Consciousness

[DBT]

To state the obvious, the electrochemical activity of a brain can be detected, measured and related to conscious activity within regions of a brain as experienced and verbally described by the subjects being tested, Not only that, but generated using electrical brain stimulation (or chemicals) which activates parts of a brain producing emotions, feeling and thoughts according to the regions being stimulated. Feelings of love, hate, fear and so on.

 

[untermensche]

To state the obvious, the electrochemical activity of a brain can be detected, measured and related to conscious activity within regions of a brain as experienced and verbally described by the subjects being tested, Not only that, but generated using electrical brain stimulation (or chemicals) which activates parts of a brain producing emotions, feeling and thoughts according to the regions being stimulated. Feelings of love, hate, fear and so on.

Saying it is "electrochemical activity" is also simpleminded.

Is it some quantum effect produced by the activity?

Is it some unknown electrical effect? A magnetic effect?

We have no understanding, none, how activity in cells results in consciousness.

We know nothing about the production of consciousness.

If somebody has consciousness we can sometimes correlate subjective reports of some tiny fragment of experience to LOCATIONS of activity.

But the brain works globally. The visual experience is created by activity in places all over the brain.

The LOCATION of some activity tells us absolutely nothing about what specific activity results in consciousness.

It tells us absolutely nothing about what consciousness can do.

 

[fromderinside]

Nothing understood about the brain would result in consciousness.

Really? You're certain? You've done the studies, reviewed the evidence, and published it's slam dunk that nothing understood about the brain would result in consciousness. I wonder why Francis Crick and others performed those studies and found minumum brain required for differing thing from food?

Thought problem: How does a living mobile animal, using smell or sight as primary input, differ food from other without having to touch it, ingest it, and attempt to digest it? hmmmmnnnn

 

[untermensche]

Nothing understood about the brain would result in consciousness.

Really? You're certain? You've done the studies, reviewed the evidence, and published it's slam dunk that nothing understood about the brain would result in consciousness. I wonder why Francis Crick and others performed those studies and found minumum brain required for differing thing from food?

Thought problem: How does a living mobile animal, using smell or sight as primary input, differ food from other without having to touch it, ingest it, and attempt to digest it? hmmmmnnnn

I don't see the point as that complicated.

There is no understanding of how the activity of cells results in consciousness.

Not even a testable guess.

 

[DBT]

Rubbish. Put aside your own misconceptions and do a bit of reading.

 

[untermensche]

Rubbish. Put aside your own misconceptions and do a bit of reading.

The problem is I can both read and able to judge what I am reading.

I don't read any of this like you do.

Like a religious adherent that questions no conclusions no matter how absurd they are.

You read a study where they merely label activity not understood in the least and you don't have the ability to question these arbitrary labels. And don't understand that attaching labels to things not understood does not give you a better understanding.

 

[another1]

They say cells are where consciousness comes from, right? Sorry but I gotta ask. Is that the idea behind the tedious scientific labeling? That the brain is made of cells, and the brain somehow generates consciousness that creates everything unto itself? Am I getting that part right?

If you ask me, cells are secondary. They're like footprints, or. um. like a byproduct collecting in a dimension of waste. Cells aren't even necessary for consciousness to exist. The ideas that I may have existed before my cells formed, and that I may exist after they're gone... those feel like instinct. My instinct also tells me that cells are shared, but good luck getting me to explain that. But yes I am positive about my cells having no actual consequence in the big picture, which to me is a living piece of art stored in many galleries. It isn't actually a picture but it is very big.

The science labeling is sloppy and slow. They're getting high from white-out fumes at this point, aren't they? The labels collect dust and hinder progress. Admittedly I know very little about them, but instinct tells me they're wrong. I think you may understand.

Do you consider consciousness an animal? If it is, our reality is where it urinates and takes dumps. Or maybe this is a dope stashing spot. Or a brothel of sorts. It certainly is NOT where my consciousness comes from, I do know that from instinct I can't ignore. I couldn't argue it and I don't feel the need to, given the nature of things. I don't even feel it is healthy to do so, but I'm a self-destructive being like everything else. Why is a most violent word.

I think consciousness is much more than something you can test and label. In fact - it is probably working at confusing anyone trying. It makes science people look like Abbot and Costello smoking crack, picking at the carpet and peeking out the window. I think this comedy routine may not be accidental. Things may only be understood to a certain point, and after that, the situation becomes like the coyote and roadrunner. The coyote chases the roadrunner off a cliff and begins to run in the air, unaware that nothing is beneath him. When he finally looks in the right direction - he falls. A mechanism may be working with, or within consciousness to prevent the fall, and the chase appears to continue. I've tried to explain this notion (to myself) many times, and I always prove myself right because I still have no idea.

 

[fromderinside]

Really? You're certain? You've done the studies, reviewed the evidence, and published it's slam dunk that nothing understood about the brain would result in consciousness. I wonder why Francis Crick and others performed those studies and found minumum brain required for differing thing from food?

Thought problem: How does a living mobile animal, using smell or sight as primary input, differ food from other without having to touch it, ingest it, and attempt to digest it? hmmmmnnnn

I don't see the point as that complicated.

There is no understanding of how the activity of cells results in consciousness.

Not even a testable guess.

We agree that 'conscious' isn't something different from ongoing brain activity. We agree on that. After all you keep saying consciousness cannot be seen in brain activity. Either you think as I do that all there is only physical or you believe in something which hasn't been even measured or doesn't exist. If you believe as one who has posted here there is something which must be found for which he has posited many, every one to be shot down then you are looking for a representation which we can measure at some level. You don't seem to be saying that. You seem to be a construct in this territory: Property and substance dualism https://www.philosophybro.com/archive/property-and-substance-dualism

Substance dualism and property dualism are two positions in the philosophy of mind, and they’re trying to answer questions like “Hey what’s the relationship between the mental and the physical?” or “what’s up with consciousness?" According to substance dualism, mental things and physical things are two totally different kinds of things. It would probably mean that no matter how much we study the brain, even if we managed to achieve a perfect understanding of the brain’s crazy intricate inner workings, it won’t be enough to understand the mind, or our mental experiences of subjective consciousness, because we’re looking at the wrong fucking thing. "Hey, quit studying that brain, it’s not even the right goddamn substance, you idiot.” Maybe if we figured out how the brain and the mind hook up, we’d learn something about the mind, but if substance dualism is true, then no amount of information about the brain would ever be enough to fully explain how the mind works.

According to property dualism, though, there’s only one kind of substance, and it just has different kinds of properties. So we only have to look at one thing, the brain, and that’s where we’d find both mental properties and physical properties. If we fully understood the brain, we’d have enough information to also explain but also, it would mean there’s a bunch more shit to understand about the brain than if substance dualism is true.

So, in short: substance dualism says “Oh no you’ve got the wrong thing entirely, stupid” and property dualism says “yeah, no, go on, keep looking at the brain, we’ll get it eventually."

Currently you seem to b e denying the last sentence so you are most likely a substance duelist.

If so, we'll never agree, but even if you were a property duelist like that other bloke who just keeps reverting to quantum this and quantum that, still we'd never agree.

My firm view is that taking the human, his inheritance, and his behavior into account one can realize how one must behave with what we already know about man and the physical environment in which he lives.

Let me explain. When I see someone with something on her mind, often I can divine what is actually on her mind, of what she is conscious. Evidence of this is in what mirror cells do when presented with what someone else is experiencing or what someone else is going to do with that damn knife she is wielding. The cells respond as if they were experiencing the same thing, they create within us what appear to be the same emotional and tactical state.

 

[untermensche]

I don't see the point as that complicated.

There is no understanding of how the activity of cells results in consciousness.

Not even a testable guess.

We agree that 'conscious' isn't something different from ongoing brain activity.

The product of activity IS different from the activity. And of course the question is: What activity? We have no understanding of how any chemical or electrical activity could result in conscious experience.

After all you keep saying consciousness cannot be seen in brain activity.

The activity cannot be looked at with current instruments. An EEG is not LOOKING at activity. It is measuring the level of activity. In the brain there are continual waves of some kind of electrical activity.

What they mean is unknown.

A PET scan is not LOOKING at activity. It is assigning a color to a certain level of activity.

Either you think as I do that all there is only physical or you believe in something which hasn't been even measured or doesn't exist.

There is an effect we experience and do not know how it is achieved by a bunch of cells. It is a mystery.

“yeah, no, go on, keep looking at the brain, we’ll get it eventually."

That is where it is to be found, but that does not mean humans will figure it out.

if you were a property duelist like that other bloke who just keeps reverting to quantum this and quantum that, still we'd never agree.

Excluding some kind of quantum effect is not rational, but there actually has to be an understanding reached by invoking a quantum effect, merely saying some quantum effect exists in some matter in the brain is not proof of anything.

Let me explain. When I see someone with something on her mind, often I can divine what is actually on her mind, of what she is conscious.

There are facial expressions associated with specific emotions.

But if I had people calmly sit and think of something of their own choice at random you would not be able to know what they were thinking of very well.

Evidence of this is in what mirror cells do when presented with what someone else is experiencing or what someone else is going to do with that damn knife she is wielding. The cells respond as if they were experiencing the same thing, they create within us what appear to be the same emotional and tactical state.

This is recognition of stereotypical facial expressions associated with emotion.

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=TFRtLZSHMcYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=darwin+facial+expression+of+emotion&ots=Y2nzgu_rLb&sig=8yVVkvY7IlxA7EWXH_wGaANFZvU#v=onepage&q=darwin%20facial%20expression%20of%20emotion&f=false

 

[fromderinside]

What I find amazing is you are apparently trying to separate emotional behavior from conscious behavior.

Conscious behavior includes all behavior over which the observer appears to be aware and appears to be explaining in words what she is doing. So emotional conscious behavior is still conscious behavior. Humans can do it and, as you've been posting, your study fails miserably at convincing one it captures something separate from consciously mirroring rational behavior.

Stereotypical behavior comes from beasts as ancient as the sea squirt. Certainly there is a difference between human tracking such behavior than that of such as sea squirts, and, as I pointed out a while back. mouth breeder teleosts. One thing consistently found is the importance of humans being able to track intentional behavior.

I also disagree that consciousness is a product. Rather it is a state and states can be tracked as outputs and characterized by tracts and subsystems all of which have been demonstrated and tracked in humans, vertebrates actually, back to Manta Rays ( Elasmobranchii).

So in my view consciousness is a function, more than a state, but, of which the attribute of state-ness is established.

 

[untermensche]

What I find amazing is you are apparently trying to separate emotional behavior from conscious behavior.

We do it in our world.

We make a distinction between premeditated murder and murder done in the heat of some emotion.

We are animals with drives and emotions.

But we are also thinking animals that can squash and override emotions at times.

Conscious behavior includes all behavior over which the observer appears to be aware and appears to be explaining in words what she is doing. So emotional conscious behavior is still conscious behavior. Humans can do it and, as you've been posting, your study fails miserably at convincing one it captures something separate from consciously mirroring rational behavior.

My study you didn't look at was Darwin's work in the area of emotion and facial expression.

I also disagree that consciousness is a product. Rather it is a state...

A state is achieved. A state is a product.

 

[fromderinside]

First Darwin was an observer, a naturalist, father of ethologists, and we all know how effective they are in messing up behavioral science. Takes nothing away from his ability to observe habitats and species variation though. So you aren't covered there.

A state is a defined output and it can be continuously observed at a point in the system depending on for what you are looking so it is a temporal product best summarized with averages and time charts. A better description of the product of a state machine is a process which needs either be continuously monitored or recorded.

Scientifically separating cognition from emotion is very difficult. That is why I criticized the conclusion that is was stereotyped emotion. Believe me I know stereotyped emotion. Remember my description of the Tilapia's 'aha' response. Autonomic and behavioral response following three paired occurrences of nose push and worm splash. Even that has a rational component.

 

[DBT]

Rubbish. Put aside your own misconceptions and do a bit of reading.

The problem is I can both read and able to judge what I am reading.

You are certainly able to read and misjudge what you read whenever it doesn't agree with your own preconceived misconceptions. That much is true

I don't read any of this like you do.

Of course not, that is obvious. You also don't read like anyone else who happens to be objective, which you are clearly not.

You read a study where they merely label activity not understood in the least and you don't have the ability to question these arbitrary labels. And don't understand that attaching labels to things not understood does not give you a better understanding.

You totally disregard, not only what I say, but whatever the very people who do the research are saying. You do that because you believe that you are right and everybody else is wrong.

 

[untermensche]

The problem is I can both read and able to judge what I am reading.

You are certainly able to read and misjudge what you read whenever it doesn't agree with your own preconceived misconceptions. That much is true

I don't read any of this like you do.

Of course not, that is obvious. You also don't read like anyone else who happens to be objective, which you are clearly not.

You read a study where they merely label activity not understood in the least and you don't have the ability to question these arbitrary labels. And don't understand that attaching labels to things not understood does not give you a better understanding.

You totally disregard, not only what I say, but whatever the very people who do the research are saying. You do that because you believe that you are right and everybody else is wrong.

In a Libet-type experiment how is consciousness observed?

What is the evidence the brain just initiated something on it's own?

 

[untermensche]

First Darwin was an observer, a naturalist, father of ethologists, and we all know how effective they are in messing up behavioral science. Takes nothing away from his ability to observe habitats and species variation though. So you aren't covered there.

I need no cover from bare speculation.

Complex human behavior is one thing and some tiny segment of the neural activity of a ray is another.

Humans can recognize emotions in others the same way they recognize faces. Not as a "willed" event but as the result of some underlying "programming".

But for the "programming" to work the expressions have to be stereotypical.

Pattern recognition. Sometimes kicking in reflexive feelings of empathy and sometimes understanding there is danger and igniting a sympathetic response.

A state is a defined output and it can be continuously observed at a point in the system depending on for what you are looking so it is a temporal product best summarized with averages and time charts.

In other words: specific activity.

The activity has to be "constructed" in some way. It cannot just arise by magic. If there is specific activity in the brain there have to be "programs" in the brain.

If there is vision there must be "programs" which "construct" the visual experience.

If there is walking there must be "programs" to allow this incredibly complicated activity.

If there is language that arises naturally with extremely limited data there must be "programs" that allow it.

What a "program" might be in terms of neurophysiology is completely unknown.

A better description of the product of a state machine is a process which needs either be continuously monitored or recorded.

Simple everyday life throws these speculations off.

I am at a baseball game the other day. I have to urinate. The brain fully knows that urination is necessary. But I am not leaving my seat, there is action.

Now how do we claim it is the brain keeping me in the seat and not my "will"?

Why does my brain care more about a baseball game than a bodily function? It is creating all these painful signals for something besides itself to understand.

These speculations that consciousness has no control fall apart with actions we take or don't take everyday.

 

[fromderinside]

Way too dogmatic there untermenche. Our brains handle emotive elements in most behavior as if they are elements in the current scene without them being stripped and processed by some midbrain mechanism more or less independently.

You talk of your experiences in pharmacy and group care. Well I talk of experiences in the study of S&P and M&E as well as comparative behavior. In the study of ascending and descending nervous control over functional structures in sensory and stereotypical mechanisms humans are very unlike most mammalian species. Human descending neuronal control and modulation capacities are unparalleled among mammals. From the first five milliseconds in auditory sensation descending neuronal interaction is apparent. This capability gives us great flexibility and short latency for modifying activity among other things. I've no doubt there are ancient mechanisms, more or less unchanged, we use for routine behavior as do even frogs and toads. But when it comes to more modern stereotypical patterns we are capable of trading against ancient patterns unlike most other species.

However our systems are so plastic at brain level and across brain levels that within two hundred ms we appreciate tonality down to 5 ms signals and we begin to turn our heads and eyes toward sources. Fishes and frogs and even cats are unable to do this yet we all have essentially the same stereotype subsystems in hindbrain and midbrain.

urination and interesting segment of ball game. Will? Wow. You are a fan so it is as likely that your attention will stay on the game until specific actions are complete before you respond to your nagging urge to go. Is that will or competing impulses? My guess is competing impulses so its not apples and oranges its apples and sweet apples. No deciding just more or less fixed action patterns, one more primitive than the other operating. Will? Its going down the toilet here.

 

[untermensche]

Way too dogmatic there untermenche. Our brains handle emotive elements in most behavior as if they are elements in the current scene without them being stripped and processed by some midbrain mechanism more or less independently.

The emotions may constantly be trying to intrude on consciousness but after a certain age consciousness takes control and does not listen to every intrusion or uses emotional intrusions as a motivational force for goals devised by consciousness like painting a picture.

Emotions are something consciousness experiences and sometimes learns to control. They are always there. But they do not necessarily control behavior. They inform consciousness, but do it crudely and stereotypically. And they are often wrong.

Well I talk of experiences in the study of S&P and M&E as well as comparative behavior. In the study of ascending and descending nervous control over functional structures in sensory and stereotypical mechanisms humans are very unlike most mammalian species. Human descending neuronal control and modulation capacities are unparalleled among mammals. From the first five milliseconds in auditory sensation descending neuronal interaction is apparent. This capability gives us great flexibility and short latency for modifying activity among other things. I've no doubt there are ancient mechanisms, more or less unchanged, we use for routine behavior as do even frogs and toads. But when it comes to more modern stereotypical patterns we are capable of trading against ancient patterns unlike most other species.

I don't see anything here more than some scattered facts to speculate about.

If humans have more robust mechanisms of control that supports my thesis of this added layer of partial control called consciousness.

You are a fan so it is as likely that your attention will stay on the game until specific actions are complete before you respond to your nagging urge to go.

Yes I am saying I am in control of what I attend to and can override very strong signals from the brain at will.

 

[fromderinside]

Yet every time I post you respond in a predictable way.

 

[untermensche]

Yet every time I post you respond in a predictable way.

That could mean it is the truth.

 

[DBT]

You are certainly able to read and misjudge what you read whenever it doesn't agree with your own preconceived misconceptions. That much is true

I don't read any of this like you do.

Of course not, that is obvious. You also don't read like anyone else who happens to be objective, which you are clearly not.

You read a study where they merely label activity not understood in the least and you don't have the ability to question these arbitrary labels. And don't understand that attaching labels to things not understood does not give you a better understanding.

You totally disregard, not only what I say, but whatever the very people who do the research are saying. You do that because you believe that you are right and everybody else is wrong.

In a Libet-type experiment how is consciousness observed?

As you should know by now, conscious experience is related to the electrical activity being detected within the brain with subject response and decision making and that predictions of decision to be made prior to the subject's experience of making the decision has been achieved to a degree well above chance. This can only improve with new technology.

What is the evidence the brain just initiated something on it's own?

I've given that evidence over and over, you simply ignore it. Brains are the only known source of consciousness/activity. This can be chemically and electrically altered, suppressed, stimulated or switched off altogether using anesthetic. Specific emotions and feeling can be generated through electrical stimulation of related regions and so on....