Summary April 4, 2019

BOXES

One fanciful vision of the (flat) Earth was that it was supported on the back of a turtle, which was, in turn, standing on another turtle and so on: Turtles all the way down.

Similarly, I find it useful to think of "boxes within boxes all the way down." Box 1 is the world we experience "in our head," which includes all experience and everything we know. In particular, it includes what we have been taught and what we have been taught to assume, which is, to a certain extent, "programmed". Box 1 is the "matrix" of individually shared reality. But, unlike the Matrix of Science Fiction fame, our matrix depends deeply on the "real world" outside and our senses within, as eloquently explained by Antonio Damasio.

Our evolutionary survival strategy involves survival as a member of a group, or "super person". Not only do we not "think for ourselves," we can't.

We experience ourselves as objects in the world (that's me) and assume that the world exists without us. It has been here long before we were born, will still be here long after and exposes only a tiny amount of itself to our investigation. This is "Box 2". Box 2 is contained in Box 1. Thinking in "box 2" terms, we recognize that other people exist and that they have an internal world - their "Box 1" which is, to us, Box 3. Of course, there are billions of Box 3's, including Box 3's that belonged to people long dead. We are in "Box 3" when we say things like "I know what he's thinking". Language uniquely provides access to Box 3, when we ask things like "What do you see" and expect an answer that makes sense. It can get pretty crazy. It makes sense to ask if Galileo correctly understood the discoveries and system of Kepler (he didn't). In a similar vein, we can ask of the Church threatened Galileo because of his beliefs or because he was, according to what was known at the time, wrong. All this depends on an acceptance of the fact that each of us lives in our personal "Box 1". This is an unavoidable consequence of our nature. It follows that persecuting an individual for his beliefs is misguided since nobody really "thinks for themselves."

When we are speaking of experience or "external reality," we need to be aware of which "box" we are speaking from. For example, statements about objective reality belong in Box 2 and should not contain "mind-like" concepts like the "laws" of physics. Laws of physics belong in Box 1. They are statements about our experience of the world.

I allow for "Box 0", which is the hypothetical and unobservable world - beyond the reach of our cleverest instruments, observation or reasoning. Like Box 1, Box 0 is relative. We are always biting chunks off Box 0, but we must admit that there are things we will never know about the Universe. At the very least, we must, as individuals, recognize that almost all of Box 0 is beyond what we will ever understand. I assume that "Box 0" exists even if there are no observers anywhere - the situation we assume at the time of the Big Bang and millions of years after that.

I regard all of mathematics as being in "Box 1" as something "mind like." This stands against the common intuition of physicists that the Universe is somehow fundamentally "mathematical" and that we are "discovering" mathematical laws that exist apart from our minds. This assumption is certainly worth challenging, but it's good to make it explicit. Similarly, any statement that includes an "observer" or an "apparatus" is a statement in Box 1, not Box 0.  As far as I know, such "mind like" concepts can be removed from relativity and quantum mechanics without losing anything but hooks for idle philosophers to make their speculations sound "scientific."

"Theory of Boxes" takes a dim view of theories that attempt to explain either of these questions:

• Why is there anything?
• Why does it feel like something to exist (Chambers "hard question")

I am greatly aided in this skepticism by knowing that not all perfectly sensible questions have answers.  While it has not been proven that either of the above questions is formally undecidable, I think it's reasonable to think of them in this way until some future genius settles the matter. For now, at least, I proceed on the assumption that we have something called "experience" and that it is an experience of something other than ourselves. Not much of a stretch I think.

THE INTERFACE

In effect, what we call "mind" is an interface between the "real world" and "Box 1". You could say it's responsible for creating the whole stack of boxes. It is worth asking how it does this, which boils down to curiosity about neuroscience - the brain. More subtly, it involves asking about the nature of the universe we inhabit and what it takes to survive in it.

In this area of concern, we also consider how the interface is "programmed" by language and other cultural factors. Analogy plays a key role here, as outlined in "Surfaces and Essences". A key concept in that books is "isomorphism" - the idea that some analogies are better than others. In fact, the best ones allow us to learn about one system from the properties of another. For example, we assume that objects in the universe behave as if they "obey" laws of gravity (mind-like ideas). Thus, we can predict how objects will behave (say the date of an eclipse) by working out the math in the model. On a broader scale, we can ask which of our ideas genuinely underpin reality itself, the subject of "A Beautiful Question".

Evolution has gifted humans with an obsession with "figuring out what's really going on". Many of our guesses are wide of the mark and wind up as "mythology". Some are impressively robust and useful - they are called "Science". So far, we can't be sure how closely our ideas mirror the "real world", but we can help ourselves by keeping in mind the difference between our ideas (mind-like) and the actual reality we attempt to approach.

Substrate of Consciousness

This post is fun to read once processed by Perplexity AI here.


Len writes: My thoughts on this matter have to do with the physical substrate of consciousness and its possible dependence on entanglement as a means of messaging.




Well ..

"The physical substrate of consciousness" ...

There are some metaphors and analogies in that idea that need to be made explicit (Hofstader's Surfaces and Essences is always looking over my shoulder).

The analogy at work here seems to be that "consciousness" is like a thing of some sort - a kind of physical substance. It would seem to be as easy to think of consciousness as a process - particularly a kind of "calculation". It does seem that calculations need a "substrate" - a physical medium to work. Hofstadter spent a lot of time on this idea in his famous "Goedel, Escher, Bach", which won him a Pulitzer. In fact, the idea underlies most of the Science Fiction ideas about consciousness, including the "Singularity", which takes it for granted that human consciousness doesn't depend on any specific "substrate" but would be perfectly OK if transferred to silicon.

This idea is itself an extended metaphor, depending as it does on an image of the mind as some kind of calculation "like" a computer. Indeed, this is a common theme among philosophers who claim to have "solved" the "hard problem" of consciousness. They begin by assuming that the metaphor is more than an analogy - it is fact and that the only problem is to describe how the mind arises (or "emerges") out of the substrate. Fame and fortune await anyone who "solves" the "hard problem".

For those who have fallen far down this rabbit hole, it is hard to spot how this could not be true. Isn't the only alternative "Descarte's Error" - the idea that there are two worlds - the universe of spirit and the universe of matter, somehow interacting through mysterious means? I believe they call this idea "Dualism", but don't quote me.

This is a common fallacy, especially prevalent in politics. If somebody else's idea is wrong, mine must be right.

As I pointed out in our breakfast conversation, total knowledge of the "substrate" of an iPhone doesn't tell us anything fundamental about what an iPhone does and what it is for. We are not lacking in information about the "substrate" of mental functions - presumably the brain. What philosophers always miss is that most of what we know about this "substrate" has been learned in the last 25 years and the "takeaway" is that we have centuries of work ahead of us to understand even this aspect of consciousness. Fans of "entanglement" are "jumping the queue", claiming victory over all the scientists hard at work making real discoveries about brain function, to claim what amounts to a theological connection between entanglement and consciousness. Is it too much to call it theological? Are we not substituting the nakedly theological reasoning of Descartes (where the spirit world is home to God) with the pseudo-scientific idea that "entanglement" is the door to a previously unsuspected realm of reality?

Before I go on, I must point out one issue I have with the idea of the "hard problem". Most people, when they see something referred to as a "problem", automatically assume that there is a "solution" out there. In this case, a Nobel Prize awaits anyone who "solves" the problem. But not all issues that can be framed as "problems" have solutions. As discussed at breakfast, this was something I learned (and actually used) in my thesis in 1969.

Let's go back to the "calculation" analogy. It's quite true a calculation seems to need a "substrate" but, mysteriously, the substrate seems to be irrelevant to the formal description or function of the calculation. Perhaps we should take some time to focus on that "mystery" before tossing out the awkward details to focus on the "substrate" idea, which, after all, seems to be irrelevant in the case of a calculation. What makes a calculation a calculation? I'd say it's quite like the observer in Quantum Mechanics or in Relativity. A calculation is in the eye of the beholder (ignoring for the moment Wolfram's claim that the whole universe is a big calculation). So, even in the case of an apparently "mechanical" calculation, you need a mind - a "programmer" - someone who has purposefully arranged material events to produce a meaningful result. It would seem to me that the analogy falls apart as soon as you include the programmer into the "other side" of the analogy.

It seems to me that "mind" does, indeed, require a substrate. Ultimately, there seems to be no reason to suspect that "mind" is a phenomenon outside the realm of physics. "Mind" obviously requires at least a brain and there is no mystery about this (a vast amount of experimental data verifies this). Since our brains are physical objects, we may assume that "deep down" they follow the rules of quantum mechanics. But we find these rules to be of limited explanatory value in our models of small molecules, let alone the huge molecules involved in life processes. We seem to be doing very well with "ordinary" chemistry and biology. See, for example, the Saporsky's wonderful "Behave", which delves deeply into the many-layered mystery of human behaviour in terms that range from synapse function to cultural pressures. Saporsky takes up perhaps the most relevant aspect of "mind" - namely, Why we do what we do? His answer draws on "bleeding edge" experimental science and provide a sense of where more information might come from. For the purpose of the current topic, "explanations" of behaviour whiz past chemistry rather quickly to include the organism's environment. It makes no sense to discuss behaviour without discussing the organism's actual or perceived environment, or, to put a fine point on it, what the mind is for.

Incidentally, when you learn the actual details of how behaviour arises, the analogy of a "calculation" seems remarkably unhelpful, but there is one idea that pops out. If we acknowledge that "mind" is somehow related to behaviour - and that behaviour is really the main clue that we have that mind is present, does it make sense to talk about the "substrate" of behaviour? Indeed it does - as Saporsky shows at length. In short, the "substrate" of behaviour is reality itself in all its staggering complexity.

Dawkins himself (the author of "Selfish Gene") was great at "substrate" questions. His "memes" required the substrate of the human brain (plus human society if you think of it). He also invented the idea of the "extended phenotype", which recognizes the behaviour and the environment of an organism as important as its physical form (phenotype). Our "extended phenotype" includes a mind. Damasio does an excellent job of tracing the emergence of "mind" in tiny steps all the way through evolution from, as puts it "From Bacteria to Bach".

In spite of all this great work, the "hard problem" of consciousness remains unsolved. Damasio comes closest when he gives the problem the respect it deserves. Why does it feel this way to be alive? Consciousness is a feeling. What, exactly, is a feeling?

The Hard Problem - Who Counts?

Stripped of philosophical rhetoric, the Hard Problem of Consciousness is: Why does it feel this way to be me? It's about the inner experience of being. I won't digress into the history and controversy of the issue except to say that I do indeed regard the problem as "hard". It seems to me that no amount of understanding of the "mind" as an epiphenomenon of physics can explain the feeling of being in the world. In fact, it is hard to imagine what such an "explanation" would look like.

For me, the first step in tackling a hard problem is to recognize that it is, indeed, hard. The most critical step in my Master's thesis research was to recognized that the problem I was trying to solve was provably impossible. The key was to ask the right question and to know that the question you'd really like to ask is unanswerable.

For the purposes of this discussion, I will use the term "soul" to refer to a (possibly hypothetical) entity that is capable of experiencing the world in some way similar to the way I do. I know I have a soul (but I may still be wrong). I'm less sure about you.

I love to collect impertinent questions about consciousness. Let me give you one that had my head spinning for awhile.

Sam Harris poses a thought experiment:

Suppose we could build a robot that perfectly mimicked human behavior with the ability to totally fool anyone as to its mechanical nature (passing the Turing Test with flying colours and then some). In philosophy, this entity is called a "philosophical zombie" which is identical to a human in all respects except lacking a "soul".  Typically, Sam sprinkles scientific fairy dust on an old problem by imagining the zombie to be a robot. This is just a modern spin on an old issue [2].

Harris claims (and I agree) that we would treat this robot as a "person" long before this high level of functionality was achieved. After all, people love their cars and pet spiders.

So Sam asks, What is the meaning of such a relationship? If you fall in love with a robot, are you not, in fact, alone in he universe and just fooling yourself about being "in love"? Good question.

Harris is famously capable of asking impertinent questions, but, like the rest of us, rather poor at coming up with pertinent answers [1]. What is it that is bothering Harris? One thing you will know about Harris if you listen 5 minutes into any of his podcasts is that he loves an audience. He would clearly not be doing what he's doing if he had only an audience of robots (I feel the same way about my blog, by the way). So it makes sense for him to be horrified by the notion that a person might have nothing but "relationships" with soulless machines [3].

Perhaps Sam needs to get over himself. Really, there is no way to know for sure if Sam himself is not a robot . At the core of his concern is his need to know that there is a soul-to-soul connection which, as a byproduct, validates that he himself has a soul.  Possibly a robot would falsely validate Sam's soul by acting in a programmed way like a human being but, inside, being nothing but millions of lines of code instructing the machine to act like a living being. How does Sam know that he is not a zombie? Impertinent question: why does it matter? Is it not annoying to as the Universe the ultimate question and get back the response: Why do you ask?

Is it possible that one of the key attributes of this hypothetical "soul" is simply the desperate need to contact other souls? Perhaps one preoccupation of "souls" is to prove their own existence - another form of the "hard problem"!

We can understand Sam's problem without invoking the idea of soul at all (this happens a lot with "soul" questions). Humans are social animals. Our evolutionary survival strategy gives us hard-wired brain functions that recognize faces, voices and social status. We have "mirror neurons" that allow us to experience the behavior of other people as our own - an ability that allows the great apes (and some birds) to learn by watching. The great evolutionary achievement of man is language, which makes no sense unless it's an excellent way to share experience. Thus, we can suspect that this hunger for connection arises out of human nature. Not necessarily anything to do with "souls".

Along with this "deep hunger" are two more notable human characteristics: curiosity and self-awareness. We can easily understand why humans would be aware and curious about their own need to connect with others "like themselves" and for some of them at least to ask, What do I mean by "like myself"? Damn. The hard question again.

Returning to Sam's concern, I'd say that it "feels good" to make connections with entities that feel like souls. It's more than just feeling. It's good for you - a way of behaving in a human way. Not feeling this way is "swimming upstream", bound to create unnecessary tension and suffering. Cutting to the chase, our lives will feel just fine even if we are living in a society of zombies. By definition, zombie relationships will fulfill all the inner needs of a human unless that human persists in asking unanswerable questions.

So Sam, If you can't find someone to love you, buy a dog. Or start a blog ...

But wait! Suppose Sam is, indeed, a zombie. This is an even more chilling scenario: a world consisting of nothing but robots - just machines pretending to interact in a human way. A world of intelligent cuckoo clocks. Since there is nobody left to fool, we can imagine that the robots fall far short of accurate human simulation. If we think about it for a second, this is worse than Sam's empty love affair. We can see that we don't need Sam at all to reach this horrifying dystopia. What if only our machines are left and there are no souls at all in the Universe?

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[1] Sam is also good at burying his ideas in a deep layer of scientific "fairy dust", making it seem like he's got a new spin on very old problems. By sleight of hand, it can seem that his new way of asking the old problem actually answers the old problem.

[2] In fact, Sam's problem may not even deserve treatment as a philosophical question at all. Is it not painful to be in a relationship with someone who "has no idea who I am?" Is that not a common complaint? Is that not a relationship that lacks "soul to soul" connection - like living with a zombie? Possibly even feeling yourself to be a zombie?

[3] The vast majority of "hits" on this blog come from Russia. I assume that these are "bots" crawling the web for nefarious purposes not including an interest in philosophy.