Comments on: A lifeboat for consciousness https://lifeboat.com/blog/2009/08/a-lifeboat-for-consciousness Safeguarding Humanity Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:32:36 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 By: Alex https://lifeboat.com/blog/2009/08/a-lifeboat-for-consciousness#comment-42831 Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:32:36 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=587#comment-42831 As Brodskiy said:
”.. to save one man — is possible,
to save world — no yet..”

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By: Len Robertson https://lifeboat.com/blog/2009/08/a-lifeboat-for-consciousness#comment-41474 Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:16:30 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=587#comment-41474 Spaceship Earth is a dead end. Global Rome with a solar system as its province is the future. The wild card altering our future is the search for exoplanets. Nothing has gone the way anyone imagined. At this moment the HARPS project works to confirm organic life on Gliese 581d (if they haven’t already done it). Within the next two decades we will identify our firm galactic neighbors; and, because an interstellar civilization leaves a larger footprint, the our first recognized neighbors will be star travelers.

A minute after that discovery, we will find ourselves a third rate backwater desperate to catch up. It should be fun.

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By: neil mcewan https://lifeboat.com/blog/2009/08/a-lifeboat-for-consciousness#comment-38523 Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:34:59 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=587#comment-38523 There may be a minor confusion by saying ‘conscious of’ anything going — say the surroundings. Molluscs have that. Most of that would be senses — sight, touch. If you ‘amplify’ touch you get pain — ouch!

That way of talking about conscious you could think of as intelligence — their primitive nervous system. Where you have phenomena experience you have intelligence.

Since the brain is the intelligent instrument anything taking place there is intelligent! You’re using the brain as an instrument even if not thinking in ‘straight line’ or computational-mode, say by meditating, drugs, instinct. I tend to think where there is qualia it has to be a side-product of intelligence, & the more of it the more qualia.

My main point is the quality of what we call consciousness is a product of our brains so is not something capable of being synthesized, which is what I understand from your Lifeboat. It only exists in our heads.

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By: Stuart Hameroff https://lifeboat.com/blog/2009/08/a-lifeboat-for-consciousness#comment-38514 Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:33:27 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=587#comment-38514 Many believe consciousness emerges from computational intelligence. But the evidence shows that consciousness and computational intelligence are distinct and separable. Primitive organisms (including molluscs) could have some phenomenal experience/qualia without a lot of intelligence. For a description of consciousness and evolution see http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/penrose-hameroff/cambrian.html

Computer systems can have intelligence with NO consciousness. For the Lifeboat, intelligent consciousness (e.g. human consciousness) would be worth preserving).

We know the brain performs many forms of cognition involving intelligence, including sensory processing, complex behavior, learning etc. We more-or-less understand these as computation among neurons. In some instances these cognitive processes are non-conscious (Chalmers easy problems, zombie modes or auto-pilot). But in other instances the same functions are conscious (the hard problem).

For example when I drive to work every day along a familiar route, I often daydream about various things, and am not really conscious of the road and traffic. I am on auto-pilot or zombie mode (and a perfectly safe driver). But when a horn sounds or something novel occurs, my consciousness returns to driving and I am no longer on auto-pilot, but consciously perceiving the scene and in conscious control. Consciousness is an added feature to cognition. What is that feature?

Research has shown that consciousness 1) correlates with gamma synchrony EEG, and 2) moves around the brain. I describe this as a mobile agent, a spatiotemporal envelope of gamma-synchronized brain neurons moving through input/integration layers (via dendritic-dendritic gap junctions) of the brains neuronal networks. Whether or not the model is correct, I think the neural correlate of consciousness (NCC) is indeed a mobile envelope moving through the brain, as imaging studies of mind wandering clearly show.

As to WHY consciousness occurs in this mobile envelope, my own opinion is that quantum computational processes occur in microtubules within the envelope, the Penrose-Haeroff Orch OR model. But as a first step, i.e. the NCC, we should be looking for a function moving around the brain. http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/

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By: Panu Horsmalahti https://lifeboat.com/blog/2009/08/a-lifeboat-for-consciousness#comment-38507 Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:02:58 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=587#comment-38507 > Have you ever had an overwhelming toothache pain? Any intelligence directly associated with that?

Yes, pain and feelings are properties of the brain, and are therefore part of “intelligence”.

> The brain is both neural computer and quantum computer
Even if the brain is dependent on quantum physics/simulation, does not mean that “qualia” is dependent on quantum physics.

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By: neil mcewan https://lifeboat.com/blog/2009/08/a-lifeboat-for-consciousness#comment-38506 Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:53:51 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=587#comment-38506 Intelligence without consciousness is very easy so I guess I missaid. Then, you are conscious of pain but is that because of intelligence? Meaning the old chestnut ‘do fish feel pain?’ There’s likely to be a threshold whereby the animal has enough intelligence to register pain. Molluscs can’t possibly have that ability.

Stuart
Not true. In the axon hillock (axon initiation segment), firing of each and every action potential involves ion channels which open almost simultaneously, rather than sequentially

Neil
Here’s your description of quanta-events. That type of consciousness is a sort of widespread event, non-localised as you say, ie. not something like pain. It seems to me that could well be a part of conscious thought but the idea you can dissociate events in the higher brain into something called ‘abstract consciousness independent of higher brain functions’ doesn’t seem to follow.
One other point is drugs. the effects of these depend on higher brain functions. Your ‘lifeboat for consciousness’ is something independent of higher brain functions.

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By: Stuart Hameroff https://lifeboat.com/blog/2009/08/a-lifeboat-for-consciousness#comment-38505 Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:15:40 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=587#comment-38505 Pain is in the brain, not in peripheral nerves. Pain is content of conscious awareness. Consciousness and intelligence are doubly dissociable. You can have either without the other. And self-awareness is only one form of awareness. Meditators work hard to lose the self and attain higher consciousness.

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By: neil mcewan https://lifeboat.com/blog/2009/08/a-lifeboat-for-consciousness#comment-38503 Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:55:00 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=587#comment-38503 As for pain I don’t necessarily think it implies consciousness as in ‘self-awareness’ so maybe there are degrees of consciousness. If an event happens such as pain any organism is going to feel it since it’s a matter of nerves. It doesn’t seem likely that nerves are conscious, just that they enable pain. In other words, intelligence & consciousness are very tricky to disociate!

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By: Stuart Hameroff https://lifeboat.com/blog/2009/08/a-lifeboat-for-consciousness#comment-38488 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:43:12 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=587#comment-38488 Quanta are fundamental units of anything (matter, energy). The point is that the laws which govern quantum physics are different than those governing classical physics. Intelligence in the brain may be classical computing, but (in my opinion) consciousness involves quantum computing. See my website
http://www.quantumconsciousness.org

I do think consciousness and intelligence are different and dissociable, e.g. pure feelings, meditative bliss etc. Have you ever had an overwhelming toothache pain? Any intelligence directly associated with that?
And we can perform intelligent functions without consciousness, like driving on auto-pilot while daydreaming.

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By: neil mcewan https://lifeboat.com/blog/2009/08/a-lifeboat-for-consciousness#comment-38486 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:28:57 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=587#comment-38486 That is somewhat confusing in that the quanta-effects being investigated are in intelligence systems. It seems there should be a way to differentiate quanta from intelligence, or else the two have to be taken togethe: IE you could not have consciousness without intelligence. Quanta are structure of matter, no?

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