Memory Experiment

[Matt the Poet]

yeah, but nylon is a physical thing that can be measured.. whereas consciousness is not.
if certain chemical reactions produce consciousness it ought to be possible to isolate the particular reactions, put them together in a big laboratory experiment and create an absolutely massive consciousness.

Consciousness isn't a physical thing, and yet it can be 'massive'? Eh?

Seriously, though, your assertion that consciousness is not measurable and not physical - indeed that there is such a thing as 'consciousness' at all - is just that - an assertion, for which there is no empirical evidence.

As my subsequent post indicates, it's perfectly possible to describe my experiences in a manner that doesn't require 'consciousness' at all. Clumsy, yes, but perfectly possible.

And it would be replicable. If you recreated all of the chemical reactions that made up a being you define as 'conscious', in the location and sequence in which they occur, then there is no a priori reason that you wouldn't have a conscious being

 

[schlitt]

yeah, but nylon is a physical thing that can be measured.. whereas consciousness is not.
if certain chemical reactions produce consciousness it ought to be possible to isolate the particular reactions, put them together in a big laboratory experiment and create an absolutely massive consciousness.

You massively underestimate the complexity.

 

[this charming man]

I'll go further.
I'd have no idea how to describe a colour even to a sighted person.
Sure, I could say "it's purple, my love". That's fine as far as it goes.. but then if she persists and asks me what purple is I'd have no clue how to enlighten her in any meaningful way.

Your blind example, would be even more difficult.
Where's this going?

Maybe I can clarify by creating a scenario.

A cave dwelling organism (CDO), who understands English automatically, has just arrived in your living room. He has all the mental apparatus necessary for understanding; it just so happens that he has evolved without the need for sight. This CDO’s senses do not include sight, but he does have the ability of echolocation. In his journey to the surface of the Earth, he traveled through green fields filled with colorful flora. He has been asked by his fellow CDOs to document what he experienced in his travels, and to tell them about the differences between their world and the surface environment. He has heard talk of color, but as he doesn't know how to describe a color, he figures he'll ask for your help. After all, for you, understanding and seeing colors is as easy as falling off a log. You've been doing it all your life.

So what would you say to him to train him how to understand color?

 

[Cuddles]

It was a conscious choice to somehow activate my memory, and to do it in an incredibly specific way.

Actually, it wasn't. Studies show that conscious awareness of a decision only occurs after the brain has begun to act on it. For example, if someone tells you to lift your leg, the leg control neurons in your brain will be active before you actually decide to do so. There is still some question about whether your conscious thought has an override control, so you could decide not to lift your leg at the last second, but it seems likely that this impulse would also occur subconsciously first.

Consciousness is simply an emergent property of the brain's functioning. You don't decide to do anything, your brain tells you that you are going to decide it before you actually do. Or, more accurately, your brain makes the decisions and only informs your consciousness later so that it doesn't get suspicious.

 

[plumjam]

Maybe I can clarify by creating a scenario.

A cave dwelling organism (CDO), who understands English automatically, has just arrived in your living room. He has all the mental apparatus necessary for understanding; it just so happens that he has evolved without the need for sight. This CDO’s senses do not include sight, but he does have the ability of echolocation. In his journey to the surface of the Earth, he traveled through green fields filled with colorful flora. He has been asked by his fellow CDOs to document what he experienced in his travels, and to tell them about the differences between their world and the surface environment. He has heard talk of color, but as he doesn't know how to describe a color, he figures he'll ask for your help. After all, for you, understanding and seeing colors is as easy as falling off a log. You've been doing it all your life.

So what would you say to him to train him how to understand color?

Your scenario doesn't quite apply.
My point is that we have no way to really understand or meaningfully put into words something that we all commonly experience. The alien was introduced just as someone to try to put it into words for.
As I said to you before even meaningfully describing a colour to a sighted person would be a difficult undertaking, beyond the surface label.

 

[Matt the Poet]

Your scenario doesn't quite apply.
My point is that we have no way to really understand or meaningfully put into words something that we all commonly experience.

Yes, we do. If I were to be put into a PET scanner, and asked to visualise my first school, areas of my brain would be shown to be active. The statement 'the following areas of your brain, as captured by the PET scan, became active' would be an exact description of the experience I just had.

 

[plumjam]

Actually, it wasn't. Studies show that conscious awareness of a decision only occurs after the brain has begun to act on it. For example, if someone tells you to lift your leg, the leg control neurons in your brain will be active before you actually decide to do so. There is still some question about whether your conscious thought has an override control, so you could decide not to lift your leg at the last second, but it seems likely that this impulse would also occur subconsciously first.

Consciousness is simply an emergent property of the brain's functioning. You don't decide to do anything, your brain tells you that you are going to decide it before you actually do. Or, more accurately, your brain makes the decisions and only informs your consciousness later so that it doesn't get suspicious.

I've heard tell of this before. Can you point me in the direction of some of these studies?

Do you believe that, in your own life, you never really make any free conscious decisions?

 

[this charming man]

Your scenario doesn't quite apply.
My point is that we have no way to really understand or meaningfully put into words something that we all commonly experience. The alien was introduced just as someone to try to put it into words for.
As I said to you before even meaningfully describing a colour to a sighted person would be a difficult undertaking, beyond the surface label.

At the very least, I think there is a way to teach him the concept of colors. How would you do it?

 

[plumjam]

Yes, we do. If I were to be put into a PET scanner, and asked to visualise my first school, areas of my brain would be shown to be active. The statement 'the following areas of your brain, as captured by the PET scan, became active' would be an exact description of the experience I just had.

No it wouldn't. Your experience was not of a particular part of your brain being active inside a PET scanner. Your experience was of doing what you did to bring your school to mind, and then your experience of the school.
We have no way of meaningfully conveying the "what you did" part.

 

[Locknar]

Do you believe that, in your own life, you never really make any free conscious decisions?

As I suspected..."free will" or "free conscious" was the real intent all along.

 

[voidx]

yeah, it applies to all conscious activity. I just used the memory example to illustrate it to people using their own noggins.

As I thought.

If something produces something, shouldn't the somethings have some kind of correlation?

There is, I merely said it wasn't clear cut. The real question is, given the orders of complexity between the quantum level and the macro level of conscious abstraction, is there any useful or practical correlations we can make between the two? Not necessarily.

I would assume that abstraction on a high level is happening simultaneously in many strands within the mind. How is it that we can focus consciousness on one particular strand, and then jump to another strand? How do we do that?
And if it's the abstraction on a high level producing the consciousness surely we should be simultaneously conscious of all strands of high level abstraction.

What justifies your assumption. I think it's pretty clear most peoples conscious thought jumps all over the place. Its dynamic and more than a little chaotic. Your conscious about whatever you happen to be focusing on and unconscious of everything else, until that focus changes.

What's your point? What are you actually trying to get at?

How else could I evaluate anything?

Precisely. We can be sure to use objective observation and measurements, something that takes away the subjectivity and bias of pure conscious experience and recollection alone. The main reason for pointing it out is that much of the mystery and fuzzy-headedness of grasping these questions is because we're trying to quantify conscious experience, through that same conscious experience apparatus. So we have to be aware of the bias and limitations of doing so.

Now, I'd also like to get your response to the second post that was under this one that you replied too:

You seem to be making the mistake that consciousness sits out in front of normal brain processing. This is what I called you on before. Conscious choice activates your memory, it causes the activation of memory. You don't know that for certain. Sensory input is detected and acted upon by the brain before is necessarily consciously aware.

Your brain is constantly looking for patterns within sensory input. It may have already been working through memory recall before you ever consciously pondered, "What was the first school I ever attended?"

 

[plumjam]

At the very least, I think there is a way to teach him the concept of colors. How would you do it?

I have no clue. As far as I can see any method will be deeply inadequate. Maybe you could mess around trying to represent colours as sounds, or temperatures.
Please enlighten me.

 

[Matt the Poet]

No it wouldn't. Your experience was not of a particular part of your brain being active inside a PET scanner. Your experience was of doing what you did to bring your school to mind, and then your experience of the school.
We have no way of meaningfully conveying the "what you did" part.

OK, let’s try this again. It’s tricky because, as I say, we tend to use words like ‘I decided’ or ‘I chose’ as a kind of shorthand for certain rather complex kinds of experience.

In the argument that you are making, it is the very words ‘what you did’ that beg the question. The verb ‘to do’ here comes laden with the very assumption that you are trying to prove – that there is a special class of physical events called ‘conscious decisions’ that have fundamentally different properties from all other physical events in the universe

As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t ‘do’ anything. I have no evidence that anything other than the following occurred:

As a consequence of underlying physical laws which completely determine the sequence of events in the universe as a whole, certain atoms interacted in a particular location and sequence which generated an physical object generally capable of experiencing itself as a discrete entity experiencing other interactions, both within and outside its own physical boundaries. The interactions that this entity is currently experiencing are within those boundaries, consisting physically of reactions in the physical area known as the ‘brain’. It interprets these as a sensation of ‘having chosen’ to reconstruct the visual pattern of another discrete entity, not currently physically present.

The only reason that I call this particular sequence of events ‘remembering my first school’ is that, well, it’s easier

 

[this charming man]

I would tell him about the sun and how it makes light; I would tell him about waves and the spectrum.

etc...

I think this way he would, at least, get the concept of color.

 

[-Fran-]

I would tell him about the sun and how it makes light; I would tell him about waves and the spectrum.

etc...

I think this way he would, at least, get the concept of color.

I once tried to explain that to my art teacher, and she is very much a seeing person... she didn't believe me.

 

[plumjam]

What justifies your assumption. I think it's pretty clear most peoples conscious thought jumps all over the place. Its dynamic and more than a little chaotic. Your conscious about whatever you happen to be focusing on and unconscious of everything else, until that focus changes.

What's your point? What are you actually trying to get at?

Well, let's say there are a few mental 'strands' going on simultaneously. Say I am playing chess, listening to the radio, juggling, remembering my last love, wondering what to cook for dinner. These are all high-level, complex activities going on in the brain, with all the requisite 'chemicals' necessary for consciousness. Given that they all have the same chemical requirements for consciousness (as you believe), what is it that happens in order for consciousness to focus on one activity in particular and then jump over to another. Does this mean in some way the 'consciousness chemicals' for the one I have stopped consciously focusing on have somehow fled the scene?

Precisely. We can be sure to use objective observation and measurements, something that takes away the subjectivity and bias of pure conscious experience and recollection alone. The main reason for pointing it out is that much of the mystery and fuzzy-headedness of grasping these questions is because we're trying to quantify conscious experience, through that same conscious experience apparatus. So we have to be aware of the bias and limitations of doing so.

Would be infinitely more limited without consciousness. In fact, non-existent.

 

[plumjam]

You seem to be making the mistake that consciousness sits out in front of normal brain processing. This is what I called you on before. Conscious choice activates your memory, it causes the activation of memory. You don't know that for certain. Sensory input is detected and acted upon by the brain before is necessarily consciously aware.

Your brain is constantly looking for patterns within sensory input. It may have already been working through memory recall before you ever consciously pondered, "What was the first school I ever attended?"

I don't see it as a mistake. Rather as a fact backed up by our everyday experience of being conscious entities.
All kinds of complex brain functioning can be going on simultaneously, yet consciousness can freely choose to jump from one to another as it wishes. This does suggest a kind of independence of consciousness from the constraints of mere chemical activity.
Otherwise you'd have to be able to show that during simultaneous brain strands something special occurred, chemically, every time consciousness flicked from one activity to another.
If consciousness were indeed just an epiphenomenon the origin or necessity for such a chemical change would be entirely inexplicable.

 

[plumjam]

OK, let’s try this again. It’s tricky because, as I say, we tend to use words like ‘I decided’ or ‘I chose’ as a kind of shorthand for certain rather complex kinds of experience.

In the argument that you are making, it is the very words ‘what you did’ that beg the question. The verb ‘to do’ here comes laden with the very assumption that you are trying to prove – that there is a special class of physical events called ‘conscious decisions’ that have fundamentally different properties from all other physical events in the universe

Well, the point I was originally making was just that we spend our whole lives doing things without having the faintest idea how we did them.
Whether conscious decisions are a special class of events.. not sure.. Consciousness is certainly a special class of reality.. - being the only class of reality that's aware of itself. That's a fundamentally different property to those of a brick. How consciousness interacts with physicality, well that's a pretty big mystery isn't it. But enjoyable to talk about, for me, anyway.

As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t ‘do’ anything. I have no evidence that anything other than the following occurred:

As a consequence of underlying physical laws which completely determine the sequence of events in the universe as a whole, certain atoms interacted in a particular location and sequence which generated an physical object generally capable of experiencing itself as a discrete entity experiencing other interactions, both within and outside its own physical boundaries. The interactions that this entity is currently experiencing are within those boundaries, consisting physically of reactions in the physical area known as the ‘brain’. It interprets these as a sensation of ‘having chosen’ to reconstruct the visual pattern of another discrete entity, not currently physically present.

The only reason that I call this particular sequence of events ‘remembering my first school’ is that, well, it’s easier

[/QUOTE]
That's a nice description. The problem is that all of that (as you see it) should be possible to happen in a universe devoid of consciousness. So why does our universe have it?

 

[Matt the Poet]

Well, the point I was originally making was just that we spend our whole lives doing things without having the faintest idea how we did them.
Whether conscious decisions are a special class of events.. not sure.. Consciousness is certainly a special class of reality.. - being the only class of reality that's aware of itself. That's a fundamentally different property to those of a brick. How consciousness interacts with physicality, well that's a pretty big mystery isn't it. But enjoyable to talk about, for me, anyway.

Why is the fact that there is a class of things that are self aware any more mysterious than the fact that there is a class of things which are yellow? Yellow things 'interact with physicality' in a highly specific way - they absorb and reflect photons with a particular frequency pattern. That's a fundamentally different property to that of things that are red.

That's a nice description. The problem is that all of that (as you see it) should be possible to happen in a universe devoid of consciousness. So why does our universe have it?

All of it would also be possible in a universe without nylon. So why does our universe have nylon?

 

[plumjam]

Why is the fact that there is a class of things that are self aware any more mysterious than the fact that there is a class of things which are yellow? Yellow things 'interact with physicality' in a highly specific way - they absorb and reflect photons with a particular frequency pattern. That's a fundamentally different property to that of things that are red.

No it ain't. The yellow and the red are both physical properties vis-a-vis interaction with light.
Consciousness is a non-physical property that is aware of physicality, can control physicality, and is aware of non-physicality. Consciousness is astoundingly more remarkable than yellow.

All of it would also be possible in a universe without nylon. So why does our universe have nylon?

So, for you, consciousness is of the same order of interest as nylon?