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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Sep 12, 2011 - 01:46pm PT
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If thread had a mind
would thread not recall
those things that were said
so early this fall?
Godel's little jewel
cropped up once before
but who cares a whit
let's hear it once more!
Einstein's terse comment
turned into a cult
where we try once again
for another result!
If I had a body
I'd pick up and go
this turmoil is nonsense
a circular show!
I've gone 'round the bend
dad, heed my sad plea:
search for delete
and press the damn key!
Love, Thread
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 12, 2011 - 01:49pm PT
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That's the best and potentially most productive post of the entire thread.
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO
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Sep 12, 2011 - 02:42pm PT
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Reply to Ed H. who wrote,
"To say that the evolution of mind is a particularly superior adaptation one would have to see it's adoption by many other species."
I wrote in my original post on this thread, "Are the 'mind' and 'consciousness' displayed by animals and humans …" (Emphasis added).
Ergo, I do believe and did state that other species have "mind." This "mind" and its quality of consciousness has evolved. And yes, I believe this is "a particularly superior adaptation."
In my book, any species with a "brain" has a foundation for evolution into a form possessing a "mind." The sophistication of that brain and mind varies. Describing the dividing line between "brain with mind" and "brain not-yet-having-mind" should be attempted by someone with intimate knowledge of the biology of this subject - and that's not me! Roughly speaking, I think all mammals have "brain with mind" of a highly advanced character.
I am aware of advancement in "Big Bang" theory to include Dark Matter, etc. To my knowledge, none of that advancement contradicts what I am saying. Are you saying it does?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 12, 2011 - 03:09pm PT
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Describing the dividing line between "brain with mind" and "brain not-yet-having-mind" ...
It should be noted that neither brains nor minds are necessary for living organisms to exhibit 'behavior', though brains do appear to be necessary for consciousness.
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jstan
climber
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Sep 12, 2011 - 03:37pm PT
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Links to the Penrose/Hameroff theory for consciousness and to Gamma waves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_wave
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orch-OR
Earlier I had speculated that bits of information probably can cross between closely neighboring fibers. The following excerpt from the first link goes into brain wide synchonization as the mechanism associated with a “precept” entering the conscious state.
“The proposed answer lies in a wave that originating in the thalamus, sweeps the brain from front to back, 40 times per second, drawing different neuronal circuits into synch with the precept, and thereby bringing the precept into the attentional foreground. If the thalamus is damaged even a little bit, this wave stops, conscious awarenesses do not form, and the patient slips into profound coma.[4]”
The second link discusses microstructure within the cell, something I had noted earlier, and then offers spatial reasons why these might support quantum tunneling and even
even
a Bose Einstein Condensate!
We might actually have such a condensate on this thread, as has been suggested by master Gill. No matter what we type, it all seems to condense into one place.
If it were not for the fact I once listened to a cogent APS paper arguing human sensory organs are quantum limited, I would say “Quantum” is now becoming little more than a sound byte.
But I seem to be forced more and more toward the edge of my imagination…………
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 12, 2011 - 09:44pm PT
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TWP - imprinted on the Cosmic Microwave Background are the fluctuations of what was going on "before" the Big Bang... so maybe there is a way of knowing what happened before...
as for consciousness, you haven't defined it either... perhaps all animals with a brain possess it to some degree, perhaps some organizations of animals without much of a brain (e.g. ants) may have a collective organization akin to it...
...or maybe even more than that.
But certainly if you look around you and the great extinction happening, you might be right to say that our minds allow us a certain mastery over all other life on the planet... not that our fate as a species is to populate the planet forever....
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Sep 12, 2011 - 10:38pm PT
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as for consciousness, you haven't defined it either... perhaps all animals with a brain possess it to some degree, perhaps some organizations of animals without much of a brain (e.g. ants) may have a collective organization akin to it...
...or maybe even more than that.
But certainly if you look around you and the great extinction happening, you might be right to say that our minds allow us a certain mastery over all other life on the planet... not that our fate as a species is to populate the planet forever.... I gotta say, I love Ed - more often than not he comes up with better explanations of why I believe the way I do than I do myself.
I come away from this thread with a stronger belief in my world stance - that anything that smacks of the supernatural or mystical or universal mind or something is unnecessary and wrong-headed thinking.
Of all of the things that exasperate me the most on this subject is the inference that the "merely mechanistic" is somehow less interesting and/or profound than the spiritual or religious or metaphysical ideas conjured up by us humans. Seems to me, it is clearly the other way around. The more we learn about about the natural world, the more it proves to be infinitely more interesting and profound than any of the spiritual or philosophical constructs that we humans have ever come up with.
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 12, 2011 - 11:08pm PT
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Even a blade of grass has consciousness ......
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Sep 12, 2011 - 11:22pm PT
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ee, you're pretty good with words yourself, tfpu.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 13, 2011 - 01:48am PT
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Largo's tried to divorce himself from this thread, but he cannot, and he also feels he can't kill it... so here is a cross post of sorts:
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... all the combinations are formed as a result of the automatic action of the subliminal ego, but those only which are interesting find their way into the field of consciousness... A few only are harmonious, and consequently at once useful and beautiful, and they will be capable of affecting the geometrician's special sensibility I have been speaking of; which, once aroused, will direct our attention upon them, and will thus give them the opportunity of becoming conscious... In the subliminal ego, on the contrary, there reigns what I would call liberty, if one could give this name to the mere absence of discipline and to disorder born of chance."
-Henri Poincaré Science and Method 1914
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 13, 2011 - 02:49am PT
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ah Donald... maybe if you had produced such wonderful mathematics and science we'd give you a pass for your adolescent conceits too...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 13, 2011 - 03:02am PT
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I don't get a pass...
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 13, 2011 - 11:02pm PT
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You can keep attempting to separate content (qual) from mind (experience / processing), but from my perspective it is an artificial distinction whose only utility is to your argument. I would posit there is no distinction between experience and content at all - it's all experience.
You've lost your way. Seeing the basics is hard, but doable.
Your "experience" is the overall Gestalt, the whole Mo Fo, all the parts included, and that includes the ever slippery 1st person subjective shizat of HAVING experience in real time - qualia, a word I'm coming to hate.
Differentiating "experience" as such is a totally different thing than saying (as I mentioned), quite falsely, that "running" is something different from and beyond the movements of a moving body through time and space. This is the logic you're using to frame your "experience and content are the same," and the now tired "meat brain does consciousness."
"Experience" is different than content because self awareness is not content, but the net through which content passes, and which, though ungraspable, is always with us so long as we are "sane."
I think you're not getting the basic concept that awareness has no inherent content, and that the "watcher" is entirely "empty," to use Zen phraseology. Something that has no qualities or content can hardly be said to exist - and that's the paradox right there. Our most basic "I" has no content beyond boundless compassion - that's why "God" often gets dragged into these discussions.
In fact, you're half right - the duality between experience and what you experience can be overcome during boundary experiences or out on the sharp end, but it's equally true to say that all content is impermanent, that we are NOT our feelings and thoughts, and the "emptiness" or no-mind is our true nature.
Go figure . . .
JL
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MH2
climber
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Sep 13, 2011 - 11:10pm PT
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Your "experience" is the overall Gestalt, the who Mo Fo, all the parts included, and that includes the ever slippery 1st person subjective shizat of HAVING experience in real time
"Experience" is different than content because self awareness is not content, but the net through which content passes, and which, though ungraspable, is always with us so long as we are "sane."
I think you're not getting the basic concept that awareness has no inherent content, and that the "watcher" is entirely "empty," to use Zen phraseology. Something that has no qualities or content can hardly be said to exist - and that's the paradox right there.
Trolling with koan?
"It consists of a story, dialogue, question, or statement, the meaning of which cannot be understood by rational thinking but may be accessible through intuition."
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 13, 2011 - 11:56pm PT
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"Experience" is different than content because self awareness is not content, but the net through which content passes, and which, though ungraspable, is always with us so long as we are "sane."
Au contraire, I'd say you're the one still not getting it and that the underlined phrase above is the sticking point. I summarily disagree with that and the follow-on assertions that "self-awareness is not content" and that 'it' is "ungraspable". I would again posit "content" and "experience" are expressions of a duality wherein each is simultaneous both 'content' and 'processing' and one is no different than the other.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Sep 14, 2011 - 02:34am PT
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FortMental
The sophism is very clear. The sophists were proud they could sell anything to anybody within a crowd.
If Largo exemplifies - then he could have a chance to start making sense. If he does not exemplify I have to conclude - all those words were only empty sophism. But I still have a feeling that he is trying to say something, so it is up to you Largo, exemplify and you have the chance to start saying something instead of all those empty phrases.
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Paul Martzen
Trad climber
Fresno
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Sep 14, 2011 - 02:54am PT
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Thanks for that summation of phrases Fort Mental. I was thinking along the same lines that these phrases are very much "Top down", "Teacher to dull student", "Superior to inferior". I very much appreciate those who give their ideas as if to equals and without arrogance or reprimands.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 14, 2011 - 03:16am PT
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For starters, if you don't think I'm going to troll people on this thread, you're dead ass wrong. I get hosed by most everyone here for not being a physicalist, so take your licks and like it you panty wastes. And I don't take this all that seriously either. It is, after all, all talk.
H said: But, Au contraire, I'd say you're the one still not getting it and that the underlined phrase above is the sticking point. I summarily disagree with that and the follow-on assertions that "self-awareness is not content" and that 'it' is "ungraspable".
Raw awareness is just that - the experiential faculty of being aware. In the sense that awareness is a net - metaphorically speaking - that "grasps" thoughts and sights and sounds and memories (content) as they arise, by what manner do you, unaided, in your direct, 1st person subject experience, "grasp" raw awareness. And of course I'm not talking about rigging up a pet scan or qEEG and looking at the output of the meat brain and saying that I am grasping awareness. What's more, once you grasp your self awareness, the very heart of the "faceless witness," what content or qualities to you see belonging to awareness which is not just other qual in the net?
Have fun.
Of course I fully expect you to default out into digital babble or machine talk but I hold out hope that "you" can describe how you can experientially grasp awareness. And no, you cannot say that by grasping content you are also grasping awareness, them being the same thing. That's crapola and you know it.
JL
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 14, 2011 - 03:34am PT
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Of course I fully expect you to default out into digital babble or machine talk...
Again you persist with this form of naive / dismissive 'digital' and 'machine' talk even after I've repeatedly stated I don't believe it will ever be possible to build such machines - digital or otherwise. The level of meat complexity at even the neuron/synapse level is so far beyond those relatively weak concepts as to be pretty laughable. The current state-of-the-art in just replicating a [crude approximation of a] neuron is quite the task without getting into issues of differentiation, physical self-organization, and macro architecture.
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