Consciousness

[fromderinside]

RU saying some agent designed the brain? What would that be?

Of course. One is necessary for function to exist.

The agent is natural selection.

OK. Now you need to guide us to why NS demands consciousness in design and, why if you have a rationale, that rationale doesn't seem to work so well for other similar animals.

I'm always interested in how one gets design from random change and how one gets particular design form such change without making it a self fulfilling prophesy like 'Barlow face detectors'.

 

[untermensche]

Of course. One is necessary for function to exist.

The agent is natural selection.

OK. Now you need to guide us to why NS demands consciousness in design and, why if you have a rationale, that rationale doesn't seem to work so well for other similar animals.

I'm always interested in how one gets design from random change and how one gets particular design form such change without making it a self fulfilling prophesy like 'Barlow face detectors'.

That's no different than saying I need to explain how the wing of the bat came about.

A bats wing is an incredibly well designed tool.

Designed by trial and error to become more efficient.

But the wing is not demanded. There are other ways to get around.

It is just a chance contingency.

 

[Treedbear]

Yeah, right. The brain was designed for consciousness. I get it....

Of course.

If the brain wasn't designed for it it wouldn't exist.

RU saying some agent designed the brain? What would that be?

Of course. One is necessary for function to exist.

The agent is natural selection.

...
Nothing is forcing me to reply.

Nothing forced you to say what you said.

The words only exist because an autonomous consciousness wanted them to.

That is what consciousness was designed to be.

An autonomous decision maker.

What evolutionary advantage could an autonomous decision maker provide? It's, like, an oxymoron. One of us is clearly confused.

 

[untermensche]

What evolutionary advantage could an autonomous decision maker provide? It's, like, an oxymoron. One of us is clearly confused.

You're joking right?

 

[fromderinside]

OK. Now you need to guide us to why NS demands consciousness in design and, why if you have a rationale, that rationale doesn't seem to work so well for other similar animals.

I'm always interested in how one gets design from random change and how one gets particular design form such change without making it a self fulfilling prophesy like 'Barlow face detectors'.

That's no different than saying I need to explain how the wing of the bat came about.

A bats wing is an incredibly well designed tool.

Designed by trial and error to become more efficient.

But the wing is not demanded. There are other ways to get around.

It is just a chance contingency.

Bad example. A wing can become more or less efficient depending on conditions and the animal can still survive. It is happenstance that the bat wing today is more efficient than the bat wing of yesteryear, not design at all. It's like saying successful animals tend to be larger because they are more fit. Neither part of the thing is true. A random walk is a random walk it is not a designed path. Balls dropped into a binary pyramid tend to fall in a pattern according to probabilities. That is not design. That is likelihood.

What you are trying to defend is a generalized description as a proper thing. No Barlow anything. Just a cell in a cat capable of responding to something about Barlow's face or a wing being capable of doing something better than an arm well in some conditions.

 

[untermensche]

That's no different than saying I need to explain how the wing of the bat came about.

A bats wing is an incredibly well designed tool.

Designed by trial and error to become more efficient.

But the wing is not demanded. There are other ways to get around.

It is just a chance contingency.

Bad example. A wing can become more or less efficient depending on conditions and the animal can still survive. It is happenstance that the bat wing today is more efficient than the bat wing of yesteryear, not design at all. It's like saying successful animals tend to be larger because they are more fit. Neither part of the thing is true. A random walk is a random walk it is not a designed path. Balls dropped into a binary pyramid tend to fall in a pattern according to probabilities. That is not design. That is likelihood.

You will find no perfect analogy with consciousness if you demand a perfect analogy.

It is singular.

 

[Treedbear]

What evolutionary advantage could an autonomous decision maker provide? It's, like, an oxymoron. One of us is clearly confused.

You're joking right?

Seriously. I understand autonomy in the sense of an individual person being free from the coersion of others. Although, in the strictest sense, even coerced decisions are simply decisions made under adverse conditions. But what is autonomy from one's own brain and the processes which determine one's perceptions and acquired values and preferences? The physical brain doesn't simply carry out the commands of an autonomous self. It provides all the input and algorithms by which it obtains feedback and awareness. Autonomy would entail making blind decisions, or choosing to make them randomly, or else basing them on some entirely disparate set of values. And, aside from reactions based on a few inherited instincts, the latter would require dualism.

 

[untermensche]

You're joking right?

Seriously. I understand autonomy in the sense of an individual person being free from the coersion of others. Although, in the strictest sense, even coerced decisions are simply decisions made under adverse conditions. But what is autonomy from one's own brain and the processes which determine one's perceptions and acquired values and preferences? The physical brain doesn't simply carry out the commands of an autonomous self. It provides all the input and algorithms by which it obtains feedback and awareness. Autonomy would entail making blind decisions, or choosing to make them randomly, or else basing them on some entirely disparate set of values. And, aside from reactions based on a few inherited instincts, the latter would require dualism.

Autonomy of consciousness is the ability to make decisions based on ideas. Based on thinking.

Consciousness is that which thinks.

The brain is just it's tool.

 

[fromderinside]

The brain is the machine that thinks, it produces information. Consciousness theater for experiencing information including decisions, is another brain function.

It is strange you don't think the Manta Ray thinks. They discriminate food from other without any direct resource as do humans. By the simple process of neurally differing edge from/between objects the manta decides, it is more reflexive, to go after the food. I suspect there's a bit of brain theater (consciousness) there too.

Probably the many species that have mirroring systems in their many brain structures are also conscious.

 

[untermensche]

The brain is the machine that thinks, it produces information. Consciousness theater for experiencing information including decisions, is another brain function.

It is strange you don't think the Manta Ray thinks. They discriminate food from other without any direct resource as do humans. By the simple process of neurally differing edge from/between objects the manta decides, it is more reflexive, to go after the food. I suspect there's a bit of brain theater (consciousness) there too.

Probably the many species that have mirroring systems in their many brain structures are also conscious.

You are merely placing an aspect of consciousness (thinking) onto the brain.

Astrology. Placing powers into the configuration of the stars.

You have no evidence of a thinking brain.

The only thinking you have ever experienced is your own.

 

[fromderinside]

Bad example. A wing can become more or less efficient depending on conditions and the animal can still survive. It is happenstance that the bat wing today is more efficient than the bat wing of yesteryear, not design at all. It's like saying successful animals tend to be larger because they are more fit. Neither part of the thing is true. A random walk is a random walk it is not a designed path. Balls dropped into a binary pyramid tend to fall in a pattern according to probabilities. That is not design. That is likelihood.

You will find no perfect analogy with consciousness if you demand a perfect analogy.

It is singular.

What I illustrated was not an imperfect analogy. I was demonstrating there is no analogy there at all. One doesn't get from random to design. One is stochastic, the other is defined.

As for thinking, it is a process carried out by the brain the running of thought through a perceptual the theater whether visual, somatic, acoustic, or other is the experience appreciated as conscious. You just have to remember the brain uses and produces energy through it's processes with information being the product screened as conscious experience.

Ask yourself why does the visual system produce things that can be converted to lines and shapes at the cortex if all that required were outlines or connected vertices. Clearly Mantas 'see' objects which are selectable from memory that match different food and threat categories. Mantas select and track objects. No simple task.

The difference between Manta and Man may be less than we appreciate when it comes to some sort of experience.

 

[untermensche]

...One doesn't get from random to design...

Of course you do.

That is the starting point of all design. Some random change.

And that is the agency of improved design. Random change.

 

[DBT]

Of course it is, its a Strawman, for the reasons I've already pointed out....you take something that nobody has even claimed and argue against it repeatedly. Sometimes in the very next post. It's like nothing can get through to you. You have your own beliefs, beliefs that are not supported by research, evidence or the researchers themselves which you reject out of hand while maintaining your own claims, claims that have no evidence (ignoring the means and mechanisms of movement) and cannot justify, only assert.

Right now this is a huge gaping chasm of the unknown.

Only some don't quite understand that.

Which is you, because it is you who is making a positive claim of autonomy of consciousness even while maintaining ''this is a huge gaping chasm of the unknown''

And still arguing against a strawman of your own making because nobody is claiming to know how the brain forms consciousness, only that it is clear that it does. Which means that something is understood about brain function, the role of the senses, processing centres, memory function, etc, even if we don't know how experience is formed.

You on the other hand claim nothing is known about consciousness/ I know consciousness is autonomous while ignoring the known role of the senses, processing, memory function, etc, in conscious experience, sight, sound, thoughts, etc, all being brain functions with no autonomy from the senses or the brain function as a whole.

You have no case to argue.

Nothing is forcing me to reply.

Nothing forced you to say what you said.

The words only exist because an autonomous consciousness wanted them to.

That is what consciousness was designed to be.

An autonomous decision maker.

Another strawman. Nobody is saying you are forced. The means of production of you, your experience, your thoughs and your response is not forced, it's just what the brain is evolved to do.

You do this all the time, set your own conditions, conditions that nobody is imposing, force, yada, yada, and argue against it as if you are making a valid point instead of constructing an irrelevant argument against false premises attributed to your opponents, in other words, a strawman.

 

[Treedbear]

The brain is the machine that thinks, it produces information. Consciousness theater for experiencing information including decisions, is another brain function. ...

A theater is incomplete as a metaphor for consciousness since it implies there is an audience. How does the brain provide that audience? That's the paradox.

 

[untermensche]

Another strawman. Nobody is saying you are forced. The means of production of you, your experience, your thoughs and your response is not forced, it's just what the brain is evolved to do.

You do this all the time, set your own conditions, conditions that nobody is imposing, force, yada, yada, and argue against it as if you are making a valid point instead of constructing an irrelevant argument against false premises attributed to your opponents, in other words, a strawman.

No brain evolved to think in English.

No brain evolved to think about money.

If there is no force on consciousness then it acts freely.

 

[fromderinside]

The brain is the machine that thinks, it produces information. Consciousness theater for experiencing information including decisions, is another brain function. ...

A theater is incomplete as a metaphor for consciousness since it implies there is an audience. How does the brain provide that audience? That's the paradox.

Ah, sweet Iago. Dost thou not see the audience there captive in the scene. The brain provides itself as witness. Neat trick. That which creates the scene must experience the scene for awareness. It does so by being convinced it's after the fact visions are what it is planning. Yes a madman, a witness lost in time.

Consider the athlete. Rising after the sound of starting gun looks over toward the starter captures the smoke rising from the gun hears the gun report now associated with the smoke which came some time later and starts to run which he has already been doing for about 70 ms now. I began to run at the sound of the gun he believes. Marvelous, yes?

 

[DBT]

Another strawman. Nobody is saying you are forced. The means of production of you, your experience, your thoughs and your response is not forced, it's just what the brain is evolved to do.

You do this all the time, set your own conditions, conditions that nobody is imposing, force, yada, yada, and argue against it as if you are making a valid point instead of constructing an irrelevant argument against false premises attributed to your opponents, in other words, a strawman.

No brain evolved to think in English.

No brain evolved to think about money.

If there is no force on consciousness then it acts freely.

That doesn't relate to what I said. It doesn't relate to research, evidence or what is currently understood about brain function. Consciousness is a brain activity, so it simply cannot act independently of the very neural networks that are generating consciousness. Consciousness (a collection of attributes and features) cannot do whatever it pleases. Your idea is absurd.

 

[untermensche]

No brain evolved to think in English.

No brain evolved to think about money.

If there is no force on consciousness then it acts freely.

That doesn't relate to what I said. It doesn't relate to research, evidence or what is currently understood about brain function. Consciousness is a brain activity, so it simply cannot act independently of the very neural networks that are generating consciousness. Consciousness (a collection of attributes and features) cannot do whatever it pleases. Your idea is absurd.

Nothing is understood about brain function in terms of the production and action of consciousness.

What specifically any part of brain activity is doing is not understood at all.

All that can be done is you can ask a person what they are experiencing and compare that to some crude representation of levels of overall brain activity.

That is not an understanding of the activity. It is merely knowing crudely where there is activity.

 

[DBT]

That doesn't relate to what I said. It doesn't relate to research, evidence or what is currently understood about brain function. Consciousness is a brain activity, so it simply cannot act independently of the very neural networks that are generating consciousness. Consciousness (a collection of attributes and features) cannot do whatever it pleases. Your idea is absurd.

Nothing is understood about brain function in terms of the production and action of consciousness.

What specifically any part of brain activity is doing is not understood at all.

All that can be done is you can ask a person what they are experiencing and compare that to some crude representation of levels of overall brain activity.

That is not an understanding of the activity. It is merely knowing crudely where there is activity.

You say that even when making the claim that consciousness has autonomy over and above neural information processing activity shaping and forming consciousness, and all the while the irony of your position completely escapes you. That's the tragedy of your position.


Quote;
''A new study provides a novel theory for how delusions arise and why they persist. NYU Langone Medical Center researcher Orrin Devinsky, MD, performed an in-depth analysis of patients with certain delusions and brain disorders revealing a consistent pattern of injury to the frontal lobe and right hemisphere of the human brain. The cognitive deficits caused by these injuries to the right hemisphere, leads to the over compensation by the left hemisphere of the brain for the injury, resulting in delusions. The article entitled "Delusional misidentifications and duplications: Right brain lesions, left brain delusions" appears in the latest issue of the journal of Neurology.

''Problems caused by these brain injuries include impairment in monitoring of self, awareness of errors, and incorrectly identifying what is familiar and what is a work of fiction," said Dr. Devinsky, professor of Neurology, Psychiatry and Neurosurgery and Director of the NYU Epilepsy Center at NYU Langone Medical Center. "However, delusions result from the loss of these functions as well as the over activation of the left hemisphere and its language structures, that 'create a story', a story which cannot be edited and modified to account for reality. Delusions result from right hemisphere lesions, but it is the left hemisphere that is deluded."

 

[untermensche]

Brain damage can lead to abnormal function. Delusions.

What does this tell us about the ability of consciousness to move the arm?

How is this a response to what I said?

We do not understand the language of brain activity.

We do not know what any of it means.

All we can do is relate subjective reports (delusions) with parts that are damaged.