Seeing red

[bennyboy]

Would you prefer to have this discussion before or -after- a few shots of whiskey?  Perhaps we could consume some hallucinogenic substances or beat our heads against a wall...and then, have this discussion.   It hardly matters whether you think brain accounts for mind, ultimately, since any context or space which does not include the situations described above is obviously -not- the context or space in which experience is had.   I think that we've done a little more than wave at the brain,  you're going to refer to at least -some- of that waving......invariably.  

I apologize. I'm a little frustrated, because I'm ready to drop the idealism for now, and to look at a physicalist explanation of mind. However, I've seen a lot of discussions that identify functions and none that identify mechanisms. Words like "information"-- how does the universe "know" when information is happening, such that a mind might be made to occur?

See, if I believe 100% that all of the human mind is in the human brain, what do I learn, really? I still do not know what about the brain it is that is experienced as conscious mind, or how multiple experiences are coordinated in a sense of self.

I've got to ask, why would it? You'd have to be -incredibly- specific.  

What do you mean by substantive coordination and visual signals (I don't think that anyone expects a sort of handoff of images), and what are we taking this to imply?  Comp mind would tell you that the visual cortex translates sensory inputs into actionable sets of variables.  Similar to how a digital camera turns the patterns of light hitting its aperture into a file.  There's an interesting division of labor apparent in that system, btw.  Such that damage to a portion causes a predictable range of decrease in function within that division while the others remain intact.  Color vision, as the easiest example...can be lost all on it's own.

In response to my idea of a kind of "screen" or virtual stage in which multiple percepts could be coordinated, you said the brain is that space. The brain is where it all comes together in a single sense of subjective self. You could pull systems offline one by one: vision, smell, sound, etc. or in parts: face recognition, parallel lines recognition, syntactic recognition, etc. but I think at the core there's the essential being-ness. But so far, I haven't heard enough specific details about how this is supposed to work in the brain.

[bennyboy]

For a start Benny, I would recommend this book very highly:

Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience: Understanding the Mind by Simulating the Brain by Randall O'reilly

It's a lot of money, but I think not only would it be interesting, but I could apply it in some game or network designing.  These things come in handy as a source of ideas surprisingly often.

[emjay]

For a start Benny, I would recommend this book very highly:

Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience: Understanding the Mind by Simulating the Brain by Randall O'reilly

It's a lot of money, but I think not only would it be interesting, but I could apply it in some game or network designing.  These things come in handy as a source of ideas surprisingly often.

Yay Money well spent, and you know I'd reimburse you if I could... considering how evangelical I am about this book (I'd probably buy a copy for Chad an' all ).

But one thing though is that it's quite an old book - 2000 - and although it's still 'supported' in that it has a website, it now offers different software than what's used in the book... the old software was called PDP++ and the new is called Emergent. So unfortunately all the exercises in the book, which include very specific technical instructions on using what was very complicated software, will now be moot unless you can get hold of the old software. However, the new software is far more user friendly and powerful, so perhaps you'll be able to translate the exercises to it. But nonetheless, exercises or not, it's an incredible book. This is the book's website http://psych.colorado.edu/~oreilly/comp_...neuro.html and on it you'll find links to resources and where to download the Emergent software from. So if you wanted, you could download it now and have a play around with it/see what you're up against before you get the book or even if you don't get the book

[The Grand Nudger]

I apologize.  I'm a little frustrated, because I'm ready to drop the idealism for now, and to look at a physicalist explanation of mind.  However, I've seen a lot of discussions that identify functions and none that identify mechanisms.  Words like "information"-- how does the universe "know" when information is happening, such that a mind might be made to occur?

See, if I believe 100% that all of the human mind is in the human brain, what do I learn, really?  I still do not know what about the brain it is that is experienced as conscious mind, or how multiple experiences are coordinated in a sense of self.

I don't think that the universe -does- know when information is happening.  I'm not really sure what that has to do with a mind occurring.  In any case, in a mechanistic explanation, the operations performed by the various portions of the brain -are- the things we are experiencing. You are experiencing, for example, the effect of alcohol on your brain...specifically the effect of ethanol molecules on receptors, when you are drunk.

 In response to my idea of a kind of "screen" or virtual stage in which multiple percepts could be coordinated, you said the brain is that space.  The brain is where it all comes together in a single sense of subjective self.  You could pull systems offline one by one: vision, smell, sound, etc. or in parts: face recognition, parallel lines recognition, syntactic recognition, etc. but I think at the core there's the essential being-ness.  But so far, I haven't heard enough specific details about how this is supposed to work in the brain.

The "essential being-ness"......?  Maybe essential being-ness doesn't work? Perhaps it's just not there. No explanation at any level of interaction will -ever- overcome the objection that something underlies it. Pulling parts away from the brain is pulling away the space in which that experience arises. There's no "empty room" where sound used to be, there's simply no "where sound used to be".

[Neo-Scholastic]

It's simply an arbitrary choice. And lacking any real evidence of the supposed mover informing it, seems prima facie irrational.

No one can justify saying that their prior commitment to an arbitrary decision is more rational than the other, seemingly or otherwise.
I have committed to the position that reality is intelligible and knowledge is possible for objective reasons beyond us. You say that we merely perceive the world subjectively as intelligible in response to evolutionary pressures.

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Or maybe that's just how [to recognize objects] our minds divide things up for reasons which have to do with the evolution of our brains. Take it for granted? Sure, because that's what our brains do. I can no more step outside of that than I can fly.

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This position straddles the line between the brutal and the absurd. EITHER evolutionary pressures are objectively intelligible, in which case the efficacy of reason doesn’t depend on how brains work, OR people cannot trust the artifice of reason, in which case no one can attribute its existence to objective evolutionary pressures.
What one can say; however, is that when someone commits to an absurd reality he or she foregoes the ability engage productively with others over fundamental issues. Many people have an intuitive sense that philosophies based on doubting intelligibility undermine the shared understandings on which most societies build its consensus about values, responsibilities, identity and meaning.
# # #

The dualist position takes a lot more for granted than I do about the responsibility of the 'homunculus'…So either we're a completely separate, disembodied mind that happens by extraordinary coincidence to process data in the same manner a neural network demonstrably can and does as a matter of course - i.e. stereotyping etc - and that again by extraordinary coincidence changes to the underlying neural network that it has laid claim to …OR we are that network. …[This] is what I see as an extreme dualist position - one where the mind is absolutely separate from brain. But I don't know where you stand on the question...

My position makes no provision for any type of homunculus, ectoplasm, or “ghost in the machine”. Neither does it rely on preexisting harmony, like Leibnitz suspected. I thought I presented it clearly enough in ( http://atheistforums.org/thread-40435-po...pid1182671 ) but you may have missed it. Simply stated, I advocate Thomistic moderate realize. I see human beings are a hylomorphic substance, they have an immaterial essence, or quiddity supported on a material medium. To turn a quote by McLuhan, the medium is not the message. Mind and brain cannot be separated in a living human being. They are distinguishable without being alienable. When material substances (like flesh and bones) participate in a certain forms (like animals), the forms put downward pressure on the material substances and either constrain or expand matter’s operations. My position is that properties do not ‘emerge’ (appear from nowhere by magic) so much as ‘manifest’ (actualize what already exists in potency).
Scholasticism lacks the mind/body problem. Mental properties fall into the category of formal and final causes. Brain states fall into the categories of material and efficient causes. The idealism/materialism dilemma arises when people object to the causal power of one or more of the four Aristotelian causes.

[Angrboda]

Or maybe that's just how [to recognize objects] our minds divide things up for reasons which have to do with the evolution of our brains.  Take it for granted?  Sure, because that's what our brains do.  I can no more step outside of that than I can fly.

This position straddles the line between the brutal and the absurd. EITHER evolutionary pressures are objectively intelligible, in which case the efficacy of reason doesn’t depend on how brains work, OR people cannot trust the artifice of reason, in which case no one can attribute its existence to objective evolutionary pressures.

I don't know what you mean by this. But what I can say is that our breaking things up into objects may have served an economy of perception and action similar to the robot car's perceptions and actions formed a feedback loop which furthered the project of remaining on the road. So the evolutionary pressures that resulted in us breaking things up into objects may be intelligible. However, it's also possible that breaking things up into objects was a consequence of a limitation of the architecture of the brain at the time. At this point, we simply don't know how it evolved.

What one can say; however, is that when someone commits to an absurd reality he or she foregoes the ability engage productively with others over fundamental issues. Many people have an intuitive sense that philosophies based on doubting intelligibility undermine the shared understandings on which most societies build its consensus about values, responsibilities, identity and meaning.

Then let it be undermined. I have a feeling a full understanding of things like meaning and intentionality will do a lot more to undermine consensus meanings than any quibble about the intelligibility of reason. This is little more than an argument from tradition. Semantic incommensurability is the first step on the road to progress. For my part, I take a middle path in concluding that reason is probabilistically reliable, but not rationally intelligible; our reason doesn't follow strictly logical lines of behavior.

[bennyboy]

I don't think that the universe -does- know when information is happening.  I'm not really sure what that has to do with a mind occurring.  In any case, in a mechanistic explanation, the operations performed by the various portions of the brain -are- the things we are experiencing.  You are experiencing, for example, the effect of alcohol on your brain...specifically the effect of ethanol molecules on receptors, when you are drunk.  

I am a singular agent. Neurons and brani parts are plural. Unless there is some part of the brain which has the capacity to accept as input different kinds of processed information, then how do you believe this information gets coordinated? Do you deny that a singular agent is experiencing sight and sound at the same time? If there isn't one, then who's experiencing the illusion that there is one?

The "essential being-ness"......?  Maybe essential being-ness doesn't work?  Perhaps it's just not there.  No explanation at any level of interaction will -ever- overcome the objection that something underlies it.  Pulling parts away from the brain is pulling away the space in which that experience arises.  There's no "empty room" where sound used to be, there's simply no "where sound used to be".

Well, I have changing perceptions, but despite those changes, I still have what seems like a consistent, and persistent, sense of self and consciousness. There's something at the core, which is why metaphors like a movie screen or a theater stage get mentioned.

[bennyboy]

It's a lot of money, but I think not only would it be interesting, but I could apply it in some game or network designing.  These things come in handy as a source of ideas surprisingly often.

Yay   Money well spent, and you know I'd reimburse you if I could... considering how evangelical I am about this book (I'd probably buy a copy for Chad an' all ).

But one thing though is that it's quite an old book - 2000 - and although it's still 'supported' in that it has a website, it now offers different software than what's used in the book... the old software was called PDP++ and the new is called Emergent. So unfortunately all the exercises in the book, which include very specific technical instructions on using what was very complicated software, will now be moot unless you can get hold of the old software. However, the new software is far more user friendly and powerful, so perhaps you'll be able to translate the exercises to it. But nonetheless, exercises or not, it's an incredible book. This is the book's website http://psych.colorado.edu/~oreilly/comp_...neuro.html and on it you'll find links to resources and where to download the Emergent software from. So if you wanted, you could download it now and have a play around with it/see what you're up against before you get the book or even if you don't get the book

Interesting.  I'll check it out.

I'm not too worried about the software, though.  I already have some experience programming elementary ANNs.  But I wonder if a little research might reveal newer, even better, commentaries on them?  I mean, in 2000, I was actually still IN university, and doing some of this stuff.

[bennyboy]

My position is that properties do not ‘emerge’ (appear from nowhere by magic) so much as ‘manifest’ (actualize what already exists in potency).

I like this idea. Mind, in particular, seems like a pretty strange property to "just happen" when a bunch of dead matter happens to get into a state of organization. The existence of mind surely means that the universe has embedded into it the capacity for experience. The brain, then, is not the accidental creator of mind, but is an expression of the universe's tendency to evolve structures to express that capacity.

[emjay]

Yay   Money well spent, and you know I'd reimburse you if I could... considering how evangelical I am about this book (I'd probably buy a copy for Chad an' all ).

But one thing though is that it's quite an old book - 2000 - and although it's still 'supported' in that it has a website, it now offers different software than what's used in the book... the old software was called PDP++ and the new is called Emergent. So unfortunately all the exercises in the book, which include very specific technical instructions on using what was very complicated software, will now be moot unless you can get hold of the old software. However, the new software is far more user friendly and powerful, so perhaps you'll be able to translate the exercises to it. But nonetheless, exercises or not, it's an incredible book. This is the book's website http://psych.colorado.edu/~oreilly/comp_...neuro.html and on it you'll find links to resources and where to download the Emergent software from. So if you wanted, you could download it now and have a play around with it/see what you're up against before you get the book or even if you don't get the book

Interesting.  I'll check it out.

I'm not too worried about the software, though.  I already have some experience programming elementary ANNs.  But I wonder if a little research might reveal newer, even better, commentaries on them?  I mean, in 2000, I was actually still IN university, and doing some of this stuff.

It's okay after all I've looked into it and found that the 'explorations' (i.e. projects and exercises) have been fully reworked and reworded for use with Emergent and can be downloaded as a zip file from here https://grey.colorado.edu/CompCogNeuro/i...1_Projects   Each project comes with, as documentation, the equivalent text from the book. It still has the same content and exercises, but just different instructions on how to use the software... so all's good and the book should be as valid now as it was then But yeah, I'm sure a lot has changed in the last 15 years so their may be better/more up-to-date books out there, but I wouldn't know because it's been a long time - about ten years - since I did any of this stuff. It served its purpose back then, in teaching me about neural networks, but these days NN modelling/ANNs/AI etc doesn't interest me very much but then my mind is not as sharp as it once was I've really noticed that deterioration over the last few years but thankfully this thread has felt a bit like a return to the good old days when I was full of ideas