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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 15, 2017 - 05:07pm PT
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But no fish bit.
Waiting for the book.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 15, 2017 - 05:14pm PT
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It is the ability to make predictions about the world, including about other conscious agents, based on imaging algorithms.
Please clarify.
This kind of image:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_(mathematics);
?
Or some other kind?
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Nov 15, 2017 - 05:43pm PT
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I'm already doubting my definition for awareness. It may well be more related to the translation of information to biological feeling algorithms. Mammals have it, for sure. Of course, it's just a word.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 15, 2017 - 05:54pm PT
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Of course, it's just a word.
As is love.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Nov 15, 2017 - 06:00pm PT
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MH2, I just now read your question. The imaging algorithms I am referring to refer to something along the lines of what certainly must have developed in the rabbit and the coyote as part of the predator-prey dynamic in the evolution of mammals. Each developed "imaging algorithms" where they were able to "image" the other, say on a grid of 256 x 256 or whatever, either the anticipated movements of the prey or the predator.
The larger point is that, in evolution as in software, once a successful subsystem has been built, it can be used by the more evolved systems. It can, in fact be used by several different branches on the tree of life. That's why I chose to look at these terms hierarchically. Because the tree of life is a hierarchy.
Btw, "Of course it's just a word" was meant to acknowledge that there are two things going on here, both a real system and some words like "awareness" that we use to describe that system. There are a lot of variables that occur on a continuum and yet we have words that arbitrarily divide that continuum up. More than anything, I was just acknowledging that awareness is not a word that is universally recognized in a very precise manner.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 15, 2017 - 06:48pm PT
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Thanks for the clarification, eeyonkee.
And beyond that, words and ideas like image and imaging can be examined, re-worked, and extended, as in the mathematical sense of the word.
Heaven is not gained in a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round.
Graditim
J. G. Holland
The evolution of ideas, as you suggest, has a resemblance to the evolution of new species. If our words were unambiguous and precise, our ideas might have trouble changing.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Nov 15, 2017 - 07:05pm PT
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It could be argued that things are never as they appear
Kant would argue this is false (the transcendental deduction) because we agree (or perhaps because the brain is hardwired to think - he wasn't too clear on the distinction)) that knowledge and experience are possible. I'm not sure where Mike L stands on this, though.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 15, 2017 - 07:16pm PT
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Wish we had madbolter1 here for help with Kant.
And where is Randisi?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 15, 2017 - 09:03pm PT
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Randy, Sanzaro, Jensen, . . . Highly qualified but not around much. Probably discouraged by the amateurs (including moi).
;>(
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Nov 16, 2017 - 09:04am PT
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Kant would say that an a priori structure/knowledge in the mind is what makes experience intelligible and some might call that structure simply awareness. After all what is an experience without an "experiencer?"
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 16, 2017 - 09:24am PT
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Kant would say that an a priori structure/knowledge in the mind is what makes experience intelligible and some might call that structure simply awareness.
who cares what Kant said? really, what authority does he have over anyone else when discussing this topic?
(I have read Kant... a long time ago completely, but only smatterings lately).
I've been interested in why someone ambitious enough to formulate introspection on this subject and present a personal view could be expanded and generalized. The idea "Kant would say..." is meant to convey authority, yet this authority seems rather shaky, what is it based on?
Building your arguments on shaky ground, especially if you could claim that the authority comes from some common agreement that it is "authoritative" without any other justification seems very circular.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Nov 16, 2017 - 09:49am PT
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who cares what Kant said? really, what authority does he have over anyone else when discussing this topic?
The reason we’re discussing the notion of consciousness is that we all experience it individually. We experience our own consciousness and no other. You know consciousness only through that personal experience. That experience is all we have and Kant does a fascinating job of analyzing it and such is the source of his authority. Take it or leave it. It’s not science; it’s philosophy. But of course you don’t dismiss personal experience as a source for knowledge, and the recognition of an a priori awareness or structure, or forms of sensibility through which experience is mediated into understanding seems logical on the face of it.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 16, 2017 - 10:27am PT
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Who cares what Kant said? really, what authority does he have over anyone else when discussing this topic?
Yes, ....... The gross materialits have zero authority on consciousness itself since they are all mental speculators.
The modern gross material scientists also have zero authority..........
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 16, 2017 - 12:21pm PT
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The reason we’re discussing the notion of consciousness is that we all experience it individually.
Aha. As opposed to experiencing it collectively? And why, given the reason you propose, are we not discussing the notion of urination?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Nov 16, 2017 - 12:55pm PT
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Aha. As opposed to experiencing it collectively? And why, given the reason you propose, are we not discussing the notion of urination?
Okay, this is where I get off the bus.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Nov 16, 2017 - 03:54pm PT
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There must some baggage around here I don't know about.
Kant's not so hard to get. Personally, I think he had something interesting to say (although he was overly fascinated with big words and awfully long-winded). Here's my take on the transcendental deduction:
If anything, Kant was trying to defend his view of scientific rationality (which was probably, more or less, a generally accepted view in German academia at the time), in the face of radical skepticism (the Germans vs the English!). For example, in those days especially, identifying "cause" and "effect" seemed to be a fundamental part of science (maybe not so much nowadays). So Hume says, all we observe is first we do one thing, then something else happens, but there's no way we can know there's any necessary connection, that one thing has to follow the other. There's no reason at all to assume a necessary connection. We don't observe that. And deductions can't prove it really exists. In fact, maybe there's no real order at all. Maybe the universe is like an infinite string of random letters. An alphabet without meaning. It's quite possible that the part where we show up just happens to be a part of the string that appears to have order. In an infinite string of random letters it's quite possible there's an entire copy of Newton's Principia. And that's right where we showed up. Aren't we wrong to assume that the rest of string is like what we see.
Anyways, the transcendental deduction tries to argue that applying the "categories" (e.g. concepts like cause and effect) is a necessary part for knowledge to exist (Kant likes the word "experience" but "observation" works too, since observation is a kind of highly formalized and precisely repeatable type of experience). For example, in order to distinguish hallucinations, or dreams (where we can just float into the sky when we fall) from reality, we need to apply "the categories, like "cause" and "effect". What Kant is taking issue with is Hume's claim that there's no reason to assume a necessary connection between repeatedly observed successive events. If we think knowledge is possible, we must try to apply "the categories" and look for the connection.
I think it's kind of interesting to ask "why do we think knowledge is possible?". In spite of what Mike L writes in abstraction when there are no real consequences (a sort of "academic" skepticism when it serves on internet forums or in classroom discussions), I doubt any sane person can totally deny that knowledge is possible. If I'm thirty feet up and sketching bad without a rope, I "know" I just won't float away if I fall (or am I dreaming?). Anyways, one possibility is we are hardwired to think it (Ed has suggested we are hardwired to believe in causes and effects). Another possiblity is we need to accept this in order to survive and flourish as human beings. Or maybe we could say, more jovially, that it's based on a rational agreement (like Ed's basic assumption in order to do science).
So there's my rant on Kant!
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 16, 2017 - 05:27pm PT
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Kant's not so hard to get. Personally, I think he had something interesting to say (although he was overly fascinated with big words and awfully long-winded).
A little more background on Madbolter1
Recently, in responding to MikeL I believe:
I have a Ph.D. in analytical philosophy, also studied Hume and Kant extensively,
and from earlier in this thread:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1593650&tn=11634
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Nov 16, 2017 - 05:57pm PT
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Ed: Your brain is smarter than you are, thanks to your genetic inheritance.
Genetic inheritance. Well, that’s a term and concept I can live with. I would also call it instinct, and I think both terms are equal as pointers. On the one hand, there is the experience of it, and then there is the “thing” that we’ve made of it. I can see that you might be taken with the “thing” of it. I am taken (literally) with the other. Bringing all of what we are down to a brain is, well, a little small to me.
Dingus: Damasio . . . contends that with every thought comes a feeling module . . . .
Might I suggest reading up on combat-experienced men and women who have PTSD? You might also note that many people who are highly analytically oriented exhibit significant lack of emotive connection. Cognition is only one means of knowing, and I would say that it is unusual that people have integrated knowing. There is, for example, knowledge that is known only physically, some known only cognitively, some known only emotionally, some known only spiritually, and so forth.
(I too miss Madbolter1.)
Yanqui,
I would say that things are not quite as they appear. Yes. But, of course, I can’t be sure, but it sure looks that way when I ask others what things are. It’s exceedingly rare for anyone to say that appearances are just that: appearances. “Light” works for me, too.
(Moved 46 tons of rock and gravel around on the land in the past week. I’m beat.)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 16, 2017 - 06:04pm PT
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You might also note that many people who are highly analytically oriented exhibit significant lack of emotive connection.
That's pretty hard to miss. And Mr. Spock is only one of many examples in the entertainment world.
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