Can a lightbulb be conscious?

I don't have an understanding of consciousness. I only have a vague idea of what it might be and some very strong ideas on what it isn't.

My vague idea is very difficult to express, but I'll try.

First of all, in order to understand my idea at all it helps to understand the concept of "qualia". Qualia are the internal sensations of experience. When I see the colour red, I experience it in a particular way - it has a "red-ness". That sensation is a quale. It may be completely different to your redness quale. however, every time I see red, I have the same quale. Everytime you see red you do too (perhaps different from mine but the same as last time you had experienced it).

Qualia point to the fact that though our sensations have very specific meaning, they are only meaningful internally. If I were somehow able to extract my quale and implant it into your thoughts/experience, it would most probably be meaningless to you (or mean something entirely different).

If you think about this concept for a while in a dark room after a smooth spliff while nibbling halva and listening to some Karunesh on the hi-fi, it seems to take you to this thought: if all of our internal mental states are different from other people's, and if there is truly a distinction between the qualia per se and the physical machinations going on in the brain, then perhaps all of our internal mental states are not "causal" as such (this is where language fails me) but an accidental property that happens to arise. I believe that ANY complex system will similarly be generating an emergent state which from that system's point of view might be termed "experience". Most such systems do not, however, have the means to communcate their experience to other similar systems as we can.

I don't think that there is any fundamental difference between simple "experience" (i.e. the experiencing of something) and "consciousness" (i.e. self-awareness). By that I mean there is no magic point at which an experiencing thing becomes a conscious thing. In my view all experiencing things are conscious but to different degrees. I therefore also believe that there are many entities in the universe (or our own evolutionary or technological future) that are more conscious than we are. They may well ask themsleves whether we are conscious in any meaningful sense.

If internal sensation/experience is an accidental and inevitable byproduct of a complex system then it is easy to see why we have been unable to answer the question "what is consciousness?". We have been looking for answers like "well it's this bunch of neurons here" or "it's an energy field that interacts with the brain" or "it's the thing that arises when a being's model of the world becomes so complete it includes a model of itself". But in fact the best answer we may ever hope to arrive at is that it's simply the overal internal state of the system. It's what it's like to be that system. It's the redness of red.

2old
 
Well, that's one way of looking at it. If I may paraphrase, you're saying that there is no absolute consciousness, ie a threshold above which one is conscious and below which one is not conscious?

I did go away and look up the Turing Test. The essential element, according to Turing, is whether an interrogator can distinguish between a human and a machine simply by evaluating the responses to questions. Clearly the interrogator has to be 'blind' and must ask questions in a way which prevents him making a judgment based on the style in which they are answered (ie an electronic voice would be a bit of a giveaway).

I'm not sure that it brings me any closer to understanding the nature of conciousness. For me, there are still far more questions than answers.

I may be forced to try the spliff methodology.

:cool: :cool:
 
I think a meet up at the next IBC to discuss the idea of consciousness should be put on the 'things to do' list.

Theres a few establishments that serve a decent coffee I know of.
 
I can think of several chemical ways of becoming unconscious.

:D :D
 
Theyre also available at the same coffee shop -take your poison
 
Looks inviting.

:cool: :cool:
 
It might be worth making some provisional plans on how many from this site might be travelling over in September

It would be good to have a face to a name, even if its daytime rather than the full evening of debauchery
 
Wolsty - the Turing test arose from a game ("the imitation game") proposed by Turing, in which one participant (a person) would try through interrogation to ascertain which was whihc of two others (one man, one woman), based only on their responses. In subsequent versions, the respondees were a person and a machine.
The test/game was never devised as a means of establishing consciousness, merely whether one respondee could imitate the other. As such it is most often held up to be a test of artificial intelligence.
Personally I'm not yet decided on whether consciousness is a necessary consequence of artificial intelligence. In fact I can't imagine any test that would be able to determine whether an entity is conscious. It's difficult enough even to define in objective terms what consciousness is (and without a clear definition on what it is, how can we ever hope to understand how it arises?)

How would you define consciousness?

2old





hc of two others
 
How would you define consciousness?
Click to expand...
I carried out a net search on that and it came up with 338,000web sites. I wonder if they all differ in their definitions?
 
It is that defining moment on awakening from a deep beer, wine and Cognac induced sleep. What am I, where am I, who am I and Why did I? :)
 
I think you may just have reduced the intellectual level of this discussion Rolf. ;)
 
Sorry Jimbo, just had to be done. :) I'm sure though that everyone will ignore my flippancy and continue the discussion on the previous level, they normally do, ;)
 
Rolfs suggestion may actually have been quite relevant if a little alcohol induced

The 'I' suggests that the person believes in their existence.

The question(s) - to oneself,
a self induced check on the identity,
check on physical location,
verification of third person description, and
reasoning behind present status,

to establish a totality to the existeince and lends credence to the idea of the being having a function (if not a purpose). The extent of searching for more than just a true vectoral position, ignoring the requirements for anything around oneself, shows more than a hint of what I would class as consciousness

However the mix of cognac, wine and beer suggest the conscious being is actually trying to commit hari-kiri the night before, and nothing within the questions asked shows any hint of cleaning up the mess left by the excess imbibement, which means remorse is not a part of true consciousness in Rolfws world

I would therefore conclude Rolfw in his suggested state is somewhat low on the scale of consciousness (I believe Ive been there - though not with Cognac as its vile stuff, only fit for use in agricultural vehicles), and therefore levels of consciousness are present, in keeping with a different wattage of lightbulb.
 
@ 2Old

Now you're asking. Platitudinously, I would say it's 'self-awareness', ie I 'know' I'm 'I'. But, like most platitudes, it begs the question. And now I'm in deep water. But I have some questions:

Does a cat know it's a cat? If not, does it lack consciousness?

If I know I'm a human, does that make me conscious?

Is consciousness an absolute state, or are there degrees of consciousness?

What happens to consciousness when we're asleep?

What happens to consciousness when we're anaethstetised?

If AI is not intended to emulate consciousness, what use is it?

When I get to have ethical problems about switching off my pc, I'll know I'm in serious trouble.

:cool: :cool:
 
@ CH. Armagnac's better.

I had some 10 year old Cuban rum at lunchtime on Wednesday and a migraine on Thursday. Is there any connection? The rum is even better than the Armagnac.

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
Here are my thoughts

Does a cat know it's a cat? If not, does it lack consciousness?

Imagine the answer to that is "yes". What about mice? Insects? Bacteria? I think the answer is that there are different gradations of "knowing". A cat probably does have some rudimentary sense of identity. A bacterium probably not (simply bnecause it has no central nervous system within which such a sense could arise). If an animal has no sense of self then I personally believe it is not conscious. Consciousness is in my view inextricably linked to (or indeed synonymous with) a sense of self.

If I know I'm a human, does that make me conscious?

You are posing this (and the previous) question in such a way as to pre-suppose a dichotomy between knowing onself, and consciousness. In fact I believe they are the same thing.

Is consciousness an absolute state, or are there degrees of consciousness?

Degrees of. Even a particular human can be more conscious than another, or indeed achieve varying degrees of consciousness him/herself. I am more conscious when I am awake.

What happens to consciousness when we're asleep?

When we are asleep we are for the most part unconscious. This doesn't mean we become something that is inherenntly incapable of consciousness. Just that our consciousness is suspended temporarily. Similarly when we are drugged, or brain-injured (as in a coma).

However, I believe that we emerge into rudimentary consciousness when lucid-dreaming. Lucid-dreaming is a fascinating and even exilarating phenomenon. I've had lucid dreams since the age of at least eight, although (sadly) with decreasing frequency as I've got older. During lucid dreaming, I am fully aware of the fact that I am in a dream. I am even able to manipulate the dream at will, though I've discovered that the more bizarre the manipulation, the sooner I emerge into a waking state. This in fact suggests to me that during lucid dreaming we are not yet fully conscious - but that in confronting an increasing lack of reality in the environment, the brain is eventually tippped into full consciousness. In fact, it is the act of recognising a facet of a dream as unrealistic that tips me into the lucid dreaming state in the first place. One of the techniques for generating lucid dreaming is based around just that concept. The idea is to constantly be checking and confirming the reality of everyday situations during wakefulness. When that becomes a habit, the habit is incorporated into one's dreams. When in a dream one asks the question "can what just happened be real?" the anwer will often be "no", and that realisation causes lucidity in the dream. One concrete example is to read a bit of text, look away, and read it again. Deliberately ask yourself whether the text is the same as the first time. Genuinely do this. Think about the answer. Take it seriously. If the text was the same, you are probably awake. If not, you will almost certainly be dreaming.


What happens to consciousness when we're anaethstetised?

See above. I do not believe we are conscious at all in this state, though I have often toyed with the idea that we may be FULLY conscious (if paralysed) yet have our memory of the event disrupted by the anaesthetic. Perhaps everyone of us who has ever undegone surgery actually suffered excruciating pain and terror of helplessness at the time but can simply no longer remember it.
Such thoughts also raise the interesting question of whether we can be conscious with no memory. Could a being that had no way of storing memories (not even short-term memories) be conscious?

If AI is not intended to emulate consciousness, what use is it?
There are a huge range of applications for artificially intelligent systems, conscious or not. In fact, most of the products so far of AI research fall into this category. They are often called expert systems. The computer programme which attempts to diagnose a patient's illness is one example. No-one has ever claimed it is conscious. Another product of AI is the neural network. They are systems designed to learn in a way that mmics the human brain. I personally believe that a large enough neural network would be conscious (and that one of sufficient complexity would even be MORE conscious than we are).

When I get to have ethical problems about switching off my pc, I'll know I'm in serious trouble.

Do/did you have problems putting your kids to bed at night?

2old
 
Yes. The buggers would never settle down unless I (or my wife)read them several stories.

More serious replies later.

:)
 
I thought the "killer argument" against machine consciousness was John Searle's Chinese Room parable.

Difficult to forget Igor Aleksander appearing on Newsnight, and proclaiming his laptop computer "conscious", for once Paxman was stumped .....
 
.... and that's "killed" this thread, whoops!

I'm not going to explain Searle's Chinese Room (go Google it!). But basically, it disproves the Turing Test. He said, if you converse via VDU (teleprinter) to "something" in next room, and can't tell if it's a man or machine, then it's "thinking", whichever it is. John Searle showed this is false. However good the computer simulation, it's just "cogwheels turning", it can't "understand" anything, everything depends on the machine's programme (originally designed by a person, who does understand it!).

Question is, is "thinking" the same as "being conscious"? After all, Buddhists have Nirvana, supposedly a state of "pure awareness" without any content ...
 
Not at all -

If you look 3 posts up it had already been dead for 2 years.

L.
 
Back
Top