Seeing red

[The Grand Nudger]

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?

Of course, and that singular agent is me, my ears, my eyes, the whole me.  It makes no sense to say "I am a singular agent" as though all of these moving parts are not involved.  

-All- of the different parts of the brain appear to have the capacity to accept as input different kinds of processed information.  It's almost definitional as to what a component is as a piece of our CNS in the first place.........?   The cerebellum, for example, appears to be coordinating eye-hand movement (and perhaps a host of other sensory inputs with behavioral outputs).  Is that what you're looking for?   I suspect that it's coordinated computationally.  

What illusion?  The illusion that your ears hear, your eyes see, and your brain fills in?  I don't think that's an illusion.  I think you've taken it to mean something that it doesn't.  

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.

People like to think that, that there's some immutable core to their being, despite all evidence to the contrary.  If there is a core, then it's you, the whole you, and not in any way immutable.  The many, many cases of traumatic brain injury and psychological disorder,as well as simple responses to open ended questions asked over large spans of time put the lie to the notion of consistent, persistent senses of self consciousness.  You may have that perception at any given time, and within that context it's almost a non-question (who else would you be, or think you were?), and while that perception doesn't seem to change..... the "self" certainly does, for a variety of reasons, regardless of what it's made out of or how it works.

I think that alot of confusion arises between our positions surrounding the idea of an illusion.  I'm asked "how do you explain the illusion of x".  There is none.  That "illusion" seems to occur at the level of rationalization, not perception.  This  perception does not have to speak to an objective truth of the universe and nothing in our experience would lead or suggest that it does, it need only refer to the current status of the system - which is always itself, by definition, no matter who it may be.

I like the idea of ideas evolving as they "bubble up," rather than adjusting weights to virtual neural connections at the end of complete trials (if that makes any sense).

Life, reproduction, and death -do- "adjust weights" to nueral connections at the end of complete trials. The ability of those connections to do work appears to be a strong selective pressure. If they under-perform in any given rep we'd expect that rep to have fewer offspring relative to an average or above-par performer. The squid that bolts first and fastest survives.

This is how a heuristic architecture is arrived upon, in terms of evolution, and that's important to comp theory, for example, because there was no top down design of circuits and bussing involved, so far as we can tell.