Genady Posted September 23, 2023 Posted September 23, 2023 I think, what they meant was pseudo-theory rather than pseudoscience: Quote A letter, signed by 124 scholars and posted online last week, has caused an uproar in the consciousness-research community. It argues that a prominent theory describing what makes someone or something conscious — called the integrated information theory (IIT) — should be labelled as pseudoscience. Since its publication on 15 September in the preprint repository PsyArXiv, the letter has resulted in some researchers arguing over the label and others worrying that it will increase polarization in a field that has grappled with issues of credibility in the past. Consciousness theory slammed as ‘pseudoscience’ — sparking uproar (nature.com) 1
dimreepr Posted September 23, 2023 Posted September 23, 2023 45 minutes ago, Genady said: I think, what they meant was pseudo-theory rather than pseudoscience: Consciousness theory slammed as ‘pseudoscience’ — sparking uproar (nature.com) I think they're just trying to ride the gravy train.
TheVat Posted September 23, 2023 Posted September 23, 2023 2 hours ago, Genady said: think, what they meant was pseudo-theory rather than pseudoscience: Yep, and that's the case with many of the theories of consciousness. They just don't offer a basis to empirically test their core assumptions. They are saying we might know what it's like to be a wombat, if we probe neural operations deeply, and I think there are meta science reasons that may never happen. Phenomenal experience (the philosophy term for subjective experience) may be something beyond a purely objective accounting. IIT has not even established that what goes on in the brain is information. (fun fact: wombat poo is rectangular in shape)
studiot Posted September 23, 2023 Posted September 23, 2023 3 hours ago, Genady said: I think, what they meant was pseudo-theory rather than pseudoscience: Consciousness theory slammed as ‘pseudoscience’ — sparking uproar (nature.com) I understand jellyfish can learn, despite having no brain. How does that play with theories of intelligence and consciousness? https://neurosciencenews.com/jellyfish-learning-memory-23967/ Quote Jellyfish Show Remarkable Learning Skills FeaturedNeuroscience ·September 22, 2023 Summary: A new study reveals that Jellyfish, despite lacking centralized brains, can learn similarly to more advanced organisms. Scientists trained Caribbean box jellyfish to dodge obstacles, showcasing the animal’s capability for associative learning. This discovery challenges the belief that complex learning requires a centralized brain and provides insights into the evolutionary basics of learning. Key Facts: Caribbean box jellyfish, equipped with 24 eyes but no central brain, can learn to dodge obstacles through associative learning. Researchers mimicked the jellyfish’s natural habitat, and by the end of the experiment, the jelly had improved its obstacle avoidance abilities significantly. The rhopalium, a visual sensory center in jellyfish, was identified as a learning center, responding to combined visual and mechanical stimuli for learning.
Genady Posted September 23, 2023 Author Posted September 23, 2023 1 hour ago, studiot said: I understand jellyfish can learn, despite having no brain. How does that play with theories of intelligence and consciousness? https://neurosciencenews.com/jellyfish-learning-memory-23967/ It plays very well with the established scientific theories, e.g. Quote In 1962, after completing his residency in psychiatry, Kandel went to Paris to learn about the marine mollusk Aplysia californica from Ladislav Tauc. Kandel had realized that simple forms of learning such as habituation, sensitization, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning could readily be studied with ganglia isolated from Aplysia. "While recording the behavior of a single cell in a ganglion, one nerve axon pathway to the ganglion could be stimulated weakly electrically as a conditioned [tactile] stimulus, while another pathway was stimulated as an unconditioned [pain] stimulus, following the exact protocol used for classical conditioning with natural stimuli in intact animals." Electrophysiological changes resulting from the combined stimuli could then be traced to specific synapses. In 1965 Kandel published his initial results, including a form of presynaptic potentiation that seemed to correspond to a simple form of learning. Quote By 1981, laboratory members including Terry Walters, Tom Abrams, and Robert Hawkins had been able to extend the Aplysia system into the study of classical conditioning, a finding that helped close the apparent gap between the simple forms of learning often associated with invertebrates and more complex types of learning more often recognized in vertebrates. Quote The results from Kandel's laboratory provided solid evidence for the mechanistic basis of learning as "a change in the functional effectiveness of previously existing excitatory connections." Kandel's winning of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was a result of his work with Aplysia on the biological mechanisms of memory storage. Eric Kandel - Wikipedia 1
AIkonoklazt Posted November 30, 2023 Posted November 30, 2023 Oh boy, IIT. Do you know someone edited the IIT wikipedia article to take out the following reference to a refutation I saw years ago? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4574706/ hmmm maybe because government funding is actually involved in crackpot IIT research? The entire foundation underpinning IIT is bunk- The original thought experiment is so unrealistic it boggles the mind how people would buy into it; When I'm in a dark room I don't immediately start to imagine everything that's NOT there. That's obviously not the way things work (heck maybe it's the way things work for the IIT adherents?) ...I try to sense what COULD be there. To think that the entire theory rests upon this silly presumption! The "information exclusion" thesis is stupid.
iNow Posted November 30, 2023 Posted November 30, 2023 Do you feel better now after lashing out at unnamed strangers in a 2 month dormant thread?
TheVat Posted November 30, 2023 Posted November 30, 2023 7 hours ago, AIkonoklazt said: Oh boy, IIT. Do you know someone edited the IIT wikipedia article to take out the following reference to a refutation I saw years ago? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4574706/ hmmm maybe because government funding is actually involved in crackpot IIT research? The entire foundation underpinning IIT is bunk- The original thought experiment is so unrealistic it boggles the mind how people would buy into it; When I'm in a dark room I don't immediately start to imagine everything that's NOT there. That's obviously not the way things work (heck maybe it's the way things work for the IIT adherents?) ...I try to sense what COULD be there. To think that the entire theory rests upon this silly presumption! The "information exclusion" thesis is stupid. The information exclusion weakness is one of many to be found in IIT. Cerullo does a good job showing the lack of empirical support for the theory. I occasionally follow Scott Aaronson, a foremost theoretical computer scientist, who has a really good blog, and he does a robust critique of IIT. https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=1799
AIkonoklazt Posted November 30, 2023 Posted November 30, 2023 5 hours ago, iNow said: Do you feel better now after lashing out at unnamed strangers in a 2 month dormant thread? Oh, that stranger has a name. Guilio Tononi. You can also maybe count Koch, too. 2 hours ago, TheVat said: The information exclusion weakness is one of many to be found in IIT. Cerullo does a good job showing the lack of empirical support for the theory. I occasionally follow Scott Aaronson, a foremost theoretical computer scientist, who has a really good blog, and he does a robust critique of IIT. https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=1799 I'm just somewhat dismayed that not many people even carefully look at the ill-conceived thought experiment that started it all.
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