I have a perception. Light stimulates my optic nerve, that sends a signal to my brain, and I experience seeing a red Apple. The signal is information. There’s nothing inherently red about it, if you looked in the nerve it wouldn’t turn red, it’s nerve impulse data being transmitted to my brain.
Let’s suppose seeing red is not a process on information, it’s something else. What? Some other kind of process? In order for my experience of seeing red to not be an a process on information, that data would need to be transformed into something that is not data and participate in this other activity. What is that?
After whatever that is happens, I have seen red. I have a memory of it, and can make a decision based in that experience. So now we’re back to storing and processing information again. Whatever happened in between, it took information in and sent information out.
What is the "I" that is "experiencing" seeing an apple? This all seems to just succumb to dualism again. We're not seeing our seeing. We're seeing.
> Let’s suppose seeing red is not a process on information, it’s something else. What? Some other kind of process? In order for my experience of seeing red to not be an a process on information, that data would need to be transformed into something that is not data and participate in this other activity. What is that?
If consciousness and the brain was only computational your argument would make sense, but many if not all neuroscientists would baulk at the claim that the brain is a computer or is fundamentally computational. It's far from deterministic and the "processing" is not as set in stone as a computer. There is no code or programming; there is no clear functional relationship like some neuro-lambda calculus. The "processing" of information (if that is how you want to describe neurological activity, most of which we barely understand) is not just more complex than computation --- it's weird and not straight forward at all. We can simplify it, and make some general guesses and theories, by adopting a simplified computational model, but it remains a model.
> If consciousness and the brain was only computational your argument would make sense, but many if not all neuroscientists would baulk at the claim that the brain is a computer or is fundamentally computational.
That's okay. They're allowed to be wrong. They're even allowed to be complete idiots.
The fact remains that the brains IS a computer, and we know this by the simple observation that it computes. The question is whether it is anything else.
You are though. The brain does a lot of hierarchical prediction with sense data. When new information comes in, it makes predictions and then adjusts the sense data likewise.
That's why when you shift your eyes quickly, you see blurred images pass by. In reality, you should be seeing complete black because the brain doesn't actually process visual information that shifts so quickly.
But your brain "knows" it should see...well something. And so it fits that blurred passthrough as compensation. Completely made up data. But not ungrounded data, data that seems like it should fit according to its prediction.
You are not seeing reality as is. You are seeing a nicely packaged, fluid version of reality (even fabricated at parts) that is being distorted without any input from the conscious self.
Computation is more than silicon chips, more than digital circuits, or the Von Neumann architecture. It’s not inhibited by the code/data distinction. It’s a general model of information processing encompassing any conceivable physical implementation.
Fundamentally information is a state description of the attributes, interactions and geometrical relationships in physical systems. Regions of magnetism on a tape, holes punched in a card, patterns of electrical charge in transistors, the distribution of electro chemicals in nerve cells and synapses. It’s all just information. All physical processes are processes on information. From the perspective of information theory, it doesn’t matter.
Let’s suppose seeing red is not a process on information, it’s something else. What? Some other kind of process? In order for my experience of seeing red to not be an a process on information, that data would need to be transformed into something that is not data and participate in this other activity. What is that?
After whatever that is happens, I have seen red. I have a memory of it, and can make a decision based in that experience. So now we’re back to storing and processing information again. Whatever happened in between, it took information in and sent information out.