Consciousness

[George S]

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.

It is that part of a body-mind that is aware that, "I am and Thou art."

 

[ryan]

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...,

Physical words like "mind" and "consciousness" may just so happen to be correlates to the mind's thoughts about its connection with the physical. It could have been any physical symbols that would make the correlations.

 

[untermensche]

There's no difference between the way organs arise and the way spandrels arise.

Sure parts are moving all around. The bones in the ear did not start out there.

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.

How do you have subjective experience without any expenditure of energy?

If the thing that experiences can also command the legs to run away then the usefulness is clear.

Without that ability there is no usefulness.

 

[Juma]

So people would make points about the inner theater if the experience of these thoughts couldnt have an effect on what they are writing?
Bullshit.

 

[DBT]

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.

So again you ignore what I said only to focus on a part of what I said in order to misrepresent what I'm saying.

Again and yet again, I did not say that consciousness has no role. I did not say that consciousness has no function.

What I said was, the brain forms a centralized information base in the form of conscious activity by which it responds to articles of information - ''thirsty, go to the fridge and get a drink'' - while initiating the motor actions needed to perform this physical activity.

So it is not consciousness that forms itself and decides to go to the fridge because of thirst; unconscious processing of inputs feeding into the 'works[ace' of conscious awareness of state of self and environment and responding accordingly'

This being the role and function of a brain, to respond to the things of the world through the means of conscious representation of the world and self.

The brain being the agency of consciousness and physical motor response based on information represented in conscious form.

Which does not mean that consciousness is useless, the opposite in fact.

Just not what you are claiming, your autonomous consciousness fallacy.

Now please stop misrepresenting what I say.

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.

That does not address my question. You are doing your best to avoid addressing the question.

Please try again;

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

 

[DBT]

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.

What is a ''shadow ghost' and how does this inexplicable entity interact with the brain? How is proposing this ''shadow ghost'' supposed to explain consciousness?

 

[untermensche]

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

Once you claim that you are stuck with the consequences.

So again you ignore what I said only to focus on a part of what I said in order to misrepresent what I'm saying.

Again and yet again, I did not say that consciousness has no role. I did not say that consciousness has no function.

What I said was, the brain forms a centralized information base in the form of conscious activity by which it responds to articles of information - ''thirsty, go to the fridge and get a drink'' - while initiating the motor actions needed to perform this physical activity.

You are simply so full of shit I have trouble dealing with you.

"Centralized information base"? "Articles of information"?

What a bunch of meaningless gibberish.

You're pretending to know things without actually knowing anything.

You know absolutely nothing about the physiological basis of consciousness. Yet seem to think you can make comments about it.

You don't even seem to have a grasp on understanding your own individual consciousness.

So it is not consciousness that forms itself and decides to go to the fridge because of thirst; unconscious processing of inputs feeding into the 'works[ace' of conscious awareness of state of self and environment and responding accordingly'

You are merely claiming some unconscious processing is involved with absolutely no knowledge of what is involved.

Again, you are full of shit, pretending to understand things you know nothing about.

You merely take it as an article of faith that the conscious mind cannot initiate action in the brain. And you build a belief system, not a science, around this article of faith.

Ultimately decisions have to made in the real world.

Something has to make them.

If consciousness, just a part of the brain, doesn't make these decisions something has to.

If something has to make decisions in the brain then that something could be consciousness.

 

[fromderinside]

Well the brain is part of the human around it and its merely doing what has been enabled through evolution to contribute. Consciousness is something we humans seem to believe we have. I'm just trying to explain that fact in context of what human senses are known to process. Seems the problem is finding a way to use what the brain does to contribute to a particular human successfully producing more humans. What that appears to be feedback related and it appears to be 'experiencing' some combination of predicting what's probably coming and reporting what has just passed. To give something like that a fitness badge one needs to explain how such a system can help in the successfully producing of babies thingie. My take is sit's a set of calculations patched on to recent history as an experience. That might be all that's necessary to put a plus sign on it's function for fitness.

I do insist,however that it's not a stand alone controller of anything.

It could also be an inevitable side effect of something else that confers a fitness benefit. Perhaps consciousness is an epiphenomenon of having a brain complex enough for language.

Geez. I've been away for a few days and we're still munching on the same stuff.

I just supplied, what I think is an appropriate response, on another thread. https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...cular-atheism)&p=401953&viewfull=1#post401953

To save your searching or refusing to search I post the answer below:

Did anyone see that ring of Saturn in all this?


Q: Say I have a multivariable (several independent variables) regression that consists of 3 variables. Each of those variables has a given coefficient. If I decide to introduce a 4th variable and rerun the regression, will the coefficients of the 3 original variables change?

A: A parameter estimate in a regression model (e.g., [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]β[FONT=MathJax_Main]^[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]i[/FONT]β^i) will change if a variable, [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]X[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]j[/FONT]Xj, is added to the model that is:[/FONT]

1. correlated with that parameter's corresponding variable, [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]X[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]i[/FONT]Xi (which was already in the model), and
2. correlated with the response variable, [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]Y[/FONT]Y

An estimated beta will not change when a new variable is added, if either of the above are uncorrelated. Note that whether they are uncorrelated in the population (i.e., [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]ρ[FONT=MathJax_Main]([/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]X[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]i[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Main],[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]X[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]j[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Main])[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Main]=[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Main]0[/FONT]ρ(Xi,Xj)=0, or [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]ρ[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Main]([/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]X[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]j[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Main],[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]Y[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Main])[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Main]=[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Main]0[/FONT]ρ(Xj,Y)=0) is irrelevant. What matters is that both sample correlations are exactly [FONT=MathJax_Main]0[/FONT]0. This will essentially never be the case in practice unless you are working with experimental data where the variables were manipulated such that they are uncorrelated by design.[/FONT]
Note also that the amount the parameters change may not be terribly meaningful (that depends, at least in part, on your theory). Moreover, the amount they can change is a function of the magnitudes of the two correlations above.
On a different note, it is not really correct to think of this phenomenon as "the coefficient of a given variable [being] influenced by the coefficient of another variable". It isn't the betas that are influencing each other. This phenomenon is a natural result of the algorithm that statistical software uses to estimate the slope parameters. Imagine a situation where [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]YY is caused by both [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]X[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]i[/FONT]Xi and [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]X[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]j[/FONT]Xj, which in turn are correlated with each other. If only [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]X[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]i[/FONT]Xi is in the model, some of the variation in [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]Y[/FONT]Y that is due to [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]X[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]j[/FONT]Xj will be inappropriately attributed to [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]X[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]i[/FONT]Xi. This means that the value of [FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]X[/FONT][FONT=MathJax_Math-italic]i[/FONT]Xi is biased; this is called the omitted variable bias

[/FONT]


Simplified, the above is called the Rings of Saturn effect.

 

[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.

What is a ''shadow ghost' and how does this inexplicable entity interact with the brain? How is proposing this ''shadow ghost'' supposed to explain consciousness?

Just think about what I wrote. It's a basis for how we might start to think about consciousness.

 

[Speakpigeon]

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.

How do you have subjective experience without any expenditure of energy?

Obviously I have absolutely no idea. I just don't know.

Still, we are all speaking speculatively. I also don't know that subjective experience has no energy cost.

If the thing that experiences can also command the legs to run away then the usefulness is clear.

Unsupported assumption.

You don't know that the thing that has the experience can also command the legs or anything in the body.

Without that ability there is no usefulness.

Yes. That's the idea.

The question is whether there is no usefulness in principle or no usefulness as a matter of practical circumstances.




There is in fact a good reason that subjective experience should seem like it does. We just need to go back to this notion of spandrel. I think we can agree that the brain may be thought of broadly as having evolved to become useful as an information system on behalf of the organism. Over time, the human brain somehow learned the trick of building a sophisticated model of its environment. However, initially, the model didn't have to include anything like a model of itself to prove useful and so it didn't. However, over time, as our societies grow more complex and sophisticated, brains keep adjusting their models. However, this constant adjusting of neuronal pathways would have to work like the spandrel/organ paradigm. The brain would just pop up new but initially useless pathways, i.e. spandrel-like pathways, and let the interaction with its environment decide which will be maintained and turned into a useful part of the model. So perhaps at some point in the history of mankind, maybe precisely when Descartes popped out the Cogito, it suddenly became fashionable and therefore useful to talk about your inner experience as such. And from there, some people with not much else to do started to think about it and then their brain started to grow a proper model of the model. The famous homunculus was real after all and just an evolutionary spandrel that is nowadays pretty sophisticated and could very well earn some money to people like me. You just have to put your inner homunculus to work.

Of course, in this interpretation, consciousness may have become useful just now but at the cost of all those extra neuronal pathways that you need to eat food and earn money to keep happy. It's a trade-off but in the age of the entertainment civilisation and the Internet it would work.

Look at science. The original blueprint was a useless waste of time with people just spending precious time to ponder on the secrets of Mother Nature. But scientists found out a way to shamelessly keep doing it while feeding their kids. It's a trade-off. Obviously, scientists were never interested in making science useful, it's just that they had to do it if they were to keep doing any science at all. And they somehow got the girl too, most of them. So you could say that broadly science was a spandrel too.
EB

 

[untermensche]

How do you have subjective experience without any expenditure of energy?

Obviously I have absolutely no idea. I just don't know.

Still, we are all speaking speculatively. I also don't know that subjective experience has no energy cost.

So talking about energy costs is a pointless endeavor.

If the thing that experiences can also command the legs to run away then the usefulness is clear.

Unsupported assumption.

You don't know that the thing that has the experience can also command the legs or anything in the body.

I know it thinks it can.

And prefacing with "if" means it is not an assumption.

The point is, if the conscious mind could command the legs to move, as it already thinks it can, that would give the conscious mind a significant use.

So perhaps at some point in the history of mankind, maybe precisely when Descartes popped out the Cogito, it suddenly became fashionable and therefore useful to talk about your inner experience as such.

Descartes just put the experience all humans have into words.

If there are thoughts there has to be that which is aware of them.

There are thoughts, therefore "I" exist.

But just like looking at the brain that does not tell us what this "I" is.

 

[Treedbear]

How do you have subjective experience without any expenditure of energy?

Obviously I have absolutely no idea. I just don't know. ...

The question should rather be how the subjective experience uses less energy overall. It seems to me the brain creates models which evolve through the resolution of conflicts that occur between them. Contradictions lead to generalized anxiety, inefficiency, and excessive energy use. The need to "be cool" has a literal meaning.

 

[DBT]

So again you ignore what I said only to focus on a part of what I said in order to misrepresent what I'm saying.

Again and yet again, I did not say that consciousness has no role. I did not say that consciousness has no function.

What I said was, the brain forms a centralized information base in the form of conscious activity by which it responds to articles of information - ''thirsty, go to the fridge and get a drink'' - while initiating the motor actions needed to perform this physical activity.

You are simply so full of shit I have trouble dealing with you.

No. You have lost. You lost at something that you never had a chance of achieving. You have lost what you believe was argument for your faith based assumptions. An ''argument'' that you never had a chance of defining, describing or supporting in any way shape or form.

Consequently, becoming frustrated with your inability to answer legitimate questions or produce anything more than vague hand waving, you lash out at your opponent, me, in your anger, frustration and grief.

 

[DBT]

What is a ''shadow ghost' and how does this inexplicable entity interact with the brain? How is proposing this ''shadow ghost'' supposed to explain consciousness?

Just think about what I wrote. It's a basis for how we might start to think about consciousness.

What you wrote was an affirmation of your beliefs and not something - spooky, other dimensional agency - that is able to explain the very thing you seek to explain. It is something you want to believe, something that appeals to your hopes and desires, but is not supported by evidence, is not testable, cannot be used to make predictions, or used to explain the nature of consciousness.

 

[untermensche]

You are simply so full of shit I have trouble dealing with you.

No. You have lost. You lost at something that you never had a chance of achieving. You have lost what you believe was argument for your faith based assumptions. An ''argument'' that you never had a chance of defining, describing or supporting in any way shape or form.

Consequently, becoming frustrated with your inability to answer legitimate questions or produce anything more than vague hand waving, you lash out at your opponent, me, in your anger, frustration and grief.

You are nothing but a pose. You have no real knowledge about consciousness.

The day you can tell me how a brain creates a thought is the day you can begin to talk about consciousness.

Until then you are full of shit.

 

[ryan]

Just think about what I wrote. It's a basis for how we might start to think about consciousness.

What you wrote was an affirmation of your beliefs and not something - spooky, other dimensional agency - that is able to explain the very thing you seek to explain.

You might be hyper-focused on the "ghost" part instead of actually reading what I wrote before it. What is wrong with what I said before the ghost part?

It is something you want to believe, something that appeals to your hopes and desires, but is not supported by evidence, is not testable, cannot be used to make predictions, or used to explain the nature of consciousness.

My hopes and desires?

 

[DBT]

No. You have lost. You lost at something that you never had a chance of achieving. You have lost what you believe was argument for your faith based assumptions. An ''argument'' that you never had a chance of defining, describing or supporting in any way shape or form.

Consequently, becoming frustrated with your inability to answer legitimate questions or produce anything more than vague hand waving, you lash out at your opponent, me, in your anger, frustration and grief.

You are nothing but a pose. You have no real knowledge about consciousness.

The day you can tell me how a brain creates a thought is the day you can begin to talk about consciousness.

Until then you are full of shit.

Even there you contradict yourself. You, yourself claiming that nobody understands consciousness. Yet you, yourself have always made claims that strongly imply that you do understand consciousness and what it does, order the brain, etc.

BS, where BS is due. Right Mr untermensche?

Plus I have to note that you still cannot deal with the basic question I asked you:

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

So, now the tears. Now the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Now the resort to insults when the nakedness of your belief is exposed.

 

[DBT]

What you wrote was an affirmation of your beliefs and not something - spooky, other dimensional agency - that is able to explain the very thing you seek to explain.

You might be hyper-focused on the "ghost" part instead of actually reading what I wrote before it. What is wrong with what I said before the ghost part?

No, I base my remark on all that you've said in multiple threads and posts. I understand your position from the quantum consciousness arguments, non material consciousness and beyond. So it's no use compartmentalizing and pretending that the parts are unrelated in order to obscure the argument.

My hopes and desires?

Yes, your hopes and desires. Or do you deny that you have hopes and desires? Or that these skew your view in favour of something greater than brain generated consciousness?

 

[untermensche]

You are nothing but a pose. You have no real knowledge about consciousness.

The day you can tell me how a brain creates a thought is the day you can begin to talk about consciousness.

Until then you are full of shit.

Even there you contradict yourself. You, yourself claiming that nobody understands consciousness. Yet you, yourself have always made claims that strongly imply that you do understand consciousness and what it does, order the brain, etc.

BS, where BS is due. Right Mr untermensche?

Plus I have to note that you still cannot deal with the basic question I asked you:

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

So, now the tears. Now the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Now the resort to insults when the nakedness of your belief is exposed.

I have said all along we don't have the slightest idea how consciousness, the ability to experience as we do, is generated, and therefore don't have a clue what it can and can't do.

I have also said that we clearly experience ourselves, our consciousness, as having a measure of control.

Why we should think we have some control but don't is an unanswered mystery.

As far as your question: First of all you haven't demonstrated it is impossible for one part of the brain to control another.

When you do that you will make a point with your question, because it effects your position as much as mine.

How one part of the brain controls another would mean that some kind of energy could be released by one part of the brain to effect another. We certainly understand how cells release an electric impulse.

However how a mind can influence cells is as big a mystery as how cells can create a consciousness.

It is as big a mystery as why suddenly activity appears in one part of the brain and then another.

So presently there is no answer to your question but there may someday be one.

 

[ryan]

You might be hyper-focused on the "ghost" part instead of actually reading what I wrote before it. What is wrong with what I said before the ghost part?

No, I base my remark on all that you've said in multiple threads and posts.

That is your problem then. I am just talking about the topic at hand (I can't imagine how me being an immaterial powerless shadow has anything to do with what we were discussing before, but I am sure you will try to make a connection anyway.). Maybe we are just on here to discuss philosophical topics.

I understand your position from the quantum consciousness arguments, non material consciousness and beyond. So it's no use compartmentalizing and pretending that the parts are unrelated in order to obscure the argument.

You are so all or nothing, black or white, in such an uncertain subject. I told you countless times that I was just arguing for the possibility of QM decision-making. And now I am arguing for the possibility that there is a non-physical difference between consciousness and that which is not conscious.

My hopes and desires?

Yes, your hopes and desires. Or do you deny that you have hopes and desires? Or that these skew your view in favour of something greater than brain generated consciousness?

What I "hope and desire" isn't going to change what reality actually is.