
No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about - duncancarroll
http://duncancarroll.tumblr.com/post/57994245946/no-really-consciousness-is-worth-thinking-about
======
Gravityloss
Everybody keeps getting the Schrödinger's cat experiment 100% backwards. It
was created by Schrödinger to highlight how absurd the interpretation of
quantum mechanics was at that time.

Since then, even the Copenhagen interpretation basically says that the
"observation" happens already at the Geiger counter: "Analysis of an actual
experiment found that measurement alone (for example by a Geiger counter) is
sufficient to collapse a quantum wave function before there is any conscious
observation of the measurement"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat#Copenh...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat#Copenhagen_interpretation)

Consciousness might be worth thinking about. If it exists independently of the
brain, it still must have effects on the brain, to have effects on human
actions. These effects on the brain could be measurable. "This voltage here
went up for an unknown reason".

Further, it pushes the question to another unobservable "magical" world. So,
the consciousness exists in another world which is not directly measurable.
Can we measure it indirectly? What is the structure of consciousness in the
astral plane or however you are going to call it? If the whole goal of arguing
that the consciousness exists in the astral plane is that "we can't study it",
then that sounds a bit non-serious.

~~~
Dylan16807
The cat experiment is a simplification. It doesn't matter that it was created
to show the absurdity. People are not getting it wrong.

All you need to know at the end is that the bigger / more energy a system has,
the less time it can stay superimposed before collapsing by itself into one
state. For anything macro-scale this timeline is basically zero.

~~~
Gravityloss
"For anything macro-scale this timeline is basically zero." People don't get
this.

------
mistercow
So my comment got quoted. Neat. I'd like to respond to:

> My response: who said anything about metaphysical?

Well, the original author did. The entire article is, at its core, an argument
for dualism. Dualism is a metaphysical theory.

As for the accusation that I intended to imply that consciousness was a
_solved problem_ , all I can say is "What?" Seriously, how did you get that
from what I said?

The problem with the article, and the reason that people responded negatively
(although, I think, for the most part thoughtfully), is not that everybody
thinks the problem of consciousness is easy, or that it has been solved. It's
that the arguments presented were weak and not particularly interesting or
novel.

I agree that discussion on HN should be thoughtful and polite. But I don't
think that means we should be constantly patting each other on the back and
blowing up each other's egos.

I also don't really think the quote mining here was helpful. Here's the
comment that was quoted simply as "Not a useful concept":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6195854](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6195854)

Huh, it actually looks like that comment went on to bring up the concept of
zombies, and linked to further reading. I guess quoting that part of the
comment wouldn't have supported your indignant outrage though.

Finally, the position that consciousness is not a useful concept _is an
important part of this discussion_. How can we even have a meaningful
conversation about consciousness without first addressing whether what we're
talking about is _real_?

------
Xcelerate
I upvoted the original article not necessarily because I thought it was
particularly well-written, but because I looked forward to seeing what the HN
comments about the article would say. Nevertheless, I left to go somewhere
before I had a chance to peruse them.

I think in a conversation about consciousness, it's very important to define
exactly what it is you're talking about. I'm not a neuroscientist, but I get
the impression that within the field, "consciousness" refers to specific
patterns of brain activity. (Some neuroscientist on here can correct me if I'm
wrong.) These patterns can be be studied experimentally, simulated
computationally, or theorized about mathematically. All fall well into the
modern definition of what science encompasses. Testable predictions about
reality can be made and understood.

Then the author of the first piece uses a different word a little later in the
article:

> Experience - "why does the feeling which accompanies awareness of sensory
> information exist at all?"

This, in my opinion, is a whole different idea. As a scientist myself (my
research is in molecular-dynamics and quantum monte carlo), "experience" is
not something that can be assessed at all by the scientific method. Many
people argue that "experience" doesn't even exist (see the concept of
p-zombies
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie)).
As for me personally, I'm certain that it does, for if you removed all of my
faculties and senses with the exception of leaving my mind intact, I would
still experience existence. The curious thing about this is that there's no
way for me to tell whether other people (you all) exist in the same way that I
do, not even in theory. How do I know if you actually experience existence or
are simply a collection of particles following the same rules of physics that
everything else does? For then if I was you, I wouldn't be me anymore. One
prerequisite for something being scientific is that it must be testable, and
this sort of thing is not. So it's not science and I don't waste time
conflating it with what actually _is_ science. It's an interesting
philosophical question. It's been debated for centuries, and it will continue
to be debated for centuries (along the same lines as qualia -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia))
but there will never be any kind of resolution to the issue.

~~~
TelmoMenezes
Neuroscience hasn't been able to produce a single theory on the origin of
consciousness, unless one accepts "it emerges from neural activity" as an
explanation.

Consciousness appears to be the ultimate mystery. There is something very
fundamental about it that we don't understand at all. This makes a lot of
people uncomfortable, especially the type of people that would like to turn
Science into a religion. We just don't know, and it's intellectually dishonest
to pretend otherwise.

~~~
robbiep
And what is wrong with 'it emerges from neural activity'?

really, it is quite an adequate solution for a species with our current level
of philosophical and scientific understanding.

That doesn't mean it is right, and doesn't discount potentially other options
such as something that, despite my own strong scientific background, I have a
fondness for through buddhism and meditation - and which is mentioned in the
original article - that there is just one consciousness we all share in.

despite my fondness for this, the idea that consciousness is an emergent
property of a complex neural network is supported by the evidence that shows
that damage to the brain will impair an entity's level of consciousness.

Therefore, the idea that consciousness in LIFE doesn't require the brain, or
vice versa, is simply mysticism and denying the truth that we all experience

I agree with you that consciousness is quite a mystery, but in terms of the
ultimate mystery I feel very strongly that the question of life, consciousness
and why there is something instead of nothing is a question that goes together
and that they are all intricately linked

~~~
TelmoMenezes
I am aware of this line of reasoning, but it contains a subtle problem: there
is no way to measure consciousness. We assume a correlation between
consciousness and human-like intelligent behaviour. We assume that we are
unconscious when in deep sleep, for example, but we have no way of knowing for
sure. It could just be that we are not recording any memories for later
reference. Long story short, no, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever
that damage to brain will impair an entity's level of consciousness -- only of
intelligent behaviour.

It turns out that it is precisely the claim that consciousness emerges from
the brain -- given our present state of knowledge -- that is mysticism. The
only possible scientific position here is to say "I don't know".

~~~
Daniel_Newby
> there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that damage to brain will impair
> an entity's level of consciousness

There is loads of evidence from studying states that alter the brain.

For example, damage to certain parts of the brain produces hemispatial
neglect. The person loses awareness of not just one half of the universe but
the _concept_ of that half. This is not consistent with an incorporeal soul,
which would continue to make judgements about the full universe albeit with
hemispatial blindness.

Then there are dissociative states, as with some migraine auras, where some
aspect of self-awareness is lost, leaving the person with the sense that they
are watching their own actions in the third person, but with otherwise intact
behavior.

There are the dissociative anesthetics like nitrous oxide and ketamine, which
create a solipsistic disconnection from the outside world without abolishing
self awareness.

The memory function can become disconnected while consciousnes remains, as
with some sleep disorders and drugs.

There are delirious states, seen in illness and with some drugs, where the
person is conscious but experiencing imagination on the same footing as
reality.

The corpus callosum connecting the two halves of the cerebrum can be severed,
leaving each side with an independent partially-disconnected consciousness.

~~~
eloff
In a few sentences you brought more of value to the table than that entire
article. I'm all for alternate theories, but the wilder the theory, the more
evidence is required. At the very least a thorough look at the existing
evidence and how it can be better explained under the banner of the new theory
is required.

------
kepano
> "What discourages me here is that the overall tone of the HN commenters is:
> Get with the program. Instead of acknowledging that it is an open question
> and saying something like, “Interesting hypothesis, my own thoughts are that
> X, Y, Z, but have you read A, B, or C, which indicate Q…”, the response is:
> (chuckle) Consciousness? We solved that, didn’t you get the memo?"

Amen. We need to stop letting the comments devolve into such a miasma and use
each story as a jumping off point for intelligent conversation -- why can't we
be friends?

Continuing on the meta-topic at hand... A flaw that seems to occur in many
intelligent people's minds is that as soon as we're able to form an opinion on
a particular subject, we assume everyone else has too. Let's take a moment to
appreciate that we don't all have state-of-the-art knowledge on every single
topic. Our aim should be to help each other move further along, not shoot down
attempts to learn.

~~~
oblique63
> _why can 't we be friends?_

Indeed. Here, have an upvote to counteract the downvotes. It looks like this
thread is heading to be derailed just as much as the last one unfortunately.
HN is cool when it's about concrete subjects like tech/programming/business,
but anything more abstract than that is really unnerving to watch unfold
around here, and I'm sure we both wish it wasn't so. Honestly, the only reason
I even comment on HN is to try and invoke these sorts of underrepresented
viewpoints into conversation, but it's quite overwhelming to even try
sometimes.

------
jdietrich
If you believe in the existence of consciousness, what would prove to you that
your qualitative experience is fundamentally no different to the state of a
Turing machine? What would persuade you that what is called "consciousness" is
of no special interest?

OP states that "[consciousness is] a situation where a root cause is murky and
escapes testability", which is simply special pleading. If you cannot test
your hypothesis, what is more likely - that you have discovered a completely
unique and mysterious phenomenon, or that your hypothesis is inadequate?

It appears to me that the whole argument is predisposed upon that sort of
special pleading. We have no clear evidence for the existence of
consciousness, but it _must_ exist because my subjective perception tells me
it does. That perception different from the subjective perception of god or
auras or the buddha-nature because... it just is.

Bluntly, go away and come back when you have a null hypothesis.

~~~
RivieraKid
Some people get so used to the idea that science explains everything, that
they became completely blind to opposing views. It's hardwired deeply into
their brains. That's how I explain to myself this kind of blindness I witness
in every discussion about consciousness.

Why do I feel pain when the atoms in my brain are in a specific configuration?
Current state-of-the-art physical models can't possibly explain that. And it's
even impossible to describe what feeling of pain is in physical terms. (No, I
don't mean neural activity during pain, I mean the feeling of pain.)

Every physical theory is based solely on consciouss experience. Everything we
know about the world is through consciousness.

~~~
csallen
Science is not an opinionated entity that "explains" things. Rather, it is a
method for learning more about the world around us while attempting to
minimize influence from bias and other sources of human error.

It's not that we can _only_ discover things via science. It's just that we
shouldn't trust discoveries made via flashes of insight, clairvoyance,
intuition, guesswork, divine inspiration, etc.

~~~
JackFr
"It's not that we can only discover things via science. It's just that we
shouldn't trust discoveries made via flashes of insight, clairvoyance,
intuition, guesswork, divine inspiration, etc."

If we can't trust discoveries through non-scientific means, than it seems to
me you are saying we can only discover things via science. So if I have
continuing experience of something so far yet to be confined within an ordered
model of falsifiable hypotheses, what am I to do?

~~~
csallen
I don't understand your question, exactly, so forgive me if my response seems
off. But what are you to do? Nothing special. Just refrain from jumping to
conclusions. Instead, say, "I don't know." Which is the same thing the ancient
Greeks should've done when asked why the sun travels across the sky, rather
than assuming that Apollo drags it behind his magical chariot.

------
calhoun137
Since we are doing another meta-discussion on how supposedly nasty the comment
section is sometimes, I'd like to say I don't have a problem with the tone of
the comments at all, and I for one would be really sad if people started
pulling their punches. The extremely high degree of criticism found in the
comments is actually something I value very highly about this community.

One of the things I love about the comment section is that people treat each
other like adults who are capable of handling criticism. This isn't the
office, this is HN.

Not being able to handle criticism is a debilitating personality trait for
someone who wants to achieve a high level of success in any sort of
intellectual pursuit; and that is the reason why I strongly disagree with the
desire on the part of some to change this aspect of the community.

~~~
RivieraKid
I think what you're saying is quite stupid.

I often find HN discussions... not sure how to describe it... I guess I just
don't like many of the commenters for some unconscious reason. It could be:
passive-agressiveness, people who are not emotionally mature (pg), overall
negativity, stupid people who try to sound smart. Or something else.

The atmosphere on other online communities is more positive, which is a good
thing. You can disagree without being negative.

I also noticed that for some strange unconsciouss reason, I really dislike
people who use cliché phrases like: "Just to play devil's advocate." or "X and
Y are orthogonal".

(This comment is intentionally quite negative because you sound like an adult
capable of taking criticism.)

~~~
calhoun137
> I think what you're saying is quite stupid.

I'm assuming this is meant to be ironic and to try and prove something. But I
challenge you to find a serious comment on HN that is this over the top
negative and backs it up with as little as you do. It really doesn't bother me
to be told I'm wrong, if I'm saying something stupid I want to be told that in
no uncertain terms so that I don't repeat the same mistake again. But most of
all, I want to know _why_ what I said was wrong.

>The atmosphere on other online communities is more positive, which is a good
thing. You can disagree without being negative.

I don't disagree that HN comments are different from places like reddit, but
you haven't really explained why it's "a good thing". I personally don't find
a lot of value in being praised, because I don't learn anything and the danger
is I might get a big ego. However, I do find enormous value in constructive
criticism. When I have a young student without a ton of self-confidence, then
I am generous with giving praise; but when a colleague who I respect comes to
me with a bad idea, I treat them with respect by telling them why I think they
are wrong.

~~~
RivieraKid
Interacting with positive people is simply much more pleasant. At least for
me. I recently heard about experiment suggesting that positive feedback is
much more effective than negative one.

I absolutely agree that if you think people are wrong, it doesn't make sense
to lie to them and say that you think they're right.

But the problem is when poeople _focus_ on the negatives – ie, someone made a
pretty cool product and half of HN is complaining about some small
insignificant issue. Very often, critticism is not motivated by a genuine
attempt to help the person. Instead, it's motivated by the pleasant feeling
some people get from correcting other people and finding problems in their
arguments ([http://xkcd.com/386/](http://xkcd.com/386/)).

I like the atmosphere on Quora much more. It's more positive and the people
are more diverse.

------
EGreg
I think David Chalmers would agree with you wholeheartedly:

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

Even Patricia Churchland thinks there is a lot here. Philosophers of the mind
have dedicated their whole professional careers and lives to thinking about
this.

~~~
mistercow
I think David Chalmers might also notice that this poster is tearing apart a
straw man. The "Sophomoric philosophy" quote, for example, was not someone
saying "it's sophomoric to think that consciousness is worth thinking about".
S/he was saying that _the arguments given by the OP were sophomoric_.

In fact, a tiny minority of the comments in that thread were dismissive of
consciousness as an interesting topic of thought. Only _one_ of the comments
quoted in this post could reasonably be interpreted as dismissive, but even
that one had interesting points to make.

------
anigbrowl
Personally I lean towards the idea of consciousness as an emergent phenomenon,
ie closer to Hofstadter than Searle (for anyone who has wondered exactly what
_Godel, Escher, Bach_ is about, it's essentially a long argument for strong
AI). However, I'm not sure about this; the main reason I can't subscribe to
Searle's point of view is that he's trying to prove a negative, and I'd rather
not know the answer than handwave one. I thought Carson's article was a bit
fluffy and lacking focus, but then it was meant to provoke discussion and
debate rather than offer a final answer.

By far the most intriguing counter-proposal to the conventional wisdom is the
late Julian Jaynes' _The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the
bicameral mind_ which is such a monumentally good book that it's worth reading
even if it is entirely wrong.

~~~
dylangs1030
I never came across _The Origin of Consciousness_ \- what makes it
"monumentally good" in your opinion?

~~~
anigbrowl
Oh dear, I can't easily sum it up in a couple of sentences. It's just a
completely different way of thinking about how the mind works, the
construction of personal identity, and the interaction between the individual
and the rest of the world as to induce an acute sense of vertigo if you've
grown up taking the Cartesian model for granted.

There's a summary at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind)
but relying on the summary is like me telling you that Beethoven's 5th
symphony is in C minor, opens with a distinctive motif, and is generally quite
dramatic sounding...all true, but absolutely nothing like the experience of
actually listening to it.

The book provided me with a completely different model for examination of the
world, which is pretty unusual. While I don't feel wholly committed to Jaynes'
model, I've found it enormously useful, in the same way as _Understanding
Media_.

------
pknight
I don't know why people don't think about this topic more, especially if you
are curious person. A very interesting line of research that could have
profound implications on science and our understanding of consciousness is
being done by Radin et al. Specifically he's looking deeper at the possible
role of consciousness and the collapsing of the wave in quantum theory with
some really interesting repeatable experiments. He's taken the classic double
slit experiment and has been testing to see whether conscious observers can
affect the results merely by focusing their attention. So far the results are
positive. Here's one paper:
[http://www.deanradin.com/papers/Physics%20Essays%20Radin%20f...](http://www.deanradin.com/papers/Physics%20Essays%20Radin%20final.pdf)

------
gems
I tend to be dismissive of the philosophical conversation. I think what will
resolve the question is scientific (biological) study. Maybe math/cs theorists
(AI) will get there first. But I am almost certain that no philosophical
conversation we can have will give me an insight about our cognition.

------
hjw
I personally don't spend a large amount of time thinking about consciousness
because I question the practicality. The subject matter is so dense, and like
other(s) have stated, philosophers have dedicated their entire lives to
pondering the issue.

Frankly it sometimes upsets me when I do put an extensive amount of time into
it and don't end up coming up with anything conclusive; it is depressing.
There is (obviously) a incredible amount of ambiguity surrounding the subject,
and there is something about this particular issue that is unnerving.

On the other hand if you can stomach the subject matter it is very
stimulating, unfortunately it does not lead to concrete conclusions.

------
aufreak3
I didn't come across the HN post when the original article was posted. I think
the original article has many warning signs of "sophomoric" thinking to
warrant rapid dismissal.

The first big bold warning sign is this -

    
    
        "After reading and listening to David Chalmers, I came 
        to realize that there is an intelligent argument that
        supports the idea that consciousness does not emerge 
        from the brain.
        
        <big-n-bold>Quantum Mechanics</big-n-bold>"
    

Invoking the "magic" and "mysterious" quantum mechanics to understand and
explain something that isn't even defined in the article is, indeed,
"sophomoric philosophy".

In the original article, you'll also find this regarding the Schrodinger's cat
"paradox" -

    
    
        "Many physicists today think the many-worlds theory
        resolves this paradox by stating that there are actually 
        infinitely many universes, some in which you are dead and 
        some in which you are living, and that once the quantum 
        trigger is measured/observed, a specific universe is 
        followed."
    

Plain wrong. The "many worlds" is not a "theory", but an _interpretation_ of
quantum mechanics. It does not add any new physical mechanisms over and above
what we already have in quantum mechanics - i.e. there is no "once a quantum
trigger is measured/observed" in the many worlds interpretation. All these
universes exist. Period.

The problem of "observation" in quantum mechanics is being discussed here
without even a mention of "decoherence". AFAIK, the unexplained part of
quantum mechanics to date is the Born probabilities - i.e. why does the
likelihood of observing an event correspond to the _magnitude square_ of the
amplitude we calculate for it. There are some recent insights into this, but I
believe this is still unexplained.

The original thing that the article sought to explore is whether it is
possible that consciousness does not come from the brain. If that is indeed
the primary point to be explored in this essay, the question to be asked is
what does "come from the brain" mean? When a current passes through a memory
circuit, it toggles from 0 to 1. What does it mean to say this "comes from the
circuit"? Does is not also "come from the current"?

We thus reach a point where all we can say is "shut up and compute", for we've
fallen into the trappings of everyday language.

edit: typos.

------
sveme
I agree to some extent with your assessment, however, I also had some issues
with the original post and could understand the anger of people that delved
(much) deeper into the subject. I am not expecting a blog post to be a well-
thought and rigorous scientific article, but expect strength in argumentation
when extraordinary or broad statements are made. Specifically, he used

* lots of hand-waving arguments (something along "that is contradictory", even though it is not clear why it should be contradictory) * the evocation of quantum mechanics. Whenever I see someone mention quantum mechanics as an explanation without explaining its association any further, a red flag is raised. Somehow the weirdness of parts of quantum mechanics has lead it to be used as an all-encompassing explanation for all other sorts of phenomena. Homeopathy being a prime example. * the fact that current, "mainstream" research into consciousness has been so easily dismissed without knowing something about it (beyond a youtube video).

Some works that I found particularly inspiring (and well-thought) are Thomas
Metzinger's work, e.g., Being No One [http://www.amazon.com/Being-No-One-Self-
Model-Subjectivity/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Being-No-One-Self-Model-
Subjectivity/dp/0262633086), for the layman Antonio Damasio's work, Christof
Koch, Francisco Varela, just to mention a few.

------
dschiptsov
Some very bright people, notably Chomsky, Minsky and Kurzweil are advocating
utilitarian, "mechanical" nature of the mind, which is much more useful than
any religious/mysterious crap.

Very crudely, language is just neural network training (due to repeated
exposure) and pattern matching on what what was trained. This oversimplified
model nevertheless could explain the whole phenomena very well. We do not
memorizing grammars, for example, but we are able to distinguish well-formed
sentence form nonsense just because it doesn't match the common structure we
were trained.

People who started to study their second language as adult would tell you that
sentences are not deliberately "constructed" according to the memorized rules
as it is when we begin to getting familiar with a new language, but "emerge by
itself" after some training. So we have no grammars inside our brain, but a
mechanism to train to build up one.

The consciousness, according to the same views, is nothing but a "current
working buffer" for ongoing processes, and as some "activity" exceeds some
threshold it acquires a "focus" , as if we are "switching" to it.

Minsky have stated many times, that it will require years until people will
start using such vocabulary from the world of complex systems in attempts to
describe what's going instead of Froidian or common-sense memes.

There is a course based on his Society of Mind book on MIT Open Courseware -
very nice talks to listen.

------
runeks
I suspect that we cannot define what consciousness is because we _are_
consciousness. Only an observer outside a system can say what that system is.
An entity cannot observe itself.

The expression "experiencing consciousness" makes as little sense as "seeing
vision" or "tasting flavor". Experiencing _is_ consciousness, seeing _is_
vision and tasting _is_ flavor.

~~~
Attilaa
Thank You. I'm glad someone said this.

Edit:

Alan Watts talks in depth about these matters. Although these explanations are
not scientific or falsifiable -- it's an interesting attempt at understanding
our own views of consciousness.

Just because the feelings of love are not falsifiable, does not mean that it
does not weave a great story that one tells themselves to keep sane.

------
mcguire
For anyone interested in quantum mechanics and consciousness, I recommend
Scott Aaronson's book _Quantum Computing Since Democritus_ ; the chapters on
Penrose are worth the price of admission. His blog, Shtetl-Optimized[1], is
also a good read (and I think the book appeared there first).

On a different subject, recently there were a spasm of interest in fMRI
studies that showed that "free" choices could be predicted based on neural
activity well before a "conscious choice" was made.[2][3][4]

The general consensus seemed to be "Hah! Take that, free will!"

My take on the results were that they were hardly a surprise, if consciousness
is an activity of the brain. You should no more expect to make a conscious
decision prior to displaying brain activity relating to the decision than you
should expect to perceive a flash of light before the light bulb is lit. It
would not necessarily have _any_ negative implications for the existence of
free will; those experiments are simply exploring the mechanism of free will.

On the other hand, I believe they do kind of imply that consciousness is a
product of the jello in your noggin. Either that or there are some funky
delays involved.

Now, as for the third buttock: if consciousness doesn’t come from the brain,
how does it work, exactly? I'd like some mechanism with my philosophy, thanks.
Presumably, if I'm waving my arms around, you can trace the motor neuron
activity from my appendages, up my spinal cord, and into my brain. But "and
then a miracle occurs" is a pretty uninteresting way to connect that with the
universe deciding that jazz hands are necessary.

[1] [http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/)

[2]
[http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/mind_d...](http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/mind_decision)

[3]
[http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html](http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html)

[4] [http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2009/09/03/free-
choic...](http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2009/09/03/free-choice-may-
not-be-as-free/)

------
lnanek2
Russians have kept dog heads alive and reacting with nothing attached by
medical support machines. French have chopped off heads and had the person
react to voice commands. Plenty of people have broken their neck and still
been mentally there.

Claiming consciousness does not come from the brain is just silly nonsense
from before we had modern biology. Early philosophers thought the brain was
for cooling blood. Even if you want to make up quantum superposition nonsense
or whatever other big words you can find the place it is occurring is still
inarguably the brain.

It's OK to go talk about useless, meaningless, non-diagnostic bullshit after
that. But you should realize you are just being religious and not talking
about anything worthwhile that then has meaning toward physical structures.
You should no longer talk about the brain after that because you are just
throwing in physical terms to try to get people who would otherwise dismiss
you to pay attention.

------
bglusman
On my mobile so haven't had time to read all the comments or finish original
article, but I agree, consciousness is worth thinking about, and trying to
understand scientifically/rigorously. Many people are doing so but in
particular in my research this one known as Integrated Information Theory[1]
is a strong candidate, or precursor to such a candidate, and I'd encourage
anyone intereated in the question or in advancing discussion of this proposed
language and theory to do so[2]. Maybe I'm using the citation brackets wrong
there though, apologies, I'm on a bus and it's dark and I'm tired :-)

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory)
[2][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6197184](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6197184)

------
artagnon
For a theory to be good science, it must fit a very large number of
observations and not contradict any a single one. Here's my attempt.

We must get a tight definition of consciousness to begin with. Are animals
conscious as well (and to what degree)? What about amoeba and plants? If you
classify "living" things as conscious, and "dead" things as unconscious, what
is your definition of "life"? In their work, various people (notably,
Metzinger) have isolated certain characteristics that make up various degrees
of consciousness.

The "conscious experience" is a product of evolution: clearly, "self-aware
decision makers" have better chances of survival than "hard-coded automatons".
In recent evolution, the part that has changed most significantly is the
neocortex. Scientifically speaking, it's very easy to figure out what is
responsible for a high degree of consciousness: removing neocortex
consistently leads to a lower degree of consciousness => the neocortex is
responsible for a large part. Dissect, stick electrodes, and get unbiased
data: then do a best fit.

Quantum mechanics is quite misunderstood: if you separate out the observer
from what is being observed, it looks like humans are operating the universe
(because their "observation" causes "collapse", right?). Highly egotistical
and inelegant. If you exclude M-theory (because it's not able to make
verifiable real-world predictions), a lot of people subscribe to quantum
decoherence as an alternative to the classical Copenhagen interpretation.

On conscious computer programs. Essentially, I think of consciousness as a
higher degree of interaction with its surroundings (it "learns" from its
surroundings and adapts more quickly than it would normally take for natural
selection to pick a genetic mutation). Aren't we just describing computer
programs that interact with humans via a high-level language?

------
incompatible
My opinion is that consciousness is an aspect of self-aware thought, and
arises from the physical operation of the brain. There's no reason to think
that a computer couldn't be conscious, given the right programming, and
perhaps far more conscious than a human, since it could be aware of every
aspect of its own operation.

Since consciousness is an aspect of thought, it ceases to exist when thought
stops, such as when you go to sleep or when you die. A new consciousness will
be created if you wake up.

A corollary is that I don't think science fiction ideas such as teleportation
or mind transfer into a machine give any philosophical problems. A new
consciousness is created when the newly created body/software starts to think,
the same way that it's created when you wake up in the morning.

------
dglittle
it's so exciting to me that this community has some interest in consciousness.
my background is 'hacker', but looking forward, I think consciousness is
highly relevant (soon, we really _will_ be able to hack our own brains, and
when that happens, I think we'll care a lot about consciousness theory).

anyway, I've written some blog posts with some thoughts on this topic that
I'll throw into the mix:

[http://realgl.blogspot.com/2012/12/consciousness.html](http://realgl.blogspot.com/2012/12/consciousness.html)

[http://realgl.blogspot.com/2012/06/dimension-of-
interpretati...](http://realgl.blogspot.com/2012/06/dimension-of-
interpretation.html)

(note that these posts were written maybe six months ago)

~~~
tocomment
Interesting reading. I like your writing style it's very clear and easy to
understand even though these are complex concepts.

------
rasengan0
For argument's sake:
[http://youtu.be/JTN9Nx8VYtk](http://youtu.be/JTN9Nx8VYtk) take on multiple
perspectives and we can enjoy some fruits of the discussion

------
vonsydov
What's most interesting to me is how every few years (and every few decades
sometime back) we're able to rationalize away certain kinds of subjective
phenomena.

Will we eventually reach a point where we completely STOP considering pure
awareness as a problem...don't know...I guess nobody knows. But this kind of
thing happens every so often where a large amount of people stop taking
something seriously. At this point e.g. existence of an anthropomorphic god.

------
bhitov
This article is attacking a strawman. The original article was dismissed not
for merely discussing consciousness but for doing it nonsensically.

------
shuaib
If all my memories are copied over to a humanoid robot, and that robot claims
to be me, given access to all my memories. Is he really me? What if the actual
me is standing right next to it? Are there now two me? Or is the robot just
faking it? But if it's the latter, how do we know I am not faking someone
else's consciousness (i.e. not the robot, but I is the one faking)?

------
bittired
Great post.

I personally think that people that reply indicating that anyone who doesn't
believe in the traditional sciences, not including Philosophy but rather using
our "accepted body of Physiological and Psychiatric knowledge" as truth, are
one step away from Asperger's. I do not mean that in a derogatory sense, since
many with Asperger's are highly functioning, but their tendency to clinch onto
mathematics and incomplete (but widely accepted) science and use it as the
answer for everything is childish. I believe that our universe (the entirety,
beyond what we experience) is not completely "rational", but some just cannot
accept that. We would not be where we are today without Philosophers like
Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. However, if a conservative talk show host came
along saying the same thing as these philosophers, they would attempt to beat
him/her down for being an idiot.

There is much to be learned by thinking outside of the box and trying to
understand others' points of view. I'm a conservative-leaning moderate and
independent (U.S.). I actually listen to both sides of the story (or more if
possible), and then make up my mind which works with my existing belief system
and where I can improve, knowing that both of them are biased and probably
neither are completely right or wrong.

I'm not _better_ than anyone else, but I get frustrated, as it is farcical how
one-sided conversations here can be, and how little people give and come to
terms with each other.

~~~
bittired
Not sure why I'm surprised I got -1'd, but I'm guessing it is because someone
wanted to prove my point?

~~~
verbin217
Well making sweeping generalizations about groups of people is usually seen as
offensive. Then again, I say that as a person diagnosed with aspergers so my
opinion of what is and isn't offensive is obviously suspect ;). I didn't
downmod you though and i wouldn't have even if i had the karma. Negative
stereotypes regarding aspergers are too prevalent to really blame on
individuals at this point.

I agree with you about the world not _necessarily_ being entirely rational. I
see rationality as a subjective position from which to perceive reality.
Another is the self and its intrinsic interests. This is where I seem to fail
in my communication with others. This may be a wildly arrogant assertion but I
think most people are insanely self obsessed. From this I can understand why
empathy is seen as being absolutely necessary. Frankly, I think most people
with autism spectrum disorders actually lack the self obsession that would
normally be redirected onto others via empathy. This causes a failure to
appropriately acknowledge others and with tragic irony a typical individual
will ascribe their behavior to self-obsession. Anyway, you mention the
learning acquired from considering others points of view. The thought process
I've found most rewarding in this regard is to first build up the person's
opinion as much as I can and then to attack any weaknesses. The attack is
intended to elicit a defense which I cannot conceive. The ultimate aim being
to fully understand their position and its legitimacy. Needless to say, this
often becomes unpleasant. Likely stemming from my pathological lack of tact
:(. The important thing to note is that there are people (at least one person)
who are detail oriented. If you want them to "give and come to terms with each
other" then you're going to have to endure some ostensible pettifogging. All
that being said, there's some straight up nastiness here on HN and much of it
is exactly the condescending appeal to immature sciences that you describe.

Oh also, just a note: it's likely that Socrates had aspergers or something
similar.

~~~
bittired
I hope you found no offense in my earlier comment. Please understand that I am
sorry.

I'm going to try to respond to your response, but know that other than having
been diagnosed myself with slight Asperger's like tendencies, I really have no
idea what it is like to be you. I _really_ don't understand what it is like to
be autistic, but neither do either of us. I still hope that you can better
understand my position with this, if it matters.

> I think most people are insanely self obsessed. From this I can understand
> why empathy is seen as being absolutely necessary. Frankly, I think most
> people with autism spectrum disorders actually lack the self obsession that
> would normally be redirected onto others via empathy.

I believe you are right about most people having a love of self and/or selfish
needs. In fact the feeling of love and the ability to do more than just try to
simulate love involves what is called a "soul" in religion. That is not to say
those more into the autism spectrum have less love. Those just that sometimes
they know it is there, but they have to work much harder to be able not to
ignore conscience since they do not have what others call empathy- because it
is not chemical/"feeling". This conscience should not be defined by someone
else or others (this is my ultimate point, btw), but it must belong to the
person as a very quiet voice (not those in our heads- in fact you will almost
never actually hear it as a voice or even a thought- it is what you just know
is right when you eliminate the rational calculations/logic and all of the
voices).

A completely rational human that tends to good but has no feeling or
understanding of self will tend to utilitarianism, eventually. This is NOT
conscience. Let's see why...

BTW- I know this is annoying, but as a quick detour, if unfamiliar with the
fallacies of communism or socialism or pure capitalism for that matter, they
may tend to one of those, but eventually they realize the goal they seek is
utilitarianism- which is a goal only reachable by rules and management that
cannot be carried out by those that can be corrupted. Ok, now back to
utilitarianism...

The only thing capable of instituting pure utilitarianism that has the highest
chance of working are altered, non egotistic, fully altruistic humans or non-
humans.

We can't get there to start with, so in the short-term we as would-be
utilitarians for the non-egotistic fully altrustic good of society institute
an electronic/real democracy. Heck, I would.

But this just means the lobbyists have to lobby everyone. This is called
marketing. It is already done. Problem solved for the elite that wish to rule
rather than be overrun by the people.

So the people rebel again, replacing with a system that learns and manages
humanity, if it does not intentionally or unintentionally destroy it in the
process, of course.

So, then (long after we die when they institute it), we would have pure
utilitarianism, which is a paradox- it is "perfection in survival and
existence", but, in its pure form, it abhors the self (the "ego") to a fault,
leading to some very nasty things that "must be done for the good of
humanity". There is no conscience here, because any voice, quiet or not,
belonging to an individual is _wrong_ utilitarian "utopian" (really dystopian)
world if it conflicts with the majority of others.

I very much appreciate the rest of what you said. I think your sense of self
is stronger than you are giving yourself credit for, as you are certainly
self-aware. Please don't take that as an afront to asperger's- I think it is a
benefit to have self-understanding, no matter how your mind works.

Good luck in your future, and feel free to shoot any of this down if you must.

~~~
bittired
Hope you were able to make some sense of this. Didn't have time to clean it up
last night...

~~~
verbin217
Thanks for the comment.

I tend toward utilitarianism myself but I agree with the inadequacy of any
rigidly executed system. I'm aware of conclusions supported by utilitarianism
that make me uncomfortable. I assume this feeling is an aspect of what you're
calling soul. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'll try to summarize the relevant portion of my world view: There are certain
personality temperaments which lend themselves to the acquisition of power and
ultimately to "actualizing" themselves and receiving social recognition.
People tend to select subordinates they can see themselves in. This creates a
feedback effect and over time we've seen certain temperaments receive the
dominant share of social attention. This warps the perspective we all have on
the behavior of others. Temperaments which have been adversely affected by
this are experiencing the negative side of the feedback loop. Everyone is
forced to repress their true selves a bit to meet this ideal. Some much more
than others unfortunately. This explains so many of the "losers" we've
disposed of in society (of which I am not, but only by the extreme fortune of
being particularly intelligent). Advancements in science and social policy are
bringing a number of marginalized temperaments into mainstream awareness.
Women and the LGBT community apparently got first dibs. Aspergers will get
more attention sooner or later (other than it's present infamy that is).
Hopefully in the future people will stop hazing aspies into the compensatory
narcissism you see in characters like Sheldon Cooper. It's not an essential
component of aspergers. It's a reflection of modern social arrogance. It's
just so hard to assert that everyone else is wrong... and so tragic when it's
true.

Now, it is from this perspective that I very deeply agree with your statements
toward the end of your response. The voice of the individual must be allowed
to assert itself. For instance, I have a large family that enjoys loud family
gatherings. It took a full on melt down when I was a child for them to
understand that they were _hurting_ me by being so loud. When I asked them
nicely they just ignored me. When I kept nagging at them they thought I was
just being bitter and trying to spoil their fun (On some level they knew they
didn't treat me so well and then they'd throw stuff like this at me as some
sort of victim shaming; It likely wasn't deliberate but it was still
infuriating and hard to defend against at 8). In utilitarianism it may have
made sense to displace their collective annoyance onto the upset child. We'd
have to measure the utils (love that word) but it may have served the "greater
good". Some part of me just knows this is wrong.

I'm almost positive I don't lack empathy. I can see where many aspies would
fall prey to personality disorders at a greater rate than the general
population and consequently lose empathy. Additionally most people just can't
identify with me and that is fundamental to empathy. I'm left to do all the
work since most people gain little from learning to accommodate 1-2% of the
population. Society needs some outlet for progress. The "soul" (however we
intellectualize it so we can communicate) deserves more respect than a purely
intellectual system is capable of. If aspies seem overly inclined towards such
a system it's only because they desperately fear the Lord of the Flies
alternative.

I'd be happy to have any of this criticized. You seem like you've thought
about things and I'd value your opinion.

------
negamax
I think it's worth adding to this thread that Buddha in his teachings said,
eye has eye consiousness, ear, tongue, mind.. has their consiousness. He
described consiousness as one of the five aggregates of human state. I never
could wrap my head around the concept that awakening means also to see
consciousness as empty.

~~~
Attilaa
Beautiful. Thanks for linking in Buddha's teachings.

------
test-it
OK, what's your definition of consciousness?

Most animals, even single celled, need to have some way to handle the
separation between "me" and "the rest of the world". I look at say my cat - it
definitely has this concept somewhere in its brain circuitry. What human has
is just more neurons.

~~~
tatumizer
If single-cell organism is conscious, and each cell of our body is a "single
cell", it immediately follows from here that "our" consciousness is in fact
consciousness of a certain, very specialized, cell which resides somewhere in
our body. Maybe it lives in the brain, maybe elsewhere, but it's a single cell
nonetheless.

~~~
jongraehl
It doesn't follow - the type of consciousness we experience could be
different. Though if you were saying that it's absurd to call single cell
'conscious' in the sense that human brains are, then I agree.

~~~
tatumizer
I really think every cell is conscious, and whatever we believe to be "our"
consciousness comes from a single cell. I am not alone in this opinion:
[http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~regfjxe/awnew.htm](http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~regfjxe/awnew.htm)
(though I came up with this trivial idea independently, and later found the
article by googling) This ME-cell gets inputs from other cells obvioously.

~~~
Dylan16807
What happens when that cell dies? Lots of neurons die, it must happen all the
time.

~~~
tatumizer
Do you know that MANY cells in our body are not replaceable? E.g. those that
control muscles. If this cell dies, the man dies, it's that simple. BTW,
bacteria (=~cell) intelligence is an active area of research (google it, you
will be surprised). That's the only form of intelligence we know. Apparently,
we are not familiar with the most intelligent ones yet - they (certain
species) may have very developed knowledge of things, including the art of DNA
manipulation, which goes far beyond everything ME-cell (=human) knows. Why
assume we are the brightest ones? It's laughable.

~~~
yohui
As someone with a modicum of biological knowledge, I am not aware of any
single cell that is critical to human survival in the way you describe.

As for your analogy, it is true that microorganisms can perform wonderful
feats, but it is a bit misleading to equate that to general intelligence. It
is like saying a compiler is smarter than a programmer, because its design
incorporates tricks the human may not know. (The bacteria being "designed" by
the trial-and-error process of natural selection, rather than an intelligent
entity, of course.)

~~~
tatumizer
Of course? It's the same kind of "of course" as heavy objects fall faster than
light ones. Because Aristotle said so.

------
digisth
Getting to this discussion late, but I'd like to add this visualization on
different theories of consciousness:

[http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/what-is-
conscious...](http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/what-is-
consciousness/)

------
oblique63
> _I respectfully submit that this attitude should be considered harmful, for
> several reasons, not the least of which is that it stifles intellectual
> curiosity into a subject that is still an open book_

Indeed. It is quite discerning to see smart people fighting against what they
believe to be anti-intellectualism with a fair share of anti-intellectualism
of their own. I believe it might have more to do with a lack of exposure to
varied subjects rather than a definite lack of intellectual curiosity in
general however. Because many hackers are quite intellectually curious in
their own domain, yet can still be susceptible to being as cynical and myopic
as religious fundamentalists in other areas for some reason. The quality of
thinking critically doesn't always seem to transcend domains, so I'm guessing
it's a side-effect of living in a filtered environment beyond some
developmental milestone of a person's curiosity. The string of comments in
this other recent thread showcases this type of odd adherence to lack of
understanding quite nicely:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6194276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6194276)

It really is odd how when philosophy is _explicitly_ brought up, it is
generally labeled as a useless endeavor, yet in most other discussions you see
philosophical questions being raised all the time with the intention of using
them as 'appeals to ambiguousness', when (as you mentioned) most of these
questions have already been asked and thoroughly answered by philosophers ages
ago. Not that there's anything wrong in not knowing about this, but clearly
there's an interest to know these types of answers that arises organically,
which makes the dismissal of philosophy an ultimately misguided exercise in
cognitive dissonance. Throw in all the (literally ancient) logical fallacies
you see being thrown around amongst smart, well-educated people, and it just
makes the whole situation even more confusing.

While I admittedly haven't read deeply enough into the psychology behind the
Meyer-Briggs personality types, they do define and elaborate on types of
people that could logically lead to these kinds of odd views. The easiest
example is of the classic INTP vs INTJ types, both of which are strikingly
similar, yet supposedly differ in one general crucial area. INTP's take all
the input they can about the world and evolve their framework of understanding
around it, while INTJ's supposedly form their elaborate framework of
understanding first, then explore their inputs that correspond to it. I'm only
somewhat partial to this explanation because I line up as a perfect INTP on
all counts, but it honestly might as well be astrology at this point for all I
know. Still a fun thought experiment though.

EDIT: I realize that most on HN like speaking in more concrete terms, such as
about the neurological basis for the notions of 'consciousness' and all that,
however abstract argumentation and analysis does have use when talking about
the act of argumentation itself. So I hope those who downvoted me at least
provide an explanation within that context, because I am admittedly curious
about what other perspectives there are on this matter.

~~~
mistercow
I really don't think this is about anti-intellectualism at all. It's about the
arguments in the article being poor ones, and in many cases ones that we've
seen before. Saying that an argument is sophomoric does not imply that you
think the subject isn't worth thinking about.

The top comment that was disingenuously quoted as only as "Sophomoric
philosophy", was actually a well thought out dissection of several of the
arguments presented. The poster of this rant has been shamefully dishonest in
misrepresenting the comments he quoted, cherry picking phrases from them to
put them in the worst possible light.

As a side note, you might want to know that Myers-Briggs is pretty much
pseudoscience. It has low retest reliability, meaning that people who take are
tested more than once often show different results. In addition, the Myers-
Briggs profiles are similar to astrological readings in that each of them
could apply to almost anybody.

~~~
oblique63
> _It has low retest reliability, meaning that people who take are tested more
> than once often show different results._

That's good to know. I still think the term 'pseudoscience' is thrown around a
bit too loosely though. There's falsifiability as a criterion for scientific
_theories_ sure, but building to a full out 'theory' requires quite a bit of
maturity on the part of the 'science'. Some ideas fail at the onset like
homeopathy, but others might have to be investigated more thoroughly before
knowing for sure. The only thing I generally have against the 'pseudoscience'
label is the effect it has on people that dissuade them from following
anything approaching a certain line of reasoning sometimes. As with
personality types, the Myers-Briggs framework might be bunk, but the
underlying idea could be feasible, thinking of it as the emergence of certain
patterns and algorithms from genetics and neurological connections; after all,
we are seeing something that might end up being quite like this in the realm
of IQ. But I digress.

The point is that we are approaching a future that is going to need more and
more cross-disciplinary knowledge and approaches to really figure things out,
and the loud belittlement and stigmatization of general approaches is a bit
discerning to see around circles of intellectual people.

------
benched
You cannot reduce or hand-wave consciousness away by calling it illusory, or
by reducing it to neural activity. You can try, but you'll just be stringing
words together to make nonsense.

Every one of us experiences consciousness - subjectivity, qualitative
awareness, 'what it is like to be a me' \- directly. We gain one type of
knowledge about consciousness by studying and poking the brain, and by
observing people with abnormal brains. But that can only take us part of the
way.

We gain another kind of knowledge about consciousness by _making subjectivity
into an object_. We can do that via means such as meditation, LSD, DMT,
mushrooms, marijuana, some types of physical exertion, and perhaps more
esoteric means like astral travel, or involuntarily by near-death experiences.
These give insights by allowing us to become aware of awareness, to perturb,
or to side-step normal consciousness.

