News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?. Parent comment

Re:What’s so hard about understanding consciousness? by Dylan16807 on Friday February 04, 2022 @03:40PM (#30212823)
If I have a material that tightens or loosens based on temperature or chemical gradient, does that count as "sensory input"? I wouldn't say so, since nothing is receiving a signal from it to distinguish, and I also wouldn't say it's causing experiences, but it is enough to seek nutrients for a bacteria or a jellyfish-like creature.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What’s so hard about understanding consciousness? by visarga on Friday February 04, 2022 @03:49PM (#30212982)
You're right, a bacteria would sense and follow chemical gradients and light. And that would be a primitive form of consciousness.

A piece of material is not conscious because it doesn't need to. You see, bacterias are self replicators, humans too. And self replication is resource intensive, while resources are limited. So life becomes a competition. That is why agents need to become more attuned to their state and possible actions and outcomes.

Is that good enough to be called consciousness? Taking sensory inputs, representing your state, taking actions, observing effect, learning from it. Your goal - to exist, to make copies of yourself. If you're not aware of essential information, or don't understand your situation, you die. If you live, it's because you are aware.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What’s so hard about understanding consciousness? by Dylan16807 on Friday February 04, 2022 @03:50PM (#30212995)
If it's only one protein, is that protein primitively conscious?

It's not interacting with anything else to make those decisions, it's completely autonomous.

> observing effect, learning from it

If something is meaningfully doing that, then we're getting to consciousness. But I'll note that I don't count natural selection as "learning" here.

And observing the results of decisions and learning is not mandatory to survive and reproduce.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What’s so hard about understanding consciousness? by visarga on Friday February 04, 2022 @04:01PM (#30213136)
Natural selection is the outer loop, reinforcement learning the inner loop. Agents, by living or dying, send signals into the system, guiding the process.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What’s so hard about understanding consciousness? by Dylan16807 on Friday February 04, 2022 @04:04PM (#30213182)
Natural selection is not conscious, and agents don't need to have reinforcement.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What’s so hard about understanding consciousness? by PaulDavisThe1st on Friday February 04, 2022 @05:50PM (#30214549)
"consciousness" as a philosophical question is not about the ability to detect state in the world (including your own state) and reacting to it. it is not about self-replication.

It is about having subjective experience aka "qualia". It is about "it being like something to be you", contrasted with, e.g. being a rock (which most people agree, it is not like anything to be).

[ Parent | on HN ]