Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Transhuman

Consciousness

   Post 104.  October 28, 2019 continued . . .

  The Feeling of Consciousness

   Emergence of Mind from Matter

 Like an electrical device, the “mechanism” of Consciousness only produces Experience when it has a complete circuit of information flow. That is, all five of IIT’s necessary conditions must be met in order to create the holistic state of Awareness : 1Unity, 2Structural Form, 3Distinct Boundaries, 4Significant Differences (information), and an 5Exclusive Relationship between inside & outside, self & other. These are also the necessary properties for Life, as in a biological cell. So, I could conclude that Mind is a highly-developed form of Life. The only extra feature is 6Self-Representation, often imagined as a person viewing a “cartesian theatre”3 in the brain. That inner observer provides a point-of-view or perspective, and functions as-if a homunculus is in the inside looking out. The metaphorical “little man” is a difference detector, who is on the lookout for any significant changes that might affect Self, which is what we call Meaningful.

Although we take personal consciousness for granted, a more general question remains : does Awareness have an evolutionary function? Is it essential for life, or just an epi-phenomenon — a spandrel4? Scientists and philosophers still argue about what “survival value is attached to experience”. Some have concluded that “consciousness has no causal role at all”, and that “feelings have no function”. If that is the case, all animals, including humans, are zombie agents5 , with no freewill at all, hence no agency. Which may seem logical from a materialistic interpretation of evolution, but sounds counter-intuitive to most of us. Yet Hoffman argues that consciousness is adaptive for organisms in complex habitats, especially social contexts, as a way to deal with novelty, which Darwinian reflexes are not pre-programmed to handle .

A completely opposite opinion on Consciousness says that it is inevitable in evolution. Hence, the next great blossoming of awareness will be due to artificial evolution. This speculation is based on the development of computers which display some remarkable characteristics of Intelligence. Quantum computers are even expected to become super-intelligent. So, the next logical step will be for our smart machines to become aware of what they are doing, and why. But Hoffman makes a distinction between the linear Boolean (binary, true/false) computations of computers, and the non-linear Analog (continuously variable) thinking of biological creatures. Hence, he concludes that “intelligence and consciousness are very different”. And he predicts that “IIT spells doom for the hope that we can transcend brain death, by uploading our minds to the cloud”. Apparently theories of Transhumanism are based on the assumption that Consciousness is a quantitative expression of Intelligence, rather than a qualitative emergence from Life.                        Post 104 continued . . . click Next

Koch & Tononi
integrate information
into Consciousness

3. Cartesian Theatre :
“Cartesian theater" is a derisive term coined by philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett to refer pointedly to a defining aspect of what he calls Cartesian materialism, which he considers to be the often unacknowledged remnants of Cartesian dualism in modern materialist theories of the mind.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_theater

The Soul is imagined as a liitle man in the brain watching a movie on the screen of consciousness.

4. Spandrel : “a by-product of the selection of other characteristics . . . rather than being directly selected for.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandrel_(biology)

5. Zombie Agent :
Unlike movie zombies, philo-sophical zombies are just like you and me, except they don’t know what they are doing or why.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

The Feeling of
Life Itself

Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can’t Be Computed

Christof Koch

Neuro-scientist

“Conscousness is the experience of living”

Trans-Biology?