Will consciousness ever be fully solved?

There's an obvious difference between the real and virtual worlds.

The real world doesn't cease to exist after a power outage.

What if it's running on a futuristic supercomputer that runs without power outages.

Maybe for you but I'm not a very outgoing person
Often the only interaction I have with people is through Veeky Forums
I spend so much time on he Internet that it's often my only stimulation

> we can determine exact solutions to any of Zeno's "paradoxes"
This is mathematically wrong. You can easily change the paradox to one where no solution possible in terms of analysis.
> Except they completely are
You missed a point of paradox. Even in times of the Zeno it was known that arrow reach target in the end. It was never a problem to solve it in the one way or another, experimentally or even with some equation. Integral calculus doesn't really solve the issue here.

No, I don't think so. Regardless of whether its just the result of the brain or whether there is something more then biological involved I still think it would impossible either way. You can have the most complex and futuristic super-computers digitally simulating every single atom of every cell in the brain and that still wouldn't do much to explain how it results in consciousness. You can mess with parts of the brain to cause a change in or temporary loss of consciousness but its not something you can put under a microscope and examine.
There is always the potential for outages no matter how futuristic something is

There will always be assholes who think there is some ethereal quality that still needs to be explained, even when we understand mostly everything of consequence. Some people hate knowledge and resist its encroachment on the unknown by making up unknowns, going so far as to circularly define these unknowns as unknowable.

Lmao no. First of all the convergence of an infinite series depends on how it's summed and how the metric is defined. Whatever variation os Zeno's paradox you can think up I can give you a way to resolve it mathematically. Second of all Zeno already got his shit pushed in by Aristotle, and Leibniz merely made Aristotle's arguments quantitative and eventually rigorous. If you want to deny anything calculus says about Zeno's paradox I suggest you start with Aristotle.

tl;dr retard thinks he knows shit about math or philosophy, move along

Maybe. I don't see it as impossible because there are proofs that prove things are impossible, like the halting problem. I would think philosophy includes logic, but given what I hear in other threads like this it must not. We still don't have it yet, so I still have to call it a maybe and not an inevitability.

> I can give you a way to resolve it mathematically
What is your solution for Thomson’s Lamp? It was basically the same core problem. There are infinite moves but only one answer that you should give if you really able to solve this.

>It's an oscillating sequence
>what is Cesaro summation
Don't waste my fucking time

c r e a t i v e n o t h i n g

> If you want to deny anything calculus says about Zeno's paradox
It doesn't matter what calculus says because even in Zeno times it was known that we could actually sum infinity number of steps into some finite value and problem here isn't a numerical but logical one. It isn't about finding the sum but finishing the task.

> what is Cesaro summation
Are you trying to impress us with some jargon and hope that people here doesn't know math?

Given that -1 is turned off lamp and 1 is turned on lamp, Cesaro summation's answer is 1/2. That is completely meaningless in that particular problem.

Conciousness is a program capable of supervising the work of other programs.
With programs i mean, as in computer programs. The brain has programs, wich are the things you have learned to do. (math program, use your right arm program, visual memory program, etc).
The conciousness is the program that is able to open the programs, input into them the info that comes from the senses and then bring the output to another program to use it. The conciousness does not do anything by itself, its much like a human using a computer.

It depends entirely on whatever the last input is at the last instant before the two minutes is up. All the other switches are irreverent.

True but nobody knows what is last input from infinite series of inputs therefore Zeno laughing from his grave.

>meaningless
Nice cop out. Suppose the light is fully lit at 1 and dimmed at 0, it's only natural to assume that the end result is a half-dimmed lightbulb (i.e. at 1/2) as the frequency of switch flipping approaches infinity. You have to be extremely stupid to not be able to make this connection.
>hurr you gotta solve this paradox under my restrictions
Fucking retard.
>inb4 flipping the switch isn't equivalent to the bulb shining/dimming
No shit, except that "switching" is an artificial physical process that takes time to achieve, and as such its frequency can never approach infinity.

Probably. We already know lots of shit about the brain, enough to paint a rough picture, and I don't see the research stopping anytime soon.

Yes. But it will coinside with the singularity. So no party to celebrate.

How can we even know whether it's solved once it is?

>>hurr you gotta solve this paradox under my restrictions
>Fucking retard.

Stupid animeposter

Rude. Address the argument and not the image that it comes with. That's ad imagnem

> it's only natural to assume that the end result is a half-dimmed lightbulb
What if switching stops at 2:00 and you should answer what state of lamp at 2:01? No way it could be in your magical 1/2 half-lighted state if we are past of the point when switching happens. This is perfectly logical question, isn't it?

> That's ad imagnem
If you want to play this game, solving another paradox instead of original one is literally straw man fallacy.

If the time between switches becomes infinitesimal then it'd be impossible to talk about "what happens after the last switch" because the last switch doesn't exist.
>perfectly logical
It isn't. The only way to interpret the paradox such that a solution is possible is to consider the shining of the bulb instead of the flipping of the switches.

>what is reading comprehension
The situation is this
>A: give me a Zeno's paradox and I'll give you a contect in which it can be resolved mathematically
>B: Thompson's lamp
>A: it's an oscillating sequence so use Cesaro sum to obtain a sensible answer, along with an alternative interpretation of the paradox that makes this reasonable
>B: HURR NO YOU'RE CHANGING THE PROBLEM
Even though the initial problem was about how math can resolve Zeno-type paradoxes in the right contexts you chose to focus on something not pertaining to it. Shows how little argument you have desu

Is this thread still about consciousness?

No, that animefag derailed it.
Bravo animefag. You are the best.

The paradox is in how you can complete infinite steps not in how you can sum infinite variables.

> the last switch doesn't exist
It should exist because switching stops actually.

Sorry for the late response, I had to fet to work.
Read Aristotle. The time it takes to complete an infinitesimal task is infinitesimal.
The problem is that the existence of time > 2 seconds doesn'tmean that the flipping "eventually" stops. Give me any flip of the switch at any given time < 2 and I can find you another that's later. That's what the Archimedean principle dictates.

I dont think so. As long as you know you know something, you want to find out how you got to understand it and so on. So I think the deeper we go, the more disappointed we'll get. Cause either we'll come to the conclusion that our primal instincts have a complex way of expressing themselves, or we wont find an answer at all because R.A.A.

FUCK thanks for the existential crisis user. I don't know if i can handle anymore of these this year. I'm going to go lie down in the shower now.

Mental events? You are merely imagining them.

God.

High-proof alcohol solves it pretty well.

>he thinks Aristotle and Leibniz gave a definitive answer to Zeno's paradoxes.
Why are you trolling?

>Zeno's paradox.

You can divide space but you cannot divide movement.
A mathematical solution of calculating when achilles overtakes the turtle or an answer to the lamp question do not address all the problems of these paradoxes.

You realize that there is a reason why people have been discussing Zeno's paradoxes since the greek, right?
Many things are not discussed any more but these paradoxes still are.
Much like many ancient texts that are still referenced, Zeno's paradoxes touch something so fundamental that it will probably be inspected forever, over and over again, from different perspectives.

The problem with these paradoxes is that they deal with infinitesimal distances and sizes.
Thus they do not deal with reality but with abstract measurements.
If anything these paradoxes point to the differences between the abstractions of the mathematical language and reality.
Many realities can be constructed mathematically but they will not be our reality, which is whole , never completely graspable and where everything is interconnected, my penis and a black hole on the other side of the universe.

>definitive
Never said that, dumb faggot. I said that that's *a* solution formalizable in maths, exactly the same way I've done here.
Stop putting words in my mouth, makes you look desperate.

We can probably replicate the brains stucture and function, and probably in our lifetimes, but I don't think we'll be understanding it anytime soon

>you can divide space but you can not divide movement
Have you heard the term "acceleration"?

Everyone who says Zeno's paradoxes are not solved by calculus are idiots desu.

Yeah, the problem is about needing to complete an infinite amount of steps to complete a task.
But the calculus solution is simply, that as we divide the steps into smaller sub-steps, the number of steps tends to infinity, but the time it takes to complete them tends to 0.

Saying that this does not solve the paradox is just retarded.

We could even reformulate the paradox and say that the arrow arrives at it's target immediately, since all the small distances it has to fly through take 0 time.

BOTH versions are based on a wrong understanding of calculus. The number of sub-steps tends to infinity while the time to complete them tends to 0.
The original arrow paradox is based on the mistake, to let the number of steps tend to infinity first, without looking at how this affects the time to complete them.
The instant kill version is based on the mistake to let the time tend to 0 without looking at how that affects the number of steps.

> Zeno's paradoxes are not solved by calculus
They aren't. That is why you can ask about what last step would be because it should exist, but it can't exist in infinite series used for calculus and paradox remains in one form or another. Calculus alone doesn't solve a problem. You need to use a Cantor theory or something akin to that to resolve it properly around all possible contradictions. You need not to find some number which is what all of the calculus for but to reliable construct theory for all kinds of analysis related to infinities. Calculus, while useful, just isn't strong enough in this case.

We will have to wait until AI can solve the problem for us.

Of course it may not be within their reach so they will have to develop an even higher intelligence, this will go on ad infinitum until human beings consciousness are like that of matter. Mere mechanical entities that are more or less like a simulation in one of their universes that double as a computer.

What's the difference from an AI which passes the Turing test and a conscious human being?

Seeing it like that, anything that has awareness has consciousness. A cell has awareness.

To truly have consciousness, you must understand you exist. You can't understand existence if you don't understand being alive. You can't understand being alive if you don't understand the fear of death. You can't understand the fear of death if you don't have emotions.

Why couldn't an AI do that? You are asuming dualism there.

I'm not saying it can't (I don't think it can), but so far we aren't anywhere close. There is simply zero understanding on how emotions works. Fedoras go haywire when you mention this because muh dopamine, muh serotonin, muh neuron axions. Unfortunately, that is what leads to a sensation being experienced, it does not explain why a sensation is as it is.

If you can replicate and prove an AI is experiencing the same sensation, that you can say for certainty you have fully simulated a human mind. Otherwise, it's just a really complex algorithm acting purely mathematically. Again, a Fedora would say biological organisms are no different, but it is for the very fact you can't say it isn't what you doesn't like it to be if you don't even know what it is.

There is some understanding. You can give some one MDMA and they get all affectionate and feel love for just about everything.

You can induce all sorts of emotions with the proper chemicals - even strong magnets can affect your mood.

These are things induce sensations - they are NOT sensations. And this is the key difference. Just for the sake of illustration (regardless of how correct this is): anyone can understand how magnets work, but not how electromagnetism work, or how positive and negative charges attract each other, but not why this happens, or why they are positive or negative.

Holy fuck this is so stupid. Are you trolling?

Are you saying that most people go "Magnets, how do they work? Magic!"

Or are you saying everyone has no understanding about how magnets work? Because I'm pretty fucking we have a good understanding on on how and why things are magnets.

Unless you are asking why the laws of physics are the way they are?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

No, stop being retarded.

I said for illustration exactly to avoid this typical bullshit.

>Unless you are asking why the laws of physics are the way they are?
That is similar to the concept I'm working here, yes.

I mean you can just read the Wikipedia article on magnets to see how they work. It isn't magic.

If you are more or less asking that we don't know why the universe has created a system of magnets, then I will point towards the anthropomorphic principle (which you should also read).

Chances are magnets are required for human consciousness and life (and in some versions of the principle) required to keep life going.

Without a magnetic field on Earth life would be sterilized, ergo if magnets did not exist then we would not exist.

Maybe there is some other planet in the universe that has life that can survive solar radiation, but this is not that planet.

Humans require a magnetism to exist therefore we observe it. If it wasn't here we wouldn't be around to observe it.

Now I mentioned that there might be life that can survive solar radiation, but its also possible that there is no life that can. I mean we could be it or the first.

On the topic at hand, its not that we don't have a basic understanding of how the human brain works. We are light years ahead of people in the 1916's for example.

If we don't destroy ourselves or get hit with a meteor, imagine how intelligent we will be in 1000 years and that such civilization will be able to better understand how the brain works.

To say, we will never understand consciousness is a bit of a stretch.

Its like people who said men will never fly or go to the moon.

And back to the anthropomorphic principle, it might be required for any civilization to survive to figure out how their own internal brain works.

Otherwise they might go extinct or get wiped out by another civilization that has figured out how to augment their own intelligence.

>To say, we will never understand consciousness is a bit of a stretch.
To say that consciousness is even a thing other people experience is unscientific.

>what is buddhism

The subject isn't magnets. They are used for illustration - you are to presume you know how they work (we do), but not how they work (we don't) - this phrase makes sense by the way.

>If you are more or less asking that we don't know why the universe has created a system of magnets
I am not, but the principle is the same. The rest is outside the scope of this discussion.

I believe we will have the better grasp of what consciousness is thru the discovery of AI and mind immersion into the Internet and with others or games/devices or each other. With AI we can discuss with an artificial being what consciousness is, and when full immersion gaming or internet, however you want to say it, we would have first had to discover how to manipulate consciousness. I believe these are the two big pieces of the puzzle,... creating and controlling consciousness.

>If we don't destroy ourselves or get hit with a meteor, imagine how intelligent we will be in 1000 years and that such civilization will be able to better understand how the brain works.

That's a conjecture. It does make sense. Some argue that "teh singularity" is happening right now, but that's another subject.

>To say, we will never understand consciousness is a bit of a stretch.
I'm not optimistic.

>Its like people who said men will never fly or go to the moon.
I would say that's a false equivalence. Explaining consciousness is much more complex.

>To say that consciousness is even a thing other people experience is unscientific.
Do you have any idea how much the subjectivity of one's feelings are important in the medical field? You went full retard there.

Why would consciousness be unscientific, unlike a myriad of other things in science that involve subjectivity?

>Do you have any idea how much the subjectivity of one's feelings are important in the medical field? You went full retard there.
Medical practice can be pseudo-scientific, yes.

>Why would consciousness be unscientific
Has anyone ever produced physical evidence of Qualia?

To be fair, all of you could be meat zombies or robots.

But let us assume we are not unique.

Given enough technology and scientific understanding, you could in theory experiment with different states of consciousness.

People already do that we drugs.

But let us say you could replicate states of other people's brain chemistry without destroying your own, or rather you could share consciousnesses together.

I'm not sure how you would achieve this. And you could not with today's or even 100 years from now technology.

But let's say man has ventured out into the stars and not only colonized this galaxy but all others (I mean if we don't leave this rock we are doomed to extinction anyways so we won't be around to experience nothingness).

And they have hundreds of thousands of years worth of technological progress (if not million).

Such a civilization probably will know how to control their own intelligence, dreams, emotions, and various other.

Though, such a human would not be really human anymore compared to human's of today. Hell they might have used nanotechnology to replace their brains slowly with computers which gives them the ability to reprogram themselves.

They might even dabble in 21st century simulations to experience what it would be like to be born and limited as a flesh human.

Though we might all die before then... But it won't matter because no one will be around to notice us not existing.

>To be fair, all of you could be meat zombies or robots.
Yes. That's what I'm saying.

>But let us assume we are not unique.
For what reason?

>Given enough technology and scientific understanding, you could in theory experiment with different states of consciousness.
The same argument could be made that, with enough technology and scientific understanding, you could in theory experiment with thetan levels, ghosts, angels, wizards, the trinity, and reincarnation.

>Such a civilization probably will know how to control their own intelligence, dreams, emotions, and various other.
Not if they don't have intelligence, dreams or emotions. There's no evidence that humans do, so there's no reason to assume other civilizations would either.

Well, at that point you might question what the fuck is objective or not. "Pain in the neck" is considered to be something objective, there's no physical evidence for pain, as I said on this thread there's no explanation for any sensation, no evidence, if there was, you could reproduce it on an AI, but so far we can't.

Where exactly do you draw the line? Are you even real? Is questioning everything that is outside my mind too insane? Then why can't we assume subjectivity is can be scientific? It is in humanities, why not in natural sciences too?

>there's no physical evidence for pain, as I said on this thread there's no explanation for any sensation, no evidence
Yep. Pain is also quackery.

>Are you even real?
Probably not.

If you want to see a good outline as to why consciousness won't be 'fully solved' just look at how distracted a thread about it got from one bit of information. Maybe its a self evolving thing forever out of grasp and anytime you try to look for the answer its like grabbing smoke with your hands. Or I could be wrong - you'll just call me faggots either way.

Qualia is something that badly describes physical experience. You can program a computer to react in a similar manner.

By that metric, we already have nearly perfect systems in the form of enemies in video games, all it takes is some extra code.

You could say Artificial Intelligence is one thing, the IBM Watson is very smart, if you consider intelligence to be "the efficiency in how someone uses available resources to complete a task", then that's one thing.

An Artificial Mind though...

Nothing about my post implies that nor did I presented a "metric". I'm just stating that you could potentially bruteforce your way through to make a reaction that fits really well with what we consider human experience from an outside perspective. Doing that is really different from making an enemy grunt when you shoot him.