Seeing red

[The Grand Nudger]

Here we go.



Whereas A is apple, b is red, and c is "a red apple". That's what I think ideas are (though I'm sure the idea of red apple is more complicated than this, some ideas..presumably, are not). Replace the gate above with a neuron and you have comp mind. Imo a redundant phrase, neurons -are- gates. An idea is, very literally, the state of the gate..in comp mind. Which inputs and outputs are true or false, on or off.

To give credit to the probable complexity of the red apple idea...perhaps something like this?



or maybe that;s still too simple....how about this?



-how about billions of them....

Does this help?

[bennyboy]

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.

Seeing a red apple as a red apple in my dream and "telling me how your heart feels and what justice tastes like" are hardly the same thing. My description of my dream apple (let's say), if it is an equivocation, is an equivocation made by the brain rather than a dishonest description on my part. It is a problem for you that the imagination can construct things that never existed, because that means ideas are not necessarily representative of reality.

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 keep saying it, and it has never been true. But hypocrisy is real.

 -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?

Not at all. In fact, I see states, and information, in absolutely everything. It is your job to narrow these many states down into "ideas" and "not-ideas," and in doing so, you've constantly referred to things using dualistic and arbitrary terms.

[bennyboy]

Here we go.



Whereas A is apple, b is red, and c is "a red apple".  That's what I think ideas are (though I'm sure the idea of red apple is more complicated than this, some ideas..presumably, are not).  Replace the gate above with a neuron and you have comp mind.  Imo a redundant phrase, neurons -are- gates.  An idea is, very literally,  the state of the gate..in comp mind.  Which inputs and outputs are true or false, on or off.

You could as easily draw "idea A" and "idea B" or "fairy A" and "fairy B." The apple-shaped fairy does a little dance with the red-colored fairy, yes?

If what you are saying is right, then I could make a computer which checks if something is/isn't an apple, and whether it is/isn't red. The resultant logical output can easily be displayed in binary terms: 1 1 for (is apple and is red) and 0 0 for (is not apple and is not red). Now, if I print out my name in binary:
011000100110010101101110011011100111100101100010011011110111100100100000

we can see that the name "bennyboy" is a complex expression of various states of appleness and redness. And yet, perhaps only you and a couple of others see red when you read that particular name. Though we can interpret those bits as apple-states, they could represent anything else.

This is the problem with your theory: states are ARBITRARY records, and need a context to establish meaning. And what establishes this meaning? More states? Another layer of operations? You can only wave at the system and insist that with sufficient complexity, all is possible. The brain, then, is your Alpha and Omega, and you worship it not for its physical structure but for the ghost that supervenes on it, for no good reason that you can see.

[The Grand Nudger]

Seeing a red apple as a red apple in my dream and "telling me how your heart feels and what justice tastes like" are hardly the same thing.  My description of my dream apple (let's say), if it is an equivocation, is an equivocation made by the brain rather than a dishonest description on my part.  It is a problem for you that the imagination can construct things that never existed, because that means ideas are not necessarily representative of reality.

The honesty of equivocation doesn't rescue it from being a source of poor inference.  

Why is it a problem for me that the imagination can create things that never existed?  Is this you playing ball, lol?  I think you;re going to have to do better than "it;s a problem" and explain what the problem would be and why it's a problem.

You keep saying it, and it has never been true.  But hypocrisy is real.

Okay? You don't know and don't -want- to know what the term means, you're making an ass of yourself.

Not at all.  In fact, I see states, and information, in absolutely everything.  It is your job to narrow these many states down into "ideas" and "not-ideas," and in doing so, you've constantly referred to things using dualistic and arbitrary terms.

Excellent, wonderful.  You agree that states exist.  It's easy to winnow that down, like so..your objection is another honest equivocation.  In the context of comp mind (or comp anything) state only refers the to the states of comp components.  They're narrowed -by definition- from the outset.  So the "state" of water below freezing point..unless it;s part of a comp system, is not the sort of "state" we're talking about.

Refer to my last post.  When a -and- b are true, we say the state of the gate is c, true.

You could as easily draw "idea A" and "idea B" or "fairy A" and "fairy B." The apple-shaped fairy does a little dance with the red-colored fairy, yes?

A, B, and C can be anything.  Comp systems work by abstraction.

If what you are saying is right, then I could make a computer which checks if something is/isn't an apple, and whether it is/isn't red. The resultant logical output can easily be displayed in binary terms: 1 1 for (is apple and is red) and 0 0 for (is not apple and is not red). Now, if I print out my name in binary: 
011000100110010101101110011011100111100101100010011011110111100100100000

Actually, with the gate in question, you could only get "red apple"..it's not actually checking for an apple or for red, but the conjuction of those two things being true..it will only yield a useful output- when "red apple" or c is true (which is to say that both a and b are "on"), but again it could be checking for anything, abstraction.

we can see that the name "bennyboy" is a complex expression of various states of appleness and redness. And yet, perhaps only you and a couple of others see red when you read that particular name. Though we can interpret those bits as apple-states, they could represent anything else.

If mind is comp they can represent anything, it would be a universal machine.

This is the problem with your theory: states are ARBITRARY records, and need a context to establish meaning.

They;re very -specific- records, by definition..they are states.,  Part x in situation a.  They don't need context to work, and "meaning" is nothing more than translation in comp.  

And what establishes this meaning? More states? Another layer of operations?

Could be chance, could be the environment, could be genetics, could be more and more machinery above and below in varying states, sure...could be a combination of all of the above. My money is on the latter.

[bennyboy]

Okay?  You don't know and don't -want- to know what the term means, you're making an ass of yourself.  

Careful, now. Unless you want to go balls-deep in a 10-page quote/flame war about who's stealing concepts, then let's drop this line of discusssion.

Excellent, wonderful.  You agree that states exist.  It's easy to winnow that down, like so..your objection is another honest equivocation.  In the context of comp mind (or comp anything) state only refers the to the states of comp components.  They're narrowed -by definition- from the outset.  So the "state" of water below freezing point..unless it;s part of a comp system, is not the sort of "state" we're talking about.

Refer to my last post.  When a -and- b are true, we say the state of the gate is c, true.

So far, it's a theory of mind which is pretty lacking, brother. Right now you are at this stage of explanation:



But it was always the ??? that we wanted to know about.

[The Grand Nudger]

Careful, now.  Unless you want to go balls-deep in a 10-page quote/flame war about who's stealing concepts, then let's drop this line of discusssion.

LOL< christ, first you ressurect it from the grave then you flee the scene of the crime.  

So far, it's a theory of mind which is pretty lacking, brother.

I'm afraid I don't think that you're qualified to make that determination.  

The "how" isn't even theory, it's actually whats going on inside your computer right now. The question for comp mind is not "how" or even "why" (this is answered by physics in machines and evo-devo in human beings). "Is the brain a comp system" is the question, is it not? We know that it could be, that the components fit the specs, and that comp systems work. We can't give you an io address for red. We can only point you to the sub-assembly and consider how it might work. One day we might be able to give you an io address for red, but shit in one hand and wish in the other, amiright?

Phase 1 input, phase 2 logical operation, phase 3 output. Got it? That's what comp mind means, it speaks to nothing -but- "phase 2". Phase 2 is the comp..in comp mind. If I've failed to communicate that it's difficult to see how but tell me and I'll try again.

[bennyboy]

Actually, with the gate in question, you could only get "red apple"..it's not actually checking for an apple or for red, but the conjuction of those two things being true..it will only yield a useful output- when "red apple" or c is true (which is to say that both a and b are "on"), but again it could be checking for anything, abstraction.

Yeah, okay, it's an AND gate. But the inputs and outputs are both arbitrary.

If mind is comp they can represent anything, it would be a universal machine.

Why should they be said to represent anything? What do the magnetic states of my computer's RAM represent, in and of themselves? It could be a visual pattern, or sound, or anything else. You need something which will establish context, but you want the RAM to BE that which provides the context. Circles don't work, dude.

Could be chance, could be the environment, could be genetics, could be more and more machinery above and below in varying states, sure...could be a combination of all of the above. My money is on the latter.

Your money is on the ghost in the machinery, then, since ALL those things represent nothing more than the interaction of states. What gives them THEIR context? Where does the ability of some states to establish context on other states come from originally? The Big Bang?

[bennyboy]

Careful, now.  Unless you want to go balls-deep in a 10-page quote/flame war about who's stealing concepts, then let's drop this line of discusssion.

LOL< christ, first you ressurect it from the grave then you flee the scene of the crime.  

The gauntlet has been thrown, then? Let's do this, bitches!

[Angrboda]

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.

Thank you for describing your model to me. That does make a lot of sense. I can't help but feel though that it is missing a command center where the output of these stages is registered. Maybe if I had more experience with neural nets, but maybe not.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, okay, it's an AND gate.  But the inputs and outputs are both arbitrary.

They aren't arbitrary, but they are abstractions.  A could be hooked up to a spectrometer, whilst B is hooked up to an shaped aperture.  

Why should they be said to represent anything?  What do the magnetic states of my computer's RAM represent, in and of themselves?

Whatever the operation they're being pulled for calls for.  Whatever state the system left them in last time they were written to.

It could be a visual pattern, or sound, or anything else.  You need something which will establish context, but you want the RAM to BE that which provides the context.  Circles don't work, dude.

Any particular input could be any of those things, yes.  I'm not sure what you mean by needing something to establish context...you don't, the system works regardless.  

Hail mary, perhaps the difficulty you;re having with this is that when I say a logical operation is performed, or talk about logic, you think I mean the common logic as in debate logic, reason.  I don't.  A computer works -precisely- because it accepts it's input as "true"..particularly those inputs it's created itself, not true in a factual sense, true in the sense of machine logic.  So that bit above, about circles..you're going to hate this..... but, a program is a set of instructions to the system to loop it's own memory against it's functions (it's alu)... a cognitive circle. What you and I would call "irrational" if it were an argument in a debate. That might help explain why human beings are less than rational, their thinking machine begins with assumption which are simply declared to be true or false, feed them through a loop, and then accept the output as true..and probably use it for further input.

 Generally, theres also input from the user in the case of a pc...which would be input from the environment in the case of a human being...if we hold to the analogy.   

Your money is on the ghost in the machinery, then, since ALL those things represent nothing more than the interaction of states.  What gives them THEIR context?  Where does the ability of some states to establish context on other states come from originally?  The Big Bang?

What ghost?  The states are descriptions of physical components.  If by context you mean isolation....that is easily handled by bussing...such as a nerve, for example, running from your eye to your cerebral cortex rather than to your big toe (or for an identifier to be attached to any output from a specific center. Just another line of 1's and 0's).  There is an endless number of ways that the context of a logical operation can be and is established. The context of A AND B is that you have a visual C.  If it was A AND B from your nose...it would be an olfactory C. This sort of context?

Genetics goes to the structure of the components, system architecture. Different structures can be more or less useful, productive. Not just interactions between states but what range of interactions they're capable of performing. Environment goes to which system reps even survive to pass on version 2.0 but this one does, also, presumably, cause interactions of states..and the states of one assembly can be the cause for the states of another. If they couldn't, they couldn't comp..it wouldn't work.

Again, I want to mention that you keep objecting to my "hows" as though they were magical and not in evidence...while they are currently working, in your computer, right now.

@Jorg, the beauty of nets is that they don't -require- command centers. The output of the stages could simply rest, in registers. They're basic memory cells. They can be set manually (by, for example..a "command center") or they can run on a clock.