Tag Archives: interpretation
Last Friday I ended the week with some ruminations about what (higher) consciousness looks like from the outside. I end this week — and this posting mini-marathon — with some rambling ruminations about how I think consciousness seems to work on the inside.
When I say “seems to work” I don’t have any functional explanation to offer. I mean that in a far more general sense (and, of course, it’s a complete wild-ass guess on my part). Mostly I want to expand on why a precise simulation of a physical system may not produce everything the physical system does.
For me, the obvious example is laser light.
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37 Comments | tags: brain mind problem, computationalism, consciousness, human brain, human consciousness, human mind, interpretation, laser light, mind, positronic brain, Theory of Consciousness, theory of mind | posted in Computers, Philosophy, Science
I’ve been on a post-a-day marathon for two weeks now, and I’m seeing this as the penultimate post (for now). Over the course of these, I’ve written a lot about various low-level aspects of computing, truth tables and system state, for instance. And I’ve weighed in on what I think consciousness amounts to.
How we view, interpret, or define, consciousness aside, a major point of debate involves whether machines can have the same “consciousness” properties we do. In particular, what is the role of subjective experience when it comes to us and to machines?
For me it boils down to a couple of key points.
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17 Comments | tags: algorithm, brain mind problem, computationalism, consciousness, human brain, human consciousness, human mind, interpretation, mind, positronic brain, Theory of Consciousness, theory of mind | posted in Computers, Philosophy, Science
Moving on from system states (and states of the system), today I’d like to fly over the landscape of different systems. In particular, systems that are — or are not — viewed as conscious.
Two views make this especially interesting. The first holds that everything is computing everything and — under computationalism — this includes conscious computations. The second (if I understand it) holds that anything that processes input data into some kind of output is conscious. (I’m not clear if the view also sees an input-output system as a computer.)
So I want to explore what I see as major landmarks in the landscape of systems that… well, about the only thing we can probably all agree on is that they do something.
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14 Comments | tags: brain mind problem, cargo cult, computationalism, consciousness, human brain, human consciousness, human mind, interpretation, mind, positronic brain, Theory of Consciousness, theory of mind | posted in Computers, Philosophy, Science
Previously, I wrote that I’m skeptical of interpretation as an analytic tool. In physical reality, generally speaking, I think there is a single correct interpretation (more of a true account than an interpretation). Every other interpretation is a fiction, usually made obvious by complexity and entropy.
I recently encountered an argument for interpretation that involved the truth table for the Boolean logical AND being seen — if one inverts the interpretation of all the values — as the truth table for the logical OR.
It turns out to be a tautology. A logical AND mirrors a logical OR.
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9 Comments | tags: algorithm, AND gate, boolean logic, computation, computationalism, consciousness, human consciousness, interpretation, logic gate, NAND gate, NOR gate, OR gate, Theory of Consciousness, theory of mind, truth table | posted in Computers, Math, Philosophy
My illusion of free will decided the month of May must be made for Mind (and maybe a dash of Mandelbrot). Lately, online discussions about consciousness have me pondering it again. I never posted on topics such as Chinese Rooms or Philosophical Zombies, largely because sensible arguments exist both ways, and I never decided exactly where I fell in the argument space.
It’s not that I’ve decided[1] on the topics so much as I’ve decided to write about them (and other topics). I’ve found that writing about a topic does a lot to clarify my mind about it. (Trying to teach a topic does that even more.)
I’ll start today with some personal observations and points of view.
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11 Comments | tags: brain mind problem, cargo cult, computationalism, consciousness, human brain, human consciousness, human mind, interpretation, mind, Theory of Consciousness, theory of mind | posted in Computers, Philosophy, Science
Logos con carne 