of the internet and intelligence

[B_M_W]

Does it interest you at all?

Reason I ask is that any science I've seen (gotta admit I see psychology as verging on a pseudo science) seem to just brush over it, as if the subject doesn't interest them.

It's sorta esoteric, the whole notion of consciousness, with real, deep experimentation yielding only a subjective result. I'm curious if scientific study factors this in at any level. Or is it strictly left to the occultists?

I know you're addressing BMW, but I'm answering anyway.

Psychology has some fringe parts that verge on pseudoscience, but most psychology is done through experimentation, analysis of empirical results, etc. It most certainly is a science, unlike, say, sociology.

As far as how science handles the nature of consciousness... it's kind of a broad question. Also, when you talk about a things nature, you're usually talking philosophy. There's whole bodies of psych research which focus on the parts of consciousness, like perception, but I don't think there's any broad study of consciousness itself. (incidentally, there are some cool studies in the realm between social psych and the psychology of perception.)

If you're interested, there's a good wikipedia article on how cognitive neuroscience approaches consciousness - at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness#Cognitive_neuroscience_approaches


This stuff's always been interesting to me - so I got my bachelors in experimental psychology.

Yeah. Sorry if you thought I ment psychology was BS. I pointed to psychology because it has more answers than biology does at the moment.

[Triple Zero]

Also, Orson Scott Card did this bit better.

after Ender's Game (which i thought was nice), that bit was just about the only thing worth reading i got out of the rest of the Ender saga (though i didn't get further than the first four books i think)

---

Silly, about the nature of consciousness and science, if you want my take on it, i can just refer you to the stuff i said in the free will discussions. that pretty much sums it up for me. consciousness is an emergent property of a sufficiently complex system. to rephrase BMW (if that's okay) biology mainly looks at the medium. conciousness is not a property of the medium, but a property of the system/pattern/network. basically this means that you cannot express what conciousness is in terms of neurons and synapses. it also means that, in principle the internet could be capable of attaining consciousness. it's hard to say if it is doing that, and if it were, it would be hard to find out. also we don't know on what timescale it is operating, say if an internet meme would be a minor "thought" for the internet, that would be way too slow for us to make any more global sense out of it.

[Cramulus]

Silly, about the nature of consciousness and science, if you want my take on it, i can just refer you to the stuff i said in the free will discussions. that pretty much sums it up for me. consciousness is an emergent property of a sufficiently complex system. to rephrase BMW (if that's okay) biology mainly looks at the medium. conciousness is not a property of the medium, but a property of the system/pattern/network. basically this means that you cannot express what conciousness is in terms of neurons and synapses. it also means that, in principle the internet could be capable of attaining consciousness. it's hard to say if it is doing that, and if it were, it would be hard to find out. also we don't know on what timescale it is operating, say if an internet meme would be a minor "thought" for the internet, that would be way too slow for us to make any more global sense out of it.

ah yeah, THAT's the discussion I was talking about... can you link it here? Would be good for future reference.

So the follow-up questions are-

At what point can we fairly say the internet is a conscious entity? What behaviors would it have to display to be considered conscious, by our definition?

and--

if the logic is that complexity breeds consciousness, what level of complexity is necessary? Complexity is a human perception, and I also think consciousness is a human perception. Arguably, cities and weather are also complex systems which display properties similar to consciousness. Is it fair to say they're alive too?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

do your neurons know that your brain is a conscious entity?

if they do, is your brain aware that they do?

[saint aini]

do your neurons know that your brain is a conscious entity?

if they do, is your brain aware that they do?

[Triple Zero]

ah yeah, THAT's the discussion I was talking about... can you link it here? Would be good for future reference.

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=11868.0

there's also another thread in the BIP forum, afaik.

So the follow-up questions are-

At what point can we fairly say the internet is a conscious entity? What behaviors would it have to display to be considered conscious, by our definition?

and--

if the logic is that complexity breeds consciousness, what level of complexity is necessary? Complexity is a human perception, and I also think consciousness is a human perception. Arguably, cities and weather are also complex systems which display properties similar to consciousness. Is it fair to say they're alive too?

first question, i'm not gonna touch that with a long stick but somebody else (silly?) mentioned something about proving consciousness empirically.
but i think the method he was thinking of would be along the lines of asking the internet whether it's conscious or not (plus some more turing test style introspective questions).

also there's a difference between consciousness and self-consciousness. at least, according to my psychologist friend. he said a dog is conscious, but not self-conscious. the difference had something to do with recognizing itself in a mirror. but i'm not sure if dogs can't do that btw.

second question, difficult. although Goedel has said something about this. at the very least the system should have the capability to build/create or contain a representation of itself. this is necessary. but i don't know if it would be enough.

(also, i didn't intend the barstool emoticon to turn into a dead conversation stopper like that though it probably is)

[saint aini]

in this case is to imply that it doesn't matter how the brain or neurons or whatever is conscious, just that the macroscopic brain or internet or whatever is.

[Cramulus]

do your neurons know that your brain is a conscious entity?

if they do, is your brain aware that they do?

Great question... I was pondering this alongside the "are cities alive?" question. If we're just red blood cells carrying money (read: nutrients) along the veins and capillaries (highways and streets) to the tissue (corporations) of the real entity (the city), then would the city consider us independent entities? Do we consider our red blood cells independent entities?

It's entirely possible that aliens will arrive and want to talk to the macroscopic beings on our planet, like NYC, the economy, or the Internet, and will totally ignore the little fleshbags which carry its shit around.

[Cramulus]

eerp but to answer the question more directly - I don't think neurons are capable of individual consciousness. (as it was said, consciousness v self-consciousness) But then again, we're talking about consciousness as a function of complexity, so if we say that cities are conscious, it's fair to say that neurons are conscious, though only fractionally as much.

[Triple Zero]

prof cram, cool i have these same thoughs often myself as well!

about neurons "knowing" that the brain is conscious, i think i can fairly say that they are not. (ah but you just posted that, too)

and this is what scares me about big corporations and such. if you view them as living entities, the humans that make it up become like red blood cells or neurons. and i myself don't really care if some of my blood cells die, or live a "miserable" existence, as long as the large scale system (me) works healthy.

[Triple Zero]

But then again, we're talking about consciousness as a function of complexity, so if we say that cities are conscious, it's fair to say that neurons are conscious, though only fractionally as much.

no. it's not a function of complexity, well at least not a continous function, it's more like a treshold that must be exceeded.

(at least that's how i view it)

[saint aini]

prof cram, cool i have these same thoughs often myself as well!

about neurons "knowing" that the brain is conscious, i think i can fairly say that they are not. (ah but you just posted that, too)

and this is what scares me about big corporations and such. if you view them as living entities, the humans that make it up become like red blood cells or neurons. and i myself don't really care if some of my blood cells die, or live a "miserable" existence, as long as the large scale system (me) works healthy.

This is the point of the experiment.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

the barstool is beside the point, imo.  the whole point of the thread (as i read it, anyway) is borderline barstool-prone anyway, but that doesn't take away from its interestingness.

i think that if cities and states are living macroscopic entities, the only way humans can be aware of it is by looking at them and creating metaphors that drag that macroscopic scale down to their level, essentially missing the point.  we can be "aware" that our cities and states (or the Internet) exhibit some behaviors analogous to our own, but only the similarities.  if they really are beings in their own right, we don't seem to be able to grasp the extra 'complexity' that comes along with that larger scale.

[B_M_W]

Some of this discussion makes me cringe from near pseudo-science. :/

[Triple Zero]

i think that if cities and states are living macroscopic entities, the only way humans can be aware of it is by looking at them and creating metaphors that drag that macroscopic scale down to their level, essentially missing the point.  we can be "aware" that our cities and states (or the Internet) exhibit some behaviors analogous to our own, but only the similarities.  if they really are beings in their own right, we don't seem to be able to grasp the extra 'complexity' that comes along with that larger scale.

conclusion: even if they were living entities or conscious in some way, we most probably couldn't ever figure it out if they were. cause we don't "speak the same language" (in a very broad sort of way)

BMW: can you state which bits and why? doesn't need to be a very large refuttal, but i sorta hope i can steer myself away from pseudoscience.
although, the gaia-hypothesis is also pseudoscience, and that is basically what this is about. the reason why it's pseudoscience (at least what they taught me in science philosophy class) is pretty the conclusion i wrote above, you can never prove or falsify it. it's an empty claim.

but it's interesting to philosophize about it, because the "symptoms/behaviour" of certain complex systems are similar to living beings, and so is the inner working (in a very simplified view, if you leave out the medium, but just the structure/pattern)