[Galaxeblaffer]

Randomly watched this yesterday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXgqik6HXc0&ab_channel=LexFr... where Roger Penrose argues that we're missing something fundamental about consciousness and his best bet is a structure called the microtubules. This talk reminded me of my own research into "AI" back in the 00's and that it's almost impossible to talk about AI since everybody has a different idea as to whay AI is, yes i know there's a pretty good classification ANI, AGI, ASI but most people don't know about this and think of AI as a machine that thinks like conscious human. I'd argue that we've solved or at least partly solved the part of AI that has to do with neural nets. We're still some way off utilizing the full potential of neural nets since our hardware hasn't quite reached the capability of emulating even the simplest of complex animals. The thing is that Neural nets are probably only part of intelligence and creating bigger and more complex neural nets probably wont result in what most people consider AI but i guess there's still a chance it might. We might have to wait several years to find out since moors law is plateauing and neural chips are still in it's infancy. My best guess is that we'll solve "Intelligence" long before we solve consciousness and i think we're actually quite far along here. The best theory of intelligence i've read so far is Jeff Hawkins 1000 Brain Theory and i'm really looking forward to see how far it can go. The problem with this theory is that it's still missing the most critical component which is the illusive mechanism that binds all the "Intelligent" stuff together and i guess that might be hidden in the quantum nature of the microtubules but to solve that we kind of need a new component to our theory of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Effects.

Sorry if i went a bit off topic, but just needed to get my thoughts since yesterday out my head.

[kordlessagain]

Having watched Penrose and Hammeroff for a while now, IF microtubules contribute to consciousness experience then it is the collapse (or inference) that gives it wheels.

I'm laughing here because when I posted their ideas to HN oh so long ago, I got downvoted to oblivion because "there's no way organic matter can act as a quantum device". For a place that considers itself a "safe" place to explore ideas, it can be quite dangerous to share too much too early, sometimes.

Time will tell, but my instincts are that we're getting close. We needed computers dreaming first, and we have that now with generative networks!

[jw1224]

Roger Penrose & Stuart Hammeroff’s “Orchestrated Objective Reduction” theory [1] is fascinating and really captured my imagination when I came across it.

But like almost all scientific theories tackling The Hard Problem, it’s built on the assumption that matter gives rise to consciousness.

As time goes by and my own understanding deepens, I’m becoming more and more convinced that this assumption is wrong. Instead we should start considering that consciousness is fundamental, and matter is a product of universal conscious experience.

Idealism is still compatible with the material world, but it seems futile to search for “the experiencer” within the experience itself.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduc...

[naasking]

> Idealism is still compatible with the material world, but it seems futile to search for “the experiencer” within the experience itself.

You're right, that's why the concept of "the experiencer" is ultimately an illusion. It's the same sort of illusion as "tables" and "a day job". None of these concepts fundamentally exist in physics, they are labels we apply to loosely defined categories of observations.

Ultimately, Descartes was wrong, "I think therefore I am" is false because it's circular; it assumes the existence of "I" to conclude that "I" exists. The fallacy-free version is "this is a thought therefore thoughts exist", and as you can see, no "I" can be inferred.

If you want to understand what sort of answer neuroscience is starting to provide to the hard problem, I recommend this paper:

A conceptual framework for consciousness, https://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116933119

[wrp]

Alwyn Scott's Stairway to the Mind (1995) has an accessible critique of Penrose's theory from the perspective of neurophysics. Basically, he argues that neuronal activity is on such a large time and energy scale that quantum effects are unlikely to be relevant.

[Galaxeblaffer]

it does sound quite out there, i agree. and i personally think that it's too early to conclude that algorithms with neutral nets won't get us there, we simply don't have enough computing power to conclude that yet. Penrose has always been a Maverick and as he admits himself he's not even close to an explanation himself. his only lead comes from the fact that anesthetic gases seem to have some kind of effect on the microtubules and i guess that in itself could have a totally different explanation than Quantum magic. i mean the micrtubules could be important but for different reasons.