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MikeL
Trad climber
SANTA CLARA
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Oct 30, 2011 - 12:54pm PT
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Marlow said, . . . to be able to do this he has to empty his mind somewhere and now he is doing it in this thread.
Hey, Marlow . . . .
I'm guilty of that regularly. I don't think I've ever had an original thought on my own ever. I steal and repackage others' thinking, and I practice my articulation and delivery a lot with my students and wife.
As Karl Weick wrote, "I don't know what I mean until I see what I say."
It seems important that we have conversations with others to create dialogues rather than simple discussions. (I think the root etymology of discussion was "to throw things over a wall.") When we have dialogues, what we say shifts in meaning as it goes through another and the other adds-on.
It's far easier to make discoveries when when there are others to help. When one is alone, one must imagine others to assist in the process of dialogue.
I would greatly recommend Mary Watkins book, Invisible Guests. Watkins provides compelling evidence and a discussion about people who have conversations with invisible others that help them (e.g., artists creating their art).
I've had some personal experience with this and had wondered how it happened. I think that anyone who has attempted to create something from nothing (e.g., writing, painting, science) has experienced conversations going on in their heads. Composers and authors, for example, report what seems to be separate personalities talking to them in their heads. Those people report that they never could have come up with some of their ideas on their own, as they had no previous knowledge or experience to draw on.
Muses? Well, maybe.
My points are two: One, we need others to work with, to help us create from nothing, to help us understand our own thinking. I'll grant that sometimes the conversations really wander about. Two, would it be possible for a sane mind to create an autonomous other without qualifying it as crazy?
Oh, Yeah?
Well, that's pretty crazy, too.
Add another function to the functions of mind.
Be well.
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Oct 30, 2011 - 01:14pm PT
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Jan,
In my "mind," I have seen JL moving his ideas from the original post (which I have read a number of times) to something more nebulous as the thread has moved along. Sort of like baiting, but not in any mean way.
He has introduced a long list of terms without offering much in the way of hard definitions. That is what baffles me. It is almost like he doesn't want or will not accept any answer.
He seems to toss any idea involving a scientific approach, as if that is his whole point.
The topic of what consciousness is, is a topic that I think any curious person would be willing to discuss, but this thread has been a wild ride of new terminology with vague or no effort at definition.
I see no need to be so cryptic, as I have occasionally pulled the cursor over a phrase in the Google toolbar and been led to places like wiki which readily explain some of the terms.
In other words, it is sort of a one sided discussion. At this point I feel confident that JL has always known his position on whatever the angle was, at any point, but has been trolling guys like Ed into pulling their hair out.
My two cents. Nothing mean intended.
Perhaps we are observing a first person subjective conversation.
I'm getting tired of it. If it were someone besides JL yacking, I bet this thread would have died in a single post.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Oct 30, 2011 - 01:27pm PT
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MikeL
In my mind I can imagine that there is something or some nonthing or some other thing telling me what I want to do, telling me what I should do or should have done and at some level making choices. They are quite well integrated and seldom shouting at each other. And as you say it is nothing original about that. The words we use have been used by others before and will be used by others after us. Our feelings connected to different actions are also to a great extent socially constructed or conditioned - take the feeling of shame or inferiority as examples.
And confrontation is an important part of dialogue, both inquiry and confrontation are necessary.
Have a good time!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Oct 30, 2011 - 01:35pm PT
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Marlow-
Not sure what you're getting at here. Largo and I have never met; I know him only through his climbing books and what he writes on ST. I guess I find him interesting because he does combine Buddhist thought on the one hand with the most incredibly convoluted western philosophical reasoning on the other. Most of us lean one direction or the other; he seems to manage both.
When he speaks about western philosophy, the challenge for me is to try to fathom what he is saying. When he speaks about meditation, the unconscious mind and eastern philosophy, then he is on familiar ground for me. I guess like most people who have delved deeply into different societies, religions,and cultures, he and I share a hope that somehow the two can be united. I approach these questions from more of a right brain perspective while he obviously approaches them on this thread at least, more from the verbal left brain perspective.
As far as friendships go, mine range from Ed who is outstanding for his calmly reasoned and entirely consistent stance, though it's different from mine, and Tom Cochrane whose mind flies more along the lines I enjoy. It's fun to exchange ideas with people who think like we do. It's probably more useful to speak with those who don't.So perhaps, you can learn more from someone like Largo than those on this thread with whom you agree just as I can learn more from talking to the hard core materialists than I will discussing the same ideas with social science or humanities people. It's worth a try anyway.
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MH2
climber
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Oct 30, 2011 - 01:45pm PT
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NO. HE HAS NOT ENVISIONED A SIMULATION OF THINKING.
?
From the excerpt you provided:
And supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think, feel, and have experience
DON’T BE SILLY HERE. THE MACHINE LIBNIZ IS TALKING ABOUT IS A GIANT VERSION OF OURSELVES, AND YES, HIS INABILITY TO FIND IT IS THE KEY. WHY CAN’T HE FIND IT IN THE MACHINE, MH2? THAT’S THE QUESTION. KINDLY ANSWER IT DIRECTLY.
Please bear in mind that for Leibniz, this was a thought experiment only. There was nothing to look at and nothing to look for. He did not offer a proof. And, like the parallel postulate for Euclid, things that once seemed self-evident may turn out not to be.
Compare theoretical and experimental physics. Each is important to the other and they play different roles in advancing our understanding of the physical world. When a theorist has an idea, if the idea has new predictive power, it must be put to the test by experiment.
This is where Leibniz' idea of a thinking, feeling, experiencing machine differs from something like the cortical simulations. I have no idea what Leibniz imagined he was looking for. I do know what the "Cat is Out of the Bag" team were looking for: a square.
Of course, neither the brain nor the cortical simulation has a square inside it as you would draw one with pencil and paper. What they have is a representation of a square.
When we look into the activity of the cortical simulator, after presenting a square to its view, we know we are looking for a square, and we see it. We can see that small example of experience in vast detail and glory as the representation of the square propagates through the simulation.
The cortical simulation also has been fed with auditory inputs. Reading the alphabet to it, again we know what to look for, and we can find activity representing "A", "B", etc.
It adds an important extra dimension to have a way to test an idea, rather than just consider it as Leibniz did.
Having the Leibniz example is very useful to explore aspects of this discussion.
I see Leibniz' conception as lacking an important ingredient. To illustrate, let us suppose that his machine has been modeled on a violinist. Leibniz is inside it looking at figures and motions that make no sense to him. Then he hears music he recognizes and he sees that it is coordinated to the figures and motions. He needs that kind of Helen Keller moment to associate the figures and motions with experience. If you are willing to suppose such a machine as Leibniz describes, it pretty much follows that the machine experiences, even if it looks weird to an observer. Again, according to the words used by Leibniz, "supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think, feel, and have experience."
To be fair, what Leibniz concludes is that we would not find anything to explain an experience. This is where it would be helpful to have a more complete account, if possible, of what he said. As a powerful thinker, Leibniz would likely have gone into more detail on what is required to explain an experience, and why those requirements cannot be met by viewing the innards of a thinking, feeling, experiencing machine.
To be beyond fair, Leibniz is a powerful enough thinker that even if he only had the whisper of a hint of an intuition that "parts which work one upon another" are not sufficient to account for something, I would doubt myself more than him.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Oct 30, 2011 - 01:47pm PT
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Base-
The chief service of JL that I have seen on this thread, is to get us away from antagonistic titles like God, religion, and politics vs science. By leaving God out of it and talking about mind instead, we have gotten a lot further in my opinion. At least I have.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Oct 30, 2011 - 01:55pm PT
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Jan,
Now you are painting the world in the colors you want.
Wasn't it Largo who was talking about scientism and nazi-science? Other voices than Largo's were at the forefront when healing the Largo-nazi-science-wound.
I want this theme to be dead, but I had to remind you.
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Oct 30, 2011 - 01:59pm PT
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Ahh, if it were religion I wouldn't be too surprised. Lots of those pop up. I just can't figure out what the hell he is talking about half the time.
BTW, the original post directly attacked science and the value of "measuring" things. Politely, so it is all fine and good. Shoot, I am trying to be polite and hopefully it will be read that way.
Hey. Sure wish I could get one of those 12 hour tantric orgasms. I read that Sting could keep it up for days or somethin. Not hitting you up or anything. Work on it with the wife!
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Oct 30, 2011 - 02:05pm PT
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Yeah, Marlow.
As a scientist, I open my arms to any intellectual attack. Science isn't a sacred cow.
I just wish JL would be clear. It is obvious that he is far more well read on these topics than he shares.
Is he making a statement of truth?
Is he looking for answers?
I think that he is fairly confident in his answers. So it isn't much of a debate. In that case, he should teach us. I'm all ears.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Oct 30, 2011 - 02:09pm PT
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Well I can't figure out what the hell he is talking about most of the time either. But that's the interesting part in my opinion - trying to decide if he's really that smart or I'm really that unable to follow genius.
One thing that occured to me though in regard to you is that your descriptions of being alone in the arctic for weeks at a time sound an awful lot like what meditators aim for and in a much more interesting environment than a dojo.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Oct 30, 2011 - 02:11pm PT
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Too much frontal lobe thinking encourages limbic responses like religious fundamentalism
Aghast am I, a simple thread
That such a thing could be!
A limbic rests within my head!
Vile thing that makes me, me!
Now I know its evil side
Religion so depraved . . .
Horrors that within abide
Bill Maher . . . can I be saved?!
That logic could a vandal be
Destroying in its gaze
The precious gifts of art we see
That guide us through life’s maze
Before, I was seduced and led
But now I clearly see
When logic rears its wiley head
I’ll cast the wretch from me!!
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Oct 30, 2011 - 02:16pm PT
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Base
I agree - critisism of science is important, but only in particularity and not as abstract criticism of science as a whole. That is just bad thinking.
Jan
Be careful not to take bad thinking for genius. Clearly written is clearly thought. Unclear writing is unclear thinking.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 30, 2011 - 02:20pm PT
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Jan likes to push the "right/left" brain thing, but my confusion is not with the concept, which I too am familiar with through first person experience, but with the mode of the discussion.
Basically I find Largo rejects without support anything which questions his prime argument, which is somewhat loosely stated: "consciousness is something that can't be explained, nan a nan a nan a." That is true when you reject any attempt at its explanation.
Jan also misses a large part of what I've hypothesized, which contains the parts she is so eager to defend... let me state again that there are many parts of our mental state, the discursive being only one part and the one we associate foremost with consciousness now. Other parts operate quite outside of what we've learned to call "our consciousness." It doesn't surprise me at all that people have learned how to utilize different mental states...
...a possible scientific explanation of all this is the possibility that there are multiple behaviors that have been adapted over millions of years, a "patchwork" of behaviors that work in concert, and are dominant when they need to be quite transparent to our "consciousness," which I would posit exists for a specific purpose (at least originally), that purpose being our ability to describe ourselves in a group.
Ants do it, with a reduced set of "states" by chemical communication, first, "I'm a member of the colony" chemicals, then "I've found something good to eat" chemicals... also "I'm dead" chemicals, "I'm the bad ass queen" chemicals, etc... this rudimentary form of communication is sufficiently complex, when combined together in large groups to form quite sophisticated behavior, sophisticated enough that ants, taken as a group of insects, are estimated to represent 15-25% of the terrestrial animal biomass. Ants have also been around for about 100 million years...
The behaviors that ants have are the result of evolution, and many of the attributes of ants are adapted from ancestral attributes which served other purposes (e.g. pheromone production appropriated venom production...).
The success of ants is attributed to their social organization. Of course, "social organization" is not a physical thing in Largo's way of looking at the world, you can't point at an ant and say:
"Look here, there is the social organization thingy of an ant which demonstrates physical causality and therefore all those stuffy Harvard profs who make themselves silly singing the praise of ants in mathematically appropriate stanzas are soooo right"
Obviously, "social organization" is a set of behaviors, and successful behaviors as expressed by through the genetic makeup of an individual ant, and passed through heredity. Somewhere in the genetic material of ants is the stuff which eventually expresses these behaviors.
Ant genetic material is not so much different from human genetic material (another displacement of humans from the "center of the universe," we ain't special). It isn't so surprising that the success of "social organization" would represent a successful evolutionary strategy, and that it would be a behavior which we find examples of in unrelated lineages, convergent evolution... if this baffles you think "birds and bats."
But whoa as me, I can hear the complaints that "ants got nothing to do with the first person experience" and that "turning things around ain't fair and proper" and that "the 'science mind' can't possibly understand us 'artists' minds."
That is what baffles me... now I agree that insisting that there be some physical origin for these things makes it all a "hard problem" but you don't solve such things by adopting the easy way out, a deus ex machina whose raison d'être is to misunderstand such ancient admonitions: 道可道，非常道 which are probably quite misunderstood, and used to circle back around to essentially say, "we don't understand, therefore we can't understand."
So I can readily accept the position of some who say "it's too complicated to understand in terms of science" and go off to find their own ways of understanding, but I don't understand how deciding that is what they are going to do, it is a fool's errand to pursue the "path of science" to seek the answer. After all, there are many paths...
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Oct 30, 2011 - 02:35pm PT
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Oh, I think that science should not be regarded as special in any way.
Even the Grand Ruler mullahs of Iran seem to put some stock in their nuclear physicists and engineers.
Maybe they will bless the bombs, though.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Oct 30, 2011 - 02:51pm PT
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Bemused am I,
on yet another thread.
Striving for balance,
it’s fanatics I dread.
Woo woo and art, veer to the right.
Engineering to the left,
backed with science’s might.
Then comes philosophy
Baffling us all.
Genius or BS, that is the call.
Climbing perhaps is an answer of sorts
No Existential doubts
Just climbers and warts.
Wine is cheap and full of might
Dreams are clever and everything right
Tunnels and visions, there is the light.
And so to you all, a very good night.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 30, 2011 - 03:43pm PT
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good one Jan...
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Oct 30, 2011 - 04:27pm PT
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Jan,
I love philosophy. It is thinking about such fundamental ideas.
My favorite topic is still the nature of reality.
Sorry to wander.
I guess JL is working out on Sunday morning. Hope he doesn't think we haven't been picking on him.
Gill. Man. You are seriously witty.
I gotta go work. I am almost in the 1%. What I have been hoping to achieve my entire life.
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MikeL
Trad climber
SANTA CLARA
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Oct 30, 2011 - 08:11pm PT
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Marlow said, confrontation is an important part of dialogue, both inquiry and confrontation are necessary.
Agreed. But no ad hominem, check?
Ed. Ants? Really? Social organization explains or is consciousness? (Did I misunderstand?) I'll recall Largo back from the dead: one is objective, the other subjective.
You really need a bridge. That bridge must transduce or transform one kind of criteria into another kind of criteria. Again, incommensurability.
I mean it has been done from analog to digital (visuals, sound)--but that was within the same fields.
(Of course, I'm hoping that someone here can delineate what the elements of subjectivity are to begin with--but that's ok for now.)
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wack-N-dangle
Gym climber
the ground up
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Oct 30, 2011 - 10:04pm PT
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A gift for the man who has everything?
razor
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 30, 2011 - 10:29pm PT
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MikeL
you surprise me... but I guess you think consciousness is something "special"
if you ask an ant about social organization, consciousness, etc, you won't get much of an answer
I have it on good authority that they operate in a non-discursive state, just letting their experience flow... and they accomplish many things that a single ant cannot possibly do...
estimates put the number of individual ants to be something like 1e16-1e17, with a total mass of between 900 to 9000 million tonnes, humans weigh in around 335 million tonnes, and about 7 billion individuals (there are 10 to 100 million more individual ants).
No doubt which is the more successful... ants.
While we sit around contemplating just how wonderful our species is, and how accomplished, and how oh so smart... the ants are doing their thing (probably in your pantry) as they have been for 100 million years...
considerable human resources go into defeating these ants, yet their behavior is quite sophisticated. Fire ants in the southern part of the country result in an estimated $691 Million in "damage" annually...
such a simple animal... a few simple rules of organization, evolutionary derived, and a match for our "high functioning" thought...
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