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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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Meatbird
Social climber
Lindsay, OK
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Sep 14, 2011 - 08:17am PT
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Being a lifelong student of mind, I have also thought that Largo was condescending towards others who may equal or outpace his own understanding of the subject. However, not knowing him or having a good read on his 'style of discussion' I've tried to remain open minded about his comments. One thing is certain, I've enjoyed the topic and appreciate his bringing it up and pushing others to think seriously about how our minds acquire the feel for self that we obviously do. It is not an easy topic to discuss without falling prey to technical jargon that requires more than just a passing familiarity in order to have a reasonable conversation.
Without endorsing any one point of view I'd like to recommend Robert Lanza's book 'Biocentrism' which I have been surprised hasn't been mentioned in this discussion. There are many others on the topic but this is readable for a general audience and appears to me to add to the discussion. Also Antonio Damasio's 'Self Comes to Mind' is a great read for anyone interested in the nuances of how we experience consciousness.
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jstan
climber
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Sep 14, 2011 - 08:24am PT
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http://www.experienceproject.com/dictionary/definition-of/Sophistry
sophistry: n. the controversial method of an opponent, distinguished from one's own by superior insincerity and fooling. this method is that of the later sophists, a grecian sect of philosophers who began by teaching wisdom, prudence, science, art and, in brief, whatever men
ought to know, but lost themselves in a maze of quibbles and a fog of
words.
from Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary
From Socrate’s Apology
'To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know.”
I suspect sophistry was not an invention in ancient Greece so much as it is, right unto the present day, a natural trap for the unwary. We can take the present as a chance to learn. The following seem useful guides for discussion:
1. in argument the first and most difficult task is, sincerely, to convince oneself
2. when unsure of the other’s argument, admit you do not understand
3. argument is impossible if words are not fully defined
Patience is a great virtue. Modern technology presently offers new and powerful insight into neurological processing. But we need the patience to view the effort to understand it as a journey. Not as a prize to be held in the hand.
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ChampionSleeper
Trad climber
Phoenix, AZ
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Sep 14, 2011 - 11:57am PT
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Can another person's consciousness be established by an external observer? Can behavior prove concsiousness? Is another person's declaration of consciousness proof of their consciousness? Or do we think other humans are because we ourselves feel we are.
I think primarily we see other humans as conscious as an empathetic response- because we ourselves feel conscious. But doesn't that mean we have inherently poor judgement about interpreting other instances of consciousness in species or even machines that are not quite like us?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Sep 14, 2011 - 12:57pm PT
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dm, please don't be so gross. Next time, simply use an effective euphemism like the "bat in the cave" or an equivalent. That would at least be more pleasing at breakfast time as I finish my runny eggs.
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