Re: Jeff Hawkins Q&A



>Traveler wrote:
>...
>> ... The cerebellum is not in the conscious space
>> because experiments with implanted electrodes have
>> shown that patients have no idea when their cerebellar
>> cells are being stimulated. This is not so for other
>> areas of the brain such as the sensory cortices. Even
>> blind people report seeing various colors when the
>> color areas of the visual cortex are electrically
>> stimulated. Same with deaf people and the auditory
>> cortex.


>Although you shouldn't conclude that where the stimulus
>starts is where the consciousness experience resides.



Certainly.


>There are objectively measurable events in v1 of the
>visual cortex that are not experienced. Stimulus of the eye
>produces content for consciousness but the consciousness
>can't be in the eye because damage to pathways from the
>eye remove visual experience. Same with v1.

>My view is the same as Dan's in that I see it as some
>kind of process that can come and go and exists in varying
>degrees depending on the intensity of the relevant neural
>activity.



There is no doubt that the brain is part of the consciousness
experience but it is not all of it.


>> > The signals were generated by identical transistors.
>> > How is it possible for identical transistors to generate
>> > signals of different colors?

>> They don't. There is no color information in the signals.


>Wouldn't it be better to say there is no *color experience*
>in the signals? They do "inform" the tv set, that is provide
>information, as to the intensity of each color. It is just
>that the tv never gets to experience the color. That only
>takes place in the brain.



The point I am making is that there is no qualitative difference
between a neuron that correlates to a red sensation and one that
correlates to blue. Other than location. So the comparison to a
computer monitor is baseless.


>> That's the point. Whereas the monitor has special diodes
>> or phosphor dots, or whatnot, that emit light in certain
>> frequencies (red, green and blue), the brain has nothing
>> comparable in the visual cortex. Yet, we see color.

>But I don't see that there is any *color experience* in the
>brain pulses carrying the color information.



> I agree and that is my point. It is a fallacy
> that brain pulses carry color information.

No I suggested they do carry color information.
What they don't carry is a color experience
which is derived or constructed from pulses
from the eyes.


> All pulses in the brain, regardless of origin
> look pretty much the same. The neuron can be
> artificially stimulated (caused to fire) and
> it still would lead to a subject sensing a
> specific color. Why? Why indeed, since all
> color neurons are identical? Should we conclude
> that only the position of the neuron in the
> cortex is responsible for the color sensation?
> I seriously doubt it, although I believe it's
> part of the answer.

I would suggest in part it is the relationship
between neurons and the fact they are performing
a color perception process. Color and shade are
relative and what we actually experience is a
product not of a single neuron but an interpretation
of the combined effects of many neurons.

Thus if you stimulate neurons that are involved
in the color perception process you will experience
color even though there may be nothing special
about the neurons themselves.

A visual stimulus will be experienced as yellow
or brown depending on the visual context.


> Certainly, it is caused by a brain process but
> the phenomenal experience of color (call it qualia,
> if you wish) is not in the brain. Unless someone
> can show a qualitative difference between the neurons,
> I am forced to conclude that some other phenomenon
> is at play.

For me the jury is still out on there being anything
"not in the brain" being involved or not.

--
John Casey

.

Relevant Pages

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