Human Consciousness: not a hard problem (Humans)

by dhw, Monday, January 18, 2016, 13:21 (3231 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID:(Under "David Deutsch"): An in-depth discussion on whether AGI is possible:

https://aeon.co/essays/how-close-are-we-to-creating-artificial-intelligence?utm_source=...

QUOTE: Clearing this logjam will not, by itself, provide the answer. Yet the answer, conceived in those terms, cannot be all that difficult. For yet another consequence of understanding that the target ability is qualitatively different is that, since humans have it and apes do not, the information for how to achieve it must be encoded in the relatively tiny number of differences between the DNA of humans and that of chimpanzees. So in one respect I can agree with the AGI-is-imminent camp: it is plausible that just a single idea stands between us and the breakthrough. But it will have to be one of the best ideas ever." (David's bold)-David's comment: Deutsch's concluding remarks in a very long and thorough essay on epistemology and the meaning of true intelligence. I view his remark about human/chimp DNA difference to mirror my insistence we are different in kind.-I think we've exhausted the difference-in-kind argument, but there is a major problem here which ties in with this present post on the subject of AI and consciousness. If you favour dualism - a separation between mind and body - you cannot attribute human intelligence to a code in the DNA. Hence your comment on the essay below: “Hopeful, but is his approach realistic? Consciousness is based on information but it is immaterial itself.” That is the crunch question, and after a great start, the writer seems to me to go right off the tracks:- http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/01/consciousness-color-brain/423522/-QU... "The hard problem of our own time is the mystery of consciousness. Let me be precise about what I mean by consciousness. These days it's not hard to understand how the brain can process information about the world, how it can store and recall memories, how it can construct self knowledge including even very complex self knowledge about one's personhood and mortality. That's the content of consciousness, and it's no longer a fundamental mystery. It's information, and we know how to build computers that process information. What's mysterious is how we get to be conscious of all that content. How do we get the inner feeling? And what is that inner feeling anyway?-So far, so good. Yes, the content of consciousness is information, and yes, he is asking all the right questions. It's followed by an admirable summary of the different answers that have been offered, including scientific and mystic, but then he prepares us for the big moment:
 
"The brain processes information. (My bold - see lower down.) It focuses its processing resources on this or that chunk of data. That's the complex, mechanistic act of a massive computer. The brain also describes this act to itself. That description, shaped by millions of years of evolution, weird and quirky and stripped of details, depicts a “me” and a state of subjective consciousness.”-First blip. When he says the brain describes the act of processing information, that description does not “depict a “me” or a state of subjective consciousness”. The act of processing is not “me”. It is the “me” that provides the description of the act of processing, and we do not know what this “me” consists of. That is the mystery! The confusion is typified - you won't like this, but I am actually on your side here - in his use of the word “information”, highlighted below:
 
QUOTE: “The study of consciousness needs to be lifted out of the mysticism that has dominated it. Consciousness is not just a matter of philosophy, opinion, or religion. It's a matter of hard science. It's a matter of understanding the brain and the mind—a trillion-stranded sculpture made out of information. (My bold) It's also a matter of engineering. If we can understand the functionality of the brain, then we can build the same functionality into our computers..."-Earlier he said the brain processes information (my bold). Yes. But now he says the brain and the mind...are made out of information (my bold). This means firstly that information processes information. It is what you have called “shorthand” and what I call a misleading and confusing use of the word. No, information does not process information. As I keep saying, we need to distinguish between the content of consciousness, which is information, and the mechanism that processes it. Some of the processing is unconscious, and that is the extent to which I'd say it is true that the brain processes information. I'd also say that nobody can pinpoint the exact stage at which unconscious processes become conscious. But we are now talking specifically about consciousness, and he takes it for granted that the brain and the CONSCIOUS mind are synonymous. You could hardly have a more direct opposition to your own belief that “consciousness is based on information but is immaterial in itself.” What this boils down to, therefore, is a very simple hypothesis: if the mind and the brain are synonymous, and consciousness is the PRODUCT of materials, it should be possible for us to create artificial consciousness. But the “if” is the big question, and until we know the SOURCE of consciousness (if we ever do), his musings are based on a purely subjective assumption.