Consciousness

[fromderinside]

The agency of natural selection is differential reproductive success via interaction with the environment with differential genetic expression.

The agency is in interaction.

Not replication.

So you are saying agency can be differential reproductive success via interaction. Agency is interaction. I don't see an actor in any of this. In fact all I see is a process description. And that is pretty detached from cause and effect or purpose which I believe is a requirement for agency.

 

[DBT]

You saying that means absolutely nothing. Given your bias for myth and magic, things that were rejected long ago, substance dualism, homunculus, soul or goodness knows what strange ideas you may have, you are no judge of evidence, these experiments or their significance.

You are on the side of new age gurus and faith based beliefs. You could probably start a religion and get tax breaks.

To even think it is possible shows a lack of understanding.

All data needs interpretation.

And all interpretation is subjective.

You are not in a position to talk about interpretation. It's like getting the Pope to comment on the nature of the physical world according to the scientific models....he is sure to weave his bible god into the picture as the agent of creation, just like you weave your non material, autonomous mind/brain as a receiver faith into research that does not include these beliefs....having no evidence, things that are neither needed for explanation or even being considered viable possibilities.

You just need to face the fact that your faith is unfounded, has no place in current research and consequently you have nothing to argue with. You have no case.

Of course that absence of a sound foundation for your beliefs doesn't stop you trying to pitch them.

This is bizarre.

It is a huge dodge.

No data speaks for itself.

To claim so is to be incredibly ignorant.

No. That's still your condition....if you walk into a room and find broken glass with brown granules that smell like coffee scattered on the floor, the evidence, in relation to your past experience with objects and events in your environment, tells you that someone or something (a pet) most likely dropped or dislodged the jar of coffee, which broke, scattering glass and coffee onto the floor.

The information you have available tells you what the object and contents are and what happened, the coffee jar fell to the floor, breaking and scattering glass and coffee granules. What you don't know is precisely how the event happened.

Just as in principle it is quite clear, based on evidence, that the brain is the agency of consciousness even though we don't understand how the brain forms this experience of sensation.

 

[WAB]

What you see IS agency. Your brain has constructed what you see for a purpose.
You dont see vapiur in the sky, you are aware of symbols created to reference the structures found in the current visual imput and cross referenced by your knowkedge about sky phenomena.
Its a symbol actively saying "here is a cloud"

In my long-ago discussions with DBT and others about consciousness, I asked the same question I would like to ask now, and I'm willing to bet that I'll get pretty much the same answers I got before, but let me see. Maybe I can try to phrase it differently:

Above, Juma, when you say "Your brain has constructed, etc..." what exactly are you referring to by the word "Your"? The phrase itself, "your brain", implies duality, which is not to say that you are implying it, only that the words used imply it, and that we're stuck in a limited means of linguistic expression.

Who or what is being addressed? Is it the brain's model of the self? But even if that's the case, this model of personhood, or selfhood, created by the brain, is something other, or at least something "more" than, mere brain activity; and what that something "more" is, is consciousness, our inner, private experience, which is clearly something different than a heartbeat, or digestion.

When I say "different", I DO NOT mean that it is exterior to the brain, or has its source in anything but the brain. I'm not - at least not right now - talking about super-duper alien mind-rays, God, collective consciousness, the Akashic record, or some new-age "I-AM presence".

If we're going to argue against duality - which is perfectly fine by me since I don't buy into it, though I find it intriguing to think about - then should we attempt to modify language to reflect accepted thinking? My view is, no. I don't imagine that figures of speech will bog down human progress.

Having this argument is frustrated by the necessities of grammar and formal speech. Or at least it's frustrating to me. But then, just about everything frustrates me.

 

[OLDMAN]

We are not people with brains., that we use to figure things out. We are brains that have developed personas, that the brain uses to figure things out.

 

[untermensche]

If you are talking about labels and categories you are talking about language, a subset of cognition.

In terms of vision.

View attachment 10101

A cube like this can be looked at two ways. A cube tilted slightly upward to the right and another tilted slightly downward to the left.

A person can make themselves see the cube one way, then the other.

A person can use their "will" to change what they see.

Yes. And the cube we experience is a symbol. Not photons, not neuronic signals but a symbol.

The point is, vision is not completely passive, our "will" plays a part in it.

And I don't know about you but I experience a cube. Two of them. And I can use my "will" to decide which one I see.

If you can't experience a cube then that is interesting.

- - - Updated - - -

We are not people with brains., that we use to figure things out. We are brains that have developed personas, that the brain uses to figure things out.

Why does the brain need a persona to figure things out?

A brain can just react to stimulus. It has no need of a persona.

A persona is only needed is the persona can initiate action.

 

[untermensche]

The agency of natural selection is differential reproductive success via interaction with the environment with differential genetic expression.

The agency is in interaction.

Not replication.

So you are saying agency can be differential reproductive success via interaction. Agency is interaction. I don't see an actor in any of this. In fact all I see is a process description. And that is pretty detached from cause and effect or purpose which I believe is a requirement for agency.

Walking across the ground is interacting with the environment. Flying in the air is interacting with the environment.

Finding food is interacting with the environment.

Finding a mate and mating is interacting with the environment.

You don't see an actor in that? The actor is the thing walking or flying or searching or mating.

Is this just a stupid game you're playing?

 

[untermensche]

No. That's still your condition....if you walk into a room and find broken glass with brown granules that smell like coffee scattered on the floor, the evidence, in relation to your past experience with objects and events in your environment, tells you that someone or something (a pet) most likely dropped or dislodged the jar of coffee, which broke, scattering glass and coffee onto the floor.

The information you have available tells you what the object and contents are and what happened, the coffee jar fell to the floor, breaking and scattering glass and coffee granules. What you don't know is precisely how the event happened.

Just as in principle it is quite clear, based on evidence, that the brain is the agency of consciousness even though we don't understand how the brain forms this experience of sensation.

If you have two cats and all you find is a broken cup on the ground. Does the evidence tell us which cat did it? Or even if a cat did it. Looking at results does not always tell you something about causes.

Nobody has the slightest clue which physiological process is resulting in consciousness.

Nobody can logically make claims as to all the conditions needed for consciousness until that is known.

No matter how many times you falsely claim it.

You're a dogmatist.

Not a scientist.

 

[Elixir]

Why does the brain need a persona to figure things out?
A brain can just react to stimulus. It has no need of a persona.
A persona is only needed is the persona can initiate action.

The effect of a given stimulus upon the brain is not a given - not by a LONG shot. Our perceptions are very modular, and depend greatly on prior experience.
A person who is raised in a western urban environment whose peripheral vision registers something vaguely rectangular, moving into an obscured area of the field of vision will almost always register "car going around corner". Someone raised in a jungle - not so much. People with similar experiential databanks process basic visual stimuli in similar ways.

Put a person in a dark room, and project one dot oscillating horizontally at 1 cycle every two seconds, and they will usually report what we could call an "absolute" perception - what makes it absolute is the agreement of almost everyone that "a dot moving back and forth" is what they "saw". Add another dot somewhere below the first dot, and have it move exactly reciprocally to the first dot (top dot moves left as bottom dot moves right etc.) and MOST people (but not all) will actually perceive a stick with lit ends being rotated.

The "persona" is an outgrowth of a huge number of modules of perception that a person accrues over time. No two people's experiential sets are identical, so we seem (especially to ourselves) to be unique - just like everyone else. It's really just the sum of our perceptual biases.

 

[untermensche]

Why does the brain need a persona to figure things out?
A brain can just react to stimulus. It has no need of a persona.
A persona is only needed is the persona can initiate action.

The effect of a given stimulus upon the brain is not a given - not by a LONG shot. Our perceptions are very modular, and depend greatly on prior experience.
A person who is raised in a western urban environment whose peripheral vision registers something vaguely rectangular, moving into an obscured area of the field of vision will almost always register "car going around corner". Someone raised in a jungle - not so much. People with similar experiential databanks process basic visual stimuli in similar ways.

Put a person in a dark room, and project one dot oscillating horizontally at 1 cycle every two seconds, and they will usually report what we could call an "absolute" perception - what makes it absolute is the agreement of almost everyone that "a dot moving back and forth" is what they "saw". Add another dot somewhere below the first dot, and have it move exactly reciprocally to the first dot (top dot moves left as bottom dot moves right etc.) and MOST people (but not all) will actually perceive a stick with lit ends being rotated.

The "persona" is an outgrowth of a huge number of modules of perception that a person accrues over time. No two people's experiential sets are identical, so we seem (especially to ourselves) to be unique - just like everyone else. It's really just the sum of our perceptual biases.

Yes, the brain goes to all this trouble to make representations of the world for consciousness to experience.

But a representation does not need to be made for a brain to understand things.

Either the brain is just a bunch of "reflexes" and "programs" and therefore has no need to make presentations for a consciousness. So it makes consciousness for no reason at all.

Or the brain does it because consciousness itself has an ability to initiate certain actions.

Which is certainly the basis of human institutions like the criminal justice system, which holds people accountable for the things they do.

If the person has no control that is an absurd practice.

 

[OLDMAN]

The effect of a given stimulus upon the brain is not a given - not by a LONG shot. Our perceptions are very modular, and depend greatly on prior experience.
A person who is raised in a western urban environment whose peripheral vision registers something vaguely rectangular, moving into an obscured area of the field of vision will almost always register "car going around corner". Someone raised in a jungle - not so much. People with similar experiential databanks process basic visual stimuli in similar ways.

Put a person in a dark room, and project one dot oscillating horizontally at 1 cycle every two seconds, and they will usually report what we could call an "absolute" perception - what makes it absolute is the agreement of almost everyone that "a dot moving back and forth" is what they "saw". Add another dot somewhere below the first dot, and have it move exactly reciprocally to the first dot (top dot moves left as bottom dot moves right etc.) and MOST people (but not all) will actually perceive a stick with lit ends being rotated.

The "persona" is an outgrowth of a huge number of modules of perception that a person accrues over time. No two people's experiential sets are identical, so we seem (especially to ourselves) to be unique - just like everyone else. It's really just the sum of our perceptual biases.

Yes, the brain goes to all this trouble to make representations of the world for consciousness to experience.

But a representation does not need to be made for a brain to understand things.

Either the brain is just a bunch of "reflexes" and "programs" and therefore has no need to make presentations for a consciousness. So it makes consciousness for no reason at all.

Or the brain does it because consciousness itself has an ability to initiate certain actions.

Which is certainly the basis of human institutions like the criminal justice system, which holds people accountable for the things they do.

If the person has no control that is an absurd practice.

The brain is the person, this isn't hard...unless your trying to make it into something else.

 

[WAB]

We are not people with brains., that we use to figure things out. We are brains that have developed personas, that the brain uses to figure things out.

Why does the brain need a persona to figure things out?

A brain can just react to stimulus. It has no need of a persona.

A persona is only needed is the persona can initiate action.

Exactly.

 

[DBT]

No. That's still your condition....if you walk into a room and find broken glass with brown granules that smell like coffee scattered on the floor, the evidence, in relation to your past experience with objects and events in your environment, tells you that someone or something (a pet) most likely dropped or dislodged the jar of coffee, which broke, scattering glass and coffee onto the floor.

The information you have available tells you what the object and contents are and what happened, the coffee jar fell to the floor, breaking and scattering glass and coffee granules. What you don't know is precisely how the event happened.

Just as in principle it is quite clear, based on evidence, that the brain is the agency of consciousness even though we don't understand how the brain forms this experience of sensation.

If you have two cats and all you find is a broken cup on the ground. Does the evidence tell us which cat did it? Or even if a cat did it. Looking at results does not always tell you something about causes.

Nobody has the slightest clue which physiological process is resulting in consciousness.

Nobody can logically make claims as to all the conditions needed for consciousness until that is known.

No matter how many times you falsely claim it.

You're a dogmatist.

Not a scientist.

No. that's still you. No matter how much evidence for brain agency is being presented to you, you interpret it in a way that suits your own unfounded, discredited version of 'reality' - oh, that could mean the brain as a receiver. This despite the fact that there is nothing to indicate the validity of this interpretation.

There being no evidence for brain as a receiver of disembodied consciousness. The very opposite being the case.

And no matter how many links and quotes I provide which have the researchers themselves talking about their experiments and case studies and their implications, referring to brain states and their corresponding effect on expressions of conscious output, you simply brush everything aside and re-assert your position of faith.

There lies the dogma, irrationality and unwillingness to face the facts. Brushing anything that doesn't suit your needs or is too difficult to address and simply re-asserting your claims and focusing on your opponent instead of what is being said; the argument, the evidence and assessments by researchers who are experts in their field.

Sorry, you have nothing.

 

[DBT]

Why does the brain need a persona to figure things out?

A brain can just react to stimulus. It has no need of a persona.

A persona is only needed is the persona can initiate action.

Exactly.

Not exactly. The brain acts through the means of conscious representation of environment and self identity.

Hence the brain is the author and producer of conscious sensation of the world and self interacting with its objects and events.

Sight does not exist unless the brain forms visual experience of its environment on the basis of information it receivers from its senses, made comprehensible by memory integration, for example, it being difficult to navigate an environment without this faculty.

 

[ryan]

If you have two cats and all you find is a broken cup on the ground. Does the evidence tell us which cat did it? Or even if a cat did it. Looking at results does not always tell you something about causes.

Nobody has the slightest clue which physiological process is resulting in consciousness.

Nobody can logically make claims as to all the conditions needed for consciousness until that is known.

No matter how many times you falsely claim it.

You're a dogmatist.

Not a scientist.

No. that's still you. No matter how much evidence for brain agency is being presented to you, you interpret it in a way that suits your own unfounded, discredited version of 'reality' - oh, that could mean the brain as a receiver. This despite the fact that there is nothing to indicate the validity of this interpretation.

There being no evidence for brain as a receiver of disembodied consciousness. The very opposite being the case.

And no matter how many links and quotes I provide which have the researchers themselves talking about their experiments and case studies and their implications, referring to brain states and their corresponding effect on expressions of conscious output, you simply brush everything aside and re-assert your position of faith.

There lies the dogma, irrationality and unwillingness to face the facts. Brushing anything that doesn't suit your needs or is too difficult to address and simply re-asserting your claims and focusing on your opponent instead of what is being said; the argument, the evidence and assessments by researchers who are experts in their field.

Sorry, you have nothing.

The consciousness still has some inherent mysteries like the phenomenal unity of consciousness. To me, this does not make sense in a quantified universe. Why should there be wholes of things, like the consciousness, for no physical reason? The consciousness appears to be a "hard" emergent property.

 

[Juma]

No. that's still you. No matter how much evidence for brain agency is being presented to you, you interpret it in a way that suits your own unfounded, discredited version of 'reality' - oh, that could mean the brain as a receiver. This despite the fact that there is nothing to indicate the validity of this interpretation.

There being no evidence for brain as a receiver of disembodied consciousness. The very opposite being the case.

And no matter how many links and quotes I provide which have the researchers themselves talking about their experiments and case studies and their implications, referring to brain states and their corresponding effect on expressions of conscious output, you simply brush everything aside and re-assert your position of faith.

There lies the dogma, irrationality and unwillingness to face the facts. Brushing anything that doesn't suit your needs or is too difficult to address and simply re-asserting your claims and focusing on your opponent instead of what is being said; the argument, the evidence and assessments by researchers who are experts in their field.

Sorry, you have nothing.

The consciousness still has some inherent mysteries like the phenomenal unity of consciousness. To me, this does not make sense in a quantified universe. Why should there be wholes of things, like the consciousness, for no physical reason? The consciousness appears to be a "hard" emergent property.

What is this wholeness you keep referring to? The article is about the unity of conciousness which is not "wholeness".
So what it is about conciousness that is "whole"?

 

[DBT]

No. that's still you. No matter how much evidence for brain agency is being presented to you, you interpret it in a way that suits your own unfounded, discredited version of 'reality' - oh, that could mean the brain as a receiver. This despite the fact that there is nothing to indicate the validity of this interpretation.

There being no evidence for brain as a receiver of disembodied consciousness. The very opposite being the case.

And no matter how many links and quotes I provide which have the researchers themselves talking about their experiments and case studies and their implications, referring to brain states and their corresponding effect on expressions of conscious output, you simply brush everything aside and re-assert your position of faith.

There lies the dogma, irrationality and unwillingness to face the facts. Brushing anything that doesn't suit your needs or is too difficult to address and simply re-asserting your claims and focusing on your opponent instead of what is being said; the argument, the evidence and assessments by researchers who are experts in their field.

Sorry, you have nothing.

The consciousness still has some inherent mysteries like the phenomenal unity of consciousness. To me, this does not make sense in a quantified universe. Why should there be wholes of things, like the consciousness, for no physical reason? The consciousness appears to be a "hard" emergent property.

But there is a physical reason, which I described in my last post and numerous other posts.

Quote;
''Hence the brain is the author and producer of conscious sensation of the world and self interacting with its objects and events.

Sight does not exist unless the brain forms visual experience of its environment on the basis of information it receivers from its senses, made comprehensible by memory integration, for example, it being difficult to navigate an environment without this faculty.''

 

[ryan]

The consciousness still has some inherent mysteries like the phenomenal unity of consciousness. To me, this does not make sense in a quantified universe. Why should there be wholes of things, like the consciousness, for no physical reason? The consciousness appears to be a "hard" emergent property.

What is this wholeness you keep referring to? The article is about the unity of conciousness which is not "wholeness".
So what it is about conciousness that is "whole"?

If the universe really is separated into quantified parts, what is this unified whole? Why is there this whole of only a certain amount of parts?

 

[Juma]

What is this wholeness you keep referring to? The article is about the unity of conciousness which is not "wholeness".
So what it is about conciousness that is "whole"?

If the universe really is separated into quantified parts, what is this unified whole? Why is there this whole of only a certain amount of parts?

You didnt explain what you refer to by the word "whole" here.

 

[ryan]

The consciousness still has some inherent mysteries like the phenomenal unity of consciousness. To me, this does not make sense in a quantified universe. Why should there be wholes of things, like the consciousness, for no physical reason? The consciousness appears to be a "hard" emergent property.

But there is a physical reason, which I described in my last post and numerous other posts.

Quote;
''Hence the brain is the author and producer of conscious sensation of the world and self interacting with its objects and events.

Sight does not exist unless the brain forms visual experience of its environment on the basis of information it receivers from its senses, made comprehensible by memory integration, for example, it being difficult to navigate an environment without this faculty.''

But you are just glossing over the problem; there is literally a god/spirit/consciousness in the gaps. The mystery lies in the terms you take for grated like integration and comprehension. In a quantified universe, there are no objectively whole phenomena like integration (except for space-time, but we are talking about biology) and comprehension. Things in the universe are only suppose to happen in discrete, nonlocal units that are the particles of the Standard model and the behaviors of them.

 

[ryan]

If the universe really is separated into quantified parts, what is this unified whole? Why is there this whole of only a certain amount of parts?

You didnt explain what you refer to by the word "whole" here.

Did you read any part of the paper I posted? There is an objective whole of some parts of the brain. In other words, the consciousness is irreducible.