To be real, consciousness must cause something. Sorry, supernatural believers.

People throw around strange conceptions about consciousness. On this blog, and elsewhere. Most of the strangeness comes from those religiously and supernaturally inclined, who put forward notions of consciousness that bear no resemblance to reality.

I'm familiar with this sort of w00-woo, because I used to engage in it myself.

I've finished reading neuroscientist Christof Koch's latest book, Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It.  Not surprisingly, he frequently views consciousness through the lens of integrated information theory, a theory that Koch has embraced and contributed to.

Here's passages from a concluding chapter where Koch describes what consciousness is, and isn't. This will challenge those who see consciousness as something supernatural, non-physical, or ethereal to describe why Koch is wrong and they are right.

Consciousness is not a clever algorithm. Its beating heart is intrinsic causal power, not computation. Causal power is not something intangible, ethereal, but something physical -- the extent to which the system's recent past specifies its present state (cause power) and the extent to which this current state specifies its immediate future (effect power).

And here's the rub: causal power, the ability to influence oneself, cannot be simulated. Not now or in the future. It must be built into the system, part of the physics of the system. 

To illustrate this intuitively, consider computer code that simulates the field equations of Albert Einstein's celebrated theory of general relativity, relating mass to spacetime curvature. The software accurately models the supermassive black hole, called Sagittarius A*, located at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

This black hole exerts such extensive gravitational effects on its surroundings that nothing, not even light, can escape its attraction. To absolutely no one's surprise, the astrophysicist simulating the black hole doesn't get sucked into their laptop by the simulated gravitational field. 

Of course they don't. Why should they? This seemingly absurd question emphasizes the difference between the real and the simulated. For if the simulation is faithful to reality, spacetime should warp around the laptop, creating a black hole that swallows everything around it. But it doesn't. Why not?

The answer is that gravity is not a computation. If it were, then the physics simulation engine should affect the gravitational field around the computer. Gravity has extrinsic causal powers, attracting anything with mass. Imitating a black hole's causal powers requires an actual superdense sphere about four million times the mass of our sun.

Causal power can't be simulated; it must be constituted. Aspects of gravity can be simulated but not its raw causal power.

The different between the real and the simulated is their respective causal powers. That's why it doesn't rain inside a computer simulating a rainstorm. The software is functionally identical to weather, yet lacks its causal powers to blow and to turn vapor into rain drops. Causal powers, the ability to make or take a difference, must be built into the system.

...A human brain simulation running on a digital computer can, in principle, do anything a human can do. However, it would not experience anything. It would be an intelligent zombie.

Once again, it is important to emphasize that the brain experiences life not by dint of a soul-like substance but by its massive intrinsic causal power.

Comments

[sant64]

Gotta admire the chutzpah of someone who takes psychedelic drugs to...I forget his reason for it, or if he even has one..... be in a constant dither that some people have religious beliefs.

[Brian Hines]

sant64, I rarely think about other people's religious beliefs. My life is too full of other interests for that. For example, I've got to watch Oregon and Oregon State in the super regionals of the NCAA baseball tournament today. Go Ducks and Beavers!

What bothers me most about religiosity, which I mainly think about only when I'm writing a post for this blog, is that truths about the world are sacrificed on the altar of blind faith. This has dangerous consequences, as evidenced by the religious fervor so many supporters of Donald Trump have for his constant lies and demagoguery.

Religions form the basis for such behavior by putting forth their own unproven assertions about reality, and having an authoritarian governance structure of their own where questioning is discouraged and obedience to religious leaders no matter what they do or say is encouraged.

[Appreciative Reader]

Not sure what one's position on recreational/exploratory use of psychedelics has got to do with one's interest in and opinion on others' blind faith in archaic obsolete fallacious belief systems. The one seems to have nothing at all to do with the other.

[sant64]

This essay is a misrepresentation of Koch's views. "This will challenge those who see consciousness as something supernatural, non-physical, or ethereal to describe why Koch is wrong and they are right."

But Koch never said that he thinks consciousness is absolutely non-physical.

Koch: "Consciousness cannot be explained only within the framework of space and time and energy, but we need to postulate something additional — experience.”

He acknowledges that subjective experience — I am an ‘I’ and not just an ‘it’— cannot be explained by physical theories. He asserts that no physical thing in the universe, whether matter, black holes, galaxies, etc., appears to have conscious experience. Yet we clearly do; thus he believes that we need a profoundly new way to understand consciousness and the mind.

https://mindmatters.ai/2024/01/leading-neuroscientist-wavers-on-physical-view-of-consciousness/

Repeatedly presented Sapolsky as speaking for the consensus of neuroscience on the question of free will, and now putting words in the mouth of a different neuroscient....More precision and less atheist activism please.

And again, it's funny to me that someone who is so consumed with altering his consciousness -- with a different guru every week, and now psychedelics -- has such a problem with the "woo" of
consciousness expansion that posits this world had a creator. And why he can never articulate why he finds "woo" so abhorrent and a danger to civil society and puppies.

The answer will never come, but that's OK. I understand that most of our time and energy should be devoted to the nascent Stalinist purge.

[Appreciative Reader]

facepalm

Woo woo beliefs are about subscribing to fallacious unevidenced belief systems. Recreational and exploratory use of psychedelics is ...just that. The one has nothing to do with the other. Not sure what part of this is confusing you.

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Let me try to explain with an illustration.

Meditation can be part of woo woo nonsense. But shorn of that, meditation is just meditation. I can practice meditation as exploration, as recreation, as relaxation, as part of wellness. If I do have experiences, I can simply put them down as interesting things the brain does when stimulated just so, and I can explore further if I want to.

Nothing woo woo about meditation per se. Or about ingesting psychedelics per se.

Can you spell out what connection you think you see between the two?

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As to why religions are toxic, that's a completely separate question. And it has already been spelled out here, many times.

[Appreciative Reader]

To spell the above out even clearer: It is certainly hypocritical for someone subscribing to one stripe of woo to criticize another's woo beliefs, even if that criticism, seen stand-alone, hits home. Like we've seen here Sikh types criticize RSSB; and, in the past, Christian types as well; or for that matter Advaitins like Osho Robbins who (entertainingly, humorously, and quite rightly) criticize other kinds of woo, while remaining blithely and comopletely oblivious of their own transparent woo. That, I agree, is "funny".

But, as I've discussed, meditation per se, or ingesting psychedelics per se, are just that, they're not in themselves woo woo stuff. Therefore, there's nothing " funny" in someone who meditates, or someone who does the shrooms, also being vocal in their criticism of others' fallacious and often toxic belief systems. The two are completely separate things.

I'm surprised you don't see this, not even after I pointed it out clearly; hence this added clarification/explanation, even though the point is kind of obvious.