Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

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Zelebg
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Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Zelebg »

Some say it's pain and joy, or more precisely the ability to feel or be conscious of fear and desire, for the purpose to produce creative-reaction organism as opposed to just reflex-reactive. In other words, when organism encounters danger, then the ability to feel fear will give it options to deal with it creatively and in advance, while with reflex-reaction it can only run away, possibly too late. The same goes for the desire and seeking pleasure. To sum it up, to experience feelings subjectively makes it possible to seek pleasure and avoid danger more efficiently through the new functionality of newly acquired sentience - ability to plan in advance.

First, any other theory why consciousness? Second, this all makes sense, except I do not see why that or whatever functionality necessarily requires to be accompanied by the subjective experience or qualia. Why the need to actually suffer the pain, why it needs to hurt instead of just having an information about 'pain signal'? Why need to feel unpleasant fear instead of simply get 'fear signal' and 'compute' how to avoid the 'pain signal' without actually feeling or being conscious of anything?
Skepdick
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Skepdick »

Firstly - the scientific point: This line of reasoning is very confused. Asking 'why X?' question in context of evolution is non-sensical.

When seeking evolutionary 'explanations' there are only two answers that matter:

1. A posteriori: survivorship bias. Things without X have been selected out already.
2. A priori: luck. Things with X haven't been selected out yet. They will be - just wait.

If the duration a species' survival is a metric to go by then jellyfish are the perfect example as to why consciousness is not required for survival.

Secondly - the philosophical point: You don't even know whether 'you' have consciousness. It's just something you SAY about yourself, but an AI would say the exact same thing. You don't have a clue how to isolate 'consciousness' or test for it even within yourself, so the question you can't answer goes like this: How do I know that I am not an AI?
Zelebg
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Zelebg »

Skepdick, how's any of that have to do with anything I said? You are just pulling out wrong conclusions and replying to your own hallucinations.
Skepdick
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Skepdick »

Zelebg wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 9:36 am Skepdick, how's any of that have to do with anything I said? You are just pulling out wrong conclusions and replying to your own hallucinations.
It has everything to do with what you said.

You asked "Why need to feel unpleasant fear instead of simply get 'fear signal' and 'compute' how to avoid the 'pain signal' without actually feeling or being conscious of anything?"

And the answer stands exactly as before.....

Either those species who didn't experience unpleasant pain were selected out.
Or it's just incredible luck: your feeling of unpleasant fear/pain, consciousness etc. has absolutely no evolutionary advantage (it is some other variable which contributed to your survival up until now) and you will go extinct soon enough.

Fundamentally - you are counting your hits but not your misses. You are ignoring all the organisms which have evolved and survived natural selection despite their lack of consciousness/qualia/pain. You are demonstrating Confirmation bias...

In science, when you ask a stupid question you do get a stupid answer.

Scientifically speaking "Why?" is a stupid question.
Science deals with "How?" questions.
Last edited by Skepdick on Mon Nov 11, 2019 10:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
Zelebg
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Zelebg »

Skepdick wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 10:33 am You asked "Why need to feel unpleasant fear instead of simply get 'fear signal' and 'compute' how to avoid the 'pain signal' without actually feeling or being conscious of anything?"

And the answer stands exactly as before.....

Either those species who didn't experience unpleasant pain were selected out.
Kiddo, there is no evolutionary criteria to select when in both cases they behave the same. You do not even understand words and you go around calling people stupid?! Baby philosopher, how cute.
Skepdick
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Skepdick »

Zelebg wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 10:51 am Kiddo, there is no evolutionary criteria to select when in both cases they behave the same.
Dimwit, the selection function needs not select on anything in particular. Not even behaviour. The selection function could be stochastic - and to us, humans it appears stochastic a priori. It appears deterministic a posteriori a.k.a hind-sight bias.

In the case of an asteroid impact the variable which determines your immediate survival at the time of impact has nothing to do with your behaviour and everything to do with your distance from ground zero.

The dinosaurs dominated this planet for 180 million years. In all this time they failed to become multi-planetary. That's why they are extinct.
They failed to develop and grasp the concept of redundancy and they put all their eggs in one basket/planet.
Zelebg wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 10:51 am You do not even understand words and you go around calling people stupid?!
One could say that's precisely your disability. All you understand is words, but you don't understand how to think.
Zelebg wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 10:51 am Baby philosopher, how cute.
I am not a philosopher. Given your demonstrable inability to think like a scientist, I can tell that you are.
Last edited by Skepdick on Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
Dimebag
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Dimebag »

Zelebg wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 4:52 am Some say it's pain and joy, or more precisely the ability to feel or be conscious of fear and desire, for the purpose to produce creative-reaction organism as opposed to just reflex-reactive. In other words, when organism encounters danger, then the ability to feel fear will give it options to deal with it creatively and in advance, while with reflex-reaction it can only run away, possibly too late. The same goes for the desire and seeking pleasure. To sum it up, to experience feelings subjectively makes it possible to seek pleasure and avoid danger more efficiently through the new functionality of newly acquired sentience - ability to plan in advance.

First, any other theory why consciousness? Second, this all makes sense, except I do not see why that or whatever functionality necessarily requires to be accompanied by the subjective experience or qualia. Why the need to actually suffer the pain, why it needs to hurt instead of just having an information about 'pain signal'? Why need to feel unpleasant fear instead of simply get 'fear signal' and 'compute' how to avoid the 'pain signal' without actually feeling or being conscious of anything?
Let me ask you, when you put your hand over a flame, what is your initial reaction? It is to withdraw from the flame. You do this because you feel pain. Now, the body actually has a “silent” signal of pain below the level of awareness which acts much quicker than the consciously felt pain, it sends a signal to the hand to withdraw, almost before you are aware of it. But, what is important is, if you don’t consciously perceive that pain, you won’t learn not to do that for next time. Imagine if you are a little kid. You touch the flame and your hand has the sudden withdrawal action away from it. You then feel the pain a few hundredths of a second later, quite traumatically, and your brain associates the source of the pain, the flame, with a fear response, so that the next time you see the flame, the fear response will be elicited by merely seeing the flame. This is enough to ensure you don’t touch the flame again. But you must be aware of the flame for this fear response to occur. Fear is also felt consciously. It is motivational, which means it creates motion. There are people who don’t have a pain response. They tend to hurt themselves a lot, which is bad. Pain must be felt to be effective.

You can, however, override the pain response. This is via conscious control or veto over the initial pain response. Consciousness can not only create action, but can stop otherwise automatic action, via awareness. What’s important is, don’t think of consciousness as the “first cause” of action. It exists in a causal chain. There are prior causes leading to your conscious deliberate action. These prior causes might not be conscious. But consciousness is not useless in this case, it is the means by which all of these deliberate (planned or novel) actions can occur.
Zelebg
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Zelebg »

Dimebag wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:28 am
Let me ask you, when you put your hand over a flame, what is your initial reaction? It is to withdraw from the flame. You do this because you feel pain. Now, the body actually has a “silent” signal of pain below the level of awareness which acts much quicker than the consciously felt pain, it sends a signal to the hand to withdraw, almost before you are aware of it. But, what is important is, if you don’t consciously perceive that pain, you won’t learn not to do that for next time. Imagine if you are a little kid. You touch the flame and your hand has the sudden withdrawal action away from it. You then feel the pain a few hundredths of a second later, quite traumatically, and your brain associates the source of the pain, the flame, with a fear response, so that the next time you see the flame, the fear response will be elicited by merely seeing the flame. This is enough to ensure you don’t touch the flame again. But you must be aware of the flame for this fear response to occur. Fear is also felt consciously. It is motivational, which means it creates motion. There are people who don’t have a pain response. They tend to hurt themselves a lot, which is bad. Pain must be felt to be effective.
Yes. But all that is just computation, does not require subjective experienc. This qualia might not be necessary after all, but then it would seem to burn unnecessary calories and that shouldn't be happening in evolution.
Zelebg
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Zelebg »

Skepdick wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:03 am The selection function could be stochastic - and to us, humans it appears stochastic a priori.
I'm talking about Darwin's "natural selection" where the whole point is that it's not stochastic, but deterministic. And even if your objections were not completely wrong they would still be irrelevant because I'm not talking about what may or may not be selected, nor am I talking about what needs or needs not be selected. I'm talking about specific case where the selection has already been made. You are again hallucinating and talking to yourself. Baby philosopher, so cute!
Dimebag
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Dimebag »

Zelebg wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:13 pm
Dimebag wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:28 am
Let me ask you, when you put your hand over a flame, what is your initial reaction? It is to withdraw from the flame. You do this because you feel pain. Now, the body actually has a “silent” signal of pain below the level of awareness which acts much quicker than the consciously felt pain, it sends a signal to the hand to withdraw, almost before you are aware of it. But, what is important is, if you don’t consciously perceive that pain, you won’t learn not to do that for next time. Imagine if you are a little kid. You touch the flame and your hand has the sudden withdrawal action away from it. You then feel the pain a few hundredths of a second later, quite traumatically, and your brain associates the source of the pain, the flame, with a fear response, so that the next time you see the flame, the fear response will be elicited by merely seeing the flame. This is enough to ensure you don’t touch the flame again. But you must be aware of the flame for this fear response to occur. Fear is also felt consciously. It is motivational, which means it creates motion. There are people who don’t have a pain response. They tend to hurt themselves a lot, which is bad. Pain must be felt to be effective.
Yes. But all that is just computation, does not require subjective experienc. This qualia might not be necessary after all, but then it would seem to burn unnecessary calories and that shouldn't be happening in evolution.
The brain fundamentally operates via the same signalling system, neurons, action potentials, and neurochemistry.

Imagine the signals are like 1’s or 0’s (just for simplicities sake, it’s more complex than that). Now, that binary code is just the medium via which the actual signal is encoded, just like your computer. The operating system in your computer translates this basic binary into a new layer of abstraction, a different language that software can interface with.

Well imagine your different senses and motor cortex are like the software, they all speak different languages, some care about edges, colours, shapes, depth, location, others care about tone, pitch, volume, others care about smells. They all have different interests, and so have their own language they speak. When they need to work together to accomplish a task, there needs to be a universal translator between all the different senses, cognitive areas, motor areas. This is conscious experience. All the senses learn this universal language and so can talk to any other part of the brain, and know what it’s talking about.

When you learn to drive for the first time, and the instructor says, okay, push in the clutch and change to first gear. You do this easy enough, (actually, your ears hear the verbal command translated into language, which the motor cortex understands and so it pushes your left foot down on the clutch). Then the instructor says, okay, slowly release the clutch and add some accelerator. You do so, but the car stalls. You panic, because you know it shouldn’t do that. The instructor gives you more specific information, “slowly release the clutch until you feel the car start to shudder a little”. You do that, and feel a shudder encoded from your somatosensory cortex. The instructor tells you, “that’s the friction point, now slowly add some power and Then slowly release the clutch”. You now have a reference point to look for when you are releasing the clutch, you feel the shudder and this acts as a trigger to start adding power, and as you add power this is the next trigger to release the clutch. You could not do this previously, but gradually, and consciously, you start to build up a specific sequence of movements, combining sensory information from multiple different senses which each have their own language, and feeding these into motor commands, which is then observed for correct execution, as well as monitoring the car for sounds of potential stalling, or somatosensory feelings of vibration. None of these brain systems could talk to each other in this specific way previously. However, thanks to the patient instructor, they guided you through all the movements and required sensory information and feedback to achieve the task, helping you wire together those systems as you continue to repeat the learning process, to the point where they wire together permanently, and conscious attention and awareness is no longer necessary. Only once these disparate brain networks are connected permanently can awareness focus elsewhere.

This is the great power of consciousness and awareness working in unison to learn. This enables cultures to grow, technology to be produced and passed down, methods of survival, of sustenance, amazingly powerful survival methods, only possible through consciousness.

Just because a task can be carried out without direct awareness, doesn’t mean it always could. A complex behaviour pattern must be learned to be adaptive when the arms race of nature is at play. Pre-programmed responses can be beaten by simply observing them, and predicting them.
Skepdick
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Skepdick »

Zelebg wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:40 pm I'm talking about Darwin's "natural selection" where the whole point is that it's not stochastic, but deterministic.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Q.E.D

For somebody who claims to understand words, you sure don't understand that Hindsight bias is also known as creeping determinism.

Do you need help with a dictionary?

creeping adjective occurring or developing gradually and almost imperceptibly.

How did you determine that Darwin's natural selection is deterministic?

The first principle [of science] is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool. --Richard Feynman

Zelebg wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:40 pm And even if your objections were not completely wrong they would still be irrelevant because I'm not talking about what may or may not be selected, nor am I talking about what needs or needs not be selected. I'm talking about specific case where the selection has already been made.
Has the selection "already been made"? As far as I can tell the selection process is still underway. In the absence of mechanism to select OUT a particular trait - all traits will maximise until the system reaches some temporary state of equilibrium.

Consciousness too has maximised - and given the current playing field, humans are dominant at the game.

If an extinction event (like the one which wiped out the dinosaurs) were to repeat itself tomorrow - do you think humans will survive it?
If you can't answer "yes" with a high degree of certainty, then how can you possibly determine that your consciousness is of any evolutionary advantage whatsoever?
Zelebg wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:40 pm Baby philosopher, so cute!
Thank you for the compliment. Ironically, in the game of natural selection being a full-blown philosopher is an unfavourable trait.

You know nothing about gambling, e.g non-determinism. In the game of complexity avoiding stupidity is significantly easier (and cheaper) than seeking brilliance.

Parsimony before perfection.
Last edited by Skepdick on Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:45 pm, edited 6 times in total.
Skepdick
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Skepdick »

Zelebg wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:13 pm Yes. But all that is just computation, does not require subjective experienc. This qualia might not be necessary after all, but then it would seem to burn unnecessary calories and that shouldn't be happening in evolution.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that qualia are not computation.

Pain is just a hardware interrupt.

Fight or flight is an interrupt handler
Zelebg
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Zelebg »

Dimebag wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:01 pm This is conscious experience. All the senses learn this universal language and so can talk to any other part of the brain, and know what it's talking about.
That's all good. It may be like that whether it is necessary or not. But I don't want to just explain it with the first thing that makes sense. I have a feeling 'subjective experience' is essential for some part in those functions in a way it could not be simulated on a PC, that it could simply not work without qualia. And I also feel the aspect of that non-computable function hides all the rest of the answers for the hard problem of consciousness and free will. I think I'm expecting more crazier type of functionality to fit there, like intuition, or even telekinesis.
Dimebag
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Dimebag »

Zelebg wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:47 pm
Dimebag wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:01 pm This is conscious experience. All the senses learn this universal language and so can talk to any other part of the brain, and know what it's talking about.
That's all good. It may be like that whether it is necessary or not. But I don't want to just explain it with the first thing that makes sense. I have a feeling 'subjective experience' is essential for some part in those functions in a way it could not be simulated on a PC, that it could simply not work without qualia. And I also feel the aspect of that non-computable function hides all the rest of the answers for the hard problem of consciousness and free will. I think I'm expecting more crazier type of functionality to fit there, like intuition, or even telekinesis.
Right now, there is not even a picture of the structure of consciousness, I.e. what systems of the brain are doing what at any given time when we are doing particular tasks requiring consciousness in varying degrees. Until we have a basic understanding of the system of consciousness, we may as well just randomly guess as to the answers of the hard problem. We need to build answers to the hard problem from solid foundations of understanding. We currently don’t have that solid foundation. We need to understand the basics of how the system operates. This is not even the easy problem of consciousness, this is just having a clear model of how consciousness works based on brain anatomy. Then, we can take a closer look at all that is going on there, once we know where to look, and truly understand what is happening. Maybe then we might understand the easy problem. Even then, we might be left with some undefinable question as to why all those functions produce that felt sense of consciousness. I have higher hopes though, that to truly solve the easy problem as Chalmers coined it, which would be to understand the total functionality of consciousness, we would gain insight into why there is anything it’s like to be conscious.
Skepdick
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Re: Evolutionary reason for consciousness?

Post by Skepdick »

Dimebag wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:56 pm Right now, there is not even a picture of the structure of consciousness, I.e. what systems of the brain are doing what at any given time when we are doing particular tasks requiring consciousness in varying degrees.
You have already set yourself up for the trap of circular reasoning, all you have to do is walk into it.

How do you go about asserting whether any particular task does or does not require consciousness if you don't know what consciousness is?

Starting with an agnostic-empiricist position:
What do you interpret as confirmatory evidence that a particular tasks requires consciousness?
What do you interpret as disconfirmatory evidence that a particular task doesn't require consciousness?

You can't solve the hard problem of consciousness without solving the relatively-easier problem of criterion.
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