The Illusion of Self

[untermensche]

But language is part of what has allowed for human cultural evolution.

Since the mechanism for saying language also provides the ability to use language to explain what one is doing. Since the mechanism of reading language shows that we subvocalize to initially hear language we are creating perhaps that same mechanism can be the source of vocal, then spatial, and extended learning and observation.

In fact I think its possible the ability to spatially visualize sequences, rehearse hunting things, arose before we used our voices to communicate. It is in these abilities that our awareness became consciousness and experience. Saying that we used these things does not make conscious a reflection of reality it makes what we can visualizes and say mean we can set how we want to be seen.

This makes sense since we were obviously on our own for long stretches of time since we came to ground. We are the world's most competent explorers and hermits. With this ability to hold long sessions comes a whole suite of abilities that can be utilized other than as first developed.

I wonder if dolphins and whales also can use such added capabilities since their evolution too favored brain over strength and stealth and it seems the have excellent memories and ability to vocally communicate quite a few things.

Hello. Mr. Nobel ...

But I agree somewhat.

It is the language capacity that makes humans special and makes the modern human consciousness possible. There is the belief in some that a few whales and humans are the only mammals with the language capacity.

But it is the language capacity combined with the intellectual capacity. They are not the same thing. Dolphins have an intellectual capacity and they have fairly sophisticated click and whistle communication.

First I think that sub-vocalization was proved when people read. I don't think sub-vocalization arose then. But, perhaps it was much earlier, perhaps when humans become humans somewhere between 200 and 300 thousand years ago. or maybe it was probably much earlier when humans carried ancestors tales forward. That technique also be used when persons learned to repeat what others have said. This all ties in with the skills needed to make advanced tools, so with that I suspect consciousness and language arose with those around the time of Lucy or 3 million years ago.

Finally I think that self and other need be distinguishable and that some means for presenting recent consolidation of inputs can be expressed is needed for self-analyzing consciousness to exist.

Reading is nothing natural. It is a learned skill.

It gets better with practice.

I think you confuse vocalization for communication with language for communication.

Dogs use vocalizations for communication but they do not use language for communication.

Human ancestors had the ability to vocalize and could use this for communication.

But that is not language.

We learned that absolutely in the chimp and gorilla studies.

Chimps and gorillas have intelligence. They can learn to make associations.

But language is not merely being able to make arbitrary associations.

No chimp or gorilla ever achieved anything close to human language.

Using vocalization for communication is not language.

 

[fromderinside]

For starters humans learned to use tools very early on, perhaps 7 million years ago when they first came out of the canopy. Every ability needs to come from somewhere so large use of utterances may have lead to changes in vocal and throat structure by the time of Homo Habitus. Probably not. Probably about the time of Homo Erectus. Still that may be a far back as 1,5 million yeas ago. Using utterance can be, with associated needs such as training others to us make and use tools can lead to pressure for language development.

My main point has been that sub vocal imitation and repetition from the rise spatial rehearsal can be at the root of the language based rise of consciousness. It need not be structural at all just making making use of pons clusters and integration along with arousal mechanisms. I'm with Crick and others on the idea that early on CNS organization gave consciousness of any sort a chance.

We know through fMRI over the past twenty years or so that the brain produces many options for behavior most of which fall by the wayside. The consciousness of which I speak is repetition of selected ongoing events with very little consciousness of the mechanics involved. This results in a convenient fiction that we are considering - even though we have already considered and decided otherwise - and expressing our belief in current reality which will be edited as conditions change - with associated loss of earlier memory of what we were thinking. Ma Nature's cheat think.

 

[Treedbear]

...
If you are experiencing a red car how can the experience be an illusion?

There is no doubt you are experiencing it.

There's plenty of room for doubt as to whether you are experiencing "a car" as well as whether it is truly red. Experience is based on intricately conditioned and contextualized parameters. That's what we mean by an illusion. Your last statement appears to gloss over that fact. But I'm not saying it isn't an experience or that there isn't a you doing or having the experience.

 

[Treedbear]

...
Finally I think that self and other need be distinguishable and that some means for presenting recent consolidation of inputs can be expressed is needed for self-analyzing consciousness to exist.

That's a good point. Every animal having a variety of means by which to orient itself to the environment needs to have some method to differentiate between the Self and various entities in that environment. Consciousness only exists because of that need, and it can be understood as something that evolves in complexity and refinement. My own understanding of consciousness is that it occurs when the processes responsible for the various models of the environment interact with the model of the Self. The Self is, after all, the most actively and intimately perceived entity in the brain's environmental model. Zen Buddhists have been said to be able to sublimate the Self to the point where they can experience what it's like to be some other animal. The ultimate form of empathy. As it is we are typically consumed by our own well-being, and so it's likely that we see consciousness as more of a thing than as a state of conscious awareness involving the interaction of the Self and at least one other object of the brain's awareness. In other words consciousness (conscious awareness) only arises when we are aware of the Self with respect to the outside world. The only way to transform this from a purely subjective experience to a more objective perspective is to understand this duality. Of course in doing so this perception is incorporated into the model of the Self and is ultimately still subjective in nature. But such is the role of intellectual endeavors. To achieve a more (although never perfectly) objective understanding.

 

[untermensche]

...
If you are experiencing a red car how can the experience be an illusion?

There is no doubt you are experiencing it.

There's plenty of room for doubt as to whether you are experiencing "a car" as well as whether it is truly red. Experience is based on intricately conditioned and contextualized parameters. That's what we mean by an illusion. Your last statement appears to gloss over that fact. But I'm not saying it isn't an experience or that there isn't a you doing or having the experience.

Where is the doubt?

The red Mustang is in the driveway. I am experiencing a visual representation of it in my mind as I look at it.

Where is the doubt I am experiencing the visual representation of the red Mustang as I look at it?

That you are experiencing what you are experiencing cannot be doubted.

What is behind the experience or what is making the experience might be doubted but not the experience as one is experiencing it.

If I am experiencing a red Mustang there cannot be any doubt I am experiencing a red Mustang.

Even if no red Mustang exists.

 

[untermensche]

....sub vocal imitation and repetition from the rise spatial rehearsal can be at the root of the language based rise of consciousness....

I cannot find any reference to "sub vocal imitation" or "rise spatial rehearsal".

What do these terms mean?

 

[Treedbear]

...
If you are experiencing a red car how can the experience be an illusion?

There is no doubt you are experiencing it.

There's plenty of room for doubt as to whether you are experiencing "a car" as well as whether it is truly red. Experience is based on intricately conditioned and contextualized parameters. That's what we mean by an illusion. Your last statement appears to gloss over that fact. But I'm not saying it isn't an experience or that there isn't a you doing or having the experience.

Where is the doubt?

The red Mustang is in the driveway. I am experiencing a visual representation of it in my mind as I look at it.

Where is the doubt I am experiencing the visual representation of the red Mustang as I look at it?

That you are experiencing what you are experiencing cannot be doubted.

What is behind the experience or what is making the experience might be doubted but not the experience as one is experiencing it.

If I am experiencing a red Mustang there cannot be any doubt I am experiencing a red Mustang.

Even if no red Mustang exists.

That I'm experiencing something is not in doubt. That I am experiencing "it" and "it" is actually a car and the car is actually red and not an illusion always leaves room for doubt. According to your rationale illusions don't exist. If I'm wrong then do me a favor and use the adjective "illusion" in a sentence.

 

[DBT]

Hypothesis? It's not a hypothesis that the senses evolved to detect information from the external world, EMR, vibration, air born particles, etc, and transmit that information to related brain structures.

It is a hypothesis that the brain creates consciousness.

A long standing hypothesis.

And totally unsupported because we have no idea what is creating consciousness.

Oxygen moving though blood vessels?

A brain moving through time?

Everything points to the brain being the source and agency of consciousness even though we don't know how. Not knowing everything about how something works does not exclude some understanding of what is doing it.

Consciousness is directly related to brain activity. Mind can be predictable altered by simply changing brain chemistry. Conscious brain activity can be stopped using general anesthetic.

To claim, considering the evidence of sensory input, mind altered chemically, etc, that the brain is merely a receiver is absurd.

 

[fromderinside]

....sub vocal imitation and repetition from the rise spatial rehearsal can be at the root of the language based rise of consciousness....

I cannot find any reference to "sub vocal imitation" or "rise spatial rehearsal".

What do these terms mean?

I was using them as markers for repeating what another was saying without interfering with the speaking outputs of the originator. That is silently repeating what another is speaking.

I also want you to scan this article which suggests such happens:
The reflexive imagery task: An experimental paradigm for neuroimaging https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7181890/

Abstract
[FONT=&quot]High-level cognitions can be triggered into consciousness through the presentation of external stimuli and the activation of certain action sets. These activations arise in a manner that is involuntary, systematic and nontrivial. For example, in the Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT), subjects are presented with visual objects and instructed to not think of the names of the objects. Involuntary subvocalizations arise on roughly 80% of the trials. We review the findings from this paradigm, discuss neural findings that are relevant to the RIT, and present new data that further corroborate the reliability and robustness of the RIT, a paradigm that could be coupled with neuroimaging technologies. We developed an RIT variant in which two, non-focal objects are presented simultaneously. In previous RITs, visual objects were presented only one at a time, in the center of the screen, and subjects were instructed to focus on the center of the screen, where these objects were presented. Replicating the RIT effect, involuntary subvocalizations still occurred on a high proportion of trials ([/FONT]M[FONT=&quot] = 0.78). An RIT effect arose for both objects on a considerable proportion of the trials ([/FONT]M[FONT=&quot] = 0.35). These findings were replicated in a second experiment having a different sample of subjects. Our findings are relevant to many subfields of neuroscience (e.g., the study of high-level mental processes, attention, imagery and action control).[/FONT]

and

[FONT=&quot]The RIT effect involves the detection of undesired conscious content, resulting, in part, from the activation of set and stimulus conditions (for an electroencephalography study on thought suppression, see [/FONT][50][FONT=&quot]). Studies employing fMRI have revealed that such detection has been associated with the activities of the anterior cingulate cortex [/FONT][37][FONT=&quot],[/FONT][39][FONT=&quot],[/FONT][49][FONT=&quot], a region that has been associated with cognitive control [/FONT][51][FONT=&quot], including cognitive conflict [/FONT][52][FONT=&quot], the detection of error-prone processing [an fMRI study, 53] and more inclusively, any form of inefficient processing [/FONT][54][FONT=&quot] (the region is located on the medial surface of the frontal lobe and interconnected with many motor areas). Inefficient processing includes both error-prone and conflict-related processes (see [/FONT][55][FONT=&quot]–[/FONT][57][FONT=&quot] for discussions of the role of the anterior cingulate cortex, lateral prefrontal cortex and hippocampus in the suppression, not of involuntary subvocalizations, but of undesired memory retrieval. These studies [/FONT][55][FONT=&quot]–[/FONT][57][FONT=&quot] are based on data from fMRI).[/FONT]

 

[fromderinside]

...
Finally I think that self and other need be distinguishable and that some means for presenting recent consolidation of inputs can be expressed is needed for self-analyzing consciousness to exist.

The only way to transform this (snip) more objective perspective is to understand this (snip) perception is incorporated into (snip) a model of the Self (snip) objective in nature. To achieve a more (although never perfectly) objective understanding.

Yes I shifted your hypothesis to my hypothesis. I admit the outcome is probably subjective since it is a selection made by the observer based on another set of priorities which need to be delineated.

 

[untermensche]

I was using them as markers for repeating what another was saying without interfering with the speaking outputs of the originator. That is silently repeating what another is speaking.

So you just make up obscure terms and throw them around as if you are communicating with somebody?

 

[fromderinside]

That's funny. I submitted subvocal mimicry to scholar and got quite a few references even though 'subvocal mimicry' wasn't located in any of the articles. Yet the articles describe precisely what I meant when I used the term. Apparently there is a strong concept of what is meant by 'subvocal mimicry'. Perhaps you'd prefer 'subvocal imitation' which is really just a intention distinction.

 

[untermensche]

Feel free to explain yourself.

 

[DBT]

Sensory input is acquired, transmitted to the brain where that information is processed and consciousness based on that information is activated and maintained with information as it is being acquired and processed, an ongoing process of cognition.....Occam's Razor 101.

 

[untermensche]

Sensory input is acquired, transmitted to the brain where that information is processed and consciousness based on that information is activated and maintained with information as it is being acquired and processed, an ongoing process of cognition.....Occam's Razor 101.

There is the singular mind aware of the cool night the fresh air, the people, the wine and the good music.

The mind thinking about the future and running through plans.

The mind twisted by religious indoctrination.

The mind wondering if there really is a mind.

The mind proclaiming no such thing as mind exists.

 

[fromderinside]

I agree with the last one untermensche. Although I actually don't agree there is a mind to make such comments.

 

[DBT]

Sensory input is acquired, transmitted to the brain where that information is processed and consciousness based on that information is activated and maintained with information as it is being acquired and processed, an ongoing process of cognition.....Occam's Razor 101.

There is the singular mind aware of the cool night the fresh air, the people, the wine and the good music.

The mind thinking about the future and running through plans.

The mind twisted by religious indoctrination.

The mind wondering if there really is a mind.

The mind proclaiming no such thing as mind exists.

Is the mind singular when you can't decide between a set of options? Is the mind singular when an addict cannot modify their own behaviour? The brain responds to its acquired and stored information base and acts upon accordingly, producing both adaptive and maladaptive sets of behaviour.

The mind is precisely what a brain is doing while producing conscious experience.

 

[untermensche]

I agree with the last one untermensche. Although I actually don't agree there is a mind to make such comments.

Yes. Claims just occur.

Nothing formulates them and believes them.

 

[untermensche]

Sensory input is acquired, transmitted to the brain where that information is processed and consciousness based on that information is activated and maintained with information as it is being acquired and processed, an ongoing process of cognition.....Occam's Razor 101.

There is the singular mind aware of the cool night the fresh air, the people, the wine and the good music.

The mind thinking about the future and running through plans.

The mind twisted by religious indoctrination.

The mind wondering if there really is a mind.

The mind proclaiming no such thing as mind exists.

Is the mind singular when you can't decide between a set of options? Is the mind singular when an addict cannot modify their own behaviour? The brain responds to its acquired and stored information base and acts upon accordingly, producing both adaptive and maladaptive sets of behaviour.

The mind is precisely what a brain is doing while producing conscious experience.

You are merely talking about features of the singular mind.

It sometimes has trouble making decisions. Because it is what makes them and decisions are not always clear cut.

Addiction is about the desire to do something.

Doing what you desire to do is being in charge of your behavior.

What happens with addicts is they follow their desires but the payoff becomes less and less. So their desire becomes frustrated and irrational.

But there are also the negative effects of not taking drugs you have taken for a while and sometimes the addict is merely guiding their behavior to alleviate discomfort.

 

[fromderinside]

I agree with the last one untermensche. Although I actually don't agree there is a mind to make such comments.

Yes. Claims just occur.

Nothing formulates them and believes them.

Now you are getting it. A Person's mind and beliefs are but a breakout of what a person does when the person has information available for decision making processed in his nervous system. The nervous system doesn't think. The person with a nervous system thinks. The person tells you he believes them. You have little actual knowledge of what the person believes since what he expresses is self evidence.

You need to get the actual reference right rather than constructing a homonuclear object from which to assign it.

How can you tell that a person has a mind of it's own? Why would such be necessary since the person already exists.