On 7 December 2017 at 21:49, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > On 12/7/2017 9:36 AM, David Nyman wrote: > > > > On 7 Dec 2017 15:08, "Bruno Marchal" <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > > > On 07 Dec 2017, at 10:01, Telmo Menezes wrote: > > On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 11:50 PM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> >> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On 12/6/2017 1:46 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> I suspect that this is perhaps why Brent want to refer to the >>>> environment >>>> for relating consciousness to the machine, and in Artificial >>>> Intelligence, >>>> some people defend the idea that (mundane) consciousness occur only >>>> when the >>>> environment contradicts a little bit the quasi automatic persistent >>>> inference we do all the time. >>>> >>> >>> >>> That's Jeff Hawkins model of consciousness: one becomes conscious of >>> something when all lower, more specialized levels of the brain have >>> found it >>> not to match their predictions. >>> >> >> In that sort of model, how does matter "know" that it is being used to >> run a forecasting algorithm? Surely it doesn't right? >> > > Imagine a society which builds some objects. When everything go well, the > boss can sleep in his office. But then there is some accident or something > unusual. That is the time to wake up the boss. In this analogy, > consciousness is played by the (incorrigible) boss. > > > > > The only way this could work is if the forecasting algorithm and the >> cascading effects of failing predictions have the side effect of >> creating the "right" sort of interactions at a lower level that >> trigger consciousness. >> > > After a moment of panic, the sub-entities dare to awake the ultimate > judge: the one capable of "going out of the box" to take a (perhaps risky) > decision in absence of complete information, and to take on its shoulder > the responsibility. > > > > > Then I want to know what these interactions >> are, and what if the "atom" of consciousness, what is the first >> principle. Without this, I would say that such hypothesis are not even >> wrong. >> > > The sub-unities have specialized task, and does not need evolved > forecasting ability. You can think them as ants, when they do their usual > jobs triggered by the local pheromones left by their close neighbors. But > if the nest is attacked, or if some important food is missing, some species > will needs some order of the queen (ike to fight or to move away. Some > societies can delegate most of the power to the sub-unities, but in complex > unknown situation, if they have to make important decision, they will need > a centralization of the power, which can act much more quickly to convince > the whole society of some unusual option, like running away, closing the > doors, fighting the enemy, etc. That will happen when *many* ants complain > on something. > > In this case, the role of consciousness is focusing the attention on what > is important (with respect to survival), and to speed-up planning, > decision, etc. > > I am not sure this answer the question (we are in the "easy" part of the > problem here). > > > I follow you here, but I'd like to make a comment on the "hard" side of > the problem. What comp implies in its ineffably strange way, given that > matter itself becomes an appearance, is that strictly speaking we should > say that the "easy" part of the story is only what "appears" to be > happening. So neurocognition itself is a sort of (very precise and > constrained) story, narrated in terms of physical action, itself emulated > in computation. > > From the perspective of reality or truth we get an interpretation or > meaning in terms of which such stories can make sense, but each 'level' has > its own proper logic; and the logic of material appearance is that of the > 'laws' of physics. Nothing else is necessary, at least at that level, to > account for the disposition and evolution of material states. So strictly > speaking, when talking of prediction and other mentalistic concepts, we > should nevertheless be aware that this isn't of itself the logic of the > physical mechanisms with which these concepts are entangled. Of course it > must be consistent with that logic for the mental to be capable of > manifesting in the generalised environment of physical appearances, but we > shouldn't expect the logic of the physical level to recapitulate the > mentalistic logic in virtue of instantiating it. > > Hence when we speak of such things as predictions at the level of the > brain, we mustn't forget that this is a 'manner of speaking' to be cashed > out interpretatively or meaningfully only at the level of perceptual truth. > > > That's "cashed out" if you're interpreting the process in a mental realm. > Yes. > But there are other equally valid realms. In the physical realm it is > cashed out by action in the world. In biology it is cashed out by success > or failure in reproduction and evolution. > Yes again. But I was speaking specifically in terms of the comp assumption in terms of which those other realms - and this then obviously includes not only fundamental physics but the 'special' sciences and the broader, overarching narratives, such as evolution, that supervene on them - are a tightly constrained set of appearances . That is, they ultimately fall within the epistemological or interpretative spectrum of a generic mental agent in terms of whose necessary constraints they are enabled to burrow their way out of a deeper, vastly more generalised computational ontology. So in (this) final analysis, all the cashing out should in essence be conceived as epistemological or mentalistic, although certainly in a much more rigorous and nuanced manner than is to be found in a more naive, say Berkeleyan, idealism. As I say below, it's sometimes difficult to appreciate this point because we can't help implicitly interpreting everything in sight and hence we tend to project that interpretation back on the basic field of study as though it were intrinsic to it. Which it ain't. > > > It's easy to miss this distinction because inevitably we can't help > talking about everything from an implicitly pre-interpreted perspective. > This is how Dennett for example is able to conceal from his readers (and > possibly from himself) that he is both denying and asserting the same thing > at one and the same time. > > > I think this is an unfair criticism because it assumes that the mental > viewpoint is the only really real one. > But what other 'viewpoint' is really real as distinct from really imaginary and already implicitly interpreted? This is what I mean about the implicit pre-interpretation of the field of study. There really (really) ain't no such thing as the View from Nowhere, except in the eye of the interpreting imagination. > Can you illustrate your point with quotes from Dennett? > Well, his work is suffused with such stuff, but a quickly Googled example: From: Why and How Does Consciousness Seem the Way it Seems? "Therefore, qualia, conceived of as states of this imaginary medium [consciousness, my addendum] do not exist....But it seems to us that they do." Dennett frequently uses terms like 'seeming' to get around the fact that he doesn't want to appear to be denying that we have experiences (which would be just too patently absurd) but he also doesn't want to say that there's anything remaining after the functional account is exhausted. So instead he says we only 'seem' to have experiences. Trouble is, only seeming to have an experience cannot be in any wise distinguished from just having an experience, but this sleight of language might just distract his readers enough not to notice that the pea hasn't really disappeared but is still somewhere under one of the cups. Indeed, it might just distract Dennett himself enough not to have noticed it himself. But I rather doubt that, since I can see it and he's smarter than me. It's just that this style is what fits his fixed methodological precommitments, and consequently all's fair in love and dogmatic assertion. In point of fact, were Dennett not so committed to materialism as a methodology, his analysis in terms of what he calls heterophenomenology would be much more coherent. In fact, AFAICT, it seems pretty much compatible with comp, as far as it goes. He's right that our 'judgements' about (hetero)phenomena are what must count in order to be effective at the functional level, but because he won't go beyond physics as his base ontology, in effect he's limited himself to a (functionally implied) 'Bp', but without the extension to 'and p'. He tries to sidestep the Paradox of Phenomenal Judgement by accepting the judgements but essentially denying provenance to the phenomena themselves (which of course has the rather undesirable effect of making the entire phenomenal world disappear from view, but let that pass). Comp by contrast can face the POPJ without fear of incoherence because the logic of its epistemology (its 'laws of mentality') inextricably entangles 'Bp' with 'and p'. It's the primary truth or reality of 'and p' that is the retroactive interpretative warrant for the rest of the logical structure from which it arises, extrinsic interpretation, at that point finally, no longer being assumed or required. David > > Brent > > > David > > > But you will help me by telling me what is missing. I am not sure we need > to dig on the difficult part of the consciousness problem here, which is > handed at a different level, and concerned with the fact that the > boss/queen is confined in his office/chamber and can never be sure if the > ants panic is genuine, or an illusion, and still decide ... > > Bruno > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
