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Consciousness

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.

You do not have the slightest clue what "the true picture of agency" is.

You couldn't explain it in your own words if your life depended on it.

Your pretense is boring and stupid.

You don't have the slightest clue what happens in the brain when I do "something" to move the arm.

If it isn't a big spike somewhere, just part of a continual active potential, you can't even see it.
 
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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?
I do. You made a claim. I researched and found information counter to the claim independent from work I had done in the area.

It's up to you to show how what I found is not true. After all I could have thrown human classification of brain patterns devised in the labs of Delsi B Webb at you. It was the authoritative document when I as at university. It was against that methodology several of us devised computerized methods for such classifications. So, really I have no skin in the game.

I do, however, enjoy some expertise in the field. Oh, and I do understand when someone has made a claim.
 
I thought you wanted to discuss things?
I do. You made a claim. I researched and found information counter to the claim independent from work I had done in the area.

It's up to you to show how what I found is not true. After all I could have thrown human classification of brain patterns devised in the labs of Delsi B Webb at you. It was the authoritative document when I as at university. It was against that methodology several of us devised computerized methods for such classifications. So, really I have no skin in the game.

I do, however, enjoy some expertise in the field. Oh, and I do understand when someone has made a claim.

It is up to you to tell me how your plop relates to my claims.

Please be specific.

Plopping is not discussing.
 
Pretty simple.

You made claim which is both vague and, upon inspection, untrue. Activity is not constant unless, by that, you mean ongoing. Ongoing is uninformative so I lay that aside.

You additionally make the claim we know nothing beyond the fact activity is occurring. The article specifically relates to low frequency activity originating from thalamus interrupts normal sleep patterns. So we do know something about both normal sleep patterns and the origins of some of the activity which disrupts normal sleep patterns.

What's more we know the activity relates to consciousness and somnolence and the interactions among the two states.

Blanket claims are really a problem for you since the literature is full of knowledge about aspects of about most - note a conditional - everything you claim we know nothing.

Plop.

I repeat, reading is fundamental.
 
Pretty simple.

You made claim which is both vague and, upon inspection, untrue. Activity is not constant unless, by that, you mean ongoing. Ongoing is uninformative so I lay that aside.

Experience when awake is unbroken so the activity has to be constant.

You additionally make the claim we know nothing beyond the fact activity is occurring.

In terms of how the activity translates to consciousness and conscious decisions.

General patterns can be recognized but what the activity is actually doing is unknown.

How activity moves from one part of the brain to another is also totally unknown. This is intention of a kind but not necessarily all there is to say about intention.

And what allows some cells doing some kind of unknown activity to create an aspect of vision and another an aspect of thought is also not known.

If a thought could cause a limb to move there is not enough understanding to begin to explore this.

What is a thought in terms of brain activity?

Please be specific.

The article specifically relates to low frequency activity originating from thalamus interrupts normal sleep patterns. So we do know something about both normal sleep patterns and the origins of some of the activity which disrupts normal sleep patterns.

We know how to disrupt the pattern.

We do not understand why this pattern is occurring as opposed to some other pattern. We do not understand what is creating the pattern. Or what the pattern is doing.

What's more we know the activity relates to consciousness and somnolence and the interactions among the two states.

Yes there are differences in the patterns. But that is only a recognition, not an understanding of the underlying activity creating the patterns.

Not much of a plop when you look at it.
 
Experience when awake is unbroken so the activity has to be constant.

You've made that claim without supporting evidence several times. Time to put up or shut up. What is your evidence experience is actually unbroken? Saying you experience it doesn't meet minimums as evidence. Liars say they experience a lot of stuff that is patently untrue.
 
Experience when awake is unbroken so the activity has to be constant.

You've made that claim without supporting evidence several times. Time to put up or shut up. What is your evidence experience is actually unbroken? Saying you experience it doesn't meet minimums as evidence. Liars say they experience a lot of stuff that is patently untrue.

That is my experience.

There are no gaps.

The only gaps are during sleep.

Your experience is one of looking out at the landscape and the picture cuts out periodically?
 
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.

You do not have the slightest clue what "the true picture of agency" is.

You couldn't explain it in your own words if your life depended on it.

Your pretense is boring and stupid.

You don't have the slightest clue what happens in the brain when I do "something" to move the arm.

If it isn't a big spike somewhere, just part of a continual active potential, you can't even see it.

It's not what I say. It's what the science, the research, the evidence and analysis by researchers happens to be showing and telling us all. But given your irrational focus on subjective experience over reality, irrational belief over research and over evidence by stubbornly clinging to your irrational position, it is understandable why you reject all evidence and all reason in favour of faith and illusion.
 
You do not have the slightest clue what "the true picture of agency" is.

You couldn't explain it in your own words if your life depended on it.

Your pretense is boring and stupid.

You don't have the slightest clue what happens in the brain when I do "something" to move the arm.

If it isn't a big spike somewhere, just part of a continual active potential, you can't even see it.

It's not what I say. It's what the science, the research, the evidence and analysis by researchers happens to be showing and telling us all. But given your irrational focus on subjective experience over reality, irrational belief over research and over evidence by stubbornly clinging to your irrational position, it is understandable why you reject all evidence and all reason in favour of faith and illusion.

You are not some spokesman for the research.

You merely have your opinions about what the research says.

Again, if the activity that moves the arm that begins as a thought is not some spike how would you see it?
 
It's not what I say. It's what the science, the research, the evidence and analysis by researchers happens to be showing and telling us all. But given your irrational focus on subjective experience over reality, irrational belief over research and over evidence by stubbornly clinging to your irrational position, it is understandable why you reject all evidence and all reason in favour of faith and illusion.

You are not some spokesman for the research.

You merely have your opinions about what the research says.

Again, if the activity that moves the arm that begins as a thought is not some spike how would you see it?


You are a funny fellow;

Here is what specialists in human cognition and motor action have to say:

''This review deals with the physiology of the initiation of a voluntary movement and the appreciation of whether it is voluntary or not. I argue that free will is not a driving force for movement, but a conscious awareness concerning the nature of the movement. Movement initiation and the perception of willing the movement can be separately manipulated. Movement is generated subconsciously, and the conscious sense of volition comes later, but the exact time of this event is difficult to assess because of the potentially illusory nature of introspection. Neurological disorders of volition are also reviewed. The evidence suggests that movement is initiated in the frontal lobe, particularly the mesial areas, and the sense of volition arises as the result of a corollary discharge likely involving multiple areas with reciprocal connections including those in the parietal lobe and insular cortex.''' Volitional control of movement.'
Clinical Neurophysiology, Volume 118, Issue 6, Pages 1179-1192
M. Hallett

Quote;
''we presented evidence that the brain, when tricked by optical and sensory illusions, can quickly adopt another human form as its own, no matter how different it is. We designed two experiments. In the first one, the researchers fitted the head of a mannequin with two cameras connected to two small screens placed in front of the volunteer's eyes, so that the volunteer could see what the mannequin 'saw'.

When the mannequin's camera eyes and the volunteer's head, complete with the camera goggles, were directed downwards, the volunteer saw the dummy's body where he or she would normally have seen his or her own body. By simultaneously touching the stomachs of both the volunteer and the mannequin, we could create the illusion of body swapping.''


Quote;
Imagine, for a moment, that you are facing a very difficult decision about which of two job offers to accept. One position offers good pay and job security, but is pretty mundane, whereas the other job is really interesting and offers reasonable pay, but has questionable job security. Clearly you can go about resolving this dilemma in many ways. Few people, however, would say that your decision should be affected or influenced by whether or not you resisted the urge to eat cookies prior to contemplating the job offers. A decade of psychology research suggests otherwise. Unrelated activities that tax the executive function have important lingering effects, and may disrupt your ability to make such an important decision. In other words, you might choose the wrong job because you didn't eat a cookie.


Quote;
"And the electrical activity in these neurons is known to reflect the delivery of this chemical, dopamine, to the frontal cortex. Dopamine is one of several neurotransmitters thought to regulate emotional response, and is suspected of playing a central role in schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, and drug abuse," Montague says. "We think these dopamine neurons are making guesses at likely future rewards. The neuron is constantly making a guess at the time and magnitude of the reward."

"If what it expects doesn't arrive, it doesn't change its firing. If it expects a certain amount of reward at a particular time and the reward is actually higher, it's surprised by that and increases its delivery of dopamine," he explains. "And if it expects a certain level (of reward) and it actually gets less, it decreases its level of dopamine delivery."

Thus, says Montague, "what we see is that the dopamine neurons change the way they make electrical impulses in exactly the same way the animal changes his behavior. The way the neurons change their predictions correlates with the behavioral changes of the monkey almost exactly."

So whether one feels ''compelled'' or not, the decision making process itself is determined by the immediate condition of the neural circuitry (connectivity) and its own immediate information state (input and memory) in the instance of decision making (neural information processing), and not an act of consciousness or conscious will. The latter is a consequence of the former condition,therefore consciousness cannot be described as being autonomous, as you claim, under any circumstances.
 
I asked a question.

Are you able to answer it?

If the activity that moves the arm that begins as a thought is not some spike how would you see it?


It's been answered countless times.

You ignore all answers (explanations) that do not confirm to your own faith based interpretation of agency.

Did you even read the articles? They deal with your question.

I've dealt with your question.

Everyone who has argued against your baseless claims has dealt with your question....and the result?

You meticulously ignore everything that is said and proceed to repeat your question and your assertions.
 
I asked a question.

Are you able to answer it?


It's been answered countless times.

You ignore all answers (explanations) that do not confirm to your own faith based interpretation of agency.

Did you even read the articles? They deal with your question.

I've dealt with your question.

Everyone who has argued against your baseless claims has dealt with your question....and the result?

You meticulously ignore everything that is said and proceed to repeat your question and your assertions.

You haven't answered it once since this is only the second time I have asked and you evaded like a trapped rat both times.

As I said there is a constant level of activity. This activity is not understood at all.

What can be seen by PET scan are spikes of activity. The constant underlying activity that creates the constant state of conscious experience is ignored.

So again, if the thing I do to move my arm does not create a spike how the hell do you think you could see it?

An answer, not just plopping some turd down and pretending it is an answer.

An answer for the first time.
 
You've made that claim without supporting evidence several times. Time to put up or shut up. What is your evidence experience is actually unbroken? Saying you experience it doesn't meet minimums as evidence. Liars say they experience a lot of stuff that is patently untrue.

That is my experience.

There are no gaps.

The only gaps are during sleep.

Your experience is one of looking out at the landscape and the picture cuts out periodically?

Obviously you have no idea what is evidence. Submit, if you have any, peer reviewed research of material data indicating the validity of your expressed point of view.

Failing that, your 'under cover of philosophy' whine is set aside.
 
You've made that claim without supporting evidence several times. Time to put up or shut up. What is your evidence experience is actually unbroken? Saying you experience it doesn't meet minimums as evidence. Liars say they experience a lot of stuff that is patently untrue.

That is my experience.

There are no gaps.

The only gaps are during sleep.

Your experience is one of looking out at the landscape and the picture cuts out periodically?

My 'subjective' experience is private, unverifiable, completely out of scope of this discussion, as is yours.
 
That is my experience.

There are no gaps.

The only gaps are during sleep.

Your experience is one of looking out at the landscape and the picture cuts out periodically?

My 'subjective' experience is private, unverifiable, completely out of scope of this discussion, as is yours.

No, you are allowed to talk about your private experience.

Some of it I don't want to hear, but not talking about it here is not good taste, it is an evasion.
 
Sorry son. Maybe you missed the posts where I alluded to inconsistencies. lapses, switches, missing data, in processes necessarily antecedent to consciousness. One need a magic carpet to overcome those. That which isn't getting through is missing in your subjective experience, ergo, your consciousness in fragmented and incomplete with respect to reality to your detriment. It's just as if your processes were deceived by reality and you often respond improperly to generated, at odds with actual reality, subjective reality, an illusion or an imaginary world.

A belief that conscious is continuous is at odds with reality which is what, I believe, one would want a conscious to process for social and fitness benefits. We need to know when conscious fails as you are doing right now with your insistence, against the evidence, that it is continuous, ergo your brain activity is constant and continuous, both false notions.

So your claims are as good as your treatments. IOW they're worthless.

So when you ask where is the brain activity reflecting your consciousness, your free will, your claimed ability to direct your finger using it to your whim, you are speaking of a fictional construct, one not supported by what we know about the brain or reality. Rather, it is a fiction like alchemy mankind has left far behind.

What you need is some sixteenth century philosopher with which to consider your conversation.

When you find ways around these real problems come back. Naw. You're stuck in reverse. Happy gold hunting.
 
In an old fashioned movie on a reel there is a lot of information missing. There are tiny gaps continually.

But we do not perceive the gaps.

Experience is continual without apparent gaps.

But that doesn't mean the activity has no gaps.

But the activity is constant. It has to be. It does not stop and start. Even if it might be littered with imperceptible gaps.
 
It's been answered countless times.

You ignore all answers (explanations) that do not confirm to your own faith based interpretation of agency.

Did you even read the articles? They deal with your question.

I've dealt with your question.

Everyone who has argued against your baseless claims has dealt with your question....and the result?

You meticulously ignore everything that is said and proceed to repeat your question and your assertions.

You haven't answered it once since this is only the second time I have asked and you evaded like a trapped rat both times.

As I said there is a constant level of activity. This activity is not understood at all.

What can be seen by PET scan are spikes of activity. The constant underlying activity that creates the constant state of conscious experience is ignored.

So again, if the thing I do to move my arm does not create a spike how the hell do you think you could see it?

An answer, not just plopping some turd down and pretending it is an answer.

An answer for the first time.


No, the problem here is that you persistently and scrupulously ignore the fact that because we do not know how a brain forms conscious experience that this means that nothing is known about brain function. We know something. We know the relationship between our senses and what is being perceived. We know about the consequences of memory function loss, damage to neural connectivity, chemical imbalances, etc, etc, etc.

We know enough to make it quite clear that brain condition equals expression of conscious experience, that changing chemistry alters consciousness, that interfering with connectivity interferes with cognition.

That is what you studiously ignore.
 
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