consciousness
selva kumar
I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a answer.
Bruno Marchal
On 01 Jul 2011, at 13:23, selva kumar wrote:
> Is consciousness causally effective ?
>
> I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a answer.
Was it in the FOR list (on the book Fabric of reality by David
Deutsch) ? I thought I did answer this question, which is a very
imprtant and fundamental question.
It is also a tricky question, which is very similar or related to the
question of free-will, and it can lead to vocabulary issue. I often
defend the idea that consciousness is effective. Indeed the role I
usually defend for consciousness is a relative self-speeding up
ability. Yet the question is tricky, especially due to the presence of
the "causally", which is harder to grasp or define than
"consciousness" itself.
Let me try to explain. For this I need some definition, and I hope for
some understanding of the UDA and a bit of AUDA. Ask precision if
needed.
The main ingredient for the explanation are three theorems due to Gödel:
- the Gödel completeness theorem (available for machine talking first
order logic or a sufficiently effective higher order logic). The
theorem says that a theory or machine is consistent (syntactical
notion, = ~Bf) iff the theory has a model (a mathematical structure in
which it makes sense to say that a proposition is true). I will
rephrase this by saying that a machine is consistent if and only if
the machine's beliefs make sense in some reality.
- the Gödel second incompleteness theorem ~Bf -> ~B(~Bf): if the
machine is consistent, then this is not provable by the machine. So if
the beliefs are real in some reality, the machine cannot prove the
existence of that reality. This is used in some strict way, because we
don't assume the machine can prove its completeness (despite this has
shown to be the case by Orey). This entails that eventually, the
machine can add as new axiom its own consistency, but this leads to a
new machine, for which a novel notion of consistency appears, and the
'new' machine can still not prove the existence of a reality
"satisfying its beliefs. yet that machine can easily prove the
consistency of the machine she was. This can be reitered as many times
as their are (constructive) ordinals, and this is what I describe as a
climbing from G to G*. The modal logic of self-reference remains
unchanged, but the arithmetical interpretation of it expands. An
infinity of previously undecidable propositions become decidable,
and ... another phenomenon occurs:
- Gödel length of proof theorem. Once a machine adds an undecidable
proposition, like its own consistency, as a new axiom/belief, not only
an infinity of (arithmetical) propositions become decidable, but an
infinity of already provable propositions get shorter proofs. Indeed,
and amazingly enough, for any number x, we can find a proposition
which proofs will be x times shorter than its shorter proof in the
beliefs system without the undecidable proposition. A similar, but not
entirely equivalent theorem is true for universal computation ability,
showing in particular that there is no bound to the rapidity of
computers, and this just by change of the software (alas, with finite
numbers of exceptions in the *effective* self-speeding up: but
evolution of species needs not to be effective or programmable in
advance).
Now I suggest to (re)define consciousness as a machine (instinctive,
preprogrammed) ability to bet on a reality. This is equivalent
(stricto sensu: the machine does not need to know this) to an ability
of betting its own consistency (excluding that very new axiom to avoid
inconsistency). As a universal system, this will speed-up the machine
relatively to the probable local universal system(s) and will in that
way augment its freedom degree. If two machines play ping-pong, the
machine which is quicker has a greater range of possible moves/
strategy than its opponent.
So the answer to the question "is consciousness effective" would be
yes, if you accept such definition.
Is that consciousness *causally* effective? That is the tricky part
related to free will. If you accept the definition of free will that I
often suggested, then the answer is yes. Causality will have its
normal "physical definition", except that with comp such physicalness
is given by an arithmetical quantization (based on the material
hypostase defined by Bp & Dp): p physically causes q, iff something
like BD(BDp -> BDq). I recall Dp = ~B ~p. But of course, in God eyes,
there is only true (and false) number relations. The löbian phenomenon
then shows that the consciousness self-speeding up is coupled with the
building of the reality that the machine bet on. At that level, it is
like if consciousness is the main force, perhaps the only original
one, in the physical universe! This needs still more work to make
precise enough. There is a complex tradeoff in between the "causally"
and the "effective" at play, I think.
I hope this was not too technical. The work of Gödel plays a
fundamental role. This explanation is detailed in "Conscience et
Mécanisme", and related more precisely to the inference inductive frame.
To sum up: machine consciousness, in the theory, confers self-speeding
up abilities to the machine with respect to the most probable
continuation/universal-machine. It is obviously something useful for
self-moving creature: to make them able to anticipate and avoid
obstacles, which would explain why the self-moving creatures have
developed self-reflexive brains, and become Löbian (self-conscious).
Note that here the role is attributed to self-consciousness, and not
really to consciousness. But you need consciousness to have self-
consciousness. Consciousness per se has no role, like in pure
contemplation, but once reflected in the Löbian way, it might be the
stronger causally effective force operating in the 'arithmetical
truth', the very origin of the (self) acceleration/force.
Note that the Gödel speed-up theorem is not hard to prove. There is a
simple proof of it in the excellent book by Torkel Franzen "Gödel's
theorem An Incomplete Guide To Its Use and Abuse" which I recommend
the reading (despite it is more on the abuses than the uses). The
original paper is in the book by Davis: the undecidable (republished
in Dover), and which I consider as a bible for "machine's theology".
Bruno
Stephen Paul King
Pzomby
On Jul 1, 4:23 am, selva kumar <selvakr1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is consciousness causally effective ?
>
state: A property of consciousness is….the capacity and ability of
individual human consciousness to create intentionally desired
physical and mental effects.
Bruno Marchal
[SPK]Could you elaborate a bit more on the part where you say "...self-speeding up abilities to the machine with respect to the most probable continuation/universal-machine"? What defines the "most probable"?
B Soroud
consciousness is not something that exists in itself.... consciousness is always embodied consciousness of life.... in and through life and the complex instrument of form and the mystery of sensation and generation. Consciousness is a phenomena of the "body" and its natural system... and is equal to that "body" and "body system".
it sounds like you guys are reifing consciousness....
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
B Soroud
Pzomby
In my opinion, yes, if in simple terms it is logically correct to
state: A property of “human embodied’ consciousness is….the capacity
and ability of individual ‘human embodied’ consciousness to create
Stephen Paul King
Stephen Paul King
B Soroud
but,
you say consciousness as objectified and determinate entity, as a hypothesized first mover, creates or causes movement through imagined intentions..... but is it something called consciousness that is using intentions to produce sounds and their corresponding images and various powers and movements of the body.....
the question is, what is doing this.... mind, "the intellectual principle", "consciousness"..... or something else, or something indeterminate.... and what is the causal mechanism, what is the connection.... this is the mind body problem..... the buddhists talk of "action without an agent"... and laugh at the fact that they are forced to posit such an absurd sounding conclusion.....
consciousness may not have an objective existence and may not be the "prime mover" or doer....
it seems to me that consciousness is a concept that only makes sense via its negation... in other words we understand consciousness through our conception of non-consciousness or unconsciousness.... such as being hit unconscious, or dreamless sleep etc..... so that we define consciousness through our conception of the absence thereof....
consciousness is only the non-absence of something... rather then something positive apprehended in and of itself..... consciousness is just the fact that there is no unconsciousness.... it is kind of a ridiculous concept.
B Soroud
this is a notoriously difficult problem....
B Soroud
Bruno, have you ever seriously studied Nietzsche... he is probably the single most persuasive critic of Platonism that has ever existed.
B Soroud
http://www.wondersmith.com/scifi/micro.htm
"He promised to give them a rare book of philosophy, written in minute characters, for their special use, telling all that can be known of the ultimate essence of things, and he actually gave them the volume ere his departure. It was carried to Paris and laid before the Academy of Sciences; but when the old secretary came to open it, the pages were blank.
'Ah!' said he. 'Just as I expected." (Micromegas)
Is consciousness causally effective ?
I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a answer.
--
John Mikes
I think Descartes HAD to include the soul into his 'human' unit to escape from Inquisition and that is why he anticipated the "complexity" in our time's idea - that includes the body and mind with its bi sided influences as a body-soul dualism. (I don't want to start a battle on this).
On 01 Jul 2011, at 13:23, selva kumar wrote:
Is consciousness causally effective ?
I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a answer.
Was it in the FOR list (on the book Fabric of reality by David Deutsch) ? I thought I did answer this question, which is a very imprtant and fundamental question.
It is also a tricky question, which is very similar or related to the question of free-will, and it can lead to vocabulary issue. I often defend the idea that consciousness is effective. Indeed the role I usually defend for consciousness is a relative self-speeding up ability. Yet the question is tricky, especially due to the presence of the "causally", which is harder to grasp or define than "consciousness" itself.
Let me try to explain. For this I need some definition, and I hope for some understanding of the UDA and a bit of AUDA. Ask precision if needed.
The main ingredient for the explanation are three theorems due to Gödel:
- the Gödel completeness theorem (available for machine talking first order logic or a sufficiently effective higher order logic). The theorem says that a theory or machine is consistent (syntactical notion, = ~Bf) iff the theory has a model (a mathematical structure in which it makes sense to say that a proposition is true). I will rephrase this by saying that a machine is consistent if and only if the machine's beliefs make sense in some reality.
- the Gödel second incompleteness theorem ~Bf -> ~B(~Bf): if the machine is consistent, then this is not provable by the machine. So if the beliefs are real in some reality, the machine cannot prove the existence of that reality. This is used in some strict way, because we don't assume the machine can prove its completeness (despite this has shown to be the case by Orey). This entails that eventually, the machine can add as new axiom its own consistency, but this leads to a new machine, for which a novel notion of consistency appears, and the 'new' machine can still not prove the existence of a reality "satisfying its beliefs. yet that machine can easily prove the consistency of the machine she was. This can be reitered as many times as their are (constructive) ordinals, and this is what I describe as a climbing from G to G*. The modal logic of self-reference remains unchanged, but the arithmetical interpretation of it expands. An infinity of previously undecidable propositions become decidable, and ... another phenomenon occurs:
- Gödel length of proof theorem. Once a machine adds an undecidable proposition, like its own consistency, as a new axiom/belief, not only an infinity of (arithmetical) propositions become decidable, but an infinity of already provable propositions get shorter proofs. Indeed, and amazingly enough, for any number x, we can find a proposition which proofs will be x times shorter than its shorter proof in the beliefs system without the undecidable proposition. A similar, but not entirely equivalent theorem is true for universal computation ability, showing in particular that there is no bound to the rapidity of computers, and this just by change of the software (alas, with finite numbers of exceptions in the *effective* self-speeding up: but evolution of species needs not to be effective or programmable in advance).
Now I suggest to (re)define consciousness as a machine (instinctive, preprogrammed) ability to bet on a reality. This is equivalent (stricto sensu: the machine does not need to know this) to an ability of betting its own consistency (excluding that very new axiom to avoid inconsistency). As a universal system, this will speed-up the machine relatively to the probable local universal system(s) and will in that way augment its freedom degree. If two machines play ping-pong, the machine which is quicker has a greater range of possible moves/strategy than its opponent.
So the answer to the question "is consciousness effective" would be yes, if you accept such definition.
Is that consciousness *causally* effective? That is the tricky part related to free will. If you accept the definition of free will that I often suggested, then the answer is yes. Causality will have its normal "physical definition", except that with comp such physicalness is given by an arithmetical quantization (based on the material hypostase defined by Bp & Dp): p physically causes q, iff something like BD(BDp -> BDq). I recall Dp = ~B ~p. But of course, in God eyes, there is only true (and false) number relations. The löbian phenomenon then shows that the consciousness self-speeding up is coupled with the building of the reality that the machine bet on. At that level, it is like if consciousness is the main force, perhaps the only original one, in the physical universe! This needs still more work to make precise enough. There is a complex tradeoff in between the "causally" and the "effective" at play, I think.
I hope this was not too technical. The work of Gödel plays a fundamental role. This explanation is detailed in "Conscience et Mécanisme", and related more precisely to the inference inductive frame.
To sum up: machine consciousness, in the theory, confers self-speeding up abilities to the machine with respect to the most probable continuation/universal-machine. It is obviously something useful for self-moving creature: to make them able to anticipate and avoid obstacles, which would explain why the self-moving creatures have developed self-reflexive brains, and become Löbian (self-conscious). Note that here the role is attributed to self-consciousness, and not really to consciousness. But you need consciousness to have self-consciousness. Consciousness per se has no role, like in pure contemplation, but once reflected in the Löbian way, it might be the stronger causally effective force operating in the 'arithmetical truth', the very origin of the (self) acceleration/force.
Note that the Gödel speed-up theorem is not hard to prove. There is a simple proof of it in the excellent book by Torkel Franzen "Gödel's theorem An Incomplete Guide To Its Use and Abuse" which I recommend the reading (despite it is more on the abuses than the uses). The original paper is in the book by Davis: the undecidable (republished in Dover), and which I consider as a bible for "machine's theology".
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
B Soroud
responding to relations".... note a critical change.
I think that is the most excellent working definition of consciousness
I've come across.
What is life? That is one of those what ifs.... you know the one in a trillion.
But his has something to do with being entangled in a web of relations.
I like how you do out with time.... I like to talk about space and
motion but not time.... There is too much humaneness and analogy to
time to time... Time is too abstract and arbitrary and convenient.
But why do you say "figment physical word", do you deny the brute
existential facts of corporeality upon which you stand..... such as
the fact that you come out of your mother womb and were sheltered,
instructed, and fed by that mother.
> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
Constantine Pseudonymous
> I think Descartes HAD to include the soul into his 'human' unit to escape
> from Inquisition and that is why he anticipated the "complexity" in our
> Consciousness - as the process of responding to relations is universal,
consciousness rotted in a first-person consciousness.... you don't
have to study phenomenology to understand or describe that first-
person.... it is brute fact, bare perception, albeit of a
spiritualized nature and conditioned not only by body but also by
mind...... hence elusive, mutable, and temporal as-it-is.... it would
be ridiculous to conceive of post-mortem consciousness.... if you ask
me.... unless you want to assert that we are like babies being carried
around by mother nature for some ultimate goal and through some
unknown and unaccounted for mechanism.... and you would have to
advance a world-view of a more spiritualized system of nature
overlapping it all... this would be a futile endeavor.
if you ask me, there really isn't something called consciousness.....
there is only imagination..... and whatever else there is besides
imagination can only be known through imagination and in the distorted
and abstracted terms of imagination.... what ever else exists besides
imagination is a x.... back to Kant.
B Soroud
sensation, or experience without or independent of phenomena... Is
simply ridiculous.... The notion of absolute subjective consciousness
devoid of either phenomena or a body? Simply ridiculous.
There is no consciousness without phenomena and there is no
consciousness without a body.... The trick here is that the notion
"body" may be much more complex and multilayered then we presently
know or think.
On Saturday, July 2, 2011, Constantine Pseudonymous <bso...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think Descartes HAD to include the soul into his 'human'
unit to escape
>> from Inquisition and that is why he anticipated the
"complexity" in our
>> time's idea - that includes the body and *mind* with its bi
sided influences
>> as a body-soul dualism. (I don't want to start a battle on this).
>
> re-read Descartes.... (no not on wikipedia)
>
>> Consciousness - as the process of responding to relations is universal,
>
> that is a third-person view of consciousness.... an outside view of
> consciousness rotted in a first-person consciousness.... you don't
> have to study phenomenology to understand or describe that first-
> person.... it is brute fact, bare perception, albeit of a
> spiritualized nature and conditioned not only by body but also by
> mind...... hence elusive, mutable, and temporal as-it-is.... it would
> be ridiculous to conceive of post-mortem consciousness.... if you ask
> me.... unless you want to assert that we are like babies being carried
> around by mother nature for some ultimate goal and through some
> unknown and unaccounted for mechanism.... and you would have to
> advance a world-view of a more spiritualized system of nature
> overlapping it all... this would be a futile endeavor.
>
> if you ask me, there really isn't something called consciousness.....
> there is only imagination..... and whatever else there is besides
> imagination can only be known through imagination and in the distorted
> and abstracted terms of imagination.... what ever else exists besides
> imagination is a x.... back to Kant.
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the
Google Groups "Everything List" group.
> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
>
>
B Soroud
would be nothing to be conscious of. Also, the notion that there is
something (a subject) that is conscious of phenomena is a
presupposition, something merely concluded for conveniences sake....
But inherently and eternally unprovable.
On Saturday, July 2, 2011, B Soroud <bso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes indeed, the notion of consciousness, perception, primary
> sensation, or experience without or independent of phenomena... Is
> simply ridiculous.... The notion of absolute subjective consciousness
> devoid of either phenomena or a body? Simply ridiculous.
>
> There is no consciousness without phenomena and there is no
> consciousness without a body.... The trick here is that the notion
> "body" may be much more complex and multilayered then
we presently
> know or think.
>
> On Saturday, July 2, 2011, Constantine Pseudonymous
<bso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> &gt;
> &gt;&gt; I think Descartes HAD to include the soul into his 'human'
> unit to escape
> &gt;&gt; from Inquisition and that is why he anticipated the
> &quot;complexity&quot; in our
> &gt;&gt; time's idea - that includes the body and *mind*
with its bi
> sided influences
> &gt;&gt; as a body-soul dualism. (I don't want to start a
battle on this).
> &gt;
> &gt; re-read Descartes.... (no not on wikipedia)
> &gt;
> &gt;&gt; Consciousness - as the process of responding to
relations is universal,
> &gt;
> &gt; that is a third-person view of consciousness.... an
outside view of
> &gt; consciousness rotted in a first-person consciousness.... you don't
> &gt; have to study phenomenology to understand or describe that first-
> &gt; person.... it is brute fact, bare perception, albeit of a
> &gt; spiritualized nature and conditioned not only by body but also by
> &gt; mind...... hence elusive, mutable, and temporal
as-it-is.... it would
> &gt; be ridiculous to conceive of post-mortem
consciousness.... if you ask
> &gt; me.... unless you want to assert that we are like babies
being carried
> &gt; around by mother nature for some ultimate goal and through some
> &gt; unknown and unaccounted for mechanism.... and you would have to
> &gt; advance a world-view of a more spiritualized system of nature
> &gt; overlapping it all... this would be a futile endeavor.
> &gt;
> &gt; if you ask me, there really isn't something called
consciousness.....
> &gt; there is only imagination..... and whatever else there is besides
> &gt; imagination can only be known through imagination and in
the distorted
> &gt; and abstracted terms of imagination.... what ever else
exists besides
> &gt; imagination is a x.... back to Kant.
> &gt;
> &gt;
> &gt; --
> &gt; You received this message because you are subscribed to the
> Google Groups &quot;Everything List&quot; group.
> &gt; To post to this group, send email to
everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> &gt; To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
> &gt; For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
> &gt;
> &gt;
>
B Soroud
consciousness, no experience without phenomena.... Unless of course
there is a subtler field of luminous forces... And it has become clear
that the notion of an experiencer is absolutely ungrounded and
unprovable....
On Saturday, July 2, 2011, B Soroud <bso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes yes... There is no consciousness without phenomena because there
> would be nothing to be conscious of. Also, the notion that there is
> something (a subject) that is conscious of phenomena is a
> presupposition, something merely concluded for conveniences sake....
> But inherently and eternally unprovable.
>
> On Saturday, July 2, 2011, B Soroud <bso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> &gt; Yes indeed, the notion of consciousness, perception, primary
> &gt; sensation, or experience without or independent of phenomena... Is
> &gt; simply ridiculous.... The notion of absolute subjective
consciousness
> &gt; devoid of either phenomena or a body? Simply ridiculous.
> &gt;
> &gt; There is no consciousness without phenomena and there is no
> &gt; consciousness without a body.... The trick here is that the notion
> &gt; &quot;body&quot; may be much more complex and
multilayered then
> we presently
> &gt; know or think.
> &gt;
> &gt; On Saturday, July 2, 2011, Constantine Pseudonymous
> &lt;bso...@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
> &gt; &amp;gt;
> &gt; &amp;gt;&amp;gt; I think Descartes HAD to
include the soul into his 'human'
> &gt; unit to escape
> &gt; &amp;gt;&amp;gt; from Inquisition and that is
why he anticipated the
> &gt; &amp;quot;complexity&amp;quot; in our
> &gt; &amp;gt;&amp;gt; time's idea - that includes the
body and *mind*
> with its bi
> &gt; sided influences
> &gt; &amp;gt;&amp;gt; as a body-soul dualism. (I
don't want to start a
> battle on this).
> &gt; &amp;gt;
> &gt; &amp;gt; re-read Descartes.... (no not on wikipedia)
> &gt; &amp;gt;
> &gt; &amp;gt;&amp;gt; Consciousness - as the process
of responding to
> relations is universal,
> &gt; &amp;gt;
> &gt; &amp;gt; that is a third-person view of consciousness.... an
> outside view of
> &gt; &amp;gt; consciousness rotted in a first-person
consciousness.... you don't
> &gt; &amp;gt; have to study phenomenology to understand
or describe that first-
> &gt; &amp;gt; person.... it is brute fact, bare
perception, albeit of a
> &gt; &amp;gt; spiritualized nature and conditioned not
only by body but also by
> &gt; &amp;gt; mind...... hence elusive, mutable, and temporal
> as-it-is.... it would
> &gt; &amp;gt; be ridiculous to conceive of post-mortem
> consciousness.... if you ask
> &gt; &amp;gt; me.... unless you want to assert that we
are like babies
> being carried
> &gt; &amp;gt; around by mother nature for some ultimate
goal and through some
> &gt; &amp;gt; unknown and unaccounted for mechanism....
and you would have to
> &gt; &amp;gt; advance a world-view of a more
spiritualized system of nature
> &gt; &amp;gt; overlapping it all... this would be a
futile endeavor.
> &gt; &amp;gt;
> &gt; &amp;gt; if you ask me, there really isn't something called
> consciousness.....
> &gt; &amp;gt; there is only imagination..... and whatever
else there is besides
> &gt; &amp;gt; imagination can only be known through
imagination and in
> the distorted
> &gt; &amp;gt; and abstracted terms of imagination....
what ever else
> exists besides
> &gt; &amp;gt; imagination is a x.... back to Kant.
> &gt; &amp;gt;
> &gt; &amp;gt;
> &gt; &amp;gt; --
> &gt; &amp;gt; You received this message because you are
subscribed to the
> &gt; Google Groups &amp;quot;Everything List&amp;quot; group.
> &gt; &amp;gt; To post to this group, send email to
> everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> &gt; &amp;gt; To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> &gt; everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
> &gt; &amp;gt; For more options, visit this group at
> &gt; http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
> &gt; &amp;gt;
> &gt; &amp;gt;
> &gt;
>
Stephen Paul King
or one person talking to himself?!
Stephen
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
B Soroud
On Saturday, July 2, 2011, Stephen Paul King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
> This is weird! Two people with the same email address talking to
each other or one person talking to himself?!
>
> Stephen
>
> -----Original Message----- From: B Soroud
> Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2011 12:44 AM
> To: Everything List
> Subject: Re: consciousness
>
> Yes indeed, the notion of consciousness, perception, primary
> sensation, or experience without or independent of phenomena... Is
> simply ridiculous.... The notion of absolute subjective consciousness
> devoid of either phenomena or a body? Simply ridiculous.
>
> There is no consciousness without phenomena and there is no
> consciousness without a body.... The trick here is that the notion
> "body" may be much more complex and multilayered then
we presently
> know or think.
>
> On Saturday, July 2, 2011, Constantine Pseudonymous
<bso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> &gt;
> &gt;&gt; I think Descartes HAD to include the soul into his 'human'
> unit to escape
> &gt;&gt; from Inquisition and that is why he anticipated the
> &quot;complexity&quot; in our
> &gt;&gt; time's idea - that includes the body and *mind*
with its bi
> sided influences
> &gt;&gt; as a body-soul dualism. (I don't want to start a
battle on this).
> &gt;
> &gt; re-read Descartes.... (no not on wikipedia)
> &gt;
> &gt;&gt; Consciousness - as the process of responding to
relations is universal,
> &gt;
> &gt; that is a third-person view of consciousness.... an
outside view of
> &gt; consciousness rotted in a first-person consciousness.... you don't
> &gt; have to study phenomenology to understand or describe that first-
> &gt; person.... it is brute fact, bare perception, albeit of a
> &gt; spiritualized nature and conditioned not only by body but also by
> &gt; mind...... hence elusive, mutable, and temporal
as-it-is.... it would
> &gt; be ridiculous to conceive of post-mortem
consciousness.... if you ask
> &gt; me.... unless you want to assert that we are like babies
being carried
> &gt; around by mother nature for some ultimate goal and through some
> &gt; unknown and unaccounted for mechanism.... and you would have to
> &gt; advance a world-view of a more spiritualized system of nature
> &gt; overlapping it all... this would be a futile endeavor.
> &gt;
> &gt; if you ask me, there really isn't something called
consciousness.....
> &gt; there is only imagination..... and whatever else there is besides
> &gt; imagination can only be known through imagination and in
the distorted
> &gt; and abstracted terms of imagination.... what ever else
exists besides
> &gt; imagination is a x.... back to Kant.
> &gt;
> &gt;
> &gt; --
> &gt; You received this message because you are subscribed to the
> Google Groups &quot;Everything List&quot; group.
> &gt; To post to this group, send email to
everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> &gt; To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
> &gt; For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
> &gt;
> &gt;
Jason Resch
Is consciousness causally effective ?
If it is not causally effective, then you must explain what caused the word "consciousness" to enter our lexicon and what caused the field of pihlosophy of mind, and all the various books on the subject of consciousness. The dirty secret of epiphenominalism (the theory that consciousness is casually inert) is that if it were a true theory, the theory of epiphenominalism would be entirely private and unsharable. The fact that a theory was generated and shared to explain consciousness proves consciousness has effects. Even the fact that we are discussing it now in this thread can be taken as evidence of its causal effects.
Jason
selva kumar
Then by your definition..Consciousness is our ability to think ?
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
selva kumar
Was it in the FOR list (on the book Fabric of reality by David Deutsch) ? I thought I did answer this question, which is a very imprtant and fundamental question.
On 01 Jul 2011, at 13:23, selva kumar wrote:
Is consciousness causally effective ?
I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a answer.
It is also a tricky question, which is very similar or related to the question of free-will, and it can lead to vocabulary issue. I often defend the idea that consciousness is effective. Indeed the role I usually defend for consciousness is a relative self-speeding up ability. Yet the question is tricky, especially due to the presence of the "causally", which is harder to grasp or define than "consciousness" itself.
Let me try to explain. For this I need some definition, and I hope for some understanding of the UDA and a bit of AUDA. Ask precision if needed.
The main ingredient for the explanation are three theorems due to Gödel:
- the Gödel completeness theorem (available for machine talking first order logic or a sufficiently effective higher order logic). The theorem says that a theory or machine is consistent (syntactical notion, = ~Bf) iff the theory has a model (a mathematical structure in which it makes sense to say that a proposition is true). I will rephrase this by saying that a machine is consistent if and only if the machine's beliefs make sense in some reality.
- the Gödel second incompleteness theorem ~Bf -> ~B(~Bf): if the machine is consistent, then this is not provable by the machine. So if the beliefs are real in some reality, the machine cannot prove the existence of that reality. This is used in some strict way, because we don't assume the machine can prove its completeness (despite this has shown to be the case by Orey). This entails that eventually, the machine can add as new axiom its own consistency, but this leads to a new machine, for which a novel notion of consistency appears, and the 'new' machine can still not prove the existence of a reality "satisfying its beliefs. yet that machine can easily prove the consistency of the machine she was. This can be reitered as many times as their are (constructive) ordinals, and this is what I describe as a climbing from G to G*. The modal logic of self-reference remains unchanged, but the arithmetical interpretation of it expands. An infinity of previously undecidable propositions become decidable, and ... another phenomenon occurs:
- Gödel length of proof theorem. Once a machine adds an undecidable proposition, like its own consistency, as a new axiom/belief, not only an infinity of (arithmetical) propositions become decidable, but an infinity of already provable propositions get shorter proofs. Indeed, and amazingly enough, for any number x, we can find a proposition which proofs will be x times shorter than its shorter proof in the beliefs system without the undecidable proposition. A similar, but not entirely equivalent theorem is true for universal computation ability, showing in particular that there is no bound to the rapidity of computers, and this just by change of the software (alas, with finite numbers of exceptions in the *effective* self-speeding up: but evolution of species needs not to be effective or programmable in advance).
If we firmly believe that all our proofs and instincts on mathematical truths are correct,will we get shorter proofs ? Now, this turns into a proof for existence of power of belief..(?).
Also,speaking in a strict way,it means If you believe you are intelligent,then you become more intelligent (which is in immediate contracdiction with godel's second incompleteness theorem and your smallest theory on intelligence )
Now I suggest to (re)define consciousness as a machine (instinctive, preprogrammed) ability to bet on a reality. This is equivalent (stricto sensu: the machine does not need to know this) to an ability of betting its own consistency (excluding that very new axiom to avoid inconsistency). As a universal system, this will speed-up the machine relatively to the probable local universal system(s) and will in that way augment its freedom degree. If two machines play ping-pong, the machine which is quicker has a greater range of possible moves/strategy than its opponent.
So the answer to the question "is consciousness effective" would be yes, if you accept such definition.
Is that consciousness *causally* effective? That is the tricky part related to free will. If you accept the definition of free will that I often suggested, then the answer is yes. Causality will have its normal "physical definition", except that with comp such physicalness is given by an arithmetical quantization (based on the material hypostase defined by Bp & Dp): p physically causes q, iff something like BD(BDp -> BDq). I recall Dp = ~B ~p. But of course, in God eyes, there is only true (and false) number relations. The löbian phenomenon then shows that the consciousness self-speeding up is coupled with the building of the reality that the machine bet on. At that level, it is like if consciousness is the main force, perhaps the only original one, in the physical universe! This needs still more work to make precise enough. There is a complex tradeoff in between the "causally" and the "effective" at play, I think.
I hope this was not too technical. The work of Gödel plays a fundamental role. This explanation is detailed in "Conscience et Mécanisme", and related more precisely to the inference inductive frame.
To sum up: machine consciousness, in the theory, confers self-speeding up abilities to the machine with respect to the most probable continuation/universal-machine. It is obviously something useful for self-moving creature: to make them able to anticipate and avoid obstacles, which would explain why the self-moving creatures have developed self-reflexive brains, and become Löbian (self-conscious). Note that here the role is attributed to self-consciousness, and not really to consciousness. But you need consciousness to have self-consciousness. Consciousness per se has no role, like in pure contemplation, but once reflected in the Löbian way, it might be the stronger causally effective force operating in the 'arithmetical truth', the very origin of the (self) acceleration/force.
Why do you always limit the definition of consciousness(atleast machine consciousness) to its ability to learn alone ?
why shouldn't free-will and sensory experiences(qualia,if you believe in it)be part (rather than being a consequence or precondition) of consciousness itself ? In the absence of consciousness,there is indeed absence of free-will and experiencing qualia.
In that case,we can't prove that a universal machine is conscious.
Note that the Gödel speed-up theorem is not hard to prove. There is a simple proof of it in the excellent book by Torkel Franzen "Gödel's theorem An Incomplete Guide To Its Use and Abuse" which I recommend the reading (despite it is more on the abuses than the uses). The original paper is in the book by Davis: the undecidable (republished in Dover), and which I consider as a bible for "machine's theology".
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
selva
On Jul 1, 4:23 pm, selva kumar <selvakr1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is consciousness causally effective ?
>
> I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a answer.
When our hand is moved obeying some computations,there is a ON-SCREEN
DISPLAY going on in the brain: " my hand is moving "
When we are learning something ,DISPLAY : "your are learning this and
this " and saves it with a lot of tags in it,so that when you learn
something new which includes a tagged word,it opens the old saved data
and updates it.
Without this monitoring and liaison system our brain stumbles.
And this monitoring system is acts only when the actions are related
to the cerebrum of the brain and not to cerebellum where primary motor
functions are saved.
This is why we are not concentrating on our speech while we are
speaking.
Thus,in my belief, in the absence of this monitoring system,the
functions of cerebrum gets affected but not that of cerebellum.
Thats why we can speak even while we are asleep. so,casually effective
in case of cerebrum but not in case of cerebellum.
selva kumar
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
m.a.
a radio station is on but silent. It is modulated like a radio signal by
sensory input from external and internal sources. All animals have it but
only man with his abstract reasoning ability is able to theorize its
existence. Modern man experiences as many inputs from the speech and
conceptual centers of his mind as he does from the world outside. We can
never experience pure consciousness because we can never silence the
continuous influx of sensory data; but we intuit its existence so strongly
that we speak of it with absolute confidence in its facticity. m.a.
--
Bruno Marchal
"A property of consciousness is"
it sounds like you are reifying "consciousness"... consciousness is not a thing in itself, consciousness does not exist in and of itself... it can only be understood within the interdependent and complex framework of sensation, bodies, space.... consciousness of something, in and through something.... inseparable from the system of space, energy, matter and motion... and essential equal to it.... not something seperate and distinct from it that can exist independently of it....
consciousness is not something that exists in itself.... consciousness is always embodied consciousness of life.... in and through life and the complex instrument of form and the mystery of sensation and generation. Consciousness is a phenomena of the "body" and its natural system... and is equal to that "body" and "body system".
it sounds like you guys are reifing consciousness....
On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 11:22 AM, Pzomby <htr...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 4:23 am, selva kumar <selvakr1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is consciousness causally effective ?
>
In my opinion, yes, if in simple terms, it is logically correct to
state: A property of consciousness is….the capacity and ability of
individual human consciousness to create intentionally desired
physical and mental effects.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Bruno Marchal
Bruno Marchal
a question I want to pose to the community as well as Bruno is:
Bruno, have you ever seriously studied Nietzsche... he is probably the single most persuasive critic of Platonism that has ever existed.
Jason Resch
On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 6:23 AM, selva kumar <selva...@gmail.com> wrote:Is consciousness causally effective ?
If it is not causally effective, then you must explain what caused the word "consciousness" to enter our lexicon and what caused the field of pihlosophy of mind, and all the various books on the subject of consciousness. The dirty secret of epiphenominalism (the theory that consciousness is casually inert) is that if it were a true theory, the theory of epiphenominalism would be entirely private and unsharable. The fact that a theory was generated and shared to explain consciousness proves consciousness has effects. Even the fact that we are discussing it now in this thread can be taken as evidence of its causal effects.
Jason
Then by your definition..Consciousness is our ability to think ?
No, my point is that if you are thinking about consciousness, then what else could it have been but consciousness that caused you to think about it? If consciousness had no effects, then we would not think about it, talk about it, or write e-mails about it.
Jason
Bruno Marchal
Dear Bruno, here we go again....A very colorful discussion about that darn consciousness, indeed, as it develops. I find YOUR scholarly text a bit skewed (Goedel and Goedel) since math logic is IMO a product of human(!) consciousness.
I do not comment on your "MACHINE" consciousness, since I don't feel comfortable as a machine with set inventory/design,
even a universal one - IF IT IS a machine.
The human intellect (another unknown! - not sarcastically said) has no borders or inventory, at least we have not experienced such so far.
A "causally effective" Ccness? I wrote already my 'causality' deviation as considered within the 'model' of our so far acquired knowledge and the deterministic 'reasons' considered only by factors 'within', while the still unknown factors (maybe lots of such) also influence all that happens assigned to 'causality' of the partial listing.
(This is the reason why our terms are not 'absolute' and "The Truth".)
We may 'list' EFFECTIVE causes, but maybe not all.
<I would not like to offend you with my hint to 'the world beyond arithmetical truth (logic).>
------------------------Soroud's expression: "consciousness is always embodied consciousness of life..."begs the question: what is life? how different is it from Ccness, if I identify the latter as'response to relations' (information)? what else is life?They seem to be close in such formulation. None of them "human" or even "terrestrial".Not even 'bodily ascertainable' which is a part of the figment "physical world".The JCS-online list has a long discussion about structured and unstructured dualism.
I think Descartes HAD to include the soul into his 'human' unit to escape from Inquisition and that is why he anticipated the "complexity" in our time's idea - that includes the body and mind with its bi sided influences as a body-soul dualism. (I don't want to start a battle on this).Consciousness - as the process of responding to relations is universal, human and terrestrial concepts are includable, it is independent of our so far acquired knowledge and does not restrict the application to the physical world and so the domains developed by the human mind. I have no theory to that, am insecure about the deterministic 'happening' - a term that requires 'time' - for a system where there is no time-factor identified as we know it. The so far perceived reality I know of did not give me(!) answers to a lot of questions.That's why I say I am agnostic.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Bruno Marchal
On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 4:57 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:Was it in the FOR list (on the book Fabric of reality by David Deutsch) ? I thought I did answer this question, which is a very imprtant and fundamental question.
On 01 Jul 2011, at 13:23, selva kumar wrote:
Is consciousness causally effective ?
I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a answer.
It is also a tricky question, which is very similar or related to the question of free-will, and it can lead to vocabulary issue. I often defend the idea that consciousness is effective. Indeed the role I usually defend for consciousness is a relative self-speeding up ability. Yet the question is tricky, especially due to the presence of the "causally", which is harder to grasp or define than "consciousness" itself.
Let me try to explain. For this I need some definition, and I hope for some understanding of the UDA and a bit of AUDA. Ask precision if needed.
The main ingredient for the explanation are three theorems due to Gödel:
- the Gödel completeness theorem (available for machine talking first order logic or a sufficiently effective higher order logic). The theorem says that a theory or machine is consistent (syntactical notion, = ~Bf) iff the theory has a model (a mathematical structure in which it makes sense to say that a proposition is true). I will rephrase this by saying that a machine is consistent if and only if the machine's beliefs make sense in some reality.
- the Gödel second incompleteness theorem ~Bf -> ~B(~Bf): if the machine is consistent, then this is not provable by the machine. So if the beliefs are real in some reality, the machine cannot prove the existence of that reality. This is used in some strict way, because we don't assume the machine can prove its completeness (despite this has shown to be the case by Orey). This entails that eventually, the machine can add as new axiom its own consistency, but this leads to a new machine, for which a novel notion of consistency appears, and the 'new' machine can still not prove the existence of a reality "satisfying its beliefs. yet that machine can easily prove the consistency of the machine she was. This can be reitered as many times as their are (constructive) ordinals, and this is what I describe as a climbing from G to G*. The modal logic of self-reference remains unchanged, but the arithmetical interpretation of it expands. An infinity of previously undecidable propositions become decidable, and ... another phenomenon occurs:
- Gödel length of proof theorem. Once a machine adds an undecidable proposition, like its own consistency, as a new axiom/belief, not only an infinity of (arithmetical) propositions become decidable, but an infinity of already provable propositions get shorter proofs. Indeed, and amazingly enough, for any number x, we can find a proposition which proofs will be x times shorter than its shorter proof in the beliefs system without the undecidable proposition. A similar, but not entirely equivalent theorem is true for universal computation ability, showing in particular that there is no bound to the rapidity of computers, and this just by change of the software (alas, with finite numbers of exceptions in the *effective* self-speeding up: but evolution of species needs not to be effective or programmable in advance).
Extrapolating this and working this on human-machine,consider this..
If we firmly believe that all our proofs and instincts on mathematical truths are correct,will we get shorter proofs ?
Now, this turns into a proof for existence of power of belief..(?).
Also,speaking in a strict way,it means If you believe you are intelligent,then you become more intelligent (which is in immediate contracdiction with godel's second incompleteness theorem and your smallest theory on intelligence )
Now I suggest to (re)define consciousness as a machine (instinctive, preprogrammed) ability to bet on a reality. This is equivalent (stricto sensu: the machine does not need to know this) to an ability of betting its own consistency (excluding that very new axiom to avoid inconsistency). As a universal system, this will speed-up the machine relatively to the probable local universal system(s) and will in that way augment its freedom degree. If two machines play ping-pong, the machine which is quicker has a greater range of possible moves/strategy than its opponent.
So the answer to the question "is consciousness effective" would be yes, if you accept such definition.
Is that consciousness *causally* effective? That is the tricky part related to free will. If you accept the definition of free will that I often suggested, then the answer is yes. Causality will have its normal "physical definition", except that with comp such physicalness is given by an arithmetical quantization (based on the material hypostase defined by Bp & Dp): p physically causes q, iff something like BD(BDp -> BDq). I recall Dp = ~B ~p. But of course, in God eyes, there is only true (and false) number relations. The löbian phenomenon then shows that the consciousness self-speeding up is coupled with the building of the reality that the machine bet on. At that level, it is like if consciousness is the main force, perhaps the only original one, in the physical universe! This needs still more work to make precise enough. There is a complex tradeoff in between the "causally" and the "effective" at play, I think.
I hope this was not too technical. The work of Gödel plays a fundamental role. This explanation is detailed in "Conscience et Mécanisme", and related more precisely to the inference inductive frame.
To sum up: machine consciousness, in the theory, confers self-speeding up abilities to the machine with respect to the most probable continuation/universal-machine. It is obviously something useful for self-moving creature: to make them able to anticipate and avoid obstacles, which would explain why the self-moving creatures have developed self-reflexive brains, and become Löbian (self-conscious). Note that here the role is attributed to self-consciousness, and not really to consciousness. But you need consciousness to have self-consciousness. Consciousness per se has no role, like in pure contemplation, but once reflected in the Löbian way, it might be the stronger causally effective force operating in the 'arithmetical truth', the very origin of the (self) acceleration/force.
Why do you always limit the definition of consciousness(atleast machine consciousness) to its ability to learn alone ?
why shouldn't free-will and sensory experiences(qualia,if you believe in it)be part (rather than being a consequence or precondition) of consciousness itself ? In the absence of consciousness,there is indeed absence of free-will and experiencing qualia.
In that case,we can't prove that a universal machine is conscious.
Note that the Gödel speed-up theorem is not hard to prove. There is a simple proof of it in the excellent book by Torkel Franzen "Gödel's theorem An Incomplete Guide To Its Use and Abuse" which I recommend the reading (despite it is more on the abuses than the uses). The original paper is in the book by Davis: the undecidable (republished in Dover), and which I consider as a bible for "machine's theology".
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Bruno Marchal
meekerdb
Brent
If consciousness had no effects, then we would not think about it, talk about it, or write e-mails about it.
Jason
meekerdb
>
> On Jul 1, 4:23 pm, selva kumar<selvakr1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Is consciousness causally effective ?
>>
>> I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a answer.
>>
> I believe consciousness is a monitoring system (aka awareness)
>
> When our hand is moved obeying some computations,there is a ON-SCREEN
> DISPLAY going on in the brain: " my hand is moving "
>
> When we are learning something ,DISPLAY : "your are learning this and
> this " and saves it with a lot of tags in it,so that when you learn
> something new which includes a tagged word,it opens the old saved data
> and updates it.
> Without this monitoring and liaison system our brain stumbles.
>
I mostly agree with this theory. I'm not sure I would call it
"monitoring" since once you learn to do something, like ride a bicycle
or apply modus pollens, you do it without consciously thinking about
it. So in a sense you stumble *less* when not being "monitored". But I
agree that consciousness has something to do with learning; with
selecting what is important enough to pay attention to and to put into
memory. It's not just passive recording; it's constructing a
narrative. Which is one reason human memory is unreliable. It may also
be why we have few memories before learning to talk.
Brent
B Soroud
and they dint philosophize about it.... It is some other principle
that is the "cause".
On Sunday, July 3, 2011, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 7/3/2011 8:56 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 2:35 AM, selva kumar <selva...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Jason Resch
<jason...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 6:23 AM, selva kumar
<selva...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is
> consciousness causally effective ?
>
>
>
>
> If it is not causally effective, then you must explain what caused the
> word "consciousness" to enter our lexicon and what caused the
> field of pihlosophy of mind, and all the various books on the subject
> of consciousness. The dirty secret of epiphenominalism (the theory
> that consciousness is casually inert) is that if it were a true theory,
> the theory of epiphenominalism would be entirely private and
> unsharable. The fact that a theory was generated and shared to explain
> consciousness proves consciousness has effects. Even the fact that we
> are discussing it now in this thread can be taken as evidence of its
> causal effects.
>
>
> Jason
>
>
>
>
>
> Then by your definition..Consciousness is our ability to think ?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> No, my point is that if you are thinking about consciousness, then what
> else could it have been but consciousness that caused you to think
> about it?
>
>
>
>
> That would be the material cause in Aristotles sense. But material
> causes don't form causal chains.
>
> Brent
>
>
>
> If consciousness had no effects, then we would not think about
> it, talk about it, or write e-mails about it.
>
> Jason
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Everything List" group.
> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the
Google Groups "Everything List" group.
> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
>
Jason Resch
On 7/3/2011 8:56 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 2:35 AM, selva kumar <selva...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 6:23 AM, selva kumar <selva...@gmail.com> wrote:
Is consciousness causally effective ?
If it is not causally effective, then you must explain what caused the word "consciousness" to enter our lexicon and what caused the field of pihlosophy of mind, and all the various books on the subject of consciousness. The dirty secret of epiphenominalism (the theory that consciousness is casually inert) is that if it were a true theory, the theory of epiphenominalism would be entirely private and unsharable. The fact that a theory was generated and shared to explain consciousness proves consciousness has effects. Even the fact that we are discussing it now in this thread can be taken as evidence of its causal effects.
Jason
Then by your definition..Consciousness is our ability to think ?
No, my point is that if you are thinking about consciousness, then what else could it have been but consciousness that caused you to think about it?
That would be the material cause in Aristotles sense. But material causes don't form causal chains.
Brent
B Soroud
You could similarly differentiate consciousness from existence and say that existence as a base is required in order to "talk about consciousness".... you can go on to enumerate many things in such order. But nothing deterministically causes you to reflect on the notion of consciousness abstracted and objectified as such without direct reflection but imagined supposition...... are in so far as something does cause you to reflect on the figment consciousness... will to knowledge, will to power etc.... we haven't determined it.
"If consciousness is causually inert then history would be the same even if it were abolished throughout the universe.
You can't really define consciousness, consciousness is essentially indefinable, therefore "it" doesn't exist... it is a merely inferred supposition.... if you think that doesn't make sense, just cause it doesn't make sense doesn't mean its not true.... just as, just because something makes sense doesn't mean its true..... similarly, just because something seems to make sense doesn't mean it actually makes sense, furthermore, just because something doesn't make sense doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.
"nonexistent thing which none of us has ever experienced"
Is it consciousness that is causally effective or is it the will that is causally effective........ perhaps we can make a distinction between consciousness and the will.... the will guided by the imagination as the basis of action.
B Soroud
meekerdb
On 7/3/2011 8:56 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 2:35 AM, selva kumar <selva...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 6:23 AM, selva kumar <selva...@gmail.com> wrote:
Is consciousness causally effective ?
If it is not causally effective, then you must explain what caused the word "consciousness" to enter our lexicon and what caused the field of pihlosophy of mind, and all the various books on the subject of consciousness. The dirty secret of epiphenominalism (the theory that consciousness is casually inert) is that if it were a true theory, the theory of epiphenominalism would be entirely private and unsharable. The fact that a theory was generated and shared to explain consciousness proves consciousness has effects. Even the fact that we are discussing it now in this thread can be taken as evidence of its causal effects.
Jason
Then by your definition..Consciousness is our ability to think ?
No, my point is that if you are thinking about consciousness, then what else could it have been but consciousness that caused you to think about it?
That would be the material cause in Aristotles sense. But material causes don't form causal chains.
Brent
If consciousness is causually inert then history would be the same even if it were abolished throughout the universe.
To me it seems absurd that we would be endlessly debating some nonexistent thing which none of us has ever experienced, yet that is exactly the conclusion that comes from assuming consciousness has no effects.
Brent
Constantine Pseudonymous
in my e-mail…
Bruno, you speak of self-consciousness… do you mean body-image? Or do
you mean abstract self-recognition? Or the tendency towards false
identification? Or body relation/identification in a combative
framework?
It seems like your notion of self-acceleration or self-speeding is
what some people call psycho-active or psychedelic …. Or what others
call meditative metamorphoses through concentration. Concentration or
the will to power in the Spinoza and Nietzschean sense as self-
speeding. The lack of this concentration of the will or self-
intensification/force equated to what Kierkegaard called
spiritlessness… a symptom of modernity.
On Jul 2, 4:27 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
> > Is consciousness causally effective ?
>
>
Constantine Pseudonymous
silence the
a certain toxic substance extracted from fogs in Haiti, that if
administered, results in a effect that is said to be a total
dislocation and abstraction from the senses, a pure abstraction of
consciousness from the senses in the zone of a absolute
subjectivity.... it is administered as a grave and extreme punishment.
But who knows what the "individual" actually experiences. Also I have
heard that there are highly abstract states of meditation or
hallucination that can effectively constitute a more or less complete
abstraction from the senses and a feeling of a "out of body
experience".... but who knows...
"but we intuit its existence so strongly
that we speak of it with absolute confidence in its facticity."
have any perception of this it, then it is an object of perception,
clear and distinct, and separate from any coherent notion of "you".
There is always dualism in perception, and by definition a postulated
subject can never become the object of perception.... this is why
Schopenhauer postulated that we are the Kantian thing-in-itself....
but not quite.
And just because we infer something with confidence doesn't mean its a
coherent object of knowledge or that it actually exists.
Constantine Pseudonymous
Would you rather me rarefy it?
“Consciousness here and now is accepted by many as the most
undoubtable
truth”
That to which you point by the indicator consciousness, observe that…
it is not a clear and defined perception, it is not a clearly
delineated “thing”… it is a obscure and indefinite I-don’t-know-
whatness, an unknown unknown… something that cannot be clearly stated
or comprehended or defined… so you cannot say what it is… By calling
it consciousness you trick us… because you give us the impression we
know what it is or that it is, that we have some grip or handle on it
or that it is an object of knowledge. Buddhists have been grappling
with the problem of so called consciousness for millennia… where have
they gotten? They either b.s. or they claim that it is not what it
appears to be, that it is not a definitive thing, that it is
unrealized, and that its “essential nature” is something other then
what it appears to be… blah blah blah… they claim it is this or that….
the “primordial ground of reality” or “pure subtle energy” and other
fantastical notions…. So who knows what consciousness is?
“Body and system are rather clearly mind constructions to organize
experience.”
But so is mind and mind-construction a mind-construction. Do you
distinguish between consciousness and experience?
I think your choice in the usage of the term theology is not very
insightful. What etymological grounds and logic do you have for this?
Jason Resch
"if you are thinking about consciousness, then what else could it have been but consciousness that caused you to think about it"Are you saying consciousness literally causes you to objectify consciousness? Consciousness as a base is required to reflect on consciousness... the question is whether consciousness can truly be objectified or only falsely so.
There appears to be some confusion. This is what I am saying:
Selva asked if consciousness is causally effective. My response is a thought experiment designed to show that it is:
1. Assume consciousness is not causally effective
2. It follows that consciousness has no effects
3. If consciousness has no effects, then whether present or not it makes do difference in what happens
4. Consider a universe identical to this one only without any consciousness (this is possible only in the case where consciousness is causally inert)
5. This universe would have zombie humans that talk about consciousness, that appear to wonder about consciousness, that write e-mail threads about consciousness, and so on, yet all this is happening in a universe where consciousness does not exist.
6. It seems odd that there would be zombies talking and wondering about consciousness in a universe where there is no such thing as consciousness.
If on the other hand, consciousness is causally effective, as I believe it is, then zombie universes cannot be identical to our own. Perhaps you see nothing wrong with a zombie universe with beings wondering about consciousness, but if you do, then you should doubt the assumption made at step 1.
Jason
Constantine Pseudonymous
is
generated by the ideas.”
So rather than ideas being generated by some deterministic and
mechanical materialism… which would be absurd…. You invert the
proposition? Do you literally mean matter is generated by ideas? In
some direct, deterministic and mechanical way?
It is clear to me that there is a sense in which the corporeal
conditions the ideal, and the ideal conditions the corporeal…. Art
imitates life and life imitates art and the fundamentals of our
intellectual forms are empirically but mysteriously derived from
nature as it is presented to us, but vice versa, the human world we
live in is entirely envisioned and transformed on the basis of the
mental forms. But I see not direct intersecting connection… nor do I
see how the material can be actually derived from the ideal and how
the subject is independent from both. What is the supposed subject
derived from?
“with comp it can be shown we need only two
with
Plotinus’s assertion that the “descent into multiplicity and number”
is a undesirable phenomena?
“The greek and Indian mystics and rationalist might be
right, with respect of the coherent mechanist theology.”
Hey man, they don’t all agree with one another… they are highly
contentious… have you ever heard of “the argumentative Indian?” You
should read Hegel to see how all these guys fit into the successive
stages of a dialectical unfoldment…. History is a dialectical and
alchemical process… these old fixed forms don’t stand as absolutes on
their own… they are infinitely permutable and engaged in a unending
dialectical process, perhaps a circular one.
“You might try to sum up Nietzsche argument against "platonism"”
I really wish you would re-read Nietzsche…. His critique of Plato is
brutal and far-reaching… I don’t know if I can sum it up easily…. I
highly recommend you re-read him…. Check out Twilight of the Idols,
the Will to Power, Beyond Good and Evil, etc. His critique of Plato is
utterly devastating and so elaborated.
> > "A property of consciousness is"
>
> > it sounds like you are reifying "consciousness"... consciousness is
> > not a thing in itself, consciousness does not exist in and of
> > itself... it can only be understood within the interdependent and
> > complex framework of sensation, bodies, space.... consciousness of
> > something, in and through something.... inseparable from the system
> > of space, energy, matter and motion... and essential equal to it....
> > not something seperate and distinct from it that can exist
> > independently of it....
>
> > consciousness is not something that exists in itself....
> > consciousness is always embodied consciousness of life.... in and
> > through life and the complex instrument of form and the mystery of
> > sensation and generation. Consciousness is a phenomena of the "body"
> > and its natural system... and is equal to that "body" and "body
> > system".
>
> > it sounds like you guys are reifing consciousness....
>
>
> > On Jul 1, 4:23 am, selva kumar <selvakr1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Is consciousness causally effective ?
>
> > In my opinion, yes, if in simple terms, it is logically correct to
> > state: A property of consciousness is….the capacity and ability of
> > individual human consciousness to create intentionally desired
> > physical and mental effects.
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> > Groups "Everything List" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com
> > .
> > For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
> > .
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> > Groups "Everything List" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com
> > .
Constantine Pseudonymous
critique of Plato is comprehensive and voluminous, utterly
unprecedented in its breath and depth:
How the True WorldFinally Became An Fable:
The History of an Error
1. The true world -- attainable for the sage, the pious, the virtuous
man; he lives in it, he is it.
(The oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, simple, and
persuasive. A circumlocution for the sentence, "I, Plato, am the
truth.")
2. The true world -- unattainable for now, but promised for the sage,
the pious, the virtuous man ("for the sinner who repents").
(Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, insidious,
incomprehensible -- it becomes female, it becomes Christian.)
3. The true world -- unattainable, indemonstrable, unpromisable; but
the very thought of it -- a consolation, an obligation, an imperative.
(At bottom, the old sun, but seen through mist and skepticism. The
idea has become elusive, pale, Nordic, K�nigsbergian [i.e., Kantian].)
4. The true world -- unattainable? At any rate, unattained. And being
unattained, also unknown. Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, or
obligating: how could something unknown obligate us?
(Gray morning. The first yawn of reason. The cockcrow of positivism.)
5. The "true" world -- an idea which is no longer good for anything,
not even obligating -- an idea which has become useless and
superfluous -- consequently, a refuted idea: let us abolish it!
(Bright day; breakfast; return of bon sens [�good sense�] and
cheerfulness; Plato's embarrassed blush; pandemonium of all free
spirits.)
6. The true world -- we have abolished. What world has remained? The
apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we have also
abolished the apparent one.
(Noon; moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high
point of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA. [�Zarathustra begins�])
> > "A property of consciousness is"
>
> > it sounds like you are reifying "consciousness"... consciousness is
> > not a thing in itself, consciousness does not exist in and of
> > itself... it can only be understood within the interdependent and
> > complex framework of sensation, bodies, space.... consciousness of
> > something, in and through something.... inseparable from the system
> > of space, energy, matter and motion... and essential equal to it....
> > not something seperate and distinct from it that can exist
> > independently of it....
>
> > consciousness is not something that exists in itself....
> > consciousness is always embodied consciousness of life.... in and
> > through life and the complex instrument of form and the mystery of
> > sensation and generation. Consciousness is a phenomena of the "body"
> > and its natural system... and is equal to that "body" and "body
> > system".
>
> > it sounds like you guys are reifing consciousness....
>
>
> > On Jul 1, 4:23 am, selva kumar <selvakr1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Is consciousness causally effective ?
>
> > In my opinion, yes, if in simple terms, it is logically correct to
> > state: A property of consciousness is….the capacity and ability of
> > individual human consciousness to create intentionally desired
> > physical and mental effects.
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> > Groups "Everything List" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com
> > .
> > For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
> > .
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> > Groups "Everything List" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com
> > .
Constantine Pseudonymous
beyond the physical world, is not mathematics restricted to the domain
of the physical world....
it doesn't apply to the qualitative metaphysical domain of anima-
psyche.
On Jul 3, 9:54 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> I have no problem with that theory. It seems to assume comp, and so
> yopu still have to explain matter from the number. But consciousness
> can perhaps be implemented in the human brain in the way you describe.
> The advantage of taking the machine discourse on itself is that it
> explains the why and how of qualia. That nature did take the logic
> into account can explain localization and specialization of different
> parts of the brain.
>
> Bruno
>
> On 03 Jul 2011, at 11:13, selva kumar wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I believe I oversimplified things in my previous post.But it is sort
> > of what I believe in.
>
Constantine Pseudonymous
endlessly debate for centuries and was eventually discarded as
nonexistent."
discarded. Perhaps many things were erroneously negated.... Jung talks
of "psychic forces" it seems like a evocative and persuasive concept
to me
On Jul 3, 9:16 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On 7/3/2011 7:45 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >>> <mailto:selvakr1...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> >>> On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Jason Resch
>
> >>> On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 6:23 AM, selva kumar
Constantine Pseudonymous
it's
certainly interesting to discuss."
in and of itself. Sound exhibits tremendous potency. Do you think of
mathematics as a subset of thought/language?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >>> <mailto:selvakr1...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> >>> On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Jason Resch
>
> >>> On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 6:23 AM, selva kumar
Constantine Pseudonymous
On Jul 3, 10:30 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
B Soroud
I want to assert that if you read Plato and the Neo-Platonists.... including Proclus... there is no coherent Platonic Theology.... There is no actual and completed Platonic Theology to which you can refer. There are multiple interpretations and multiple construction-experiments. Plato's Theology was simply a basic intuition dimly articulated with difficulty.
meekerdb
Brent
Jason Resch
Please explain what steps 5 and 6 would be for an argument showing the causal effectiveness of a vital force, I was not able to come up with one that fit.
It's like reifying "the weather" and then asking can there be wind and rain and sunshine without "the weather".
I think one of us is missing the other's point, but I am not sure who.
Do you think epiphenominalism is a consistent and valid possibility? And if not, what led you to that conclusion? If you do, why do you think we evolved consciousness in the first place (if it has no effects), why do we feel thirst if it has no bearing (according to epiphenominalism) on whether or not we decide to get water?
Thanks,
Jason
Stephen Paul King
meekerdb
Brent
B Soroud
rather then "for evolutionary reasons"... you could equally say "for some reason". Apparently you presuppose the principle of sufficient reason.
Bruno Marchal
Yet it's existence is debatable and it's certainly interesting to discuss. And in any case, the elan vital was endlessly debate for centuries and was eventually discarded as nonexistent.
meekerdb
> anytime someone invokes "for evolutionary reasons"... you know its a
> cop-out... that is like invoking God to explain everything... in some
> instances it works, its clear, it makes sense.... but not in all.
>
> rather then "for evolutionary reasons"... you could equally say "for
> some reason". Apparently you presuppose the principle of sufficient
> reason.
No. I suppose that evolution tends to adapt existing structures and so
a memory recorded in words would make use of the same part of the brain
as hearing which would result in an inner narrative something like the
theory of Julian Jaynes.
Brent
Bruno Marchal
On 04 Jul 2011, at 06:37, Constantine Pseudonymous wrote:
> I just realized that for some reason only half of these posts show up
> in my e-mail…
> Bruno, you speak of self-consciousness… do you mean body-image? Or do
> you mean abstract self-recognition? Or the tendency towards false
> identification? Or body relation/identification in a combative
> framework?
I never need to define consciousness in the reasoning. I just suppose
that you understand enough of it to ponder of the consequence of the
assumption that you might survive with a computer in place of your
brain, like you can survive with a pump in place of your heart.
Precisely, I assume that there is a level of description of the brain
which is Turing emulable. Then I show that the brain-mind identity
breaks down, and that consciousness is related to infinities of
computations, and that physics emerges from a competition between
infinities of universal machines/numbers. Using results by Gödel, Löb,
Solovay, I can use the logic of self-reference in arithmetic to
translate the mind body problem into a body problem, expressible in
arithmetic.
I am a computer scientist, and by making clear all the assumption and
the definition, I show that the comp mind body problem is a
mathematical problem. Scientist understand, but don't really care, and
philosophers are often nervous and hot on this (like always when
philosophy is made into science, which is what is possible for the
comp philosophy.
But I don't need to define consciousness. I bet you know enough to
follow the reasoning. Eventually you can understand why consciousness
is indeed not definable.
> It seems like your notion of self-acceleration or self-speeding is
> what some people call psycho-active or psychedelic ….
I have no clue what you are talking about. Self-speeding is a property
of theories (in the mathematical technical sense) or of universal
machine (idem).
> Or what others
> call meditative metamorphoses through concentration. Concentration or
> the will to power in the Spinoza and Nietzschean sense as self-
> speeding. The lack of this concentration of the will or self-
> intensification/force equated to what Kierkegaard called
> spiritlessness… a symptom of modernity.
Modernity has disappeared in Occident since the roman closed Plato
academy. But let us say I am just provoking here.
Bruno
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Everything List" group.
> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com
> .
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
> .
>
meekerdb
> The mathematical science is certainly not causally inert. Without
> math, no chips, no internet, no man on the moon, etc.
But the form of argument, "Without X we wouldn't have Y, therefore X
caused Y." is invalid. Consider, without space we wouldn't have gone to
the Moon, therefore space caused us to go to the Moon. If you stretch
causes to include everything that must have been the case for Y to
happen then you end up with a meaningless plethora of causes: The
universe caused Y.
> And from inside the computationalist mindscape, the dynamics emerge as
> internal (arithmetical) indexicals. But this is the fate of any TOE,
> or better ROE (realm of everything, the theories themselves only
> scratches the surface).
>
>
>
>
>
>> Yet it's existence is debatable and it's certainly interesting to
>> discuss. And in any case, the elan vital was endlessly debate for
>> centuries and was eventually discarded as nonexistent.
>
> Like mechanism justifies that the "material force" will be discarded
> as non existent, but explainable in term of number theoretical
> relations (coherent number's beliefs).
Forces are explainable by many things. I'll be more impressed when you
predict one.
Brent
> Here the numbers are "G�del number" of machine with respect to some
B Soroud
Brent
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
B Soroud
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
Bruno Marchal
On 04 Jul 2011, at 07:25, Constantine Pseudonymous wrote:
> “It sound more like you are reifing body and system.”
> Would you rather me rarefy it?
Worst. I don't give you any choice, *in* the mechanist theory. But I
am talking on primitive bodies. They are so rare that they don't
exist. But beliefs in bodies exists, and I can explain why (or refer
to papers, because it is not so shortly explainable).
> “Consciousness here and now is accepted by many as the most
> undoubtable
> truth”
> That to which you point by the indicator consciousness, observe that…
> it is not a clear and defined perception,
OK. But neither is time.
> it is not a clearly
> delineated “thing”…
Not sure. You know what it is. Just now, you can hardlmy doubt you
are, even if you can doubt being awaken or dreaming, you know that you
are conscious. You know that you are not an instance of philosophical
zombie. All right? You can't prove it, nor even really express it, but
you know you are living it here and now.
> it is a obscure and indefinite I-don’t-know-
> whatness, an unknown unknown… something that cannot be clearly stated
> or comprehended or defined…
Yes! It is exactly that :)
> so you cannot say what it is…
You can approximate. It is in between believing and knowing there is
*some* reality.
> By calling
> it consciousness you trick us… because you give us the impression we
> know what it is or that it is, that we have some grip or handle on it
> or that it is an object of knowledge.
Once there is self-consciousness, it certainly is. You know that you
are conscious. You know perfectly what it is. It is what makes pain
painful. You can attribute it to others. In computer science there are
many object and properties which cannot be defined, yet can have a
role in providing solutions to combinatorial problems, and it can be
show that universal machine looking inward discover an ocean made of
those non nameable things. The comp theory of mind is 99,99999999...%
a theory of ignorance.
> Buddhists have been grappling
> with the problem of so called consciousness for millennia… where have
> they gotten?
At least they do not burn alive non buddhist, or very less often so.
What do you mean "where have they gotten"?
> They either b.s. or they claim that it is not what it
> appears to be, that it is not a definitive thing, that it is
> unrealized, and that its “essential nature” is something other then
> what it appears to be… blah blah blah… they claim it is this or that….
> the “primordial ground of reality” or “pure subtle energy” and other
> fantastical notions…. So who knows what consciousness is?
All Löbian machines. That is all universal machine who knows its own
universality. They have precise laws of thought (Boole) and laws of
mind (Gödel, Löb, Solovay, .... computer science. I explained this in
all detail in french, alas).
> “Body and system are rather clearly mind constructions to organize
> experience.”
> But so is mind and mind-construction a mind-construction.
I was alluding to a result that I have explain in this forum. I think
that you assume the existence of a physical primitive universe. I
don't. Mind construction are some definable, and some non definable
number relation (I do assume mechanism!).
> Do you
> distinguish between consciousness and experience?
Only if the context forces me to introduce nuances. I use at first the
term in the largest sense possible. So consciousness and subjective
experience, and first person experience are basically the same things.
Now, I can give restricted definition, like accessible personal
memories, to reason and prove things about those notion.
> I think your choice in the usage of the term theology is not very
> insightful. What etymological grounds and logic do you have for this?
Many reasons:
Computationalism, alias digital mechanism, is a theological
hypothesis. It is the belief in a form of technologically possible
reincarnation, (cf the "yes doctor" in the sane04 paper), and once you
grasp the Universal Dovetailer argument, it is more than that (comp
immortality, quantum immortality, consciousness becoming a prison
(Rossler), etc.
Then in arithmetic I define the theology of a machine/number as the
set of arithmetical proposition true about that machines. I limit
myself to "sound" machines (they prove only true sentences), and the
incompleteness phenomenon splits the truth into the provable and
unprovable part. Yet a lot of unprovable truth are still accessible,
by betting for example, by the machine, despite being non provable.
And then the theology of the correct self-introspecting machine offers
an arithmetical interpretation of Plotinus, but also of some text by
Lao-Tse, and give a light on some mystical discourse which reverse the
usual idea mind-matter.
Another reason is strategical and concern the long term. We will not
win again the fairy-tales theologies, which maintains the humans in
the age of irresponsibility (let daddy think for you), without
tolerating the doubt (that is the scientific method) in the field.
In that vein, it is a way to suggest that the debate between atheists
and christians is really a dispute between two variants of Aristotle
theology, and to mention that things like QM (perhaps) and DM
(certainly) point on possible different sort of theology.
I answer you other post hereby:
On 04 Jul 2011, at 07:57, Constantine Pseudonymous wrote:
> Bruno, what makes you think that mathematics can apply to anything
> beyond the physical world, is not mathematics restricted to the domain
> of the physical world....
Why? And what do you mean by "physical world". This is plausibly just
the inside view of arithmetical reality (provably so with the digital
mechanist assumption). Just ask, and I can explain the proof, or I
will refer to a link where I am going to explain it, because, I have
already explain this more than one times on this list. It is not
difficult at all, except for *some* point. Anyway, I have never really
believe in a *primitive* physical universe. But I do believe in the
physical reality, and the local stability of natural laws. I give an
explanation why the appearance of this are unavoidable for a vast
class of machine's points of view.
> it doesn't apply to the qualitative metaphysical domain of anima-
> psyche.
In which theory? What are your assumption?
The fact are that the modal logic of universal machine self-reference,
which are there (those have been discovered, not invented) on the
contrary provides an explanation of the quality and the quantity in
the domain of mind. You can take this as a toy psychology, or a toy
theology, because it is limited to the case of ideal machine. But the
result are negative; the ideal machine's soul falls apparently and
generate matter almost exactly like Plotinus explains, when he recast
Aristotle theory of matter in the Platonic realm. The toy theory of
the ideal machine shows her already unable to close the gap for many
qualitative aspect of their experiences, but the machines can already
explain why it has to be so, if they are correct machines. That is not
obvious. Gödel mentioned the staring idea, and later Hilbert and
Bernays made the hard work, and later Löb simplify it
considerably, ... eventually Solovay closes the propositional part of
the "machine's theology" by axiomatized them in the logic G (what the
machine can really say on its possibilities) and G* (what is true on
its possibilities).
> Bruno is totally misrepresenting and inverting Plato..... he is trying
> to reduce something complex, conflicted, and ambiguous to his strange
> and odd system.
Not at all. I don't care about Plato. I follow a pedagogical method to
keep on pointing on the important ideas. By Plato in metaphysics I
mean the often discussed and criticized idea in the dialogs that
reality is not WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get), that is the
idea that physics is only a part of theology or of some other science
(like Mathematics for the so-called Mathematicians (like Xeusippes),
or arithmetic for (neo)Pythagoreans). I am aware of the labyrinths of
conflicting ideas. By Plato in math, I usually mean Aristotle's middle
excluded principle (the common use in philo of math). By classical
theory of knowledge I mean one of the theory proposed by Theaetetus in
the Theatetus. But usually I recall all that, and the motivation is to
explain some result in computer science which put light on the
reversal mind/matter forced by the Universal Dovetailer Argument.
I have no odd system. Just an odd result (odd with respect to
Aristotle theology) in a very well known classical theory. QM is
weird, but DM is weirder. Perhaps even false. We don't know yet. You
might try to find a flaw. I have many versions. Above a rigor
threshold people get sleepy, and below, they misunderstand. UDA is
enough to get that the comp transforms the mind-body problem in a body
problem. Then a second part (AUDUA) translates the problem in
arithmetical terms.
On this list many agrees that the "TOE" needs the shape of
"everything" with some measure (the big debate was between the degree
of relativity of that measure). I show that the Church Turing thesis,
gives a very solid notion of everything, with a natural way to
isolated the self-relative measure keeping distinct the communicable
and incommunicable part of the experiences. The only bad news is that
it needs math and math tools (theoretical computer science,
mathematical logic). But UDA needs only a passive understanding of
Church thesis (the existence of a universal digital machine). Only
AUDA needs some amount of mathematical logic.
Bruno
B Soroud
you see. I can be very sure that my body exists.... a 100% sure... but I can't be sure that anything else exists.
you say: " Just now, you can hardlmy doubt you are... you know that you are conscious. You know that you ...but you know you are living it here and now."
I can doubt that "I am".... but I can't doubt that "x is". But what does x mean?
" You know that you are conscious. You know perfectly what it is. It is what makes pain painful. "
You think you know what these "things" are but once you play close attention they slip through your fingers...... they just become unintelligible names..... because "sensation" is a name...... the "thing itself" is not the word..... and the "thing itself" is unknowable.
I can say that I am but I cannot say what I am or what is is........I can just say..... x is. but I know neither what x or is is. (take this seriously, I am not sophisticating)
"I think that you assume the existence of a physical primitive universe."
"Mind construction are some definable, and some non definable number relation"
What on earth do you mean by number... it sounds like it is your way to make a pure abstraction out of concrete determinations. It sounds like your use of the word number is your way to transcendentalize things out of existence and convert them into pure abstract identities.
".It is the belief in a form of technologically possible reincarnation"
Have you seen ghost in the shell.... if you really believed this... you should scrap or hide the theory all together. We are too corrupt and perverse for it.... we would simply stain another space of existence.
Now this self-introspection that you speak of...
what introspection.... what is being observed? what is the form of observation?
what is observing what?
what causes or constitutes or conditions the observation? When you close your eyes, are you seeing some "inner space", the inside of your skull? or the back of your eyelids?
I don't want to follow you into your sci-fi salvationist technocratic world-vision.
B Soroud
"At least they do not burn alive non buddhist, or very less often so. What do you mean "where have they gotten"?"
By where have they gotten I mean it is a circular loop.... the same old thing, no progress... just fantastical gnostic claims and the same old discussions that we are having here.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
.
For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
.
For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
B Soroud
Religion = argument by authority.
Now there are two forms of spirituality as barely distinguished from religion: theoretical spirituality and existential spirituality.
Theoretical spirituality as indemonstrable cosmology/metaphysics/teleology generally grounded in the argument by authority on the one hand, or by a rationalist mode of procedure on the other.
There can be existential spirituality without the inferences, postulates, and explanations of the theoretical assertions grounded in revelation or argument by authority..... and perhaps argument by persuasiveness.... i.e. the rhetoric of logos, pathos, and ethos....... this can be a subtle and sublimated form of argument by authority.
B Soroud
back to the Sophists! lets throw out the platonic and peripatetic presuppositions and linguistic forms inherited and embedded in modern physics and thought!
Bruno Marchal
On 05 Jul 2011, at 00:29, B Soroud wrote:
> Bruno, damn, this is heavy.... give me a moment to reply:
>
> you see. I can be very sure that my body exists.... a 100% sure...
> but I can't be sure that anything else exists.
The old dream argument already refute this. It is the beginning of
science and philosophy. I have no clue how you can be sure that your
body exist. You can only assume this.
>
> you say: " Just now, you can hardlmy doubt you are... you know that
> you are conscious. You know that you ...but you know you are living
> it here and now."
>
> I can doubt that "I am".... but I can't doubt that "x is". But what
> does x mean?
Anything objective. Anything which admit a third person description.
That is always doubtable, and can only be based on a theory (created
consciously, or selected by evolution).
>
> " You know that you are conscious. You know perfectly what it is. It
> is what makes pain painful. "
>
> false! false! I don't know what pain is.... I know what the word
> refers to.... but once I try to pay close attention to it and figure
> out what it is.... I don't know what it is.... it just is....
You confuse knowing a first person fact, and understanding a theory
accounting for that fact. In your sense we should say that we know
nothing.
>
> You think you know what these "things" are but once you play close
> attention they slip through your fingers...... they just become
> unintelligible names..... because "sensation" is a name...... the
> "thing itself" is not the word..... and the "thing itself" is
> unknowable.
In which theory?
>
> I can say that I am but I cannot say what I am or what is
> is........I can just say..... x is. but I know neither what x or is
> is. (take this seriously, I am not sophisticating)
>
> "I think that you assume the existence of a physical primitive
> universe."
>
> Do you mean I assume some substantial and objective reductionist
> state of affairs? I don't assume anything.
Just reread you post. You assume humans have bodies. You assume time
and space, etc. If you are not aware of your assumption, you will take
time to progress. We always do assumption.
>
> "Mind construction are some definable, and some non definable number
> relation"
>
> I define any conception or notion of mind, and even the notion of
> mind-construction.... as by definition a "mind-construction".
And how do you define "mind construction", and from what assumption?
>
> What on earth do you mean by number... it sounds like it is your way
> to make a pure abstraction out of concrete determinations. It sounds
> like your use of the word number is your way to transcendentalize
> things out of existence and convert them into pure abstract
> identities.
As I said I do assume simple first order logic axiom: like
0 ≠ s(x)
s(x) = s(y) -> x = y
etc.
I refer you to the papers for details. I have never met scientist
having any doubt on those formula. In science we are never able to
define what we are talking about, but we can share starting statement
and make proof from there.
>
> ".It is the belief in a form of technologically possible
> reincarnation"
>
> Have you seen ghost in the shell.... if you really believed this...
> you should scrap or hide the theory all together. We are too corrupt
> and perverse for it.... we would simply stain another space of
> existence.
So you do object comp. It is your right. I am agnostic. All what I
prove is that IF comp is true, THEN physics is verifiably a branch of
machine's theology/number theory.
>
>
> Now this self-introspection that you speak of...
>
> what introspection.... what is being observed? what is the form of
> observation?
>
> what is observing what?
An immaterial machine is reasoning about itself in the manner
discovered by Gödel, and clearly explained in his 1931 paper, and
enormously exploited since then.
>
> what causes or constitutes or conditions the observation?
Machine's interactions. Eventually, after understanding the UD
reasoning, it is special number relations.
> When you close your eyes, are you seeing some "inner space", the
> inside of your skull? or the back of your eyelids?
>
>
> I don't want to follow you into your sci-fi salvationist
> technocratic world-vision.
Not even for the sake of a reasoning? You are just saying: I don't
like this so I will pray for it to be false. This is not the usual
method in the scientific enterprise.
Bruno
Bruno Marchal
On 05 Jul 2011, at 01:15, B Soroud wrote:
> Bru, I forgot:
>
> "At least they do not burn alive non buddhist, or very less often
> so. What do you mean "where have they gotten"?"
>
> Sure they don't burn alive non buddhists becaues they've had their
> head up their asses for the last several thousand years.... and
> finally they were woken up from their dogmatic slumber by the
> invasion of the Chinese.... they were sitting up on their high
> horses dreaming about compassionat acts for hundreds of years....
> dreaming, and doing nothing!
>
> By where have they gotten I mean it is a circular loop.... the same
> old thing, no progress... just fantastical gnostic claims and the
> same old discussions that we are having here.
I think that you are just insulting people when you disagree with
them. It is hardly convincing. I refer you to a testable precise
theory, and you use vague sunday philosophy to justify not studying it.
Bruno
Bruno Marchal
It ios never the case in science (well understood). It is always like
"do you see what I see?" + "do you guess what I guess"? Science is
only question. The idea that science can provide an answer in
metaphysics, appears only by science abandon of metaphysics and
theology. Science start from doubts and leads only to more doubts.
I would write fake-religion = fake science = argument of authority =
bandits at work.
The opposition between science and religion is the big delusion, which
betrays what science modestly is, and what religion modestly is.
Bruno
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Everything List" group.
> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com
> .
Bruno Marchal
Yes! perhaps Reason is the ultimate sublimated form of the argument by authority.....
and the demonstrable merely regulated to a highly limited and relatively insubstantial plane.
back to the Sophists! lets throw out the platonic and peripatetic presuppositions and linguistic forms inherited and embedded in modern physics and thought!
On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 4:43 PM, B Soroud <bso...@gmail.com> wrote:but to say something positive... I like your formulation of religion as argument by authority.
Religion = argument by authority.
Now there are two forms of spirituality as barely distinguished from religion: theoretical spirituality and existential spirituality.
Theoretical spirituality as indemonstrable cosmology/metaphysics/teleology generally grounded in the argument by authority on the one hand, or by a rationalist mode of procedure on the other.
There can be existential spirituality without the inferences, postulates, and explanations of the theoretical assertions grounded in revelation or argument by authority..... and perhaps argument by persuasiveness.... i.e. the rhetoric of logos, pathos, and ethos....... this can be a subtle and sublimated form of argument by authority.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Alberto G.Corona
that I think its right:
According with evolutionary Psychology, Consciousness evolved as an
adaptation to social life. Broadly specaking, non social animals are
unconscious and selfless. In social life, before self awareness, other
awareness evolved. Other awareness is necessary to optimize
interactions with other members of the group. for this purpose, other-
awareness functionality idientiifies individuals and register past
interactions with each individual.
Wen social interactions were more sophisticated, self awareness
evolved as a response to others' other-awareness: If other
individuals have a detail register of my behaviour, I can optimize my
interaction with them if I am aware of what the others expect from me.
For this purpose, I must be aware and I must register, whathever I do
that may affect to others. So I may unconsciously pick up a donut
from the refrigerator and not even notice it, but I´m well aware of it
when I´m fatty and my wife is looking.
Self conscious supervision of our acts is not for free. it adds an
extra overload in the brain and in the way we do things that is
visible to others. If the other that is looking is very important for
us, we can experiment seizures. Conversely, the absence of self
awareness is experimented as flowing.
To complete the picture, I must say that the awareness of spiritual
beings that continuously supervise us is a further social instinct
that make use of the self supervision machinery. This avoid
machiavelic behaviours that may be deleterious for the group
Of course a machine can be designed to have such computational self
awareness, but the question of if real self awareness is still open.
On Jul 1, 1:23 pm, selva kumar <selvakr1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is consciousness causally effective ?
>
Bruno Marchal
On 05 Jul 2011, at 11:42, Alberto G.Corona wrote:
> Jost to introduce another point of view about consciousnees. The one
> that I think its right:
>
> According with evolutionary Psychology, Consciousness evolved as an
> adaptation to social life.
Are you sure you don't confuse consciousness and conscience. I think
that solitary primitive animals felt pain, and are thus consciouss
(although not necessarily self-conscious).
> Broadly specaking, non social animals are
> unconscious and selfless.
I tend to believe the contrary. The more an animal is social, the more
it could be self-less. Even humans can destroy the individual self by
using strong group identity.
> In social life, before self awareness, other
> awareness evolved. Other awareness is necessary to optimize
> interactions with other members of the group. for this purpose, other-
> awareness functionality idientiifies individuals and register past
> interactions with each individual.
>
> Wen social interactions were more sophisticated, self awareness
> evolved as a response to others' other-awareness: If other
> individuals have a detail register of my behaviour, I can optimize my
> interaction with them if I am aware of what the others expect from me.
> For this purpose, I must be aware and I must register, whathever I do
> that may affect to others. So I may unconsciously pick up a donut
> from the refrigerator and not even notice it, but I´m well aware of it
> when I´m fatty and my wife is looking.
>
> Self conscious supervision of our acts is not for free. it adds an
> extra overload in the brain and in the way we do things that is
> visible to others. If the other that is looking is very important for
> us, we can experiment seizures. Conversely, the absence of self
> awareness is experimented as flowing.
>
> To complete the picture, I must say that the awareness of spiritual
> beings that continuously supervise us is a further social instinct
> that make use of the self supervision machinery. This avoid
> machiavelic behaviours that may be deleterious for the group
>
> Of course a machine can be designed to have such computational self
> awareness, but the question of if real self awareness is still open.
In which theory?
Bruno
>
> On Jul 1, 1:23 pm, selva kumar <selvakr1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is consciousness causally effective ?
>>
>> I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a answer.
>
Alberto G.Corona
On Jul 5, 1:07 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 05 Jul 2011, at 11:42, Alberto G.Coronawrote:
>
> > Jost to introduce another point of view about consciousnees. The one
> > that I think its right:
>
> > According with evolutionary Psychology, Consciousness evolved as an
> > adaptation to social life.
>
> Are you sure you don't confuse consciousness and conscience. I think
> that solitary primitive animals felt pain, and are thus consciouss
> (although not necessarily self-conscious).
>
Following the theory exposed, self consciousness of pain, exist when
the animal know that other individuals can take actions to alleviate
it. Social Animals grown t in isolation don´t cry (including humans).
Of course either conscious or not, the animal must avoid the pain, but
a non self aware animal may experiment pain just as you and me may
experiment pain when we are deeply concentrated in an intellectual
activity. the reactions to pain in this case are automatic.
> > Broadly specaking, non social animals are
> > unconscious and selfless.
>
> I tend to believe the contrary. The more an animal is social, the more
> it could be self-less. Even humans can destroy the individual self by
> using strong group identity.
>
bother to control yourself?. Self awareness is not for social life as
such, it is for avoiding conflicts and making profit of social
interactions. If you are immersed in an activity where you feel free
of conflicts, you dont need self awarenees. For example in a concert,
or in a meeting with people who think like you, with your friends etc.
Other situations where you feel selfless is when you travel to a
foreign pacific place. where you are surronded by peaceful foreigners
and your acts will not influence your future reputation at home. To
feel selfless is probably one reason why people travel.
> > interaction with them if I am aware of what the others expect from me.
> > For this purpose, I must be aware and I must register, whathever I do
> > that may affect to others. So I may unconsciously pick up a donut
> > from the refrigerator and not even notice it, but I´m well aware of it
> > when I´m fatty and my wife is looking.
>
> > Self conscious supervision of our acts is not for free. it adds an
> > extra overload in the brain and in the way we do things that is
> > visible to others. If the other that is looking is very important for
> > us, we can experiment seizures. Conversely, the absence of self
> > awareness is experimented as flowing.
>
> > To complete the picture, I must say that the awareness of spiritual
> > beings that continuously supervise us is a further social instinct
> > that make use of the self supervision machinery. This avoid
> > machiavelic behaviours that may be deleterious for the group
>
> > Of course a machine can be designed to have such computational self
> > awareness, but the question of if real self awareness is still open.
>
> In which theory?
>
consciousness according with Evolutionary Psychology. This is more or
less the consensus. Daniel Dennet wrote something about it. Pinker
too. Evolution is parsimonious. It proceed step by step by
accumulation functionalities in respionse to evolutionary pressures,
in this case, mental modules that correspond to computational hardware
in the brain. This is the most logical path that evolution may have
follow.
There are psico-phisical experiments that is according with this
theory. There are experiments where the activity of both the motor
signal of a hand and the cortex tissue that "control" the hand are
measured. The "control" signal in the cortex appears one second
after the motor signal when the test individual received the order to
move the hand. this means that some other unconscious part does the
real control, and the cortex just take note of the movement and assign
the action to the self, when in reality, the action has been done
already unconsciously. This is described by Pinker in some of its
books. Presumably in "how the mind works".
So, by definition, consciousness is causally efective. it is a mind
module. Mind modules are not located in specifin spatially conected
parts of the brain, they are distributed, in the same way that the
file search in Microsoft windows is not located in a concrete zone of
the PC hardware. In this case self consciousness is distributed in the
human cortex.
> Bruno
>
>
>
> > On Jul 1, 1:23 pm, selva kumar <selvakr1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Is consciousness causally effective ?
>
> >> I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a answer.
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> > Groups "Everything List" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com
> > .
Bruno Marchal
On 05 Jul 2011, at 14:11, Alberto G.Corona wrote:
>
>
> On Jul 5, 1:07 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>> On 05 Jul 2011, at 11:42, Alberto G.Coronawrote:
>>
>>> Jost to introduce another point of view about consciousnees. The one
>>> that I think its right:
>>
>>> According with evolutionary Psychology, Consciousness evolved as an
>>> adaptation to social life.
>>
>> Are you sure you don't confuse consciousness and conscience. I think
>> that solitary primitive animals felt pain, and are thus consciouss
>> (although not necessarily self-conscious).
>>
> Depending on the pain and depending on the animal and the context.
> Following the theory exposed, self consciousness of pain, exist when
> the animal know that other individuals can take actions to alleviate
> it. Social Animals grown t in isolation don´t cry (including humans).
>
> Of course either conscious or not, the animal must avoid the pain,
Personnally I tend to consider that the word 'pain' refer to something
we are conscious of. If not conscious it is a signal, an information,
but not a pain. Of course this does not need self-consciousness, just
consciousness. I tend to think that all animals, even microbe are
conscious, and I am open to the idea that plant might be too on some
time scale. Just from observation. On the contrary I tend to believe
that self-consciousness appears with an already rather elaborate
circuitry. Recently I have enlarge the spectrum to the spider and the
octopus. Spider seems to be able to bond with people. I have made some
test on spiders which confirm this feeling. Note that such kind of
things are not provable, but only guessable. I can't prove to you that
I am conscious. I cannot even define what I mean by that.
> but
> a non self aware animal may experiment pain just as you and me may
> experiment pain when we are deeply concentrated in an intellectual
> activity. the reactions to pain in this case are automatic.
But as far as I am not conscious of it. It is no more pain. If I can
forget a pain by hard work (which is indeed possible), then it is like
a pain killer. Unfortunately, most of the time, hard work will only
act like an attention shifter, I remain conscious of the pain aspect
of the experience, but, if not too big, we can focus the conscious
attention on something else.
>
>>> Broadly specaking, non social animals are
>>> unconscious and selfless.
>>
>> I tend to believe the contrary. The more an animal is social, the
>> more
>> it could be self-less. Even humans can destroy the individual self by
>> using strong group identity.
>>
> That can happen sometimes. If you feel very good inside a group, why
> bother to control yourself?. Self awareness is not for social life as
> such, it is for avoiding conflicts and making profit of social
> interactions. If you are immersed in an activity where you feel free
> of conflicts, you dont need self awarenees. For example in a concert,
> or in a meeting with people who think like you, with your friends etc.
OK, that makes sense.
>
> Other situations where you feel selfless is when you travel to a
> foreign pacific place. where you are surronded by peaceful foreigners
> and your acts will not influence your future reputation at home. To
> feel selfless is probably one reason why people travel.
I am OK, although I am not sure if you are not confusing non-self-
consciousness, and consciousness with no attention focusing on the
self part of consciousness. That might be very close, yet different.
With some meditation technic, or with sleep technic, we can easily
forget the self, yet the type of consciousness is still of the self-
consciousness sort, in the sense that we keep up the belief in the
self. We just don't pay attention to it. It is very different from
experience where the self vanishes, which can also happen in sleep
(non REM sleep), death, etc.
>
>>> interaction with them if I am aware of what the others expect from
>>> me.
>>> For this purpose, I must be aware and I must register, whathever I
>>> do
>>> that may affect to others. So I may unconsciously pick up a donut
>>> from the refrigerator and not even notice it, but I´m well aware
>>> of it
>>> when I´m fatty and my wife is looking.
>>
>>> Self conscious supervision of our acts is not for free. it adds an
>>> extra overload in the brain and in the way we do things that is
>>> visible to others. If the other that is looking is very important
>>> for
>>> us, we can experiment seizures. Conversely, the absence of self
>>> awareness is experimented as flowing.
>>
>>> To complete the picture, I must say that the awareness of spiritual
>>> beings that continuously supervise us is a further social instinct
>>> that make use of the self supervision machinery. This avoid
>>> machiavelic behaviours that may be deleterious for the group
>>
>>> Of course a machine can be designed to have such computational self
>>> awareness, but the question of if real self awareness is still
>>> open.
>>
>> In which theory?
>>
> This is more or less the theory of the evolutionary origin of self
> consciousness according with Evolutionary Psychology.
I can be OK with this. In the big picture I think that this is only an
explanation of a re-instantiation of consciousness, not a creation of
it. But for this you need to study a bit what I explain here (and
there).
> This is more or
> less the consensus.
So let us be skeptical :)
> Daniel Dennet wrote something about it. Pinker
> too. Evolution is parsimonious. It proceed step by step by
> accumulation functionalities in respionse to evolutionary pressures,
> in this case, mental modules that correspond to computational hardware
> in the brain. This is the most logical path that evolution may have
> follow.
OK. That is the reflexive loop which makes us Löbian. Now humans have
super-exploited that loop. But the original one belongs to the
cerebral stem, and part of the limbic system, I would say. The cortex
integrate it probably in even more high level loop. This does not add
anything to self-consciousness, but can interface it with a more
elaborate relationship with the body.
>
> There are psico-phisical experiments that is according with this
> theory. There are experiments where the activity of both the motor
> signal of a hand and the cortex tissue that "control" the hand are
> measured. The "control" signal in the cortex appears one second
> after the motor signal when the test individual received the order to
> move the hand. this means that some other unconscious part
? Why unconscious?
Anyway, I think that neither self-consciousness, nor free-will, are
related with determinism. Most conclusion derived from Libet
experience relies on a naïve supervenience thesis between brain and
mind which is obsolete once we take seriously the idea that
consciousness can be associated to a computation. (as they do). Time
is somehow the main construct of that computation, which is not a
physical thing, but an informational immaterial pattern. This might
not be relevant for your present point though.
> does the
> real control, and the cortex just take note of the movement and assign
> the action to the self, when in reality, the action has been done
> already unconsciously. This is described by Pinker in some of its
> books. Presumably in "how the mind works".
OK.
>
>
> So, by definition, consciousness is causally efective.
We agree on that. Not sure this is given "by definition". Some will
object that this is still only "self-awareness" of the kind of what is
available to a super-zombie robot. This in particular does not solve
the qualia problem, which needs to take into account the self-
reference logics to account of the true feeling + the impossibility of
communicating it.
> it is a mind
> module. Mind modules are not located in specifin spatially conected
> parts of the brain, they are distributed, in the same way that the
> file search in Microsoft windows is not located in a concrete zone of
> the PC hardware. In this case self consciousness is distributed in the
> human cortex.
I am not sure. The cortex surely can make us believe this, by linking
the consciousness to complex images of the body. Nevertheless I tend
to think, since I read the theory of dreams by Hobson, that self-
consciousness originates in a complete loop activated by the interplay
of the cerebral stem, the limbic system and the cortex. Now, I think
that the cortex alone might emulate such kind of loops, so that if you
cut the brain in little (but not too much little) parts, some self-
conscious circuitry can, for a time continue. But I do think that the
usual original sense of the selves is distributed in the whole brain.
The cortex seems, from what I read, to allow the integration of the
self with a highly sophisticated view we can have of oneself.
Consciousness and selves are per se relatively simple and primitive,
and might already be a "product" of the oldest part of our brain. Some
experiences with dissociative chemical products can point on this, as
far as we can use this in such a complex debate.
Bruno
>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Jul 1, 1:23 pm, selva kumar <selvakr1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Is consciousness causally effective ?
>>
>>>> I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a
>>>> answer.
>>
>>> --
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>> Groups "Everything List" group.
>>> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com
>>> .
>>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com
>>> .
>>> For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
>>> .
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Everything List" group.
> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com
> .
Bruno Marchal
On 04 Jul 2011, at 21:55, meekerdb wrote:
> On 7/4/2011 12:38 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> The mathematical science is certainly not causally inert. Without
>> math, no chips, no internet, no man on the moon, etc.
>
> But the form of argument, "Without X we wouldn't have Y, therefore X
> caused Y." is invalid.
Agreed. But the notion of cause is not the notion of implication. I
was just saying that the use of human mathematics was responsible for
the acceleration of progress. The mathematical discovery of logarithms
has multiplied the travel distances. The existence of mathematics
change the world. And not just human mathematics. Any brain already
exists by virtue of some mathematical, representational, machine to
emulate other machine, leading to relative self-acceleration.
I can understand that a materialist can still believe that the
mathematical reality does not act physically on our reality, but
mathematics acts, in that respect, by allowing the physical to obeys
mathematical laws, and some of those laws, to make sense, assume
primitive arithmetical law. The basic intuition of number is the idea
that we can distinguish something from something else.
> Consider, without space we wouldn't have gone to the Moon, therefore
> space caused us to go to the Moon.
The point is that space makes it possible, to start with.
> If you stretch causes to include everything that must have been the
> case for Y to happen then you end up with a meaningless plethora of
> causes: The universe caused Y.
Addition and multiplication "causes" the belief in universes and
universe. The 8 'hypostases' from God (Arithmetical truth) to Matter
(what is sigma_1, provable, consistent, and true).
>
>> And from inside the computationalist mindscape, the dynamics emerge
>> as internal (arithmetical) indexicals. But this is the fate of any
>> TOE, or better ROE (realm of everything, the theories themselves
>> only scratches the surface).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Yet it's existence is debatable and it's certainly interesting to
>>> discuss. And in any case, the elan vital was endlessly debate for
>>> centuries and was eventually discarded as nonexistent.
>>
>> Like mechanism justifies that the "material force" will be
>> discarded as non existent, but explainable in term of number
>> theoretical relations (coherent number's beliefs).
>
> Forces are explainable by many things. I'll be more impressed when
> you predict one.
It will take time before we get something like F = ma or the Feynman
integral, especially if people don't search. My point is only that it
is the only way to explain force without making the qualia disappear,
or without violating the comp principle, or without putting
consciousness under the rug.
The point is not to submit a "new" physics, just a translation of a
problem into another problem, (complex, but purely mathematical). The
understanding of the arithmetical origin of the physical laws might
help to avoid senseless question.
Physics is very mathematical by itself, and has already palpable
relation with number theory. An application of the bosonic string
theory = To prove the four squares theorem in number theory!
The distribution of prime numbers might emulate a sort of quantum
computer. Even without comp, I find rather natural that the physical
laws expresses internally observable number symmetries. It might be
that the theory of finite simple groups is at play. But justifying
this by using the self-reference logics allows us to take into account
the first person perspectives of the relative numbers, and it should
explain the winning symmetries by a measure argument. Meanwhile it
gives a different (non aristotelician picture of the "ontological
everything" (I will called that the realm, or the ROE, the ontology of
the everything).
Now we can like that, dislike that. Take time to swallow, I don't
know. Comp might be false. We have to keep this in mind. Comp might be
true with a very low substitution level. The level could be so low
that it is virtually very similar to materialism (and in practice it
makes the digitalist doctor inexistant).
What I do like in comp, and in the universal machine discourse, it the
theory of virtue (the type Dt). It is really a sort of vaccine about
the argument by authority. It makes the universal machine a sort of
universal dissident. *you* are your own best guru, if you look twice
(inward).
Bruno
Pzomby
On Jul 5, 10:06 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 04 Jul 2011, at 21:55, meekerdb wrote:
>
> > On 7/4/2011 12:38 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> >> The mathematical science is certainly not causally inert. Without
> >> math, no chips, no internet, no man on the moon, etc.
>
> > But the form of argument, "Without X we wouldn't have Y, therefore X
> > caused Y." is invalid.
>
> Agreed. But the notion of cause is not the notion of implication. I
> was just saying that the use of human mathematics was responsible for
> the acceleration of progress. The mathematical discovery of logarithms
> has multiplied the travel distances. The existence of mathematics
> change the world. And not just human mathematics. Any brain already
> exists by virtue of some mathematical, representational, machine to
> emulate other machine, leading to relative self-acceleration.
>
> I can understand that a materialist can still believe that the
> mathematical reality does not act physically on our reality, but
> mathematics acts, in that respect, by allowing the physical to obeys
> mathematical laws, and some of those laws, to make sense, assume
> primitive arithmetical law. The basic intuition of number is the idea
> that we can distinguish something from something else.
>
matter, forces and energies are actually encoded with the same
mathematical rules that the brain/mind/consciousness distinguishes
using mathematics. Then would not brain/mind/consciousness itself be
subject to the same rules? Are you stating that the rules (laws)
themselves have some kind of dispositional property (like a magnet
with positive and negative attraction poles)?
Thanks
Pzomby
>
> - Show quoted text -
B Soroud
When I say they had their heads up their arses for hundreds of years.... I mean something by that more then just name calling or insults.... it is a serious metaphorically framed criticism based on some knowledge.
B Soroud
Bruno Marchal
Not at all. The rules of the brain are finite (that's why we can say
"yes" to the doctor). But both the rules of mind (1-person) and the
rules of matter (1-person plural) are not more finitely descriptible.
You really have to do the UD thought exercise. Once you see the
growing gap between the 3-description and the 1-description, you can
understand (and the math confirms) that mechanism makes the
arithmetical reality very big as seen from inside, and that matter is
some kind of border of that inside, and both are far beyond what can
be described by finite rules. Indeed, the problem becomes "how and why
does physics look so much computable". At first sight, the UD makes
too much white rabbits and white noise everywhere, but then by taking
into account logical self-referential constraints, white rabbits are
made much less obvious.
> Then would not brain/mind/consciousness itself be
> subject to the same rules?
The 3-things obeys elementary arithmetic, but the 1-things depends on
all what is unknown in arithmetic (that's big). They can be
approximated and reflected, and indeed consciousness is probably a
fixed point, like when a map is embedded in the territory. But they do
not obeys the same laws. All the points of view (the 8 "hypostases")
obeys to different, but related, laws.
> Are you stating that the rules (laws)
> themselves have some kind of dispositional property (like a magnet
> with positive and negative attraction poles)?
I am not sure of what you mean. Finite sets of laws/axioms + inference
rules/law defines machines, which have dispositional properties. But
in the "block mindscape", which exists when assuming comp (it is a
tiny part of arithmetic), you cannot see the disposition, they appears
only relatively to some machines living or observing them.
> Thanks
You are welcome.
Bruno
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Everything List" group.
> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com
> .
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
> .
>
Stathis Papaioannou
<step...@charter.net> wrote:
> Hi Bruno,
>
> Pretty freaking cool post! A few comments...
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruno Marchal
> Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2011 7:27 AM
> To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: consciousness
>
>
> On 01 Jul 2011, at 13:23, selva kumar wrote:
>
>> Is consciousness causally effective ?
>>
>> I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a answer.
>
> Was it in the FOR list (on the book Fabric of reality by David
> Deutsch) ? I thought I did answer this question, which is a very
>
> It is also a tricky question, which is very similar or related to the
> question of free-will, and it can lead to vocabulary issue. I often
> defend the idea that consciousness is effective. Indeed the role I
> usually defend for consciousness is a relative self-speeding up
> ability. Yet the question is tricky, especially due to the presence of
> the "causally", which is harder to grasp or define than
> "consciousness" itself.
I'm not following this thread closely, but it seems to me that the
question in the subject line is a spurious one. It is like asking, Is
the motion of a car along the road causally effective, or is it the
chemical reaction resulting in the combustion of fuel in the cylinders
which is causally effective?
--
Stathis Papaioannou
Alberto G.Corona
> Are you sure you don't confuse consciousness and conscience. I think
> that solitary primitive animals felt pain, and are thus consciouss
> (although not necessarily self-conscious).
>
Right
Consicence may be a less sophisticated version of self-consciousness..
I think honestly that all attemps of explaining conscience in terms of
a certain degree of complexity or as a certain property of neurons or
tissues goes the wrong path. Broadly speaking, this is like a medieval
scientist trying to explain a video game console in terms of the
complexity and colourfulness of the printed circuits. These views
ignores the work of the hardware designer that creates the machine and
the programmer that make the algorithms.
In living beings the work of the hardware designer and the programmer
are done by a guy called Natural Selection. and this guy builds things
for a purpose: Survival. What is conscience for? A self preserving
being with a central nervous system (an animal) must stablish a clear
distinction between its body and the environment in order to preserve
itself. If he do not know the status of each of its parts in relation
to the environment, he can not determine the priorities for self
preservation: does he must avoid a predator? does he must eat
something? etc. The effect of the activity set of all these central
nervous systems is the conscience in the most basic manifestation.
No degree of "complexity" or neuronal-like machinery will manifest
conscience without the proper algorithms (and the sensors-actuators
too). As Theodosius Dobzhansky said: Nothing in Biology (and i
suspect, nothing in anything) Makes Sense Except in the Light of
Evolution.
Honestly:
Alberto.
Craig Weinberg
seen from only one side. Everything that conscience could provide in
terms of survival could be just as easily provided unconsciously.
There would be no need for the video game to have a graphic interface
and controller if you already have software that runs directly on the
hardware. I agree completely that complexity is the wrong direction to
go in, but in addition to the teleonomy of evolution, we routinely
participate teleologically in/as/through the universe.
Even if there were some evolutionary purpose served by feeling like we
are participating and making choices when we aren't, and for the
elaborately rich cornucopia of sensation and imagination we have
instant access to, evolution itself has no way to conjure 'experience'
out of inert material phenomena. It would be much more likely for
evolution to develop something like voluntary time travel or physical
omnipotence as a survival strategy then something like feeling which
totally defies conception in conventional physical terms.
Craig
meekerdb
> On Jul 5, 1:07 pm, Bruno Marchal<marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
>> On 05 Jul 2011, at 11:42, Alberto G.Corona wrote:
>> .
>>
>> Are you sure you don't confuse consciousness and conscience. I think
>> that solitary primitive animals felt pain, and are thus consciouss
>> (although not necessarily self-conscious).
>>
>>
> Hi again
>
> Right
>
> Consicence may be a less sophisticated version of self-consciousness..
> I think honestly that all attemps of explaining conscience in terms of
> a certain degree of complexity or as a certain property of neurons or
> tissues goes the wrong path. Broadly speaking, this is like a medieval
> scientist trying to explain a video game console in terms of the
> complexity and colourfulness of the printed circuits. These views
> ignores the work of the hardware designer that creates the machine and
> the programmer that make the algorithms.
>
> In living beings the work of the hardware designer and the programmer
> are done by a guy called Natural Selection. and this guy builds things
> for a purpose: Survival.
Or more accurately: Reproduction. But evolution must work with what it
has. That was Julian Jaynes insight into why we have an inner narrative
instead of some other kind of consciousness. Our symbolic cogitation is
built on top of our language, which in turn is built on top of social
relations.
Brent
Bruno Marchal
On 25 Aug 2011, at 12:12, Alberto G.Corona wrote:
>
> On Jul 5, 1:07 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>> On 05 Jul 2011, at 11:42, Alberto G.Corona wrote:
>> .
>>
>> Are you sure you don't confuse consciousness and conscience. I think
>> that solitary primitive animals felt pain, and are thus consciouss
>> (although not necessarily self-conscious).
>>
> Hi again
>
> Right
>
> Consicence may be a less sophisticated version of self-consciousness..
> I think honestly that all attemps of explaining conscience in terms of
> a certain degree of complexity or as a certain property of neurons or
> tissues goes the wrong path.
I agree. Those are implementation. Conscience and consciousness are
attribute of first person, soul; etc.
> Broadly speaking, this is like a medieval
> scientist trying to explain a video game console in terms of the
> complexity and colourfulness of the printed circuits. These views
> ignores the work of the hardware designer that creates the machine and
> the programmer that make the algorithms.
But little program with simple instruction (like help yourself) can go
very far if you give them the time.
We can already have "conversations" with simple introspective machine,
albeit abstract and mathematical.
>
> In living beings the work of the hardware designer and the programmer
> are done by a guy called Natural Selection. and this guy builds things
> for a purpose: Survival. What is conscience for? A self preserving
> being with a central nervous system (an animal) must stablish a clear
> distinction between its body and the environment in order to preserve
> itself. If he do not know the status of each of its parts in relation
> to the environment, he can not determine the priorities for self
> preservation: does he must avoid a predator? does he must eat
> something? etc. The effect of the activity set of all these central
> nervous systems is the conscience in the most basic manifestation.
OK. The effect. Not the activity itself, but what the activity can
represent.
Consciousness is belief in a reality.
The role of self-consciousness is self-acceleration with respect to
that probable and possible reality.
>
> No degree of "complexity" or neuronal-like machinery will manifest
> conscience without the proper algorithms (and the sensors-actuators
> too). As Theodosius Dobzhansky said: Nothing in Biology (and i
> suspect, nothing in anything) Makes Sense Except in the Light of
> Evolution.
Evolution itself is a speeding up process. It build layers and layers
of universal level, a process mimicked by life, and then by thought,
and then by languages, and then (now) by machines.
Brain, computer, genome, universal machine, programming languages,
what I call the universal numbers or machines (UMs) are basically
dynamical mirror, and anticipator, and it allows and enlarge the
spectrum of further explorations, it augment the relative degrees of
freedom.
Evolution is driven by simple ideas, not unlike the Mandelbrot set. It
is not just mutation and selection, it is also meta-level evolution
and efficacious self-perturbation, and who knows, some reflexive
layers. A four dimensional view of humanity illustrates humanity and
life is a fractal. They are known to be locally rather complex, but
generated by powerful little idea (like try to eat, to f. and avoid to
be eaten).
The difference between natural and artificial is artificial. And thus
natural when selves develop. Machines, from the stick of wood to the
computers are natural extension of our life and thought and the
evolution of thought.
The universal machine is a terrible child. It is the little God. The
one you can give it a name, and then he got the ten thousand names
(Java, c++, prolog, algol, cobol, LISP, game of life, modular functor
of type 5, topological computer, ..., your brain, your cells, and many
parts of the physical universe, apparently).
If you give to those UMs, the ability of mathematical induction, they
seem to me as clever as you and me. They are just highly handicapped
and disconnected relatively to our probable histories. But they
universal incarnation is 50 years old, ours is billion of years old,
yet, they develop very quickly. Computer science is mostly used to
control them, not to let them controlling themselves, except timidly
in AI research.
Complexity is not the answer to deep questions. It is the consequence
of simple answer to deep questions.
Anyway, the comp consequences are independent of the substitution
level chose. Physics has to be justified.
Bruno
Evgenii Rudnyi
In the book of Jeffrey Gray, "Consciousness: Creeping up on the hard
problem" the evolution viewpoint is played well out. Well, he consider
consciousness as conscious experience, so it is not conscience.
First, in his view, this is the exactly the argument for causality of
consciousness. Second his argument is that roughly speaking conscious
experience plays a role of late-error correction that happens to be
working more efficiently as compared with unconscious feedback mechanisms.
Evgenii
http://blog.rudnyi.ru