunt chump liar. you can't hide from your own stupidity. aaahhahahaha

>>7424283

Fuck off , you guys are all illusions
I am the real one

>>7424249
>>we became too self aware
>Maybe I misunderstood: please explain the degrees of self-awareness that one can have. Are you not either self-aware of not self-aware? Is it not the equivalent of saying I'm "too human"?

Isn't a human more self-aware than an animal?

I am the only real poster on /sci/, everyone else is just a fragment of my imagination. Ask me anything.

Consciousness is the quantum awareness of God experiencing himself fractally ( ͡°╭͜ʖ╮͡° )

>>7425217

hurrdurr: "I'm such a good troll - so sneaky" you thought, as you wiped the chocolate hanging from your turkey neck, glasses sliding down your sweaty nose, long greasy hair in knots behind you. You struggle to laugh, your gargantuan frame barely able to contain the layers of sagging shit hanging from what you once deemed a body. "Mom!
you scream from the depths of your cave. "Make me waffle - I want eat waffle" you yell like a retarded harlequin baby, some combination of septic pathogens and mountain dew squirting from your mouth.

Your mother leans against the kitchen table as she finishes the last cigarette in her pack, dark circles under her eyes. She cries, the same as every night, wondering how her son went from "her little boy" to a hopeless, pathetic, sorry excuse for a human being. "maybe it'll all end for me soon" she thinks, a smile almost crosses her face before she hears it again: "MOM, my fucking waffles, holy shit" - your screams, horrifying, vile, emanating through the paper-thin walls of your studio apartment.

To answer your question, you shit-eating gnat: consider the semantic equivalence of:

>Isn't a human more self-aware than an animal?

Is a human more of a human than an animal that isn't human?

self-awareness is a property that one either has or does not have. To say an animal has "more" is equivalent to saying "a human is MORE human than another". In fact, your pathetic excuse for an argument is rooted in an unsettlingly poor understanding of the English language.

Please shut your mouth and kill yourself now.

>>7424373
>>7425226

"Solipsism is still cool, innit?"

"I think therefore I am lmfaooo" - Renegade Discards

LETS MAKE JOKES
ABOUT SOMETHING THATS FUNNY
IN 15TH CENTURY PHILOSOPHY
(AND STILL RELEVANT?)

"YES" A VOICE ECHOES

LIBERATE ME FROM THE DISCORDANT PANIC IN MY SOUL

>>7425564
you ok anon? Did you miss your meds this morning?

>>7420222
Nice trips m8

>mfw consciousness doesn't exist

>>7425564
There is no discordant panic. These fuckers are totally amateurs.

>>7426202
You don't think it's you who have brain damage?

>>7426204
> Something which reduces something unwanted
> Brain "Damage"

No, that does not make sense. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

>>7426206
But it is not "unwanted", it is a really nice way to steer people the direction we want them.

>>7426310
Yeah, society would be a big bunch of stray cats if most people weren't possible to steer in some way. Would be chaos.

>>7420949

>>7425529
>a human is MORE human than another
True, a nigger is only three fifths human for example.

I think this kind of question is more suited to /lit/ than /sci/. On /sci/, most people are going to take the physicalist/materialist position and just say that consciousness is an illusion or that consciousness arises from matter. Also, most of these people will act like this is totally obvious, and if you raise any objection to their claims they'll probably just call you an idiot instead of actually coming up with a good counter-argument.

>>7426428
usually somebody says it's an emergent feature of matter then somebody says it can't possibly be for no reason

>>7425529

You're defining self-awareness as equivalent to being human. By that narrow definition, of course you get an either/or property.

>>7426428
Exactly because it does arise out of matter, it's an emergent property. If you think otherwise that isn't anyone's fault but your own

>>7427076
wrong direction: it is like being a human because it is an either/or property.

Humans are the only animals that think relative to time. Other animals don't understand the concept of tomorrow and think only in a spacial way. Michio Kaku describes humans as "anticipation machines". This is what AI machines are based off.

>>7427358
That's not true. Clark's nuthatches and some corvids plan ahead for food storage.

>>7419116
Because God created us in His image.

>>7426428
I'm pretty sure most aren't arguing it can't come from matter. Matter is of course involved in the equation, just like a magnet is part of the magnetism it creates. The question is, HOW and WHY does consciousness form. The answer to this question is not possible to solve without learning more about quantum mechanics and how the universe works in general. This makes some really assblasted, because they are 100% convinced today's science can explain everything going on on earth.

>>7427897
What leads you to believe consciousness requires a more concrete understanding of quantum mechanics in particular?

>>7427912
We currently can't explain why consciousness happens, so we need to learn more about matter. Where are we learning about matter the most right now? Probably quantum mechanics. Let's just say physics in general.

>>7427926
You could say that about a lot of things. I'd say it's more that the brain is a hard thing to properly study and experiment on in order to see how it works in good detail. I doubt any newly discovered quantum phenomenon will shed all that much light on the human brain.

I like McKenna's theory of the mushroom paradise and the development of consciousness over time through a diet containing low levels of psilocybin

>>7429918
of course you do

have a lovely day and keep on thinking hard - but not too hard!

>>7429930
History is meaningless anyway, why would I put more than minimal effort into it

>>7429912
Biology/chemistry alone will never have the answer to consciousness, just because of the simple fact that no matter how complex chemical reactions you have, it should never be able to make a subjective experience.

I would bet money that consciousness has more to do with some kind of new fundamental force we haven't discovered or time itself, rather than in the complexity of our chemistry.

>>7419116
The perception of the 'I' is a evolutionary advantage. It provides the motivation to actually survive. If we had no consciousness, fear and hunger would only be information. But since we have a consciousness, these feelings get some weight, thus we cannot ignore them. This leads to a higher chance to survive.

>>7430048
This is 100% dodging the question of HOW we can have consciousness. The fact that you can say something like this really makes me wonder if you even understand what true subjective experience means.

>>7430061
>This is 100% dodging the question of HOW we can have consciousness.
We don't really know you nigger. Tons of people are trying to figure it out though.

>>7430061
Define 'we'

>just because of the simple fact that no matter how complex chemical reactions you have, it should never be able to make a subjective experience.

Could you elaborate this simple fact?

>>7430125
>>7430030

>conciousness is supernatural and i wont take any other explanation

>>7430141
Literally no one in the entire thread has said this.

>>7420254
>evidence

so you're saying there's increasing evidence that the experience of evidence doesn't exist?

LOL

The problem people have here is that they are stating consciousness is the very mechanism for self awareness, and that it gives a soul like "I", which probably is not the case evidently, it is created by complex physical calculations like any other - pain, hearing, etc.
"Consciousness" is nothing without the brain, the weird thing is that we wouldn't even need consciousness to discuss it "consciousness", unless that something, somehow, makes our brain do things it otherwise wouldn't, like provide input unlike known process, thats why it is a problem, and that is why it is such a hard fucking question and may arguably never be answered. Some say that consciousness is an unexplained force by nature, they are not implying fundemental particles have "feelings", "choice" and self awareness, because that arises from physical processes.

consciousness = experience / time

>>7430249
>"feelings", "choice" and self awareness, because that arises from physical processes.
brains to be more exact.

>>7430030
Or, that everything has "it"?

If you experience (extreme) pain, you are not conscious. There is a space between your thoughts and the continuous stream you think is your consciousness is just random bits of information put into a greater context that makes you you. Except the first you that judges what you is is not there. Consciousness is just the allocation of the "you"-status to clusters of arbitrary epistemic features that only have meaning in relation to other epistemic features.

The process of evolution caused us to develop this "you"-allocation and it made us more cautious and efficient in many ways. And causing harm to ourselves and others in many more ways. Just because we think we are.

We've been duped. Get out at the next stop. Forget who you are because "you" is rubbish.

>>7420733
That's a stupid theory. Panprotopsychism is dead for a reason.

>>7419116
You'd be hard pressed to find anyone on /sci/ who can solve the hard problem.

Really, everyone's answers are incomplete and insufficient. There isn't a proper explanation for why things appear to us they way that they do. There exists an explanatory gap between the physical stuff that happens within the brain, and the phenomenological things that appear to us within our consciousness.

>>7419120
It really is baby's first intellectual thought, and not to its discredit.

Why does green appear the way that it does? There's nothing about the physiological description that necessarily entails the experience you have when you see it. And that's really where we're stuck... in our developing of a kind of system language that can bridge that gap.

Quantum consciousness is garbage. All of our theories are garbage. Unless someone can replicate phenomenological experience, we have insufficient evidence to properly explain away the theist or agnostic.

I think that the best answer, although admittedly incomplete, is physicalism. And that it's only a matter of time before our neuroscience is robust enough to use a physical language to describe consciousness. A language of thought.

>>7423419
Tell me how the excitement of certain neurons along my optic nerve and in my occipital lobe necessarily entails the kind of experience I have when I experience "blueness"...

>inb4 hard prablem

>>7430460
The experience you think you're having is just your brain's way of conceptualizing the fact those certain neurons were excited. It's nothing more complex than that and if you think otherwise you can take that shit to >>>/x/

>>7421891
You seem to have conflated identity with consciousness.

>>7430449
>It really is baby's first intellectual thought, and not to its discredit.
It really isn't. At least, it doesn't have to be.

>>7430472
Oh man, we can fuckin' dust our hands off and go home. Look you guys! This guy answered it all.

So there must be some evidence or research in the correlation between excited nerves and the completely subjective experience I'm having right now? A thrilling exposé on the language of neurons and their relationship to completely arbitrary thoughts and experiences. If not, was this your idea? You must be fucking rich man!

I agree that you're probably right, you fucking cock. But your "theory" belongs on /x/ right between behaviourism and panprotopsychism you twat.

Are you a fucking theist? Do you just believe things willy-nilly?

>>7430494
It's not my fucking fault you armchair philosophers can't understand basic reasoning or science.

>I agree that you're probably right, you fucking cock. But your "theory" belongs on /x/ right between behaviourism and panprotopsychism you twat.

The fuck are you talking about? This shit isn't paranormal. You have fucking neurons, they fire, you can differentiate between them, you can conceptualize this differentiation, you give it a word, you call it fucking blue. Done. We already know this shit and no amount of spergy /sci/ autism or /x/ ethereal bullshit will change that. But of course you won't listen, that's the beauty of containment boards

>>7430516
Holy fuck, you still haven't answered my question. Let me make it more clear: what is the relationship between my neurons firing, and my qualitative experience?

If your answer "its because I can recognize the difference", then it's question begging, you autistic fuck. How do I conceptualize? How do I differentiate? Do I use other, smaller neurons? Do they have other, even more small neurons?

I still haven't heard why my neurons firing allow me to have qualitative experiences.

Do you fucking understand the question now?

>>7430516
>you can conceptualize this differentiation

Yes, man, but the exact how of that conceptualization is what there is hard experimental evidence for. The only way to measure it at the moment is feedback from the subject. And that's unreliable and not comparable between subjects, as there is no actual way to objectively say that blue looks the same for two different subjects (but that method is the best we've got).

>>7430538

Qualia is an unsolvable problem. The end tbh.

>>7430544
>what there is hard experimental evidence for

There should be a "no" in there.

>>7430538
>still doesn't understand how it works

Not my problem

>>7430554
Oh well then you've failed validate your arguments and uphold your "scientific" analysis of consciousness.

Thanks man. I needed this victory.

>>7430573
What part of this looks like a debate to you? I gave you an explanation of what that other anon was trying to say and it completely answers all of your questions. It's no one's fault but your own that you can't see the answers multiple people have already given. The fact that you actually thought we were having a debate goes to show how autistic you really are

>>7430584
Ok

>>7419169
this

>>7419781
it does that but it also chooses what function to put the information into based off what seems to be "free will"

>>7430030
>no matter how complex chemical reactions you have, it should never be able to make a subjective experience.
Why not? An example, one being observes a color and then the neural and chemical make-up at that time leads to different areas of the brain being affected than in another beings. I'm not saying it is this in particular but this one would be a general basis for subjectivity.

>>7430516
>This shit isn't paranormal

and this ladies and gents why scientists are constantly dismissed as some of the least creative, stubborn, math book hugging fags in existence. that quote is pure gold

>>7431902
continued: I can never quite explain the humor of some born cyborg using his brain developed over millennia on some rock spinning in the universe telling himself its all normal, nothing to see here, nothing special. but its the fact he's using a brain he didn't develop in the least to discredit this whole process as some "organic chaos" that can be so simply and absolutely reduced so fucking dully. the existential hubris is off the charts, clown

>>7431906

derp

>>7420337
>complicated chemical reactions
hearing, smelling and vision are vastly different experiences, however they all work with the same underlying physical stuff.

So why do we have different senses? Why don't we just see vision, sounds, smells and other senses?

>>7431916
>Why don't we just see vision, sounds, smells and other senses?
[citation needed]
You've clearly never tried LSD.
That the senses don't overlap in the way you're thinking is not because that is impossible, but probably an evolutionary feature.

>>7430516
I'm with you buddy.

>>7431835
That is not what subjective experience means when you talk about consciousness. With your arguing, just because a camera has a different filter than another, it has a subjective experience because it sees light differently. How the brain processes colors has nothing to do with consciousness. The kind of subjective expereince I'm talking about is purely the self-awareness you feel. It's like your brain is a movie going, and consciousness is there to watch it.

>>7431949
>Souls, guys!

Labeling a few ideas that remain ever changing within the theory of evolution and calling the compilation or combination of them consciousness is ignorant on so many levels.

>>7431960
>hurr today's science can explain anything and anyone who disagrees thinks it's paranormal

>>7431968
If you can't figure it out - the only reason to rely on someone else's 'explanation' - you are fucking retarded.

>>7431970
That sentence doesn't even make any sense.

>>7431973
I was merely saying that if you need science to explain consciousness to you, you're an idiot.

>>7431961
Perhaps conciousness isn't as special or invariable as you think?

>>7431922
I've probably done more acid than you.

My point was not about an overlap but how we have a number of senses and not just one. You could "output" all information with one sense.

>>7431976
Why?

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

Reminder that very few people in this thread are actually conscious.

>>7431982
>My point was not about an overlap but how we have a number of senses and not just one. You could "output" all information with one sense.
As I said, you could, but obviously those who don't were more successful and hence they're the ones still around.

>>7431994
so you think consciousness is necessary for evaluation / decision making?

>>7431998
Being aware of your surroundings is very important for deciding how to interact with said surroundings, yes.

>>7432003
awareness is not consciousness.

>>7432047
>awareness is not consciousness
My wiki sources beg to differ:
>Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.

>>7432047
Why can't it be?

>>7430449

You appear to be troubled by a problem with little to no substance. The hard problem's really just an empty question.

Note that:

(1) Why does green appear the way it does?

implies that if it did not appear as it does, it would still have an <i> appearance </i> of some kind - or, at the very least, correspond to an experience of some kind (e.g. the experience of green).

To further this curious point, consider the subjunctive counterfactual with which we're left; more specifically:

(2) If green did not appear as it does, it would appear as <i> some thing </i>

Conditionals of this kind are unacceptable. While prima facie the problem is fascinating, we will ultimately be forced to ask ourselves the question "what does it mean to bridge this gap?". What is the answer? Nothing. There is no inherent meaning to your question, and so we should avoid asking it.

>>7419116
Just so you know, I am saging this thread.

>>7432003
A self driving car is also aware of its surroundings, and makes decisions with it on how to interact with said surroundings. Does that make it conscious?

>>7432080
Thank you for the indirect bump.

>seeing a bunch of nerds discuss consciousness
I expected it to be boring and very cringy, instead I'm having a kick out of it
go figure out why this memedrive works and leave metaphysical shit for /lit/
materialist approach will never suffice

>>7432071
define awareness

>>7432086
It's too late. I've saged the thread and you can't do anything about it.

>>7432087
memedrive?

>>7432092
you don't frequent /sci/ do you

>>7432085
It's on the spectrum yes.

>>7432089
knowledge or perception of something.

>>7432089

The issue with this statement is that it begs the questions. You're supposing there's something <i> more </i> to awareness that "knowledge or perception of something", and so justifying your unverifiable observations of "why our experience of green is the way it is" after the fact.

Why do we have race?
What is it?

>>7432118
so you see no reason why a suitably sophisticated AI couldn't imitate a living thing?

Problem many people are having ITT is that they conceive their individuality and person as a distinct thing, as if they were a drop of water in the sea, while in fact they are water in general.

Our languages aren't suited to talk about these metaphysical thing, because we have to get rid of the "you" - " I " concepts, which are fundamental to our western grammars.

Consciousness is a complex system made of many individual parts, reacting to a vast amount of external variables. You can't point to consciousness and nothing else, because it isn't a finite thing. You can't point to a forest either, it is a composition of several individual entities. To some extent, it means that a "person", "you" and "I" don't really exist, we only say that to use a linguistic shortcut, gather under a single word many parts of a complex systems that are working together, yet exist independently from one another.

>>7431949
The consciousness and the subjectivity associated would arise from the complexity, the different processing of colour would be a beginning step. Unless you're going to decide that no, subjectivity isn't this either and handwave it away as being definitely inexplicable as a emergent feature of complex physical processes with input data. It reminds me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-GV46SUcWs

>>7432134
no reason

>>7432134
As soon as something is in reaction with something else, mostly external (or internal too), one could argue that it is "conscious".

>>7432085
For sure.

>>7432156
ok, but a robot "detecting" say, a block on a table is quite different than you seeing a block and testifying to its existence no? how would you understand if the AI was as aware as you? you are aware aren't you?

>>7432174
Because even if superficially the robot detecting the block is comparable to you doing it, internally it isn't even 1% of your level of consciousness.

Computers and AI and super-specialized consciousness, while we humans are livigin beings, carrying evolutionary functions and remnants of billions of years of evolution through different context, challenges and needs.

>>7432138
>Our languages aren't suited to talk about these metaphysical thing, because we have to get rid of the "you" - " I " concepts, which are fundamental to our western grammars.
Fuck off you retarded eastern cavedwelling shitriver bathing faggot.

I mean yeah uhh, totally. Hey pass the bong, dude!

>>7432178
The only reason I specified western is because I know for certain that these concepts exist in every western language. They probably do in the east as well, but I think some eastern languages are much less restrictive as to sentences targets requirements and shit like that.

>>7432178
buffoon

>>7432183
Go wank to Terence McKenna you lazy fuck.

>>7432180
Sorry anon but people sounding like new age hippies on the science board triggers my autism.

>>7432186
you'd be lucky if your ideas are a quarter as radical as mckenna's, fool. go on, impress me, or are you just another logic toting realist who believes with every ounce of his mind that death means sleeping in a box for all eternity?

>>7432180
yeah, for chinese and japanese you can create sentences of which the western equivalent would require more naming and wording.

I think that's partly why japanese media likes single english word so much, or simple expression that aren't gramatically valid.

>>7432155
I feel like if you are self conscious, you would know 100% what I mean when I say "subjective experience".

After reading so many people just not getting what the problem is really about, I'm starting to think I'm the only one who is self-conscious.

>>7432188
>death means sleeping in a box for all eternity?
But anon I have always existed, and will always exist.. Subjectively anyway hehe.

daily reminder that the difference between animals and humans is quantitative, not qualitative.

>>7432188
>sleeping in a box for all eternity?
been there, done that, at least for 99.999999999% of the time. In fact, one could argue that's the only thing I do.

its comfy as fuck

>>7432188
>>>/x/

>>7432195
Why not both?

>>7432211
there you go, fall back on your old tricks. works everytime doesn't it? "oops he doesn't agree, let's send him to the others who we don't agree with. there. that's better. now, where was I, oh yes, I was speaking about me being right......"

>>7432211
kek, this.

>>7432192

I might have been in the same sorta situation when talking about the self and teleportation question, if teleporation was the destruction, data transmission and reconstruction of your atoms, would the resulting body be you?
A lot of people say yes but I jusn't can't fathom how they can. I don't believe in a soul I don't believe that anything about me is anything other than my biological processes. But I don't beleive that person is me.

Does this relate to your issue at all.

>>7432218
It's not qualitative in any way. There isn't a single human caracteristics that isn't present to smaller degree in another animal.

>>7432221
it is nothing less than being unable to assimilate a pattern of thought with the one with which you are familiar.

>>7432231
>unable to assimilate bullshit with clear thought
Yeah, guilty.

>>7432236
yes, it is easy to discount isn't it? it is so simple, so comfortable, so reassuring to throw away that which threatens our faith in a controlled, logical, perfectly sensible explainable physical realm devoid of anything that could be deemed "phenomena".

>>7432222
quads checked.

>But I don't beleive that person is me.
This is likely an evolutionary thing, it really would be you, although, not a kind of you and human has ever had to deal with before.
Weird right?

>>7432244

In every possible sense but my opinion and maybe the opinion of people that knew and thought the same, it would be me. A few last till you die but most of your cells are replaced a number of times during the span of your life, I think that perhaps the continuity of my old cells and new cells coexisting for a time in my living tissue allows me to have this opinion of what myself is.But after that teleportation or just through the course of your life and cell renewal though, in every sense 'I' am alve, but 'I' am also dead at the same time. Weird as shit.

>>7432298
Mm.. I think our unease with assigning a different body the title of 'me' has pretty clear evolutionary origins. It's just your brains way of protecting you from disintegrating your body willingly.

The teleportee (after the fact) would probably have an easy/easier time assigning him-ness to the pre-teleport body though.

Wait, I thought this was really simple? Consciousness is a direct result of chemical reactions which all living things have, more so depending on complexity.

The likes of single cells/flora can sense and react, and then it gets more and more complex until humans who merely reached a point where they are more conscious.

Non-biological things cannot achieve consciousness because they don't use the fundamental chemical reactions that makes biology work. If they did then we'd be able to create life out of tins and cans too.

>>7432192
Maybe it's because you have a prior notion about consciousness and the "subjective experience" that people here simply do not agree with, or feelings about it which others here don't share. I think you simply do not want to believe that these things are a product of complex chemistry rather than you having an real reason to think it can't possibly be so. If you could construct a brain that was artificial but still a perfect emulation of your brain, I would bet that it would have a "subjective experience" also. Do I know for sure? No, but it hardly seems impossible.

>>7427135

Oh, well in that case, OF COURSE.

Going to make any kind of attempt to explain why it so absolutely is either/or?

"self-awareness is a property that one either has or does not have." is a statement, not an argument.

>>7432418
>Non-biological things cannot achieve consciousness because they don't use the fundamental chemical reactions that makes biology work

Why do you assume you need biology to achieve consciousness? I think you are confusing medical consciousness and self-consciousness.

>>7432430
I also think it would, but that doesn't mean the answer lies in complex CHEMISTRY. I think the answer to why we have consciousness lies in quantum mechanics. Nothing in chemistry can explain how the subjective experience is created, just like our understanding of science before we knew of the atom wouldn't be able to explain nuclear energy.

If you made the emulated brain, the program doing it would have to know absolutely everything about the universe works, down to the smallest particles.

>>7432691
>Nothing in chemistry can explain how the subjective experience is created
You don't actually know that to any meaningful degree, you're just insisting it's true. Why in the name of God must it have to do with unexplored quantum phenomenon? Because somebody hasn't explained it using established phenomenon yet, in spite of the fact that doing so with very complex systems is actually quite difficult to begin with?

>>7420181
SEMANTICS

GET OUT

>>7432855
no, because you need a "jump" to a non-material essence born of material origins

>>7419116
We? Speak for yourself.

>>7431905
>It's paranormal because I say so and anyone who says otherwise is retarded

Is this a dank new /sci/ meme?

>>7432138
These niggers don't understand that conceptualizing is purely a human-defined ability, and any labels or classifications we give to totally non-correlated elements doesn't remove the fact that they are totally non-correlated. It's like believing the universe is built on numbers, when numbers are a purely human construct and have no meaning outside the practical definition we give it.

All I see in this thread is circular logic

>>7432418
>Wait, I thought this was really simple? Consciousness is a direct result of chemical reactions which all living things have, more so depending on complexity.

That's true. The reason this thread has gone on for as long as it has is because there are people that literally cannot grasp that concept for the life of them. Just look at your first reply, there are people convinced that there is something more than chemical reactions going on inside their heads.

>>7433006
see
>>7432953

>>7433017

You're a human, so of course you try to derive an abstract model for unrelated physical phenomena, emphasis on abstract. It doesn't mean the phenomena is actually related -- think of a scatter-plot, you can attach labels to specific convergences of data but the data is still unrelated, no matter how many labels you give it or how well it conforms to those labels. Human behaviour is completely based on the chemical reactions happening in your body with respect to the environment.

After many millenia, typical human behavior converges into a specific pattern, but you still have to remember human behavior has had millions of years to develop from an incredibly large and random pool of other human behaviors -- including the faulty ones, including the humans that couldn't formulate thought, including the humans that couldn't see color or had the mental capacity to move their arms or pump their hearts. You don't have any of these defects so of course having the ability to do what you do seems normal to you but that doesn't mean it was always like that.

TL;DR you're a by-product of millions of years of human evolution, including many many "failed projects". Your behaviour (including your thoughts, perceptions and experiences, no matter how abstract they may be) is nothing special and only works the way it works because that's what kept the genes churning down the factory line. There's nothing else in that head of yours except for chemical bonds, even if you don't understand how it all works.

>>7433050
do you agree awareness itself is a non-material phenomena? in the sense of, "being awake"

you can be "awake" and this is a distinct state from "non-awareness", if the environment is to be responded to, what purpose what consciousness serve? there is no reason to be aware of any reaction to the environement, in fact, much of our function occurs below our awareness. automatic processes. why would some be tied to our waking attention and others disregarded?

>>7433099
>do you agree awareness itself is a non-material phenomena? in the sense of, "being awake"

No. Neural stimulus is not a mystery. Speaking, and saying that I can feel neural stimulus and that two stimuli are different from each other, adds no mystery.

>>7433104
I am thinking about this...mostly concerning the word "subject", in the sense awareness is the sense of being the "subject" of your body's reactions.

So then I imagined touching a hot plate, this is a neural stimulus, why is it not good enough for the body to simply make it an involuntary action to move the hand away from the intense heat? And in fact, this is how it really is. This is the "shortcut" explanation of reaction, by the time you've realized the plate is hot, you've moved your hand away.

So then the question is why do i still need the "sensation" of pain if an involuntary reaction keeps me somewhat safe...and I feel the answer is memory.

So that in the future we can put two and two together, hot plate+hand=pain=NOT GOOD. and not "subject" ourselves to the situation. So consciousness does have an important function in terms of being a sort of harbor of memory, to better direct behavior, but this still doesn't get close to the sense of an INDIVIDUAL "popping" into existence, then is the "subject" of these million sensations, then "returns" just as simply, like the growth of some gigantic organic superbeing in the way of the "separate leaf, same tree" analogy. you see no mystery but its this sense of being a "subject" which to me is never quite answered sufficiently

>>7433278
to elaborate on this, I wanted to add that to imagine a being have this sort of "indirect response" to something dangerous, while being too automated would be "terrifying" to the subject. If you had "too little control" this would be extremely distressing to the organism, because it lacks digression. In the sense that not all situations in memory equal a perfect reaction to the "current" situation. Memory is literally a combination of factors and influences that more or less determine the "best" course of action, and even stranger, this "best course" can sometimes be self-destructive depending on how delusional the organism (or human) is. no one claimed it was a perfect system. I'm just imagining I would hate if everytime I heard a loud noise I would automatically "scream" to warn others of a danger or something. So it seems evolution has been extremely clever with this particular awareness which gives me at once a sense of control but also reasonable caution.

>>7433282
*discretion

>>7433282
You know I never thought it about it this way. Yeah the sensation of touching the hot plate would definitely be an involuntary action because of the way our brains are wired, meaning that no action we have truly is voluntary, so I never really considered the fact that we "know" we have the sensation to be any importance, but now that you say the fact that we know we had the sensation plays in to memory really makes sense. Nice, I really never thought of this, interesting as fuck

>>7433278
>>7433282
>>7433304
> in the sense awareness is the sense of being the "subject" of your body's reactions
>..and I feel the answer is memory
>Memory is literally a combination of factors and influences that more or less determine the "best" course of action, and even stranger, this "best course" can sometimes be self-destructive depending on how delusional the organism (or human) is. no one claimed it was a perfect system
>meaning that no action we have truly is voluntary, so I never really considered the fact that we "know" we have the sensation to be any importance

This is mind-opening. Don't get me wrong I already knew about the fact we're basically a chemical soup, but the idea that our conscious perception is actually caused by a form of time-lag between our memory and senses, and that everything we do is actually involuntary but we experience things as though we have control because of that time-lag is mind blowing

>>7433278
>but its this sense of being a "subject" which to me is never quite answered sufficiently

>>7433304 here, I think my scatter-plot example from above explains that quite well. As I pointed out before, humans have a tendency to form models for unrelated phenomena. I think that, over time, as we collect more and more information about the way we react to things, or rather, collect more and more information about experiencing the world from the POV of the "subject" of our body's reactions, we come up with a model that implies that WE are the subject.

I think this also explains why we feel we have control over our actions -- it makes sense that if all we experience are actions our brain has already committed as a result of finding the best course of action, we eventually believe that it's "our" will that controls these actions and not the way our brain is wired. Think of it like this: if you kept pushing a button, and a light bulb lights after only after you push it, eventually you would come to believe that the light bulb lights up only because you pushed the button, when in reality there is probably someone in another room who is turning the light on after he sees you push the button, which is what I think is actually happening. Like a form of operant conditioning.

Personally, thanks for your insights. I think I have a fuller picture of what consciousness really is now, thanks to your idea that we're just presently experiencing past memories caused by present stimulus, and eventually causes us to believe we are exerting control over involuntary actions. It explains so much, I'd probably even go so far to say it explains everything.

>>7433376
To better explain my point, imagine if you took a newborn and hooked it's eyes and such up to a monitor, and constantly played it POV movies from the point-of-view of one particular character, wouldn't it eventually believe that they were actually that character? I mean, of course it wouldn't work like consciousness does but it's just an example to better get across my point

>>7433322
>everything we do is actually involuntary
Reading comprehension issues? That was not the point and it is certainly not true. In the hot plate example, yes, because the reaction is a very primitive and instinctual one, but over time (as the brain developes a better model of itself and its surroundings) you can surely get around very well and make more or less "voluntary", planned and coordinated actions. All thanks to our memory helping out in the modeling process.

I say "voluntary" with quotes to avoid shitpost replies about free will/determenism. Some people seem to think that free will implies the ability to be completely in control of your whole organism/brain, which is of course ludicrous. We do have a limited free will, within our horizon of being. But the Being as such and most of the ongoing circumstances within it are of course beyond our control.

>>7433322
>>7433461
To elaborate on my rant, it baffles me that you think that everything we do could possibly be involuntary after it was explained to you (via the hot plate example) that memory is one of many tools that helps the brain to model and organize its sensations, resulting in the possibility of more complex and voluntary action.

The most important tool though is the brain's ability to model its own body and exert control over it. This is of course achieved by years of experimenting, with the brain feedbacking on the output that results from its own input onto the body (and through controlling the body, the rest of the world).

It takes the brain 20 years to get this right, for fucks sake. Why would we need all this time of brain training in adolescence if it's all going to be "involuntary" anyway?

>>7433461
>>7433473
Meant to quote this guy of course

>>7433304

>>7433473
What's interesting in this is of course that the idea of subjectivity, i.e. a "modeler", is one of the many things which are being modeled. I think a good read on this subject is The Ego Tunnel by neuroscientist Thomas Metzinger.

The idea of a subject is constantly reinforced by our interaction with other humans (we play a social role, get a name etc). Ultimately, I think that it is the developement of language that has over time enabled us to have a more intricate sense of selfhood than any other mammals and organisms.

>>7432434

It's literally self-explanatory you fucking thick-headed neanderthal. To have awareness of self cannot occur in degrees. How can you be partially aware of yourself? That means you are indeed aware of yourself.

Please eat shit, you jenkem-gargling knuckle-dragging mouth-breather

>>7432174

>how would you understand if the AI was as aware as you?

There you are again, begging the question. The assumptions you're making are:

(1) there are degrees or "levels" of awareness.
(2) That an AI may not be <i> as aware </i> because of inferior "levels" of awareness.

Note that in your first example, particularly:

>a robot "detecting" say, a block on a table is quite different than you seeing a block and testifying to its existence no?

The answer is: the robot uses machine learning algorithms, possibly convolutional neural networks (as is popular in computer vision) to essentially <i> learn </i> to distinguish between objects in-the-world. This may or may not include the robot itself; if it does include the robot, the robot is capable of attaining knowledge of some thing (e.g. an object that is him). It so follows that we have satisfied my definition of awareness as "knowledge or perception of some thing" and resolved all meaningful questions.

There are no "levels", there are no degrees of awareness. There is simply knowledge of self and knowledge of some object. Please don't create problems where they don't exist.

>>7432188
>implying that having a vivid imagination is at all meaningful if none of your ideas are right.

Are you a philosopher?

>>7433649
It is difficult to escape the notion of a human being some sort of elaborate robot. My initial response was that besides knowledge of self and object, there is also the relationship between self and object, in the sense that, to ask a robot what it could DO with the block, would be to quickly establish limitations. To ask you however, would be to elaborate quickly: "i could use the block to fill a gap in the wall I was building"
"If i was the size of an ant the block would be as large as a building"
"I wonder if something is inside the block"
"when I was young I played with blocks just like that"

and so on pretty much indefinitely. its essentially a relationship based on "utility" for the most part, how could the block be used as a tool (which is a natural thought) but regardless, I feel that one with "more" awareness would somehow be more open and or imaginative with all his possible relations to the block, as opposed to the robot, who simply detects "block exists in immediate space" as determined by his algorithm. but like I said, the human's thoughts could be described equally as more or less mechanical

>>7433461

I think you're the one with reading comprehension issues. I never said that involuntary action was the point that you were making, it's a conclusion I already reached on my own. The point I was making was that I never knew why, if our actions were involuntary and everything that we do is simply caused by the way neural stimulus travels in our brain's network, why we "experience" things from the POV that we do. I was saying that your (if you're the same anon) idea that our experiences are actually memories of those involuntary actions would explain why we believe we experience things as the subject of our neural stimulus and that it makes sense that over time we would believe that we were the subject of these experiences, much like this anon explained >>7433495

>it baffles me that you think that everything we do could possibly be involuntary after it was explained to you (via the hot plate example) that memory is one of many tools that helps the brain to model and organize its sensations, resulting in the possibility of more complex and voluntary action.

If that anon believes memory gives rise to voluntary action, and not that memory gives rise to better involuntary action, now that anon has implied some form of free will, it doesn't matter how he phrases it. He now has to explain why we have conscious control over certain things but not conscious control over others. There's no such thing as "limited free will", it's either you have free will or you don't. You can't say that chemical reactions control the involuntary part of your brain and "something else" controls the other part, so now he's gone and destroyed a perfectly viable hypotheses in favor of fucking fairy dust. I honestly thought we were having a nice logical discussion but now you've gone all /x/ on me.

>>7433473
>This is of course achieved by years of experimenting, with the brain feedbacking on the output that results from its own input onto the body (and through controlling the body, the rest of the world).

Again, if you had just accepted the idea that all of our actions (including thoughts) arise from the very finely tuned pruning system that is your brain's network of neurons, and that the reason you "experience" anything is that you're not experiencing but rather "remembering" things your body has already done, there wouldn't be any other explanation required.

But now you're invalidating that idea by assuming your brain "knows" things, builds knowledge and forms models which it uses to control itself. How does a newborn's brain control it's heartbeat? How does a newborn move it's arms if it has never moved it's arms before? You've backed yourself into a simple chicken and egg problem by bringing in an unnecessarily complex form of interaction.

>Why would we need all this time of brain training in adolescence if it's all going to be "involuntary" anyway?

Do you know how your neural system works? Although they aren't directly the same, artificial neural networks follow many of the same properties. Over time, your brain naturally converges into a set pattern if it is given enough data, in other words, your neurons "adapt" to following certain behavior over time. When you're born, your neural system is already in a configuration that allows you to beat your heart, adapt to new stimulus, and release hormones and excitatory stimulus to provoke control over certain bodily functions, i.e. your neurons are already in a state so that you won't die upon immediate birth, thanks to the magic of millions of years of evolution.

Forget it, If you really are the same anon from before then regardless of it was unintentional, your idea of memory explains alot in conjunction with total involuntary action, and that answer was good enough for me.

>>7432953
Why do you need to "jump" to that? You're not making a good case for this at all. 'Consciousness' could very well be the sum of certain material parts and interactions, i.e. an emergent feature of brain chemistry.

>>7433461
> In the hot plate example, yes, because the reaction is a very primitive and instinctual one, but over time (as the brain developes a better model of itself and its surroundings) you can surely get around very well and make more or less "voluntary"

Are you seriously implying that your brain develops free will over time? If all your actions are involuntary, then none of them are voluntary, and vice versa. You can't have both without coming up with some ridiculous Phlebotinum to explain it away. Choose one and only one

>>7434308
if you listen to
>>7420143
Chalmers in this video he explains how consciousness would not be the same as hurricanes or traffic jams
at 5:13

>>7434381
He's confusing systems with properties. Hurricanes and traffic jams, at least how he phrases them, are systems, while he phrases consciousness as more of a property. As a matter of fact it sounds like he's knows hes making this illegitimate comparison on purpose. If you look at hurricanes and traffic jams as properties, then how a traffic jam behaves shouldn't be a question you should ask, since you're now looking at it as a system, likewise with hurricanes, you shouldn't need to ask how a hurricane works if you're just treating it as a property of another complex system. Consciousness too, but notice he doesn't ask how consciousness works which would make it a system and in turn invalidate what he says earlier about "modern neuroscience thinks consciousness is an emergent property -- like hurricanes or traffic jams".

His script is engineered to trick you on this point. It is a property, and it is emergent from the chemical reactions in our brains but he's trying to trick you into thinking of consciousness as it's own system, which it isn't.

>>7434419
yes it is a property, but it will always include the paradox of "a tongue tasting itself" because "properties" are objects in the sense of being perceived. but "what" is perceiving these properties or objects is in itself a reciprocal of what it apprehends. its the classic "self/other" distinction. systems, properties, they all belong to the other. but the "self" is conscious of the other, its the division between seeing and the seen

>>7434431
>yes it is a property, but it will always include the paradox of "a tongue tasting itself" because "properties" are objects in the sense of being perceived.
> because "properties" are objects in the sense of being perceived.

What? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Properties arise out of systems. A property cannot be both a property and a system, which is what Chalmers tricks you into thinking by using both to define hurricanes and traffic jams.

>but "what" is perceiving these properties or objects is in itself a reciprocal of what it apprehends

Oh, I see where this is going. Fuck this

>>7434440
I can't not see it as some sort of paradox. in the sense of "something" "creating" another thing out of nothing. the something existed. you can never escape. same goes for anything I can even describe or talk about, it is always "out there", but its relevancy to "me" is always misunderstood. I can never truly turn the "light" i am shining on anything that is not me TOWARD me because it IS me. i am talking in the general sense of awareness or consciousness, not in the sense of a definite "ego" "me the human"

>>7434440
and more than that, the hard problem remains unanswered. it seems you aren't recognizing consciousness in anything of itself, which to me is absurd. its simply a "property" in the sense of "green" not existing apart from itself. I don't think he's trying to trick anybody, he's simply putting consciousness in a different category than simple properties or physical "events" being the result of the behavior of a certain system

>>7434440
it just humors me because you so confidently state it is emergent when the fact is people have spent years, decades, attempting to define the mechanism behind this "connection" (chemical reactions-->consciousness) and have failed, yet you take it as self-evident. as if you "know" this already, so your thought continues from there. you are ultimately defending a set of beliefs that you cannot be entirely certain exist

>>7430061
Yes this is dodging the 'how', because the 'how' is trivial: biochemics. I was aiming for the 'why'. I don't understand your second statement, can you get more specific?

>>7434440
I don't see why consciousness couldn't be on the same level as something we consider "inherently present" in our universe. we can break forces down into a certain elementary function, "gravity exists" but HOW DOES IT WORK? this is where equations become relevant, and yet, they remain a description. for purposes in this discussion, it is sufficient to say "gravity exists" in the sense "consciousness" exists, but "how they work" is not exactly a sensible question because that implies a machine type structure. an input output scenario LIKE hurricanes, a hurricane itself is a sort of chemical reaction. take these conditions, add these forces, end up with this. an output.

>>7434479
haha, the HOW is what I've just been talking about. this is the leap.

"why" could be answered in any frame of reference, it serves an important purpose if you realize where it leads. consciousness enables a certain control over the environment that is impossible without it. it is essentially an elaborate reasoning mechanism. if you notice this entire thread consists of opinions, an array of facts (states)and a general disagreement over the "correct" mode of reasoning to apply to somewhat abstract questions. reasoning begins to break down as soon as "cause and effect" begins to fail, i.e., logic is useful, but cannot be universally applied to understand the entirety of our situation

>>7434495
>aha, the HOW is what I've just been talking about

Then if you're still asking about the HOW that's no one's fault but your own. It's fucking biology it's as simple as that. Biochemistry. That's it. If you already have an answer for the "why" then why the fuck are you still here now that you have answers to both of your questions. You're still looking for some immaterial reason we have consciousness and you won't end this simple debate until someone agrees with you. Keep searching, you won't find shit

>>7434468
>I can't not see it as some sort of paradox. in the sense of "something" "creating" another thing out of nothing

I don't care dude, that's your problem, not mine. You're the one who thinks your brain is "creating something out of nothing", so it's your burden to find an answer for that, not me.
The reason I can brush off your stupid shit with a passing glance is because my understanding isn't based off such a stupid axiom

>>7434534
to me its a unique subject. I can't point toward anything that resembles what we would call consciousness. and on top of that, you only have your self as reference. to try to envision the quality of the consciousness of say, an insect is profound in its own right. because consciousness doesn't "appear" spontaneously over the course of evolution. there was no point in the evolutionary timeline when the "robotic" insect like creatures, or simple precursors to mammals "woke up" and stopped being "a slave to nature"...the recurring problem is that consciousness seems to have little function aside from delivering pain to the suffering organism that can know its pain. nature could easily make everything automatic. there is no purpose in making the monkey more conscious than the spider, except to claim the monkey has a more "complex" interaction with the environment. even more easily, you could say that with this full automatic environment, the universe itself would be completely "unconscious" and this is the ultimate impossibility to fathom.

>>7434591
>nature could easily make everything automatic.
Everything is automatic.

Your assumption that there is anything which is not is the root of your misunderstanding.

>>7434538
and I assume you move on to more "relevant" questions. most likely concrete functions that have some applicability to the real world. i get it, the steam engine wasn't created by philosophers. regardless, the mystery remains, whether you acknowledge it or not. to assert a smug satisfaction is to remain ignorant in some respect, whether or not this carries any weight in your own existence, is for you to decide. no one requires you to be the one to contemplate endlessly the unsolvable conundrum that is god

>>7434598
ah, so you like being a cog in the universal machine then? I assume you do, if you didn't, there's always suicide. but wait, that's painful. and nature tells us pain=stop, so looks like you're locked in then. oh well, you'll die someday. and sleep is painless. and death is just...the longest sleep there ever was. so, as long as the universe isn't cyclical, it looks like you're in the clear. just have to wait 50 or so more years. but wait, if medicine prevails, we might have new hearts and new lungs and flawless plastic surgery for skin tension, it is the fountain of youth, but if its all automatic, who the hell would choose to play again? play forever? an ape is a shitty thing to be...I can't even fly. maybe I'll request a bird body from the plastic surgeons. yeah that's it. i just gotta scrape up the money somehow.

>>7434619
>ah, so you like being a cog in the universal machine then?
Facts care not for your feelings. Personally it unsettles me, but generally I have an easy time realising that it's because such an understanding runs counter to my instinctive way of thinking.
My hope is that some of my progeny will eventually understand these things instinctively so it won't bother them in the slightest. What they choose to do will be up to them but I'm sure it will be cool.

>>7434619
>things aren't a certain way because if they were I wouldn't like it
Nature doesn't care about how you fucking feel

>>7433642

So animals are not aware of themselves to any degree whatsoever? Absolutely zero?

>>7434913
When the fuck did he say or even imply that? Who said anything about animals? Face it anon, your logic is retarded and belongs on /x/, not /sci/