A new theory of consciousness: conditionalism

[Jason Resch]

I would like to propose a theory of consciousness which I think might have some merit, but more importantly I would like to see what criticism others might have for it.

I have chosen the name "conditionalism" for this theory, as it is based loosely on the notion of conditional statements as they appear in both regular language, mathematics, and programming languages.

At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge, and knowledge is embodied by the existence of some relation to some truth.

A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state of knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is true. A simple example using a programming language:

if (x >= 5) then {

   // knowledge state of x being greater than or equal to 5

}

I think this way of considering consciousness, as that existing between those two braces: { } can explain a lot.

1. Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, not any particular physical thing we can point at or hold.

2. It provides for a straight-forward way to bind complex states of consciousness, though conjunction, for example:

If (a and b) {

    // knowledge of the simultaneous truth of both a and b

}

This allows states of consciousness to be arbitrarily complex and varied.

3. It explains the causal efficacy of states of consciousness. All we need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge. Consciousness is then seen as antecedent to, and a prerequisite for, any intelligent behavior. For example:

If (light == color.red) {

    slowDown();

}

4. It shows the close relationship between consciousness and information, where information is defined as "a difference that makes a difference", as conditionals are all about what differences make which differences.

5. It shows a close relationship between consciousness and computationalism, since computations are all about counterfactual and conditional relations.

6. It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead to conditionals.

7. It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals and combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other neurons have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger one.

8. It seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, reflective, etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some conditionals. As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This explains the biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in the guidance of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of knowledge) would be strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve.

Jason 

[Stathis Papaioannou]

I agree with all this and as usual it is very well put and explained. What I have difficulty with is the concept of implementation. This is straightforward if we consider cases where the machine interacts with its environment, but puzzling when we consider similar physical processes in a different situation where such interaction is not possible. A certain sequence of movement of gears and springs may be implementing completely different computations or experiences in different machines, just as a certain string of Latin characters might mean different things in different languages. The semantics seems dependent on the observer, and there may be multiple possible observers, no observer, in the case of a conscious computation a self-generated observer, and in the case of an inputless conscious computation a self-generated observer not dependent on any external observer or other environmental input.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[spudb...@aol.com]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02646-x

The universe as a quantum computer.

[John Clark]

On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 1:47 PM Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge,

That is certainly true, but what about the reverse, does a high state of knowledge imply consciousness?  I'll never be able to prove it but I believe it does but of course for this idea to be practical there must be some way of demonstrating that the thing in question does indeed have a high state of knowledge, and the test for that is the Turing Test, and the fact that my fellow human beings have passed the Turing test is the only reason I believe that I am NOT the only conscious being in the universe. 

> A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state of knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is true.

Then "conditional" is not a useful philosophical term because you could be conscious of and know a lot about Greek mythology. but none of it is true except for the fact that Greek mythology is about Greek mythology.

>  Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, not any particular physical thing we can point at or hold.

I mostly agree with that but that doesn't imply there's anything mystical going on, information is also immaterial and you can't point to ANY PARTICULAR physical thing (although you can always point to SOME physical thing) and I believe it's a brute fact that consciousness is the way information feels when it is being processed intelligently. However there is nothing ephemeral about information, as far as we can tell the laws of physics are unitary, that is information can't be destroyed and the probability of all possible outcomes must add up to 100%. For a while Stephen Hawking thought that Black Holes destroyed information but he later changed his mind, Kip Thorne still thinks it may do so but he is in the minority.

> All we need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge.

At the most fundamental level that pretty much defines what a computer programmer does to make a living.  

 > It shows the close relationship between consciousness and information, where information is defined as "a difference that makes a difference",

And the smallest difference that still makes a difference is the difference between one and zero, or on and off. 

> It shows a close relationship between consciousness and computationalism,

I strongly agree with that,  it makes no difference if the thing doing that computation is carbon-based and wet and squishy, or silicon-based and dry and hard.  

 >  It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead to conditionals.

YES!

> It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals and combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other neurons have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger one. It seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, reflective, etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some conditionals. As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This explains the biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in the guidance of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of knowledge) would be strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve.

I agree with all of that. 

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

xex

 

 

[Jason Resch]

Thank you John for your thoughts. I few notes below:

On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 7:17 AM John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 1:47 PM Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> At a high level, states of consciousness are states of knowledge,

That is certainly true, but what about the reverse, does a high state of knowledge imply consciousness?  I'll never be able to prove it but I believe it does but of course for this idea to be practical there must be some way of demonstrating that the thing in question does indeed have a high state of knowledge, and the test for that is the Turing Test, and the fact that my fellow human beings have passed the Turing test is the only reason I believe that I am NOT the only conscious being in the universe. 

Yes, I believe there's an identity between states of knowledge and states of consciousness. That is almost implicit in the definition of consciousness:

con- means "with"

-scious- means "knowledge"

-ness means "the state of being"

con-scious-ness -> the state of being with knowledge.

Then, the question becomes: what is a state of knowledge? How do we implement or instantiate a knowledge state, physically or otherwise?

My intuition is that it requires a process of differentiation, such that some truth becomes entangled with the system's existence.

 

> A conditional is a means by which a system can enter/reach a state of knowledge (i.e. a state of consciousness) if and only if some fact is true.

Then "conditional" is not a useful philosophical term because you could be conscious of and know a lot about Greek mythology. but none of it is true except for the fact that Greek mythology is about Greek mythology.

Yes. Here, the truth doesn't have to be some objective truth, it can be truth of what causes ones mind to reach a particular state. E.g., here it would be the truth of what particular sensory data came into the scholar's eyes as he read a book of Greek mythology.

>  Consciousness is revealed as an immaterial, ephemeral relation, not any particular physical thing we can point at or hold.

I mostly agree with that but that doesn't imply there's anything mystical going on, information is also immaterial and you can't point to ANY PARTICULAR physical thing

I agree.

 (although you can always point to SOME physical thing) and I believe it's a brute fact that consciousness is the way information feels when it is being processed intelligently.

I like this analogy, but I think it is incomplete. Can information (by itself) feel? Can information (by itself) have meaning?

I see value in making a distinction between information and "the system to be informed." I think the pair are necessary for there to be meaning, or consciousness.

However there is nothing ephemeral about information, as far as we can tell the laws of physics are unitary, that is information can't be destroyed and the probability of all possible outcomes must add up to 100%. For a while Stephen Hawking thought that Black Holes destroyed information but he later changed his mind, Kip Thorne still thinks it may do so but he is in the minority.

I agree information can't be destroyed. But note that what I called ephemeral was the conditional relation, which (at least usually) seems to occur and last during a short time.

> All we need to do is link some action to a state of knowledge.

At the most fundamental level that pretty much defines what a computer programmer does to make a living.  

Yes.

 > It shows the close relationship between consciousness and information, where information is defined as "a difference that makes a difference",

And the smallest difference that still makes a difference is the difference between one and zero, or on and off. 

The bit is the simplest unit of information, but interestingly, there can also be fractional bits. For example, if there's a 75% chance of some event, like two coin tossings not both being heads, and I tell you that two coin tossings were not both heads, then I have only communicated -log2(0.75) ~= 0.415 bits of information to you.

> It shows a close relationship between consciousness and computationalism,

I strongly agree with that,  it makes no difference if the thing doing that computation is carbon-based and wet and squishy, or silicon-based and dry and hard.  

Absolutely  👍

 >  It is also supportive of functionalism and it's multiple realizability, as there are many possibile physical arrangements that lead to conditionals.

YES!

> It's clear there neural networks firings is all about conditionals and combining them in whether or not a neuron will fire and which other neurons have fired binds up many conditional relations into one larger one. It seems no intelligent (reactive, deliberative, contemplative, reflective, etc.) process can be made that does not contain at least some conditionals. As without them, there can be no responsiveness. This explains the biological necessity to evolve conditionals and apply them in the guidance of behavior. In other words, consciousness (states of knowledge) would be strictly necessary for intelligence to evolve.

I agree with all of that. 

Happy to hear that. Thanks for all your feedback.

Jason 

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

xex

 

 

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[Brent Meeker]

These ideas of the universe as computation are OK.  The equations of QM are reversible and their realization can certainly be seen as computation.  But then it is assumed that the computation is discrete/digital, which is not at all the same as quantized.  QM is built on a continuum and no one has found a plausible way of making it discrete, though many have tried.

Brent

On 8/25/2023 4:57 PM, 'spudb...@aol.com' via Everything List wrote:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02646-x

The universe as a quantum computer.

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[spudb...@aol.com]

https://fortune.com/2023/08/25/a-i-creativity-test-score-humans/

[John Clark]

On Sun, Aug 27, 2023 at 7:49 PM 'spudb...@aol.com' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

https://fortune.com/2023/08/25/a-i-creativity-test-score-humans/

Thanks for posting this Spud. Interesting article, although I'm sure some people will claim that the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking must be broken because AIs can now do so well on it, just as some foolish people already say the Turing Test must be broken because computers can now pass it so easily. But if a test tells you something you don't want to hear that doesn't necessarily mean the test is broken. But I think this does tell you something that is undeniably true, it tells you that the Singularity is much nearer than anyone, including me, would've expected one year ago. But that's exactly what you'd expect to happen in the run up to the Singularity because the unexpected is what a singularity is all about.

It's especially relevant because:

"All of the results were evaluated by trained reviewers at Scholastic Testing Service, a private testing company that provides scoring for the TTCT. They didn’t know in advance that some of the tests they’d be scoring had been completed by AI.  Since Scholastic Testing Service is a private company, it does not share its prompts with the public. This ensured that GPT-4 would not have been able to scrape the internet for past prompts and their responses."

And yet:

"GPT-4 scored in the top 1% of test-takers for the originality of its ideas. From our research, we believe this marks one of the first examples of AI meeting or exceeding the human ability for original thinking."

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

tsp

[John Clark]

On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 8:17 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:

> These ideas of the universe as computation are OK.  The equations of QM are reversible and their realization can certainly be seen as computation.  But then it is assumed that the computation is discrete/digital, which is not at all the same as quantized. QM is built on a continuum and no one has found a plausible way of making it discrete, though many have tried.

I don't think the universe is a computer, but it may be a quantum computer.  

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

cqm