Consciousness

[untermensche]

There is a vast difference between brain generated consciousness and your unfounded notion of autonomous consciousness....otherwise, why would you bother spending time arguing for your assertion over the span of 274 pages on this thread, and other threads, if there is no difference between what you claim and what the evidence is telling us, but you reject?

No difference despite your ignorance.

Real world unique decisions that can't be "programmed", decisions that require "knowledge" not reflexes, are continually being made.

If brain activity has the capacity to make them then there is no reason to think some aspect of brain activity, consciousness, can't do it as well.

This requires being able to think outside your little boxes. It requires seeing a thought of the kind that moves the arm as potential energy. What is a thought? Can you claim with certainty there is no potential energy associated with it?

This is above the head of apes that can only spew the ideas of others.

And what is it supported by?

The timing of guesses.

What some call science. The science of guessing.

 

[fromderinside]

Thought. A set of switches set which produce articulation, internal or external, subsequently interpreted by the setting of more switches. It may as well be wetted clay sliding down a gentle slope.

 

[George S]

A stream of consciousness.
So I was reading about AI and then my mind wandered to the robots of fiction. Daneel Olivaw, Data, HAL, Robbie, et al. They mimic consciousness. They are aware of their surroundings because we let them sense what we can. They can make plans and carry out those plans affecting the future. They can remember very well. This past/present/future is the stream of consciousness.

Yes, dear undermunch, This feeling of consciousness is what it is like to be a biological robot.

Your challenge now is to prove me wrong. If you cannot I will repeat the above ad nauseum.

 

[untermensche]

A stream of consciousness.
So I was reading about AI and then my mind wandered to the robots of fiction. Daneel Olivaw, Data, HAL, Robbie, et al. They mimic consciousness. They are aware of their surroundings because we let them sense what we can. They can make plans and carry out those plans affecting the future. They can remember very well. This past/present/future is the stream of consciousness.

Yes, dear undermunch, This feeling of consciousness is what it is like to be a biological robot.

Your challenge now is to prove me wrong. If you cannot I will repeat the above ad nauseum.

Because fictional robots can do something you are going to repeat what ad nauseum?

It was a consciousness that gave those robots the only life possible for them. All our gadgets are expressions of a willful consciousness. We will things into existence that never could have an existence any other way.

If you can show me how you made some decision in a robot-like manner then I will think you have a point.

Have you ever raised children?

If so has one ever had a tantrum?

Tell me what is robot-like about a child's tantrum. It is the last resort of a frustrated will with no power to resist external commands.

 

[untermensche]

Thought. A set of switches set which produce articulation, internal or external, subsequently interpreted by the setting of more switches. It may as well be wetted clay sliding down a gentle slope.

This was a unique thought.

Hardly a switch.

A creation of art.

 

[fromderinside]

Everything the nervous system, controller of human behavior, does are purely mechanical. The problem for you, dear untermenche, is to provide evidence something other in what a humans do in other than a robot like manner. A thought is not a creative act until one shows it is other than the result of predictable mechanical operations. You've provided nothing in that realm. Unanticipated is not insight.

 

[fromderinside]

What I wrote is an expected result of what I've learned and what I've learned can be explained by the work of neural machines. Ergo it is not unique. As I wrote in my last post a thought is no more than the result of predictable mechanical operations.

 

[untermensche]

Everything the nervous system, controller of human behavior, does are purely mechanical. The problem for you, dear untermenche, is to provide evidence something other in what a humans do in other than a robot like manner. A thought is not a creative act until one shows it is other than the result of predictable mechanical operations. You've provided nothing in that realm. Unanticipated is not insight.

I have to counter nothingness with what?

You have claims and no evidence at all to support them.

To say that the sum of parts cannot be greater than an individual part is absurdity.

To act on an idea or a belief or a mistaken impression is not to act in a robot like manner.

 

[fromderinside]

The whole is the sum of parts. What is the alternative if energy is neither created nor destroyed? Magic?

All one need to remember that the parts combined are combined using energy. That energy needs be accounted.

The more than sum claim is made when one hasn't accounted for all energy transformations in reactions. Failure to account is not a magic wand.

As for evidence I have the entire field of physics as evidence.

 

[untermensche]

The whole is the sum of parts. What is the alternative if energy is neither created nor destroyed? Magic?

All one need to remember that the parts combined are combined using energy. That energy needs be accounted.

The more than sum claim is made when one hasn't accounted for all energy transformations in reactions. Failure to account is not a magic wand.

Can a computer chip as a whole do more than just one of it's smallest functional units?

And I have no idea what this talk of energy is.

Energy is continually being added to the system. That is what glucose is used for.

Without a steady supply of the energy derived from glucose the brain begins to die.

 

[fromderinside]

Thought. A set of switches set which produce articulation, internal or external, subsequently interpreted by the setting of more switches. It may as well be wetted clay sliding down a gentle slope.

This was a unique thought.

Hardly a switch.

A creation of art.

When something unknown to you is revealed it is unique to you. That's all. On the other hand my thought is not unique since the one who expressed it knew the material.

 

[fromderinside]

The whole is the sum of parts. What is the alternative if energy is neither created nor destroyed? Magic?

All one need to remember that the parts combined are combined using energy. That energy needs be accounted.

The more than sum claim is made when one hasn't accounted for all energy transformations in reactions. Failure to account is not a magic wand.

Can a computer chip as a whole do more than just one of it's smallest functional units?

And I have no idea what this talk of energy is.

Energy is continually being added to the system. That is what glucose is used for.

Without a steady supply of the energy derived from glucose the brain begins to die.

Energy use is part of the sum of parts. If it is accounted you will never arrive in a condition where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I sense you have some deficiency in education here which you need remedy before you continue this line of discussion.

At a very limited level one adds energy to the system when a photon lands on a receptor. ATP is required for the receptor to process the photon, and so forth. Nowhere is anything free, there is always a cost. Ergo the problem for you is to find the magic addition that permits you to take what is stored, what is ongoing, then make something greater that what that which is combined.

 

[untermensche]

This was a unique thought.

Hardly a switch.

A creation of art.

When something unknown to you is revealed is is unique to you. That's all. Ergo my thought is not unique since the one who expressed it knew the material.

You think this is the first time I have ever heard brain cells being compared to switches?

They work in synchronicity. Have you ever seen the waves of cellular activity in a moving scan?

They do not work simply as individual switches.

The question is: How does consciousness arise out of such a thing?

We can't send electricity through switches and have a consciousness with subjective experience emerge.

- - - Updated - - -

Can a computer chip as a whole do more than just one of it's smallest functional units?

And I have no idea what this talk of energy is.

Energy is continually being added to the system. That is what glucose is used for.

Without a steady supply of the energy derived from glucose the brain begins to die.

Energy use is part of the sum of parts. If it is accounted you will never arrive in a condition where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I sense you have some deficiency in education here which you need remedy before you continue this line of discussion.

What part of energy is CONTINUALLY being added to the system do you not understand?

If more is needed more can be extracted. Energy extraction systems can increase.

We are talking about living cells that adjust to needs and conditions.

Your objection is totally absurd.

 

[fromderinside]

When something unknown to you is revealed is is unique to you. That's all. Ergo my thought is not unique since the one who expressed it knew the material.

You think this is the first time I have ever heard brain cells being compared to switches?

They work in synchronicity. Have you ever seen the waves of cellular activity in a moving scan?

They do not work simply as individual switches.

The question is: How does consciousness arise out of such a thing?

We can't send electricity through switches and have a consciousness with subjective experience emerge.

- - - Updated - - -

Can a computer chip as a whole do more than just one of it's smallest functional units?

And I have no idea what this talk of energy is.

Energy is continually being added to the system. That is what glucose is used for.

Without a steady supply of the energy derived from glucose the brain begins to die.

Energy use is part of the sum of parts. If it is accounted you will never arrive in a condition where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I sense you have some deficiency in education here which you need remedy before you continue this line of discussion.

What part of energy is CONTINUALLY being added to the system do you not understand?

If more is needed more can be extracted. Energy extraction systems can increase.

We are talking about living cells that adjust to needs and conditions.

Your objection is totally absurd.

I sense you have some deficiency in education here which you need remedy before you continue this line of discussion.

Let me help you.

THE WHOLE IS MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS - OR IS IT?Surprises in many-particle theory and nanoscience. https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/314606/dobson03.pdf

So what is the answer to the question posed in the title of this talk? We have seen that ìthe wholeîis often precisely ìthe sum of its partsî, in the sense that large complex systems are accuratelydescribed by mathematical equations. These equations are built ìbottom-upî by understanding thebasic forces of Nature, plus the classical or quantal equations of motion of the many individualparticles present.

On the other hand, the accurate solution of these equations (reductionism) is often difficult orimpossible in practice. When sufficiently accurate solutions are possible, these solutions oftenexhibit emergent properties that one could scarcely have guessed, by understanding only themotion of the particles one at a time. The search for these solutions, and the emergent propertiesthat they explain, has been the central theme of my life as a theoretical physicist. This has taken meinto various related areas including materials science, surface science, chemistry, nanoscience andclean energy studies.

The key part here is that unexpected is far different from not being determined by properties. A;;

Open System:

a material system in which mass or energy can be lost to or gained from the environment.

Matter-energy constancy

The fundamental conception of Energetics is that every change in an isolated system is regulated by two laws. The first is that the sum of the kinetic and potential energies is constant through all the transformations of the system. The second is that if the system passes from one configuration at one time to another configuration at another time the passage always takes place in such a manner that the mean value of the difference of the two kinds of energy in the interval of time between the two specified times is a minimum.

Whatever energy used must be accounted by energy needed to restore and to remove that energy used.

That is the sum of the parts.

 

[fromderinside]

What part of energy is CONTINUALLY being added to the system do you not understand?

If more is needed more can be extracted. Energy extraction systems can increase.

We are talking about living cells that adjust to needs and conditions.

Your objection is totally absurd.

Some systems are active. they demand energy to sustain structure and function. Living systems are open physical systems physical systems for which whole properly accounted includes energy input and output. It can be described in it's growing form, stable form or declining form and in every measured transaction of parts of the system the result is totals equal sum of parts. Straight forward scientific reductionist thing.

 

[untermensche]

You think this is the first time I have ever heard brain cells being compared to switches?

They work in synchronicity. Have you ever seen the waves of cellular activity in a moving scan?

They do not work simply as individual switches.

The question is: How does consciousness arise out of such a thing?

We can't send electricity through switches and have a consciousness with subjective experience emerge.

- - - Updated - - -

Can a computer chip as a whole do more than just one of it's smallest functional units?

And I have no idea what this talk of energy is.

Energy is continually being added to the system. That is what glucose is used for.

Without a steady supply of the energy derived from glucose the brain begins to die.

Energy use is part of the sum of parts. If it is accounted you will never arrive in a condition where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I sense you have some deficiency in education here which you need remedy before you continue this line of discussion.

What part of energy is CONTINUALLY being added to the system do you not understand?

If more is needed more can be extracted. Energy extraction systems can increase.

We are talking about living cells that adjust to needs and conditions.

Your objection is totally absurd.

I sense you have some deficiency in education here which you need remedy before you continue this line of discussion.

Let me help you.

THE WHOLE IS MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS - OR IS IT?Surprises in many-particle theory and nanoscience. https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/314606/dobson03.pdf

So what is the answer to the question posed in the title of this talk? We have seen that ìthe wholeîis often precisely ìthe sum of its partsî, in the sense that large complex systems are accuratelydescribed by mathematical equations. These equations are built ìbottom-upî by understanding thebasic forces of Nature, plus the classical or quantal equations of motion of the many individualparticles present.

On the other hand, the accurate solution of these equations (reductionism) is often difficult orimpossible in practice. When sufficiently accurate solutions are possible, these solutions oftenexhibit emergent properties that one could scarcely have guessed, by understanding only themotion of the particles one at a time. The search for these solutions, and the emergent propertiesthat they explain, has been the central theme of my life as a theoretical physicist. This has taken meinto various related areas including materials science, surface science, chemistry, nanoscience andclean energy studies.

The key part here is that unexpected is far different from not being determined by properties. A;;

Open System:

a material system in which mass or energy can be lost to or gained from the environment.

Matter-energy constancy

[FONT=&]The fundamental conception of Energetics is that every change in an isolated system is regulated by two laws. The first is that the sum of the kinetic and potential energies is constant through all the transformations of the system. The second is that if the system passes from one configuration at one time to another configuration at another time the passage always takes place in such a manner that the mean value of the difference of the two kinds of energy in the interval of time between the two specified times is a minimum.[/FONT]

Whatever energy used must be accounted by energy needed to restore and to remove that energy used.

That is the sum of the parts.

You are incapable of forming an argument.

You spew long tedious discussions that don't rise above the level of a couple of particles.

This is about ideas. Not the behavior of a few particles.

You don't have the slightest clue what an idea is in terms of brain activity.

And of course whatever energy the mind uses to move the arm must and can easily be restored. You have no point with your nonsense about energy.

Have you never heard of mental fatigue?

Intense use of the will for prolonged periods of time in simply mental activity can cause it.

Everything around you screams "will" from the can opener to the shoes on your feet. None of it accident or like a one trick pony, a bird only capable of building one kind of nest.

 

[bilby]

You think this is the first time I have ever heard brain cells being compared to switches?

They work in synchronicity. Have you ever seen the waves of cellular activity in a moving scan?

They do not work simply as individual switches.

The question is: How does consciousness arise out of such a thing?

We can't send electricity through switches and have a consciousness with subjective experience emerge.

- - - Updated - - -

Can a computer chip as a whole do more than just one of it's smallest functional units?

And I have no idea what this talk of energy is.

Energy is continually being added to the system. That is what glucose is used for.

Without a steady supply of the energy derived from glucose the brain begins to die.

Energy use is part of the sum of parts. If it is accounted you will never arrive in a condition where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I sense you have some deficiency in education here which you need remedy before you continue this line of discussion.

What part of energy is CONTINUALLY being added to the system do you not understand?

If more is needed more can be extracted. Energy extraction systems can increase.

We are talking about living cells that adjust to needs and conditions.

Your objection is totally absurd.

I sense you have some deficiency in education here which you need remedy before you continue this line of discussion.

Let me help you.

THE WHOLE IS MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS - OR IS IT?Surprises in many-particle theory and nanoscience. https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/314606/dobson03.pdf

So what is the answer to the question posed in the title of this talk? We have seen that ìthe wholeîis often precisely ìthe sum of its partsî, in the sense that large complex systems are accuratelydescribed by mathematical equations. These equations are built ìbottom-upî by understanding thebasic forces of Nature, plus the classical or quantal equations of motion of the many individualparticles present.

On the other hand, the accurate solution of these equations (reductionism) is often difficult orimpossible in practice. When sufficiently accurate solutions are possible, these solutions oftenexhibit emergent properties that one could scarcely have guessed, by understanding only themotion of the particles one at a time. The search for these solutions, and the emergent propertiesthat they explain, has been the central theme of my life as a theoretical physicist. This has taken meinto various related areas including materials science, surface science, chemistry, nanoscience andclean energy studies.

The key part here is that unexpected is far different from not being determined by properties. A;;

Open System:

a material system in which mass or energy can be lost to or gained from the environment.

Matter-energy constancy

[FONT=&]The fundamental conception of Energetics is that every change in an isolated system is regulated by two laws. The first is that the sum of the kinetic and potential energies is constant through all the transformations of the system. The second is that if the system passes from one configuration at one time to another configuration at another time the passage always takes place in such a manner that the mean value of the difference of the two kinds of energy in the interval of time between the two specified times is a minimum.[/FONT]

Whatever energy used must be accounted by energy needed to restore and to remove that energy used.

That is the sum of the parts.

You are incapable of forming an argument.

You spew long tedious discussions that don't rise above the level of a couple of particles.

This is about ideas. Not the behavior of a few particles.

You don't have the slightest clue what an idea is in terms of brain activity.

And of course whatever energy the mind uses to move the arm must and can easily be restored. You have no point with your nonsense about energy.

Have you never heard of mental fatigue?

Intense use of the will for prolonged periods of time in simply mental activity can cause it.

Everything around you screams "will" from the can opener to the shoes on your feet. None of it accident or like a one trick pony, a bird only capable of building one kind of nest.

Your gut feeling is not grounds for overturning centuries of cognitive science.

You obviously think that it is, but that's your problem, nobody else has to buy into it.

Unpredictability simply doesn't require conscious will; and not one thing that humans do cannot be explained without reference to this un-parsimonious and unsupported hypothesis.

The ONLY reason to accept your position is that it 'feels right'. And we have a vast number of clear examples of things that 'feel right' but are demonstrably wrong.

You are free to believe any crap you want - but nobody else is going to agree with you unless and until you present some actual evidence - which your incredulity does NOT qualify as.

 

[DBT]

Mr Untermensche won't accept any evidence that goes against his beliefs (or even contemplate), so whenever evidence is presented he gets defensive and accuses his opponents of ignorance....yet never seeing the irony of his own position and his own claims based on subjective experience demonstrated by research to be wrong.

 

[untermensche]

Your gut feeling is not grounds for overturning centuries of cognitive science.

Thanks for the irrelevant info.

- - - Updated - - -

Mr Untermensche won't accept any evidence that goes against his beliefs (or even contemplate), so whenever evidence is presented he gets defensive and accuses his opponents of ignorance....yet never seeing the irony of his own position and his own claims based on subjective experience demonstrated by research to be wrong.

I asked for evidence and you told me about the timing of guesses. To the millisecond. Very well timed guesses.

Your claims are a joke.

 

[DBT]

An example of denial in the form of pretending that I am the one making these claims when it is the research, the experiments and the researchers that is telling the story. Not to mention the physics of acquiring, processing and representing information in conscious form must necessarily entail an order of events and time scales. However, you appear to have no idea, nor do you want to accept the reality of cognition. You prefer your own special 'reality'