Consciousness and Intelligence

MIT150 Symposium: Brains, Minds and Machines

Moderator:

Shimon Ullman PhD '77, Samy and Ruth Cohn Professor of Computer Science, Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science

Panel:

Ned Block '64, Silver Professor of Philosophy, Psychology, and Neural Science, Department of Philosophy, New York University

Christof Koch, Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology, California Institute of Technology; Chief Scientific Officer, Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA

Giulio Tononi, David P. White Chair in Sleep Medicine; Distinguished Chair in Consciousness Science; School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin, Madison

[golemtheory]

The brainstem is the conductor of the brain's orchestra. The music played is our consciousness

[PaulSmitNonduality]

The eye can see, but cannot see itself. Consciousness can experience, but cannot experience itself.

[pocket]

Wonderful presentations and discussion. Thank you!

[a.kataoka]

With predictive coding theory, I've been wondering if Dr. Koch's NCC can logically exclude itself from neural correlate of top-down prediction.

[CM-qdpx]

Comprehending consciousness is like taking a leap to the other side of the mirror

[DrBrainTickler]

LOL the baby crawling was a nice touch... I refer to the majority is blindfolded children Running With Scissors... Of course have they really learn to run yet?

[GThomas-qqmp]

34:52 does exist. It's an artwork. It's on a roundabout in Ieper, Belgium. The water flows downwards down the pipe and creates the illusion there isn't a physical backbone for the water tap.

[tripzincluded]

Consciousness can not be studied simply because it is that I AM.. "Infinite Conscious Being = I AM = timeless Presence" (::)

[nightoftheworld]

I think this correlates with our global political situation in a real way—"if the repertoire of states decreases the system becomes like a coin instead of a die with a trillion faces ... so any state of the system can only distinguish between two—the world is divided into two things, this or not this."

Biological drive ensures that our lived experience gravitates toward simplified bifurcations in order to efficiently protect ourselves from natural threats—hence a predisposition to developing symptoms of disavowal/dissociation under stress. So we're losing the ability to process reality as complexity explodes and subsequently failing in our duties to educate individuals properly. Too many of our comrades are left to slip into false dichotomy or fragment neurotically on the dissonant political rocks below rather than being able to digest information from a position of mental comfort and _entertain_ a thought while in the middle of the stream.

13:32

"So how much consciousness is there? And of course the theme of the symposium is more about how much consciousness is there (or will there be) in machines that may be highly intelligent by any criterium and any machine we may already have? How do we go about addressing those questions? I think the way you have to go is to develop a theory heard many times: _the call for theories that are needed in addition to empirical studies._ To understand the mind and consciousness is probably the place where theory is _most_ important.

So a _theory of consciousness_ needs to do several things. One is to define what consciousness is—what are the terms _quantity_ and _quality?_ Another thing is to be able to go back to neuroscience and account, in a parsimonious manner, for many empirical observations. Like why the cerebrum and not the cerebellum, why wake and not early slow wave sleep? And so on and so forth, there are many other examples. And even account for those aspects of phenomenology that right now seem ineffable, like what makes the _experience_ of pure red different from that of pure blue, or of a sound or of the scene that is in front of me right now—all those questions must have a scientific explanation.

Now the two axioms that I believe are most important to understand what consciousness is come actually straight from phenomenology—you don't need to do any science or experiments to know that, you know it _directly._ The first one is that every experience, by itself, is extraordinary and informative—not because of how many chunks of information are contained in it, but because of what it rules out. Whenever we have an experience (the one you are having right now) it rules out trillions and trillions of other possible experiences you could have had (but you didn't) and it distinguishes it from them in that particular way—from each and every one of them. That is the essence of information no matter how you want to measure it.

So that's the _key_ feature of consciousness—every experience is what it is because it is different in a particular way from many, many multitudinous other ones. But there is a second related feature that we cannot forget, and that's the _integration._ Meaning every experience is what it is and cannot be decomposed into independent parts. We can talk about the various pieces (what's on the left, what's on the right) but we cannot experience them as independent things—it doesn't even make sense. In fact, to be able to experience the left side of the visual field independent of the right side or the shape independent of the color you would need to split the brain. In fact split brain patients are the only ones who can do that, but then they have two consciousnesses, not one.

So now the basic idea, purely from phenomenology then, is that given those two key features of consciousness any physical systems that generate consciousness should be able to be treated as a single entity (should be one—that's the integration part) and at the same time it should have a huge repertoire of distinguishable states due to its own mechanism. Those two requirements have be there together and if any of them goes away consciousness should vanish. If the repertoire of states decreases the system becomes like a *coin* instead of a *die with a trillion faces* (as depicted here [PPT slide]) ...then you have little repertoire so any state of the system can only distinguish between two—the world is divided into two things, _this or not this._ Or vice-a-versa, if you lose the integration the system breaks down into many little pieces that may store a lot of information if you want/represent a lot of information, but it's not a single entity anymore."

[yifuxero]

Consciousness can't be comprehended intellectually but we can experience IT by transcending thought in the state of Samadhi. No problem. Access "Mahamritunjaya mantra - Sacred Sounds Choir" and listen to it for 5 min per day for at least two weeks. The entire universe is Pure Consciousness.

[crisyorke]

At a minimum, consciousness might seem a necessary precondition for any such freedom or self-determination (Hasker 1999).

The freedom to choose one’s actions and the ability to determine one’s own nature and future development may admit of many interesting variations and degree rather than being a simple all or nothing matter, and various forms or levels of consciousness might be correlated with corresponding degrees or types of freedom and self-determination (Dennett 1984, 2003).

[WorthlessWinner]

Toononi does a good job of demonstrating that integrated information is necessary for consciousness (as we know it) but conflates that with it being sufficient.

[JenLight]

Why would you become a shrink if you wanna do actual science?

[maheshc]

What If the way of Science that we know may not be correct in understanding the thing that we are trying to Or the science only takes us only till this point...? Or I'm something else...?

[The_Accuser]

The Gallileo Gallilei of consciousness (Giullio Tononi) almost died of boredom during the third speakers uneducated brabbeling.

[killingjoker]

So "dimension" is a term that is locked to our perception, meaning we can see tridimensional things in colour due to our brain architecture, while some other beings or animals might just see the world differently, and therefor experience other dimensions.

its also curious that consciousness can leave us during sleeping or in other rare situations like coma in a hospital and then return.

So, what is consciusness? is it something permanent that exists, but only manifests when the brain functions in a certain way, or is it consciousness simply a state that is characterized by the function of several parts of the brain that when interacting with each other, generate the consciousness state?

[idcharles]

Good choice of arsene Wenger to do the intro

[leonorisalvatori]

Ned Block is just firing against the IIT. He says nothing in his talk about the relationship between intelligence and consciousness. Or did I miss something? That's sad. As a philosopher, he should have the ability to respond.

[fiftyshadesofgrey]

Pleeeease, increase sound volume a bit, it's a bit hard to hear sometimes

[taidelek]

Science with spirituality will give a broader picture in the study of consciousness.