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Emergent Realities

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  • Emergent Realities

    "One of the easiest examples of emergent properties to grasp is ant colonies. If one were to continually observe a single ant, the ant would seem to move around with little purpose and accomplish very little. However, when one observes the actions of the colony as a whole, it is clear how the many ants working together are able to accomplish an impressive variety of tasks. Many multiple ants working together can build dams and mounds and transfer large amounts of food from one area to another. The emergent property appears as the result of many ants being organized together. If one ant finds a food source, it secretes substances that act as chemical markers and bring other ants to the same place to break the food source down and return it to the colony. So while an individual ant may only grab a small crumb of food, together the ants form an efficient machine capable of following one another to the food source, disassembling it, and returning it to the colony – a machine/systemcreated to accomplish this task is one example of an emergent property."



    The emergence of consciousness from the human brain is a quantum leap in comparison to the emergence of cooperation amongst millions of ants. Can it be said that the ant system emerged from non-rational forces in the same sense that consciousness emerged from non-rational forces? Are millions of single individual ants a reasonable analogy to non-rational forces? Why or why not?

  • #2
    Originally posted by Machinist View Post
    "One of the easiest examples of emergent properties to grasp is ant colonies. If one were to continually observe a single ant, the ant would seem to move around with little purpose and accomplish very little. However, when one observes the actions of the colony as a whole, it is clear how the many ants working together are able to accomplish an impressive variety of tasks. Many multiple ants working together can build dams and mounds and transfer large amounts of food from one area to another. The emergent property appears as the result of many ants being organized together. If one ant finds a food source, it secretes substances that act as chemical markers and bring other ants to the same place to break the food source down and return it to the colony. So while an individual ant may only grab a small crumb of food, together the ants form an efficient machine capable of following one another to the food source, disassembling it, and returning it to the colony – a machine/systemcreated to accomplish this task is one example of an emergent property."



    The emergence of consciousness from the human brain is a quantum leap in comparison to the emergence of cooperation amongst millions of ants. Can it be said that the ant system emerged from non-rational forces in the same sense that consciousness emerged from non-rational forces? Are millions of single individual ants a reasonable analogy to non-rational forces? Why or why not?
    The ants are analogous to neurons. Just as millions of individual ants can do things that you might not be able to imagine they could do from examining a single ant, billions of individual neurons can do things that you might not be able to imagine they could do from examining a single neuron.

    It can be said that the ants (and the complex behavior of many ants together) are a product of evolution in the same way that neurons (and the complex behavior of many neurons together) are a product of evolution.

    Comment


    • #3
      I have never been satisfied with any explanation for consciousness, the OP one included. Consciousness just seems so fundamentally different to material reality. It's why I have always tended towards Dualism / Idealism with regard to the Mind-Body problem.
      "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
      "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
      "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Starlight View Post
        Consciousness just seems so fundamentally different to material reality.
        Even if consciousness is an emergent property, it's going to be experienced as something fundamentally different. Wouldn't you think? I guess there would be no way of knowing that.

        Originally posted by Starlight View Post
        It's why I have always tended towards Dualism / Idealism with regard to the Mind-Body problem
        Interesting. I often forget that atheism doesn't necessarily imply materialism.



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        • #5
          Originally posted by Stoic View Post

          The ants are analogous to neurons. Just as millions of individual ants can do things that you might not be able to imagine they could do from examining a single ant, billions of individual neurons can do things that you might not be able to imagine they could do from examining a single neuron.

          It can be said that the ants (and the complex behavior of many ants together) are a product of evolution in the same way that neurons (and the complex behavior of many neurons together) are a product of evolution.
          There is definitely complex behavior exhibited in the cooperation of the millions of ants. But to say that self awareness and art, and language and abstract thought, etc is complex behavior seems to be an understatement when compared to the ant colony.

          To me, it just seems that the emergence of consciousness would be different by an infinite order of magnitudes. There is nothing else on Earth like it.

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          • #6
            Just a quick thought here, but couldn't it be said that all properties are emergent in general?

            What is a property exactly and how do you differentiate between those that are emergent and those that....just are?

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Machinist View Post

              There is definitely complex behavior exhibited in the cooperation of the millions of ants. But to say that self awareness and art, and language and abstract thought, etc is complex behavior seems to be an understatement when compared to the ant colony.

              To me, it just seems that the emergence of consciousness would be different by an infinite order of magnitudes. There is nothing else on Earth like it.
              Assume evolution for a moment and think about the evolution of the brain. Starting with the simplest example (not sure of an example), an emergent property would be the ability to react to stimulus in a way that helped the organism. Moving forward, brains got more and more complex, and many more emergent properties, well, emerged. At some point, one of these properties was consciousness. That seems logical to me, putting all brain functions from simple to what we have now in the same category, that is "what the brain does". It's fairly easy to conclude that once consciousness emerged, it would be selected for.

              Now let's think about a computer. It didn't evolve, but was developed in a similar way, by being successively added to in order to gain functionality. At this point nobody would suggest that modern computers are conscious, but let's imagine more and more complex computers being developed, to the point where they could act independently of us and make decisions and perform actions based on the data they become aware of. Let's say they took over their own development and became completely autonomous, developing more and more complex thinking ability. Might consciousness creep in?

              Answer, I don't know. It would be good if we could actually describe consciousness, for a start.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Alien View Post

                Answer, I don't know. It would be good if we could actually describe consciousness, for a start.
                Let me quote Sam Harris;

                Physical events are simply mute as to whether it is “like something” to be what they are. The only thing in this universe that attests to the existence of consciousness is consciousness itself; the only clue to subjectivity, as such, is subjectivity. Absolutely nothing about a brain, when surveyed as a physical system, suggests that it is a locus of experience. Were we not already brimming with consciousness ourselves, we would find no evidence of it in the physical universe—nor would we have any notion of the many experiential states that it gives rise to. The painfulness of pain, for instance, puts in an appearance only in consciousness. And no description of C-fibers or pain-avoiding behavior will bring the subjective reality into view.

                If we look for consciousness in the physical world, all we find are increasingly complex systems giving rise to increasingly complex behavior—which may or may not be attended by consciousness. The fact that the behavior of our fellow human beings persuades us that they are (more or less) conscious does not get us any closer to linking consciousness to physical events. Is a starfish conscious? A scientific account of the emergence of consciousness would answer this question. And it seems clear that we will not make any progress by drawing analogies between starfish behavior and our own. It is only in the presence of animals sufficiently like ourselves that our intuitions about (and attributions of) consciousness begin to crystallize. Is there “something that it is like” to be a cocker spaniel? Does it feel its pains and pleasures? Surely it must. How do we know? Behavior, analogy, parsimony.[7]

                Most scientists are confident that consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity. We have compelling reasons for believing this, because the only signs of consciousness we see in the universe are found in evolved organisms like ourselves. Nevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle. To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle.


                https://www.samharris.org/blog/the-m...-consciousness

                Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Machinist View Post
                  Just a quick thought here, but couldn't it be said that all properties are emergent in general?

                  What is a property exactly and how do you differentiate between those that are emergent and those that....just are?
                  A property is (by definition) an attribute, quality, or characteristic of something. Even the smallest particles that we are made of have some properties, like mass, location, electric charge, etc. But you don't have to work your way up very far to get emergent properties. Solid and liquid are not properties of individual atoms, for example, so they can be thought of as emergent properties. I think it would be fair to say that most properties are emergent.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Stoic View Post

                    I think it would be fair to say that most properties are emergent.

                    What properties are not emergent?

                    The properties of water for instance are not present in oxygen and hydrogen atoms, but only emerge when these atoms are arranged in a certain configuration.

                    Can anyone think of a property that is not emergent?

                    I'm just gathering some data here to better understand the problem of consciousness.

                    Originally posted by Stoic View Post
                    Solid and liquid are not properties of individual atoms
                    But the solids and liquids themselves have certain properties, and these properties emerged as a result of the behavior of the atoms under certain conditions.





                    Last edited by Machinist; 02-22-2022, 07:04 AM.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Machinist View Post


                      What properties are not emergent?

                      The properties of water for instance are not present in oxygen and hydrogen atoms, but only emerge when these atoms are arranged in a certain configuration.

                      Can anyone think of a property that is not emergent?

                      I'm just gathering some data here to better understand the problem of consciousness.
                      "Examples of properties of a system that are not emergent are volume, mass, charge, and number of atoms."


                      But the solids and liquids themselves have certain properties, and these properties emerged as a result of the behavior of the atoms under certain conditions.
                      Right. Per the link above, they might not be considered emergent properties, since they may not be "difficult to predict solely from knowledge of properties of the parts and how they interact with one another." But that also might be a matter of opinion.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by seer View Post

                        Let me quote Sam Harris;


                        Physical events are simply mute as to whether it is “like something” to be what they are. The only thing in this universe that attests to the existence of consciousness is consciousness itself; the only clue to subjectivity, as such, is subjectivity. Absolutely nothing about a brain, when surveyed as a physical system, suggests that it is a locus of experience. Were we not already brimming with consciousness ourselves, we would find no evidence of it in the physical universe—nor would we have any notion of the many experiential states that it gives rise to. The painfulness of pain, for instance, puts in an appearance only in consciousness. And no description of C-fibers or pain-avoiding behavior will bring the subjective reality into view.

                        If we look for consciousness in the physical world, all we find are increasingly complex systems giving rise to increasingly complex behavior—which may or may not be attended by consciousness. The fact that the behavior of our fellow human beings persuades us that they are (more or less) conscious does not get us any closer to linking consciousness to physical events. Is a starfish conscious? A scientific account of the emergence of consciousness would answer this question. And it seems clear that we will not make any progress by drawing analogies between starfish behavior and our own. It is only in the presence of animals sufficiently like ourselves that our intuitions about (and attributions of) consciousness begin to crystallize. Is there “something that it is like” to be a cocker spaniel? Does it feel its pains and pleasures? Surely it must. How do we know? Behavior, analogy, parsimony.[7]

                        Most scientists are confident that consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity. We have compelling reasons for believing this, because the only signs of consciousness we see in the universe are found in evolved organisms like ourselves. Nevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle. To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle.



                        Interesting. I must read more of his stuff, thanks for mentioning him.

                        I've read through this several times. He saying that "consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity" and "To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle" in the same paragraph. Color me puzzled. I can only think he has a different definition of "emergent" than what I understand it to be. Maybe, it seems to be so but the "emergent" argument isn't a good one?

                        My approach is somewhat different, or not given my lack of understanding. A person looking at a TV set with no other knowledge would not spring to the conclusion that it could show pictures on its screen. take it apart, and still no such conclusion. Switch it on though, and a picture appears. So, now it's quite reasonable to conclude the the TV has the ability to produce pictures. BUT we don't know how it does it. Two choices are suggested. Either the combination of parts make up a whole that has an ability that the individual parts didn't have, OR there is another factor we didn't find when we took the TV apart. Choose one. William of Occam would choose the first, I think.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Alien View Post

                          Interesting. I must read more of his stuff, thanks for mentioning him.

                          I've read through this several times. He saying that "consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity" and "To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle" in the same paragraph. Color me puzzled. I can only think he has a different definition of "emergent" than what I understand it to be. Maybe, it seems to be so but the "emergent" argument isn't a good one?

                          My approach is somewhat different, or not given my lack of understanding. A person looking at a TV set with no other knowledge would not spring to the conclusion that it could show pictures on its screen. take it apart, and still no such conclusion. Switch it on though, and a picture appears. So, now it's quite reasonable to conclude the the TV has the ability to produce pictures. BUT we don't know how it does it. Two choices are suggested. Either the combination of parts make up a whole that has an ability that the individual parts didn't have, OR there is another factor we didn't find when we took the TV apart. Choose one. William of Occam would choose the first, I think.
                          Actually someone with electronics knowledge can easily tell what a TV does without turning it on, or just by looking at a set of schematics. It's function is exactly what it is designed to do. Nothing more or less. They would not be able to know exactly what the data would be (a news report, cartoon, live broadcast, etc) but they could tell that the set is designed to display pictures on the tube/screen from an input signal.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Alien View Post

                            Interesting. I must read more of his stuff, thanks for mentioning him.

                            I've read through this several times. He saying that "consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity" and "To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle" in the same paragraph. Color me puzzled. I can only think he has a different definition of "emergent" than what I understand it to be. Maybe, it seems to be so but the "emergent" argument isn't a good one?

                            My approach is somewhat different, or not given my lack of understanding. A person looking at a TV set with no other knowledge would not spring to the conclusion that it could show pictures on its screen. take it apart, and still no such conclusion. Switch it on though, and a picture appears. So, now it's quite reasonable to conclude the the TV has the ability to produce pictures. BUT we don't know how it does it. Two choices are suggested. Either the combination of parts make up a whole that has an ability that the individual parts didn't have, OR there is another factor we didn't find when we took the TV apart. Choose one. William of Occam would choose the first, I think.
                            The other problem is that if you map the brain you find no evidence of consciousness:

                            Absolutely nothing about a brain, when surveyed as a physical system, suggests that it is a locus of experience. Were we not already brimming with consciousness ourselves, we would find no evidence of it in the physical universe.

                            Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by seer View Post

                              The other problem is that if you map the brain you find no evidence of consciousness:

                              Absolutely nothing about a brain, when surveyed as a physical system, suggests that it is a locus of experience. Were we not already brimming with consciousness ourselves, we would find no evidence of it in the physical universe.
                              Sounds like Sam Harris is arguing himself out of atheism.

                              Comment

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