

On the possible consciousness of rocks and panpsychism (title by Kottke) - rms
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-lede-t.html?ex=1353042000&en=b65c28295f8d0f28&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

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mynameishere
_Panpsychism may be easier to parody than to refute._

Much like Santa.

The possibility of mind-bits floating around does not explain why the nervous
system (which, at its earliest, has a well-understood and insensate habit of
food-gathering) would have more than its fair share of mind-bits.

We _do_ understand how silicon, germanium, copper, etc, turn into a machine
having something similar to thought processes, and these processes are 100
percent detached from the originating materials.

~~~
euccastro
How could the processes be detached from the materials, if their 'unfolding'
is determined[1] by their physical properties? And how would those processes
manifest without materials? Can there be consciousness without physical
manifestation?

[1] I'm ignoring open questions about determinism in physics since computers
as we know them don't depend on that stuff.

------
Tichy
The reason that consciousness eludes science is simple: nobody has ever given
a proper definition of it. All talk about consciousness is therefore only hot
air.

~~~
jkkramer
I would submit that to properly define something, you have to understand it.
Since consciousness is not understood, it has no definition. Talk about
consciousness isn't hot air; it's an effort to understand.

Science tends to be inductive: we have to leap from particular experiences to
abstract principles. With consciousness, we have the experiences but haven't
made the leap yet to principles.

~~~
Tichy
I doubt that "with consciousness, we have experiences". I think consciousness
is only an illusion.

OK, try to name at least something you consider an aspect of consciousness? I
already don't have a clue again what we are even talking about. What is
"consciousness" supposed to mean?

~~~
jkkramer
Consciousness is not an experience of something. It's the experience itself.
So it doesn't have qualities--it IS qualities. It's not red, it's what it's
like to see red. It's the immediate (no intermediary) subjective happenings of
your conscious mind. I can't point you to it because my pointing is a view
presented to you in consciousness.

It's not mystical or anything. In fact, it requires less faith than anything
else -- it's all you've ever known directly. You could be living in the real
world or in the Matrix, it doesn't matter. Either way, consciousness doesn't
change, just the contents of consciousness.

~~~
Tichy
"It's the immediate (no intermediary) subjective happenings of your conscious
mind."

Circular definition, doesn't work.

So it is neurons firing, fine. I just don't know why we need entire research
departments and conferences for that.

Or do you mean it is creating a model of the perceived world? Computers can do
that without a problem (quality of the model is a different matter).

Does it puzzle people in the same way how computer chips can process
information? Why not? (I am not talking about algorithms or electronics -
those are interesting)

~~~
coffeeaddicted
The best text I've read so far on that topic is the one from chalmers:
<http://www.imprint.co.uk/chalmers.html>

He made a strong argumentation for the difference between experiencing
something and having a experiencing state.

After that he also gets somewhat speculative, but at least reading the first 2
points is worth it.

~~~
Tichy
Thanks for the link, but in my opinion, he is just chasing a chimera. At least
he mentions the easy problems, and they are menaingful in my opinion. I have
no problem if people invest their time in trying to create artificial
intelligence. Those are well posed problems, like "create a chat bot i can
have a meaningful conversation with". The "experiencing state" in my opinion
is rubbish, it's nothing. As was written in the other thread, "how can physics
explain the sensation of eating a strawberry". I think that it is essentially
just like this: if(isEatingStrawberry()){ taste = strawberryTaste} (with more
associations etc., but there is nothing special about it that lies outside the
realm of physics).

------
shawndrost
"But the rock doesn't exert itself as a result of all this "thinking.""

What, and we do?

"How could the ineffable experience of tasting a strawberry ever arise from
the equations of physics?"

Physics, as applied here, is not subject to intuition.

Confused arguments for and against, but I find myself considering the idea
more than I had before.

