Maybe I missed the argument against Answer 1, but I’m not sure why you discard so fast the idea that consciousness could do anything (the ability to “push atoms”). Ignoring for an instant the issue of “where it comes from”, consciousness appears intuitively to be one of several agents in the brain that influence behavior to maximize gene…
Maybe I missed the argument against Answer 1, but I’m not sure why you discard so fast the idea that consciousness could do anything (the ability to “push atoms”). Ignoring for an instant the issue of “where it comes from”, consciousness appears intuitively to be one of several agents in the brain that influence behavior to maximize gene replication. It’s one link in the chain of checks that culminate in taking action. It might very well be a deterministic process of atoms firing in a pattern shaped by experience, but it’s still atoms moving around, leading to more atoms moving around (or not, if you “decide” not to act), all according to the laws of physics. So, consciousness IS helpful and capable.
Now, why is it “there”? I think it has to do with “memory”, memory of both the past and the future. Consciousness is what ties your self to time, the process by which you remember who you (whatever that is) were the moment before (let’s call that “refresh rate”), recursively all the way back until the process started. That’s the past. But it’s also the process by which you can plan the future, because it assumes consistency of the world model of the past into the future. Feelings are part of this process, and equally helpful. Memories of good feelings will reshape the pattern of neurons in a way that pushes you to pursue the behaviors in the future. Memories of painful feelings will push you to avoid them. Bio organisms that didn’t abide by these laws of physics plucked themselves out of the gene pool.
Reasonable enough so far? Still, why do we report consciousness? My take is that it’s a necessary property of any system that keeps a model of the world consistent over time, and evaluates that model. Once there is a model of the world that can be evaluated, or “scanned”, or “watched”, consciousness simply is where you put the camera. Saying “I am conscious” is the response you give to all stimuli that amount to “where is the camera?”. It’s not _doing_ anything, but it’s there, which is why I think it’s sometimes referred to as an “illusion”. More, by contrapositive, it cannot be not there, because if it weren’t then your brain couldn’t have a model of the world that remains consistent over time.
So the key ingredients for consciousness seem to be: a ** sensory input system**, that can shape a **memory store**, which is in turn scanned by an **evaluation program** that leads to **output in the form of action**. Note that by this definition, animals are definitely conscious, in much the same way humans are (stones and thermostats, not so much). And, for better or worse, that affords computer programs a shot at consciousness. Right now, the level of consciousness they reach is infinitesimal: both the range of their inputs and the architecture of their memory stores are incapable of holding much of a model of the world (compared to us at least). More importantly, the refresh rate of their evaluation program, their “scanning” of the memory, is extremely low (I’m not talking about CPU cycles, but rather input-update-evaluate-act cycles, which in a game of minesweeper will happen perhaps 50 times? 50 moments of consciousness of a 10x10 grid of mines and safe spots is not a lot, but it’s not nothing). If all these shortcomings are addressed in the future, I’d bet money that these programs will report consciousness any time you ask.
Maybe I’m wrong for finding that answer “satisfying enough”, but it does the trick for me.
TL;DR: consciousness emerges because time exists as a continuous function updating the universe, as per the laws of physics (can’t help you with those though).
Honestly I think you're right—I shouldn't discount possibility #1 so much. I think that consciousness and feelings are so hard to explain that they justify unlikely-seeming possibilities. For example, my understanding is that the "microtubules theory" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction) is a proposed idea of how consciousness could exist and could exert a kind of free at the quantum level. As far as I can tell this isn't a majority view, but really, I don't know enough about quantum physics to have the right to have an opinion.
Maybe I missed the argument against Answer 1, but I’m not sure why you discard so fast the idea that consciousness could do anything (the ability to “push atoms”). Ignoring for an instant the issue of “where it comes from”, consciousness appears intuitively to be one of several agents in the brain that influence behavior to maximize gene replication. It’s one link in the chain of checks that culminate in taking action. It might very well be a deterministic process of atoms firing in a pattern shaped by experience, but it’s still atoms moving around, leading to more atoms moving around (or not, if you “decide” not to act), all according to the laws of physics. So, consciousness IS helpful and capable.
Now, why is it “there”? I think it has to do with “memory”, memory of both the past and the future. Consciousness is what ties your self to time, the process by which you remember who you (whatever that is) were the moment before (let’s call that “refresh rate”), recursively all the way back until the process started. That’s the past. But it’s also the process by which you can plan the future, because it assumes consistency of the world model of the past into the future. Feelings are part of this process, and equally helpful. Memories of good feelings will reshape the pattern of neurons in a way that pushes you to pursue the behaviors in the future. Memories of painful feelings will push you to avoid them. Bio organisms that didn’t abide by these laws of physics plucked themselves out of the gene pool.
Reasonable enough so far? Still, why do we report consciousness? My take is that it’s a necessary property of any system that keeps a model of the world consistent over time, and evaluates that model. Once there is a model of the world that can be evaluated, or “scanned”, or “watched”, consciousness simply is where you put the camera. Saying “I am conscious” is the response you give to all stimuli that amount to “where is the camera?”. It’s not _doing_ anything, but it’s there, which is why I think it’s sometimes referred to as an “illusion”. More, by contrapositive, it cannot be not there, because if it weren’t then your brain couldn’t have a model of the world that remains consistent over time.
So the key ingredients for consciousness seem to be: a ** sensory input system**, that can shape a **memory store**, which is in turn scanned by an **evaluation program** that leads to **output in the form of action**. Note that by this definition, animals are definitely conscious, in much the same way humans are (stones and thermostats, not so much). And, for better or worse, that affords computer programs a shot at consciousness. Right now, the level of consciousness they reach is infinitesimal: both the range of their inputs and the architecture of their memory stores are incapable of holding much of a model of the world (compared to us at least). More importantly, the refresh rate of their evaluation program, their “scanning” of the memory, is extremely low (I’m not talking about CPU cycles, but rather input-update-evaluate-act cycles, which in a game of minesweeper will happen perhaps 50 times? 50 moments of consciousness of a 10x10 grid of mines and safe spots is not a lot, but it’s not nothing). If all these shortcomings are addressed in the future, I’d bet money that these programs will report consciousness any time you ask.
Maybe I’m wrong for finding that answer “satisfying enough”, but it does the trick for me.
TL;DR: consciousness emerges because time exists as a continuous function updating the universe, as per the laws of physics (can’t help you with those though).
Honestly I think you're right—I shouldn't discount possibility #1 so much. I think that consciousness and feelings are so hard to explain that they justify unlikely-seeming possibilities. For example, my understanding is that the "microtubules theory" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction) is a proposed idea of how consciousness could exist and could exert a kind of free at the quantum level. As far as I can tell this isn't a majority view, but really, I don't know enough about quantum physics to have the right to have an opinion.