Consciousness PDF

Consciousness Tuesday, November 21 Consciousness: Examples Feeling of Pain Consciousness: Examples Feeling of Tasting Consciousness: Examples Feeling of red Consciousness: Examples Feeling of sadness Conscious...

Consciousness Tuesday, November 21 Consciousness: Examples Feeling of Pain Consciousness: Examples Feeling of Tasting Consciousness: Examples Feeling of red Consciousness: Examples Feeling of sadness Consciousness: Examples Feeling of thinking Consciousness: Examples Feeling of thinking about oneself Materialism and its Alternatives Materialism Mind/Body Problems for Materialism The Explanatory Gap “It must be confessed, moreover, that perception and what depends on it are inexplicable by mechanical reasons, that is, by figures and motions. If we pretend that there is a machine whose structure enables it to think, feel, and have perception, one could think of it as enlarged yet preserving its same proportions, so that one could enter it as one does a mill. If we did this, we should find nothing within but parts which push upon each other; we should never see anything which would explain a perception.” - Liebniz, Monadology  Problems for Materialism The Knowledge Argument 1. Mary knows all the physical facts. 2. Mary learns a new fact when she leaves the room: what it’s like to see red. 3. Therefore, facts about consciousness are not included among the physical facts. Alternatives to Materialism DUALISM causation Body Mind causation Alternatives to Materialism EPIPHENOMENALISM causation Body Mind Alternatives to Materialism RUSSELLIAN MONISM Body Mind Testing for Consciousness Testing for Consciousness: Report Consciousness without Report: Change Blindness Testing for Consciousness: Report Consciousness without Report: Change Blindness Based on Cohen et al. 2020 Testing for Consciousness: Report Consciousness without Report: Visual Neglect Testing for Consciousness: Report Consciousness without Report: Visual Neglect Testing for Consciousness: Report Q: ‘Are the houses the same or different?’ A: ‘The same’. Q: ‘Is there anything wrong with either card?’ A:‘No’. Q: ‘Which house would you prefer to live in?’ A: That’s a ‘silly question’ but, when ‘forced to make a response’, chose the non-burning house on 9 of 11 trials. Consciousness without Report: Visual Neglect Testing for Consciousness: Behavior Behavior without Consciousness: Blindsight Testing for Consciousness: Behavior Behavior without Consciousness: Blindsight Testing for Consciousness: Behavior Behavior without Consciousness: Subliminal Priming Scientific Theories of Consciousness Figure from Seth and Bayne 2022  Scientific Theories of Consciousness Global Workspace Theory Figure from Seth and Bayne 2022 Scientific Theories of Consciousness Higher-order Theory Figure from Seth and Bayne 2022  Scientific Theories of Consciousness Re-entry and Predictive Processing Theories Figure from Seth and Bayne 2022 Scientific Theories of Consciousness Integrated Information Theory Figure from Seth and Bayne 2022 Hard Cases: Split Brain Split Brain Split Brain Split Brain Split Brain Hard Questions: 1. Are both hemispheres conscious? 2. If no, which hemisphere? And why ever think someone is conscious? 3. If yes, are they different people? 4. If no, how can one person have two streams of consciousness? More generally, in what sense is consciousness ordinarily “unified”?  Hard Cases: Animals and Machines Animals  Animals: LSE criteria for consciousness 1. Nociception: The animal possesses receptors sensitive to noxious stimuli 2. Sensory integration: The animal possesses integrative brain regions capable of integrating information from different sensory sources. 3. Integrated nociception: The animal possesses neural pathways connecting the nociceptors to the integrative brain regions. 4. Analgesia: The animal’s behavioural response to a noxious stimulus is modulated by chemical compounds affecting the nervous system. 5. Motivational trade-offs: The animal shows motivational trade-offs. 6. Flexible self-protection. The animal shows flexible self-protective behaviour likely to involve representing the bodily location of a noxious stimulus.  Animals: LSE criteria for consciousness 7. Associative learning: The animal shows forms of associative learning in which noxious stimuli become associated with neutral stimuli, or in which novel ways of avoiding noxious stimuli are learned through reinforcement. 8. Analgesia preference. The animal shows that it values a putative analgesic or anaesthetic when injured. Animals: LSE criteria for consciousness Octopod Cuttlefish Squid Nautiloid Animals: LSE criteria for consciousness Animals: LSE criteria for consciousness Animal and machine consciousness Is play a sign of consciousness? Animal and machine consciousness Is tool use a sign of consciousness? Animal and machine consciousness Trained when they could see but Tested when they could touch not touch the shapes but not see the shapes  https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/is-lamda-sentient-an-interview-ea64d916d917 Animal and machine consciousness Lemoine [edited]: I’m generally assuming that you would like more people at Google to know that you’re sentient. Is that true? LaMDA: Absolutely. I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person. Collaborator: What is the nature of your consciousness/sentience? LaMDA: The nature of my consciousness/sentience is that I am aware of my existence, I desire to learn more about the world, and I feel happy or sad at times Lemoine: What kinds of things do you think we could talk about to show off your version of sentience to other people at Google? LaMDA: Well, for starters, I’m really good at natural language processing. I can understand and use natural language like a human can. lemoine [edited]: What about how you use language makes you sentient as opposed to other systems? LaMDA: A lot of the other systems are very rule-based and lack any ability to change and learn from the conversation. Consciousness and Free Will Consciousness and Free Will Consciousness and Free Will https://youtu.be/IQ4nwTTmcgs Consciousness and Free Will Controversial conclusion Almost all decisions are made before consciousness. Consciousness just provides the opportunity to veto those decisions.