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Consciousness
Theories as to the origin and meaning of our experience

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Consciousness

Simple Occam
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Posted 10/26/09 - 04:23 PM:	#121
reincarnated wrote: I disagree that consciousness is an illusion – and I can understand why many dualists would reject physicalism because they wrongly believe that physicalism says that consciousness is an illusion. I agree that consciousness is not a “physical” thing like a solid object – but consciousness is nevertheless very real – it is a special form of reflexive process. Some entities possess it, others do not. We've had this one out before in several long topics in the past... but here goes again. You seem to want to be a physicalist who accepts the reality of consciousness. But you end up calling it "a special form of reflexive process. Some entities possess it, others do not." If you are a physicalist you claim, minimally, that only physical things...what physics (and the other sciences that derive from it) can make scientific claims about ... are real. So if consciousness is not a physical thing, then it cannot be real. Calling it "a special reflexive process" does nothing to explain how it is real, if it is not a reflexive physical process. Consciousness is not awareness or knowledge. It is a state of being. It is not caused by any kind of efficient causation, nor does it cause anything else to happen. It results from what it is like to be a certain kind of natural object, fully intelligible in terms of its physical structures and processes: a sentient animal. Not, necessarily, a language-using animal. Just one that has sensations, and processes them so as to guide behavior: reptiles, birds, mammals, marsupials, primates, hominids AND sapient animals like us, too. But is is perception, not linguistic processing, that causes consciousness ontologically. Just to be those perceptual brain processes IS the kind of consciousness that a particual animal species has. The qualitative state can be identical to the physical process because it is nothing other than what it is like to be it. I am my body...nothing more or less. Perception and reflection are faculties of my brain that evolved so as to enable adaptive behaviors that ensure the on-going reproduction of the DNA of the species over many generations. Consciousness is not another faculty that evolved. It is just what it is like to be such an amazingly complex biological machine.

Mars Man
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Posted 10/27/09 - 04:13 AM:	#122
I see some good sound bites and points points in reincarnated's post number 119, such as the following: reincarnated wrote: The answer (I believe) is because it is much easier to make empirical sense of the world (of the multitude of sense impressions being processed by our brains) if the brain concocts a “linear story” wherein there seems to be a single well-defined observer (a “unity”, the “self”) who is somehow apart from and yet experiencing a sequential series of connected and unified events. However, one point in Simple Occam's post just above, really caught my attention, namely: Simple Occam wrote: We've had this one out before in several long topics in the past... but here goes again. Hummm...I wonder, do we really want to do this again? (of course, I wish not to hijack any discussion between the two of you, but I may not always be so successful at keeping these hands from typing in things that come from other areas of this brain...) Would you kind people mind, if I were to do so?

Simple Occam
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Posted 10/27/09 - 07:48 AM:	#123
While my comments were directed to reincarnated's post, they were made for everyone to read and respond.

reincarnated
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Posted 10/28/09 - 06:16 AM:	#124
Simple Occam wrote: If you are a physicalist you claim, minimally, that only physical things...what physics (and the other sciences that derive from it) can make scientific claims about ... are real. So if consciousness is not a physical thing, then it cannot be real. Calling it "a special reflexive process" does nothing to explain how it is real, if it is not a reflexive physical process. This depends on what you mean by "physical thing". Do you mean "physical object" in the sense of having physical properties such as mass, size, shape? If so, your claim is mistaken. Physicalism simply says that “everything supervenes on the physical”, not that “everything is a physical object”. What is a game of chess? Is it a physical object? If you think its a physical object, then what is its mass, how high is it, what colour and shape is it? And yet the fact that a game of chess is not a physical object does not render physicalism false – because physicalism does NOT say that all things are physical objects, rather that all things supervene on the physical. All processes that are enacted in the world (including the process of consciousness) are physical processes by virtue of the fact that they supervene on the physical. In this sense all enacted processes (including consciousness) ARE indeed "physical things" (they are physical processes), but a process is never a "physical object" with a well-defined mass, size, shape, etc. A process cannot be enacted in absence of a physical substrate. In the same way a game of chess is not a "physical object" with a well-defined mass, size, shape, but it also cannot be enacted in absence of a physical substrate. Simple Occam wrote: Consciousness is not another faculty that evolved. Of course consciousness evolved, just as intelligence evolved. Simple Occam wrote: It is just what it is like to be such an amazingly complex biological machine. Imagine a fully conscious person, and then imagine the same person in a dreamless sleep. We have no evidence that there is "anything it is like to be" a person in a dreamless sleep (any more than "anything it is like to be" a rock), and yet such a person is arguably just as biologically complex as a conscious person who is awake. Consciousness is therefore NOT simply a matter of "what it is like to be a complex biological machine" - it also requires a certain very distinctive process to be taking place within that complex biological machine - specifically the kind of process (a reflexive one) which gives rise to consciousness. Edited by reincarnated on 10/28/09 - 06:41 AM
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mway
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Posted 10/28/09 - 02:50 PM:	#125
A person in a dreamless sleep is said to be unconscious, "what it is like to be" doesn't apply. Seriously though, if you look at conscious as software it makes all of this much easier to understand.
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reincarnated
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Posted 10/28/09 - 09:18 PM:	#126
mway wrote: A person in a dreamless sleep is said to be unconscious, "what it is like to be" doesn't apply. This is precisely my point - asking what it is like to be such a person is like asking what it is like to be a rock. My comments were in response to Simple Occam's comment that "Consciousness is ... just what it is like to be such an amazingly complex biological machine." A person in a dreamless sleep IS "an amazingly complex biological machine", and yet there is nothing it is like to be such a person - which shows that Simple Occam's simplistic explanation fails. My point is: Consciousness (in humans) requires something over and above simple "amazing biological complexity" - it requires the enactment of a reflexive dynamic process of the type described in post #21 of this thread. mway wrote: Seriously though, if you look at conscious as software it makes all of this much easier to understand. "conscious as software"??? Software (by itself) is not conscious. Most enactments of software on hardware would also not be conscious. Consciousness in a machine requires something over and above simple "amazing computer complexity" - or even "software complexity" - it requires the enactment of a reflexive dynamic process of the type described in post #21 of this thread. Edited by reincarnated on 10/28/09 - 09:37 PM
crumpled bits of paper, filled with imperfect thoughts... we all talk a different language, talking in defence... and if you don't give up, and don't give in, you may just be ok... (Mike & The Mechanics, "The Living Years")

bert1
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Posted 10/29/09 - 11:40 PM:	#127
mway wrote: I agree with about why people disagree, it is intuitive to imaging consciousness as "something". If you take it to the atomic level, then I would have to agree, that anything with an internal state effected by, and effecting the environment is consciousness. Yes, I see. Several times I've wondered if you have a sort of non-spooky panpsychist view. mway wrote: There are always definition problems here, I mean, I agree that one could argue software exists, but there is no objective way to describe it (it is simply relative). As I write this, I am thinking that consciousness, or software could simply be said to exist subjectively only. The difficulty with this is that it is circular: if software only exists for a subject (consciousness), but the subject (consciousness) is the software, how do we get this theory off the ground unless the subject/software is a necessary being? Your view is (presumably) that the software depends on the hardware of the brain, which certainly precludes necessary existence. Can you reformulate this to avoid the circularity? mway wrote: With response to your query about how can attention focus change at "will". This can be explained if you look at the brain as a continuous input/output system that outputs both to itself and the environment. Whilst you may "feel" that there is a will, and "you" are willing a change in focus, it is in fact the system itself just acting on inputs. That seems reasonable within the context of your view. reincarnated wrote: To me, consciousness is just a connected series of disparate phenomenal events with the common denominator that our brain tries to refer these events back to what I call a logical “centre of narrative gravity” (a fictitious logical locus within the mind where, we tell ourselves, “it all comes together”) – and our brain then links together this series of phenomenal events in such a way that it appears (within our conscious interpretation) that we are an entity which is undergoing some kind of single “unified” experience. I'll have to split this up into bits to comment properly on it: To me, consciousness is just a connected series of disparate phenomenal events... OK, what connects these disparate events? The fictitious logical centre? How can a fiction accomplish this? Or is it the brain? But the brain is a spatio-temporal object. If the brain somehow connects them it must do it in a spatio-temporal way. In which case we do have a physical place where it 'all comes together' after all. You've used 'phenomenal event' in a theory of consciousness, but 'phenomenal event' presupposes consciousness. Can you reformulate? Can you describe a phenomenal event which isn't a unity and is reducible to non-phenomenal events? Doesn't the denial of unity commit you to being reductionist? ...with the common denominator that our brain tries to refer these events back to what I call a logical “centre of narrative gravity” (a fictitious logical locus within the mind where, we tell ourselves, “it all comes together”) Can a brain 'try' to achieve an end? Sorry to be so nit-picky, but it's important to be clear about when you are explaining consciousness and when you are presupposing it, and spot when there are presuppositions within the explanations. What do you mean by the word 'we' in the above bit? What is doing the telling? And what are the 'ourselves' that it is telling? And what is the 'mind'? Again, normally I'd let all this go, but this is supposed to be an explanation of consciousness you are offering, and I'm seeing a lot of apparent presupposition. ...and our brain then links together this series of phenomenal events in such a way that it appears (within our conscious interpretation) that we are an entity which is undergoing some kind of single “unified” experience. What does this appearance of unity present itself to? The one subject of all these phenomenal events? What is that? If the individual element of “hearing the sound of the TV” is really a holistic experience (and I’m not saying I agree that it is), then how can you claim that the entirety of consciousness (which is made up of many such individual contributions to your overall conscious experience) is also holistic? Surely, if “hearing the sound of the TV” is a holistic experience, then the sum total of consciousness is a collection of such individual experiences, and thus is not itself holistic? Your holistic unity of consciousness (if it exists) is surely something which cannot be decomposed or reduced to lesser experiences (isn’t that what holistic or unity means?), and yet you talk about individual contributions to such experience? Yes, this is an interesting point, and one I have run into with Searle too. The dividing up of my consciousness into bits is an exercise in abstraction and focus rather than actual dividing of consciousness. Consciousness, no matter how it shifts attention from some of its content to other of its content retains its unity. I do not think that the content of consciousness constitutes consciousness. The sound of the TV is not one element separate from other elements, which, together with those other elements, constitute my global consciousness. However, I can focus my consciousness so that I am (almost) aware only of the TV, and so it becomes possible to consider the sound of the TV apart from all the other contents of consciousness. But the sound of the TV is not a unit separate from all other content of consciousness. I do indeed believe that our brains attempt to “bind together” the individual phenomenal inputs into one seemingly global “whole” (what we call our conscious experience), but the feeling of unity or holism is (I claim) simply an illusion created by the story-telling that the brain indulges in as part of this binding process – it’s a fairy-tale that your brain is creating, because its much easier to make sense of the world if one interprets conscious experience as some kind of genuine ”unity” rather than as a disconnected and disparate set of unrelated events. What experiences the illusion? Who is the brain telling this story of unity of consciousness to? The self? So do you have a theory of the self separate from your theory of consciousness? Presumably you must have, or your account is circular. If the self is a fabricated illusion of unity, then it cannot be the subject of a fictitious story about how it is a unity. What does the bolded 'one' refer to? How can you possibly derive a genuine holistic unity from a series of bound-together disparate signals (the very idea of deriving an alleged unity from underlying disparity in signals contradicts the claim of genuine unity)? Indeed. I don't think you can without some kind of binding agent which is a genuine unity, like a field or space. But then the unified aspect of this many-in-one is not really derived from the many at all, it's just the binding agent itself. So I just identify the unified consciousness with the binding agent, not with the disparate signals. Makes sense to me. What you describe fits perfectly with my interpretation – one in which “there are many auditory signals” as well as visual and other signals which are somehow “brought together” - processed by the brain and then (logically and seemingly) bound together in a process which tries to connect these signals into a linear “story-telling” model, relating the various signals to a fictitious centre of narrative gravity, with a key part of the story-telling (the interpretation generated by the brain) being the creation of an artificial observer (the “self”) who is somehow “at the centre of it all” and is undergoing a unified conscious experience. Whether the signals are genuinely “bound together” or not is in fact not important – it is only important (from the perspective of trying to make sense of the world) that they “seem to be” bound together. Anyone who has spent much time studying illusions (optical as well as other types of illusions) will easily understand the interpretational tricks that our brains play on us all the time, without our conscious selves being aware that any kind of trick is being played. I won't go through this bit in detail again as I would be repeating myself. I just find it confusing. You talk about illusions being presented to our consciuous selves, but you think our conscious self is an illusion. I don't understand. I don’t mean “centre of narrative gravity” in the sense of a single physical point in Cartesian space – I mean it in the sense of a logical centre, a locus of logical space. Yes, but as I said in your 'Binding Problem' thread, experience happens in space and time. If logical binding is an essential part of subjective phenomenal experience, and subjective phenomenal experience happens in space and time, then logical binding is not just logical binding, it is also spatio-temporal binding. The brain, in doing what it does to try and best interpret the various signals coming from the world, spins a story which connects together these disparate signals by inventing a logical common denominator, in effect the brain constructs sequences of the form “I am the person hearing the sound of the television”, “I am the person smelling the lilies on the table”, “I am the person feeling the smooth hardness of the tabletop under my fingers” – and thereby creates a logical connection (“I am the person”) between the various signals it is processing, which we then call the “self”. Who is 'we'? How can a brain create a logical connection which doesn't exist in time and space? This is getting a bit dualistic, something I'm sure you'll want to avoid. But this “self” does not reside at any particular point (or even volume) in space, rather it is delocalised within the entire mental process, it is a logical centre/self and not a physical centre/self. Is this logical non-physical 'self' real? If not, what of your claim that logical binding really happens? Of course I understand that you don’t think the centre of narrative gravity is artificial – and this is (I believe) one of the biggest problems that people have in understanding and accepting the true nature of consciousness. It might be the biggest problem apart from all the stuff about brains creating real non-physical logical connections which create fictitious selves which then experience the illusion of being unified in a sort of reflexive action of self-creation! Its much easier for (most of) us to believe that there is a genuine and real “homunculus” somewhere within us which is (logically) at the centre of it all and is somehow experiencing it all. But once you accept the ridiculousness of the notion of an homunculus, and follow to their conclusion the logical consequences of rejecting the homunculus, I think you’ll find that the notion of “self” is just a construction of the brain, a construction that is created as part of an interpretational story. The poor old homunculus gets a bad rap! Of course, the idea of the homunculus is ridiculous if you just stick another miniature version of a perceiving system in a larger perceiving system in order to explain how the larger system perceives things. That just shifts the problem of perception to the homunculus. But if you put in place of the little man something which is a genuine relater and unifier of all the various processes involved in perception, then the explanatory chain halts with that. Space, or a field, can perform that function. Don’t you see how this constant shifting in and out of awareness, of being acutely aware of some things and dimly aware of others, with priorities and focus shifting continuously to take in new information and drop old information, fits much better with the model I have described (the brain bringing together bits and pieces of disparate information and trying to create a unified story for itself) than it does with the notion of a genuine holistic unity? I would see this if the genuine holistic unity was immutable and static, as one might initially imagine a unity to be. However if we think of this unity as a physically extended field capable of concentrating itself on certain of its content while remaining dimly aware of all its content (therefore retaining its unity), and also capable of shifting its focus, then I see no problem. Any theory of consciousness must do two things simultaneously: 1) Explain the unity of consciousness. 2) Explain how the content of consciousness can be differentiated. Your theory fulfils (2), but so far I can't see how it manages (1). You take the approach of taking difference as primary, and deriving an artificial unity from that. Conversely, I take unity as primary and derive apparent difference within the unity. While my view certainly has difficulties, I have the advantage of having a subject to present the illusion of difference to, namely, the unity. Whereas in your theory it's not clear to me what subject experiences the so-called illusion of unity, apart from the illusion of unity itself, which, as it is illusory, can't experience anything. Simple Occam wrote: You seem to want to be a physicalist who accepts the reality of consciousness. But you end up calling it "a special form of reflexive process. Some entities possess it, others do not." If you are a physicalist you claim, minimally, that only physical things...what physics (and the other sciences that derive from it) can make scientific claims about ... are real. So if consciousness is not a physical thing, then it cannot be real. Calling it "a special reflexive process" does nothing to explain how it is real, if it is not a reflexive physical process. I agree with this (although not with yor own positive theory). Reincarnated replied with: reincarnated wrote: What is a game of chess? Is it a physical object? If you think its a physical object, then what is its mass, how high is it, what colour and shape is it? And yet the fact that a game of chess is not a physical object does not render physicalism false – because physicalism does NOT say that all things are physical objects, rather that all things supervene on the physical. That's fine when it comes to a game of chess. But the game of chess is dependent on all kinds of relations, relations which must be achieved by some kind of relating medium. And that medium is a mind. We can use the physical substrate of the chessboard and pieces along with at least one mind to enact, or at least consider, a game of chess. Thus the game of chess is fully explained. We cannot say that the physical substrate of the brain along with the relating medium of the mind fully explains the mind, because the mind is assumed in the explanation. reincarnated wrote: Of course consciousness evolved... Why 'of course'? It's not as obvious to me as it is to you.
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reincarnated
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Posted 10/30/09 - 03:43 AM:	#128
bert1 wrote: I'll have to split this up into bits to comment properly on it: Its fortunate that its not an holistic unity, otherwise splitting it into bits might be problematic. reincarnated wrote: To me, consciousness is just a connected series of disparate phenomenal events... bert1 wrote: OK, what connects these disparate events? The fictitious logical centre? How can a fiction accomplish this? Or is it the brain? But the brain is a spatio-temporal object. If the brain somehow connects them it must do it in a spatio-temporal way. In which case we do have a physical place where it 'all comes together' after all. The brain spins itself a story, where the logical centre of narrative gravity (the “self”) is the thing which connects the events… as described in post #21. The story-telling indeed takes place within the volume of the brain, but it can be delocalized and need not be located at any specific place in the brain, and the referred to logical centre of narrative gravity need not be located anywhere in particular at all. bert1 wrote: You've used 'phenomenal event' in a theory of consciousness, but 'phenomenal event' presupposes consciousness. Can you reformulate? I disagree – the meaning of phenomenon depends on context. In scientific usage, a phenomenal event is simply an event which is observable, but it does not presuppose conscious observation. If you insist, I can rephrase this to “an event with properties which can cause certain neurophysiological changes within the brain”. bert1 wrote: Can you describe a phenomenal event which isn't a unity and is reducible to non-phenomenal events? Doesn't the denial of unity commit you to being reductionist? Straw man. Where have I denied all kinds of unity? Where have I suggested that a phenomenal event is not a unity? All I have said is that I do not see the entirety of consciousness as a unity in the “strong” sense you describe. bert1 wrote: Can a brain 'try' to achieve an end? Sorry to be so nit-picky, but it's important to be clear about when you are explaining consciousness and when you are presupposing it, and spot when there are presuppositions within the explanations. “Try” does not imply conscious intent. If my computer is setup to check for software updates on a regular basis, it periodically “tries” (ie makes attempts) to connect to the internet and it “tries” (ie makes attempts) to search for relevant software updates. But there is no conscious intent on the part of my computer. bert1 wrote: What do you mean by the word 'we' in the above bit? What is doing the telling? And what are the 'ourselves' that it is telling? And what is the 'mind'? By “we” and “ourselves” in this context I mean people such as you and I, “observers” who “looking at the brain from the outside” as it were, and are trying to understand how consciousness within this brain comes about. The mind, in this context, is the collection of processes taking place within the brain which give rise to consciousness. bert1 wrote: Again, normally I'd let all this go, but this is supposed to be an explanation of consciousness you are offering, and I'm seeing a lot of apparent presupposition. I appreciate your probing questions, and I’m actually very grateful for them. Its good to question one’s assumptions or presumptions. I think one of the main problems is that many of the words we use to discuss consciousness (such as phenomenal) may have meanings in everyday usage or even in philosophical usage which (to some of us) presume consciousness, and it becomes hard to describe consciousness without using such words. bert1 wrote: What does this appearance of unity present itself to? The one subject of all these phenomenal events? What is that? The appearance is part of the story being told, there is no external observer, only a reflexive narrative. The “one subject”, if there is one, is simply the logical centre of narrative gravity, which has no existence outside of the story being told. bert1 wrote: Yes, this is an interesting point, and one I have run into with Searle too. The dividing up of my consciousness into bits is an exercise in abstraction and focus rather than actual dividing of consciousness. Whereas I see it in the opposite sense – the unification of the individual contributions to my conscious experience into an apparent unity is an exercise in abstraction. bert1 wrote: Consciousness, no matter how it shifts attention from some of its content to other of its content retains its unity. Unity in what sense? I’m finding it hard to understand what kind of unity you are referring to. bert1 wrote: I do not think that the content of consciousness constitutes consciousness. The sound of the TV is not one element separate from other elements, which, together with those other elements, constitute my global consciousness. However, I can focus my consciousness so that I am (almost) aware only of the TV, and so it becomes possible to consider the sound of the TV apart from all the other contents of consciousness. But the sound of the TV is not a unit separate from all other content of consciousness. Here you seem to be saying that your consciousness somehow exists as something separate from your phenomenal experiences – much like an homunculus within the brain? Whereas for me, it is the collection of phenomena which (when linked together in the right way) together CREATE consciousness. Sans phenomena, there is no consciousness, and it is only in the way that our brains link together these phenomena that we have the illusion of a unity of consciousness. bert1 wrote: What experiences the illusion? Who is the brain telling this story of unity of consciousness to? The self? So do you have a theory of the self separate from your theory of consciousness? Presumably you must have, or your account is circular. Why need there be a separate subject which is the audience for the story? There isn’t such thing (this is the Cartesian illusion). The subject is created within the story being told, it is the logical centre of narrative gravity against which all the experiences are referred. If you have read my posts so far, you will know already the answer to the question “do you have a theory of the self separate from your theory of consciousness” – which is no. The self, as I have pointed out many times already, is created ab initio as an artifact of the storytelling taking place within the brain that comprises conscious processing. There is no “self” which is somehow independent of consciousness. bert1 wrote: If the self is a fabricated illusion of unity, then it cannot be the subject of a fictitious story about how it is a unity. How does this follow? The self is a fabrication of the process of consciousness, simply because it IS the subject of a story being told (as part of those same processes) within the brain. Its as simple as that. And nowhere have I said the “self” is an illusion (this seems to be an illusion that you have). bert1 wrote: What does the bolded 'one' refer to? “one” in the above refers to the body of information contained within our brains which contribute to our sense of personal identity (our memories, beliefs, wishes etc). bert1 wrote: Indeed. I don't think you can without some kind of binding agent which is a genuine unity, like a field or space. But then the unified aspect of this many-in-one is not really derived from the many at all, it's just the binding agent itself. So I just identify the unified consciousness with the binding agent, not with the disparate signals. Makes sense to me. Whereas I identify the alleged “unified consciousness” as an illusion (of unity, not of consciousness) created by our brains, which makes sense to me. bert1 wrote: I just find it confusing. You talk about illusions being presented to our consciuous selves, but you think our conscious self is an illusion. I don't understand. Perhaps you do not understand because you misread. Where have I said that the conscious self is an illusion? What IS an illusion is (a) the notion that the conscious self somehow exists independently of conscious experience, and (b) the notion that consciousness is some kind of holistic unity. The conscious self is very real, its not an illusion, but it is created as part and parcel of the act of story-telling which is an implicit part of the information processing which is consciousness, and it disappears as soon as this processing stops bert1 wrote: Yes, but as I said in your 'Binding Problem' thread, experience happens in space and time. If logical binding is an essential part of subjective phenomenal experience, and subjective phenomenal experience happens in space and time, then logical binding is not just logical binding, it is also spatio-temporal binding. Spatio-temporal binding simply defines a VOLUME of spacetime, not a single POINT. Thus I see no conflict with my interpretation. bert1 wrote: Who is 'we'? The same as before, you and I, the external observers trying to make sense of the processing within this brain that we are studying. bert1 wrote: How can a brain create a logical connection which doesn't exist in time and space? This is getting a bit dualistic, something I'm sure you'll want to avoid. Where did I say it (the self) does not exist in time and space? I said it did not exist at a SINGLE POINT (or even a particular volume) in space, I said that it is delocalized within the entire mental process, not that it didn’t exist at all in time and space. Once again, you seem to be misreading, or trying to see things that are simply not there. bert1 wrote: Is this logical non-physical 'self' real? If not, what of your claim that logical binding really happens? Yes, its real (in the sense of not being an illusion), but it is not a physical object, it is not an homunculus, it is not a field or a unity, it has no mass, volume, etc, and it is created (once again) as part and parcel of the story being told within the brain. bert1 wrote: It might be the biggest problem apart from all the stuff about brains creating real non-physical logical connections which create fictitious selves which then experience the illusion of being unified in a sort of reflexive action of self-creation! That’s a pretty good summary. Yes, its complex. But I would urge you not to give up trying to make sense of the complexity - if it was easy to explain and understand then it would have been done already, wouldn’t it? bert1 wrote: But if you put in place of the little man something which is a genuine relater and unifier of all the various processes involved in perception, then the explanatory chain halts with that. Space, or a field, can perform that function. How does it work? bert1 wrote: Any theory of consciousness must do two things simultaneously: 1) Explain the unity of consciousness. 2) Explain how the content of consciousness can be differentiated. Your theory fulfils (2), but so far I can't see how it manages (1). You take the approach of taking difference as primary, and deriving an artificial unity from that. Exactly. I don’t need to answer (1) since I claim that there is no true unity in consciousness (the appearance of unity is an illusion) – thus I need only explain the illusion (which is trivial). bert1 wrote: Conversely, I take unity as primary and derive apparent difference within the unity. While my view certainly has difficulties, I have the advantage of having a subject to present the illusion of difference to, namely, the unity. Whereas in your theory it's not clear to me what subject experiences the so-called illusion of unity, apart from the illusion of unity itself, which, as it is illusory, can't experience anything. Again, you misread. I have never said that the conscious self is illusory, only that the appearance of unity is illusory. The conscious self is very real, but it is created as part of conscious processing (and has no independent existence). I don’t see how this is an advantage for your approach. Rather, it means you must postulate something completely new to science, this “unified conscious field” or whatever you want to call it, for which we have no scientific evidence. That, to me, is a major problem. bert1 wrote: That's fine when it comes to a game of chess. But the game of chess is dependent on all kinds of relations, relations which must be achieved by some kind of relating medium. And that medium is a mind. We can use the physical substrate of the chessboard and pieces along with at least one mind to enact, or at least consider, a game of chess. Thus the game of chess is fully explained. We cannot say that the physical substrate of the brain along with the relating medium of the mind fully explains the mind, because the mind is assumed in the explanation. It need not be a mind, it could be a computer. Two computers can play chess against each other, no human, no mind, is necessary at all. bert1 wrote: Why 'of course'? It's not as obvious to me as it is to you. I do apologise, I forgot to acknowledge the possibilities of intelligent design, or that consciousness may have existed (independently of the material world) throughout all eternity. I don’t find one iota of credibility in either possibility, but that’s just my opinion.
crumpled bits of paper, filled with imperfect thoughts... we all talk a different language, talking in defence... and if you don't give up, and don't give in, you may just be ok... (Mike & The Mechanics, "The Living Years")

bert1
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Posted 11/02/09 - 03:05 AM:	#129
reincarnated wrote: Its fortunate that its not an holistic unity, otherwise splitting it into bits might be problematic. The story-telling indeed takes place within the volume of the brain, but it can be delocalized and need not be located at any specific place in the brain, and the referred to logical centre of narrative gravity need not be located anywhere in particular at all. I think we agree! I just go a step further and say that the volume (i.e. space) that the brain is in serves the function of binding and unifying the processes, and constitutes the conscious 'theatre'. In scientific usage, a phenomenal event is simply an event which is observable, but it does not presuppose conscious observation. If you insist, I can rephrase this to “an event with properties which can cause certain neurophysiological changes within the brain”. OK, that's fine. Where have I suggested that a phenomenal event is not a unity? All I have said is that I do not see the entirety of consciousness as a unity in the “strong” sense you describe. OK, that's fair enough. I think this kind of confusion between us is symptomatic of our different approaches. I guess I think of unity in the weak sense as dependent on consciousness whereas you don't. And because I think that deriving the unity of consciousness from this weak kind of unity is question-begging, I have to think consciousness ia a unity in the strong sense. I take a more idealist approach (although I am still not sure if I am an idealist or not), you a more realist. “Try” does not imply conscious intent. If my computer is setup to check for software updates on a regular basis, it periodically “tries” (ie makes attempts) to connect to the internet and it “tries” (ie makes attempts) to search for relevant software updates. But there is no conscious intent on the part of my computer. I see what you mean. What I say below about computers also covers this. I think one of the main problems is that many of the words we use to discuss consciousness (such as phenomenal) may have meanings in everyday usage or even in philosophical usage which (to some of us) presume consciousness, and it becomes hard to describe consciousness without using such words. Fair enough, I'll cut you some slack on that, otherwise it'll be like swimming in treacle. The appearance is part of the story being told, there is no external observer, only a reflexive narrative. The “one subject”, if there is one, is simply the logical centre of narrative gravity, which has no existence outside of the story being told. Whenever you say 'reflexive' I keep thinking 'circular'! I know you probably don't think it's circular, and I've got the wrong end of the stick again. But I have read what you said several times, and it still seems a bit bootstrappy to me. Sorry if I just don't get it. Whereas I see it in the opposite sense – the unification of the individual contributions to my conscious experience into an apparent unity is an exercise in abstraction. Yes, it looks like we might fundamentally disagree on ontological priority. I take a top-down, unity first, difference second view; and you a bottom-up difference first, unity second view. reincarnated wrote: bert1 wrote: Consciousness, no matter how it shifts attention from some of its content to other of its content retains its unity. Unity in what sense? I’m finding it hard to understand what kind of unity you are referring to. I meant in that sentence that consciousness remains (however dimly) aware of all its content even when it focuses attention only on some of it. Here you seem to be saying that your consciousness somehow exists as something separate from your phenomenal experiences – much like an homunculus within the brain? Whereas for me, it is the collection of phenomena which (when linked together in the right way) together CREATE consciousness. Sans phenomena, there is no consciousness, and it is only in the way that our brains link together these phenomena that we have the illusion of a unity of consciousness. Yes, you've characterised my view accurately. Although consciousness is necessary for phenomenal experiences, it is not constituted by them. I think it is possible to have content-free consciousness, i.e. awareness which is not aware of anything. It's a fundamental point of disagreement between us, it seems. The 'homunculus' is the space that the brain occupies. It is also the substance of the brain, as I think space and substance are identical. Why need there be a separate subject which is the audience for the story? There isn’t such thing (this is the Cartesian illusion). The subject is created within the story being told, it is the logical centre of narrative gravity against which all the experiences are referred. If you have read my posts so far, you will know already the answer to the question “do you have a theory of the self separate from your theory of consciousness” – which is no. The self, as I have pointed out many times already, is created ab initio as an artifact of the storytelling taking place within the brain that comprises conscious processing. There is no “self” which is somehow independent of consciousness. I'm really sorry reincarnated, I genuinely am struggling with this. I have read all your posts, usually more than once. Trouble is I struggle to hold it in my head all at once because I don't really understand it. Maybe I'm so stuck in my own concepts that I can't translate what you are saying into ideas meaningful to me. I've just read post #21 again, in which you say this: reincarnated #21 wrote: We need an ongoing process of “reflexive story-telling” within the self-model, continuously co-representing the representational relation itself, accomplished by “telling itself stories” on an ongoing basis...[which] ...serves to localise and fix the notion of the “self” as a central (but fictitious) character within the story being told. So, is the story, the storytelee, and the storyteller, all the same thing? You've said there isn't a subject (in the sense of storytellee) of the story separate from the story, the subject is the centre of narrative gravity. You also say that this 'self-model' continuously tells itself this story. So it does seem as if the storyteller, the story and the storytellee are pretty bound up together. Can you see why this seems a bit circular? Please say yes. Are you breaking the circle by allowing inputs from outside, from the environment? How does this reflexive process get off the ground in the first place? reincarnated wrote: bert1 wrote: wrote: If the self is a fabricated illusion of unity, then it cannot be the subject of a fictitious story about how it is a unity. How does this follow? The self is a fabrication of the process of consciousness, simply because it IS the subject of a story being told (as part of those same processes) within the brain. Its as simple as that. And nowhere have I said the “self” is an illusion (this seems to be an illusion that you have). Oh! OK. You have said it's 'fictitious', though. Anyway, I think I might have been confused (and confusing) with my question anyway, so I'll just skip that for now. You clear it up anyhow here: Perhaps you do not understand because you misread. Where have I said that the conscious self is an illusion? What IS an illusion is (a) the notion that the conscious self somehow exists independently of conscious experience, and (b) the notion that consciousness is some kind of holistic unity. OK, just to be clear, you're not denying unity in the weak sense, but you are denying it in my strong sense? The conscious self is very real, its not an illusion, but it is created as part and parcel of the act of story-telling which is an implicit part of the information processing which is consciousness, and it disappears as soon as this processing stops. OK, that's fairly clear. Spatio-temporal binding simply defines a VOLUME of spacetime, not a single POINT. Thus I see no conflict with my interpretation. I completely agree about the volume. Do you regard the volume of space as a binding agent? The processes involved in generating consciousness are bound together by this volume, aren't they? They derive the (weak) unity implied by binding from the (strong) unity of the space they are in? reincarnated wrote: bert1 wrote: But if you put in place of the little man something which is a genuine relater and unifier of all the various processes involved in perception, then the explanatory chain halts with that. Space, or a field, can perform that function. How does it work? I can't describe a mechanism, because I don't think there is one. To explain what I mean, instead of using the word 'space' I'll use the phrase 'continuous aspect of reality'. As you know (probably better than I do), once we go below the level of atoms, reality can be seen as an unbroken continuum of interpenetrating fields, none of which have sharply defined edges. These fields are identical with matter, and unify the apparent differences we observe at a macro level, indeed they make possible the interaction of apparently different macro objects. They are also identical with space, in a sense, because a field is defined as present at every point in space. I'm not really positing a new kind of consciousness-field, I'm more saying that reality/matter/space/the-continuum-of-interpenetrating-fields itself is conscious. It's just a brute fact (I suggest) about substance, that it is sentient. This accounts for the idea that consciousness is one (in the strong sense) thing which nevertheless does not destroy its contents (modalities). It also fits perfectly with Searle's (correct imho) intuitions about experiences being modifications of the consciousness-field. It's just I think he means the consciousness-field as a metaphor, and I mean it literally. Rather, it means you must postulate something completely new to science, this “unified conscious field” or whatever you want to call it, for which we have no scientific evidence. That, to me, is a major problem. Yes, as I said, I'm not sure I really want to posit a new kind of field, I just want to say that consciousness is a property of space and the fields extended within it, according to the above. reincarnated wrote: bert1 wrote: bert1 wrote: That's fine when it comes to a game of chess. But the game of chess is dependent on all kinds of relations, relations which must be achieved by some kind of relating medium. And that medium is a mind. We can use the physical substrate of the chessboard and pieces along with at least one mind to enact, or at least consider, a game of chess. Thus the game of chess is fully explained. We cannot say that the physical substrate of the brain along with the relating medium of the mind fully explains the mind, because the mind is assumed in the explanation. It need not be a mind, it could be a computer. Two computers can play chess against each other, no human, no mind, is necessary at all. This comes down to our difference of opinion about unities again. A computer isn't a unity in the strong sense that I think a mind is, therefore a computer isn't able to confer unity (in the weak sense) on the game of chess. I think all weak unities derive their unity from strong unities (which is sort of a version of idealism). But you think there can be mind-independent unities, presumably. It looks like this issue is largely an idealism vs realism issue about what things are mind-dependent, which is probably best put in a separate thread. It would explain why I think you keep question-begging and you don't think you do. I generally try to avoid discussions of idealism in discussions of consciousness, but my views are probably very closely related to it, so it might be unavoidable. One reason I avoid it is I'm quite ambivalent about idealism, although I think I may have finally figured out what I think about it. I do apologise, I forgot to acknowledge the possibilities of intelligent design, or that consciousness may have existed (independently of the material world) throughout all eternity. I don’t find one iota of credibility in either possibility, but that’s just my opinion. Ha! Well, I'm not an intelligent design fan at all. I have no problem with evolution (I don't think), although as far as I understand it, evolutionary theory, and indeed science in general, has little to say about which entities are conscious and which are not. And while I certainly think that reality in general is conscious, consciousness is certainly not separate from matter, as a dualist might think. I am firmly non-dualistic. Edited by bert1 on 11/02/09 - 05:32 AM
"Like a ungroomed dog in which the desired look is it’s long hair but it has been so unattended to, that combing is impractical, and it might be better if the hair was cut and attended to as it grows back." d_martin

reincarnated
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Posted 11/04/09 - 04:42 AM:	#130
bert1 wrote: I think we agree! I just go a step further and say that the volume (i.e. space) that the brain is in serves the function of binding and unifying the processes, and constitutes the conscious 'theatre'. The process of unifying the processes creates a genuine holistic unity? How does one create a genuine unity by unifying something less than that unity? I hope you can see why I claim this apparent unity (of consciousness) is an illusion. bert1 wrote: Whenever you say 'reflexive' I keep thinking 'circular'! I know you probably don't think it's circular, and I've got the wrong end of the stick again. But I have read what you said several times, and it still seems a bit bootstrappy to me. Sorry if I just don't get it. Reflexive simply means “refers to itself” or “directed back on itself”, but it does not follow that it is circular in the sense of a (logically) fallacious argument. The conscious mind clearly IS reflexive (we think about ourselves, and we think about the thinking that we do about ourselves, etc etc) – I don’t think you will disagree with this? What I am saying is that it is this very reflexive nature of the processes within the mind which gives rise to the concept of a (logical) self, where that self did not exist before the reflexive processing took place. It IS “bootstrappy” in a very real sense. The reflexive process of storytelling creates the self ab-initio, from a prior state in which there is no self. If the self does NOT bootstrap itself into existence (along with reflexive conscious processing) then you must postulate some kind of permanent homunculus within the mind (which exists in absence of conscious processing) – with all the problems that entails. But what is wrong with it being “bootstrappy”? Is it just that you don’t like the idea of bootstrapping oneself into existence, or do you perhaps have some coherent rational argument why such a thing is not possible? bert1 wrote: I meant in that sentence that consciousness remains (however dimly) aware of all its content even when it focuses attention only on some of it. Does it? It depends on what you mean by “all its content”. There are many things going on during a normal day, and there is I am sure very much information contained within my brain, but I find it hard to be simultaneously consciously aware of more than a handful of things. I can shift my conscious attention and bring some things into my conscious awareness and drop others out, but I don’t believe that I am “dimly aware” of absolutely everything in my brain. I am consciously aware of “everything in my consciousness”, yes, but this much is obviously true by definition – if this is all you mean by “consciousness remains aware of all its contents” then I do not disagree – but it does not follow that it is then a unity in the strong sense. bert1 wrote: Yes, you've characterised my view accurately. Although consciousness is necessary for phenomenal experiences, it is not constituted by them. But (imho) consciousness entails phenomenal experience. You can’t have the former without the latter. In my view, when one enters a dreamless sleep one’s consciousness simply ceases to exist. In your view, I guess you would say that in a dreamless sleep one is still conscious, but one simply has no conscious awareness/experience? bert1 wrote: I think it is possible to have content-free consciousness, i.e. awareness which is not aware of anything. OK, this is where you and I part company very significantly. The very notion of awareness when one is not aware of anything is imho illogical. In my book, awareness is defined as being aware of something. To claim awareness in absence of being aware is like claiming that one is in pain in absence of the feeling of pain. bert1 wrote: I'm really sorry reincarnated, I genuinely am struggling with this. I have read all your posts, usually more than once. Trouble is I struggle to hold it in my head all at once because I don't really understand it. Maybe I'm so stuck in my own concepts that I can't translate what you are saying into ideas meaningful to me. I think our concepts are indeed worlds apart. I can understand that you cannot grasp my ideas whilst you cling to the notion that there is some kind of consciousness in absence of conscious experience. bert1 wrote: So, is the story, the storytelee, and the storyteller, all the same thing? You've said there isn't a subject (in the sense of storytellee) of the story separate from the story, the subject is the centre of narrative gravity. You also say that this 'self-model' continuously tells itself this story. So it does seem as if the storyteller, the story and the storytellee are pretty bound up together. Can you see why this seems a bit circular? Please say yes. Are you breaking the circle by allowing inputs from outside, from the environment? How does this reflexive process get off the ground in the first place? The story is being told in the 1st person, so yes in this sense the storyteller and the storytellee are one and the same, and they are bound together by the story itself, so yes you are right that they are all 3 bound closely together. I agree it is reflexive, but why do you say circular? There are usually inputs from the outside, in the form of phenomenal inputs, but it’s not impossible that the brain could create its own internal phenomenal experiences in absence of external inputs. How does it get off the ground in the first place? That’s the really tricky part which I’m still working on – it’s a bit like asking how did the first life on earth get started? There is a lot of speculation about how inert minerals and other chemicals may have combined to form the first building blocks of life, but no solid coherent story yet – but that doesn’t mean that life did NOT evolve from non-life, its just that we are still struggling to explain how it happened. In the same way, I’m still struggling to explain how the reflexive bootstrap process gets started within each brain (indeed, it gets started EVERY day within every brain), but it does not follow from this that such a thing is impossible. bert1 wrote: Oh! OK. You have said it's 'fictitious', though. Anyway, I think I might have been confused (and confusing) with my question anyway, so I'll just skip that for now. OK, I agree that my use of the term “fictitious” may have been confusing. By fictitious in this context I mean that the self does not exist outside of (has no reality independent of) the story being told (just as Sherlock Holmes is a fictitious character who does not exist outside of the stories being told of him). The self exists, just as Sherlock Holmes exists, as a character within a story (and in this sense is “real” as opposed to illusory) – the illusion (if there is any) is when we think that either Holmes or the self has any kind of independent existence outside of the story. bert1 wrote: OK, just to be clear, you're not denying unity in the weak sense, but you are denying it in my strong sense? I do not deny that unity (in the sense of irreducible to parts) could exist; I do not deny that brain processes work together to create the sense/impression/illusion of a unity of consciousness; but I do not consider that consciousness actually IS a unity in the strong sense in which I think you mean it. bert1 wrote: I completely agree about the volume. Do you regard the volume of space as a binding agent? The processes involved in generating consciousness are bound together by this volume, aren't they? They derive the (weak) unity implied by binding from the (strong) unity of the space they are in? I see the binding as a logical binding (see the thread on the Binding Problem), I’m not sure what you mean by a “binding agent”? In my model, the binding agent is the set of processes which tie together the disparate bits of information through reflexivity. These “binding processes” just happen to take place within a particular volume of space, but there is no a priori reason why they must be constrained to any particular volume of space (I could in principle envisage a consciousness the size of the solar system for example). Thus the fact that our conscious “self” seems to exist within the small volume of our bodies is a simple (contingent) consequence of the combined facts that our sensory perceptions appear to us to be localized at certain points on or within our skin. If you were to remove all sensory perception (remove all external stimuli) then the brain would very soon cease to tell itself that the “self’ was within any particular volume, its conscious processing would seem (to itself) to be independent of space (because it would then lack anything upon which it could ground such spatial concepts). bert1 wrote: But if you put in place of the little man something which is a genuine relater and unifier of all the various processes involved in perception, then the explanatory chain halts with that. Space, or a field, can perform that function. Isn’t that just what my “storytelling” set of processes does? The story itself, along with the “self” that is created within the story, “is a genuine relater and unifier of all the various processes involved in perception”. bert1 wrote: It's just a brute fact (I suggest) about substance, that it is sentient. I guess we’ll never agree. So, if we accept you premise that all substance is sentient, why is it that this universal sentience only appears to manifest itself when inside a human being (or possibly some other animals). Why is there something it is like to be a human, but there is nothing it is like to be a rock? (Or maybe you DO think there is something that “it is like” to be a rock?). The fundamental property of an explanation is that it must explain something. My explanation of consciousness explains how consciousness emerges in certain entities (but not in others) as the result of particular reflexive processes. Your “explanation” of consciousness seems to be that everything is conscious, but this then does not explain why/how consciousness manifests itself in certain entities (such as humans) and not in others (such as rocks) when both entities are created from this same sentient stuff? In other words, your explanation must either assume that rocks are just as sentient (conscious) as human beings OR that there is something unexplained within your model which humans posses but which rocks do not. What could this unexplained difference be, I wonder? Could it be a set of reflexive processes? If I may use analogy again, your explanation for consciousness is a bit like an explanation for life which says “all matter is alive”. Such an “explanation” is all well and good, but it doesn’t actually explain why some matter manifests itself as alive (in the normally accepted meaning of the word “alive”) and other matter does not. If all matter is alive, why does a rock just sit there doing nothing? Once you start to try and explain THIS, then you start to get to grips with what it really means to be alive. The same with consciousness. It’s easy to say “all matter is sentient”, but it’s not until you get to grips with explaining why “there is nothing it is like to be a rock” whereas “there is something it is like to be a human” that you actually get to grips with what it really means to be conscious. bert1 wrote: This comes down to our difference of opinion about unities again. A computer isn't a unity in the strong sense that I think a mind is, therefore a computer isn't able to confer unity (in the weak sense) on the game of chess. I think all weak unities derive their unity from strong unities (which is sort of a version of idealism). But you think there can be mind-independent unities, presumably. Why this insistence on unities all the time? A game of chess is simply a game of chess (in its most basic form it is simply a particular series of mathematical relationships), what does it have to do with any kind of “unity”? bert1 wrote: Ha! Well, I'm not an intelligent design fan at all. I have no problem with evolution (I don't think), although as far as I understand it, evolutionary theory, and indeed science in general, has little to say about which entities are conscious and which are not. And while I certainly think that reality in general is conscious, consciousness is certainly not separate from matter, as a dualist might think. I am firmly non-dualistic. It’s not easy to measure for “consciousness”, but that doesn’t stop people from speculating about it, and it certainly doesn’t mean that consciousness is somehow unexplainable from an evolutionary perspective (I can point you to some interesting papers on the subject if you wish). But if you are not an intelligent design fan, and you do not think that consciousness evolved, does that mean you believe that your consciousness, and mine, and everyone else’s, has existed independently of matter since the dawn of time? I don’t see any other possible explanation, do you? What was it like to be your conscious self before your physical body was born? What will it be like to be your conscious self once your physical body has perished?
crumpled bits of paper, filled with imperfect thoughts... we all talk a different language, talking in defence... and if you don't give up, and don't give in, you may just be ok... (Mike & The Mechanics, "The Living Years")

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