Re: Consciousness: what's the problem?
- From: Alpha <omegazero2003@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 07:43:57 -0700 (PDT)
On Sep 5, 3:46 pm, c...@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) wrote:
casey <jgkjca...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 1, 10:17=A0am, c...@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) wrote:
I hope I'm not doing a double reply here. I wrote I reply but I think I
decided to throw it out (too much rambling even for my tastes).
CW:
Well, to start, you and I are likely using a
slightly different definition of sensing. We
would have to start with a discussion of what
sensing is. I'll start by saying to me, it's
the fairly well understood use of the word
in engineering. That is, it's the act of a
sensor transforming one type of signal into
another (like light into electrical signals).
To me, this is all there is to "sensing"
whether it'd done by a human, or by some man
made machine.
JC:
But can you report such things at that level?
When you become aware of something, that is,
when you can respond to the thing you are
aware of in the form "I see an apple", it is a
little more, I would suggest, than light energy
being transduced to electrical energy although
such a translation is required. Your camera is
not aware of an apple in that sense.
Right, the camera has no understanding or ability to recognize and respond
to apples. Though some of them it seems are developing an awareness of
faces.
The camera has awareness of pixels, and focus, and exposure levels, but no
awareness of apples.
Humans aren't special because we are aware. Cameras are aware. Even rocks
have a very low level of awareness. We are special because of the very
large number of things we are aware of and because how we react to that
awareness is adjusted by an advanced and strong reinforcement learning
system which creates goal directed purpose in our behavior. Cameras for
the most part don't include reinforcement learning systems adjusting their
behavior so even though they are aware, they don't do anything interesting
with that awareness other than take pictures.
CW:
From there, we move on to what subjective experience
is. It's hard to define because the people who think
it's something other than an act of sensing can't in
fact define it. They say, "it just is because I say
it is but it's not sensing". So what can anyone do
with a statement like that? Nothing. It's just total
nonsense at every level.
JC:
I was just listening to a program on the radio
on the subject of people in a vegetative state
after brain trauma. They put one such subject
in an MRI scanner and asked the subject to
imagine playing tennis. Even though the subject
was unresponsive physically the brain scan was
the same response that they would get with a
person who was not in a vegetative state. Was
that person having a "subjective experience"
of playing tennis?
No clue what was happening in that person's brain nor do I have a enough
understanding of brain physiology to even hazard a good guess.
At best however, he was probably having a subjective experience of
"thinking about playing tennis" or maybe, "a subjective experience of
dreaming about playing tennis".
CW:
If John (for example) says that he is "aware"
of his own "subjective experience" we are then
left trying to figure out what human awareness is.
JC:
I think I would have said I *have* subjective
experiences for being aware means much the same
thing. The problem here is words are used in
rubbery way and we can only hope that the other
person can infer by reference to their own
subjective experiences what is being talked about.
:)
That of course is what I try to do. For the most part, I can understand
what people are talking about in these debates because I've shared many
similar views in the past as well. Then I figured out my own self-image
created by these ideas of conscious was just bull shit I was talked into by
society combined with an illusion created by how my brain works.
I used to see myself as existing "inside" my body looking out (so to say)..
I was the think inside the body doing the private talking to myself. But I
also happened to be a body. It a few similar to being a person driving a
car. You are the person, and the car is an extension of you in that you
have full control over it. I saw my body in a similar view such that "I"
was this "thing" (didn't want to call it a soul) inside the body, which had
a mind of it's own, and which controlled the body as need be.
This was a view which existed less out of logic, and more simply by
default. It's was a self image that just naturally seemed to form in me
which I had never really gave much thought to until people here kept
bringing up all these issues in AI debates (which I always saw as nothing
more than an engineering problem which found many people saw it as
something far different).
The more I understood these ideas, the more I understood how distorted an
illogical my own self image was (it was a dualistic view of a "self" of
some type existing separate from the body).
But my reason made it clear to me that this view was just wrong, and that I
wasn't a "think inside a body" but instead, I was just a body with a brain
and nothing else. For the most part, that old self image has now been
conditioned out of myself, and what's left is a self image that fits
reality. I'm just a biologically created body with a brain that walks and
talks and types Usenet messages.
Anyone who is still stuck with any sort of distorted view
The only distortion, is in your own mind.
like the one I
had, will naturally point to it as what "consciousness" is. Because the
"I" in my own self view felt like "something else" from the body, the
concept of consciousness gets linked to having that self image. We feel
conscious because we have an image of ourselves which seems to be separate
from, or above, your non-conscious body.
I do not have the image of my self as separate from my body. So your
contention is erroneous. I feel as if my self is centered within (so
to speak) and is part-n-parcel of my living body.
It's this distorted view of
ourselves that everyone
Only you have the distorted view.
is talking about when they talk about
consciousness. It's why so many people like to throw in the ideas of "self
awareness" as a key component when they grasp at straws to try and figure
out how to describe consciousness. It's out imiage of ourselves which is
distorted, and it's the distortion (the illusion created by the brain)
which they should actually be describing.
You have given no theory as to why brain would create such an
illusion. Let alone data to support the contention that it is indeed
an illusion. Gee, let us see: when I go to sleep I am unaware and
have no normal waking consciousness. WHen I awake, there is it - a
WORLD of difference that you think is illusory. Sorry, but your
contention does not hold any water at all. It is dismissive of data
and as such, indicates your non-scientific thinking on the matter.
I'm fairly sure I know exactly what people are talking about when they talk
about their own self awareness and subjective experience and consciousness
because I too used to have the same odd sorts of feelings about myself
until I realized where they came from and what they were really about.
Too bad you dismissal of such as an illusion indicates your own
delusions more than the facts on the ground.
If you have no subjective experiences to make
that connection you cannot know what it means.
<snip>
I think the belief that consciousness exists as something in us, all comes
from this confusion of "feeling" like _we_ are separated from our body.
Only you stiputalte such a confusion; I have no confusion. I know
body/mind are linked and are not separate. Your attribution of
confusion to others, simply signifies your own confusion as to what
others are thinking or feeling ab9out the matter.
It's an illusory image of ourselves which the brain naturally tends to
create in all humans.
Not very scientific an analysis. The brain tends to create this
illusion that makes all the difference in the world between being
aware and not being aware. GHEESH!
So, if this is true, what does the word consciousness actually label here?
Is it the illusionary aspect of how our thoughts seem to exist in a
separate realm?
Only in your elued mind; whereever you think your mind is.
.
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- Re: Consciousness: what's the problem?
- From: Curt Welch
- Re: Consciousness: what's the problem?
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