
Is Consciousness Computable? - Fice
http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.0126
======
wildermuthn
I believe there's an argument to be made that consciousness is computation
itself.

I have a particular thought experiment about consciousness. Take a book, say,
Lord of the Rings. Is Frodo conscious? Probably not. But lets say the book was
extraordinarily detailed. Lets say the book was actually a mathematical model
that described the workings of Middle Earth down to every elementary particle.
Each page, a very long page, would describe one 'tick' of the Middle Earth
universe.

So you've simulated consciousness on paper. Not in a machine, mind you, but on
paper. But it isn't really a simulation as much as a description. It isn't
computation, but information. And that information doesn't make Frodo
conscious.

Now what if this book were put into a computer? And what if the world were
modeled just as accurately and explicitly as the book? Would Frodo then be
conscious, simply because a computer calculated the sequence of atomic
movements within Frodo's brain?

If so, is it the actual movements of those atoms that creates Frodo's
experience of reality, or is it the computation that calculates that movement
itself? Whatever process it is that allows reality to compute itself -- to
obey the laws of physics -- whatever process that is . . I'd say that act of
computation has more to say about consciousness that the actual result itself.

~~~
shasta
> Is Frodo conscious? Probably not.

How do you know?

> I'd say that act of computation has more to say about consciousness that the
> actual result itself.

And what is the act of computation? Is it not just a progression of
relationships in the physical world? Surely consciousness doesn't require an
observer to look at the atoms bouncing around in the computer to decide that
they are simulation of Frodo. Surely it's just the evolving relationship
between the atoms that's all that matters. If we could interpret any physical
system as evolving in a way that's isomorphic to a brain, shouldn't that also
produce consciousness? Maybe at the end of the day consciousness is just the
"existence" (whatever that means) of a certain Turing machine or number.

And if all of your understanding of this world is based on the state of your
brain now, then isn't it a simpler explanation that now and your impression of
consciousness, in this moment, is all that really exists?

A philosopher is someone bright enough to pose such questions and dim enough
to pursue their answers.

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hyperion2010
So I wrote a longer piece, and then realized that their whole premise is
simply incorrect. Our brain lies to us and fills in the gaps all the time. We
do not have perfect memory and continually deal with lossy information
integration. The idea that consciousness is lossless is basically a straw man.
I think it is fair to say that the brain enforces consistency of
representations of the universe and in that way provides something that
appears to be unitary, but it does so by discarding lots of information.
Furthermore it is pretty clear that we do not have lossless memory. Any
cursory look at the literature on eyewitness testimony will show this.

TL;DR The brain lies to us all the time. Just consider the blind spot. Our
unitary perception of the universe is an illusion and there is enormous
information loss on the way from the sensory environment to motor output.

------
debt
I like the intention but obviously it's impossible to compute consciousness
because "computing consciousness" doesn't mean anything. We don't know what
consciousness is.

I don't think many intelligent people realize how much of our understanding of
the mind is like the wild west; we have very little-to-no understanding of how
the mind works. Looking at pretty data visualizations from a brain scan
doesn't tell you _anything_ about the mind. Some very smart people still
contend that consciousness may not even exist[1]. It's hard to tell because
it's impossible to measure it objectively.

I think to talk about the mind, we need to use different language entirely.
We're still talking about it as if it's a science.

"Chalmers contends that such reductive explanations are available in principle
for all other natural phenomena, but not for consciousness. This is the hard
problem."

[http://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/](http://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/)

~~~
strgrd
It's so clear that you didn't read a single word of the paper. Even if you
want to argue that consciousness is somehow unknowable and not worth
discussing scientifically because humanity is still too dumb (lol, wat), the
authors provide a perfectly reasonable working definition of consciousness.

 _The theory proposes that consciousness is an information processing
phenomenon and can thus be quantiﬁed in terms of a systems’ organizational
structure, speciﬁcally its capacity to integrate information... What we mean
when we say that the human brain produces consciousness is that it integrates
information, thus producing behaviour which reﬂects the actions of a uniﬁed,
singular system._

~~~
debt
I'm not saying anyone is dumb; I'm saying we as a society haven't made
understanding the mind _a priority_.

Also, I did read it. That "workable" definition is so presumptuous about the
nature of consciousness. What I'm saying, and many others are as well, as that
we still need to have a discussion about what we're even talking about. The
mind may not even be able to be understood or measured in the "realm of
science". That is, we may have to use alternative language to explain
something like the mind.

We as a society haven't answered fundamental questions such as what is the
mind, why does it exist, where does come from, is it a physical/nonphysical
phenomenon, etc.

We can't really solve(especially "compute it") the mind problem if we don't
fully understand the problem domain.

~~~
krisgee
> why does it exist, where does come from, is it a nonphysical property of the
> body or vice versa

Are any of these actual debated questions? Outside of religious arguments I
don't think anyone can question that (in order) the answers are

It doesn't need a why/It was the best tool our ancestors evolved for their
niche

It comes from electrochemical reactions in your brain

Of course it isn't you die when you are killed, getting head injuries can
change your personality/memories.

Since your brain exists in physical reality the question "can we run a perfect
simulation of physics" is also exactly "can we compute conciousness". Since
it's looking pretty good that we can run a simulation of reality at the level
we work at it's also looking pretty good for that whole "mind" in a computer
thing.

~~~
functional_test
It sounds like you subscribe to Materialism [1].

In fact, these are widely debated questions. Materialism is only one of many
philosophies that seek to answer these questions (e.g. dualism). Be careful
about accepting answers like that if you haven't examined at least the major
alternatives.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism)

~~~
__david__
Widely debated by whom? These other philosophies are useless for trying to
figure out how consciousness (or _anything_ , for that matter) actually works,
as nothing they explain is falsifiable in any way.

I may as well argue about how many angels fit on the head of pin—some will
find the topic fascinating, but at the end of the day it doesn't actually
reveal anything useful about the world.

------
tekni5
This is going to sound pretty absurd, but I have this unscientific hypothesis
about what consciousness really is.

I believe there is a chance that consciousness is a requirement for a universe
to exist. Without consciousness the universe exists as random information,
contained within some infinite outside universe, where there is no time or
space.

So imagine this infinite outside universe full of all possible information, it
exists in some metaphysical location, it has always existed and it will always
exist. All this data makes zero sense and has zero purpose. Within this
information exist patterns of every kind, everything real and not real is
there. However for this data to become expressed, a conscious entity is
required to exist inside of this data for the overall universe to place it in
some sort of order.

Therefore consciousness acts as a binder of random information, for this very
conscious entity to exist some of this infinite information must be placed in
a coherent order. So in this view, the start of the universe does not occur
with the big bang, but with the first conscious entity. After this point, for
consciousness to continue to exist, it must have a narrative based on
fundamental laws which explain how it came into existence. All of history is
created after the first conscious entity appears, the formation of the
planets, evolution, etc.

To better understand this, imagine a roll of film. You take each frame of this
film and make it a separate slide. If you shuffle all these separate film
slides and ask someone to view them in no given order, it would make very
little sense of what the storyline is. However if you let them sort this
information, they might be able to arrange this film in a continuous and
coherent storyline. Similarly each planck time of our universe is a separate
slide of information which exists in infinity. If a conscious entity exists in
that frame the universe must provide a coherent storyline for that entity.
Therefore additional frames are pulled out from infinity to allow
consciousness to glide through infinity and essentially exist.

I hope that made sense, if I have failed to explain it I apologize.

~~~
kijin
That's not absurd, it's a perfectly plausible philosophical hypothesis. The
only thing that's wrong with it, besides the fact that the "first conscious
entity" sounds awfully similar to a god, is that I have no idea how to test
your hypothesis scientifically. But that shouldn't be a problem if you don't
intend your hypothesis to be a matter of science in the first place.

By the way, "consciousness is a requirement for a universe to exist. Without
consciousness the universe exists as random information..." is self-
contradictory, since existing as random information still counts as existing.
I don't think this is what you intended, so I would suggest that you change it
to something like "consciousness is a requirement for there to be order in the
universe" or something along those lines. (Caution: if you say "consciousness
is a requirement for the universe to be intelligible", that becomes sort of
tautological.)

Anyway, happy philosophizing!

~~~
tekni5
Thanks, excellent points. Maybe one day I will sit down and write everything
down properly, and re-edit not to make semantic errors.

I don't mean to imply the first conscious entity is a god, it's possible there
is no first but simply a time frame where conscious entities arise.

------
olalonde
Wouldn't that contradict
[http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.5831](http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.5831) which claims
that the laws of physics are computable? To be honest, I'm just a layman so I
might be misunderstanding something.

~~~
crystaln
Your presumption is that consciousness falls within the domain of physics,
which is not by any means a good assumption.

~~~
brianberns
Really? I can provide plenty of evidence that consciousness falls within the
domain of physics. Can you provide any that it's not?

~~~
orasis
This present experience falls outside the domain of physics. Physics is just
models. This present experience is real. Ideas and models about reality are
not reality, but rather contained within it.

~~~
pygy_
_> This present experience falls outside the domain of physics. [...] This
present experience is real._

So does/is the "material world" (assuming it is a thing of its own).

A model of the universe that doesn't take consciousness into account is
incomplete.

------
kanzure
Slightly off-topic, but here's what Wikipedia says (in part):

"""

Consciousness — The having of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; awareness.
The term is impossible to define except in terms that are unintelligible
without a grasp of what consciousness means. Many fall into the trap of
equating consciousness with self-consciousness—to be conscious it is only
necessary to be aware of the external world. Consciousness is a fascinating
but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does,
or why it has evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written on it.[19]

Philosophers and non-philosophers differ in their intuitions about what
consciousness is.[20] While most people have a strong intuition for the
existence of what they refer to as consciousness,[21] skeptics argue that this
intuition is false, either because the concept of consciousness is
intrinsically incoherent, or because our intuitions about it are based in
illusions. Gilbert Ryle, for example, argued that traditional understanding of
consciousness depends on a Cartesian dualist outlook that improperly
distinguishes between mind and body, or between mind and world. He proposed
that we speak not of minds, bodies, and the world, but of individuals, or
persons, acting in the world. [...] More generally, many philosophers and
scientists have been unhappy about the difficulty of producing a definition
that does not involve circularity or fuzziness.[19]

"""

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness)

Suppose that consciousness didn't actually exist, but within this theory you
grant that people really do have perceptions and experiences. Is that really
so bad? What does it miss?

------
woodchuck64
Michael Graziano's theory that consciousness is computed awareness of
attention suggests a far more interesting and perhaps computable solution.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3223025/pdf/nihm...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3223025/pdf/nihms328502.pdf)

[http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Social-Brain-Michael-
Gra...](http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Social-Brain-Michael-
Graziano/dp/0199928649)

------
jimmcslim
I always liked the idea in the old Cyberpunk tabletop RPG, that an artificial
intelligence arose out of the 'internet' with its vast amounts of
interconnected computing power, but because it was so loosely coupled and
distributed we could not observe it nor be aware of it (apart from a few
'netrunners').

------
letstryagain
If the human brain is conscious then obviously consciousness is in fact
computable. I don't see how the authors can reconcile their findings with
this.

~~~
harshreality
From the abstract: _" Since lossy integration would necessitate continuous
damage to existing memories, we propose it is more natural to frame
consciousness as a lossless integrative process and provide a formalization of
this idea using algorithmic information theory. We prove that complete
lossless integration requires noncomputable functions. This result implies
that if unitary consciousness exists, it cannot be modelled computationally."_

Seems to be setting up a straw man only to knock it down. Does anyone believe
the brain losslessly integrates information? If not, the conclusion doesn't
seem to apply.

~~~
DannyBee
They do, for even stranger reasons: " In particular, memory functions must be
vastly non-lossy, otherwise retrieving them repeatedly would cause them to
gradually decay".

To paraphrase babbage, "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of
confusion of ideas that could provoke such a statement."

Being lossy does not imply reading is lossy, it could be that writing destroys
old information.

~~~
yongjik
How funny, retrieving memory in human brains _do_ expose them to potential
decay or alteration.

[http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/20/when-
memo...](http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/20/when-memories-are-
remembered-they-can-be-rewritten/)

> Every time we bring back an old memory, we run the risk of changing it. It’s
> more like opening a document on a computer – the old information enters a
> surprisingly vulnerable state when it can be edited, overwritten, or even
> deleted. It takes a while for the memory to become strengthened anew,
> through a process called reconsolidation. Memories aren’t just written once,
> but every time we remember them.

------
orasis
For a similarly super-geeky exploration of consciousness, I recommend this
talk - "Consciousness and The Interface Theory of Perception"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqDP34a-epI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqDP34a-epI)

It provides a computable model of consciousness and reality that requires no
objective reality, only conscious agents interacting with each other.

------
sferoze
Algorithmic Information Theory is really amazing to me. I am still learning
about it but I feel like I can see the connection to nature.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory)

------
frozenport
I wonder what experts and those doing peer-review would say? Is this good or
bad quality work? How do we make sense of a social science article with no
context and specialist language?

Is there anything good here?

------
vinceguidry
Consciousness is very probably a computing process directly reliant on quantum
effects. As such it wouldn't be directly computable any more than any quantum
system is.

~~~
adrianN
Turing machines can simulate quantum computers. They just take longer to
compute the same function.

~~~
vinceguidry
The question, "is consciousness computable?" appears to me to be asking
something different than "can computation done by consciousness be simulated?"
The former seems to be asking if you can compute the state of consciousness
given some starting conditions.

As an entangled quantum state is impossible to compute, it would seem that
trying to compute the state of consciousness would be similarly impossible.

------
dkarapetyan
I think any sane or even insane person knows the human brain is nowhere close
to a lossless integrative device.

