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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 24, 2017 - 08:50pm PT
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Well, Jan, as I see it it's simply a curiosity arising unpredictably from the mind of my laptop via a certain mathematical process (infinite compositions of complex functions), having no relevance to spiritual or mystical practices, or the unconscious mind. It looked a little like a ring partially covered by shifting silt at the bottom of the Rhine.
For me, feeling doesn't seem to aid in unraveling the mysteries of the mind. We are certainly conscious of feelings, but a feeling of consciousness sounds strange. Do we say, I 'feel' conscious? Well, I don't. But I could be wrong.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Nov 25, 2017 - 05:05am PT
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So I was just reading through some reviews (mostly put out by professional math and physics organizations from the US and Europe) on textbooks in math and physics. Interestingly enough, "clarity" (as distinct from being formally correct) was one of the most important features emphasized in all the reviews. Apparently "clarity" is something important to scientists and mathematicians. Does "clarity" matter to computers? If it is a "feeling", what is the biological algorithm that produces it?
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Nov 25, 2017 - 06:10am PT
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I guess I’m not getting the whole clarity thing. No, clarity is not a feeling. Fear, anger and love are feelings. They often accompany our processing of information. It’s not obvious that it had to be that way. One would think that algorithms that handle reacting appropriately to outside events could have evolved without evoking that feeling of fear or anger or love that often accompanies the processing of these events.
Largo, I guess I deserve to be called out for the vagueness of my all you need to do is acknowledge the continuity of life statement. Here’s a longer version.
• We know that evolution is true. There is tons of evidence that all life on earth is related and has evolved from some small number of progenitors. This is the continuity that I was talking about.
• While we might not be able to say exactly what consciousness is, we all more or less recognize it when we see it. We see it in our own mammal line, particularly in the primate branch. We also see it in other lines – dolphins and octopi are obvious examples. So, we see consciousness associated with certain portions of the earth’s evolutionary tree and not so much others.
• This leads (me and others) to the conclusion that consciousness is like other attributes of an organism. It can be selected for and evolve along branches. I would also assume that it could evolve separately, like eyes or wings which have evolved separately along several different evolutionary lines.
• Along the human branch, it would make sense that there are different degrees of consciousness along that branch. That's how it is with an evolving trait or behavior; it changes through time. So we should expect a gradient of consciousness. I would think that awareness could be thought of as a certain higher level of consciousness along the human line.
So, I know that I really haven’t said anything new here. But it seems to me that the onus is on you to explain why consciousness would seem to follow this evolutionary pattern that we see with other attributes and behaviors of organisms. Clearly this line of reasoning doesn’t explain consciousness, but it sure would seem to set some constraints on what it is and where you would look to get more insights.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Nov 25, 2017 - 06:10am PT
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Jan: . . . the ring looks like an Indian woman's bangle I can think of no deeper eastern symbolism.
Jgill: it's simply a curiosity arising unpredictably from the mind of my laptop via a certain mathematical process (infinite compositions of complex functions), having no relevance to spiritual or mystical practices, or the unconscious mind. It looked a little like a ring partially covered by shifting silt at the bottom of the Rhine.
True symbols can’t (or shouldn’t) be interpreted, say depth (Jungian) psychologists. Symbols are images, and as such, are expressions given up by the shadow, the psyche, the unconscious. Symbols are (sort of) messages from the unconscious that cannot be articulated. You live with symbols, ”experience” them, feel them, rather than attempt to say what they mean. Every image is psyche, and most of psyche is experienced symbolically.
A crucifix is a symbol whose meaning cannot be said (nor should be). A “stop” indicator at a corner is a sign, and we can all say what it means.
Learning to live harmoniously with one’s psyche appears to be a mysterious, deft, subtle affair of coming and going with one’s feelings in a spontaneous way. There’s no clarity in it.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Nov 25, 2017 - 06:28am PT
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it's simply a curiosity arising unpredictably from the mind of my laptop via a certain mathematical process (infinite compositions of complex functions), having no relevance to spiritual or mystical practices, or the unconscious mind.
I'll bet your computer didn't write the algorithm used or create the mathematics incorporated in it. Doesn't lots of mathematics that humans create come from the "unconscious mind"?
Edit: Oops! A bit of a gaffe there. I meant to say the "subconscious mind". I really don't think an unconscious mind (e.g. an anesthetized person) can create much mathematics.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Nov 25, 2017 - 06:37am PT
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Searle?: "In fact there is no existing model, or even an idea about a model, to show how information causally triggers consciousness."
See Bohm’s notion of Implicate Order, at http://www.bizint.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_3.html
It always seems to conflate any view of reality when one make distinctions. Looked at somewhat carefully, one will find it challenging to say that “this is where information begins and ends” or “this is where consciousness begins and ends.” (It’s not even an empirical issue.)
When a person dreams, what are the “things” in the dream? Are they “things” at all? Or are they simply manifestations / appearances, that, for a time being, seem to be real?
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Nov 25, 2017 - 06:50am PT
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When a person dreams, what are the “things” in the dream? Are they “things” at all? Or are they simply manifestations / appearances, that, for a time being, seem to be real?
"No" , then "Yes", although I have been aware I'm dreaming inside a dream, so I "knew" the "things" weren't real. Even more startling is when you wake up from a dream only to realize you're still dreaming!
Hey, I think I got an answer right in the What is "Mind?" thread!
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 25, 2017 - 08:13am PT
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but a feeling of consciousness sounds strange.
It is the fact that it is consciousness itself that allows awareness and feelings to take place.
The spirit soul is felt all over the body as consciousness, and that is the proof of the presence of the soul.
Any layman can understand that the material body minus consciousness is a dead body.
Consciousness cannot be revived in the body by any material means.
Therefore, consciousness is not due to any amount of material combination, but to the spirit soul.
Again the modern materialistic scientists Do NOT want anything to do with nonmatter.
Otherwise, their whole system of material only science will show their biased defect and how they've misled themselves and humanity all along.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2017 - 09:27am PT
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Eyeeyonkeeee said: I would think that awareness could be thought of as a certain higher level of consciousness along the human line.
------
This is the most tricky aspect of the mind game, IME. And thank's for taking the time to oraganize your thoughts so I have some specific idea what you are driving at. This is in keeping with the western philosophical tradition, which is NOT about making wild guesses about forms that are better left to science, but rather presenting a logically coherent line of reasoning or raising questions based on observations and discursive thought.
The problem for me, and most everyone else who has tried to nail down awareness as neuro artifact or an emergent "function" or to posit it on a kind of sliding scale of complexity, is that awareness itself - when wrangled from the inside - has no identifying features, qualities, aspect, or any form or shape or (fill in the blank) that we can grasp. Whatever we can say or imagine or sense is categorically different than BEING aware of same. Inseparable - for certain. But heads is not tails, figuratively speaking.
Whatever we can SAY about awareness evokes what arises in awareness - from thoughts and feelings to memories and plans. And we can't get behind or outside of it to appraise it from a 3rd person "view from nowhere." So it can't be framed as we might describe a keyboard or pier or honey badger or white star or even as a force like gravity or the weak attraction. In any process, awareness is already a given, and so would seem to be a priori in the Kantian sense.
The other thing is that most any life form with a nervous system exhibits awareness. In my way of looking that this, there is not a hierarchy of awareness, but rather of consciousness. We enjoy a richer, more nuanced grade of consciousness because our human brains are capable of producing more complex content (thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories/plans) to awareness.
Just a few thoughts, but the points just mentioned are some of the reasons that some of the emerging schools of thought from the neuro camp are starting to provisionally consider awareness as a fundamental property, ergo some strain of panpsychism. The other option is Identity Theory, whereby neuro functioning IS aware/conscious (brain states are identical to subjective states), and no one has been able to make that one logically coherent.
If you deep dive into these issues for long enough, most of the core issues and challenges slap you upside the head. In the meantime we're all fishing around for an overall picture that has or seems to have the fewest quagmires.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Nov 25, 2017 - 10:09am PT
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If you deep dive
If you deep dive into water you will engage what is known as "the dive reflex" or the "mammalian diving response" which chiefly involves engaging the parasympathetic nervous system via the Vagus nerve segments in the neck and head.
This is not a response below the level of awareness but it is below the radar of a fuller range of consciousness and knowledge-- even to those who know what it is.
And yet the dive reflex can profoundly influence states of mind.
We are at the mercy of forces we have so little recognition of their modes of operation that we find it deliriously liberating that we can envision, or think we've discovered, a human consciousness with no mode of operation whatsoever.
It can be said to be a theory of mind without a theory.
Such an overall position as regards the human mind is a null set that promises to relinquish all forms of knowledge to the level of innate errors in either reasoning or perception --only then can the known and unknown be judiciously accounted for in ways that appear to be mutually exclusive.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 25, 2017 - 11:54am PT
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I really don't think an unconscious mind (e.g. an anesthetized person) can create much mathematics.
No one is going to pursue it, but this is one of the more interesting questions on this thread.
Perhaps if you knock out the conscious mind the unconscious is still at work and when the anesthesia wears off new ideas are more likely to emerge.
It is certain that the combinations which present themselves to the mind in a kind of sudden illumination after a somewhat prolonged period of unconscious work are generally useful and fruitful combinations
-Henri Poincaré Science and Method 1914
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2017 - 11:57am PT
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Ward brings up some interesting speculations per awareness. It is instructive that Ward's speculations are acknowledged to have derived not from any empirical study of awareness itself, but rather are attempts to posit awareness and consciousness through the scrim of a third-person or objective model, that being set theory (the so-called empty set being the unique set having no elements).
The internal adventures have various methods to get past the duality between something (a "set" in this regards), and nothing. At first, you need to crutch of something to vector off because the observing mind has been trained to always lock onto content, or at any rate, have some counter as a reference point for nothing at all.
What Ward is probably gunning for is the old notion that one only thinks, or perceives that awareness is empty and without qualities, but at levels below awareness, some thing or force is actually at play, we just don't know it, and consequently "believe" our awareness (a "set") is empty ... except it ain't. That's blue ribbon duality right there.
This harks back what Searle was saying that if consciousness really exists, it must be something else. It must be reducible to something else, such as neuron firings, unconscious computer programs running in the brain, dispositions to behavior, unconscious vectors "causing" the illusion of a null set.
Even "empty" as in "empty set" must be framed by the idea or mental construct of a set sans content.
So Ward has pointed out a key step in the work, but the conclusion implied, that we only perceive or experience or "think we've discovered" awareness is empty is patently incorrect in the way I believe his is inferring. This, has been pointed out by many, is the trip up for anyone using an informational or processing model to try and envision awareness: it can only be imagined for what it DOES.
Of course I could be wrong, so Ward would have to tighten down his prose and give specifics before we might understand what he is actually saying.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 25, 2017 - 01:14pm PT
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Doesn't lots of mathematics that humans create come from the "[subconscious] mind"?
In the context of the imagery appearing on my computer screen, I doubt even my subconscious could predict these strange patterns. I've thought about this from time to time.
I suppose that were I to investigate at some length the connection between my algorithm (yes, a product of cooperation between subconscious and conscious minds) and a fairly simple image I might be able to actually spell out in some detail the connection between the points of the image and the math. Fractal theory codifies and demonstrates this sort of connection up to a point.
But my algorithms are more complicated than the fairly simple ones used for fractals (iteration of a single function usually). And convergence/divergence theory for compositions of functions that differ is more involved and has not attracted the attention of a mathematical community (apart from moi and a few others).
In another matter, it would seem that JL's approach and that of the physicalist's, were they to be 'united', might well be done so in the realm of complex function theory. F(z)=f(x+iy)=u(x,y)+iv(x,y) where the real part of z (the x) is a measure taken from neurological science, and the imaginary part of z (the y) comes from JL's approach. The mystery function F(z) somehow weaves the two together.
;>)
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Nov 25, 2017 - 02:03pm PT
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Like it jgill!
Hey so to riff a bit more on some evolutionary aspects of consciousness, the theory provides a good reason why we see such a seemingly large gap in consciousness between us and the African apes. It's because all of the intermediate forms went extinct along with our hominid cousins. We are the only surviving hominid. The different manifestations of consciousness which must have existed in those hominid lineages that went extinct are lost forever. But we know that they must have existed. Between our evolutionary split with the African apes 7-ish million years ago and now there was a lot of evolution going on in Africa within the hominid lineages. I have no doubt that consciousness and awareness were being tweaked during this time. It worked that way, bottom up, not the other way around.
In fact, if I was to identify the biggest point of contention between my world view about consciousness and mind and Largo's, I would say that his appears to be a top-down phenomenon. Mine and the prevailing scientific view is firmly bottom-up. Consciousness and awareness did not exist 3.5 billion years ago on this planet. They exist today. We can thank evolution for that.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Nov 25, 2017 - 07:07pm PT
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Randisi: Can anyone define "conflate" for me?
Mixed up. Confused. Where opposing forces meet. Think of it as a fire, or at least the behaviors of fire. Being at the front line of change. Cusps. Where things don't go together.
Duck: . . . their whole system of material only science will show their biased defect and how they've misled themselves and humanity all along.
You have such a social sensitivity with words.
Largo: In my way of looking that this, there is not a hierarchy of awareness, but rather of consciousness. We enjoy a richer, more nuanced grade of consciousness because our human brains are capable of producing more complex content (thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories/plans) to awareness.
The teacher I followed said that noticing brings more noticing. You know, the idea of the onion. I’m not sure it’s the brain. What is there is always there, but noticing makes the boundaries shoot to infinity fairly rapidly. Those infinities appear to be everywhere hyper-dimensionally. Really cool, but then what does that reveal about THIS? You’d better get comfortable with fractals.
Jgill: But my algorithms are more complicated than the fairly simple ones used for fractals (iteration of a single function usually).
Is it possible to have multiple systems of fractals interacting multi-dimensionally?
Human systems are like that.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Cascade Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Nov 25, 2017 - 07:55pm PT
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JGill, I suspect your playing around with math and light patterns is leading up to modeling how the material universe is formed...
e.g. of frozen light patterns Michael Talbot's The Holographic Universe
i.e. electromagnetism bending light waves, thus creating interference fringes with energetic wave pattern nodes, manifesting what we call sub-atomic particles...
thus constructing the holographic imagery that we mentally interpret as the material universe...
now if science could accept the metanoia of energy fields being manifestations of consciousness upon the material universe (constructed of frozen light), then this provides an answer to Largo's original question
and explains the creative influence of thought patterns, aka consciousness, upon the material universe
thus rendering moot the material vs spiritual discussion
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 25, 2017 - 10:05pm PT
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What is there is always there, but noticing makes the boundaries shoot to infinity fairly rapidly. Those infinities appear to be everywhere hyper-dimensionally. Really cool, but then what does that reveal about THIS? You’d better get comfortable with fractals
Hmmmm . . . well, maybe. Do fractals lead to hyperdimensional infinities? They certainly have fractional dimensions, usually between one and two.
But a straight line has dimension one and no matter how much you 'notice' it, it still has dimension one and its boundaries are circumspect.
(Tom, remember those days at the Jenny Lake boulders with Chouinard, Robbins and others? That ground was hard! Modern boulderers are softies.)
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Nov 25, 2017 - 10:47pm PT
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Jgill: it's simply a curiosity arising unpredictably from the mind of my laptop via a certain mathematical process (infinite compositions of complex functions), having no relevance to spiritual or mystical practices, or the unconscious mind. It looked a little like a ring partially covered by shifting silt at the bottom of the Rhine.
How can you be so sure that the particular equation you chose for that piece of art does not emanate from your unconscious mind? The equation that you've memorized comes from the conscious mind, but what made you decide to choose that particular equation on that day? Can you say it was a strictly rational process?
And why do so many of your art works remind me of eastern spiritual symbolism? Perhaps because eastern symbolism represents a universal symbolism available to all humans? In the past, it was the provenance of religion but can be seen equally well nowadays as psychology.
Of course Tom has just suggested another possibility that has also been considered in the past, that mathematics represents the structure of the universe including the organization of our own minds. Perhaps what comes forth from your mind is a microcosmic reflection of that mathematical universe in a way you hadn't thought of before?
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Nov 26, 2017 - 05:30am PT
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Perhaps if you knock out the conscious mind the unconscious is still at work and when the anesthesia wears off new ideas are more likely to emerge.
I've known about that Poincaré anecdote for some time. I first read about it when I was in high school, from that book Lovegasoline quoted about gravity. That book was my introduction to philosophy.
If I (or anyone else) knew much of anything about brain activity, about how the brain really works, maybe I could be precise about whatever difference there might be among (what I meant when I distinguished) the unconscious, the subconscious and the conscious. In this case, I do think it has a lot to do with what kind of activity is (or isn't) going on in the brain. As it is, we are pretty much left to anecdotes, intuition, introspection, reflection, judgment and conversation to try to understand. Which isn't to say we can't try to think critically, and weigh our judgements against experience. Maybe it ain't science, but it ain't ignorance either. Or else, I suppose, we could drop the subject, forget about brain activity, repeat the word "information processing" a bunch, and talk about computers, which we kind of understand, because, after all, we design, build and program them.
I imagine most who've worked hard on a project that involves a big mental component, be that a mathematician, a scientist, an engineer, a philosopher, an artist, a writer, or a simply a student, struggling to understand something, has had an experience similar to Poincaré's. I think the process requires that we focus hard (consciously) on a problem (or project) for some time. Then we get stuck. Everything becomes confused and unclear. Where does it go? Frustration is a key ingredient. The next step is to just "let it go". Give it a break. Poincare went on holiday. For me, it can be enough, just going to bed. Restless sleep and intermittent dreams can do the trick. Somehow the solution bubbles (or even bursts) up from the subconscious (or "unconscious" if you like: read below for my distinction). Going for a hike, if it's daytime, can be the ticket (climbing can be a bit problematic, if I'm too preoccupied).
Anyways, it seems to me, if what we mean by "unconscious" is what happens when we get knocked out in the boxing ring, or anesthetized, or end up in coma, I don't think the "unconscious" mind is gonna do much creative mathematics (I could be wrong, it's just virtually impossible to test this out, or understand much of anything about what kind brain activity we might be testing). Poincaré was very much conscious when he solved his problem. He was just thinking about something else, albeit, after focusing hard and getting stuck. Even when I go to sleep and solve a problem, my brain is still very active during the night. I'm restless, I have intermittent dreams, I drift in and out of sleep. It seems to me, in that sense, it may be the brain is "active" in a way it can't be when it's completely unconscious.
Hey, that was as long one!
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Nov 26, 2017 - 07:41am PT
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I don't mean to say there isn't some nice work going on trying to do brain science using modeling (not my area of expertise at all). Exploratory, sure, but it looks interesting. Remember that stuff about algebraic topology and neural organization? I got this in my work mail a few weeks back. Looks interesting for a young researcher. It's a chance to do a post-doc with another young researcher who has been trying to understand the physics of epilepsy, and visit "El país Vasco" to boot. Those Basques climb hard!
http://www.bcamath.org/documentos_public/archivos/ofertas/MCEN_PostDoc_Profile_2_new_call_Nov_2017.pdf
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