From: Case (Case@ispots.com)
Date: Wed Dec 07 2005 - 16:30:44 GMT
Scott,
I have to confess a bit of misunderstanding. Somewhere in the course of this
dialogue, early on in fact, I misunderstood something you said:
Scott on 11/7/2005
"The difference between me and the materialist is on the question of whether
normal waking human consciousness is produced by brain activity or whether
it is regulated by brain activity."
What I though you were saying above is that consciousness regulates brain
activity. In looking back over our posts I can see that the result was a bit
of talking past each other, for example:
Case on 11/9/2005
"So you have advanced a theory that brain activity is regulated not produced
in the brain. But if is not produced in the brain where is it produced?"
Even editing won't help with this but there is a likelihood, in this
instance, that you may have heard what I said but that what you heard was
not what I meant.
Scott on 12/4/2005:
"Where did the issue of what consciousness can or cannot regulate come from?
I recall saying that I saw the brain as a regulator of consciousness so we
can get along in space-time (as opposed to a producer of consciousness), but
that's all."
I still didn't catch the difference, so again I apologize for that. Since I
just recognized the error I will have to get back to you on what difference
this makes. Initially I would say I definitely have fewer problems with the
brain regulating consciousness than with consciousness regulating the brain.
However, since either of them seem to imply that consciousness with a small
"c" exists in the absence of brains I retain doubts.
--------------------------------------------
I am snipping the section here on definitions to get to the nitty gritty.
Scott:
It is your *insistence* on defining terms that I call a copout. It lets you
ignore all the hard, but real, problems. In any case, in the MOQ there isn't
just one undefined term. How do you define 'pattern', other than by
substituting some equivalent term (structure, form, system, relation)? How
do you define 'static' other than 'not dynamic' (or 'unchanging')?
Scott:
Then one can't "know" what a pattern is. Yet we do. How is your position
different from logical positivism?
[Case]
I am not trying to ignore problems I am struggling to see what they are. In
the absence of some precision in referents this is hard to do.
Unlikely as it might seem I don't really have a position with respect to
logical positivism. I think the insistence on talking about things that
might at least have discernable consequence is valuable but if I were really
strict about it I would have declared this talk about consciousness
irrelevant from the start. Oh wait, I did. However, for purposes of
discussion I am not even insisting on a precise definition. I just want to
make sure we are talking about the same thing; that our semiotic referents
have something in common.
You offered up this from Chalmers on "what is consciousness":
"[Consciousness] is perhaps best characterized as "the subjective quality of
experience". When we perceive, think, or act, there is a whirr of causation
and information processing, but this processing does not usually go on in
the dark. There is an internal aspect; there is something it feels like to
be a cognitive agent. This internal aspect is conscious experience.
Conscious experience ranges from vivid color sensations to experiences of
the faintest background aromas; from hard-edged pains to the elusive
experience of thoughts on the tip of one's tongue;..."
Since this is appears to be a description of individual consciousness you
offer this for Consciousness with a big "C":
Scott: "As I see it, what characterizes it in general is its dynamic/static
(formlessness/form, continuity/change, etc.) contradictory identity, which
is also to be found in value and intellect."
These seem to me at least, to be two very different things. Which is why I
have problem with labeling the central undefined. Each term you slap on it
seems to spin it differently. When you say, "I've said that Consciousness,
Quality, and Intellect are three names for the same (non-)thing, which of
course also goes by the name of Tao."
Are you really saying that these terms are equal and synonymous or that they
describe different aspects of the same "non-thing"? And please don't get me
started on the definitions of static and dynamic again.
--------------------------------------------------
Back to the talk of Brains and Consciousness:
Scott:
I'm not so sure it is analog. A neuron fires or doesn't -- as far as I am
aware, there is no gradation of strength of firing that matters. But
supposing there is a pattern of neuron firings that is an analog (from our
perspective). My question is: how is that pattern perceived. Well, the first
bit goes to one neuron, then the next to another, and so on. But there is no
grasping that the two (or a zillion) are connected into some whole, since
the result of the first transmittal is separate from the result of the
second, and so on. To combine them, the first two (or zillion) have to send
their data (one bit at a time) somewhere, which just repeats the initial
situation. Note that nothing changes in this argument by considering
parallel versus serial transmission, or whether the basic "unit" is
something other than a firing neuron, and so on. Given spatio-temporal
separation there can be no perceiving of anything larger than the output of
the basic unit.
[Case]
I think it is pretty clear that the brain computes in analog rather than
digital fashion. However things get stored or processed, it would seem there
is some direct correspondence between the thing and the thing stored. For
this to be digital there would have to be coding and decoding taking place.
Secondly, while neurons do seem to fire or not fire in binary fashion,
strength of firing may be relevant. Current of varying strength would effect
the neurotransmitters in the synapses differently and neural activity is
chemical as well as electrical. Neurotransmitters are mysterious critters.
We have only identified and studied a handful of them and each of them seems
to play a roles in whether or not neurons fires. It is possible for example
that actual encoding is on the chemical level rather than the electrical
level. Since this would be a relatively more static model that sounds likely
but then I am not a neuroscientist.
Case continued earlier:
Among the brain's capabilities is the ability to record and recall
experiences from the past. That is sensory experience occurs as a result of
electo-chemical activity inside the neural network. These patterns of
electro chemical activities are preserved inside the network and can be
replayed or perhaps they resonate continuously inside the network.
Scott responded:
I strongly suspect that 100 billion nerve cells with 1000 to 10,000
connections isn't enough to store all that data. One would need several
nerve cells to store one bit so that it can also be retrieved more than
once. In any case, I recommend (if you can find it, maybe in a university
library) a book called "Dismantling the Memory Machine" by H. A. Bursen, to
see how dubious is the idea that all the sensory data is simply stored and
retrieved as it is in a computer.
[Case]
Empirical analysis! I see progress...
Here is an interesting take on cerebral processing power. I trust you are
better able to evaluate it than I:
http://www.geocities.com/rnseitz/The_Great_Gray_Ravelled_Knot.htm
The attempt to translate brain activity directly into bytes seems to be
stretching the analogy a bit. But it is interesting. For purposes of a more
direct comparison: Dolphin brains are larger than human brains. The dolphins
brain to body weight ratio is very similar to that of humans. One
explanation for the difference in cognitive ability between the two species,
beyond the obvious environmental differences, is that dolphins rely
primarily on sound and humans on vision. It is likely that visual data can
be processed and stored more efficiently in wetware than sound.
-------------------------------------
Case continued:
Theoretically at least, if this recording was of sufficient fidelity, one
could relive experiences exactly and make no distinction whatever between
past and present. Of course this does not seem to be the case but conscious
beings are able to access the past, present and project into the future
simultaneously. Because experience remains as a set of impressions or
pathways or interactions inside the network. This I have called temporal
buffering. While all brains and nervous systems have this ability human
brains have more of it than other animals.
It is also known that short term and long term memory is handled differently
inside the brain. So that there are at least two layers of temporal
buffering. To use the digital metaphor. Short term memory is like RAM and
long term memory is like disk storage. Long term memories are retrieved into
short term memory, mingle with present stimulation and the result is
consciousness. This results from the ability to transcend the instant.
Because reality is in some sense recreated and stored inside the network and
can be accessed inside the network, space and time are also represented,
either as a function of the structure or the brain itself, a priori, or as a
result of the brain's experience, learning.
Scott replied:
This does not answer my objection. The "mingling" you mention has to happen
one bit at a time (or separated by space). How is there consciousness of
anything bigger than a bit?
[Case]
As I said talking about bits in the brain is pushing the analogy too far.
What you are really talking about is whether or not time is continuous or
discrete. I pruned that from this discussion and you rightly put it back. I
have turned it into a new thread.
---------------------------------------
Case continued:
After all inside the neural network, space and time are recreated, replayed,
sorted, and shuffled. I would say that we as individuals are restricted to
the interior of this network as homunculi. Our access to the world of
objects is limited to their persistent knocking on our doors.
Scott:
In other words, you haven't solved the homunculus problem. Further, you have
reinstated Kant. And in that vein, how do you know that the "world of
objects" is spatio-temporal, or indeed, that it consists of objects (one of
which is the brain that is supposedly modeling itself).
[Case]
I have said on several occasions that I don't think the homunculus problem
is solvable. I must of have missed the memo where Kant was uninstated. As
for this spatio-temporal thing I have said constantly in this thread that I
do not regard the matter as settled or necessarily limiting. You continue to
present it as a stumbling block, why? I thought the comment below put it
pretty succinctly. But again your objection seems to center on Time.
Case continued:
But transcendence of space and time are the result of the brain's ability to
allow multiple temporal representations to exist simultaneously. The result
is space in no-space and time in no-time or "the color blue."
Scott:
They may well exist simultaneously, but what is "seeing" them as a whole?
And are you after all this now agreeing with me that it is perception that
creates space and time? If so, why do you need a theory of emergence?, and
more important, why are you trying to explain perception in terms of
spatio-temporal objects?
[Case]
I don't think perception creates space and time I think it records it. What
is created is a representation of "world of objects." A theory of emergence
is needed in order for consciousness at this level to occur. You need
something sufficiently complex to create the recording.
You might answer that at some early stage in cosmology entire contents of
the universe performs this function and that what we have at the current
level of complexity is a ripple of the over all process. Or that
consciousness is self similar across scale and at this scale this is what we
get.
If that were your position I would have to say maybe. But one could as
easily say consciousness could not exist at until matter became sufficiently
complex to allow the recording and playback to occur.
In either case the "what is seeing" is the nexus were these multiple
representations collide or are in phase with each other.
------------------------------------
Case continued:
You seem to be saying that consciousness causes this complex set of
interactions to occur and pushes nature in this evolutionary direction. Or
that once brain stuff is here consciousness jumps on board rather like a
hermit crab snags a shell for a home. I see it as property that emerges
because our environment supports complex interactions.
Scott:
I'm not saying the second (I don't like dualism). Nor is the first workable,
as I don't distinguish between consciousness and "nature". I would say that
consciousness (or Consciousness) evolved so that it could express itself in
the language of space, time, and mass. This isn't some final achievement,
though, as there are no doubt many other ways it can evolve.
[Case]
How does this notion of consciousness evolving differ from consciousness
emerging. Typically folks who talk about consciousness say it is eternal and
unchanging. While I see a difference between evolving and emerging I can't
see at as a very big difference.
------------------------
Case continued:
After all I am the only being in the universe that I am certain has blue
sensations. I have to take your word for it when you say that you do. If
someday Commander Data says he sees blue who am I to argue. The Turing test
and all that.
Scott:
The Turing test wouldn't answer the question -- the computer could be
regulating, not producing, consciousness.
[Case]
Granted but I thought you denied the possibility of a digital consciousness
in principle.
---------------------------
[Case]
On Barfield:
Ok, Ok, I will try to find "Saving Appearances". I will also refrain from
further discussion on anything Barfield related until it arrives.
---------------------------
[Case]
I have tried to show above that consciousness transcends space and time by
allowing representation of the past to interact freely with the present to
model the future. It is complexity that creates this transcendence. Dreams
seem to play a role in the organization and classification of memory.
Scott:
If I stick a page from a 9th century manuscript inside a book published
today, have I transcended space and time? The problem is not whether the
past and present can be processed together. The problem is how one can have
awareness of anything larger than a chemical reaction -- assuming
spatio-temporal separation of each reaction from all the others.
[Case]
Manuscripts from any time transcend space and time as do movies, sound
recordings, art, photography, they are extensions of the temporal buffering
process. But again the question of Time is central.
-----------------------------------
Case concluded:
In any case that is a stab at showing how consciousness is a description of
the interaction of brain stuff.
Scott:
Except that there is no explanation of how there can be awareness of
anything bigger than a single chemical reaction (or bit, or neuron firing,
or whatever your theory bottoms out with).
[Case]
Again we come to the question of the nature of time. I am taking the liberty
of turning that question into a new thread since this one is getting very
long and I interested in your thoughts on the matter.
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