On Consciousness

[Beelzebuddy]

Yeah Beelzebuddy, don't hold out on us! How does it get from those photoreceptors to the little projector room?

It's carried there by homunculi.

 

[tsig]

It's carried there by homunculi.

Who eats the magic bean soup and farts out red.

 

[Belz...]

There are no such things, because red and green do not exist out in the world to be received. Red and green are products of brain activity.

Actually they are wavelengths of visible light, detected by different cells and interpreted differently by the processing engine that is your brain because it associates them to different past experiences.

I seriously don't see any reason to think there's anything more to "red", except an over-reliance on pre-existing assumptions about the reliability of one's own experiences.

 

[Belz...]

What does that have to do with red and green?

Why is red associated with one, and green with another?

Why isn't it the other way around?

Why aren't those receptors instead associated with the smell of cinnamon and the taste of lemons… or no phenomenology at all?

Why is there something and not nothing ?

Why do you keep asking "why" as if it was meaningful ?

That baby has no associations to make, either with prior experience or with linguistic tags. Why does she see red and not green?

We did mention that the experience itself is different, right ?

So far, all that's being distinguished is wavelengths.

And it's not enough for you because you're still looking for the "magic bean", which may not be a bean, or magic, to you, but sure sounds like it to the rest of us.

There's no red or green or any color yet, just differential neural behavior depending on wavelength.

They are one and the same, Piggy. It's like finding the lost city of El Dorado after twenty years of searching, realising that it's made of stone instead, and declaring that there must be a real El Dorado hiding just a bit further.

 

[Belz...]

So far, we simply have different neural patterns in response to wavelengths of light.

That's not red or green.

I suspect you will never accept any explanation, because you are artificially putting a barrier to what we can know about how red and green are formed in the brain. That is not skepticism.

Who eats the magic bean soup and farts out red.

No, that's just a process of bean to fart, tsig. Still not red or green.

 

[steenkh]

Please explain how a "data structure" is an experience.

As you do so, you'll have to explain why some data structures yield experience and others don't.

When you are thinking you are not thinking of 'red' all the time. When you are thinking of 'red' you are recalling the data structure and its associations. It is not the data structure itself that is the experience, but your recalling of it and its associations.

And I have no idea what you mean by some data structures yielding experience and others not: all data structures yield experience when you recall them. Or what is an experience in your view?

 

[Mr. Scott]

I've found that the assumption that the brain is a data processing machine has yielded enormous insight into what the brain is doing and how it works. The assumption that qualia, etc., are beyond data processing has yielded nothing. It's resemblance to woo is bracing.

If real, production of qualia must consume energy. Then, the homunculus that observes the qualia must be consuming energy as well. Any evidence of this?

It's almost as if internal subjective experience qualia are illusion. Could it be a cultural concoction we've allowed under the skin that we just don't want to let go of?

I suspect that if we duplicated the brain in silicon, it would never wonder about the nature of its internal subjective experience, unless we told it to wonder and planted the idea that was so special (e.g. if we asked it why red looked red). Then it would likely conclude that something magical was emerging that it's data processing couldn't explain.

 

[Piggy]

Yeah, that's still at the photoreceptor. Red and green lights activate different patterns. That's where they separate. If you're interested in the behavior we could try walking through that, but the color itself? Photoreceptors.

There's no such thing as "red light" or "green light".

Going back to the baby, in that example you're cheating b/c you already know, based on your own experience, that she will eventually see red.

But you have to put that out of your mind and examine the actual case.

We have photoreceptors that distinguish between different wavelengths of light, but at the photoreceptor point no color has occurred yet. The brain hasn't produced it.

Ditto for the optical nerve.

There is no means to predict, if you didn't already know it, that the baby would end up seeing red as a result of either wavelength bouncing off the retina. In fact, there's no means to predict that the baby will see any color at all, or have any conscious experience at all.

So no, we can't stop at the photoreceptors.

That's the "something for nothing" approach.

 

[Piggy]

You keep saying this. Are you looking for an excuse to quit while saving face? I've noticed you have a tendency to accuse people of whatever fallacy you're committing at the time, maybe you're just projecting?

I say it because you keep bailing out.

You want to stop at the photoreceptors, for example, but at that point all we're looking at is wavelengths of light and neural activity. So far no color.

So let's keep going and we'll see where the color is performed, and whether you have an answer for why the baby -- who's never seen red before and has no word for it -- eventually sees red, and not some other color, or has some experience other than color, or no experience at all.

Stopping at the photoreceptors is merely assuming your conclusions and bailing out.

 

[Piggy]

Yeah Beelzebuddy, don't hold out on us! How does it get from those photoreceptors to the little projector room?

Have you read my post explaining how a contemporary neurobiological view does away with the Cartesian theater?

 

[Piggy]

When you are thinking you are not thinking of 'red' all the time. When you are thinking of 'red' you are recalling the data structure and its associations. It is not the data structure itself that is the experience, but your recalling of it and its associations.

And I have no idea what you mean by some data structures yielding experience and others not: all data structures yield experience when you recall them. Or what is an experience in your view?

I am not talking about "thinking of red". I'm talking about what happens when you're looking at the traffic light and it changes. That's different from "thinking of red". The latter requires some of the same real estate as the former, but they're not identical.

And are you saying there are no "data structures" in the cerebellum? Because nothing that goes on there has any conscious correlate.

In any case, we're not talking about recalling anything. Take the example of the baby who sees red for the first time in her life. There's no "recalling" involved.

How and why does she see red… rather than having some other experience… or none at all?

 

[Piggy]

I've found that the assumption that the brain is a data processing machine has yielded enormous insight into what the brain is doing and how it works. The assumption that qualia, etc., are beyond data processing has yielded nothing. It's resemblance to woo is bracing.

If real, production of qualia must consume energy. Then, the homunculus that observes the qualia must be consuming energy as well. Any evidence of this?

It's almost as if internal subjective experience qualia are illusion. Could it be a cultural concoction we've allowed under the skin that we just don't want to let go of?

I suspect that if we duplicated the brain in silicon, it would never wonder about the nature of its internal subjective experience, unless we told it to wonder and planted the idea that was so special (e.g. if we asked it why red looked red). Then it would likely conclude that something magical was emerging that it's data processing couldn't explain.

So far, nobody has come up with any explanation of consciousness, or even a framework to understand it, within the "data processing" framework.

Also, the modern biological view of consciousness has done away with the homunculus problem. What seems to be the stuff out there is you, and what seems to be you is an imaginary implied vantage point. Problem solved. And unlike the "projector room" scenario, this doesn't present us with a situation that defies physics.

As for consciousness requiring energy, here's one take on that.

And no, it's not possible that sounds and smells and colors and pain and pleasure are "cultural concoctions". I don't think that even merits discussion, especially considering that we can't even discuss conscious experiences we don't already share.

 

[AlBell]

If a baby made it to a few years of age without being taught how to associate the words 'red' and 'green' to vision, would it see the 'red' rose and 'green' leaves rather than a 'green' rose and 'red' leaves? Would its' sky still be 'blue'?

 

[!Kaggen]

If a baby made it to a few years of age without being taught how to associate the words 'red' and 'green' to vision, would it see the 'red' rose and 'green' leaves rather than a 'green' rose and 'red' leaves? Would its' sky still be 'blue'?

No, our concept describing the sky it sees would be blue. Of course this would only be true if she understood the concept sky, if not; our concept describing the space not land or sea would be the blue sky. This is all assuming of course that we understood the concepts blue and sky.

Language, don't you love it !

 

[Beelzebuddy]

You want to stop at the photoreceptors, for example, but at that point all we're looking at is wavelengths of light and neural activity. So far no color.

That's all color is. Wavelength of light and neural activity. It's not "bailing out" to say we've arrived at the answer. You're the one begging the question here, as your definition of "red" comes saddled with extra baggage that you haven't been bothered to explain in falsifiable (or in fact even addressable) terms, save that no explanation has thus far been satisfactory.

Let's call it "azuki."

whether you have an answer for why the baby -- who's never seen red before and has no word for it -- eventually sees red, and not some other color, or has some experience other than color, or no experience at all.

Because that's the wavelength of light impinging on the baby's photoreceptors. Assuming the baby's not colorblind, it activates a unique pattern of neurons that's highly overlapping but still distinguishable from that produced by other wavelengths, and is quickly moving to specialize. It doesn't mean anything to the baby, not yet, but it's still there.

 

[Piggy]

That's all color is. Wavelength of light and neural activity. It's not "bailing out" to say we've arrived at the answer. You're the one begging the question here, as your definition of "red" comes saddled with extra baggage that you haven't been bothered to explain in falsifiable (or in fact even addressable) terms, save that no explanation has thus far been satisfactory.

Let's call it "azuki."


Because that's the wavelength of light impinging on the baby's photoreceptors. Assuming the baby's not colorblind, it activates a unique pattern of neurons that's highly overlapping but still distinguishable from that produced by other wavelengths, and is quickly moving to specialize. It doesn't mean anything to the baby, not yet, but it's still there.

There's no extra baggage, you simply have not answered the question.

Say you're looking at a stoplight. The light from the top bulb and the light from the bottom bulb make your retina do different things, and you have different neural activity in the optic nerve.

What are the qualities of that neural activity which would allow an observer to predict -- if they didn't already know it -- whether your resulting conscious experience would be of a red light above a green light, or the other way around?

Or for that matter, some completely different experience, or no conscious experience at all?

Same for the baby -- what about the neural activity would allow an observer to predict that the baby would have an experience of red, rather than some other experience, or no conscious experience as a result?

So far, you're still arguing something for nothing.

Just answer the question.

ETA: While you're at it, since you contend that the activity of photoreceptors in the retina is sufficient to produce a conscious experience of color, please explain how lesions in the visual cortex can cause blindness? If you were correct that retinal activity were sufficient to produce the experience, lesions "downstream" would not matter.

 

[steenkh]

There's no such thing as "red light" or "green light".

Going back to the baby, in that example you're cheating b/c you already know, based on your own experience, that she will eventually see red.

But you have to put that out of your mind and examine the actual case.

We have photoreceptors that distinguish between different wavelengths of light, but at the photoreceptor point no color has occurred yet. The brain hasn't produced it.

This is of course nonsense. The brain is not producing colours, but registering them.

The baby will not see 'red' at the beginning, but register that not all of the three types of photoreceptors receive equally much light. At some point the child will start to build the data structure of 'red' based on objects that it encounters that register mostly on the red type of photoreceptor.

There is also the possibility that some rudimentary data structure is hard-wired for the red photoreceptors.

There really is no need for anything mysterious, and certainly not for the brain to 'produce' red when it arrives directly at the photoreceptors.

I am not talking about "thinking of red". I'm talking about what happens when you're looking at the traffic light and it changes. That's different from "thinking of red". The latter requires some of the same real estate as the former, but they're not identical.

What is the problem? The red photoreceptors register more input than the others, and this matches with the red data structure.

And are you saying there are no "data structures" in the cerebellum? Because nothing that goes on there has any conscious correlate.

I did not say anything about the cerebellum, and I do not see the need for such details at the very theoretical stage of the model.

In any case, we're not talking about recalling anything. Take the example of the baby who sees red for the first time in her life. There's no "recalling" involved.

In that case we are talking about 'storing', and probably almost immediately a 'recall' to reinforce the data structure.

How and why does she see red… rather than having some other experience… or none at all?

Because she gets impulses from the data receptors that register 'red'. Are you sure you are not just being obtuse?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

What are the qualities of that neural activity which would allow an observer to predict -- if they didn't already know it -- whether your resulting conscious experience would be of a red light above a green light, or the other way around?

The distribution of photoreceptor activity would be the first place where sufficient qualities could be found. The activity distribution of the respective downstream networks is another, although that rapidly becomes less prediction than observation, because that's where it's happening.

ETA: While you're at it, since you contend that the activity of photoreceptors in the retina is sufficient to produce a conscious experience of color, please explain how lesions in the visual cortex can cause blindness? If you were correct that retinal activity were sufficient to produce the experience, lesions "downstream" would not matter.

I think I've mentioned downstream processing like a zillion times here. You've never seemed that interested because at that point it's just neural activity finding patterns in other neural activity, not "red" and "green."

There is also the possibility that some rudimentary data structure is hard-wired for the red photoreceptors.

I don't think so. Consider the trichomatic vision paper I linked to earlier. They were working with adult monkeys. If a particular color's vision depended on existing infrastructure or even a critical period in development, it shouldn't have worked.

 

[Mr. Scott]

So far, nobody has come up with any explanation of consciousness, or even a framework to understand it, within the "data processing" framework.

Also, the modern biological view of consciousness has done away with the homunculus problem. What seems to be the stuff out there is you, and what seems to be you is an imaginary implied vantage point. Problem solved. And unlike the "projector room" scenario, this doesn't present us with a situation that defies physics.

As for consciousness requiring energy, here's one take on that.

And no, it's not possible that sounds and smells and colors and pain and pleasure are "cultural concoctions". I don't think that even merits discussion, especially considering that we can't even discuss conscious experiences we don't already share.

I don't think that's true that no one has come up with a framework to understand consciousness within the data processing framework.

I'm suggesting that the idea of the internal subjective experience being above and beyond what machines can do is cultural, not scientific. I assume you are familiar with Dennett's "The Magic of Consciousness?" What's your refutation, Piggy?

As for energy consumed by consciousness, is there any evidence it's consumed by more than neurons doing there action potential things, which can be modeled as data processing elements in digital computers?

You think qualia are produced inside neurons?

 

[PixyMisa]

The problem with the notion that we can't explain consciousness within the framework of data processing is that consciousness is data processing.

And the problem with the notion that consciousness is special because it requires energy is that, well, duh.