How does the material brain initiate the material brain?

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Bedlam

You said:

Why do you think any "quantum component" of a nervous system exists at all? What proof do you have for it? Why should I invoke some invisible, uninstrumentable putative dualism construct to explain behavior? And, again, how do you explain the functioning of this invisible component? In what way does IT initiate thought?

Again, there's plenty of evidence that supports what I'm saying. The problem is there isn't a shred of evidence that supports that the material brain can initiate anything.

And less than a shred that there is a "quantum proto-consciousness".

a reply to: Bedlam

Wow, quad post! I clicked reply once and the computer went whacko, and I couldn't connect with ATS for about 10 minutes. Maybe it was the quantum proto-consciousness.

BTW, I really liked the part of the Penrose cite where they said they were going to jam out to sitars and down-shifted quantum microtubule vibrations.

They will engage skeptics in a debate on the nature of consciousness, and Bandyopadhyay and his team will couple microtubule vibrations from active neurons to play Indian musical instruments.

Tells me a lot about them.

Perhaps if they listen very closely to their microtubules, they'll find they're singing "Tomorrow Never Knows" over and over.

Their reasoning appears to be, as Philosopher David Chalmers has noted, that "consciousness is mysterious and quantum mechanics is mysterious, so maybe the two mysteries have a common source".

My point exactly...

and I see Chalmers pretty much agrees with me right down the line...

A reader who is not convinced by Penrose's Gödelian arguments is left with little reason to accept his claims that physics is noncomputable and that quantum processes are essential to cognition, although these speculations are interesting in their own right. But even if one accepts that human behavior can be accounted for computationally, there is still the question of human consciousness, which after all is Penrose's ultimate target.

Penrose is clear that the puzzle of consciousness is one of his central motivations. Indeed, one reason for his skepticism about AI is that it is so hard to see how the mere enaction of a computation should give rise to an inner subjective life. Why couldn't all the computation go in the dark, without consciousness? So Penrose postulates that we to appeal to physics instead, and suggests that the locus of consciousness may be a quantum gravity process in microtubules. But this seems to suffer from exactly the same problem. Why should quantum processes in microtubules give rise to consciousness, any more than computational processes should? Neither suggestion seems appreciably better off than the other.

linky!

If you think about it, everything has a cause.

You can think, who told the material brain to open the refrigerator?

Well, you felt hungry and "decided" to open the refrigerator.

Notice I put "decided" in quotes. Did we really "decide" on our own, free from any cause or conditions?


Why did we feel hungry?

Well that has a cause too right?

There is the body, and it has a 'nature' due to its construction/design/form.

----

What made the water to decide to run down a channel after it was released?

Well that is the 'nature' of water in this system right? It falls to the lowest possible spot.

How did it decide on its own to go to the lowest spot?

----

I am not claiming to know the whole story.. just sharing my thoughts.

a reply to: nOraKat

Well that is the 'nature' of water in this system right? It falls to the lowest possible spot.

Yes ... it is observing the nature of substance
Hot air rises (no pun intended)
Gas can become liquid
Liquids can become gas etc
Depending on environmental factors which are also substance
All is substance

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
a reply to: neoholographic

First, I didn't say consciousness was undefinable. I said it can't be defined or confined by materialism or any silly notion of an algorithm.

If it cannot be defined with mathematics then it cannot be defined with any tools we have. There is nothing silly about saying consciousness can be defined as an information processing system (aka an algorithm). It's fine if you want to say that consciousness is an emergent property of the information processing, but you're saying the processing it's self cannot be defined because it some how transcends all natural logic and math. What you are promoting is pseudo-science and you should understand that the researchers you are quoting are not exactly mainstream scientists. It doesn't matter how many times you repeat their mumbo jumbo, it doesn't make it any truer.

Typical nonsense.

It has nothing to do with pseudoscience and of course pseudoskeptics trot out this nonsense when they can't debate the issue. You haven't provided one shred of scientific evidence that backs anything that you're saying.

When you first came on the thread you tried to get everyone to go to your silly post in the philosophy forum and you put it there because you have zero evidence.

It's not pseudoscience it's fact. If it was just the matter of an algorithm the math would have showed us this. Instead it showed us just the opposite and ruled out any notion of your silly algorithm and self aware android nonsense that belongs in a myth and fantasy section.

You then do the pseudoskeptic thing and claim that everyone that doesn't agree with you isn't a mainstream scientist. Typical nonsense.

Roger Penrose isn't mainstream?

Here's more about Song.

Daegene Song obtained his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Oxford and now works at Chungbuk National University in Korea as an assistant professor. To learn more about Song's research, see his published work: D. Song, Non-computability of Consciousness, NeuroQuantology, Volume 5, pages 382~391 (2007). arxiv.org...

Of course he would be "mainstream" if he reached conclusions that those who can't debate the issue supported.

a reply to: Bedlam

Most of them affect sodium channels in the neuron, and their mechanism of action is well-known.

Nope. That where your wrong. It's not known at all, still.

I think it's a leap of illogic to say "I don't know what function this serves...therefore quantum soul is doing it".

It's not really a leap if you look at cymatics. Ultra high vibrations create extremely complex geometry. Why? Where do those designs come from? What makes them? Why do they change design as you change frequency? Again, self-organizing symbiotic relationships with sound? Something needed to create a 'rule' for a lack of a better term, but it wasn't the sound that did it.

Also, that's not ultrafast, especially for a QM vibration. Recall, any molecule does this, it's how we get IR and microwave spectroscopy. Usually this happens in the THz range. So it's probably a structural thing with a microtubule that can get it down that slow, actually.

Nope, not according to this abstract:

Human consciousness, the human soul, the human mind, human subjective feelings have been a matter of concern, not only for philosophers and theologians, but recently also for neuroscientists, physicists and others. Our approach to understanding this problem is based on the fact that even the simplest brain functions depend on the activity of an enormous number of neurons, on their synaptic connections and on associated ionic and electrical events. The synaptic delay in each of those synapses is at least 0.5 ms and therefore the parallel and serial interactions between millions of neurons would take a very long time, too long for the individual.s adequate interaction with the environment. Therefore, there must be some other mechanism governing the interactions of large numbers of neurons, located even in remote parts of the brain. However, the neuronal function - with a spreading of depolarizations, hyperpolarizations and repolarizations, graded and ungraded electrical potentials, ionic movements and small local electrical fields - creates a unique and very complicated system of the movements of subatomic particles. When moving from one position to another, each electron fills a large space and its precise position cannot be exactly determined. Thus brain function depends on the movements of an enormous number of electrons which influence each other at the subatomic level, even though their position cannot be determined. Therefore, beside relatively slow "classical" electrochemical interactions, rapid quantum interactions originating in functioning cell membranes may participate in many, perhaps in all, brain functions. Together, all the moving electrons produce a non-local system which we call the Real Human Soul, RHS, which is created by the functioning neurons and, at the same time, can also influence other neurons. Thus, it creates a connection between all functioning parts of the brain. The brain then functions as a unified system in which everything is interconnected and is able to interact. Viewed thus, the brain functions as a quantum computer.

This system, the RHS, is not identical with consciousness. Only under certain conditions does some area of the brain create subjective consciousness, which may be one of the products of the RHS. Subjective consciousness is probably based on simple particle communication, their .proto-consciousness., but is much more complex, due to the neuronal analysis of sensory input and other cognitive functions of the CNS.

watarts.uwaterloo.ca...

Here's what Lee Smolin said about the non mainstream Physicist Roger Penrose:

Lee Smolin: Roger Penrose is the most important physicist to work in relativity theory except for Einstein. He's the most creative person and the person who has contributed the most ideas to what we do. He's one of the very few people I've met in my life who, without reservation, I call a genius. Roger is the kind of person who has something original to say — something you've never heard before — on almost any subject that comes up.

Of course pseudoskeptics will call him a "out of the mainstream" and say he's doing "pseudoscience."

Here's more "out of the mainstream" Scientist from Duke who reached similar conclusions.

The Brain Is Not Computable

Miguel Nicolelis, a top neuroscientist at Duke University, says computers will never replicate the human brain and that the technological Singularity is “a bunch of hot air.”

“The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,” says Nicolelis, author of several pioneering papers on brain-machine interfaces.

But Nicolelis is in a camp that thinks that human consciousness (and if you believe in it, the soul) simply can’t be replicated in silicon. That’s because its most important features are the result of unpredictable, nonlinear interactions among billions of cells, Nicolelis says.

“You can’t predict whether the stock market will go up or down because you can’t compute it,” he says. “You could have all the computer chips ever in the world and you won’t create a consciousness.”

Similarly, Nicolelis thinks in the future humans with brain implants might be able to sense x-rays, operate distant machines, or navigate in virtual space with their thoughts, since the brain will accommodate foreign objects including computers as part of itself.

www.technologyreview.com...

So you will not create some silly self aware android based on a mysterious algorithm. This is because the way the brain integrates information and the way the mind recalls and interacts with this information is unpredictable and non computable.

You will have intelligent machines that can become more powerful than humans. They will not have human consciousness but they will evolve in their own way and will be a separate species and we will probably have to augment our brains and bodies through technology or die out in the face of these intelligent machines.

a reply to: neoholographic

I actually think Penrose is an extremely intelligent scientist but he isn't afraid to think outside of the box and not everything he theorizes is absolutely true. There are many other scientists which are equally intelligent as Penrose who say that consciousness can be described as an information processing system, in fact I have found that most mainstream scientists tend to feel that way. So don't accuse me of having a weak freaking argument that lacks evidence when we're talking about the nature of consciousness. This is highly abstract stuff and there is no solid evidence despite what you may think.

So you will not create some silly self aware android based on a mysterious algorithm. This is because the way the brain integrates information and the way the mind recalls and interacts with this information is unpredictable and non computable.

Ok then how can it even be possible for our brain to do those computations if they are not computable? Let me guess, the mind of god beams out a faster than light signal to our brain and gives us all the answers?

You will have intelligent machines that can become more powerful than humans. They will not have human consciousness but they will evolve in their own way and will be a separate species and we will probably have to augment our brains and bodies through technology or die out in the face of these intelligent machines.

Let me ask you a question which you ignored earlier. If I were to perfectly replicate the human brain using silicon and metal, would I be able to create an android with human-level consciousness? If not I want you to explain exactly why not, what exactly makes humans special that cannot be replicated using other materials?

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Asked and answered over and over.

You're the one making the silly claim that we can have self aware androids running your mystery algorithm without providing a SHRED OF EVIDENCE that supports this silly notion.

I have showed you why this is impossible and you have yet to refute it.

You seem to be setting up a choice that makes no sense unless you're a blind believer in materialism.

So it's either materialism or nothing and that sounds dogmatic. You should be knocking on doors with Jehovah Witnesses.

At the end of the day there's no solid evidence that supports your silly self aware android with the mystery algorithm theory. There's plenty of evidence that supports what I'm saying and I have actually listed the evidence several times why you haven't presented a shred of evidence.

You said:

Ok then how can it even be possible for our brain to do those computations if they are not computable?

Do what computations? When a person recalls a specific memory exactly what computations are being done and please present the scientific evidence and not more fantasies about self aware androids.

What computations initiate recall of a specific memory?

What computations tell the the material brain you want to recall a memory?

What computations know the difference between these memories?

Again, you claim that the brain does some computation in order to do these things and I'm asking you to present the scientific evidence to support your claim.

a reply to: neoholographic

Asked and answered over and over.

No, I asked you a very specific question, why do humans have to be made of organic matter, what would stop us from replicating the way the human brain works using other materials? It seems to me like you're saying the brain has absolutely nothing to do with how we solve problems or recall past memories, which is completely absurd.

So it's either materialism or nothing and that sounds dogmatic. You should be knocking on doors with Jehovah Witnesses.

My opinion on the matter is hardly materialistic. I've already shown you why I think quantum mechanics is an integral component of consciousness, I just don't think there's anything undefinable about it, we can replicate the way the human brain works by simulating it with machines which are capable of exploiting quantum effects. There is an algorithm which we can recreate using non-organic materials.

Do what computations? When a person recalls a specific memory exactly what computations are being done and please present the scientific evidence and not more fantasies about self aware androids.

Obviously some sort of computations are happening because specific areas of the brain fire when we attempt to remember something and we can map out the areas of the brain which are involved in memory recall. The way memory recall works in the human brain is extremely complicated but we do have very advanced memory retrieval algorithms. Take the Google search engine for example, you feed it a few keywords (the stimulus) and then it gives you back a list of documents relevant to those search terms. If you want to know the exact algorithms involved then look up deep auto encoders, semantic hashing, and convolutional neural networks. A good place to start is here: Neural Networks for Machine Learning

originally posted by: FlySolo


Nope. That where your wrong. It's not known at all, still.

Isoflurane induces a reduction in junctional conductance by decreasing gap junction channel opening times and increasing gap junction channel closing times. Isoflurane also activates calcium dependent ATPase in the sarcoplasmic reticulum by increasing the fluidity of the lipid membrane. Also appears to bind the D subunit of ATP synthase and NADH dehydogenase. Isoflurane also binds to the GABA receptor, the large conductance Ca2+ activated potassium channel, the glutamate receptor and the glycine receptor.

Dunno, it sounds fairly specific. Are you positing it blocks the quantum waves or something?

It's not really a leap if you look at cymatics. Ultra high vibrations create extremely complex geometry. Why?

Cymatics is one of those things that looks pretty and people who don't think about it deeply are awed by it. The geometry is created by the way the surface flexes with the mechanical excitation, period. It's not magic.

Where do those designs come from?

They don't 'come from' anywhere, they're inherent in the geometry and material behavior of the surface.

What makes them?

Chladni patterns (renamed 'cymatics' to sound cooler) are formed by the flour/sand/whatever you're using as the revealing material migrating to the points on the surface that aren't flexing. Easy, peasy.

Why do they change design as you change frequency?

Because the flexure points on the surface will move as you alter the frequency.

Again, self-organizing symbiotic relationships with sound? Something needed to create a 'rule' for a lack of a better term, but it wasn't the sound that did it.

Sure. It's the surface you're using - the shape, and size, and the properties of the material it's made from. Where you excite it, and the frequency and waveform of excitation. So there's a lot of variables, but in the end, what you're seeing is where the flexure points are, highlighted by whatever goop you're using to reveal the flex patterns. It's not magic. It's certainly not symbiosis.

Nope, not according to this abstract:

Nothing in the abstract relates to my statement. And, by the way, the paper, if you should read it with understanding, proves nothing at all. It's a hypothesis from the guy with no proof, no experimental evidence at all. Sort of like Penrose's papers.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

You said:

It seems to me like you're saying the brain has absolutely nothing to do with how we solve problems or recall past memories, which is completely absurd.

Nope, what's absurd is your persistence to make these wild outlandish claims and not present a shred of evidence to support it. Don't you realize you're living in a fantasy world? I have asked you time and again to provide some scientific evidence and you provide nothing but the same hyperbole.

I never said the brain has nothing to do with it, I said consciousness doesn't emerge from the brain and the brain needs an operator to navigate and operate the information that the brain processes. I then provided scientific evidence that points in this direction.

You on the other hand provides ZERO evidence.

You think asking what will stop us from replicating the human brain works to build your self aware android and I have showed you time and again. You act like your position without a shred of evidence should be the default position because this is what you believe.

I hate to break it to you, science can care less about your belief.

When you were faced with the evidence, you then tried to claim these scientist like Penrose were "out of the mainstream." Typical nonsense from a pseudoskeptic.

How are you going to create an algorithm that breaks the symmetry between Schrodinger and Heisenberg in a fundamental way? You keep asking what's special about consciousness and I keep telling you. When an observer observes his own reference frame something occurs that's outside of what we see with the physical and the math tells us this.

Song's work also shows consciousness is not like other physical systems like neurons, atoms or galaxies. "If consciousness cannot be represented in the same way all other physical systems are represented, it may not be something that arises out of a physical system like the brain," said Song. "The brain and consciousness are linked together, but the brain does not produce consciousness. Consciousness is something altogether different and separate. The math doesn't lie."

www.prnewswire.com...

Here's more from Penrose:

A top-down algorithm is specific to the solution of some particular problem, and it provides a definite procedure that is known to solve that problem. A bottom-up algorithm is one that is not specific to any particular problem but is more loosely organized, so that it learns by experience and gradually improves, eventually giving a good solution to the problem at hand. Many people have the idea that bottom-up systems rather than top-down, programmed algorithmic systems are the way the brain works. I apply the Gödel argument to bottom-up systems too, in my most recent book, Shadows of the Mind. I make a strong case that bottom-up systems also won't get around the Gödel argument. Thus, I'm claiming, there's something in our conscious understanding that simply isn't computational; it's something different.

And this was before the the recent published papers and studies that I've listed that corroborates what he's saying.

Here's another paper:

Is Consciousness Computable? Quantifying Integrated Information Using Algorithmic Information Theory

In this article we review Tononi's (2008) theory of consciousness as integrated information. We argue that previous formalizations of integrated information (e.g. Griffith, 2014) depend on information loss. Since lossy integration would necessitate continuous damage to existing memories, we propose it is more natural to frame consciousness as a lossless integrative process and provide a formalization of this idea using algorithmic information theory. We prove that complete lossless integration requires noncomputable functions. This result implies that if unitary consciousness exists, it cannot be modelled computationally.

arxiv.org...

This is what they said in an article about this study.

Mathematical Model Of Consciousness Proves Human Experience Cannot Be Modelled On A Computer: A new mathematical model of consciousness implies that your PC will never be conscious in the way you are

The central part of their new work is to describe the mathematical properties of a system that can store integrated information in this way but without it leaking away. And this leads them to their central proof. “The implications of this proof are that we have to abandon either the idea that people enjoy genuinely [integrated] consciousness or that brain processes can be modelled computationally,” say Maguire and co.

Since Tononi’s main assumption is that consciousness is the experience of integrated information, it is the second idea that must be abandoned: brain processes cannot be modelled computationally.

medium.com...

Again, this is what TOTALLY OBLITERATES your silly argument and it's the reason that you haven't provided ANY SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that supports anything you're saying.

The fact that the brain integrates information in a unpredictable way and consciousness interacts with and navigates this information in a way that's non computable totally destroys any notion of some mystery algorithm producing your imaginary self aware androids.

a reply to: neoholographic

Nope, what's absurd is your persistence to make these wild outlandish claims and not present a shred of evidence to support it. Don't you realize you're living in a fantasy world? I have asked you time and again to provide some scientific evidence and you provide nothing but the same hyperbole.

I'm just attempting to argue my position, there is no need to continuously say that I'm some how mentally ill for believing in something which a large number of computer scientists believe. How exactly can I present you with solid evidence when we don't even know yet exactly how consciousness works. If anyone had proof that consciousness could be simulated then we'd already have those simulations. You asked for some evidence of how algorithms can simulate our memory recall process and I have given you many good examples of powerful algorithms that can do everything human memory can do.

I never said the brain has nothing to do with it, I said consciousness doesn't emerge from the brain and the brain needs an operator to navigate and operate the information that the brain processes. I then provided scientific evidence that points in this direction.

Ok so then why is it impossible to emulate the so called "operator"? Why do humans have an operator and how do we get one? You're talking about a "soul" right? How are souls created, at what age does a young child acquire a soul, is there an unlimited number of souls available, where do they come from?

You think asking what will stop us from replicating the human brain works to build your self aware android and I have showed you time and again. You act like your position without a shred of evidence should be the default position because this is what you believe.

You still haven't answered my question. Why can a human body have a soul but a machine body cannot have a soul? What makes organic matter so special? So what silicon can't have a soul now? That's elemental discrimination my friend. And my position is the default position among mainstream scientists despite what you want to believe. I would be a bit worried if mainstream science thought that consciousness required a soul.

The fact that the brain integrates information in a unpredictable way and consciousness interacts with and navigates this information in a way that's non computable totally destroys any notion of some mystery algorithm producing your imaginary self aware androids.

But humans are robots, we're just made of organic materials. The term "operator" even implies that our bodies are like empty machines which only come to life if they have an operator. What you have failed to explain is why the human body is such a special machine.

Just did a bit of reading on this "Integrated Information Theory" you keep refering to and cam across a very interesting article by computer scientist Scott Aaronson: Why I Am Not An Integrated Information Theorist.

The literature on IIT is too big to do it justice in a blog post. Strikingly, in addition to the “primary” literature, there’s now even a “secondary” literature, which treats IIT as a sort of established base on which to build further speculations about consciousness. Besides the Tegmark paper linked to above, see for example this paper by Maguire et al., and associated popular article. (Ironically, Maguire et al. use IIT to argue for the Penrose-like view that consciousness might have uncomputable aspects—a use diametrically opposed to Tegmark’s.)

I was unaware that Max Tegmark has actually used IIT in some of his theories. He is very well known for saying that consciousness and the Universe and absolutely everything can be defined as mathematical objects. Max used IIT in a model which is computable so it would seem that IIT doesn't need to have uncomputable aspects despite what you have been saying here.

Scott however appears to be saying that all versions of IIT are wrong. Further along in the article he says the following:

Now, I regard IIT as a serious, honorable attempt to grapple with the Pretty-Hard Problem of Consciousness: something concrete enough to move the discussion forward. But I also regard IIT as a failed attempt on the problem. And I wish people would recognize its failure, learn from it, and move on.

In my view, IIT fails to solve the Pretty-Hard Problem because it unavoidably predicts vast amounts of consciousness in physical systems that no sane person would regard as particularly “conscious” at all: indeed, systems that do nothing but apply a low-density parity-check code, or other simple transformations of their input data. Moreover, IIT predicts not merely that these systems are “slightly” conscious (which would be fine), but that they can be unboundedly more conscious than humans are.

He then goes onto do some calculations which are way over my head. He then finishes with the following remarks:

As humans, we seem to have the intuition that global integration of information is such a powerful property that no “simple” or “mundane” computational process could possibly achieve it. But our intuition is wrong. If it were right, then we wouldn’t have linear-size superconcentrators or LDPC codes.

I should mention that I had the privilege of briefly speaking with Giulio Tononi (as well as his collaborator, Christof Koch) this winter at an FQXi conference in Puerto Rico. At that time, I challenged Tononi with a much cruder, handwavier version of some of the same points that I made above. Tononi’s response, as best as I can reconstruct it, was that it’s wrong to approach IIT like a mathematician; instead one needs to start “from the inside,” with the phenomenology of consciousness, and only then try to build general theories that can be tested against counterexamples. This response perplexed me: of course you can start from phenomenology, or from anything else you like, when constructing your theory of consciousness. However, once your theory has been constructed, surely it’s then fair game for others to try to refute it with counterexamples? And surely the theory should be judged, like anything else in science or philosophy, by how well it withstands such attacks?

But let me end on a positive note. In my opinion, the fact that Integrated Information Theory is wrong—demonstrably wrong, for reasons that go to its core—puts it in something like the top 2% of all mathematical theories of consciousness ever proposed. Almost all competing theories of consciousness, it seems to me, have been so vague, fluffy, and malleable that they can only aspire to wrongness.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Again, you're not providing any evidence for anything and it's just nonsense. You keep asking what makes humans special and what makes consciousness special and I keep showing you the evidence and you don't refute any of the evidence and you offer no evidence and ask the same questions.

NEWSFLASH:

You need to have actual scientific evidence to support what you're saying or you should post in the fantasy section or go back to your thread in the Philosophy section. You said:

How exactly can I present you with solid evidence when we don't even know yet exactly how consciousness works.

This simply shows that you have blind faith in what you believe.

You said how can you present me with hard evidence? THE ANSWER IS YOU CAN'T BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT WHAT YOU'RE SAYING.

You then say "WE" don't even know how consciousness works. So what you're doing is simply saying nobody can know how consciousness works unless there's evidence that supports your silly view of self aware androids. That makes no sense.

I have presented you evidence on top of evidence on top of evidence that points to how consciousness works and it just doesn't support an interpretation that has no evidence that says consciousness must emerge from the material brain.

You then called all of these things "out of the mainstream" and "pseudoscience" when I'm quoting people like Roger Penrose. This again shows how weak your position is.

Anything that doesn't agree with your view has to be pseudoscience even though you admit to having ZERO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE to support anything you're saying.

About the blog post you copied and pasted without any understanding as to what's being said, let me elaborate on that.

First off Tegmark is trying to show that consciousness is computable and there's nothing wrong with having this belief but Tegmark is still trying to get around the math that says otherwise by saying consciousness could be a state of matter.

Tegmark also misrepresents Penrose and Hameroff which was recently shown by the discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules. Tegmark tried to rebutt Penrose/Hameroff with a model involving a superposition of solitons 24 nm apart . Hameroff/Penrose model talks about the protein subunits of microtubules which in part gives you the quantum vibration in microtubules that was recently discovered.

If you have read what I'm saying it doesn't depend on ITT that was just one paper that used parts of ITT to reach it's conclusion. You simply ignored all of the other evidence I have listed on this thread and went fishing on Google for an article you can post that you don't understand. You said:

He then goes onto do some calculations which are way over my head.

If you blindly posts things you don't understand and then ignore things that simply shows what you're saying makes no sense, then you're just grasping at straws.

If you would bother to read the evidence I listed and to actually read what I'm saying, you would see how the blog you posted agrees with me. It said:

In my view, IIT fails to solve the Pretty-Hard Problem because it unavoidably predicts vast amounts of consciousness in physical systems that no sane person would regard as particularly “conscious” at all

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING!1

This is why I said:

THE BRAIN INTEGRATES INFORMATION AND CONSCIOUSNESS INTERACTS WITH THIS INFORMATION.

This tells you I don't agree with ITT either. I agree that the brain integrates information but I don't think this integrated information is the cause of consciousness because consciousness is non computable and that's where the evidence has been pointing and that's why I have listed evidence on top of evidence that you haven't responded to.

a reply to: neoholographic

I have presented you evidence on top of evidence on top of evidence that points to how consciousness works and it just doesn't support an interpretation that has no evidence that says consciousness must emerge from the material brain.

It seems to me you're trying to show how consciousness doesn't work, not how it does work. You've said nothing at all about the nature of this mysterious "operator". What gives the operator the intelligence to navigate the integrated information of the brain? It seems to me that you've simply shifted the problem from explaining how the brain produces consciousness to how the operator produces consciousness. If you start asking questions about how the operator works, you'll require an operator for the operator.

You then called all of these things "out of the mainstream" and "pseudoscience" when I'm quoting people like Roger Penrose. This again shows how weak your position is.

What you're describing is essentially akin to a soul, so of course I'm going to call you out on that, especially when you're attempting to push your theory as if it had the weight of any mainstream theory.

You simply ignored all of the other evidence I have listed on this thread and went fishing on Google for an article you can post that you don't understand.

Actually I went to do some research on some of the theories you were talking about and that article was right at the top of the results for my first search about Integrated Information Theory.

First off Tegmark is trying to show that consciousness is computable and there's nothing wrong with having this belief

You could have fooled me based on your hostile responses to me saying that consciousness is computable. Seems to me you have a very deep problem with the idea of self-aware machines. You still didn't answer my question about why a machine cannot have an "operator". Why can't the machine have a silicon brain which integrates information which is navigated by an operator?

This tells you I don't agree with ITT either. I agree that the brain integrates information but I don't think this integrated information is the cause of consciousness because consciousness is non computable and that's where the evidence has been pointing and that's why I have listed evidence on top of evidence that you haven't responded to.

Ok but you still haven't explained anything about the operator. It seems to me that what you're really doing is going out of your way to show that consciousness cannot be computed, then using that conclusion to argue we must have some sort of operator/soul. But you've said absolutely nothing about the nature of the operator and so it seems to me you don't really have much of a theory at all.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

You said:

You've said nothing at all about the nature of this mysterious "operator".

What mysterious operator? When have I said anything about a mysterious operator? Once again you do the usually pseudoskeptic 1,2 and bring in this nonsense.

First any scientist that doesn't fall in line with your silly notion of self aware androids is praticing pseudoscience and they must be "out of the mainstream."

This is the first sign of a pseudoskeptic because anyone that disagrees with what they believe can't be practicing real science. They must be engaging in pseudoscience.

Why would the operator need to produce conscious when the operator is consciousness itself?

The problem here is, peopl think that consciousness MUST originate from some material process. There's zero evidence to support this and I have listed evidence that points in another direction.

So know, you don't need a regression of operators when you're dealing with nonphysical consciousness. We already have scientist saying the wave function is a nonphysical reality that can transmit information.

The wave-function is real but nonphysical: A view from counterfactual quantum cryptography

Counterfactual quantum cryptography (CQC) is used here as a tool to assess the status of the quantum state: Is it real/ontic (an objective state of Nature) or epistemic (a state of the observer's knowledge)? In contrast to recent approaches to wave function ontology, that are based on realist models of quantum theory, here we recast the question as a problem of communication between a sender (Bob), who uses interaction-free measurements, and a receiver (Alice), who observes an interference pattern in a Mach-Zehnder set-up. An advantage of our approach is that it allows us to define the concept of "physical", apart from "real". In instances of counterfactual quantum communication, reality is ascribed to the interaction-freely measured wave function (ψ) because Alice deterministically infers Bob's measurement. On the other hand, ψ does not correspond to the physical transmission of a particle because it produced no detection on Bob's apparatus. We therefore conclude that the wave function in this case (and by extension, generally) is real, but not physical. Characteristically for classical phenomena, the reality and physicality of objects are equivalent, whereas for quantum phenomena, the former is strictly weaker. As a concrete application of this idea, the nonphysical reality of the wavefunction is shown to be the basic nonclassical phenomenon that underlies the security of CQC.

arxiv.org...

The problem you have is, you don't have a shred of evidence to support anything you're saying.

I never said a machine can't have an operator but that doesn't mean the machine will be conscious in the same way humans are. This is because consciousness is non computable.

tell me, how will you produce a machine that breaks down the symmetry between Schrodinger and Heisenberg and causes a non equivalence to occur when an observer observes his own reference frame? This is something that's fundamental to space-time on Planck scales not an algorithm.

This means machines will never be conscious in the way humans are conscious. This doesn't mean that they will not be intelligent and they will evolve in their own way but it will come from the mind of man whose mind can't be described by any emergent physical process.

a reply to: neoholographic

Why would the operator need to produce conscious when the operator is consciousness itself?

Yes but HOW is the operator conscious, you can't just say there's a conscious operator and then say absolutely nothing about the nature of the operator. Like I said you're just shifting the problem to another space, you haven't solved anything about the nature of consciousness.

The problem here is, peopl think that consciousness MUST originate from some material process. There's zero evidence to support this and I have listed evidence that points in another direction.

So know, you don't need a regression of operators when you're dealing with nonphysical consciousness. We already have scientist saying the wave function is a nonphysical reality that can transmit information.

There is a very large difference between nonphysical and noncomputable. Something which is nonphysical doesn't have to be noncomputable. Let me assure you sir I am no materialist, I have no issue with the idea that QM is a nonphysical theory because it's clearly a very abstract mathematical theory which destroys the common notions of materialism. For example the way a single particle can be spread out in many different places at the same time, such as how standing electron orbitals display the mathematics of spherical harmonics. I can create a virtual world on my computer which has nonphysical processes such as spooky action at a distance but those processes are still entirely computable even if they are nonphysical.

The only thing in QM which I feel cannot be truly replicated by an algorithm is the true randomness that quantum events display. The RNG algorithms in our computers are pseudo-random but not truly random, which means that our computers are entirely deterministic, they'll never do anything truly unpredictable. However it is possible to buy quantum RNG hardware which exploit the laws of QM to produce truly random numbers. I think that is the key to creating an algorithm which can produce a non-causal consciousness. Our imagination is highly chaotic which means our brain probably makes use of random processes which allow us to combine random ideas and come up with original and innovative solutions to unsolved problems.

I never said a machine can't have an operator but that doesn't mean the machine will be conscious in the same way humans are. This is because consciousness is non computable.

Oh ok... so humans have a special type of operator which makes them truly conscious but machines aren't allowed that same privilege? Come on dude, that makes absolutely no sense. Isn't the operator supposed to be the noncomputable part? Now you're saying machines can have an operator but cannot have a truly conscious operator? If the human brain isn't really responsible for consciousness then a silicon brain shouldn't be responsible, it should be the operator.

a reply to: Box of Rain

So what happens with someone born deaf and blind?

Sensory stimuli goes oh so far, instinctual environmental queues take you so far. .

There are the mechanical workings, but where is the mechanic?