Kharakov

So you say the laws of physics produced both consciousness and iron? What makes you think the laws of physics didn't evolve out of consciousness?

Kharakov

So you believe that the "desires" of a computer program are the same type of desire that a conscious being has?

desire:1 : to long or hope for (www.m-w.com)
goal: 2 : the end toward which effort is directed (www.m-w.com)

The "desires" and "goals" of a computer program are part of code that is being executed. We can call them desires/goals but we don't know if the computer actually experiences desire to achieve the goal of the binary codes. If a computer does experience desire to achieve its goals, than it is aware of its goal.

I suppose a computer programmer could call the variables of a computer program goals and desires if they desired to. Programming something to appear to desire something is different then something actually desiring something.

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Observing implys active, purposeful perception of the environment. There is no such thing as a completely passive observer. Something doesn't need to be observing something to be aware of it though.

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Well, you don't know if a rock percieves itself as passive or not. Why does something have to respond to its environment in a way that you percieve to be intelligent, for it to be intelligent?

Where did you learn what it is all about? From observing the environment (which started out as rocks and other stuff)? From other people? Where did they- and so on and so forth, until way in the past when the earth was simply a big rock with water/methane/CO2 gas. If we go back far enough, all knowledge has been built upon the original "passive" interactions of some rock with water, methane, CO2, lightning, etc.

Kharakov

I said appear for a reason. The material that makes up humans responds to the same natural laws that rocks do.

A rock responds to the blow of a hammer in the way that physical law dictates:

A) rock chips according to physical law

A human responds to the sight of a raised hammer in the way that physical law dictates:
A) Eyes recieve input
B) brain processes input
C) brain sends signals
D) muscles move body out of way of object

All of these processes follow the same laws that govern the material that makes up the rock.

Now it appears that the human has done something that the rock did not- but all along the human is obeying the same physical laws as the rock. If the rock had the same configuration of matter, it would respond in the same way. The rock is different- it responds to a different level of stimuli then a human does. It responds in a different way then a human as well. Physical law still drives both of the processes. Physical law also implies that you will not be able to understand that physical law drives all processes until it causes you to understand it. You are driven by physical law, and so are rocks.

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Humans require nothing, they don't have requirements. They don't require life, they don't require happyness, etc. If a human wants life- it requires food/ water/ air to keep that life. If the human wants life- it does so because the physical laws that drive the human create the feeling of desire for life in the human (although all actions that play out are a result of physical laws- including the seeking of food).

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You don't think that evidence indicates that all of the particles in your body obey the same laws as the particles in a rock? You don't think that your consciousness is part of these laws being acted out? Your consciousness is the sum of all the material (matter/energy) that makes up your body and your environment- even another person talking to you is part of your consciousness (it is within your awareness). All of these things effect you in a much more refined way then they effect a rock, although all objects in your envronment respond in some way to the physical vibration of the other persons voice- which has much more subtle effects upon a rock than it does on you (in you it causes neurons to fire, in a rock it might cause on or 2 bonds to break between a few atoms, maybe cause some kind of microfracture or reform some crystal at the atomic level). Since your experiences are caused by changes to the physical component of your consciousness (your brain), then why wouldn't the rock experience something along those lines as well? Maybe human consciousness has a much stronger field strength than that of a rock- but it does not make it more dynamic or intelligent.

So far I have seen 2 types of (apparently) more organized matter: crystalline materials (rocks, diamonds, mineral deposits) that are very organized, but do not display speedy changes in the environment (unless you use a crystal seed in the right environment) and "living" materials (humans, plants, animals) which appear to make speedy changes in the current environmental conditions (like crystals do in the correct conditions). Then there are many "disorganized" pieces of matter flying around in space that follow the exact same laws that the "organized" pieces of matter are following.


Gotta go now... continue this later

crocodile deathroll

Because consciousness requires organized complexity. Something that was missing in the hellish conditions shortly after the instance of the big bang

crocodile deathroll

At best. The only link I can seen between the laws of physics and what consciousness has to do with it or have any say in, is that the conscious being can only observe the laws of physics that make that consciousness. The universe can not be observed from the hot interior of a star with would may well be all the heavy matter will be locked up if the weak nuclear force was a minute fraction weaker. And if the laws of physics were a little more out of wack there would not even be any baryons configured into iron atom nuclei. And some may not even have baryons at all as they would only be a simple ball of pure energy.

I am sure there would be "squilllions" of these failed, and lifeless universes which leads many people to believe our universe is rather special, but due the the fact that consciousness could not of emerged in any of these life unfriendly universes there is nobody to contemplate and analyze the physical properties of these lifeless universes.

We do know however why the Moon if lifeless and has no conscious beings as the case would be with greater majority of planets out there. They are celestial bodies with hostile physical conditions. Why would there not be other universes with hostile laws of physics?

crocodile deathroll

excreationist

No, because to fully meet my definition of awareness the system has to learn how the world works, for itself. A-life creatures in games at the moment can't do this I think.

Well to be aware (in my definition of the word) it has to have developed an understanding of the world by itself - so it truly understands how the contents of its memories (and desires) relate to the world. If it is just programmed in then it doesn't really understand what it all means and just reacts in a very superficial way.

Just wondering... do you think that ants and bees have desires? What about lizards or mice or goldfish?
The creatures in those games seek to satisfy these "desires" and they have many desires at once to weigh up, to decide which is the most important at any given time.
In "Black & White" the creature can modify some of its desires through its own experiences - e.g. if it finds that eating fish is a good way of satisfying hunger, it will eat more fish when it's hungry. And if it vomits after eating green grain it learns to avoid eating green grain I think...

By "observer" I mean listening, etc, as well. I am saying that all aware things are aware of or sense (observe/listen to) their environment. A rock is completely passive since it doesn't respond, so therefore does this mean that it is impossible for rocks to be aware?

By "observing" I mean detecting it in some way - e.g. through smell, touch, taste, sound, etc. Are you saying that we can be aware of things through some kind of telepathy?

So are you saying that rocks have opinions of themselves, and that I "don't know if a rock percieves itself as passive or not"?
In the case of humans, if we didn't move our eyes and change or heart-rate and blink and focus, etc, then we would be completely passive. These things are physical movements that aren't direct reactions to the environment. But in the case of rocks, they only seem to move if they are kicked or blown by some wind. AFAIK they appear to be completely motionless otherwise (like a completely passive human). I don't know this for sure though - maybe rocks move around when we're not looking or something.

Well by watching my parents and also being guided by instinctual desires to play around and explore my environment. They learnt a lot of things by watching their parents, etc, and this continued until mammals arrived on the scene. Earlier and earlier back there would have been a time when animals couldn't even learn (e.g. anemones or jellyfish?) though.
So where do you think people originally learnt how to act like people? Did their culture just "evolve"? Or was it necessary for God to teach the first humans, Adam and Eve, about how to speak and how to act like humans, etc?

Adrian Selby

"A rock responds to the blow of a hammer in the way that physical law dictates:

A) rock chips according to physical law

A human responds to the sight of a raised hammer in the way that physical law dictates:
A) Eyes recieve input
B) brain processes input
C) brain sends signals
D) muscles move body out of way of object

All of these processes follow the same laws that govern the material that makes up the rock."

Except the latter can be defined as conscious, the former can't. I appreciate and did agree we all follow the same physical laws, that doesn't mean we all see, or dream, or eat, or are conscious. I've only ever been saying that these things, and in particular consciousness are ascribed to certain sorts of patterns of matter, and, to borrow your phrase, a certain refinement of response to the environment. What you're suggesting is that matter cannot be distinguished in virtue of its patterns alone simply because they all obey the same laws. When there are very many things in matter that can be distinguished. This is so obvious as to hardly be worth saying.

You might qualify your position by saying that consciousness is internal, with no necessary outward signs. I'm saying that the internal requirements are arrangements of matter called complex central nervous systems and brains, usually biological tissue etc. When such arrangements are present, we tend to see the outward signs that correspond to our concept of consciousness. When such arrangements are not present we're given no outward evidence, ever, not a single example, to show that we can believe rocks and cups have consciousness. But if you want to think that, without evidential foundation, fine. I'm going with what evidence can be found, both in terms of behaviour and in terms of what is usually found in the organisms that show that behaviour. And it ain't rocks.

Adrian

Kharakov

Why does consciousness require organized complexity?

All matter is organized by the same principles, so all of the complexities we see in nature are organized (although they may appear chaotic). The structure of a chunk of decaying organic matter are a lot more complex (there is more variation in the structure) than the human brain. The matter follows the same laws though.

tronvillain

Kharakov:
Nothing about consciousness appears to explain the emergence of physical law, while physical law seems an excellent candidate for explaining consciousness. To me, the question makes about as much sense as "What makes you think the laws of physics didn't evolve out of iron?"

excreationist

Kharakov & crocodile deathroll:

I've also got a problem with how crocodile deathroll seems to just equate consciousness with complexity. (and vice-versa?)

from <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=56&t=000032&p=2" target="_blank">Materialism, dead as an Undercover Elephant (page 2)</a>:
Anyway, Kharakov, I hope you respond to other things that people have said here, since materialists such as myself have already pointed out problems with some things that crocodile deathroll has said.