A Conscious Universe

[IATIA]

I have a question about this. Why is it that multiple (VERY multiple) processes manifest as single experiences (like for example the taste of chocolate)?

The brain merges everything to a simple experience. Take the eyes for example. The image on the retina (which is composed of numerous rods and cones ('pixels')) and you have two of these. If all this information was presented in it's individual form, it would be too much information for the qualia to evaluate. Instead, the brain does this for you and you 'see' an image rather than millions of 'pixels'. If you consciously had to evaluate this information, you would be eaten before you knew what was coming at you. Evolution at it's finest.

[bennyboy]

I have a question about this. Why is it that multiple (VERY multiple) processes manifest as single experiences (like for example the taste of chocolate)?

The brain merges everything to a simple experience. Take the eyes for example. The image on the retina (which is composed of numerous rods and cones ('pixels')) and you have two of these. If all this information was presented in it's individual form, it would be too much information for the qualia to evaluate. Instead, the brain does this for you and you 'see' an image rather than millions of 'pixels'. If you consciously had to evaluate this information, you would be eaten before you knew what was coming at you. Evolution at it's finest.

This is a plausible-sounding narrative. But you can take any quality-- real or not-- and spin it with an evolutionary narrative-- correct or not-- and be overcome with the truthiness of it. At some point, "Prolly good for survival, therefore evolution" has to give way to some real answers about how things work. In this case, I'm not asking for an evolutionary narrative-- I'm asking for ideas about a physical mechanism that could take function in disparate parts of the brain and assemble them into a singular, subjective experience. Where does the subjective agency come from?

[The Grand Nudger]

The mechanisms boundaries, Benny. If you were connected to my head perhaps we would have a shared experience, an objective experience (at least as related by the two of us), but you aren't, so your experience is your own, and mine is my own -it's subjective...

IOW, the same way that the subjective state of the display on your computer is arrived at.....

[The Grand Nudger]

1) Evolution is a great idea, but not when it causes people to start making up imaginary narratives in which they outline any trait they want to explain in terms of fitness.

Is there actually any particular statement that I made you'd like to take issue with? Do you think, for example, that brains evolved to seek truth? We could have that discussion, after all....or you could wave a very salient point about our brains (and every potion of our bodies) away "because".....

2) I've never exprienced a charging boar, but I've experienced other significantly dangerous events, and I'm pretty sure I was aware not only of the singular fact of the threat, but of many individual aspects in the environment.

You mean that there wasn't any unity of experience at all? -Pixels on the screen

And yet, they were bound together by some kind of unifying factor-- maybe "me," or maybe something else.

-and yet there was? -adding up to a bouncing ball

See, you need to decide whether it's a singular experience, or a bunch of experiences held together by a singular interpretation or POV(I won't have any trouble modeling the latter mechanically either btw).

You and I are actually in agreement on this both in principle and in experience btw. I think that you -are- something else....lol.

[IATIA]

I'm asking for ideas about a physical mechanism that could take function in disparate parts of the brain and assemble them into a singular, subjective experience. Where does the subjective agency come from?

I assume that you are querying the actual source of awareness/consciousness and it's placement in the physical world?

That, my friend, is the $64,000 question of all time.

Simple:
Theist - god
Atheist - do not know

Perhaps one day we can develop a computer sophisticated enough to have an awareness and that would make it easier to study.

[bennyboy]

The mechanisms boundaries, Benny. If you were connected to my head perhaps we would have a shared experience, an objective experience (at least as related by the two of us), but you aren't, so your experience is your own, and mine is my own -it's subjective...

IOW, the same way that the subjective state of the display on your computer is arrived at.....

1) The transplant of brain parts is a pretty exciting idea, and I suspect we may actually see, in this lifetime or in the next couple, what it's "like" to have a natural brain supplemented by one from another human, or by an electronic part.

2) My computer did not arrive at a subjective state, by any sensible definition of the word-- that is a semantic abuse that goes too far for the word "subjective" to have any meaning any more-- something which suits your purposes just fine, hmmmm?

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I'm asking for ideas about a physical mechanism that could take function in disparate parts of the brain and assemble them into a singular, subjective experience. Where does the subjective agency come from?

I assume that you are querying the actual source of awareness/consciousness and it's placement in the physical world?

Actually, I'm giving for now the assumption that the singular mind is "in the brain somewhere," and I'm trying to find exactly what about the brain it is that has a singular consciousness. Is it the particular organic chemistry? Is there a specific organ which serves as the seat of consciousness (I believe we knot this not to be the case, btw)? Is consciousness a product of the complex interrelationship among brain parts? Or is it something more elemental: that all exchanges of information represent elemental consciousness, so consciousness is really just a localized complexity of processing?

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1) Evolution is a great idea, but not when it causes people to start making up imaginary narratives in which they outline any trait they want to explain in terms of fitness.

Is there actually any particular statement that I made you'd like to take issue with? Do you think, for example, that brains evolved to seek truth? We could have that discussion, after all....or you could wave a very salient point about our brains (and every potion of our bodies) away "because".....

You are conflating the evolutionary process and the resulting mechanism about which the question was asked. I asked HOW people believe the brain assembles different kinds of experience into the sensation of a single event. You started babbling about evolution and charging boars and how useful it must have been to avoid them.

If multiple types of experience are unified, there needs to be some principle or mechanism of unity. What is it? And no, waving at the brain is not sufficient explanation of how the brain achieves this sense of unity, if it does in fact achieve it.

Your computer example is poor, because there is no unity in the computer representation of a ball. The unity is established by humans, who view the pixels and process them as being sufficiently representative of a ball.

[The Grand Nudger]

1) The transplant of brain parts is a pretty exciting idea, and I suspect we may actually see, in this lifetime or in the next couple, what it's "like" to have a natural brain supplemented by one from another human, or by an electronic part.

I think that augmentation is more likely than transplants, particularly if our brains -are- computational systems. Besides, we already augment our minds and our experiences in a variety of ways...we don't think of people who wear glasses as cyborgs......but they are. This is all a "what if" on that note..obviously, but keeping in mind that there's no standard, no authority enforcing industry paradigms, it might be too much to expect our brains to speak the same high level language, or even operate with the same machine language at a base level. They may be custom jobs, entirely incompatible or, compatible, but like so many other computational interfaces between even marginally different manufacturers - that function is significantly reduced. You're already augmented, to a minor extent just in speaking with me in this manner - it's just not a direct hook, and that leads me into the next bit of my response.....

2) My computer did not arrive at a subjective state, by any sensible definition of the word-- that is a semantic abuse that goes too far for the word "subjective" to have any meaning any more-- something which suits your purposes just fine, hmmmm?

With reference to other computers, unconnected and unassisted, it did. Of course, when you say "subjective experience" with regards to a human being that can only extend so far when we use a digital comp as an analogy. I would extend it all the way, sure...but that's a loaded term for you in ways that it isn't for me and I understand your reluctance even though I don't agree with it. I keep mentioning this, but perhaps the reason that I keep finding easy ways to make a comparison to a comp system is that there are undeclared values in these descriptions you give me.

Nevertheless I only meant to express that the subjectivity of your experience is to be expected, given the limitations of your central nervous system. What else would your experience be...what else could it be? Is there actually any traction when it comes to wondering why we have these subjective experiences if we don't seem to possess any faculties that would provide any other function directly?

You don't see what I see because you aren't connected to my eyes - you physically cannot see what I see, even when we are looking at the same thing.

Neither of us can see what the screen sees because we are incapable of seeing anything, visually, in the language that the screen uses.

The screen cant see the gates that lead to the map because it physically cannot observe the gates, only the output of the gates as a bitmap
(I'd say that this, too, is a great analog for human experience as it relates to the operation of the brain).

Personally, I don;t think that this is semantics at all, I think that it's unsatisfying to you because of some additional stuff you are implying or assuming when you use the term subjective experience. If you could describe all that, in exhaustive detail, we might find a point where I am unable to model it mechanically or draw analogy to existing systems in current use - after all..human beings, if machines, are machines of a different order than other machines. Even if all of my suspicions about our minds are true there will come a point where no analogy can be drawn between ourselves and other comp systems. On the other hand, the string targetting comps operated by seamstresses in WW2 share no outward resemblance to digital machines of today - they still work on the same principles (and this is how I see our minds, our brains, as biological implementations of a computational system tasked to provide survival as a service with all other function as pleasant side effects).

The computer also grants unity, in the bitmap Benny. Processing balloons out and then shrinks in at many steps along the way. The screen doesn't see all the pixels that we do, it sees only the bitmap - the multiplicity of pixels on the screen is a translation for our benefit so that we can see what the computer is capable of handling as a singular entity. If we could feed the bitmap to ourselves then computers wouldn't need to represent that map in a field of pixels...that's a consideration/concession made -specifically for our eyes-...it's interface and translation, a pc talking to a mac (old school, not the modern clones). If two comps want to share an image, they don't need to project it for our benefit, they can work on the bitmap (but of course they aren't hampered by the eye structure that we are- so this is unsurprising as well - by reference to the machine) - unless they don;t use the same language or architecture, in which case, just as we require it when we interface, the comps would have to format the data for the dissimilar system...as they do when they "step out" and communicate with us. So no, my example isn;t poor...your understanding of computation is - and that's not a dig...this shit is arcane from a systems perspective. Plenty of people "get" programming, but very few are familiar with what it takes to facilitate all of that programming....it starts with sandwiched sheets of copper and silicon wafers and nothing comes from it that isn't limited by that foundation and wholly described by means of it's limitations (and ours). Does the digital PC provide "unity of experience"...? Yes. Are we, as human beings, capable of experiencing that output in the form that it is provided -in- by a digital; machine...no. It's easy to confuse our limitations with the limitations of the machine, but it isn;t an accurate description of the operation of the machine which we are (largely) incapable of perceiving without augmentation and understanding of principle ourselves.

(theres no sense ignoring evolutionary benefit when discussing biological mechanism, btw - admittedly it's less than definitive....but it's always informative and explanatory. From my perspective you asked a damned simple question as a deepity. Why do we experience what we do, the way that we do. Firstly, because there is no identifiable means by which we -could- experience it another while, while there is no shortage of evidence of a means by which we could experience it -that way-. Secondly, because experiencing it in the manner that we do, in principle, is definitively more useful to a biological organism subject to the pass/fail conditions -of- a biological organism. You don;t have to agree that this is the case, obviously, but if, for the purposes of conversation, you could assume my foundation for a moment I think that you'd see the completeness of that explanation. For my part, going with idea of ideas, or concepts or data as the fundamental building block of reality I can also see why one might wonder why we experience things subjectively and with some measure of unity or at least localization- from that framework, it would, to my mind, be a little mysterious. It's a non-question, a non-issue in my framework, in yours...perhaps a bit more difficult...and yet we do experience it....can you see why I might prefer my explanation to yours....that explanation being that the mystery, the trouble, is with the framework, not the operation or mechanism?)

[bennyboy]

I'm sorry, brother, that's a little too dl;dr for me. Forgive me if I cherry pick a couple points.

2) My computer did not arrive at a subjective state, by any sensible definition of the word-- that is a semantic abuse that goes too far for the word "subjective" to have any meaning any more-- something which suits your purposes just fine, hmmmm?

With reference to other computers, unconnected and unassisted, it did.

I won't work under a definition of "subjective" which means "localized" and nothing more. That's defining out an important part of the intent of the word's meaning as used by most people.

Nevertheless I only meant to express that the subjectivity of your experience is to be expected, given the limitations of your central nervous system. What else would your experience be...what else could it be?

Experience couldn't be other than it is. I'm asking you by what mechanism the brain unifies sight, sound and other senses into single experiences, and I don't think I have an answer yet.

Personally, I don;t think that this is semantics at all, I think that it's unsatisfying to you because of some additional stuff you are implying or assuming when you use the term subjective experience.

That's not how I see it. I already know about experience. You have a theory, which you state as fact, that consciousness is exclusively mechanistic. I want you to explain how that mechanism works. My position is that since I interface with reality only through ideas, that it is assertions beyond idealism which must hold the BOP.

The computer also grants unity, in the bitmap Benny. Processing balloons out and then shrinks in at many steps along the way. The screen doesn't see all the pixels that we do, it sees only the bitmap

Again, I think you are borrowing qualia words in explaining physical processes. The monitor doesn't see anything. We arrange for pixels to have electricity fed to them. I think you are implicitly begging the question in your vocabulary choice: you frequently use words designed to talk about our conscious experience, in reference to things we do not normally think of as conscious. The implication, I think, is an inversion: that since any mechanical thing can "see," the human experience of sight is best thought of as purely mechanical. It may be so, but that doesn't mean that defining it so provides useful answers about the mechanism of human consciousness.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm sorry, brother, that's a little too dl;dr for me. Forgive me if I cherry pick a couple points.

That's okay, it's a pretty big topic, after all. These are my favorite discussion regardless of what you decided to respond to and what you don't.

I won't work under a definition of "subjective" which means "localized" and nothing more. The word "subjective" means more than that.

It means far less than you seem to be hinting at as well - that has to be acknowledged. The usage you are toiling under is -loaded down- with stuff that may not really belong or apply.

Experience couldn't be other than it is. I'm asking you by what mechanism the brain unifies sight, sound and other senses into singel experiences, and I don't think I have an answer yet.

I don't know, no one does, we can point to a region, but thats it. Thing is...we see how other, simpler mechanical systems do it. That's all I;m trying to express. It isn't a proper mystery, more like a "how does a telephone work" kind of question - to the layman.

That's not how I see it. I already know about experience. You have a theory, which you state as fact, that consciousness is exclusively mechanistic. I want you to explain how that mechanism works.

I have a hypothesis (and it;s not properly my own, I'm just an advocate), that consciousness is a mechanistic process because I can see how other mechanisms accomplish the processes described to me -as consciousness- and I can see that we possess equipment capable of doing the same with the same principles (and much more, a neuron is more like a processor than a gate...and we have more neurons than computers have gates in total) - as well as having every impetus from our biological heritage to do so. I don't know any more about how the mechanism works than you, and I know far less than those specialized. I do, however, know how the mechanism -could- work. It can be done, we satisfy the requirements architecturally, and we have reason to do it..thus...seeing it done is not, to me, the great question it seems to be to you. I want a schem, I want to know how with a little h...you seem to be asking how with a big H, as in principle and requirement. For me, the big H is already in evidence.

What is it that you expect...is your hypothesis living up to this expectation more than my own? You don;t think mine is complete, or satisfactorily robust, thats okay - neither do I......but what is it being set in relation to? Have you ever taken the time to explain how data does data to data...and when you do...what could you possibly draw upon in that explanation? If I had to hazard a guess...you'd be drawing on the principles of computing - and this will always hinge upon mechanical implementation as a real world expression of a system......but I'm delighted at the prospect of being shown wrong in this regard.

Again, I think you are borrowing qualia words in explaining physical processes.

-because I'm explaining qualia -as- a mechanical process to a hostile audience...is this not to be expected? If the audience were friendly..I'd use different terms - which you'd balk at even harder.

The monitor doesn't see anything.

Neither does your brain or your mind (your eyes do the seeing).......except that it does, in the sense used, as does your brain or mind (and even your eyes).

We arrange for pixels to have electricity fed to them. I think you are implicitly begging the question in your vocabulary choice: you frequently use words designed to talk about our conscious experience, in reference to things we do not normally think of as conscious.

In order to challenge your unspoken assumptions, yes. I;ve rarely done more than scratch the surface of what I could do. I could describe the behavior, decision making, and risk taking of plants with unimpeachable language, demonstrable and repeatable observations both in the lab and field, and a description of the mechanisms by which all of this is achieved.......you're still unlikely to cal them conscious, no matter how similar the effect.....so first...I have to challenge assumptions, eh? As I;ve said before, I;m not aiming for a "Rhythm, fuck me you're right!" I just want to explain how a machine -could-...and how they -do- express these things which we call consciousness when we see ourselves (and things very much like us) doing them...even though we don't call them consciousness when we see other things doing them. Is that begging the question...or is the assumption that it's somehow different in our case, or in the case of conscious things, as opposed to non conscious things begging the qwuestion? I leave that up to you to decide. Im saying that they aren't different, or at the very least they don't -have to be different- by reference to working examples and the descriptions you offer, you're demanding that they be different -by fiat-, and also that I treat them as such. Is it even possible for me to offer an explanation to you if I accept this demand...and why would I...to begin with?

The implication, I think, is an inversion: that since any mechanical thing can "see," the human experience of sight is best thought of as purely mechanical.

Is it not......is there some part of sight that is best thought of as something other than mechanical? Feel free to enlighten me.

It may be so, but that doesn't mean that defining it so provides useful answers about the mechanism of human consciousness.

I disagree, question of your experience, the nature of that experience, and the mechanism that this experience is arrived at by -must- include these considerations. You are, in effect, removing from consideration anything that might answer the questions you ask in a manner that you do not wish for those questions to be answered in. Do you really think that a description and nod of the cap to our observational apparatus is not fundamental to any conversation of human consciousness, and that all I'm doing is "defining things as such" rather than explaining how things that I understand -within us-, are done...and things that I don't understand (that none of us understand) -can- be done......without reference to any more than the structures that we see both in ourselves and in other systems capable of similar (often identical) effect?

I simply cannot ignore that just because you demand that they be different as though a conversation is even possible under this demand. Im perfectly willing to accept, for the sake of conversation, that we may not be doing it this way at all. We can though, and the redundancy and ticks explicable by reference to the machine would be difficult to write off if -something- else was doing it, imo. If something else is at play, the machine is driving all over it, subverting it and consuming it and co-opting it at every turn. I'm not even sure what it would look like if that "else" just left the building....I;d expect the machine to keep doing what it does or can do, and for us to be unable to determine the difference. If the homunculous took a walk, would the eyes not see, would the body not duck......?

[bennyboy]

I won't work under a definition of "subjective" which means "localized" and nothing more. The word "subjective" means more than that.

It means far less than you seem to be hinting at as well - that has to be acknowledged. The usage you are toiling under is -loaded down- with stuff that may not really belong or apply.

I experience stuff that others do not. That is my subjective experience. I don't see a lot of baggage there.

I don't know, no one does, we can point to a region, but thats it.

Can we? As far as I've seen, there are several regions required for consciousness to happen.

Thing is...we see how other, simpler mechanical systems do it. That's all I;m trying to express. It isn't a proper mystery, more like a "how does a telephone work" kind of question - to the layman.

I'm not saying it's a mystery, though I think it is. What I'm saying is that if you want to explain the brain as a mechanism of mind, you have to explain where the sense of unity of experience comes from. What's at the core of it all?

What is it that you expect...is your hypothesis living up to this expectation more than my own?

My view is not a hypothesis. It is a response to the existence of "things" which cannot be expressed unambiguously in 3D space, which I feel invalidate the semantics of a physical monism.

The monitor doesn't see anything.

Neither does your brain or your mind (your eyes do the seeing).......except that it does, in the sense used, as does your brain or mind (and even your eyes).

Again, you are expressing yourself with your world view presupposed. The fact is that I DO see things. I'm currently looking around my room and yup, I can verify that I see stuff.

The implication, I think, is an inversion: that since any mechanical thing can "see," the human experience of sight is best thought of as purely mechanical.

Is it not......is there some part of sight that is best thought of as something other than mechanical? Feel free to enlighten me.

Absolutely. The subjective experience of sight is best thought of as something other than mechanical.