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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 16, 2011 - 01:47am PT
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has anyone read this article:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/
it has a very good overview... and I especially liked this quote:
"One's view of the prospects for explaining consciousness will typically depend upon one's perspective. Optimistic physicalists will likely see current explanatory lapses as merely the reflection of the early stage of inquiry and sure to be remedied in the not too distant future (Dennett 1991, Searle 1992, P. M.Churchland 1995). To dualists, those same impasses will signify the bankruptcy of the physicalist program and the need to recognize consciousness as a fundamental constituent of reality in its own right (Robinson 1982, Foster 1989, 1996, Chalmers 1996). What one sees depends in part on where one stands, and the ongoing project of explaining consciousness will be accompanied by continuing debate about its status and prospects for success."
let's thank Largo for bringing it here!
I also liked this one:
"However, the relation of consciousness to brain remained very much a mystery as expressed in T. H. Huxley's famous remark,
How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djin, when Aladdin rubbed his lamp (1866)."
and the finale:
"10. Conclusion
A comprehensive understanding of consciousness will likely require theories of many types. One might usefully and without contradiction accept a diversity of models that each in their own way aim respectively to explain the physical, neural, cognitive, functional, representational and higher-order aspects of consciousness. There is unlikely to be any single theoretical perspective that suffices for explaining all the features of consciousness that we wish to understand. Thus a synthetic and pluralistic approach may provide the best road to future progress."
I think we can all find ourselves in there, somewhere...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 16, 2011 - 02:26am PT
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and this one:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/
which concludes, wisely:
"It has always been and remains impossible to resist metaphysical speculation about the fundamental nature of the world. As long has there been science, science has informed this speculation and in return metaphysics has both helped to tell us what the point of science is and paved the way for new science. Panpsychism remains an active player in this endless speculative interchange."
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Sep 16, 2011 - 02:44am PT
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Ed,
Amen. That it how it is. I go along with that as long as self-ordained priests do not exclude science and the physical world and start collecting disciples. From alchemy came chemistry and parts of medicine.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 16, 2011 - 03:06am PT
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A comprehensive understanding of consciousness will likely require theories of many types. One might usefully and without contradiction accept a diversity of models that each in their own way aim respectively to explain the physical, neural, cognitive, functional, representational and higher-order aspects of consciousness. There is unlikely to be any single theoretical perspective that suffices for explaining all the features of consciousness that we wish to understand. Thus a synthetic and pluralistic approach may provide the best road to future progress.
"A comprehensive understanding of consciousness" - I think that is a highly ambitious dream. Whether one takes black or white box approaches to one's investigation of the brain the exceptional complexity of each succeeding layer from physical synaptic electro-chemical behavior on up through the many layers of functional and cognitive organization of the brain 'understanding' in this context is an undertaking of monumental proportions which probably played a role in this decision:
DARPA Ends Brain Reverse Engineering Project
Posted 15 Mar 2007 at 21:53 UTC by steve
An article in the New Jersey Star-Ledger says DARPA has "quietly killed" their project to reverse engineering the human brain. The project, known as Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures (BICA), had been compared to other very difficult projects such as the atomic bomb or moon landing. DARPA has denied requests to explain why they dropped the project and neuroscientists who were involved said, "All we know is it's dead". The first phase was a $9.5 million project planning stage. The cancelled phase 2 was to be a $50-100 million attempt to design "psychologically-based and neurobiology-based cognitive architectures" based on the human brain. There is speculation that DARPA concluded phase 2 was simply to ambitious.
And Healjy I am not in a "CAMP" per se. I follow one line of inquiry till I get stuck. Right now I'm stuck on the gap between matter and self awareness and the more perplexing issues of 1st and 3rd person, subjective/objective POVs.
Largo, well here we can find some common ground. I'm clearly a "physicalist" / "materialist", but one who, like my compatriots, can't really can't easily make the journey from electro-chemical synaptic activity to "awareness" or vice-versa. That's because the scale of [biological / meat (chip)] complexity between point A and point B is so overwhelmingly complex at every level. That level of inherent complexity seems to translate to suggestions like "[a] synthetic and pluralistic approach" suggested in Ed's reference quote above.
It is, in other words, a 'blind men and the elephant' sort of deal where there's probably some value in each man's perspective whether their conclusions / theories are wildly off the mark or not. And if one accepts that assertion then potentially everyone - from rigid materialists to transcendental philosophers - have something to contribute.
P.S. Now that I'm better oriented to the overall context I get the feeling you've been exploring ideas along these lines:
Quantum mind / Quantum Approaches to Consciousness
And I can't say there isn't something in there for everyone - particularly meat scientists looking to get from point A to point B. From my perspective there is more than enough [physical / electrical / chemical] complexity in every layer that I sure wouldn't rule out some role for quantum mechanics / quantum fields in the mix.
In any case it's all quite fascinating and thanks for dragging most of us along on the journey...
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 16, 2011 - 03:16am PT
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"It has always been and remains impossible to resist metaphysical speculation about the fundamental nature of the world. As long has there been science, science has informed this speculation and in return metaphysics has both helped to tell us what the point of science is and paved the way for new science. Panpsychism remains an active player in this endless speculative interchange."
"!!! Resistance is futile...!!!"
The human brain seems almost hard-wired to produce metaphysical responses to lingering or intransigent unknowns. I personally suspect it's a higher-order translation of some innate, low-level survival responses to predation.
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 16, 2011 - 10:20am PT
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A comprehensive understanding of consciousness will likely require theories of many types.
This is the most defective consciousness of the modern era .......
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 16, 2011 - 10:42am PT
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Go away Fortmental nutcase. ^^^^^^
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 16, 2011 - 11:51am PT
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it's great to watch Largo crashing around in the china shop of ideas trying to get a grip on a problem that has been important to him throughout his life... and others with viewpoints so at odds with my own (so this is totally selfish). The arguments are not particularly new, but they help frame our own ideas and prune out the stuff that doesn't work, and strengthen the stuff that does.
What's more, the whole thread has opened me up to a literature that I hadn't been following, and while it seems rather a stretch in many instances, serious people have been putting effort into having serious thoughts about the matter... new ideas, especially ones that I wouldn't have, are challenging and worth working through.
So thanks to Werner, Karl, Jan and Largo and their non-physicalists thoughts... I don't think Karl's prediction that my incipient spiritualism will burst out will ever be realized, but I thank him for that sentiment.
How can serious thinking on serious ideas ever be wasted time?
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jstan
climber
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Sep 16, 2011 - 01:40pm PT
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What I gained:
1. the electrodynamics of the synapse is a fascinating subject
2. evolution has created a brain that puts unsuspected processing between us and our surroundings
3. looking for "the answer" implies one does not appreciate the magnitude of the problem
4. neurological research is a hot topic. Much is being learned.
When I have a voltmeter, (the brain is like a voltmeter) that I don't trust, using that voltmeter to debug itself is not one's first choice. Go get two other voltmeters and compare their readings. If one is into the N person experience infinite loop, also get two other people and compare their readings of the voltages.
There is a trick, though. Your conclusions have to be affected by the other readings.
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MH2
climber
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Sep 16, 2011 - 02:26pm PT
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Back in my neuroscience days we didn't consider higher mental function accessible to study, so people could say whatever they wanted to about it without much fear of contradiction.
However, it was surprising to go to a link JL posted and come across the name Rodolfo R. Llinás, who I knew primarily as a specialist on the cerebellum back in the 70s.
Llinás, perhaps in dotage, undertook a synthesis of his work and that of others and I happen to like what he has to say as a provisional way to look at what we experience as awareness.
In order to move purposefully and skillfully, animals need to know the size, shape, forces acting on and forces capable of being applied by their bodies. This information is represented in the brain in what Llinás calls sensorimotor images.
When Dingus looks in the mirror and sees a booger in his nose, he recognizes himself, the booger, where the booger is, feels the impulse to remove it, and can bring a finger to his nose, even if we take away the mirror. Body awareness.
It may be too close to us or we may be too used to it to notice, but I am thinking that a large part of what we feel to be our self is composed of this sensorimotor awareness. And that may be accessible to scientific study.
There is other stuff we see in our awareness, but that, in my personal view, is more like entertainment than fundamental to our sense of self.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Sep 16, 2011 - 02:43pm PT
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FortMental,
Yes, it is ironic, and I hate silly sentimental endings, and so they lived... In my view Largo was a wannabe awareness hero and WBraun his choirboy, nearly not able to house the human spirit at all.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Sep 16, 2011 - 02:44pm PT
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Ed writes:
I don't think Karl's prediction that my incipient spiritualism will burst out will ever be realized, but I thank him for that sentiment.
Ironically, it almost doesn't matter what you think on the subject Ed. The Mind is the tip of an iceberg, our tool for navigating the world. There is a power of awareness in consciousness that is non-linear and comprehensive, not to mention our inner intelligence that somehow builds proteins out of amino acids and rebuilds cells with it and still manages to get a D in Biochem at the mental level.
Our minds are more powerful, and our "Spirit" shines through more clearly, when our minds are focused or quiet and not lame and random. That's why climbing feels good at some level, even your scientific work brings you into the here and now focused on your work.
Spirituality: if you have a sensitivity to beauty, if you enjoy your own being, if you have an affection for other people, you are connected at levels your mind may be unaware of. People who have mental addictions to spiritual though may just be soothing their insecurities or wanting to belong to something (or may be solidly on their path)
Bottom line ability to Love widely and an ineffable sense of presence are the hallmarks of real spirituality. I feel like Ed's got that whether he likes it or not
Peace
Karl
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Sep 16, 2011 - 03:15pm PT
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Karl
Verbal confrontation - and dialogue where there is an opening.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 16, 2011 - 04:57pm PT
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the gap
"Our current inability to supply a suitably intelligible link is sometimes described, following Joseph Levine (1983), as the existence of an explanatory gap, and as indicating our incomplete understanding of how consciousness might depend upon a nonconscious substrate, especially a physical substrate."
probably true...
it brings to mind a parable from India... re-written for a Victorian audience by John Godfrey Saxe,
here are the last two stanzas:
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO
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Sep 16, 2011 - 09:29pm PT
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Ed Hartouni is emerging as my hero on this thread. First, because I agree with him; second because I can understand what he says. Largo would be more of a hero to me if he would edit his posts more, to wit: until they were as understandable as possible. I am not too stupid to understand well written material and I give no one extra points or slack just because I don't understand all they say.
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MH2
climber
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Sep 17, 2011 - 11:35am PT
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Nicely expressed, Riley.
And coz. Yes. Self-awareness and conscious thought disappear on the run-out on hard new rock.
from DMT
Yes I think watching someone glance in a mirror to check their appearance, seeing them detect a booger hanging from their nostril, removing it and then checking to see if its really gone, PROVES consciousness, or at least demonstrates it very strongly.
You need a mirror to understand what other people see when they look at you. I think that was the point I was striving toward - the act of looking in the mirror and preening is mainly one of social consideration.
So I may have misunderstood. Perhaps you are talking about self-consciousness as in, "I wonder if I have lettuce stuck on my teeth?"
I'm guessing that isn't what other posters here meant when they have called consciousness, "the hard problem."
All I am doing is wondering whether we have solved the "easier" problems, yet. It may seem easy for you to walk to the fridge and open it and pick up a bottle and pour into a cup. That can be done with little conscious thought, whereas if you were to write a book on the nature of consciousness, it might take a bit of thought and time. However, I think we are closer to designing a machine to write the book than to a machine which will fetch your drink from the fridge.
Do we have cars that drive themselves? That's a comparatively well defined problem to solve. I want a machine that I can tell to clean the house, mow the lawn, put out the garbage, and then bring me a drink. And then sing a lullaby to Grandma in the upstairs room.
There is a possibility that simply solving the problems of moving around in the real world and being able to manipulate the variety of objects in it will also solve the problem of consciousness. Or go some ways towards it, at least.
I am just trying to take a step back, here. What I begin to see is a person going around looking for their glasses (=consciousness) and failing to notice that they are right in front of them.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 17, 2011 - 12:21pm PT
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it is one thing to have an intuition about what consciousness and mind, etc are, and quite another to be able to start to write down what it is in such a way that it makes sense and can be used.
While I'm a "physicalist" I cannot provide a detailed theory of mind "from the ground up." I believe that such a thing is possible, but the way I see it all happening now is probably incorrect. The challenge from the "non-physicalists" are important and must be addressed, and this works the other way too.
Reading the long article I linked above clearly pointed out the core idea which grounds my thinking, that is basically that there are no phenomena which require that the physical universe be infused with anything other than what is physical. It sounds simple. In terms of "mind" it means that there is not "property of mind" which is an aspect of "stuff" required to explain the universe. Generalizing the human experience of consciousness and making it a property of material, an other dimension, is not required to animate the universe... our physical theories do quite well without the help of these extra dimensions.
Now my basic approach is to go along that path and build up the theory, rather than having extended conversations regarding the philosophical foundations of any one approach. We simply don't know which approach is going to be productive, and many ultimately failing approaches can still provide important scaffolding for the eventual edifice. But we are not there yet by a long shot.
Another thing to be mindful of is that at this stage where we do not have a working physical model of mind or consciousness: to be attentive of experience of mind and consciousness. One trap we fall into on both sides of this debate is to make quite general statements based on one particular set of experiences. There are many different experiences and variations of mind/consciousness, in the extreme these differences can be due to physical and psychological trauma, but also to physiological variability as our particular "instantiation" of human has a degree of variability built into it. For example, it seems from what I have read that autistic people experience mind/consciousness very differently from mine. It seems that many details of how I experience mind/consciousness might be different than you reading this post.
My point here is that these differences help sharpen our concepts of mind/consciousness, and ultimately any explanation will have to deal with the nature of these variances.
Finally, there are some very deep criticisms of the physicalist's point of view which are quite valid. It is ultimately unsatisfactory for those seeking a deeper meaning to a human life, their own life, to meet with the response that such meaning does not exist as a part of the larger scheme of things. That is the other edge of the sword, as it were, wielded by those who would seek to explain the universe by its material properties only. The mind/consciousness experience gives us the ability, and perhaps the responsibility, to define that meaning ourselves, not just as individuals, but as a part of a community of living things that temporarily occupy this tiny spot in the universe.
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 17, 2011 - 08:34pm PT
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Where are the images and ideas from dreams located in the brain
They're not in there.
They're on the main server of life.
The brain is only a transparent medium.
The brain is a lump of matter, it does not have independent power with which to act.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Sep 18, 2011 - 03:20am PT
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WBraun writes "The brain is a lump of matter, it does not have independent power with which to act." Strange, who wrote those words? Was it god using the hand of WBraun? I guess you are talking about yourself - this is the answer introspection and excessive bible-reading or church-going has brought to you. Do you consider yourself a medium for god? His left hand so to say?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Sep 18, 2011 - 08:06am PT
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Marlow-
Don't jump to conclusions.
You got the wrong religion with the wrong person there.
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