[ExI] My theory of consciousness

[John Clark]

On Sat, Sep 26, 2026 at 11:36 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*> >> Turing's specification was abstract and mathematical.*
>>>
>>
>> *>> Yes, exactly.  It's abstract and mathematical and that is NOT enough
>> to perform a calculation, if it were TSMC's factories in Taiwan would be
>> printing out copies of Alan Turing's 1936 paper instead of manufacturing
>> high-tech microchips. *
>>
>
> *> What is our universe running on?*
>

*Matter and the laws of physics. That's why it takes energy and time to
perform a calculation.*

*> If you say it doesn't need a computer underneath it, and there it can
> just compute it's own evolution, then I can also imagine an idealized
> Turing machine existing as it's own universe, powering itself.*
>

*And JK Rowling imagined Harry Potter's world, but that didn't enable me to
buy a magic wand. *


*> You will of course reply saying "well then make one and earn a trillion
> dollars and prove me wrong", but you're employing an ignoratio elenchi by
> asking for something within this universe,*
>

*Sorry for being so parochial as to be especially interested in the only
universe that we know for sure exists. *


> *> rather than engaging with the point under discussion: what
> computational power supports independently existing universes in the first
> place?*
>

*The fact that one atom can influence another according to the laws of
physics, and if those atoms are arranged in the way that Alan Turing
described then they can perform any finite calculation. Without matter and
physics computation would not be possible. In our universe the matter
capable of computation is in the form of atoms. Other universes, if they
exist, would have different laws of physics so maybe matter would take on
some other form. Free stable independent quarks perhaps?*

*> Reliable structures for encoding information and  reliable transition
> rules supporting universal conoutarion are needed, that is all.*


*Yes I agree.  *

*> Idealized billiard ballls*


*Yes, if they are not too idealized.  *

* > SK combinators, lambda calculus, Diophantine equations, Game of Life,
> Rule 110, are all equally capable of supporting universal computation.*


*No.*

*> My answer is fundamental mathematics.*
>

*Fundamental mathematics exists in this universe and yet the English word
"C-O-W" can NOT produce milk. Why not? Because mathematics is the language
of physics but physics is more fundamental, mathematics is just
descriptive. *


*>>  A printed copy of Turing's paper is NOt a Turing Machine, it's just a
>> bunch of squiggles on paper, to actually make something equivalent to a
>> Turing Machine a mind would have to read that paper, and mind is what a
>> brain does, and at least in this universe*
>>
>
> *> "At least in this universe" is key. **I've granted that already.*
>


*And as I've already said, fundamental mathematics DOES exist in THIS
universe, and yet we STILL can't get the Game of Life to perform
calculations instantly and without using any energy or atoms. Why not? How
could the existence of atoms and the laws of physics interfere with the
operation of fundamental mathematics? I don't see how it could. That's why
I think physics is more fundamental than mathematics.*

> *> I gave you an example, Game of Life. Could there be a universe out
> there in reality that just consists of some large grid of cells whose time
> evolution consists of the rules of GoL? If you say no, then why not?*
>

*I can't use fundamental mathematics to definitively answer that "why not"
question, I don't know why it is not possible, but never mind the "why", I
can however provide an astronomical amount of empirical evidence that, for
whatever reason, it is NOT possible. If it was, our world would be
radically different.   *

*>> There might be other universes that don't have atoms and have radically
>> different laws of physics than we do but still have intelligence and
>> consciousness in them because they have structures of some sort of a form
>> we can't begin to imagine that can store and manipulate information in the
>> way a Turing Machine can.  *
>>
>
> > *Okay great, then we agree atoms aren't logically necessary for
> computation. That was all I was saying.*
>

*No, you were saying a great deal more than that.  Atoms might or might not
be necessary I don't know, but matter certainly is. **Some of those other
universes  might look inconceivably different from ours but  still have
more than just  mathematics, they all have laws of physics of some sort and
some variety of matter. *


*>> You need 3 dimensions for the Game Of Life, 2 for space and 1 for time.
>> In a Conway universe fundamental physics would be much simpler then what we
>> have, they'd teach it in kindergarten, but biology would be far more
>> complicated. And there are questions, how long would it take for a cell to
>> change from on to off? *
>>
>
> *> How long does a Planck time last?*
>

*In our universe it's 5.39* 10^-41 seconds, but that depends on the Plank
Constant, the Gravitational Constant, and the Speed of Light, and in
another universe those values might be different. According to string
theory there is one dimension of time and 10 dimensions of space, but there
are 10^500 different ways those 10 dimensions can be tangled up with each
other, in our universe three of those dimensions are astronomically large
or perhaps infinitely large, but the other 7 are so narrow they approach
the Planck Length of  1.6*10^-35  meters. The precise way those 10 spatial
dimensions are tangled up determines the fundamental constants of nature,
so some of those 10^500  universes would look very very strange to us.
Assuming of course that string theory is correct.*



> *>>>When you get down to it, you will see the question is as meaningless
>>> in our universe as it is for a GoL entity to ask how much time transpires
>>> between updates.*
>>
>>
> *>> If it's instantaneous and something equivalent to energy is not needed
>> for things to change then infinite, and not just astronomically large,
>> computations would be possible. And I think that might produce some logical
>> paradoxes.  *
>>
>
> *> Now you are falling back into your "GoL running in our universe"
> mindset again. It is like asking "Where does all the energy come from that
> powers all the computations needex to compute our universe's own time
> evolution?"*
>

*A GoL entity in a universe of nothing but pure mathematics would be able
to perform any calculation instantaneously, and therefore the time
dimension would not exist for him, there would be no past or future, there
would only be a NOW.*



> *>> I don't think it's an all or nothing matter. Am I the same
>> consciousness as I was when I was five? I can remember some incidents from
>> back then (with questionable accuracy) but about how I felt emotionally
>> about them at the time  I can only give them crude imprecise labels like
>> "happy" or "sad".  *
>>
>
> *> You are answering a different question above, one of personal identity.*
>

*But it is a far far more important question than the one you are asking. *


> *> I am attempting to answer one of qualitative fidelity: Are the colors
> and tastes your upload experiences of the same kind you enjoyed before you
> uploaded?*
>

*If there is a minor glitch and an uploaded person now prefers a bit less
cream in his (now simulated) coffee than he did when he was biological, and
he wants things to be perfect, that problem could be easily solved with a
simple software patch, either to the person or to the coffee. *

*> The upload companies will of course want to run things as coarsely as
> possible to save costs.*
>

*Sure.  *

*> Those who upload will want as much fidelity as possible "just in case"
> it's important to their preservation. My paper suggests there are objective
> answers to these questions,*
>

*Your procedures for answering those questions only work if you assume the
answer to the questions before you start. And that makes it useless.  *



> *>>We can use the scientific method to determine how brain states
>> correlate with behavior, but not with consciousness.*
>>
>
> *> You are operating from your picture where we don't have a theory of
> consciousness. This is what my paper provides.*
>
> * > Before you could perform such an experiment you'd need to assume what
>> you're trying to prove, you need to assume that behavior (in the form of
>> speech or writing) correlates with consciousness. *
>>
>
> *> Every theory in science is based on assumptions and inferences.*
>

*Yes, but none of those assumptions can include what you are trying to
prove! *



> *>> If it's subtle enough I don't care, every time I take a sip of coffee
>> I am altered in subtle ways, but I still feel like I'm me and that's the
>> important thing.  *
>>
>
> *> How would future uploaded you know that he still feels the same, that
> coffee still tastes the same as it did pre upload?*
>

*Forget uploads, how do you know that coffee tastes the same for you today
as it did yesterday?  *



>
>>> *>>> Do you think there are at least a large number of universes with
>>> different laws?*
>>>
>>
>> *>>Yes. I think **Everett's Many Worlds** is probably correct (or at
>> least less wrong than other quantum interpretations). It says that
>> everything that is not forbidden by Schrodinger's Equation actually exists,
>> and if that's true then there are an astronomical, and possibly an
>> infinite, number of other universes.  *
>>
>
> *> Everett's many worlds doesn't get you different physical laws. And so
> you can't use it to explain fine tuning.*
>

*Yes it can.  Everett's many worlds says that everything that does not
contradict Schrodinger's Equation exists, but Schrodinger Equation says
absolutely nothing about the 26 dimensionless fundamental constants of
nature, they must be obtained experimentally. *

*Probably the most famous of these is the fine structure constant, you can
think of it this way, 2 electrons a distance r away repel each other and
have a potential energy of U(r) = e²/(4πε₀r). Now take a photon whose r
wavelength (λ/2π) equals that same r, Its energy is* *E(r) = ħc/r. Now take
the ratio  U(r)/E(r) = [e²/(4πε₀r)] / [ħc/r] = e²/(4πε₀ħc) = Find Structure
Constant. The r completely cancels out and you get a pure dimensionless
number that  is very close to 1/137 but not exactly so. In the above ** e
is the charge of an electron, eo is the electric constant, h is Planck's
Constant divided by 2π, and c is the speed of light. *

*The reciprocal of the FSC obtained experimentally is 137.035999139. Nobody
has a clue as to why the FSC has that value, but we do know that if it was
even slightly different life as we know it would not be possible, although
life as we don't know it might be.  *

>>>* how** do you explain the fine tuning coincidences?*
>>>
>>
>> *>> However rare universes that allow for the existence of intelligent
>> life may be, it's not a coincidence or a surprise that we happen to be in
>> one of them. *
>>
>
> *> Its still a surprise if there's only one set of laws.*
>

*Nobody knows if there's one set of laws or not, there might be 1 trillion,
there might be an infinite number; all I know for sure is that there is at
least one and if that's all there is then obviously that's where I am. Do
you really think it is illogical to make that conclusion? Do you really
expect to be in a universe where life is not possible? If we were, how
could we be having this conversation? *

*If they really are an infinite number of other universes, or only just
10^500, then the fine-tuning problem has been solved. *


> *>  Drawing a card from a deck and it being a 2 of spades is not an
> unlikely coincidence. But if I asked you to guess a card, and you guessed 2
> of spades, and then I happened to draw it from a randomly shuffled deck,
> that would be a coincidence*
>

*If I knew that yesterday a madman would shoot you in the head if you did
not draw a 2 of spades, and you are still alive today, then I can logically
conclude that you must have drawn a 2 of spades.*

*> Your attempt to eliminate the improbability by saying "if it weren't
> anthropic, we wouldn't be here" doesn't work.*
>

*You have yet to explain why it doesn't work.  *


> *> As we could also imagine rare coincidences involving barren universes.*
>

*You can imagine living in a universe where life is impossible? Can you
also imagine a universe where 2+2 = 5?  *

*> Let's say only one universe existed, and it had no life in it, but it's
> fine-strucure constant happened to be:
> 0.123456789101112131415161718192021... to 120 decimal places. Surely we in
> some hypothetical view from no where could remark at surprise that it is
> weird this one universe that happens to exist has this rare coincidence
> that it's fine-structure constant happens to follow this pattern of digits
> for as far as it does. Whether such a universe bears life or not has
> nothing to do with it being a rare coincidence.*
>

*Sorry but I just don't care what the view from nowhere looks like. *

*John K Clark*










> Jason
>
> P.S. I think we agree on the rest below.
>
>
>> *> We can explain the trend towards lawful universes under various
>>> selection rules, for example using Kolmogorov complexity, we expect the
>>> description of most universes to be describable by short programs, and this
>>> tends to produce universes with stable laws, rather than universes with
>>> surprising magical deviations from laws as in Harry Potter.*
>>>
>>
>> *I agree with that.  *
>>
>>
>>
>>> *>>> Consider a high-level program that receives a number N and stops
>>>>> when it finds the next twin prime greater than N. **Now when was ask
>>>>> the question: "what makes this program stop?"*
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *>> If it does stop then it will be because of information, but that is
>>>> a big "if". Assuming N is the largest known twin prime we don't know
>>>> if that program will ever stop, it might but it could be that the number of
>>>> twin primes is finite and N is the largest one. However Gödel told us
>>>> that a proof of that might not exist, and Turing told us that in general
>>>> there is no way to determine if a question is answerable or not; so we
>>>> could be grinding through huge numbers forever looking for the next twin
>>>> prime but always failing because a larger twin prime does not exist. *
>>>>
>>>
>>> *> Then you see the power of rules that emerge above and beyond the mere
>>> low level physical laws. *
>>>
>>
>> *There may be no reason why every even number greater than 2 is the sum
>> of two primes, it's just a brute fact; if so then we will never find a
>> proof that it's true and we will never find a counterexample to prove it's
>> false.  *
>>
>>
>>
>>> *> The emergent properties of complex systems can have their own rules
>>> and causal effects in our world. It is in this sense that minds can cause
>>> things even if you ignore their high level states and focus your attention
>>> on the atoms only,*
>>>
>>
>> *Yeah, but that's true for any complex system, not just minds. There is a
>> high-level  and a low-level description of pressure and fluid flow, the
>> most useful one depends on the specific problem that you're trying to
>> solve. *
>>
>> *John K Clark*
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> *but there is such a thing as an appearance of intelligence. We don't
>>>>>>>> believe our fellow human beings are conscious when they are sleeping or
>>>>>>>> under anesthesia or dead because when they are in those states they do not
>>>>>>>> have an appearance of intelligence.  *
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *> isn't a necessary part of the process, and that is what leads
>>>>>>>>> to the idea of a hard problem.*
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *The hardest part of the hard problem of consciousness is figuring
>>>>>>>> out exactly what the question is, what sort of answer would satisfy you
>>>>>>>> that the problem has been solved? Simply discovering that X causes
>>>>>>>> consciousness would not be sufficient because that would immediately
>>>>>>>> generate new questions like how does X manage to bridge the subjective
>>>>>>>> objective divide, and what causes X? It is a fact that an iterated sequence
>>>>>>>> of "how" or "why" questions either goes on forever or terminates in a brute
>>>>>>>> fact. And I think it's a brute fact that consciousness is the way data
>>>>>>>> feels when it is being processed intelligently. I know I've said all this
>>>>>>>> before but if you show me why I'm wrong I'll stop repeating it.  *
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *> The idea that you could remove consciousness from a functionally
>>>>>>>>> equivalent system and change nothing of its functioning, is what leads to
>>>>>>>>> the inherently self-contradictory idea of philosophical zombies.*
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *Philosophical zombies are not self-contradictory but if laws of
>>>>>>>> physics permitted the existence of such a thing in our universe then random
>>>>>>>> mutation and natural selection could never have been able to produce a
>>>>>>>> conscious entity, and yet I know for a fact that it did. Therefore I must
>>>>>>>> conclude that although philosophical zombies do not violate any law of
>>>>>>>> mathematics they must violate the laws of physics.*
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> * >>Computational functionalism is certainly not claiming that
>>>>>>>>>> consciousness doesn't exist, it's just saying it's not needed to explain
>>>>>>>>>> behavior. *
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *> I somewhat disagree here. If a robot responsively and reliably
>>>>>>>>> reacts to catch a hockey puck as seen
>>>>>>>>> here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOIxu2lv8sI
>>>>>>>>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOIxu2lv8sI>*
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *I'm surprised you included that link because it supports my views
>>>>>>>> not yours. The engineers who made that robot did not need to consider the
>>>>>>>> nature of consciousness for one instant, and yet it was still able to play
>>>>>>>> a good game. If that air hockey table/robot was able to reproduce itself
>>>>>>>> and let loose on an empty planet and you went away and came back 4 billion
>>>>>>>> years later you might find it had evolved into a race of beings that was as
>>>>>>>> smart or smarter than human beings. *
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *> Most people don't assume any process that receives information
>>>>>>>>> and changes its state is conscious,*
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *Most people DO assume such a process is conscious, but only if its
>>>>>>>> brain is wet and squishy, not if its brain is dry and hard. Call me crazy
>>>>>>>> but I don't think wetness or squishiness is relevant.   *
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *> Thus they will come to reach states that are private, and
>>>>>>>>> ineffable.*
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *If so then pondering such states is about as useful as navel
>>>>>>>> gazing. The current revolution in AI happened when people stopped wasting
>>>>>>>> their time thinking about the nature of consciousness and started thinking
>>>>>>>> about the nature of intelligence. *
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *> The recurrence-necessity test*
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [...] *The revealing test is substitution within a mind capable of
>>>>>>>>> comparison and report.*
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *The report is the only part of this experiment that a third-party
>>>>>>>> performing the experiment has access to, and Computational Functionalism
>>>>>>>> can reproduce that report, or any report, without making use of
>>>>>>>> "consciousness" or any other state that is not available to a third party.
>>>>>>>> And a report (a.k.a. behavior) is the only thing that Natural Selection can
>>>>>>>> see in the 4 billion year long experiment called "life", but natural
>>>>>>>> selection can't directly detect  consciousness any better than we can see
>>>>>>>> it in anything other than ourselves and it can't select for something it
>>>>>>>> can't see. Nevertheless evolution managed to produce consciousness at least
>>>>>>>> once, in me (and probably you too). The only way that could've happened is
>>>>>>>> if consciousness is a byproduct of intelligence because Natural Selection
>>>>>>>> can see intelligence, or at least intelligent behavior.       *
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *> that change only if some later transition also changed. Yet the
>>>>>>>>> unfolding preserves those transitions. A theory that makes physical
>>>>>>>>> recurrence constitutive must therefore posit a phenomenal change to which
>>>>>>>>> the subject has no epistemic access. CKT predicts no change*
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *CKT insists that in any experiment you could set up it can
>>>>>>>> reproduce the objective results of that experiment without resorting to any
>>>>>>>> hypothetical subjective state, it doesn't say there is such a state and it
>>>>>>>> doesn't say there isn't, it is agnostic on the issue and it only says that
>>>>>>>> however important it may be to us, consciousness is irrelevant as far as
>>>>>>>> predicting any experiment you could possibly perform. *
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *> because the center possesses and uses exactly the same
>>>>>>>>> distinctions before and after substitution. Repeatedly switching between
>>>>>>>>> the two implementations turns the case into a recurrence-specific version
>>>>>>>>> of dancing qualia.*
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *OK. So what? If I am not a noun but an adjective, if I am the way
>>>>>>>> matter behaves when it is arranged in a Johnkclarkian way then dancing
>>>>>>>> qualia would be exactly what I would expect to happen.   *
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *> This does not establish that LLMs are conscious.*
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *True, but I have no way of definitively establishing that you are
>>>>>>>> conscious and I have no way of definitively establishing that rocks are
>>>>>>>> not. However I could not function if I really believed I was the only
>>>>>>>> conscious entity in the universe therefore I must accept as an axiom of
>>>>>>>> existence that solipsism is untrue, and a simple corollary from that axiom
>>>>>>>> is consciousness must be a side effect of intelligence.   *
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *> A more targeted experiment would temporarily block communication
>>>>>>>>> through the corpus callosum while leaving both hemispheres active*
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *Such experiments prove that a split brain produces a split mind,
>>>>>>>> and that's not surprising because mind is what a brain does. In looking
>>>>>>>> over your other proposed experiments it seems to me they all suffer from
>>>>>>>> problems very similar to the ones described above. They all involve the
>>>>>>>> experimental subject in some way "reporting" on the nature of his
>>>>>>>> subjective state, but the trouble is such a report, regardless of what it's
>>>>>>>> about, is an objective behavior that CKT can reproduce without
>>>>>>>> consciousness entering the picture. *
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *If you feel I've overlooked something important feel free to bring
>>>>>>>> it to my attention. *
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *John K Clark *
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _
>
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