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Comment by dalbasal | Hacker News Reader

Enough credible people have publicly considered the idea credible for me to open my mind.

But... I have to keep my mind open with a brace. otherwise, it'll call occam's razor & snap shut.

At the heart of consciousness particles ideas (I think) is the idea that conciousness can't emerge from nonconscious stuff. This is counterintuitive to me. We now know of all sorts of emergent phenomenon.

Species emerge (from other, sometimes simpler species) and that emergence dynamic turned slime into ND Tyson. Substances like coffee and coffee tables emerge from basic particle characteristics like charge (to borrow their example). Chemistry emerges from particle physics. Biology emerges from chemistry.

Can someone point me to the starting point? I must be missing something. Why can't non-conscious matter, arranged precisely, think?

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They way that I've always thought about it is this:

We are the physics that drives us, everything else is an abstraction.

Chemistry as a thing didnt emerge from particle physics, it is an abstraction of particle physics, a higher-level view on how certain particles interact, and biology is an abstraction of chemistry, "when we combine certain chemicals this stuff happens". But if we take a moment, we zoom in and zoom in and we will find that the common denominator is that things exist in these ways because physics is doing what it does.

The insane rube-goldberg machine of the human body is still a rube-goldberg machine that is being driven by physics, theres millions of layers of complexity, but it's still physics all the way down.

> it's still physics all the way down

The existence of physics doesn't demonstrate that dualism is wrong.

How does Occam's Razor apply here?

You have evidence that some matter (yourself) experiences its existence. The simplest hypothesis that explains this is that all matter experiences its existence. Any hypothesis that posits that SOME matter experiences its existence and other matter does not requires two different kinds of matter (conscious and not) and a mechanism to switch between the two. Seems that hypothesis requires a lot more assumptions.

> You have evidence that some matter (your PC) can run Windows. The simplest hypothesis that explains this is that all matter can run Windows. Any hypothesis that posits that SOME matter can run Windows and other matter does not requires two different kinds of matter and a mechanism to switch between the two. Seems that hypothesis requires a lot more assumptions.

So, you'd rather posit some mystical juju that makes matter gain consciousness, that somehow magically only happens to humans, and happens to matter when humans eat it, but yet is totally undetectable?

No I guess the parent's point is consciousness is inherent to all things. But it's just that it needs some minimal amount of biological configuration for it to manifest in a way that is meaningfully observable.

Which explain things like eating food(above minimal configuration) and death(Some cells die, failing the minimal configuration criteria).

Not all matter has to fend for itself in the environment. This constraint leads to evolution and consciousness. It's not magical, just self replicating.

All true and consistent. "All matter can run Windows" is indeed the simplest explanation. It's wrong, but still the simplest, per Occam's Razor, as CuriouslyC pointed out.

Occam's Razor does not abide false explanations.

I don't think your rephrasing is very apt. "Some matter can run Windows" is only true because some humans configured matter into an arbitrary arrangement that we all agreed to label as "running Windows". There is no reason to speculate that all matter "runs Windows" since the definition of "running Windows" implies a specific configuration of matter.

>Requires two different kinds of matter (conscious and not)

This is just smuggling in the conclusion. We observe conscious matter and non-conscious matter. The simplest explanation (as in requires the fewest entities in our ontology) is that there is just one kind of matter and that physical processes that we already allow into our ontology for external reasons are sufficient to explain why some matter is conscious.

If you mean conscious as in "acts like a human" then sure. If you mean conscious as in "has an internal experience" then that doesn't follow at all.

It is an open question what exactly internal experience is. It is begging the question to say its obvious that physical processes cannot have internal experience. But if we have no information regarding whether physical processes can have internal experience, then it is reasonable to prefer physicalism on grounds of parsimony.

I'd say an important part of consciousness is learning. Without learning we would not even be able to make sense of what is in front of our eyes. A particle doesn't learn, so it can't be conscious.

What is learning?

A particle responds to its environment. A system of particles reconfigures itself in response to the environment, sometimes in a persistent way. That's all your brain is doing when it "learns"

Yes, while being threatened with extinction if they do it wrong. That's the key ingredient - self replication and natural selection. Keeps the learning honest to reality.

> Can someone point me to the starting point? I must be missing something. Why can't non-conscious matter, arranged precisely, think?

The hard problem of consciousness has a long history, but two of the most influential contemporary philosophers in that area are David Chalmers and John Searle.

thanks :)

Can you recommend an essay or paper by either that focuses on the "starting point." IE, why a "chemical computer" version of consciousness can't exist.

> Why can't non-conscious matter, arranged precisely, think?

I think non-conscious matter arranged precisely can think. For example, food, arranged properly by the body, can become conscious. Also AI agents can be conscious as long as they are coupled to a complex environment and put under judicious constraints they have to optimise against.

>>Why can't non-conscious matter, arranged precisely, think?

Consciousness is not same as being able to communicate. Let's say a rock is conscious, how would the rock go about informing us that it is conscious? It has no way of signaling its state. Or even a way of acquiring information about anything around it. Or may there is a way, of both signaling or acquiring information that is alien to us but not to other rocks.

"Let's say a rock is conscious," No, let's not.

Although I generally agree with you, I think there is a difference between the emergent property of a coffee table and that of consciousness: the particles the coffee table is made of are "just" matter, and so is the coffee table itself. But consciousness seems to be something different than matter (or maybe this is just a false assumption of mine). So while I find it intuitive that a table emerges from a number of particles, I think there is a qualitative difference between particles and consciousness.

You can zoom into a coffee table until you see individual particles, but what would it mean to "zoom into" a consciousness?

> but what would it mean to "zoom into" a consciousness?

You'd find good and bad situations - from the point of view of the body. Some situations are useful for life, other are detrimental. Consciousness guides actions towards useful situations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem

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