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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Dec 18, 2017 - 08:32pm PT
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Observing your own process?
A point made again and again: Self-referential investigations may well produce paradoxes. But for meditators, those paradoxes are obstacles that are washed away as logic is submerged in a stream of enlightened consciousness, like religious epiphanies. They have done the work.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 18, 2017 - 09:50pm PT
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They have done the work.
Nope, there is no they.
The work has done the work .......
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 19, 2017 - 02:35am PT
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Where to start...?
I guess first off is that I don't find any of the computer / information / engine analogies for brain / mind particularly compelling or of more than crude utility at best and even then only in the most abstract of terms (ditto mechanism and content). That may seem an odd statement from a software engineer, but it's precisely my experience with computers and informatics that leaves me of that opinion. Our current computational technologies just lack the fundamental dynamism exhibited by all forms of life and by all aspects of the brain. And by dynamism I mean one of the typical dictionary definitions: 3. Continuous change, activity, or progress; vigor...
Part of the reason for that lack of dynamism is computers and software is they are primitive, static, and purpose-built constructs compared to brains. HFCS mentioned DNA as one basis for some of these analogies and there is some merit there though not so much computationally but rather as random access storage (it's the densest storage medium in existence). In that capacity not only does DNA store a shitload of information, but we precisely accesses it on demand, at speed, and at an energy cost that is amazingly low compared to any form of storage we have developed. In fact, our efforts to use DNA as a storage medium are largely hampered by our inability to replicate how the body does it at such a low cost energy-wise. So that's just one of many examples where our technology really just isn't up to snuff enough to be used, almost even conceptually, to explain brains and minds.
As far as the ideas such as decision engines and interpreters go, I think we as humans have a tendency to look for readily identifiable causative agents and preferably ones we can think of in the singular. My suspicion, though, is that the brain, at every level, is exceptionally granular and distributed, so much so that I personally find it difficult to assign much in the way of permanent 'agency' to more than a handful of discrete components / aspects of the brain and most of those are sensorially-linked. As a result, my perception is not of a 'ghost in the machine' so much as millions of competing temporal ghosts / agents which come and go at millisecond speeds. That those agencies arise and are organized in a similar number of temporal and permanent hierarchies and meshes and all the outputs of those are continuously amplified, filtered and aggregated upwards through the hierarchical layers and across the all the various mesh nodes within those layers in the form of increasingly consolidated agencies. And further, that all that is dynamic, coordinated on the fly, and exceptionally adaptive.
I think the work of Gazzaniga and other researchers who study the results of brain injuries and pathologies lends credence to my views though I don't think Gazzaniga goes far enough in terms of plurality. I'd say that even at very high levels of abstraction and consolidation there are myriad agencies at work within the brain / mind at any given time. Hell, the process of learning to meditate itself also supports this view from my perspective - if there were a single agent, decision engine or interpreter at work within your brain / mind then meditating wouldn't be such an frigging exercise in cat wrangling right on through to 5.15 Jhanas. And really, for me it's less of a miracle and mystery that we have subjective experience and a mind than the fact we somehow perceive a single, permanent 'senior agent' / self of any continuity at all let alone one that can survive something like jogill's mention of coma or dingus' anesthesia intact (and it's yet another absolute miracle all healthy humans exhibit basically identical agency).
With regard to Gazzaniga's interpreter in particular, based on the wildly wrong speech my mind has often been handed by my subconscious over the years I've been able to deduce a few things which would tend to break Gazzaniga's interpreter down into at least six subagents for recognizing, prioritizing, alerting, contextualizing, interpreting and narrating:
 Recognizing: fitting sounds to potential words. I'm occasionally handed what appears to be a blended result of two or more sound recognition attempts where the sound ends up as multiple homophones in some usually nonsensical construction - i.e. my recognizer came up with multiple possible sounds / words so my contextualizer, interpreter and narrator constructed a phrase or sentence which attempts to use all of them (this has never succeeded).
Prioritizing: I can sometimes catch glimpses of the words which were discarded in the process of attempting to recognize the sounds.
Alerting: my subconscious can't recognize and contextualize some speech or sounds of note, all attempts to do so are cut short, and I just get an urgent but generic 'some-sh#t-is-happening-in-that-direction-so-please-pay-attention' alert.
Contextualizing: once a bunch of words are proffered from recognizing the sounds of the speech, contextualizing is best thought of like those words being random word magnets on your refrigerator door you attempt to put together in some coherent fashion following some unknown set of rules. In this case though, it's not so much an attempt at coherent meaning per se so much as just neighbor-fitting while discarding obvious word incompatibilities with the conversation at hand (may require going back to recognizing).
Interpreting: ok, so now we have a bunch of likely words which aren't entirely random, what meaning can we organize them into which might have at least some tenuous relevance to the conversation at hand. When this fails it's usually because it ended up straying far, far afield from the current conversation in a desperate bid to come up with something. A classic example of this is from when I was in horticulture classes. One day I went from a greenhouse design class to a soils management class and, startled by a softly-spoken question just I was drifting off, I started babbling about 'heat loss' when everyone else was talking 'peat moss' - close, but no cigar.
Narrating: So we now have the external context (the conversation) and the newly generated / crafted internal set of words which have been contextualized and interpreted to have some (hopefully) relevant meaning, now how to weave one into the other without coming off as a lunatic. Often I just have to just toss the whole affair and try to consciously figure out what the sounds were and meant or, failing that, just apologize that I couldn't hear / understand what was said.
Largo: you absolutely need time-bound consciousness to get situated on the cushion (or the chair for me with a bum leg), and to buckle don to work. But at stage 4, the stateness becomes background and statelessness becomes figure. That is, you consciously prime the pump, but when the state recedes (a relative term), you do NOT plunge into a semi-unconscious trance in order to maintain form, contingent upon "temporal continuity of purpose." It would seem that way from the outside, but as mentioned, once you dig into reality at a certain depth, at least in my experience, classical/logical thinking finds no purchase.
Hmmm, you misunderstand my statement. I did not say you plunge into a semi-unconscious trance in order to maintain form; what I did say was you maintain some semblance of state to avoid simply tumbling into said condition - i.e. a thread of awareness and purpose in order to maintain and return from a mediation. It's not like someone has to hammer a gong or slap the sh#t out of you in order for you to return; your agency still has continuity even through the most stateless / timeless meditation. I'd also comment that I find parallels between the vacuum of space and meditative no-thingness - principally that neither is ever absolutely still or empty, but rather both are always percolating at a fundamental level.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Dec 19, 2017 - 06:49am PT
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Jogill: Self-referential investigations may well produce paradoxes. But for meditators, those paradoxes are obstacles that are washed away as logic is submerged in a stream of enlightened consciousness, like religious epiphanies. [AND MH2:] Observing your own process? Too easy to convince yourself of what you see. You need a way to check your conclusions.
Hmmmm, well, what do you think of healyje’s report of: recognizing, prioritizing, alerting, contextualizing, interpreting, narrating? Hasn't he been systematically exploring his own process self-referentially?
Look, this isn’t rocket science. Just look at anything. ANYTHING. The more you actively look, the more you will see. Do that for a few decades of mind (ala, “mind training”) and you might be more understanding of what’s being pointed at. This applies to any field of study. If it does, then your criticisms could well be leveled at any field of study (like physics, like computer science, like mathematics, etc.). How do you know that a person is not convincing themselves of physics, of mathematics, etc.? “Well, because it’s what other people see, and they have data, too!”
Yup. Just like that.
It isn’t rocket science. Epistemology is ontology. Seeing brings more seeing. Noticing brings more noticing. It’s the basis for any exploration.
I’m always surprised here when people make complaints of others but cannot see how the same complaint could ever apply to themselves. This kind of bias points to stark prejudice.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 19, 2017 - 07:28am PT
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debate on free will is much more fascinating to me, and might even have a single answer.
You'll always be guaranteed two different answers ......
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 19, 2017 - 07:35am PT
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Hasn't he been systematically exploring his own process self-referentially?
My only comment would be my observations were thrust upon me as if from another person entirely; they were not divined through deep thought or studied at any length whatsoever. There is simply no need for such subtleties when an otherwise sound mind is handed nonsense from itself.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 19, 2017 - 07:41am PT
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sound mind is handed nonsense from itself
That is why the intelligent class goes beyond the dualistic nature of the mind (Largo's original point in this whole thread) .........
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Dec 19, 2017 - 08:06am PT
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MikeL,
“Well, because it’s what other people see, and they have data, too!”
Re: Jgill & MikeL,
the use of data
As I see it, the situation is not symmetrical for meditators & the people of the sciences in that the data used in science is readily obtainable by any person setting up another experiment. Whereas with the data (the adventures of) from meditation, concurring the same "experimental setup" is rather difficult to delineate & show in that a lot of the data that comes about while in a state of meditation almost completely lacks differentiation as it just does not happen while during meditation.
2. Just about all forms of rational thinking entail a great degree of differentiation. The problem arises because a lot of meditation experiences have a considerable lack of differentiation. Meditation experiences just do not make sense as rational accounts.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Dec 19, 2017 - 08:10am PT
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True meditation is no meditation!
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Dec 19, 2017 - 08:13am PT
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True meditation is no meditation! -- PSP
A fine example of the lack of differentiation and what little sense the statement makes. Rationally, it also begs the question.
But yes, this song & dance is part of the phony Zen narrative and it will be repeated again & again as wisdom.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Dec 19, 2017 - 08:16am PT
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Just so you know, healyje, I really never thought of the decision engine as some actual "thing" that evolved. I always intended it as a more or less umbrella term for everything that happens subconsciously when a decision is called for. The chimpanzee wants to go to the watering hole, but lions are in the vicinity. At some point, a decision is made to either go or not go. Regardless of all of the complicated biochemical algorithms involved, the decision is ultimately made to do one or the other. All that went into that decision I am just calling a decision engine, that's all. I actually got the term from Dennett in one of his extended arguments for compatibilism. As you know, "engine" is used in software architecture to denote a major subsystem of a program that does something.
Also, you're right on one hand about some limitations of the computer metaphors. I would think that one of the biggest differences is evolution always works bottom up, with no apriori designer. It makes things naturally messy. On the other hand, evolution seems to find ways of adapting one subset of algorithms for different problems than what the subset original evolved for. From that perspective I can see local "master controllers" evolving that bring some higher order to the natural messiness. As a geologist, I can sort of see it like how stream capture works.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 19, 2017 - 08:20am PT
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The debate on free will is much more fascinating to me,
I'm the opposite, the question of free will holds no intrigue for me, especially when I'm standing at the base of a new line.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Dec 19, 2017 - 08:31am PT
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In any case, we'll put you in the incompatibilist camp. Let's see, that's now me and Moose and you. Have I missed anyone?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 19, 2017 - 08:38am PT
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As you know, "engine" is used in software architecture to denote a major subsystem of a program that does something.
I always took it to define the executive parts of the architecture, which coordinates the action of various parts of software, parts with specific tasks.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Dec 19, 2017 - 08:48am PT
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I use the term all of the time in my work, and I can tell you that me and my colleagues don't use it in the way you defined. The program that I have been working on for 4 years has a spatial preprocessing engine, a model-building engine, etc.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Dec 19, 2017 - 08:55am PT
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I have no idea which camp I am in.
I may have once looked up "compatibilism" (which my spell-checker underlines in red) but the definition did not stick with me.
I just looked again and it sounds simple:
The idea that free will and determinism are compatible.
But then you would need to be pretty sure of what free will and determinism are.
Just an anecdote:
I watch my photos and listen to my music. I set both to shuffle, or (psuedo-) random transition. Every transition was mysterious and happy. Then I learned the awful truth. At the start the computer generated lists and afterwards just stepped through the previously determined list.
My sense of what is happening has changed even though what is happening has not.
The transitions appear to me to be random. In a sense they are, and in another sense they are not.
Does that make me a compatibilist?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 19, 2017 - 09:06am PT
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Look, this isn’t rocket science. Just look at anything. ANYTHING. The more you actively look, the more you will see. Do that for a few decades of mind (ala, “mind training”) and you might be more understanding of what’s being pointed at. This applies to any field of study. If it does, then your criticisms could well be leveled at any field of study (like physics, like computer science, like mathematics, etc.). How do you know that a person is not convincing themselves of physics, of mathematics, etc.? “Well, because it’s what other people see, and they have data, too!”
Yup. Just like that.
I think this is an interesting statement that basically criticizes something that is irrelevant, and also points to something that is much more general.
To the second point, "mind training" is not the exclusive domain of meditation, to a large degree those responding to this thread have engaged in mind training at least as extensively as the others. Largo's exhortations to "do the work" belie the fact that the work of those he addresses has been done.
The irrelevant is an attempt to argue against a supposed authority of "science" that it, itself, does not claim. If science has priority now, it is because the body of resultant work largely forms our understanding of the world, actually the universe, and those things we find in it. This understanding is quantitative, and that quality allows it to be tested. Unlike other ways of understanding, the method can reform when tests fail, can accept and incorporate new knowledge, can predict new knowledge, and is universally available.
That it is so, it must also clearly state that there are phenomena that are not understood (which is not the claim that they are not understandable).
Whether or not you accept this philosophically, it is what has emerged as a practical way of understanding, and it has a tremendous utility. This becomes painfully obvious when reading the unresolved, and unresolvable issues of philosophy, to wit, we don't teach Aristotelian physics in physics class, but somehow Aristotle is featured in philosophy, maybe deserving a cameo as the icon to the origin of western philosophy; though more a staring role in a history class on Classical Greece.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 19, 2017 - 09:26am PT
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Moose wrote,
Talking about different freedoms or social responsibility is just a word game. It always comes down to the question, are we morally responsible for our actions?
Compatibilists say yes.
So incompatibilists say no?
Okay then, eeyonkee, good to know your stance. You and Moose say (unlike Pinker, Dennett, Eagleman, and Harris, and me, and others) "social responsibility" is just a word game (that there is just ONE way to look at the subject – OUR way!) and that we are NOT morally responsible for our action (because free will is bogus). Do I have that right?
So…
Europeans are NOT TO BLAME for decimating the indigenous native American populations, Whitman is NOT TO BLAME for killing all those people, Brock Turner was/is NOT TO BLAME for fingering/assaulting/raping that girl at Stanford, and Moose is NOT TO BLAME for speeding and for getting that speeding ticket.
Go tell the good folks over on the Callie thread that Brock Turner is NOT TO BLAME for assaulting (some say raping) that girl – that he’s not responsible IN ANY SENSE - and see how far that gets you, how useful that ONE perspective gets you. Then report back here. lol
If you guys can treat the subject simplistically and post about it simplistically, then so can I. :)
eeyonkee, simple question: In your own words, brass tacks...
Is Brock Turner not to blame for assaulting that girl? not to be held responsible for what he did? Y or N?
Go back and read Moose post carefully and tell me you don't see contradiction and frame switching in there.
If Moose isn't "responsible" for speeding, then why is he going to "willingly" (a result of his "will") pay the fine?
There's no word game here, but there's a framing game here - and a reframing game here - as the context changes. You guys don't seem to be getting that. At least you're not mentioning it, referencing it, at all, in your posts.
Sure, you might try substituting "being held accountable" (for speeding, for sexually assaulting someone, for decimating a population, for assassinating someone and starting a war) for "being responsible" but then that's "just" a "word game" no?
Points: (1) The fact that Pinker acknowledges a KIND of "free will" should give you pause, I would think. (2) Moreover, Harris does NOT claim that we humans are NOT morally responsible for our actions - as Moose in the Moose post seems to.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Dec 19, 2017 - 09:32am PT
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Largo's exhortations to "do the work" belie the fact that the work of those he addresses has been done.
Largo's exhortations to "do the work" ignore the fact that the work of those he addresses has been done.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Dec 19, 2017 - 09:45am PT
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Sheesh, HFCS, settle down. First of all, Harris not a compatibilist. You show me somewhere where he says he is. Most of my thinking on this is because of Harris. And if you think that I am treating this subject simplistically, remember, I'm the one who brought up Gazzaniga, specifically because he brought some experimentation to the table that wasn't there in the Dennett/Harris/Pinker writings.
Of course we need to hold people who do bad things accountable. Could they help their decision at the moment they made it. No, in my opinion.
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