On Aug 7, 2:44 am, Evgenii Rudnyi <[email protected]> wrote: > On 07.08.2011 05:12 Craig Weinberg said the following:
> > We can always infer qualia. It doesn't mean our inference is > > correct. In this case I'm pointing out that the inference doesn't > > require a learned language. My point is that math is not nature, but > > nurture. If it were otherwise, I would expect the effects of alcohol > > intoxication or smaller brain cortex to make an animal more logical > > rather than more emotional. Emotion is more primitive than symbolic > > logic. > > Please note that according to experimental results (see the book > mentioned in my previous message), pain comes after the event. For > example when you touch a hotplate, you take your hand back not because > of the pain. The action actually happens unconsciously, conscious pain > comes afterward. The pain comes to 'us' after the event. That's not to say that the cells of your burned finger are not in pain already. Cellular pain may not be the same experience of course as a trillion cell human being's version of it. We have to ramp up the significance of the sensation. Cells die all the time, so their damage may not feel as 'expensive' to us who, all things considered, consider our own fingers pretty highly. As far as the book, it looks good at the beginning but then seems like it creeps back down away from the hard problem. Most of what you have quoted I agree with and have considered often. Here's my answers to his qualia questions: >p. 66 “We would need to know of qualia (in terms that link up effectively with >the rest of natural science): >1) What are they? Qualia are the sensorimotive set complements to electromagnetic behavior in matter. This requires a shift in our understanding about electromagnetism, but does not require change to any calculations or experimental results. All that is required is the reinterpretation of the idea of an electromagnetic 'field' in space to be a sensitivity 'range' between material phenomena. >2) How does the brain produce them? It doesn't. The brain is made of them...on the inside. The brain is as much produced by qualia as qualia is produced by the brain. How the elaboration of the human brain produces specifically human qualia is a different story. I call that effect 'cumulative entanglement' or significance. Sort of Energy + Time - Entropy. What Fibonacci feels like. >3) Why does the brain produce them (given that it can perform so many complex >operations, even to the level of intentionality, without them)? Everything has qualia. The human brain has human qualia because that is it's purpose - to human body to create and experience significance. >4) What do they do? They are sensorimotive. They inform and inspire. They crystallize meaning. >5) How did they evolve? Significance is retained over time through the propagation of pattern within the interior of matter. >6) What survival value do they confer? That question reveals the bias of our time. What value does survival confer to the universe? Qualia is the reason that we see a living organism that is doomed to suffer and die as an improvement over the silent void of asteroid rubble. Significance. >7) Is it only brains that can produce them?” Nope. >p. 40 “Given, that there is a scientific story that goes seamlessly from >sensory input to behavioural output without reference to consciousness then, >when we try to add >conscious experience back into the story, we can’t find >anything for it to do. Consciousness, it seems, has no casual powers, it >stands outside the casual chain.” Another one that shows how backward we are willing to bend for the sake of the 3p occidental worldview. Just because we aren't conscious of everything that our brain is doing doesn't mean that nothing is aware of it. Human consciousness is an entity on the scale of the human body. It's natural default PRIF (Perceptual Relativity Inertial Frame) is within a range of around 0.1 Hz to 24 hours and from around . 5 cm to 100m (approximating of course). When you start looking beyond or beneath those thresholds, you are no longer looking at consciousness, but rather subconscious awareness. Consciousness is slow. It doesn't mean that it can't alter subconscious behaviors over time if it wants to. It's a two way street. If we tell ourselves that it doesn't matter if the stove is hot because we have a job as a cook, then gradually, along with our heat receptors getting desensitized, our conscious familiarity will override the initial reflexes and we build a tolerance that changes the behavior of the brain. Free will is not an illusion - that truly would have no purpose whatsoever - it's just big and slow because we are a trillion cell animal with a crazy complicated brain. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
