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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 31, 2014 - 09:30am PT
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Ed and my friends:
You actually read these?
at least it is good not to have been mistaken as a friend to MikeL.
I posted those (and I read everything I post) because of your snarky response to the initial post pointing to a popular account of the research. It didn't take very long to dig up the actual paper (Google Scholar is good at it, just type the article title in...) and the paper even had a link to a non-paywall site allowing everyone to read it. You seem more interested in assuming some righteous high ground than showing any real curiosity.
Had you actually read the first paper carefully, you'd find that references [11] and [12] are the two other papers I posted links to.
It is not surprising, given your apparent disdain regarding writing papers, that you would dismiss these and criticize their "authority." And your further admonishment to "Say what you know" seems ironic, since the first paper is reporting something surprising (at least to the authors) and is something "they know" while they don't know the actual cause of the phenomena.
They speculate, and refer to the literature.
The literature can be viewed as functioning as a means of extending a conversation regarding observations, speculations, conjectures, models, theories, etc, across time and space. Authors are careful to "say what they know" and also describe how the know it, so that others might reproduce their results, independently, and that the details may be of some help in teasing an explanation out of the observations and empirical knowledge.
We can't find much in the ancient literature (and I'm sure that Werner will correct me, he will provide some reference to that literature) on the role of the claustrum in consciousness, the structure was not known prior to modern anatomical studies of the brain (dating back to the late 1800s).
The Crick and Koch paper point out that the structure actually seems to have many of the attributes of Dennett's speculation (of the "Cartesian theatre," which he rejects), here we have hypothesis building and observational challenge.
There is no single unifying functional model of consciousness provided in the three papers. I read the "meta analysis" paper differently from MikeL, it was merging the results of many fMRI studies to find a common overlap region in the brain, and finds that overlap, speculating that it may be due to a "least common denominator" affect, or to a common source. Interestingly, the common area is in the region of the claustrum.
Together with the other two papers, a strong case is made to support the speculation that this part of the brain could have a central role in creating consciousness in humans (and likely in all mammals as the mammalian brain share this anatomical structure).
From a personal point of view mammals have a strong, empathetic affinity, we recognize "consciousness" in other mammals, and not so much in other non-mammalian species... it would be interesting to compare to the brain anatomy of the Corvids for instance, where humans "sense" a consciousness, and to the Octupus.
Quite aside from all the specifics, another role that writing plays is that of requiring the organization of the logic. When I write I have an idea of what it is I've done and what I would like to communicate. But it isn't until I sit down and start to write out the paper that the logic of the idea comes into sharp focus. Linearizing the argument (as a paper is essentially linear from introduction to conclusion) requires each step to be explained, and the limitations of each of those steps examined, and expounded.
The result develops the idea, and can radically change the idea once it is subject to the rigor required in a written report.
One never has to face such a challenge to one's idea as setting it down in writing. It is clear why it is so easy to avoid doing so, one's cherished beliefs never have to be tested rigorously. What I always find amazing is that it works even if the audience for the writing turns out to be myself alone.
I understand that MikeL doesn't believe that this direction of thought regarding consciousness is at all relevant. However, it would be important to what ever the explanation MikeL would provide for consciousness, including that he might not provide one at all, that it explain the phenomena reported in the first paper.
He might do that, as he started to in his critique, by dismissing it as an aberration requiring no explanation at all.
But now that such an observation is reported, it is likely that other researchers might conduct similar studies and determine if the single observation is, indeed, just an aberration, or if it is related to a more general phenomena.
It is the resolution of these small, simple puzzles that seem to me the hallmark of doing science. Eventually some grand idea might be developed, perhaps along the lines of the speculations of Crick and Koch, and supported by the extensions of the mapping studies like Kurth, et al.
Time will tell, certainly MikeL has his opinion... I haven't recognized it in any organized sense in all his posts, which tend to be critical of a particular paradigm without offer much of an alternative.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 31, 2014 - 09:46am PT
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support the speculation that this part of the brain could have a central role in creating consciousness in humans (and likely in all mammals).
By the way ....
Consciousness has never ever been created, it exists eternally.
It's the root, the actual life force that has existed before the entire cosmic creation.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 31, 2014 - 10:24am PT
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Together with the other two papers, a strong case is made to support the speculation that this part of the brain could have a central role in creating consciousness in humans (and likely in all mammals as the mammalian brain share this anatomical structure).
I also read those papers very carefully. When I was actively involved in Neurofeedback I read such papers much more frequently. I would use slightly different language than Ed to describe what these papers purport.
I sense that these structures play a pivotal role in modulating and organizing the content of consciousness, but don't "create" it as some kind of electro-chemical blowback, the Golden Fleece of staunch materialim.
One recent and to me wonky trend is to forward the idea that the brain provides a kind of holographic peep show that furnishes the subject with an experience making it believe it is conscious, or that the coordination of disperate stimulai into a coherent stream begets an qualitative sense of consciousness to the host. Then this all gets conflated with awareness itself, whereas content and awareness are selfsame. Simple, quite introspection will show a host otherwise.
What I appreciate about those papers is the precision of their language. While I have and still feel that pursuing the strictly mechanistic angle is a slippery slope somewhat akin to explaining gravity as being "created" by falling rocks, there can be no doubt that these people are making remarkable progress in terms of defining objecive functioning.
JL
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 31, 2014 - 10:49am PT
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So I believe I have free will 100% of the time with respect to demons, demonic possession. Really.
No exorcism required!
Honey badger.
.....
"We need just one more element to be free. Our minds have to function independently of our brains. Unfortunately there is no evidence of that."
.....
We need just one more element to be free.
A ghost would do. ;)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 31, 2014 - 11:02am PT
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"70% of the time I believe I have free will. Really."
In comparison...
0% of the time I believe I have a contracausal freedom of the will. Really.
(It's okay the views are different.)
.....
Chaos, yes. Indeterminancy, yes. Randomness, yes. Unpredictability, yes.
However none of it speaks to a contracausal freedom of the will ( in other words, a libertarian power of the will).
...of the sort Abrahamic religions, eg, would desperately like to have in order to stave off their obsolescence.
"We need just one more element to be free."
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 31, 2014 - 11:26am PT
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Then this all gets conflated with awareness itself, whereas content and awareness are selfsame. Simple, quite introspection will show a host otherwise.
This is where you just have to appreciate Werner. He actually just comes out and says it: consciousness is it. Pervasive as gravity only more so in pre-existing all else and pervading everything. How could it be otherwise.
Then there's the tortured language above that derides all speculation and conclusion due to their lacking the immaterial obvious which is as close at hand as quiet moment with the 'no-thing-ness'. Again, over the course of thousands of posts, one might be forgiven for tiring while waiting for some cogent meat - material or otherwise - to fall off the bone of:
Simple, quite introspection will show a host otherwise
Indeed, "show" exactly what pray tell? At this point, after bandying about tomes of words, it's just hard to take it all as anything but either a deliberate and 'clever' obfuscating fog or a simple inability to get to one's own point ala Werner.
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Dec 31, 2014 - 11:32am PT
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 31, 2014 - 11:52am PT
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We need just one more element to be free. Our minds have to function independently of our brains.
That's quite a conclusion.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 31, 2014 - 11:59am PT
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Healyje sez: Indeed, "show" exactly what pray tell? At this point, after bandying about tomes of words, it's just hard to take it all as anything but either a deliberate and 'clever' obfuscating fog or a simple inability to get to one's own point ala Werner.
You're stuck in scientism, whereby all of reality, if real and authentic, can be shown as a measurable, mechanical, predictable, reducible thing. You are like Craig in this regards, wanting to be hand-fed some thing, some tangible "point" that your discursive mind can evaluate. You are not alone in believing that the fault here is not reality, which is at once subjective and objective, but the messenger reminding you of same.
As has been said 1,000 times, the experiential is just that - it is decidedly NOT the discursive, just as the subjective is not the objective.
THis is not an advanced idea, but few on the thread seem to grasp it.
Headway in the experiential is found not is studying the topo, so to speak, but from sacking up and climbing the pitch (direct experience). No matter how accurate the topo, it is not, qualitatively, selfsame with climbing the route.
What you are demanding is that the topo divulge something tangible about actually climbing, meaning you basically want something for nothing - no work, no commmittment, no risk, no effort. Just think about it and viola - thar she blows. The Great White Whale. Or not...
If you were serious about this, you tie in and cast off on the sharp end. There simply is not substitute for doing so.
What I am suggesting is a "taste test." You're asking about the recipe, believing that will tell you about the flavor. But of course flavor is an experience. Go get your own and report back what you find. We'll all be here.
JL
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 31, 2014 - 12:55pm PT
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Headway in the experiential is found not is studying the topo, so to speak, but from sacking up and climbing the pitch (direct experience). No matter how accurate the topo, it is not, qualitatively, selfsame with climbing the route.
We agree, the topo is wholly irrelevant. It's also where and why the whole notion of guiding (however ancient) utterly falls apart as well in very much a horse-to-water way.
What you are demanding is that the topo divulge something tangible about actually climbing, meaning you basically want something for nothing - no work, no commmittment, no risk, no effort. Just think about it and viola - thar she blows. The Great White Whale. Or not...
If you were serious about this, you tie in and cast off on the sharp end. There simply is not substitute for doing so.
Again, the topo is irrelevant and my whole history, on and off rock, has been one about tying in (or not) and casting off without them on both old and new terrain. In fact, that's my main problem with guidebooks and why I find them so frustratingly pointless - they tell you everything about a route you can easily figure out your own simply by treating every line as an FA and nothing whatsoever about the experience of the FA party (which sadly is being lost year by year).
It's also where you entirely misconstrue what I keep looking for from your claimed practice and 'no-thing-ness' time. I couldn't care less about your perceived topo (it's yours and more or less useless to me), rather what I keep hoping for from you are words of your [subjective] experience. Topos are at best an interesting after-the-fact view of someone else's opinion; at worst a bad, dependency-building crutch which seriously detract from the opportunity to develop an eye of one's own.
What I am suggesting is a "taste test." You're asking about the recipe, believing that will tell you about the flavor. But of course flavor is an experience. Go get your own and report back what you find. We'll all be here.
As the saying goes, been way there and back my friend and 'reporting back' is exactly what you seem utterly and maddeningly incapable of for all your claims of experience and mastery of the written word.
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Dec 31, 2014 - 12:57pm PT
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As has been said 1,000 times, the experiential is just that - it is decidedly NOT the discursive, just as the subjective is not the objective. THis is not an advanced idea, but few on the thread seem to grasp it . . . . . . Headway in the experiential is found not is studying the topo, so to speak, but from sacking up and climbing the pitch (direct experience). No matter how accurate the topo, it is not, qualitatively, selfsame with climbing the route
I don't see how you can so easily distinguish between the "discursive" and the "experiential."
Of course, studying the topo before the climb is largely discursive, but once you are on the climb abandoning rational thought and simply going along on the ride would be catastrophic. Clearly climbing involves a mix of rational thought and pure experiential immersion.
A better example might be running the 100 meter dash, where there is no reason nor time for rational thought. So perhaps climbing is not the best example to explain your point. Formal gymnastics is another activity in which the performance involves virtually no rational thought, although calculating the moves beforehand is essential.
Forget climbing as a purely experiential activity . . . that's laughable.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 31, 2014 - 02:26pm PT
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Healyje, MH2, ED:
What is subjective and what is objective? Using a single data point is highly questionable by my training. I’m sorry if this offends you. We have different standards and objectives.
I don’t think you will ever admit to the smallest possibility that there would be anything that you could not possibly know. This belief leads to an arrogance that contradicts many basic principles of investigation as I was taught in my education. It’s a part of our culture to take those stands. This is where we are at. Someone said that an over-extended cultural attitude had to fail miserably before people could open their minds to something new. It is such an embedded belief with you guys. There is almost no skepticism that I can find, and that is perhaps the most fundamental principle in investigation.
Again, if you are offended by the conversation, then I apologize.
Be well,
.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 31, 2014 - 02:41pm PT
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Moose,
you've got an excellent brain, and I give your English an A grade.
My only quibble is you're not a Dawkins' fan. Which is NBD.
Cheers!
Happy New Year!!!
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 31, 2014 - 02:52pm PT
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MikeL,
Quite the contrary, it's NOT knowing that is the heart and 'soul' of science, and trying to understand the limits of what we do know. There is absolutely no assumption we will or can know everything; it's a matter of knowing what and how we know what [little] we do actually know.
It's rather the Werners and Blues of the world who believe there are resolute answers to everything (if only answers were so easily available) and even more so insist there must actually be answers.
Again, I tie that to a fundamental [fear-driven] human need for answers and an absolute abhorrance for unanswered questions which is so strong we will simply invent them when none are available or forthcoming. And any survey of human beliefs throughout history shows we are terribly inventive and imaginative creatures.
I'm personally totally ok with unanswered questions and the unknown; they don't threaten me, but rather intrigue me and has driven me to a life of learning. What troubles me about much of yours and Largo's discourse is the constant holding up of what science doesn't know, doesn't know conclusively, or has only begun to know and then claiming this demonstrates the weakness of science when in fact it is its strength.
In science there are simply no shortcuts to knowing and things being partially known or presenting conflicting or even paradoxical and confounding results is all just part of the process. So are 'hard' questions like how did the universe or life begin, how does consciousness emerge, what is 'matter'? That we don't have all or maybe any of the answers is actually the fun part, to me at least.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 31, 2014 - 03:25pm PT
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I don't see how you can so easily distinguish between the "discursive" and the "experiential."
What might be more accurate is: I don't have any experience of distinguishing between discursive and experiential. I can't tell the difference between derivitive and source.
If you sat quitely and watched your mind, at some point you woul dbe able to objctify your thoughts, not as in evaluating them, but in the sense that yiu are a detached witness to them, adn your fusion to them is no longer absolute. That is the basic way in which some practices begin to distinguish between experiential and discursive.
A good exercise is: Can you experience reality for even one minute without evaluating it. Hold an open focus and you can. But watch your mind snap shut and start evaluating, entirely on it's own.
JL
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 31, 2014 - 04:10pm PT
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another TRULY AWESOME example of actionable science at work in service of the better life...
I love 21st century science and technology!!
Happy New Years everybody! :)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 31, 2014 - 04:39pm PT
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Never mind all this talk about mind. My girlfriend is coming in from Zurich and I'm picking her up at the airport in a few hours.
Happy New Years all!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 31, 2014 - 04:51pm PT
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Hey, she's a babe!
A toast to The New Year and the mysteries of the mind.
All the best!!
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Dec 31, 2014 - 04:54pm PT
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A Happy New Year to You all!
It's soon 02:00 in Oslo.
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