Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
Evgenii, I believe that you are unfair to Jeffery Gray. As I have mentioned, his conclusion was that the modern science (here as accepted by a majority of scientists) cannot explain conscious phenomena. Hence, in a way he was ready to reconsider the accepted scientific framework. I can appreciate that. Nagel and others come frequently to that idea, but few seems even aware that the Aristotelian conception of reality might be flawed. The difference with your point is that according to him, mind, knowledge, and self is not related to conscious experience that he has considered. Well, you go other way around from math, he presumably would not agree with you. In this respect, you might be right. My point is just that mechanism and materialism are incompatible. I do relate consciousness with mind, knowledge and many notion of selves, which is rather normal in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. But I don't identify them, and I fail to understand what could be a theory of consciousness if it does not explain the feeling of those relations. Consciousness is usually thought to be lived by a subject, which is a knower, has a notion of self, etc. Your statement > But consciousness is a 100% first person "phenomenon", so it is doubtful > that we will ever found it in the lab, where we can find only third > person (or first person plural) describable phenomena. in my view, contradicts to empirical science. Not necessarily. A theory of consciousness can have indirect consequences on matter or other 3-person phenomena. I am an empiricist, even if comp implies that the "real laws of physics" are deducible from reason alone. This means only that we can test comp empirically, by comparing what we observe and what we should observe with comp. I believe that I understand what you mean, I think I understand your logic. Yet, I am not sure I understand what a research program on consciousness you offer. Computer science, with the taking into consideration of the different possible person points of view. Computer science minus computer's computer science gives the non provable part, which might explain the gap that we feel between consciousness per se, and the many possible content of consciousness, most being non provable. What is the role of experimentalists in your research program? To verify the consequence of our theories. Mainly, to refute them. When we are lucky enough. On a related note. Prof Hoenen in his lectures of on Voraussetzung und Vorurteil (Prerequisite and Prejudice) talks quite awhile about Collingwood's An Essay on Metaphysics. According to Collingwood, your statements above seems to be an absolute presupposition, that is, a statement that we can take as it is but we cannot prove if it true or false. Hmm... I am not sure. It is close to Descartes' argument, with a slight amendment: "I doubt thus I think; I think thus I am ... conscious". Thomas Slezak has defended that argument, by comparing it to the diagonal used in the Gödel's proof of incompleteness, where self- consistency appears as a fixed point of doubt. It means that self- consistency (Dt, ~Bf), is a solution to "x <-> ~provable x". The solution says about itself that it is not provable, making it true and not provable. This means that as far as you are correct (which you cannot know) you can bet (but bet only) on your self-consistency. This leads to a computational advantage (speed-up theorem), and it ends up to a (correct) belief that you can access an incommunicable truth, which seems to fit nicely with the notion of consciousness. I am not sure I can make sense of a theory of consciousness not relying strongly on the first person notion, or on subjectivity. But I was probably exaggerating in saying purely first person, as the math experience is typically a subjective experience with a big third person sharable part. It is worthy noting that during his historical analysis of absolute presuppositions, Collingwood came to the conclusion that monotheism was crucial for the success of the modern science. I have not read his book by myself, my knowledge is just from lectures, but this is a quote that I have found in Internet “The very possibility of applied mathematics is an expression . . . of the Christian belief that nature is the creation of an omnipotent God.” I think Christian took this from the Platonists. I think monotheism is only an anthropomorphic conception of monism. The idea that reality is one, consistent, true, and (partially) intelligible. Oh! I see you have a quote (by MJ O'Neill) going in that direction: “I say “monotheistic science” following Collingwood’s contention that monotheism (Platonic or Christian), in contrast to Paganism, brings with it the idea that the universe is one, rationally ordered, and intelligible. See Essay on Metaphysics, Chapter X
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
On 4/6/2012 9:26 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: Bruno, I believe that you are unfair to Jeffery Gray. As I have mentioned, his conclusion was that the modern science (here as accepted by a majority of scientists) cannot explain conscious phenomena. Hence, in a way he was ready to reconsider the accepted scientific framework. The difference with your point is that according to him, mind, knowledge, and self is not related to conscious experience that he has considered. Well, you go other way around from math, he presumably would not agree with you. In this respect, you might be right. Your statement > But consciousness is a 100% first person "phenomenon", so it is doubtful > that we will ever found it in the lab, where we can find only third > person (or first person plural) describable phenomena. in my view, contradicts to empirical science. I believe that I understand what you mean, I think I understand your logic. Yet, I am not sure I understand what a research program on consciousness you offer. What is the role of experimentalists in your research program? On a related note. Prof Hoenen in his lectures of on Voraussetzung und Vorurteil (Prerequisite and Prejudice) talks quite awhile about Collingwood's An Essay on Metaphysics. According to Collingwood, your statements above seems to be an absolute presupposition, that is, a statement that we can take as it is but we cannot prove if it true or false. It is worthy noting that during his historical analysis of absolute presuppositions, Collingwood came to the conclusion that monotheism was crucial for the success of the modern science. I have not read his book by myself, my knowledge is just from lectures, but this is a quote that I have found in Internet “The very possibility of applied mathematics is an expression . . . of the Christian belief that nature is the creation of an omnipotent God.” Of course the regularity of nature is more consistent with a single god than with many contending gods, but it is still more consistent with a deist god who creates the world and then leaves it to itself than a theist god who answers prayers. Brent Some more what I have found to this end http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/03/collingwood-on-monotheism-and-science.html The last paper on this page "Matter, Mathematics, and God" shows quite nicely a peculiar role of mathematics in science. If physicists accept that Nature obeys to the laws written by mathematical equations, then actually your position looks quite natural. Evgenii On 06.04.2012 10:52 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 05 Apr 2012, at 22:53, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... When Gray considers would be explanations, he mentions dualism and panpsychism (for example quantum consciousness). Yet, he does not give an answer. His statement is that we do not have a theory of consciousness. However, the phenomenon is there and he has shown how to research it in the lab. But consciousness is a 100% first person "phenomenon", so it is doubtful that we will ever found it in the lab, where we can find only third person (or first person plural) describable phenomena. So a theory of consciousness, or *about* consciousness can only be a theory acknowledging some principle or axioms about the first person view. This makes sense, if only because such axioms can be found for a notion deeply related to consciousness, and which is knowledge. Most research in the cognitive science , sufficiently theoretical, accept the following axioms for knowledge, with Kp interpreted as "I know p": Kp -> p Kp -> KKp K(p->q) -> (Kp -> Kq) and with modus ponens and necessitation as inference rule (from p and (p->q) you can derive q, and from p you can derive Kp). This is the modal logic S4. Gödel already knew that in any "rich" theory, provability cannot obey those S4 axioms, and later Kaplan and Montague have shown that there is just no way we can define such notion of knowledge, in any third person way, capable of playing that role, confirming that S4 bears on a pure first person notion. Yet, as seen by many philsopher (from Theatetus to the old Wittgenstein), we can "simulate", at the meta-level such a knowledge by taking any theory of belief, and defining knowledge by a belief which happens to be true, so that we get the first axiom above. By a result of Tarski, we know already that truth ---about a theory/machine---cannot be defined---by the machine or in the theory. Accepting the knowledge account of consciousness (as the knowldedge of one truth, may be a tautology or just the constant boolean "t") explains then completely why consciousness exist (like a true belief), and why we will never find it in the lab. Now, if the belief notion can be finitely defined in a third person way, this entails the comp hypothesis, and this does not solve completely the mind-body problem. Indeed we might say that such a theory does solve the hard consciousness problem, but as the UDA sho
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
Bruno, I believe that you are unfair to Jeffery Gray. As I have mentioned, his conclusion was that the modern science (here as accepted by a majority of scientists) cannot explain conscious phenomena. Hence, in a way he was ready to reconsider the accepted scientific framework. The difference with your point is that according to him, mind, knowledge, and self is not related to conscious experience that he has considered. Well, you go other way around from math, he presumably would not agree with you. In this respect, you might be right. Your statement > But consciousness is a 100% first person "phenomenon", so it is doubtful > that we will ever found it in the lab, where we can find only third > person (or first person plural) describable phenomena. in my view, contradicts to empirical science. I believe that I understand what you mean, I think I understand your logic. Yet, I am not sure I understand what a research program on consciousness you offer. What is the role of experimentalists in your research program? On a related note. Prof Hoenen in his lectures of on Voraussetzung und Vorurteil (Prerequisite and Prejudice) talks quite awhile about Collingwood's An Essay on Metaphysics. According to Collingwood, your statements above seems to be an absolute presupposition, that is, a statement that we can take as it is but we cannot prove if it true or false. It is worthy noting that during his historical analysis of absolute presuppositions, Collingwood came to the conclusion that monotheism was crucial for the success of the modern science. I have not read his book by myself, my knowledge is just from lectures, but this is a quote that I have found in Internet “The very possibility of applied mathematics is an expression . . . of the Christian belief that nature is the creation of an omnipotent God.” Some more what I have found to this end http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/03/collingwood-on-monotheism-and-science.html The last paper on this page "Matter, Mathematics, and God" shows quite nicely a peculiar role of mathematics in science. If physicists accept that Nature obeys to the laws written by mathematical equations, then actually your position looks quite natural. Evgenii On 06.04.2012 10:52 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 05 Apr 2012, at 22:53, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... When Gray considers would be explanations, he mentions dualism and panpsychism (for example quantum consciousness). Yet, he does not give an answer. His statement is that we do not have a theory of consciousness. However, the phenomenon is there and he has shown how to research it in the lab. But consciousness is a 100% first person "phenomenon", so it is doubtful that we will ever found it in the lab, where we can find only third person (or first person plural) describable phenomena. So a theory of consciousness, or *about* consciousness can only be a theory acknowledging some principle or axioms about the first person view. This makes sense, if only because such axioms can be found for a notion deeply related to consciousness, and which is knowledge. Most research in the cognitive science , sufficiently theoretical, accept the following axioms for knowledge, with Kp interpreted as "I know p": Kp -> p Kp -> KKp K(p->q) -> (Kp -> Kq) and with modus ponens and necessitation as inference rule (from p and (p->q) you can derive q, and from p you can derive Kp). This is the modal logic S4. Gödel already knew that in any "rich" theory, provability cannot obey those S4 axioms, and later Kaplan and Montague have shown that there is just no way we can define such notion of knowledge, in any third person way, capable of playing that role, confirming that S4 bears on a pure first person notion. Yet, as seen by many philsopher (from Theatetus to the old Wittgenstein), we can "simulate", at the meta-level such a knowledge by taking any theory of belief, and defining knowledge by a belief which happens to be true, so that we get the first axiom above. By a result of Tarski, we know already that truth ---about a theory/machine---cannot be defined---by the machine or in the theory. Accepting the knowledge account of consciousness (as the knowldedge of one truth, may be a tautology or just the constant boolean "t") explains then completely why consciousness exist (like a true belief), and why we will never find it in the lab. Now, if the belief notion can be finitely defined in a third person way, this entails the comp hypothesis, and this does not solve completely the mind-body problem. Indeed we might say that such a theory does solve the hard consciousness problem, but as the UDA shows, it introduces a new problem: we have to justify the stability of the lab itself from that theory of consciousness. That is nice because it leads to the first explanation of why there is a physical universe, and it makes physics a branch of psychology or theology. Then the constraints of computer science gives se
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
On Apr 5, 12:41 pm, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: > We do not know what kind of computing brain does. It well might be that > at the level of neuron nets it was simpler to create a conscious display > than to employ other means. That assumes that such a means was a prori possible. Why would it be? It would probably be even simpler to create telepathy or omniscience. Without any hint of explanation of where the potential for 'display' could come from, I can't consider it a realistic possibility. > On the other hand, the robotics has yet to > prove that they can reach the behavioral level of for example mammals. > This has not been done yet. One cannot exclude that the progress here > will be achieved only when people will find a trick how a brain creates > conscious experience. It's not a trick. I think that every natural whole subject has experience. A human being is a complex natural whole and it has a complex experience. A robot is not a natural whole subject, it is an assembly of parts. To get to natural wholes in a robot you have to get down to molecules. 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.
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
On 05 Apr 2012, at 22:53, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 05.04.2012 21:44 meekerdb said the following: On 4/5/2012 11:49 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: Display to whom? the homunculus? No, he creates an interesting scheme to escape the homunculus: p. 110. “(1) the unconscious brain constructs a display in a medium, that of conscious perception, fundamentally different from its usual medium of electrochemical activity in and between nerve cells; Is it a physical medium, made of quarks and electrons? Is it an immaterial soul stuff? Or is it just a placeholder name for a gap in the theory? It is just a placeholder. The modern science cannot explain the nature of that medium. (2) it inspects the conscious constructed display; Is the display conscious or the 'it' that's doing the inspection. It is the unconscious brain. (3) it uses the results of the display to change the working of its usual electrochemical medium.” Sounds like a soul or homunculus to me. Here it again the unconscious brain. As I have written, 'consciousness display' just gives new possibilities to the unconscious brain to rule over all the servomechanisms. Hence the unconscious brain does the job. But the display is denoted 'conscious'? Is it not part of the brain? It is an open question. For example Gray asks “Might it be the case that, if one put a slice of V4 in a dish in this way, it could continue to sustain colour qualia? Functionalists have a clear answer to this question: no, because a slice of V4, disconnected from its normal visual inputs and motor outputs, cannot discharge the functions associated with the experience of colour. But, if we had a theory that started, not from function, but from brain tissue, maybe it would give a different answer. Alas, no such theory is to hand. Worse, even one had been proposed, there is no known way of detecting qualia in a brain slice!”. No one knows. This is the state of the art. I should say that this does not answer my personal inquiry on how I perceive a three dimensional world, but this is another problem. In his book, Jeffrey Gray offers quite a plausible scheme. Doesn't sound anymore plausible than a conscious spirit. Brent When Gray considers would be explanations, he mentions dualism and panpsychism (for example quantum consciousness). Yet, he does not give an answer. His statement is that we do not have a theory of consciousness. However, the phenomenon is there and he has shown how to research it in the lab. But consciousness is a 100% first person "phenomenon", so it is doubtful that we will ever found it in the lab, where we can find only third person (or first person plural) describable phenomena. So a theory of consciousness, or *about* consciousness can only be a theory acknowledging some principle or axioms about the first person view. This makes sense, if only because such axioms can be found for a notion deeply related to consciousness, and which is knowledge. Most research in the cognitive science , sufficiently theoretical, accept the following axioms for knowledge, with Kp interpreted as "I know p": Kp -> p Kp -> KKp K(p->q) -> (Kp -> Kq) and with modus ponens and necessitation as inference rule (from p and (p->q) you can derive q, and from p you can derive Kp). This is the modal logic S4. Gödel already knew that in any "rich" theory, provability cannot obey those S4 axioms, and later Kaplan and Montague have shown that there is just no way we can define such notion of knowledge, in any third person way, capable of playing that role, confirming that S4 bears on a pure first person notion. Yet, as seen by many philsopher (from Theatetus to the old Wittgenstein), we can "simulate", at the meta-level such a knowledge by taking any theory of belief, and defining knowledge by a belief which happens to be true, so that we get the first axiom above. By a result of Tarski, we know already that truth ---about a theory/ machine---cannot be defined---by the machine or in the theory. Accepting the knowledge account of consciousness (as the knowldedge of one truth, may be a tautology or just the constant boolean "t") explains then completely why consciousness exist (like a true belief), and why we will never find it in the lab. Now, if the belief notion can be finitely defined in a third person way, this entails the comp hypothesis, and this does not solve completely the mind-body problem. Indeed we might say that such a theory does solve the hard consciousness problem, but as the UDA shows, it introduces a new problem: we have to justify the stability of the lab itself from that theory of consciousness. That is nice because it leads to the first explanation of why there is a physical universe, and it makes physics a branch of psychology or theology. Then the constraints of computer science gives sense to this, because provability obeys to believab
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
On 05.04.2012 21:44 meekerdb said the following: On 4/5/2012 11:49 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: Display to whom? the homunculus? No, he creates an interesting scheme to escape the homunculus: p. 110. “(1) the unconscious brain constructs a display in a medium, that of conscious perception, fundamentally different from its usual medium of electrochemical activity in and between nerve cells; Is it a physical medium, made of quarks and electrons? Is it an immaterial soul stuff? Or is it just a placeholder name for a gap in the theory? It is just a placeholder. The modern science cannot explain the nature of that medium. (2) it inspects the conscious constructed display; Is the display conscious or the 'it' that's doing the inspection. It is the unconscious brain. (3) it uses the results of the display to change the working of its usual electrochemical medium.” Sounds like a soul or homunculus to me. Here it again the unconscious brain. As I have written, 'consciousness display' just gives new possibilities to the unconscious brain to rule over all the servomechanisms. Hence the unconscious brain does the job. But the display is denoted 'conscious'? Is it not part of the brain? It is an open question. For example Gray asks “Might it be the case that, if one put a slice of V4 in a dish in this way, it could continue to sustain colour qualia? Functionalists have a clear answer to this question: no, because a slice of V4, disconnected from its normal visual inputs and motor outputs, cannot discharge the functions associated with the experience of colour. But, if we had a theory that started, not from function, but from brain tissue, maybe it would give a different answer. Alas, no such theory is to hand. Worse, even one had been proposed, there is no known way of detecting qualia in a brain slice!”. No one knows. This is the state of the art. I should say that this does not answer my personal inquiry on how I perceive a three dimensional world, but this is another problem. In his book, Jeffrey Gray offers quite a plausible scheme. Doesn't sound anymore plausible than a conscious spirit. Brent When Gray considers would be explanations, he mentions dualism and panpsychism (for example quantum consciousness). Yet, he does not give an answer. His statement is that we do not have a theory of consciousness. However, the phenomenon is there and he has shown how to research it in the lab. Evgenii -- 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.
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
On 4/5/2012 11:49 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: Display to whom? the homunculus? No, he creates an interesting scheme to escape the homunculus: p. 110. “(1) the unconscious brain constructs a display in a medium, that of conscious perception, fundamentally different from its usual medium of electrochemical activity in and between nerve cells; Is it a physical medium, made of quarks and electrons? Is it an immaterial soul stuff? Or is it just a placeholder name for a gap in the theory? (2) it inspects the conscious constructed display; Is the display conscious or the 'it' that's doing the inspection. (3) it uses the results of the display to change the working of its usual electrochemical medium.” Sounds like a soul or homunculus to me. Hence the unconscious brain does the job. But the display is denoted 'conscious'? Is it not part of the brain? I should say that this does not answer my personal inquiry on how I perceive a three dimensional world, but this is another problem. In his book, Jeffrey Gray offers quite a plausible scheme. Doesn't sound anymore plausible than a conscious spirit. Brent -- 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.
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
On 05.04.2012 20:10 meekerdb said the following: On 4/5/2012 9:41 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 05.04.2012 01:43 Craig Weinberg said the following: On Apr 4, 2:58 pm, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: The term late error detection as such could be employed without consciousness indeed. Yet, Jeffrey Gray gives it some special meaning that I will try briefly describe below. Jeffrey Gray in his book speaks about conscious experience, that is, exactly about qualia. Self, mind, and intellect as such is not there. He has tried first hard to put conscious experience in the framework of the normal science (I guess that he means here physicalism) but then he shows that conscious experience cannot be explained by the theories within a normal science (functionalism, neural correlates of consciousness, etc.). According to him, conscious experience is some multipurpose display. It is necessary yet to find how Nature produces it but at the moment this is not that important. He considers an organism from a cybernetic viewpoint, as a bunch of feedback mechanisms (servomechanisms). For a servomechanism it is necessary to set a goal and then to have a comparator that compares the goal with the reality. It might function okay at the unconscious level but conscious experience binds everything together in its display. This binding happens not only between different senses (multimodal binding) but also within a single sense (intramodel binding). For example we consciously experience a red kite as a whole, although in the brain lines, colors, surfaces are processed independently. Yet we cannot consciously experience a red kite not as a whole, just try it. Hence the conscious display gives a new opportunity to compare expectations with reality and Jeffrey Grayrefers to it as late error detection. That is, there is a bunch of servomechanisms that are running on their own but then conscious experience allows brain to synchronize everything together. This is a clear advantage from the Evolution viewpoint. Evgenii If an evolutionary advantage would be conferred by synchronization and binding of data, why not just synchronize and bind the data quantitatively? Parallel processing, compression, etc. Where would the possibility of experienced qualities come in? We do not know what kind of computing brain does. It well might be that at the level of neuron nets it was simpler to create a conscious display But what constitutes 'a conscious display'. Display implies someone to whom it is displayed. than to employ other means. On the other hand, the robotics has yet to prove that they can reach the behavioral level of for example mammals. This has not been done yet. One cannot exclude that the progress here will be achieved only when people will find a trick how a brain creates conscious experience. I think they will solve the problem of producing intelligent behavior and just assume they have created conscious experience. It is hard to predict what happens. Let us see. Evgenii -- 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.
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
On 05.04.2012 20:07 meekerdb said the following: On 4/4/2012 11:58 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: The term late error detection as such could be employed without consciousness indeed. Yet, Jeffrey Gray gives it some special meaning that I will try briefly describe below. Jeffrey Gray in his book speaks about conscious experience, that is, exactly about qualia. Self, mind, and intellect as such is not there. He has tried first hard to put conscious experience in the framework of the normal science (I guess that he means here physicalism) but then he shows that conscious experience cannot be explained by the theories within a normal science (functionalism, neural correlates of consciousness, etc.). According to him, conscious experience is some multipurpose display. It is necessary yet to find how Nature produces it but at the moment this is not that important. Display to whom? the homunculus? No, he creates an interesting scheme to escape the homunculus: p. 110. “(1) the unconscious brain constructs a display in a medium, that of conscious perception, fundamentally different from its usual medium of electrochemical activity in and between nerve cells; (2) it inspects the conscious constructed display; (3) it uses the results of the display to change the working of its usual electrochemical medium.” Hence the unconscious brain does the job. I should say that this does not answer my personal inquiry on how I perceive a three dimensional world, but this is another problem. In his book, Jeffrey Gray offers quite a plausible scheme. He considers an organism from a cybernetic viewpoint, as a bunch of feedback mechanisms (servomechanisms). For a servomechanism it is necessary to set a goal and then to have a comparator that compares the goal with the reality. It might function okay at the unconscious level but conscious experience binds everything together in its display. But why is the binding together conscious? There is no answer to this question yet. This is just his hypothesis based on experimental research. In a way, this is a description of experiments. The question why requires a theory, it is not there yet. This binding happens not only between different senses (multimodal binding) but also within a single sense (intramodel binding). For example we consciously experience a red kite as a whole, although in the brain lines, colors, surfaces are processed independently. Yet we cannot consciously experience a red kite not as a whole, just try it. Actually I can. It takes some practice, but if, for example, you are a painter you learn to see things a separate patches of color. As an engineer I can see a kite as structural and aerodynamic elements. If you visually experiences this indeed, it might be good to make a MRI test to see the difference with others. This way you will help to develop the theory of consciousness. I understand what you say and I can imagine a kite as a bunch of masses, springs and dampers but I cannot visually experience this when I observe the kite. I can visually experience this only when I draw it on a paper. Hence the conscious display gives a new opportunity to compare expectations with reality and Jeffrey Grayrefers to it as late error detection. But none of that explains why it is necessarily conscious. Is he contending that any comparisons of expectations with reality instantiates consciousness? So if a Mars Rover uses some predictive program about what's over the hill and then later compares that with what is over the hill it will be conscious? He just describes experimental results. He has conscious experience, he has a brain, MRI shows activities in the brain, then another person in similar circumstances shows a similar activities in the brain and states that he has conscious experience. Hence it is logical to suppose that brain produces conscious experience. There is no discussion in his book whether this is necessarily conscious. There are no experimental results to discuss that. As for Mars Rover, in his book there is a statement that ascribing consciousness to robots is not grounded scientifically. There are no experimental results in this respect to discuss. That is, there is a bunch of servomechanisms that are running on their own but then conscious experience allows brain to synchronize everything together. This is a clear advantage from the Evolution viewpoint. It's easy to say consciousness does this and that and to argue that since these things are evolutionarily useful that's why consciousness developed. But what is needed is saying why doing this and that rather than something else instantiates consciousness. This remains as Hard Problem. There is no solution of that in the book. It seems that Gray is following my idea that the question of qualia, Chalmer's 'hard problem', will simply be bypassed. We will learn how to make robots that act conscious and we will just say consciousness is just an operat
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
On 4/5/2012 9:41 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 05.04.2012 01:43 Craig Weinberg said the following: On Apr 4, 2:58 pm, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: The term late error detection as such could be employed without consciousness indeed. Yet, Jeffrey Gray gives it some special meaning that I will try briefly describe below. Jeffrey Gray in his book speaks about conscious experience, that is, exactly about qualia. Self, mind, and intellect as such is not there. He has tried first hard to put conscious experience in the framework of the normal science (I guess that he means here physicalism) but then he shows that conscious experience cannot be explained by the theories within a normal science (functionalism, neural correlates of consciousness, etc.). According to him, conscious experience is some multipurpose display. It is necessary yet to find how Nature produces it but at the moment this is not that important. He considers an organism from a cybernetic viewpoint, as a bunch of feedback mechanisms (servomechanisms). For a servomechanism it is necessary to set a goal and then to have a comparator that compares the goal with the reality. It might function okay at the unconscious level but conscious experience binds everything together in its display. This binding happens not only between different senses (multimodal binding) but also within a single sense (intramodel binding). For example we consciously experience a red kite as a whole, although in the brain lines, colors, surfaces are processed independently. Yet we cannot consciously experience a red kite not as a whole, just try it. Hence the conscious display gives a new opportunity to compare expectations with reality and Jeffrey Grayrefers to it as late error detection. That is, there is a bunch of servomechanisms that are running on their own but then conscious experience allows brain to synchronize everything together. This is a clear advantage from the Evolution viewpoint. Evgenii If an evolutionary advantage would be conferred by synchronization and binding of data, why not just synchronize and bind the data quantitatively? Parallel processing, compression, etc. Where would the possibility of experienced qualities come in? We do not know what kind of computing brain does. It well might be that at the level of neuron nets it was simpler to create a conscious display But what constitutes 'a conscious display'. Display implies someone to whom it is displayed. than to employ other means. On the other hand, the robotics has yet to prove that they can reach the behavioral level of for example mammals. This has not been done yet. One cannot exclude that the progress here will be achieved only when people will find a trick how a brain creates conscious experience. I think they will solve the problem of producing intelligent behavior and just assume they have created conscious experience. Brent Evgenii Evgenii -- 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.
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
On 4/4/2012 11:58 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: The term late error detection as such could be employed without consciousness indeed. Yet, Jeffrey Gray gives it some special meaning that I will try briefly describe below. Jeffrey Gray in his book speaks about conscious experience, that is, exactly about qualia. Self, mind, and intellect as such is not there. He has tried first hard to put conscious experience in the framework of the normal science (I guess that he means here physicalism) but then he shows that conscious experience cannot be explained by the theories within a normal science (functionalism, neural correlates of consciousness, etc.). According to him, conscious experience is some multipurpose display. It is necessary yet to find how Nature produces it but at the moment this is not that important. Display to whom? the homunculus? He considers an organism from a cybernetic viewpoint, as a bunch of feedback mechanisms (servomechanisms). For a servomechanism it is necessary to set a goal and then to have a comparator that compares the goal with the reality. It might function okay at the unconscious level but conscious experience binds everything together in its display. But why is the binding together conscious? This binding happens not only between different senses (multimodal binding) but also within a single sense (intramodel binding). For example we consciously experience a red kite as a whole, although in the brain lines, colors, surfaces are processed independently. Yet we cannot consciously experience a red kite not as a whole, just try it. Actually I can. It takes some practice, but if, for example, you are a painter you learn to see things a separate patches of color. As an engineer I can see a kite as structural and aerodynamic elements. Hence the conscious display gives a new opportunity to compare expectations with reality and Jeffrey Grayrefers to it as late error detection. But none of that explains why it is necessarily conscious. Is he contending that any comparisons of expectations with reality instantiates consciousness? So if a Mars Rover uses some predictive program about what's over the hill and then later compares that with what is over the hill it will be conscious? That is, there is a bunch of servomechanisms that are running on their own but then conscious experience allows brain to synchronize everything together. This is a clear advantage from the Evolution viewpoint. It's easy to say consciousness does this and that and to argue that since these things are evolutionarily useful that's why consciousness developed. But what is needed is saying why doing this and that rather than something else instantiates consciousness. It seems that Gray is following my idea that the question of qualia, Chalmer's 'hard problem', will simply be bypassed. We will learn how to make robots that act conscious and we will just say consciousness is just an operational attribute. Brent Evgenii -- 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.
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
On 05.04.2012 01:43 Craig Weinberg said the following: On Apr 4, 2:58 pm, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: The term late error detection as such could be employed without consciousness indeed. Yet, Jeffrey Gray gives it some special meaning that I will try briefly describe below. Jeffrey Gray in his book speaks about conscious experience, that is, exactly about qualia. Self, mind, and intellect as such is not there. He has tried first hard to put conscious experience in the framework of the normal science (I guess that he means here physicalism) but then he shows that conscious experience cannot be explained by the theories within a normal science (functionalism, neural correlates of consciousness, etc.). According to him, conscious experience is some multipurpose display. It is necessary yet to find how Nature produces it but at the moment this is not that important. He considers an organism from a cybernetic viewpoint, as a bunch of feedback mechanisms (servomechanisms). For a servomechanism it is necessary to set a goal and then to have a comparator that compares the goal with the reality. It might function okay at the unconscious level but conscious experience binds everything together in its display. This binding happens not only between different senses (multimodal binding) but also within a single sense (intramodel binding). For example we consciously experience a red kite as a whole, although in the brain lines, colors, surfaces are processed independently. Yet we cannot consciously experience a red kite not as a whole, just try it. Hence the conscious display gives a new opportunity to compare expectations with reality and Jeffrey Grayrefers to it as late error detection. That is, there is a bunch of servomechanisms that are running on their own but then conscious experience allows brain to synchronize everything together. This is a clear advantage from the Evolution viewpoint. Evgenii If an evolutionary advantage would be conferred by synchronization and binding of data, why not just synchronize and bind the data quantitatively? Parallel processing, compression, etc. Where would the possibility of experienced qualities come in? We do not know what kind of computing brain does. It well might be that at the level of neuron nets it was simpler to create a conscious display than to employ other means. On the other hand, the robotics has yet to prove that they can reach the behavioral level of for example mammals. This has not been done yet. One cannot exclude that the progress here will be achieved only when people will find a trick how a brain creates conscious experience. Evgenii Evgenii -- 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.
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
On Apr 4, 2:58 pm, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: > The term late error detection as such could be employed without > consciousness indeed. Yet, Jeffrey Gray gives it some special meaning > that I will try briefly describe below. > > Jeffrey Gray in his book speaks about conscious experience, that is, > exactly about qualia. Self, mind, and intellect as such is not there. > > He has tried first hard to put conscious experience in the framework of > the normal science (I guess that he means here physicalism) but then he > shows that conscious experience cannot be explained by the theories > within a normal science (functionalism, neural correlates of > consciousness, etc.). > > According to him, conscious experience is some multipurpose display. It > is necessary yet to find how Nature produces it but at the moment this > is not that important. > > He considers an organism from a cybernetic viewpoint, as a bunch of > feedback mechanisms (servomechanisms). For a servomechanism it is > necessary to set a goal and then to have a comparator that compares the > goal with the reality. It might function okay at the unconscious level > but conscious experience binds everything together in its display. This > binding happens not only between different senses (multimodal binding) > but also within a single sense (intramodel binding). For example we > consciously experience a red kite as a whole, although in the brain > lines, colors, surfaces are processed independently. Yet we cannot > consciously experience a red kite not as a whole, just try it. > > Hence the conscious display gives a new opportunity to compare > expectations with reality and Jeffrey Grayrefers to it as late error > detection. That is, there is a bunch of servomechanisms that are running > on their own but then conscious experience allows brain to synchronize > everything together. This is a clear advantage from the Evolution viewpoint. > > Evgenii If an evolutionary advantage would be conferred by synchronization and binding of data, why not just synchronize and bind the data quantitatively? Parallel processing, compression, etc. Where would the possibility of experienced qualities come in? 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.
Re: Primitive Awareness and Symmetry: Late error detection
The term late error detection as such could be employed without consciousness indeed. Yet, Jeffrey Gray gives it some special meaning that I will try briefly describe below. Jeffrey Gray in his book speaks about conscious experience, that is, exactly about qualia. Self, mind, and intellect as such is not there. He has tried first hard to put conscious experience in the framework of the normal science (I guess that he means here physicalism) but then he shows that conscious experience cannot be explained by the theories within a normal science (functionalism, neural correlates of consciousness, etc.). According to him, conscious experience is some multipurpose display. It is necessary yet to find how Nature produces it but at the moment this is not that important. He considers an organism from a cybernetic viewpoint, as a bunch of feedback mechanisms (servomechanisms). For a servomechanism it is necessary to set a goal and then to have a comparator that compares the goal with the reality. It might function okay at the unconscious level but conscious experience binds everything together in its display. This binding happens not only between different senses (multimodal binding) but also within a single sense (intramodel binding). For example we consciously experience a red kite as a whole, although in the brain lines, colors, surfaces are processed independently. Yet we cannot consciously experience a red kite not as a whole, just try it. Hence the conscious display gives a new opportunity to compare expectations with reality and Jeffrey Grayrefers to it as late error detection. That is, there is a bunch of servomechanisms that are running on their own but then conscious experience allows brain to synchronize everything together. This is a clear advantage from the Evolution viewpoint. Evgenii On 04.04.2012 09:31 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 03 Apr 2012, at 22:38, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Apr 3, 3:56 pm, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 03.04.2012 02:06 Stathis Papaioannou said the following: ... Since there is no evolutionary advantage to consciousness it must be a side-effect of the sort of behaviour that conscious organisms display. Otherwise, why did we not evolve as zombies? The evolutionary advantage of consciousness, according to Jeffrey Gray, is late-error detection. Why would a device need to be conscious in order to have late-error detection? I agree. People confuse consciousness-the-qualia, and consciousness-the-integrating function. Stathis was talking about the qualia. Evolution can press only on the function, a priori. -- 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.
