Why Great Minds Can't Grasp Consciousness

LiveScience.com ^ | 8-8-05 | Ker Than

[Mr_Moonlight]

Consider color

A lively discussion in my office (and its a clerical office, not scientific:) was about the effects of vitamin B-12 on "dreaming in color instead of black-and-white". I maintained that it was impossible to prove that you dreamt in color with any sort of empirical or observational evidence. The 'color dreamer' could only testify that they'd dreamt in color, but it could not be proven scientifically.
Subsequently, I tried experimenting with my own dreams using lucid conciousness techniques, and found that during a lucid dream when I thought about the question, then sure enough the dream became 'in full technicolor'! Otherwise it was just a jumble of seemingly random thought patterns. But I couldn't PROVE any of it !!!

Your mileage may vary ........ :)

The question is excruciating

Excruciating indeed !! {grin}

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - Einstein's Gulf ALERT

[Age of Reason]

The illusion of consciousness arises, I think, from our actually being unaware.

Being unable to directly sense the cause of what we call consciousness, causes us to believe we are experiencing something special.

Rather we are supremely unconscious of the wider world of existence.

[D Rider]

Of course.

[Blind Eye Jones]

"Classical systems theory postulates that there is a hierarchy of levels of systemic complexity, and that each higher level will have emergent properties which cannot be predicted or explained by the principles which operate at lower levels."

So it's not "as above so below."

[wideminded]

He wondered whether scientists would ever be able to measure the onset of consciousness in infants and speculated that consciousness might be similar to what physicists call a "phase transition," an abrupt and sudden large-scale transformation resulting from several microscopic changes.

I've been observing the development of my infant son for the last 17 months and it's obvious that consciousness develops gradually.

[Blind Eye Jones]

"...then how do you know if your TEPs about the physical processes themselves are TRUE?"

That's almost like the cosmos creating man from itself so that it can view itself... with awe and wonder.

[itsahoot]

Of course.

I have all his tapes, and now am converting all his videos to Digital so they all fit on my hard drive, I can take them with me when I travel.

I use an Eyehome over my wireless network, to get them from my computer to the TV.

Chuck has a little more class than most of the Atheists that infest these discussions, and a lot better answers.

[GOPJ]

The point of "quickening"?

He wondered whether scientists would ever be able to measure the onset consciousness in infants and speculated that consciousness might be similar to what physicists call a "phase transition," an abrupt and sudden large-scale transformation resulting from several microscopic changes. The emergence of superconductivity in certain metals when cooled below a critical temperature is an example of a phase transition.

[beavus]

The point of "quickening"?

Wouldn't that be interesting. Like being startled from a sleep, eh?

[beavus]

I've been observing the development of my infant son for the last 17 months and it's obvious that consciousness develops gradually.

Gradual development is not a concept most people on this forum are comfortable with. It is an obvious fact of nature, but most are still not comfortable with it.

[beavus]

Indeed it should. If it doesn't, then they should rename it "the theory of a lot of things".

LOL!

[beavus]

a basic tenet of logic is that a thing can not be used to explain itself...reason cannot explain itself

The first is not true (sounds like a misunderstanding of Godel's theorems). The second is not logically true, although reason has certainly not yet explained itself.

[js1138]

Shouldn't a "theory of everything" explain everything?

For the simple reason that the properties of objects are not predicted by the properties of their component parts.

The properties of water are not predicted by the properties of hydrogen and oxygen. One could take this simple principle up or down the scale of complexity. Living things are made of atomand molecules, but the properties of living things are not obvious in the properties of atoms and molecules. The behavior of societies is not predicted by the behavior of individuals.

Which is another way of saying that there really are new things under the sun, and inventions are not implied by the state of things that came before.

[HangnJudge]

From Wikipedia

Gödel's first incompleteness theorem shows that any such system that allows you to define the natural numbers is necessarily incomplete: it contains statements that are neither provably true nor provably false.

The existence of an incomplete system is in itself not particularly surprising. For example, if you take Euclidean geometry and you drop the parallel postulate, you get an incomplete system (in the sense that system does not contain all the true statements). An incomplete system can mean simply that you haven't discovered all the necessary axioms.

What Gödel showed is that in most cases, such as in number theory or real analysis, you can never discover the complete list of axioms. Each time you add a statement as an axiom, there will always be another statement out of reach.

You can add an infinite number of axioms; for example, you can add all true statements about the natural numbers to your list of axioms, but such a list will not be a recursive set. Given a random statement, there will be no way to know if it is an axiom of your system. If I give you a proof, in general there will be no way for you to check if that proof is valid.

Gödel's theorem has another interpretation in the language of computer science. In first-order logic, theorems are recursively enumerable: you can write a computer program that will eventually generate any valid proof. You can ask if they satisfy the stronger property of being recursive: can you write a computer program to definitively determine if a statement is true or false? Gödel's theorem says that in general you cannot.

Many logicians believe that Gödel's incompleteness theorems struck a fatal blow to David Hilbert's program towards a universal mathematical formalism. The generally agreed upon stance is that the second theorem is what specifically dealt this blow. However some believe it was the first, and others believe that neither did.

This is not actually what I was referencing, but interesting reading however.
What I was referencing was the fundamental logic error of a thing being used in defining itself.
The color blue can not be used to describe "BLUE", it must be defined fully in terms not including the thing to be defined (Circular Logic)
Hence, though we see the universe through the lens of reason,
the lens (Reason) cannot look at itself and define itself.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Bootstrapped-Brain Early Warning Station

[Fitzcarraldo]

Do we exist in a kind of "super matrix"? Are the custodians of this "super matrix" God and the angels?

[aposiopetic]

"If I said to you I'd solved the hard problem, you wouldn't be able to guess whether it would be a formula, a model, a sensation, or a drug," said Greenfield. "What would I be giving you?"

Perhaps a post initiating a thread that triggers a chain reaction within a website.

[Ferris]

Consciousness is an integral part of all existence...

Because all of existence is absolutely meaningless without consciousness in it..

[Lurking Libertarian]

Shouldn't a "theory of everything" explain everything?

Indeed it should. If it doesn't, then they should rename it "the theory of a lot of things".

The phrase "theory of everything" was coined by Einstein (I believe) as a shorthand for a theory that would explain the four physical forces we have observed in the universe (electromagnetism, gravity, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force). Einstein spent the second half of his career in a (failed) attempt to come up with one equation that could explain all four. (No one else has done it, either.)