In a short essay, Bernardo Kastrup argues that consciousness cannot be the product of evolution:
Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved
I disagree, but I’ll leave my objections for the comment thread.
677 thoughts on “Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved”
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newton,
Both of those are possible, and establishing either one would be an important advance in consciousness studies.
Why, he doesn’t have a preference. Preferences are only for things that experience. Can a computer have a preference? I rather think not.
By stating he has a preference, when he in fact doesn’t, is a lie.
I think the whole thought experiment, of a non-feeling being being able to answer questions honestly, the same as a feeling being, is not a very sound argument.
keiths,
Hmm. By that token I must think God is a useful concept. Oops I did it again. Any of those mentions by Dennett say anything on the lines of qualia being a useful concept in scientific study of how the brain works?
Why not? Thinking is what the brain does. Could we not emulate this process, or at least a simplified model, in silicon? Other than our expertise and cognitive ability, what is preventing it?
A preference means to like something. Do you think a computer can like something? In what way will it “like” something?
When I read people talking about computers, as if they “choose” something, I think, do those people realize what a computer is? It is a giant calculating machine. It is not more than that. Its as if, by virtue of computers becoming more sophisticated, and giving answers that seem almost human like, there are always these people who are turning their own brains off, and actually believing that a computer is preferring things, is choosing things because IT wants to choose them, not because it is programmed to do what it does. Just give a computer some things resembling eyes, and some moving eyebrows, and voila, you can actually fool people into thinking the computer thinks, feels, expresses. The reality of what computers actually do seems to get thrown out the window. Amazing.
Just because a computer can be made to “look” like it is thinking Alan, its not. Its a series of switches that only allow it to do whatever some programmer says it should do. Its not the computer thinking.
I know you like to play definition games, but computers don’t like. They don’t feel. They don’t get happy, or sad, or lonely, or bored. There is also no tooth fairy. Sorry Spock.
So I’ll grant you that point, for the sake of the argument. I’ll use my capacity for “thinking” and conclude there really is an external world, that there are other minds out there like mine, and that all of them are associated with physical structures called brains. Now what? What relevance does the fact that I came to these conclusions by “thinking about what I perceive” have? I genuinely can see none.
phoodoo,
You used the word “preference”. Why can’t a computer model emulate preference? I can’t see what the barrier is. What is preventing us from modelling thinking processes if we start with simple models? The brain mainly consists of neurons and glial cells and activity is electrochemical “firing” between neurons. The complexity is in the numbers, cells and connections, firing rate, triggering thresholds. Whilst in practice, even a simple model would be a huge undertaking, I don’t see a problem in principle.
phoodoo, Tooth fairy, Santa, Gods — all is human imagination. I knew that already.
ETA qualia too! 🙂
Yep, the world eagerly awaits the findings of zombie consciousness studies.
If we are the result of design, that is pretty much what happened.
I just told you why? But you still don’t seem to understand what a computer is.
If you are now suggesting that why can’t we just make a conscious brain? Well, good luck.
So you begin with thinking. What does this thinking involve, what is it applied to? You apply it to what is given to your world of experience, including but not confined to sense impressions.
As Steiner says, “Until we have understood the act of knowledge, we cannot judge the significance of statements about the content of the world arrived at through the act of cognition.”
So at this point no judgement is made whether the world of our experience is subjective, objective or somewhere in between. But many modern philosophers begin by asking the question, “What is the relationship between myself as subject to objective reality”? They assume from the start that there is really this separation between subject and object as they see it.
And I think that when Kastrup says that he is an objective idealist and also a subjective idealist, he is emphasising that to make the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity as is commonly done is unjustified and so any philosophy that begins from that stance is on shaky foundations.
I think that the problem here has a subtle complication: is there a difference that makes a difference between using a computer to simulate a minded organism and building something that really is a minded organism, only not “alive” in the strict sense? (I sometimes find it helpful to think of robots as “synthetic animals” rather than as “computers with legs”, just to fix my attention to what seems crucial here.)
There’s no doubt that one could write software that would simulate what it would be for an animal to make choices based on preferences — just as we can write software that simulates clouds and storms. But such a program would no more have preferences than a simulation of a storm is wet.
in other words, the question “could we build a synthetic animal that has preferences?” isn’t easily answered in terms of what we can program a computer to simulate.
What I mean and what I think you mean by consciousness are two different things.
Thinking is a physical process. In principle, it should be possible to emulate brain funtion in any suitable medium.
Ah, I see we disagree on the explanatory value of qualia. I would suggest with a good enough model then simulation becomes emulation. I’ll give it a bit more thought!
I can agree that “God” is a useful concept. But I have not found anything useful about “qualia”. I guess it is useful for people who play word games.
Brains don’t think. People think, and use their brains in the process.
What me, and everyone else on the entire planet except you mean by consciousness.
Well said, Neil 🙂
Guess that eliminates the possibility of being a brain in a vat.
That sounds reasonable. I wholeheartedly support those guys and girls.
I fail to see what is gained by rejecting that distinction. Are we already any closer to understanding consciousness, or did we only manage to get ourselves stuck in a very sophisticated form of analysis paralysis?
Yes, pretty much. We actually think about a world. Thinking about a chemical bath doesn’t seem very stimulating.
They probably teach about Waterloo in France.
But good point they might not intentionally carve the defeat in the walls of their tombs but the events leading up to the Exodus would have a effect on the economic results, plagues would a drain reserves. The loss of the first born male certainly would cause a disruption that could be reflected in record and maybe a boom for tombs. The loss of a army would result in the need to up conscription, more armaments needed. Lots of things can be supporting evidence.
newton: You surprise me, you relish questioning Einstein’s narrative , why not the Bible’s?
I relish both but tend to get defeated with the latter…
If you say so.
Anyone who relishes questioning a narrative has shown a tendency to judge.
Or the fish gets bigger with each retelling.
They didn’t have swords, or God couldn’t zapped the whole army without disturbing a bunch of fish? Kind of have thing for Harshman?
That would be a problem for getting ID in science class, but it is much more honest.
Actually it is William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument:
Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
The universe began to exist;
Therefore:
The universe has a cause.
The universe has a cause;
If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans (without) the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful;
Therefore,
An uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and infinitely powerful.
Not moving goal posts, the claim is it was divinely promised, something occurred and it was viewed as an Act of God fulfilling that promise. They may feel your skepticism is inexcusable
Well, OK. Without sensory input from the rest of the body, the external world, social contact to learn a language, a blood supply, nutrition, our brains wouldn’t be much use.
Depends on what connects the brain to the outside world. Would extremely careful dissection be able to remove a living brain and connect it to a blood supply to keep the cells alive? The cranial nerves embryologically-speaking could be considered part of the brain, maybe the whole nervous system. Would they be hooked up to some sort of virtual-reality interface? Two-way communication? Would they be brains already developed via a real life with social skills and language? Ethics? I need a lie-down.
That is a triangular approach. If we ignore the question of what is alive and what isn’t, what is conscious and what isn’t, who is experiencing qualia and who isn’t, go straight to the chase and the model is good enough, I don’t see what the barrier is. On the other hand, I think technology and biology will have to advance even to have a chance of emulating simple sentient organisms and the ultimate challenge – an emulated human – is not achievable.
Nobody has proposed the mechanism for consciousness when the large parts of the brain are missing or when 90% of neurons are squashed and non-functional…
Why would evolution evolve a brain that is mostly nonfunctional and can be compensated by 10% or 30% or whatever is left of it?
Quantum entanglement is a mechanism proposed by Hameroff and Penrose but how that could evolve is beyond natural selection and random mutations… -:)
J-Mac:
Haha. I see you’ve quietly dropped your claim about the surgical removal of 90% of the brain.
Your second claim is also bogus:
Here’s that update again, which says nothing about the neurons being non-functional:
Just curious, am I the only one who read this and thought, what in the heck is he trying to say?
You have tried to say-at least you have said you don’t see what the barrier would be- that one could make a computer which can have preferences. As this is the complete anti-thesis of computing-there is zero logic behind saying this. Forget about it being impossible technically, it is also ridiculous pragmatically. Imagine you one day asking your computer to print out your spreadsheet for your afternoon meeting, and the computer responding, “You know what, I don’t really feel like printing out your spreadsheet right now. I am playing fortnight with some other computers, so like, go ask someone else. Also, turn the lights off, its too bright in here. Now piss off…”
So your idea of computers having preferences-technically impossible (regardless of you not seeing the barrier), and pragmatically absurd.
Other than that, your logic is spot on.
Yup, I see no problem to emulating a sentience of that level in a model, albeit it might need more sophisticated computers and programming than we have at the moment.
Dennett does use the word ‘qualia’. I think ‘psi-phenomena’ is an imperfect but useful analogy of a word that both illusionists and realists use meaningfully.
A History of Qualia
Here’s the Humphrey paper Dennett talks about where Humphreys gives his ideas on how qualia could have evolved:
The Invention of Consciousness
[start of quote from Humphrey]
An invention can be:
1. A device or process, developed by experiment, designed to fulfill a practical goal.
For example, a light-bulb or a telescope.
But alternatively, an invention can be:
2. A mental fabrication, especially a falsehood, designed to please or persuade.
For example, a fairy tale or a piano sonata.
I am going to argue that human consciousness is an “invention” in both these senses.
Had you considered an OP? Your comment would work well as is with the addition of your argument to which I look forward with great anticipation. 😉
Do you remember Lionkitty who showed up in the thread on Graziano
youKeith created that addressed many of the issues in the papers I linked? She seems to have found a home in warmer climes (she was at U of Toronto when she posted here).http://phil.ufl.edu/person.html?id=ross
You seem to not have a clue about what a computer does. “If this-then that.” Computers don’t do, “If this-then.. you choose. Become blue.” “If this-punch the sky…” “If this-fly your freak flag…” “If this- why are you asking me, I am not the computer you are!” No more ifs, just be!
No matter how sophisticated they get, they won’t jump the barrier from “If this-then that”, you know why? Because that is what makes it a computer! Its called digital! Its a necessity built into the entire structure of a computer!
Now if you think someone can design a computer that does- “If this-then you choose” well then you know what that will take? Something other than a computer! A computer won’t need software anymore. It won’t need instructions. All this ridiculous time wasted learning programming will be over. It will no longer be like drawing a picture, it will be like a picture drawing itself. Instead of an architect designing a building, a building will make an architect. Why not? I don’t see any barriers!
So the next time you are thinking of making a cake, try something different instead. Let a cake make a chef. Don’t ask who cooked dinner, ask dinner cooked whom. What’s stopping it??
Come to think of it, when Lionel Messi scores one of his beautiful looking solo goals, are we actually being confused? Is it possible that what really happened is the goal scored Messi? What’s the barrier?
There is only one problem. Then who is going to argue it?
I once spent a co-op work term programming analog computers to simulate reactor loss of coolant accidents. That was before Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Programming meant patchboards and wires and debugging via oscilloscopes.
That’s the way it was and we liked it!
Anyways, carry on….
BruceS,
Now, if you could have just got it to do that without programming it…
IMO it’s a reasonable and necessary conclusion at the stage of human evolution which we humans must pass through. We must first feel this separation from the natural world, so that in the future we can comprehend the unity of existence through our own free efforts.
It is not a matter of rejecting it. It’s a matter of being careful that I am not prematurely assuming I know where the distinction lies and then proceeding from that position. We have learned from experience that, no matter how much they try to be an impartial observer, the experimenter can affect the experiment.
It’s not so easy to figure out what is subjective and what is objective. Do we really touch the table or are there always forces maintaining a gap? Which is objectively real, the table as we see it, the atoms it’s composed of, both, neither? Can we know the reality or is there some unknowable “thing in itself” forever beyond our reach?
Yes, I get all that. But my question was: what do we gain by it? What profound insights do we receive that we would have otherwise missed out on?
If this kind of loitering is typical of idealists, I don’t blame those blokes that just examine brains to learn about consciousness.
Alan,
That quote is from Humphrey, not from Bruce:
I do now, having re-read it.. There was a lot of noise in that thread, unfortunately.
*chuckles* Dennett promises!
of bad theorizing, and in particular, of failing to appreciate the distinction between the intentional object of a belief (for instance) and the cause(s) of that belief. Qualia, like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, have a history but that does not make them real. The cause of a hallucination, for instance, may not resemble the intentional object hallucinated at all, and the representation in the brain is not rendered in special subjective properties (qualia).
And Dennett delivers.
You’ve hit on two reasons I likely won’t do an OP — noise (often from people who did not read the articles) and repetition of ideas many of which were already covered in that thread.
A third reason is that Dennett distances his views from Humphrey’s in ways I am still working to understand in depth.
phoodoo,
Phoodoo, do you think there is any mileage in developing driverless cars?
Are you suggesting that brains-in-vats are not people too?
He’s suggesting that if Neil is correct when he says
…then a brain in a vat is not a person.
For the record, I disagree with Neil.
Alan,
It’s no surprise that in that paper, Dennett is arguing against the reality of qualia. He’s been doing so for decades, and that’s an indication of how important he considers the concept to be.
Likewise, Humphrey discusses the importance of qualia as a concept:
I think you will use any excuse you can find to put a post in guano if I give you an answer which shows how wrong you are, so I can’t answer.
Yes, I assumed that you disagreed. Most computationalists (“cognition is computation”) are likely to disagree with me about that (about brains in vats).
Found this comment of mine on the old Graziano thread: