Re: consciousness

Traveler <traveler@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 28 Apr 2007 17:04:48 GMT, curt@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) wrote:

Then you guys are just choosing to define "awareness" as something magic
that only humans have even though there's no evidence to suggest our
awareness of events in our environment is any different than a computer
being aware of events in its environment.

This is nonsense, IMO. We have evidence that the neurons in the visual
cortex that encode for blue are biologically, chemically and
electrically identical to the neurons that encode for red or green.
The only difference is their cortical location. There is nothing
coming from the visual environment that tells the brain that it should
see red or blue because those neurons can be excited artificially
using a micro-electrode with the same result of color sensation that
would occur if they were excited naturally.

In other words, the environment has absolutely nothing to do with it.
What we sense is not *out there* but *in there*.

In other words, when I sense a dog, the thing I'm sensing is not "out
there"? Don't be silly.

Our awareness is of course totally a function of the circuits in the brain,
but the thing we are sensing normally starts "out there". Only our
awareness is "in there". However, none of this conflicts with anything I
said so why you started off with "this is nonsense" seems like nonsense to
me.

Now explain to me why cortical location alone gives rise to the
conscious phenomenon of color.

Again? How many times do you want me to repeat myself? You have never
been able to grasp it in the past so really, what's the point? Probably
just because you know I can't resist. :)

Cortical location gives rise to the conscious phenomenon of color in the
exact same way the location of a wire in a camcorder gives rise to the
sensation of red, blue and green colors in the camcorder. The wires are
all identical, but their different reactions to color is determined not by
their make up (they are all the same) by by their location relative to the
other parts of the camcorder. How on earth is this so hard for you to
understand?

What you fail to accept, is the possibility that the signal flowing in the
wire (aka how it connects in the chain reaction from the rainbow) is an
identity with what you keep calling "conscious experience".

Yet, there is no evidence to support the idea it's not an identity. The
only evidence is that people like you just keep saying it's not an
identity even though you can provide not even a single piece of data to
support that the identity doesn't exist. And even worse, if you assume
it's not an identity, it creates an endless list of unexplainable conflicts
with reality, where as if you assume it is an identity, there are no
conflicts. But yet, you guys keep sticking with a belief that creates
conflicts. Why is that?

And while you're at it, explain to me
how you would implement the same thing in a computer.

The same way it's implemented in a brain and in a camcorder. You create
signal processing circuits that break the visual information into signals
that represent different frequency bands.

And don't talk
to me about how those neurons are connected to other neurons.

Sure, why not ignore the reason the circuit works and then try to explain
how it works. How does one wire in the robot become the wire that carries
the red signal and the other wire carries the blue signal? You can't
answer it by looking at the structure of the wire alone. You answer it by
looking at how it's connected with the other wires and the other
transistors and the light sensors.

Why don't you try to explain to me how a robot is able to see color without
explaining how the wires are connected. Then change the word "robot" to
"brain" and you will have your answer for the brain as well.

The
connections do not make a difference because identical synapses and
neurons are used in the audio, tactile and olfactory areas as well.

So, you are saying that robots can't hear and see unless they have magic
transistors dipped in red, blue and green qualia before they are wired up.
Otherwise, the robot couldn't see red and blue with the same transistors?
Of if you swapped the transistors from the red circuits to the transistors
with the blue circuits, it would fail? Everything you suggest sounds so
stupid to me I don't really understand how you can fail to see the one
obvious answer here that makes it all so simple and trivial and continue to
cling to a dualistic based belief system that fails to answer even the
simplest of questions about how it all works.

Difference of location is simply not the same as difference of
sensation. And detection is not the same as being aware. And please,
don't tell me that my thermostat feels temperature because that would
place you squarely in my crackpot bin. But then again, don't feel bad.
Most of you have already placed me your crackpot bin. ahahaha...

In other words, you believe that our current camcorders and robots can't
see red, even though every way we have to test for their ability to see red
tells us they see it? That is, both humans, and robots, can produce
behavior in response to seeing red which is different from the behavior we
produce in response to seeing blue.

Having said that, I see no reason that an unconscious machine cannot
be just as intelligent as a human being and even more.

Right, which leaves you with no way to test for this magical property
called "consciousness" which you for some reason believe humans have and
computers don't. But then you should ask yourself, if the property can't
be tested for, or sensed, then why do you believe we have this "stuff"
even though you can't sense it? Where did your belief in this stuff come
from if you can't sense it? And if you can sense it, then what is it that
you think you are sensing?

That, of course, is the basis of all my ranting here. People like you are
just so sure that you are talking about something real, but yet, all your
logic falls completely apart when you try to defend that this magic stuff
called consciousness is somehow different from all the real stuff we
already have in robots and computers. When you reject the idea that your
sensation of red is an identity with the behavior of your red sensing
neurons, you have created a paradox that can't be explained. You have
created a paradox that you, and your like minded friends here, keep asking
me to explain. But you reject my answer every time I give it, because you
are unable to understand it. You are unable to grasp the simple idea of
your sensation of red being an identity with the behavior of your neurons
- yet I'm sure you don't have any problem understanding that the behavior
of the electrons in the wire which carries the red signal for the robot is
an identity with the robot's sensation of red. If you activate that wire
in the robot, the robot will report "seeing red" even if there is no red
light. It's all perfectly consistent with what humans do, yet, you still
cling to the idea that something else complex and not yet understood must
be happening in humans? Why? WHY? WHY?

It's the fact that you can't prove there is a difference which is the error
in all our logic. You can't prove that our sensation of redness is any
different than a camcorder's sensation of redness created by it's red
signals. The only proof you have is that you and all your friends keep
saying, "it's true because I know it's true".

What would you say to the robot that kept saying such stupid stuff to you?
How would you respond to a robot which used normal electronics to see red
and to talk with you and to tell you that his sensation of red was not just
the activity of that red-signal wire because the red-signal wire wasn't
red? (it's actually copper colored with black insulation). And he kept
telling you that he couldn't understand how the three wires, all of which
seemed to be identical, could create three different sensations (red, blue,
and green), just because they were wired to different parts of the robot?

Everything we know about biology, and humans, and electronics, and robots,
and physics tells us we are the same basic type of machine. We have
sensors, data processing, and effectors that allow us to produce behavior
in response to the things which happen in our environment.

But yet, because we grew up in a culture that believed in dualism, you too
are now locked into these dualistic beliefs that humans are something more
than just a physical body. But yet, we have never built an instrument to
sense this other magic non-physical substance called qualia. The only
instrument that seems able to sense it is the human brain. But yet, we
have taken the human brain apart down to the atomic level, and found
nothing special in it other than normal biological signal processing
devices that have direct parallels to the sorts of signal processing
devices we have built into all our machines. And, just like our robots,
when we activate the signal systems by exciting the neurons, the humans
report "sensing" this magical qualia when we know for a fact all they are
sensing is the stimulation created by an electrical probe in their brain.

How long will it take you to break free of the lies told you by those
dualists that raised you? How long will you choose to believe in things
that create nothing but contradictions when you have the free will, and
power, to believe in something that explains everything with no
contradictions?

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@xxxxxxxx http://NewsReader.Com/
.

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