On the possible consciousness of rocks and panpsychism (title by Kottke) | Hacker News Reader

On the possible consciousness of rocks and panpsychism (title by Kottke)

nytimes.com

6 pointsrms16 comments

Panpsychism may be easier to parody than to refute.

Much like Santa.

The possibility of mind-bits floating around does not explain why the nervous system (which, at its earliest, has a well-understood and insensate habit of food-gathering) would have more than its fair share of mind-bits.

We do understand how silicon, germanium, copper, etc, turn into a machine having something similar to thought processes, and these processes are 100 percent detached from the originating materials.

How could the processes be detached from the materials, if their 'unfolding' is determined[1] by their physical properties? And how would those processes manifest without materials? Can there be consciousness without physical manifestation?

[1] I'm ignoring open questions about determinism in physics since computers as we know them don't depend on that stuff.

The reason that consciousness eludes science is simple: nobody has ever given a proper definition of it. All talk about consciousness is therefore only hot air.

Is that a reason or a symptom?

I think it is definitely a reason.

Well, why do you think nobody has defined consciousness properly so far, then?

Because there is no point, it is not a meaningful concept.

I would submit that to properly define something, you have to understand it. Since consciousness is not understood, it has no definition. Talk about consciousness isn't hot air; it's an effort to understand.

Science tends to be inductive: we have to leap from particular experiences to abstract principles. With consciousness, we have the experiences but haven't made the leap yet to principles.

I doubt that "with consciousness, we have experiences". I think consciousness is only an illusion.

OK, try to name at least something you consider an aspect of consciousness? I already don't have a clue again what we are even talking about. What is "consciousness" supposed to mean?

Consciousness is not an experience of something. It's the experience itself. So it doesn't have qualities--it IS qualities. It's not red, it's what it's like to see red. It's the immediate (no intermediary) subjective happenings of your conscious mind. I can't point you to it because my pointing is a view presented to you in consciousness.

It's not mystical or anything. In fact, it requires less faith than anything else -- it's all you've ever known directly. You could be living in the real world or in the Matrix, it doesn't matter. Either way, consciousness doesn't change, just the contents of consciousness.

"It's the immediate (no intermediary) subjective happenings of your conscious mind."

Circular definition, doesn't work.

So it is neurons firing, fine. I just don't know why we need entire research departments and conferences for that.

Or do you mean it is creating a model of the perceived world? Computers can do that without a problem (quality of the model is a different matter).

Does it puzzle people in the same way how computer chips can process information? Why not? (I am not talking about algorithms or electronics - those are interesting)

The best text I've read so far on that topic is the one from chalmers: http://www.imprint.co.uk/chalmers.html

He made a strong argumentation for the difference between experiencing something and having a experiencing state.

After that he also gets somewhat speculative, but at least reading the first 2 points is worth it.

Thanks for the link, but in my opinion, he is just chasing a chimera. At least he mentions the easy problems, and they are menaingful in my opinion. I have no problem if people invest their time in trying to create artificial intelligence. Those are well posed problems, like "create a chat bot i can have a meaningful conversation with". The "experiencing state" in my opinion is rubbish, it's nothing. As was written in the other thread, "how can physics explain the sensation of eating a strawberry". I think that it is essentially just like this: if(isEatingStrawberry()){ taste = strawberryTaste} (with more associations etc., but there is nothing special about it that lies outside the realm of physics).

I think consciousness is only an illusion.

How do you call the ability to have illusions, then?

Information processing.

"But the rock doesn't exert itself as a result of all this "thinking.""

What, and we do?

"How could the ineffable experience of tasting a strawberry ever arise from the equations of physics?"

Physics, as applied here, is not subject to intuition.

Confused arguments for and against, but I find myself considering the idea more than I had before.

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