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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Apr 22, 2019 - 09:07pm PT
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Me: "Consciousness implies brain activity."
JL: "Now try and find people who are trying to make a conscious machine. Nobody."
This is bizarrely twisted logic, John. All I am saying is every time there is consciousness brain activity is detected. What does that have to do with somebody trying to make a conscious machine? You are reacting to something you wish I had said. This is what happens when one is so locked into a perspective that confabulation results.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Apr 22, 2019 - 09:30pm PT
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Come to think of it
The insect brain resides in the head, located dorsally, or to the back. It consists of three pairs of lobes: the protocerebrum, the deutocerebrum, and the tritocerebrum. These lobes are fused ganglia, clusters of neurons that process sensory information. Each lobe controls different activities or functions. Neurons vary in number among insect brains. The common fruit fly has 100,000 neurons, while a honeybee has 1 million neurons.
Folks are indeed building biological computers, but would likely say they are not striving for consciousness.
So how does the consciousness of different brains compare?
It must have been in far antiquity when a man first noted that a de capitated insect might live and con tinue to show complex behavior for many days, whereas similar treatment of an animal more like himself would cause immobility and death in a few minutes. Today we …
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 22, 2019 - 09:52pm PT
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It's hard to figure out which is more ludicrous, this question...
won’t science eventually answer all of our questions about the world?
...or the idea that meditators or philosophers of any stripe have anything more figured out about consciousness than science.
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ruppell
climber
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Apr 22, 2019 - 10:20pm PT
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healyje
Whoever said the question has to be answered by western science or eastern philosophy?
The fact that we can have this conversation qualifies that mind exist. Why it exists or if it has some greater meaning is mute. At least my dog thinks so. lol
Me: "Consciousness implies brain activity."
JL: "Now try and find people who are trying to make a conscious machine. Nobody."
Hey Jgill,
Does it really imply brain activity? If so AI would be the next logical evolution that JL has faith no one is doing. That would be incorrect though.
The idea, and let's face it that's all that it will ever be within the next 5 decades, that consciousness is predictable and quantitative is something only the human mind would come up with.
Why? Simply because we are the only self important primates.
Monkeys fling poo. Gorillas beat their chest. Baboons lick each other.
We are the only ones that think. That thinking is consciousness. The ability to understand an action and it's consequence before you commit to that action is being conscience. Don't believe me? Go to a zoo and try talking a monkey into not flinging poo.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 22, 2019 - 11:06pm PT
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An amygdalar neural ensemble that encodes the unpleasantness of pain
Science 363, no. 6424 (2019): 276-281.
Gregory Corder, Biafra Ahanonu, Benjamin F. Grewe, Dong Wang, Mark J. Schnitzer, Grégory Scherrer
Pain is an unpleasant experience. How the brain’s affective neural circuits attribute this aversive quality to nociceptive information remains unknown. By means of time-lapse in vivo calcium imaging and neural activity manipulation in freely behaving mice encountering noxious stimuli, we identified a distinct neural ensemble in the basolateral amygdala that encodes the negative affective valence of pain. Silencing this nociceptive ensemble alleviated pain affective-motivational behaviors without altering the detection of noxious stimuli, withdrawal reflexes, anxiety, or reward. Following peripheral nerve injury, innocuous stimuli activated this nociceptive ensemble to drive dysfunctional perceptual changes associated with neuropathic pain, including pain aversion to light touch (allodynia). These results identify the amygdalar representations of noxious stimuli that are functionally required for the negative affective qualities of acute and chronic pain perception.
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ruppell
climber
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Apr 22, 2019 - 11:13pm PT
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Ed
So perception of pain can be used to judge mind?
If that's the criteria then any nerve cell could theoretically be conscious. If input to stimuli is "mind" that opens a whole new pandoras box.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 22, 2019 - 11:18pm PT
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my post was meant to point out that understanding something like the perception of pain can be addressed in a scientific manner.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 23, 2019 - 01:50am PT
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ruppell wrote: Whoever said the question has to be answered by western science or eastern philosophy?
My point exactly - science will come up with precious few definitive answers about consciousness. As it is, the number of petabytes necessary just for an accurate anatomical data set of the human brain would entirely eclipse the combined data sets of the total runs of the LHC, NIF, and EHT. And that's nothing more than a physical snapshot of the connectome saying little to nothing about basic genomic, chemical, electrical characteristics let alone functional outcomes at any level. But even so, that will still be more than what is to be found at meditation's event horizon.
Largo wrote: ...leads to double talk, Jabberwocky and logical incoherence
Wait, your dialogue over the course of 22400 posts has been exactly that - double talk, Jabberwocky, and logical incoherence. At least somewhere in the last thousand posts you finally owned a universal consciousness but, again, we could have saved a lot of time if you'd just led with that in the opening post of the thread.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 23, 2019 - 07:36am PT
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consciousness is not "like" any other localized phenomenon in the physical world
This presumes you know what consciousness is. Saying what consciousness isn't like is too broad and easy. Consciousness isn't like a trashcan, etc., etc.
Consciousness can be related to phenomena in the physical world. General anesthesia is one example. You have concluded prematurely that consciousness is beyond the reach of any physical theory.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 23, 2019 - 07:48am PT
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healyje: . . . science will come up with precious few definitive answers about consciousness.
Which word in this phrase is the rubric?
Few? Precious? Answers? Will? Consciousness?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 23, 2019 - 09:38am PT
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Largo wrote: ...leads to double talk, Jabberwocky and logical incoherence
Wait, your dialogue over the course of 22400 posts has been exactly that - double talk, Jabberwocky, and logical incoherence.
That's called a deflection. We were talking about identity theory. Per that subject, what, specifically, was listed in my post that you disagree with and in doing so, side with identity theory itself (or some other take on the issue). When physicalism is shown to have limitations, note how people lash out as opposed to offering counter arguments to what was actually said, or lapse into theory ("prove that measuring has limits"), avoiding the specifics discussed. If you take issue with something said about identity theory, counter it with your own take.
Per John's beef, when you say that mental activity has corresponding brain activation, it goes without saying that for many on this thread, such activity implies a linear-causal link between the two, whereas the brain activity occurs at Time A, and later, at Time B, as a result of said brain activation, you have the mechanical output of mind. My comment that no one in AI is pursuing that belief (trying to "create" a conscious machine) is telling is this regard.
What's more, MH's beef that we need to "define" consciousness, and till we can, all bets are off. This too is an attempt to keep the exploration on materialists home turf for the simple reason that you can bet that MH's criteria for a "description" would be nothing short of a physical description/mechanism by which mind is "created" or output by way of the mechanism so described.
When a dog has a bone, they don't easily give it up. I call this syndrome "mechanitus."
Ed, as usual, is once again concerning himself with qualia, with the brain's ability to generate the stuff (pain) that mind is aware of. This is not the issue. The issue is that we with minds have an awareness and a sense of knowing of this pain, and that awareness and knowing remains whether the pain (qualia) is there nor not.
People sometimes ask me what a line of inquiry would look like that is not grounded in quantifications, as this thread is. I've said that to introduce such ideas to this thread would only confuse people who don't have the training to understand it. Here goes anyhow:
True Mind
Yuan-hsien (1618-1697)
Now observe that within this body the physical elements combine temporarily, daily heading to extinction: where is the true mind?
The flurry of ideas and thoughts arising and passing away without constancy is not the true mind.
That which shifts and changes unstably, sometimes good, sometimes bad, is not the true mind.
That which wholly depends on external things to manifest, and is not apparent when nothing is there, is not the true mind.
The heart inside the body which cannot see itself, blind to the internal, is not the true mind.
What is unaffected by feelings outside the body, cut off from the external, is not the true mind.
Suppose you turn the light of awareness around to look within, and sense a recondite tranquility and calm oneness; do you consider this the true mind? You still do not realize that this recondite tranquility and calm oneness are due to the perceptions of the false mind: there is the subjective mind perceiving and the object perceived—so this recondite tranquility and calm oneness belong to the realm of inner states.
This is what is meant by the Heroic Progress Scripture when it says, "Inwardly keeping to recondite tranquility is still a reflection of discrimination of objects." How could it be the true mind?
So if these are not the true mind, what is the true mind? Try to see
what our true mind is, twenty-four hours a day.
Don't try to figure it out.
Don't try to interpret it intellectually.
Don't try to get someone to explain it to you.
Don't seek some other technique.
Don't calculate how long it may take.
Don't calculate the degree of your own strength.
Just silently pursue this inner investigation on your own:
"Ultimately, what is my own true mind?"
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 23, 2019 - 09:52am PT
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A conscious machine already exists created by the gross materialists.
A driver of an automobile is an example of a conscious machine.
A conscious living entity operates the machine (automobile).
Ultimately because the gross materialists have NO real clue to consciousness itself they continually fall down into poor fund of knowledge
and mislead not only themselves but everyone else with their poor defective mental speculations.
Assigning everything to matter itself as modern science does is the work of self righteous insanity .....
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Apr 23, 2019 - 11:47am PT
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Ruppell: "Does it really imply brain activity? If so AI would be the next logical evolution that JL has faith no one is doing."
"if so"? I am simply making an observation that brain activity is detected when one is conscious. Nothing more. Who would think such a well-documented and obvious phenomenon would be questioned, or would lead to all sorts of speculations about AI? Maybe the problem is the word "implies". That seems to be misinterpreted as causation. Implies: A => B or If A then B. That is to say, whenever A is true, then B is true. Nothing more.
JL keeps pounding away at this simple truth, eventually referencing "True Mind" from an Eastern religion. (and he continues to deny his perspectives are religious) So brain activity occurs, then a brief moment later a conscious thought appears. So what? The intricacies of the mechanism is not in question here, only the fact that the brain is necessary for consciousness.
Please, demonstrate this is not true. Then I will stop badgering you and maybe even look into your Eastern religious practices.
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Trump
climber
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Apr 23, 2019 - 12:16pm PT
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it goes without saying
Does it really go without saying?
The going of our consciousness seems to involve an awful lot of saying, and if you’re trying to understand what that going actually is, maybe the going just doesn’t go without the saying, even if we find ourselves saying to ourselves that it goes without saying. Maybe the saying is the going.
Why do we do all this saying? We sure do say a lot of stuff, even when the stuff we’re saying is about not saying.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 23, 2019 - 12:31pm PT
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only the fact that the brain is necessary for consciousness.
100% Wrong and very poor fund of knowledge!
A human being can be brain dead and still be within the body and conscious.
The living person actually resides within the heart in a human body as the operator of the gross and subtle material body.
A living entity is required for consciousness to exist period.
Even simple one cell amoeba, a blade of grass has consciousness because there is a living entity there (soul) although very low consciousness.
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Trump
climber
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Apr 23, 2019 - 12:50pm PT
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We might even say that consciousness exists within the human physical organ of the heart and not the brain. Maybe this “doing as saying” doesn’t reside in the brain.
Say away sayers!
Shoot, I forgot to say eat breakfast this morning. Not saying might have some disadvantages that lead us to err on the side of saying. Our saying might be less connected to truth than we say it is, but we say anyway.
Consciousness. Ok.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Apr 23, 2019 - 01:54pm PT
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"A human being can be brain dead and still be within the body and conscious.
Is this true? Can you provide a reference? Astounding. I learn so much on this marvelous thread.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 23, 2019 - 02:02pm PT
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So brain activity occurs, then a brief moment later a conscious thought appears.
This is, once again, getting mired in web of qualia, and trying sort out consciousness by way of the thoughts, feelings, sensations and memories and states that we are conscious OF. I would agree that the CONTENT of mind is brain generated. But you seem to suggest that "brain activity" occurs, then a brief moment later," consciousness arises.
Return to a previous quote for a sec: "Neurological research has certainly demonstrated clear correlations between mental states and brain states, but not remotely in a way that we can assume simple type identities between mental states and brain states. The idea that the evidence suggests otherwise is widely held to be "fake science," for obvious reasons." If you disagree with this, kindly tell us how and why?
From my perspective, consciousness IS, and from it everything arises, including our notions and experience of a brain "out there," on inside of us, so to speak. Your take, so far as I can tell, is the belief that without consciousness, brain (and "objective reality") exists, separate FROM consciousness. Name one thing that exists separate from anything else. Does a particle exist separate from a field? Does the quantum world exist separate from the macro world we see and experience? Or is there just one reality where all of this co-exists in a realm in which time and timelessness, form and emptiness are both at play? Nobody can "demonstrate" any thing or force as being independent of everything else. Yours, as well as most on this thread, is a linear-causal belief system based on classical thinking. No harm in that, but it will go no distance in knowing what consciousness (awareness OF reality) is.
Then the never ending rant on "eastern religion," as though I've ever dragged any religious thought (dieties, Gods, spirits, worship, etc.) into this conversation. This can only be viewed as a ham fisted attempt to paint any non-physicalist take on reality as woo or magic, while the magic I ran down in the incomprehensible form of Identity Theory is never addressed.
That's called bait and switch in logic circles.
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okay, whatever
climber
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Apr 23, 2019 - 03:25pm PT
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I think this is all interesting, but I definitely think that consciousness DOES arise from the interconnected neurons in our brains... physical/biochemical/electrical entities. If you've ever dealt with someone who had a stroke... a brain hemorrhage... it becomes pretty clear that physical damage (e.g., a hemorrhage) to an area or areas of the brain ABSOLUTELY changes the person's ability to think, to process visual information, to even remember their past. My mother, near the end of her life, went out to lunch with my sister and I, after having had a minor stroke, and asked us, "So how do you two know each other?" So I think the amazing thing is that we, and our pets, and wildlife, and so on, have this organ that gives us at least some ability to process input and make decisions, recognize people or fellow critters, have values, intellectualize about many things, and so on, in real time, even when we're sitting at home BSing online on our computers.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 23, 2019 - 03:38pm PT
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Largo wrote: That's called a deflection. We were talking about identity theory.
You were talking identity theory, I wasn't - I didn't say word one about identity theory. My comment speaks for itself - you incoherently and graspingly lurched about in compsci, physics, and philosophy for over 20k posts before ever saying what you actually believed. And if I were to say a word about identity theory it would be "simplistic" and that it's yet another theory which grossly fails to understand the level of complexity, hierarchy, and subconscious involvement. Just the notion of 'brain states' tells you they're way off the mark to begin with.
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