http://www.the-brights.net/forums/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=7643&view=findpost&p=124245
brightskeptic @ Nov 28 2007, 10:37
ColonelZen @ Nov 28 2007, 03:57
Consciousness is the relative ability of an entity to predict the consequential changes in its internal states in response to its own options and ability to interact with its environment.
To be honest I don't understand it (and certainly not its implications and applications). Maybe you could help me out? I don't know what the phrase "its own options" refers to - what are you saying by this? But overall I don't get the whole statement - this doesn't feel like consciousness to me - are you saying consciousness is solely prediction (in response to...)? That doesn't seem to fit my experience. If you can explain how you arrived at this definition it would be great!
Consciousness is not the mind, and mind is not a thing. Mind is a dynamic process and consciousness is only a name for one aspect of it. My proposed definition is an attempt to extract a named part of that complex dynamic process and describe its properties.
That definition creates a three dimensional space (see shortly more) to begin the discussion. The first dimension is the complexity of the mental states. The "options and ability" of its environmental interactions means the scope and scale of its possible physical interactions with the outside world - of course these can't really be considered as one dimensional (and likewise mental states are probably far more than one dimensional) but to *begin* discussion we can assume some possibility of normalizing these to one dimension, then argue the niceties later. The third dimension is simply a limiting function of the other two which maps the accuracy of the predictions of behavior to the mental state resulting from the actions the entity might choose to take.
My cat shows distinct evidence of consciousness: when she is hungry (as inferred by her subsequent behavior) she sits by the basement door (her amenities are in the basement) and meows at anyone in the kitchen. She doesn't meow when there's no one there, and she doesn't perform this behavior when she doesn't subsequently eat when someone goes downstairs and replenishes her bowl. In some way her tiny little mind is predicting satiation of her hunger by placing herself near the gateway to her amenities and meowing at someone in the kitchen.
The major problem with "consciousness" is framing the "magic" in ways that can be addressed and discussed by external observation without resorting to secret knowledge and mystical incantations. As per my cat's behavior my definition is a "first swing" at that.
brightskeptic @ Nov 28 2007, 10:37
.... Just as I don't believe in magic simply because I can't discern the trick a magician uses. Strong AI will have to go to extraordinary lengths to convince me that it is true, but I don't see that as a reason to believe it isn't possible.
Critical Line addressed this somewhat, but I'll go a little farther.
(I am not an expert ... other than that as a programmer, developing workable mappings of dynamic processes to formally manipulable symbols [semantics to syntax and vice versa] is how I've been making my living these past 25+ years [mundane business progery but it sounds so much more fascinating when I say it as above, no?]. This mostly from my own introspection on what goes on inside my head - the very thing my definition is trying to escape).
Your reference to stage magic is very appropriate. I do think the "ego" is very like an illusionist's performance. You say that it's not real. But the images your eyes receive are very real ... most can even be caught by a camera. Likewise you (and I) really do perceive "ourselves" as something other than wetware running an extremely complex pastiche of progams. But at a deeper level you know the magician doesn't catch a bullet in his mouth, the girl is not being sawed in half and there were not a flock of doves in his hat. But again, perhaps simply because of the perspective from which you view the performance YOU REALLY DO SEE THAT - in the sense that for the real images reaching your eye this is the first and most natural explanation that the less critical portions of your mind would synthesize. But the perception of "you" in your ego is not the real you. I know this in the case of "I" because "I" claim to be able to do millions of things ... but "I" know how to do only a handful of them "consciously" and have no idea *how* "I" know how to do them, but the wetware does know how to do what "I" claim to be able to do. In the magician's performance you realize that their is critical knowledge missing. In contemplating "I" versus I, I realize there is critical knowledge missing.
"I" is an abstraction, a shallow actor that I cast to fill my spot in a thousand daily drama's that I play out in my head and infer the consequences so that I can choose my best advantage in real interactions as they unfold. He goes away each night when I go to sleep (sometimes, rarely for me) making a guest appearance. The plain and simplest explanation for "I"'s behavior is that he is simply a shadow or image on a TV screen that can be shut off when it is not needed. But our (instinctive?) fear of death is so adamant and evidently our programming the scripting of "I" so strong (remember that "I" is very likely part of our evolutionary adaptation) that we have trouble understanding the separation; we have a very hard time thinking of I that is not "I".
-- TWZ
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