Brook and Raymont's interesting article in Psyche:

The Representational Base of Consciousness
http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/symposia/kriegel/3Brook_Raymont.pdf

raises some interesting issues. The idea of a self representing representation is particularly interesting, as Brook and Raymont put it:

"Representations can represent themselves as well as whatever else they may represent."

or Aristotle:

"In every case the mind which is actively thinking is the objects which it thinks."( De Anima)

Where Aristotle and Brook and Raymont seem to differ is in the use of "Consciousness OF".  Aristotle realises that "Consciousness OF" implies a regress:

"..we must fall into an infinite regress or we must assume a sense which is aware of itself." (De Anima Book III,425b)"

Aristotle proposes an interesting way out of this problem:

"But that which mind thinks and the time in which it thinks are in this case divisible only incidentally and not as such. For in them too there is something indivisible (though, it may be, not isolable) which gives unity to the time and the whole of length; and this is found equally in every continuum whether temporal or spatial."

Aristotle seems to be saying that time extended representations might solve the problem of self representation.

Has Aristotle already found the answer to Brook and Raymont's problem?

Now for a rant. I would like to see the confrontation of "consciousness OF" by editors of articles on consciousness. "Consciousness OF" implies a regress and the truly interesting problem in consciousness research is how this regress is avoided (as Aristotle knew thousands of years ago).  

Best wishes

Alex Green

 Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

Like Alex Green, I found Brook and Raymond's article enjoyable and  
interesting. They conclude
"Someone should write a book about all this."
At least one person already has. I am entirely in agreement with  
their proposal and have given some suggestions as to the biophysics  
of how and where this can come about in:

"How Many People Are There In My Head? And In Hers?
Imprint Academic September 2006 - available thru Amazon.

This is an elaboration of the J Consc Stud 2005 v4-5, 60-76 article  
at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~regfjxe/aw.htm  (which mostly deals with the  
binding problems)

For me the key concept is 'presentation'. These are not in fact re-
presentations because they are not presented anywhere else earlier  
on. There is only the one presenting. This is maybe another way of  
putting Brook and Raymond's problems with FOR. That presenting must -  
like the good bar code analogy - have layers of meaning which might  
be compared with semantic and syntactic aspects of language;  
component and contextual meanings (a bit like the computer language  
C?). To have that meaning they must be presented to something that  
knows how to interpret complex level meanings. My belief is that post-
Feynman physics provides us with that fairly easily - but you have to  
be prepared to throw out a few treasured teddy bears of ideas of who  
you are.

Jo Edwards

On 21 Oct 2006, at 12:06, Alex Green wrote:

In response to Alex Green's post of 21 Oct 2006, stating that "Consciousness OF" implies a regress and the truly interesting problem in consciousness research is how this regress is avoided (as Aristotle knew thousands of years ago).

In relation to experiencing, if each successive metacognitive regress* requires an increase in cognitive complexity then the number of regresses might find their limit in the complexity-achieving limits of cognitive processing.

*consider the following fourfold regress:

experiencing non-consciously = performing the physiological activity of receiving and responding adjustively to information about some external, say, object or event of reality

experiencing consciously = performing the physiological activity of receiving and responding adjustively to information about the internal event of reality comprising the performing of the physiological activity of receiving and responding adjustively to information about an external, say, object or event of reality

experiencing self-consciously = performing the physiological activity of receiving and responding adjustively to information about the internal event of reality comprising the performing of the physiological activity of receiving and responding adjustively to information about the internal event of reality comprising the performing of the physiological activity of receiving and responding adjustively to information about an external, say, object or event of reality

experiencing evaluatively self-consciously = performing the physiological activity of receiving and responding adjustively to information about the internal event of reality of performing the physiological activity of receiving and responding adjustively to information about the internal event of reality comprising the performing of the physiological activity of receiving and responding adjustively to information about the internal event of reality comprising the performing of the physiological activity of receiving and responding adjustively to information about an external, say, object or event of reality

Perhaps cognitive processing can achieve further complexity, enabling 'higher' metacognitive states, but one begin to appreciate that ahead lies a non-linear road.

Anthony Sebastian.

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(as Aristotle knew thousands of years ago).

There is a third alternative to
a) the infinite regress/progress in the "consciousness of" approach and
b) the "self-referencing representation" Platonic solution to that
problem.

The third alternative is based on Merleau-Ponty. Very briefly,
consider Pereira´s definition of consciousness as *contentful
subjective experience*. Following this definition, the structure of
consciousnes has three aspects:
a) the contents;
b) the lived experience;
c) the conscious subject.

Now consider that the content is embodied in brain activity and
embedded in the domain of interaction of brain, body and
environment.
And finally assume, with Merleau-Ponty, that the conscious subject
is the living body.

In this view, consciousness is consciousness of contents (not
necessarily representations) generated in the interaction domain,
and processed by the brain. The conscious subject is the living
body, which is a part of the content-generating domain. Therefore,
consciousness implies a (partially) *self-referencing living body*,
not a self-referencing representation.

Best Regards,

Alfredo Pereira Jr.

I would like to hear from Andrew Brook exactly what it means "to  
present" in his identity model. To be honest, I could make little  
sense of it.

James, who is often referred to in the paper, was mostly influenced  
by Peirce in these matters, I am surprised that no mention was made  
of Peirce's detailed considerations.

With respect,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering
http://iase.info

We'll get to some of the other messages tomorrow but this one is fairly
straightforward so we'll have a shot at it now.

Andrew

That's Andrew Brook and Paul Raymont. We have done this project together.

How does a representation present whatever it is about? How for example does a
perception of a painting present the painting? That is how a representation
presents itself -- and oneself as it's subject. We see no need to posit any
asymmetry here.

Well, tell us about the influences! Not general influences but influences where
they would count for what we cite from James. Just saying that there were
influences is not enough. So far as we know, *on the parts of James' work of
interest to us*, Peirce did not have much of an influence. The fact that in
general Peirce was a more sophisticated and systematic philosopher than James is
not enough by itself to show anything to the contrary. Anyway, so long as James
had a distinctive and original point of view of his own, it does not matter much
who influenced him, surely. Aristotle and Kant influenced me, Kant in
particular. We don't mention this either.

Andrew

--

Andrew Brook
Chancellor's Professor of Philosophy
Director, Institute of Cognitive Science
Member, Canadian Psychoanalytic Society
2217 Dunton Tower, Carleton University
Ottawa ON, Canada   K1S 5B6
Ph:  613 520-3597
Fax: 613 520-3985
Web: www.carleton.ca/~abrook

On Oct 21, 2006, at 6:36 PM, Andrew Brook wrote:

I am not referring to any asymmetry, I am simply asking what - in  
your model - it means "to present."  What you have said here does not  
appear to make any more sense than the paper. Simply, what does it  
mean "to present," specifically. It appears to me to be a very vague  
notion, and from my point of view is the flawed basis of the paper  
since it is then even more uncertain as to exactly what you are  
referring to when you discuss "self-representation."

Further, how would one distinguish your identity theory from any  
other so that we might discover its relative merit?

With respect,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering
http://iase.info

Soon we should take this off the list but let me try once more: In the same way
that a perception presents what it is about, a perception presents itself and
oneself as its subject. We do not endorse any particular theory of
(re)presentation and hope that our view is compatible with any reasonably
adequate theory. We define our notion by example, as I have just done. What
matters to us is that, whatever presentation of the world is like, a
representation presenting itself and it presenting oneself as its subject are
the same kind of process. Different target, same kind of process.

A note on the word 'representation'. Another contributor made a sharp
distinction between representation and presentation. We don't. 'Representation'
is now a term of art in cognitive research and no longer has much by way of
links to its etymological roots. For us, what representations do is present
states, properties and events to cognitive subjects. You could call these
presenting states 'presentations' if you wanted but you'd run the risk of not
being understood.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'identity theory'. As the term is used in
philosophy, we are functionalists, not identity theorists, though we don't go
into the matter in the little Psyche paper. That is to say, we think that
representating, thinking, etc., are activities of the brain, not specific
circuits or whatever in the brain. But maybe you have something different in mind.

Andrew

--

Andrew Brook
Chancellor's Professor of Philosophy
Director, Institute of Cognitive Science
Member, Canadian Psychoanalytic Society
2217 Dunton Tower, Carleton University
Ottawa ON, Canada   K1S 5B6
Ph:  613 520-3597
Fax: 613 520-3985
Web: www.carleton.ca/~abrook

That representation is 'a term of art' would worry me. This seems to  
imply that everybody knows what it means and uses it the same way.  
However, most of us are surely familiar with the fact that it usually  
means used in all sorts of ways to suit the assumptions of the user.  
Also, this is a discussion forum on consciousness for people of all  
disciplines so we need to make sure that we do not use 'discipline-
private' meanings. Things often mean something different in the lab  
down the corridor.

Fodor and Putnam would seem to have raised serious issues about what  
representation might mean, and whether or not it has to be a re-
presentation to something is crucial. Any model that locates  
consciousness in a network of nerves, for instance, implies that  
percepts are re-presented to something that has no meaningful  
identity or receiving capacity, since it is an arbitrary collection  
of receiving units, not a receiving unit. In functionalist terms  
there can be no presenting. These issues are at the heart of the  
problem.

I think we need to consider the possibility that we have a word of  
art that has no coherent meaning. Steve Zenith's question seems  
pertinent because if there really is presenting implied we have to  
have some idea of a physically possible context. I am happy with mine  
but Steve is probably sceptical so he is entitled to a suggestion,  
maybe?

Jo Edwards

On 22 Oct 2006, at 17:12, Andrew Brook wrote:

Jonathan, I entirely agree with you that there are lots of interesting questions
about representation but they were not our questions, certainly not in a version
of our approach that had to meet the constrains of Psyche. You are quite right
that the word 'representation' is used in a great many ways. For example, the
way in which linguists use it is very different from how the AI community uses
it which is very different from how (most) psychologists and philosophers use
it. And that is just at the level of differences in which is being talked about.
Go to theories about these things and the proliferations multiplies by at least
an order of magnitude. So yes, the term has no coherent meaning. But it has
coherent meaningS. We're using one of them.

That said, we laid out how we are using word, by giving examples. About
everything else, including what theory would give an adequate account of what is
going on in these examples, we are neutral, including about the issue that most
interests you, presentation vs. re-presentation. For our purposes, which is
right, if either, just does not matter.

It would be interesting to see some comments on the topics that we do talk
about, as well as on ones that we did not talk about.

Andrew

 > That representation is 'a term of art' would worry me. This seems to  imply
that everybody knows what it means and uses it the same way.  However, most of
us are surely familiar with the fact that it usually  means used in all sorts of
ways to suit the assumptions of the user.  Also, this is a discussion forum on
consciousness for people of all  disciplines so we need to make sure that we do
not use 'discipline- private' meanings. Things often mean something different in
the lab  down the corridor.
 >
 > Fodor and Putnam would seem to have raised serious issues about what
representation might mean, and whether or not it has to be a re- presentation to
something is crucial. Any model that locates  consciousness in a network of
nerves, for instance, implies that  percepts are re-presented to something that
has no meaningful  identity or receiving capacity, since it is an arbitrary
collection  of receiving units, not a receiving unit. In functionalist terms
there can be no presenting. These issues are at the heart of the  problem.
 >
 > I think we need to consider the possibility that we have a word of  art that
has no coherent meaning. Steve Zenith's question seems  pertinent because if
there really is presenting implied we h