On Aug 17, 12:01 am, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 8/16/2011 6:57 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > Consciousness is a very broad term, with different meanings especially > > in different contexts; medical vs philosophical vs vernacular, > > macrocosmic vs microcosmic, legal, ethical, etc. For the mind/body > > question and Turing emulation I try to use 'consciousness' > > specifically to mean 'awareness of awareness'. The other relevant > > concept though is perceptual frame of reference, or PRIF. In this > > case, when you put awareness under a microscope, the monolithic sense > > of 'consciousness' is discarded in favor of a more granular sense of > > multiple stages of awarenesses feeding back on each other. > > AKA "subconscious".
Yes. The basement level of consciousness, not unconscious. > > When you > > look at electrical transmission in the brain over milliseconds and > > microseconds, you have automatically shifted outside of the realm of > > vernacular consciousness and into microconscious territories. > > > Just as the activity of cells as a whole is beyond the scope of what > > can be understood by studying molecules alone, the study of the > > microconscious is too short term to reveal the larger, slower pattern > > of our ordinary moment to moment awareness of awareness. Raw awareness > > is fast, but awareness of awareness is slower, the ability to > > awareness of awareness to be communicated through motor channels is > > slower still, and the propagation of motor intention through the > > efferent nerves through the spinal cord is quite a bit slower. It's > > really not comparing apples to apples then if you look at the very > > earliest fraction of a second of an experience and compare it with the > > time it takes for the experience to be fully explicated through all of > > the various perceptual and cognitive resources. It's completely > > misleading and mischaracterizes awareness in yet another attempt to > > somehow prove for the sake of validating our third person > > observations, that in fact we cannot really be alive and conscious, we > > just think we are. I think it's like a modern equivalent of 'angels > > dancing on the head of a pin'. > > So you admit that what happens that determines you behavior occurs > before you are aware of it, i.e. conscious. No. Your behavior correlates directly with your awareness of the stimuli and with the earliest neurological activity.Your awareness of your behavior, and your awareness of your ability to report on it, and the reporting itself (and their neural correlates) come later. >And what happens first is > the activity of neurons. It's all neuron activity, and it's all different scales of detection- sense-awareness-cognition experience. You are not able to let go of the idea that it's a sequence where first the physical happens and then the 'consciousness' happens. It's two parallel sequences which can and do run inductively. Your motive current of intention pushes the electric current in the brain - they are the same thing. Like this: http://www.splung.com/fields/images/induction/transformer.svg Not like an assembly line - like a living, flowing interaction amongst multiple layers of external relations and internal perceptions, the parts and the wholes. Without perception and relativity, there are only parts. >The rest of the above paragraph seems to be an > attempt to save dualism by saying why the casual spirit comes after the > motor effect. I have no problem being alive and conscious with > consciousness coming after the decision. The decision was still made by > me. I just don't conceive "me" as being so small as my consciousness. You're applying a broad definition of consciousness at the beginning and a narrow definition to consciousness at the end and using the mismatch to beg the question. I have no problem with recognition coming after cognition after awareness after detection, but I have a problem with conflating all of those as 'consciousness' and then making a special case for electromagnetic activity in the brain not corresponding to anything experiential out of anthropomorphic superstition. Just because 'you' don't think you feel anything doesn't mean that what you actually are doesn't detect it as a first person experience. > >>> If moving my arm is like reading a book, I can't tell you what the > >>> book is about until I actually have read it, but I still am initiating > >>> the reading of the book, and not the book forcing me to read it. > > >> Another non-analogy. Is this sentence making you think of a dragon? > > > A dragon? No. Why would it? Why is it 'another' non-analogy? Is this > > 'another' ad hominem non-argument? > > It's a non-analogy because no one proposed that your actions were > determined by a book or other external effect. The hypothesis was that > they are determined by neural processes of which you are not aware. They are determined by neural experienced of which you, at the .1Hz level of 'Brent' sitting in a neurologist's office are not aware. That doesn't mean that the groups of neurons at the 0.001 Hz level are not aware, and it doesn't mean that that awareness is not part of your total self's awareness. We aren't aware of the Earth's rotation or revolution either, but it doesn't mean that it's not part of our total experience of being human. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
