IIUC the theory points out that there is no need to bring anything like that, that we can ignore any mystic or peculiar “beings” in the brain.
As the prediction model is also based on feedback and time, it is the combination of those elements that give us intelligence and as a bonus, consciousness.
But this does ignore that in reality there is a hierarchical component on this, the choice is not made by one single element all the time.
Just by taking into account that information going to the brain is not as speedy as many assume, it is a big clue to me that consciousness is the result of the hack we got from nature when evolving the neo-cortex. The predictions are necessary because any delays just mean less of a chance at survival.
[QUOTE=Jeff Hawkins, On Intelligence]
But I was trying to get them to
realize that most people think consciousness is some kind of magical sauce that is
added on top of the physical brain. You’ve got a brain, made of cells, and you pour
consciousness, this magical sauce, on it, and that’s the human condition. In this
view, consciousness is a mysterious entity separate from brains. That’s why
zombies have brains but they don’t have consciousness. They have all the
mechanical stuff, neurons and synapses, but they don’t have the special sauce.
They can do everything a human can do. From the outside you can’t tell a zombie
from a human.
The idea that consciousness is something extra stems from earlier beliefs in élan
vital- a special force once thought to animate living things. People believed you
needed this life force to explain the difference between rocks and plants or metals
and maidens. Few people believe this anymore. Nowadays we know enough about
the differences between inanimate and animate matter to understand that there
isn’t a special sauce.
[/QUOTE]
Take your pick from the list below. I lean towards monism myself. I’m not a professional philosopher, so I’m open to correction on any of these.
ELIMINATIVISM or PHYSICALISM There is no such thing as consciousness or self-awareness. Consciousness is simply the functioning of the brain, rather like running is to the legs or flying to a bird’s wings. The word consciousness is simply convenient shorthand for the workings of the brain, and there is no subjective realm of awareness such as most people seem to mean by the word
MONISM Consciousness and matter are different aspects of some underlying phenomenon, much as ice and steam are different manifestations of water.
DUALISM Consciousness are separate and distinct, but interacting, phenomena.
EPIPHENOMENALISM Consciousness and matter are separate phenomena, matter acts upon consciousness, but consciousness has no power whatsoever to act upon matter. It is entirely passive, a byproduct of physical forces which does not influence those forces in any way, something like the trail of smoke left behind by a steam locomotive.
PARALLELISM Consciousness and matter are distinct phenomena which do not interact in anyway. It is simply coincidental that consciousness reflects the physical world.
MONISTIC IDEALISM Consciousness is the basic stuff of existence, and matter depends on consciousness for its existence. Ultimately consciousness is the only thing that really exists.
SOLIPSISM One’s consciousness is the only thing that one can be certain exists.
PANPSYCHISM Every physical thing, even the smallest subatomic particle, possesses some degree of consciousness.
This is what’s so profound about consciousness/self-awareness:
If you could set aside the fact that it takes an aware observer to take notice of the universe around him/her/it, and you presented everything we know about physics and the other sciences, (e.g. atoms, bosons, gravity, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, the big bang, etc.), then presented the idea of some of this “stuff” leading to self-organizing, self-aware beings would seem absolutely ridiculous.
But, here we are. After hearing several thoughts on what makes consciousness… conscious… there always seems to be a hint of a “ghost in the machine”:
(FWIW, I’ve read the GED).
[quote=“LonesomePolecat, post:23, topic:587540”]
Take your pick from the list below. I lean towards monism myself. I’m not a professional philosopher, so I’m open to correction on any of these.
Even though this isn’t my personal leanings, there’s the part of me that draws a very strong correlation between consciousness and the brain itself. My problem with this, is that the brain runs so many functions to keep the body alive, that it’s quite obvious at this point, consciousness isn’t necessary for the brain to carry out its duties to the rest of the bodies more pragmatic functions. And vice-versa, it’s been shown the mind can be aware inside a body completely cut off from its senses. If awareness is just a cog in the brain’s complex machinery… we could all just be “zombies” running on instinct, with no real sense of the overwhelming feeling of “I am”.
This I can get behind, especially since it’s clear we don’t have the whole picture yet. And whether or not QM has anything to do with it ( :dubious: ), it fits uncannily with how a lot of phenomena in physics happen to be two sides of the same thing: Electricity/Magnatism; Space/Time; Matter/Energy; Wave/Particle; Gravity/Unicorns…
Getting too close to metaphysics, for my tastes. This seems to infer the existence of a spirit/soul? I’m agnostic, so I’m not against it, but if this is true, than because of interaction, it should be detectible with the right instruments. I might be inclined to start with tinfoil, then work my way up.
I have a hard time understanding this one fully. I get the description here, but not how it might present itself in reality. I’ll have to do some reading on it.
So, it’d be entirely coincidential that my “me-ness” is tied to this lump of atoms I call my body. What would prevent my “me” from jumping or skipping to a rock, a tree, a dog, or another human? Meh… does not compute for me (unless I’m misinterpreting here?).
Yep, pass the joint. If this is the case, the idea of a God doesn’t seem so rediculous anymore… at least not as ridiculous as consciousness itself.
This is usually the first this that dawns on me when I hear Descartes’s famous quote “I think, therefore I am.” I agree that it’s a slippery slope, and although idealistically true, it can’t account for novel ideas and external sources of knowledge/creativeness that are outside my understanding, yet still fit in my world-view. Unless you figure your consciousness is compartmentalized into a billion different beings, only communing through the illusion of “others”.
Ehh! Now I’d just feel bad about mowing the grass or wiping my ass.* No thanks!
I subscribe to anti-solipsism which is the philosophical idea that the external world and other minds can be known and might exist and that one’s own mind cannot be known and might not exist.
But this is possible – and usually, happens – completely without any conscious awareness. Computers simulate and act based on that simulation in the same manner, and it’d need a very good argument to convince me of them being conscious. (That’s not to say they can’t be – I’m pretty certain they can, and eventually will be just as conscious as we are. Which, incidentally, I don’t think is as much as we think we are.)
I did not mean to imply that I believed there is actually some sort of homunculus or other mysticism going on in the brain; in fact, I think it’s quite the opposite. But I think the Cartesian theater (as Dennett calls it) is a hard problem to spot, and an even harder one to avoid.
This is very true and crucial, I believe, but nevertheless, it appears to us that we possess a unified, integrated consciousness, and that appearance is something in need of explanation; saying that there exists in fact a hierarchy, while very likely true, does at first hamper such an explanation, as it seems that there ought to then be a place where it all ‘comes together’, which lands us back at square one.
I’m not sure I would lump these two in together like that. There are certainly physicalists who are also eliminativists, but it is entirely possible to be a physicalist and still considering consciousness to be a genuine phenomenon, produced perhaps by a sort of special purpose software the brain needs to give rise to a self. And it’s at least in theory possible to be, say, an eliminativist and a dualist in the wider sense – one could believe in the existence of non-physical substances, while also believing that there’s nothing to consciousness as a thing in itself; but I doubt that there are any philosophers that actually hold that position.
This is often discussed using the example of two synchronized clocks, one on your desk, the other in the hallway – whenever you see your desk-clock indicate the full hour, the clock in the hallway chimes the appropriate number of times, though there obviously isn’t any interaction between them; so too do the mental and the physical always seem in accord without any causal link between. In fact, this has often been used as an argument for the existence of god, as the watchmaker who ‘set the clocks’, so to speak. Leibniz carried this to the extreme with his ‘windowless monads’.
The problem with this is obviously that in the end, the mental is all we actually have access to – so that one could subtract out the physical without us noticing any difference at all. In this account, thus, the physical is superfluous, and so is the watchmaker god.
Not sure where I read this (might be William Poundstone’s Prisoner’s Dilemma), but there have been suggestions by philosophers and neurologists as follows:
It’s generally believed that even intelligent animals have only the simplest cause and effect speculation capabilities: what happens when I do this? Will it solve my problem? The general feeling is that the capabilities of humans in this regard is much more sophisticated, that is, humans have the capability to create in our mind very, very complicated models of our environment, giving us vastly increased ability to solve problems by mere speculation as to the efficacy of our proposed solutions. We can save huge amounts of time and effort (and avoid dangerous solutions) merely by pondering the possibilities in our head (notice I’m not saying we’re smarter than other animals, although we are; rather, I’m saying our neural modelling ability is much more advanced).
What am I driving at? Some philosophers suggest that self-awareness occurs at the moment when the level of modelling sophistication reaches the point where the being can create in it’s mind a model so complex it can include the being itself.