Sorry to be so direct, but I have to say it like this otherwise it doesn't get through.
Consciousness is that which makes us go take something to eat in the morning so we don't die of hunger, keeps us from running into cars or falling off a high place, allows us to work and be intelligent in our actions so that we cover our needs, guides us to form relations and make babies (thus replicate consciousness further).
I think we are agents with the purpose of survival and reproduction. That is only possible by adaptation to the environment, including society and nature. While we're busy at keeping ourselves alive, we have to act intelligently and learn from our mistakes. There is nothing outside the realm of physics and nature, just plain old agent+environment+learning+self-replication.
It feels like something to see blue (or to be a bat) because it is linked to survival, because we have senses and brains to create models of the world, because we have positive and negative signals (rewards) that guide our present and future actions and the value we attach to all life situations, and ultimately because life depends on it and self-replication would eliminate inefficient agents and leave those who are fit.
In short, consciousness is an adaptation mechanism in service of self replication in an environment with limited resources and competition.
I think all this dualist incredulity towards science is bullshit. Instead, the evolutionary process and the reinforcement learning process are sufficient to explain it. If we want to learn about consciousness we should not look only at the brain but at the environment and its limitations. It is the environment that shaped consciousness into existence.
I know it's not as poetic as souls and hard-problems, but it is the simplest explanation that fits.
Many people would reject your definition of consciousness. You can easily imagine a universe where agents perform all the activities you listed, but without an experiential flavour to them. It would all be an "empty" process, much like a simulation in software except with more complex rules.
Yet our universe seems nothing like this. There is an experiential flavour to it which everyone has access to from a first person perspective.
I am not convinced that a successful agent in a competition driven environment could be an empty process. It would have values based on the utility of its actions . Sensations plus values equals experiential flavor.
That's very well said. Consciousness isn't a "thing" to be discovered, it's a process. It's only visible when a variety of "things" are functioning in harmony. It's like asking which guitar string plays the G chord. It's _all_ of them and only when in tune.
A thermostat doesn't need to compete for resources to keep itself in good shape and make little thermostats. There is no evolutionary pressure, no learning from the environment.
Consciousness is that which makes us go take something to eat in the morning so we don't die of hunger, keeps us from running into cars or falling off a high place, allows us to work and be intelligent in our actions so that we cover our needs, guides us to form relations and make babies (thus replicate consciousness further).
I think we are agents with the purpose of survival and reproduction. That is only possible by adaptation to the environment, including society and nature. While we're busy at keeping ourselves alive, we have to act intelligently and learn from our mistakes. There is nothing outside the realm of physics and nature, just plain old agent+environment+learning+self-replication.
It feels like something to see blue (or to be a bat) because it is linked to survival, because we have senses and brains to create models of the world, because we have positive and negative signals (rewards) that guide our present and future actions and the value we attach to all life situations, and ultimately because life depends on it and self-replication would eliminate inefficient agents and leave those who are fit.
In short, consciousness is an adaptation mechanism in service of self replication in an environment with limited resources and competition.
I think all this dualist incredulity towards science is bullshit. Instead, the evolutionary process and the reinforcement learning process are sufficient to explain it. If we want to learn about consciousness we should not look only at the brain but at the environment and its limitations. It is the environment that shaped consciousness into existence.
I know it's not as poetic as souls and hard-problems, but it is the simplest explanation that fits.