Evolution Of The Eye

[Maximius]

Guys, Im too busy at work to respond to all the points right now, let me get home and Ill defend myself.

[Maximius]

This will be a long reply so bear with me please.

 

gildoran:This somehow seems like a fallacy to me. A model is by definition a simplification... a model to explain anger, which being simple enough for a human to understand, is necessarily simplified or limited in scope to an extent that it no longer fully predicts or explains every aspect of the real thing. However, this doesn't mean that there's anything non-physical about the mechanisms that produce anger.

 

I agree that models are useful simplifications but my point is that some simplifications go way too far. There are literally no models that we can construct that will capture what people experience as anger. You may model the regions and chemical states and such that seem associated with the feeling of anger but thats only half the picture, maybe even less. Only what you feel as anger can be called anger, and that is as unique experience for each individual as is any other aspect of their consciousness. The best available models of such a thing as anger are autobiographical accounts of it.

 

The physical roots of that anger may even be the same for all people (for example my "mechanism"), but the total product, of which the only evidence we have is your own account of your own anger is a melange of the states that make up you, individually. This interplay of states is the immaterial aspect of consciousness I am referring to, no magical substances but rather what some have termed "emergent order" out of Which leads me to the point that they are "more complex that the states that produce them." I should say the processes that give rise to mental states, for clarity. As I understand the mind, its this collection of microstates that seems to work in concert to produce macrostates of ordered information, of meaningful symbols. When I get angry, certain chemicals are released, certain things go "click." But then that process is unfolding within a multiplicity of other processes that feed into it, informing it, changing it. The Holo-Deck from Star Trek comes to mind. Surely all of it has a physical basis somewhere in the brain, maybe more than one place. But each of those places are only one subset of the thing we call our conscious minds. It is the interplay of those microprocesses, informing and altering one another constantly, that literally is our consciousness. The whole cannot be reduced to the parts because to do so is to ignore the process for the parts, the forest for the individual tree.

 

gildoran: ...and you know this how? People are notoriously bad at analyzing how they think. For example, studies have found when you make a decision to do something, it can be detected from your brain almost as much as a second before you're even aware that you've made up your mind. At the very least, that suggests that what we intuitively "know" about human thought is likely a load of bunk.

 

Then how do you know that you know that you've made up your mind when you think that you made up your mind? By your own critique your own counter example lies slain, sir. How do you know that the only time you have dealt with an idea is at the point you remember it? The conscious process may in fact have points in it where you consciously deal with something at points 1,2 , and 3 but only remember dealing with it at point 3. (See Daniel Dennett in Freedom Evolves for this) And why dismiss what people claim to know about their experiences? You would dismiss an individuals account of their anger over what, a collection of brain scan charts?

 

I know what I've claimed because I know that the mind, not to be confused with the brain, is a process composed of numerous concurrently running processes. Out of those processes arises some sort of symbol set or tool kit or something that can then be further arranged within the inner space of the conscious mind. Point to one, two, three of the sub-systems at work and you have only pointed to aspects of that mind, not the mind itself. True they all have a physical basis but that is only their basis, not the entirety of their existence. Because part of that existence takes place in this interplay of states, the crossing of the material processes and their immaterial products. Things like "hope" or "meaning" or "love." The wild stars over a snowy field blasting you with their frigid light. The cascade of satisfaction as you sip deeply at the evenings first beer. All of which have some physical aspects but all of which too share an immaterial aspect, one that exists ONLY in the intersection of those microstates. Nothing magical, more like a sort of biological hologram viewer or something.

 

gildoran: Furthermore, if the mind originated outside of the brain, I would expect the opposite of the study to be the case.

 

I never said that! Again, the mind is the product of a complex interplay of brain states, physical states that give rise to immaterial things such as "meaning."

 

obscurus:

Along the lines of Gildoran's comments, the only reason you can say that the physical does not account for the mental is because of the complexity of analysing the system. But this leads to a false line of thought.

There is no separation between your consciousness and the underlying neural activity that drives it. You only think there is becasue you are able to think about your own thoughts in an abstract way.

 

No, the physical cannot account entirely for the mental because the mental produces abstractions like meaning and then we use those abstractions to erect yet more complex edifices. We think our thoughts and think of our thoughts, we experience the sensory world while at the same time experiencing our inner world, the rich landscape of memories, reasons, instincts and impulses. There truly is no break between the brian and the mind, they are parts of a whole. As you point out yourself, we think (abstract) about abstractions (thoughts). Where in the meat, sir, are those dynamics lodged? The interplay of two immaterial objects?

 

obscurus:

In fact, it can be very easily shown that your consciousness is determined by your brain. For example, if a particular area of the optic lobe of the brain is destroyed, that person will not only lose their sight, but their ability to remember things they have seen, and even their ability to conceive of what sight is, or was like. It becomes like sight never existed for that person. Clearly, the consciousness of vision arises from this part of the brain. Similarly, with blindsight, a person can see without being conscious of seeing, due to brain damage.And many other mental functions have been linked not only to particular areas of the brain, but particular neurones in the brain. Things like memories are not the absolute, factual things we perceive them to be, bt rather, the brain takes vague bits and pieces of information we receive through our senses and thoughts, and then reconstructs them each time we recall them. Not only that, but every time you remember something, that memory changes slightly.

 

All you have pointed out here is that the mind has physical roots and that consciousness is a creative process. I agree with both. What I am trying to flesh out is what are we experiencing when all those things come together. Sure, unplug parts of the Holo Deck and constructs begin to flicker out. But what also flickers out is the dynamic relationship those constructs had with one another.

 

 

obscurus:You can alter the way a person thinks and feels by altering their brain. You can turn a mild mannered reserved person into a sociopath by disabling the areas of the brain that handles inhibions and empathy. This permanently changes that person's personality. Everything you think is you is defined by a particular configuration of atoms in a watery sac, and as soon as that configuration changes, you change. When you die, that sac of chemicals changes into a form that can no longer support any of the things we perceive as consciousness.

here is a link for you to consider: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=...line-news_rss20

There is no reason at all to think your consciousness is anything more than the temporary activity of neurones in your brain.

 

Sure you can turn a person from Dr. J to Mr. H by hacking out sections of his brain. You can do it too by slowing driving him mad over a period of time with a dedicated campaign of personal harrassment, by ruining his life. You can probably make a smoker quit smoking cigarettes by slicing out ones nicotine receptors. You can also try to alter the set of abstractions that individual holds about smoking with abstractions of your own, i.e. the threat of cancer, the embarrassment of bad breath. Again, the physical is surely wedded into this thing as much its immaterial products but how can you deny the interplay of those immaterial products? But Ill read that article soon.

 

sparhawk' date='Sep 19 2006, 03:16 AM' post='85092']

That's simple. If people believe the right things for the wrong reason, they are easy to be manipulated. And history shows that is the case. If people are behaving good to their fellow people because they consider this to be a virtue, that's fine. If they are good to other people because they think they get a reward in after life, then this is the wrong reason. If they do it for this, the goodness doesn't come out of their heart, it comes out of greed. And if the agenda changes so does their 'goodness'. The Nazi regime is really a good example of that. People believed in what they were told and for this believe they forfeit their own thinking. It is similar with religions as well.

 

But Im all for critiquing the wrong stuff, I just don't want to throw out any possible good stuff in the rush. We dont need religion to have moral systems but we have moral systems embedded within religious ones. They deserve study. Yes, dissect them from their trappings, on one day. But on another day, just study them as they were, let them speak for themselves as it were. There are other values to be found there I think, a glimpse at anothers experience for one.

 

sparhawk:

Actually I do enjoy some stuff that came out of it. I like churches and cathedrals (at least the old ones) because they are certainly beutifull to look at. Same to pyramids or other temples. I guess such things may have not been constructed if there were no believe. The question though is, wether this is worth it. People would have come up with other beautifull stuff nontheless, because they are creative and want to show it. I don't think that religion is neccessary for that.

 

I know you enjoy those things, I was being ironic. And its true there are beautiful things that need no religious basis. I'm only pointing out that there are beautiful things that are of a religious origin and that we must be careful not to lose sight of them as we critique the negative aspects. I'm reading the letters of Abelard and Heloise right now. Its interesting to see how skillfully each uses the text of the Bible to make (in their view) logical points and arguments

 

sparhawk:

That remains to be proven. How can make this as a statement of truth, while it is only a statement of your believe?

 

Because we can think about our thoughts. We can hold ideas of our ideas. This relationship of intangibles within out conscious minds, I demand anyone to reduce to the sum of its parts.

 

sparhawk:Ah, that's not needed. You are confusing the levels here. What you experience is your own personal configuration. The point though is: If they would discover this, and they know exactly hwo to reproduce it, guess what would happen. They could trigger the same anger everytime on a press of a button. What does this say about your anger though? You would still experience it, but if it were to become so reproducible, then your personal experience is no more than a program that executes until the chemicals involved have flown their course.

 

Not at all! To either point! I'm not confusing the levels, Im pointing out their distinctions in fact. So if a mad scientist came along and somehow hit all the right buttons, then blink, you would experience the very same anger. Well, yes. If there was a scientist who could arrange not only the physical states of your brain but the relation of ideas, thoughts to one another, then yes you would feel exactly the same state. For a half a microsecond, before you remembered that you had no reason to be angry and started to wonder what made you angry. And who is that funny bald dude with the lab coat and the ray gun thingy pointed at you?

 

sparhawk:You are again confusing levels here. The representations are just that. Representations. You can even learn to read the diagrams and experience the same. Did you know that good musicians can read the notes from the sheet and experience the music just as if they heard it? They no longer need to hear it actually, they can experience it from these little sheets that are nothign to you. If the representation is good enough it can be exchanged. If you learn to read the diagrams and interpret them correctly, you could even experience that anger just as if it were for real.

 

Oh, where is this magical place where the musicians "hold" this music in their heads? Its been exchanged for what? An idea of that music. With its multitudinous and realtime associations of memory, desire, whimsy, fantasy. Where do all of those things which constitute the idea of that music exist? Only in the intersection of all of those many inputs.

 

 

sparhaw,:This is the same as saying that humans (or any multicell organism) is more then just a lump of cells. Of course it is. That's the point of it. It wouldn't have evolved that way, if a lump of cells would have the same problems and same mechanisms as a highly complex human being. And the same is true of the mind. If the mind wouldn't be capable to achieve more than just the ingridients. If you bake a cake you need to put together all kind of ingridients. The final cake doesn't looke like a bunch of sugar, eggs, and so on. And it also tastes quite different. but nodboy would get the idea to say that the cake is something that can not be accounted for by the ingridients. You could say that you could mix it all together and eat it like this and you would have eaten the same, but of course that's not true. And if you dissemble the cake, you wont get your eggs and sugar and meal back. What you get is a dissembled cake and you might be able to infer what it was constructed from.

 

 

My particular point is that no matter the chart, diagram, or level of magnification, no process can ever fully capture the conscious experience of a mind. It is a work in constant progress, meanings bumping into meanings along with chemicals hitting receptors. Our only glimpse into it is through it, we can tear it down to understand its components but what arises from their interaction is something quite different.

And I dont agree with your cake analogy, but Ill combine my response with odditys since he takes a very similar tack with his fingernail argument. please see below.

 

 

What message? Morality has nothing to do with religion. All morality stems from simple common sense. If you want to live in a goup wiht other people, you all have to obey very obvious rules, such as not killing, raping and stealing from each other. It's really as simple as that.

As for morality towards outsiders, historically, most religons have no tolerance for outsiders at all, and they're either to be klilled, enslaved or converted.

Of course religion has evovled to keep wih with the times, but that's exactly the point, religion has never driven morality, religon has followed the morality that has naturally evolved in society.

 

But moral systems past have by and large had religious trappings. All I am calling for is a sense that although there are dated sections to these views, there is still much of value to be found. For all the reasons ive discussed above, history, literary interests, philosophy.

 

oddity:

Of course you can't describe the feeling of anger properly by pointing to chemicals and neurons and electrical signals, even though that is exactly what anger is 'made of'

 

Exactly. It is made of those things, but you still cannot fully describe it with those things. Only your own account will do, as imperfect as it may be of whats going on inside.

 

 

oddity: But if you look at atoms though an electron microscope, you can't tell that they are actually atoms in a fingernail. THey are so small and basic and far removed from your experience of a fingernail, that you can't properly make a connection between the two, you just have to accept that a fingernail, and everything else, is made of atoms, just like you'll have to accept that emotions are made of atoms and electricity

I have no problem with that at all. You're not special, just a bag of atoms.

What are a jellyfish's instincts made of? Atoms and electricity. Same thing in us, just more evolved and complex, like the rest of our bodies.

 

This is, like sparhawks cake example, not the best model to describe consciousness IMO. I prefer "emergent order" models, appeals to chaotic repeaters arising out of random values, to games where a few simple rules produce dazzingly complex ordered effects that then exert an influence on one another according to a sub-rule set. I agree we are like the jellyfish made of atoms and electricity. But this order is complex enough to give rise to hour conscious minds, the conceptual space we populate with symbols, meanings, orders of abstractions.

 

 

 

Point of information - schizophrenia is not "split personality" syndrome. That is correctly known as "Dissociative Identity Disorder" and its actual existence is questionable.

Maximius - just because consciousness "feels" like it cannot be explained by purely material processes, does not mean that this is the case. All current evidence points to the concious mind being purely a result of the activity of the brain, rather than some magical phenomenon that cannot be explained by science.

 

Consciousness doesn't merely feel like it can be explained by pure materialism, it simply cannot be. Think of your own thoughts, right this second. Think of yourself thinking of what you think I'm thinking. Where does that construct exist? Those are relations of ideas, the interplay of immaterial objects. They all ultimately have a physical root in the brains structure but their interaction, the effect they have on one another, cannot be physically quantified. It can only be experienced.

Edited September 20, 2006 by Maximius

[Gildoran]

gildoran: Furthermore, if the mind originated outside of the brain, I would expect the opposite of the study to be the case.

 

I never said that! Again, the mind is the product of a complex interplay of brain states, physical states that give rise to immaterial things such as "meaning."

I'm starting to think that where the disagreement is arising, is that you think that processes/configurations/interactions aren't purely physical, whereas other people think they are. Then when you say that the mind originates in the processes and dynamics of the brain and cannot be entirely accounted for by the physical aspects, people think you're saying that your mind cannot be explained by interaction of the atoms of your brain, and they therefore assume that you're saying it must originate from some kind of "soul" or some such.

 

If I'm understanding what you're saying correctly, it seems to me that the same things could be said about a computer chip; the programs running on the computer chip are as important as the shape of the silicon.

[Ombrenuit]

That is the longest post I have ever seen, and I didn't even write it

[obscurus]

That is the longest post I have ever seen, and I didn't even write it

 

 

Fuck, that beats some of my efforts, and I thought I had Long-Poster's Syndrome (LPS)!

[sparhawk]

I have some ideas, and I know books that have some ideas, but I don't personally think this question has been

 

Can you mention some books? I wouild be very interested in this.

[sparhawk]

This will be a long reply so bear with me please.

 

Indeed it is.

 

I agree that models are useful simplifications but my point is that some simplifications go way too far. There are literally no models that we can construct that will capture what people experience as anger.

 

We also don't have a model of what a stone feels. I doubt that we ever have a model of what somebody experiences, because this is not part of the configuration descripiton.

 

You may model the regions and chemical states and such that seem associated with the feeling of anger but thats only half the picture, maybe even less. Only what you feel as anger can be called anger, and that is as unique experience for each individual as is any other aspect of their consciousness. The best available models of such a thing as anger are autobiographical accounts of it.

 

And there weill never be more than that.

 

The physical roots of that anger may even be the same for all people (for example my "mechanism"), but the total product, of which the only evidence we have is your own account of your own anger is a melange of the states that make up you, individually.

 

And if you erproduce the same configuration you will get the same result. Best example are twins. They are as close to being identical as it possibly can be and the accounts show that they have very similar preferences as well.

 

This interplay of states is the immaterial aspect of consciousness I am referring to, no magical substances but rather what some have termed "emergent order" out of Which leads me to the point that they are "more complex that the states that produce them."

 

This reminds me of the often used proverb (in german) "Not to see the woods before the trees".

Which wood? There is no wood, there is a bunch of trees, but no wood.

 

I never said that! Again, the mind is the product of a complex interplay of brain states, physical states that give rise to immaterial things such as "meaning."

 

Well, I can agree to that.

 

No, the physical cannot account entirely for the mental because the mental produces abstractions like meaning and then we use those abstractions to erect yet more complex edifices.

 

The problem here is that the physical can indeed account for it, but as long as you are part of the process you may not be able to recognize it. As an example. We are humans and we ercognize other humans as such. But we are made out of individual cells. Now what you say is that a human can not be accounted for byjust piling up all these cells it is made of and connecting it in the same way. But if you did exactly that, what would you get? Of course you would get exactly the same human that you were reconstructing. Now when you are one of these cells what would you see? You would see a lot of your fellow cells near you. But what you would NOT see is a human. If you are a well advanced cell, you might chart all the other cells and you would get a representation of that human you are part of. But that still wouldn't make you see the human for yourself. Point is, as long as you are part of the process there are metalevels that you may never understand because you would need to be part of a higher level to get this overviwe that you need for it.

 

Not at all! To either point! I'm not confusing the levels, Im pointing out their distinctions in fact. So if a mad scientist came along and somehow hit all the right buttons, then blink, you would experience the very same anger. Well, yes. If there was a scientist who could arrange not only the physical states of your brain but the relation of ideas, thoughts to one another, then yes you would feel exactly the same state. For a half a microsecond, before you remembered that you had no reason to be angry and started to wonder what made you angry. And who is that funny bald dude with the lab coat and the ray gun thingy pointed at you?

 

If he pressed all the right buttons, then that memory wouldn't even exist. You would have the memory that made you angry, because that memory is also just part of the configuration. It might even be that, while he programs your brain to let you experience the anger, that you might experience already everything that came before it. Or when he is finished you think you did, because that probably would be part of the process as well.

 

Oh, where is this magical place where the musicians "hold" this music in their heads? Its been exchanged for what? An idea of that music.

 

Exactly. It is just that. There is no music. Music exists ONLY in the mind, because when it comes down to phyiscal analysis it is just a bunch of frequencies that have no particular meaning. Music exists only if you experience it. It is the same with colours. There is this famous Zen quote "Does a falling tree in the forrest make a noise if nobody is around to hear it?" Obviously it generates all the proper frequencies, because this is part of the physical process that is involved with the falling and rubbing together of millions of atoms. But he wouldn't make a noise in that sense as long as nobody is around to interpret these frequencies as noise.

 

With its multitudinous and realtime associations of memory, desire, whimsy, fantasy. Where do all of those things which constitute the idea of that music exist? Only in the intersection of all of those many inputs.

 

So it seems we agree.

 

My particular point is that no matter the chart, diagram, or level of magnification, no process can ever fully capture the conscious experience of a mind.

 

I doubt that. Consider a FPS game. You need a rather fast processor to make it work, right? Wrong. If you would run the same code on a machine that is incredible slow, you would still get the same game. You might get one image every few hours, but eh image would be the same nevertheless. If you simaulate the processes involved, then you would also get a mind. It may not be recognizable to you because it might take ages just to get a coherent though, but it would be the same nevertheless. As long as you follow the same procedure you will get the same result. So if you have these diagrams telling you ever single statechange, and you would follow it through, it would be the same result, only much slower. What does that mean? It means that these diagrams would indeed capture the conscious experience because this is essentially what they are. What you might not be able to proof though is where the experience takes place.

[sparhawk]

If I'm understanding what you're saying correctly, it seems to me that the same things could be said about a computer chip; the programs running on the computer chip are as important as the shape of the silicon.

 

I think you are right. There are a lot of Maximus's statements I agree with, but it seems either we are just doing different conclusions from it, or we are missunderstanding the conclusions (at least I).

[Crispy]

This reminds me of the often used proverb (in german) "Not to see the woods before the trees".

Which wood? There is no wood, there is a bunch of trees, but no wood.

That proverb is common in Australia too. It's a good one.

[demagogue]

A lot I could say, but for now, I'll take care of these:

 

Can you mention some books? I wouild be very interested in this.

 

Ok, here are two good introductory papers to get you going:

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty.../papers/ecs.pdf

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/

 

Some standard (recent) books are:

Dennett's Consciousness Explained (defending a kind of functionalism)

Chalmer's The Conscious Mind (defending property dualism)

 

A more popular book which is incredibly fun and accessible to read is:

Dennett & Hofstadter: The Mind's Eye (dealing with the "spiritual" implications of physicalism/ functionalism)

 

For more of the older classics, a list here (look at the comments below as well for others):

http://fragments.consc.net/djc/2005/01/books_in_the_ph.html

 

A very extensive on-line collection of phil of mind papers on just about every topic there is, is here.

(This is Chalmers' database. It seriously has *everything* you'd want to read about.)

 

As a few classic papers (which should all be on that page),

- Nagel's What's it like to be a bat

- Jackson's Knowledge Argument (and replies)

- Block Problems with Functionalism

- Searle's Minds, Brains, Programs (Chinese Room Argument against strong AI)

 

For now, I personally like Peter Carruthers's approach (although a few things I disagree), which is very much connected to cognitive science and emperical approaches to the brain and evolution, etc (and you can see his papers on Chalmer's page). I think functionalism is basically the way to go.

 

I'm reading the letters of Abelard and Heloise right now.

 

No shit ... that's a crazy coincidence because just last night for kicks and giggles I read Abelard's Memoirs on Calamities , which among other things recounts the love story between Abelard and Heloise -- for no good reason except I had no good idea who the hell Abelard was. He's a terrifically engaging writer, wasn't he? What amazes me was that he was writing in like 1100. I always had this impression that the *entire* 1000 years of the Dark Ages were just that, dark, but reading Abelard he really brings that period in France alive ... and you feel the spark and energy of intellectual creativity and new thinking spreading around. I loved it how the religious authorities couldn't really touch him because he put so much work in making his arguments logically airtight (for the time); he knew his arguments were better than everyone else's - he was so delightfully self-sure - and his students all loved him. I loved reading it!

Edited September 20, 2006 by demagogue

[Maximius]

I'm starting to think that where the disagreement is arising, is that you think that processes/configurations/interactions aren't purely physical, whereas other people think they are. Then when you say that the mind originates in the processes and dynamics of the brain and cannot be entirely accounted for by the physical aspects, people think you're saying that your mind cannot be explained by interaction of the atoms of your brain, and they therefore assume that you're saying it must originate from some kind of "soul" or some such.

 

If I'm understanding what you're saying correctly, it seems to me that the same things could be said about a computer chip; the programs running on the computer chip are as important as the shape of the silicon.

 

 

Yes, thats pretty much exactly where I was headed. I certainly don't believe in the existence of a soul, having as much reason to believe in one as I do a unicorn. The computer example is a good one, the silicon and palladium are the brain while the programs are the thoughts. Of course, like any model it only goes so far, but its helpful in explaining. The mind can be explained in part by the interplay of those electrons and such, but we must, due to my own personal experiences, consider that the mind can create, hold, and utilize immaterial constructs, ideas, thoughts, what have you. John Searle has written a lot about this, which I need to read.

 

It is this "inner space" which we have to consider as a distinct part of the mind/brain configuration. When you think of a pink elephant, your brain starts firing and doing all of its crap, but that process is only part of the idea of a pink elephant. that idea is a thing as much as the chair your seated in, but its a special kind of thing, an immaterial object.

[OrbWeaver]

"Inner space" is actually quite a good metaphor, as it applies equally to 3D graphics programming. The "space" in a 3D application does not actually exist anywhere, all the computer is doing is appying matrix transformations to convert one set of 3-value tuples into another. It is our interpretation of the resulting image that causes the coordinates to represent positions in "space".

[Maximius]

We also don't have a model of what a stone feels. I doubt that we ever have a model of what somebody experiences, because this is not part of the configuration descripiton.

 

Right, but my point is that since no model can capture what someone is thinking, than we can only accept their accounts of their thoughts as evidence of that thought, along with the physical components we may detect at work in the brain. But simply looking at a brain chart or a chemical sample is in no way going to capture the full complexity of the product of that process, an idea. Which is why I dismiss arguments that claim that we can understand an idea through strictly scientific explanations.

 

 

Sparhawk:

And if you erproduce the same configuration you will get the same result. Best example are twins. They are as close to being identical as it possibly can be and the accounts show that they have very similar preferences as well.

 

Thats true, but again so what? True, if you could arrange all of the things that gave rise to thought X originally than you could probably reproduce thought x. But what does this demonstrate? It certainly doesnt undermine my points. But I suspect you wrote this thinking I was thinking along the lines of what Gildoran wrote above. Did my response change anything?

 

spar:

The problem here is that the physical can indeed account for it, but as long as you are part of the process you may not be able to recognize it.

 

But I can recognize a crucial aspect of that process, my own thoughts! Or are our thoughts only this distracting illusion from clearly seeing.....what? More thoughts?

 

spar:As an example. We are humans and we ercognize other humans as such. But we are made out of individual cells. Now what you say is that a human can not be accounted for byjust piling up all these cells it is made of and connecting it in the same way. But if you did exactly that, what would you get? Of course you would get exactly the same human that you were reconstructing. Now when you are one of these cells what would you see? You would see a lot of your fellow cells near you. But what you would NOT see is a human. If you are a well advanced cell, you might chart all the other cells and you would get a representation of that human you are part of. But that still wouldn't make you see the human for yourself. Point is, as long as you are part of the process there are metalevels that you may never understand because you would need to be part of a higher level to get this overviwe that you need for it.

 

I disagree with your model again here, because it merely describes the individual parts of a greater whole. My point is that the brains processes (the individual parts) give rise to the mind (the other half of the greater whole) but then within the space of that mind exists an entire other world of objects, immaterial objects like thoughts and emotions and what have you. I think a model such as ingredients/cake or cells/human is too static to do consicousness justice.

 

spar:If he pressed all the right buttons, then that memory wouldn't even exist. You would have the memory that made you angry, because that memory is also just part of the configuration. It might even be that, while he programs your brain to let you experience the anger, that you might experience already everything that came before it. Or when he is finished you think you did, because that probably would be part of the process as well.

 

But that merely shows again that the mind has a physical basis, which I've never disputed. If one could manipulate the meat, one could manipulate the immaterial as well. No doubt. (Though you should really read Elbow Room by Dennet to see how he skillfully deals with examples like the "mad scientist brain controller, its very insightful commentary.) But this doesnt dismiss my points about the existence of an immaterial sphere of reality inside our skulls.

 

spar:Exactly. It is just that. There is no music. Music exists ONLY in the mind, because when it comes down to phyiscal analysis it is just a bunch of frequencies that have no particular meaning. Music exists only if you experience it. It is the same with colours. There is this famous Zen quote "Does a falling tree in the forrest make a noise if nobody is around to hear it?" Obviously it generates all the proper frequencies, because this is part of the physical process that is involved with the falling and rubbing together of millions of atoms. But he wouldn't make a noise in that sense as long as nobody is around to interpret these frequencies as noise.

So it seems we agree.

 

yes, I think we do here. My point in all of this is that the thought of that music cannot be reduced to the physical processes that gave rise to it. They are there, and integral to the experience of a thought about music, but they are NOT the thought itself.

 

spar:I doubt that. It means that these diagrams would indeed capture the conscious experience because this is essentially what they are. What you might not be able to proof though is where the experience takes place.

 

So if I follow the same procedure, the exact same state of chemicals, processes, and the interaction of ideas, Ill get the same brain state. I agree! As long as you will admit that there are immaterial objects involved in the process, that our ideas play a role in the construction of that particular brain state as do the neurons and electrical charges and such. And that those thoughts, although perhaps reproducible, are still not simply reducible to the physical processes that gave rise to them. So I have to take your last statement here to task: Those diagrams will only ever be diagrams, they will never capture what it is that we actually experience as a thought because how do you graph a thought? How do you quantify them? You can only ask for a description of them from the subject under study. Its a very common error in the sciences to, as one Buddhist teacher put it, mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.

[Maximius]

"Inner space" is actually quite a good metaphor, as it applies equally to 3D graphics programming. The "space" in a 3D application does not actually exist anywhere, all the computer is doing is appying matrix transformations to convert one set of 3-value tuples into another. It is our interpretation of the resulting image that causes the coordinates to represent positions in "space".

 

 

Yes, just so. The computers processes gives rise to this space, or what we interperet as a space, and then peoples it with objects as our minds are filled with thoughts. Immaterial representations, merely the charges on a neuron or on an atom of copper, but within that space vast complexity can be generated. And within that space, just as AI can interact with one another, so too can our thoughts.

 

Has anyone ever read the book "The Memory Palace of Mateo Ricci"? Its a fantastic account of a Jesuit missionary to china in the 1500/1600s. Memory Palaces are an ancient method of learning, the Romans were big on it, in which you arranged memories of important stuff in a palace in your head. Say you have to memorize a long piece of scripture. You may have a room in your palace, literally visualizing it as a palace, with the title "the Gospel of John" over the door. Inside, you would people the room with objects that would trigger memories of the actual text of the gospel. If a passage read "The Lord is my shepard" you may actually visualize a shepard or a shepards crook in that particular room. Some people, I suspect Cicero probably utilized them as well, could hold INCREDIBLE amounts of data in their heads in this manner, and were able to quote from their palaces, remember business accounts or legal cases, with absolutely no written backup at hand. They would start to "build" their palaces as young students, and work on them throughout their lives, fine tuning, repairing leaking patches, what have you. Now someone, please reduce this level of abstraction to ONLY the interaction of the meat of the brain. I dont think so. Hell, you even literally imagined yourself walking into the palace to enter one room or another, stopping in the foyer perhaps to leave oneself a grocery list or a note about the laundry.

[Maximius]

A lot I could say, but for now, I'll take care of these:

 

 

thanks for the list above, I ll be looking at some of those for my own writing project Im kicking off soon. Im going to try to present a criticism of a few authors who have criticized hierarchical accounts of free will. Are you familiar with Harry Frankfurts article "Free will and the concept of a person"? Its good reading.

 

Ill have to check out Abelards memoirs as well. Ill be honest, Heloise comes off a little bit better than Abe in their letters, she is subtle, witty, and warm while he can appear snarkish and standoffish. But its all great reading, I love how they both skillfully wove religious writings into their argumentation to support or attack points. In one passage, Abe is recounting the story of a church leader, Antony, who asks an old pilgrim whether his chatterbox companions on the road were "good bretheren." the old man responds, alluding to their talkativeness, that "truly they are good bretheren", but that it is impossible to "close the barn door" with them and therefore anyone can walk in and "untie the ass." I laughed out loud when I read that one for the first time!

[demagogue]

To save you the trouble of looking for it, the link to the full text of Abelard's memoir is here:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/abelard-histcal.html

 

Aside from being helpful, I just enjoy the surreal aspect of linking to a 12-century tract as a way to "contribute" to a thread on the evolution of the eye. Gotta love these forums.

Edited September 21, 2006 by demagogue