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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 3, 2017 - 08:28pm PT
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Dingus, let's look very closely at what you wrote, knowing that blustery language counts for nothing.
D: What Largo wants is a very watered down version of consciousness and it would have to match all his wrong views for him to believe we had figured it out.
L: Watered down by virtue of what, in terms of what I wrote? My insistence to look beyond a causal/mechanistic way to "explain" consciousness does not, axiomatically, "water it down." To my way of thinking, a machine, of any complexity - now or a million years off - is not even a watered down version human sentience. You swung and missed on this one - we can easily see why.
D: Here is his loop:
1. His experience [of his mind] or such reporting of it's actions is the way the mind/brain works and that way is the [only?] method for study.
L: Not remotely so. I have broken mind down to three discrete phenomenon: A) Mechanical brain function, which inputs internal and external stimulai; B) awareness, and D) consciousness, where brain activity converges or interfaces with awareness. Experiential findings are invaluable with B (awareness) to discover it is not mechanically beholden to mechanical processes in our brains. If you believe it is, answer the Hard Problem.
D: 2. There is nothing like consciousness in the physical world [charge, magnetism, induction] therefore consciousness is something different than anything physical.
L: This is low hanging fruit, and it's fourth class to blow it away, but here goes. Charge and magnetism are physical phenomenon that we can measure by way of them playing out in physical systems, objects, and phenomenon. "Induction" by it's normal usage is "the process or action of bringing about or giving rise to something." That is, the arising of an external object or phenomenon.
Subjectivity is qualitatively and categorically different than these because it is not an external phenomenon. Even Integrated Information Theory gets this part right. You, unfortunately, don't.
My guess is that induction in your usage is some kind of homage to emergence, which is not an explanation OR an object, and it certainly is not sentience itself.
D: 3. Go back to 1.
L: Go back to school.
D: He has such problems because he takes on views that are groundless:
Observe: When in doubt he will play the sentience card of denial of your "mechanism" for which he has no clue what is going on otherwise and just could never see it [mind] as electrons in motion. Belief in 2.
L: What do you mean by "your mechanism?" If you Do know what is going on in your mechanism (brain?) regarding sentience, spew it out my brother. I recently provided a link to a leading neuroscientist who admitted they had NO CLUE whatsoever how a mechanism might source awareness. Matter in motion is a wonderful image, but the philosophical belief that a subjective phenomenon magically arises off said atoms - that your Aunt becomes your Uncle - is, to use your own words, entirely groundless. If you can demonstrate otherwise, do it now.
D; His Grade: NO TRACTION he just slings another vague/meaningless word e.g. sentience, to obscure any clarity.
L: Vague? Meangingless? In what way is your sentience of reading these words vague or meaningless? For most of us, sentience is the most concrete element in existence. IIT said it this way (to repeat): "Intrinsic existence: Consciousness exists: each experience is actual—indeed, that my experience here and now exists (it is real) is the only fact I can be sure of immediately and absolutely."
So in Dingus' mind, "the only fact that we can be sure of immediately and absolutely" is vague and meaningless? Dude, I'm thinking you're slugging down too much "shine" up there in Wyoming.
This rant also gives the entirely false impression that Dingus is "clear" on how dancing electrons account for sentience, while concurrently, no neuroscientist is remotely clear on the issue. Again, if your are clear, show us how.
You're shoveling smoke, amigo, and you think is is clear sky. Of course, even monkeys think they are beautiful...
D: Really Largo: [Just] What is the sentience that could not be produced by know properties of the existing universe? SEE #1
L: What is the weak and strong attraction that could not be produced by known properties of the existing universe? Of course Dingus loses his way here by believing in the production model (that all things and phenomenon are "produced" or caused by more fundamental things, forces and phenomenon - except fundamental forces).
D: Really Largo: [Just] What are the feelings that could not be produced by know properties of the existing universe? SEE #1
L: The limbic system is widely held to generate the raw data of emotions, but they don't become "feelings" or emotional information till they dance with conscious awareness, much as black notation on a page is not music till a conscious musician plays it and hears it (experience). Neuroscience can describe how raw emotional data is brain generated, but this goes no distance in explaining how and why we are ever made of aware of same.
D: Chalmers and you seem to have a lock-on the idea that these attributes of a working brain are something quite non ordinary?
L: No? Then list examples of where else in nature - across the most generous swath of biofunctioning and mechanical processing in all know things and phenomenon - do such mechanical stirring "induce" sentience. Good luck in your search. And from what evidence did you arrive at the belief that the uniqueness of sentience is an "idea?" If nothing else, you need to take a comp class and tighten up that lingo.
D: He is wound tightly in the ancient twine ball of duality for which there is no evidence -- just philosophical ranting [assertions] of this form: My thoughts are non physical therefore the world is mind & matter. ?
L: If you'd read a little more carefully, you find me often saying that reality is a unified whole, that consciousness is also non-dual. Strike three.
D; And yes Ed, arguing with an agent of duality is senseless but carry this idea with you: Some measures of the Largo of Mind = some measures of the Chief of climate change.
D: Here we have a Yahoo comparing someone who questions a mechanistic/ causal "explanation" of consciousness with some crank who questions climate change. Problem is, as any student of mind can tell you, there is incontrovertible evidence that we have contributed to climate change, but in the case of consciousness, there is no evidence whatsoever that awareness is an artifact of dancing electrons. None. That take on consciousness is based entirely on the mechanical causitive features found in external objects and phenomenon.
D: Some of the ranchers out here in WY will deny evolution & genetics but they dam sure weed out the skinny Bull or the cow that aborts and they do take measurements of mass and $$.
Please, no bull here.
L: The stink here is the fiction that you have consciousness cornered, as some say, by way of a physical mechanism. This is not only incorrect, it is dishonesty to claim as much. What's to be remembered here is that Dingus' rant has made no progress in even addressing the Hard Problem, and instead he has dissed Chalmers for even asking it.
Dingus McGee, I'm sure that Home on the Range is marvelous, but you gotta stop listening to those donkeys. They're imperiling your coherence.
D: Largo go to #1. Doing such is not science. I will never buy your book: The Knot Theory of Consciousness, Sentience and Bullshit .
L: Sorry, partner. Your slipshod take, featured in #1, is entirely your creation. Bullshit indeed.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Experiential findings are invaluable with B (awareness) to discover it is not mechanically beholden to mechanical processes in our brains
OK, so awareness does not arise from physical processes of the brain. We know this is the case because shutting down the brain does not affect awareness. It is still there, even though we may not be aware of it. To unravel this enigma is to solve the Hard Problem of Awareness.
Awareness must drift in on the aether, or permeate our beings like a universal field. It must exist apart from humankind, perhaps on an astral plane.
You should write this up and submit it to the Journal of the Noetic Sciences.
I think you're on to something here.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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L: Not remotely so. I have broken mind down to three discrete phenomenon: A) Mechanical brain function, which inputs internal and external stimulai; B) awareness, and D) consciousness, where brain activity converges or interfaces with awareness. Experiential findings are invaluable with B (awareness) to discover it is not mechanically beholden to mechanical processes in our brains. If you believe it is, answer the Hard Problem.
Exactly as I mention in 1.
Note the wording, " I have broken mind down to three discrete phenomenon:...
Again:
1. His experience [of his mind] or such reporting of it's actions is the way the mind/brain works and that way is the [only?] method for study.
L: If you'd read a little more carefully, you find me often saying that reality is a unified whole, that consciousness is also non-dual. Strike three.
Note the wording unified whole. Who has any clue if such conditions exist in the Universe at large? What does this mean? any evidence?
For conscious awareness at a mere bit rate of 7 bits[per 1/8 sec] one may readily feel clarity of awareness and it seems Largo's "awareness" is just such a limited expression having so little input.
I can ask: Is Appearance Reality?
And when making such statements of "reality" some are considerate enough to say, Looks like...
Mind you Largo, you have put a lot of eggs in one basket. The 7 bits of awareness is a mere skim of what is going on within the brain for the making of what appears as mind.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Now hold on thar! I have spoken admiringly of Ed on this thread so often I could be accused of sounding like Hannity talking about Trump. One of the best things about this thread are Ed's posts and links, period, I guess really, that last, ill worded post of mine was an expression of something that I have been thinking about lately, If anything, I was saying something along the lines of you don't have to have the fine intellect of an Ed to appreciate and understand science.
And Bob, I know that science is more than that, but my main point is that that is where it starts. We who advocate for the evolutionary explanation of mind are arguing mainly along the lines of repeatable observations made by humans, particularly over the last few hundreds of years. The theory of evolution isn't like the theory of relativity. It's concepts are easily accessible to the non-technical person. It's based on people finding fossils, studying the distribution of plants and animals, etc.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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I just looked up the Journal of Noetic Sciences and it seems to me it has little or nothing to do with Largo's interests and viewpoints. Just as Zen and consciousness theories probably shouldn't be related to Hilbert spaces, neither should the modern study of ancient Chinese and Indian medical systems of energetics be compared to either western philosophy or Zen. Neither should western medicine with its emphasis on the biochemistry of the body be compared to the Asian systems with their emphasis on the energetic.
Hundreds of millions of people in Asia use both systems, depending on their need, and see no contradictions in doing so. In other cases, a problem can be solved using either method, it just depends on whether your preference is for chemicals or energetics, and whether you think pharmaceuticals or acupuncture needles are more invasive. Timing is also important. If you need immediate relief, western medicine works better. If you have a long term chronic condition, energetics often work better.
Whether you accept more than one system also has to do with whether you value results more or an internally consistent theory of only one particular system.
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WBraun
climber
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D: 2. There is nothing like consciousness in the physical world [charge, magnetism, induction] therefore consciousness is something different than anything physical.
Definitely pointing in the correct direction.
In this day and age, it takes courage to point that way against the heavy tide of mechanistic only consciousness as presented by modern science ......
Largo go to #1. Doing such is not science.
What do you know about science, Dingus?
Not much Dingus.
You just "think" you do in your little boxed in version ......
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Werner,
your chat on this matter have shown the worms are coming out of the wood.
get this:
I believe in locality. Do you know what this means?
FYI: the effects of something on somethings else happens at its boundaries or the effect pervades the material boundaries.
And you speaking from the Tower of Babble would know what I know?
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WBraun
climber
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Dingus says; "I believe ...."
Wow, and that is science?
If so .... then I can believe that I am superman and fly ......
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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GET this: I made no mention of science with respect to that belief.
Tell me of an instance where locality is not case. Maybe entanglement -- Ed where are you?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Whether you accept more than one system also has to do with whether you value results more or an internally consistent theory of only one particular system.
Aren't you going to get results no matter what you accept or believe?
Also, there are limits to consistency. We should not expect too much.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Aren't you going to get results no matter what you accept or believe?
Only if you're willing to try something different.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Both (science and zen) are noble paths. (as long as your ethics are clear!) It takes a lot of training(school) to become a good scientist and a lot of training(meditation) to really get the basics of zen. They are very similar in that way. Consequently zen and science are not based on belief systems. They are based in proper training.
Proper training in science is to learn the basic sciences and learn the laboratory techniques and then apply them to problems; and then others can repeat your work to confirm you are correct or not.
Proper training in zen involves a lot of meditation and involves retreat settings where you have almost no choice in your schedule and activities for extended periods of time. You also meet with teachers that attempt to point you in the correct direction. Zen uses a concentration style meditation where you attempt to pay attention to a simple technique and notice when you have stopped doing the technique and then move back to the technique (i.e. watching the breath). Basically what tends to happen is you get distracted from the technique, you notice this and then you let go of your distraction and move your attention back to the technique. In the beginning distraction is about 99+% of the experience as you do it more you get less distracted.
This practice of seeing the distraction and then letting it go is a key. Distractions in meditation typically consist of narratives about stuff going on in your life. They are not looked at as good or bad they are just narratives ,stories. As you get more experienced with meditation you end up experiencing mind with very little narrative; it is a very alert energetic view (zen technique is eyes open) and as you practice more and continue to LET GO you will experience the non-dual view.
This non-dual view/experience is a mind blower; think back to your LSD days but experience it without taking pills. You and this whole universe are one. Unconditional compassion.
So really zen is just a school to point you in your practice to experience/attain unconditional compassion and then by natural process to pay attention to all sentient beings.
Climbed the Line the other day first lead of the year and hadn't done it for about 20 yrs; it was full value!!
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Largo: Consciousness is totally unlike any other phenomenon in reality
Consciousness => phenomena . . . a tautology.
Jgill: The Wizard has made [his / this point] over and over; yet, apart from Zen meditation, has suggested no path of investigation.
I think you left out the modifier, “scientific” in regards to “path of investigation.” (The epistemology is the ontology.)
There are other paths of investigation, but they won’t be authentic in your view, I suspect.
All phenonmena are alike, and that includes conceptualizations; and yet, phenomena all look completely different. Choosing or creating a dimension by which to create a comparison among any phenomena appears to be socially constructed, arbitrary, and non-empirical at base. Look at feelings, at any of the five senses, at thoughts. One can surely make broad generalizations through summaries or abstractions, but what one thing is exactly like another in time, space, and thingness? Nothing. Zero. It’s a conundrum to those who look carefully, systematically, and specifically.
In the testing of similarities and fitted’ness of phenomena and abstractions, science tends to rely upon statistics, and statistics assumes so-called normal distributions (ala, the central limit theorem). Looked at closely, there would appear to be a premature closure on every generalized category of phenomena. One can look at the final statistics in the findings or scientific research. There is always some phenomena that don’t fit, that are outliers, that are unexplained variances. People tend to ignore such things and instead look at what did seem to fit.
Imagination.
What is unequivocally and undeniably true? Get rid of what’s false, and what’s left is what’s true. If one uses that question and looks long and hard, one won’t find much of anything that’s true. That finding has infinite implications.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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You and this whole universe are one.
You would think that humans would have learned something by now.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Get rid of what’s false, and what’s left is what’s true.
Do you get the notion of undecidable?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2017 - 04:06pm PT
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Dingus, you can study the mind in any way you want. I've never said it was my way or nothing. You seem especially enamored of bit rates and other stuff drawn from a computational model of consciousness, a popular metaphor drawn from computer science and data processing.
You might first start with trying to describe the difference between the light sensor in my back yard registering an input, and mechanically flipping on the light, as opposed to you, a conscious person, noticing it is dark and flipping on the light.
What do you suspect is the difference, in terms of processing and awareness, between you and the sensor? Is the sensor "aware" in your belief system. What is the difference between machine registration and conscious awareness?
If you want to go into appearance and reality, we can go there. It's an interesting study.
John wrote: OK, so awareness does not arise from physical processes of the brain. We know this is the case because shutting down the brain does not affect awareness. It is still there, even though we may not be aware of it. To unravel this enigma is to solve the Hard Problem of Awareness.
Awareness must drift in on the aether, or permeate our beings like a universal field. It must exist apart from humankind, perhaps on an astral plane.
How can an intelligent person come up with such hogwash? Simple, by making the common mistake of not acknowledging/understanding the categorical difference between internal and external phenomenon.
In John's spoof, a clearly internal phenomenon (awareness) is posited as an external force "drifting on ethers, permeating our beings like a universal field, existing apart from humankind, "perhaps on an astral plane."
This is the kind of wonky rambling that occurs when we try and attribute external characteristics to the internal.
Making this distinction between internal and external was a key factor in Integrated Information Theory avoiding many of the common and insuperable traps of trying to force the subjective into an objective straightjacket.
Though I don't agree with IIT, it is worth again mentioning Axioms: essential properties of experience
Axioms and postulates of integrated information theory.
The axioms are intended to capture the essential aspects of every conscious experience. Every axiom should apply to every possible experience.
• Intrinsic existence: Consciousness exists: each experience is actual—indeed, that my experience here and now exists (it is real) is the only fact I can be sure of immediately and absolutely. Moreover, my experience exists from its own intrinsic, internal perspective, independent of external observers (it is intrinsically real or actual).
For some reason, many "externalists," folks unable to even consider examining anything but external phenomenon, lampoon a version of internal phenomenon based on their own demands that it square, entirely, with definitions belonging to another category: The external.
How can any such fubared take on the internal fail to sound absurd. It's like trying to describe the taste of wine in geological terms, or trying to describe pyrite in terms of its blush, tannis and bouquet, all qualities entirely lacking in the fool's gold.
While we all know absolutely that "experience exists from its own intrinsic, internal perspective (internal), independent of external observers," many still try to posit it as an externally observable phenomenon, as some magical stuff or force that leaps off dancing electrons like steam rising from a kettle.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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You left out the basis of my spoof. This whopper:
Experiential findings are invaluable with B (awareness) to discover it is not mechanically beholden to mechanical processes in our brains
. . . many still try to posit it as an externally observable phenomenon, as some magical stuff or force that leaps off dancing electrons like steam rising from a kettle
Good one! Back on the wagon!
As for zen, Jan's perception is that it is a religion and your god is emptiness. Excellent observation. I concur.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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JL asks Dingus:
describe the difference between the light sensor in my back yard registering an input, and mechanically flipping on the light, as opposed to you, a conscious person, noticing it is dark and flipping on the light.
What do you suspect is the difference, in terms of processing and awareness, between you and the sensor? Is the sensor "aware" in your belief system. What is the difference between machine registration and conscious awareness?
pssst...
A mouse has a simpler information-processing structure than a human, and has correspondingly simpler experience; perhaps a thermostat, a maximally simple information processing structure, might have maximally simple experience?
David J. Chalmers
1995
Bu JL might not go with a suggestion from a person who also has claimed:
Awareness is a purely functional notion
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WBraun
climber
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as opposed to you, a conscious person, noticing it is dark and flipping on the light.
The difference is the light sensor can only do one thing and is not a living being.
A living being has the free will to NOT turn the light on or off whenever the need arises.
The living being also has the option to do other sh!t the stoopid light sensor switch can't, LOL
But you'll never figure that out since you think only like a robot .....heh heh heh
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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It's like trying to describe the taste of wine in geological terms, or trying to describe pyrite in terms of its blush, tannis and bouquet, all qualities entirely lacking in the fool's gold
You're right. This is poorly conceived and executed. In his cups, probably.
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