Puzzling NDE questions

Ok, so then instead of the word falsely, I should have used unjustifiably. Just because you happen to observe qualities associated with conscious experience, that doesn't mean that you can say that they are necessary for conscious experience.
And yet those are the only properties we can enumerate that characterize a conscious being from a non conscious one. As far as we know.

This is far from saying that we a complete understanding of the necessary conditions for consciousness, but anything outside of the observable attributes is going to be based on speculation.

Also how can you claim that they are not necessary? If you remove all of the properties you won't be able to distinguish the phenomenon you're trying to investigate in the first place!

What about the direct observation that Mystics report? That those qualities are not a part of consciousness itself? That there is a pure consciousness that can be directly experienced?
Now you're talking about experiences, while I am talking about properties.

There can be an infinite amount of different experiences, including the sense of oneness often reported by mystics.

I don't think that seldom occurring experiences can help us define the basic properties of consciousness, but they are certainly interesting.

Rather I would take in consideration NDEs, OBEs and remote viewing (among others) because they seem to involve non-local information, suggesting that consciousness doesn't necessarily depend on the local brain. This is in turn could define a new property, although it is hardly accepted by mainstream science.

There would be many more predictions that could falsify the theory such as those dealing with humans or animals.

Regarding testing these types of circuits, I think there are potentially ways of doing this:

1. Psi testing may offer a way to see if an entity is conscious, since it may be that consciousness is necessary for psi (I postulate that it is). A robot that simulates a human but has zero phi should score 25% on the Ganzfeld, while one that has a high degree of integrated information may score higher (although we do not know what level would be needed to be able to use psi).

2. There are potential tests involving quantum theory that may offer a way to test even more simple devices. It involves using retroPK experiments to support a conscious-collapse model, and then using two different recording devices for the data: one with a higher phi and one with zero phi and seeing if it destroys a retroPK capability.
Interesting.
I'd love to see a robot scoring higher than chance in a Ganzfel experiment! :D

Yes it is, but why isn't the evidence helping? It is at least showing IIT isn't totally off track. It is more evidence than any theory of consciousness has ever had. Perhaps my proposed experiments could get at the question of simple devices.
Sure, I have never claimed that IIT is totally off track.

You said intuitions. Your intuitions are culturally biased. Their culture doesn't have the same intuitions about consciousness. My point is that intuitions are not reliable.
Once again. You are misrepresenting my point. Please go back and read what I wrote, there's nothing else to say.

Also, you should probably make up your mind since you claim in the same post that they are reliable for arguing in favor of free will, but not reliable when used as a skeptical argument against inanimate objects having experiences. :D

No, you are referring to unjustified inferences. You take observations about our own consciousness and then infer that simple devices need to express these same qualities. This is unjustified inference, not knowledge based on facts.
How can you call unjustified the empirical facts we know about consciousness?

All I am saying is that to the best of our abilities we describe a certain phenomenon (consciousness) with a number of properties that we can observe with repeatable experiments.
If a certain entity doesn't display any of the properties that characterizes such phenomenon we have to conclude that the entity is likely not conscious. At least until new evidence to the contrary is available.

Now, you insist that it may be conscious anyways. Good. I do not object to it in principle, but it won't be accepted until there is sufficient corroboration..

Hopefully there will be some, or we may it will be different from what we expect... we shall see...

Yes, to the first part, because of the problems of induction. It is not valid logic. You can hypothesize that they would not be conscious because of this, but it is not logically justified. But to the second part, I am saying that a theory with empirical support can be superior because it allows for more accurate inferences.
The so empirical support you're referring to has nothing to do with inanimate objects. Those are correlations with parts of the human brain which, by the by, are not fully studied or completely understood.

Where is the evidence supporting first person subjective experience in a bunch of interconnected logic gates?

We do not yet know if that is a problem.
It's already acknowledged by IIT proponents themselves.
Wouldn't hurt if you read the article I recommended in the previous post.

You are attempting to infer beyond what the empirical evidence demonstrates.
No, I am not claiming that we have all of the defining properties necessary for consciousness.
But of all those currently known, none of them is detectable in inanimate objects. There may be reason for that... but we just don't know.

What is that one property?
Integrated information

Why baby steps? Revolutionary theories such as quantum theory or relativity theory are not done in baby steps.
When Max Planck postulated the quantum hypothesis at the turn of the 20th century they already had a century worth of experimental evidence suggesting that the theory was right. And 25 years earlier Boltzmann had already suggested that the energy levels of a physical system could be discrete.

All in all it has taken 120 years from the first double slit experiment to the Solvay conference... and 27 years from the Planck's first formulation.

But I am not sure why this is relevant, is there a competition going on?

If you are asking of a bacteria has self-awareness, then you may be asking the wrong question. Self-awareness may not be necessary for conscious experience.
I stand corrected, I should have said subjective experience.
Unless of course you also want to object that this is not necessary...

It seems to me you're playing a semantic game where you're trying to match the definition of consciousness with the premises of IIT so that the support for the theory is provided by its own definition... in an endless circular loop.

This is possibly the most annoyong of this otherwise interesting discussion.

Because the more support a theory has, the more confidence we can have in its predictions. We see this with quantum theory, since it made all sorts of "absurd" predictions. People tested all sorts of elaborate scenarios and every single time quantum theory was correct. Since the empirical support of all the absurd predictions have all been true, we gain more confidence that other absurd predictions are likely true.
Agreed.
Let's hope IIT follows the same path.

I think there is a problem with saying that matter as we now view it can have conscious experience. By itself, IIT doesn't solve the hard problem because of this, but does an enormous amount to offer an explanation of how our conscious awareness arises.
Yes, I recognize the potential it could have to advance the current, almost-completely-stuck, paradigm.

Well why shouldn't we use our intuitions about free will? How are these intuitions any less evidential than intuitions about what constitutes consciousness?
I'd be happy to do that, but you've argued against the reliabilty and usefulness of our intuitions for the past 5 or 6 posts... now I am confused.
It looks like a case of having cake and eating it too...

You skipped extremely important parts, which I will bring up again. If you propose that panpsychism could offer an explanation, then how does it fit in with quantum theory?
I am not a proponent of panpsychism.
You could forward the question to Koch for example, who is a founder of IIT and a proponent of panpsychism?
Or maybe Tegmarks who's a proponent of MWI and IIT, but it doesn't strike me as an idealist.

I have a clear intention with this, because no matter how you answer, the evidence from parapsychology would contradict it. If panpsychism says that consciousness is a property of matter like mass, spin, etc., then it is a local property. If consciousness is a local property of matter, and our consciousness is an aggregate of this local property, then there is no way to explain telepathy. Not only that, PK would also not be possible. This is part of the reason why I feel panpsychism is not a viable option. And if panpsychism is not a viable option, then what is the explanation?
I hear you. I sympathize with an idealist position.

Maybe what you propose could be an interesting mechanism to explain how fundamental/transpersonal consciousness localizes in the physical, in a way that is less abtract than the Kastrup-ian whirlpool / water metaphor.

Though he doesn't seem very excited by IIT, from what I've read. Has anyone proposed an integration of the IIT with his metaphysics? Would make up for an interesting discussion.

Also, isn't IIT describing consciousness as dependent on the local structure of its substrate?
How does it fit with the evidence for non-local retrieval of information, such as the evidence from parapsychology?

cheers
 
Now you're talking about experiences, while I am talking about properties.

Where is the evidence supporting first person subjective experience in a bunch of interconnected logic gates?

cheers

experiences....vs....dispositional properties
1st person....vs....3rd person
inner personal environment....vs....external local environment
physical structure.....vs.....logical structure of real-world probabilities

maybe we need Hegel himself to synthesize these

I was in Princeton this weekend, lunching with with folks much smarter than myself. The name J. J. Gibson came-up and it seems that after 50 years, his ideas are coming back into play. Neil and Bucky ---- after Informational Realism, (ala L. Floridi and K. Sayre) the other "big simple idea" for me is Direct Perception.

The term "affordance" is creeping into the modern conversation.

http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2010/05/affordances-part-1-affordances-are-real.html
 
And yet those are the only properties we can enumerate that characterize a conscious being from a non conscious one. As far as we know.

This is far from saying that we a complete understanding of the necessary conditions for consciousness, but anything outside of the observable attributes is going to be based on speculation.

Also how can you claim that they are not necessary? If you remove all of the properties you won't be able to distinguish the phenomenon you're trying to investigate in the first place!

But again that doesn't make them necessary! I am not saying that they are definitively not necessary, but rather I was attempting to counter your assertion based on intuitions that they are necessary.

Bucky said:
Now you're talking about experiences, while I am talking about properties.

There can be an infinite amount of different experiences, including the sense of oneness often reported by mystics.

I don't think that seldom occurring experiences can help us define the basic properties of consciousness, but they are certainly interesting.

Bucky, you said the following:

"The most direct possible, first person experience. I just don't think the experience of pain needs joy or envy to be experienced. That is all I am saying. The observation is based on th most direct of all evidences possible."

You were using experience to justify something, and now when I bring up a direct conscious experience, you now say you were talking about properties. Why is your direct experience of joy something that can be used to justify a claim regarding conscious experience, yet a direct experience of mystics is not relevant? And why do you assume the most fundamental conscious experience must have properties? The Mystics say that it doesn't have qualities, but is a direct experience of existence.



Bucky said:
Once again. You are misrepresenting my point. Please go back and read what I wrote, there's nothing else to say.

Also, you should probably make up your mind since you claim in the same post that they are reliable for arguing in favor of free will, but not reliable when used as a skeptical argument against inanimate objects having experiences. :D

You have said the following regarding intuitions:

"How is a theory different from using reason / empirical observation / intuition?"

"...we can trump all of our current direct and intuitive understanding of consciousness"

My entire point is that you were claiming intuitions as a justification for a statement, which I was trying to say is not valid.

I wasn't using intuitions of free will to justify MWI or panpsychism, but was pointing out to you that if you use intuitions like you were saying, it would contradict the proposition that panpsychism could possibly be used to explain consciousness.


Bucky said:
How can you call unjustified the empirical facts we know about consciousness?

All I am saying is that to the best of our abilities we describe a certain phenomenon (consciousness) with a number of properties that we can observe with repeatable experiments.
If a certain entity doesn't display any of the properties that characterizes such phenomenon we have to conclude that the entity is likely not conscious. At least until new evidence to the contrary is available.

Now, you insist that it may be conscious anyways. Good. I do not object to it in principle, but it won't be accepted until there is sufficient corroboration..

Hopefully there will be some, or we may it will be different from what we expect... we shall see...

If we "conclude that the entity is likely not conscious" then again that is simply an unjustified inference based on evidence from human conscious experience.


Bucky said:
The so empirical support you're referring to has nothing to do with inanimate objects. Those are correlations with parts of the human brain which, by the by, are not fully studied or completely understood.

Where is the evidence supporting first person subjective experience in a bunch of interconnected logic gates?

The empirical support is support of a theory, and it is the theory that makes the statements about the inanimate objects. It is not conclusive. You are attempting to make invalid inferences (that a photodiode can't be conscious) from the human data with no theoretical basis.

Bucky said:
It's already acknowledged by IIT proponents themselves.
Wouldn't hurt if you read the article I recommended in the previous post.

That doesn't make it a problem! There were things that were thought to be problems in quantum theory, by the people that created the theory, but they turned out not to be problems.


Bucky said:
When Max Planck postulated the quantum hypothesis at the turn of the 20th century they already had a century worth of experimental evidence suggesting that the theory was right. And 25 years earlier Boltzmann had already suggested that the energy levels of a physical system could be discrete.

All in all it has taken 120 years from the first double slit experiment to the Solvay conference... and 27 years from the Planck's first formulation.

But I am not sure why this is relevant, is there a competition going on?

You brought it up by saying that IIT shouldn't make big claims and should go in baby steps! I just don't see why.

There is always something that led to a revolutionary theory, but that doesn't mean that the theory itself took baby steps. Special Relativity wasn't created in a void, but it certainly did not take baby steps to change physics forever!


Bucky said:
It seems to me you're playing a semantic game where you're trying to match the definition of consciousness with the premises of IIT so that the support for the theory is provided by its own definition... in an endless circular loop.

This is possibly the most annoyong of this otherwise interesting discussion.

A theory can help to clarify and define terms. Relativity theory redefined mass and length, which was supported by the theory itself. So there is nothing in and of itself wrong with this.

However I find that you are going between different concepts of consciousness, with the one being a fundamental consciousness of idealism that is involved with the hard problem, and the other with our conscious awareness, or the qualities of our stream of consciousness (like intelligence, intent, etc). I can't blame you because I do this as well, but it ends up with confusion on both ends. It does help to clarify terms.


Bucky said:
I'd be happy to do that, but you've argued against the reliabilty and usefulness of our intuitions for the past 5 or 6 posts... now I am confused.
It looks like a case of having cake and eating it too...

Never mind. I was making a point that you were using intuitions yet intuitions on free will wasn't an objection to panpsychism. I was not using intuitions myself as justification for anything.

Bucky said:
I am not a proponent of panpsychism.
You could forward the question to Koch for example, who is a founder of IIT and a proponent of panpsychism?
Or maybe Tegmarks who's a proponent of MWI and IIT, but it doesn't strike me as an idealist.

You suggested panpsychism as a possible explanation which I was attempting to refute it as a possible explanation. a side note is that Koch is not a founder of IIT. That is Tononi and his group. Koch has become a proponent of IIT and has now done work with Tononi.


Bucky said:
Also, isn't IIT describing consciousness as dependent on the local structure of its substrate?
How does it fit with the evidence for non-local retrieval of information, such as the evidence from parapsychology?

cheers

But what is the substrate for the information? What role does quantum information play it the description of the macroscopic information states? Perhaps if quantum information plays a role, it could offer a role for non-local information fields that exist in non-local consciousness, and perhaps we have a degree of access to this.
 
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I will explain why I do not think this is a problem. It rests on the assumption of an intelligent consciousness being required to explain the fine-tuning problem. This assumption has the following problems:

1. We do not understand how the physical laws emerge, so we also do not understand what degrees of freedom exists. What if there is only one way for such a property to emerge? Or just a small range of possible ways such a physical property can emerge? That would destroy the fine-tuning argument since it may not be so improbable, as the improbability rests on an almost infinite range of possible values for the parameters.

I am sorry to say that I don't find that possibility to be at all plausible, for the following reason: the improbability that the constants are (for some given but as-yet unknown reason) restricted to a small enough range "just so" as to be compatible with life is approximately equal to the improbability that those constants were not - given an arbitrary/extended potential range - fine tuned to support life as per the fine tuning argument.

The only way around this is for you to suggest a plausible reason why it might be the case that "there is only one way for such a property to emerge" or why it might be the case that "just a small range of possible ways such a physical property can emerge" which just happen to be so as to support life - then we might be able to reevaluate (im)probabilities... but it would have to be a very, very good reason!

It is like the Christian apologist saying: it is possible that there is a reason which we simply aren't aware of why a tri-omni God allows evil (i.e. for some "higher purpose") - unless s/he can suggest an actual, plausible reason, then why would we accept this?

2. It is also possible that Wheeler's Participatory Anthropic Principle could offer an explanation for the fine-tuning problem. Although Wheeler was a Many Worlds proponent, but it also applies to the Copenhagen or Von Neumann interpretations in which the observation creates the history. If the possibilities emerge from a recursion, and one of those branches of possibilities give rise to entities, defined by IIT, that allow for conscious experience (observation), that branch emerges as a universe existing as we know it. This eliminates the fine-tuning problem, and offers an explanation beyond the tautological weak anthropic principle.

Can you explain a little more what you mean by "If the possibilities emerge from a recursion"? I get the sense that you are talking about recursion in the sense of "recursively branching". Is that correct? And if so, are you suggesting that there are multiple "branches" of reality, each of which exists in a superposition, but some branches of which (in their superposed state) end up supporting conscious beings? And if so, how could it be that any conscious being could collapse (any part of) that superposition given that the existence of any conscious being (in the IIT sense) in the first place depends upon the superposition being collapsed? Again, it seems like a chicken-and-egg situation.

In fact, isn't this more generally a problem for your theory? i.e. that the possibility of collapsing any superposition depends on the existence of at least one conscious observer, but the existence of any conscious observer in the first place depends on all superpositions relevant to that conscious observer's "integrated information" being collapsed?

Or am I missing something in all this, and/or misinterpreting your above quote?

Something else I'll add is this: that it seems that you are positing more than that protoconsciousness is fundamental: you are also positing the fundamental existence of some sort of quantum reality or set of laws of quantum mechanics out of which the reality with which we're familiar springs. Does that seem fair?

Yes, these are good questions. IIT does say that there can be parts of the brain that on their own have a much lower phi, but through the process of integration, a main consciousness arises, if you will.

If I understand what you are saying correctly, it seems to be a question of the combination problem. How can all these parts add up to a unified conscious experience? This is a great question, and I feel that using quantum theory is essential to this, as classical theory does not allow for an aggregate to add up into a greater unified whole.

Partly I'm asking about the combination problem, yes, but more so asking about why any solution to that problem would apply only to the brain as a whole, and not also to any portion of it. We have a unitary experience of consciousness (an individual psyche) which, I understand, IIT attributes to the "integrated information" associated with our entire brain. So, does IIT also predict a unitary experience of consciousness (an individual psyche) associated with (the integrated information of) half of our brain? And with a quarter? Etc etc? In other words, how many individual psyches are associated with all of the possible subsets of integrated information derivable from the overall set of integrated information in our brain, and if it is only one, then why only one?

I can think of one "sort-of" answer: that individual psyches are associated only with locally maximal phi. OK, fine, but that's only a "sort-of" answer because it doesn't explain why individual psyches are associated only with locally maximal phi.

With considering that the brain undoubtedly has quantum properties at some level, it should be seen that through quantum calculations it would result in different possible macroscopic states. This would be using density matrix calculations, that through decoherence in the brain, would eliminate the non-classical possible brain states. These are whole quantum states of the whole system, and this is the wholism needed to fully integrate information. Once the possibilities are narrowed down to one, this results in the conscious experience of that state.

OK, but I would relate this to the paradox that I suggested above: if I'm understanding you correctly (and it's very possible that I'm not), you're suggesting that consciousness could, via the brain, make use of superposition in some way - but doesn't consciousness depend on all superpositions being collapsed in the first place, such that all "integrated information" is in some sense "fully defined" i.e. decohered?

This is a very interesting question. The experience of the mystics is that it is a transcendent experience. I am not sure if I have a real answer.

But regarding my second comment that was quoted, I am not sure I totally understand, but I will attempt to explain. The pure consciousness, or protoconsciousness, is the ultimate subject. There is no getting behind it. Because it itself is beyond space time and not an object, it cannot be an object of perception since the senses operate through spacetime interactions. It is only accessible through direct transcendent experience, which is not a perceptual process.

I don't see the problem. If protoconsciousness is "accessible" in any sense at all (including as a "direct transcendent experience") then surely it is a potential object of itself? I don't see why it need be a perceptual object - so long as it is "accessed" by the subject of consciousness in some sense, then surely it can serve (is serving) too as an object of that consciousness?

Very interesting question. I dont know if I really know the answer. It sounds kind of like ontic structural realism, and I do not know enough to comment. The photo-consciousness is the most fundamental basis for existence.

And in a follow-up post:

I thought about this a bit more, and it seems that the structures needed for the brain to process and integrate information are themselves emergent informational relations. Those informational relations appear to require spacetime in order to emerge, in the sense of without spacetime there is no way for those informational relations that make up the brain structures to emerge.

So in a sense there is a transcendence in that state, but the state still requires the informational relations that emerge in spacetime. So even though it may not require a temporal change, it would at least require spacetime relations (which is informational content).

I'm not sure that this is all that convincing: why couldn't the informational relations that make up the brain's structures be abstracted in such a way as to be expressible outside spacetime?

The first thing I want to make clear is that it is not established that consciousness causes collapse. I think there is evidence that supports this, but it is not established. The most common interpretation of QM is the Copenhagen interpretation, and it is more operationalist since it does not answer the questions about what an observation is or how an experimenter chooses his basis vectors, so it is in a way hypotheses non fingo.

To answer the question of extent, that is not exactly answered in the Von Neumman interpretation. It is about an increase of information for the observer. This would seem to indicate that it would collapse the observer's field of awareness. So not entirely correct, but it would be like a bubble of experience. it would not collapse the entire universe. In relativistic quantum field theory, there would be no requirement for simultaneity of observations.

I would attempt to say that collapse is a result of the integration of information that would result in conscious experience. Without the information being integrated in the observer, there is no increase in the knowledge of the system, and no collapse. This is why a double slit experiment could be watched by a person and result in the interference pattern, since there is no increase in knowledge in which path the photons are going through. So that system is left indeterminate until there is an observation, or integration of information.

When you ask "do the wave functions related to that location remain in a permanent state of superposition?", there is the idea that it exists in a certain state. It is more that no state exists until observation, not that it exists in a superposed state.

One way to imagine it that is actually quite a good analogy is that of a video game. When you move through the world, the world is created for you. If you are going to open a door to a room, that room doesn't exist before you open the door. It exists once it is displayed. The things you see on the screen are the result of processing that occurs outside of that spacetime. The whole world doesn't have to exist in order to display your experience.

Thanks, that's all very helpful.

I have a follow-up question - probably I could think of many more, but I'll start with this.

What if two observers, A and B, are observing simultaneously the same quantum phenomenon, which might be collapsed into either event C or event D, and, counterfactually, had B not been present, then A's observation would have collapsed the phenomenon into event C, whereas if A had not been present, then B's observation would have collapsed the phenomenon into event D? Given the simultaneous presence (observation) of both A and B, which of C and D actually occurs, and why?
 
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I am sorry to say that I don't find that possibility to be at all plausible, for the following reason: the improbability that the constants are (for some given but as-yet unknown reason) restricted to a small enough range "just so" as to be compatible with life is approximately equal to the improbability that those constants were not - given an arbitrary/extended potential range - fine tuned to support life as per the fine tuning argument.

But if we do not even know how those constants emerge, how can we say it is so unlikely? It may or may not end up sounding fine-tuned, but until we understand how these constants emerge, I am not convinced yet that there is in fact a fine-tuning problem.

Laird said:
The only way around this is for you to suggest a plausible reason why it might be the case that "there is only one way for such a property to emerge" or why it might be the case that "just a small range of possible ways such a physical property can emerge" which just happen to be so as to support life - then we might be able to reevaluate (im)probabilities... but it would have to be a very, very good reason!

I'm just saying that we don't yet understand the whole process, so to try to draw conclusions at this point is premature. However, even if it is the case that a fine-tuning problem exists, the second part to it with the Participatory Anthropic Principle offers a possible explanation.

Laird said:
It is like the Christian apologist saying: it is possible that there is a reason which we simply aren't aware of why a tri-omni God allows evil (i.e. for some "higher purpose") - unless s/he can suggest an actual, plausible reason, then why would we accept this?

I don't agree with the comparison, because I am just saying that we do not know enough about the fine-tuning problem to use it in the manner that you were (to require an intelligent principle).

Laird said:
Can you explain a little more what you mean by "If the possibilities emerge from a recursion"? I get the sense that you are talking about recursion in the sense of "recursively branching". Is that correct? And if so, are you suggesting that there are multiple "branches" of reality, each of which exists in a superposition, but some branches of which (in their superposed state) end up supporting conscious beings? And if so, how could it be that any conscious being could collapse (any part of) that superposition given that the existence of any conscious being (in the IIT sense) in the first place depends upon the superposition being collapsed? Again, it seems like a chicken-and-egg situation.

In fact, isn't this more generally a problem for your theory? i.e. that the possibility of collapsing any superposition depends on the existence of at least one conscious observer, but the existence of any conscious observer in the first place depends on all superpositions relevant to that conscious observer's "integrated information" being collapsed?

Or am I missing something in all this, and/or misinterpreting your above quote?

I actually knew that this would be the next point raised after my explanation. Yes, this seems quite paradoxical, and I would say is the only real paradox in the von Neumann interpretation. But to first answer your questions, as far as the question about branching, then yes, that would seem to be the case in my opinion.

So there are a couple ways I have thought about this paradox, and I hope you can appreciate that of course these are ideas, not real explanations, so I have more than one possible idea for this.

The first examines what is meant by "collapse." The language is inadequate, because it gives the idea of a wavefunction existing in spacetime and moving, say through both slits in the double slit experiment, and that this wave collapses once observed, as if it had some sort of spacial extension in the first place. If we keep in mind the epistemological subjective nature of quantum theory, and that in the von Neumann interpretation the possible locations (wavefunction) do not exist within spacetime, we can then see this as essentially possible experiences that do not manifest in spacetime until observed (information is extracted from the system). In a sense, there is no "collapse" of anything. What we have are potential experiences for consciousness, and one of them is experienced.

So with this view in mind, we have potentialities that exist outside of spacetime, but with the potential evolution of a branch that includes an entity that constitutes a conscious observer, the system then allows for the experience to emerge. The "unreal" potentialities never really became "real" in a more fundamental sense, but rather the potentialities lead to experience. In our normal language, the "unreal" potentialities became "real" because of their manifestation in spacetime, but at a more fundamental level, the unreal never became the real. It's all still potentialities, but just one of them was able to be experienced, and from our perspective "became real."

This is also one of the reasons that I think all the talk of multiverses is a bit hasty because we do not understand the measurement problem (a known problem), and if it is the case that the von Neumann interpretation is true, then what does that mean for most of the supposed 10^500 universes of M-Theory? Essentially that they don't "exist" like our universe does!

The second question that I have wondered actually has something to do with parapsychology and pre-sentiment. Could it be that there is some sort of retro-causality? Could the future observer have an affect on the present and have something to do with the "collapse"? This is not a well-formed idea, though, since I have a hard time finding a way out of the paradox that seems to occur with presentiment and precognition. The moment you think you have an answer, like EPR-like correlations across time for presentiment, then evidence from precognition makes it seem like something else.

Laird said:
Something else I'll add is this: that it seems that you are positing more than that protoconsciousness is fundamental: you are also positing the fundamental existence of some sort of quantum reality or set of laws of quantum mechanics out of which the reality with which we're familiar springs. Does that seem fair?

Anything that exists has apparently emerged from consciousness, including the regularities that we observe.

Laird said:
Partly I'm asking about the combination problem, yes, but more so asking about why any solution to that problem would apply only to the brain as a whole, and not also to any portion of it. We have a unitary experience of consciousness (an individual psyche) which, I understand, IIT attributes to the "integrated information" associated with our entire brain. So, does IIT also predict a unitary experience of consciousness (an individual psyche) associated with (the integrated information of) half of our brain? And with a quarter? Etc etc? In other words, how many individual psyches are associated with all of the possible subsets of integrated information derivable from the overall set of integrated information in our brain, and if it is only one, then why only one?

According to IIT, there are smaller complexes that would have their own experience. I don't know if psyche is the right word to attribute to some of the parts of the brain, but rather that there are components that lead to our conscious experience that themselves have their own much lower level experience. The one that we experience is the result of the integration of all the information from all the different components that make up the system. I would even say that a single cell has its own consciousness, and we are made up of around 10 trillion human cells.


Laird said:
OK, but I would relate this to the paradox that I suggested above: if I'm understanding you correctly (and it's very possible that I'm not), you're suggesting that consciousness could, via the brain, make use of superposition in some way - but doesn't consciousness depend on all superpositions being collapsed in the first place, such that all "integrated information" is in some sense "fully defined" i.e. decohered?

The consciously directed thoughts can lead to a choice of superpositions (actually mixture states) of possible brain states, so in that way the brain takes advantage of these mixture states. But I think the problem is in thinking that there is an objective reality to the material aspect of the brain, and that it has to be "there" and "collapsed" in order for all the processing to occur to give rise to conscious experience. But really it is all informational relations that end up giving rise to experience, and the matter making up the brain is no less informational than the processes occurring in the brain.


Laird said:
I don't see the problem. If protoconsciousness is "accessible" in any sense at all (including as a "direct transcendent experience") then surely it is a potential object of itself? I don't see why it need be a perceptual object - so long as it is "accessed" by the subject of consciousness in some sense, then surely it can serve (is serving) too as an object of that consciousness?

How can it be an object of itself if it is the only thing that exists and it is the direct experience of its own existence? The experience transcends the experiencing self, since there is no perception of that apparent self. So how can there be any subject/object split that gives rise to an object of perception?


Laird said:
I'm not sure that this is all that convincing: why couldn't the informational relations that make up the brain's structures be abstracted in such a way as to be expressible outside spacetime?

If something exists outside of spacetime, it doesn't lead to experience, and it is the manifestation of spacetime that makes experience possible, or rather they are dependent arising.


Laird said:
What if two observers, A and B, are observing simultaneously the same quantum phenomenon, which might be collapsed into either event C or event D, and, counterfactually, had B not been present, then A's observation would have collapsed the phenomenon into event C, whereas if A had not been present, then B's observation would have collapsed the phenomenon into event D? Given the simultaneous presence (observation) of both A and B, which of C and D actually occurs, and why?

Why would one observer lead to one outcome and the other observer another outcome? I'm not sure I understand the premise.
 
Bucky, you said the following:

"The most direct possible, first person experience. I just don't think the experience of pain needs joy or envy to be experienced. That is all I am saying. The observation is based on th most direct of all evidences possible."

You were using experience to justify something, and now when I bring up a direct conscious experience, you now say you were talking about properties. Why is your direct experience of joy something that can be used to justify a claim regarding conscious experience, yet a direct experience of mystics is not relevant? And why do you assume the most fundamental conscious experience must have properties? The Mystics say that it doesn't have qualities, but is a direct experience of existence.
You have mixed up two completely different lines of the discussion.

We were discussing the observable properties of conscious beings, from both subjective and objective povs.
You brought up mystical experiences and I just pointed out that there is infinite amount of experiences available to conscious entities, so I am not sure why focusing on mystical experiences in particular.

I am not saying that “experiences of existence” are not relevant, but… what makes them more relevant than any another experience? I hope we agree that “experiencing” is the fundamental characteristic of conscious entities and therefore that’s just another experience, for the sake of our discussion.

You have said the following regarding intuitions:

"How is a theory different from using reason / empirical observation / intuition?"

"...we can trump all of our current direct and intuitive understanding of consciousness"

My entire point is that you were claiming intuitions as a justification for a statement, which I was trying to say is not valid.

I wasn't using intuitions of free will to justify MWI or panpsychism, but was pointing out to you that if you use intuitions like you were saying, it would contradict the proposition that panpsychism could possibly be used to explain consciousness.

I said that if MWI turned out to be true it wouldn’t cause any trouble to a panpsychist position.
If indeed MWI turned out to be accurate, beyond reasonable doubt, then our intuitions about free will should be recognized as faulty. Period.

Until then I think it is reasonable to hold on to our empirical evidence for free will instead of giving it up for an almost unfalsiable theory (MWI)

If we "conclude that the entity is likely not conscious" then again that is simply an unjustified inference based on evidence from human conscious experience.
I certainly disagree.
It would be more honest to say that it is:
It is an unjustified inference based on evidence from human conscious experience. The “unjustifed” part is just your opinion.

All projects of scientific inquiry start from evidence from human conscious experience. To call it unjustified is indeed unjustified :D

The empirical support is support of a theory, and it is the theory that makes the statements about the inanimate objects. It is not conclusive. You are attempting to make invalid inferences (that a photodiode can't be conscious) from the human data with no theoretical basis.
I see.
To make you happy I now claim I am making inferences from a theory called XYZ that postulates that only living beings have consciousness.
The empirical support of the theory comes from 5000 years of subjective and objective observations, repeatable experiments and and a shit-ton of evidence from science fields such as neurology and neuroscience.

Happy now? :)

However I find that you are going between different concepts of consciousness, with the one being a fundamental consciousness of idealism that is involved with the hard problem, and the other with our conscious awareness, or the qualities of our stream of consciousness (like intelligence, intent, etc). I can't blame you because I do this as well, but it ends up with confusion on both ends. It does help to clarify terms.

You’re right about the mixing of the two aspects, but it also points out more issues with these definitions.
Where is the line drawn? And what is fundamental consciousness?

You say intent is a quality of our awareness… how do we really know?
If pure consciousness is experience, in which way something active such as intent or creativity arises from the passive act of experience?

The only answer that comes to mind is a metaphysical one along the lines of Rudolph Steiner and various Theosophists where consciousness is seen as a series of interpenetrating layers providing structure and features.

Again… more human intuitions ;)

But what is the substrate for the information? What role does quantum information play it the description of the macroscopic information states? Perhaps if quantum information plays a role, it could offer a role for non-local information fields that exist in non-local consciousness, and perhaps we have a degree of access to this.
Cool.
 
Hi Neil,

I don't think that there's much point in continuing to discuss the plausibility of your first proposed solution to the fine-tuning problem - I see you as playing a "get out of jail free card", but I doubt that you will ever agree, and I suspect that continued debate will simply end up going around in circles, and that it's best that we simply note our disagreement and leave it there.

I actually knew that this would be the next point raised after my explanation.

Alas, I am not even original nor unpredictable.

Yes, this seems quite paradoxical, and I would say is the only real paradox in the von Neumann interpretation. But to first answer your questions, as far as the question about branching, then yes, that would seem to be the case in my opinion.

OK, I just want to be crystal clear though, because I'm not sure I expressed what I thought you were saying very clearly, and you might be agreeing with that which you expected me to write rather than that which I actually wrote. Are you saying that there are two types of "branching", firstly, those individual quantum states which, when combined, lead to a superposition, and each of which might be "collapsed" into a "real" experience, and, secondly, branches of reality, each of which consist of one of these superposed quantum states, which somehow are recursed into?

Or have I totally misunderstood you, and are you in fact positing only one type of "branching", that of the superposed states, and that reality exists in a "singular" (so far as a superposition can be described as "singular") rather than a branched (at a level above superposition) state?

So there are a couple ways I have thought about this paradox, and I hope you can appreciate that of course these are ideas, not real explanations, so I have more than one possible idea for this.

The first examines what is meant by "collapse." The language is inadequate, because it gives the idea of a wavefunction existing in spacetime and moving, say through both slits in the double slit experiment, and that this wave collapses once observed, as if it had some sort of spacial extension in the first place. If we keep in mind the epistemological subjective nature of quantum theory, and that in the von Neumann interpretation the possible locations (wavefunction) do not exist within spacetime, we can then see this as essentially possible experiences that do not manifest in spacetime until observed (information is extracted from the system). In a sense, there is no "collapse" of anything. What we have are potential experiences for consciousness, and one of them is experienced.

So with this view in mind, we have potentialities that exist outside of spacetime, but with the potential evolution of a branch that includes an entity that constitutes a conscious observer, the system then allows for the experience to emerge. The "unreal" potentialities never really became "real" in a more fundamental sense, but rather the potentialities lead to experience. In our normal language, the "unreal" potentialities became "real" because of their manifestation in spacetime, but at a more fundamental level, the unreal never became the real. It's all still potentialities, but just one of them was able to be experienced, and from our perspective "became real."

This is also one of the reasons that I think all the talk of multiverses is a bit hasty because we do not understand the measurement problem (a known problem), and if it is the case that the von Neumann interpretation is true, then what does that mean for most of the supposed 10^500 universes of M-Theory? Essentially that they don't "exist" like our universe does!

Thank you for that response, it's all quite nicely thought out. On the other hand, I am not sure that it really solves the paradox, but I will defer an explanation of why until we clarify my questions above as to whether I have properly understood what you mean by branching.

The second question that I have wondered actually has something to do with parapsychology and pre-sentiment. Could it be that there is some sort of retro-causality? Could the future observer have an affect on the present and have something to do with the "collapse"? This is not a well-formed idea, though, since I have a hard time finding a way out of the paradox that seems to occur with presentiment and precognition. The moment you think you have an answer, like EPR-like correlations across time for presentiment, then evidence from precognition makes it seem like something else.

Unfortunately, I'm not well-studied enough in presentiment and precognition to be aware of any contradictions between them. In any case, along similar lines, a friend of mine has/had a crazy idea that the universe is evolving towards a God who has the power to retro-causally create the universe through the Big Bang. I'm quite partial to such paradoxical ideas; I suspect that the explanation for greater reality is not "logical" by the rules of logic that seem to operate here in this particular physical realm of greater reality.

Anything that exists has apparently emerged from consciousness, including the regularities that we observe.

Hmm. OK, so, how would you explain the emergence of apparently "intelligent" or at least coherent laws of quantum physics from protoconsciousness, which, let alone lacking intelligence, lacks even any actual (as opposed to potential) awareness?

According to IIT, there are smaller complexes that would have their own experience. I don't know if psyche is the right word to attribute to some of the parts of the brain, but rather that there are components that lead to our conscious experience that themselves have their own much lower level experience. The one that we experience is the result of the integration of all the information from all the different components that make up the system. I would even say that a single cell has its own consciousness, and we are made up of around 10 trillion human cells.

So, you would endorse the possibility that, say, the left and right hemispheres of our brains each have a unified conscious experience similar if not identical to that which we all naturally experience presumably (according to IIT) due to the integrated information across both hemispheres?

The consciously directed thoughts can lead to a choice of superpositions (actually mixture states) of possible brain states, so in that way the brain takes advantage of these mixture states. But I think the problem is in thinking that there is an objective reality to the material aspect of the brain, and that it has to be "there" and "collapsed" in order for all the processing to occur to give rise to conscious experience. But really it is all informational relations that end up giving rise to experience, and the matter making up the brain is no less informational than the processes occurring in the brain.

Again, whilst this seems to me not to resolve the paradox, I will defer comment/critique until we've clarified exactly what you mean by "branching".

How can it be an object of itself if it is the only thing that exists and it is the direct experience of its own existence? The experience transcends the experiencing self, since there is no perception of that apparent self. So how can there be any subject/object split that gives rise to an object of perception?

I'm still not sure what the problem is. In what way is being "the direct experience of its own existence" not compatible with being an object of its subjectivity? In any case, I think that, again, we've probaly reached the point here where we're just going to have to note our disagreement and move on, lest we circle endlessly.

If something exists outside of spacetime, it doesn't lead to experience, and it is the manifestation of spacetime that makes experience possible, or rather they are dependent arising.

OK, so why then would you associate experience in any sense, particularly "potential but for a subject-object split", with that which exists outside of spacetime?

Why would one observer lead to one outcome and the other observer another outcome? I'm not sure I understand the premise.

I think it's better to reverse the question: why would we expect that all observers would lead to the same outcome? Wouldn't that imply that in some sense, the outcome is independent of individual observers, since no matter who the observer is, the same outcome results? If so, why the need for observers at all? Or would you suggest some sort of fundamental "connectedness" of observers, such that all all observers necessarily - because connected - cause the same outcome?
 
You have mixed up two completely different lines of the discussion.

We were discussing the observable properties of conscious beings, from both subjective and objective povs.
You brought up mystical experiences and I just pointed out that there is infinite amount of experiences available to conscious entities, so I am not sure why focusing on mystical experiences in particular.

I am not saying that “experiences of existence” are not relevant, but… what makes them more relevant than any another experience? I hope we agree that “experiencing” is the fundamental characteristic of conscious entities and therefore that’s just another experience, for the sake of our discussion.

Then I don't get how you can justify the appeal to first person direct experience in the one instance but in this case it isn't relevant. You were attempting to conclude, by direct first person experience as evidence, the required conditions that lead to certain conscious experience. As a pointed out, this is not a good basis for your conclusions, and if you wish you drop this method as evidence for the requirements for conscious experience, then I am happy to do so, but I was pointing out through methods of reason of your own that there are human experiences that contradict your assertion that intelligence, intent, etc. are necessary for conscious experience. If you wish to say this is not relevant, then you would also have to say that your reason for the requirements of the experience of joy are also not relevant.

Bucky said:
I said that if MWI turned out to be true it wouldn’t cause any trouble to a panpsychist position.
If indeed MWI turned out to be accurate, beyond reasonable doubt, then our intuitions about free will should be recognized as faulty. Period.

Until then I think it is reasonable to hold on to our empirical evidence for free will instead of giving it up for an almost unfalsiable theory (MWI)

What empirical evidence of free will? You mean intuitional?

Bucky said:
I certainly disagree.
It would be more honest to say that it is:
It is an unjustified inference based on evidence from human conscious experience. The “unjustifed” part is just your opinion.

All projects of scientific inquiry start from evidence from human conscious experience. To call it unjustified is indeed unjustified :D

It has nothing to do with opinion or honesty. It is logically unjustified. You cannot conclude that those characteristics are a requirement for all conscious experience based on the evidence alone. That is why it is a logically unjustified conclusion.

Bucky said:
I see.
To make you happy I now claim I am making inferences from a theory called XYZ that postulates that only living beings have consciousness.
The empirical support of the theory comes from 5000 years of subjective and objective observations, repeatable experiments and and a shit-ton of evidence from science fields such as neurology and neuroscience.

Happy now? :)

Still logically unjustified.

I was using IIT as a possible explanation, and you were attempting to refute the use of IIT because it seems absurd to say such small inanimate things could have a conscious experience. In other words, you were attempting to falsify my idea through this reason, yet this reason is based on a logically unjustified inference. I am not saying that in the end the photodiode is or is not in fact conscious, but rather that your reason against my idea is based on a logically unjustified inference.



Bucky said:
You’re right about the mixing of the two aspects, but it also points out more issues with these definitions.
Where is the line drawn? And what is fundamental consciousness?

You say intent is a quality of our awareness… how do we really know?
If pure consciousness is experience, in which way something active such as intent or creativity arises from the passive act of experience?

The only answer that comes to mind is a metaphysical one along the lines of Rudolph Steiner and various Theosophists where consciousness is seen as a series of interpenetrating layers providing structure and features.

Again… more human intuitions ;)

It is a difficult question, and at some point we may run out of explanations. I would say that consciousness itself is pure existence with the capacity for experience and exists beyond spacetime, and I think causation does not exist within it, so at some point something occurred that was not caused but resulted in our universe. This isn't very different from modern cosmology in some ways, that says the universe came into being out of nothing and was uncaused, but of course I think it makes more sense to say that the universe emerged from a transcendental existence beyond spacetime rather than popping out of a pure void (for which we have no evidence).

The other side to this is the idea that what first emerged from consciousness were potentialities. Do potentialities require a cause? These potentialities are never "created" but rather experienced, which results in the holographic projection of the experience of our universe in an apparent spacetime. This is creation, rather than what we would say would be an actual big bang that occurred.

How could the potentialities arise from an abstract unchanging entity? Well in information theory, zero is causal, so is it possible that zero (nothing) could have been the start of the information describing the potentialities? Could this offer an explanation of how such dynamism can result from an unchanging existence? And through recursive functions, the interactions lead to emergence of potential novel patterns, or information generation, and one of those branches of potentialities resulted in our universe full of conscious entities, whom through the capacity of conscious experience, resulted in the experience of the holographic projection of spacetime experience?
 
Hi Neil,

I don't think that there's much point in continuing to discuss the plausibility of your first proposed solution to the fine-tuning problem - I see you as playing a "get out of jail free card", but I doubt that you will ever agree, and I suspect that continued debate will simply end up going around in circles, and that it's best that we simply note our disagreement and leave it there.

I wasn't really trying to make it a "get out of jail free card," which is why I also offered the second possible explanation if there is in fact a fine-tuning problem in the end. With the uncertainty involved in a lot of these questions, we all have a very good chance of being wrong with many things, and that is part of why I may have different possible explanations. I could be wrong on all of them, but at least for now, I was just saying we don't know enough about the fine-tuning problem to use it to require an intelligence consciousness within my ideas.

Laird said:
Alas, I am not even original nor unpredictable.

Hah, I didn't mean it like that :) I just meant it in the sense that it is the next logical step when you think through the conscious-collapse model.

Laird said:
OK, I just want to be crystal clear though, because I'm not sure I expressed what I thought you were saying very clearly, and you might be agreeing with that which you expected me to write rather than that which I actually wrote. Are you saying that there are two types of "branching", firstly, those individual quantum states which, when combined, lead to a superposition, and each of which might be "collapsed" into a "real" experience, and, secondly, branches of reality, each of which consist of one of these superposed quantum states, which somehow are recursed into?

I don't think so. In the first instance where you say each might be collapsed into an experience, that would be more like what Many Worlds suggests, whereas in the Copenhagen/von Neumann only one of the states "becomes real" through experience. In the second instance, the recursions are happening throughout the entire process, including prior to the quantum states. Recursions would be required before such potential states could possibly arise.

Laird said:
Or have I totally misunderstood you, and are you in fact positing only one type of "branching", that of the superposed states, and that reality exists in a "singular" (so far as a superposition can be described as "singular") rather than a branched (at a level above superposition) state?

If I understand you properly, I think the answer is yes, but there is something that I am not sure of, which is can there be almost separate branches that lead to other universes? Or was there only one and the one that first led to conscious observers "collapsed" first? I don't know. I will have to try to see what more I could learn about this question.


Laird said:
Unfortunately, I'm not well-studied enough in presentiment and precognition to be aware of any contradictions between them. In any case, along similar lines, a friend of mine has/had a crazy idea that the universe is evolving towards a God who has the power to retro-causally create the universe through the Big Bang. I'm quite partial to such paradoxical ideas; I suspect that the explanation for greater reality is not "logical" by the rules of logic that seem to operate here in this particular physical realm of greater reality.

I've read possible explanations of presentiment experiments that describe an EPR-like correlation across time, which could possibly explain the statistical correlations that we see, and since there is no actual cognition of the future event, it is not "observed" and this allows the correlations to exist.

However with precognition, there is cognition of the actual future event, which makes this correlation impossible. The remote viewing precognitions are particularly bothersome, because apparently the actual future event can be precognized, not just a statistical correlation of possible future events. I really haven't figured out a satisfying explanation yet, but I suspect that study of this could lead to a greater understanding of time.

The idea you mentioned reminds me a bit of Terrence McKenna's 'transcendental object at the end of time.' :)

Laird said:
Hmm. OK, so, how would you explain the emergence of apparently "intelligent" or at least coherent laws of quantum physics from protoconsciousness, which, let alone lacking intelligence, lacks even any actual (as opposed to potential) awareness?

We do have some cool examples of very simple programs with few rules that when run, can result in some interesting patterns that almost look like behavior. So I think that there was probably some sort of recursive processing that led to the laws that govern our world. I am not saying that there was a simple program that started it all, meaning the program was prior to the processing, but rather that there was some sort of potential differentiation that led to the ability to process these types of potentialities because of the recursion and could lead to something more organized.

Laird said:
So, you would endorse the possibility that, say, the left and right hemispheres of our brains each have a unified conscious experience similar if not identical to that which we all naturally experience presumably (according to IIT) due to the integrated information across both hemispheres?

I don't know. I am not sure what the exact requirements are of IIT to say this, and if say a right hemisphere would satisfy those requirements or not. It is a very interesting question and I would like to find out more.


Laird said:
I'm still not sure what the problem is. In what way is being "the direct experience of its own existence" not compatible with being an object of its subjectivity? In any case, I think that, again, we've probaly reached the point here where we're just going to have to note our disagreement and move on, lest we circle endlessly.

I agree, because I just don't see how it could be called an object when the transcendent experience transcends the subject/object split.

Laird said:
OK, so why then would you associate experience in any sense, particularly "potential but for a subject-object split", with that which exists outside of spacetime?

I think I may understand the question, but correct me if I am wrong. The reason to associate a consciousness that exists beyond spacetime (actually it is both transcendent and immanent) with experience is that:

1. It is a requirement of the von Neumann interpretation, because only a consciousness that exists outside of spacetime could have the required ability to actualize a potential. If it only existed within spacetime, it would then be described by the same wave equations which would result in the same problem of superpositions.

2. The evidence from parapsychology seems to require that an aspect of our consciousness is beyond spacetime, because of the apparently mostly distant-independent effects and a degree of time-independent effects. A consciousness that exists only in spacetime could not have these abilities.


Laird said:
I think it's better to reverse the question: why would we expect that all observers would lead to the same outcome? Wouldn't that imply that in some sense, the outcome is independent of individual observers, since no matter who the observer is, the same outcome results? If so, why the need for observers at all? Or would you suggest some sort of fundamental "connectedness" of observers, such that all all observers necessarily - because connected - cause the same outcome?

Because there is fundamentally only one real observer, which is the single consciousness. All consciously aware entities such as ourselves only the fundamental consciousness at our base. Without this, the Wigner's Friend paradox is a problem, and it would also be a problem to explain our experience of an objective reality. The apparent objective reality is really inter-subjectively verifiable, and that is because there is only a single consciousness behind all subjective experiences that actualizes the potentialities.
 
Then I don't get how you can justify the appeal to first person direct experience in the one instance but in this case it isn't relevant. You were attempting to conclude, by direct first person experience as evidence, the required conditions that lead to certain conscious experience. As a pointed out, this is not a good basis for your conclusions, and if you wish you drop this method as evidence for the requirements for conscious experience, then I am happy to do so, but I was pointing out through methods of reason of your own that there are human experiences that contradict your assertion that intelligence, intent, etc. are necessary for conscious experience. If you wish to say this is not relevant, then you would also have to say that your reason for the requirements of the experience of joy are also not relevant.
Man... having dragged this conversation until this point I wonder if you keep posting just because you like to read what you write...
You have talent for misrepresenting other people's thoughts and it's getting tedious...

We were discussing the observable properties of consciousness, one of which is "having an experience".

If you read my posts you should have noticed that I have never claimed that any of theoe properties is necessary. The only problem is that if none of them is to be found in a supposedly conscious entity, then we are going to face the self-evident problem that we'll never know if it is conscious.

It has nothing to do with opinion or honesty. It is logically unjustified. You cannot conclude that those characteristics are a requirement for all conscious experience based on the evidence alone. That is why it is a logically unjustified conclusion.
Right!
Because it is logically unjustified to observe a fire, realize that it produces a lot of heat and, after repeating the observation a 1 000 000 times, conclude that heat production is a characteristic of fire.

It's not even a good joke :)

Still logically unjustified.
Exactly, LOL :D

I was using IIT as a possible explanation, and you were attempting to refute the use of IIT because it seems absurd to say such small inanimate things could have a conscious experience. In other words, you were attempting to falsify my idea through this reason, yet this reason is based on a logically unjustified inference. I am not saying that in the end the photodiode is or is not in fact conscious, but rather that your reason against my idea is based on a logically unjustified inference.
Never in my posts I said the your hypothesis is falsfied.
I challenge you to quote the passage, otherwise, once again you're just pulling this off thin air.

What I said is that you will need convincing evidence to support that the photodiode is conscious.

It is a difficult question, and at some point we may run out of explanations. I would say that consciousness itself is pure existence with the capacity for experience and exists beyond spacetime, and I think causation does not exist within it, so at some point something occurred that was not caused but resulted in our universe. This isn't very different from modern cosmology in some ways, that says the universe came into being out of nothing and was uncaused, but of course I think it makes more sense to say that the universe emerged from a transcendental existence beyond spacetime rather than popping out of a pure void (for which we have no evidence).

The other side to this is the idea that what first emerged from consciousness were potentialities. Do potentialities require a cause? These potentialities are never "created" but rather experienced, which results in the holographic projection of the experience of our universe in an apparent spacetime. This is creation, rather than what we would say would be an actual big bang that occurred.

How could the potentialities arise from an abstract unchanging entity? Well in information theory, zero is causal, so is it possible that zero (nothing) could have been the start of the information describing the potentialities? Could this offer an explanation of how such dynamism can result from an unchanging existence? And through recursive functions, the interactions lead to emergence of potential novel patterns, or information generation, and one of those branches of potentialities resulted in our universe full of conscious entities, whom through the capacity of conscious experience, resulted in the experience of the holographic projection of spacetime experience?
Thanks for the discussion.
 
If you read my posts you should have noticed that I have never claimed that any of theoe properties is necessary. The only problem is that if none of them is to be found in a supposedly conscious entity, then we are going to face the self-evident problem that we'll never know if it is conscious.

Perhaps I have misunderstood, but from the following quotes of yours from various posts, it certainly seems to me that you were claiming that those properties were necessary:

Bucky said:
We still have to deal with the supposed presence of consciousness in a painfully simple system that does not manifest any of its distinguishing properties (intelligence, intentionality, creativity etc…)

Our intuitive and empirical understanding of consciousness does not attribute self-awareness to a toaster (or grid of logical gates) simply because it doesn’t show any of the essential properties we recognize in conscious entities.

In fact we declare people under anesthesia unconscious because we observe, from both subjective and objective perspective, that those essential properties are indeed missing.

Also how can you claim that they are not necessary? If you remove all of the properties you won't be able to distinguish the phenomenon you're trying to investigate in the first place!

No, I am not claiming that we have all of the defining properties necessary for consciousness. But of all those currently known, none of them is detectable in inanimate objects.


If you are not claiming that those properties stated, viz. intelligence, intentionality, creativity etc., are not necessary, then you have to at least understand why I would be confused by the phrases such as "essential properties," or referring to "defining properties necessary for consciousness" that are "currently known."

We also cannot say that "we'll never know" if things such as photodiodes are conscious. Claiming what is unverifiable in-principle is tricky business, because with new advanced in technology and understanding, we can find new ways to get at a question indirectly, perhaps along the lines of the experiment I suggested using high-phi detectors in a retro-PK experiment.

Bucky said:
Right!
Because it is logically unjustified to observe a fire, realize that it produces a lot of heat and, after repeating the observation a 1 000 000 times, conclude that heat production is a characteristic of fire.

It's not even a good joke :)

I am now even more confused about your position here. I thought in the paragraph above you just said that you didn't say that those properties were necessary?


Bucky said:
Never in my posts I said the your hypothesis is falsfied.
I challenge you to quote the passage, otherwise, once again you're just pulling this off thin air.

What I said is that you will need convincing evidence to support that the photodiode is conscious.

I never said that you were claiming that my idea was falsified, but rather "you were attempting to falsify my idea through this reason..." Attempting to falsify ideas is a big part of this type of discussion, because it can allow us to throw out certain ideas. For example, I don't spend much time talking about panpsychism because of how it is irreconcilable with quantum theory and parapsychology evidence, which allows me to move on to ideas that fit what we know. I want people to attempt to falsify my ideas, but I just can't throw out certain ideas based on invalid inferences.
 
Perhaps I have misunderstood, but from the following quotes of yours from various posts, it certainly seems to me that you were claiming that those properties were necessary:
Neil,
let's play a different game.
Suppose you have a number of entities and you want assess the likelyhood that they possess a modicum of consciousness, today in 2015.

Can you please explain what would be a sensible approach to do this that possibly doesn't entirely disagrees with our current scientific knowledge?

If you are not claiming that those properties stated, viz. intelligence, intentionality, creativity etc., are not necessary, then you have to at least understand why I would be confused by the phrases such as "essential properties," or referring to "defining properties necessary for consciousness" that are "currently known."
If you had simply read what I last wrote, you would have seen I emphasized the disappearance of all of the observable properties of consciousness.

We don't have a way to say what is conscious and what is isn't with perfect accuracy. Do we need to start from the obvious?
We also may not know what are the necessary properties for consciousness. (Although I would argue that without first person experience there's no consciousness)

We observe that these distinguishing properties slowly vanish as we move down to less complex living beings, to the point where it's already impractical to state if a cell is conscious or not.

Even if any of the known properties associated with conscious beings is non-necessary, when we get to a point when absolutely none of them is detectable, what can we reasonably say? Other than the entity is likely non conscious?

We also cannot say that "we'll never know" if things such as photodiodes are conscious. Claiming what is unverifiable in-principle is tricky business, because with new advanced in technology and understanding, we can find new ways to get at a question indirectly, perhaps along the lines of the experiment I suggested using high-phi detectors in a retro-PK experiment.
I am all for verifying hypothesis. If you think you can provide evidence for consciousness in photodiodes please don't waste your time here arguing with me, A nobel prize is just around the corner.

I never said that you were claiming that my idea was falsified, but rather "you were attempting to falsify my idea through this reason..."
I was simply objecting.
I don't think there is any need to falsify something (=inanimate entities being conscious) that has no supporting evidence and it is unfalsifable in principle.

You suggest a retro-PK experiment.
How do you insulate the retro-PK experiment from the experiementer's consciousness? And from global consciousness? (that's already an unsolved problem in parapsychology)

As an aside, do you realize that (sadly) science doesn't even accept the existence of PK, and much less retro-PK, at all?

But let's forget all that. In 2070, mainstream science has finally included PK as a fact of nature and has solid evidence that high-Φ detectors score higher than chance in Ganzfeld experiments. What justifies the conclusion that Φ is necessary and sufficient for consciosness anyways?
 
Neil,
let's play a different game.
Suppose you have a number of entities and you want assess the likelyhood that they possess a modicum of consciousness, today in 2015.

Can you please explain what would be a sensible approach to do this that possibly doesn't entirely disagrees with our current scientific knowledge?

If I were to attempt to do this, I would probably look at IIT since it is the only quantitative theory of consciousness available and it does have some empirical support in predicting consciousness in humans.

However, it would not be conclusive because the theory, while having some support with prediction, certainly isn't well-corroborated to the point where I would feel confidence in the prediction of consciousness in simple devices or organisms. None of our current capability can lead to any confidence in such statements of whether simple devices or organisms are or are not conscious.

Bucky said:
If you had simply read what I last wrote, you would have seen I emphasized the disappearance of all of the observable properties of consciousness.

We don't have a way to say what is conscious and what is isn't with perfect accuracy. Do we need to start from the obvious?
We also may not know what are the necessary properties for consciousness. (Although I would argue that without first person experience there's no consciousness)

We observe that these distinguishing properties slowly vanish as we move down to less complex living beings, to the point where it's already impractical to state if a cell is conscious or not.

Even if any of the known properties associated with conscious beings is non-necessary, when we get to a point when absolutely none of them is detectable, what can we reasonably say? Other than the entity is likely non conscious?

I don't see it as reasonable to say that a cell, for example, is likely not conscious, if the most fundamental aspect of consciousness is simply an internal experience. Just because it lacks aspects of our stream of consciousness, which appears to be qualities that evolve in more advanced organisms, wouldn't say to me that the cell is likely not conscious because it may very well have a subjective experience without us knowing.

I would say the defining property of consciousness would be that of internal subjective experience. All the other properties appear to be regarding aspects of our stream of consciousness. If you say that IIT by itself cannot explain consciousness entirely, with which I agree, then there is something more to consciousness than that described by IIT, which I think is the capacity for experience. That is a very simple (although profound) property, which is why I can't say that it is unlikely that lower organisms are not conscious.


Bucky said:
I am all for verifying hypothesis. If you think you can provide evidence for consciousness in photodiodes please don't waste your time here arguing with me, A nobel prize is just around the corner.

That's a bit of a snide remark considering that I am responding to your statement that "we are going to face the self-evident problem that we'll never know if it is conscious." My point is that it isn't self-evident that we will never know, and to make a definitive statement like this is most likely wrong considering the history of science.

Bucky said:
I was simply objecting.
I don't think there is any need to falsify something (=inanimate entities being conscious) that has no supporting evidence and it is unfalsifable in principle.

I've already repeated my proposed experiment multiple times now, so for you to continue to say that it is unfalsifiable in-principle is just plain wrong.

Bucky said:
You suggest a retro-PK experiment.
How do you insulate the retro-PK experiment from the experiementer's consciousness? And from global consciousness? (that's already an unsolved problem in parapsychology)

Considering that we already have enough evidence for micro-PK, these objections apparently are not fatal. Experimental designs can continue to improve as they have to provide more robust evidence, but since the retroPK experiment would be a comparison between trials with zero phi recording devices and high phi recording devices, they should produce measurably different results based on the data we currently have.

Bucky said:
As an aside, do you realize that (sadly) science doesn't even accept the existence of PK, and much less retro-PK, at all?

Of course I do.

Bucky said:
But let's forget all that. In 2070, mainstream science has finally included PK as a fact of nature and has solid evidence that high-Φ detectors score higher than chance in Ganzfeld experiments. What justifies the conclusion that Φ is necessary and sufficient for consciosness anyways?

Well it was more that high phi detectors would destroy the retroPK effect, but if we have enough corroboration to support the theoretical predictions, we could say that phi is needed for conscious experience to arise. But again it would not explain the most fundamental aspect of consciousness, which is the capacity for experience.
 
, we could say that phi is needed for conscious experience to arise. But again it would not explain the most fundamental aspect of consciousness, which is the capacity for experience.

Phi cannot be the required entity because it is an abstract measurement. Energy ( a real-world game changer) is needed for accelerating motion; it is awkward to say that joules are the necessary entity for such.

The integration of information forming new structures of meaningful entities is a seemingly simple description - but is not embraced because of the fog of reductive materialism. I do find that when the term "information object" is used - this helps imagine structured information as would exist as an image, a map, a plan or an "essence" of a state of affairs. Phi appears to measure the process and conditions where information objects can be produced. But doesn't get to how it is a process and what their creation does to affect real-world probabilities.
 
Phi cannot be the required entity because it is an abstract measurement. Energy ( a real-world game changer) is needed for accelerating motion; it is awkward to say that joules are the necessary entity for such.

The integration of information forming new structures of meaningful entities is a seemingly simple description - but is not embraced because of the fog of reductive materialism. I do find that when the term "information object" is used - this helps imagine structured information as would exist as an image, a map, a plan or an "essence" of a state of affairs. Phi appears to measure the process and conditions where information objects can be produced. But doesn't get to how it is a process and what their creation does to affect real-world probabilities.

Hi Stephen,

I'm not sure I understand. Are you just saying that energy is required for integration of information?
 
Hi Stephen,

I'm not sure I understand. Are you just saying that energy is required for integration of information?
Neil, I am so sorry. It was an analogy. Energy (real thingy) is to joules (a unit of measure of energy) as meaningful structured information (a real thingy) is to Phi (a unit of measure of integrated information).
 
Neil, I am so sorry. It was an analogy. Energy (real thingy) is to joules (a unit of measure of energy) as meaningful structured information (a real thingy) is to Phi (a unit of measure of integrated information).

By the way, I have been trying to understand the paper you shared on informational realism. It is interesting, but the realist requirement is problematic, I think. I need to go through it a few more times, though.
 
By the way, I have been trying to understand the paper you shared on informational realism. It is interesting, but the realist requirement is problematic, I think. I need to go through it a few more times, though.
Realism - which includes information as real - has no issues with local realism - as information is in the patterns of states of affairs. Not strictly physical patterns.

What is problematic for you?
 
Realism - which includes information as real - has no issues with local realism - as information is in the patterns of states of affairs. Not strictly physical patterns.

What is problematic for you?

How does informational realism allow for a lack of micro-realism in quantum theory?

If the informational content of the probability distribution is of potentials, then how can we call it real? Wouldn't we call the information describing the eigenstate real once measured, not the probability distribution? But with informational realism how can some or all of the information of the probability distribution be unreal?

What does real mean? LOL
 
If I were to attempt to do this, I would probably look at IIT since it is the only quantitative theory of consciousness available and it does have some empirical support in predicting consciousness in humans.

But I asked how do we assess the likelyhood that different entities possess a modicum of consciousness. Not integrated information.

I don't see it as reasonable to say that a cell, for example, is likely not conscious, if the most fundamental aspect of consciousness is simply an internal experience. Just because it lacks aspects of our stream of consciousness, which appears to be qualities that evolve in more advanced organisms, wouldn't say to me that the cell is likely not conscious because it may very well have a subjective experience without us knowing.
Of course, we could argue about this for years … there is no way for us to know, as of know.

I would say the defining property of consciousness would be that of internal subjective experience. All the other properties appear to be regarding aspects of our stream of consciousness.
Not just ours, we recognize many of our “high level” features in many other living creatures.
Following your line of thought maybe cells are also able of intent and creativity without us knowing…

It’s not clear to me how IIT can help us discover how these “higher level” features arise from passive, internal subjective experience, although we can’t even be sure IIT is sufficient to explain that aspect.

If you say that IIT by itself cannot explain consciousness entirely, with which I agree, then there is something more to consciousness than that described by IIT, which I think is the capacity for experience. That is a very simple (although profound) property, which is why I can't say that it is unlikely that lower organisms are not conscious.
Agreed. The tricky part is when we’re no longer dealing with any organism, but inanimate matter instead.
If the latter also possess a modicum of consciousness, who is to say if every bit of matter is indeed conscious? Since IIT does not solve the problem of the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness, I don’t think it can be used to rule panpsychism out.

I think that experimental evidence supporting photodiodes as conscious would make panpsychist proponents very happy.

Considering that we already have enough evidence for micro-PK, these objections apparently are not fatal. Experimental designs can continue to improve as they have to provide more robust evidence, but since the retroPK experiment would be a comparison between trials with zero phi recording devices and high phi recording devices, they should produce measurably different results based on the data we currently have.

Experimental design is indeed a problem. If the GCP is onto something we have to deal with non local effects that can affect RNGs from any distance and in ways that aren’t predictable.

Unless we’re looking for some macro-PK effect that really stands out, it is not clear how we’re going to discriminate the effects of global consciousness (which oscillate based on worldly events) and alleged “local” effects caused by the test’s subject.

Also, funny side note, in micro-PK experiments the subject is asked to mentally enforce one of two possible outcomes… in which way are we going to ask a photodiode to please intend more ones than zeros? :D

Additionally, didn’t you claim that intention is not necessary for conscious awareness:
One bit of conscious awareness isn't going to have any of those qualities (intentionality, creativity etc…)

These may not be fatal objections but the likelyhood to produce compelling evidence via this approach seems vanishingly small (if any at all), even with the most optmistic outlook…
 
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