Consciousness

[untermensche]

Yes there are primitive systems of awareness.

But none of that even touches on the simple case of sitting quietly and moving your finger at will.

You can't make any statements about that based on this very preliminary work that really explains nothing about brain activity itself.

Brain activity itself.

It is more than just seeing unexplained activity in some part of the brain.

What kind of activity? Is it all the same thing? And how is this activity resulting in conscious experience. Those are the questions that need answering.

 

[fromderinside]

Uh, moving your finger depends on being alive and, usually, aroused.Consciousness can be described as being aware that one discriminates food from other as well. You finger has to wait in line for progress to be far enough to describe, in detail, how the brain accomplishes each and every one of these things. since consciousness didn't arise independently I think we can safely say consciousness is and extension of one's deterministic past.

If you have evidence to the contrary on any of this please light our way.

Reflex activity was the first finger mover. Seems likely that you believing you moved your finger arises from those beginnings.

just sayin... so's you don/t have to get too unanchored when you pose your unique view of something other than material determining of the capability.

 

[untermensche]

Uh, moving your finger depends on being alive and, usually, aroused.Consciousness can be described as being aware that one discriminates food from other as well. You finger has to wait in line for progress to be far enough to describe, in detail, how the brain accomplishes each and every one of these things. since consciousness didn't arise independently I think we can safely say consciousness is and extension of one's deterministic past.

If you have evidence to the contrary on any of this please light our way.

Reflex activity was the first finger mover. Seems likely that you believing you moved your finger arises from those beginnings.

just sayin... so's you don/t have to get too unanchored when you pose your unique view of something other than material determining of the capability.

Arousal and consciousness are not the same thing.

There is nothing that says the mechanisms responsible for arousal are the same mechanisms creating consciousness.

 

[George S]

Let us raise a middle finger.

You manage to do it. The arm, hand, and fingers take on a specific imagined look. The actual muscle contractions are unconscious responses to the idea "Let us raise a middle finger."

Let's Waltz. The dancing is left to the unconscious, the idea of dancing was the trigger.

Aside about freedom to will. Will is as free as imagination is free. Dreams are imagination unfettered by reality. Day dreams are imagination closer to reality. Plans are dreams constrained by reality. Acting on plans -- implementing the idea -- is the exercise of will.

 

[fromderinside]

Arousal and consciousness are not the same thing.

There is nothing that says the mechanisms responsible for arousal are the same mechanisms creating consciousness.

Hokay. So the somnolent being became conscious. How? No I think arousal walks right through consciousness street. You say they are not responsible for conscious, Yet a sleeping Mantra can't see, can't distinguish food from other. but a sleeping horseshoe crabs, when heat is applied stands on it's tail stinger, raises it's finger. Wo what is it? Care to pick and chooses which things lead to consciousness street? is it just reflex or is is reflex and arousal and a bunch of other existing things as the article we just discussed suggest?

You have just gone from an unlikely hypothesis to one contradicting much of what we have learned about behavior, much of which forms the basis of our predictions for making models of behavior that work. I'd say your hypothesis has gone from unlikely past improbable to almost impossible. Yet you offer nothing.

 

[untermensche]

Arousal and consciousness are not the same thing.

There is nothing that says the mechanisms responsible for arousal are the same mechanisms creating consciousness.

Hokay. So the somnolent being became conscious. How? No I think arousal walks right through consciousness street. You say they are not responsible for conscious, Yet a sleeping Mantra can't see, can't distinguish food from other. but a sleeping horseshoe crabs, when heat is applied stands on it's tail stinger, raises it's finger. Wo what is it? Care to pick and chooses which things lead to consciousness street? is it just reflex or is is reflex and arousal and a bunch of other existing things as the article we just discussed suggest?

You have just gone from an unlikely hypothesis to one contradicting much of what we have learned about behavior, much of which forms the basis of our predictions for making models of behavior that work. I'd say your hypothesis has gone from unlikely past improbable to almost impossible. Yet you offer nothing.

You mean Manta?

Because your mantra has been heard.

My consciousness is not dependent on my level of arousal.

I am conscious when not aroused much and I am conscious when aroused quite a bit.

Arousal is something that effects consciousness.

It is not consciousness.

 

[untermensche]

Let us raise a middle finger.

You manage to do it. The arm, hand, and fingers take on a specific imagined look. The actual muscle contractions are unconscious responses to the idea "Let us raise a middle finger."

Let's Waltz. The dancing is left to the unconscious, the idea of dancing was the trigger.

Aside about freedom to will. Will is as free as imagination is free. Dreams are imagination unfettered by reality. Day dreams are imagination closer to reality. Plans are dreams constrained by reality. Acting on plans -- implementing the idea -- is the exercise of will.

I don't think the freedom comes in imagination. That is just randomness.

The freedom comes in planning and making decisions about what you will and will not do.

 

[fromderinside]

My consciousness is not dependent on my level of arousal.

I am conscious when not aroused much and I am conscious when aroused quite a bit.

Arousal is something that effects consciousness.

It is not consciousness.

Didn't say it was. I said it depends on whether one is or is not aroused.

So yes it effects, permits, antecedent to, consciousness.

Most likely it is a part of consciousness.

I thought if I found articles with both perceptual and clinical elements we'd have a better discussions so I took a look at recent articles on arousal, awareness and conscious where I found the following:

The neural monitoring of visceral inputs, rather than attention, accounts for first-person perspective in conscious vision http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945217301740
and

Conscious and unconscious perception http://www.lscp.net/persons/nfaivre/img/reprint_Blackwell2017.pdf

Now we each have something to chew on relative to whither and how consciousness.

Have fun.

 

[untermensche]

...So yes it effects, permits, antecedent to, consciousness.

Most likely it is a part of consciousness....

It doesn't permit anything.

It has an effect.

So does the visual experience. So do the emotions. So do ideas.

 

[fromderinside]

Genetic threads tie knots which lead to permissions from past happenstance. Oh dear. Must we add evolution?

 

[untermensche]

Genetic threads tie knots which lead to permissions from past happenstance. Oh dear. Must we add evolution?

My claim is conscious control is a late stage in brain evolution.

It can do things reflexive control cannot.

 

[DBT]

Conscious control is, according to evidence, in fact a matter of conscious report of actions to be taken or vetoed.

This is what we experience when the system, the brain, is functioning normally.

But when the system begins to dysfunction the true nature of brain agency, not consciousness itself, becomes obvious. Brain conditions where no matter how hard you try, you cannot make rational decisions, you cannot move your arm, you cannot recognize, you cannot remember and consequently you do not feel that you have conscious control. You feel yourself progressively losing conscious control.

 

[untermensche]

Conscious control is, according to evidence, in fact a matter of conscious report of actions to be taken or vetoed.

No evidence of conscious control exists. But we experience it constantly. We decide to move here or there or write this or that.

Nobody has the slightest clue what it looks like in terms of brain activity.

You assume something has to be a spike to actually be activity. That is nonsense. There is an underlying constant level of activity. Consciousness is unbroken. When fully conscious, experience is unbroken.

There is sleep. A completely different brain state where conscious control is lost.

 

[fromderinside]

Conscious control is, according to evidence, in fact a matter of conscious report of actions to be taken or vetoed.

No evidence of conscious control exists. But we experience it constantly. We decide to move here or there or write this or that.

Nobody has the slightest clue what it looks like in terms of brain activity.

You assume something has to be a spike to actually be activity. That is nonsense. There is an underlying constant level of activity. Consciousness is unbroken. When fully conscious, experience is unbroken.

There is sleep. A completely different brain state where conscious control is lost.

A lab mate of mine at FSU found penetration of wakefulness through sleep and of sleep through wakefulness in brain activity. The study cited establishes sleep penetrating into wakefulness during interrupted sleep. Later, at Berkeley he found sleep activity penetrated into wakefulness as well, Differential effects of REM and non-REM awakenings on the spiral aftereffect: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...-REM_sleep/links/54f9c6d10cf21ee4fdedf833.pdf

At the time I was engrossed in perception of auditory continuity and gap detection. As it turns out I was expert on setup and use of EEG equipment and design of protocols. So I set up his apparatus helped him establish his EEG recording protocols. There is no unbroken anything to be found in EEG study of sleep and wakefulness. So not such a completely different anything at all.

Sheesh.

 

[untermensche]

No evidence of conscious control exists. But we experience it constantly. We decide to move here or there or write this or that.

Nobody has the slightest clue what it looks like in terms of brain activity.

You assume something has to be a spike to actually be activity. That is nonsense. There is an underlying constant level of activity. Consciousness is unbroken. When fully conscious, experience is unbroken.

There is sleep. A completely different brain state where conscious control is lost.

A lab mate of mine at FSU found penetration of wakefulness through sleep and of sleep through wakefulness in brain activity. The study cited establishes sleep penetrating into wakefulness during interrupted sleep. Later, at Berkeley he found sleep activity penetrated into wakefulness as well, Differential effects of REM and non-REM awakenings on the spiral aftereffect: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...-REM_sleep/links/54f9c6d10cf21ee4fdedf833.pdf

At the time I was engrossed in perception of auditory continuity and gap detection. As it turns out I was expert on setup and use of EEG equipment and design of protocols. So I set up his apparatus helped him establish his EEG recording protocols. There is no unbroken anything to be found in EEG study of sleep and wakefulness. So not such a completely different anything at all.

Sheesh.

I don't see how your comments touch on what I said.

You seem to be saying that EEG readings of patterns of firing, which are not a stand-in for brain activity, vary.

I agree.

 

[fromderinside]

A lab mate of mine at FSU found penetration of wakefulness through sleep and of sleep through wakefulness in brain activity. The study cited establishes sleep penetrating into wakefulness during interrupted sleep. Later, at Berkeley he found sleep activity penetrated into wakefulness as well, Differential effects of REM and non-REM awakenings on the spiral aftereffect: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...-REM_sleep/links/54f9c6d10cf21ee4fdedf833.pdf

At the time I was engrossed in perception of auditory continuity and gap detection. As it turns out I was expert on setup and use of EEG equipment and design of protocols. So I set up his apparatus helped him establish his EEG recording protocols. There is no unbroken anything to be found in EEG study of sleep and wakefulness. So not such a completely different anything at all.

Sheesh.

I don't see how your comments touch on what I said.

You seem to be saying that EEG readings of patterns of firing, which are not a stand-in for brain activity, vary.

I agree.

Activity, EEG activity categorized by frequency is an index of underlying states and activity types. Long history of that which is pretty much standardized. One characteristic set of patterns for sleeping, another for relaxed, yet another for computations, and still others for levels of sleep.So, no I am not saying they are not an indicator for brain activity, instead I'm saying they are indicators of brain activity.

You misread to suit you apparently.

 

[untermensche]

I don't see how your comments touch on what I said.

You seem to be saying that EEG readings of patterns of firing, which are not a stand-in for brain activity, vary.

I agree.

Activity, EEG activity categorized by frequency is an index of underlying states and activity types. Long history of that which is pretty much standardized. One characteristic set of patterns for sleeping, another for relaxed, yet another for computations, and still others for levels of sleep.So, no I am not saying they are not an indicator for brain activity, instead I'm saying they are indicators of brain activity.

You misread to suit you apparently.

It is the average of the electrical activity in the cells aligned in a certain way across parts of the brain.

It tells us nothing about how that activity is distributed or how it accomplishes anything.

But my point is that there is constant activity going on that is not understood beyond the fact that it is occurring. Why it is occurring and how it is doing anything is not understood.

Thinking we can make comments about the will based on how little we understand brain activity is absurd.

 

[DBT]

Conscious control is, according to evidence, in fact a matter of conscious report of actions to be taken or vetoed.

No evidence of conscious control exists. But we experience it constantly. We decide to move here or there or write this or that.

Nobody has the slightest clue what it looks like in terms of brain activity.

You assume something has to be a spike to actually be activity. That is nonsense. There is an underlying constant level of activity. Consciousness is unbroken. When fully conscious, experience is unbroken.

There is sleep. A completely different brain state where conscious control is lost.

You ignored everything that I said about your subjective experience not being the true picture of agency. You ignore the fact that your sense of conscious control and agency breaks down when the underlying mechanisms that produce your experience begin to dysfunction, thereby revealing the true nature of brain agency.

There is abundant evidence to support this, There is no evidence that supports your claim of consciousness as an autonomous agent.

That's how it is.

Get over it.

 

[fromderinside]

It tells us nothing about how that activity is distributed or how it accomplishes anything.

But my point is that there is constant activity going on that is not understood beyond the fact that it is occurring. Why it is occurring and how it is doing anything is not understood.

Thinking we can make comments about the will based on how little we understand brain activity is absurd.

I call BS

To wit: THE CORTICOTHALAMIC SYSTEM IN SLEEP https://www.bioscience.org/2003/v8/d/1043/2.htm

Enjoy. As usual reading is fundamental​

 

[untermensche]

It tells us nothing about how that activity is distributed or how it accomplishes anything.

But my point is that there is constant activity going on that is not understood beyond the fact that it is occurring. Why it is occurring and how it is doing anything is not understood.

Thinking we can make comments about the will based on how little we understand brain activity is absurd.

I call BS

To wit: THE CORTICOTHALAMIC SYSTEM IN SLEEP https://www.bioscience.org/2003/v8/d/1043/2.htm

Enjoy. As usual reading is fundamental​

I thought you wanted to discuss things?

Plopping reading assignments like turds is not discussing things.

It is a pretense. Pretending to know things.