reincarnated wrote:

Logical binding is simply : I have a set of data A, and I have a set of data B. These two sets of data are logically related, even though they may be separated in space and time. For example, I may have data (1) on the particular shape of a portion at coordinates X,Y of a (perceived) tomato in one folder on my computer, and I may have data (2) on the colour of a portion at coordinates X,Y of a (perceived) tomato in another folder on my computer. If I want to know both the colour of the tomato and the shape of the portion of tomato at coordinates X,Y I do not have to physically bring both sets of data together into the same spatio-temporal location (ie the Cartesian Theatre), instead I can simply do a lookup on the outputs of (1) and (2) (which outputs may be at different times and physical locations) to get my answer.

What relates them is simply the information that both sets of data come from the same X,Y coordinate at the same time in the field of view. If I have a set of shape data from coordinate X,Y and a set of colour data from coordinate X,Y, and both have the same “timestamp” on them, then I can logically associate them (even though the exact times that I access the two sets of data within my conscious mind may be different – I don’t need to access both datasets simultaneously). The relationship is created by the neural processes taking place in the brain – the equivalent of the processes taking place in a computer which relates two sets of data from a database.

The subconscious neural processes that direct our conscious attention. Our subconscious tells our consciousness that when we access dataset 1 (the shape of the tomato at coordinate X,Y) we should associate the output of that dataset with the output of dataset 2 (the colour of the tomato at coordinate X,Y). We do not actually have to make that association in realtime, and we do not have to physically bring the two sets of data together – we simply fool ourselves into thinking that we are making the data association in realtime – and this gives rise to the Cartesian Theatre illusion.

reincarnated wrote:
I use “illusion” to illustrate the fact that your subconscious mind somehow makes your conscious mind believe that when you look at a red tomato, the information derived from the stimulus corresponding to the “red” of the tomato somehow spatio-temporally "coincides" with the information derived from the stimulus corresponding to the “shape” of the tomato somewhere within your brain – that there is a unique place in your brain (the Cartesian Theatre) where the information about “redness” and the “shape” come together at the same time to form an integrated “perceptual unit”. But such a theatre is redundant, it is not necessary. All your subconscious brain needs do is to form a logical relationship between the spatio-temporally separated information corresponding to “redness” and “shape”, and to pass this relational information up to your consciousness – your conscious mind then simply (logically) associates those two sets of information together as one perceptual unit – but no physical theatre is necessary to bring these things together - because there is no homunculus to watch the show.

Arkady wrote:
It doesn't seem as if these percepts are indissolubly bound in the "bringing together". For instance, we can "bind" together a person's visage and their name, but it is possible to be able later to recall their face without recalling their name. (Not that this in any way undermines your point: I'm just making an observation.)

bert1 wrote:
If it is a process, in what sense is it bound?

reincarnated wrote:
By “our” or “us” (in this context) I mean elements or entities that we assume reside (spatio-temporally) within the physical entity that we refer to as our body.

reincarnated wrote:
By “we” (in this context) I mean “the processes that are used by us”.

bert1 wrote:
I certainly am hung up on the unity thing. I do regard it as indispensable. And I think you are committed to it too. You are committed to binding as an essential aspect of phenomenal experience (as I understand you so far). To my mind binding implies unity. A bound thing is one thing with several elements related together at once.

bert1 wrote:
The reason I was so insistent for you to clarify that binding takes place in space and time was to show that the unity implied in binding was a real spatio-temporal something. Do you agree that logical binding, if it takes place in space and time implies spatio-temporal binding? It's this idea that leads me pretty directly to the view that consciousness is space or some aspect of space (a field perhaps).

bert1 wrote:
The problem is that there is nothing 'final' about a process, unless we say the final bit is last element of a process, but then the final perceiver is not the process itself, but only the last bit of it.

bert1 wrote:
Simply because unity seems like an essential feature of consciousness. It's a pretty mainstream view, by the way, so I'm not being weird, or at least I'm being no weirder than a lot of other people.

bert1 wrote:
This all has to happen at once to get the single experience/item of knowledge "There's a tomato over there". It all has to come together, not just logically, but also in time and space.

bert1 wrote:
Of course, just because lots of philosophers think consciousness is unified doesn't make it true.

bert1 wrote:
If it is a process, in what sense is it bound?

bert1 wrote:
OK, I think we can agree on that. That kind of unity is what I refer to as 'weak' unity. However, you say it is an appearance of unity. I agree, but to my mind that implies that there is something it is an appearance of unity to, and that thing must be a strong unity, because it confers its unity on the original disparate elements. So we have a strong unity creating a weak unity. I know you don't make that step, but to me it is a necessary step, because otherwise even the weak unity has no basis if all we have to start with is completely separate components.

bert1 wrote:
My reasoning is this: Conscious relates (binds) its contents without destroying them.

bert1 wrote:
Dualism is false, so consciousness must be some physical thing.

bert1 wrote:
Space is the only physical thing which binds and relates its contents without destroying them. Therefore consciousness is space.

bert1 wrote:
Time cannot perform this function, because binding is simultaneous binding.

bert1 wrote:
So we need the memory to be able to access all the elements simultaneously to get an experience of a tomato.

bert1 wrote:
Because they all come together in consciousness, which is spatio-temporal. They must all come together in consciousness, because consciousness is what they all appear to. As far as brute experience is concerned, the appearance-reality distinction is not applicable.

bert1 wrote:
But you won't tell me what it is about a process that justifies calling it a (i.e. singular) process. What do all the elements in the process have in common which justifies calling that collection of elements one thing, namely, the process? Whatever it is which binds together the elements of the process is, I suggest, the same thing that binds together what you think is bound together by the process.

bert1 wrote:
If someone looks at some separate events and calls them a process, I think it does follow that the looker is a strong unity.

bert1 wrote:
something that has no unity of its own cannot unify anything else.

bert1 wrote:
To say that supervenient 'entities' or properties are not physical seems very dualistic to me.

SEP wrote:
Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical.

bert1 wrote:
We need an extra theory to explain the ontology of supervenient entities, it seems to me.

bert1 wrote:
The point is that there is no mechanism. If there were a mechanism, it would have to consist of different parts which then execute a process which takes time to complete. Consciousness is exactly that which has no parts, is not a process, and takes zero time to relate its contents, which is how binding/relation/unification is possible.

bert1 wrote:
Although there is no mechanism, space is nevertheless connected to, and capable of, relating its contents because it is substantially identical with them, just as the substance of plasticine is substantially identical with the model of the man it is made into. Space is exhaustive. There cannot be any continuous relating medium other than space, because there is no room for it. Therefore if there is, apparently, another continuous relating medium, then it must be identical with space, assuming that dualism is false. At some level or another, we have to bridge the gap between the mental and the physical, and say one is the other. Otherwise we have dualism. The level of reality at which we can do this is at the level of space, the continuum.

bert1 wrote:
A process can only relate things by appeal to that which also relates the process, namely consciousness-space. Without appeal to the continuum, a process is incapable of relating anything, and therefore cannot be consciousness.

bert1 wrote:
But if that's what the subconscious does, hasn't it gathered up all the elements and presented them to consciousness all in one go?

bert1 wrote:
If not, how does consciousness get the experience of a tomato, which necessarily involves all these things? Merely believing they have all come together at once is insufficient for an experience of a tomato

bert1 wrote:
If the subconscious tells the conscious they have all arrived at once, but it doesn't give them to consciousness all at once, consciousness will never experience a tomato, no matter how convincingly the subconscious argues that it has.