On 26 Dec 2012, at 12:14, Telmo Menezes wrote:




On Wed, Dec 26, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 24 Dec 2012, at 17:24, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Telmo Menezes

Consciousness does not emerge from anything.
It is simply the act of perception.


Roger, when I say "consciousness" what I mean is not the act of perception. A thermostat can perceive the environment and act on it. Conversely, I can be put in an isolation tank and still remain conscious.

OK.




Well with comp "my consciousness exists" is a 1) true proposition, 2) unprovable, and 3) which supervenes on an infinity of arithmetical relations.

So comp doesn't explain what consciousness is, but it tells us why that is unknowable?

Eventually this depends on what you mean by "explanation".

Computationalism explains why consciousness is true and knowable, actually, but not justifiable, once we can agree on some semi-axiom for consciousness: like it is true for each of us, and invariant for the comp-digital-brain substitution. It explains the universal feeling that we cannot convince any other that we are conscious, and the logic of qualia (S4Grz1, X1*) should be able to explain why consciousness is related to perception field, sensation, etc. Then it explains how the matter illusion organize itself into a quantum logic of observable, and this in a testable way. You can get more if you are willing to accept quasi definition of consciousness, like consciousness = a believe in a reality, or a believe in self-consistency, under the form of an unconscious betting procedure. Waking up in the morning is about equivalent with betting that I will drink some coffee soon, for example. I am betting that there is a reality in which I can consistently achieve that goal. It is akin to Helmholtz theory of perception: unconscious inductive inference.

Bruno






I think it is not too much wrong to say that it emerges, at least in some sense, from arithmetic.

Bruno





[Roger Clough], [rclo...@verizon.net]
12/24/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen

----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Telmo Menezes
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-12-22, 07:11:19
Subject: Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett rightafter all ?

Hi Stephen,


On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 3:41 AM, Stephen P. King <stephe...@charter.net > wrote:
On 12/20/2012 6:17 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
Hi Roger,

�
I accidentally sent the previous email before
I was done, sorry. Please consider this more complete version
of the intended whole:
�
Hi Telmo,
�
Those images in the videoclips, while still remarkable,
probably were constructed simply by monitoring
sensory MRI signals just as one might from a video camera,�
and displaying them as a raster pattern, artificially
converting the time voltage signal into a timespace signal.

Ok. We're not even sure what we're looking at. The brain is a gigantic^n kludge. We are seeing stuff happening in the visual cortex that can be meaningfully mapped to images. This stuff correlates with what the subject is seeing, but in a weird way.

Hi Telmo,

牋� As I was watching the brain scan image video I noticed a lot of weird text like stuff mixed into the image. What was that? Artifacts?

I think so. I believe they are caused by the new images being constructed from samples of the original images shown to the subjects.
So we can speculate that we're watching, for example, a pattern matching process taking place. The most spectacular thing for me is when we see the燼nticipation爋f the ink blot explosion. That's something you wouldn't get from a video camera (but you could get from a computer running a sophisticated AI).
�
�
Perception of the moving image from a given perspective
by the brain might take place in the following way :
�
1)燜IRSTNESS (The eye). The initial operation in processing the
raw optical signal is reception of the sensory signal.
This is necessarily done by a monad (you or me),
because only monads see the world from a given
perspective.

In my opinion you are conflating intelligence and consciousness. I see two separate issues:

1) The human being as an agent senses things, assigns symbols to them, compares them with his memories and so on. The brain tries to anticipate all possible futures and then choses actions that are more likely to lead to a future state that it prefers. This preference can be ultimately reduced to pain avoidance / pleasure seeking. In my view, the fundamental pain and pleasure signals have to be encoded some how in our DNA, and were selected to optimise our chances of reproduction. All this is 3p and can be emulated by a digital computer. Some of it already is.

2) There is a "me" here observing the universe from my perspective. I am me and not you. There's a consciousness inside my body, attached to my mind (or is it my mind)? I suspect there's one inside other people too, but I cannot be sure. This is a 1p phenomena and outside the realm of science. It cannot be explained by MRI machines and clever algorithms - although many neuroscientists fail to realise it. This mystery is essentially what makes me an agnostic more than an atheist. If there is a god, I suspect he's me (and you). In a sense.

You can have 1 without 2, the famous zombie.

牋� I disagree! The very act of fulfilling the requirements of 1 "connects it to"� the #2 version of itself. The isomorphism between 1 and 2 is just a fact of how logical algebras can be represented as spaces (sets + relations) and vice versa! What gets glossed over is that Human beings (and any other physical system that has the potential to implement a universal machine) are not static structures. The logical algebra that represents them cannot be static either, it has to evolve as well. 牋� Think of how you would model a neural network X as it learns new patterns.... The propositions of your logical algebra for X would have to be updated as the learning progresses, no?

Ok, I agree that humans beings and neural networks are not static structures. This is trivially true. I still don't get how consciousness is supposed to emerge out of a dynamic process.

Are you claiming, for example, that if I start running game of life it will become conscious and have a 1p perspective? I'm not using this as a counter-example, I am honestly asking. I don't know the answer to that.
�
This is not a visual display, only� a
complex sensory signal.
�
2) SECONDNESS (the hippocampus ? the cerebellum? ).
The next stage is intelligent processing of the
optical爏ignal and into a useable爀xpreswion of
the visual image.
�
(From the monadology, we find that each monad
(you or me) does not 爌erceive the world directly,
but is given such a perception by the supreme monad
(the One, or God). This supreme monad contains
the ability to intelligently construct the visual image
from the optical nerve signal)
�
3) THIRDNESS (cerebrum ?) Knowing this visual expresson
by the individual monad according to its individual perspective.
This perspective is爏omehow coordinated with motor muscles (left/ right,
etc.), but I question that this爄s燼n actual 2D or 3D "display,"
such as in the videoclips. (The videoclips are another matter
as they are artificialy constructed.)

I agree with you, but maybe videoclips can still be created from there. If the neural network contains a piece of information A, and this information can be represented by image B, there has to be a function f: A -> B. Of course finding this function (and/or computing it) might be incredibly hard.

牋� It is helpful to see function f: A -> B as a Functor and not a plain jane function. Maybe a presheve is a better model.

Fair enough for functor. I don't know what a presheve is.
�


�
�
If there is an actual or simulated display then we are
faced with Dennett's problem: the infinite regress of
spectators, spectators of spectator, etc.

Ok, but here we're back to 1p.

牋� We defeat Dennett by showing that the regress cannot occur when there are physical resources required by the computations for each level of the recursion. We can cutoff recursions in our algorithms with code: if count of loops is 10, stop. But physical systems can not count, they just run out of juice after a while....

Yes. For example, in the simulation argument, you still end up having to have an ultimate reality which is no longer a simulation.
�
�
But if there is no display, we do not need an observer self,
and are possibly ending up with Michael Dennett's materialist
concept of the self. This might be called epi-phenominalism.
The self is simply an expression of the brain.

I don't believe it is just an expression of the brain (I suspect you don't either), but part of the reason why I don't believe is 1p, so I cannot communicate it (can I?). I don't know. I tried at dinner parties and got funny looks.

牋� I do think that the consciousness is an expression of the brain *and* all of its environment that molds its behavior. It is silly to think that skin is the boundary that a mind associates with!

Agreed.
�
We cannot forget causal closure in our reasoning about 1p!
牋� Telmo, can't you see that the defining characteristic of 1p is that one cannot communicate it?

I can.
�
Only I can know exactly what it is like to be me. So I can infer or bet that you have a "what it is like to be Telmo" but I cannot know it, by definition and this relation is symmetrical between any pair of conscious entities.

Ok, but why shouldn't I just believe in爏olipsism爐hen?
�



�
�
I do not at present know the answer.
�
�
�
�


牋� Consider dual aspect monism! It works!

What's the best place to read about it?
�

--
Onward!

Stephen

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