[ingenium]

I'm currently a philosophy of science and molecular biology double major, and I have to say I agree with Paul Graham's criticisms of traditional philosophy. None of it really makes sense, and is generally nothing more than someone's opinion. Yet we hold philosophers such as Aristotle in high regard.

Philosophy of science is different from classical philosophy in that it focuses on more concrete aspects. One of the best classes I took was the philosophy of artificial intelligence. We discussed what it is to be conscious, and how we differed from a computer, it at all.

Other classes focused on the history of evolution or relativity and studied how these theories were formed and the arguments from the scientific community against them. While a lot of the readings are books or essays by people simply giving their opinions, I've learned to consider what they have to say, but that it is OK and in fact encouraged to disagree and give your own opinion. Since philosophy cannot be "proven" like a mathematical proof, another's opinions are not any more correct than my own as long as both are formed logically.

What I took from philosophy was not the opinions of the "great philosophers", but rather was the ability to think about things logically and confidently make my own opinions on them.

[euccastro]

So what's your take on consciousness, and how/whether we differ from computers?

[ingenium]

Basically, consciousness is nothing special and we don't differ from computer at all in that we're simply a more complex computer than anything we've created thus far.

[the900]

Can you offer defense of that position please?

[ingenium]

The brain is composed of neurons. Each neuron either fires or it doesn't, just like on or off in a computer. This is determined by chemical reactions in and outside the cell. A powerful enough computer can simulate this down to the atomic level, it's just physics. Just because the computers we build don't function the same as the brain doesn't mean that the brain isn't a computer. Some attempts at AI have taken this approach, and while they generally work, we don't yet have the processing power to scale it.

When a certain stimulus happens, the effects it has on the brain, which include thoughts, is predictable and computable by doing the physics. We just have this illusion of "free will" and making choices. Our personalities are simply the result of how our brain's wiring developed from our environmental stimuli.

This also brings to light an important topic in philosophy of science: determinism. Is the world deterministic or not? If it's not, then physics and the sciences simply don't work. If the world is deterministic, which all evidence we have says that it is, then free will cannot exist. It's just easier and more comforting for people to pretend we have free will.

[euccastro]

Yet that doesn't even address consciousness. Just behaviour.

I don't mean consciousness as in functioning state of the brain (i.e., as opposed to unconsciousness), or about the ability of a representational system to picture and reason about itself. I talk about the feeling of being (I wrote a semi-serious comment about this in this thread: search for metaesthesia).

You can rightly claim that this is not observable beyond the first person, and thus it's out of the scope of science. But I guess we all have a personal unscientific take on it, or we can make up one as good as any other when so prompted. That was what I was asking you about.

[rms]

My take is that consciousness is probably unique to humanity. Yet other great entities, probably have something better than consciousness. Because of the limitations of our own consciousness and what our language allows us to express, we won't ever be able to comprehend the supreme state of existence that makes up what a star has that is better than consciousness. It just doesn't make sense to me to look at a star and somehow perceive ourselves as better or different than that dumb object because we think.