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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Feb 11, 2017 - 01:35pm PT
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Thanks for practicing what I only preach, Wayno... RSPCT!
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2017 - 01:38pm PT
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What interests me more than the ideas presented here is how we try to communicate such grand ideas.
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The problem in large part is that the usual terms mean different things for different people and different camps. So the first order of business in ponying up a model is to standardize the terminology. The Gordion Knot just described derives from rampant conflation.
IMO, two fatal errors of conflation annihilate all chances to formulate a global model: A) The belief that brain states and conscious states are identical, (Healyje would say this is so, that brain = mind, exactly) and B) the belief that experiential content (states, qualia, etc.) and consciousness are selfsame. Or more precisely, that content and awareness are identical.
When all of the basic phenomenon is tied up in this knot of conflation, circle the wagon we do. Ad nauseum. That's why the bulk of my energy these days (per the "mind" hobby) goes to checking out models.
JL
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 11, 2017 - 02:26pm PT
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(Healyje would say this is so, that brain = mind, exactly)
Actually, I didn't say that. What I did say was a starting proposition:
mind - brain = nothing (real nothing)
Quite a bit different. Whatever mind or consciousness is, it only co-exists with a live, functioning brain. Unless you deny that, it's pretty frigging hard to argue against mind being an emergent property of brains. If you do deny that, then that is a whole different discussion entirely.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 11, 2017 - 02:36pm PT
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Thank you, Marlow. I sense some brotherhood there across that vast ocean. I use very similar cues. Part of a self-discovering anger management scheme I concocted.
And thank you largo for starting this mess and trying to keep it on track. I may disagree on some side issues but I generally respect what you are trying to do here. I would add one fatal error to your two and that is the inherent boundaries of the discussion. There may be stuff missing that we do not fully realize. yet.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Feb 11, 2017 - 03:21pm PT
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Or more precisely, that content and awareness are identical
At one point that was my understanding. Since then I have evolved to the perception that awareness is the stage upon which content plays. But I still think that to separate the two will prove unproductive, beyond the psychological aspects that PSP describes. I suspect a metaphysics of raw awareness would lead down a rabbit hole of irrelevancy. But I may be wrong.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 11, 2017 - 03:37pm PT
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Or more precisely, that content and awareness are identical.
Anyone who has rebooted out of unconsciousness should understand they are not identical. Not unlike the initial rapid expansion of the big bang, there is a brief period devoid of content because the mind is way too busy becoming self-aware to be bothered with anything else. Content is rather pointless until you can [reliably] locate yourself.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2017 - 03:56pm PT
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Actually, I didn't say that. What I did say was a starting proposition:
mind - brain = nothing (real nothing)
Quite a bit different. Whatever mind or consciousness is, it only co-exists with a live, functioning brain. Unless you deny that, it's pretty frigging hard to argue against mind being an emergent property of brains. If you do deny that, then that is a whole different discussion entirely.
This pretty well sums up my point about conflation.
Brain, consciousness, and mind are not functionally spelled out, nor is emergence, or emergentism as it applied to the philosophy of mind.
Emergentism in it's many strains is still a form of physicalism but no matter what your flavor of emergentism, emergent properties (according to the definition) are not identical with, reducible to, or deducible from the other properties.
Most emergentism is a disguised form of physical determinism, whereby (unlike emergentism) the lower level entirely "creates" everything above it.
The fly in the ointment was what Jealyje left out: Awareness, without which there is no discussion. What makes this such an interesting study is that awareness - as John pointed out - is an empty stage (no thing inherently there) upon which the mechanical processes of the brain, and further up the ladder, the mind, do their dance. In this sense, Healyje's "nothing" means a whole lot more than he was banking on.
I have one physicist friend who likes to say that the idea that the brain "causes" awareness is as wonky as the notion that particles "create" the quantum field. Or that awareness is some quasi mystical thing with none of the normal properties of observable external objects, which is equally wonky.
The challenge is to demonstrate this or at any rate, model it.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 11, 2017 - 04:14pm PT
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Without emergence there can be no accounting for why conscious minds only exist when there is a functioning brain. To argue otherwise is complete nonsense - some quite pithy nonsense for sure - but nonsense nonetheless.
And awareness? Again, if you've ever been unconscious and come out of it you shouldn't really need any convincing that becoming aware is an emergent process.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 11, 2017 - 04:17pm PT
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I suspect a metaphysics of raw awareness would lead down a rabbit hole of irrelevancy. But I may be wrong.
I suspect this also but I am still curious as to what the meta-physicians are saying. Electricity and wind are two things that once only had metaphysical explanations.There probably are not any really big ones left out there anymore but I suspect there are a few surprises left.
I wouldn't have a problem if someone expressed some rather meta-physical viewpoints here. I suspect they would need a very strong backbone though. I like the balance of an open mind and healthy skepticism. To have your head in the clouds but your feet planted firmly on the ground.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Feb 11, 2017 - 04:55pm PT
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emergent properties (according to the definition) are not identical with, reducible to, or deducible from the other properties
"Weak emergence describes new properties arising in systems as a result of the interactions at an elemental level. However, it is stipulated that the properties can be determined by observing or simulating the system, and not by any process of a priori analysis." Wiki
Here is a statement that may well apply to the images I have produced and posted. "Any process of a priori analysis" begs the question, however. If I were smart enough I might be able to predict these images given unlimited time to do so. But in any practical sense they are neither predictable nor obtainable through a priori means. Other definitions of weak emergence as unexpected results from computer programs would qualify my images.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 11, 2017 - 05:55pm PT
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Good rundown on emergence. But how and what class/type of emergence, while interesting academically, is for the most part irrelevant to the basic argument that mind is an emergent property of the brain. Again, to claim otherwise is nonsense.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 11, 2017 - 06:43pm PT
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Wayno:
I am straying from the original intent.
That, in my humble opinion, is good.
The original intent may have been good, too, but if all we ever did was follow what went before us, we might still be oysters. But that might be good, too.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Feb 11, 2017 - 06:49pm PT
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The interesting thing IMO about the KM interview I posted earlier is how when he is discussing the non- dual vs dual experience he is talking in plain terms and in practical terms ( as in what are you doing in this circumstance vs that) . He uses pain as and example of how we relate to it. The just be with the pain with out wishing it away is non-dual and then to move the attention away from the pain to wish it away creates the dual. He asks is this habit?
Krishnamurti: Do you think there is basically a duality or only "what is", the fact?
P: When you, Sir, ask a question like that, the mind stands still and one says "yes, it is so". Then the query starts - am I not separate from S, from B? Though the mind says "yes", it also queries a split second later. The moment you asked the question, my mind became still.
Krishnamurti: Why not stay there?
P: The query arises.
Krishnamurti: Why? Is it habit, tradition, the very nature of the operation of the self, the conditioning? All that may be due to the cultural imposition to survive, to function and so on. Why bring that in when we are looking at the fact - whether there is duality which is basic?
P: You say it may be a reflex action of the brain cells?
Krishnamurti: We are the result of our environment, of our society, We are the result of all our interactions. That is a fact also. I am asking myself is there a basic duality at the very core, or does duality arise when I move away from "what is"? When I do not move away from the basic non-dualistic quality of the mind, the thinker there, has he a duality? He thinks. Does the thinker create a duality when he is completely with "what is"?
I never think when I look at a tree. When I look at you, there is no division as the "me" and "you". Words are used for linguistic and communicative purposes. The "me" and "you" are somehow not rooted in me. So, where does the thinker arise separate from thought? Mind remains in "what is". It remains with pain. There is no thinking of non-pain. There is the sense of suffering. That is "what is". There is no feeling of wanting to be out of it. Where does duality arise? Duality arises when the mind says, "I must be rid of pain. I have known states of non-pain and I want to be in a state of non-pain" (Pause). You are a man and I am a woman. That is a biological fact. But is there a psychological dualism? Is there a basically dualistic state or only when the mind moves away from "what is"?
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 11, 2017 - 07:04pm PT
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Krishnamurti is a mayavadi impersonalist.
Even an atheist is better off than a mayavadi impersonalist ......
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 11, 2017 - 08:12pm PT
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I wouldn't have a problem if someone expressed some rather meta-physical viewpoints here. I suspect they would need a very strong backbone though.
Hey! That's what this thread is all about:
What is mind, that is, mind itself, as it presents itself as a first person, conscious phenomenon, NOT the material footprint believed to be associated to mind.
(the now Original Post)
One can talk of metaphysics and first person consciousness with no objection from me, at least.
One can talk about God, spiritualism, rebirth, and the predictive power of dreams.
The problem comes when one claims to know such-and-such, rather than believe or have faith that it is so. That kind of claim at the least arouses curiosity.
I was told by a neighbor who had a heart attack and came close to dying that he came out of that experience knowing that there is a God, though he could not say what kind or which religion. I have no reason to doubt his conviction.
I, too, welcome personal beliefs about or testimony on deeply held views that come from heart, gut, Ngarlu, or wherever.
However, people also have a rational side and we should not refrain from using it.
A little further down page one of this thread we find:
the computational model of consciousness is a bust for a dozen reasons.
What computational model of consciousness is being talked about, here?
Could we see a list of the dozen reasons?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Feb 11, 2017 - 08:18pm PT
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I’m sorry but the “survival” card is so often played here that it has become meaningless. It’s also an apparent lie for the one who plays the card. Which of us does whatever we do for survival purposes? Survival sounds so plain and simple rhetorically, but the “doing” part of “surviving” is plagued with problems that we can’t even articulate properly, much less “solve them.”’
What is the very living of your life? You can answer it physically, materially, technically, but if we concern ourselves with “truthfulness”—the kind that comes out of what you *feel* is your life—then those don’t matter so much. What is physical, material, technical, is not our experience. They are explanations, the result of our reason.
(And then we can introduce the notion that there might be other reasons / purposes / motivations beyond “survival” to whatever the hell it is humans do. But then we’d have to subordinate the “survival card” on the table.)
BTW, hermeneutics is just another analytical approach—that continues to rely upon models. Models are not direct experience.
During a break at a comedy club tonight, my wife tells me that Reza Azlan has some show coming out on PBS or something. “You’ll like it,” she says; “it’s about religion.” My wife knows that I’ve seen Aslan twice at SCU, and done some reading of his. I try to tell her there is a real difference between an academic and the person who is *in* a religious / spiritual experience / life. (Reza Aslan does not seem to me to *in* a religious / spiritual experience. He’s an analyst, communicating his interpretation of this or that.) When you’re *in* a spiritual life, interpretation is not the issue.
Over and over we come to the same problem: most things truly cannot be said. Everything reeks of interpretation.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Feb 11, 2017 - 08:24pm PT
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MH2: What computational model of consciousness is being talked about, here? Could we see a list of the dozen reasons?
What are you not reading in the literature, my friend? In cognitive science? In cognitive psychology? In AI? In cognitive anthropology? Jesus, I have a bibliography from my dissertation, if that would serve you. A great many has been computational, any of them that have relied upon the computer metaphor.
EDIT: I should say that any conceptual model that gets some respect in the community comes to a test that requires a computational set of associations. Without the metrics, most models won't live for long . . . unless it's a really inchoate field of study. Surely there may be models that are purely theoretical, but like I said, computational testing will be necessary at some minor level of significance. The models are like dominos looked at in the rear view mirror: many dead, lying strewn across the roadway. Almost no clear and complete understanding lasts the test of time.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2017 - 08:32pm PT
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And awareness? Again, if you've ever been unconscious and come out of it you shouldn't really need any convincing that becoming aware is an emergent process.
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I'll show you how it's not once I work up the model. Nothing does not emerge. Mind is an emergent function, and without mind (generating the content of our experience, and beholden to physical laws), there's simply nothing on the stage. It is empty. Awareness didn't GO anywhere during surgery. Experience can't transpire without something on the stage, and the generator of that something (brain and emergent mind) comes and goes.
But this is tricky so I'll wait till my thoughts on this are formally worked up.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Feb 11, 2017 - 08:54pm PT
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I'll wait till my thoughts on this are formally worked up
Not too formally, please.
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 11, 2017 - 08:55pm PT
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Almost no clear and complete understanding lasts the test of time.
Only clear and complete understanding lasts the test of time.
Time and consciousness are both eternal.
If it is not clear and complete then it is material, temporary like the mind ........
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