The Hard Problem of Gravity

cyborg said:
No it isn't - it's a concept that's part of an epistemology. Ontology doesn't come into it.
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No identification with thought = no objectivity. If the sense of self created through thought is not present then sensorily everything is the same but there is no longer objectivity.

Nick
 
rocketdodger said:
If you really think this, then you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of mathematics.

Good luck with that.
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Then kindly demonstrate what properties of mathematics depend on which properties of the physical universe.

And good luck with that.
 
Nick227 said:
Pixy, you're just getting a little crazy now. The paper is online here. In describing the neuronal precursors to conscious access the authors repeatedly use the terms "ignite" or "ignition." Please just read it if you don't believe me.

To me this means that the process taking place resembles a state change. (Please note that both above and when I used the term in the post before I used italics for "appear to" and "resembles" because I'm not suggesting that there definitively is a state change.)

Nick
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It seems to me that the paper is discussing how information is sent 'broadcast' to different areas of the brain at the same time.

What is the relevance of the state change? The brain is constantly changing states.
 
Nick227 said:
They're researching how the brain creates consciousness. If they took it as implicit that consciousness was self-reference then I dare say they would be researching how the brain references itself. But AFAICT they're not.

Using briefly flashed words preceeded by and sometimes succeeded by visual masks one can create a situation where both conscious and unconscious perception can be neuronally studied. And when the word is consciously reported by the subject it is seen that there are 3 neuronal conditions being met.

Thus, I submit, what is being studied are the neuronal conditions for conscious access.

I just don't see how defining consciousness as self-reference is much meaningful in this context. It may well be true (though that's unproven), but it anyway strikes me as very much judging the outcome before one starts experimenting.

And what makes this research exciting, and makes lots of other scientists interested in it, is not that it is just "filling in the details" as you suggest. Rather it is that it is going right into this chasm between the brain and the mind, that many scientists have believed in since Descartes, and trying to shine some light in there.

And what else is seen is that for conscious access to occur actually a fair bit of stuff needs to go on at a neuronal level. Not just we stick a little feedback loop in and it's a done deal.
Rather "the ensuing brain-scale neural assembly must “ignite” into a self-sustained reverberant state of coherent activity that involves many neurons distributed throughout the brain."

The situation is problematic for Strong AI. Certainly it's not how I imagine many Strong AI theorists would like it. When Dennett came up against this kind of research a decade or so ago, he had to climb down and re-think.

Nick
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Sorry Nick227 , could you parse this for me, it seems you made ana ssertion at the end that you did not explain very well.
 
Apathia said:
Pixie,

I'm trying to get some clariity with these terns: "conscious" and "aware".

As far as I know, my body and brain are engaged in hundreds of self referential loops of which I have no awareness. (No perception of them and I'm totally oblivious to these processes.)
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Point of order and clarification, you are always aware of perceptions. perceptions are constructs generated by the brain from sensation.

You are aware of them , even if your 'attention' is not focused on them.

The issue that Pixy is making is that the specific processes that people refer to as consciousness involve an element of selfreference in brain processes, which is why I encourage people to avoid the term 'consciousness' and refer to the specific process instead.
Then there's this symbol manipulation I call "self-awareness" which is also a lot of loopiness. I seem to be aware of this awareness, though I suspect I'm not aware of the of what's actually going on but just a surface process or even a derivative.

Now the dumb question for clarity's sake:
Is SHRDLU aware?
Is SHRDLU self-aware?
Is SHRDLU aware of its awareness?
Does SHRDLU have a subjective experience of selfhood?

BTW I'd reccomend folks read Hofstadter's I'm a Strange Loop.
GEB is fine but somewhat dated. LOOP makes a deeper investigation into what we call selfhood.
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Nick227 said:
It's a hard thing to prove either way, as I can't easily do a straw poll, but I'll give you a quote from the Introduction to Rita Carter's 2002 book, Exploring Consciousness...



Personally, I doubt many neuroscientists undertaking research projects actually spend so much time agonising over the HPC. They get on with the "easy problems." But whether they believe there is an HPC or not does not, I submit, depend on how clever they are but rather on how easily they are satisfied with a theoretical solution.

You can take the position that "the mind is what the brain does," but that is just taking a position. Nothing more. It's cool.

So, to answer your point, I can't prove it but I figure a clear majority of neuroscientists who actually research would agree that the HPC exists. Not because of their intelligence or understanding or lack of these things. But because if you're of the disposition that likes to investigate stuff, which as a researcher you likely are, you're not so likely to be happy with a pat statement like "the mind is what the brain does." Jeremy Wolfe, who Pixy cites, is a clear exception, but I figure this would hold for most researchers.

Nick
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Okay, so it is an unsubstantiated opion.

Most researchers would say that the 'mind' does not exist it is a rubric for a lot os seperate things.
 
Nick227 said:
No identification with thought = no objectivity. If the sense of self created through thought is not present then sensorily everything is the same but there is no longer objectivity.
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What has this got to do with the concept of the reduction of bias error?
 
westprog said:
Then kindly demonstrate what properties of mathematics depend on which properties of the physical universe.
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Tatulogically all of them in a physical universe.

Abstractions describe relationships between concrete entities - they do not create them.
 
Dancing David said:
Point of order and clarification, you are always aware of perceptions. perceptions are constructs generated by the brain from sensation.

You are aware of them , even if your 'attention' is not focused on them.
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You need more of an argument than that. How do you explain inattentional blindness?
 
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yy2bggggs said:
You need more of an argument than that. How do you explain inattentional blindness?
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The point anyway was not relevant to the earlier question. Originally it was about one interpretation of GWT, specifically the notion that the body/brain is made up of multiple modules, each of which is conscious independant of the others.

Nick
 
cyborg said:
Tatulogically all of them in a physical universe.
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If you can't show a dependence for any single mathematical property upon any single physical property, then it seems unlikely that mathematics depends on the existence of the physical universe. For any possible configuration of the physical universe, mathematical truth remains unchanged. Hence it seems highly implausible that it vanishes with the universe.

Abstractions describe relationships between concrete entities - they do not create them.
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Of necessity, any physical behaviour must conform to mathematical reality. It can do nothing else.

Exactly why the physical universe should be bound by mathematical truth is a mystery, as is why the mathematical world has no dependence on the physical world.
 
Dancing David said:
Point of order and clarification, you are always aware of perceptions. perceptions are constructs generated by the brain from sensation.

You are aware of them , even if your 'attention' is not focused on them.

The issue that Pixy is making is that the specific processes that people refer to as consciousness involve an element of selfreference in brain processes, which is why I encourage people to avoid the term 'consciousness' and refer to the specific process instead.
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I suppose my question was too stupid to deserve an answer.
At least I wasn't given an insult in reply.

Probably "self-awareness" is another term that should be avoided.
 
westprog said:
If you can't show a dependence for any single mathematical property upon any single physical property,
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Describe a mathematical property without using a concrete entity to do so.

For any possible configuration of the physical universe, mathematical truth remains unchanged.
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This mathematical "truth" you describe is just all possible relationships described in all possible ways.

There isn't anything *to* change - when you pick one of the relationships to describe object A and another to describe object B "truth" is just utility and "unchanging" just means you were able to pick the same descriptions consistently.

Try reading about metamathematics.

Of necessity, any physical behaviour must conform to mathematical reality. It can do nothing else.
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Er no.

There are an infinite number of abstract relationships - you pick the ones that relate to what you are describing, the things that you are describing do not take on those relationships.

Exactly why the physical universe should be bound by mathematical truth is a mystery,
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Since it isn't it isn't. You don't seem to understand how mathematics works.
 
cyborg said:
Describe a mathematical property without using a concrete entity to do so.
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Mathematics never deals with concrete objects. Becoming a good mathematician is based on learning not to deal with actual objects.

This mathematical "truth" you describe is just all possible relationships described in all possible ways.

There isn't anything *to* change - when you pick one of the relationships to describe object A and another to describe object B "truth" is just utility and "unchanging" just means you were able to pick the same descriptions consistently.

Try reading about metamathematics.
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Penrose gives a detailed description of the relationship between mathematics and physics. I recommend it.

Er no.

There are an infinite number of abstract relationships - you pick the ones that relate to what you are describing, the things that you are describing do not take on those relationships.



Since it isn't it isn't. You don't seem to understand how mathematics works.
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cyborg said:
Since it isn't it isn't. You don't seem to understand how mathematics works.
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The way that the physical universe is bound by mathematical facts is fundamental to the study of physics for at least the last five hundred years.
 
westprog said:
Of necessity, any physical behaviour must conform to mathematical reality. It can do nothing else.

Exactly why the physical universe should be bound by mathematical truth is a mystery, as is why the mathematical world has no dependence on the physical world.
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Cyborg is doing a fine job addressing these points so I won't bother.

I just wanted to point out both you and Roger Penrose rely on circular reasoning entirely.

There is no way to show that mathematics exists independently of physical reality without assuming that conclusion.

Furthermore, there is no way to show it without also assuming that humans somehow -- magically (or via penrose-physics-magic) -- have unique access to this magical world that is independent of reality. Which is .. big surprise... also a desired conclusion.
 
Nick227 said:
burn him! burn him!
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Well, thats what happens when high-rollers screw up.

Penrose is pretty darn smart, and he has done great work in many fields.

So it is only that much more disappointing when he makes errors that even university students can see.
 
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