Re: Something more interesting, please!

Tim Tyler <seemysig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Curt Welch wrote:
Tim Tyler <seemysig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Alpha wrote:

Therefore, the two classes of phenomena, neurons and phenomenal
experience are not *identical*; to assume or posit such as Curt fdoes
is a category error.
Uh, the idea is that the configurations of neurons *produce* the
phenomenal experience - not that they are the same thing.

No, the idea is that they are the same thing, not that the
configuration of the neurons *produce* something. [...]

Neurons are not equivalent to phenomenal experiences.

But *firing patterns* in *neural circuits* may well be.

That's true. But if the neuron is not firing, is it having no experience?
Or if a single neuron fires outside a circuit, is it having no experience?
I think if one were to try and justify either of these positions they
would run into more difficulty.

The problem all stems from humans failing to be correctly understand what
they are. It comes from our brains building false or incomplete models of
ourselves. Our natural self-perception is one of a whole, a single entity
- not a collection of parts such as neurons each doing their own thing.
But we are not a whole, we are just a collection of parts that work
together to produce some unified patterns of behavior.

As such, when we try to come up with an explanation of a concept like
subjective experience, we have attached to this concept this indirect
assumption of a whole - either it exists as a single thing or it doesn't
exist. So when we try to understand where this single thing comes from, we
latch onto ideas like firing patterns in the network to explain it. It
feels like a good answer because the use of the word "pattern" seems to
mimic the need for us to be talking about a single whole, instead of a
collection of independent parts, each doing their own thing.

The wiring pattern and the temporal dynamics are important.

Yes they are.

They are important to the overall function of the human, just as much as
the wiring pattern and dynamics of the the electronic components of a
computer are important to its function. But that's all there is to it.

If we take out a single part, the computer's overall behavior changes some
how. Some parts have more drastic effects on the behavior than others.
But in the end, the overall behavior is just a result of what happens when
those parts work together.

That's all that's happening in us. We are nothing more than meat robots.
We have sensors and effectors and some signal processing happening in the
middle which is no different in basic form than any of our metal and sand
robots.

But yet, a large number of people think humans have something that robots
don't. It's not just a matter of degree, it's something which to them, is
totally missing in the metal robots but is present in meat robots. They
use all sorts of different names to describe it like consciousness, and
sentience, subjective experience, or just "how it feels to be alive".

What they are searching for I believe is an explanation of this natural
self image the brain builds in an attempt to define itself. Our entire
perception of reality is created by the brain's interpretation of the
sensory data which is fed to it. And in addition to building models which
represent the nature of all things in our environment, it also builds
models to represent ourself - after all, we are a part of the same
environment and we can see ourselves, and hear ourselves and it's just
natural that the brain will build a model of itself as as part of the
environment.

Unfortunately, the model a brain ends up building for itself, is quite
inconsistent with what we actually are. But yet, this model doesn't seem
to just be a model to most people, they sense it as reality itself -
because these models the brain creates _are_ the only reality we know. So
when science uncovers the true self (a meat robot which was created by the
process of evolution made of many interacting parts), and this view is
inconsistent with the model the brain has already put together for itself
(a single whole), people sense this is a natural inconsistency in reality.
But instead of understanding it's just an illusion created by the brain
building in invalid model of itself, they see it as the hard problem of
consciousness.

We are what science says we are, and that's all we are - just neurons
firing and chemicals flowing and arms and legs moving. There's nothing
else there to "explain" other than the specific implementation details of
all these interesting little parts.

I would say the firing patterns are produced by the neural
circuits - in much the same way that a cow produces milk.

Except milk is physical matter which becomes separated from the rest of the
physical matter of the cow where as "patterns" are not something that
becomes separated from the neurons. It's not a lasting change so we think
of it as a verb instead of a noun.

If you drop an apple on the ground, it produces a mark in the dirt. That's
lasting change.

What does an apple "produce" as it falls from a tree? I drop path?

The problem here is that these patterns of behavior don't exist as a
lasting change in the apple. They exist instead in the brain of the
observer. They exist as long term physical changes in our brains. We form
memories of the apple dropping. Just like the apple makes a long lasting
mark in the ground when it hits it, the falling apple makes a long lasting
mark in the brain of the person observing the apple drop.

These long lasting changes to our brains is what allows us to perceive a
behavior, like the apple dropping, as a "thing", as something that
"exists". It's because our memory of the pattern, and our ability to
recognize the pattern (and remember we have just seen it), is all due to
the physical "marks" these events make to our brain.

The brain also senses the behavior it was responsible for producing, like
the words we speak and motions we make with our arms, and even the thoughts
we have. The act of observing these things leaves a mark (a long term
change) in the very brain that was responsible for creating the behavior in
the first place. We have memories of what we have done in the past. These
patterns of behavior is what the brain sees, and what the brain remembers
as the definition of what it is. John Cassy likes to think of himself as
the behavior of his body, instead of thinking of himself as a body. But
those models represent a false image of a whole - a single unified whole
which is the source of the behavior patterns. This is how the brain builds
its understanding of the environment. It does it by creating models to
represent the unified patterns it finds in the sensory data. It creates
internal representations of the predictable temporal patterns it can find
in the environment. We understand reality in terms of these predictable
temporal patterns, and we understand ourself, in these same terms.

Thinks like "dog", and "cat", and "apple" are known to us because our brain
has built circuits to recognize the temporal sensory patterns these objects
tend to create. It's the fact that they create predicable patterns which
is what made our brain define them as a "thing". Motion itself becomes a
"thing" to us because it's predictable. An object in motion tends to stay
in motion, and that fact makes it's location at the next moment in time
predictable, and that predictability is what causes the brain to build a
pattern recognizer for it, and that allows it to become a "thing" in our
brain's model of existence.

The stuff that exists to our brain, are all predictable temporal sensory
patterns. That's the only type of existence our brain is able to represent
and it's the foundation of all our understanding of the universe. In that
space of existence is also all the predicable patterns the brain has
witnessed itself producing. As such, the brain's natural model of itself
is one of these patterns of behavior, instead of the reductionist model of
the network of neurons.

So, in this world of models built by the brain, where does the apple exist?
Does it exist in the brain, as a model of an apple, or does it exist in the
physical universe, as patterns of matter? To me, (a devote physicallist) I
think of the apple as existing in the universe, and the models of the apple
built by my brain, which defines what I think an apple is, is not the real
apple, but just my brain's representation of the real apple. I can't know
the "real apple". I only know the model. But my lack of ability to know
then apple doesn't prevent me from understanding that my view of reality is
not reality, but just my view of it.

So in the same way, where does the self exist? Is the "self" the physical
human body and brain, or is the self the model built by a brain of itself?
John Casey like to think of himself as the model - as the behavior he is
able to recognize, instead of thinking of himself as a body which produces
behavior.

This split between our brain's model of reality, and actually physical
reality, is the source of all dualistic philosophical confusion. When we
talk about existence, are we talking about what exists in the physical
universe, or what exists in our brain's model of it's sensory data? As a
human brain, the only existence I have access to is my models. But my
models also allow me to easily understand that physical reality exists
separate from my models of it.

So, are neurons equivalent to phenomenal experiences?

If it's the change in the neurons which allows us to recognize, and
remember patterns, is it not the change, as well as the current state of
the neuron, which is our phenomenal experience?

If you choose to say it's the "pattern" of firing, then when you look at my
brain, and see patterns of firing, where in fact that does that pattern
exist? In my brain, or your's? That is, my neurons are firing, there's no
doubt about that, but this thing you call a "pattern" where does that
exist? It exists in the hardware of your brain as circuits that activate
when they sense the given pattern in my brain.

At the lower level, the only "stuff" here is my neurons, and your neurons.
My neurons are activating because they are being stimulated by the vision
of a dog, and your neurons are activating because they are being stimulated
by the display of a brain scanner that is showing you the activity of my
neurons.

What of these things should we label as my "phenomenal experience" and
where should we say it exists? I say when we talk about my phenomenal
experience, we are talking about my neurons and their behavior, not your
perception of my neurons as represented by the changes taking place in your
neurons, or not even my own perception of my own neurons, but the neurons
themselves.

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

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