Define Consiousness

[Mr. E]

If I recall correctly, the vector product is only possible in three dimensions. You might ask him why three dimensions.

That is, if you insist on having him admit that he hadn't quite considered the details surrounding this analogy.

My relative silence re Bill's silliness should not be construed as tacit admission of any topical point.

Thanks.

ME

 

[BillHoyt]

My relative silence re Bill's silliness should not be construed as tacit admission of any topical point.

Thanks.

ME

Sure it is, mystery. You can't answer the questions. That is obvious. You simply keep running the false erudition game and running away from salient questions.

If you really had vector math in mind with that analogy you would have answers to the questions I posed. If you really had the double-helix in mind with the other analogy, you would have answers to the question I posed about that. You haven't any answers because you haven't actually thought about the topic at all. This is the epitome of false erudition.

 

[Mr. E]

Re: Re: Fun with Bill and Consciousness

Yep. You can't answer the questions. How shocking. So, the summation for you here is you just keep tossing out crap as an exercize in false erudition. You inject mathematical and scientific-sounding analogies as candy for unsophisticated minds.

You can't back up the vector cross-product nonsense. You can't back up the double helix nonsense. Ah, but now, you stub your toe again on "mirroring." The double helix is not a mirror in this sense.

Newsflash, bozo. Part of critical thinking is the ability to defend assertions, not this lame game of backing away from every question. What a moroon.

Wow! At least I seem to have found the candy you like!! But I'm not sure I want to feed your bad habit any more. BTW, namecalling might feel good to you, but I don't see how it engages critical thinking faculties - looks more like prejudice to me.

If you've been following my posts to this thread you will see I have not backed away from topical questions relevant to the thread, and have been engaging other posters questions and issues. Maybe this is more about you? Take a second scan, please.

Have you looked in the mirror lately? You wanted a mirror, I allowed as how you could have one. Now you splutter about how it's not a mirror that you wanted. [Shrug] Symmetry operations are an important factor, whether you like it or not, as is symmetry breaking.

As if you care: How is the vector notion relevant to the thread at this point? What I see is that it is relevant to an ego issue, an aspect of consciousness a bit removed, and rather immaterial, from the thrust of the OP. Are you arguing that the self is immaterial?

How do you know what you believe, BillHoyt? Do you have a conscience or just a jumble of over-excitable pattern-recognition filters set to "CR*P" with an 'A' for effort?


ME

 

[BillHoyt]

Re: Re: Re: Fun with Bill and Consciousness

Wow! At least I seem to have found the candy you like!! But I'm not sure I want to feed your bad habit any more. BTW, namecalling might feel good to you, but I don't see how it engages critical thinking faculties - looks more like prejudice to me.

If you've been following my posts to this thread you will see I have not backed away from topical questions relevant to the thread, and have been engaging other posters questions and issues. Maybe this is more about you? Take a second scan, please.

Have you looked in the mirror lately? You wanted a mirror, I allowed as how you could have one. Now you splutter about how it's not a mirror that you wanted. [Shrug] Symmetry operations are an important factor, whether you like it or not, as is symmetry breaking.

As if you care: How is the vector notion relevant to the thread at this point? What I see is that it is relevant to an ego issue, an aspect of consciousness a bit removed, and rather immaterial, from the thrust of the OP. Are you arguing that the self is immaterial?

How do you know what you believe, BillHoyt? Do you have a conscience or just a jumble of over-excitable pattern-recognition filters set to "CR*P" with an 'A' for effort?


ME

You don't have a clue what you're talking about. If you did, you would have answered the questions. So, let's deal with your continuing gaffe about DNA.

The DNA double-helix has one strand running from the 3' end to the 5', and the other strand running from the 5' end to the 3'. Unravel the strands and you can recreate the A strand from the B or the B strand from the A.

The A strand, however, is composed of an entirely different sequence of nucleotides from the B. There is no "mirror symmetry" here.

Pathetic.

 

[BillHoyt]

Now, mystery, about those questions.

What is the meaning of length for these particular vectors?

o What is the meaning of direction for these particular vectors?

o If consciousness is the cross product, then what is the dot product?

o Why?

o What is the basis set here?

o Is it an orthogonal basis set? Why or why not?

o Is it a linearly independent basis set?

o If not, what is the meaning on the non-independence for this basis set?

o Please show us the basis set and how it can be Gramm-Schmidt orthogonalized.

o Are these vectors complementary in the same way the strands of the double-helix are complementary?

 

[Mr. E]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Fun with Bill and Consciousness

The A strand, however, is composed of an entirely different sequence of nucleotides from the B. There is no "mirror symmetry" here.

Pathetic.

Yes. My post to which you replied pointed out that both symmetry operations and symmetry breaking are important, and I had previously disclaimed an equation between DNA and the real topics here, as well as denying the usual sense of "mirror symmetry".

Now that we are caught up in this pathetic endeavor, do you have something topical to offer?

ME

 

[BillHoyt]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fun with Bill and Consciousness

Yes. My post to which you replied pointed out that both symmetry operations and symmetry breaking are important, and I had previously disclaimed an equation between DNA and the real topics here, as well as denying the usual sense of "mirror symmetry".

Now that we are caught up in this pathetic endeavor, do you have something topical to offer?

ME

Apparently you missed the fact that this DNA symmetry has nothing to do with the mathematical symmetry you clearly struggle to grasp. There are no "symmetry operations" here. Neither is there any "symmetry breaking" here.

What about those other questions, mystery? How long are you going to deny they have any bearing on your lame analogies?

 

[Mr. E]

Ouch! Some browser glitch just killed my first attempt at a reply at 98% completeion -- so much for the reliability of the real world these days.

Actually, it's pretty standard philosophical jargon.

Actually, it was your (mis)use which struck me as odd.

I guess my mistake was in addressing what you said, rather than what you meant. Must be a glitch in my DWIM module.

Oh? Tell me about this module. And next time, read what I wrote please. I didn't write "with a priori awareness", I wrote "with prior awareness". What I wrote seems quite consistent with your similar statement, yet you said "no". If it wasn't a misreading error, it must be pointless distraction. Can you show otherwise?

We do seem to be finding some common ground.

Yay!

But that I can't agree with at all, I'm afraid. When regarding any phenomenon, there are an inifinite number of possible 'facts' which might be observed (or ignored).

As a practical matter the human species seems to have managed many advances despite your unduly pessimistic notion. While the infinite manifold of infinitely many possibilities might never be grasped in its entirety by any person, that doesn't mean we can't make progress in this thread.

Qualia

I'm not looking for trophies, but I appreciate your willingness to stick with the discussion. Are the over-discussed issues of qualia all that relevant - in principle - to the main point of this thread, the question of the existence of the self? That is, do you declare that the question cannot begin to be answered without dealing fully with how it is that qualia in general seem to exist in the world? If not, why bring it up here?

My answer would be: the same way I know someone else believes something; by observing my behavior.

You can't observe another person's conscience in the same way you feel yours, if you have one, no matter how much empathy you may practically have (unless you are claiming hocus pocus ESP abilities). Tell me something you know you believe, whether you believe it absolutely or not.

ME

 

[Mr. E]

On 5 September, at 9:34am, I challenged the false erudition in the crank's use of vector cross products. In my post above, I have repeated the questions for, now, the third time. They have been evaded each and every time. [/B]

Look, Bill spilled more oil.

Look Bill, there wasn't any false erudition to challenge, except maybe your own. That's part of why your posting fits come off as silly to me.

In the future, please distinguish "beginners analogy" from "formal analogy" and from "exact ***omorphism".

If you think a beginners analogy is offered as evidence of erudition, good luck spamming the forum.

ME

PS - This is not to disclaim the correctness of the analogy.

 

[Mr. E]

Conscience

Apparently you missed the fact that this DNA symmetry has nothing to do with the mathematical symmetry you clearly struggle to grasp. There are no "symmetry operations" here. Neither is there any "symmetry breaking" here.

Sorry Don Quixote Hoyt, but it does; it's just not been shown to be relevant in this thread unless asinine humor is relevant here. Since I've asked you to make it relevant and gotten cr*p in return I'm no longer going to humor your pathetic and pretend "erudite" misreadings of my posts.

Since you don't know what you're talking about, and I might know what I'm talking about, let's try something else.

Do you believe anything? If so, how do you know you believe it? This approach might being us around to the backdoor you like so much, faster than harping on the silly ad nauseum's you have been posting.

Even a confirmed skeptic should be able to address this point clearly and in a relatively straighforward manner. I look forward to your perhaps skeptical collaboration.

Regards,

ME

(Maybe you could study some physics, physicists seem to think that SO and SB are here to stay).

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Mr. E

Ouch! Some browser glitch just killed my first attempt at a reply at 98% completeion

That's happened to me so many times that I now make a habit of composing in NotePad and saving before I hit the reply button.

Actually, it was your (mis)use which struck me as odd

That's what I thought. I'm always looking to fine-tune my use of jargon, and I appreciate any help you can offer. I think I made clear my understanding of how these terms are used. Correct away.

Tell me about this module

The DWIM function, in programmer jargon, is an acronym: Do What I Mean. Interesting (and not entirely off topic) is the phenomenal capacity the human brain has to make corrections on the fly (using our implicit inference engines) and the degree to which the way we normally communicate depends on this. It isn't foolproof (obviously) but it's still pretty good.

I didn't write "with a priori awareness", I wrote "with prior awareness". What I wrote seems quite consistent with your similar statement, yet you said "no". If it wasn't a misreading error, it must be pointless distraction. Can you show otherwise?

I think the difficulty originates with your use of the term 'Empirical'. If by that you simply meant knowledge aquired through the senses added to knowledge previously aquired through the senses, then we're ok -- my mistake. But a priori in this context has a specific meaning: something not aquired through the senses. I think your use of the word 'prior' in the same sentence (with 'Empirical') but with a different meaning (than 'a priori') is what threw me. My apologies.

do you declare that the question cannot begin to be answered without dealing fully with how it is that qualia in general seem to exist in the world?

Mu.

Tell me something you know you believe, whether you believe it absolutely or not.

Observing my behavior, I'd say that my implicit inference engines conclude that continuing this discussion is a potentially worthwhile activity. As usual, I have only the vaguest idea how they reached this conslusion.

 

[Mr. E]

Retesting the Waters in Mind

That's happened to me so many times that I now make a habit of composing in NotePad and saving before I hit the reply button.

For what it's worth, a disk crash at the Forum server has wiped out the old page 4 of this thread at a very innopportune and almost paranormal moment. Many fine posts are gone. RIP If anyone has post-sized fragments from page 4, I for one would welcome a repost of what you have.

This post is a further probe.

Observing my behavior, I'd say that my implicit inference engines conclude that continuing this discussion is a potentially worthwhile activity. As usual, I have only the vaguest idea how they reached this conslusion.

There are [at least] two kinds of implicit inference engines in the matter of consciousness.

Anyone else still "here"?

ME

 

[Dancing David]

The collective memory failed. oh well,what I wrote was not that great.

Mr. E., Thanks for carrying on the conversation. Very difficult with the Troll bane making his usual remarks.

How do I know what I believe?

Through the process of interactive cognition and selective memory reconstruction. I am not saying that there are not processes that we conflate and equate with 'consciousness', I am just saying that the mystic proportions assigned to the term 'consciousness' may be misleading.

There is the cognitive process of recall, there then are a myriad of processes which I label as 'judgement', through the application of judgement to memory I can think about what I know. Then there are the memories and thoughts and emotions associated with the more direct perception.

It is similar to the assignment of a personality to a car. Bogart was a tough old Toyota Carolla that would go through any weather. But did the car really have a personality?

 

[H'ethetheth]

Yes, annoying business, this crash. Anyway, I believe my last post was something like this:

From what I understand, Mr. E, thinks of awareness as the place where the self would be at, because sensation just provides information. So awareness is the place where complicated stuff happens, but in my opinion the "being informed" doesn't address any complicated things like self-perception and such.
It seems to me the problem has just been shifted inward, so to speak. So to give a satisfactorry answer to the original question, I'd want Mr. E to give a definition of awareness.

Now it may be that I still haven't understood Mr.E's standpoint, so feel to correct and inform me, in a concise and understandable way of course.

 

[Dymanic]

Looks like I picked a good time to take a break. And no, I don't save the posts permanently as a general rule. I'm not really back yet, this is just a hit-and-run. But I'll be popping in to have a look from time to time. This caught my eye:

Originally posted by Mr. E

There are [at least] two kinds of implicit inference engines in the matter of consciousness.

Two kinds?

Originally posted by Dancing David

But did the car really have a personality?

In other words, is 'consciousness' an actual fact about something in the world, or simply an artifact of the way we categorize things? Right?

To what extent are these two possibilities mutually exclusive? If we conclude that consciousness is not actually a unique type of activity or event in the brain, are we forced to then conclude that nothing at all occurs in the brain to which we might reasonably refer as 'consciousness'?

 

[Mr. E]

How do I know what I believe?

Through the process of interactive cognition and selective memory reconstruction. I am not saying that there are not processes that we conflate and equate with 'consciousness', I am just saying that the mystic proportions assigned to the term 'consciousness' may be misleading.

Well, that puts a different perspective on it for me. I agree that there are many oddball and misleading notions which could be formulated. Perhaps what I presented might prove eventually to fit that vague criterion somewhat. My reading of posts in this thread showed a shifting focus, from 'consciousness' to 'awareness' to 'self'... If you intended to demo conflation, I get it.

I don't think it's reasonable to quibble about whether a Ford Taurus exists, and do it on the basis that you can take it apart into a thousand pieces which don't seem to be a car. I do think it's reasonable to challenge whether what you see in a showroom might only look like the car, and perhaps not have a motor in it. Consciousness may have many "parts" whether more as brain-based structures or as brain-based functions acting in/on those structures. It's not conflation to largely subsume this variety under one heading, is it?

Beyond that: The def. I proposed distinguishes awareness as part of that which makes consciousness possible. I also distinguish

- a self-like function which is a root of consciousness - conscience
- a synthetic self which depends on consciousness - a character
- illusions of/about each of those


"interactive cognition and selective memory reconstruction"

That's a mouthful! Cognition interacts with SMR, whatever SMR is/does (might be a part of activated awareness - memory "data" engaged with a sense data stream as an aspect of attending to sensory input). How does that interaction inform you that you believe something?

ME

 

[Mr. E]

Mr. E had written: There are [at least] two kinds of implicit inference engines in the matter of consciousness.

Two kinds?

Those which are emulations running in conscious mind (recall "modelling emulations and emulating models"), and those which function to make consciousness possible in the first place. Maybe I don't quite understand "implicit inference engine" as you used it?

BTW, brain as empathy organ... something played by dextrous con artists and also an organic basis for higher socialization. I'm not clear on how the intersubjective assumption fits in here but it seems related.


ME

 

[Mr. E]

Yes, annoying business, this crash. Anyway, I believe my last post was something like this:

From what I understand, Mr. E, thinks of awareness as the place where the self would be at, because sensation just provides information. So awareness is the place where complicated stuff happens, but in my opinion the "being informed" doesn't address any complicated things like self-perception and such.
It seems to me the problem has just been shifted inward, so to speak. So to give a satisfactorry answer to the original question, I'd want Mr. E to give a definition of awareness.

What kind of definition? Awareness is only metaphorically a place, otherwise it's a state of being informed as stated before. It doesn't "do" anything. Will, intentional and/or reflexive, does stuff, makes things happen.

Sensation does not provide information, it provides sense data if we are to say it provides anything. Information occurs at what might historically have been called the body-mind boundary.

As to self-perception: There are [at least] two kinds of self-perception in the same general way as I just posted re Dymanic and David (sorry about the scattered nature of this reply - still not up to speed conceptually since the crash). Conscience bridges what we historically tended to call mind and body in the inverse "direction" from normal sense data flow. It's a feedback mechanism. The value systems embodied in its functioning generate sense via what might be part of what we historically tend to call emotion. This is a core of "self" - [possibly software-modifiable] hard/wetware. To the extent that this function works well, one might sense what one believes at/in any moment. That would form a basis for "real" self-perception.

I hope that transforms your post effectively. Fire away and I'll deal with the consequences of my wordy late night foray when I can, later.

ME

 

[Mr. E]

Trolls

The collective memory failed. oh well,what I wrote was not that great.

Mr. E., Thanks for carrying on the conversation. Very difficult with the Troll bane making his usual remarks.

I didn't know skeptics believed in Trolls. Please, do tell. "When" is something a Troll and when not? Is a Troll bane a "he" or an "it", properly speaking?

Pardon me if I seem overly interested in the supernatural and superstitions, but I believe my inquiry to be topical at a deep level.

Thanks in advance.

ME

 

[Dancing David]

posted by Dynamic
In other words, is 'consciousness' an actual fact about something in the world, or simply an artifact of the way we categorize things? Right?

To what extent are these two possibilities mutually exclusive? If we conclude that consciousness is not actually a unique type of activity or event in the brain, are we forced to then conclude that nothing at all occurs in the brain to which we might reasonably refer as 'consciousness'?

I agree that there are behaviors/events that we refer to as consciousness, and that it can be convinient to do so. My argument is mainly against the mytical elevation of such things to a plane out side of the material realm.

There are reasons that the label consciousness is useful, but in discussion with Mercutio I have become to wonder if there really is this 'general awareness' or if there is just specific awareness.