A question for scientists: Primary and Secondary qualities

[Mercutio]

I don't understand you. Are you saying that our memories don't have a physical representation in our brains?

If you put it that way, I am saying that. The current view is not that we have memories physically stored somewhere (or worse, mentally stored somewhere), but rather that the process of remembering involves a re-experiencing that uses much more of the brain. We used to think the hippocampus was a memory storage area, now it is viewed more as an organizational pathway for many of the processes involved in remembering.

Our experiences change us, physically. But the idea of a memory being stored is a flawed metaphor. It is useful in some ways, but we cannot rely too much on it as "the way things actually work".

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I feel fairly confident that I have the memory of the tune to "I Want to Hold Your Hand" stored somewhere physically in my brain. It may be diffused all over the place, or it may be associated with areas of the brain involved with humming or singing or tongue muscle control, but it's in there somewhere.

Are you saying that you don't think memories are stored in tightly-coded localized packets, as they would be in a computer?

~~ Paul

 

[Mercutio]

I feel fairly confident that I have the memory of the tune to "I Want to Hold Your Hand" stored somewhere physically in my brain. It may be diffused all over the place, or it may be associated with areas of the brain involved with humming or singing or tongue muscle control, but it's in there somewhere.

Are you saying that you don't think memories are stored in tightly-coded localized packets, as they would be in a computer?

I am very much saying that, and other stuff as well. I just deleted a bunch of the other stuff, as it is a very hair-splitting way of looking at learning and memory, and even though I believe it is a more accurate picture, it is not worth spending days on, when it is really a tangential point to this thread. (perhaps in another thread we can tackle the problems of whether memories actually exist)

Just look at false memories--or at the malleability of eyewitness testimony. Look at the ability to remember hits and forget misses in a cold reading. The more we understand memory as a constructive and reconstructive process and the less we think of it as a "storage" of some record of an event, the better we can understand these memory phenomena.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I think we agree. I don't picture human memory as similar to computer memory. I expect that recalling a memory involves replaying a diffuse set of neural events that happened when the event was first experienced. However, even if there are portions of memory that are tightly coded somewhere, neural networks are always subject to decay, overlay, and other forms of confusion.

Anyhoo, back to the subject of the thread . . . what was it, again?

~~ Paul

 

[Mercutio]

Anyhoo, back to the subject of the thread . . . what was it, again?

~~ Paul

Last one out, turn off the lights...

 

[Dymanic]

Much earlier in the thread, with regard to visual perception, we touched on how deftly the brain acts to fill in the blanks between known pieces of information, making it hard to distinguish between what we are actually seeing and what we imagine we are seeing. Apparently a similar process takes place with regard to memory, making it hard to distinguish between what we are remembering and what we imagine we are remembering. These two phenomena seem to blend into one with regard to some experiments that have been done where a subject is asked to describe details of an image which was just flashed before his eyes for a brief instant.

 

[DanishDynamite]

If you put it that way, I am saying that. The current view is not that we have memories physically stored somewhere (or worse, mentally stored somewhere), but rather that the process of remembering involves a re-experiencing that uses much more of the brain. We used to think the hippocampus was a memory storage area, now it is viewed more as an organizational pathway for many of the processes involved in remembering.

Our experiences change us, physically. But the idea of a memory being stored is a flawed metaphor. It is useful in some ways, but we cannot rely too much on it as "the way things actually work".

I'm not sure what you mean. No matter what the process is for us to remember something, that process is completely contingent on the state of our brain. If we can remember something, it is therefore stored in our brains. Otherwise we couldn't remember it.

 

[DanishDynamite]

Win:

Assuming a point similar to this is also expressed in your paper, chances are my response to your paper will involve what you mean by "we" and "know," with me arguing that "we" are really a combination of our physical and psychophysical properties such that "we" can and do *know* about phenomenal experiences, even though they are physically causally inefficacious.

Which is meaningless given the definition of physical. Come now, Win. Remember our discussions on the black and white box?

 

[Interesting Ian]

Hope I don't get reincarnated as a thermostat

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm planning on being reincarnated as a teapot. Lots less work, but similar temperature variations.

~~ Paul

 

[BillyJoe]

And BillyJoe is planning on being reincarnated as Duplicate BillyJoe.

Sure, the molecules that make up the original body and brain will be vapourized and drift off in the breeze. But there will be Duplicate BillyJoe feeling for all the world completely like the original. Hell, it will be BillyJoe. BillyJoe is not that bunch of molecules drifting over the ocean to be incorporated into who knows what (Duplicate Ian maybe ). BillyJoe is the program that will have been running in that original brain and will then be running in the brain of Duplicate BillyJoe.

BillyJoe

 

[Interesting Ian]

And BillyJoe is planning on being reincarnated as Duplicate BillyJoe.

Sure, the molecules that make up the original body and brain will be vapourized and drift off in the breeze. But there will be Duplicate BillyJoe feeling for all the world completely like the original. Hell, it will be BillyJoe. BillyJoe is not that bunch of molecules drifting over the ocean to be incorporated into who knows what (Duplicate Ian maybe ). BillyJoe is the program that will have been running in that original brain and will then be running in the brain of Duplicate BillyJoe.

BillyJoe

Billy

Within the context of what I believe in ie my idealism, it is conceivable that a star trek type transporter device could work if the duplicate gets created contemporaneously with the destruction of the original.

And that might be OK because I've heard that if a duplicate of a person were made, it would necessarily destroy the original (something to do with QM).

 

[BillyJoe]

Ian

Yeah but.....there is still that little problem of creating (I mean mechanically putting together) TWO duplicates Which one are you? And why? And who the hell are "you" anyway?

BillyJoe.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:

And that might be OK because I've heard that if a duplicate of a person were made, it would necessarily destroy the original (something to do with QM).

Huh? Have you got the equations on this one? Perhaps you're referring to particles in identical quantum states.

~~ Paul

 

[Interesting Ian]

Because (phenomenal) consciousness is only known through the first person perspective. Thus if materialism is correct and the world is physically closed, consciousness cannot play a fruitful role in our scientific theories describing physical reality because it is only objective facts about the world (by which I mean those facts discernable from the third person perspective) which are required to explain all things and processes within physical reality.
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I'd agree with that, with some qualifications. The first person perspective may play a fruitful role as a guide to what is interesting, but making 'what it feels like' the basis for scientific theory leads to endless absurdities. For instance, it really feels like the sun revolves around the earth.

What are you talking about? I'm not suggesting that we make what anything feels like the basis of scientific theory. Science is merely concerned with the objective realm.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

You say consciousness is an emergent property. By what you say, this emergent property is causally efficacious (as consciousness is causally efficacious) and therefore this emergent property itself is physical. Right?
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Certainly at least as causally efficacious within the system that produces it as anything else within the system, if not more.

Physical? If you pluck or strike a taut steel string, it will vibrate with a certain frequency, and those vibrations will be transmitted to the surrounding air. If a number of such strings are plucked or struck in certain combinations, a certain property may emerge in the pattern of collected vibrations which, after entering an ear, may trigger a cascade of events inside a brain which result in the vibrations being interpreted as "music".

The music as experienced you would say is physical, and I of course deny this. Sorry but what is this analogy supposed to show?

Or not, depending on taste (as John Cage demonstrated). The substrate is physical; that is, describable as patterns of interaction between matter and energy -- which includes the vibrations themselves. But whether what emerges is music or just noise is hopelessly subjective and semantic.

I'm not happy with your declaration that music emerges. Music is not the same thing as the cascade of events in the brain, nor does it "emerge" from such events.. The events are necessary simply to allow one to have access to the experience of hearing music. Otherwise one wouldn't hear music on entering an otherworldly realm in NDE states.

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all change in the Universe can be understood by an unbroken chain of physical cause and effect. Right?
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Right.

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Everything you assign to consciousness could equally be achieved by a p-zombie.
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Good point.

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you need to say that phenomenal consciousness itself is publicly observable ie discernible from the third person perspective
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Ok, in principle, I'll say that. Obviously, we do not yet have the appropriate faculties and instruments, but what is presently being done even with the crude technology presently available might surprise you.

How can what is being done conceivably have any bearing on our discussion?

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I mean presumably it is the electrochemical states and ones environment which completely determines our behaviour. So your view that consciousness plays some causally efficacious role doesn't hold up.
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It holds up fine if you give up on the idea of consciousness being something 'special' that somehow magically exists independent of space and time. It's simply a matter of some of the brain's outputs being fed back in as inputs.

Well I've explained why it can't be and you've just simply repeated yourself.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Re: Re: Re: Materialism rocks!

Ian, is it an assumption that consciousness is causally efficacious? Do you admit that? It seems to me at least equally likely (if not considerably more likely) that consciousness is an effect, not a cause, of behavior.

Take your time before answering--this is a very important bit, here, and worthy of more than merely a shot from the hip. I know you are honest enough not to just throw up a smoke cloud, so think about it for a bit...Your assumption is that consciousness is causal. why?

Mercutio, I believe that from the perspective of materialism consciousness is both an effect and a cause.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Can we not have conversations about effects? I would suggest that most of the work of science is conversations about effects...An effect can influence future things, certainly, and even in a causal manner...but I would argue that consciousness is a response to environmental stimuli, at most a byproduct of life rather than an uncaused cause of anything...

2 points here.

a) One can believe in free will and yet not believe in an uncaused cause. Indeed one can be a materialist and believe in free will. This is because despite the fact that under materialism our behaviour follows physical laws, it's not as if these physical laws make us behave the way we do. Rather physical laws simply describe our freely chosen behaviour. This position on the free will problem is known as compatibilism.

b) I of course do not subscribe to compatibilism but subscribe rather to the libertarian position in the free will debate (basically your uncaused cause). Our actions are of course heavily influenced by our environment and our brain state. But the libertarian position is that our actions are not rigidly determined, but that we have the capacity to make genuine choices. Thus even though we in fact chose to do A, we could have done B. Of course if you were to say that I chose A because of simply absolutely everything that I am, then that might true, but saying we are determined in such a scenario, despite the fact our behaviour doesn't follow algorithms, becomes vacuous in my opinion.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Hi Win,


I'm looking forward to your comments.

Looks like Win has disappeared again Come on Win, you might even persuade one or two of us to become epiphenomenalists! I highly doubt it though

 

[Interesting Ian]

Oh, and hey, Ian, what about the relationship between today Ian and yesterday Ian. [/B]

Well are you still there?