User Controls
Posts by Obbe
-
2019-03-15 at 11:04 AM UTC in Unless you're from Ireland, you're not IrishIf Irish can move to Canada and become Canadians, why can't Canadians move to Ireland and become Irish?
-
2019-03-15 at 11:01 AM UTC in The Hard Problem of ConsciousnessMan suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.
-
2019-03-15 at 12:39 AM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
-
2019-03-15 at 12:29 AM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
-
2019-03-14 at 11:19 PM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Originally posted by Methuselah http://www.julianjaynes.org/origin-of-consciousness_english_book-one-chapter-two.php
Still plagiarizing the fuck out of other people I see. Have an original thought for once mate.
The message matters more than the messenger. -
2019-03-13 at 2:16 AM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Originally posted by SHARK Idk what loony toons definition of consciousness you are (or whoever you stole this from is) using but none of those are necessary assumptions for consciousness, and a couple of baseless claims are made. For example if some part of visual consciousness is indeed an integrated information structure, the "why" of it being conscious (even though you don't "need" it to produce report etc) is simply a matter of "how" it comes to be effective in how our body further processes our visual perception. What makes this not so simple is that how that actually works is ludicrously complex.
I definitely don't think IIT is a complete or final theory at all but it addresses an obviously important element of consciousness, which is information integration, something which is very important account for in the process of giving an account of the appearance of a "subjective experience".
Subjective conscious mind is an analog of what is called the real world. It is built up with terms that are all metaphors or analogs of behavior in the physical world. Its reality is of the same order as mathematics. It allows us to shortcut behavioral processes and arrive at more adequate decisions. Like mathematics, it is an operator rather than a thing or repository. And it is intimately bound up with volition and decision.
Consider the language we use to describe conscious processes. The most prominent group of words used to describe mental events are visual. We ‘see’ solutions to problems, the best of which may be ‘brilliant’, and the person ‘brighter’ and ’clearheaded’ as opposed to 'dull', 'fuzzy-minded', or 'obscure' solutions. These words are all metaphors and the mind-space to which they apply is a metaphor of actual space. In it we can 'approach' a problem, perhaps from some 'viewpoint', and 'grapple' with its difficulties, or seize together or 'com-prehend' parts of a problem, and so on, using metaphors of behavior to invent things to do in this metaphored mind-space.
The adjectives to describe physical behavior in real space are analogically taken over to describe mental behavior in mindspace when we speak of our minds as being 'quick,' 'slow', 'agitated' (as when we cogitate or co-agitate), 'nimble-witted', 'strong-' or 'weak-minded.' The mind-space in which these metaphorical activities go on has its own group of adjectives; we can be 'broad-minded', 'deep', 'open', or 'narrow-minded'; we can be 'occupied'; we can 'get something off our minds', 'put something out of mind', or we can 'get it', let something 'penetrate', or 'bear', 'have', 'keep', or 'hold' it in mind.
As with a real space, something can be at the 'back' of our mind, in its 'inner recesses', or 'beyond' our mind, or 'out' of our mind. In argument we try to 'get things through' to someone, to 'reach' their 'understanding' or find a 'common ground', or 'point out', etc., all actions in real space taken over analogically into the space of the mind. -
2019-03-12 at 11:34 PM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Originally posted by gadzooks Where exactly is this experiencing subject located?
Where is consciousness, or the "mind-space"? Most people feel that it is in their head, behind the eyes. But everyone here knows there is no such space in anyone's head at all. We are continually inventing these spaces in our own and other people's heads knowing they don't actually exist, and that the location is arbitrary.
When I am conscious, I am defiantly using parts inside my head. But so am I when riding a bicycle. The bicycle riding does not occur inside my head. Bicycle riding has a definite geographical location. Consciousness does not. Consciousness has no location whatsoever beyond where we imagine it has. -
2019-03-12 at 11:08 PM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Originally posted by SHARK Why would consciousness have anything to do with developing a language? Do you think a human brain that never learns a language is unconscious?
Originally posted by gadzooks That is a really good point.
But, one could argue that even some feral child raised by wolves who never learns to speak could have a symbolic understanding of their environment, and symbols are a type of language.
In being conscious of consciousness we feel we feel it is the defining attribute of all our waking states, our moods and affections, memories, thought and attention. We feel that consciousness is the basis of concepts, learning, reasoning. We feel that consciousness must be located within our heads. All of these statements are actually false.
Consciousness is a much smaller part of our mental life than we are conscious of, as we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of - sort of like asking a flashlight in a dark room to find something that doesn't have any light shining upon it. Everywhere it looks there appears to be light, when in reality most of the room is in darkness.
We feel that consciousness is continuous. But if you think of a minute as being 60000 milliseconds, are you conscious for every one of those milliseconds? We are conscious less often then we believe we are, because we cannot be conscious of when we are not conscious.
Consciousness is often unnecessary. Consciousness is not necessary for concepts.
Consciousness is not necessary for learning. Consciousness is not necessary for thinking, nor for reasoning. Consciousness is not a copy of experience. Consciousness has no location. I may elaborate on these statements more later on, but if you are actually interested in learning more about this theory of consciousness, read The Origin of Consciousness by Julian Jaynes. -
2019-03-12 at 1:47 AM UTC in The Retarded Thread: Malice Metro Edition
-
2019-03-12 at 1:40 AM UTC in sophisticated concepts made easier to understand through the use of memes
-
2019-03-11 at 11:49 PM UTC in Theists of NIS, why do you believe?Im a pantheist. I dont worship anything. I just appreciate things for what they are. So it goes.
-
2019-03-11 at 11:25 PM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Originally posted by gadzooks Okay, maybe currently existing biological species are incomparable to humans in that regard.
But, returning to the computer AI comparison…
How do we know that the cutting edge AI we end up seeing 10+ years from now won't start posing questions like "what am I?" or "why do I simply do what humans tell me to do?", etc…?
Once they start doing that, are they conscious like we are?
I would imagine so. Given the potential for super-human processing power, I imagine that once AI begins to create it's own language and own "social world", more complex than any human culture is capable of, these AI's would have much more consciousness then we can possibly imagine. -
2019-03-11 at 11:14 PM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Originally posted by gadzooks I'm liking your line of thought here… The whole notion of the subconscious being an indication that we are actually experiencing partial consciousness is something I had never even considered before.
But, why couldn't our brains perform all these same operations that they perform every single day without ANY consciousness?
What is it about this metaphor/language theory that necessitates subjective experience?
Once computers are able to perform these same operations (and they will, most likely even within our lifetime), will they then be just as conscious as human beings are?
The thing I have been referring to as "consciousness" or "inner mind-space" is an illusion generated by a complex language combined with a complex social world. Humans couldn't perform the way we do without consciousness because consciousness is an operation of complex language and we have evolved to communicate with each other using complex languages in complex cultures. To remove consciousness from the picture would be to remove language and culture from the picture and without language and culture nothing about our world would be the same.
Consciousness is not simple awareness, at least as it is defined in the theory. You can teach an ape sign language and ask an ape questions, and the ape is aware you are asking and will answer you. However, apes don't ask questions back. They will ask for things like food, but an ape will never ask "why do we eat food?". Nothing about their brains suggests they would be incapable of asking these types of questions. They just don't.
When you look at Human evolution, you see a similar phenomenon in ancient art. Not only are there no questions as to how things happened, the elder is quick to curtail the possibility of asking such questions by giving a myth or narrative. The world is x way because it is.
The ability to ask these questions isn't genetic. It's cultural. We've had the ability to ask these questions for 200,000 years, yet we only really started asking them recently. Over the last 3 to 4 thousand years. -
2019-03-11 at 10:48 PM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Originally posted by gadzooks I see what you're saying, but what kinda throws a wrench into that explanation is the issue of explaining a mechanism for that transition.
How did we gradually develop inner subjective experience?
What does it mean to be partially conscious?
I imagine the development was somewhat similar to the gradual development of a metaphorical language to create the illusion of "inner subjective experience".
We are partially conscious right now. You are aware of the subconscious? There are various things you are not conscious of. As you read this, there are various things you could potentially be conscious of, but you're not because this is distracting you. -
2019-03-11 at 10:40 PM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Originally posted by gadzooks But the problem (or at least, one part of the problem) is the whole issue of when in our evolutionary history did we evolve this inner mind-space?
When "cavemen" were grunting at each other while pointing to indicate "over there", were they experiencing inner mind-space?
As recently as 3-4000 years ago based on the theory, using written texts from before, during and after this period of time as evidence for the change. As a cultural phenomenon (not biological), the exact time depends on the complexity of the culture and language in specific, but if we focus on just western civilization about 3-4000 years ago is the theory. -
2019-03-11 at 10:05 PM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Originally posted by gadzooks It's the qualitative/subjective experience (qualia) of a physical phenomenon.
Do mice experience sweetness?
What about ants?
I think that is something separate from consciousness as it is defined in Julian Jaynes theory. I imagine ants and mice probably have some level of awareness of their world, but I doubt it is anything like consciousness as we experience it. As far as I am aware mice and ants lack the vocabulary required to create an inner mind-space. -
2019-03-11 at 9:51 PM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
-
2019-03-11 at 9:26 PM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Originally posted by gadzooks Obbe, I absolutely loved your post on metaphor and language as a way of explaining the origins of inner experience. Like, I'm reading some stuff on that very subject right now, and academically speaking, it's RIGHT up my alley.
But, in terms of the actual "Hard Problem" of consciousness, it doesn't quite reach that level of explanation.
And that's precisely why it's called the "hard problem."
Your post kinda comes close to the topic, but it still doesn't explain PRECISELY when, and how, during the course of the evolution of these metaphorical and linguistic experiential phenomena, we went from physical automata to experiencing "I"'s.
But I do I want to reiterate that your post touched on some really good points that at least fall under the rubric of explaining consciousness, which is an endeavor that perplexes even the most prominent philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, and other scholars.
The actual "Hard Problem", though, could quite possibly be relabeled the "Impossible Problem."
There's still the issue of explaining why we have inner experience when the world could just as easily exist exactly as is without any such experience.
I agree that this is possibly an impossible problem, but let me clarify something here: the idea is that the "inner space" you speak of is actually an illusion generated by metaphorical language. There isn't really an "inner space" or an "inner experience". Consciousness is a creation of complex language combined with a complex society. In this theory, consciousness is an operation of language, not a secret world that somehow exists outside of objective reality. The idea that subjective experience somehow exists without beyond objective reality with no basis in metaphorical language seems impossible to prove so why should anyone even entertain that idea? -
2019-03-11 at 6:07 PM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness@gadzooks, what do you think about the theory that consciousness is a "mind-space" created through metaphorical language?
-
2019-03-11 at 10:20 AM UTC in The Hard Problem of Consciousness
