X-Message-Number: 17964 Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 19:39:16 -0800 From: Dave Shipman <> Subject: More on consciousness (plus doubts) Hello again, Scott Badger (#17951) writes: "I thought before that you were saying that being aware of the environment was being conscious, but it now sounds like you're more precisely saying that appreciating the environment is what makes one conscious..." No, I still mean by consciousness the notion of subjective awareness. The various "types" of consciousness are really different types of processes going on in our brains that we can be aware of. Our brains are doing the computations and we are somehow consciously aware of the results of (some of) these computations. I assume we cannot consciously experience anything that has not otherwise been physically manifested in the brain. The mystery of consciousness is really the question of how these physical states and our mental states become correlated. My beach story included elements of basic sensory consciousness (smells), higher level sensory awareness (image analysis), and feelings of overall pleasantness ("Life is good"). The latter no doubt based on my previous beach experiences but also maybe on some primitive human instinct to enjoy hanging out at the beach. Desires, emotions, aversions, motivations and so forth are also physically based. As implemented in our bodies, they have a strong hormonal component as well as a neurological component. I see no reason in principle why they could not be coded up in a computer. But that doesn't mean the computer would necessarily "feel" them. As Freud pointed out, many of our desires and motivations remain unconscious. Sorry to keep beating a dead horse, but my point is that the computation and the qualia associated with the computation are not the same. I might eval the following expression in a LISP interpreter: (setq goodness-of-life 10) but the PC would not suddenly start to feel good. And I don't see how that would cease to be true even when the system includes lots of associated software, such as a "B-brain" subroutine monitoring the goodness-of-life variable, or subroutines making "decisions" on the basis of that variable's current value. Even if the machine starts to whistle "Zippity Do Da", that's just a behavior, it doesn't mean the machine is really happy. Finally, I must admit to my insecurities. My previous postings have been written in a sort of "manifesto" style, because I've been trying to hammer home a point that I see so many people missing. But I do sometimes worry that twenty years from now I will say to myself, "Geez, I can't believe I fell for the old consciousness trap. What could I possibly have been thinking?" Many people much smarter than I, and who have struggled with these problems for much longer, hold opposing views. Still the conviction that consciousness must be reckoned with is unshakable. I find that most books with the word "consciousness" in the title are actually explanations of brain processes, the physical correlates of our experiences, rather than about the subjective experiences themselves and how they come to exist. The philosopher David Chalmers, who's site Scott links, refers to this distinction as "the easy problem" versus "the hard problem". I believe that many thinkers are constrained by the prevailing scientific worldview. Within this worldview the notion of consciousness is impossible to define or specify. That's why I use stories and metaphors to get across what I mean by consciousness. If it could be specifically defined, then we'd just write a computer program for it and we'd be done. As I've argued though, that can't be right. But then again, I am haunted by the fact that we are able to talk and write about our qualia, and how could we do that unless the qualia themselves were embedded in the neural substrate? So despite my manifestos, I am really at a loss as to what it all means. -- Dave Shipman Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17964