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comment by Slider · 2022-03-25T15:32:14.306Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I opened the survey but how it was asked throught thick "isms" thought it was sufficiently confused / stupid that I didn't want to engage and answer. Seeing how others have used the "other" field should have gone for something like that.

Replies from: oge, sil-ver
comment by oge · 2022-03-25T16:08:02.314Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Seconding your comment. I wish OP had stated their definition of Consciousness to help clear the confusion in the various terms.

Replies from: sil-ver
comment by Rafael Harth (sil-ver) · 2022-03-25T16:18:34.943Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

"What it's like to be someone"; agree it should have been in the survey.

comment by Rafael Harth (sil-ver) · 2022-03-25T15:41:46.277Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

That's... interesting, because this is the standard terminology (but I agree it's not good). Would you have preferred it if I had just given the causal diagrams? (Epiphenomenalism is "[matter] [consciousness]", Interactionism is "[matter] [consciousness]", etc., you can describe every theory that way.)

I suppose the -isms pattern-match to regular philosophy discourse, which is well not very good.

Replies from: Slider, Dagon
comment by Slider · 2022-03-25T17:27:09.874Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

There are 8 options and having two nodes seems like there are 4 ways to draw arrows between them.

Might be a bit flawed but in the setting where society has been divided into two factions "blue" and "green" and every issue has the "blue-standard" answer and "green-standard" answer expressing views is made more cumbersome if the actual stance doesn't align with the faction lines.

Consider two structures for the questionary:

What color is the sky?

  • bluism
  • greenism

How should the value of gemstones be evaluated?

  • bluism
  • greenism

vs

What color is the sky?

  • blue
  • green

What is the most valuable gem?

  • Saphhire
  • Emerald

It is a easier to answer green Saphire and blue emerald if one doesn't need to package them into an ism. Isms are more concrete when its about social groups and who waves which flag.

Replies from: sil-ver
comment by Rafael Harth (sil-ver) · 2022-03-25T18:22:32.915Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

There are 8 options and having two nodes seems like there are 4 ways to draw arrows between them.

Didn't say it was just arrows! You can also put corresponds-to signs between them as e.g. panpyschism does, and then there are two ways to reduce it to a one-node diagram. (Also there are 7 options.)

Replies from: Slider
comment by Slider · 2022-03-25T20:29:43.487Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

The direction would seem to me something that would require even more interpretation and be more ambigious.

comment by Dagon · 2022-03-25T16:32:12.303Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I think a lot depends on the selection you want for who answers, and what you'll learn from it.  Using standard terminology implies that you'll get weird results if people don't understand it.  Using causal diagrams means you'll exclude or confuse those who don't think in those terms.  When talking about "consciousness", especially without using the word "qualia", I suspect the framing effect of the question is going to dominate your results.

I was confused by the last question as well - is it about the actual laws of physics, or human modeling of physics?  I think the laws of physics tautalogically define matter.  Whether any subset of the universe can know the laws of physics completely is a separate question.

Replies from: sil-ver
comment by Rafael Harth (sil-ver) · 2022-03-25T16:43:48.930Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

It's basically about "do the actual laws explicitly care about consciousness"

When talking about "consciousness", especially without using the word "qualia", I suspect the framing effect of the question is going to dominate your results.

This I strongly doubt. These results have been very close to the center of the distribution of what I expected. About half RF, not much love for idealism, decent support for illusionism, most people think physics is complete. Would be surprised if you can get it to be too different without butchering the description.

Replies from: TAG
comment by TAG · 2022-03-25T18:25:39.171Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

About half RF

Unsurprisingly, since "reductive physicalism" is a mixture of at least two theories

There is a distinction between reductive materialism and functionalism. Functionalism holds that consciousness is just the performance of certain functions by whatever....it’s substrate neutral. Reductive materialism can holds that the substrate matters (ie No Chinese rooms or blockheads).

Replies from: sil-ver
comment by Rafael Harth (sil-ver) · 2022-03-25T18:34:40.407Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

The survey says "reductionist functionalism" and specifies that it's about algorithms.

Replies from: TAG
comment by TAG · 2022-03-25T18:49:46.049Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Functionalism about algorithms is called computationalism.

Non functionalist reductionism (substrate dependence) needs to be mentioned separately, because it's one of the major physicalist theories.

Replies from: sil-ver
comment by Rafael Harth (sil-ver) · 2022-03-25T18:56:00.154Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

What's the difference between that and panpsychism?

Replies from: TAG
comment by TAG · 2022-03-25T19:15:50.608Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

It being non functionalist reductionism ?

Panpsychism doesn't regard the mental as being reducible to the physical.. indeed, hostility to emergence is not ne of its main motivations.

Panpsychism asserts that everything has consciousness/mental properties. Non functionalist reductionism doesn't, and is in fact less liberal about which entities are conscious than functionalism/computationalism.

Replies from: sil-ver
comment by Rafael Harth (sil-ver) · 2022-03-25T19:31:05.151Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

So NFR restricts what structures are conscious but doesn't require the corresponding rules to live on the algorithmic level only. Ok, I can see how that's a coherent theory. Thanks.

Does it specify state vs. process?

Replies from: TAG
comment by TAG · 2022-03-25T20:08:07.510Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

It's not necessarily a question of additional rules. If you take the view that no kind of functionality could explain or predict qualia, then having the right substrate in addition to the right algorithm could cause something additional to for functionality, IE qualia.

Replies from: sil-ver, TAG
comment by Rafael Harth (sil-ver) · 2022-03-25T20:23:48.868Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I didn't mean additional rules, just rules in general, i.e., under NFR, the set of things you need to look at to determine whether something is conscious aren't entirely contained on the algorithmic level of abstraction.

Replies from: TAG
comment by TAG · 2022-03-25T20:31:48.316Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

The set of things that are relevant isn't entirely contained by "rules", either.

comment by TAG · 2022-03-31T15:34:09.391Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Of course, we are supposed to regard biological processes as reducible and not dependent on an Elan Vital... and that's a form of reduction that's exquisitely dependent on precise chemical.properties...you can't make chlorophyl or haemoglobin out of any collection of atoms.

comment by FeepingCreature · 2022-03-25T12:48:59.977Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Is my answer (patternism/mathematical monadism) separate from reductive functionalism? My view is that the algorithmic description of my brain is already phenomenologically conscious; physically evaluating it accesses these experiences but does not create them. I think the materialist view still holds that there is some sort of "secret fire" to things actually physically happening.

(If not, just count me under red func.)

Replies from: sil-ver
comment by Rafael Harth (sil-ver) · 2022-03-25T13:23:21.434Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Tell me if this summary of that view is correct:

  • consciousness is a state, not a process. you can look at [a pattern of atoms] at one point in time and say "this is conscious"
  • whether something is conscious can be decided entirely on a level of abstraction above the physical (presumably the algorithmic level)

If so, this is separate from the description I've given in the survey, although I believe Eliezer never explicitly draws the state/process distinction in the sequences. It looks to me like an FR/panpsychism hybrid with the "state" from panpyschism but the "algorithmic description is what counts" from FR.

Replies from: FeepingCreature
comment by FeepingCreature · 2022-03-25T14:43:20.482Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Sorta. Fully agreed with the second. I'm not sure I believe in a state-process distinction- I don't think that if you randomly pulled a snapshot of a brain very much like mine out of a hat, that that snapshot would be phenomenologically conscious, though of course as per follow-the-improbability I wouldn't expect you to actually do this. Rather, the pattern of "my brain, ie. subset <small number> of iteration <large number> of <grand unified theory of physics> is conscious." Ie. I believe in state only inasmuch as it's the output of a process; I'm not sure if state is even meaningful without process. But I don't think that processes themselves have secret fire; I just think they're a particular kind of state distinct from a memory dump of the universe.

(My theory of phenomenal selfhood is produced by a process biased against theories in exponential proportion to complexity...)

Replies from: sil-ver
comment by Rafael Harth (sil-ver) · 2022-03-25T18:27:37.150Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Still not sure if I understand this. I guess two things that confuse me about this

One, say the 1 to or whatever probability event happens and some random process by chance generates a snapshot of your brain. How does the universe know that this is not conscious?

Two, if you require process, what is the difference between this and FR? Is there any scenario where the distinction matters?

Replies from: FeepingCreature
comment by FeepingCreature · 2022-03-25T20:12:31.566Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Good question. What my intuition says is "even if you have a snapshot at a certain point, if it was generated randomly, there is no way to get the next snapshot from it." Though maybe it would be. If so, I think it's not just conscious but me in every regard. - I don't know if this is physically coherent, but if we imagine a process by which you can gain answers to every important question about the current state but very little information about the next state, then I don't think this version of me would be conscious. - That said, if you can also query information about past states then I do feel I've been conscious up to that point. But again, I think it only seems that way because we're hiding the improbability in the premise, so my standard answer would be "there is literally nothing you can do to convince me you actually rolled a 1 in 10^400 die, because if this is genuinely a snapshot of my actual brain, then the laws of physics that do explain its state as well will almost certainly be more a priori likely as a theory than a 1 in whatever gamble." And I think that colors my perception of this scenario as well - on some level I don't really buy that this was a random selection.

I think this is very similar to functional reductionism. I just don't like the implication that the material reality is a necessary component. If you flip a bit on the other side of the planet, the effect on my consciousness is zero, so at the most the relevant volume of reality is a vanishing subset. It just so happens that this volume can be expressed as "the matter arranged so as to compute the function of my mind", suggesting that this is the fundamental structure of note.

comment by nim · 2022-03-25T18:26:24.568Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Voted "unclear question" due to the word choice of "fundamental".

I figure that consciousness "exists" like gods and luck: whether or not it exists "objectively"/"materially", thinking about it appears to change peoples' observable behaviors.

I figure that matter "exists" like language: the laws of physics are what make many ideas possible to communicate between consciousnesses, and test whether that communication succeeded.

I don't see a contradiction between explanations of the form "matter exists because we think it does" and "consciousness exists as an emergent property of matter". Most situations which require* an explanation are distinctly better served by one or the other, so I use whichever explanation seems the better fit for the context.

Another way to describe this position would be that I have encountered situations where it's useful to model matter as an artifact of consciousness, and situations where it's useful to model consciousness as an artifact of matter. However, I cannot recall any situation where it was helpful to strictly rule out the possibility of either position. You can get to some interesting ideas by choosing to include or emphasize one view or the other, but I have not encountered a benefit from explicitly ruling out either.

In short, I can only tell you which explanation I think is "best" in the context of what you want the explanation for.

* and most of the time, situations which superficially seem to "require" an explanation can be reframed to not need one at all.

Replies from: sil-ver
comment by ChrisHibbert · 2022-03-25T15:33:20.717Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

With only two questions about what people believe, I expected to see a matrix showing number of people in each 2-d category. The most interesting result is how do answers to the two questions correlate.

Replies from: sil-ver
comment by Rafael Harth (sil-ver) · 2022-03-25T15:43:35.817Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Not a bad idea; I'll make one. Check in again in an hour.

comment by TAG · 2022-03-31T00:04:20.270Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

anyone who said Objective Idealism but also that laws of physics are complete. [How does that work?]

I'm not an objective idealist, but I would assume that its much more impactive against the physical part of physical closure than the closure part. Given that every apparent thing is some sort of mental entity or "idea in the mind of God", there is no reason why every apparent thing should not follow a set of rules that allow complete determinism.

comment by TAG · 2022-03-30T13:38:10.262Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

the person with the dual-aspect neutral monism answer. [How is that different from panpyschism?]

Physicalism privileges the physical over the mental. Panpsychism privileges the mental over the physical. DANM does neither

Panpsychism holds the difference between the mental and the physical to be a matter of degree. If the problem of reconciling mental and physical causation is just that mental and physical properties belong to two different and irreconcilable categories, then it's solved. But if the causal closure of the physical is true, it's another story. If physical properties are sufficient to explain causality, then mental properties are redundant (or there is overdeteminism). Panpsychists regard physical properties as a kind of mental property, but the point remains the same ... if a subset of properties is sufficient to explain and predict behaviour, the others are redundant. So panpsychism doesn't address physical closure. If the higher level of mental properties are somehow identical to the load level or physical ones ,the difficulty is removed...But that it the step from panpsychism to DANM.

It's desirable for solutions to the mind-body problem to explain the distribution of consciousness in a way that matches intuition. Sceptical theories, such as illusionism and eliminative materialism, predict too little -- ie., none at all. Panspsychism, on the face of it, has the opposite problem: it suggests that everything, including sticks and stones, has mentality (or, for panexperientialism, consciousness). DANM is able to predict a distribution of conscious experience that is not wildly unintuitive. A rich subjective experience can only be the inner perspective on an informationally rich physical state, because the inner or mental perspective can't add any new information -- it is always a representation of existing information. So informationally simple entities don't have significant mental life.

comment by Jarred Filmer (4thWayWastrel) · 2022-03-26T00:34:16.217Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

re the first question I assumed it was asking "what are you symathetic to" rather than "what is", more than any particular view I'm dubious of anyone who's feels 100% confident in their view on the nature of conciousness 

comment by shminux · 2022-03-25T21:59:39.768Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I suspect "what is consciousness" is downstream of "what is life", and the answer to "What is the relationship between matter and consciousness?" depends on what one counts as alive, and a survey like that doesn't explicate a bunch of hidden assumptions. 

comment by Signer · 2022-03-25T13:51:02.509Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Well now I've finally got what Dual Aspect Neutral Monism is - it's just panpyschism with "physics can be formulated differently" observation!

Replies from: Slider, TAG
comment by Slider · 2022-03-25T20:39:32.982Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I don't know what exactly panpsychicms holds (which is part of the reason why I have isms). But if one understands it as "everything materic has experiences" then there is a somewhat natural foil of "everything that experiences has physicality" ("panphysicalism"). With "only" panpsychisms its left open whether there is something that is experience only but is not physical.

comment by TAG · 2022-03-25T20:38:08.114Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Well, with a clause that causality/laws could be formulated differently. A dual aspecter would be very reluctant to equate "physics" with "the territory".