proto-consciousness field theory

[baron]

That's exactly what it isn't. If you want it as an analogy think of it like saying we know there is no elephant in the shed because an elephant is too big to fit in a shed. Doesn't mean we know everything about that shed, but we do know enough that we can confidently state that a big elephant can't fit in it.

That's a terrible analogy.

Show your evidence that any new discoveries would need to be shoe-horned into our current model of the universe?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

That's a terrible analogy.

Show your evidence that any new discoveries would need to be shoe-horned into our current model of the universe?

I posted the video in post #400

 

[Minoosh]

Precisely what all my reading in the field of neuroscience indicates. Why invoke some ineffable, unobservable “something” when it’s simply not necessary?

Because sometimes there really are zebras?

 

[Minoosh]

Nope, because the 'run' is not self-aware.

How would you know? I agree it probably isn't, yet people do (IMO) have literal "gut feelings"; emotional pain can be experienced in the chest, hence the term "heartache." And "muscle memory" could also be literally accurate.

I'm not at all sure I could extend this metaphor - if it is a metaphor - to support either you or Darat.

 

[Robin]

Then it wouldn't be a full explanation.

So if X can be accounted for completely in the absence of Y then X is a full explanation of Y?

No, that means that means that X does not even begin to explain Y

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[Minoosh]

I'm also struck by the Carl Sagan quote, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." When astrophysicists start saying things like that I do wonder. Just poetic speech? Or was he hinting at something else?

 

[baron]

I posted the video in post #400

You posted a video. Which I watched, and I realised half way through that I'd seen before. What do you believe that addresses?

How would you know? I agree it probably isn't, yet people do (IMO) have literal "gut feelings"; emotional pain can be experienced in the chest, hence the term "heartache." And "muscle memory" could also be literally accurate.

I agree re the gut feeling analogies, and my theory mandates this, but it's not the 'running' that's doing the experiencing, it's the objects doing the running. Take this necessarily daft example:

A buffalo's tail moves as the buffalo eats grass. I decide that the action comprising two slow twitches to the left followed by three quick twitches to the right is to be called buffatwitching. I haven't invented a new real-world entity, I'm just describing an arbitrary set of actions enacted by a specific object. The same with running. Buffatwitching doesn't exist and neither does running.

Now if you want to claim the tail itself has a rudimentary consciousness then I'd agree. It wouldn't be worthy of the term but strictly speaking I believe it must. The buffatwitch, however, does not.

 

[kellyb]

I'm also struck by the Carl Sagan quote, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." When astrophysicists start saying things like that I do wonder. Just poetic speech? Or was he hinting at something else?

I think it's just a poetic way of looking at what's happened. A universe of mindless matter somehow gave rise to matter with consciousness which can wonder about and partially understand the universe.

 

[Darat]

So if X can be accounted for completely in the absence of Y then X is a full explanation of Y?

No, that means that means that X does not even begin to explain Y

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As I said it then it wouldn't be a full explanation....

 

[Minoosh]

I think it's just a poetic way of looking at what's happened. A universe of mindless matter somehow gave rise to matter with consciousness which can wonder about and partially understand the universe.

Probably that's how he meant it, but I wonder what he would have thought of a consciousness field.

Maybe that we should keep investigating.

 

[kellyb]

Probably that's how he meant it, but I wonder what he would have thought of a consciousness field.

Maybe that we should keep investigating.

I suspect he would have loved the idea, but also maintained that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

 

[Robin]

As I said it then it wouldn't be a full explanation....

Indeed. I need glasses

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[Darat]

Probably that's how he meant it, but I wonder what he would have thought of a consciousness field.



Maybe that we should keep investigating.

Investigate what? What evidence, what unaccountable energy are we meant to be investigating? There is zero evidence that a conciousness field exists and these days there is as strong as evidence ever gets in science evidence that such a field can't exist.

ETA : Science fiction authors have been making such fields up going back to at least the original E E Doc Smith Skylark days (I've picked his as the earliest dates I personally can recall of such an idea off the top of my head) which means back to the 1920s. I'd be very surprised that Sagan didn't know of such ideas, they are anything but new.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

You posted a video. Which I watched, and I realised half way through that I'd seen before. What do you believe that addresses?

That any new discoveries would need to be shoe-horned into our current model of the universe, what 'no room' means and what evidence exists that no other interactions are possible, that there simply isn't the “space “ for another unknown particle that could interact with our brain, that at some scales we know to an incredible level of accuracy what can fit in, and why a consciousness field is not only completely unevidenced but has to be supernatural, I. E. both capable of interacting with the universe but not being detectable.

I agree re the gut feeling analogies, and my theory mandates this, but it's not the 'running' that's doing the experiencing, it's the objects doing the running.

That would imply it's the brain doing the experiencing, would it not?

 

[baron]

That any new discoveries would need to be shoe-horned into our current model of the universe, what 'no room' means and what evidence exists that no other interactions are possible, that there simply isn't the “space “ for another unknown particle that could interact with our brain, that at some scales we know to an incredible level of accuracy what can fit in, and why a consciousness field is not only completely unevidenced but has to be supernatural, I. E. both capable of interacting with the universe but not being detectable.

Indeed, so what I said,

One in a long line of scientists who like to announce that science knows everything about X there is to know. Some even announce that there is nothing worth discovering in any scientific field and that we're on the brink of wrapping it all up and going home. This has been happening for three thousand years and unfortunately the pastime is becoming no less popular.

was accurate. Meanwhile, other scientists are talking not just of new particles, but of new physics. The idea that we understand the framework of all there is to know verging on the lunatic; we don't even know what 95% of our universe is made from.

That would imply it's the brain doing the experiencing, would it not?

The information processing in the physical structures would distort the conscious field to cause experience.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Indeed, so what I said,



was accurate. Meanwhile, other scientists are talking not just of new particles, but of new physics. The idea that we understand the framework of all there is to know verging on the lunatic; we don't even know what 95% of our universe is made from.

I can only suggest you watch the video, because what you're saying here has nothing to do with it and shows that either you don't know what the video actually contains, you don't understand what the video contains, or you're deliberately creating straw man arguments. I'm assuming that the first is true, so I urge you to actually watch the video.

Nothing in that article in any way contradicts what Carroll says in the posted video.

The information processing in the physical structures would distort the conscious field to cause experience.

What is doing the experiencing?

 

[baron]

I can only suggest you watch the video, because what you're saying here has nothing to do with it and shows that either you don't know what the video actually contains, you don't understand what the video contains, or you're deliberately creating straw man arguments. I'm assuming that the first is true, so I urge you to actually watch the video.

As I say, I got half way and realised I'd seen it before (although I don't recall the details of that specific talk). I was simply going off your summary of it, so if I'm wrong it's your summary that's at fault. I'll watch the rest again if I have time, but I don't really see the point; if he says what you say then I disagree with him, if he doesn't the whole exercise is moot.

What is doing the experiencing?

I just said, the conscious field. It is conscious potential and any distortion in it can be seen as experience, in a similar way to how the fabric of space-time is warped by the presence of mass and this produces a gravitational field.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

As I say, I got half way and realised I'd seen it before (although I don't recall the details of that specific talk). I was simply going off your summary of it, so if I'm wrong it's your summary that's at fault. I'll watch the rest again if I have time, but I don't really see the point; if he says what you say then I disagree with him, if he doesn't the whole exercise is moot.

If you disagree with him, you should be able to point to evidence and supply a cogent argument for why he is wrong.

I just said, the conscious field. It is conscious potential and any distortion in it can be seen as experience, in a similar way to how the fabric of space-time is warped by the presence of mass and this produces a gravitational field.

How does that not contradict this statement: "it's not the 'running' that's doing the experiencing, it's the objects doing the running"? Surely, if it's not the running that's doing the experiencing but the objects doing the running, then it's not the consciousness doing the experiencing but the object distorting the consciousness field?

 

[baron]

If you disagree with him, you should be able to point to evidence and supply a cogent argument for why he is wrong.

If he's suggesting that we have got it all - or most of it - figured out, then it's up to him to evidence that claim and show how his claims are different from those of the countless people who have said the exact same thing over the past three thousand years and have been proved wrong. If he doesn't maintain this then I have no issue with him on this score.

How does that not contradict this statement: "it's not the 'running' that's doing the experiencing, it's the objects doing the running"? Surely, if it's not the running that's doing the experiencing but the objects doing the running, then it's not the consciousness doing the experiencing but the object distorting the consciousness field?

It was simply sloppy phraseology from typing too quickly. What I meant I detailed in the post you just quoted.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

If he's suggesting that we have got it all - or most of it - figured out, then it's up to him to evidence that claim and show how his claims are different from those of the countless people who have said the exact same thing over the past three thousand years and have been proved wrong. If he doesn't maintain this then I have no issue with him on this score.

Again, I can only suggest you watch the video.