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Comment by Jensson | Hacker News Reader

We know there is computations done in the brain. We don't know whether this is sufficient to create a consciousness. Consciousness doesn't exist as a phenomena in physics, hence there is no scientific explanation how or when it would appear, saying it is an inherent property of computation is therefore nonsense. Humans just know it exists, that is all we can say, everything else is just pseudoscientific bullshit until we can properly tie consciousness to some physics phenomena.

Or in another way, if you say "it is an inherent property of computation", then I'd counter "define computation in terms of laws of physics". You can't. Computation is as ill defined as consciousness from the laws of physics perspective.

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I understand what you mean when you say "pseudoscientific bullshit," but it might be better to simply say "non-scientific" in the sense of "beyond the ambit of what science is designed to explain."

The problem of "being" (why there is something rather than nothing) is similar. It's not just that we don't have a physics explanation for why anything exists in the first place; it's that physics may not be able to answer that kind of question at all.

None of that is necessarily "pseudoscience" or necessarily bullshit (though it's easy enough to find examples of both).

I am skeptical of the circularity of the argument, though. There must be a "physics explanation" because physics explains everything. And we know that, because if physics can't explain it, it doesn't exist. And we know that, because physics explains everything.

(Not accusing you in particular of making that argument . . .)

Physics is the field of explaining everything in the universe. Therefore, if physics can't explain a phenomena we don't understand it, as physics is the ultimate explanation we have. I didn't say that if physics can't explain it then it doesn't exist, as you seem to think, just that if physics can't explain it then our understanding of the topic doesn't exist.

No, no. I did not think you are saying that (that if physics doesn't explain something it doesn't exist). That's why I put in that last line.

But now I'm actually not so sure. You seem to not admit of a category of things that physics can't explain. There are things it does not currently explain, things it has not yet explained, things it has explained wrongly, and things it may never explain as an historical matter. But not things it can't explain ("can't" in the sense of "is incapable of").

Do I have you right on that?

If physics can't explain it then humans can't explain it. That is my stance.

If there is a separate world outside of this world etc, then that would get incorporated into physics. I don't see how any scientific explanation for consciousness wouldn't become a part of physics.

Basically, physics describes all the rules of this world. Consciousness exists and is a part of the world, so it is a part of the rules of the world, so it is a part of physics.

If you think computation is undefined, you have a much bigger problem than consciousness. We have a physics of information. Computation is operations performed on information. We build machines to do it, on purpose. But a bacterium moving toward a rising gradient of sugar concentration is seen to be computing and acting on the result. The physics involved is in no way mysterious.

> Computation is operations performed on information.

How would you define an operation that doesn't just makes every process in the entire world a computation?

Some computations you are interested in, others you are not. You don't have enough interest to go around to every process in the entire world.

Nature doesn't distinguish. But we do, for practical reasons.

So basically you are saying that computation is either a meaningless concept or it is subjective and therefore doesn't help. Which was my point.

No, computation is objectively observed. But not all computation is equally interesting. What is subjective is just how interested you or somebody is in a particular instance.

If what you imagine to be consciousness is a recognizably interesting computation, the details that make it recognizable are objective, but your interest in it as a topic to talk about is purely subjective.

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