Consciousness

[DBT]

It doesn't show. What does show is your poor grasp of the subject matter, ignoring all evidence that contradicts your beliefs. You are blowing your own trumpet.

I've tried to show your naive faith in the so-called research is juvenile, amateurish.

It hasn't helped you.

Hilarious. Even the concept of irony escapes you.

Proof?

Have you forgotten already? The proof lies in the countless cases of progressive memory loss and its related inability to not only remember things but to experience a progressive inability to recognize familiar people, objects or oneself.

Plus this is so basic that it's odd that I have to point it out again....to you the self professed expert in this field.

Think about it, given near complete loss of memory function, how could you possibly distinguish between colours (or anything else) if you no longer know what colours are or recognize what you see?

 

[Speakpigeon]

About one half of one percent of humans are completely color blind, that is they see in shades of gray. I believe these ratios hold in India as well. I'm pretty sure these people do as well against crouching tigers as do fully color able people. Oh, and a lot of other animals where tigers live are also color blind.

What you say here is just not correct. You're merely echoing the misconceptions that mediocre scientists carry around with them like scabies.

First, shades of grey are essentially colours. Grey is just a kind of colour. Even those who confuse electromagnetic wavelengths and colour should know that. Black, too, is a colour. If you are in the dark, i.e. there's no light, you will subjectively experience a particular qualia, what we commonly call "black". More precisely, it's the quale of black. You know it when you experience it.

That being said, different colours have different functional values. We, as human beings, tend to spot blood reds marginally faster. Greens have a soothing effect. Black will make us feel it's time to call it a day. And greys? Well, the name speaks.

So the idea that some animals see in shades of grey, while not entirely impossible, is highly suspicious. First, many insects, possibly other animals too, see beyond what we think of as the visible range and it's very doubtful that their range of colours has anything to do with what we experience as "greys".

It would be perfectly acceptable to claim that some animal species see in shades based on two colours, for example blue and red. But how could you possibly know these two colours would have to be black and white (i.e.to make shades of grey)? You just don't know that. So, please, don't pretend you do. And stop talking like an expert about issues you've demonstrated time and again you don't even understand.


So of course two-colour shades may be just what is most effective for survival in a given environment. Two-colour shades would be presumably less expensive in terms of cognitive processes, eye complexity, neuronal connections, etc., and ensure perhaps faster reaction time at less costs. I would suspect that only species with a relatively diversified diet would need a richer palette of colours.

Effectiveness in spotting a predator is a function of pattern recognition and the time necessary to process this recognition is of the essence. It may work faster in two-colours than in more than two colours. To decide which is best between the two would probably involve looking into the whole strategy implemented by each species in a given environment. So, our own ability to spot tigers in full colours versus in shades of grey is just completely irrelevant to what other species do.


So, again, you made an entirely irrelevant argument, falsely premised on a pseudo-scientific posture.

This also shows, again, that you really don't get it. You just don't understand the notion of qualia.

So the two premises on which you keep pretending to bring expertise to this conversation are both false.

But, hey, why should you feel you've done anything wrong?!
EB

 

[Juma]

About one half of one percent of humans are completely color blind, that is they see in shades of gray. I believe these ratios hold in India as well. I'm pretty sure these people do as well against crouching tigers as do fully color able people. Oh, and a lot of other animals where tigers live are also color blind.

What you say here is just not correct. You're merely echoing the misconceptions that mediocre scientists carry around with them like scabies.

First, shades of grey are essentially colours. Grey is just a kind of colour. Even those who confuse electromagnetic wavelengths and colour should know that. Black, too, is a colour. If you are in the dark, i.e. there's no light, you will subjectively experience a particular qualia, what we commonly call "black". More precisely, it's the quale of black. You know it when you experience it.

That being said, different colours have different functional values. We, as human beings, tend to spot blood reds marginally faster. Greens have a soothing effect. Black will make us feel it's time to call it a day. And greys? Well, the name speaks.

So the idea that some animals see in shades of grey, while not entirely impossible, is highly suspicious. First, many insects, possibly other animals too, see beyond what we think of as the visible range and it's very doubtful that their range of colours has anything to do with what we experience as "greys".

It would be perfectly acceptable to claim that some animal species see in shades based on two colours, for example blue and red. But how could you possibly know these two colours would have to be black and white (i.e.to make shades of grey)? You just don't know that. So, please, don't pretend you do. And stop talking like an expert about issues you've demonstrated time and again you don't even understand.


So of course two-colour shades may be just what is most effective for survival in a given environment. Two-colour shades would be presumably less expensive in terms of cognitive processes, eye complexity, neuronal connections, etc., and ensure perhaps faster reaction time at less costs. I would suspect that only species with a relatively diversified diet would need a richer palette of colours.

Effectiveness in spotting a predator is a function of pattern recognition and the time necessary to process this recognition is of the essence. It may work faster in two-colours than in more than two colours. To decide which is best between the two would probably involve looking into the whole strategy implemented by each species in a given environment. So, our own ability to spot tigers in full colours versus in shades of grey is just completely irrelevant to what other species do.


So, again, you made an entirely irrelevant argument, falsely premised on a pseudo-scientific posture.

This also shows, again, that you really don't get it. You just don't understand the notion of qualia.

So the two premises on which you keep pretending to bring expertise to this conversation are both false.

But, hey, why should you feel you've done anything wrong?!
EB

Color is hue, saturation and brightness.
What fromderinside says is that some creatures only see brightness, not hue or saturation.
This is normally express as "only see shades of grey".

White and black are not hues, only max and min brighness.

So a creature having two different receptors would definitely not see just different shades of grey.
But a creature with only one type of receptor would.

 

[untermensche]

Proof?

Have you forgotten already? The proof lies in the countless cases of progressive memory loss and its related inability to not only remember things but to experience a progressive inability to recognize familiar people, objects or oneself.

Plus this is so basic that it's odd that I have to point it out again....to you the self professed expert in this field.

Think about it, given near complete loss of memory function, how could you possibly distinguish between colours (or anything else) if you no longer know what colours are or recognize what you see?

You claimed they would not be able to experience color.

Once again you prove to be full of it.

 

[George S]

Have you forgotten already? The proof lies in the countless cases of progressive memory loss and its related inability to not only remember things but to experience a progressive inability to recognize familiar people, objects or oneself.

Plus this is so basic that it's odd that I have to point it out again....to you the self professed expert in this field.

Think about it, given near complete loss of memory function, how could you possibly distinguish between colours (or anything else) if you no longer know what colours are or recognize what you see?

You claimed they would not be able to experience color.

Once again you prove to be full of it.

Forgive my mind reading, unter, and correct me if I'm wrong.
[/begin]
You claim that experience of color may be subjective. My blue might not be your blue. My experience of middle C might not be your experience of middle C. When you experience maroon it might be different from my maroon. There is no way to know what another experiences because experience is private. My pain may feel different from your pain. And when suffering from brain damage either due to trauma or illness only the subject knows what it is like. (I've had a subdural hematoma and experienced aphasia corrected by a brain surgeon. No one else knows what it was like except me.)

Consciousness is current experience. Experiencing color is not the same as remembering color; it is what happens only now.

Consciousness has a location -- a point of view. There is something "like it" to be a conscious human. There is nothing "like it" to be unconscious. The body may be in pain and the unconscious human does not know that -- has no experience.
[/end]

If I've captured your view of consciousness or not a good mind reader, let me know.

Only I know what it is like to look out of these eyes, feel with these fingers, taste with this tongue, hear with only one ear as I do, and know what it feels like to reason the way I do. Any guess that you feel exactly the same as I do in any circumstance is open to doubt. The feeling of being at a location about 2 inches (5 cm) behind these eyes.

However, I can guess that humans are similar to other humans. It is more likely than not (in my opinion) that other humans experience color similarly to the way I do. The red-blue mixtures called maroon. There is no frequency for maroon. It is not in the rainbow. No light is maroon. It is a color generated by the mind alone. No other person in the world knows exactly what my maroon looks like to me.

Have you ever had a body part "fall asleep?" Experienced temporary paresthesia? I expect that your experience is at least very similar to mine. Can you know that that "pins and needles" feeling when it "wakes up" is the same as mine? Not really, but both of us being human I expect it is at least similar.

And it is well known that others experience color in a different way. I see red and yellow, blue and green. My best friend cannot distinguish red from green.

If you are colorblind you know this [traffic light] color means stop and that color means go. You don’t know the name of the color. You maybe can’t relate the colors you see at the traffic light with other colors in the nature. You even may give them other names. But you will always know the difference because you can see a difference. (www.color-blind.com)

(That "always" in the quotation seems a bit too much. But a color blind person wrote it. I expect it may not apply to all the color blind.)

Only one individual knows what it is like to experience the qualia that I experience my way. Consciousness is the mind's eye -- the mind's I.

We can science the shit out of it, though. We can see that certain fMRI patterns of activity correlate precisely with reported experience. We can see that people thinking about religion have the same areas of the brain light up (get more blood). We can see with EEGs that the pattern of activity is different in a conscious and an unconscious person. From all these experiments we surely "know" that certain pattern of activity in presumably unconscious neurons (there is nothing "like it" to be a neuron) generate certain reported experience. These areas correlate well among various humans tested.

And I still never know what it is like for anyone but me. As Nagel put it "Is there something like it to be a bat?" Does the world picture generated by echolocation feel the same as vision?

You are a passenger (a point of view) riding in a human body. That body does a lot of stuff you are not conscious of. The feeling of "I" can even wonder Why in the world did I do that.

The conscious is a passenger on a bus it is not driving; the spokesman for the body/mind responsible for explaining why the body/mind did what it did. Responsible for telling the driver where to go. Consciousness is the on-board computer capable of reasoning, capable of drawing inferences, capable of making plans but not always capable of carrying them out (when in conflict the unconscious, the driver, wins). The mind is embodied. No body, nobody, no mind. Never mind.
The driver is responsible for taking input from the environment and remembering patterns so the next time that pattern is seen it may be avoided, altered or repeated depending on the feedback from the environment, and presenting it to the conscious for decision-making.

 

[untermensche]

I think that since the production of the color blue is ultimately something coded in the genes and the way it varies depending on circumstance is also coded, there is a good chance your experience of blue is very similar, but no guarantee.

 

[fromderinside]

About one half of one percent of humans are completely color blind, that is they see in shades of gray. I believe these ratios hold in India as well. I'm pretty sure these people do as well against crouching tigers as do fully color able people. Oh, and a lot of other animals where tigers live are also color blind.

You trolley just left the tracks sir.

My trolley fell off because you made a guess.

View attachment 10913

View attachment 10914

You don't even know the difference between shades of gray and black and white.

Once, just once, get something right.

 

[fromderinside]

You say qualia are somehow "imagined", which usually means non-existent, as in "an imagined god", whereas I say I know my qualia and qualia are all that I know, which logically entails that qualia exist for real, whereas I don't know whether there's anything like a world out there, even if there is actually one.
EB

Again. Yet again. You misrepresent what I write so you can screed about qualis as if ignoring what is the actual case makes your continued use of useless jargon OK.

You experience redness. Indeed. We all do. Then, expectedly, you drawl off into classical BS to construct a circular 'explain' for your experience. There is no domain for your 'I''. There is no nest of qualities floating out there waiting for you to interpret what is happening as your experience. Your experience has a physical base, can be explained by referencing that base as you experience. It arises because nervous systems are formed and constructed IAC with what we experience. My little cookbook on experience explains experience better than your shopworn babel and place holders. Full Stop. Saying quale adds nothing, leads nowhere, reflects your ignorance and your bias toward dualism.

 

[untermensche]

You don't even know the difference between shades of gray and black and white.

Once, just once, get something right.

I do know the difference but a comparison between color and just black and white is explanatory as well.

With greys you get more distinctions and with color you get even more.

So in terms of survival it is better to have color vision but in many cases having shades of grey is enough.

 

[fromderinside]

Your explanation explains my complaint. Geez what a Trump.

 

[fromderinside]

What you say here is just not correct. You're merely echoing the misconceptions that mediocre scientists carry around with them like scabies.

First, shades of grey are essentially colours. Grey is just a kind of colour. Even those who confuse electromagnetic wavelengths and colour should know that. Black, too, is a colour. If you are in the dark, i.e. there's no light, you will subjectively experience a particular qualia, what we commonly call "black". More precisely, it's the quale of black. You know it when you experience it.

That being said, different colours have different functional values. We, as human beings, tend to spot blood reds marginally faster. Greens have a soothing effect. Black will make us feel it's time to call it a day. And greys? Well, the name speaks.

So the idea that some animals see in shades of grey, while not entirely impossible, is highly suspicious. First, many insects, possibly other animals too, see beyond what we think of as the visible range and it's very doubtful that their range of colours has anything to do with what we experience as "greys".

It would be perfectly acceptable to claim that some animal species see in shades based on two colours, for example blue and red. But how could you possibly know these two colours would have to be black and white (i.e.to make shades of grey)? You just don't know that. So, please, don't pretend you do. And stop talking like an expert about issues you've demonstrated time and again you don't even understand.


So of course two-colour shades may be just what is most effective for survival in a given environment. Two-colour shades would be presumably less expensive in terms of cognitive processes, eye complexity, neuronal connections, etc., and ensure perhaps faster reaction time at less costs. I would suspect that only species with a relatively diversified diet would need a richer palette of colours.

Effectiveness in spotting a predator is a function of pattern recognition and the time necessary to process this recognition is of the essence. It may work faster in two-colours than in more than two colours. To decide which is best between the two would probably involve looking into the whole strategy implemented by each species in a given environment. So, our own ability to spot tigers in full colours versus in shades of grey is just completely irrelevant to what other species do.


So, again, you made an entirely irrelevant argument, falsely premised on a pseudo-scientific posture.

This also shows, again, that you really don't get it. You just don't understand the notion of qualia.

So the two premises on which you keep pretending to bring expertise to this conversation are both false.

But, hey, why should you feel you've done anything wrong?!
EB

Color is hue, saturation and brightness.
What fromderinside says is that some creatures only see brightness, not hue or saturation.
This is normally express as "only see shades of grey".

White and black are not hues, only max and min brighness.

So a creature having two different receptors would definitely not see just different shades of grey.
But a creature with only one type of receptor would.

What Juma wrote!.

 

[untermensche]

Your explanation explains my complaint. Geez what a Trump.

Your complaint is that in the modern world where predators are rare and supply of food is provided by others people with color blindness do fine.

It is a complaint limited to a few thousand years of human history.

 

[fromderinside]

I think that since the production of the color blue is ultimately something coded in the genes and the way it varies depending on circumstance is also coded, there is a good chance your experience of blue is very similar, but no guarantee.

Please. Genes are not proximal to producing blue. Genes permit coding for producing photosensitive pigments which is about a universe away form experiencing 'blue'. Stimulating appropriate cells containing blue capturing photo pigments is proximal to experiencing 'blue.

 

[untermensche]

I think that since the production of the color blue is ultimately something coded in the genes and the way it varies depending on circumstance is also coded, there is a good chance your experience of blue is very similar, but no guarantee.

Please. Genes are not proximal to producing blue. Genes permit coding for producing photosensitive pigments which is about a universe away form experiencing 'blue'. Stimulating appropriate cells containing blue capturing photo pigments is proximal to experiencing 'blue.

Blue is not stimulation of cells in the retina. That is just a stimulus for the brain to do something.

Blue is something experienced.

And it is experienced on first exposure. Even in color blind people. Clearly its creation is encoded in the genes.



His brain was able to create the right colors but the problem with his eyes prevented it. But his brain could be tricked into creating the proper colors with the proper glasses.

The "mechanisms" that create blue were always there. Because for it to happen it has to be encoded in the genes somehow.

 

[fromderinside]

Oui. Connecting dots maybe? OK. not result of retinal cell stimulation so not gene related there. A stimulus for the brain to do something so not of brain either since brain is definitely gene related.

Is he guessing here that the neonate sees blue? I don't think so since neonates have had recordings done of their brain activity to stimuli over the first few months of their lives and its found that simulation is much more general in them than in five year old children. So probably not seeing blue in first few days or weeks anyway since brain activity for particular colors sensed is quite specific.

untermenche probably never participated in a vision study either. So no need to ask whether he has evidence for what he claims.

Do blind people see color. They don't unless there are other perceptual clues to give them some references and then, what they see is referenced to that which they can sense. http://nautil.us/blog/what-do-blind-people-actually-see

So here we have nntermenche wandering off on a Trump adventure making up fake evidence to justify a fake position - again.

Clearly untermenche knows nothing of the sort when he claims blue is in the genes.

Hey, its OK to make an error like I did when I put red very near green in the color spectrum of wavelengths. Its not OK to make up evidence for a point of view.

 

[untermensche]

It logically follows from watching the video.

The man has been seeing the world one way his whole life. Seeing it without much color.

With a pair of glasses he sees it as most people do.

So clearly the "mechanisms" to create the colors were there in his brain the whole time.

If some "mechanism" is in the brain of course it is there because of the genes. Just as if there is some mechanism in the liver.

That does not need proving.

 

[fromderinside]

Yes it needs proving every time. Otherwise it wouldn't be scientific.

Point is the cells in the retina contain mechanisms, opsins (photosensitive molecule complex) that respond to specific EM frequencies. So a particular receptor in a particular location in the retina sends a signal identifying it as one sensitive to this or that frequency. The receptor array is spatially arranged so as a second bit of information the responding cell signals its location as well. All of this is gathered by two process analyzed, reconnected in an array, mapping color and location of each signally receptor. Since all of this is arranged in the brain and processed in the brain it is available for interpretation by other processes in the brain. When we experience we are connecting to all aspects that have been associated with the input so we can call specific attributes out by language.

This centering everything on what one has brought together as an experience is just a way of communicating "I have processed all these things and here they are". Depending on how we aggregate and store memory we are capable of bringing these reports back for review or whatever. If one starts with experience one starts with nothing so everything needs b e invented and categorized some way ergo quale and the rest. None of these language analyzed inventions or categories actually exist beyond being a frame for consideration. What is actually there is input, process, aggregation, analysis, determination for disposal or action and execution.

Its like someone decided it would be a good idea to make up from what we had observed but did not know what it was a crossword to entertain us until we actually began to know what it was at which time that entity replaced these nice little place holder. Unfortunately these place holders are like religions, distinguishing us from them so they are very hard to repeal and replace. A bit of a civics lesson with a bit of science lesson in aid of making philosophy more modern.

 

[untermensche]

Yes it needs proving every time. Otherwise it wouldn't be scientific.

Point is the cells in the retina contain mechanisms, opsins (photosensitive molecule complex) that respond to specific EM frequencies. So a particular receptor in a particular location in the retina sends a signal identifying it as one sensitive to this or that frequency. The receptor array is spatially arranged so as a second bit of information the responding cell signals its location as well. All of this is gathered by two process analyzed, reconnected in an array, mapping color and location of each signally receptor. Since all of this is arranged in the brain and processed in the brain it is available for interpretation by other processes in the brain. When we experience we are connecting to all aspects that have been associated with the input so we can call specific attributes out by language.

You are pointing out some of the difficulties, but not explaining in any way how the brain creates the visual experience. Saying the word "array" is not an explanation of any kind.

The thing you do not seem to comprehend is that no frequency of EM energy has a specific color defined by it.

Not any aspect of the stimulus is color. Color is something created whole in response to the stimulus.

 

[fromderinside]

The thing you do not seem to comprehend is that no frequency of EM energy has a specific color defined by it.

Not any aspect of the stimulus is color. Color is something created whole in response to the stimulus.

Stuff seen while looking directly at it are related to plants, flowers, sunlight, rivers. lakes, hillsides, and ground. All of these things are organized by type and shape and color. During daylight the easiest set of EM wavelengths to catch are all plants which reflect light around 500 nm. are grouped by receptor class similarity as are other classes like lakes river, oceans and as are hillsides and ground grouped by similar receptor similarity.

So it is a rather simple thing to compare class of object by receptor class and group them similarly. When asked to match you get a report in a language that is learned for that class of thing.

It is probably not about sense of color but learned sense of grouping similar things in a receptor class. Difficult, but, test should be able to resolve the issue in favor of assigning class to color or class to receptor region and class.

Let me suggest that just as we have standards with which we reference weight, measure,and time. so do individuals have standards, learned with some more referential. with which we assign visual shape, size, color, and texture. By processes of approximation humans come to know at a glance the object, and it's likely properties by reference. We know, for instance, that it takes longer to assign color to an object than it does to assign shape, edge, and size. Suggests a referring process to me.

Thing is, I don't like people just waving a wand to define something. So this dog has gnawed on the bone and come to a fair chance of a defining experiment.

 

[DBT]

Have you forgotten already? The proof lies in the countless cases of progressive memory loss and its related inability to not only remember things but to experience a progressive inability to recognize familiar people, objects or oneself.

Plus this is so basic that it's odd that I have to point it out again....to you the self professed expert in this field.

Think about it, given near complete loss of memory function, how could you possibly distinguish between colours (or anything else) if you no longer know what colours are or recognize what you see?

You claimed they would not be able to experience color.

Once again you prove to be full of it.

You got that wrong. The content of consciousness, sensation, thought, motor action, perception of colours, etc, etc, is an experience. A subjective experience generated by a brain.

I've said this over and over throughout this thread and numerous others,,,,,yet you still misrepresent my position.

Someone is full of it, for sure. We know who.