I don't disagree with any of your examples and ideas below. I agree that consciousness deals with models of the world (assuming there is a world). I agree that time is just sequence (I referred to the "sequential aspect of consciousness). But ISTM that each of your examples implicitly or even explicitly depends on a process, over and above the information:
"...sensory data is instead apparently heavily *processed*..." "...we *represent* that experience internally..." "... and still get *behavior*..." Brent Kelly wrote: > On Apr 20, 2:04 am, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: > >> The main difficulty I see is that it fails to explain the sequential >> aspect of consciousness. If consciousness is identified with >> information then it is atemporal. >> >> > > Time is just the dimension of experience. But experience is an > internal "psychological" concept, not an external concept. Therefore > "time" is also an internal feature of subjective experience, not > necessarily an external feature of objective reality. > > So it seems to me that we have have no direct access to the physical > world. Information about the physical world is conveyed to us via our > senses. BUT, we don't even have direct conscious access to our > sensory data. All of that sensory data is instead apparently heavily > processed by various neural subsystems and "feature detectors", the > outputs of which are then reintegrated into a simplified mental model > of reality, and THAT is what we are actually aware of. That mental > model is what we think of as "the real world". So it seems to me > that, even accepting physicalism, we can already think of ourselves as > living in a virtual world of abstract information. > > The same is true of time. We experience time only because we > represent that experience internally as part of our simplified model > of the world. If there is an external time, it could be altered in > many ways, but our internal representation (and experience) of time > will remain unchanged. Time derives from Consciousness. Not vice > versa. Time IS an aspect of consciousness...and thus doesn't exist > seperately from conscious experience. > > And also you can go back to the computer simulation idea and think > about various scenarios. If you and your environment were simulated > on a fast computer or a slow computer...you wouldn't be able to tell > the difference. If the computer ran for a while, then the simulation > data was saved and the computer turned off, then a year later the > computer and the simulation were restarted where they left off, you > would have no way to detect that a year had passed in "external" > time. To you in the simulation, it would be as though nothing had > happened, because the computer simulation would pick up on the same > exact calculation where it had left off. There was no interruption in > your experience of time. > > I agree that experience and consciousness requires changes of state, > but I don't agree that it must be change with respect to an external > physical "time" dimension. The best analogy that I have heard is that > if you have a non-horizontal line, it's Y value changes with respect > to the X axis. So some piece of information (the Y value) "changes" > with respect to another set of values (the X axis). But there is no > time involved in this type of change. > > Your experience of the X axis will depend on how you represent the X > axis internally in your model of reality. Maybe you will experience > the X axis spatially...maybe you will experience it chronologically, > maybe you will experience it some other way entirely. Your experience > of it depends entirely on how it is represented internally in the > information that produces your conscious experience. > > I think that the Sherlock Holmes approach is the correct one for > investigating and explaining the nature of consciousness and reality: > "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however > improbable, must be the truth." > > I come to the conclusion that consciousness is information by way of > process of elimination. I can think of experiments or scenarios where > you can do away with everything except information and still get > behavior that seems conscious and which therefore I assume is actually > conscious. Information is the only common factor in all situations > where consciousness seems to be in evidence. And really, it doesn't > seem that counter-intuitive to me that information is ultimately what > makes me what I am. > > So, I agree with David Chalmers that the idea that some (all?) > information is conscious in some way is a fundamental aspect of > information, and not really reducible to more fundamental descriptions > or processes. Which again makes sense...how can you get more > fundamental than "information"? > > > On Apr 20, 2:04 am, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: > >> The main difficulty I see is that it fails to explain the sequential >> aspect of consciousness. If consciousness is identified with >> information then it is atemporal. There are attempts to overcome this >> objection by assuming a discretized consciousness and identifying >> sequence with a partial ordering by similarity or content, but I find >> them unconvincing because when you chop consciousness into "moments" >> then the "moments" have very little content and it's not clear that it >> is enough to define a sequence. It seems you have allow each "moment" >> to have small duration - and then you're back to process. Or instead of >> expanding consciousness in the time direction, you could get enough >> information by expanding in the "orthogonal" direction - i.e. including >> unconscious things like information stored in memory but not being >> recalled (at the moment). But then you've slipped physics in. >> >> Brent- Hide quoted text - >> >> - Show quoted text - >> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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