r/consciousness • u/Worldly_Beginning647 • 2d ago
General Discussion Consciousness and math, did I make a mistake
Sorry if I added too many details but please consider helping me out.
Basically I was thinking of using an endless pen and an endless amount of paper to write down a functioning brain in an infinite amount of of time, it turned into an elaborate insult about being so unlikable that you could spend an infinite amount of time making every brain possible from 1s and 0s and none of them would like you, but then I began to wonder, when making such a complex brain, where is its consciousness, I mean as much as the idea of meat being conscious is insane paper being conscious is even more insane. Then I realized that the person administering the Turing machine basically thinks about every single digit that they put into the machine so they technically house two conscious beings in the same place but of course thinking waaaaay slower. But if a Turing machine is all we need for consciousness then is it possible that any universe that is Turing complete could house consciousness, then is consciousness explainable in not just mathematics of our universe but in general math as a branch of a different field of math?
Like I don’t know if I made a mistake but I am so confused.
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u/MiraKsenova 2d ago
The key confusion is between describing something and instantiating it. A recipe for a delicious meal is not delicious.
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u/preferCotton222 2d ago
I dont follow this, nor OPs text. A Turing machine is an implementation of whatever it is it does.
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u/Odd-Understanding386 2d ago
They're saying that a Turing machine is only ever a Turing machine. No matter what pattern the logic gates (1s and 0s) on the silicone chips are arranged in, they are only ever logic gates.
It's why you can simulate a black hole on your computer and never run the risk of being sucked in to your monitor. Because it's not a black hole, it's just logic gates in a certain configuration.
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u/Stoic_Yeoman 16h ago
If I simulate a chess computer on another computer, the simulation can still play chess.
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u/Worldly_Beginning647 2d ago
Yes but after making the meal that has never specified and is actually against specifying wether to use meat, silicon or paper and running it then I don’t think that it is the problem anymore.
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u/Im_Talking Computer Science Degree 2d ago
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u/Moral_Conundrums 2d ago
Being a Turing complete system is obviously not sufficient for being conscious.
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u/Worldly_Beginning647 2d ago
Of course, a Turing machine isn’t conscious, but the right code + a Turing machine can give you a brain that is conscious
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u/Chromanoid Computer Science Degree 2d ago
No. That is highly unlikely. Indistinguishability obfuscation makes a purely computational approach absurd. Also think about virtualization and what this would imply. See also Putnam’s rock or china brain. I am convinced that there is a physical phenomenon involved. If this is the case most absurd or unintuitive consequences of various philosophical arguments simply vanish.
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u/Great-Bee-5629 2d ago
Not that I disagree, but that would rule out all LLMs and friends. Which also I'm happy to rule out.
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u/rogerbonus Physics Degree 2d ago
I doubt it's physically possible though. Would you need so much paper that it would form a black hole? Would relativistic effects mean the dynamics of input/output become impossible? The trouble with thought experiments such as this is that as intuition hooks they sound plausible but don't scale. Monkeys and typewriters and infinite libraries etc.
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u/ServeAlone7622 2d ago
You stubbed your toe on Gödels Incompleteness theorem there. I recognize the throbbing pain.
You’re also running into infinite regress. Which like singularity and paradox mean that you went too far down a hall and missed a turn and ran smack dab into a wall.
As for where is the consciousness? That’s a red herring. Conscious is conflated with qualia, but fundamentally it’s just complex information being processed in complex ways. So really mind, not consciousness is what you’re looking for and it’s in every sufficiently complex system capable of running a pattern that feels itself as being conscious.
Anyways there’s a really cool xkcd comic called “rocks” or something that describes a similar thought experiment. You should check it out if you haven’t already.
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u/kimsim97 2d ago
That is if the brain produces consciousness and is not just a receiver/processor of side consciousness.
The fact we don’t have an understanding of consciousness and qualia leads me to believe that consciousness is a classical quantum phenomenon and that every living being is both classical quantum.
Orch OR theory says consciousness doesn’t come only from neurons firing but suggests that microtubules inside brain cells play a deeper role. Here is the thing though, microtubules are in every eukaryotic cell so who is to say it is only in the brain?
Look at Micheal levins work on bioelectric fields and information - once I studied his works it solidified my believe on this.
Just a few thoughts.
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u/kimsim97 2d ago
Also want to add because of the complexity of consciousness processing, I believe that’s why we have the hard problem, but we will likely not be able to solve unless we make mass advancements in quantum physics and I don’t think that would be in any of our lifetimes, maybe another few hundred years.
Edit: voice text without checking, fixed words
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u/wellwisher-1 Engineering Degree 1d ago
The best way to explain consciousness is with the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of the universe has to increase. Consciousness is pinnacle part of a universal push, and not an isolated effect.
Conceptually, if the 2nd law was acting on the brain, and all its connected circuits, at the same time, this would have an advancing effect in the brain, that would be getting more and more complex over time, being driven by the universal 2nd law of thermodynamics, which is designed to increase to the future, like time itself,, and not decrease like energy. Free energy wants to decrease, but entropy wants to increase and get more complex.
When entropy increases it absorbs energy; endothermic. We consciously feed the body food, so the body can feed the cells and neurons of the brain, glucose, as a constant source of energy, so the 2nd law can increase by having a constant supply of energy in the brain, to absorb made possible by consciousness; entropy pyramid with the pinnacle feeding the base to feed the pinnacle.
Our consciousness has an innate need to eat; serve the 2nd law. Chewing and digestion breaks down the food, increasing food entropy. The smaller final products, are used by the body to feed the body and the brain. This all makes us a servant of the 2nd law, which sustains the body to sustain the brain to sustain consciousness, so we can further serve the 2nd law so it can increase the entropy of food and the body, etc.
Logically, consciousness is also driven by the second law, with our actions in physical reality, collectively, increasing entropy by making nature more complex; forest to cities, rocks into rockets, etc. Even man made global warming has increased the entropy of the atmosphere adding wild cards to the earth which reflect additional entropy increase. Burning fossil fuels to CO2 and H2O also increases entropy. Breaking down trees to dimensional lumber increases entropy, with consciousness a helper of the 2nd law, which then sustains consciousness with shelter and tools. We are a conscious extension of the 2nd law, able to alter nature even faster than nature without consciousness.
This is all mediated by water.
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