Quoting from the Permutation City by Greg Egan:
"Opponents replied that when you modeled a hurricane, nobody got wet. When you modeled a fusion power plant, no energy was produced. When you modeled digestion and metabolism, no nutrients were consumed – no real digestion took place. So, when you modeled the human brain, why should you expect real thought to occur?"
Yet when you model an Enigma machine, it does encrypt and decrypt messages.
I'd argue that if it encrypts and decrypts, then you've built an enigma machine, not modeled it.
Then, presumably, you will also hold that when you have digitally modeled a brain such that the model responds to its inputs as a brain does, then you have built a brain.
Tendentiously redefining the word "simulation" in an attempt to avoid the awkward cases is not going to save an argument that was dead on arrival.
Are brains responsible for consciousness? Or are brains a tool that our consciousness uses to understand the world?
you might as well call consciousness a soul at this point.
something I once wondered about is what a soul can be and what implications it would have. the conclusions I drew is that the entire concept was incoherent. if a soul is so intrinsically linked to the brain (experience) such that it always goes along for the ride even into the abyss (eg. dementia) then it by itself wouldn't have any value even if it existed.
They seem to be. But that argument doesn't matter much because you can simulate the whole body. (If you want to argue consciousness is outside the body, I could get into the physics argument but instead I'll just claim that consciousness will attach to the computer too and if you have a reason it wouldn't it's your burden to say why.)
I don’t know where consciousness is but I think if we accept that you can simulate a brain exactly that doesn’t prove consciousness of a model as consciousness is a metaphysical concept really
This seems like a different topic from whether consciousness "uses" the brain?
But I will point out we don't have a way to prove anything is conscious, not even a human.
Consciousness appears to be a biological phenomenon, but so too are metabolism, reproduction and evolution. Are these also metaphysical concepts?
Consciousness does not appear to be biological, that is an opinion and a highly debated one
Where does it appear outside of biology?
I will indeed hold that, and it was my point to go to against post you were replying to and bolster your position. They try to make a point about modeling but they back it up by talking about virtually modeling real, physical processes. If I model a hurricane with a computer nothing gets wet. If I model a hurricane with giant fans and sprinklers then things do get wet and, if I'm able to achieve a certain level of fidelity with my giant fans and sprinklers then whether or not i've made a hurricane is a rather arbitrary distinction as your living room is several blocks from where it was yesterday regardless of whether it was put there by a real hurricane or a mere model.
Ah, thanks - I thought you were trying to save the "a simulation is never the real thing" by substituting a different word when it is clear that the simulation is doing what the real thing does. This is a tactic I think of as "lexical hacking" and it is surprisingly common among philosophy-of-mind academics.
“digitally modeled a brain such that the model responds to its inputs as a brain does”
If in responding to its inputs it experiences consciousness (=lights are on, experiences senses, perceives qualia), then you’ve built a brain. If your model simulates all the processing of a but does not have these then you have what’s fairly called a simulation of a brain. You can assert there is no such thing but good luck getting me to believe you.
> You can assert there is no such thing...
No such thing as what? As far as I can tell, I have asserted no such thing as there being no such thing, whatever it is.
“you will also hold that when you have digitally modeled a brain such that the model responds to its inputs as a brain does, then you have built a brain.”
What is this then?
What, then, is the thing that you allege I am asserting the nonexistence of in this sentence? Furthermore, this sentence does not state something I am asserting, it is something that ratelimitsteve would have difficulty denying while being consistent with his distinction between simulating and building (this is easier to see when you look at the entire sentence, including the two words that you left out.)
Update: I see ratelimitsteve agrees with that assertion.
If someone digitally modelled a nuclear reactor, would any energy be produced?
No, because the simulation is actually missing an important aspect, namely the causal part that exists with the physical material but not in the simulation. It’s actually that it’s missing these components that makes it a simulation and not the real thing. But for that you need the physical material.
So why would it be different for the brain? If nuclear energy can’t arise from abstract relationships, why would consciousness or anything else?
A digital simulation of an Enigma machine is not just abstract relationships. Its program is, but the program is not the simulation; the simulation is the program running on suitable hardware, which provides the causal element. Note that the hardware on which the program runs is very different from an Enigma machine's hardware, and the latter would be unable to run the simulation program. This is what is meant by substrate independence, a concept poorly understood by many philosophers-of-mind.
There are many differences between Enigma-machine simulation and nuclear-reactor simulation, but the one that is relevant here is that the former's inputs and outputs are abstract information, and we have very good reason to think that a brain's biological purpose (in the sense of what the organism needs it to do) is, like the Enigma machine's, abstract information processing in the broad sense.
We obviously will never agree since functionalism and my form of somewhat-physicalism are at complete odds. But I do want to understand your position more.
You say that the physical hardware your enigma simulation runs on provides the causal element. But the simulation of the nuclear reactor also runs on physical hardware. Yet it obviously doesn't provide the causal element, and neither does the enigma machine simulation's hardware. There are no spinning gears for example. Hence why you and I both call it a simulation, I think we're in agreement here.
I think you could argue that while the actual simulation of the enigma machine is not an actual enigma machine, the essence of the enigma machine is not grounded in physical reality, it's the abstract relationships we're talking about. And I could also agree. The essence of the enigma machine are it's abstract inputs and outputs.
But now about the brain. You said
> When you have digitally modeled a brain such that the model responds to its inputs as a brain does, then you have built a brain
The issue is that you have not built a brain, you have built a simulation of the abstract relationships of how a brain works. The brain is obviously more than that, considering it exists in physical reality. And thus the claim is that the essence of the brain is the abstract relationships, correct?
The problem I see is that consciousness is a physical phenomenon. In fact it seems like it's the magnum opus of phenomenon, in that all our experience comes from our consciousness. And you have to then bridge the gap between the simulation and physical reality. At most you can say you "simulated" consciousness, but questions about qualia remain.
Anyways I'm not trying to attack you or your views, I'd love to hear where I go wrong in your mind on this.
Let's start in the middle, where you say I wrote "When you have digitally modeled a brain such that the model responds to its inputs as a brain does, then you have built a brain."
What I actually wrote was this: "Then, presumably, you will also hold that when you have digitally modeled a brain such that the model responds to its inputs as a brain does, then you have built a brain." This has to be read in the context of the post by ratelimitsteve to which I was replying: I am not saying that I think that when you have digitally modeled a brain such that the model responds to its inputs as a brain does, then you have built a brain, I am saying it is something that ratelimitsteve would have difficulty denying while being consistent with his distinction between simulating and building. Personally, I would not say that simulating a brain to this extent amounts to building a brain, as that seems to me to be unnecessarily awkward usage that I feel will lead to confusion without making anything clearer. I would still call it a simulation, albeit one that might justifiably be called functionally isomorphic to a biological brain if it were good enough.
I would describe the relationship between an Enigma machine and a digital simulation of one in the same terms, and if I possessed an actual Enigma machine, I would not willingly swap it for a digital simulation!
With that said, let's go back to your second paragraph:
"You say that the physical hardware your enigma simulation runs on provides the causal element..."
Yes. The design of the physical Enigma device contains an abstract specification of how outputs are to be generated from inputs, such that when the machine is used, physics ensures that the correct output for any valid input is generated as a consequence of the causal relationships between its components. In the same way, the software of its digital simulator contains an abstract specification of how outputs are to be generated from inputs, such that when the program is run on a sufficiently capable computer, physics ensures that the correct output for any valid input is generated as a consequence of the causal relationships between its components, once the program has been loaded.
"...but the simulation of the nuclear reactor also runs on physical hardware. Yet it obviously doesn't provide the causal element..."
Correct, insofar as a computer is not capable of undergoing nuclear fission, regardless of how it is programmed.
"...and neither does the enigma machine simulation's hardware. There are no spinning gears for example."
No - these two cases are not equivalent. Nuclear fission is required for a nuclear reactor to function, but rotating gears are not required for encrypting or decrypting a message according to the enigma machine's abstract specification; they are just how the specification happens to be implemented in the machine.
"...Hence why you and I both call it a simulation, I think we're in agreement here."
Well, we both seem to be in agreement as to what to call it, but apparently not over why we think that.
In next paragraph ("I think you could argue that..") you say you could agree that the essence of the enigma machine is not grounded in physical reality, it's the abstract relationships we're talking about.
I am OK with that so long as it is understood that some sort of implementation is required for anything to happen.
Now we get to the misunderstanding of my reply to ratelimitsteve, covered above, and after that you go on to say "the claim is that the essence of the brain is the abstract relationships, correct?" My response to this is the same as with regard to the essence of an Enigma machine: I am OK with that so long as it is understood that some sort of implementation is required for anything to happen.
The next paragraph begins "The problem I see is that consciousness is a physical phenomenon...", and I tend to agree with the claim (though not that it is a problem) again in the sense that some sort of implementation seems to be required for anything to happen. I don't claim to be able to prove this, let alone explain how it works in brains, it just seems to me that there's no plausible alternative.
Then you write "In fact it seems like it's the magnum opus of phenomenon, in that all our experience comes from our consciousness..." To me, this appears to be a version of Cartesian doubt, about which I am extremely skeptical, in this sense: I think it is tendentious for anyone to invoke it only when it greases a sticky argument, while otherwise acting, speaking and arguing as if our sensory experiences give us reliable information about an external world.
Finally, we get to the crux of the matter: "you have to then bridge the gap between the simulation and physical reality." Here you just declare there to be a gap between the simulation and physical reality, but to my mind, nothing you have written up to this point provides any justification for thinking there is a gap that needs to be bridged. As best I can tell, you feel that by emphasizing the abstract nature of what you call the essence of a simulation you have divorced it from the physical, and my response to that has been, consistently, to point out that these abstractions do not get anything done unless they have some implementation, and there is no evidence of those implementations being in any sense non-physical.
Thanks for the reply. And I didn't mean to quote you out of context.
The reason I brought up the enigma machine's hardware is to illustrate there is a difference between the physical machine and the abstract program that it can be observed to implement. However the machine can be used for more than that, for example I could use it as a footrest, or I could dissemble it's parts and use it to build a bomb. I could simulate this as well, but nothing would actually get blown up.
Physical implementation alone does not show that every property of the simulated system has been instantiated. Reactor software is physical without fissioning nuclei, a simulated enigma can't be turned into a real bomb. What reason do we have to think consciousness is fixed entirely by functional/causal organisation, rather than depending on substrate-specific physical properties of brains? This is the gap I talked about, although rather clumsily I might add.
And reproducing the formal or input-output structure of a process does not automatically reproduce every intrinsic causal property of the thing simulated. If consciousness is intrinsic (and I think it is, my pain does not become pain only because an outside observer interprets my neurons as representing pain), then by contrast, a bit pattern in computer memory means “pain” because of how a program and its users interpret or employ it. It's problematic to explain an intrinsic phenomenon entirely in terms of observer-relative symbol manipulation rather than as a physical property, which the simulated brain would lack.
>So why would it be different for the brain? If nuclear energy can’t arise from abstract relationships, why would consciousness or anything else?
Because consciousness isn't something the brain produces like a hormone or an excited particle. Consciousness isn't an output of the brain that is somehow separate from it, it is the manner in which the brain processes sensory information and makes decisions to produce output.
The causal context in which brain dynamics occurs is orthogonal to the relevant properties regarding consciousness. Consciousness is a state characterized by certain kinds of information processing, namely that which carries relevant semantics of the organism encoded in a way that maximizes effective control by the executive center. Consciousness is the rich semantic space in which the executive center engages to affect highly competent control of the organism. It is substrate independent information processing.
You have this backwards. Thoughts and decisions precede consciousness, the sense of authorship is mostly constructed after the fact. See studies on readiness potentials in motor cortex.
If you're referring to the Libet experiments, they have been wildly overinterpreted. The conceptual problem with the common interpretation is that detecting a readiness potential prior to a report of a conscious intention to act does not entail the readiness potential is distinct from that conscious intention. The readiness potential may in part constitute one's conscious experience and so cannot be separated from it.
Even if overinterpreted were true, it's silly to claim that consciousness is driving. You don't "decide" to think thoughts. They come to you. They are driving.
One's subconscious drives much of your thoughts, yes. But important decisions are conscious mediated if only because consciousness has veto power. A lack of veto is a tacit endorsement of the action. That is control.
Either that or consciousness pops out afterwards as a by-product of the physical process. A less fun to believe idea I know, but the data supports it.
This is a decent summary of functionalism but it doesn't provide any concrete justification for it. We both agree that the brain processes information. The question is if a sufficiently abstract description of that processing captures everything physically constitutive of consciousness. How would you support your position that it does?
It's really the only live option once the issues are properly understood. Causal closure: a physical event is explanatorily exhausted by prior physical events. Causal exclusion: if physical properties fully cause/explain everything we say and do about consciousness, i.e. our behavior purported to be about consciousness, then consciousness cannot be distinct from the physical behavior and also be a cause of that behavior. For example, for our speech acts to be about consciousness, consciousness must be causally involved in their generation. Hence, consciousness is a second-order physical property of the same category as the information carried by the speech acts about consciousness. That is, consciousness is an abstract property of physical organization.
It's a massive leap to go from consciousness must be causally integrated with physical brain activity to consciousness is exhausted by an abstract functional description of that activity. At best you could establish that consciousness cannot be an additional, independent cause outside the physical causal order.
And then the argument about Consciousness becomes whether it is strictly and completely necessary for the input to Output process.
There's also the question of input output range.
I'm not arguing one way or another on such issues; Here, I am just pointing out how irrelevant the "a simulated rainstorm does not get you wet" argument is, when presented as blocking the possibility of a brain simulation having a mind.
what is wrong with saying if if you model a hurricane it wets your pants then you have a hurrican but right now ur pants dry yeah
That's the entire question, isn't it? IF you model a mind, have you just modeled it or actually built it?
We've been so primed by popular media to think that we will invent AI and it will be conscious and we will essentially enslave it. I'm open to the idea that we could invent conscious AI eventually, but the word salad generators we have now are definitely not it.
> and we will essentially enslave it.
That part might not work out.
Yesterday's article about the automated CEO system indicates that AIs may soon be in charge as a routine result of capitalism. AIs are getting better rapidly, and humans aren't.
The human model of tribalistic leadership (the biggest, loudest, most confident patriarch is chosen to lead) is definitely outdated by 10,000 years or more. AI could disrupt that but I'm not sure how much better it will be, given it's a text generator.
It doesn’t take massive intelligence to sit on all the capital and charge rents. The owning class isn’t going to just give up control because the AI could run things better than them.
"The ownership class is so smart" is just ownership class propaganda. Wielding power is brutish, not smart. They keep selling us innovation as some transcendent tech that will free the masses (Arab Spring anyone?) yet every time the tech ends up shifting power up. AI will be the same.
This assumes that a human brain produces the only “real thought” - the difference being that the processes of digestion are specific to the human process and are physical chemical process with inputs, processes, and outputs that are highly specific. The idea of “thought” is not a specific physical phenomenon unless you constrain it to “thought produced by a human brain,” in which I agree.
This doesn’t hold up to even a little bit of critical right.
This boils down to “models aren’t real because they don’t affect the real world”. By the same rule, thought itself isn’t real. It’s an abstract notion that has no concrete effects in the real world.
Putting thought into action in the real world requires a linkage between the thinker and the physical. In humans, that’s the body. But you can put an AI into robot body and suddenly it also has a linkage to the real world and can have concrete effects.
A more accurate quote sidesteps the whole question:
> The question of whether Machines Can Think […] is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim.
– Edsger W. Dijkstra
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edsger_W._Dijkstra#1980s
I've worked on AUVs, and in discussions with my colleagues we would often describe the machine as "swimming" out to some setpoint location, for instance.
Since hearing that, discussions of a machine "thinking" or "believing" something didn't really bother me, even though Dijkstra was adamantly opposed to such language—because everyone in the conversation usually understood that the meaning was metaphorical, like the swimming submarine.
That is an outstandingly bad argument.
I think the difference is that thought itself might not be a real "thing", but just another computation. You can motivate this line of thought with the ship of Theseus approach: replace one neuron with a computer that takes the original inputs and produces the original outputs. There's no evidence yet that organic chemistry is necessary for thought.
There’s also no evidence that current AI can think or have thoughts.
What is the evidence for human thought?
So I see you solved the Simulation Hypothesis - water is wet, so we can't be in a simulation, because in a simulation nobody gets wet.
My unhappy dwarves would beg to differ. https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/zljs63/one_o...
If we are in a simulation than by definition we cannot get wet, we can only be simulated to be wet. Practically for us it makes no difference tho.