Consciousness

[rousseau]

When you concertedly think, the most pressing things rise to the top. That's it. There is no neural mechanism that 'picks' from an unlimited number of options. The mind is oriented to remind you of immediate issues, people, problems, etc. So when you decide to look at your thoughts, what comes up has a random component to it, but it will likely be some aspect of your immediate environment and life. So you *can* think about whatever, but you don't *decide* what you think, you just think about what comes to mind.

Consider this question: if you were to 'pick' something to think about, what is the substance you'd use to pick? How is this substance used to decide amongst various options? I'd argue, in actuality, what's relevant here is neural pathways and potentiation. Memories that have more relevance to our immediate life will be more prominent in our brain and more likely to be brought into our conscious awareness.

Often, our immediate environment is the spur to which memories we access, so we can act effectively in the real world. Sometimes, when we explore our own mind, concepts prompt certain paths.

Regardless, there's always a spur.

- - - Updated - - -

How does a three year old, who lacks conscious awareness, exist in the world?

I can't find fault in any of that. When I tried to come up with something to think about, I'm sure there was a set of topics that floated into my mind based on any number of factors beyond my conscious control. And I'm sure the one I picked was picked behind the scenes before I consciously knew about it. But at least from my perspective, it usually FEELS like I can choose what to think about. I say usually because there are times when I can notice my behavior flowing from previous states (generally speaking; this also applies to the specific case of thoughts). It's certainly true that I can't choose what NOT to think about, which may be telling.

Not sure where you're going with your last question, but I would guess that a three year-old human exists in the world in much the same way a non-human animal does, given the same level of conscious awareness.

Was also thinking, it feels like you're choosing because in a sense you are choosing. I get the impression that some people get the sense that if we don't have control over our thoughts then we're just a ghost sitting in a machine that's acting for us. That's not the case either. Your mind rolling over thoughts, behaving, acting is you, which is why it feels like you're choosing, because this is what we are and how we work.

That method of living, though, just assumes that our 'freedom' is constrained by the content of our mind, and our abilities. We can not do that which we can not think.

 

[untermensche]

I don't see anything implausible about any of that. There are many examples of vestigial or otherwise redundant systems in biology.

The person I was talking to claims it isn't true.

He claims that even if consciousness is nothing but a passive "camera", something that only experiences but can initiate no action, it is still necessary somehow.

All I am saying is that of you claim consciousness is a passive "camera" a passive "experiencer" then you have to live with the conclusion that it is not needed at all.

I don't believe consciousness is a passive "camera". There are a lot of things going on below and beyond consciousness in the brain but I think consciousness has a measure of control over movement and thought.

But this belief is only based on a lifetime of experience, no hard science.

The implausible part is how something that cannot be found physically in the brain (nor anywhere in the physical universe for that matter) could exert a physical effect.

We don't know how the brain initiates anything.

How does it direct energy to one part and then another? Is it all a complex reaction?

Is there directing action anywhere?

Is human civilization just a chemical reaction? Or is there an ability to direct something in the brain somewhere?

If there is something in the brain capable of directing other parts of the brain why can't that also be consciousness?

It comes down to temperament. As a scientist, I'm uncomfortable with believing in something that has no plausible mechanism and is incompatible with prevailing theoretical models of how things work on a basic level.

Do you believe there are parts of the brain able to control other parts of the brain?

Or do you believe it is all reaction with only underlying "programs" that developed under genetic control?

 

[untermensche]

Can we control our thoughts?

Do a simple experiment. Try to control what you think next. You can't, it's a purely mechanical, reactionary process. If you can't control your own thoughts, how are you in control of your behavior? The answer: you're not, deep instinctual mechanisms are. We don't need to think about most of the things we do, they just happen.

How would 'controlling' our thoughts work? What is it that controls our thoughts? How does it choose what to think?

It makes much more sense that 'thinking' is a process that always happens in response to stimuli in our immediate environment, including our own thoughts.

A plan using your thoughts is controlling your thoughts. Recognizing a goal, picking a goal, that is the active part, and planning to reach it.

Making thoughts work for you.

"How do I kill that thing I can eat?"

"Let me think."

But one can be passive and make no plans. Maybe smoke a little weed.

Then thoughts will arise randomly.

Artists use that phenomena.

 

[George S]

Of course thoughts can be controlled. Don't think of a blue chicken. Oops, you thought of a blue chicken. Do you ever have an internal dialog? Thought control.
Though I must agree, on weed thoughts do arise unbidden. Very, very slowly.

 

[George S]

"Who am the two of I", I said to myself one day. I have a dialog with another here inside who, too, is I. Whom am I debating with?

 

[untermensche]

I don't see anything implausible about any of that. There are many examples of vestigial or otherwise redundant systems in biology.

Your argument doesn't work. It's a kind of infinite regress paradox.

Vestigial organs are all remnants of proper organs that were fully functional in some extinct species. So your argument would require you to explain what the "passive camera" untermensche is talking about could have been useful for in any species. The answer is that a passive organ cannot be an organ at all and that it cannot be useful.

One point for untermensche.

Who badly needs them.
EB

Great point.

But I think Gould saw it more as a spandrel.

Something that arises because of the structure of other things as a side consequence.

I still don't see how something that experiences exists just because a machine can see and move. How could it arise as a side consequence? We have machines that can see, and move in space based on what they see. There is certainly no reason to think these machines are experiencing anything. That position is certainly not a given.

 

[untermensche]

"Who am the two of I", I said to myself one day. I have a dialog with another here inside who, too, is I. Whom am I debating with?

I see consciousness as a layer of partial control over animal drives.

You are debating with your drives, which brew below the surface.

 

[rousseau]

Of course thoughts can be controlled. Don't think of a blue chicken. Oops, you thought of a blue chicken. Do you ever have an internal dialog? Thought control.
Though I must agree, on weed thoughts do arise unbidden. Very, very slowly.

Heh. Good point.

 

[untermensche]

Of course thoughts can be controlled. Don't think of a blue chicken. Oops, you thought of a blue chicken. Do you ever have an internal dialog? Thought control.
Though I must agree, on weed thoughts do arise unbidden. Very, very slowly.

Is just letting thoughts come a form of control?

 

[rousseau]

If living things can survive without conscious awareness, then behavior is primarily driven by the unconscious, and instinct.

That would follow if living things with conscious awareness behaved no differently than without. It could still be true, but this syllogism doesn't demonstrate it.

Then, when we believe we've become 'consciously aware', what we actually are is 'aware of so many things, including ourselves, that we call ourselves self-aware'. In reality flowing from a non-conscious to a conscious state is a false dichotomy if the neural wiring is the same, it's impossible. The difference is that we become aware of more things as our life progresses, to a point that we can feasibly become fully aware of ourselves and the universe.

Is the neural wiring of a 3 year-old really the same, though?

Instinct relies both on internal mechanisms AND on experience (what we've learned), hence the nurture/changeable aspect of our nature.

When we're young (probably most of our adolescence) we survive primarily on instinct and without any real focused awareness. I think that's evidence that even in old age we flow through life mostly due to the same instincts.. evolution has oriented our bodies to be very likely to survive and reproduce in the environment we're born into. And so we don't really have to emit much effort, and things will usually turn out fine.

But over our lives we also learn and our awareness expands, so things we can be conscious of grow. This gives us the impression that we're 'self aware', but realistically we're just in a permanent state of becoming aware of more properties of our environment.

Neural wiring? It probably does change, but I'd argue there's most definitely a sizeable component of the brain that's unchanging throughout life, which causes things like political orientation and place on extraversion spectrum.

Bottom line? If you want to be smart you have to feed your brain.

 

[DBT]

You are not even representing my 'ideas' - which are not my ideas - you only respond to your own version. A version that bears no resemblance to what I say.

I'm giving you the logical conclusions of your ideas.

No, I say one thing but you respond as if I said the very opposite.

You respond to both your idea what I said, which is diametrically opposite to what I actually said, and your own vague, unfounded notion of consciousness.

You are claiming consciousness is passive. It can initiate no action, like a passive "camera" it can "see", it can experience the representations created by the brain.

Wrong, consciousness is an active mental representation of the world and self and the means by which response is determined.

But it is not consciousness that responds, but the brain that is generating its map of world and self in the form of motor actions.

That is the distinction you seem incapable of grasping.....mainly because it doesn't suit your beliefs.

And you still continue to avoid the question.


Here is the question again;

How is it possible for consciousness to order (your wording) the brain when it is the brain that is forming and generating consciousness?

Now, can you address the question or not?

 

[DBT]

"Who am the two of I", I said to myself one day. I have a dialog with another here inside who, too, is I. Whom am I debating with?

I see consciousness as a layer of partial control over animal drives.

You are debating with your drives, which brew below the surface.

There you go, that is your ghost in the machine fallacy, your homunculus, your version of soul....this being more a matter of religion than science it's something that was discredited by neuroscience long ago.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Your argument doesn't work. It's a kind of infinite regress paradox.

Vestigial organs are all remnants of proper organs that were fully functional in some extinct species. So your argument would require you to explain what the "passive camera" untermensche is talking about could have been useful for in any species. The answer is that a passive organ cannot be an organ at all and that it cannot be useful.

One point for untermensche.

Who badly needs them.
EB

Great point.

But I think Gould saw it more as a spandrel.

Something that arises because of the structure of other things as a side consequence.

I still don't see how something that experiences exists just because a machine can see and move. How could it arise as a side consequence? We have machines that can see, and move in space based on what they see. There is certainly no reason to think these machines are experiencing anything. That position is certainly not a given.

There's no difference between the way organs arise and the way spandrels arise. From a biological perspective that's the same kind of phenomenon, i.e. there's an original mutation that causes the thing to appear in the original organism. However, organs would by definition bring some advantage to the organism while the spandrels would not, which is the basic principle that would explain why organs are retained by evolution. However, it's unlikely that organs come about fully developed and functional. There must be a period during which a population has to harbour spandrels. Those spandrels may turn over time into proper organs after successive mutations. However, this implies that the population concerned must be able to survive while harbouring those useless spandrels until they could become useful, either by more mutations or finding a new environment where the spandrel would be useful to the organism. Spandrels will usually have an energetic cost but if the population is prosperous, with little environmental pressure, the cost may not have enough of an impact for the spandrel to disappear with a few generations. The game is for the spandrel to get a free pass until it could turn into something useful. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So there's no specific mechanism for spandrel to appear. Rather, there's one for spandrel to survive long enough to morph into organs.

In the case of the cognitive capabilities of hominids, I suspect they proved useful very fast. However, there may have been quite a few generations who didn't use it. It's during that time that our cognitive abilities would have been spandrels.

All that may not apply at all to subjective experience. At least I can't see how it could apply. If I could, I would have the basis for explaining subjective experience from neurobiological premises. As I see it, there's no indication that subjective experience represents any energetic cost to the organism. I also can't see any usefulness. So, there's no selective pressure either way. It might be there just because it's a more fundamental property of things than just being evolutionary advantageous or disadvantageous. After all our own massive bodies ever so slightly affect the geometry of space-time and I think that doesn't affect evolution.
Eb

 

[untermensche]

I'm giving you the logical conclusions of your ideas.

No, I say one thing but you respond as if I said the very opposite.

No you have clearly said that consciousness cannot initiate any action.

Once you claim that you are stuck with the consequences.

The major consequence is; in that case consciousness is completely superfluous.

Others in this thread clearly see the connection. That you can't isn't very interesting.

Wrong, consciousness is an active mental representation of the world and self and the means by which response is determined.

No it is not a representation of anything. It is that which experiences the representations created by the brain. It is that which experiences.

Consciousness is that which splits the universe in two. Separating it into subject and object.

How is it possible for consciousness to order (your wording) the brain when it is the brain that is forming and generating consciousness?

Do you think the brain can make decisions and act on them or do you think it just runs off pre-existing programming without any controls?

Because if some parts of the brain can make decisions and control other parts of the brain then consciousness, which is abstractly just a part of the brain, could too.

 

[PyramidHead]

Do you believe there are parts of the brain able to control other parts of the brain?

Or do you believe it is all reaction with only underlying "programs" that developed under genetic control?

On a trivial level, it's obvious that parts of the brain influence each other. That's how the brain works. But I don't think there's any one piece that is always in control, and never being controlled. It's like any other organ or system in the body, there are feedback loops and density gradients that trigger various parts. And all of this certainly developed under genetic control; what other means are there?

Because if some parts of the brain can make decisions and control other parts of the brain then consciousness, which is abstractly just a part of the brain, could too.

Hmmm. Abstractly, but not literally. Consciousness is not actually any specific part of the brain. It can't be found anywhere in there. The amygdala and the hippocampus are physical organs connected to the rest of the brain by tissues that can be seen under a microscope, so it's not a fair comparison.

 

[PyramidHead]

All that may not apply at all to subjective experience. At least I can't see how it could apply. If I could, I would have the basis for explaining subjective experience from neurobiological premises. As I see it, there's no indication that subjective experience represents any energetic cost to the organism. I also can't see any usefulness. So, there's no selective pressure either way. It might be there just because it's a more fundamental property of things than just being evolutionary advantageous or disadvantageous. After all our own massive bodies ever so slightly affect the geometry of space-time and I think that doesn't affect evolution.
Eb

That's an interesting point (bolding mine). We are starting to accept the notion of causeless events due to the success of quantum mechanics as an explanatory model. I wonder if we will also have to acknowledge the idea of 'effectless' events, i.e. phenomena that cannot influence anything even in principle, in the same way that certain aspects of quantum mechanics cannot be caused even in principle.

 

[ryan]

Face it DBT; it at least seems that there is an immaterial difference between a subjective existence of a brain and its objective existence. Both realities exist and are different, though casually correlated. But still, there is nothing physically different about them.

There might be a shadow-ghost in the machine; it is not a huge leap.

 

[Juma]

All that may not apply at all to subjective experience. At least I can't see how it could apply. If I could, I would have the basis for explaining subjective experience from neurobiological premises. As I see it, there's no indication that subjective experience represents any energetic cost to the organism. I also can't see any usefulness. So, there's no selective pressure either way. It might be there just because it's a more fundamental property of things than just being evolutionary advantageous or disadvantageous. After all our own massive bodies ever so slightly affect the geometry of space-time and I think that doesn't affect evolution.
Eb

That's an interesting point (bolding mine). We are starting to accept the notion of causeless events due to the success of quantum mechanics as an explanatory model. I wonder if we will also have to acknowledge the idea of 'effectless' events, i.e. phenomena that cannot influence anything even in principle, in the same way that certain aspects of quantum mechanics cannot be caused even in principle.

If it were truly effectless then nobody would spend hours discussing it...,

 

[Speakpigeon]

All that may not apply at all to subjective experience. At least I can't see how it could apply. If I could, I would have the basis for explaining subjective experience from neurobiological premises. As I see it, there's no indication that subjective experience represents any energetic cost to the organism. I also can't see any usefulness. So, there's no selective pressure either way. It might be there just because it's a more fundamental property of things than just being evolutionary advantageous or disadvantageous. After all our own massive bodies ever so slightly affect the geometry of space-time and I think that doesn't affect evolution.
Eb

That's an interesting point (bolding mine). We are starting to accept the notion of causeless events due to the success of quantum mechanics as an explanatory model. I wonder if we will also have to acknowledge the idea of 'effectless' events, i.e. phenomena that cannot influence anything even in principle, in the same way that certain aspects of quantum mechanics cannot be caused even in principle.

As I understand it, it's causality itself that is made redundant rather than some class of events being without a cause, as your wording suggests. Instead, events are somehow related to each other by probabilities.

We also have to assume that subjective experience should similarly be understood not as caused by material or physical events but as related to them by probabilities. However, I suspect that very few scientists would want to see the material world as similarly related to our subjective experience, in any way at all. So the conception would be asymmetrical, in the same way that in the conventional view, subjective experience, if it exists at all, has no causal power, while being itself regarded as an epiphenomenon of physical processes. But I believe this notion of epiphenomenon as nonsensical, so the idea would be to find an alternative modality for the relation from the physical to the subjective.

If Quantum Physics was the truly fundamental theory scientists think it is there would have to be such an alternative relation, despite what most scientists may believe. Alternatively, QM may only apply to what we think of as the physical world, in which case a new, more general, theoretical framework would be required to include subjective experience. In which case, we would not be bound by the strictures of our current physical theory. We may think outside the box of Quantum Physics, although maybe we might not have that capacity. Clearly most scientists can't even think straight about subjective experience being an actual and fundamental phenomenon as opposed to being regarded as merely epiphenomenal.

That being said, if the idea is that subjective experience really has no causal effect or any QM equivalent then I'm not sure we need to bother trying to find a solution. It would definitely cost money to research and I don't see what use an answer could have.
EB

 

[untermensche]

On a trivial level, it's obvious that parts of the brain influence each other. That's how the brain works. But I don't think there's any one piece that is always in control, and never being controlled. It's like any other organ or system in the body, there are feedback loops and density gradients that trigger various parts. And all of this certainly developed under genetic control; what other means are there?

As far as everything under genetic control.

If you take a normal newborn cat and cover it's eyes for a period of time the cat will never see.

If you cover it's eyes with opaque material that distorts what the cat sees the cat will see a little but never properly.

Obviously vision is not completely under genetic control.

It takes external stimulation to develop normal vision and it takes a certain quality of external stimulation to create normal vision.

So genes are only part of the story for vision.

And probably only part of the story for consciousness and cognitive skills too. We certainly understand this with language. We understand the language we were exposed to when young. The exposure is key.

If there is no specialized area of the brain that has control there is certainly something that thinks it has control.

So there must be some part of the brain creating the sense that consciousness can control the arm at "will".

So not only do we have this superfluous thing that experiences, consciousness, we have this other superfluous thing as well, the sense that consciousness can control.

A lot of activity for no reason at all.

On the other hand if consciousness can control as it senses then there is no wasted energy.

Because if some parts of the brain can make decisions and control other parts of the brain then consciousness, which is abstractly just a part of the brain, could too.

Hmmm. Abstractly, but not literally.

We can only talk about consciousness abstractly. Like we can only talk about blue abstractly. Consciousness is only known as something experienced. What it actually is in terms of brain activity is not known at all. It can be altered by doing things to the brain, but that does not tell us what it is.

Consciousness is not actually any specific part of the brain. It can't be found anywhere in there.

It is believed to be a creation of the brain. So it has some kind of existence.

If something has existence it might also be able to influence other things with existence.