Brain Archive

To be published in Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix (Ben Bella Books, April 2003). Published on KurzweilAI.net March 3, 2003.

As the essays throughout this book demonstrate, the Wachowski Brothers designed The Matrix to work at many levels. They carefully thought through the film's philosophical underpinnings, religious symbolism, and scientific speculations. But there are a few riddles in The Matrix, aspects of the film that seem nonsensical or defy the laws of science. These apparent glitches include:

• The Bioport—how can a socket in your head control your senses? How can it be inserted without killing you?

• The Red Pill—since the pill is virtual, how can it throw Neo out of the Matrix?

• The Power Plant—can people really be an energy source?

• Entering and Exiting the Matrix—why do the rebels need telephones to come and go?

• The Bugbot—what's the purpose of the bugbot?

• Perceptions in the Matrix—how do the machines know what fried chicken tastes like?

• Neo's Mastery of the Avatar—how can Neo fly?

• Consciousness and the Matrix—are the machines in the Matrix alive and conscious? Or are they only machines, intelligent but mindless?

This essay addresses these questions and shows how these seeming glitches can be resolved.

THE BIOPORT

Can the machines really create a virtual world through a bioport? And how does it work? The bioport is a way of giving the Matrix computers full access to the information channels of the brain. It is located at the back of the neck—probably between the occipital bone at the base of the skull, and the first neck vertebra. Wiring would best enter through the soft cartilage that cushions the skull on the spinal column, and pass up through the natural opening that lets the spinal cord into the skull. This avoids drilling through bone, and maintains the mechanical and biological integrity of the skull's protection. A baby fitted with a bioport can easily survive the operation.

The bioport terminates in a forest of electrodes spanning the volume of the brain. In a newborn, the sheathed mass of wire filaments is pushed into the head through the bioport. On reaching the skull cavity, the sheath would be released, and the filaments spread out like a dandelion, gently permeating the developing cortex. Nested sheaths would release a branching structure of filamentary electrodes. As each sheathed wire approaches the surface of the brain, it releases thousands of smaller electrodes. In the neonate, brain cells have few synaptic connections, so the slender electrodes can penetrate harmlessly.

With its electrodes distributed throughout the brain, the Matrix could deliver its sensory signals in either of two places: at the sensory portals or deep inside the brain's labyrinth. For example, vision could be driven by electrodes on the optic nerves where they enter the brain. Artificial signals would then pass into the visual cortex at the back of the brain, which would handle them as if they had come from the eyes. Correspondingly, outgoing motor nerves would also have electrodes at the boundary of brain and skull. This simple design mirrors the natural state of the brain most closely. It is not, however, the only possibility. Electrodes could alternatively be attached in the depths of the brain, beyond the first stages of the visual cortex. This would greatly simplify the data processing. In normal perception, most of the incoming information isn't processed; information you aren't paying attention to is filtered out. If the Matrix were to deliver information directly to the output axons from the sensory cortex—as opposed to the input to the cortex—then it would save itself the job of filling in all those details.

One scene tells us which method the Matrix uses. When Neo wakes and finds himself in a vat, he pulls out the oxygen and food tubes, drags himself out of the gelatinous fluid, and—perceives the world. The fact that he can see and hear proves that the visual and auditory cortices of his brain are working. This wouldn't be possible if the Matrix had put its sensory data into the deeper centers of his brain. For then his sensory cortex would have been bypassed: it would never have received any stimulation, and would have wasted away. In that case, Neo would wake from his vat and find himself blind and deaf, with no sense of smell or taste, no feeling of touch or heat in his skin, no awareness of whether he was vertical or horizontal, or where his arms or legs were. The Matrix must have input its visual data just where the optic nerve from the eyeball passes into the skull, rather than in the midst of the brain's vision processing. Likewise, Neo's ability to walk and use his arms shows that the motor cortex is also developed and functioning. Indeed, even the cerebellum, which controls balance, must be working. So, the Matrix must be capturing its motor signals from the brain's efferent nerves after they have finished with the last stage of cortical processing, but before the nerves pass out of the skull.  

The rebels use the bioport to load new skills into their colleagues' brains—writing directly into permanent memory. The Matrix itself never implants skills in this way; folks in the virtual world learn things in the usual manner by reading books and going to college. So, why did the architects of the Matrix build into the bioport this capability to download skills? It is actually a byproduct of how the bioport is installed. They could have attached electrodes to just the sensory and motor nerve fibers. That, though, is difficult: the installer must predict where each nerve fiber will be anchored, which is hard to do reliably, given the plasticity of the neonate brain; and it must navigate through the brain tissue to find these sites. A more robust and adaptable method is to lay a carpet of electrodes throughout the whole brain, and let the software locate the sensory and motor channels by monitoring the data flows on the lines.

That spare capacity remains available for others to exploit, and the rebels use it to download kung-fu expertise into Neo's brain and to implant helicopter piloting skills into Trinity's. If the Matrix ever learned this technique, it could create havoc for the rebels, implanting impulses to serve its own ends.

THE RED PILL

Morpheus offers Neo the choice of his lifetime, in the form of the famous red and blue pills. But what can a virtual pill do to a real brain? We have seen that the Matrix interacts with the brain only in the sensory and motor nerve fibers. It does not affect the inner workings of the brain, where a real psychoactive chemical would have to act. Minor analgesics such as aspirin would work by having their effect outside the brain centers, canceling out pain inputs from the avatar software.

The blue pill is probably a placebo. Morpheus says only, "You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe." We never know what, if anything, the blue one would do.

So, how does the active pill, the red one, work? Since virtual aspirin can work as a painkiller, the avatar's software module must be able to accept instructions to cancel out any given sensory input. Evidently, the red pill gives the avatar a blanket command to cancel all such input. It thereby obliterates Neo's perception of the virtual world, which the Matrix has been feeding to him throughout his life. Instead of sitting on a chair in a hotel room, Neo sees and feels for the first time that he is immersed in a fluid. The perception of this filters through into his perceptions of the Matrix's own imagery. Neo touches a mirror, and finds it a viscous fluid that clings to his finger and then seeps along his arm, covering his chest and slithering down his throat. A blend of bodily perceptions and mental imagery is typical of what happens when you wake from a dream; external perceptions are distorted to fit the contents of the dream. Your dream of falling off a cliff might fade into falling out of bed. In the film, the liquefied mirror is seen only by Neo, not the others in the room. His real bodily sensations are, for the first time, sweeping into his brain, which struggles to integrate them into the stable narrative he has lived in up to that moment.

Another route out of the Matrix, besides the red pill, would be meditation. The Buddhist practice of vipassa¹ gives adepts penetrating insights into their own mental processes. It rolls back the barrier between conscious awareness and the subconscious. An adept of vipassana, living in the Matrix, would discover the interface between the Matrix's electrodes and the brain's wetware. The expert practitioner could override the Matrix's stream of imagery, and see reality. Morpheus mentions that someone did break free from the Matrix. Perhaps meditation was the key. To attain that expertise, however, would take years of effort. Leading other people to the truth would require a school of meditation to train new recruits for years, to pursue what one individual claimed was the truth, but everyone else dismissed as fantasy. No doubt this is what the Oracle is gently encouraging. But it is not surprising that the red pill was invented as a fast-track route.

Morpheus's team monitors Neo's progress. As he realizes that he is immersed in fluid, Neo panics, and his instinct to escape drowning compels him to drag the tubes out of his mouth. Like waking out of a dream, Neo finds the sensible world rushing in on him, and it is remarkable that his manual coordination has been so well preserved by the Matrix system. He grabs the tubes and yanks them out, using weak hands that had never before grasped anything.

When Neo's exit from the Matrix is detected, a robot inspects him and flushes him out of his pod. Too weak to swim, he must be pulled out of the wastewater pool without delay. How are the rebels to find him? In a power plant vast enough to house the human race, there would be thousands of effluent drains. As Morpheus mentions to Neo, "the pill you took is part of a trace program." Besides canceling Neo's sensory inputs, the red pill also puts a unique reference signal onto the Matrix network. When the Nebuchadnezzar's computer locates that signal, it can work out Neo's physical location and order the hovercraft to the appropriate chute. In the tense moment before that reference signal is located, the worried Morpheus says, "We're going to need the signal soon," and Trinity exclaims that Neo's heart is fibrillating as the panic threatens to bring on a heart attack. Apoc finds the reference signal just in time, before Neo's brain disengages from the Matrix network and the signal vanishes.

THE POWER PLANT

During the armchair scene, we have what is probably the most criticized element in The Matrix story line. Morpheus claims that the human race is imprisoned in a power station, where human bodies are used as a source of bioelectricity. This is engineering nonsense; it violates the fundamental law of energy conservation. The humans would have to be fed, and the laws of physics demand that the energy consumed as food must be greater than the energy generated by the human body. That Morpheus has misunderstood what is going on is underscored by his mention in the same speech of the machines' discovery of a new form of nuclear fusion. Evidently, the fusion is the real source of energy that the machines use. So what are humans doing in the power plant? Controlled fusion is a subtle and complex process, requiring constant monitoring and micromanaging. The human brain, on the other hand, is a superb parallel computer. Most likely, the machines are harnessing the spare brainpower of the human race as a colossal distributed processor for controlling the nuclear fusion reactions. (Sawyer comes to a similar conclusion elsewhere in this volume—Ed.)

ENTERING AND EXITING THE MATRIX

The virtual world of the Matrix is not bound by physical laws as we know them, but for the virtual world to be consistently realistic, the laws of physics must be followed where they can be observed by humans. Access into and out of a virtual world is a problem, because materializing and dematerializing violate the conservation of mass and energy. Furthermore, whatever was previously in the space occupied by the materializing body must be pushed out of the way; and would be pushed with explosive speed if the materialization is instantaneous. Conversely, on dematerialization, the surrounding air would rush in to the vacated space with equal implosive force. There are no such explosions and implosions in The Matrix, so how do the rebels do it?

In the Matrix computer, software modules represent the observable objects in the virtual world, and these modules interact by means of predefined messages. One such message issued by a virtual human body, or "avatar," is, "What do I see when I look in the direction V?" A module whose object lies on the line of sight along V will respond with a message specifying the color, luminosity, and texture that the human should see in that direction. If a rebel's avatar is to be visible to other people who are immersed in the Matrix world, the Nebuchadnezzar's computer must pick up those "What-do-I-see" requests and reply with its own "You-see-this" message.

A virtual human body does not send "What-do-I-see?" message to all other modules in the Matrix, or else it would overload the network. It refers to "registers" of modules, which record the virtual objects' shape, size, and position. Simple geometry then tells it which modules to target. For efficiency, each visible volume of space, such as the room of a building, has its own register.

The key step in materializing a body in a given space is for its module to be inserted into that space's register. For dematerializing, it is deleted from the register. Once it is registered, anyone looking in that direction will see that module's virtual body. The Matrix cannot let a software module insert itself arbitrarily into a register, since that could violate the conservation of mass if it led to an object's materializing in an area that has a conscious observer.

Registers for unobserved spaces are not constrained in this way. If nobody is watching a room and its entrances, then a body can safely materialize in it without observably breaking the simulated laws of physics. 

This does not mean that the laws of physics break down as soon as all observers leave a room. The table and chair do not start to float around against the law of gravity when nobody is looking. Rather, the Matrix simply does not bother to run the simulation for a room that nobody is looking at. In its register, it retains details of where each object is, but the room is no longer rendered as visual and tactual imagery. 

So, when the Nebuchadnezzar's computer wants to materialize a rebel, it must find some unobserved room, and insert the data module for the rebel's body into the register for that room. Subsequently, if someone else enters the room, he will see the rebel just like any other object in the room. And the rebel can walk out of the room into any other part of the Matrix world in the normal manner. This is how rebels materialize in the Matrix without causing explosions or breaching the integrity of the simulation. 

When a rebel exits, the module that simulates her body is deleted from the register. This must happen only when the body is not being observed. There is, however, an intermediate state, "imperception," which effectively takes the body out of the virtual world even while the data module is still in the register. This is an emergency procedure that the Nebuchadnezzar's software uses for fast escapes. 

Although the Matrix software cannot insert or delete a module while its object is being observed, it does allow any module to change its appearance. The agents use it whenever they enter the world. An agent never materializes or dematerializes, but changes the appearance of another person's avatar to match the personal qualities of the agent. 

To make a rebel imperceptible, the Nebuchadnezzar's computer changes the body's visible appearance to be transparent; and the body's mechanical resistance to that of the air. From an observer's perspective, the body has melted into air. From a software perspective, the data module is still on the register but simulating a body indistinguishable from thin air. Later, when the scene is no longer being observed by anybody, the module will be deleted. 

We see this happen only once, when Morpheus leaves the subway. Once the Nebuchadnezzar's computer has located his avatar, it sends an instruction to make it invisible. This does not affect the whole avatar at once: the module has to calibrate its appearance to match exactly its surroundings. The first part of the body to receive the instruction is the nervous tissue of the ear, and this at first glows bright white, before settling down to a state of transparency. The rest of the body follows. Its appearance oscillates around whatever is visible in the background, settling down to transparency: where the Morpheus stood, we see the background shimmer momentarily. The solidity of the body then fades: moments after Morpheus's body has become invisible, the telephone handset that had rested in his hand drops, slowly at first, toward the ground. The observed sequence is consistent not with the sudden deletion of the body's module, but rather with its changing its appearance.  

HARD LINES

Telephones play a key role in entering and leaving the Matrix. But the rebels do not travel through the telephone lines as energy pulses. There is no device at the end of the telephone for reconstructing a human body from data: all you would get is noise in the earpiece. Furthermore, the bandwidth of a telephone line is too narrow to ship an entire human being. Finally, nothing at all ever really travels along the lines in the Matrix world, as they are only virtual. 

Instead of being a conduit for transporting dematerialized rebels, the telephone line is a means of navigation. It pinpoints where a rebel is to enter or leave the Matrix.  

To enter the vast Matrix requires specifying where the avatar is to materialize. To get an avatar into the Matrix world, the rebels must use some strictly physical navigation. This is done with the telephone network, which has penetrated every corner of the inhabited world with electronic devices, each of which has a unique, electronically determined label. Without knowing anything of human society and its conventions, the physics modules of the Matrix can determine where any given telephone number terminates. 

How are the rebels to give a telephone number to the Matrix? They must dial it, but they cannot simply pick up a handset and make a call to a number inside the Matrix world, for any handset in the Nebuchadnezzar is connected to the real world telephone network, not the Matrix's virtual network. Inside the Matrix, a call must be placed subtly, without observably breaching the simulated laws of electromechanics. 

To see how this can be done, we need to know something of the infrastructure of the Matrix. Monolithic computer systems are unreliable, so the Matrix is instead an assemblage of independent modules, each having a unique "network address." For a module to communicate with another, it will put a data message on the network with the address of the intended destination. Neither module need know where the other one is inside the electronic hardware of the Matrix computer. They might be inches apart, or a mile away. 

This scheme is robust and flexible. There is no central hub, and individual modules can be plugged into, or taken out of, the network without disturbance. Conversely, the rebels can easily hack into it. Once they are linked into the network, their equipment can simply pretend to be another module. It can place data messages onto the system, which will be routed just like authentic messages, and be received and read by the addressed module. So, to initiate a telephone call, the crew will place a data message on the network, addressed to any module that simulates an aerial for receiving calls from cell phones. Some such node will pick up and read the counterfeit data message just as if the message had been sent by a bona fide source. On getting this message, the aerial module will carry out its role in handling a telephone call. 

The Nebuchadnezzar's operator maintains contact with rebels who are in the Matrix even while the hovercraft is moving, so they must use radioports onto the network. The rebels might have installed their own rogue radio receiver—mechanically securing it in some dark corner, and plugging its data cable into a spare socket of a router. More likely, the Matrix itself uses radio as part of its network infrastructure, and the rebels broadcast their counterfeit messages on the same frequency. 

Materializing or dematerializing, however, needs a network address, which is gotten as follows. When the Nebuchadnezzar makes a "phone call" into the Matrix, it places on the network a packet saying "Place this call for (212) 123-4567" or whatever the telephone number is, together with the Nebuchadnezzar's own network address as a return label, such as 9.54.296.42. When the call is picked up, the Matrix will return a data packet, addressed to the Nebuchadnezzar, saying "Message for 9.54.296.42: call connected to telephone (212) 123-4567." All the Nebuchadnezzar's computer has to do is listen out for its own address, and it will find attached to it the network address of the telephone equipment. 

As soon as the answering machine picks up the incoming call, the Nebuchadnezzar will get the network address of that destination. 

Essentially the same job must be done when a rebel leaves the Matrix world. In order to disengage the rebel from his or her avatar, the Nebuchadnezzar's computer must again get a fix on the avatar's location within the virtual world. As before, it is not enough to locate the avatar's virtual body in terms that relate to human culture. It is no use to say that Neo is at 56th and Lexington. Rather, it needs a network address that the Matrix's operating system can follow. Of course, the Nebuchadnezzar gets it by calling a telephone in the Matrix world, which must be answered for the network address to be passed back to the Nebuchadnezzar. Once that has happened, the avatar's module can be deleted from the register for that location. 

Why don't the crew navigate their exits with the stylish cell phones that all the rebels carry? Why hunt for a land line (called a "hard line" in the film) under hot pursuit from the agents? The answer is that the cell phones are not part of the Matrix world and do not have network addresses known to the Matrix software. The cell phone is projected into the Matrix world by the Nebuchadnezzar's computer, 114 peter b. lloyd along with the avatar's body and clothes—and the weapons that Neo and Trinity eventually bring in with them. The software that simulates the cell phones is running inside the Nebuchadnezzar's computer, not the Matrix's computer, so the rebels must find a land line—which are somewhat scarce in an era when everyone has a cell phone.  

THE BUGBOT  

Before Neo is taken to meet Morpheus, the agents insert a robotic bug into him. Trinity extricates the bugbot before it can do any harm. But what was the bugbot for? Given that it operates inside the human body, the bugbot should be as small as possible. Yet, it is clearly much bigger than a miniature radio beeper needed for tracking Neo's whereabouts. Trinity says that Neo is "dangerous" to them before he is cleaned. We can infer that the bugbot is actually a munition, probably a semtex device that will detonate when it hears Morpheus's voice, killing both Neo and Morpheus and everyone else in the room. 

Just before it is implanted, the bugbot takes on the appearance of an animate creature, with claws writhing. Yet, after Trinity has jettisoned it out of the car window, it returns to an inert form. It is another illustration of the agents' limited use of the shapeshifting loophole in the Matrix software, that lets an object transform its properties under programmed commands.  

PERCEPTIONS IN THE MATRIX  

A nonconscious machine cannot experience color any more than taste. A computer can store information about colored light, such as a digitized photograph, but it does so without a glimmer of awareness of the conscious experience of color. The digitized picture will evoke conscious colors only when someone looks at it. All other sensations that you can be conscious of will elude the digital computer.  

The feel of silk, the texture of the crust of a piece of toast, feelings of nausea or giddiness: these are all unavailable to insentient machines. This being so, Mouse could have doubted whether the Matrix would know what anything should taste, smell, look, sound, or feel like. 

But the Matrix doesn't need to experience the perceptual qualities to get them right. As we have seen, the Matrix feeds its signals into the incoming nerves where they enter the brain, not into the deeper nerve centers. So when you eat (virtual) fried chicken inside the Matrix, the Matrix will activate nerves from the tongue and nose, and the brain will interpret them as taste sensations. What the Matrix puts in will be a copy of the train of electrical impulses that would actually be produced if you were eating meat. Because of the way that the Matrix has been wired into the brain, it has less freedom than Mouse assumed. Whilst the Matrix cannot know tastes itself, it can nonetheless know which chemosensory cells in a human's nose and mouth yield the requisite smell and taste.  

NEO'S MASTERY OF THE AVATAR  

For purists of science-fiction plausibility, Neo's superhuman control over his avatar body is a troubling element in the film. The final triumphal scene, where Neo flies like Superman, has especially come under criticism. But is it completely at odds with what we have inferred about the Matrix? And how does Neo transcend his human limits? 

The Matrix interacts with the brain, but the brain in turn affects the body. When Neo is hurt in training, he finds blood in his mouth. He asks Morpheus, "If you are killed in the Matrix, you die here?" and gets the cryptic reply: "The body cannot live without the mind." But it cuts both ways; ultimately, Neo's avatar is killed inside the Matrix, causing the vital functions to cease in his real body. 

Mental states and beliefs can affect the body in several ways. In the placebo effect, the belief that a pill is a medicine can cure an illness; in hypnosis, imagining a flame on the wrist can induce blisters. In total virtuality, the mind accepts completely what is presented. If the Matrix signals that the avatar's body has died, then the mind will shut down the basic organs of the heart and lungs. Actual death will inevitably ensue, unless fast action is taken to get the heart pumping again. 

In the climactic scene, Agent Smith kills Neo's avatar within the Matrix. Neo's brain accepts this fate: it stops his heart and loses conscious awareness. His real brain, however, retains enough oxygenated blood to keep it functioning for approximately three minutes, after which it would begin to suffer irreversible damage and, a few minutes later, brain-death. During this time, the auditory cortex keeps on working and digests what Trinity says, albeit unconsciously. Trinity's message is comprehended by Neo's subconscious mind, and a deep realization that the Matrix world is illusory crystallizes in his mind. At an intellectual level, Neo already believed this, but now he knows it at the visceral level of the mind, the level that interfaces with his physiology. Empowered by the insight that his avatar's death is not his death, Neo regains control of his avatar —not only resurrecting it but attaining superhuman powers: the avatar can stop bullets, and fly into the air. 

Neo's new powers contrast with the rigid compliance with simulated physical laws that the Matrix generally adheres to. It reveals that Neo has gained direct access to the software modules that simulate his avatar body. That raises two questions: Why does the avatar software accept commands to transform itself, when normally it strictly follows a physical simulation? And, how can Neo's brain issue such commands, which are obviously outside the scope of the normal muscular signals? 

The software that simulates the avatar must have a special port, intended for use only by agents, which accepts commands to change the internal properties of the avatar's body. Agents use this facility to embody themselves in human avatars. Like all software, the avatar will obey such commands wherever they originate, provided that they are correctly formulated. We saw earlier how the Nebuchadnezzar's computer used this transformative power to make Morpheus disappear from the subway station. Now Neo's brain is directly using the same command port. 

Commands to transform the body cannot travel on the wires that carry the regular muscular signals from the brain to the avatar module. So, they use some of the many other, seemingly redundant, data lines that terminate throughout the rest of the brain. That those lines are hooked up at all on the Matrix end is a spin-off from the Matrix architect's use of general-purpose interfaces. When a newborn human baby is connected to the software module that runs its avatar, there is no way to predetermine which wires carry which data streams. So, at the Matrix end, each line is free to connect to any data port of the avatar module. Some data ports emit simulated signals from virtual eyes and other sense organs, and they will connect with the brain's sensory cortex; others will accept motor commands to carry out simulated contractions of virtual muscles, and they will link up with the motor cortex. In a feedback process that mirrors how the natural plasticity of the brain is molded to its function, useful connections are strengthened and the useless are weakened. As a baby grows into an infant, it gains feedback through using the simulated senses and muscles of the avatar, and therefore its brain builds up the normal strong connections to the conventional input and output channels. But it lacks the abstract concepts needed to use the special port that accepts transformation commands. So the brain's connection with those lines atrophies. Nevertheless, the hardware for that potential connection remains in place. In Neo's kung fu training, his brain rediscovers the abandoned data lines, and he starts to issue rudimentary transformations, giving his avatar's muscles superhuman strength. Only with the deep insight that he gains from being woken after his avatar's death, does he acquire the mental attitude needed to harness that transformative function fully. 

The existence of the transformational back door into the avatar software is a security hole that the architects of the Matrix never imagined would be used by mere humans—but now it threatens the very existence of the Matrix, as Neo exploits the power it gives him.  

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE MATRIX  

The last question I will address in this essay is a complex one, and one that continues to be explored and debated in scientific and philosophical circles. Can machines be conscious? In everyday life, the 118 peter b. lloyd machines are so dumb that we can ignore this question, and so we do not have an established criterion for judging whether the intelligent machines of science fiction are conscious. How similar must a machine be to a human for it to be conscious? Humans have a cluster of properties that always hang together: they have conscious perceptions and emotional feelings, they have opinions and beliefs, intuition and intelligence, they use language, and they are alive and warm-blooded, and have a biological brain. We do not, in everyday life, have to separate out those concepts and decide which ones are necessary and sufficient for sentience. The properties all come as a package. In contrast, the lower animals are like us but do not use language and are not as intelligent as we are. So, it is believed that the higher animals probably have basic conscious perceptions—such as colors and sounds, heat and cold—much as we do, but they lack the superstructure of thought. But what about machines that are intelligent and use language, but are not made of biological tissue? Could they be conscious? To respond rationally to this emotive challenge, we need to be clear about the ideas that are involved. The commonest and most damaging conflation is that of "intelligence" and "consciousness." Alan Turing, in his celebrated paper that introduced the Turing Test, used the terms interchangeably—but mathematicians are notorious for playing fast and loose with their terms. Philosophers, whose trademark is the careful delineation of concepts, have always insisted on maintaining the distinction. Intelligence is the capacity to solve problems, while consciousness is the capacity for the subjective experience of qualities. 

As we shall see, intelligence can be attained without consciousness.²  A digital computer can be programmed to perform intelligent tasks such as playing chess and understanding language by welldefined deterministic processes, without any need to introduce enigmatic conscious experiences into the software. On the other hand, a conscious being can have subjective experiences—such as seeing the color red, or feeling anger—with needing to use intelligence to solve any problems. An android could be vastly more intelligent than any human and still lack any glimmer of interior mental life. On the other hand, a creature might be profoundly stupid and still have subjective experiences. 

Agent Smith is an example of a machine that manifests humanlike behavior—which, if you witnessed such words and gestures in a human, you would immediately regard them as showing conscious emotions and volitions. Indeed, it is the immediacy of the interpretation that is deceptive. When you see someone laugh with joy, or scream in pain, you do not knowingly infer the person's mental state from those outward signs. Rather, it is as if you see the emotions directly. Yet, we know from accomplished actors that these signs of emotions can be faked. Therefore, you are indeed making an inference, albeit an automatic one. It is a job of philosophy to scrutinize such automatic inference. When you see another human being emoting, your inference is not based wholly on what you see, but also on background information (such as whether the person is acting on the stage). More fundamentally, you are relying on the reasonable assumption that the person's behavior arises from a biological brain just as yours does. Whenever those premises are undermined, you inevitably revise any inferences you have made from the emoting. If the emoting stops and people around you clap, you realize it was a piece of street theatre, and the person was only acting out those emotions. Or, if the person has a nasty car accident that breaks open his head, revealing electronic circuitry instead of a brain, you realize that it was only an android and you may conclude that it was only simulating emotions. 

A key step in the inference is the premise that the emotion plays a role in the causal loop that produces the outward words and gestures. If, instead, we have established that the observed words and gestures are wholly explained in some other way, without involving those emotions—then the inference collapses. The exterior emoting behavior then ceases to count as evidence for an interior emotional experience. If we know that an actor's words and gestures are scripted, then we cease to regard them as evidence for an inward mental state. Likewise, if we know that the words and gestures of an android or avatar are programmed, then they too cease to support any inference of a mental state.  

In an android, or in a software simulation of a human such as an agent, words and gestures are produced by millions of lines of programmed software. The software advances from instruction to instruction in a deterministic manner. Some instructions move pieces of information around inside memory, others execute calculations, others send motor signals to actuators in the body. Each line of code references objective memory locations and ports in the physical hardware. It may do so symbolically, and it may do so via sophisticated data structures, for example, using the tag "vision-field" to reference the stabilized and edge-enhanced data from the eye cams. Nevertheless, nowhere in the software suite does the code break out of that objective environment and refer to the enigmatic contents of consciousness. Nor could the programmer ever do so, since she would need an objective, third-person pointer to the conscious experience—which, being a subjective, first-person thing, cannot be labeled with such a pointer. 

Everything that the android says and does is fully accounted for by its software. There is no explanatory gap left for machine consciousness to fill. When the android says, "I see colors and feel emotions just as humans do," we know that those words are produced by deterministic lines of software that functions perfectly well without any involvement of consciousness. It is because of this that the android's emoting does not provide an iota of evidence for any interior mental life. All the outward signs are faked, and the programmer knows in comprehensive detail how they are faked. 

This point is systematically ignored by the mathematicians and engineers who enthuse about artificial intelligence. You have to go next door, to the philosophy department, to find people who accord due importance to it. Even if, by some unknown means, the android possessed consciousness, it could never tell us about it. As we have seen, everything the android says is determined by the software. Even if, somewhere in the depths of its circuit boards, there was a ghostly glimmer of conscious awareness or volition, it could never influence what the android says and does. 

Could it be that the information in the computer just is the conscious experience? This argument is popular with information engineers, as it seems to allow them to gloss over the whole mind-body problem. It is flawed because information and conscious experience have different logical structures. Namely, information exists only as an artifact of interpretation; but experience does not stand in need of interpretation in order for you to be aware of it. If I give you a disk holding numerical data (21, 250, 11, 47; 22, 250, 15, 39. etc), those numbers could mean anything. In one program, they are meteorological measurements—temperature, humidity, rainfall. In another, they are medical—pulse rate, blood pressure, body fat. The interpretation has no independent reality; the numbers have no inherent meaning by themselves. In contrast, conscious experience is fundamentally different. If you jam your thumb in a door, your sensation does not need first to be interpreted by you as pain. It immediately presents as pain. Nor can you reinterpret it as some other sensation, such as the scent of a rose. Conscious experiences have real, subjectively witnessed qualities that do not depend for their existence on being interpreted this way or that. They intrinsically involve some quality over and above mere information. 

Another popular argument is to appeal to "emergence." Higherlevel systems are said to "emerge" from lower-level systems. The simple classic example is that of thermodynamic properties, such as heat and temperature, which emerge from the statistical behavior of ensembles of molecules. Yet the concept of "temperature" just does not exist for an isolated molecule, although billions of those molecules collectively do have a temperature. In like manner, it has been suggested, consciousness emerges from the collective behavior of billions of neurons, which individually could never be conscious on their own. But emergent properties are, in fact, artifacts of how we describe the world, and have no objective existence outside of mathematical theories. An ensemble of molecules may be described in terms of either the trajectories of individual molecules or their aggregate properties, but the latter are invented by human observers for the sake of simplifications. The external reality comprises only the molecules: the statistical properties, such as average kinetic energy, exist only in the mind of the physicist. Likewise, any dynamic features of the aggregate behavior of brain cells exist only in the models of the neuroscientists. The external reality comprises only the brain cells. Yet, as you know, when you jam your humb in the door, the pain is real and present in the moment; it is not a theoretical construct of a brain scientist. 

So there are good reasons for believing that machines are not conscious. But—wouldn't these arguments apply equally to brains? Surely a brain is just a bioelectrochemical machine? It obeys deterministic programs that are encoded in the genetic and neural wiring of the brain. Yet, if our argument that machines are not conscious can also apply equally to brains, then the argument must be flawed— since we know that our own brains are indeed conscious! 

The answer is that there are certain processes in brain tissue that involve nondeterministic quantum-mechanical events. And, working through the chaotic dynamics of the brain, those minute phenomena can be amplified into overt behavior. The nondeterminism opens a gateway for consciousness to take effect in the workings of the brain. 

As we saw earlier, you can report only the conscious experiences that are in the causal loop that gives rise to the speech acts. If you can report that you are in pain, then the pain sensation must exert a causal influence somewhere in the chain of neural events that governs what you say and write. A step that is physically nondeterministic provides a window of opportunity for consciousness to enter into that causal chain. Since we, as humans, know that we do express our conscious perceptions, we can infer that there must be some such nondeterminism somewhere in the brain. So far, quantum-mechanical events constitute the only known candidate for this. For example, Roger Penrose and Stuart Hammeroff have formulated a detailed theory of how quantum actions in the microtubules of brain cells could play this role. The jury is still out on whether the microtubules really are the locus at which consciousness enters the chain of cause and event. 

A conventional, deterministic computer has no such gateway into consciousness. So androids, and virtual avatars, that are driven by computers of that kind, cannot express conscious awareness and their behavior therefore can never be evidence for consciousness. But, if a machine were to be built that used quantum computation in the same way that the brain does, then there is no philosophical reason why that machine could not have the same gateway to consciousness that a living being does. This is not because the quantum module lets the machine carry out computations that a classical computer cannot do. Whatever the quantum computer can do, a classical one can also do, albeit more slowly. Rather, it is the specific implementation of the quantum computer that provides the bridge into conscious processes. 

In The Matrix, there is no reason to think that the machines are equipped with the kind of quantum computation needed to access consciousness. Quantum computation is not mentioned in the film, and there is circumstantial evidence that the Matrix and its agents are devoid of conscious thought. 

Therefore the agents—which are software modules within the Matrix—are intelligent but mindless automata. For the most part, the agents behave unimaginatively, and we might naively think that this corroborates their lack of awareness. Yet, Agent Smith exhibits initiative and seems, in his speech to Morpheus, to evince a conscious dislike of the human world. But is he genuinely conscious, or only mimicking humans? In fact, Smith gives himself away when he says about the human world, "It's the smell, if there is such a thing . . . I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it." Smith's own logical integrity obliges him to doubt the existence of that noncomputable quality that humans talk about: the conscious experience of smell. When Smith says, ". . . the smell, if there is such a thing," he is exhibiting the mark of the automaton. This is corroborated when he then tells Morpheus that he can "taste your stink," revealing that Smith simply does not understand the differentiation of senses in the human mind. For a computer, data are interchangeable, but for a human, tastes, smells, colors, sounds, and feels, are irreducibly different. This fact eludes Agent Smith. 

Smith is mimicking human behavior as a tactic to trick Morpheus into cooperation. As the interrogation is getting nowhere, Brown suggests, "Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions." So Smith pretends to talk like a human, to gain Morpheus's empathy. Needless to say, the tactic fails completely.  

1.  In the oldest form of Buddhism, Theravada, the two major forms of meditation are Vipassana (the Pali word for "insight") and its complement Samatha ("tranquility"). Vipassana consists in systematically attending to the individual elements that make up the contents of consciousness. It involves persistently turning away from the ceaselessly arising tide of chatter in the mind. Over time, the chatter subsides, and preconscious activity becomes more readily observed. Laboratory data support claims that long-term practitioners acquire a conscious awareness of brain microprocesses, possibly down to the cellular level. See Shinzeng Young's works. 

2. For an alternative perspective, see Kurzweil's essay in this volume. —Ed. 

© 2003 BenBella Books. Published on KurzweilAI.net with permission.

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   Mind·X Discussion About This Article:

		Wow.. posted on 03/03/2003 7:25 AM by aikon_	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Absolutely amazing! My philosophy teacher will enjoy this; we had to write a paper on The Matrix, and this is what I was aiming for. My only problem was that I did not have the knowledge base possessed by the other. Well done, bravo!

		Agents are Conscious. posted on 04/30/2003 9:17 AM by LaForge	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	I agree. However the author ignored 1 critical factor when he declared the Agents none conscious automations. At the very end when Neo "killed" Agent Smith, The other 2 Agents responded with what looks like fear and abandon the job at hand. On a purely logical level (I.e. Software) they were aware of the progress of the Centennials and would thus know that staying around for a few more minutes would let them get rid of this especially dangerous human. The only rational reason for them turning tail and running away at that point is personal self preservation. I.e. Raw animal fear; The ultimate triumph of Consciousness over intelligence.

		Re: Agents are Conscious. posted on 05/22/2003 2:49 PM by jortiz	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Intelligent algorithms can be taught instinct-like behavior such as self preservation. Often A.I. programs abandon solution approaches (in this case hand to hand combat with Neo) when it takes them to a less favorable state (being destroyed). The expression of fear is no more than another human-like programmed behavior.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/03/2003 11:49 AM by grantcc	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Mr. Lloyd doesn't really explain very much in his article. Take the red and green pill for example. He talks about the action of a virtual pill on the brain, but he overlooks the fact that Neo is just as virtual as the pill is at the time he is taking it. It's as if you expect a pill taken in a dream to act on the body of the dreamer. Not a likely scenario. Through most of the movie, Neo is dreaming. The machines cause the dreams and Neo learns to control his own dreams (something humans can do already) instead of accepting the dreams created for him by the machines. We don't need physics to explain what is going on here, any more than we need physics to explain how we fly in our dreams. Grant

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/03/2003 1:07 PM by Thomas Kristan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Agree. Matrix is ill devised. And we don't need it more, than a mechanized guillotine - for example. Really stupid concept, having a biological body, to perform felling of a virtual world. Producer failed to grasp the uploading - and assumed - that everybody else, is also as silly as they are. - Thomas

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/03/2003 2:05 PM by Mesopotamian	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	You are making you observations based on "real life". Of course today, a dream pill, cannot interact with someone in a dream. In today's life, two people (or more) cannot interact with one another in dreams (yet) but The Matrix simply assumes the technology exists for that to happen. Therefore the red pill is a "program" that is exchanged between two people, much like sharing a program via an email, or handing someone a cdrom to take home and slap in the drive (putting the pill in the mouth). It just happens in real time.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/03/2003 3:53 PM by Thomas Kristan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Okay, I should draw it to you. The whole concept of the Matrix, is to substitute the sensory input with a computer generated one. That is - of course possible. Still, you have a biological body, which should has to exist, but is has also be disconnected from the experience window. Instead, you may transfer _you_ completely into a virtual world, with no cadaver sleeping on a bed. Better to use those atoms wisely. There is never enough calculations. The plot of The Matrix - is even sillier than it's science. - Thomas

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/03/2003 4:40 PM by Mesopotamian	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	thomas, I am obviuously missing something in your argument, or I'm just clearly not smart enough, or something is lost in interpretation. I'm not seeing the point of the "biological felling virtual world" aspect of your statement. Did you ever see Tron? In addition, what is your definition of the "Plot" of the Matrix? I see many potential plots of the movie, wondering which one you are disagreeing with. Thanks

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/03/2003 9:15 PM by Jeremy	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Mesopotamian>In addition, what is your definition of the "Plot" of the Matrix? I see many potential plots of the movie, wondering which one you are disagreeing with. Jeremy>I dont think English is Thomas' first language, he seems to have a lot of trouble making himself understood. I think hes saying The Matrix isnt realistic. He bases this on the fact that human minds are "uploaded" into the matrix while the bodies are kept around. Popular theory says it will be possible to upload the mind and do away with the body completely. And because the movie didnt portray this, its proof that the producers were ignorant such a thing could be done. First, just because they failed to include that aspect doesnt prove they didnt know of it. Second, uploading cant be done yet anyway. Uploading exists only in theory, so its open to everyones interpretation. You cant call the producers to account for being unrealistic about something that isnt real too begin with. So, the critique that calls The Matrix silly is in fact silly itself. If Ive got Thomas all wrong, I humbly apologize.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/04/2003 2:19 AM by Thomas Kristan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Okay. Fix the glitches The Matrix has - and there will be no Matrix any more. Could be something much better, but surely something very different. Therefore - it has no deeper meaning. On the contrary! It's a distraction only. - Thomas

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/04/2003 1:34 PM by Mesopotamian	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Jeremy > Thanks, ok...i'm aware of that uploading theory...and I agree, saying something is silly, without knowing which theory is "actually" true is silly.. what is silly is that the wachowski's now have so much cash to play with, fo technology, visual effects, AI, art, etc. etc and all some people can do is rip them apart and call them stupid.... they still have a lot of story left to tell, 2 more movies (making them richer), a video game, (even richer), 9 animated shorts (even richer), and what else... and we'll all stay tuned, pay the fare, and call them stupid..(or in my case, not stupid) no planning..??? I think there is a lot of planning....

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/05/2003 3:35 AM by Jeremy	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Mesopotamian>I think there is a lot of planning.... Jeremy> I agree, I think its a well planned out tale. Just because everything isnt exactly square with science isnt important, after all, its a fantasy. You cant point to the fantasy elements of a fantasy movie and call it a plot hole.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/05/2003 3:54 AM by Jeremy	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	BTW, dont take my above post as criticism of Peter Lloyd's piece. Figuring out explanations for the seemingly implausible bits of flicks is lotsa fun too.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/04/2003 1:37 PM by Mesopotamian	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Also, clearly..the goal of the Neo's and Morpheus's was to regain a "real" life..therefore to completely upload into the matrix would obviate that.... they WANTED to be real people..not simulations within the matrix...so they needed to remain biological...

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/04/2003 1:45 PM by Thomas Kristan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	> they WANTED to be real people..not simulations within the matrix...so they needed to remain biological... That's another why I don't like The Matrix. - Thomas

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/04/2003 1:50 PM by Mesopotamian	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	AH..i see now...so your view is that the characters should have WANTED to remain virtual simulations instead of humans...that they should have been driven to overtake and rewrite the matrix in their own image, instead of annihilating it.. ??

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/04/2003 2:15 PM by Thomas Kristan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	The biology is too expensive. Every breath costs, as much as an eon of a happy, tremendously interesting uploaded life, surrounded with the most outstanding environment. And it happens in the same amount of the "real time". - Thomas

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/04/2003 3:42 PM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	The biology is too expensive. Every breath costs, as much as an eon of a happy, tremendously interesting uploaded life, surrounded with the most outstanding environment. And it happens in the same amount of the "real time". Are you suggesting that 'uploaded life' necessarily would have a different speed of action, and therefore a different measure of time, than that psycho-technologically achievable outside of a simulation? Any mind whatsoever is limited by its 'hardware'. How could this limitation be avoided by entirely replacing the source of sensory input with a simulation? With ubiquituos wireless networks between nano-scale upgraded brains you will have the ability to be constantly connected and yet still autonomous and not confined to any simulated reality. You would be able to move in and out of internal/simulated reality and external/REAL reality at will. I don't think their will be a dichotomy of uploaded vs. not-uploaded when the substrate of the mind itself is upgraded to the point that it essentially is a giga-computing mobile node in the global matrix. Who would really want to forsake REAL mobility and external reality for total access to the matrix? There would be no point when you could have it all.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/05/2003 4:03 AM by Thomas Kristan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Are you suggesting that 'uploaded life' necessarily would have a different speed of action, and therefore a different measure of time, than that psycho-technologically achievable outside of a simulation? Lower(?) Moravec's limit - 10^14 bit write erase operations - is what defines a subjective second. Having 10^20 opses - in any amount of real time - would mean a million subjective seconds or 12 subjective days with no sleep. For a not to much altered human mind. The optimal paste of time, for an very optimal mind architecture is probably very high. Subjective aeons per real second - I guess. The outside real world - is the best we have - for the engine room. - Thomas

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/04/2003 3:53 PM by Mesopotamian	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Hi Thomas, I'm really interested in your views here, and trying to understand where your disagreements with the concept of the movie and your own personal beliefs coincide. It will help me build the foundation of my argument, yet I do not want to trample on your personal beliefs. Are you saying, that you personally would rather jump inside a program than exist outside as a real/living/breathing person. Personally, I'd rather live a life in "zion" than a life in the "matrix" at whatever cost per breath. If that is the argument, then there is no point continuing. The whole point of the movie (ignoring all aspects of the science for the moment, if we could) is that people want to be people, not body slaves to the computers, and that if there is a better way, then lets find it. Do you agree/disagree with this? I agree that the cost of a biological presence would be a factor in an upload, but that is not relevant in the quest to be a real human within the context of this movie/story.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/04/2003 4:08 PM by Thomas Kristan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Have you ever seen the movie "Amazon Women on the Moon"? It's very like The Matrix! The main difference is, that The Matrix was intended as a serious movie, but it's not much better than the Amazon Women on the Moon - the intentional parody. I am a program now, already. I'll be a program in the future. I'd like to change the substrate and (much) enhance the program - that's all I can (and want to) hope for. It's a LOT! - Thomas

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/04/2003 5:06 PM by Jeremy	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Thomas>The main difference is, that The Matrix was intended as a serious movie, but it's not much better than the Amazon Women on the Moon - the intentional parody. Jeremy>Wrong again. The Matrix was intended to be a comicbook. A fantasy about a futuristic superhero. Never was it intended to be a serious commentary on anything.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 09/17/2003 10:18 AM by 1011001	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	The Matrix may not have been intended as a serious movie, but it has become a belivable possibilty of the future, we all are plugged into our compters via the monitor, our thoughts uploaded through typing. Time passes by very quickly when your online and other important things get put aside when your online and enjoying yourself. At the exponential rate technology is growing it wil not be long before we can plug into our computers.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/04/2003 8:28 PM by Mesopotamian	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	whatever the roots of either movie, I don't think "Amazon.." spawned as much discussion and literary work by philosophers, scientists, technologist throughout the world as the matrix did...must be quite similar indeed... Even if 80% of the world (or more) doesn't really understand all the implications of it...who on earth could even have pulled it off.. two unknown fella's are gonna change the way a lot of people view the world through mass media you have to at least ack' they must have done something right...

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/05/2003 1:46 AM by Thomas Kristan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Good intentions - maybe. But there is another reason, why an inch cable from the to the mainframe is useless. You can have that much computing power stored in a grain size implant in your head. Having your private world there, connecting with whomever you choose. But even then, why to use unimproved bodies? Captain of a star ship probably doesn't have to punch the cards for the mainframe, when the crew discovered that Epsilon Eridan is not suitable for life, to safely return home. - Thomas

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/05/2003 12:47 PM by Mesopotamian	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Many spaceflight technologies use seriously outdated technology, many large companies use versions of software that are seriously outdated.. why, A) Because, generally it works, B) It is inefficient/expensive to upgrade, C) It is "GOOD" enough. Why could this fact of life not be the case in this model..just because advanced technology is "available" doesn't mean it is usable in every application...

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/05/2003 2:38 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	He bases this on the fact that human minds are "uploaded" into the matrix while the bodies are kept around. Four reasons why this doesn't happen. (a) Morpheus's reason: The human bodies are need to generate electricity. With respect, Morpheus is just plain wrong on this point. (b) More likely, the human brains are being used as sophisticated parallel processors to run the power station. (c) Philosophically, consciousness needs the brain. (d) The real reason: The long-term plot of the trilogy is that the human race is to be liberated from the Matrix. They couldn't do that if they had lost their bodies. Peter

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/05/2003 12:29 PM by Mesopotamian	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	D = Exactly my point!!

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 04/22/2003 12:07 AM by overbored	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	What about life support for the brain? Couldn't that possibly be the reason why the body is still there, so it can digest food, pump oxygen, etc., and thus support the normal operation of the brain? I'd imagine the machines would have a great deal of trouble emulating this support.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 04/22/2003 7:24 AM by Thomas Kristan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	No. You don't need the brain either, if you are uploaded. What does it mean? That the _data_ structure is rewritten "to the mainframe". That is all about uploading. You just leave your body&brains here. - Thomas

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 04/22/2003 12:09 PM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	No. You don't need the brain either, if you are uploaded. What does it mean? That the _data_ structure is rewritten "to the mainframe". That is all about uploading. You just leave your body&brains here. The "_data_ structure" IS the brain. The 'hardware' and 'software' of the brain/mind are completely integrated. You can't so easily seperate them. Uploading is more like the reinstantiation of the "brain" in a more efficient stable and powerfull medium. The common scenario is that the giga-computers of the future will take over the 'hardware' functionality of the brain through simulation of its neural patterns, but I see no reason that the brain can't simply be upgraded as a wireless giga-computing node in the global network. It would effectively be the same thing, but you wouldn't have to foresake your physical mobility.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 04/22/2003 1:03 PM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	...but I see no reason that the brain can't simply be upgraded as a wireless giga-computing node in the global network. It would effectively be the same thing, but you wouldn't have to foresake your physical mobility. Actually it would be much more powerful because there would be no necessary emulation of the "brain" (or the hardware aspect of consciousness). It would be a much better scenario all around and I think it is far more likely than the standard uploading scenario because who is going to destroy their original brain once the neural patterns are instantiated in the giga-computer? I know I wouldn't! The only way I would become part of any global computer system is as a mobile node with my own physical identity, mobility and structural freedom.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 04/22/2003 2:53 PM by Thomas Kristan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	I think, the meat is not terribly efficient, when comes to computation. At least 10 orders of magnitude better results should be achieved with some better, nonbiological substrate. The best use for the brains (and body) would be to transform them to this optimal substrate. And to start to really enjoy, what life has to offer. - Thomas

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 04/22/2003 11:14 PM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	I think, the meat is not terribly efficient, when comes to computation. At least 10 orders of magnitude better results should be achieved with some better, nonbiological substrate. I agree completely with your whole post.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 05/31/2005 10:11 AM by Spinning Cloud	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Thomas wrote: I think, the meat is not terribly efficient, when comes to computation. At least 10 orders of magnitude better results should be achieved with some better, nonbiological substrate. The best use for the brains (and body) would be to transform them to this optimal substrate. And to start to really enjoy, what life has to offer. Point to the "nonbiological substrate" that could do better. It doesn't exist now and this entire discussion is based on a hypothetical platform that could simulate multiple humans better than each individual brain...and faster. I'll be the first to admit that technology is advancing at unbelievable rates BUT you can't convincingly make the basis of your arguement a technology that isn't even in a prototype experimental stage yet. As for "really enjoying" what life has to offer I must ask what exactly you are talking about that life really offers this optimal substrate brain over our own? I strongly agree with subtillion that I don't think there will be many upload takers...those interested in copying their thought parttern and killing their biological body. I sure wouldn't.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 02/28/2006 11:50 AM by ZodiacEnhanced	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	A copy is still always going to be just a copy. By coping yourself digitally you would be no more immortalized than I and my twin brother. By uploading yourself into the matrix and discarding the human body (the hardcopy) you would be just in effect killing yourself by making a duplicate (copying the program) and discarding the body. Many sci-fi writers and readers are eluded by this fundimental point. When you are in the matrix, the hard copy interfaces with the software avatar because the avatar is just a copy or an emulation of the true self. You would no more have immortality through a human clone, simply a copy of yourself that is no more you than a photograph. -ZodiacEnhanced-

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 03/05/2003 2:06 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	It's as if you expect a pill taken in a dream to act on the body of the dreamer. Not a likely scenario. The 'glitch' that I was addressing is precisely the fact that virtual pill *does* have an effect on the physical body. After Thomas Anderson takes the red pill, Neo's physical body is electronically disengaged from the Matrix system. The knock-on effect of that is that he is flushed out of the power station. That's a pretty big physical effect for a non-existent pill to have. As you rightly say, we would have expected the virtual pill to have a virtual effect just within the virtual world. So it raises the question: how does taking the {virtual} red pill do this? *That* is what I was formulating an answer to. By the way, the phrasing of the question is significant. The question is not, 'How does the red pill do this?', but 'How does taking the red pill do this?' For, the red pill is a virtual construct, whereas taking it is an actual event in a virtual world. A subtle but important distinction. Peter

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 05/09/2003 6:24 AM by JoeFrat	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	The entire system is a physical system. E=mcc, even virtual reality is reality. The pill was a symbol of a program that sent a signal to his body and disconnected it.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 05/09/2003 7:16 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	The pill was a symbol of a program that sent a signal to his body and disconnected it. Of course. But the question is: Why does such a program exist in the Matrix software suite? It's not immediately obvious that the Matrix architect would have any good reason to include such a program in the Matrix software. After all, the Matrix builders do not want people to be unplugging themselves. So, I'm speculating that the functionality could be accidental - an unintentional security hole. My suggestion in the essay is that the basic functionality to suppress sensory inputs exists in order to simulate analgesics and amputations - e.g. a virtual painkiller would shut off sensory input corresponding to part of the body; and a virtual limb amputation would permanently shut down all sensory input and motor output in the limb. (If you lose a leg in the Matrix world, the docbots are not going to come around to your pod and cut your physical leg off!) *That* (I'm suggesting) is what the Matrix architects design the functionality for. But the rebels took advantage of that functionality by designing the red pill to shut down *all* of the i/o for the whole virtual body. So the brain logs out of the Matrix. (It's like closing down all of your browser windows. You effectively log out of the internet.) Peter

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 05/16/2003 3:10 PM by Matt Garrett	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	I enjoyed this article for what it is, mental gymnastics. But what I found even more amusing is the debate over whether Agents are running away in self preservation or the great red pill debate. The real fact is that the Matrix (and it's sequels) IS A MOVIE. The kungfu is artfully violent, the popcorn is fresh, the sound is loud and Carrie Ann Moss is a babe. And while it may be fun to poke fingers in the plot holes ... this is merely a story. ... or is it?

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 05/16/2003 10:54 PM by blue_is_not_a_number	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	I enjoyed this article for what it is, mental gymnastics. But what I found even more amusing is the debate over whether Agents are running away in self preservation or the great red pill debate. I found that amusing as well, but so far I didn't contribute to that one. Here is my take: The "red pill" is a data object in the matrix, in the computer performing the simulation. As long as nobody eats it, the data for the inside of the pill is not used and irrelevant. When Neo (Thomas Anderson) eats it, the data gets used. The data is hacked to contain a zero at a place where a zero is an illegal value. The simulation performs a divide operation on it (for some reason of simulating the digestion process), and a devide-by-zero exception is triggered in the program thread for this part of the simulation. This stops Thomas Anderson's sensory I/O process. The matrix-computer-system will make a memory dump for the program thread that was executing the simulation of the digestion process. This memory dump contains information about the logical as well as physical network address, allowing the "Operator" who had hacked into the matrix to obtain this information and use it to find the non-virtual location of his "bathtube with panorama view" in some database. The telephone nada signal then helps him to wake up (instead of dying). It needs to be an old-fashioned phone in order to support the brutally strong signal strength necessary for the first time of waking up.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 05/16/2003 11:19 PM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	The data is hacked to contain a zero at a place where a zero is an illegal value. The simulation performs a divide operation on it (for some reason of simulating the digestion process), and a devide-by-zero exception is triggered in the program thread for this part of the simulation. It could be so. My (admittedly subjective) preference would be to interpret the red pill as exploiting built-in features of the Matrix rather than doing anything as kludgey as causing a division by zero. We know that there must be occasions when part of a person's avatar' sensory input is shut down. E.g. sensory input from an arm would be shut down if teh avatar has a (virtual) anaesthetic; it would be permanently shut down if the leg is (virtually) amputated. So, the command set that is accepted by the avatar module must include something like "KILL/SENSORY <part> [UNTIL=time|FOREVER]" where <part> is part of the body, such as "ARM" or "LEG". So, in designing the red pill, they would get it to issue the command "KILL/SENSORY * FOREVER", meaning disable all sensory input permanently. Now, if *all* sensory input is closed down, then that avatar is no longer registered with any daemon that supplies sense data. From the Matrix's point of view, the person has died. So, logically, the physical body has to be flushed out so that the pod can be reused. (It's comparable to closing down all the windows of a Netscape session.) In other words, the basic premise of the Matrix already suffices to imply the possibility of a Red Pill. This, it seems to me, is a more elegant interpretation that a divide-by-zero kludge. (Obviously, there's no 'true' answer here, as its only a film. Unless, in Revolutions, someone explains how the Red Pill worked.) This stops Thomas Anderson's sensory I/O process. I'm not entirely clear why *that*would stop all of Mr Anderson's sensory processes. Wouldn't it just make the Red Pill vanish? The matrix-computer-system will make a memory dump for the program thread that was executing the simulation of the digestion process. Or maybe just make his stomach vanish? Peter

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 05/17/2003 3:10 PM by blue_is_not_a_number	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Peter: In other words, the basic premise of the Matrix already suffices to imply the possibility of a Red Pill. This, it seems to me, is a more elegant interpretation that a divide-by-zero kludge. Of course. I just used this "kludge" as an example for how a computer system can be tricked into revealing information that would allow them to locate Neo's "real" body. The divide-by-zero exception is simply a way we can understand today, but the matrix would, like you say, work in a more sophisticated way. Besides, it is a pun on the divide-and-conquer concept used in mechanical strategies. An alternative explanation would be that both pills are placebos, and Morpheus uses them to make it clear to Neo/Thomas that he needs to enter a commiting agreement with him. It further manifests Neo's choice to understand the matrix, which I think was already apparent earlier when he took his feeling that something was going on serious enough to look up to the screen to see Trinity's message when he was taking a nap in front of his computer. As we know now from Matrix Reloaded, these choices are a problem for the matrix. Personally, I think it is more that from awareness we create new possibilities and do things that we wouldn't do otherwise (such as looking up to the screen), more that than to choose between two existing "choices". Instead of choosing between two existing choices, to see a third possibility, and seeing it is already action. In looking at both pills, which differ only in their color, Neo/Thomas (who is increasingly aware) pays attention to colors, something that is outside of the matrix' quantitative/formal/structural/extensional concepts. Given Neo/Thomas high alertness in this situation, this has an escalating effect and causes the matrix to misbehave, creating a disruption that causes Neo to see the mirror (subjective reality, self-reflection on consciousness) in a different way than the others (objective reality). This then causes a fault in the matrix, which allows them to obtain error information in the way described in my previous scenario. Perhaps by comparing actual non-deterministic events against expected deterministic events (using a "diff"), or observing non-random quantum behavior where there would otherwise be random quantum behavior (hence the complicated technical equipment.) This scenario would also better reflect that the whole process is one of waking up. Actually, I would now dismiss my previous scenario, having re-considered due to your comments.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 05/16/2003 11:00 PM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Of course it's a movie. It's also a philosophical thought-experiment in a rather more entertaing format than is usual for Philosophy 101. What you do with thought-experiments is have fun pulling them apart. Sometimes something interesting falls out.

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 05/16/2003 11:20 PM by blue_is_not_a_number	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	What you do with thought-experiments is have fun pulling them apart. Sometimes something interesting falls out. Will there be "Glitches in Matrix RELOADED..." ?

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 05/17/2003 3:51 PM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Will there be "Glitches in Matrix RELOADED..."? Yes, the editor of Kurzweilai.net has very kindly offered to post it up on this site. Fortunately, I happened to be in the States on 5/15, so I got to see Reloaded a week before I would have done in England, and therefore started writing "Glitches Reloaded" already. I was here for an interview on TechTV about the book "Taking the Red Pill". It went out live on Friday, and is repeated Monday 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/supergeek/story /0,24330,3430740,00.html BTW There will also need to be a "Glitches in the Essay". One thing I realised wasn't right, when I was watching "The Matrix" again this week. I wrote in the essay that, when the rebels download into the Matrix, the telephone needs to be answered, in order to send a network address back to the Nebuchadnezzar. Not so! If it is an analogue line, then the ringing tone is actually generated in the called telephone (unlike a digital system), and *that* on its own is sufficient to get a network address back to the Nebuchadnezzar. This is apparent in the scene where Neo and the other rebels go back into the Matrix to see the Oracle. The phone is ringing, unanswered, while the rebels materialise. Given that that is so, though, why does the phone need to be answered when rebels are leaving the Matrix? This must be just so that the individual who is to exit can be isolated. It would be no good if everyone in earshot of the ringing telephone gets exited. (Especially if the person is still plugged in. They would be die if they got accidentally exited.) So, this is why a group of people can enter the Matrix together, but they have to exit individually. Peter

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 05/17/2003 10:59 AM by grantcc	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	The real fact is that the Matrix (and it's sequels) IS A MOVIE. What brings this home to me more than anything else (speaking of glitches) is the fact that all of the major actors in the movie wear sun glasses. No matter how violent the action and how much each character in the Matrix gets kicked, punched or knocked into and through walls of brick and stone, he/she never loses their glasses. Is there some symbolic reason for that? I remember in the old days of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers cowboy movies the hero would never lose his white hat in a fight. When you consider all the effort that went into making the kungfu and property destruction seem real, it's strange that the sun glasses would remain untouchable. Grant

		Re: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM posted on 05/17/2003 3:50 AM by sensei	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	"It's as if you expect a pill taken in a dream to act on the body of the dreamer. Not a likely scenario." ...yet dreams can affect our waking consciousness...thus altering the neural patterns of the brain...we see reality in a new way...enlightened...the light shines on those dark corners of the interior or exterior which we once ignored... http://www.enlightentainment.com

		Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/03/2003 4:13 PM by ErikStarck	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Ants are a much better example of emergence than the different energy states of molecules. At least when trying to understand how consciousness might be an emergent property of certain patterns of neurons and their interactions. Otherwise a fun article to read if you do it with the same level of seriousness as you watch the movie.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/05/2003 5:27 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Ants are a much better example of emergence than the different energy states of molecules. In some ways, an ant colony is closer to a brain than a thermodynamic soup is. But the purpose of the analogy wasn't to suggest analogues for the brain, but to give an example of where a completely new concept emerges from a complex system. The behaviour of an ant colony involves the same generic concept as the behaviour of an individual ant. But a thermodynamic soup involves new concepts such as temperature that just don't have any meaning at the microlevel of molecules. Likewise people claim that the concept of consciousness emerges as a wholly new concept from brains. As I said in the essay, this claim doesn't go through, because emergent concepts must always have an analytical definition at the lower level, otherwise they could never be empirically recognised. Even if temperature is *defined* phenomenologically, it still has to be cashed out in previously defined physical observables before it could ever be measured. That constraint does not apply to consciousness. Conscious experiences such as the colour red are defined by private ostensive definition. (E.g. you look at something red and declare to yourself that that is what you mean by "red".) Therefore consciousness cannot be an emergent property. Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/05/2003 6:32 AM by Thomas Kristan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Therefore consciousness cannot be an emergent property. What then? - Thomas

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/05/2003 8:11 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Then it must be fundamental. It is a basic building-block of reality, distinct from the physical building blocks. What then? Then we should find out what the natural laws of consciousness are, as distinct from the (largely known) laws of the physical brain correlates. And then see how to exploit our knowledge of consciousness. What are its capabilities? If you look at Dean Radin's book, 'The Conscious Universe', you will see reasons to think that the informatic capabilities of consciousness could be quite interesting. Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/05/2003 8:43 AM by Thomas Kristan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	It is a basic building-block of reality, distinct from the physical building blocks. I don't think so. It's a view, which belongs to the past. Mind - body dualism, never manage to explain, why the *soul* sleeps, when the body sleeps. For example. You should reconsider this! Read clarkd's writing above! - Thomas

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/05/2003 1:23 PM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	If you look at Dean Radin's book, 'The Conscious Universe', you will see reasons to think that the informatic capabilities of consciousness could be quite interesting. This all hinges on unverified interpretations of 'quantum wierdness', does it not? There are new models of physics which entirely erase the dualisms and paradoxes, by explaining the physical mechanisms beneath the mathematical probabilities which physicists have come to identify with causality. The entire 'quantum wierdness' dissappears, therefore the arguments that rely on the fabricated abstract mechanisms within the black-box of this evaporating mystery are superfluous. The whole argument, no doubt, hinges on the interpretation of the collapse of the wave-function. When the mechanisms beneath the wave-nature of matter are explained and the particle mechanisms and illusions are explained at the deeper causal level, this interpretation that consciousness causes a change in the state of the system merely by looking at it, will become obsolete. The collapse is merely a collapse of the possibilities spawned within our mental image in the face of the unknown causality beneath the so-called 'wave-particle duality'. There is no critical interaction of the mind with the quantum level of reality. It is entirely causal and independent of consciousness altogether, therefore there is no support of solypsism at the very heart of nature. ALL dualisms and paradoxes are harbingers that the theories that spawn them have deeper level faults. When the paradox shows up at the core, you can bet that BIG changes are in store for that theory! subtillioN

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/06/2003 6:05 PM by Dimitry V	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	When the paradox shows up at the core, you can bet that BIG changes are in store for that theory! Paradox is the result of looking at something from the wrong "logical level". Both reductionism and generalization get you into trouble.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/06/2003 6:19 PM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Paradox is the result of looking at something from the wrong "logical level". Both reductionism and generalization get you into trouble. With the correct theory there is no "wrong logical level", reality makes sense at ALL levels and all scales of causation are visualizable and understandable. The copenhagen interpretation was simply wrong to prematurely ossify and transform the quantitative theory into a qualitative dogma. It simply isn't a qualitative description of reality at the quantum level and the quantum revolution is still fundamentally incomplete. They need to strip out the point-particle aspect and impart physical reality to that substance which the wave-equations quantify. Probability does not equal causality. It simply quantifies it at certain levels. subtillioN

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/06/2003 6:28 PM by Dimitry V	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	With the correct theory there is no "wrong logical level", Yeah, but you have to find the right level, first. It's a problem of problem formulation, do you look at the transistors in your CPU or your source code when you debug your programs? It depends on what kind of programming you're doing. (i.e., microcode vs conventional software).

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/06/2003 6:44 PM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Yeah, but you have to find the right level, first. It's a problem of problem formulation, do you look at the transistors in your CPU or your source code when you debug your programs? In the case of quantum mechanics, which is what I was talking about, you have to look to the core level which has been extensively quantified yet is still qualitatively a mystery and the attempts at understanding this mystery have resulted in paradox. Unraveling this mystery then, is the key to building a proper paradox-free interpretation. To solve the mystery one must understand the 'mechanisms' which give the illusion of contradictory results. What PHYSICALLY accounts for the observed wave-nature and what accounts for the illusion of the particle aspect? The most realistic answer is that beneath the equations there is a compressible fluid. The theory actually has already been developed and the mystery has been solved. The world will soon find out the answer to this long-standing riddle.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/06/2003 6:54 PM by Dimitry V	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	the attempts at understanding this mystery have resulted in paradox. Unraveling this mystery then, is the key to building a proper paradox-free interpretation. If you look at a problem from the wrong perspective (logical level: As in Theory of Logical Types) you may see paradox, or a solution that doesn't work in practice. If you look at a problem with a paradox from the right perspective, there is no "paradox" to unravel. The solution is obvious. I don't know about "Sorce Theory" that you like so much, it's possible that it solves the quantum duality paradox. If it does, then it should be able to provide an understandable metaphor for what's going on (i.e., "compressible liquid" or whatever).

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/06/2003 7:36 PM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	I don't know about "Sorce Theory" that you like so much, it's possible that it solves the quantum duality paradox. If it does, then it should be able to provide an understandable metaphor for what's going on (i.e., "compressible liquid" or whatever). It certainly does that. It explains the mechanism beneath all of the equations and thus it resolves the paradoxes, dualities and and the entire mystery. That was the whole point of my original post. There is no refuge for solipsm in the heart of nature. The Universe can exist with or without an 'observer'. That is how we 'observers' got here, after all. It is pure causality and evolution. Culture simply hasn't caught up the the bleeding edge of theory.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/07/2003 2:17 AM by Dimitry V	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Bleeding edges could do themselves a favor by providing explanations that non-technical people can understand. :)

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/07/2003 2:54 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Bleeding edges could do themselves a favor by providing explanations that non-technical people can understand. :) Working on the animations and the non-technical explanations as we speak ;) They will be available at anpheon.org sooner than later. It is all visualizable therefore virtually anyone could understand it.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/20/2010 5:05 PM by nikhiljayaram	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	It's 7 years after this post and I still don't see anything much on anpheon.org

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/05/2003 12:52 PM by Mesopotamian	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Therefore consciousness cannot be an emergent property. When does a newborn child become conscious of itself and their purpose...sometimes never, sometimes very early...but still it emerges over time does it not.?

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/05/2003 12:52 PM by Mesopotamian	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Therefore consciousness cannot be an emergent property. When does a newborn child become conscious of itself and their purpose...sometimes never, sometimes very early...but still it emerges over time does it not.?

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/05/2003 6:19 PM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	I was referring to the concept of consciousness having an emergent relationship to a concept of some lower-level physical system (brain cells). Not the chronological emergence of consciousness. Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/05/2003 1:04 PM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	That constraint does not apply to consciousness. Conscious experiences such as the colour red are defined by private ostensive definition. (E.g. you look at something red and declare to yourself that that is what you mean by "red".) Therefore consciousness cannot be an emergent property. Why does one 'declare' such a thing? This act of consciousness EMERGES from the unconscious actions of the brain.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/06/2003 2:34 PM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	By 'declare', I mean that one makes a silent announcement or note to oneself that henceforth the word "red" will refer to conscious sensations of that type. If I go into a paint shop and they show a sample called "Twilight Red" then I can look at it and tell myself, "OK, now remember that *that* is what the paint manufacturer calls 'Twilight Red'." I probably won't use any words, but that is the intention of the mental act whereby I assign a meaning to the word. Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/06/2003 6:00 PM by Dimitry V	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	By 'declare', I mean that one makes a silent announcement or note to oneself It's usually not a conscious process. Just an associative link.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/06/2003 6:22 PM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	It makes no difference to the argument whether the process is deliberate or automatic. What matters is that, at some point the sensation (e.g. red) in your conscious mind, and at that point is associated with the term "red". This demonstrative form of definition is being contrasted with the definition of, say, "proton". You do not acquire the meaning of "proton" experiencing one in your conscious mind. Rather, you have an analytical definition in terms of mass, charge, spin, etc. So languages split into two broad camps: the part that is ultimately grounded in terms defined by private ostensive definition within the conscious mind; and the part that exists as a closed linguistic system. The former points to a reality outside the language (namely the reality of consciousness) while the latter does not. Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/06/2003 6:39 PM by Dimitry V	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	When you see a lion, it is not the lion that causes fear, but the idea of the lion. Idea and physical reality are on two separate levels (Logical Levels). You have to transform reality into idea, before it can cause other, higher level, ideas (i.e., fear). Any ideas in your mind, can be changed without changing anything in the physical world (apart from a little neurological reorganization within you). Dental hypnosis can disconnect pain response from your teeth. Phobias can be collapsed. And so on. What is important about "red" is not that it is "real" -- whatever that means. The importance is that people share the reality that red refers to some particular idea: Shared Reality. You may as well point to it and call it "kolit" -- as long as you can convince others to call it the same thing, then the label has utility for everyone who calls it that. You can also do stranger things, tell people that a blue object is red, and as long as they accept that, (even though they have experience with both color labels), you can go through logical and emotive processes to explain something with your relabeling.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/06/2003 11:35 PM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Peter, you said: That constraint does not apply to consciousness. Conscious experiences such as the colour red are defined by private ostensive definition. (E.g. you look at something red and declare to yourself that that is what you mean by "red".) Therefore consciousness cannot be an emergent property. So in the new light of this evolving discussion the argument is now this: Because the derivation of consensus meaning through consciousness is largely associative and arbitrary therefore "consciousness cannot be an emergent property". I see no way that this logically follows. Have you ever read Daniel Dennett? There is some great discussion of how to properly understand HOW the mind can emerge from the semi and unconscious processes of the brain. There is a wealth of information in the cognitive sciences that Dennett has gleaned and used to explain these processes. Consciousness is a term for a process that has no strict boundaries, yet we know where it definitely isn't and we know where it obviously is. The hard part is how to agree on the shades of gray in between. This illustrates the limits of semantic ambiguity of our all-or-nothing language when confronted with phenomena exhibiting fuzzy boundaries.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/07/2003 4:09 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	I am completely baffled as to how you could think that this gobbldehook could have anything to do with the argument that I put forward in my essay and which I have been repeating in this discussion: So in the new light of this evolving discussion the argument is now this: Because the derivation of consensus meaning through consciousness is largely associative and arbitrary therefore "consciousness cannot be an emergent property". Let's call this bizarre argument P. The first part of P refers to "the derivation of consensus meaning". But consensus meaning is not mentioned in my argument and has no relevance to it. The argument is based on the meaning of terms to an individual. The argument would still hold even if there were only one person in the world, and therefore consensus about the meaning of terms is irrelevant to the argument. A term such as "red" means (amongst other things) a particular conscious sensation. That semantic relationship exists in each individual. It is a relationship that relates such terms to an extra-linguistic meaning, without which the terms would be locked into a closed linguistic system. Physics terms, on the other hand, are defined analytically and not by private ostensive definition and therefore do not bear semantic references beyond the closed formal system in which they are defined. P also mentions definitions as being "largely associative and arbitrary". The precise form that the definition takes, whether it is a declaration or an undeclared association, is immaterial to the argument. What *is* material to the argument is that the referent (ie the colour sensation) is present in consciousness and is related to the term. As regards being "arbitrary", I presume you mean that the colour red could be called "ziggle" "blue" or anything else. This is true but totally irrelevant to the present discussion. Finally, regarding Professor Dennett, I have attended some of his conference presentations and read some of his material, and IMHO he is a great showman but sadly he is locked into a perverse approach to consciousness that does not advance our understanding of the subject by very much. He is, in effect, refusing to address what David Chalmers has identified as the 'Hard Problem' of consciousness. Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/07/2003 11:20 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Likewise people claim that the concept of consciousness emerges as a wholly new concept from brains. This claim is inverted! Consciousness is not a concept, but concepts are are a part of consciousness. Consciousness is an emergent network phenomenon as seen from the inside, surrounded by the concepts and sensations that compose it. Therefore to apply arguments based on different types of concepts says nothing about how or if consciousness is an emergent phenomenon because consciousness is not bound by the boundaries and distinctions of concepts. Your argument merely points out semantic distinctions of the types of categories and mind/world correlations that consciousness produces and claims that these semantic boundaries impose physical limits on the thing which produces them. If you find limits within an Operating System do these limits necessarily apply to the deeper level of the hardware? As I said in the essay, this claim doesn't go through, because emergent concepts must always have an analytical definition at the lower level, otherwise they could never be empirically recognised. So because we haven't yet discovered the highly complex empirical relationship between the network architecture of the brain and the consciousness which emerges from it, does that necessarily mean that it can't ever be discovered? I don't think so. Even if temperature is *defined* phenomenologically, it still has to be cashed out in previously defined physical observables before it could ever be measured. Consciousness is MUCH more complex and an altogether different type of phenomenon than the simple physical analogues (i.e. temperature) that you draw. The empirical laws which govern the forms of consciousness are much more difficult to discover (somewhat like genetics, but yet still more complex). So to argue based on our current state of understanding of these empirical laws is to assume that they will never figure it out. This assumption is highly precarious and IMHO foolhardy. Consciousness is difficult empirical/quantitative problem, but that doesn't mean it is impossible. Your argument confuses what is difficult in practice with what is impossible in principal. It is therefore merely an assumption that this difficulty will turn out to be an impossibility. Progress is being made, however, so to convince anyone of the validity your argument you have to have some reason to believe that progress will halt. What is this reason? Simply the fact that it is impossible (right now) to enter someone elses mind and experience the other consciousness firsthand? I think even this barrier will eventually get erased.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/07/2003 1:14 PM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Consciousness is not a concept, but concepts are are a part of consciousness. In the bit of my previous post that you quote, I mentioned the "the concept of consciousness". Obviously the concept of consciousness is a concept. Consciousness is an emergent network phenomenon as seen from the inside, ... This just seems completely arbitrary. You don't give any positive reasons for this belief. Therefore to apply arguments based on different types of concepts says nothing about how or if consciousness is an emergent phenomenon because consciousness is not bound by the boundaries and distinctions of concepts. I don't know what you're trying to say here. What sense of 'bound' are you using? I don't see what kind of boundaries you are claiming consciousness doesn't have. At any given moment, a person's consciousness is bound by a whole bunch of things. Your argument merely points out semantic distinctions of the types of categories and mind/world correlations that consciousness produces and claims that these semantic boundaries impose physical limits on the thing which produces them. Again, I am struggling to discern any meaning in this. You are accusing me of claiming something about "physical limits", but I said nothing about physical limits. Yes, I did discuss some semantic distinctions, and made some inferences from them. But I don't know where you got the "physical limits" from. So because we haven't yet discovered the highly complex empirical relationship between the network architecture of the brain and the consciousness which emerges from it, does that necessarily mean that it can't ever be discovered? Of course not. That is obviously an absurd non-sequitur. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what I said. What I said was: mental terms have a type of definition that gives them a semantic reference to a real, extra-linguistic world; physical terms don't. Therefore physical terms denote formal constructs whereas mental terms denote real stuff that we can empirically observe. Therefore mental things can neither be reduced to, nor emerge from, physical things. Consciousness is MUCH more complex and an altogether different type of phenomenon than the simple physical analogues (i.e. temperature) that you draw. Yes, we all know it is more complex, but kindly explain why you think that that has any relevance whatsoever to the argument. So to argue based on our current state of understanding of these empirical laws is to assume that they will never figure it out. This assumption is highly precarious and IMHO foolhardy. This is not an assumption I made. Your argument confuses what is difficult in practice with what is impossible in principal. No, it makes no mention at all of what is difficult in practice. It is a basic logical argument about whether it is possible in principle for consciousness to emerge from, or to be reduced to, physical systems. It is therefore merely an assumption that this difficulty will turn out to be an impossibility. Progress is being made, however, so to convince anyone of the validity your argument you have to have some reason to believe that progress will halt. What is this reason? With respect, the progress hasn't begun. There has never been any progress in reducing consciousness to physics. Simply the fact that it is impossible (right now) to enter someone elses mind and experience the other consciousness firsthand? I think even this barrier will eventually get erased. Basic logic doesn't change. The idea that any amount of technological advance will enable a reduction of consciousness to physics, or will render a person's conscious mind as a third-party observable is just playing with words. Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/07/2003 1:33 PM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	What I said was: mental terms have a type of definition that gives them a semantic reference to a real, extra-linguistic world; physical terms don't. Therefore physical terms denote formal constructs whereas mental terms denote real stuff that we can empirically observe. Therefore mental things can neither be reduced to, nor emerge from, physical things. This is just ridiculous. ALL terms are mental. Whether they denote experience with an external verifiable phenomenon or whether they denote an internal subjective experience makes no difference. All experience is a result of the activity of the brain. Some experience is self-referential and others are world-referential. You can't use these distinctions between types of terms (all of which are mental), to draw conclusions to the deeper level mechanisms by which they arise. All experience is physical in the end. We merely invent mental terms to categorize and communicate those experiences.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/07/2003 1:55 PM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	All experience is a result of the activity of the brain. This is begging the question. You're saying that the conscious mind is physical because the conscious mind is physical. Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/07/2003 3:50 PM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	subtillioN: All experience is a result of the activity of the brain. Peter: This is begging the question. You're saying that the conscious mind is physical because the conscious mind is physical. That wasn't my argument. It was my conclusion. Your argument is simply that because some 'terms' are currently irreducible to empirically verifiable foundations that this means that consciousness itself is irreducible. My argument is that consciousness is not equivalent to a 'term' therefore what applies to 'terms' does not necessarily apply to consciousness.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/07/2003 6:42 PM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Your argument is simply that because some 'terms' are currently irreducible to empirically verifiable foundations that this means that consciousness itself is irreducible. My argument is that consciousness is not equivalent to a 'term' therefore what applies to 'terms' does not necessarily apply to consciousness. Anything that we say about consciousness is expressed in terms. (Anything we say about anything is expressed in terms.) Therefore conclusions about terms impact what we say about the things themselves. My argument is not that 'some terms are currently irreducible to empirically verifiable foundations' but that physical terms are inherently irreducible to extra-linguistic reality. Their only *meaning* is within a closed formal system. Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 1:23 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Anything that we say about consciousness is expressed in terms. (Anything we say about anything is expressed in terms.) Therefore conclusions about terms impact what we say about the things themselves. The mechanism of the emergence of consciousness is not at the symbolic or representational level. You are simply arguing at the wrong level. The only effective level of argumentation against the mechanism of the emergence of consciousness would be at the network architecture level where the 'mechanism' actually exists.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 2:39 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Anything that we say about consciousness is expressed in terms. ... Therefore conclusions about terms impact what we say about the things themselves. The mechanism of the emergence of consciousness is not at the symbolic or representational level. You are simply arguing at the wrong level. The only effective level of argumentation against the mechanism of the emergence of consciousness would be at the network architecture level where the 'mechanism' actually exists. We seem to be arguing at cross-purposes. You are talking about *computation*, I am talking about *consciousness*. You mention 'the emergence of consciousness' and immediately presupposed that it *does* 'emerge' and that there is a network mechanism to 'emerge' it. Where does that presupposition come from? What is your reason for believing that consciousness does -- or even, in principle, can -- emerge from a physical system? I gave what IMHO is a valid reason for saying that consciousness is the wrong *kind* of thing to emerge from any physical system. I am not saying that it emerges *this* way or *that* way. I am saying that it *cannot* emerge. Nor am I concerned with what concepts are contained within any given person's consciousness. (I am wondering whether that is where the confusion lies.) But with the concept of consciousness itself. Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 2:43 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	[PS. My previous post had nested 'quote' in it, but kurzweilai.net has rendered it as an empty quote-box, and then centred the following paragraph. A little debugging needed there, Amara!]

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 3:35 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	We seem to be arguing at cross-purposes. You are talking about *computation*, I am talking about *consciousness*. There are limited parallels to be drawn. This is what I was doing for the purpose of understanding the difference between the representational level and the mechanism level. You mention 'the emergence of consciousness' and immediately presupposed that it *does* 'emerge' and that there is a network mechanism to 'emerge' it. Where does that presupposition come from? From a cursory understanding of the enormous complexity of the brain and the cognitive science knowledge that a self-representational system is possible. What is your reason for believing that consciousness does -- or even, in principle, can -- emerge from a physical system? I have been tinkering with my own physical mechanisms of consciousness for quite a while now. When I alter the physical system the mind correspondingly changes. It seems obvious that the immense complexity of the mind could produce the representational illusion of the real world. What is your assumption that it is not possible? I am looking for a reason that pertains to the level at which the mechanism would exist (the network architecture level) not the symbolic level. I gave what IMHO is a valid reason for saying that consciousness is the wrong *kind* of thing to emerge from any physical system. I am not saying that it emerges *this* way or *that* way. I am saying that it *cannot* emerge. Your reasoning was irrelevant because it addressed the wrong level of explanation. It said nothing of the limitations on the mechanisms involved in the putative 'emergence' of consciousness. Nor am I concerned with what concepts are contained within any given person's consciousness. (I am wondering whether that is where the confusion lies.) But with the concept of consciousness itself. I think you are right. If you view consciousness as anything but an abstraction and representation of external reality then you are bound to get confused because there is no mechanism that we know of that could produce this alternate absolute solipsist 'conscious world'.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 2:09 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	but that physical terms are inherently irreducible to extra-linguistic reality. Their only *meaning* is within a closed formal system. Terms are merely reducible to terms. It IS a closed representational system that simply correlates with reality. Why should a term be reducible to "extra-linguistic reality"? The mind is an abstraction of reality, not reality itself. How does this prove that consciousness is not an emergent phenomenon?

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 2:33 AM by blue_is_not_a_number	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Terms are merely reducible to terms. It IS a closed representational system that simply correlates with reality. Why should a term be reducible to "extra-linguistic reality"? The mind is an abstraction of reality, not reality itself. How does this prove that consciousness is not an emergent phenomenon? Here you are leaving out the important point: Although both the computer and the mind reference reality, and both the computer and the mind have the reality of processing information, the difference is that consciousness has another reality: that of seeing-color. Seeing-color is (also) a reality in itself, not just a formal reference, and seeing-color is unlike processing information, unlike adding 1 + 2. Even if someone is able to add numbers so fast that he starts seeing colors ;-), at that point he is not just adding numbers anymore, which is what a computer is supposed to do. Otherwise it's not a computer anymore. Voids the warranty, I mean, the definition. ;-) Regards, blue_is_not_a_number http://www.occean.com

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 2:58 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	the difference is that consciousness has another reality: that of seeing-color. It is merely an illusion or representation of reality. Not at all the same status as a 'reality'.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 3:03 AM by blue_is_not_a_number	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	blue_etc: the difference is that consciousness has another reality: that of seeing-color. subtillioN: It is merely an illusion or representation of reality. Not at all the same status as a 'reality'. I't s there in from of you own eyes, so to speak. Doesn't a color have presence in your field of vision. Whether you call it an illusion or not, it's there. Even a a mive project onto a screen has a presence as light. Blue_is_not_a_number

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 3:08 AM by blue_is_not_a_number	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Hmmm. Here come the typos corrected: The color is there in front of your own eyes, so to speak. Doesn't a color have a presence in your field of vision? Whether you call it an illusion or not, it's there. Even a movie projected onto a screen has a presence as light.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 3:19 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	The color is there in front of your own eyes, so to speak. Doesn't a color have a presence in your field of vision? Do you think the primary colors exist outside of the mind? They don't. The spectrum is continuous. It is NOT formed from only three 'primary' colors. This is an example of the mind in action simplifying, abstracting and generalizing reality for the purpose of representing it. Whether you call it an illusion or not, it's there. Even a movie projected onto a screen has a presence as light. Illusions, like everything else, are real. They simply look like something that they are not, i.e. the mind looks like the world (so we assume), but it is not the world. It is just a representation of it.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 3:27 AM by blue_is_not_a_number	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Do you think the primary colors exist outside of the mind? They don't. The spectrum is continuous. It is NOT formed from only three 'primary' colors. Colors don't exist outside of the mind at all, and that's the point: They exist in consciousness, they are a reality of consciousness. This is an example of the mind in action simplifying, abstracting and generalizing reality for the purpose of representing it. Here you are going back to the context of processing information, and you are right as far as that is concerned. Colors, though, are means of representation which have a reality in themselves.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 3:41 AM by blue_is_not_a_number	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Illusions, like everything else, are real. They simply look like something that they are not, i.e. the mind looks like the world (so we assume), but it is not the world. It is just a representation of it. You are talking about the mind as if it were outside of the world. Where is it then? A color looks like a color, not like anything else. Or are you saying something else would look like a color? It doesn't matter, because than that something else is, that's also the color. Because the color _is_ what it looks like. You can't understand that with a thinking rooted in classical physics, and that's also Dennett's limitation.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 3:52 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	You are talking about the mind as if it were outside of the world. Where is it then? We are talking past each other then because that is the opposite of what I was trying to communicate. A color looks like a color, not like anything else. That is actually what i said when i said to the effect of "the primary colors are an invention of the mind to represent em frequency". You can't understand that with a thinking rooted in classical physics, and that's also Dennett's limitation. What makes you assume it is impossible?

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 4:07 AM by blue_is_not_a_number	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	We are talking past each other then because that is the opposite of what I was trying to communicate. I know. Read on. That is actually what i said when i said to the effect of "the primary colors are an invention of the mind to represent em frequency". You are using only two categories: abstract reference and reality. You need a third one: The carrier of the reference. Well, actually that's what you call the mind. But the mind is not just an abstract container of abstract references, it has a reality besides its action of referencing: that of conscious sensation, such as seeing-color. The color is a conscious reality in addition to its activity of referencing. What makes you assume it is impossible? [to understand color from a thinking rooted in classical physics] Seeing-color is both a reality and an appearance in itself, at the same time (or without time). The appearance has an existance in itself. That doesn't happen in classical physics.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 4:21 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	You are using only two categories: abstract reference and reality. You need a third one: The carrier of the reference. Well, actually that's what you call the mind. The mind is a collection of references. The brain would be the 'carrier'. But the mind is not just an abstract container of abstract references, it has a reality besides its action of referencing: The brain does the referencing through the interface of the mind. The color is a conscious reality in addition to its activity of referencing. The illusion of color is real, but color does not exist apart from the reality of this illusion. What makes you assume it is impossible? [to understand color from a thinking rooted in classical physics] Seeing-color is both a reality and an appearance in itself, at the same time (or without time). The appearance has an existance in itself. That doesn't happen in classical physics. Classical physics? Where did that come from? You obviously don't know my stance on physics. Here is a quick off-the-cuff slogan: The quantum revolution was revolutionary enough. Does this sound like I am rooted in classical physics? How does this discussion even tie in with classical physics?

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 4:23 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	The quantum revolution was revolutionary enough. lol oops! I meant to say that it was NOT "revolutionary enough"! They left the very problem of the kinetic-atomic-theory in the core to give us the wave-particle duality.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 4:43 AM by blue_is_not_a_number	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Classical physics? Where did that come from? You obviously don't know my stance on physics. Here is a quick off-the-cuff slogan: The quantum revolution was revolutionary enough. I meant to say that it was NOT "revolutionary enough"! They left the very problem of the kinetic-atomic-theory in the core to give us the wave-particle duality. Excuse me for changing the order in which I reply... As far as I understand from your previous posts, you are looking for an explanation below the quantum level in terms of, crrect me if I'm wrong, classical physics. You are using the model of compressible fluid. Maybe this is why Peter was talking about Bell's theorem (at least that's why I thought of it): Quantum teleportation is difficult to explain with the model of compressible fluid, I guess. But I'm not a physicist, and maybe you are able to come up with something here. The illusion of color is real, but color does not exist apart from the reality of this illusion. Color is not an illusion, it's an appearance, and presence. 'Illusion' would be the right word only if we think something is there which isn't. But the color is there, however in consciousness, not as a measurable event. It can't be measured because it is not quantifiable. But to acknowledge something as real which can't be measured contradicts your definition of reality, so you won't acknowledge it. The "reality of an illusion' is too abstract for a color. The color is right there in your view, visible. The color is visibility itself, which again doesn't fit into concepts of mathematical physics.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 4:46 AM by blue_is_not_a_number	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Second part should be non-quoted: The illusion of color is real, but color does not exist apart from the reality of this illusion. Color is not an illusion, it is an appearance, and presence. 'Illusion' would be the right word only if we think something is there which isn't. But the color is there, however in consciousness, not as a measurable event. It can't be measured because it is not quantifiable. But to acknowledge something as real which can't be measured contradicts your definition of reality, so you won't acknowledge it. The "reality of an illusion' is too abstract for a color. The color is right there in your view, visible. The color is visibility itself, which again doesn't fit into concepts of mathematical physics.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 4:54 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Color is not an illusion, it is an appearance, and presence. 'Illusion' would be the right word only if we think something is there which isn't. You are right. I use the term here because it looks to us as if color were 'out there', but it's not, it's in the mind.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 5:22 AM by blue_is_not_a_number	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	You are right. I use the term here because it looks to us as if color were 'out there', but it's not, it's in the mind It is in consciousness. That's doesn't mean that 'consciousness' and 'brain' are seperate. But a mathematical description of the brain, and physics is mathematical descriptions, would not be able to explain color (which is the same as the conscious experience of color) as a mathematical function. (neither as a mathematical function of any other reality.) I'll be back soon...

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 11:58 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	It is in consciousness. That's doesn't mean that 'consciousness' and 'brain' are seperate. Not any more than a computer and its software are seperate. In fact much less so. But a mathematical description of the brain, and physics is mathematical descriptions, would not be able to explain color (which is the same as the conscious experience of color) as a mathematical function. (neither as a mathematical function of any other reality.) Quantitative and qualitative descriptions of what a color is, how it is formed, how different individual representations of color really are, etc. CAN be formulated. They are just not easy to formulate as some would hope.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 5:10 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	As far as I understand from your previous posts, you are looking for an explanation below the quantum level in terms of, crrect me if I'm wrong, classical physics. The only thing that is even close to 'classical' about my view is that it is purely causal and deterministic. You are using the model of compressible fluid. Maybe this is why Peter was talking about Bell's theorem (at least that's why I thought of it): Quantum teleportation is difficult to explain with the model of compressible fluid, I guess. But I'm not a physicist, and maybe you are able to come up with something here. 'Quantum Teleportation' is simply a faulty (IMHO) interpretation of the results of the Aspect-type experiments. This is why there can never be any actual transfer of REAL data through this 'teleportation'. If there were a real transfer of REAL data then I would look at it more closely, but the 'teleported data' is simply the knowledge of state of the system via the collapse of the mathematical wave-function which is not actually transfered through the 'teleportation', but is merely acquired through statistical methods. This is also why the results are so unreliable. see http://users.aber.ac.uk/cat/ for more info. There is a huge amount of sloppiness in the experiments, unchecked bias in the peer-review process and leeway in the statistics processing. No peer-reviewed journal will ever accept anything that doesn't tow the party-line. To attempt such a thing is professional suicide for a physicist.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 2:56 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Terms are merely reducible to terms. It IS a closed representational system that simply correlates with reality. That's a description of physics language only. (Although: the correlation with reality is outside the formalism of physics. Cf the formalism of chess is a closed symbolic system, which can be assigned bindings to various and many physical chess boards. Likewise the formalism of physics can be assigned a binding to structural patterns in the observed phenomenal world.) Why should a term be reducible to "extra-linguistic reality"? I don't know what you mean by 'why' in this context. I'm just making a factual observation. Conscious terms just *do* have a extra-linguistic reference to reality. That's just the way we use them. The mind is an abstraction of reality, not reality itself. You can disprove this in a number of ways. One way is to drop a brick on your foot. The resulting pain is very much a part of reality. It is emphatically not an abstraction. If you are confused by the connection between the conscious pain and the physical brick hitting the physical foot, you might find it easier to consider experiences you have when dreaming: these are actual, real conscious experiences. How does this prove that consciousness is not an emergent phenomenon? Because consciousness is real, whereas physical substance is a notional construct -- strictly speaking, a fiction. You can't derive something real from a fiction. This is like opening your cereal packet in the morning and expecting to find an imaginary number in it! The imaginary number (like all numbers) is a notional construct. So you would be making a category-mistake (in Gilbert Ryle's terms) to supposed you could encounter it in the flesh. Likewise it would be a category-mistake to suppose that real consciousness could emegre from a notional physical system. Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 3:15 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	You can disprove this in a number of ways. One way is to drop a brick on your foot. The resulting pain is very much a part of reality. It is emphatically not an abstraction. Abstractions are real, just like everthing else. The point is that the pain is a highly simplistic motivational representation of what is happening to the foot. Representation is abstraction. If you are confused by the connection between the conscious pain and the physical brick hitting the physical foot, you might find it easier to consider experiences you have when dreaming: these are actual, real conscious experiences. You are confused by an asumption that representation is not abstraction. The dream world is NOT REAL. It is merely representation based on rearranged environment correlated memories. This is why virtually anything is possible. IT IS FANTASY, not fact. Because consciousness is real, whereas physical substance is a notional construct -- strictly speaking, a fiction. You can't derive something real from a fiction. WOW, a solipsist at heart! EVERYTHING IS REAL. Some things merely look like something which they are not. THAT is the nature of consciousness. A "benign user-illusion" (to quote Dennett). Likewise it would be a category-mistake to suppose that real consciousness could emegre from a notional physical system. This points to your problem. Just because we have to form a representation (or notion) of EVERYTHING (including symbols and concepts representing our own mind) to percieve and understand it, does not mean that the actually thing that our representation is correlated with really IS a "notional physical system". You are confusing your own user-illusions with reality itself! Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 3:49 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Abstractions are real, just like everthing else. Huh? So if I invent a set X={P,{a,b,c,}} then P is real? So Mickey Mouse and Sherlock Holmes are real? Not in the normal sense of the word 'real' they're not. The point is that the pain is a highly simplistic motivational representation of what is happening to the foot. So what? It's a conscious sensation, and that's all that matters. If it's representation that's confusing you then gently press your eyeballs and get some non-representational phosphenes. They're real (otherwise how would know they were there?). You are confused by an asumption that representation is not abstraction. Representation is not abstraction. A conscious sensation is non-abstract but it can still represent. The dream world is NOT REAL. It is merely representation based on rearranged environment correlated memories. This is why virtually anything is possible. IT IS FANTASY, not fact. The conscious experience of a dream is real. (Otherwise how would you know you were having a dream?) The world depicted by it is, of course, not real. This is just like the waking world, in fact. WOW, a solipsist at heart! Huh? Where did solipsism come from? Nothing I said supports solipsism. EVERYTHING IS REAL. Sherlock Holmes isn't. The present king of France isn't. The fourth side of a triangle isn't. This points to your problem. Just because we have to form a representation (or notion) of EVERYTHING (including symbols and concepts representing our own mind) to percieve and understand it, does not mean that the actually thing that our representation is correlated with really IS a "notional physical system". You are confusing your own user-illusions with reality itself! What? Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 4:10 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	subtillioN: Abstractions are real, just like everthing else. Peter: Huh? So if I invent a set X={P,{a,b,c,}} then P is real? So Mickey Mouse and Sherlock Holmes are real? Not in the normal sense of the word 'real' they're not. There is no dualism between real and illusion. An illusion is simply not what it seems. This is the root of your confusion with what I am saying. If it's representation that's confusing you then gently press your eyeballs and get some non-representational phosphenes. They're real (otherwise how would know they were there?). The image of those phosphenes ARE representations of the physical processes that are happening to the eyeball. subtillioN: You are confused by an asumption that representation is not abstraction. Peter: Representation is not abstraction. A conscious sensation is non-abstract but it can still represent. There are at least two different senses of the word 'abstract' you are using one and I am using another. subtillioN: The dream world is NOT REAL. It is merely representation based on rearranged environment correlated memories. This is why virtually anything is possible. IT IS FANTASY, not fact. Peter: The conscious experience of a dream is real. (Otherwise how would you know you were having a dream?) The world depicted by it is, of course, not real. that was my point. subtillioN: WOW, a solipsist at heart! Peter: Huh? Where did solipsism come from? Nothing I said supports solipsism. It came from this, you said: "Because consciousness is real, whereas physical substance is a notional construct -- strictly speaking, a fiction. You can't derive something real from a fiction. " Sounds like solipsism to me. EVERYTHING IS REAL. Sherlock Holmes isn't. The present king of France isn't. The fourth side of a triangle isn't. If you know what the nature of the illusion then you can see its reality. You are simply using language to point to things which cannot exist. These referents are not part of everything because they do not exist. The forth side of a triangle never gets past the illogic of the statement. It points to nothing. What? ok I will rephrase it: Just because we have to form a correlated 'notion' of physical reality in order to percieve and understand it, does not mean that the actual physical correlate itself IS a "notional physical system".

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 5:16 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	"Because consciousness is real, whereas physical substance is a notional construct -- strictly speaking, a fiction. You can't derive something real from a fiction. " Sounds like solipsism to me. Solipsism is the theory that I am the only conscious being that exists. Personally, I think that that theory is massively implausible. It's much more plausible to suppose that every person on this planet is a conscious being and probably a lot of the animals are, too. Solipsism does not follow from what I was saying. Maybe you were thinking of mental monism? ok I will rephrase it: Just because we have to form a correlated 'notion' of physical reality in order to percieve and understand it, does not mean that the actual physical correlate itself IS a "notional physical system". Thanks for the rephrase. What you say is, in itself, true. Let p = "we have to form a correlated 'notion' of physical reality" and q = "the actual physical correlate itself IS a 'notional physical system'." I agree with you that p does not imply q. But I didn't say it did. Let r = "The objects of physics such as protons etc do not occur as conscious experiences" and let s = "The terms of physics do not have a direct semantic reference to any extra-linguistic things". Then I a claiming that r implies s, and s implies q. Let me use a computer analogy. In C++ you can have a pointer variable, say "X". In order to get X to point anywhere, you must assign to it the address of the thing you want it to point to. Now, anything that is not in memory (eg the Eiffel Tower) cannot have an address. Therefore you can't get a pointer to it. Any pointer that contains no address can still be used: you can put into a structure, you can assign its value to another pointer -- but you can't de-reference it. Likewise, a term can refer to something only if it is in consciousness, so that you can fix what the referent is. Since physical things are not in consciousness, you cannot fix any reference to them. Therefore any terms that denote physical things do not really bear any reference to them, but have the role of fictions. You can use them wiithin the closed linguistic system of physics, but you can't 'de-reference' them. Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 5:45 AM by subtillioN	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	Solipsism is the theory that I am the only conscious being that exists. ... Solipsism does not follow from what I was saying. Maybe you were thinking of mental monism? Right, sorry for the mis-lable! I am a substance monist, would this be your philosophical antithesis? Let r = "The objects of physics such as protons etc do not occur as conscious experiences" and let s = "The terms of physics do not have a direct semantic reference to any extra-linguistic things". Then I a claiming that r implies s, and s implies q. There are certain experimental results that show that such a thing as a 'proton' does exist. What exactly this 'proton' is, is hypothetical, but there is a certain amount of conscious experience that we do have with the 'proton'. How do the limits on the spatial resolution of our sensations and the limited representational realm built from that sensation say anything about whether consciousness is emergent or not? Likewise, a term can refer to something only if it is in consciousness, so that you can fix what the referent is. Since physical things are not in consciousness, you cannot fix any reference to them. Physical things ARE in consciousness. There is simply a limit to the resolution to which we can percieve them. Therefore any terms that denote physical things do not really bear any reference to them, Be careful not to generalize all scales based on the limited realm of perception in question. but have the role of fictions. You can use them wiithin the closed linguistic system of physics, but you can't 'de-reference' them. The mind itself is a fiction created by the brain to correlate with physical reality. I have seen nothing in your arguments which negates this interpretation.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 2:13 AM by Dimitry V	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	OK, so I went backward through your postings and finally got to your main argument :) But a thermodynamic soup involves new concepts such as temperature that just don't have any meaning at the microlevel of molecules. It's a higher logical level. Just like you can never make your car reverse just by pressing either gas or brake pedals -- or any combination. And sometimes you can't express the "higher" functions (gear change) in terms of the "lower" (gas & brake pedals), or vice versa. But this may have less relevance for "emergent" properties. Likewise people claim that the concept of consciousness emerges as a wholly new concept from brains. As I said in the essay, this claim doesn't go through, because emergent concepts must always have an analytical definition at the lower level, otherwise they could never be empirically recognised. Even if temperature is *defined* phenomenologically, it still has to be cashed out in previously defined physical observables before it could ever be measured. Well, as Searle might say, we shouldn't rewrite ontology in terms of epistemology. You shouldn't say that something is an "X", just because you can only write 1 letter words. And we can't say that consciousness has no lower level definition, just because the epistemology prevents us from examining it fully -- at this time. But the Quantum-Duality stuff has absolutely no evidence to support it, it's pure speculation. It's almost like saying that since the clock in your PC cannot be absolutely precise (it varies in duration from cycle to cycle) -- that this somehow opens the door for consciousness in an asynchronous, let's say analogue computer. I mean, people are looking for a magic spell to produce a doorway into consciousness. But reciting "quantumus consciencitus" or whatever, only makes you look silly. That constraint does not apply to consciousness. Conscious experiences such as the colour red are defined by private ostensive definition. (E.g. you look at something red and declare to yourself that that is what you mean by "red".) Therefore consciousness cannot be an emergent property. I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. A computer program can easily examine an image and tell you it's predominant color (RGB). Without Consciousness, it could even bind it to a label, "red". I don't know exactly what the transistors and the features of the CPU have to do in order to produce this, but I do happen to know the type of algorithm that could do such a thing. Likewise, I know that when someone recognizes something red, their neurology reorganizes slightly -- but I couldn't tell you exactly how the neurons do that, yet I know the higher level strategies that might be involved. As a hypnotist, I understand the methods people can use to bind objects to labels: Your method was to say the label to yourself internally while looking at it -- for example. And another person might make the object larger, in the mind's eye, and imagine the letters of the label imprinted or emblazoned on the object. I emblazon people's names onto their foreheads, when I want to learn their name -- for example. And I can teach other people to use a strategy of some sort, when they have difficulty doing some task that requires remembering labels. So, to me, there is nothing "ostensibly private" about how people do so. Maybe we should just be talking about the subjective experience of something red, rather than the label one associates to them?

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 3:27 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	It's a higher logical level. Just like you can never make your car reverse just by pressing either gas or brake pedals -- or any combination. Yes, I understand the concept of emergence and see that it applies to some things, e.g. thermodynamics, or more pertinently the high-level data structures that I use in computer programming which ultimately rest on electrical charges in the circuits. I am not opposed to the concept of emergence per se, I am saying specifically that consciousnes cannot emerge from a physical system. Well, as Searle might say, we shouldn't rewrite ontology in terms of epistemology. Much as I respect Searle, this time he's just plain wrong. You have to ask: Why not? Where does the rule come from that you shouldn't rewrite ontology in terms of epistomology? Sure, in most circumstances you would not want to do that. But the mind-body problem is different from most other problems. You shouldn't say that something is an "X", just because you can only write 1 letter words. And we can't say that consciousness has no lower level definition, just because the epistemology prevents us from examining it fully -- at this time. I am as reductionistic as anybody, and I don't deny that consciousness experiences can be reduced to a lower level. But the lower level also consists of conscious exeperiences. The Buddhists have done the most work in this area. What I am denying is that consciousness can be reduced to a physical, non-conscious level. But the Quantum-Duality stuff has absolutely no evidence to support it, it's pure speculation. It has elementary logic to support it. (i) I can report my conscious experiences (as indeed we all can). (ii) Consciousness is nonphysical (see earlier arguments about nonreducibility to physics). (iii) Therefore reporting my conscious experience is an instance of a nonphysical process having an effect on a physical system. (iv) If the physical system were deterministic, this would be impossible. (v) Since it *does* happen (as an empirical fact), it must do so at nondeterministic events. (vi) The only nondeterministic events are quantum mechanical events. Which step in this argument do you disagree with? (Aside: there are also the initial conditions, but I don't want to bring them in here as it would muddy the water.) BTW This has nothing to do with 'quantum duality'. I think quantum duality is a useless idea. And it's irrelevant here anyway. It's almost like saying that since the clock in your PC cannot be absolutely precise (it varies in duration from cycle to cycle) -- that this somehow opens the door for consciousness in an asynchronous, let's say analogue computer. No, that's got nothing to do with what we're discussing. I mean, people are looking for a magic spell to produce a doorway into consciousness. But reciting "quantumus consciencitus" or whatever, only makes you look silly. Fine, so tell me which step in the argument (i) to (vi) you think is wrong and why you think it's wrong. I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. A computer program can easily examine an image and tell you it's predominant color (RGB). Without Consciousness, it could even bind it to a label, "red". Yes, of course it can. So what? What relevance does that have to this discussion? We are talkinbg about conscious experiences, not about labelling parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is what the computer is doing. As a hypnotist, I understand the methods people can use to bind objects to labels: Your method was to say the label to yourself internally while looking at it -- for example. That was an example. You can do it by any method. The key point is that the referent is present in consciousness. And I can teach other people to use a strategy of some sort, when they have difficulty doing some task that requires remembering labels. So, to me, there is nothing "ostensibly private" about how people do so. It's private in so far as you cannot look into their minds. You rely on their verbal reports and body language to infere what is happening in their conscious minds. BTW I did not say "ostensibly private", I said "private ostensive definition". The "ostensive" is qualifying the "definiton". It means 'definition by pointing to something'. Maybe we should just be talking about the subjective experience of something red, rather than the label one associates to them? Fine, but where would that get you? Peter

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/08/2003 9:57 PM by Dimitry V	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	I am saying specifically that consciousnes cannot emerge from a physical system. I am as reductionistic as anybody, and I don't deny that consciousness experiences can be reduced to a lower level. But the lower level also consists of conscious exeperiences. The Buddhists have done the most work in this area. What I am denying is that consciousness can be reduced to a physical, non-conscious level. I take it that by non-conscous, you don't mean unconscious? And I'm interested in what you think of Multipal Personality Disorder in light of some quantum mechanical path to consciousness? Perhaps you don't think anything of it, and that would be OK. There's another term, co-conscious, where people have "parts" that function at various levels of consciousness, some hypnotherapies and psychotherapies deal with "parts" of a person (for example, in Transactional Analysis, you have the Child, Parent, and Adult parts); these are literally unconscious processes that have been ingrained into the neurology of the person, ingrained responses. I'm sure you don't think about each letter you type as you write back? It has elementary logic to support it. (i) I can report my conscious experiences (as indeed we all can). (ii) Consciousness is nonphysical (see earlier arguments about nonreducibility to physics). (iii) Therefore reporting my conscious experience is an instance of a nonphysical process having an effect on a physical system. (iv) If the physical system were deterministic, this would be impossible. (v) Since it *does* happen (as an empirical fact), it must do so at nondeterministic events. (vi) The only nondeterministic events are quantum mechanical events. Which step in this argument do you disagree with? I disagree with the assumption that "physical" and "nonphysical" form a partition. Which clashes first with (iii). We are talkinbg about conscious experiences, not about labelling parts of the electromagnetic spectrum Which is why I suggested droping the idea of labeling anything, altogether. The key point is that the referent is present in consciousness. Present, or re-presented? It's private in so far as you cannot look into their minds. You rely on their verbal reports and body language to infere what is happening in their conscious minds. Yes, and you rely on minimal cues as much as possible to reduce the possibility of "cheating". And you can do things in an indirect fashion, such that they answer a question -- that they don't know they were asked. Maybe we should just be talking about the subjective experience of something red, rather than the label one associates to them? Fine, but where would that get you? That would get back to primary experience, without adding the complication of labeling it.

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/09/2003 12:40 PM by sushi101	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	What I am denying is that consciousness can be reduced to a physical, non-conscious level. Ofcourse it can't, but it arises _from_ matter it is not seperate from matter and it is not purely holistic. It exist between time and matter, a casual feedback loops with an ability to do patternregocnition over time(states). If conciousness would ever be a product that would be sold on the shelves in supermarkets, there would be a line that said "Just add time" So let met ask you this Peter, do you think it would be possible to be even more concious(higher or different resolution?) than we are?

		Re: Consciousness as an emergent property posted on 03/10/2003 11:32 AM by PeterLloyd	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
	[quite]Ofcourse it can't (be reduced to physics), but it arises _from_ matter ...