So you might have an evil twin out there in the Multiverse...

[Sci-2]

Sorry I mean indeterminate meaning multiple interpretations, rather than non-determined (though even there the increasingly pervasiveness of quantum biology, extending to the microtubules of the brain suggests brains aren't determined in the clockwork sense....I'd even go further with regard to rejecting determinism in general but that's neither here nor there for now).

Basically what I mean by indetermiante is that there are no intrinsic representation of physical systems. The same program that we see as representing 2+2 could represent 2+2 - 6 + 2*3. Taking it to greater extremes, someone could find a comptuer and decide the program means something different, perhaps because they are some post-apocalyptic tribe that puts the computer - and the program running on it - in the content of the moon's phases or whatnot.

Finally, I'd argue that editing a brain is different than simply running the same machine code through a different interpretation process.

Of course the absurdist track of nihilism says that since computers don't intrinsically represent anything, we also only have the illusions of thoughts (different from not understanding the origins of our thoughts), but I've never been able to really grasp this in any coherent way.

[Fat Mans Plan]

Well I don't think that quantum computation in microtubules has any serious traction? It's conjecture at this point from Hameroff and Penrose. I agree the world is not necessarily deterministic (even if one accepts MWI QM is still random to us) and also that simulating the brain accurately may be more effort than some think.

A program that takes the normal neural connections, then performs an unoptimal and pointless set of instructions to achieve the same result as a more direct method would, is in my mind no different except for efficiency. Nothing would be lost. If you posit that it would produce different "conciousness" I don't see how unless your talking about the non-causal version that some philosophers believe in. But how can your physical brain which guides your actions know it has something that can't by definition interact with it?
This implies either your own consciousness is an illusion or that consciousness is not an illusion but is physically causal, thus not impossible to determine.

Not sure what you mean by the post-apocolyptic moon phase part.

Yes program/brain are different, editing a program is much easier.

I wouldn't say we have illusion of thoughts, but illusions about what those thoughts are.

somewhat relevant to discussion

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/25/google-develops-computer-program-capable-of-learning-tasks-independently

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjpEIotvwFY

‘Agent’ hailed as first step towards true AI as it gets adept at playing 49 retro computer games and comes up with its own winning strategies

“With Deep Blue, it was team of programmers and grand masters that distilled the knowledge into a program,” said Hassabis. “We’ve built algorithms that learn from the ground up.”

The DeepMind agent is simply given a raw input, in this case the pixels making up the display on Atari games, and provided with a running score.

The agent is programmed to work out what is meaningful through “reinforcement learning”, the basic notion that scoring points is good and losing them is bad.

Hassabis stops short of calling this a “creative step”, but said it proves computers can “figure things out for themselves” in a way that is normally thought of as uniquely human. “One day machines will be capable of some form of creativity, but we’re not there yet,” he said.

The researchers said this was mostly because the algorithm, as yet, has no real memory meaning that it is unable to commit to long-term strategies that require planning. With some of the games, this meant the agent got stuck in a rut, where it had learnt one basic way to score a few points, but never really grasped the game’s overall objective.

[Sci-2]

Well I wasn't advocating Orch-OR necessarily, there's also quantum consciousness theories like the Poised Realm the biologist Stuart Kauffman proposes and a model by Heisenberg's son Martin Heisenberg.

My point was that verification of quantum vibrations predicted by Penrose and Hammeroff were in fact present. It seems feasible to me that if we're seeing quantum level interactions in a variety of biological phenomenon (Quantum Weirdness is Everywhere in Life) that it's conceivable such phenomenon would have a role in mental faculties that, as Kauffman points out, are analogous to what at least seems to be going on at the quantum realm.

Of course this wouldn't be a solution to the question of subjective experience or intentionality, and relates more to the non-mechanistic nature of reality that I'd argue cannot be captured - only approximated - by algorithms/equations. Again, this isn't an argument for a soul but rather an argument about the limitation of abstraction.

A program that takes the normal neural connections, then performs an unoptimal and pointless set of instructions to achieve the same result as a more direct method would, is in my mind no different except for efficiency. Nothing would be lost. If you posit that it would produce different "conciousness" I don't see how unless your talking about the non-causal version that some philosophers believe in.

But there is only one physical implementation of the program in my example, and that people can entertain what program the physical implementation is doing similar to how people can say clouds "look like" something or other. I can in fact build circuits to calculate (2+2) - 14 + 7*2 and you can come along and say that it really represents (2+2). Someone else could incorporate my circuits into some larger system and then claim that rather than (2+2) the circuits were doing something completely different from addition.

Basically computation is not in physics, but something we ascribe to the physical world.

Not sure what you mean by the post-apocolyptic moon phase part.

Imagine civilization collapses, and a million years later somehow computers here and there still function. To make it simpler assume it's an Ipad with a touch screen plugged into some solar power generator.

Some Stone-Age level tribe comes along and their shaman manages to produce certain results from the programs pictures and text though these results are not at all inline with what the programs were originally made to do. The meaning of the program, to the tribe, is dependent not only what's on screen but the environment surrounding the screen.

The physical system - here an iPad - means whatever people are willing to agree the physical system means. To us the computer ends at the boundaries of the iPad, to the hypothetical tribe the computer ends at the horizon.

I wouldn't say we have illusion of thoughts, but illusions about what those thoughts are.

According to the Atheist Guide to Reality if there's only matter then we can't have thoughts at all:

…What you absolutely cannot be wrong about is that your conscious thought was about something. Even having a wildly wrong thought about something requires that the thought be about something.

It’s this last notion that introspection conveys that science has to deny. Thinking about things can’t happen at all...When consciousness convinces you that you, or your mind, or your brain has thoughts about things, it is wrong.

Now, here is the question we’ll try to answer: What makes the Paris neurons a set of neurons that is about Paris; what make them refer to Paris, to denote, name, point to, pick out Paris?...

The first clump of matter, the bit of wet stuff in my brain, the Paris neurons, is about the second chunk of matter, the much greater quantity of diverse kinds of stuff that make up Paris. How can the first clump—the Paris neurons in my brain—be about, denote, refer to, name, represent, or otherwise point to the second clump—the agglomeration of Paris?...

A more general version of this question is this: How can one clump of stuff anywhere in the universe be about some other clump of stuff anywhere else in the universe—right next to it or 100 million light-years away?

...Let’s suppose that the Paris neurons are about Paris the same way red octagons are about stopping. This is the first step down a slippery slope, a regress into total confusion. If the Paris neurons are about Paris the same way a red octagon is about stopping, then there has to be something in the brain that interprets the Paris neurons as being about Paris. After all, that’s how the stop sign is about stopping. It gets interpreted by us in a certain way. The difference is that in the case of the Paris neurons, the interpreter can only be another part of the brain...

What we need to get off the regress is some set of neurons that is about some stuff outside the brain without being interpreted—by anyone or anything else (including any other part of the brain)—as being about that stuff outside the brain. What we need is a clump of matter, in this case the Paris neurons, that by the very arrangement of its synapses points at, indicates, singles out, picks out, identifies (and here we just start piling up more and more synonyms for “being about”) another clump of matter outside the brain. But there is no such physical stuff.

Physics has ruled out the existence of clumps of matter of the required sort...

I actually agree with this argument, for the above reasons about what computation any physical system is doing being observer dependent. My conclusion however is that physics cannot capture all of reality. Of course what else is there besides matter remains undetermined, and all the other ideas are bad just not as bad:

Dualism - How does mental stuff interact with physical stuff? And while this isn't the killer some claim it is, to me there's also the question of what a brain is for if souls can just think without greymatter? If the brain is a filter/transmitter, how does it filter/transmit this substance that ultimately isn't dependent on it?

Panpsychism - How do bits of consciousness combine to make a single consciousness or even just a conscious experience? How do you divide the feeling of being late into bits? (Many -> Whole Problem)

Idealism - If there's only Mind, whose Mind is it? If it's the Mind of God, how does that Mind become individual minds which is all we've ever actually observed? Is this God-Mind a victim of dissociative identity disorder? (Whole -> Many Problem) If there are many Minds, what necessitates the division between them and/or how do they collectively produce consensus reality?

Neutral Monism - What's the point in claiming there's a substance from which Mind and Matter both descend from if one cannot explain it without falling into Idealism or Panpsychism and thus inherting problems from one or both of those?

[Fat Mans Plan]

It seems feasible to me that if we're seeing quantum level interactions in a variety of biological phenomenon

There is quite a difference in the quantum effects present in plant photosynthesis/birds quantum compass and actual quantum computation, the latter being far more unlikely. On the event it is true, it would 'simply' require a quantum computer.

As an aside, I remember seeing Hameroff talk with Dennett and then with Deepak in some video. That he agreed more with Deepak than Dennett was funny, the Deepak test posits that if you can listen to Deepak talk for 5 minutes and not disagree with him your also a woo talker :P

Basically computation is not in physics, but something we ascribe to the physical world.

The universe is information being computed.

According to the Atheist Guide to Reality if there's only matter then we can't have thoughts at all:

That's just silly semantics, thoughts are just an abstraction of physical events. To say they exist is to say the physical processes we call thoughts happen.

I mean under that logic you could not run, because run is not made of matter.

Of course, to a non-physicalist thought may have an intrisic property that to a physicalist does not exist, but obviously we don't use that definition of thought. The same applies to many other abstract words that are claimed have some intrinsic meaning or refer to something irreducible.

My conclusion however is that physics cannot capture all of reality.

I don't know how you reached that conclusion from the ideas that different internal configurations can seem the same externally, and the same internal configuration can seem/mean something different externally. It is only evidence that we have different brains and can form our own thoughts/meanings about things.

You treat these abstractions we make as something different than the physical because the path from the low level laws of the universe to someone having a desire for chocolate is too complex, it's vitalism v2. The path is there though, it's in the neural computations and connections in your own head.

Yes, all these 'alternatives' to physicalism have problems, the interaction problem for me is not something that can be evaded, it destroys panpsychism and injures dualism. Idealism I never could quite understand. It's always very vague and doesn't seem to posit anything substantial. The path from matter to mind is understood in evolution, what is the reverse of this?

Once again I do not claim that we can 'understand' everything, simply that the mind as we know it is computation of information, as is the universe. The question is how well we can do the same computation. In the brain I think we could ignore over 99% of the processing and data required and only suffer less than a 1% 'change in behavior'.

[Sci-2]

From what I've read Hammeroff's spiritual extrapolations have been noted by Hammeroff himself as being separate from the core theory behind Orch-OR. I know Penrose isn't buying any of it, for example, and Hammeroff notes that in the paper he wrote with Chopra about "quantum souls". But I think it's important to keep in mind that Orch-OR is only one possible way quantum mechanics might have something to do with our brains (there's also the aforementioned Kaufman and Martin Heisenberg, along with Stapp, Peter Tse, and several others). If our olfactory senses and the enzymes within us rely on certain properties of matter at the QM level it seems at the least plausible that our brains might also depend on said interactions.

Kaku even (sorta) relates this back to the Multiverse topic - while MWI is one interpretation, the other would be that of observer-participancy either due to the Copehagen Interpretation or the more extreme Idealism proposed at one point by Wigner. (Where it gets confusing historically - and I should just try and ask Kaku about this - is my understanding is Wigner abandoned Idealism due to a paper by Deiter Zeh...but the part that impressed Wigner was the argument that the weirdness of QM only takes place at micro rather than macro-scopic level and as such it's not clear what Wigner would say about Idealism now.)

The universe is information being computed.

I don't understand how there can be information without someone being informed? I think it's important to make the distinction between Claude-Shannon related computer science's use of the term information and the idea of information communicated between minds that make sense of language (thinking signifiers/signified here).

That's just silly semantics, thoughts are just an abstraction of physical events. To say they exist is to say the physical processes we call thoughts happen.

I mean under that logic you could not run, because run is not made of matter.

I don't think this is analogous to the point Rosenberg - himself a physicalist/materialist - makes in the Atheist's Guide to Reality. Running is a description of an event taking place in spatio-temporal world. Having a thought about running is the relation of the mental - whatever that is, maybe physical maybe not - to something external to itself.

Of course, to a non-physicalist thought may have an intrisic property that to a physicalist does not exist, but obviously we don't use that definition of thought. The same applies to many other abstract words that are claimed have some intrinsic meaning or refer to something irreducible.

But that's the crux of Rosenberg's argument. Since physical objects can never be about things, given they lack the intrinsic property of referring to other things, neurons can never be about anything. I don't think this about abstraction, because abstraction as I see it refers to utilizing a model that diverges from the empirical even if it captures some aspects of the empirical world - MWI would be one such example of a model failing because of its extrapolation. (One might argue the quantum soul ideas of Hammeroff are another such failure extrapolating from Orch-OR.)

Rosenberg is talking about the thoughts we actually (seem to, according to him) have, which is as empirical as it gets since everything comes to us in the phenomenal space of consciousness and intentionality intrinsically woven together. (Which is not to say there isn't a physical world, in fact this argument comes from the materialist Lehar's Cartoon Epistemology.)

We know we have thoughts about things - what philosophers call Intentionality - the question is how to explain this?

I don't know how you reached that conclusion from the ideas that different internal configurations can seem the same externally, and the same internal configuration can seem/mean something different externally. It is only evidence that we have different brains and can form our own thoughts/meanings about things.

You treat these abstractions we make as something different than the physical because the path from the low level laws of the universe to someone having a desire for chocolate is too complex, it's vitalism v2. The path is there though, it's in the neural computations and connections in your own head.

Hmmm, perhaps I'm not being clear. The problem is not related to complexity, the problem is that of intrinsic versus derived intentionality. I don't see how the unification of signifiers to things signified can be done without minds. Returning to the above issue about information the VR engineer Lanier talks about this in the admittedly polemic You Can't Argue with a Zombie:

The sample argument above will not be unfamiliar to hard core zombies and their antagonists. What interests me most is the ultimate position that zombies arrive at when this argument is driven to its conclusion. After abolishing ontological distinctions based on human epistemological difficulties, zombies invent new ontologies for the benefit of computers. Inside every zombie is a weird new kind of dualist.

The new weird dualism can take a number of forms, distinguished by the choice of meaningless code words, such as "emergent" or "semantics". But the hallmark of zombie dualism is the belief in the independent, objective existence of information and computers.

I am certainly not trying to convince zombies that they exist in some special way, that they might have a sense of experience. By now I know better. What I would like them to consider, rather, is that they are granting to the process of computation not only a type of indisputable objective existence that it probably doesn't have, but also a magical ability to confer ontological properties onto yet other objects. I'd like zombies to consider that this purported ability is even more bizarre and insupportable than the phenomenological reportage of non-zombie experience.

Zombies believe in something called information, and also in the existence of objects called computers. Zombies are so quick to criticize the notion of old-style consciousness as being the worst sort of murky, sentimental dualism, but they themselves are zagnetizing the universe with these new ineffable concepts.[20]

If the universe were populated solely by zombies, there would be no computers. Computers cannot make each other exist, because they cannot even recognize each other.

There also would be no information. Information is another thing that only exists by virtue of experience. (My old catch-phrase: Information is Alienated Experience.) Zombies owe us zagnets a great debt for making their information exist.

Regarding the other paradigms besides materialism:

Yes, all these 'alternatives' to physicalism have problems, the interaction problem for me is not something that can be evaded, it destroys panpsychism and injures dualism. Idealism I never could quite understand. It's always very vague and doesn't seem to posit anything substantial. The path from matter to mind is understood in evolution, what is the reverse of this?

Why would the interaction problem be an issue for panpsychism? There aren't two substances, just one substance with mental and physical properties? It could kill dualism, but this would depend on whether there is nothing similar between the mental and physical. Even then I'm not sure this a killer problem - the materialist Lycan didn't seem to think so when he wrote Giving Dualism Its Due, though he does agree it is a problem that needs to be solved.

About the mind being understood via evolution, it seems to me only the neuronal connections being what they are would be explained. The problems of subjectivity and intentionality discussed above remained unsolved as far as I can tell.

I agree with you that Idealism seems to be a paradigm in which falsification is impossible, where any explanation could appeal to Mind. I think we'd need some strong empirical evidence to go in this direction, as otherwise it calls to mind a comment made by one my heroes, the atheist/immaterialist/neuroscientist Tallis - If you're going to say God is an answer to a major philosophical problem you might as well say "ANSWER is the answer".

[Seli]

Sorry I mean indeterminate meaning multiple interpretations, rather than non-determined (though even there the increasingly pervasiveness of quantum biology, extending to the microtubules of the brain suggests brains aren't determined in the clockwork sense....I'd even go further with regard to rejecting determinism in general but that's neither here nor there for now).

...

The brain is a chaotic system at its basic cellular level. All cells are driven by the chaotic movement of molecules. This is already where a strict deterministic approach will break down. No need to go to a quantum level for that :)

The average behaviour of the molecules and atoms that make up cells can still be described, but as with weather the detailed predictions will be wrong.

[Fat Mans Plan]

I don't understand how there can be information without someone being informed?

I don't understand how there can be informing without there being information.

I'm obviously not talking about what humans generally refer to as information, but that the universe can be (not necessarily by us) reduced to logical operations on information. Matter and energy are abstractions.

Having a thought about running is the relation of the mental - whatever that is, maybe physical maybe not - to something external to itself.

But it's not really, it is entirely the brain communicating with the brain using its own model of the world. Sensory input we received in the past may have allowed this thought to happen (learning what running is) but where non-physicalists seem to get thoughts confused to me is that they think there is/must be some actual link between thoughts and events. When I say I am thinking of something, I only mean I am modeling something in my own mind which hopefully corresponds somewhat accurately to something real.

Since physical objects can never be about things, given they lack the intrinsic property of referring to other things, neurons can never be about anything

Strictly, sure. But thoughts about wanting coffee can fairly reliably lead to drinking coffee without this *sip*.

Do you believe thoughts have to 'be about things'? why can't they simply be part of a model that very closely (and at times very poorly) parallels reality?

We know we have thoughts about things - what philosophers call Intentionality - the question is how to explain this?

Well evolution can explain why, but I assume your asking how. If using my definition the answer is “by extreme complexity” but if using your definition I would say we don't have it.

The argument seems to be (if you don't accept extreme complexity as an answer) saying we have properties that can't be explained by logic, without actually providing evidence, then using that to show there must be something more than logic in us. Circular reasoning.

I don't see how the unification of signifiers to things signified can be done without minds

The unification doesn't happen. The brains model of the universe is good enough that there does not need to be (nor could there be).

admittedly polemic You Can't Argue with a Zombie:

Yeah I've read that, I don't mind the strong wording, I'm sure each side sees the other as a bit crazy, and maybe with good reasons either way :)

http://lesswrong.com/lw/pn/zombies_the_movie/

http://xkcd.com/505/

The complexity of sorting random meteor data in a way that you can “read it as a program” that equates to a brain would be so complex that it would be basically more processing than a brain itself. And it really doesn't have a point against physicalism, it attempts only to try and show the belief is absurd relying on peoples intuitions, but without actually explaining why.

What I would like them to consider, rather, is that they are granting to the process of computation not only a type of indisputable objective existence that it probably doesn't have, but also a magical ability to confer ontological properties onto yet other objects. I'd like zombies to consider that this purported ability is even more bizarre and insupportable than the phenomenological reportage of non-zombie experience.

I'm not magically conferring any properties, I am stating that these properties don't intrinsically exist. I simply interpret the data from the meteor to be conscious, as I interpret the same thing in others and in myself. Some people will interpret the program to not be conscious, and if their reason why is “it is not a human brain” I would agree that with their definition of consciousness their interpretation is correct, but not meaningful to me, as I do not view 'being made of organic matter' to be at all relevant to the qualities I appreciate in others 'minds' or my own. But if they argue that it has no consciousness because it has no intrinsic intentionality, I would agree that their interpretation is also correct based on their definition, but that they themselves are not conscious by this definition.

Why would the interaction problem be an issue for panpsychism? There aren't two substances, just one substance with mental and physical properties?

If the physical properties are not effected by the mental, the physical properties cannot know the mental ones exist, so it still comes down to eliminate the 'mental' properties and you have lost nothing. There must be interaction for 'mental properties' to exist but panpsychism is physicalist in regards to the brain.

Perhaps though I am being too anal about such a thing, I just don't think the creation of 'mental properties' is helpful. But if it lets people (like Chalmers) basically accept physicalism then all to the good I guess.

the materialist Lycan didn't seem to think so when he wrote Giving Dualism Its Due,

My problem is theory's that posit no interaction, so positing that there is interaction, but interactions so obscure they have not been found yet is not really a problem for me, but it does often seem like shoving consciousness into the chaos of QM because people can't accept it is, to a large degree, deterministic.

(which is fair enough if that's your intuition, mine quite clearly is different, and at least this is provable in the future)

The problems of subjectivity and intentionality discussed above remained unsolved as far as I can tell.

Well, my zombie mind does not see these as problems. We have different reactions and thoughts about things because we have slightly different genetics and massively different experiences, that is subjectivity to me, you see in it a problem I do not.

The brain is a chaotic system at its basic cellular level. All cells are driven by the chaotic movement of molecules. This is already where a strict deterministic approach will break down. No need to go to a quantum level for that

You think each of those molecules plays an important role in thinking? most of the cells contents are just trying to keep the cell alive/working, they can be removed relatively safely from the equation once the cells are computerized and nothing is needed to keep it alive. There is still MASSIVE complexity of course, which is why it will take a loooong time for it to be feasible. And I'm not even arguing so much that it is feasible, just that in theory there is nothing besides difficulty stopping it from working.