Sam Harris article on consciousness

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Interesting article by Sam Harris, in which he argues that it is currently impossible to describe how consciousness arises from physical processes.

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-mystery-of-consciousness/

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Second installment on consciousness article from Sam Harris.

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-mystery-of-consciousness-ii/

Interesting point on the idea that, looking objectively at a brain, there is nothing about it that would tell us that it was capable of possessing consciousness.  We only assume this because each of us individually has this capacity, and it appears to us that other humans have it, as well.

Query: Would all conscious beings have some affinity or connection with other conscious beings, such that they would have some indication that consciousness existed in the other beings?  The Turing test would probably be relevant to this, but apart from this, don't we all intuitively know we are in the presence of consciousness, or do we?

[bandit4god]

Very cool reads, thanks for sharing!  I found the first article quite compelling, particularly how he articulated ways statements can be made about mysteries such as consciousness and why there is something rather than nothing, but the statements don't mean anything.

[Recusant]

Not being much of a fan of Harris in the first place, I don't find it too surprising that I disagree with at least some of what he says. I think he makes too much of the supposed mystery of the emergence of consciousness.

To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn't give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle.

So we can observe an increasing complexity in the neurological systems of various organisms, from creatures like the hydra, to arthropods, to vertebrates, with attendant increased abilities to perceive the environment, react to it and act within it, yet according to Harris, there is no inkling there regarding how consciousness arises? This seems to me to be a bizarre position to take. He says earlier in the piece that,

We would never have occasion to say of something that does not eat, excrete, grow, or reproduce that it might nevertheless be "alive." It might, however, be conscious.

Here he seems to be talking about the possibility of consciousness arising in computers. How might that happen? I would say that if it's possible (I do think that it is) it would happen because the complexity and size (number of connections rather than physical) of a computer can conceivably at some point rival that of the human brain. The hydra reacts to its environment in a very primitive way, but there is reaction there. I would say that some of our computers may already be achieving something equivalent to the level of consciousness exhibited by the hydra. In other words, consciousness as we know it may be the product of sufficiently developed nervous systems, and nothing more. One might hypothesize that once the processing power of a brain reaches a certain threshold, consciousness inevitably arises. Consciousness being a sophisticated ability to react and perceive and understand the environment, including being aware of ones own existence.

It must be that I'm simply too thick to understand the deep thoughts that Harris has put down in his articles, because I don't see why consciousness presents the deep mystery that he says it does.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

It must be that I'm simply too thick to understand the deep thoughts that Harris has put down in his articles, because I don't see why consciousness presents the deep mystery that he says it does.

You would probably fall in the Daniel Dennett class of thinkers who think that consciousness is rather easily explained.  Harris is in the David Chalmers class of thinkers who find no materialistic basis for conscious experience.  I think the issue, from the Chalmers perspective, is that we can explain the neuronal functioning of the brain, but that does not tell us why the subjective experience of consciousness arises.  There is nothing in the complex functioning of the brain that gives us a clue, if examining it from without, that the brain is conscious.  It just looks like a complex machine responding to stimuli.  There is nothing from the materialist perspective that explains our rich inner life. Or at least that's the general argument.

[Recusant]

You would probably fall in the Daniel Dennett class of thinkers who think that consciousness is rather easily explained.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that it's "easily" explained. There is still much to be learned about how the brain functions, and it may be some while before we get close to fully understanding the brain in the same way as we understand the function of muscles, for instance. There's a lot going on in there. What I do not agree with is taking a position that consciousness is "mysterious."

Going back to my hydra example, I think we can say that the hydra is reacting to its environment, and that its equivalent of a nervous system is rather simple in comparison to the nervous system of a mouse for instance. Its "software" is very simple, as is the "hardware" in which it resides. Is there some sort of mystery there though? I don't think so; the hydra is just "smart" enough to function as a hydra.

The mouse's nervous system has a much higher level of "software" than the hydra's, so that it can function on a higher level than the hydra. Its nervous system allows a mouse to do the things that mice have evolved to do. I think that at some very basic level, that software allows the mouse to exhibit a form of consciousness. It needs to have that consciousness to exist at all, and the "hardware" of its nervous system and the "software" evolved together. That we are more conscious than mice is undeniable, yet in my opinion there is no reason to say that our greater consciousness is somehow mysterious. The mouse's neural functions are quite apparently evolved to deal with its niche in the environment, and I don't think that many people are saying that there's something mysterious about the mouse's consciousness. Yes, we don't understand the workings of the mouse brain with any more depth than our own, but once again, that's not to say that we never will.

There is nothing in the complex functioning of the brain that gives us a clue, if examining it from without, that the brain is conscious.  It just looks like a complex machine responding to stimuli.  There is nothing from the materialist perspective that explains our rich inner life. Or at least that's the general argument.

Yet there is the brute fact that we experience consciousness. And another; we know that the brain is the seat of our consciousness. There is no scientific evidence that consciousness exists independently of a physical network, and a reasonable amount that shows that it is dependent on a physical network. So, a complex machine responding to stimuli it is.

I think that our nearest relatives the great apes have some sort of inner life, though not as rich as ours. Their consciousness resides in their brains just as ours does. Is it "mysterious" as well? I wonder how far down the levels of neural complexity do we have to go before we are allowed to say, "Well, the brain and the instincts of X animal obviously allow it to function in its world, and there's nothing particularly mysterious about that." There may be some mystery in why we have the level of consciousness that we do, but then again, it may be explainable by the fact that a smarter hominid has greater chances of surviving than the less smart. Our "rich inner life" may only be a by-product of the superior intellect that homo sapiens possesses in comparison to say, homo erectus.

[The Magic Pudding]

At the level of your experience, you are not a body of cells, organelles, and atoms; you are consciousness and its ever-changing contents, passing through various stages of wakefulness and sleep, and from cradle to grave.

I don't see any reason why this would be true, it's just another instance of human fear of being a physical being destined to pass away.  It's not surprising some people are comforted by it, share a fear share a fantasy.

Whatever else consciousness may or may not be in physical terms, the difference between it and unconsciousness is first and foremost a matter of subjective experience. Either the lights are on, or they are not.[

I have lights with dimmer switches, I find the different levels of illumination useful at different times.
It reminds of the anti evolutionary eye argument.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Our "rich inner life" may only be a by-product of the superior intellect that homo sapiens possesses in comparison to say, homo erectus. 

So explain how experience arises in a brain, as opposed to a the apparent lack of experience in a super-computer.  Super-computers can beat human chess players, but there is no evidence that they experience anything.  It's just a bunch of processing that does not give rise to consciousness, as far as we can tell.  Complexity and intelligence (in the sense of computing power in accordance with logic) alone don't do it. How does consciousness come about, from a scientific/materialistic standpoint?  Can you explain the phenomenon?

[Recusant]

How does consciousness come about, from a scientific/materialistic standpoint?  Can you explain the phenomenon?

I'm not a scientist, let alone a neuroscientist. However, I thought that I had given my ideas on your question in my previous posts. Maybe I wasn't explicit enough, so I'll try again.

An organism of any complexity, to function in its environment, must be able to perceive its surroundings to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how complex its interactions with the environment are. If one accepts that evolution has occurred, then one also would accept that animals since the beginning of life on the planet have become more complex, as have their ways of interacting with the environment. Their nervous systems have also become more complex. To be able to process and act on the information that is gathered by their senses, to do whatever it is that they do as they fill an ecological niche much beyond that of a slug, their "mental capacities" would also have to grow. This process seems to have been going on for quite a long time; it appears that over billions of years, life on this planet has grown more complex in its interactions with the environment.

At some point, the complexity of interactions and attendant depth of cognition would give rise to an inner life; thought. We have evidence that animals other than ourselves are capable of thought, so it isn't something that human beings alone are doing as they go about their lives. We also have evidence that some of the more intelligent non-human animals recognize themselves when they look into a mirror. To me that indicates that they are aware of their own existence at at least a basic level. In other words, there doesn't seem to be anything all that special about human consciousness; we happen to possess consciousness of seemingly greater depth and complexity than other animals, but other than that we are not unique.

So in simple words, how do I think that consciousness comes about? I would say that it evolves from more "primitive" mental processes, and that it is not unique to human beings.

I'm not sure what sort of answer you're looking for because as I said, it seems to me that I'm repeating myself here. What specific issue or issues do you take with my line of thinking?

[Ecurb Noselrub]

At some point, the complexity of interactions and attendant depth of cognition would give rise to an inner life; thought.

My question deals with the specifics of the above statement.  Granted, complex neural interactions evolved. Granted, the more complex the animal, the more complex its neural interactions.  But to say that this "gives rise to an inner life" is sort of waving a magic wand over the matter - "poof" we have consciousness.  But, like you, I'm not a neuroscientist, so I'll just keep reading what they come up with to see if an explanation for how this inner life arises (as opposed to there simply being processes with no inward awareness).   

[Recusant]

Granted, complex neural interactions evolved. Granted, the more complex the animal, the more complex its neural interactions.  But to say that this "gives rise to an inner life" is sort of waving a magic wand over the matter - "poof" we have consciousness.

I don't see it that way. I'm not talking about a singular moment in time, but a gradual process that took literally billions of years, in which higher levels of consciousness arose. As I have pointed out, we can see different levels of consciousness in our fellow animals, including some which seem to be close enough to us that we can recognize glimmers (or indeed, more than glimmers) of our own kind of consciousness. I think that it's a sort of species egoism to draw a line between humans and other animals and say, "We're so special that it's a mystery as to how we became the way that we are." The way I look at it, if every single human were to disappear from the planet tomorrow, it would not be terribly surprising if another species eventually gave rise to animals as sentient as we are now.

I have some questions for you in turn:

1. Do you think that I'm wrong about this? Is the inner life of a human so much "richer" than that of any other animal that it actually qualifies as something entirely separable from the consciousness of other animals?

2. How do you know that the inner life of humans is actually that much richer?

3. If it's the case that human consciousness is entirely separable from that of other animals, what specific qualities distinguish human consciousness from any other animal consciousness, beyond degree of development, and what makes these qualities mysterious?

4. Do you deny that at least some non-human animals are capable of thought and possess an inner life?

[Ecurb Noselrub]

I have some questions for you in turn:

1. Do you think that I'm wrong about this? Is the inner life of a human so much "richer" than that of any other animal that it actually qualifies as something entirely separable from the consciousness of other animals?

I'm not denying that animals have some level of consciousness, depending upon the level of their development. Of course, I can only surmise what that consciousness would be like, as I can't communicate with them.  Their lack of language (for the most part) leads me to believe that their "inner life" is so much inferior to ours as to place them on a different level.  This, I believe, is confirmed by the endless variety of human expression (as shown in all aspects of civilization), while animals are, for the most part, bound to do what instinct tells them to do.

2. How do you know that the inner life of humans is actually that much richer?

See answer above. Once animals develop language, art, music, architecture, poetry, science, etc., I'll think they'll be on a closer level.

3. If it's the case that human consciousness is entirely separable from that of other animals, what specific qualities distinguish human consciousness from any other animal consciousness, beyond degree of development, and what makes these qualities mysterious?

It begins with, I think, language and the ability to construct a sense of self, of identity.  I don't know that there is any material explanation for even the rudimentary consciousness that animals have, much less the developed sense that we have.  Why an animal or human brain is not just like an inanimate machine that functions but does not have self-awareness, is, in my opinion, unexplained.  Then, to take it to the level of the capacity to write a book or construct a mathematical theorum is even more mysterious.  I just haven't seen an explanation of this process that satisfies me that it has a materialistic basis.  

4. Do you deny that at least some non-human animals are capable of thought and possess an inner life?

I do think that the higher mammals such as great apes and dolphins have this capacity, but not to the degree that we have it, based on what I see in their behavior.  But even the level they have is not satisfactorily explained by purely materialistic means, IMO.  If it were, it would seem that we could duplicate a brain and make a conscious machine.



EDIT: Fixed quotes - Tank

[Davin]

I do think that the higher mammals such as great apes and dolphins have this capacity, but not to the degree that we have it, based on what I see in their behavior.  But even the level they have is not satisfactorily explained by purely materialistic means, IMO.  If it were, it would seem that we could duplicate a brain and make a conscious machine.

Yes, it would seem so: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15772240

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have designed a computer chip that mimics how the brain's neurons adapt in response to new information.

Such chips could eventually enable communication between artificially created body parts and the brain.

While not yet being a concious machine, I think it would be a bad idea to rule that it's impossible to do so.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

I do think that the higher mammals such as great apes and dolphins have this capacity, but not to the degree that we have it, based on what I see in their behavior.  But even the level they have is not satisfactorily explained by purely materialistic means, IMO.  If it were, it would seem that we could duplicate a brain and make a conscious machine.

Yes, it would seem so: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15772240

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have designed a computer chip that mimics how the brain's neurons adapt in response to new information.

Such chips could eventually enable communication between artificially created body parts and the brain.

While not yet being a concious machine, I think it would be a bad idea to rule that it's impossible to do so.

Correct - we'll see what happens.

[Recusant]

Thank you for your answers, Ecurb Noselrub.  I think that it's reasonable to surmise that the ability to correlate the information of the senses, and to take cues from the environment, relate them to action, and to relate them to the self (even if the particular animal doesn't have a concept of self) could serve as the basis for consciousness. To me it seems likely that primitive forms of consciousness such as I just described would prove favorable to the survival and success of an individual and a species.

I'm not sure how much further we can take this, so at this point I'll thank you for an interesting discussion, and thank you for posting the articles by Harris.