I actually believe that once we can replicate consciousness with a computer we will be much closer to understanding consciousness, but I don't think that there's really a consensus about consciousness, I've , heard Daniel Dennett say in a video that there's no consensus on it, and I sort of already figured that before. I think that we can pretty much surmise from just deductive reasoning that consciousness is a byproduct of physiology, there's literally no other logical explanation besides that. And when you think about the laws of physics and how basically something determines the actions of everything, it's easy to see that there is really no control of our own involved in it, it's just the playing out of laws of physics and matter. Now, to explain what consciousness is in a concrete and scientific way, I think will also give us an incredibly deep understanding of philosophy, because a lot of philosophy deals with perception of the universe and plays into consciousness, as far as I'm aware. So, basically consciousness is the most interesting fucking question I can imagine in all of science, and I hope to the endless void that there's going to be a breakthrough in artificial intelligence in the coming decade, I think if there's one thing that I want to see in my lifetime, it would be self aware, self conscious, self learning, common sense able artificial intelligence, which far surpasses the intelligence of human beings. The end of religion may be a little outside of my lifetime, sadly.
What is consciousness?
Other urls found in this thread:
amazon.com
cercor.oxfordjournals.org
twitter.com
Everything related to consciousness can be ascribed to brain processes. Consciousness will of course be kept alive by philosophers with their silly thought experiments. I see the whole concept of consciousness dying a slow and painful death like vitalism.
>Everything related to consciousness can be ascribed to brain processes
So, do you think that once we have artificial intelligence that we can prove has consciousness that it will make it easier for people to be anti religious openly? I mean, I think that magical thinking can infiltrate basically any area that human beings don't understand, but I think that generally once there's a generally accepted view on some things then science wins out over superstition. Isn't one of the biggest parts of religion and spirituality the idea that human beings have a spirit? I think it's something like 80% of people are religious in america, I would like to see that number reduced to 0%. Perhaps it will just take more generations of people growing up who aren't entrenched in old ideas and not willing to open up their mind.
It's so annoying to me, because I love opening up my mind to new ideas. It's like a moment of joy for me when I discover something that I hadn't previously known or discover something that changes my point of view. I think that it probably has something to do with having a more open personality, but I think that it also has to do with intelligence, whether it has to do with a specific type of intelligence because there's obviously different types of intelligence.
Isn't consciousness what basically all religions and philosophies have tried to explain throughout the centuries? Consciousness relates to every aspect of humanity, it relates to our behavior and the thinking behind our behavior. Pretty soon we will not only have computers that exhibit these traits, showing us that we're nothing special at all, but computers will probably also be self aware of their own processes going on inside of their heads, so we will be able to explain scientifically the behavior and thoughts of human beings. I think that we sort of already can explain these things, I know that to an extent we know what areas of the brain are responsible for what.
No, philosophers will tell you it may look the same, acts the same, but has no consciousness; they will simply tell you it is a zombie. Surely you have heard of this philosopher's zombie?
>but computers will probably also be self aware of their own processes going on inside of their heads
What's the point in programming this ? I don't want my home robot to kill itself.
lol very good point. I watched a lecture on artificial intelligence, and it's good to point out that an artificial intelligence wouldn't be anthropomorphised. Human beings have a tendency to anthropomorphize everything, even the universe itself. I wonder how a self aware robot's feelings would compare to a self aware human's feelings. How would their self awareness feel without the same sorts of elements that make humans so human?
I haven't heard of the philosopher's zomby, but I think that to say consciousness isn't replicate-able is absurd. We evolved out of nothing but primordial muck, it's not hard to imagine that if the elements are present to create consciousness in us, merely because of the capacity of abstract thinking which evolved in our brain, that with the technology that exists today we could replicate self aware consciousness in a machine.
I think it's interesting though, to think about what self awareness really means. In order to be self aware you have to be aware of yourself, it takes years and years to develop a sense of self. We are who we are today because of our reflection off of other human beings, because without other human beings we probably wouldn't even know what we are or have any concept of the fact that we exist.
I think a self awareness could be achieved in a computer, but I think to know the precise moment of consciousness, to me, is something so poetic that I would like to know merely for the poetic nature of the question itself. I think it's akin to learning that we're all made of star dust, I think the question holds that much weight.
>computers will probably also be self aware of their own processes going on inside of their heads
Why would they be that?
I have not the slightest clue how how my brain works. And neither do I know the behind the scenes working of my computer operating system despite using it every day.
I think computers are generally self monitoring, a computer can show you it's own processes while they're running and diagnose itself, I think it's fair to say that a computer could explain it's own consciousness if it was self learning and happened to have a self awareness that it could explain. Now, when you compare that to yourself not being able to understand how you own computer works, your question is silly and confused.
Until we know what consciousness derives from, we won't know whether a computer, no matter how advanced, is conscious.
>I think
>I think
I suggest you stop thinking and start understanding how things work. There's nothing in a computer that makes it selfconscious of its internal processes. Any more than your car engine is automatically capable of being aware of its functions or your organic fleshy brain being able to understand itself.
While it's perfectly possible to give a program access to it's own source code that doesn't make it aware of how it works. Even if you let it freely inspect its machine code and memory state it's not going to have any whatsoever clue as to what it does without extensive learning and experimentation.
For an AI to understand itself it needs to be an extremely competent computer scientist and PhD level AI researcher.
Have there been any studies about this, or theories from fields of these studies?
There are many theories as to why consciousness exists, but none have any real evidence behind them that puts them ahead of the pack. There's the theory that computation is consciousness, there's another that is akin to panpsychism whereby all matter is on some level conscious, another where quantum processes in microtubules in the brain create consciousness, and others which state that consciousness causes wave-function collapse and that the entire universe is a result of consciousness, not the other way around. Theories are a dime a dozen.
This is absurd. Surely a brain scientist must have an idea of what causes consciousness.
Fuck off back to . Shitposting pseudointellectual dribble is not science.
Consciousness is an emergent property of recurrent neural networks. This is well documented in the fields of machine learning and neuroscience. Now for the love of god stop posting.
Requesting a book on machine learning and neuroscience that explains consciousness.
say it to my face nerd shit faggot bitch
Their recurrent, self-referrential nature gives them the ability to examine their own internal state and act on it. Because they loop back into themselves, it described the quality that you fucking faggots won't stop talking about.
For a layman's introduction, refer to:
amazon.com
Fucking autocorrect.
*it describes qualia
Now fuck off
Chill
If everything is made up of atoms then how come our brain can think or ask about where it came from or how it exists, but an inanimate object made up of the same atoms cannot?
HOLY FUCK YOU'RE RETARDED
STOP
Why can't I drive a boulder to work if it's made out of matter just like my car?
b u r n e d
I seriously doubt this book will describe anything about consciousness, because of the talks I've seen scientists give on consciousness, it seems pretty clear that they don't know. I ordered that book yesterday though and I'm looking forward to seeing what it has to say.
Also, could you tone down on the rage? It's embarrassing, this is as worthy of a subject to be talked about as any and I'm glad to be able to discuss it, and I'm glad you don't get to decide.
Oh fuck off you fucking faggot. I'm fucking sick and tired you spamming philosophical diarrhea on a science board. I sure as shit am not going to cut you any slack until you decide to stop being retarded.
lmao dude this is embarrassing.
Shut it dumbass.
Face it: you're some stupid kid that doesn't know shit about how the world actually works, so you're assigning all these mystical, spiritual qualities to explain in. That isn't science you fucking idiot. Go read about neural networks.
>The end of religion may be a little outside of my lifetime, sadly
No science vs religion threads, ban soon
Dude I'm a staunch atheist and I said earlier in the thread that I can't wait to see the day religion dies out. Go for a walk in the forest or something, walk on your back porch and feel the warm ground under your feet. You're not behaving like a healthy individual. Just be mindful of the world around you and let go of whatever it is you desire which is making you feel this way. Just let it go and chill man, seriously. Either you're trolling or you're not well.
I don't care whether you wear a fedora or not. You're obviously underage and can't yet grasp the science behind how the brain works so instead you post "why can't rocks think if they're made out of matter just like brains." Like what the fuck? How is that not retarded?
>pretentious teenager vs slightly older pretentious teenager who is ashamed of how misinformed he used to be, so is now projecting his current and previous insecurities onto this young user
"This is quite the loop, isn't it Mr. Hofstadter?"
"Why yes, and quite a strange one at that."
I'm not the one who said that though, it's naive of you to assume multiple posts which contain no connection to one another came from the same person on an anonymous website where no post is identifiable by it's author.
>GODMODE
Re-read their entire argument, except this time picture it as an old, angry man scolding his past self. this could make for a great postmodern children's book.
>implying I'm not an AI researcher
:^)
Your thread is bad, it's attracting bad posts, and you should feel bad.
ebin, simbly ebin
Yeah an abortion clinics and the funerals of people killed in night clubs attract protesters too, your point is moot.
You're both idiots. Thinking that science explains things that it does not is no better than believing in an unknown diety. There are dozens of theories about what consciousness actually is, none of which have the slightest whim of evidence other than educated speculation. There is absolutely no logical justification for drawing a conclusion that a machine with the nature of consciousness actually has consciousness, and the fact that you're already speculating that we'll understand our own consciousness through the development of AI when a true AI hasn't even been invented yet goes to show that you're willing to believe in arbitrary ideas as long as they have a nature of science.
Pretentious shitlords like yourselves are the reason so many religious people are unwilling to consider scientific theories, you are neither more open-minded nor more intelligent than they are, you're conceited, egotistical cunts who accomplish the exact opposite of what you're trying to do. Please strongly consider removing yourselves from the gene pool.
STOP MAKING THREADS UNTIL YOU'RE AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD
This is why they have that rule. To keep out retards like you.
I was about to congratulate you on a good post until you added that stupid unnecessary tack on at the end to protect yourself emotionally from possible back lash to what you wrote. Sorry man, but this is just pathetic. You're the one acting like you're on the high road, then you clearly show that you're no better. This is why it's good to be humble, but hey I guess it's fun to just shit on your own species, that's what everyone else does every day and haha no one cares, amirite? You wonder what aliens would think if they came down and took a look at us, they'd pity our primitive species.
There's a big difference between scientific theories and speculation and religious doctrines and religious beliefs, comparing the two is just wrong, they're not comparable and I'd say one is more sound than the other, because at least speculation admits that it's just speculation.
Fuck off. Go channel your crystal energy into your zen or something.
Some of us actually know about this stuff and don't buy into the whole
>hurr durr you can't kno nuffin
>consciousness is magic soul power
>[insert verbal diarrhea here]
You're trying to make this subject seem more mysterious than it actually is. Ask anyone at the Google AI team and they'll tell you consciousness is an emergent property of recurrent convolutional neural networks. They've also been doing some neat work with these things called thought vectors too, lately.
You seem to have made a bit of a mistake in your post. Luckily, the users of Veeky Forums are always willing to help you clear this problem right up! You appear to have used a tripcode when posting, but your identity has nothing at all to do with the conversation! Whoops! You should always remember to stop using your tripcode when the thread it was used for is gone, unless another one is started! Posting with a tripcode when it isn't necessary is poor form. You should always try to post anonymously, unless your identity is absolutely vital to the post that you're making!
That's not a trip you newfag. It's a reminder that sage goes in all fields when posting in this shit thread.
Protecting and elevating myself has nothing to do with it, I added that because I'm pissed at you. This perspective of "science vs religion" is a preconceived notion that looks only at superficial traits of philosophy without going to the source. There is no difference between religious mythology and fallacious scientific beliefs, both are conceived in falsehood for the purpose of having the illusion of understanding.
If I go around asking people what I have in my pocket and one person pretends to read my mind and another person measures my height and weight and draws a logical conclusion they are both equally wrong, the second one has no additional merit for making an erroneous conclusion just because his method had a more analytical nature.
Even if religion were to come to an end due to scientific advancement (it won't), fallacious thoughts and beliefs will thrive as they always have, that's human nature.
you're pathetic, your arguments are all buzzwords and senseless appeal-to-character, I'd bet money you don't even know a fraction of the things you claim to
I'd also bet that you yourself are underage and that you repeatedly use that accusation because you're projecting
This whole post is predicated on the idea that we don't know what causes human consciousness so there for we shouldn't even speculate on the idea. Why not? It's something that I would like to have some sort of concept of, I've asked for recommendations of books in this thread by people who claim that it's a well documented phenomena, I don't know whether it is or not but all of my observations of what people have said about it anywhere in the world lead me to believe that we have no explanation for the nature of consciousness.
Now, I gotta say, this board is fucking garbage, but not the board itself, the people in it like that sagee guy and everyone flame baiting everyone else in this thread, just because for some reason they don't like this perfectly good argument, so they're going to have a hissy fit over it instead of calmly talking like well adjusted adults. Talk about an embarrassing display.
And btw, the nature of consciousness has nothing to do with philosophy.
Books are for laymen, and I already showed you one. If you want to get into the science, you'll have to read research papers cercor.oxfordjournals.org
The fact that you think these are buzzwords proves that you don't know anything about this subject.
...
There is a lot of nonsense in this thread so I will provide a quick summary of the current consensus thinking on consciousness.
1. We understand quite a lot about the neural correlates of consciousness. We know that certain areas of the brain must maintain certain levels of activity for a person to be "conscious". Anesthesiologists deal with this all the time.
2. We have no scientific theory to address the subjective experience of consciousness. Why is there a movie playing in our heads of everything we do? Why aren't we simply unconsciousness beings who behave according to our brain activity? Why is there this extra layer of "experience"?
One thing that is important is to keep separate the ideas of intelligence and consciousness. Too often people mix these two ideas up, or combine them into something new. It is entirely conceivable that we can create intelligent machines which have no consciousness what so ever. The converse of this, conscious entities with no intelligence is harder to imagine, but also could be possible. Those who enter deep meditative or psychedelic states will have a much easier time conceiving of this notion.
Why is it acting like the post was deleted?
I deleted the post because I didn't want to talk to you, because you're being so rude.
You deleted the post because you're starting to get insecure as I trash all of your bullshit.
You still need to read this, btw
cercor.oxfordjournals.org
You didn't trash anything except my thread.
And I'll keep trashing your threads until either
A.) they quit being about pseudo-intellectual wankery
B.) you fuck off to >>Veeky Forums
You can make scientific consciousness threads backed by actual research if you want, but I'm not going to tolerate this bullshit day after day anymore.
I was referring to human thought in a more general sense.
Regarding consciousness, I'm all about speculation. I personally subscribe to the theory that consciousness is another property of the universe separate from time and space, and that organic brains create a unique environment that can generate and interact with a conscious being.
What bothers me isn't speculation in and of itself but when people intermingle the theoretical with the known where it has no place.
I'm also not talking to you anymore
>LALALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU
Sweet kek, this is pure gold. All you have to do is quit the wankery and post actual science. Then I'll leave you alone.
Machine learning is just statistical optimization. Not anything magic.
fac(n) = n * fac(n - 1)
Wow, this function loops back to itself, it must have consciousness! I swear, "self-reference" is the next "quantum" in terms of its use in pseudoscience.
>I actually believe that once we can replicate consciousness with a computer we will be much closer to understanding consciousness
>replicate consciousness when we don't know what it is
>how do you even know when something is conscious?
you sound like a retard. kill yourself. you're not smart, you'll never contribute anything to this world and that's why you write posts on anonymous imageboards that are longer than one or two sentences. you have a huge ego and nothing to back it up. you're mediocre. just settle and stop it.
if you make it tail recursive, does it behave like it isn't conscious?
def fac(n){
def tailFac(n, count) {
if(n < 2) count
else tailFac(n - 1, count * n)
}
tailFac(n, 1)
}
>Regarding consciousness, I'm all about speculation. I personally subscribe to the theory that consciousness is another property of the universe separate from time and space, and that organic brains create a unique environment that can generate and interact with a conscious being.
That's just bullshit with bullshit sprinkles. You didn't come to that conclusion through any evidence based system.
>Here, let me take this really advanced topic and turn it into something completely different to make it look dumb XDDDDD
Fuck off moron, that's just one of many theories with no evidence, and no I didn't make that up myself if that's what you're implying
...
>consciousness exists in another property of the universe separate from time and space
This doesn't even make any logical sense. It sounds like you're pulling ideas from spiritualism or something.
That's because he is. That's also why we need to IP ban consciousnessposters.
bump
>dude strange loops lmao
>>>>>really advanced topic
how can you apply logic to something you don't understand? To you "logic" just means it's familiar to you, a few hundred years ago saying the earth was round "didn't make logical sense"
>have a tendency to anthropomorphize everything, even the universe itself
It's our ancient method of reasoning with out environment.
Is collective consciousness the evolutionary result of the mass replication of Mankind's most common thoughts?
It's our ancient method of reasoning with our environment.
That's not self-reference, that's just recursion.
How about you reword that without all the bullshit and trying to sound smart?
In that case:"If I pull that off,will you die ?"
>I've heard Daniel Dennett say in a vi-
I'm seriously starting to suspect the reason fedoras have such a fucking hard time with the hard problem is because they're not all that conscious themselves. Like holy shit you fucking autists
Maybe Dan Dannett is just shitposting from 50 different IPs in all consciousness threads.
>The end of religion may be a little outside of my lifetime, sadly.
*tips fedora*
i still think miyamoto musashi describes lift pretty well, especially for his era
a true genius
in a way, you could say he's one of the few people who managed to successfully define the "consciousness" of his era.