daniel bigham.ca

On the experience of consciousness
May 24, 2009

Here's my reply to a recent Slashdot article:

When I read stories like this, I have two reactions.

The first is to be encouraged that people are investigating the experience of consciousness (qualia), because in my opinion it is probably the most bizarre/amazing thing in the universe, and yet almost completely not understood. (And not studied very much given how amazing it is)

My other reaction is, gosh, we just don't seem to get it. It seems so obvious to me that the experience of consciousness cannot be a result of "software", nor "hardware" -- it cannot be the result of atoms, molecules, and electrons. Isn't that obvious to anyone else? And I'm not even talking about religion, I'm just talking about common sense. But science is so set on explaining everything based on physical observation that it seems to conclude that the experience of consciousness MUST be due to atoms and molecules and electrons, end of story. Again, I'm not advocating for the "spirit" here, I'm just saying that I find it dumbfounding that we're still convinced that something as completely bizarre/unique as this can be due to the physics that we know.

I guess that's why people are interested in exploring any possible connections with quantum mechanics, because if it's not due to classical physics, which it simply cannot be, then it must be due to something else, and quantum mechanics is the only "other" thing under the physics umbrella.

The only physical analogy that makes sense to me, personally, is dimensionality... that in addition to the classic dimensions we're familiar with, there must be additional dimensionality to our reality that allows for the experience of consciousness. That makes some sense, because there is obviously an extremely strong spatial and temporal correlation between our brain and whatever it is that allows us to experience consciousness -- any distance in time or space space completely interrupts consciousness, and that's something that we can observe.

So if there is additional dimensionality that allows us to experience consciousness, is there any way to "observe" that other than the usual way, which is simply to be alive and experience life? I guess to interact with something in a dimension, you need something else that is at the same coordinates in that dimension. For example, to affect something at a current XYZ coordinate in the universe, typically you need something else at that XYZ coordinate. Or to affect something directly at a certain time in history, you need to be at that same time in history. Perhaps this is similar with additional dimensionality to the universe: To observe it or affect it, you need to be at the same "coordinates" in that dimension -- and as far as I know, we don't have any scientific sense of anything in the universe that can observe or affect that dimensionality other than our own brains. So humph, a mystery.

But yeah, I wish people would talk about this more and I wish that our society and government would spend more effort encouraging the study of what, seriously, is the most mysterious, amazing, observable phenomenon in the universe!

Gizmodo on Wolfram Alpha
May 5, 2009

Article

This is the first time I've stumbled across coverage of Wolfram Alpha on one of the main news sites that I read. Of the examples they gave, I'm pretty impressed by Wolfram Alpha's response.

One of the curious aspects to me is the presentation layer, which figures out what information to present/compute for a given thing, and then how exactly to present it. For instance, the graphic that illustrates the great circle path between two cities. I wonder how they've made that work in such a broad way?

Home automation
May 2, 2009

After doing a little bit of research, it appears that Z-wave technology is making it realistic to remote control many household devices, such as lights, thermostats, garage doors, etc. All that is required is a USB stick for your computer, a C# API, and then Z-wave devices. Even the dimmer switch that we just bought for the baby's room appears to support Z-wave.

It would be fun to be able to control household devices via a voice interface as well as a BlackBerry interface.

Here's one clever application: Tie in my BlackBerry's GPS coordinates to Grace, and then configure it to watch my rate of speed and location. If my rate of speed is approximately that of a bicycle and I'm pedaling down our street towards home on my way home from work, open the garage door.

A lot of fun could be had with this stuff!

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