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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 19, 2018 - 08:09pm PT
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If nothing else, Hoffman did to death the idea that, while our intuition tells us the soup can exists as a soup can if we are perceiving it nor not, such a folk understanding is certainly NOT the orthodox view of the neurophysics camp (Hoffman's circle).
I don't think Hoffman attempted to put death to this idea at all, but he did point out that in a particular model where he sets evolutionary agents into a "fitness landscape" and imposes some version of evolutionary behavior, that whatever he has defined as "perception" for the agents, that "perception" evolves in a way that is beneficial to the survival of the agents, and that perception does not have to be an accurate or precise description of reality.
But the fitness landscape is something "real" in this model, as are the "agents" and the process by which they interact with the landscape and evolve.
I think the "train" example is fun from the standpoint that you could demand the answer to the question "what is the train, really?" and reject answers that only explain how the train behaves.
Yet it is the behavior of the train, at least in terms of standing in front of it, that is of importance to survival, the ontological issue regarding the train is irrelevant, our behavior is correct even if we cannot demonstrate the train's "existence," or our own, or reality.
Our failure to close on the ontology doesn't really imply much.
"One of the troubles with ontology is that it not only isn’t clear what there is, it also isn’t so clear how to settle questions about what there is..."
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 20, 2018 - 08:22am PT
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So what!
You already control a natural organic arm by will.
Now you've made an inferior un-natural imitation arm to control by will.
The intelligence to create an artificial arm is God-given also.
The living entity has no real complete independence.
Since we are part parcel of God we have all the qualities of God but NOT the quantity ever.
Thus we can imitate God and create artificial life.
But it will still always remain ultimately artificial, incomplete, full of defects and never equals life itself.
OEM components of life itself can never be duplicated by the subordinate living entities as life itself is a product of God.
The living entities are so far in illusion they do not even understand that their AI attempts are ultimately a product of the inferior material energies created by God, to begin with.
Without God to begin with there is absolutely zero life period .....
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Nov 20, 2018 - 08:39am PT
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So what!
This indicates an inability to grasp the preeminent human element in this story, first and foremost. More evidence of low solar yield in the current seasonal environment in addition to overexposure to artificial light and screens.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 20, 2018 - 09:49am PT
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I think the "train" example is fun from the standpoint that you could demand the answer to the question "what is the train, really?" and reject answers that only explain how the train behaves.
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Depends, I think, on what you are asking or looking for. WHAT something does is not an answer to what it IS, in terms of ontology. But in my view either take is secondary to several basic facts. First, no matter what "reality" is, we still are left to deal with what life gives us. Second, and this is critical to Hoffman's aim (I believe), the argument per the ontology of all the stuff we perceive is relevant principally in terms of his (or anyone's) ability to cook up some viable or even conceivable model of consciousness. In Hoffman's case, one rooted in math.
Hoffman has made some pretty radical claims. We all know that "blue" doesn't exist in the radiation at a wavelength of 450–495 nm and a frequency of 606–668 THz. Blue in this regards is a phenomenon fashioned by mind/consciousness.
The standard take is that while "blue" is a subjective experience, the 450–495 nm lightwaves are "objectively real." Hoffman say: Not so. At least not so in the sense that said lightwaves exist, exactly as measured and described, OUTSIDE of perception.
Lightwaves, in Hoffman's view, are also artifacts of perception, ergo they are simply conscious artifacts much as color is. Ed pointed out earlier that as perceptual artifacts, Hoffman seemed to suggest that blue AND lightwaves are derived from some underlying or background "reality." According to Kant, phenomena are the perceived stuff, which constitute our experience; noumena are the (presumed) things themselves, which constitute reality. Hoffman seems to be thinking in these terms.
This feels pretty muddled but it is also besides the point, I suspect. For Hoffman, the point may well be that trying to build a scientific model of consciousness based on perceptual stuff like blue and lightwaves (bottom up) will never (or at any rate, has so far not even gotten close) can never link the perceived mechanical functioning to consciousness. So rather than wait around for "new data," Hoffman is taking another tact - namely, starting with perception/consciousness and woking his way DOWN. He's basically flopped the poles of what we believe is "fundamental."
As is, the lauguage is in desperate need of being clarified, as well as Hoffman's notions of "reality." But that much said, it's worth noting that the scientist didn't take this path for lack of trying standard physicalist approaches, which he understands all too well. Nor has he said that such approaches should in any way be discouraged. Bottom up approaches have given us technology. It's just that Hoffman sees no way of accomplishing a viable model of consciousness in physicalist terms. Others have other ideas.
The adventure continues...
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capseeboy
Social climber
portland, oregon
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Nov 20, 2018 - 11:46am PT
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What is mind? Wikipedia, Unconscious inference: The notion that self-organising biological systems – like a cell or brain – can be understood as minimising variational free energy [biological systems maintain themselves by restricting themselves to a limited number of states] is based upon Helmholtz’s observations on unconscious inference[25] and subsequent treatments in psychology [26] and machine learning.
Consciousness is an ordering of information, all matter carries inherent information; hence, all matter is mind. Thus, we are a cosmos of mind ie God.
Our mind wraps itself in a Markov blanket in order to make inferences from the physical environment we find ourselves in. Although we are not separate from any "thing" we would go insane if we did not perceive ourselves as separate---Maxwell’s demon unleashed.
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Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
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Nov 20, 2018 - 01:27pm PT
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^ that's all well and good until your God consciousness wants to invade my cranium to read my mind or perhaps communicate telepathically. That would be a total invasion of my privacy. Luckily, it's just a fantasy.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 20, 2018 - 01:47pm PT
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That's just dumb, capseeboy.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Nov 20, 2018 - 09:41pm PT
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While it may seem like semantics, Hoffman's interpretation is off-base in terms of his characterization of the mind maintaining models to "hiding reality". Quite the contrary, pretty much every aspect of our nervous system and brain/mind evolved from the ground up to hierarchically filter sensory inputs in order to allow us to become subconsciously and consciously aware of and focus on what matters.
Our minds clearly model, but not to hide anything as the vast bulk of the filtering happens parasympathetically and subconsciously before our conscious mind ever has a chance to get involved.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 21, 2018 - 09:16am PT
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Quite the contrary, pretty much every aspect of our nervous system and brain/mind evolved from the ground up to hierarchically filter sensory inputs in order to allow us to become subconsciously and consciously aware of and focus on what matters.
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This makes sense - so long as you are not trying to "explain" how consciousness ever came into existence. Hoffman's take (not my own, by the way) derived from the impossibility of explaining, in physicalists terms, consciousness as an emergent function of physical evolution. He's quite clear on this point. He's also an evolution-based researcher so we should't think your ground-up belief is lost on the man. He and other evolution-based researchers worked the ground up model for decades, getting nowhere, and he's also not saying to stop those efforts. They reveal great new science - but nothing whatsoever per a workable theory of mind. Yes, there are first assumptions (What's not physical?), but these are not theories, rather folk beliefs rendered from a particular perspective, while at a more nuanced position, consciousness is postulated from ALL perspectives. That's the rub.
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Jim Clipper
climber
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Nov 21, 2018 - 09:24am PT
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What is...? Larg o
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 21, 2018 - 09:50am PT
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what is it that evolves?
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Jim Clipper
climber
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Nov 21, 2018 - 10:06am PT
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I may have posted this. I sent an article to a practitioner. It demonstrated that fMRI studies show that areas of the brain that are associated with happiness are more active in people who meditate and [or] practice deep prayer. He wrote back, "Imagine that power in your brain!!!"
WTF. I don't claim to be there... Also, like more than a few things he has said, it took some time for me to digest. I can be that way...
Just considered, Honnold, the amygdala. Emptiness, nothingness? Why climbing?
I've thought in the past. I believe the study worked with Buddhists and Christians. To borrow a term, pedantic, but I wondered about Muslim prayer, others?
There are some very old ways. I believe the Dalai
Lama has been interested in the science, and helping with it...
Ed, yes!!! Maybe...
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Jim Clipper
climber
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Nov 21, 2018 - 10:32am PT
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Ok. It's a biased opinion, but he deserves one more story.
Recently, the practitioner fell out of bed. He's almost 90. They went to the doctor and he was diagnosed with a broken neck. They gave him a brace, and told him that if he didn't wear it, he might die.
He refused. Stubborn? Proud? He's certainly been called that. Resolute?
He healed.
He is rare. Not singular? He will be missed. Until then...?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 21, 2018 - 10:55am PT
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what is "it" that evolves?
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Ed takes it right down to the wood, so to speak. This is, of course, another version of the question: What went bang (per the big ass bang).
My sense of Ed's question, per how it relates to the latest links from Hoffman et al, is that our minds pre-dispose us to believe there is some "it" that we can identity that is independent, permanent, and existent in and of itself, and which "evolves" from this (this it), to that (that it). The links simply feature scientists that believe (and offer their thinking on the subject) there is no such "it."
Consider the following quotes transcribed from the link featuring stem-cell researcher Neil Theise:
The entire universe is a self-organizing system, and there is no thing that you can identity that is independent, permanent, and existent in and of itself.
At this level of scale I look like a body. Lower down, there's no body at all - just a community of cells that are self-organizing, most of which aren't even human. Most of them are bacteria. And those cells, when you go down even lower, they don't exist either. They're just a bunch of molecules self-organizing in water. So this self-organization, and the randomness that makes things alive, is a feature of the universe. It's not just a feature of atoms, or cells, and there's nothing that isn't like that. And that's where things start to get interesting.
If, as some say, mind is inherent, we can turn this on its head, and say, Well maybe awareness is all there is. Perception. Knowing. Is all there is. And out of that, the universe arises. Out of that, space and time, matter and energy arise. And so the question of - where does the experience of red come from, where does the taste of chocolate come from ... those we refer to as qualia, and the hard problem of consciousness everyone talks about, is how to physically explain qualia. Well...if everything arises from mind, then everything in the universe IS qualia.
It's not that there's a universe, and qualia happened or evolved in it. Everything in the universe is qualia. This chair is qualia, my body is qualia, my mind is qualia. The person listening to this is qualia. Every electron. Every photon. So the hard problem disappears, because there isn't anything but qualia. And this is exactly what Jewish mystics, Hindu mystics, Buddhist contemplatives - all of these are reporting that when you get to the fundamental experience of the nature of the universe, by going inward, what you find is there's nothing but pure perception, pure knowing, pure awareness. And that's the nature of things. So, somehow going from stem cells and wondering how they're like ants, we get to: What's the nature of the universe?
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I was impressed by the graciousness with which these ideas were presented by Hoffman, Theise and others. No one is saying that science or any other mode of inquiry need stop what they are doing. Only that if you are looking at the nature of the universe, things are likely to be just as counterintuitive as light being a constant, with space and time relative, and they offer up their takes on the whole shebang.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 21, 2018 - 11:12am PT
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if everything arises from mind, then everything in the universe IS qualia.
It makes no difference as we go along trying to learn more about whatever it is you want to call the universe.
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capseeboy
Social climber
portland, oregon
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Nov 21, 2018 - 11:21am PT
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"Intriguing stuff from evolutionary psychologist (and other titles) Donald Hoffman."
So fitness is the ability to keep procreating?
At first he sounds original but the screen, filter and reality idea is as old as Socrates' shadow on the cave wall.
"Perception isn't about seeing the truth, its' about having kids."
There are no absolute truths. Overpopulation, like corporate growth projections, are unsustainable.
It seems to me that Karl Friston is saying that our brains are already programmed to make false inferences. This reinforces my own belief in determinism; it only appears that we are making a choice.
The observer and the observed are entangled; we can only specify one relative to the other ie the observer and the observed are only correlated after the observation is made.
Hoffman sounds like a Romantic. Emotion is a sensation of feeling alive.
The mathematical model is a paradox. The more organized matter is, the more complicated the equation is; while the less organized matter is the less complicated the equation is.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 21, 2018 - 11:42am PT
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This reinforces my own belief in determinism...
Except with no independent, self sustaining "it," there is no determined physical cause that determines THIS has to follow from THAT. Ergo staunch determinism collapses like a house of cards.
Again, it's wise to realize that these scientists have considered, and in many cases, tried, for decades, to work things out otherwise (awaiting new data, new "Its" and "thats") and so the determined folk angle is certainly not lost on them. It's what common sense says HAS to be.
While it is true that the "appearance and reality" discussion has been going on for ages (Plato's Cave and long before), it was always believed that something "real" (independent, stand alone) loomed behind or before appearances. Hoffman and the others are saying, Not so. It's ALL appearances.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 21, 2018 - 11:54am PT
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The entire universe is a self-organizing system
"self-organization" is an interesting idea, but once again, the question arises, who is the "self" , what is "organized" in it, and what is "organization."
These are heavily human centric ideas.
How do you recognize something like "organization"?
How do you avoid the context in which organization takes place, starting with the question what agent does the organization?
Once again, the use of such a familiar word by scientists can lead to many misconceptions regarding what it is they are talking about.
Reading Kauffman's book The Origins of Order evokes many interesting ideas, and these idea may be useful in understanding life at all levels from a physical perspective, but once again they provide tools with which to further the study.
Certainly the modern scientific meme is "information," largely because it is a relatively new way of looking at physical systems. And it is a useful meme, no doubt that it will provide additional insight. But it is only part of the explanation.
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