# How did the universe and consciousness create themselves from nothing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 10, 2019, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286 "2019-02-10T17:41:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/81 "2019-02-12T04:12:09Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > If you think that there’s a split between physicists like Albert and Krauss you’ve never looked at philosophy. Nobody agrees with anybody about anything. Add that to the humongous handicap that nothing any philosopher says can be proven or shown to have empirical backing. Perhaps that’s why few outsiders take the word of a philosopher on any issue. Well at the point where we are able to test philosophical ideas, we stop calling them “philosophy”. So it’s true by definition that philosophy is purely abstract, but that doesn’t mean that philosophical discussion never leads anywhere. Also, a thing to bear in mind for philosophy, is that while it’s often not be possible to prove any particular proposition, it’s often pretty easy to find flaws in one. So, IME, the people most dismissive of philosophy, are the people who want to espouse a particular philosophical position while handwaving or just ignoring solid philosophical arguments against that position. This is often religious apologetics; who want to use first cause arguments or stuff about God being necessary as a foundation of logic while being dismissive of all the arguments against such lines of reasoning. But unfortunately it is also sometimes “celebrity physicists” e.g. Hawking had many philosophical opinions and he was also quite dismissive of the philosophers, which is not a good combination. I think a lot of what he said could be shot down. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/82 "2019-02-12T06:08:19Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I don’t think you can, but nor do think that the ability to do so tells you anything meaningful about the concept of consciousness. The two parts of this statement seem diametrically opposed to each other to me. If it’s impossible to tell the blind man what red looks like, then knowledge of what red looks like is radically unlike knowledge of anything else—because for anything else, from how a computer works to how to ride a bicycle, knowledge can easily be communicated. So if it’s true that you can’t tell a blind man what it’s like to see red, then consciousness differs from every other area of inquiry. > [@](#): > > no, I don’t claim that story can be told, nor do I think that being able to tell that “story” is at all relevant. The brain is a physical entity and incredibly complex. Its workings are mysterious and we have barely scratched the surface but there is nothing to suggest that the mind is anything other than a product of that purely physical entity and so should, ultimately, be amenable to natural scientific analysis. Again, the first and second part are in direct conflict. If consciousness is amenable to scientific analysis in the usual way, then you should be able to tell the blind man what it’s like to see red, by simply teaching him that scientific analysis. “The brain works in mysterious ways” certainly isn’t a good answer in any case. > [@](#): > > Do you think that consciousness is a product arising purely from the physical matter of the brain and nervous system? Yes (although I’d wager my thoughts on what that means differ quite a bit from yours). But I also think this approach has big problems we won’t get around by vaguely handwaving at the complexity of the brain. > [@Lemur866](#): > > “A huge enough lookup table”? > > Dude, that’s not how the brain works. Well, that was sorta the point: to try and showcase a system that works very differently from a brain, yet serves to generate the same behavior, to test the claim that ‘conscious is as conscious does’, i. e. whether something is conscious is entailed by how it behaves. This isn’t the Chinese Room, by the way; Searle was concerned with intentionality, not phenomenal experience, which is a different, but also difficult, problem in the philosophy of mind. The Chinese Room is allowed to rely on all manner of processing in order to produce answers; the lookup table merely looks things up. Also, the physical realizability of the lookup table has no bearing on whether the argument succeeds; we’re solely interested in the truth of the counterfactual ‘if such a lookup table existed, it would be conscious’, which, like ‘if it rained tomorrow, I would get wet’ is true or false independently of whether it actually exists, or actually rains. > [@](#): > > Thing is, your stimulus response lookup table has to have some sort of memory, because how else can the robot respond sensibly to human conversation? By having each entry in the lookup table be the entire history of the conversation up to that point. Again, trivially not physically realizable, but that just misses the point. > [@](#): > > But to bite the bullet, despite my protestations that a Chinese Room isn’t physically possible, if you really could show me a Chinese Room that really could pass a Turing Test, then yes, I’d agree that the entire system is conscious. Good. So you hold that consciousness is entirely determined by behavior. Then, are fish conscious? What about bats? What about a thermostat? What behavior is sufficient to decide conscious experience? Only human-equivalent behavior? When does behaving a certain way need conscious experience? Because for any behavior at all, it seems easy to come up with a system that shows it, without that system being conscious. Right, we can’t keep the entire bundle of such behaviors in mind, and similarly see that there’s nothing conscious about that, so maybe, something unknown is doing we don’t know what and the whole thing suddenly becomes conscious, but is that really a satisfying answer to you? > [@](#): > > This is like asking if a computer chess program can “really” play chess. It’s not playing chess, it’s just solving various math problems. No. It’s asking whether, in order to play chess, a system needs to experience itself playing chess. Playing chess manifestly is just behavioral: chess is defined by behaving a certain way. But you’re arguing that this behavior suffices to determine whether an agent is conscious, that is, whether it experiences something while showing that behavior. This goes beyond simple behavioral analysis, and utilizes a hypothesis that anything that behaves like a conscious being must itself be conscious, which you haven’t so far done anything to justify. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The question asked by the OP is the basis for much of philosophy. It was raised by the Greeks and it became essential to Christian belief, which powered the western world’s philosophy for 2000 years. I don’t think that’s really historically accurate. Early philosophical thought was, at least when it comes to metaphysics, mostly concerned with what the world is made of—take Thales, and the idea that everything is water. > [@](#): > > Even Albert, in his own words, acknowledges there is always something. In order to point out that this doesn’t alleviate the explanatory burden: if there always is something, we still have to explain that something. The idea that the world is eternal does not do away with the question of why, or how, it exists. > [@](#): > > That there was never nothing is the issue. If acknowledged it must be incorporated. And note that no philosopher brought this into the discussion: it was forced upon them by science. The idea that ‘nothing’ is, in some sense, impossible is very common throughout the history of philosophy. Parmenides is the first that comes to mind. > [@Voyager](#): > > I assume your subconscious mind solves problems. Mine is very good at anagrams. How does it do it? Do you have visibility into its actions? > Now, I trust that when you write a post you are observing yourself writing it, analyzing what you have written, and sometimes going back to improve it. There is feedback between your conscious mind and your writing, feedback which doesn’t exist for your subconscious mind. Feedback isn’t the same as conscious experience, though. A control loop changes its state based on feedback, but it does so (presumably, although if you’re a panpsychist, you might beg to differ) without any conscious experience. And everything in our mental problem solving that needs feedback can be formulated in terms of such control loops; complex ones, maybe, but still, there’s no indication that conscious experience is a necessary consequence of complex control loops. > [@](#): > > That should show the evolutionary advantage of consciousness pretty clearly. The evolutionary advantage of adapting to the environment by incorporating feedback into our behavior, yes. The advantage of being conscious of the whole process, no. > [@](#): > > I don’t understand the pain thing. Non-conscious animals react to pain pretty much as we do, though we can do better at eliminating the source. This seems confused. Non-conscious animals don’t feel pain (as they don’t feel anything, ‘feeling anything’ being what being conscious means), so they can’t react to pain at all. They react to stimuli, in the same way a thermostat reacts to temperature. The thermostat doesn’t feel hot when it decides to lower the temperature. Why do we? How do we? > [@](#): > > You take your hand away from the stove long before you think about taking your hand away from the stove, after all. Exactly! Even complex behaviors don’t need any conscious attendance. Sleepwalkers can perform highly complex tasks without being conscious of them. One could imagine evolutionary pressure shaping the behavior of sleepwalkers to be indistinguishable from that of a waking human; so how can evolution select for conscious experience? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/83 "2019-02-12T06:48:20Z")
Consciousness is not that big of a problem. I could observe it in my Nefurtari, or, for that matter, that one crow that lands on the tree in the back yard and squawks at me with an irritated tone. It is entirely organic, rooted in the survival instinct and taking the form of the ectoplastic phanticulum. Living things developed it as a side effect of natural selection, though most living things compose no treatises on the subject. We probably will eventually build devices that can exhibit the symptoms of self-awareness, but it will not be consciousness because it cannot be holistic without the basis of need that creatures possess. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/84 "2019-02-12T07:23:36Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Is the universe a thing? Everything is a thing, man. Just as nothing involves no thing. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/85 "2019-02-12T07:25:06Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Feedback isn’t the same as conscious experience, though. A control loop changes its state based on feedback, but it does so (presumably, although if you’re a panpsychist, you might beg to differ) without any conscious experience. > > And everything in our mental problem solving that needs feedback can be formulated in terms of such control loops; complex ones, maybe, but still, there’s no indication that conscious experience is a necessary consequence of complex control loops. I never said that feedback and consciousness are equivalent - I said that consciousness is a form of feedback. Do you modify your thoughts based on examination of previous thoughts? For instance, do you come up with an idea, see flaws in it, and modify it? Voila, feedback. I repeat my question about your experience of the subconscious. The ability to perceive our thoughts internally is what makes us aware that we are thinking beings. Is your subconscious aware that it is thinking? Is it aware of anything about what it is doing? Maybe the right take on your blind man question is whether a non-blind person can imagine not knowing what red is. Likewise we as conscious people have a hard time understanding unconscious thought, thus the pathetic fallacy. > [@](#): > > The evolutionary advantage of adapting to the environment by incorporating feedback into our behavior, yes. The advantage of being conscious of the whole process, no. Not just feedback from the environment but feedback from our mental processes. We as conscious beings can teach unconscious beings complex behaviors, but they can’t teach themselves anything. > [@](#): > > This seems confused. Non-conscious animals don’t feel pain (as they don’t feel anything, ‘feeling anything’ being what being conscious means), so they can’t react to pain at all. They react to stimuli, in the same way a thermostat reacts to temperature. The thermostat doesn’t feel hot when it decides to lower the temperature. Why do we? How do we? Really? We know that we feel pain because we are conscious, but animals certainly can feel pain. Any dog owner knows this. Reacting to stimuli is different. Dogs and other animals will avoid painful things. That’s obviously evolutionarily advantageous by itself. We have plenty of internal feedback mechanisms in our bodies outside of consciousness. That’s why you can’t hold your breath and die for example. We do temperature regulation without using higher functions. > [@](#): > > Exactly! Even complex behaviors don’t need any conscious attendance. Sleepwalkers can perform highly complex tasks without being conscious of them. One could imagine evolutionary pressure shaping the behavior of sleepwalkers to be indistinguishable from that of a waking human; so how can evolution select for conscious experience? So can dogs. I trained guide dogs, mostly socialization, but when they really got trained they could do things like refuse to let its partner cross the street when there was danger. I already mentioned that our subconscious can drive. But our subconscious cannot improve, as I said before. I’ll believe you when you show me a sleepwalker write and revise a paper. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/86 "2019-02-12T08:44:15Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > The two parts of this statement seem diametrically opposed to each other to me. Not really, If we accept that consciousness is a brain function and nothing else then of course we should not be surprised that it has limitations. > [@](#): > > If it’s impossible to tell the blind man what red looks like, then knowledge of what red looks like is radically unlike knowledge of anything else—because for anything else, from how a computer works to how to ride a bicycle, knowledge can easily be communicated. I’m incapable of imagining multiple dimensions but I can be given the mathematics that explain how it works. The concept of “red” in the mind of a blind person could also be defined in that way. If they have any mental imagery at all then it seems possible to get them to imagine light wavelength changes as corresponding to different mental image appearances. > [@](#): > > So if it’s true that you can’t tell a blind man what it’s like to see red, then consciousness differs from every other area of inquiry. I don’t think you’ve made that case. > [@](#): > > Again, the first and second part are in direct conflict. If consciousness is amenable to scientific analysis in the usual way, then you should be able to tell the blind man what it’s like to see red, by simply teaching him that scientific analysis. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that one day we may be able to. First understand how the brain processes red light visual stimuli for sighted people and then replicate this within the brain for the blind person. Careful with that “usual way” though. Science is a _method_ of rational enquiry and I think it is the only way of understanding how the world works and that goes for the brain as well. However, advancements in techniques and knowledge ensure that the methods used in that scientific enquiry can change and the “usual” _techniques_ at the moment may need enhancement in order to unlock the secrets of the brain. But whatever those techniques are they will be employed using science in “the usual way”. > [@](#): > > “The brain works in mysterious ways” certainly isn’t a good answer in any case. It isn’t an answer at all, it is merely a statement of our current knowledge. > [@](#): > > Yes (although I’d wager my thoughts on what that means differ quite a bit from yours). Really? does your definition of “physical” differ from mine? > [@](#): > > But I also think this approach has big problems we won’t get around by vaguely handwaving at the complexity of the brain. I don’t promote “vague handwaving” as a method for understanding the brain. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/87 "2019-02-12T11:46:50Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I never said that feedback and consciousness are equivalent - I said that consciousness is a form of feedback. Well, let’s say that we’re conscious of feedback mechanisms in our minds. I am conscious of pain, and that in itself doesn’t seem to require any feedback. Regardless, there evidently exists feedback without consciousness: take the thermostat. Hence, the presence of feedback mechanisms, such as learning and revising plans, are not sufficient to conclude the presence of consciousness. So, what is it that makes feedback conscious in one case, and not so in another? > [@](#): > > I repeat my question about your experience of the subconscious. The ability to perceive our thoughts internally is what makes us aware that we are thinking beings. Is your subconscious aware that it is thinking? Is it aware of anything about what it is doing? I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re asking. Am I aware of my subconscious thought processes? Certainly not, that’s what makes them subconscious. But what does that establish wrt the question whether behavioral analysis suffices to decide whether something is conscious, and thus, whether behavior determines consciousness, and hence, whether evolution, acting on the level of behavior, can ‘select for’ consciousness? > [@](#): > > Not just feedback from the environment but feedback from our mental processes. We as conscious beings can teach unconscious beings complex behaviors, but they can’t teach themselves anything. So is your claim that consciousness is necessary for (self-guided) learning? Is a neural net performing unsupervised learning necessarily conscious, then? > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Not really, If we accept that consciousness is a brain function and nothing else then of course we should not be surprised that it has limitations. I don’t know what you mean by that, or how it applies to my argument. > [@](#): > > I’m incapable of imagining multiple dimensions but I can be given the mathematics that explain how it works. You’re making my case for me: you’re incapable of _imagining what it would be like to experience_ multiple dimensions, but you’re perfectly capable of knowing everything else about them. So it’s the experiential aspect that you invoke via imagination that remains inaccessible to you even given all of the objective facts about multiple dimensions—that is, this experiential aspect is fundamentally different from all the other aspects of multiple dimensionality. You can know, for instance, how light propagates, what the ratio of the surface area to the volume of a higher dimensional sphere is, and so on, without ever having come into contact with higher dimensions. However, there is one kind of knowledge, and one only, that requires you to directly come into contact with its object, and that’s experiential knowledge. Thus, this category is fundamentally set apart from every other. > [@](#): > > The concept of “red” in the mind of a blind person could also be defined in that way. If they have any mental imagery at all then it seems possible to get them to imagine light wavelength changes as corresponding to different mental image appearances. But even this (which I think is misguided, like trying to build what something sounds like from colors) hinges on if they have any mental imagery at all. You thus share the intuition that without having an experience of mental imagery, knowledge about experience is forever inaccessible. This is unlike knowledge of anything else: I can know the sun without ever having seen it; I can know its size, its volume, its temperature, everything that makes the sun _the sun_, every objective fact about its existence. None of this will tell me what it’s like to feel its warmth on my skin: for that, I need to come into direct contact with this experience, I need to actually have that experience (or some sufficiently similar one, i. e. any experience of warmth will do). Or, to take another approach: it’s easy, for anything, to come up with new exemplars once one has become acquainted with the general category. I know what characterizes the category of stars; I can invent stars that have never pierced the darkness of space. I can invent people that have never lived. Tell stories that have never happened. But I can’t invent a color that I’ve never seen. I can’t imagine what it would be like, for instance, if my vision extended into the ultraviolet. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a tetrachromat. Or, to take the canonical example, a bat, sensing the world by echolocation. I think your trouble comes from failing to distinguish between an object and the experience of that object—hence, your appeal to imagining multiple dimensions, despite the fact that this is obviously an experiential act. Perhaps it helps if you consider what you can write down about something. You can write down every fact of the physical composition of the sun, enough for anybody to construct a new one, without being able to explain what its light looks like to anybody who’s never seen anything, or what its warmth feels like. > [@](#): > > I don’t think you’ve made that case. Well, you can quite easily dispel it: just find one other area of knowledge whose objects necessitate being in contact with them in order to grasp them; one bit of knowledge that can’t be communicated without being related to experience in one way or another. (Or, of course, find a way to communicate knowledge about experiences!) > [@](#): > > It isn’t an answer at all, it is merely a statement of our current knowledge. It is what you proposed to ward off my probing regarding the need for answers to the questions posed by conscious experience—the brain is complex, and well, something something something. > [@](#): > > Really? does your definition of “physical” differ from mine? Probably. For starters, I think it’s improper to consider the physical to be (just) the object of (the science of) physics; physics tells us things about structure, but the world doesn’t exhaust itself in terms of structure. There may be physical entities that are not properly subject to physical science. [Galen Strawson](https://www.academia.edu/38245741/What_does_physical_mean_Strawson) has written insightfully on the subject. (There’s also a [talk of his](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FHLjHC-soU) on YouTube, but I haven’t gotten around to watching that yet.) > [@](#): > > I don’t promote “vague handwaving” as a method for understanding the brain. You do gesture in the direction of ‘it’s complicated’ when it comes to the difficult questions rather than trying to face them head-on, though. ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/88 "2019-02-12T13:00:39Z")
> [@sisu](#): > > Why can’t it have always existed? Time is a man made construct to understand the universe, one theory is that everything that is, has and will exist already does. No, time is real. Time exists because events happen. Measuring time is the human concept. This is an age old question that cannot be answered. You say God created Heaven and Earth I say what created God? Was there ever a beginning? If there’s a beginning then there’s an ending. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/89 "2019-02-12T13:35:16Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > You do gesture in the direction of ‘it’s complicated’ when it comes to the difficult questions rather than trying to face them head-on, though. Hang on, I don’t say “it’s complicated” and leave it at that. The next step after admitting it is complicated is enquiry and science which very much is facing them head-on. See, this is where I think we have a fundamental breakdown in communication. I still do not accept that you have put forward any difficult questions that require anything beyond better understanding of the workings of the brain and an acceptance that natural selection was the means of developing consciousness. If consciousness helps an organism it is selected for, if subjective experiences helps it is selected for. The evolutionary benefits of those traits were probably greater than the ability to describe red to a blind man so it is no wonder that the latter does not come easily. Though of course the human brain does throw up anomalies such as synesthesia, where words and sounds and smells can be interpreted as colours and vice-versa. In those circumstances you could give a blind man an experience of “red” by triggering it with the right verbal, aural or olfactory cue. Wierd certainly but just what you’d expect from the misfiring of a complex brain and certainly if that trait conferred a strong enough evolutionary benefit then you would not be able to use example of describing the experience of red to a blind man. So I don’t see the subjective experiential nature of consciousness as a particular and distinct mystery. A creature benefits from being able to experience its surroundings and will do so to a greater or lesser extent. Consciousness and subjective experiences seem to me to be trivial examples of the “greater” extent. See, this is all a _technically_ difficult question and if it can be solved or understood (not a given) it will be through the scientific method and not through philosophy, I just don’t see what philosophical musings add to this. Too often it is very clever people playing word games. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/90 "2019-02-12T15:18:03Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Hang on, I don’t say “it’s complicated” and leave it at that. The next step after admitting it is complicated is enquiry and science which very much is facing them head-on. Well, the thread of the conversation is basically, you claim that there’s no fundamental problem with consciousness, I present some arguments that there is, which you then dismiss because ‘it’s complicated’. > [@](#): > > If consciousness helps an organism it is selected for, if subjective experiences helps it is selected for. Sure, but again, selection only works on the level of behavior, and it’s completely unclear in what way behavior and experience are related. In particular, it seems possible to have experiences completely removed from one’s behavior; yet, that’s not what we’re seeing. This is a problem, and one that needs to be addressed if we’re ever going to make way on understanding consciousness. > [@](#): > > A creature benefits from being able to experience its surroundings and will do so to a greater or lesser extent. How? What is it you can do with consciousness that you can’t do without? > [@](#): > > See, this is all a _technically_ difficult question and if it can be solved or understood (not a given) it will be through the scientific method and not through philosophy, I just don’t see what philosophical musings add to this. Too often it is very clever people playing word games. This isn’t remotely as obvious as you make it out to be. Take the paper I linked above: Strawson proposes a coherent notion of how things might be, such that science can’t tell us anything about experience, yet consciousness is still a perfectly natural part of the physical world. Claiming that we know a priori what form the answer will take just blinds us to other options, and may lead to chasing rabbits down blind alleys. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/91 "2019-02-12T15:53:07Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Well, let’s say that we’re conscious of feedback mechanisms in our minds. I am conscious of pain, and that in itself doesn’t seem to require any feedback. > > Regardless, there evidently exists feedback without consciousness: take the thermostat. Hence, the presence of feedback mechanisms, such as learning and revising plans, are not sufficient to conclude the presence of consciousness. So, what is it that makes feedback conscious in one case, and not so in another? What part of “all consciousness is feedback but not all feedback is consciousness” don’t you get? > [@](#): > > I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re asking. Am I aware of my subconscious thought processes? Certainly not, that’s what makes them subconscious. But what does that establish wrt the question whether behavioral analysis suffices to decide whether something is conscious, and thus, whether behavior determines consciousness, and hence, whether evolution, acting on the level of behavior, can ‘select for’ consciousness? Determining whether another entity is conscious is a known difficult problem. But it is irrelevant here, since we know we are conscious. I don’t know what you mean by behavior determining consciousness. We might be able to induce the existence of consciousness through behavior (and we might be wrong) but I doubt we became conscious because our ancestors acted in a different way. > [@](#): > > So is your claim that consciousness is necessary for (self-guided) learning? Is a neural net performing unsupervised learning necessarily conscious, then? A neural net “learns” through data. Maybe that is like learning through practice - which does not have to involve consciousness. But current neural nets don’t examine themselves and change learning strategies based on self-analysis. I’m not saying that it is impossible to do that, just that current learning methods don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/92 "2019-02-12T16:01:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > What part of “all consciousness is feedback but not all feedback is consciousness” don’t you get? I get that perfectly well, which is why I asked you what determines whether feedback is conscious. Also, ‘all consciousness is feedback’ is simply wrong: there’s no feedback in my being conscious about a persistent itch in my left foot. There’s just the itch, and me being conscious of it. > [@](#): > > Determining whether another entity is conscious is a known difficult problem. But it is irrelevant here, since we know we are conscious. But how does, for want of a better image, evolution know we are conscious? If it’s ‘difficult’ to conclude whether a being is conscious, then how does evolution do the determination? Because if it can’t, then it can’t select for consciousness. So if you hold that consciousness is adaptive, you must hold that consciousness is determinable via behavior. Hence, my asking how, precisely, you can tell whether something is conscious merely by observing its behavior. > [@](#): > > A neural net “learns” through data. Maybe that is like learning through practice - which does not have to involve consciousness. But current neural nets don’t examine themselves and change learning strategies based on self-analysis. I’m not saying that it is impossible to do that, just that current learning methods don’t. But if they did, they’d be conscious? ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/93 "2019-02-12T16:30:16Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Well, the thread of the conversation is basically, you claim that there’s no fundamental problem with consciousness, I present some arguments that there is, which you then dismiss because ‘it’s complicated’. I don’t dismiss it in that way. I say that the workings of the brain are complicated and that we don’t know how consciousness works exactly, yet, but that it is a function arising from a complex brain is close to certain. There are plenty of [unsolved problems in biology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_biology) and consciousness is on the list along with all the others, not in a special section. > [@](#): > > Sure, but again, selection only works on the level of behavior, and it’s completely unclear in what way behavior and experience are related. If you can’t see how subjective experience might drive behaviours which can be selected for, then I think you fundamentally don’t understand evolution. > [@](#): > > In particular, it seems possible to have experiences completely removed from one’s behavior; yet, that’s not what we’re seeing. This is a problem, and one that needs to be addressed if we’re ever going to make way on understanding consciousness. in what way is this a problem? is it that you can’t say how it happens or why it might be selected for or escape selection? > [@](#): > > What is it you can do with consciousness that you can’t do without? Nothing, but to cover all the things that consciousness can do would involve creating a a sufficiently complex machine that would be, in fact, conscious. > [@](#): > > This isn’t remotely as obvious as you make it out to be. Take the paper I linked above: Strawson proposes a coherent notion of how things might be, such that science can’t tell us anything about experience, yet consciousness is still a perfectly natural part of the physical world. And as natural part of the world if anything can uncover the secrets of consciousness and experience it will be science, you can bet the house on that. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/94 "2019-02-12T18:43:57Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > I get that perfectly well, which is why I asked you what determines whether feedback is conscious. Cogito ergo sum to coin a phrase? > [@](#): > > Also, ‘all consciousness is feedback’ is simply wrong: there’s no feedback in my being conscious about a persistent itch in my left foot. There’s just the itch, and me being conscious of it. The itch sensation is transmitted to your brain. That you know you have an itch stems from being able to observe that sensation. Do you think you never have an itch when asleep? Better, ever wake up hungry? Do you think you only became hungry when you awoke, or did you only realize you were hungry when you awoke? > [@](#): > > But how does, for want of a better image, evolution know we are conscious? If it’s ‘difficult’ to conclude whether a being is conscious, then how does evolution do the determination? Because if it can’t, then it can’t select for consciousness. So if you hold that consciousness is adaptive, you must hold that consciousness is determinable via behavior. Hence, my asking how, precisely, you can tell whether something is conscious merely by observing its behavior. C’mon now. Evolution doesn’t “know” anything. If consciousness affects behavior (which I hope you accept) and lets us refine our behavior to be more successful in terms of reproduction, that’s enough to have it be selected for. Whether or not other people are actively conscious or not they act as if they are, and that is good enough for evolution. > [@](#): > > But if they did, they’d be conscious? They’d be closer. One big problem with machine learning is that we don’t know why the system makes a decision. It would be nice if we could ask it. It might just be telling us a story (like we do when we are asked a similar question about why we did something) but it would a start. If I were a Turing test examiner it would be about the first thing I asked. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/95 "2019-02-12T18:48:35Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > If consciousness is, as it thought, an emergent property of a complex, physical brain then mutations will result in differing forms of consciousness which will lead creatures to behaving differently in the world. The outcomes of that behaviour will be positive, negative or neutral. Natural selection does the rest. It doesn’t seem like a problem to me at all. I’m late to the thread and still reading, but wanted to point something out if it hasn’t been already. How does consciousness influence behavior? We know in some cases how the physical states of the cells in the brain can influence or assist with behavior (e.g. pain receptor causing reaction/movement, or the grid of neurons helping with navigation), but where exactly is consciousness and how does it cause behavioral changes? Some researchers are leaning more towards the “after the fact/tell a story” version, but even with that, there is still a question as to whether it’s providing value and if so, how. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/96 "2019-02-12T18:54:37Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > But how does, for want of a better image, evolution know we are conscious? If it’s ‘difficult’ to conclude whether a being is conscious, then how does evolution do the determination? Because if it can’t, then it can’t select for consciousness. So if you hold that consciousness is adaptive, you must hold that consciousness is determinable via behavior. Hence, my asking how, precisely, you can tell whether something is conscious merely by observing its behavior. Not directly related to your point but interesting: Recent research of consciousness via mri showed that consciousness tends to have complex patterns of neural activity bouncing around with inactivity in other areas. Unconscious patterns tended to be much simpler. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/97 "2019-02-12T20:47:47Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > How does consciousness influence behavior? Being able to consciously consider options and learn from past experience and put yourself into the position of other people may well help you construct optimal strategies for whatever situation you find yourself in. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/98 "2019-02-12T21:13:20Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Being able to consciously consider options and learn from past experience and put yourself into the position of other people may well help you construct optimal strategies for whatever situation you find yourself in. But, to **HMHW** ’s point, all of that can happen from a functional perspective. That’s not really answering “how” consciousness can influence behavior. If consciousness is just a side effect of the electro-chemical states of the brain, then it isn’t influencing behavior, it’s just along for the ride. If it’s not just along for the ride, how do our cells etc. incorporate consciousness into their resolution of next behavior? What is the mechanism that provides transfer of information from consciousness into the mechanical workings of the brain? ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/99 "2019-02-12T21:38:03Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > But, to **HMHW** ’s point, all of that can happen from a functional perspective. That’s not really answering “how” consciousness can influence behavior. Could it happen from a purely functional perspective? yes. That consciousness _does_ influence behaviour is a working hypothesis that seems to fit the facts best thus far. > [@](#): > > If consciousness is just a side effect of the electro-chemical states of the brain, then it isn’t influencing behavior, it’s just along for the ride. you’ll have to explain that to me. What is it about being a side-effect that prevents it from influencing behaviour? > [@](#): > > If it’s not just along for the ride, how do our cells etc. incorporate consciousness into their resolution of next behavior? What is the mechanism that provides transfer of information from consciousness into the mechanical workings of the brain? If you want an explanation of the exact mechanism you’ll find plenty of admissions that we don’t know yet. That’s fine. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286/100 "2019-02-12T22:30:22Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > The intellectually honest answer is we don’t know. > > But let’s be clear it’s a double don’t know: We don’t know whether nothing ever became something. Maybe our universe is part of a multiverse that has always existed? > > But if there is a definite start point to explain, then we don’t have that explanation yet, and it’s hard to see how there could be one. We can’t start with “Quantum mechanics says…” when we’re asking the metaphysical question of why anything exists at all, including physical laws. > > The OP mentions consciousness. Well, there’s no mystery there: it evolved as a feature of intelligent life; it’s something brains do. > Lots we don’t understand about consciousness, but not how it originated. Some [people](https://conscienceandconsciousness.com/)would disagree even on this and they claim not to be nuts. I admit my ignorance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-universe-and-consciousness-create-themselves-from-nothing/829286.md?page=6)