Seeing red

[emjay]

Yeah. Basically getting caught up in the generality of that idea one thing I forgot is that ultimately neurons are only useful in as much as they can complete a circuit... they're like billions of little switches. So if you have say one input layer, two hidden layers, and an output layer then even if you have a very rich self-sustaining neural representation that makes it to say layer three, if it doesn't make it to the output layer... if nothing gets triggered there then I'd guess it doesn't contribute to the whole system? It's like a dead end? Or did you mean something else?

I'd say the more basic question is why are these output stages experienced as consciousness. I think it takes more than just neural nets to give rise to consciousness. Neural nets of a specific configuration, perhaps, but something more.

I have to go to bed now so I'll reply to this properly tomorrow. But before I forget I think one thing that is interesting is that if you get lost in thought you lose awareness of your senses. I think... it's very hard to actually catch yourself in the act of daydreaming, but I think you lose awareness of your senses whilst the mental imagery of imagination gets more vivid. Again, it's hard to catch yourself in the act but a small few times I've managed to be aware at the moment of exiting a daydream of vivid colours whereas usually imagination when superimposed over your 'viewscreen' is more like a vague sense than a vision. So that leads me to believe or at least strongly suspect that what is conscious at any given time is what is most strongly and richly activated in the network. But there's still the question of how any area of this network is accessed for this - how focus 'observes' it. But anyway I really really need to go to bed so I'll talk more tomorrow. Night night

[Angrboda]

I'd say the more basic question is why are these output stages experienced as consciousness.  I think it takes more than just neural nets to give rise to consciousness.  Neural nets of a specific configuration, perhaps, but something more.

I have to go to bed now so I'll reply to this properly tomorrow. But before I forget I think one thing that is interesting is that if you get lost in thought you lose awareness of your senses. I think... it's very hard to actually catch yourself in the act of daydreaming, but I think you lose awareness of your senses whilst the mental imagery of imagination gets more vivid. Again, it's hard to catch yourself in the act but a small few times I've managed to be aware at the moment of exiting a daydream of vivid colours whereas usually imagination when superimposed over your 'viewscreen' is more like a vague sense than a vision. So that leads me to believe or at least strongly suspect that what is conscious at any given time is what is most strongly and richly activated in the network. But there's still the question of how any area of this network is accessed for this - how focus 'observes' it. But anyway I really really need to go to bed so I'll talk more tomorrow. Night night

Yeah, I've noticed something similar in that the mind wanders, no matter how we try to focus on one thing, soon we're focusing on something else; thoughts 'vie' for attention, displacing other thoughts. It is a central challenge to account for this 'locality' of the specific brain stimulus being attended to, for surely they're different centers being activated, while at the same time accounting for the seeming global nature of consciousness. If consciousness is just another center, then why does it not go in and out of existence depending on which centers are being attended to? How is a center able to access these widely divergent brain areas?

[bennyboy]

You're asking why you can't see, with your brain, colors that your eyes can't see........because in this case..they don't exist.  It's the same answer for those colors that -do- exist which you can't see anyway.  The answer is, to me..obvious.  Your color qualia is based upon your sensory systems ability to perceive wavelengths of lights...it uses your eyes to do this, and so it's range for color is naturally defined by the range of operation of the eye - this is the list of variables which are valid operants for further work.

When I dream, I can definitely see the color red, despite the fact that I'm not using my eyes. And when I hallucinate sounds, I sometimes hear sounds that I know I've never heard before-- they are completely simulated or created. It could be that the sounds are based on patterns that I HAVE heard before, but it certainly doesn't seem that way.

I say that you haven't shifted gears at all.  I think, and we've already discussed this, that to determine what is and what isn't an idea, first, you're going to need a definition that can distinguish between an idea and a rock and dna.   If you aren't working with that, at the least, you don't have a chance to find what you're looking for.

I have my definitions, but they've fallen by the wayside, despite being pretty textbook definitions of the word. So I want to know what YOU think an idea is, specifically. What specific physical structure or function are we talking about, and how do we know when we've encountered one?

I think that ideas are logical statements (more properly -many- logical statements) generally associated with biological computational systems, in my opinion, reducible to states.  I can tell you how this is achieved in principle, I can show you how it's achieved in practice, but I cannot demonstrate to you that this is how we do it, and no one has that explanation.  We're still debating the ethics of the sorts of experiments that might really give us insight into the workings of our minds.

Okay, in your theory, what kind of states are we talking about, and how would you recognize one in practice without already knowing it to be an idea (i.e. by telling someone to think about a red apple)?

[bennyboy]

Yeah, I've noticed something similar in that the mind wanders, no matter how we try to focus on one thing, soon we're focusing on something else; thoughts 'vie' for attention, displacing other thoughts.   It is a central challenge to account for this 'locality' of the specific brain stimulus being attended to, for surely they're different centers being activated, while at the same time accounting for the seeming global nature of consciousness.  If consciousness is just another center, then why does it not go in and out of existence depending on which centers are being attended to?  How is a center able to access these widely divergent brain areas?

Yeah, that's the "canvas" or "stage" I was talking about earlier.

[emjay]

I have to go to bed now so I'll reply to this properly tomorrow. But before I forget I think one thing that is interesting is that if you get lost in thought you lose awareness of your senses. I think... it's very hard to actually catch yourself in the act of daydreaming, but I think you lose awareness of your senses whilst the mental imagery of imagination gets more vivid. Again, it's hard to catch yourself in the act but a small few times I've managed to be aware at the moment of exiting a daydream of vivid colours whereas usually imagination when superimposed over your 'viewscreen' is more like a vague sense than a vision. So that leads me to believe or at least strongly suspect that what is conscious at any given time is what is most strongly and richly activated in the network. But there's still the question of how any area of this network is accessed for this - how focus 'observes' it. But anyway I really really need to go to bed so I'll talk more tomorrow. Night night

Yeah, I've noticed something similar in that the mind wanders, no matter how we try to focus on one thing, soon we're focusing on something else; thoughts 'vie' for attention, displacing other thoughts.   It is a central challenge to account for this 'locality' of the specific brain stimulus being attended to, for surely they're different centers being activated, while at the same time accounting for the seeming global nature of consciousness.  If consciousness is just another center, then why does it not go in and out of existence depending on which centers are being attended to?  How is a center able to access these widely divergent brain areas?

This is how I see it; just as neural visual processing happens in layers, I think visual perception also happens in layers. A way to visualise it would be as transparencies laid on top of each other. The bottom one, the input layer - call it L1 (and note these L's here are just to demonstrate a point and bear no relation to the actual structure of the visual cortex) - would just be a photograph of a visual scene. Then above that would be L2, a layer mapping and representing colour information. L1 would be said to 'project' to L2. But as a transparency, this layer placed on top of L1 would look exactly the same... they would be seamlessly integrated perceptually because L2 would be extracting one property from the raw data in L1. Then say you've got L3 mapping lines. L1 would project to L3 but L2 wouldn't so diagrammed hierarchically L2 and L3 would be on level 2 and L1 would on level 1. Again, L3 as a transparency placed on top of the other two would be seamlessly integrated. Then on top of this you have the output layer - L4. All of these layers would be interconnected bidirectionally so that allows for both bottom-up and top-down activation and pattern completion.

So if you look at dreaming, the input layer, L1, is essentially turned off because your eyes are closed and you are not receiving visual input. Yet you can still dream vivid visual dreams. That makes sense if layers L2 and L3 are activated from the top-down by L4. The perception, having the bottom transparency removed, still captures the general structure of the photograph but loses the fine-grained detail of the raw data. For the sake of this, L4 can be considered the focus layer in that it is a map of the visual field just like L1 except that in receiving projections from L2 and L3 it is used to associate those object features. So by activating a neuron in L4 it would bidirectionally - and bidirectional connectivity is a prevalent feature of the visual cortex and most of the cerebral cortex - activate the associated neurons in L2 and L3 or bias them for easier activation from L1... that is to say, if the threshold value for firing a neuron is say 50 then bidirectional input reduces that effective threshold, so that say a value of 40 from L1 would be push it over threshold. That is neural bias. Anyway, the focus layer would receive input from whatever drives focus in the system... so that would be the feedback loop you talk about between environment and motor output.

Now if you take the question of imagination (and memory), I think this theory offers a good explanation. I think imagination is when there is a mismatch between the layers L1 to L4. That is to say if L2 and L3 are activated to simply extract the features of L1 then perceptually they seamlessly integrate because of the transparency effect I've described. But if a different set of neurons was activated in L2 and L3 - which could well happen not just because of top-down bidirectional input from the focus layer but also from any other areas of the brain that project to any of these layers - say a green pixel where the underlying data represents a red pixel then there would be a vague show-through effect and the greater the 'erroneous' activation of the L2 and L3 neurons, the more their transparencies would interfere with the perception of L1. So imagination starts off vague... just a kind of ghostly outline/sense superimposed on the visual field... but as it grows stronger it becomes more and more vivid. And this also I think could explain what I mentioned earlier in that you lose visual awareness when you get lost in thought; there would come a point when the interference from the erroneous L2 and L3 activations would essentially block L1 from having any say in the activations in L2 and L3, and thus visual perception would now fully reflect the context activated from the top-down... for the duration of this, until you snapped out of it, L1 would essentially be 'talking to the hand'.

And I think this transparency/interference principle would apply equally well to the other sensory modalities and their equivalent transparencies. And the integration of it all into a unified whole would still reflect the same principles, just at a much more complex level of interconnectivity. And whatever's 'in focus' in consciousness at a given time would reflect where the activation is concentrated in these layers, in the constant interplay of top-down, bottom-up, and lateral connectivity and influence. In other words focus to me is a passive thing... it follows where and how the network settles and reflects it.

[The Grand Nudger]

You're asking why you can't see, with your brain, colors that your eyes can't see........because in this case..they don't exist.  It's the same answer for those colors that -do- exist which you can't see anyway.  The answer is, to me..obvious.  Your color qualia is based upon your sensory systems ability to perceive wavelengths of lights...it uses your eyes to do this, and so it's range for color is naturally defined by the range of operation of the eye - this is the list of variables which are valid operants for further work.

When I dream, I can definitely see the color red, despite the fact that I'm not using my eyes.  And when I hallucinate sounds, I sometimes hear sounds that I know I've never heard before-- they are completely simulated or created.  It could be that the sounds are based on patterns that I HAVE heard before, but it certainly doesn't seem that way.

You aren't actually seeing anything when you dream, you're equivocating, but that's okay because I know what you mean.  You sometimes hear sounds that you've never heard before, you think?  Do you think you hear sounds above or below the human range of hearing when you hear these dream sounds?

I have my definitions, but they've fallen by the wayside, despite being pretty textbook definitions of the word.  So I want to know what YOU think an idea is, specifically.  What specific physical structure or function are we talking about, and how do we know when we've encountered one?

I've told you what I think they are, as specifically as the context calls for (we could talk about chemistry and anatomy of neurons, if you like? How a neuron could "do logic".).  I couldn't locate one for you anymore than I could locate a specific IO on an un-familiar board by looking at it.  In principle I should be able to find any given IO if I have a map of the board, but when it comes to human beings we're pretty sure that the "board", if you will, is not a standard model manufactured to identical specs in every human being.   We see common regions doing what appears to be common tasks, that;s about as far as we've gotten, thusfar.

Okay, in your theory, what kind of states are we talking about, and how would you recognize one in practice without already knowing it to be an idea (i.e. by telling someone to think about a red apple)?

States, as in machine states (in this case mental states) the states of computational systems.  Red would be a state, when  x y and z transmit abc pattern (nuerons either individually or collectively).   It could be that many states are abstractions for red. There is no way to know what state means what without translation, and they mean nothing in isolation.  The best we have at present is to subject people to sensory input and see what "lights up".  Asking them to "think red apple" is also useful, particularly in that regard, you seem to think it would be a problem...but why?  So whatever we see the brain doing at the "moment of red" is the state of red, if you're attempting to explain mind by reference to comp. States are just the arrangements of matter that grant a system function in the specific and the general. A manner of achieving effect.


We could learn alot more if we could dice their brains into tiny pieces while -maintaining their function- and then begin damaging them neuron by neuron to see what "blinks off" in their experience as we do so........but I don't think people are going to get too far into one of these types of experiments (though they -have- been performed with inhibitors simulating the effect, most notably alcohol.....lol). That sort of thing would give us a more exacting description of the state of red (because it offers a way to eliminate other variables or functions that may be occurring simultaneously without our knowledge, "static light" on the monitor) - or it could disabuse us entirely of the idea.

@emjay, specific regions of the cortex appear to be handling specific attributes of the visual field, independently and concurrently (color and shape, depth and velocity, etc). These regions -never- see the same thing because they can't, they're physically incapable (unless they've got wifi in there)...hooked up to the wrong parts of the eye. What you "see" appears to be a summary of their collective work. We don't notice this until one of them presents us with what would be described as anomalous data by reference to the other streams. An odd combination of color and shape, depth, velocity. The minority report from just one center working independently of the others, lol. A "wtf was that!?!" moment. The eye and visual cortex are probably the best places to look, for now, for the hows and why's of experience. We spend alot of money and time on our ability to see.

[emjay]

@emjay,  specific regions of the cortex appear to be handling specific attributes of the visual field, independently and concurrently (color and shape, depth and velocity, etc).  These regions -never- see the same thing because they can't, they're physically incapable (unless they've got wifi in there)...hooked up to the wrong parts of the eye.   What you "see" appears to be a summary of their collective work.  We don't notice this until one of them presents us with what would be described as anomalous data by reference to the other streams.  An odd combination of color and shape, depth, velocity.  The minority report from just one center working independently of the others, lol.  A "wtf was that!?!" moment.  The eye and visual cortex are probably the best places to look, for now, for the hows and why's of experience.  We spend alot of money and time on our ability to see.

Yes I know... the brain is the ultimate in parallel processing. But the beauty of the brain is it's ability to integrate, through association, information from any source. So even if there are entire brain regions dedicated to a specific task, involving hundreds of layers and transformations, their output still collapses down to neurons firing, and those neurons can be associated with the output neurons from another system. And in principle any of the intermediate layers of processing in any of those systems can project anywhere else in the same way so it's not necessarily limited to what you'd call the 'output layer'. So my levels L1 to L4 were a massive simplification... you could replace any of those levels with a whole subsystem and the net effect would be the same. Similarly the L1 of my example could be the output of some prior processing rather than the raw input data. I think the key is in the circuit that is formed by the projections in the brain so even if you have different input sources in different input layers - say rods and cones separately - they can still be treated as a single input layer depending on where they project to... in other words they don't need WiFi from that perspective The hierarchy of layers and projections in the brain is not a simple 1,2,3 affair but instead a complex arrangement where any layer can project to one or more other layers including itself, so if that was arranged as a hierarchical diagram of layers and their projections it would be extraordinarily complex. For me, the holy grail of neuroscience would be a complete map of the layers and projections in the brain. It won't happen in my lifetime I'm sure but it's already been done it quite some detail for the visual cortex so I do think it will happen one day. So anyway, I'm not ready to give up on this theory just yet, cos it still makes sense to me But yeah, I agree that the visual cortex is probably the best place to look for the hows and why's of experience

[bennyboy]

You aren't actually seeing anything when you dream, you're equivocating, but that's okay because I know what you mean.  You sometimes hear sounds that you've never heard before, you think?  Do you think you hear sounds above or below the human range of hearing when you hear these dream sounds?

First of all, with regard to seeing-- the hell I don't. In some dreams, I'm body-aware: I have the sensations of sounds, touch and sight and they are coordinated just as they are in waking life. I look through my dream-eyes, not knowing that I'm dreaming, and I see stuff, no less than I do in waking life.

As for sound-- that's an excellent question, since it's an exact parallel to my question, and I don't know the answer. I suspect if I was thinking about this question WHEN I was very tired or on LSD or something, I probably would think I had that experience-- but the same might go for the sense of alternate light frequencies as well.

I've told you what I think they are, as specifically as the context calls for (we could talk about chemistry and anatomy of neurons, if you like?  How a neuron could "do logic".).  I couldn't locate one for you anymore than I could locate a specific IO on an un-familiar board by looking at it.  In principle I should be able to find any given IO if I have a map of the board, but when it comes to human beings we're pretty sure that the "board", if you will, is not a standard model manufactured to identical specs in every human being.   We see common regions doing what appears to be common tasks, that;s about as far as we've gotten, thusfar.

This is less a workable theory, then, than an expression of your already-held belief system. Basically, you are as guilty of borrowed concepts as you say I am: you're borrowing words from our traditional dualistic view of mind, and then trying to apply things like "consciousness" or "ideas" to a physical system. You say an idea is a physical thing-- fine, show me one. Show that they exist in the sense that you say they exist. Give me some evidence.

Keep in mind, now, that I'm trying to play ball. I sincerely want to know what an idea is in your physical world view, and you keep using words about mind, neglecting the physical mechanism you say are involved, but insisting rather that mind is matter just 'cuz that's what you already believe.

Asking them to "think red apple" is also useful, particularly in that regard, you seem to think it would be a problem...but why?

The problem is that you are relying on the subjective report of a person in order to establish an "objective" understanding of mind. That being said, I think maybe we will one day have enough data logged about "redness" and other forms that a computer WILL be able to tell what a person is thinking about. I guess we'll see?

We could learn alot more if we could dice their brains into tiny pieces while -maintaining their function- and then begin damaging them neuron by neuron to see what "blinks off" in their experience as we do so

I'm not certain that we would learn that much from an individual human. In an artificial neural network, or in a computer (as you've already talked about in a sense), you might have Windows running on two computers, but the state structure of chips could be so radically different that you could never really compare the two.

[bennyboy]

Yes I know... the brain is the ultimate in parallel processing. But the beauty of the brain is it's ability to integrate, through association, information from any source. So even if there are entire brain regions dedicated to a specific task, involving hundreds of layers and transformations, their output still collapses down to neurons firing, and those neurons can be associated with the output neurons from another system.

When you say associated, what is the nature of that association? How is it that these different systems are brought into relation in the experience of a single mind?

People are associated, too. We are communicating symbols through words all the time. Does this coordination mean that there is a supermind of which we are all part?

[The Grand Nudger]

First of all, with regard to seeing-- the hell I don't.  In some dreams, I'm body-aware: I have the sensations of sounds, touch and sight and they are coordinated just as they are in waking life.  I look through my dream-eyes, not knowing that I'm dreaming, and I see stuff, no less than I do in waking life.

First of all nothing, again.... you are equivocating, and again, it doesn't matter because I understand what you mean.  You don't have any "dream eyes".  That's an imaginary organ.  That should probably have tipped -you- off to the fact that you're equivocating before I ever had cause to mention it.  Next thing you know you'll be telling me how your heart feels and what justice tastes like.................you have "visual qualia" with your eyes closed.  To call this seeing is to shit on sight.

I've asked whether you think you have visual qualia regarding colors that your eyes -can't- see, not whether or not you can have that experience with your eyes closed.  I doubt that you do, just as I doubt that you imagine sounds that the human ear can't hear.....and for the same reason in both cases. It's not beyond the realm of possibility, but I doubt it -greatly-.

This is less a workable theory, then, than an expression of your already-held belief system.  Basically, you are as guilty of borrowed concepts as you say I am: you're borrowing words from our traditional dualistic view of mind, and then trying to apply things like "consciousness" or "ideas" to a physical system.  You say an idea is a physical thing-- fine, show me one.  Show that they exist in the sense that you say they exist.  Give me some evidence.

Not what a stolen or borrowed concept means, and this is why you could never grasp the trouble you created for yourself in your arguments for idealism..you -still- don't know wtf a stolen concept is, and I'm tired of explaining it to you.

 -You- are the one pestering me about ideas.  I think about neurons, about states, as I've made expressly clear.   Do you doubt the existence of neurons or states?  Do you need evidence that neurons exist or that states exist, or do you doubt that a neuron can present a state?  You asked me how I would explain an idea (or mind) from a comp mind perspective.  Did you expect me to explain comp mind by reference to pixies? Of course it's an expression of my opinion on the mind, that's what you asked for.

Keep in mind, now, that I'm trying to play ball.  I sincerely want to know what an idea is in your physical world view, and you keep using words about mind, neglecting the physical mechanism you say are involved, but insisting rather that mind is matter just 'cuz that's what you already believe.

No you aren't, and I'd be disappointed if you were.  If I wanted to say that mind was "just cuz" I probably could have done so in fewer words.  "Just cuz" comes to mind...but instead we've got this thread.

The problem is that you are relying on the subjective report of a person in order to establish an "objective" understanding of mind.  That being said, I think maybe we will one day have enough data logged about "redness" and other forms that a computer WILL be able to tell what a person is thinking about.  I guess we'll see?

I'm fine with peoples subjective experiences.  That's what mind is, isn't it, regardless  of what it's made of?  Whats the problem?  We're either exposing someone to the color red, or asking them to think about red, and seeing what their brain does.  This is an awfully standard experiment.  The collected subjective experiences of enough subjects may give us insight into an objective description of mind...it's been working thusfar............ particularly with regards to seeing red. 

You take issue?  

I'm not certain that we would learn that much from an individual human.  In an artificial neural network, or in a computer (as you've already talked about in a sense), you might have Windows running on two computers, but the state structure of chips could be so radically different that you could never really compare the two.

We could learn that brain wasn't even -involved- in mind if we removed one from a human being and they still seemed to possess mind.  For most applications, though, you'd want a large group of people subjected to the same group of sensory or lines of questioning - like we currently do, sure.

The "state structure" of the chip is irrelevant as to whether or not they can run windows (and if they don't share the same fundamental architecture they -can't- both run windows).  A state is just however the lever lies, as it were.  Whats on, and whats off.  That's all a state is.  You seem to have something more in mind.

A gate is on, 1, true..that's a state.  A gate is off, false, 0, that's a state.  It doesn't matter what the gate does or what it refers to.  If it's on it's in a state, if it's off it's in a state.  This is -all- that a state is, in context. As soon as I can find an image that will post for an and gate I can give you a diagram as to what an idea is to comp mind, if that will help us get on the same page