[ExI] A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism

Sat Aug 26 16:05:51 UTC 2023

On Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 10:38 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> 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.
>

One implications of this is that there may be many independent minds
operating within our bodies and brains. Within a reflexive, for example,
are neurons conditionally reacting to a stimulus. The consciousness of such
a reflex would be very simple, however, rather like that of a thermostat.

I think something like this is necessary as I will elaborate on below.

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
>

I think consciousness was an early introduction in life. It may have begun
in it's simplest form with bacteria that react to light, or touch. I think
a range of gradations of consciousness is necessary in the phylogenetic
tree, as otherwise we face the prospect of unconscious "zombie" parents
giving birth to a fully conscious self-aware child.

Jason

>
> 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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