[ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism

Sat Aug 26 14:37:06 UTC 2023

Hard enough to define consciousness.  How about knowledge?  Where does it
start?  The body knows thousands of things to do - digesting food,
responding to pain, reflexes like kneejerks, various emotions - all of
these built in.  Then you have CRs, like staying away from a hot stove on
which you have burned yourself.

Then reinforcement type knowledge - what to do to gain positive reinforcers
and avoid punishments.  Verbal knowledge.  Motor knowledge.  Etc.

All animals, down to the amoeba, possess reflexes. A bit up from that are
conditioned reflexes.

So - just how are you using the term 'knowledge' in your discussion of
consciousness?    If knowledge equal consciousness then by some definitions
the amoeba is conscious   bill w

On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 9:28 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Thank you John for your thoughts. I few notes below:
>
> On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 7:17 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 1:47 PM Jason Resch <jasonresch at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> *> At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge,*
>>>
>>
>> That is certainly true, but what about the reverse, does a high state of
>> knowledge imply consciousness?  I'll never be able to prove it but I
>> believe it does but of course for this idea to be practical there must be
>> some way of demonstrating that the thing in question does indeed have a
>> high state of knowledge, and the test for that is the Turing Test, and
>> the fact that my fellow human beings have passed the Turing test is the
>> only reason I believe that I am NOT the only conscious being in the
>> universe.
>>
>
> Yes, I believe there's an identity between states of knowledge and states
> of consciousness. That is almost implicit in the definition of
> consciousness:
> con- means "with"
> -scious- means "knowledge"
> -ness means "the state of being"
> con-scious-ness -> the state of being with knowledge.
>
> Then, the question becomes: what is a state of knowledge? How do we
> implement or instantiate a knowledge state, physically or otherwise?
>
> My intuition is that it requires a process of differentiation, such that
> some truth becomes entangled with the system's existence.
>
>
>>
>> *> A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state of
>>> knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is true.*
>>>
>>
>> Then "conditional" is not a useful philosophical term because you could
>> be conscious of and know a lot about Greek mythology. but none of it is
>> true except for the fact that Greek mythology is about Greek mythology.
>>
>
> Yes. Here, the truth doesn't have to be some objective truth, it can be
> truth of what causes ones mind to reach a particular state. E.g., here it
> would be the truth of what particular sensory data came into the scholar's
> eyes as he read a book of Greek mythology.
>
>
>
>> >  *Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, not
>>> any particular physical thing we can point at or hold.*
>>>
>>
>> I mostly agree with that but that doesn't imply there's anything mystical
>> going on, information is also immaterial and you can't point to *ANY
>> PARTICULAR* physical thing
>>
>
> I agree.
>
>  (although you can always point to *SOME *physical thing) and I believe
>> it's a brute fact that consciousness is the way information feels when it
>> is being processed intelligently.
>>
>
> I like this analogy, but I think it is incomplete. Can information (by
> itself) feel? Can information (by itself) have meaning?
>
> I see value in making a distinction between information and "the system to
> be informed." I think the pair are necessary for there to be meaning, or
> consciousness.
>
>
> However there is nothing ephemeral about information, as far as we can
>> tell the laws of physics are unitary, that is information can't be
>> destroyed and the probability of all possible outcomes must add up to 100%.
>> For a while Stephen Hawking thought that Black Holes destroyed information
>> but he later changed his mind, Kip Thorne still thinks it may do so but he
>> is in the minority.
>>
>
> I agree information can't be destroyed. But note that what I called
> ephemeral was the conditional relation, which (at least usually) seems to
> occur and last during a short time.
>
>
>
>>
>> *> All we need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge.*
>>>
>>
>> At the most fundamental level that pretty much defines what a computer
>> programmer does to make a living.
>>
>
> Yes.
>
>
>
>> * > It shows the close relationship between consciousness and
>>> information, where information is defined as "a difference that makes a
>>> difference",*
>>>
>>
>> And the smallest difference that still makes a difference is the
>> difference between one and zero, or on and off.
>>
>
> The bit is the simplest unit of information, but interestingly, there can
> also be fractional bits. For example, if there's a 75% chance of some
> event, like two coin tossings not both being heads, and I tell you that two
> coin tossings were not both heads, then I have only
> communicated -log2(0.75) ~= 0.415 bits of information to you.
>
>
>
>> > *It shows a close relationship between consciousness and
>>> computationalism,*
>>>
>>
>> I strongly agree with that,  it makes no difference if the thing doing
>> that computation is carbon-based and wet and squishy, or silicon-based and
>> dry and hard.
>>
>
> Absolutely  ��
>
>
>>  >  It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple
>>> realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead
>>> to conditionals.
>>
>>
>> YES!
>>
>> *> It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals and
>>> combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other neurons
>>> have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger one. It
>>> seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, reflective,
>>> etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some conditionals.
>>> As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This explains the
>>> biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in the guidance
>>> of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of knowledge) would be
>>> strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve.*
>>>
>>
>> I agree with all of that.
>>
>
> Happy to hear that. Thanks for all your feedback.
>
> Jason
>
>
>  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis
>> <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>
>> xex
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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