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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 21, 2017 - 07:19am PT
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what about awareness itself, not WHAT you are aware [of], has given you reason to doubt that you, or others, are mistaken about being aware.
When you say, "awareness itself," you sound as though you regard awareness as a thing so obvious, unambiguous, and indisputable that no one could doubt its existence, and moreover no one could be mistaken about being aware.
You ask:
what criteria would have to be met to abolish all doubt that you, MH2, are aware of reading these words?
Does my reproduction of your question mean that I was aware of reading those words?
If an algorithm designed to pass the Turing test could do the same thing, would that mean that the computer was aware?
Does a tiger have awareness? Does a virus?
What happens to awareness when you sleep, dream, are delirious, take drugs, experience extreme fear or hardship, or go under general anesthesia?
If we are wrong about reality itself, and say for example we are a sort of computer simulation ourselves, could we not be mistaken about our awareness?
Again, why do you say, "awareness itself," instead of just, "awareness?" Could you know that you had awareness if you had no memory? Awareness by itself is just one word among many. To help suggest ways you could be mistaken about it, here are synonyms for awareness from an online thesaurus:
alertness
appreciation
attention
consciousness
experience
information
perception
realization
recognition
understanding
acquaintance
acquaintanceship
aliveness
apprehension
attentiveness
cognizance
comprehension
discernment
enlightenment
familiarity
keenness
mindfulness
sensibility
sentience
bodhi
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2017 - 07:53am PT
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Now tell us the reason you feel it is possible for you to mistaken about your own awareness.
If, for example, I thought that my awareness was not a consequence of the way my brain is built, I believe that I could be mistaken.
A person who thinks that awareness does not have a biological basis could be mistaken.
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You're still not getting this MH2. I'm not saying you can't be mistaken about you ideas about awareness, whether it is this or that, biological or fundamental, brain artifact or whatever. I am saying that when the thought, "I might be mistaken about awareness being A or B," you cannot doubt that you are ware of the thought, or being aware in the first place to HAVE a thought, whatever that is.
Once again, to understand this you have to be able to recognize the difference between awareness and content - content, in this case, being the thought, "I might be mistaken about (fill in the blank)..."
The problem, MH2, is that you never dug into either the Turning Test, or syntactic engine "machine registration," whereby a machine registers an input, and so for you, an input by a machine is the same thing as a conscious subject consciously experiencing some content. Of course this is a take derived entirely from a 3rd person perspective so it will of course look like this to you.
And John said, "Once you philosophically remove it from its physical origins you are in essence left with no recourse other than shifting into another mental state and bearing witness - a strategy of "proof" doomed from the very start."
For starters, you are the one demanding that awareness is a product of "physical origins," and then presuming that it, that is, awareness, resides IN these physical origins, possibly as a physical property OF the brain. That can only translate to the brain BEING aware, itself. If you have awareness emerging from the brain, as an emergent function as Healje suggests, in a bottom up process, then you are left with Chaslmers Hard Problem, which Healje tries to explain away (a common strategy) by way of biological complexity and processing processes. What's more, I never said that awareness is some freefloating quality that is "located" somewhere else. And certainly you cannot ever bear witness from some remove. It's all a unified whole. There is no "other place." An no witness. Only witnessing.
And Healje, my approach is actually bottom up, except it fundamentally takes place in the 1st person dimension.
More later. Gotta work,
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 21, 2017 - 08:27am PT
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...that experience is reducible to objective functioning...
And Healje, my approach is actually bottom up...
Well, 'reducible' generally means starting with awareness and working top-down reductively whereas one can just as easily start at the bottom with 'first [biological] behaviors' and work up the evolutionary trail of behavior to both awareness and human subconscious and mind.
An Arctic Tern migrating from the Arctic to Antarctica is definitely aware in some very specific ways or none of them would survive the journey or end up in Antarctica. Those specific navigational awarenesses are in fact hard-coded in the Tern's genome - i.e. the bird's first-person navigation-related experiences during migration are wholly dependent on an accurate rendering of those same awarenesses in its genome. That genome-> organism -> first-person awareness is about as bottom-up a construct as you can get.
The idea that its awareness is somehow sourced or emergent from anywhere but a genome realized as a living organism seems far-fetched and unavoidably leads to an immediate leap into the ether of magic of one sort or another.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 21, 2017 - 08:36am PT
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An no witness. Only witnessing
And no witness .... Only witnessing
In order to have witnessing there must be a witness!
And no witness .... Only witnessing
This is the hallmark foundation of the mayavadi philosophy unbeknownst to even you.
Make everything one without differentiation, variegatedness, and personality.
Homogeneous oneness.
But each and every living entity is individual.
No wonder you're confusing these people so terribly .....
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 21, 2017 - 01:28pm PT
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^^^^ Duck makes sense.
It's all a unified whole. There is no "other place." An no witness. Only witnessing
You seem to be caught up in an Eastern philosophy/religion and continue to attempt to make it mesh with western science. Good luck with that.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 21, 2017 - 01:46pm PT
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OP: What is Mind?
What isn't?
(Try showing anything without the use of one.)
:-)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2017 - 03:39pm PT
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FYI, the concept that awareness is itself an algorithm, or part of an algorithm, is a non-starter, for several simple reasons.
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm "is a self-contained sequence of actions to be performed. Algorithms can perform calculation, data processing and automated reasoning tasks." This is, an algorithm is only understood in terms of DOING something. Of a task.
Any beginning meditation student can tell you that one's direct experience of being aware is always intensified the moment you STOP doing and shift into simply being present, placing no attention or focus on any thought, feeling, sensation or memory.
This little passage takes the idea a step further:
Any algorithm, by definition, can be implemented on a Turing machine. A Turing machine can be implemented using a punch card system. So, assuming that awareness is merely some particular algorithm, you get the wonderful result that this punch card machine is experiencing the world (and moreover, only when running this particular algorithm or class of algorithms).
Now, depending on how you define "experiencing the world," this could be perfectly sensible - or utterly preposterous. As Thomas Nagel would ask, does it feel like something to be this machine? Does the machine itself have an inner sense or experience of witnessing and being present with the task at hand? And once the task is completed, is the machine's sense of presence amplified, sans task?
Those who answer "yes" to this question seem to be conflating the content of experience with the sheer fact of experience itself, of simply BEING AWARE.
But even if consciousness is not reducible to an algorithm, this doesn't make it "supernatural" for two very simple reasons:
* Tons of things going on in the physical world are not algorithmic (e.g., quantum processes)
* Lacking a scientific explanation for something (let alone an algorithmic one) hardly makes it "supernatural." In response to any scientific observation, you can ask "why?" Eventually you'll bottom out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36GT2zI8lVA
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 21, 2017 - 04:28pm PT
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Any beginning meditation student can tell you that one's direct experience of being aware is always intensified the moment you STOP doing and shift into simply being present, placing no attention or focus on any thought, feeling, sensation or memory
And you are aware or conscious of that direct experience of being aware.
Beware of paradoxes.
* Tons of things going on in the physical world are not algorithmic (e.g., quantum processes)
Trying to add a veneer of scientific respectability to your argument?
Won't work. Remember Hilbert spaces? You should stick with altered mental states and consider your debate points adequately buttressed.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 21, 2017 - 05:50pm PT
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That can only translate to the brain BEING aware, itself.
Your awareness is progressing, JL.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 21, 2017 - 06:50pm PT
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Jim Brennan: . . . both of your stellar boys have no real abilities . . . .
How do you know?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Apr 21, 2017 - 08:00pm PT
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Even if that person has to become a computer programmer to make a living, their knowledge is not wasted if that is what they wanted to do. Maybe they don't get back to it until they retire, but one never loses their education or as my grandmother always said, after having their business repossessed in the Great Depression, "Education is the one thing they can't take away from you."
I say this as an anthropologist who got a Ph.D. in the subject in spite of a miserable job market because I was intrinsically interested in it, I wanted to prove to myself I could do it (I was totally self supporting for 9 years of university education), and that women could succeed at research in a very demanding overseas field situation. While it isn't exactly the world's most practical profession, I managed to make a lifetime living at it and my motto is, "Do what you love, and the money will follow".
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 21, 2017 - 08:19pm PT
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Thanks for that, Jan.
I don't know how I missed this before, but in going through the Canadian Tax and Benefit Guide for 2016, I found under Line 256 (additional deductions):
Vow of Perpetual Poverty
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Apr 21, 2017 - 10:00pm PT
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This is a question that would make an interesting thread of its own.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 21, 2017 - 10:11pm PT
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Even if that person has to become a computer programmer to make a living . . .
Standards are rising for computer programmers, and for software engineers even higher levels of competence is required. Not sure if a philosophy or literature major comes anywhere close to these demands. Although I am a retired math prof I am also a "software engineer" focused narrowly on mathematical and math graphics algorithms and programming. I would imagine it would be a sizable leap from literature and/or philosophy, but if Dr. Jensen takes a peek at this thread he might tell of his experiences.
From the Internet:
"Most employers, however, require programmers to hold at least a bachelor's degree in a field such as computer science, mathematics or information systems. Some jobs even call for a master's degree. Graduate certificates in computer programming are often pursued by individuals to augment a bachelor's degree in business, accounting or finance. Typical courses in a computer programming program cover programming logic, system design and development, programming languages, database management and structured query language (SQL)"
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 21, 2017 - 10:59pm PT
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Jim Brennan: I'm obviously flipping out.
You may be.
It’s unclear to me just what your complaint is, and what it has to do with the OP’s question.
I’m probably mis-interpreting, but are you complaining about the job market, the younger generation, the higher educational systems, or the values of the current generation in power?
Classically (and sycorax could perhaps help here), the purpose of a higher education is to open the “closedness” of young people’s minds . . . or, if you will, breaking young people out of the provincialism that they were brought up in (their family, their local communities, their nation states, their religious dogma) under the assumption that doing so would make them better citizens, establish or strengthen their moral moorings, make them more tolerant of other people and their views, teach them how to think and feel for themselves, and increase their own personal happiness (stoically, of course). In the classical sense, it was never the intention to make students into more financially successful economic consumers and actors.
Alas, that has since changed over the past 40-50 years or so, under the belief that more satisfied material consumers will be happier people. (Contra: there is a wealth of research—about 200+ studies—in marketing consumer research across the globe that show a mild negative correlation between material consumption with psychological happiness.)
Now days, universities are expected to prepare its students for job-seeking rather than what Socrates might have termed “better human beings.”
For a few of us who teach in universities, I’d say that philosophy, the humanities, literary studies, along with an understanding of science (not just the content, but what the scientific method is) adds a great deal to the dialogues about what constitutes the good life, beauty, truth, and ethical behavior. Not unlike what Jan intimates, coming to learn who and what you are may lead to all of those things.
A liberal arts education, I’d say, is all about “Mind”—yours and mine, and how it can be used.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Apr 22, 2017 - 10:20am PT
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Werner actually asked a question:
So your view (hypothesis) is that there is NO spiritual soul and that conscious awareness arises out of the brain which makes the mind?
Yes.
Healjy said this:
"Awareness" instantly takes you back to subconscious processes and the dominant evolutionary role predator/prey relationships had on the development of consciousness.
I'm not sure if it was purely a predator/prey influence that directed the evolution of primates. Many of the lower primates were far more successful than humans were, pre technology. We can thank Homo Erectus for our large brains, but being smart doesn't guarantee that your genetic material will survive. For instance, it takes a good 14 years or so to raise a baby human to adult status. During this time, it slows down the mother and makes blunt survival more difficult. A snake is born with pretty much everything it needs to know pre-printed as instinctual behavior, so after the female lays the eggs, she can leave. Birds have to raise their chicks, but it takes only one season.
Humans have many traits that on their face make us less fit for survival. We actually clung on for thousands of years, until our lithic technology led to our ascendance. Now, our technology is so advanced that we could exterminate most life forms on the planet if we wanted to.
That is the only thing that now separates us from nature to such a high degree: technology, and that was slow in coming for the first 240,000 years.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Apr 22, 2017 - 11:57am PT
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Good point Base. Long devoted maternal care and group sociality were and are huge factors in the survival of our species. There is strength in numbers for survival, especially if you can get the males to participate in a common defense. To help this along, we need idealogies like religion and patriotism etc. taught to us first by who else, but our mothers. You can have all the technology in the world and still not win the battle if you have no common goal or identity, witness the fate of all of our wars since WWII.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 22, 2017 - 03:48pm PT
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So what? Why, in your view, does it matter so much to break out awareness as you do, set it upon a pedestal? What's important about this?
I'll second this. As near as I can tell, JL has taken an epiphany experienced in Zen meditation and has assumed it has an independent existence, but not in physical reality. Where it does exist is a big mystery.
Reminds me of a grad student in math who derived all sorts of results for a certain postulated set of functions, only to discover that set of functions was the empty set. But he had fun exploring. Too bad he needed to pick another thesis topic and do it all again to get his degree.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 22, 2017 - 05:23pm PT
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There is NO spiritual soul and that conscious awareness arises out of the brain which makes the mind?
100% fail and 100% completely wrong and pure mental speculation fabrication by your run-a-way materialistic brainwashed minds ......
No wonder you need to jump off cliffs to become alive again and even Shipley knew there is the soul ......
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Apr 22, 2017 - 06:53pm PT
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JGill said "Where it does exist is a big mystery."
It exists moment to moment in you life non stop. You just may not know it. The usual obstructions not allowing the clear aware view is greed anger and ignorance. The number one ignorance and IMO the hardest one to pierce/attain is that "I" is an illusion. Being attached to "I" (it being your identity) makes it so you cannot experience the awareness; but it is there in the background you just have to be selfless a bodhisattva! Let go of wanting things to be different then they are.
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