
Has Consciousness Lost Its Mind? - Hooke
https://www.chronicle.com/article/is-this-the-world-s-most/243599
======
matiasz
I find it interesting that Noam Chomsky rejects the mind–body problem as it’s
often presented, given that Newton demolished the concept of body, not mind.
Below is a relevant passage from the book _Optimism Over Despair_ , in which
Chomsky explains his position. I’d appreciate any references that elaborate on
this line of thought.

[Interviewer:] The well-known University College London linguist Neil Smith
argued in his book _Chomsky: Ideas and Ideals_ (Cambridge University Press,
1999) that you put to rest the mind-body problem not by showing that we have a
limited understanding of the mind but that we cannot define what the body is.
What can he possibly mean by this?

[Chomsky:] I wasn’t the person who put it to rest. Far from it. Isaac Newton
did. Early modern science, from Galileo and his contemporaries, was based on
the principle that the world is a machine, a much more complex version of the
remarkable automata then being constructed by skilled craftsmen, which excited
the scientific imagination of the day, much as computers and information
processing do today. The great scientists of the time, including Newton,
accepted this “mechanical philosophy” (meaning the science of mechanics) as
the foundation of their enterprise. Descartes believed he had pretty much
established the mechanical philosophy, including all the phenomena of body,
though he recognized that some phenomena lay beyond its reach, including,
crucially, the “creative aspect of language use” described above. He
therefore, plausibly, postulated a new principle—in the metaphysics of the
day, a new substance, _res cogitans_ , “thinking substance, mind.” His
followers devised experimental techniques to try to determine whether other
creatures had this property, and like Descartes, were concerned to discover
how the two substances interacted.

Newton demolished the picture. He demonstrated that the Cartesian account of
body was incorrect and, furthermore, that there could be no mechanical account
of the physical world: the world is not a machine. Newton regarded this
conclusion as so “absurd” that no one of sound scientific understanding could
possibly entertain it—though it was true. Accordingly, Newton demolished the
concept of body (material, physical, and so on), in the form that it was then
understood, and there really is nothing to replace it, beyond “whatever we
more or less understand.” The Cartesian concept of mind remained unaffected.
It has become conventional to say that we have rid ourselves of the mysticism
of “the ghost in the machine.” Quite the contrary: Newton exorcised the
machine while leaving the ghost intact, a consequence understood very well by
the great philosophers of the period, like John Locke.

Locke went on to speculate (in the accepted theological idiom) that just as
God had added to matter properties of attraction and repulsion that are
inconceivable to us (as demonstrated by “the judicious Mr. Newton”), so he
might have “superadded” to matter the capacity of thought. The suggestion
(known as “Locke’s suggestion”) in the history of philosophy was pursued
extensively in the eighteenth century, particularly by philosopher and chemist
Joseph Priestley, adopted by Darwin, and rediscovered (apparently without
awareness of the earlier origins) in contemporary neuroscience and philosophy.

There is much more to say about these matters, but that, in essence, is what
Smith was referring to. Newton eliminated the mind-body problem in its classic
Cartesian form (it is not clear that there is any other coherent version), by
eliminating body, leaving mind intact. (191–192)

~~~
neonate
That's fascinating. How did Newton "eliminate body" and demonstrate that "the
world is not a machine"? Chomsky must be referring to specific texts here.
Anybody know what they are?

~~~
hyperpallium
Mechanical: the contact theory, that one thing can only affect another by
being in contact with it e.g. the teeth of gears.

Unfortunately, gravity ("spooky action at a distance") does not require
contact, so the mechanical theory fails. Which can be stated figuratively as
_" the world is not a machine"._

 _" The machine, the ghost, and the limits of understanding: Newton's
contributions to the study of mind"_ at the University of Oslo, September 2011
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=D5in5EdjhD0](https://youtube.com/watch?v=D5in5EdjhD0)

~~~
ealloc
I've read Chomsky's opinion on this before in his essay ""Science, Mind, and
Limits of Understanding", and I think he misunderstands the physics.

He seems to think Newton accidentally disproved the concept of locality
through his theory of gravity. It's true that philosophers largely gave up on
locality in the 18th century because of Newton, but that was only temporary:
In the 19th century the principle of locality came back with a vengance after
Maxwell.

Today the principle of locality is a key component of the Standard model: The
Hamiltonian of the standard model is local, meaning you can compute what
happens at a point in spacetime knowing only what is going on in an
infinitesimal region around it. Even outside the standard model, LIGO proved
that graviational waves exist, and therefore gravity is a local phenomenon.

Einstein was famously prepared to give up on quantum mechanics because it
seemed to violate the principle of locality, which he thought was more
important. That is still debated sometimes, though whether quantum nonlocality
exists seems to be a matter of interpretation and is also different from the
kind of locality chomsky is talking about. Locality is still a key principle
in physics.

~~~
hyperpallium
> what is going on in an infinitesimal region around it

A "field" is just a name for spooky action at a distance. It's a description,
not an explanation. There is no mechanical contact, only "locality" of a
field.

Or are you saying that fields are really mediated by particles... so there is
mechanical contact?

~~~
ealloc
Yes, forces transmitted through fields act "at a distance", but is that really
"spooky"? Do you think it is "spooky" that if you make a wave at one end of a
pond, the wave reaches the other end? I don't. I consider the propagation of
waves to be a "local" non-spooky phenomenon.

Disturbances in a field propagate through space similarly. A disturbance of
the field at a point only affects the value of the field in the immediate
spacetime surroundings, just like a water wave. I would call that "local" and
non-spooky. Whether or not there is "mechanical contact", whatever that means,
is irrelevant.

This is in contrast to Newton's theory of gravity, where the force of gravity
was spookily felt instantaneously across space.

~~~
hyperpallium
> A disturbance of the field at a point only affects the value of the field in
> the immediate spacetime surroundings, just like a water wave.

Ok, I see that's local (though not mechanical, as you say).

I think a magnetic field (as from a magnet, not a wave) is not local though?
So, the transmissiin of modulation is "local", but the field itself is "at a
distance"?

~~~
meikos
When you move the magnet, the field change takes a while to propogate
outwards. So, yes also local

------
amthewiz
The conference sounds like a nightmare for serious scientists and
philosophers. Consciousness is a broad term with lots of nuances -
([https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/consciou...](https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/consciousness/)
presents a good summary). Following unconventional and novel approaches to
understanding consciousness are fine, but the Deepak Chopra style dancing on
the linguistic vagueness is infuriating. I am glad I did not attend this
conference and instead opted to present some ideas at ASSC conference later
this month.

~~~
Latteland
Thanks for the link. It reminded me of an idea I'd heard before, that some
speculate there was no consciousness until Hellenic times. I find that idea
absurd and even offensive. I believe and we have evidence to support that we
are really not that different than people in ancient times, with the same
drives for violence, happiness, children, nurturing, trying to understand the
universe. To think that until that time people didn't wonder about their
place, or try to figure out what the world might mean and ponder the self. It
has just struck me as the most amazing, unfair world view that we are better
in the modern world, smarter, etc.

------
ppod
Is it really surprising that we have a first person subjective experience? We
know that we are incredibly complex things, constantly integrating and acting
on very complicated external stimuli. Such a system should have references to
its own body and its own neural states, its train of reasoning should
frequently include itself, its focus will drift forward and backwards in
time... this is just how a system like this would work. If the system
communicates about its state then its language should have referents to these
internal states, referents like "experience", and "feels like", and "I
understand". Is that surprising? Wouldn't it be surprising if it wasn't like
that? I don't think you need to invoke an essentially mysterious "conscious"
property of the mind to explain that.

~~~
goatlover
Say we had a very detailed world simulation running on a massive server farm,
like you see in some SciFi stories. Would the characters inhabiting this world
have conscious experiences? They consist of complex bit patterns, or more
accurately, electricity.

If you think they would, then let's take it one step further. A billion
Chinese people are tasked with writing out the 1s and 0s on paper to implement
the world simulation. This may take generations and the felling of forests,
but it's done.

Would the process of writing down that program result conscious experiences
the same as if the program was run on digital computers?

What about when the task is done? Would the paper be conscious or the ink on
it? What if all the papers were separated by thousands of miles?

If you've read Greg Egan's Permutation City, then a similar sort of
questioning was explored with the uploaded brain copies. The author ends up
with his own weird "dust theory of consciousness", because there really isn't
a good explanation for why any physical state would be conscious.

~~~
mjrpes
Of all thought experiments, I've found the billion workers communicating with
1 and 0's to be the strongest illustration of the mind/body problem. It is
just absurd at that point to believe consciousness could reside there.

I've wondered, too, whether there is a connection between the mind/body
problem and the problem of existence (why is there something rather than
nothing). These two problems seem to be fundamentally insurmountable.

~~~
mr_toad
> It is just absurd at that point to believe consciousness could reside there.

You’re just begging the question. ‘It sounds absurd’, is not a cogent
argument.

~~~
mjrpes
I gave my intuition. There is no argument here.

------
nsomaru
The main difference I've identified between Eastern (Indian, Vedantic) thought
and the Western paradigm is as follows:

The western minds starts with a body/brain existing before a
mind/consciousness and his enquiry is conditioned from this starting pointing.
He seeks the cause of consciousness in some material phenomenon.

In contrast, the Eastern (again, Vedantic) paradigm is inverted.
Consciousness, mind, is given a priori and matter (body, brain) emerges
therefrom. I'd be interested to see any Western minds taking this approach.

For further reading, would recommend researching the three states of
Consciousness, "waking" "dream" & "deep-sleep"

~~~
szemet
I'm not that well versed in continental philosophy, but there is a whole (and
somewhat diverse) program called phenomenology which originally planned to
explain everything started from the basic fact of experience.

 _" Phenomenology, in Husserl's conception, is primarily concerned with the
systematic reflection on and study of the structures of consciousness and the
phenomena that appear in acts of consciousness. Phenomenology can be clearly
differentiated from the Cartesian method of analysis which sees the world as
objects, sets of objects, and objects acting and reacting upon one another."_
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_\(philosophy\))

I'm not sure if they discovered anything that belongs to mainstream science
now. (But, for example, I frequently see references to "Phenomenology of
Perception: Maurice Merleau-Ponty" here and there, in modern discussions.)

I have not really read anything from these authors, (only some Heidegger) so I
can't have any respectable opinion on the subject (also my strongest
impression about continental philosophy is from Sokal;), just pointing to the
field...

------
alex_young
The whole thing is hopelessly bogged down in linguistic vaguery to the point
of making the key questions quite meaningless.

What is 'consciousness'?

Is it "the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings" as the first
hit on Google suggests? If so, can we then define 'awake', 'aware', or even
'one' without circular reasoning?

Why isn't it acceptable to define consciousness as the operating instructions
of the mind?

This quickly leads to another linguistic quagmire called 'free will'. If we
agree that everything in our heads is governed by the laws of nature, we can
agree that there are one of two possible reasons for any 'decision' we make:
it was facilitated by a direct cause or it was random. There can be no other
actor.

Assuming a direct cause following our operating instructions, does this mean
that there is no free will? To answer that we have to open up the word
'choice'.

Choice: "an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more
possibilities."

We loop around to the beginning.

You define 'decide' or 'choose' any way you want to. Tell me free will is real
or fake. I don't care. All I know it there are no external actors in my head
and things are either 100% predictable or random. Everything else here is a
very roundabout argument about the way we use English. Boring.

~~~
goatlover
> Why isn't it acceptable to define consciousness as the operating
> instructions of the mind?

Because that's not what's being debated. You can use words any way you want,
if you don't care about communicating, or you just want to dismiss an
argument. But philosophically, consciousness means subjective experience. When
I experience seeing red or being in pain, that has nothing to do with the
abstract concept of "operating instructions".

Now there might be the functional equivalent for that concept implemented by
the brain when we have subjective experiences, at least on a computational
view of the mind. But that's not equivalent to the experience itself. A red
experience is not an operating instruction, because you can't write a red
experience down, nor can you program the algorithm for that, or put it into an
equation, but you can do so with an instruction.

It's a category mistake to conflate an experience with a functional concept.

~~~
red75prime
> But that's not equivalent to the experience itself.

How do you know that? What would be different, if it is not the case?

Forget for a moment about category errors, and take that at face value.
Informational processes are the experience. What would be different?

------
Animats
Key quote: _" There’s something about the topic of consciousness that, unlike
other scientific fields of inquiry, inspires an unearned feeling of
expertise."_

Yes.

~~~
lgas
Perhaps the fact that it's a subject that everyone has experience with?

~~~
amthewiz
I see what you did there.

------
DonHopkins
"New Age": rhymes with "Sewage".

>Oh, by the way, attendees could also take a gong bath, during which you’re
bathed in the musical vibrations of a gong being struck. Or lie down in a
curiously unsupervised and unstable-looking sensory-deprivation chamber. Or
take a black-light yoga class, which involves — as the name suggests — doing
yoga in a room illuminated by black light accompanied by a DJ pumping out
frenetic techno beats. Meanwhile, a company offered demos of a brain-
stimulation device that had to be inserted way too far up one nostril. And an
enthusiastic fellow demonstrated his Spontaneous Postural Alignment technique,
in which a misaligned subject’s elbow is tapped with a gold medallion while
the healer intones, "boy-yoi-yoing."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoS1MCF8AeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoS1MCF8AeI)

------
chrisweekly
About 20 years ago I read and enjoyed a book by Roger Penrose (a theoretical
physicist who worked w/ Stephen Hawking) titled something like "Consciousness
and the Universe" (sorry no link avlbl, from memory). It was more interesting
than persuasive, but worthwhile.

~~~
hackpert
I think you may be referring to “The Emperor’s New Mind” [1]

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Mind](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Mind)

~~~
chrisweekly
Yes! Thank you, @hackpert :)

------
SteveJS
Thomas Metzinger’s ‘The Ego tunnel’ is a very good book picking apart the
phenomenon of consciousness.

~~~
meridiansoul
On a Metzinger-related note: he also edited and curated the OpenMIND project,
which features a number of (mostly philosophical?) papers on consciousness and
the mind, as well as corresponding commentaries and replies - including papers
by Daniel Dennett, Ned Block, and Andy Clark.

[https://open-mind.net/](https://open-mind.net/)

------
amelius
Has anyone tried to explain consciousness starting from absolute nothingness,
i.e. without even physics?

IANAP, but it might make more sense to do it like that, instead of describing
physics and then bolting consciousness on top.

~~~
red75prime
Of course, many and many philosophers did. And we have a multitude of
explanations.

~~~
amelius
Examples?

~~~
red75prime
Such approach is called arguments a priori.

Descartes. He can conceive non-existence of material world, but cannot
conceive non-existence of self, therefore his consciousness doesn't belong to
the physical realm.

Chalmers. He can conceive non-existence of his own consciousness, while
physical world stays the same, therefore consciousness doesn't supervene on
physical properties and physicalism is false.

R. Brown. [0] He argues that it is equally possible to conceive non-existence
of one's own non-physical consciousness, while physical and non-physical parts
of the world stay exactly the same. Therefore a priory arguments can't be a
basis for deciding the truth of physicalism or dualism.

Dennett thinks that what we perceive as ourselves and the world around us are
illusions and do not deserve the title of "hard problem". And so on.

[0]
[https://philpapers.org/archive/BRODTA.pdf](https://philpapers.org/archive/BRODTA.pdf)

------
FrozenVoid
The problem could be that we lump different layers of the mind into one mash-
up concept, while in reality there is a complete "software stack" hierarchy of
layers.

------
carapace
Consciousness has no qualities so it can't be studied scientifically. Chalmers
is doing the next best thing: investigating precisely what "gray-matter
activity" engenders a noticeable change in qualia.

I want to point out that it is possible for two conscious systems to merge and
share consciousness. It is a very intimate process, so you don't hear a lot
about it, even at places like Science of Consciousness conference, but it's
one way to approach the study of consciousness.

~~~
Mahn
Consciousness must arise out of something, and that something ought to have
qualities than can be studied.

~~~
monktastic1
The idea that consciousness must arise out of "something" also needs to be
demonstrated, even though it looks obvious on the surface. The best analogy I
can give is a dream. If you see a red flower in the dream, you will assume
that the experience of redness is caused by something in the dream, whereas
its real cause lies beyond any "somethings" in the dream. It is possible to
know this by waking up from the dream.

I could try and convince you that it's possible to know the same thing about
_this_ particular dream, but without being able to offer you evidence it might
not be very useful.

~~~
Mahn
Ok, but if you keep digging, eventually you are going to stumble into the
concept of the dream itself, and then the question then becomes what
properties and qualities of the process of dreaming gave birth to a red flower
in the mind.

I will concede that how consciousness really arises may look nothing like what
we can imagine or picture today, but we have yet to come across something that
is both real and escapes scientific observation, and I don't think we should
approach consciousness as such.

~~~
monktastic1
The idea here would be that consciousness isn't a "thing" at all, and so
doesn't abide by the same constraints as things. Instead, consciousness is the
very luminosity that arises _as_ the experience called "seeing a red flower"
(as well as all sights, sounds, thoughts, etc. that constitute your experience
of the world). Space, matter, energy, etc. are then mental categories
convenient for describing the shape and behavior of consciousness.

The two questions are then (1) what is the cause of this luminosity itself,
and (2) why is it taking this particular form (red flower).

The mystical claim is that it is possible to know firsthand that time, space,
etc. are illusions constrained to this dream, and that the luminosity itself
is beyond them (and therefore not meaningfully "caused"). And the answer to
why the dream is taking this particular shape can be known because "you" are,
ultimately, the luminosity itself (aka "God").

Proving this to others is a different matter. In fact, in general the problem
of intersubjectivity (to avoid the whole thing collapsing into solipsism) is
the hardest aspect to communicate.

~~~
sdfin
For those who are interested, I add that the idea that monktastic1 shares is
present in different mystical traditions. I find it at least curious. I copy
some quotes I once found in the web about this.

\---------------------------------

He is the Eternal among things that pass away, pure Consciousness of conscious
beings. —Upanishads (Hindu)

All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, besides
which nothing exists. —Huang Po (Buddhist)

The light by which the soul is illumined, in order that it may see and truly
understand everything...is God himself. —St. Augustine (Christian)

He is the spirit of the cosmos, its hearing, its sight, and its hand. Through
Him the cosmos hears, through Him it sees, through Him it speaks, through Him
it grasps, through Him it runs. —Ibn 'Arabi (Muslim)

Mind comes from this sublime and completely unified source above; it is
divided only as it enters into the universe of distinctions. —Menahem Nahum
(Jewish)

\---------------------------------

The quotes are from
[https://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/index.php/Articles/t...](https://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/index.php/Articles/the-
mystical-core-of-the-great-traditions.html)

------
didgeoridoo
> What is it that makes us more than just information processors with feet?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question)

~~~
mikeash
Seems like a reasonable question to beg. Unless you want to claim that CPUs
are conscious or that humans are not, _something_ is different.

~~~
red75prime
That's a false dichotomy. CPUs can run all sorts of programs, some of which
can be self-aware agents for all we know.

~~~
hliyan
Not unless we can reduce self-awareness to an algorithm, which I don't think
we can. We can, however, reduce the _appearance_ of self-awareness down to an
algorithm.

~~~
naasking
> Not unless we can reduce self-awareness to an algorithm, which I don't think
> we can.

By the Bekenstein Bound, the human brain is at best a finite state automoton.
Unless you wish to appeal to some supernatural element in consciousness, like
dualism, consciousness is reducible to an algorithm.

~~~
aninhumer
This only proves that _behaving identically to a human_ is reducible to an
algorithm. The actual experience of consciousness is something secondary to
behaviour.

It's possible that an algorithm which behaves as a human experiences
consciousness identically to a human, as some fundamental property of reality,
or it's possible that it does not. We cannot know, because consciousness is
not something that we can observe.

~~~
fvdessen
How is the experience of consciousness secondary to behaviour when the concept
of consciousness emerged from and influenced our behaviour ?

It seems as strange to me to imagine that we could have two identically
behaving beings, one with consciousness, and one without; as imagining that we
could have identically behaving beings, one with eyesight and one without.

~~~
majewsky
When I think of my mother (e.g. how she would react when I tell her
something), that's basically a simulation of her running in my head. Is this
simulation self-aware? If not, then that's one way to imagine two identically
behaving beings, one with consciousness (my actual mother) and one without (my
brain's simulation of her).

(For the sake of argument, I assume that I know my mother so well that her
behavior will be indistinguishable for all intents and purposes from my
simulation of her in my head.)

~~~
naasking
You're not simulating your mother, you've built a simple predictive model of
your mother's behaviour. These aren't the same. It's like the difference
between my actual social network, and the model of my social network that
Facebook has. My actual social network contain considerable nuance that isn't
captured by Facebook's data model.

------
snambi
Actually losing the mind or making the mind irrelevant is important for
consciousness.

------
gameswithgo
Why is Deepak there?

~~~
mcguire
Because the point is to make the organizer feel important and having a large
number of people attending does that. Deepak is a draw.

------
megamindbrian2
I know I know! Aliens... it's the best explanation.

------
saalweachter
Is there a basis for quantum cognition beyond “I want my brain to be different
from my cell phone.”?

~~~
hliyan
There is some thinking that the quantum effects at the neuron level makes the
brain a non-deterministic computing device (i.e. its outputs are not solely
governed by its inputs). This opens up the possibility that human brain,
unlike computers, are driven by something more than just the sum total of its
structure and inputs (without which, we could rightly be considered machines
with no free will).

Whether that "something" is just a collection of randomness, or something
more, is unknown and currently there is no scientific basis to think it is
something more.

~~~
gpderetta
FWIW, most computers today have builtin non deterministic hardware rng. They
do bot seem qualitatively different from computers lacking them.

~~~
hliyan
Yes, but those are explicitly invokable random functions, and not random
fluctuations built into the entire functionality of the CPU.

~~~
bhouston
The brain is random all over because it depends on liquid chemical reactions
and diffusion and concentrates, etc. And those do not have fixed time courses,
just probability distributions of reaction times. The brain is also ultra
parallel with massive noise in all of its signals.

You do not need quantumness in the brain to introduce randomness, it is filled
to the brim with randomness already.

~~~
wetpaws
The devil in detail here is that you are probably want to use term
"stochastic" rather than "random". While hardware model of the brain can
fluctuate slightly, from a higher level all processes are pretty
deterministic.

------
hliyan
Few things hurt science more than people who put their desire for their ideas
to be true, over experimental evidence. Unfortunately, the more difficult it
is to gather experimental evidence (as it is psychology), the more this desire
takes over, I think.

Currently, we have no choice but to relegate everything we think we know about
consciousness to the realm of hypothesis, because the only form of evidence we
have (first hand experience) cannot be shared or analyzed. I don't have a huge
problem with people hypothesizing that consciousness (or perhaps more aptly,
free will) has quantum properties, but they should clearly label them as such
-- hypotheses.

~~~
3pt14159
I 100% agree that science is held back by that desire, but there are some
parts of consciousness we can test. Giving sight to the blind, for example,
and getting them to see a cube and sphere for the first time. Giving someone
varying amounts of LSD. I would argue even talking about consciousness with
individuals in a lab-like setting. If most individuals use the same type of
language to describe certain behaviours at the very least it bounds the range
of what could be collective delusion.

~~~
hliyan
We had a debate at office about this. We had a lot of trouble untangling
perception (or awareness) from _qualia_ (which is basically a thing as
experienced by a person). For example, a cat may be aware of its reflection in
the mirror, and may eventually map points on the mirror to points on its own
body, but is there something inside the cats brain that is doing the
observing? Or is it just a computing device that operates on a continuous
input-processing-output loop that learns from previous loops?

~~~
Mahn
> is there something inside the cats brain that is doing the observing? Or is
> it just a computing device that operates on a continuous input-processing-
> output loop that learns from previous loops?

The big question is, is there a difference? We haven't really established
whether a sufficiently complex input-processing-output algorithm could also be
a self-aware _thing_ inside the cat's brain doing the observing. To posit that
both things are separate mechanisms is a dangerous assumption, I think, when
we don't really know what that "thing inside the cat's brain that observes"
is.

~~~
hliyan
Interesting. Would you say there is a "thing inside the brain that observes"
in the case of humans, or more specifically, in your case personally? Much of
my argument rests on the flimsy pillar that I personally perceive myself as an
observer in a way that is different from inanimate objects.

Perhaps the only difference is in the level of complexity?

~~~
Mahn
We can only speculate, but in my mind, to "be" the one that observes does not
preclude from there being something in my brain that observes, which in turn,
unconsciously, becomes part of what I call my identity and self. At the end of
the day, to the best of our knowledge, living beings are made of the same
atoms and chemical reactions as inanimate objects. So, yes, I would speculate
that it's all a question of complexity.

------
motohagiography
I've found the necessary condition of assuming atheism in a lot of cog.sci
discussions can become a kind of "the floor is lava," constraint, where it
seems like a game where you can reason about these things credibly so long as
you don't fall into a deist trap.

Hopping from island to island of logical consistency is fun and drives
material innovation, which even perhaps provides a kind of moral teleology you
can backfit to political problems - but viewed from outside, it can seem like
a bit of a game.

It would be really interesting to read a theologians view of AI, maybe a
question for Google's Vatican office (if there were one)?

~~~
todd8
I have had extensive conversations with a theologian, my father (he has a
doctorate in theology). I finally decided that I don’t have to change his
mind, he has faith and that’s all there is to it. He’s well read, believes in
science, evolution, etc. However, he accepts that there is an all powerful god
so practically no argument can change that belief.

With respect to cognition, when I asked him about the possibility that
computer thought might be indistinguishable from human or at least higher
level animal thought some day, his reply was that such would be a kind of an
illusion of consciousness but that “real” consciousness is by definition not a
mechanical thing and only possible in a living organism.

I feel like most religious people are like my father in that they have
unexamined categories that allow religious ideas to coexist with modern
science in their personal metaphysics.

I love my father so we simply don’t talk about religion (or politics) anymore.

~~~
nsxwolf
How did a perfectly reasonable conversation and disagreement cause you to
decide that you can't talk to him about religion anymore?

~~~
whatshisface
Because you can reach a perfectly amicable point where you realize that one
person's belief is a decision - you understand their arguments, they
understand yours, but nothing that either of you say will change the other
person's mind. We tend to think that people think through the options and go
for the most salient one, but sometimes they say, "I'm going to believe this"
and then they do. In that case, you'd have to unseat their will to change
their mind.

~~~
Semirhage
You can also reach a point where, as you said, they’re not fanatical or cut
off from science and objectivity, they just have a lens through which they
view it all. It’s a tough life, and a belief in a higher purpose or underlying
cause must be very comforting to some, and if they can still accept reality as
it exists, what’s the harm? If they’re not out to convert you, or argue that
Earth is 6000 years old, then there are probably better things to discuss than
their faith.

------
myWindoonn
Normally I think that Chopra is a complete tool, but every one of his quotes
and actions here seem lucid, if extremely guru-like. Nonetheless his Twitter
feed and presentations still seem batty, and he still sells the supplements
and other trash. Perhaps he can turn it on and off?

~~~
vertexFarm
There's a reason why he's famous. That reason is not that he's actually
insightful or correct with his cut-up dadaist nonsense quotes. It's because
he's very good at acting like a guru.

"Whatever you tell Deepak Chopra, he responds as if he knew in advance what
you were going to say." I love how he thinks he's smart for predicting people
will treat him like a nut after he acts like a total nut for decades.

When a field is largely pre-scientific like consciousness, lots of "gurus" are
drawn in who try to substitute flashy language and bold, general statements
for actual rigor and reproducible predictions. The state of the study of
consciousness today almost guarantees by definition that there is no objective
observation or falsifiable claims, and reproduction of someone's experiment is
very difficult in any way that proves anything meaningful.

Chopra just excels in saying some unnecessarily terse and ambiguous statement
that will naturally appeal to one's pareidolia, causing people to think it's
some incredibly deep and multifaceted wisdom when in fact it can be replicated
with a random word bank:
[http://www.wisdomofchopra.com/](http://www.wisdomofchopra.com/)

The whole quantum woo crowd is really saddening. I mean obviously quantum
effects have something to do with it, in as much as quantum effects have
something to do with everything. But when you take some barely-understood,
bleeding-edge physics and apply it to a horrifically complex and almost
completely unknown field like the origin of consciousness, stating that this
is where your soul or free will or whatever comes from, you can be ABSOLUTELY
GUARANTEED that this person is so full of shit their eyes are turning brown.
Quantum weirdness™ does not exist solely to prop up people's baseless
spiritual beliefs. Be very wary of people who twist physics in to such
convenient and anthro-centric ways.

~~~
knuththetruth
>Chopra just excels in saying some unnecessarily terse and ambiguous statement
that will naturally appeal to one's pareidolia, causing people to think it's
some incredibly deep and multifaceted wisdom when in fact it can be replicated
with a random word bank:
[http://www.wisdomofchopra.com](http://www.wisdomofchopra.com)

This is a very astute observation and very true of similar “guru” types like
Jordan Peterson. They use tricks of language and presentation to exploit how
people parse ambiguity and make themselves seem “wise.”

~~~
vertexFarm
Somebody even did a hilarious study about it:
[http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf](http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf)

------
childintime
I doubt anyone will read this, as I'm somewhat late to the party.

I'd like to get in touch with a serious research group, because the barrier to
scientific and social advances is the recognition of ESP (Extrasensory
Experience) as the mechanism the mind works with.

I'm sure I can prove ESP and I'm not a telepath. Seriously, it is so common,
that the big question is why I was blind to it. In simple experiments, with
hardly any effort, I see ESP confirmed, daily. That is: mind to mind contact
without relying on sound, vision, or a chemical channel.

I have a hard time theorizing the mechanism, but as distance doesn't seem to
be much of an obstacle (and effects are immediate), the processes seem to
involve entanglement and superposition, as concepts. Not radiowaves ;)

As the article never once mentions ESP, I think the title of the article is
very apt. A reflection of the underlying scientific poverty.

A poor scientific state of mind leads to a society which doesn't know how to
properly nurture itself, thus going of on a tangent. Thus it engages in
madness (as opposed to doing the mentally healthy thing), and tends to
terrorize, abandon and sacrifice the individual in its pursuit.

~~~
marcos89
Hi, a couple of questions:

1\. Could you describe the experiments you mentioned to prove ESP? What would
be your experiment context? What would you measure? How would you measure it?
Which precision would you be satisfied with to say you've proven ESP?
(Precision should be a quantity related to the way you're gonna measure).

2\. It seems that you have actually measured this phenomenon, since you
actually say: "effects are immediate" and independent of distance. That's a
big statement. Could you provide us with the measures of this phenomenon and
show us their independence of distance? Actually, the most interesting part
would be: what equipment did you use to measure such small amounts of time?
You said "effects are immediate", but "immediate" cannot be actually measures,
because every equipment has its precision (so you would be only sure that two
numbers are equal (which means immediate effect) until a certain point). What
is your precision to measure this? What equipment did you use to do measures
faster than the speed of light? (Since, you're saying that definitely
radiowaves are ruled out, so that means you actually have a measure with a
precision faster than the speed of light, the speed in which radiowaves
communicate).

If you don't have measures, then it wouldn't make sense to rule out
radiowaves. Actually, if you don't have measures, it would also seem that your
analysis is highly biased by what you think is true, even selecting the
"cooler" laws of physics to explain the supposed phenomenon that you can
measure, the quantum freaky world of "entanglement and superposition", as
opposed to the good and old "radiowaves".

You said it yourself, "A poor scientific state of mind leads to...", and I
think a poor scientific mind is the one that pre-decides about the results of
a subject in question before he can precisely say how he has (or will)
measured that phenomenon. Science is not about "accepting any idea in", but
more about: let's test all the ideas by measuring them in the actual world
before we make a decision over it, or even if there is something to be
discovered at all. Science is about a battle of ideas: all ideas should be
fought and only those who present respectable evidence will raise. That's also
the reason science is so effective, because it's hard to invent stuff and make
scientists believe it. You would need to have actual proof that you are on the
right track. So, a rich scientific mind would actually take your claims and
beliefs with a very high dose of scientific scepticism.

Christopher Hitchens said it better: "Extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence."

~~~
childintime
> Hi, a couple of questions: > 1\. Could you describe the experiments you
> mentioned to prove ESP?

I decided it's better to not yet describe them yet. Though I believe anyone
can easily do the experiment and get confirmation, maybe there is a component
that makes the pendulum swing wider in my case (no pendulum involved :). So
that would deviate the discussion.

I discovered the phenomenon privately while lowering a stimulus, until there
was no stimulus left, but the same mind exercise. And I was left in disbelief.
That was a little over a year ago.

Looking back I believe I got best in class notes on science, in part because I
read the mind of my professors. Now the mind-reading part is sort of an
exaggeration, but I do remember understanding the professor (and by proxy the
thinking in the field) was key to finding the solution. So, really, was I good
in math? Or was this half some sort of disguised ESP testing taking place?

> You said "effects are immediate", but "immediate" cannot be actually
> measures, because every equipment has its precision (so you would be only
> sure that two numbers are equal (which means immediate effect) until a
> certain point). > What is your precision to measure this? What equipment did
> you use to do measures faster than the speed of light?

You're going overboard. We are talking human dimensions here. "Immediate"
rules out chemical channels and delays as in audio. "Immediate" also refers to
not implying use of the senses, so mind to mind.

But you captured correctly that I spoke of proof. As in demonstration and in
court. Yes, that kind of frightens me and that could derail experiments.

> Actually, if you don't have measures, it would also seem that your analysis
> is highly biased by what you think is true, even selecting the "cooler" laws
> of physics to explain the supposed phenomenon that you can measure, the
> quantum freaky world of "entanglement and superposition", as opposed to the
> good and old "radiowaves".

Correct. Of course. You didn't measure correctly the dimension of my words. So
you come across as someone proven wrong many times, so you have to start with
a reality check. But hey, hello, I'm am 55, an engineer.

> You said it yourself, "A poor scientific state of mind leads to...", and I
> think a poor scientific mind is the one that pre-decides about the results
> of a subject in question before he can precisely say how he has (or will)
> measured that phenomenon.

Exactly. I mean no disrespect to scientists. No individual is directly
responsible. And where money flows scientists don't have much of a vote
anyway.. Science may have been blind, but society shouldn't be.

> So, a rich scientific mind would actually take your claims and beliefs with
> a very high dose of scientific scepticism.

Agreed, within professional realms. But in the social domain, when science is
one eye open, another closed, it's missing the big picture, and that creates a
false testimony society feeds back to all. That's a feedback loop and a bias.
You might think science knows it all.

> Christopher Hitchens said it better: "Extraordinary claims require
> extraordinary evidence"

Well, to be accurate, this isn't exactly cold-fusion, nor something new or
specific to me. It's common sense among swaths of fellow citizens, maybe your
wife, thinking with the other side of their brain, having to sustain being
told, _socially_, that they are wrong. No equal-rights movement talking about
the underlying problem though, which may be termed inequality through science.

Anyway, thanks for allowing me to clarify. In addition I got fewer downvotes
than I expected despite calling out a "poor state of mind".

------
resource0x
I believe Hameroff is on the right track, but the track can be extended much
further.

Every cell (and every bacteria) is a conscious, intelligent being. Nothing
else is conscious. Our sense of "I" comes from a single cell in our body,
getting inputs from other cells. We are products of the self-modification of
cells. We need to find a way to talk with our cells - they will tell us a lot
about physics and life.

Whether the cell consciousness is due to quantum effects or not is of
secondary importance at this stage IMO.

~~~
naasking
> Every cell (and every bacteria) is a conscious, intelligent being.

Then why isn't inanimate matter conscious?

~~~
resource0x
Your question contains the answer. If it were conscious, it would be _animate_
matter :) Seriously, I don't know , maybe everything is conscious, but for
bacteria/cells - we can be sure. This realization is already a big step
forward :)

~~~
naasking
I'm not certain we can be sure that's where we draw the line for
consciousness, actually, but to each his own.

