• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Has consciousness been fully explained?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Ichneumonwasp said:
This is just a terminology issue, but 'brain' there really means more along the lines of ganglia. There is no set cut-off point for where we call things brains and ganglia but I know he used to refer to those structures as ganglia earlier in his career.

The issue is not important really. As to the answer of do they have a mind, I think that answer depends on how you define mind. Come up with set definitions of these words and you can answer your own question.
Click to expand...
Agreed, it's a terminology issue. I guess the more important thing is that a snail doesn't have a brain of the sort that a human has, or a fish, or an octopus, or even a bee. I can comfortably say that bees have minds, of a sort, but snails may not have the necessary representational capacity.
 
Beth said:
They are not contiguous. If you have ever read GEB, it would be like the conscious ant hill. If you are correct, then that is just another instantiation of the pattern of relationships that comprise consciousness. Is there something that it is like to be an ant colony?
Click to expand...

No idea about what it is like to be an ant colony, but my impression would be no because the whole idea of "something like" is a question about feeling and simple computation does not include feeling (which raises the other subject that I think still begs for discussion -- what is feeling?).

Contiguous or not, of one action causes another or if a set of rules can take action in one area and then 'institute' action in a slightly other place, then we should be able to do calculations. We still seem to be able to perform mental tasks with the computers we have.

And all of this involves a physical substrate. There is always a physical substrate.


Does the concept of addition have any existence apart from being a part of our thoughts? Apparently it is a part of the very structure of our central nervous system, to a degree I had not realized previous to our conversation here. What is the concept of addition if not a bare relation bereft of any physical embodiment? All of mathematics is nothing but bare relationships devoid of physicality.
Click to expand...


Concept is a loaded word. I would have to say that the concept of it only exists in our minds but the physical act of addition occurs nonetheless in certain constrained conditions where meaning is already part of a system.
 
There is absolutely no such thing as entropy reversal, it is impossible and all posters should stop referring to it. No system that shows entropy reversal exists unless you pretend it is not in a larger system that it is taking energy from.

Entropy reversal does not exist, I am shocked that any one even pretends that it does. Life and computing only can exist by an increase in entropy, always and forever.

Seriously ice cubes are not entropy reversing. Life in particular depends upon entropy, it is called matabolism.
 
Last edited:
Dancing David said:
If minds exist, then any brain that is functioning produces one.

BTW: I am not sure snails have brains. They have some neural structures but i am not sure that they have brains.
Click to expand...

Yeah brains are hard to define let alone what they do.
 
Dancing David said:
There is absolutely no such thing as entropy reversal, it is impossible and all posters should stop referring to it. No system that shows entropy reversal exists unless you pretend it is not in a larger system that it is taking energy from.

Entropy reversal does not exist, I am shocked that any one even pretends that it does. Life and computing only can exist by an increase in entropy, always and forever.

Seriously ice cubes are not entropy reversing. Life in particular depends upon entropy, it is called matabolism.
Click to expand...


Correct, it is just sloppy terminology and I apologize for using it; the point being that there are localized increases in order that use energy and that is one of the many things that are needed for life and for making a computer (or any other man-made object).
 
Dancing David said:
There is absolutely no such thing as entropy reversal, it is impossible and all posters should stop referring to it. No system that shows entropy reversal exists unless you pretend it is not in a larger system that it is taking energy from.

Entropy reversal does not exist, I am shocked that any one even pretends that it does. Life and computing only can exist by an increase in entropy, always and forever.

Seriously ice cubes are not entropy reversing. Life in particular depends upon entropy, it is called matabolism.
Click to expand...

I think the point was that life is able to closely control what subsystems have a local decrease or increase of entropy.

Yes metabolism represents a local increase of entropy, but if you localize metabolism away from the celluar subsystems that use the energy from metabolism, you see that those subsystems in fact have a net entropy decrease.

Nothing in the universe does this kind of thing to the extent that life does.

ETA: wow wasp beat me to the punch by like 53 seconds
 
PixyMisa said:
Well, each sentence is individually devoid of meaning, and the post as a whole is merely a scattered jumble of disjoint ramblings.

However, most of the words are spelled correctly, so points for that.
Click to expand...

Would you answer a simple question?

Do you remember which was your first conscious thought after you birth?
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
No idea about what it is like to be an ant colony, but my impression would be no because the whole idea of "something like" is a question about feeling and simple computation does not include feeling (which raises the other subject that I think still begs for discussion -- what is feeling?).

Contiguous or not, of one action causes another or if a set of rules can take action in one area and then 'institute' action in a slightly other place, then we should be able to do calculations. We still seem to be able to perform mental tasks with the computers we have.

And all of this involves a physical substrate. There is always a physical substrate.





Concept is a loaded word. I would have to say that the concept of it only exists in our minds but the physical act of addition occurs nonetheless in certain constrained conditions where meaning is already part of a system.
Click to expand...

So how do you account for feeling?
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
Contiguous or not, of one action causes another or if a set of rules can take action in one area and then 'institute' action in a slightly other place, then we should be able to do calculations. We still seem to be able to perform mental tasks with the computers we have.

And all of this involves a physical substrate. There is always a physical substrate.
Click to expand...

You are not understanding me, so I'm not getting across what I mean. I'll try again.

Disembodied doesn't mean there is no physical substrate. Disembodied means that the pattern of relationships can move around independently of the atoms/electrons that comprise it at any moment.

Consider the relatively common concept of a ghost - the disembodied spirit of a human. Now think of that concept as being the pattern of relationships of an individual's mind moving from their former physical body to the electrons and photos floating in the air. The physical substate has changed, but the pattern of relationships is maintained. Does that make more sense now? Can you see why I would refer to a computer simulation as 'disembodied' even though it would have some collection of electrons representing it at any particular instant of time, it would have no 'body' in the sense that it would have no contiguous or continuous collection of electrons that maintain the pattern of relationships that comprise the consciousness.
 
Aren't you basically just restating, for life, and consciousness, substrate sure appears to matter? And certainly does so for any instance of either ever identified as such.
 
Beth said:
You are not understanding me, so I'm not getting across what I mean. I'll try again.

Disembodied doesn't mean there is no physical substrate. Disembodied means that the pattern of relationships can move around independently of the atoms/electrons that comprise it at any moment.

Consider the relatively common concept of a ghost - the disembodied spirit of a human. Now think of that concept as being the pattern of relationships of an individual's mind moving from their former physical body to the electrons and photos floating in the air. The physical substate has changed, but the pattern of relationships is maintained. Does that make more sense now? Can you see why I would refer to a computer simulation as 'disembodied' even though it would have some collection of electrons representing it at any particular instant of time, it would have no 'body' in the sense that it would have no contiguous or continuous collection of electrons that maintain the pattern of relationships that comprise the consciousness.
Click to expand...


OK. I wouldn't call that disembodied. All that is important is that there is a set of rules that governs the interactions of the parts whether or not they are contiguous.
 
AlBell said:
Aren't you basically just restating, for life, and consciousness, substrate sure appears to matter? And certainly does so for any instance of either ever identified as such.
Click to expand...


How can an action occur without some underlying substrate? I'm not sure they idea makes any sense.
 
Malerin said:
So how do you account for feeling?
Click to expand...


Don't think I can account for it. A start is trying to get a handle on what we mean by it.

To me, it seems to mean a behavioral tendency in competition with other behavioral tendencies (which isn't much of a help because that's a pretty vague definition).

If we are engaged in some behavior and nothing esle competes with it we don't seem to feel it -- like driving a car and staying in the same lane until we reach an exit sign and have to figure out what to do next.
 
AlBell said:
Aren't you basically just restating, for life, and consciousness, substrate sure appears to matter? And certainly does so for any instance of either ever identified as such.
Click to expand...

That isn't what I was getting at, but I do agree with your statement.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
Don't think I can account for it. A start is trying to get a handle on what we mean by it.

To me, it seems to mean a behavioral tendency in competition with other behavioral tendencies (which isn't much of a help because that's a pretty vague definition).

If we are engaged in some behavior and nothing esle competes with it we don't seem to feel it -- like driving a car and staying in the same lane until we reach an exit sign and have to figure out what to do next.
Click to expand...

I can account for it.

"Emotion" and "feeling" are really just modifiers that affect the two fundamental things going on in one's mind -- thoughts and sensory perception.

Emotion and feeling simply change the nature of your thoughts and the way thoughts lead to other thoughts -- there is nothing inexplicable there, it is all mathematically describable.

Emotion and feelings also simply change the nature of your sensory perception -- certain percepts increase or decrease in intensity. Again, nothing inexplicable there, it is all mathematically describable.

If you want to get more complex you can break it down further, and also mix and match those two fundamentals for example if you have a memory of smiling etc. when you feel "happy." Memory is a thought and the physical feeling of smiling is a percept.

But at any rate there is nothing magical about it.
 
Beth said:
You are not understanding me, so I'm not getting across what I mean. I'll try again.

Disembodied doesn't mean there is no physical substrate. Disembodied means that the pattern of relationships can move around independently of the atoms/electrons that comprise it at any moment.
Click to expand...
That's not logically coherent. The pattern of relationships is a pattern of relationships. It's not comprised of atoms or electrons, it's the pattern of relationships of those atoms or electrons.

You can form the same pattern with another substrate. You can't form any pattern at all without a substrate.

Consider the relatively common concept of a ghost - the disembodied spirit of a human. Now think of that concept as being the pattern of relationships of an individual's mind moving from their former physical body to the electrons and photos floating in the air.
Click to expand...
That's not disembodied. It's impossible, but it's not disembodied.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom