Consciousness

[DBT]

Here's your chance. Make a prediction:

View attachment 11147

What is that person going to do 20 seconds from now?

Actually, successful predictions of decisions and actions have been made on the basis of brain activity prior to the subjects conscious awareness of their impending decisions and actions. Planck institute, Haynes, Haggard, Hallard, et al. Not one hundred percent, but significant given the early stages of this type of research.

 

[untermensche]

Actually, successful predictions of decisions and actions have been made on the basis of brain activity prior to the subjects conscious awareness of their impending decisions and actions. Planck institute, Haynes, Haggard, Hallard, et al. Not one hundred percent, but significant given the early stages of this type of research.

If decision making can be isolated to one hemisphere, as in moving only one limb, and the participant is forced to only use one limb, a guess can be made with a computer based on general areas of preparatory "activity". If the participant is allowed to shut down the process at the last second, this cannot be predicted.

But this isn't an understanding of anything. It is a worthless trick that has no real world applications.

It is not an understanding of brain activity in the least.

 

[untermensche]

Unfortunately you aren't talking to the 'faithful'. You are responding to one who actually modeled human behavior, aviator behavior actually, in proving instantiations of it in proving and demonstrating function in modern aircraft systems that are now used, as modeled, activity in live Ariel Combat and time critical decision situations. Believe me the faithful can't do this, nor can your hand waving deny the depth of what we know and replicate successfully in models.

Oh, and we were doing this in the 1990s.

Here is an example: Digital Human Modelling for Vehicle and Workplace https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ace_Design/links/54f90ca60cf210398e97297e.pdf

Never once was it necessary to model human consciousness beyond some time variables for latency control and switching tasks used in managing workload modelling.

The faithful rarely admit they have nothing but faith. Many times they are blind to the fact.

You have no understanding of brain activity in terms of the production of consciousness. None. You do not know what consciousness is in terms of brain activity.

And any claim to the contrary is merely a religious dogma.

 

[untermensche]

My point is you are full of shit.

You have no understanding of brain activity.

None.

Nobody understands it. Nobody knows how activity occurs or why. Some look at activity and try to correlate it to subjective reporting. Which isn't an understanding of anything.

That's right spit the dummy, throw a tantrum, abuse your opponent for something that was not said, or even implied, meanwhile ignoring what was actually said and the actual evidence being presented that supports brain agency rather than your notions of disembodied consciousness.

You could refute what I said instead of merely characterizing it.

But that would require real knowledge of brain activity and how it relates to the production of consciousness.

Something you do not have.

 

[fromderinside]

Unfortunately you aren't talking to the 'faithful'. You are responding to one who actually modeled human behavior, aviator behavior actually, in proving instantiations of it in proving and demonstrating function in modern aircraft systems that are now used, as modeled, activity in live Ariel Combat and time critical decision situations. Believe me the faithful can't do this, nor can your hand waving deny the depth of what we know and replicate successfully in models.

Oh, and we were doing this in the 1990s.

Here is an example: Digital Human Modelling for Vehicle and Workplace https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ace_Design/links/54f90ca60cf210398e97297e.pdf

Never once was it necessary to model human consciousness beyond some time variables for latency control and switching tasks used in managing workload modelling.

The faithful rarely admit they have nothing but faith. Many times they are blind to the fact.

You have no understanding of brain activity in terms of the production of consciousness. None. You do not know what consciousness is in terms of brain activity.

And any claim to the contrary is merely a religious dogma.

...sez untermenches in yet another another faith based blather.

I'll be clear.

I never said there was consciousness nor a function called conscious in the brain or anywhere else in humans. I've consistently pointed out that we are biological machines. I might agree that there is a human consciousness that we keep in the data we store, but even that is a stretch.

How we function is well known as I just pointed out in my last post which you obviously just Trump treated.

I've also pointed out, you might say agreed, there is no way one can fathom a consciousness by looking at the brain. Instead I've consistently referenced we know much about how humans function and get by.

I've also described what you seem to call conscious and consciousness is a mechanism used to convert current status of an individual's operations as thought articulated or not.

I will discuss what others believe is consciousness, but, I shall not give that the courtesy of a name making us different from other beings. We are as Manta Rays, able to distinguish food from other, as Francis Crick established as the baseline for consciousness on a scientific basis. Any other bleating is corrupted by our belief that we are absolute Truth Sayers through our experience. Personal testimony, even universal testimony referring to oneself cannot be taken as material evidence of anything.

Now if you want to discuss this last point, as you must to defend your construct, I'm your chickadee.

 

[untermensche]

I never said there was consciousness nor a function called conscious in the brain or anywhere else in humans. I've consistently pointed out that we are biological machines. I might agree that there is a human consciousness that we keep in the data we store, but even that is a stretch.

A machine is something designed ahead of time, by a human, to carry out a known function.

Calling something a machine does not make it close to one.

The brain is unlike any known machine and calling it one is just pretending to understand something about it.

This pretending to have knowledge is getting old.

How we function is well known as I just pointed out in my last post which you obviously just Trump treated.

You are full of it.

You don't have any understanding of how the brain creates any aspect of consciousness.

You correlate "activity" to subjective reports and pretend it is an understanding of the activity.

I've also pointed out, you might say agreed, there is no way one can fathom a consciousness by looking at the brain.

I don't agree with that at all.

It is merely once again pretending to have knowledge you do not have.

If some specific brain activity is producing consciousness then it is there to be found.

I will discuss what others believe is consciousness, but, I shall not give that the courtesy of a name making us different from other beings. We are as Manta Rays, able to distinguish food from other, as Francis Crick established as the baseline for consciousness on a scientific basis. Any other bleating is corrupted by our belief that we are absolute Truth Sayers through our experience. Personal testimony, even universal testimony referring to oneself cannot be taken as material evidence of anything.

We are possibly something like Manta Rays and possibly nothing like Manta Rays.

But talking about Manta Rays is a diversion, not any kind of explanation of anything.

 

[bilby]

A machine is something designed ahead of time, by a human, to carry out a known function.

Clearly that is NOT the definition of 'machine' that fromderinside is using. If his meaning is unclear to you, then you should ask for clarification, not just declare a meaning that is obviously not the one intended, and then argue against this new, easy to beat, but not actually put forward by anybody, position.

If the only way you can counter somebody's argument is by redefining it to say something it doesn't, then you really shouldn't bother.

 

[untermensche]

A machine is something designed ahead of time, by a human, to carry out a known function.

Clearly that is NOT the definition of 'machine' that fromderinside is using. If his meaning is unclear to you, then you should ask for clarification, not just declare a meaning that is obviously not the one intended, and then argue against this new, easy to beat, but not actually put forward by anybody, position.

If the only way you can counter somebody's argument is by redefining it to say something it doesn't, then you really shouldn't bother.

The point remains.

Calling it a machine because it has activity is just pretending to know something about it.

It is attaching a label, nothing more.

 

[fromderinside]

A machine is something designed ahead of time, by a human, to carry out a known function.

Calling something a machine does not make it close to one.

......

We are possibly something like Manta Rays and possibly nothing like Manta Rays.

But talking about Manta Rays is a diversion, not any kind of explanation of anything.

Humans reflect design by fitness in a changing environment. Both humans and the environment obey laws of nature. Humans design machines which by necessity follow the laws of nature. Since both are products of nature operating within those laws their method of design changes nothing about how they must operate.

Since you have no reference for consciousness that is tested, just some rationalizations, and I have a reference to consciousness referenced to experiment according to the laws of nature as expressed by Theory of Evolution laws arrived at by extensive experiment and theory building using the SM you have hurdles to overcome.

You obviously cannot do that because you present no evidence for consciousness beyond some wild rationalizations. Again and again you admit you know nothihng about consciousness, yet in your huge conceit you accuse others of having no idea of ........

Empty, completely empty.

Even you admit I may have something upon which to refer while you haven't done even that for your lack of position.

Man, life actually, and machine are machines. Consciousness, operationally defined, is the ability of a being to successfully distinguish food from other than food.

Wave your hands all you want.

 

[untermensche]

Humans reflect design by fitness in a changing environment. Both humans and the environment obey laws of nature. Humans design machines which by necessity follow the laws of nature. Since both are products of nature operating within those laws their method of design changes nothing about how they must operate.

You are free to call the brain a machine but you have explained nothing about it by doing so.

It certainly has activity.

Any speculation about what the activity might be doing is based on subjective reporting not an understanding of any of the activity.

You obviously cannot do that because you present no evidence for consciousness beyond some wild rationalizations.

Wild?

Saying that humans experience representations of the external world is wild?

Saying that humans experience pain is wild?

Saying that humans experience thoughts is wild?

If there is experience there must be both that which experiences and that which it can experience.

So if a human experiences vision and sensation and thoughts there must be something within a human capable of experiencing those things.

Call it consciousness call it a ham sandwich, it is there.

To deny it is laughable.

Again and again you admit you know nothihng about consciousness, yet in your huge conceit you accuse others of having no idea of ........

I have said over and over we know our subjective experience of our own consciousness.

That is knowing consciousness from a subjective perspective.

What I have said is we do not know what consciousness is objectively.

Which is a fact.

 

[none]

We have pictures and video of thought, a behavior of the brain
Not sure if they are called CT scans though
Some people water out down though and say brain activity image but it's thinking that is occurring

 

[untermensche]

We have pictures and video of thought, a behavior of the brain
Not sure if they are called CT scans though
Some people water out down though and say brain activity image but it's thinking that is occurring

Some of the activity is "thinking" and a lot is not.

 

[none]

Yeah some is motor control, subtract that and you get thinking
I'm sure you can describe some of the activity differently
But even brain activity, thinking is recorded despite what you can describe, its recorded in brain scans and the tissue of the brain
The brain scan image is an image of thinking
The brain is for thinking we have images of it occurring
So why do you not think brain scans showing thought aren't brain scans showing thought, something empirical?

 

[DBT]

That's right spit the dummy, throw a tantrum, abuse your opponent for something that was not said, or even implied, meanwhile ignoring what was actually said and the actual evidence being presented that supports brain agency rather than your notions of disembodied consciousness.

You could refute what I said instead of merely characterizing it.

But that would require real knowledge of brain activity and how it relates to the production of consciousness.

Something you do not have.

Your claims have been refuted countless times. Which is not quite right because your claims had no validity or merit from the beginning.

You simply refuse to consider anything that contradicts your belief, be it experiments, evidence or accepted principles. All of which has been pointed out to you....this is not only me but practically everyone who has attempted to address your errors and misconceptions.

 

[DBT]

Actually, successful predictions of decisions and actions have been made on the basis of brain activity prior to the subjects conscious awareness of their impending decisions and actions. Planck institute, Haynes, Haggard, Hallard, et al. Not one hundred percent, but significant given the early stages of this type of research.

If decision making can be isolated to one hemisphere, as in moving only one limb, and the participant is forced to only use one limb, a guess can be made with a computer based on general areas of preparatory "activity". If the participant is allowed to shut down the process at the last second, this cannot be predicted.

But this isn't an understanding of anything. It is a worthless trick that has no real world applications.

It is not an understanding of brain activity in the least.

You have no idea. Your rationale demonstrates that you don't.


''In the last few years, neuroscience experiments have shown that some “conscious decisions” are actually made in the brain before the actor is conscious of them: brain-scanning techniques can predict not only when a binary decision will be made, but what it will be (with accuracy between 55-70%)—several seconds before the actor reports being conscious of having made a decision. The implications of this research are obvious: by the time we’re conscious of having made a “choice”, that choice has already been made for us—by our genes and our environments—and the consciousness is merely reporting something determined beforehand in the brain.''

''A new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by C. S. Soon et al. (free at the link; reference below) takes these studies a step further in two ways: 1. It shows a lead time for decisions four seconds before the decision is consciously made, with a prediction accuracy of about 60%, and 2) the decision is not a motor decision (pressing buttons, as in previous studies), but a decision whether to add or subtract two numbers, with the decision conveyed by pressing one of four buttons that corresponded to the correct arithmetical operation.

The design is a bit complicated. Each observer was presented with a series of screens, each having a letter and five numbers. They appeared at a rate of one screen per second. The letter was in the center of the screen, and right above it was a number from one to ten. There were also four other numbers between one and ten in the corners of the screen. The observer was instructed (and trained beforehand) to make a decision whether to add or subtract the two “above center” numbers in the next two screens, and to memorize the central letter at the moment he/she made the decision to act. This decision was not recorded on the computer. Then the observer either added or subtracted the two numbers above the letter as the next two screens appeared. The next frame after that offered four numerical solutions as the corner numbers: two corresponding to the “add/subtract” decision, and two decoy numbers. The observer was asked to press one of four buttons corresponding to the solution of the arithmetical operation chosen. Finally, in the last screen, a series of four letters were given corresponding to the four screens before the arithmetical operation, and the observer was asked to record (by pressing a button) which letter was on the screen when the observer decided to add or subtract. That corresponded to the time of the conscious decision.

The design, as I said, is a bit complex, so here’s a figure from the paper showing how it worked (capti0n below is from paper)''

 

[untermensche]

Like I said a stupid trick, not any kind of understanding of brain activity.

All it shows is that conscious decision making is more complicated than we can understand presently.

It does not demonstrate in the least how decisions are made or by what.

And claims that it does are just lies.

This is the state of so-called "cognitive science".

Stupid worthless tricks that tell us nothing about brain activity, beyond timing of activity that is not understood, and a bunch of idiots claiming the naked emperor is dressed finely.

 

[untermensche]

From:

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/yet-another-experiment-eroding-free-will/

During the experiment, the subjects’ brains were scanned with fMRI imaging, which detects blood flow to different parts of the brain. This is a crude way, of course, to detect neuronal activity, but it’s the best we can do now. Other members of the research team were trained beforehand to recognize which parts of the brain “lit up” during addition, and which during subtraction. They could thus estimate the time when the decision to add or subtract was made; the classification, of course, was imperfect. But, as we’ll see, it was significantly useful in prediction, especially since the subjects made “add” or “subtract” decisions equally frequently.

So basically some part of the brain "lights up" when one decides to add and another when one decides to subtract.

Now why is that part lighting up?

What is causing it to light up?

How is this lighting up related to consciousness which is more than making decisions?

Of course none of that can be answered.

All that can be done is some can pretend what this "lighting" up means and how it arose.

It is an astounding feat of self deception.

 

[fromderinside]

You are free to call the brain a machine but you have explained nothing about it by doing so.

It certainly has activity.

Any speculation about what the activity might be doing is based on subjective reporting not an understanding of any of the activity.

You obviously cannot do that because you present no evidence for consciousness beyond some wild rationalizations.

Wild?

Saying that humans experience representations of the external world is wild?

Saying that humans experience pain is wild?

Saying that humans experience thoughts is wild?

If there is experience there must be both that which experiences and that which it can experience.

So if a human experiences vision and sensation and thoughts there must be something within a human capable of experiencing those things.

Call it consciousness call it a ham sandwich, it is there.

To deny it is laughable.

Again and again you admit you know nothihng about consciousness, yet in your huge conceit you accuse others of having no idea of ........

I have said over and over we know our subjective experience of our own consciousness.

That is knowing consciousness from a subjective perspective.

What I have said is we do not know what consciousness is objectively.

Which is a fact.

My reply is contained in your post. It is 'subjective'.

Papers I've provided usually are experiments using data that is objectively defined and measured.

you lose.

 

[untermensche]

My reply is contained in your post. It is 'subjective'.

Papers I've provided usually are experiments using data that is objectively defined and measured.

you lose.

None have defined consciousness objectively.

None have defined one aspect of consciousness objectively.

None know what consciousness is objectively.

I don't know if I win, but you have presented nothing to defeat.

 

[none]

I can't believe it