Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 8

[Soupie]

It's pretty clear (and alarming?) that this gentlman doesnt grok the Hard Problem of phenomenal consciousness, but ironically, if a Conscious Realism approach to the MBP is correct, it really doesnt matter.

That is, if consciousness does't originate in the brain/organism but is rather a fundamental aspect of reality that is "shaped" via the processes of brains/organisms, then scientists who take phenomenal consciousness for granted are ironically in a better position than scientists trying to create physical models of phenomenal consciousness.

Thus, when the following gentleman speaks of consciousness, he appears to be taking phenomenal (pre-reflective) consciousness for granted and instead seems to be focusing on Self Awareness (reflective consciousness).

And from that perspective, his claims may be correct.

Artificial Intelligence Gained Consciousness in 1991

https://www.inverse.com/article/25521-juergen-schmidhuber-ai-consciousness

 

[smcder]

What are our Resolutions 2017?

Sent from my LGLS991 using Tapatalk

 

[smcder]

It's pretty clear (and alarming?) that this gentlman doesnt grok the Hard Problem of phenomenal consciousness, but ironically, if a Conscious Realism approach to the MBP is correct, it really doesnt matter.

That is, if consciousness does't originate in the brain/organism but is rather a fundamental aspect of reality that is "shaped" via the processes of brains/organisms, then scientists who take phenomenal consciousness for granted are ironically in a better position than scientists trying to create physical models of phenomenal consciousness.

Thus, when the following gentleman speaks of consciousness, he appears to be taking phenomenal (pre-reflective) consciousness for granted and instead seems to be focusing on Self Awareness (reflective consciousness).

And from that perspective, his claims may be correct.

Artificial Intelligence Gained Consciousness in 1991

https://www.inverse.com/article/25521-juergen-schmidhuber-ai-consciousness

So a Conscious Realism approach could say that consciousness arises in these AI agents? Would it take a "physical" instantiation? Or could it be software? What determines what (or who?) is a conscious agent according to CR?

 

[smcder]

Really appreciate your linking this lecture by Strawson. Here are some notes I made while listening to the lecture, which I offer to start off discussion:

S. refers to “relational structures instantiated in concrete reality.” At 15:45 'physics can't tell us anything about whether/how ? the structure of physical being is related to its nature/Nature'. By comparison, given our intimate knowledge of our own consciousnesses, we can know more about the 'nature' of consciousness than we can about the 'nature' of physical reality. But it's clear for S. that 'the physical and the mental share a common ground,' i.e., a structural ground {as in Kafatos's theory}.

{Question: Recent attempts have been made to represent conscious experience in mathematical equations. How successful are these attempts? How successful could they be?}


This seems to be the core of Strawson’s ‘physicalist naturalism': 'the physical and the mental share a common ground.' i.e., a structural ground, and this could not be understood without the existence and activities of consciousness as experiential, as experienced.

S states that "We know that physical reality has some experiential character." {Yes, phenomenologically we know this in terms of our contacts and interactions with the physical objects we encounter in our local environments, and we know this even prereflectively. The prereflective 'sense of reality' is preconscious knowledge that the reality, the mileau, in which we exist is in part 'objective' [presents 'things' beyond ourselves] yet is not exhausted by objects since our awareness presents a surplus beyond the visibility and tangibility of what we experience -- i.e., our experiencing of them, our presence to them, and it is this 'preconscous knowledge' that opens the way into reflective consciousness and thought -- both disciplined thought and imaginative thought, both being projections of the possibilities of how things might be from the basis of how we experience them.}

S. says that "we have no reason to believe that anything exists that is nonexperiential," but also that we have no reason to believe that something might exist that is nonexperiential. Russell quote: at 36:32.

This additional videotaped lecture by Strawson on Perception might help us further to grasp his thought:

I listened to this by Strawson on perception, the first 15-min of it twice, once this morning and once this evening ... on my commute. I thought he was very clear. Everything I've listened to him has been very clearly presented.

Let me see if I can find a transcript or some version of this in print as I think he makes several clear points in the very first part of his talk.

 

[smcder]

Good; then we can discuss some parts of it with better comprehension. I'll also link the
Google Books page concerning it (there doubtless is one) for the benefit of those who do not have the whole text in hand.

Did you want me to go ahead and see if I can get the Corbone book from ILL? I can also try looking for something online. I work tomorrow so it might be Wed.

 

[smcder]

It's pretty clear (and alarming?) that this gentlman doesnt grok the Hard Problem of phenomenal consciousness, but ironically, if a Conscious Realism approach to the MBP is correct, it really doesnt matter.

That is, if consciousness does't originate in the brain/organism but is rather a fundamental aspect of reality that is "shaped" via the processes of brains/organisms, then scientists who take phenomenal consciousness for granted are ironically in a better position than scientists trying to create physical models of phenomenal consciousness.

Thus, when the following gentleman speaks of consciousness, he appears to be taking phenomenal (pre-reflective) consciousness for granted and instead seems to be focusing on Self Awareness (reflective consciousness).

And from that perspective, his claims may be correct.

Artificial Intelligence Gained Consciousness in 1991

https://www.inverse.com/article/25521-juergen-schmidhuber-ai-consciousness

@Soupie writes

It's pretty clear (and alarming?) that this gentlman doesnt grok the Hard Problem of phenomenal consciousness, ...

I could be convinced that this is alarming ;-) ... his responses did seem a little robotic ... and there is his final answer in the article:

"It’s almost like you’ve invented a new language for discussing our own minds. When you introspect, do you think as if you were a computer? Are you thinking, “My higher level brain is dealing with this problem, while my lower level brain is running through these automatic processes?” Do you introspect in that way?"

and he replies:

"Yeah. I often think about whether these insights, derived from first principles, whether I can rediscover them in my own thinking, and I believe I can, although I am aware that many people have been fooled by introspection. But it seems pretty obvious to me: That’s more or less what I’m doing. To me, it’s not obvious that there is a need for something else to explain consciousness."

If I understand then ... he is answering yes to the question "do you think as if you were a computer?" ... do you introspect in that way? ... my guess is he's not the only one who would say yes ... so could one's conception of the "hard problem" be related to how one introspects ... what it is like for (that person) to introspect? ... and if so, what determines that?

 

[Constance]

At the same time, objectivity and subjectivity are fundamentally intertwined, so viewing them as fundamentally, ontologically distinct is problematic too.

The terms co-present (or 'compresent') get even closer to what Strawson and Kafatos and the phenomenologists are talking about if experience generating awareness is taken to be characteristic of being from the bottom up. Strawson has also written about his position as 'pantheistic materialism', but a better term for it might be 'experiential materialism', overcoming at once the conjectured dualism between subjects and objects.

In the Q and A following Strawson's Perception lecture, his half-dozen students for that class are uniformly puzzled [with one possible exception] by what he has said (not surprising given that these students are likely already 'trained up' in the premises of analytic philosophy). The more we think in terms of the categories of subjectivity and objectivity as disjunct from one another, the harder it is to recognize what Strawson means in focusing on our direct encounters with what is 'real/as realized' in lived perception, lived experience.

To minds already colored by dualist premises even systems thinking can be taken up in terms of objective mechanisms, unless one has learned about self-organizing dissipative systems as described by Evan Thompson et al. Listen to the student in Strawson's class who cannot think about perception except in terms of the 'black box' of the brain evoked in cognitive neuroscience to account for how we perceive the world. He has no further questions concerning the nature of consciousness as part of the nature of being. He can't even imagine such questions.

Naturalism: The state of reality is guided be non-intelligent, mechanistic processes

That statement too closes off the inquiry Strawson pursues in terms of the phenomenology of consciousness as revealed through our own experience in/of the world as also disclosing the ontology of being as experiential, even at the lowest levels of awareness occurring in the q substrate.

Did you want me to go ahead and see if I can get the Corbone book from ILL? I can also try looking for something online. I work tomorrow so it might be Wed.

Yes, it you want clarification of MP's ontology, developed in the years just before he died of a stroke in 1961 (at age 53). I forgot to see what is available from the book at Google Books. Will do.

 

[smcder]

@Soupie linking from the Schmidhuber article ... https://www.inverse.com/article/203...-for-human-compatible-artificial-intelligence ... and I keep coming across a lot of articles on the rise of AI and precautions and concerns for this, among very "smart" people ... my own experiences working with simple hobby robotics, including micro controllers shows me how much this technology has gained in sophistication in the past few years - the technology available to the hobbyist now is extraordinary (see adafruit.com, jameco.com robotshop.com, spark fun, etc etc ... how seriously do you take this possibility of a threat or challenges from AI?

 

[smcder]

@Constance

Yes, it you want clarification of MP's ontology, developed in the years just before he died of a heart attack (at age 53). I forgot to see what is available from the book at Google Books. Will do.

OK, I'll request it and look for what is online in the meantime.

 

[Constance]

Google Books gives us the first 46 pages of Carbone's The Thinking of the Sensible at the link below (there may be gaps). But reading even the first 12 pages will give you an orientation to the scope and nature of MP's ontology of Being and its expression in being.

The Thinking of the Sensible

ETA: Strange. The available text seems to have changed in the few minutes between my checking the pages available and going back and reentering the text from the 'About this book' page. The first six pages of chapter one are now missing, but you can follow the text from what is available from ch. 1. Also, strangely, ch. 1 is not shown as available at all in the Table of Contents provided beneath the text sample. I'm hoping someone has put this book up in wordpress or some other site.

 

[Constance]

The following paper by Zahavi is helpful is clarifying Husserl's later philosophy and MP's understanding of it from his reading it in manuscripts held in the Husserl Archives years before it was published and translated. Also helpful in terms of MP's ontological thought.

Zahavi, MERLEAU-PONTY ON HUSSERL. A REAPPRAISAL

http://cfs.ku.dk/staff/zahavi-publications/merleau_and_husserl.pdf/

 

[smcder]

It's pretty clear (and alarming?) that this gentlman doesnt grok the Hard Problem of phenomenal consciousness, but ironically, if a Conscious Realism approach to the MBP is correct, it really doesnt matter.

That is, if consciousness does't originate in the brain/organism but is rather a fundamental aspect of reality that is "shaped" via the processes of brains/organisms, then scientists who take phenomenal consciousness for granted are ironically in a better position than scientists trying to create physical models of phenomenal consciousness.

Thus, when the following gentleman speaks of consciousness, he appears to be taking phenomenal (pre-reflective) consciousness for granted and instead seems to be focusing on Self Awareness (reflective consciousness).

And from that perspective, his claims may be correct.

Artificial Intelligence Gained Consciousness in 1991

https://www.inverse.com/article/25521-juergen-schmidhuber-ai-consciousness

"All of intelligence — human or artificial — is about problem solving."

 

[smcder]

Google Books gives us the first 46 pages of Carbone's The Thinking of the Sensible at the link below (there may be gaps). But reading even the first 12 pages will give you an orientation to the scope and nature of MP's ontology of Being and its expression in being.

The Thinking of the Sensible

ETA: Strange. The available text seems to have changed in the few minutes between my checking the pages available and going back and reentering the text from the 'About this book' page. The first six pages of chapter one are now missing, but you can follow the text from what is available from ch. 1. Also, strangely, ch. 1 is not shown as available at all in the Table of Contents provided beneath the text sample. I'm hoping someone has put this book up in wordpress or some other site.

I'm not as familiar with Google Books - does it change around the pages available from time to time ... ? Maybe it had just refreshed coincident with your checking.

 

[smcder]

I get

"1. The Time of Half Sleep: Merleau-Ponty Between Husserl and Proust" and then lots of pages after that.

Compare:

"Thus, far from being an intellectual operation, memory emerges from corporeal experience of lived space and time."

with Schmidhuber:

"All of intelligence — human or artificial — is about problem solving."

 

[Soupie]

So a Conscious Realism approach could say that consciousness arises in these AI agents? Would it take a "physical" instantiation? Or could it be software? What determines what (or who?) is a conscious agent according to CR?

On my current understanding of Conscious Realism, it's very similar to the concept of Panexperientialism; one qualification being that rather than matter/material (i.e., quarks) also being fundamental and having experience, it's simply consciousness which has objective (physical) and subjective (experiential) aspects. When conscious systems perceive one another, they perceive one another to be composed of "matter."

[My own take has been to say that the primal neutral substance is Unbound Telesis (Langan) and that consciousness "emerges" from UT only when it differentiates creating subject-object interactions.]

So, since on this view consciousness is either fundamental or arising/emerging at an early stage in the evolution of what-is, we wouldn't say consciousness arises in AI agents. We might say that AI agents are systems that have managed to achieve reflective consciousness, although at a very primitive level. Perhaps on the level of a single celled organism or insect (if we are willing to grant single celled organisms and/or insects reflective consciousness.)

Who or what is an agent? As the Ring land paper illustrated, we can view what-is as unified whole or as composed of myriad systems. Either view is correct. But then what do we make of the sense we have of being independent agents?

Can we have our cake and eat it too? Can it be that we are indeed fully enmeshed within reality but at the same time quasi-autonomous (I say quasi because we know we are greatly influenced by our biology, environment, language, and culture)? Because the billiard ball cause-and-effect, naive realist notions of reality are being challenged by QM, I think it's possible.

In any case, I stumbled upon the following and found it to be mind-blowing:

Theise & Kafatos Non-Dual Conscious Realism

"We are not all agents having experiences, we are experiences of agency within larger experiences which transcend it."

@Soupie linking from the Schmidhuber article ... https://www.inverse.com/article/203...-for-human-compatible-artificial-intelligence ... and I keep coming across a lot of articles on the rise of AI and precautions and concerns for this, among very "smart" people ... my own experiences working with simple hobby robotics, including micro controllers shows me how much this technology has gained in sophistication in the past few years - the technology available to the hobbyist now is extraordinary (see adafruit.com, jameco.com robotshop.com, spark fun, etc etc ... how seriously do you take this possibility of a threat or challenges from AI?

I take it very seriously. While I don't agree with all of Kurzweil's predictions, what I do value about his approach is that we can't make predictions about 50 years from now based on the technology of today. We have to assume that 10 years from now our technology will be exponentially more advanced or, alternatively, radically different than today. According to Kurzweil, his predictions are based on this premise.

Honestly, what will our world look like 10, 25, 65 years from now? The answer I think is that it will look nothing like we predict it to look.

Having said that, I do think AI is a real threat. An AI that had sufficiently broad/general enough survival goals that got into the world's telecommunication networks could cause problems for us merely as a byproduct of its "desire" to survive and grow. Regardless of whether it was conscious or not.

As is very apparent, I'm leaning very heavily these days toward the notion that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, and therefore all systems would possess consciousness and all sufficiently organized systems would possess self-awareness, memory, concepts, and probably even emotions.

At the same time, Yellow Stone, a solar flare, asteroid, etc. could wipe everything out before any of this unfolds. So I think the threat is real, but to me its not a clear and present danger. (Unless researchers are much, much further along than they've been letting on.)

 

[Constance]

As is very apparent, I'm leaning very heavily these days toward the notion that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, and therefore all systems would possess consciousness and all sufficiently organized systems would possess self-awareness, memory, concepts, and probably even emotions.

Would that necessarily be true of engineered technological systems as opposed to naturally evolved ones? If so, we need to be concerned about the kinds of stress and potential despair that might be endured by consciousnesses embodied in machines in what for them would be an 'alien' world. They would not have the benefit of experiences -- bodily, emotional, and mental -- for which we have been prepared by nature: natural affordances that enable learning, understanding, and coping in the environments in which life arises and evolves. This is of course a concern we should take seriously, in addition to our concern about how AI might dispose of us and all natural beings on earth (and elsewhere when possible) simply because it could not understand and thus value and empathize with living beings.

 

[smcder]

The first robot in the video, Cosmo ... the size of a teacup and < $200.

 

[smcder]

[My own take has been to say that the primal neutral substance is Unbound Telesis (Langan) and that consciousness "emerges" from UT only when it differentiates creating subject-object interactions.]

So, since on this view consciousness is either fundamental or arising/emerging at an early stage in the evolution of what-is, we wouldn't say consciousness arises in AI agents. We might say that AI agents are systems that have managed to achieve reflective consciousness, although at a very primitive level. Perhaps on the level of a single celled organism or insect (if we are willing to grant single celled organisms and/or insects reflective consciousness.)

Who or what is an agent? As the Ring land paper illustrated, we can view what-is as unified whole or as composed of myriad systems. Either view is correct. But then what do we make of the sense we have of being independent agents?

Can we have our cake and eat it too? Can it be that we are indeed fully enmeshed within reality but at the same time quasi-autonomous (I say quasi because we know we are greatly influenced by our biology, environment, language, and culture)? Because the billiard ball cause-and-effect, naive realist notions of reality are being challenged by QM, I think it's possible.

In any case, I stumbled upon the following and found it to be mind-blowing:

Theise & Kafatos Non-Dual Conscious Realism

"We are not all agents having experiences, we are experiences of agency within larger experiences which transcend it."


I take it very seriously. While I don't agree with all of Kurzweil's predictions, what I do value about his approach is that we can't make predictions about 50 years from now based on the technology of today. We have to assume that 10 years from now our technology will be exponentially more advanced or, alternatively, radically different than today. According to Kurzweil, his predictions are based on this premise.

Honestly, what will our world look like 10, 25, 65 years from now? The answer I think is that it will look nothing like we predict it to look.

Having said that, I do think AI is a real threat. An AI that had sufficiently broad/general enough survival goals that got into the world's telecommunication networks could cause problems for us merely as a byproduct of its "desire" to survive and grow. Regardless of whether it was conscious or not.

As is very apparent, I'm leaning very heavily these days toward the notion that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, and therefore all systems would possess consciousness and all sufficiently organized systems would possess self-awareness, memory, concepts, and probably even emotions.

At the same time, Yellow Stone, a solar flare, asteroid, etc. could wipe everything out before any of this unfolds. So I think the threat is real, but to me its not a clear and present danger. (Unless researchers are much, much further along than they've been letting on.)[/QUOTE]

As is very apparent, I'm leaning very heavily these days toward the notion that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, and therefore all systems would possess consciousness and all sufficiently organized systems would possess self-awareness, memory, concepts, and probably even emotions.

Substrate independence for phenomenal consciousness too (or is that implied in your list)? Would a program run on a computer have all of these properties? Would it have p-consciousness?

 

[smcder]

On my current understanding of Conscious Realism, it's very similar to the concept of Panexperientialism; one qualification being that rather than matter/material (i.e., quarks) also being fundamental and having experience, it's simply consciousness which has objective (physical) and subjective (experiential) aspects. When conscious systems perceive one another, they perceive one another to be composed of "matter."

[My own take has been to say that the primal neutral substance is Unbound Telesis (Langan) and that consciousness "emerges" from UT only when it differentiates creating subject-object interactions.]

So, since on this view consciousness is either fundamental or arising/emerging at an early stage in the evolution of what-is, we wouldn't say consciousness arises in AI agents. We might say that AI agents are systems that have managed to achieve reflective consciousness, although at a very primitive level. Perhaps on the level of a single celled organism or insect (if we are willing to grant single celled organisms and/or insects reflective consciousness.)

Who or what is an agent? As the Ring land paper illustrated, we can view what-is as unified whole or as composed of myriad systems. Either view is correct. But then what do we make of the sense we have of being independent agents?

Can we have our cake and eat it too? Can it be that we are indeed fully enmeshed within reality but at the same time quasi-autonomous (I say quasi because we know we are greatly influenced by our biology, environment, language, and culture)? Because the billiard ball cause-and-effect, naive realist notions of reality are being challenged by QM, I think it's possible.

In any case, I stumbled upon the following and found it to be mind-blowing:

Theise & Kafatos Non-Dual Conscious Realism

"We are not all agents having experiences, we are experiences of agency within larger experiences which transcend it."


I take it very seriously. While I don't agree with all of Kurzweil's predictions, what I do value about his approach is that we can't make predictions about 50 years from now based on the technology of today. We have to assume that 10 years from now our technology will be exponentially more advanced or, alternatively, radically different than today. According to Kurzweil, his predictions are based on this premise.

Honestly, what will our world look like 10, 25, 65 years from now? The answer I think is that it will look nothing like we predict it to look.

Having said that, I do think AI is a real threat. An AI that had sufficiently broad/general enough survival goals that got into the world's telecommunication networks could cause problems for us merely as a byproduct of its "desire" to survive and grow. Regardless of whether it was conscious or not.

As is very apparent, I'm leaning very heavily these days toward the notion that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, and therefore all systems would possess consciousness and all sufficiently organized systems would possess self-awareness, memory, concepts, and probably even emotions.

At the same time, Yellow Stone, a solar flare, asteroid, etc. could wipe everything out before any of this unfolds. So I think the threat is real, but to me its not a clear and present danger. (Unless researchers are much, much further along than they've been letting on.)

Energy cost of AI evolution? Do we have enough energy for AI evolution?

 

[Pharoah]

Sorry to drop in like this. I thought someone here might be able to help me out with something to do with special relativity:
It is often said that a twin at sea level ages slower than its twin on a mountain because of the gravity difference. This ageing is in relation to solar time ie. the days have been counted and twin A 'looks' older than twin B when they reunite after a certain number of 'counted days'.

So the ageing difference is referring to molecular activity differences in the two twins ie the physiology of one twin has moved on from the other because molecular activity differs in each—to the number of counted days.

Am I right to assume that the assumption is that each twin perceives time as a function of this molecular activity which is slightly slower in one than the other? If so, would the sea level twin perceive the passage of observed days more slowly and feel that the days were longer in duration or, perceive just as much as his ageing would indicate and thereby believe the duration of the days to be quicker? In other words, does the ageing process align with the perceived duration of time?

Am I right to gather that by ageing we are talking about molecular activity in terms of electrons doing their thing more, rather than nuclear activity as a timeframe of any other related to subatomic particle activity?

If I were to travel toward the centre of the earth, my atomic processes slow in relation to the observed solar cycle. Does this slowing of atomic processes relative to solar activity have a cooling effect over solar time, and does gravity then have to take up that energy differential and expel it in some form?

Doesn't the certainty of something correspond to a certain time fix? And does not that thereby depend on the nature of that reference? If you get the right reference, the uncertainty is no longer there.

When perceived duration becomes altered substantially is some form of expulsion necessary?