Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

[smcder]

No. No one is suggesting anything like that. That’s why I cringe when you reject these ideas. I’m not sure you fully understand them.

No, I think that's exactly what Musk is saying.

Here's an indirect reference to this from Nick Bostrom, who gave Musk the idea, I think. Musk thinks the odds are much higher than Bostrom who puts it at 20% and thinks the Holocaust is one reason we might NOT be living in a simulation.

 

[Soupie]

No, I think that's exactly what Musk is saying.

Here's an indirect reference to this from Nick Bostrom, who gave Musk the idea, I think. Musk thinks the odds are much higher than Bostrom who puts it at 20% and thinks the Holocaust is one reason we might NOT be living in a simulation.

No, these are two different ideas. They are easy to confuse. Bach actually does not think we are living in the Bostrom/Musk simulation.
The simulation Bach speaks of is different.

 

[smcder]

No, these are two different ideas. They are easy to confuse. Bach actually does not think we are living in the Bostrom/Musk simulation.
The simulation Bach speaks of is different.

I know that - Bach thinks we are more likely living in the "base reality". Musk thinks we are likely living in a simulation, Bostrom, at one point, put the odds at 20%. So, Bach is saying it's unlikely the holocaust occurred in a simulation, but rather in base reality, Bostrom thinks it's 20% likely and Musk that it's likely it occurred in a simulation. Above, you said no one is saying that - I am clarifying that.

 

[smcder]

And what Bach actually says is:

"To me, the fact that our universe is apparently reversible indicates a somewhat higher probability that we live in the base reality than Elon Musk and Nick Bostrom suspect. I still cannot put any number on it, of course. On the other hand, I have no good answer if you ask me for the origin of the system that computes the base reality. Somehow there seems to be a primary transition function operating on some kind of primary state vector, and I see no way how to resolve this existential debt to nothingness."

not that we don't, unless you've seen something more recent? (2016)

Are we living in a computer simulation?

Elon Musk recently suggested that we very likely live in a simulation rather than a “base reality”, which takes up a famous argument by…

medium.com

Also, I don't think they are easy to confuse.

 

[Randall]

It was never a question of something fundamental and something emergent existing simultaneously. It was a question of something (consciousness) being both fundamental and emergent. You seem clear on the difference now, so let’s move on.

Okay

It absolutely is still a valid problem ...

It's only a problem in your paradigm. If you don't see why it's not from mine, then we'll just have to leave it for now because I don't know how else to explain it. I will however grant that it is possible that I'm missing something in your viewpoint, even though from my perspective, I don't presently think so. Maybe something will open-up for one of us on this issue in the future. In the meantime, glad we're able to discuss it in a civil manner.

It’s draining because you’re focused too much on your appearance.

It's draining on me because for me philosophy at the level we're discussing it takes more focus and concentration for me than doing my laundry or other everyday tasks. I get physically tired.

I’ll let you in on a secret: know one thinks you’re an expert on POM, metaphysics, physics, information, biology, or anything really. But then again, no one expects you to be. In short, you’re not fooling anybody in this thread. Except maybe yourself?

My attitude toward philosophy is not elitist. When someone engages in it, they are as much a philosopher as anyone else. All that matters is that the ideas put forth have value, and some ideas have more value than others.

Relax. Have fun. Explore these ideas with some open mindedness and humility. It will be much less draining.

Thanks for the advice. I do tend to be serious most of the time because I think it's a serious subject that takes serious contemplation and analysis. Open mindedness is a nice sentiment, but open mindedness, closed mindedness. humility, etc. aren't relevant to whether or not a claim is true or false or more probably true or more probably false.

Also, the only thing that being more likeable or fun does is garner more personal favor. But likeableness and personal favor are also irrelevant to the issues. Sometimes people tend to misinterpret that position as hubris or something similar, and that's when they turn to attacking personalities instead of applying critical thinking to the issues. When that happens, they have just proved they don't belong in the conversation.

All that being said, I like the way @Constance injects the occasional music track and others inject some clean non-flame humor. That's all cool, even though it may be completely irrelevant.

​

 

[Soupie]

How does he not consider this?

He is aware of the whole phenomena/noumena dilemma but seems confident that the phenomenal aspect of consciousness is not a property of base reality (the noumena).

No, I think that's exactly what Musk is saying.

Sorry, yes, Musk seems to believe that all of our reality is most likely a simulation. But that is not what Bach is arguing.

 

[Soupie]

He is aware of the whole phenomena/noumena dilemma but seems confident that the phenomenal aspect of consciousness is not a property of base reality (the noumena).

Sorry, yes, Musk seems to believe that all of our reality is most likely a simulation. But that is not what Bach is arguing.

And I’m just saying I’m surprised he’s so confident about that when he seems more open than most about the unknowableness of base reality.

 

[smcder]

He is aware of the whole phenomena/noumena dilemma but seems confident that the phenomenal aspect of consciousness is not a property of base reality (the noumena).

Sorry, yes, Musk seems to believe that all of our reality is most likely a simulation. But that is not what Bach is arguing.

LOL right - I guess it is easy to confuse after all because I though @Constance was referring to the simulation argument - that Bach does think is possible, but right it's different from the "simulation" in the other quotes!

 

[smcder]

But in a way, both apply to @Constance's comment - google his comments on depersonalization, if the self is a simulation and a fiction, that applies to all historical events, I don't think he's denying suffering of course or that it's wrong.

 

[smcder]

more twittery goodness on the hard problem

https://twitter.com/x/status/1195056116071198720

 

[smcder]

Bach on the hard problem...

http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2287/paper29.pdf

Abstract

"Dealing with the Hard Problem It seems that if Artificial Intelligence is pursued as a cognitive science, it cannot avoid to account for the arguably most elusive and mercurial property of the human mind: the conscious experience of phenomenal states. While I have tried to account for some of the functional properties of machine consciousness elsewhere (Bach 2018a, 2018b, 2009), this contribution avoids technical and formal arguments and instead tries to offer a brief introduction into some of the most relevant conceptual intuitions with regard to understanding consciousness as a property of an intelligent system. Modeling perception, memory, decision making, reward based motivation provide challenges to cognitive science, yet nothing about these faculties seems mysterious. The same applies to extending AI systems with reflexive and metacognitive capabilities. But how could an AI model ever hope to explain the feeling of what-it’s-like? David Chalmers (1995) characterizes this as the Hard Problem of Consciousness: The ability of an organism to be the “subject of experience”. To further specify what that means, Giulio Tononi and Christof Koch (2015) have offered five axioms, which I would briefly summarize as follows: "

SPOILER ALERT

"it's all a dream!"




"...and you were there and ..."

http://bach.ai/pub/Bach%20-%20Cortical%20Conductor%20Theory%20(BICA%202018).pdf

From what I can tell, these papers and the twitter feed above indicate he realizes the "hard problem" is not solved by giving a functionalist explanation for consciousness (not of)

 

[Soupie]

“Saying physical systems don’t have p consciousness but implement simulations that do have p consciousness seems like slight if hand.

Do we have any toy examples of a simulation having properties that its implementing substrate does not/can not have?” Twitter person

“It depends on the substrate. If you implement in physics, you have conservation laws that don’t apply to the simulation. Physics also has no symbolic interactions (like a command line backdoor: magical invocations that can directly change macrostates).” Bach

He doesn’t dismiss the hp out of hand, which is better than most do.

 

[smcder]

“Saying physical systems don’t have p consciousness but implement simulations that do have p consciousness seems like slight if hand.

Do we have any toy examples of a simulation having properties that its implementing substrate does not/can not have?” Twitter person

“It depends on the substrate. If you implement in physics, you have conservation laws that don’t apply to the simulation. Physics also has no symbolic interactions (like a command line backdoor: magical invocations that can directly change macrostates).” Bach

He doesn’t dismiss the hp out of hand, which is better than most do.

I wonder if "slight" of hand was meant to be a pun?

 

[Soupie]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1195056116071198720

Ok. Here is what I think:
He believes that his view does resolve the hard problem. I don’t think it does but I am open to the possibility that I may be wrong.
1) There are no qualia in physical reality
2) Then why does it seem that there are? Bc of naive realism. We think we are in physical reality but we are really in a simulation.
3) In other words, perception “is like” a simulation. Perception is a simulacrum of physical reality.
4) in physical reality are em waves. In the simulation is the color green. In physical reality is the person, in the simulation is the self. Etc.
5) what work do qualia do? In the simulation it feels like qualia do work, but in physical reality they don’t do work, mechanism do.
Problem
That all seems good. But then we’ve said there isn’t a causal relationship between mechanism and qualia. But we are saying mechanism gives rise to simulations that have qualia or the illusion of qualia (not an illusion with this simulation but illusion from the POV of physical reality.)
The simulation concept is powerful and you can see why compsci people grok it.
but all known simulations are mechanical. So mind is like a simulation but is different from all known simulations in this very important regard.

 

[Soupie]

So Bach must show how mechanisms (computation) can generate (the illusion of) qualia.

 

[smcder]

So Bach must show how mechanisms (computation) can generate (the illusion of) qualia.

You did expand all the comments in the twitter link? Some interesting comments there.

 

[Randall]

Emergence and reductionism appear to be two sides of the same coin ( to me ). On a related point: Maybe this same analogy can be used to illustrate why the HPC is such a good conversation starter. After a while you realize that the real question isn't why should there be two sides to a coin, but: Why is there money?

 

[Constance]

You did expand all the comments in the twitter link? Some interesting comments there.

Especially this one, imo:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1195065514822782976

 

[Constance]

So Bach must show how mechanisms (computation) can generate (the illusion of) qualia.

Has he done so, and if so where? Thanks.

 

[Constance]

Jean Baudrillard

Simulacra and Simulations

from Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster (Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1988), pp.166-184.

"The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none.

The simulacrum is true."
Ecclesiastes


"If we were able to take as the finest allegory of simulation the Borges tale where the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up exactly covering the territory (but where, with the decline of the Empire this map becomes frayed and finally ruined, a few shreds still discernible in the deserts - the metaphysical beauty of this ruined abstraction, bearing witness to an imperial pride and rotting like a carcass, returning to the substance of the soil, rather as an aging double ends up being confused with the real thing), this fable would then have come full circle for us, and now has nothing but the discrete charm of second-order simulacra. . . ."

Baudrillard_Simulacra and Simulations