Memory Experiment

[Matt the Poet]

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.

You have provided no evidence that consciousness is a non-physical process - you've merely asserted it. Indeed, you've yet to propide an example of what you would consider to be a 'non-physical' process at all, let alone a rationale for why such things exist.

As far as I am concerned, I have no evidence for 'consciousness' being anything other than a process emerging from the sort of physical things that go on in the part of my physical being inside my skull - neurotransmitters being up- and down-regulated, sodium and potassium shuttling across cell membranes etc. etc.

Yellow things, incidentally do 'control physicality' in the sense that they moderate the local movement of photons. I am able to 'control physicality' in rather more subtle ways, but not fundamentally different ones.

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

You're getting dangerously close to an 'argument from emotion' here. The fact that I may be more or less interested in a particular kind of process, or that particular processes create effects that I find personally 'special' such as love or an appreciation of beauty, has no bearing on their actual nature.

 

[plumjam]

You have provided no evidence that consciousness is a non-physical process - you've merely asserted it. Indeed, you've yet to propide an example of what you would consider to be a 'non-physical' process at all, let alone a rationale for why such things exist.

As far as I am concerned, I have no evidence for 'consciousness' being anything other than a process emerging from the sort of physical things that go on in the part of my physical being inside my skull - neurotransmitters being up- and down-regulated, sodium and potassium shuttling across cell membranes etc. etc.

You aren't presenting evidence either. You're just describing some physical processes that go on in the brain, and then making a leap of faith that it was these that 'produced' consciousness.
So it's my assertion against your assertion.
We could always go into evidence of consciousness outside of the brain, to support my assertion, but we'd be here all night.. and I don't think we'd get anywhere.

Yellow things, incidentally do 'control physicality' in the sense that they moderate the local movement of photons. I am able to 'control physicality' in rather more subtle ways, but not fundamentally different ones.

but yellow can't decide to control the environment in the same way I can decide to open the door

You're getting dangerously close to an 'argument from emotion' here. The fact that I may be more or less interested in a particular kind of process, or that particular processes create effects that I find personally 'special' such as love or an appreciation of beauty, has no bearing on their actual nature.

I don't see where the emotion is. You tried to equate a universe devoid of consciousness to a universe without nylon.. which I found a bit disingenuous.
If you find a phenomenon of particular beauty that's because the actual nature of that phenomenon is capable of provoking feelings of beauty in you.. so it absolutely does have a bearing on the actual nature of that phenomenon. It's not for nothing that most people thus find consciousness inherently more special and interesting than nylon.

 

[Matt the Poet]

You aren't presenting evidence either. You're just describing some physical processes that go on in the brain, and then making a leap of faith that it was these that 'produced' consciousness.
So it's my assertion against your assertion.

Nope. I've got medical evidence and reseach going back a century at least, showing that when the brain is damaged consciousness, and the signs of consciousness, are impaired. That drugs that affect the processes of the brain affect consciousness. That when brain activity ceases humans are not self-aware. That none of this has ever been shown to apply to any other bits of the body.

We could always go into evidence of consciousness outside of the brain, to support my assertion, but we'd be here all night.. and I don't think we'd get anywhere..

You could present as much evidence as you like, as long as you showed that whatever that consciousnes consisted of wasn't generated by a physical process. Which means that you have to show that there are a general class of processes that are 'non-physical', and you would have to explain exactly what those are and why they are able to interact with the physical world, all the while presenting evidence for those assertions.

but yellow can't decide to control the environment in the same way I can decide to open the door.

Yes it does. That's my whole point. As far as I'm concerned, my opening the door is as much a necessary consequence of the underlying equations as a yellow cube absorbing a photon of a particular wavelength, as is - now this is important - as is my sensation that I have 'chosen' to do so.

Like Cuddles, I can see no evidence that I have this 'free will' thing you seem to be talking about, nor can I see how you would gather such evidence? How do I know that I would have done otherwise in a particular situation? All I know is what I did do.

I don't see where the emotion is. You tried to equate a universe devoid of consciousness to a universe without nylon.. which I found a bit disingenuous.

Why? Both are, as far as I'm concerned, physical properties of the universe. consciousness is more complex than nylon, but not different in kind.

If you find a phenomenon of particular beauty that's because the actual nature of that phenomenon is capable of provoking feelings of beauty in you.. so it absolutely does have a bearing on the actual nature of that phenomenon. It's not for nothing that most people thus find consciousness inherently more special and interesting than nylon.

Argument from emotion and popularity in a single sentence! Blimey! I am heartily among those many, many people that find the phenomenon of consciousness considerably more interesting than that of nylon. What does that have to do with where it comes from or how it works? And you've missed my point about beautiful phenomena - it's not the phenomenon there's nothing special about, it's my perception of the phenomenon. I enjoy and appreciate beautiful art, music, landscape etc. I do that because of all the chemistry going on in the upper region of my body.

 

[Matt the Poet]

I'm bowing out for the evening - got to get somewhere. But I'll return...

 

[plumjam]

Nope. I've got medical evidence and reseach going back a century at least, showing that when the brain is damaged consciousness, and the signs of consciousness, are impaired. That drugs that affect the processes of the brain affect consciousness. That when brain activity ceases humans are not self-aware. That none of this has ever been shown to apply to any other bits of the body.

This is not consciousness being affected. It's the contents of consciousness. i.e. mentality. In NDEs brain activity has measurably ceased, yet conscious self-awareness persists.

You could present as much evidence as you like, as long as you showed that whatever that consciousnes consisted of wasn't generated by a physical process. Which means that you have to show that there are a general class of processes that are 'non-physical', and you would have to explain exactly what those are and why they are able to interact with the physical world, all the while presenting evidence for those assertions.

Not asking much then

Yes it does. That's my whole point. As far as I'm concerned, my opening the door is as much a necessary consequence of the underlying equations as a yellow cube absorbing a photon of a particular wavelength, as is - now this is important - as is my sensation that I have 'chosen' to do so.

So if no real choice has taken place why would reality have 'gone to all the bother of' creating a completely superfluous thing called consciousness and then fooling that pointless consciousness into believing that it had actually made a real choice?
Why would nature have 'selected for' such a weird, unnecessary, and incredibly over-complex state of affairs?
It doesn't make sense.

 

[Foster Zygote]

You aren't presenting evidence either. You're just describing some physical processes that go on in the brain, and then making a leap of faith that it was these that 'produced' consciousness.
So it's my assertion against your assertion.

Phineas Gage.

 

[Foster Zygote]

In NDEs brain activity has measurably ceased...

I'd really like to see some evidence of that.

 

[Jeff Corey]

I'd really like to see some evidence of that.

http://www.skepdic.com/nde.html Tells of Dr. Saborn's report on Pam Reynolds and why she may not have been "brain dead" or actually had a NDE at all.

 

[Babbylonian]

So if no real choice has taken place why would reality have 'gone to all the bother of' creating a completely superfluous thing called consciousness and then fooling that pointless consciousness into believing that it had actually made a real choice?
Why would nature have 'selected for' such a weird, unnecessary, and incredibly over-complex state of affairs?
It doesn't make sense.

Where does consciousness reside in "reality" or "nature" for them to have created or selected anything?

 

[rwp]

Plumjam, have you read the National Geographic article on memory?

What is a memory? The best that neuroscientists can do for the moment is this: A memory is a stored pattern of connections between neurons in the brain. There are about a hundred billion of those neurons, each of which can make perhaps 5,000 to 10,000 synaptic connections with other neurons, which makes a total of about five hundred trillion to a thousand trillion synapses in the average adult brain. By comparison there are only about 32 trillion bytes of information in the entire Library of Congress's print collection. Every sensation we remember, every thought we think, alters the connections within that vast network. Synapses are strengthened or weakened or formed anew. Our physical substance changes. Indeed, it is always changing, every moment, even as we sleep.

 

[rwp]

Maybe I can clarify by creating a scenario.

An alien (who understands English automatically) has just arrived in your living room. He has all the mental apparatus necessary for memory.. but it just so happens that he hasn't consciously accessed his memory yet. In his memory is stored the experience of his journey to Earth.
As he doesn't know how to access his memory he figures he'll ask for your help, to train him how to do it.
After all, for you, accessing your memory 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 access his memory of the journey?

Memory seems to be an important part of understanding English.

 

[voidx]

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.

You're being pretty free with your assumptions here. It's dangerous to take your recollection of your perceptions and experiences as airtight and irrefutable. Simply stating that your consciousness "freely" jumps from one stream of perceptual processing to the next independantly of those processes, because thats just the way it "seems" to you, is not very objective, and can very easily be wrong due to your own bias and the gaps of your own perceptions.

You've also not justified the assumption that consciousness is somehow a distinct and indepedant entity from the physical brain processes which it very strongly appears to be produced from.

You take a very black and white view. Either consciousness is the seat of causation, or it isn't. A more practical and realistic view is that consciousness is always triggered by physical inputs and stimuli, and it CAN from a macro view influence and dictate and be a source of caustion. But it isn't always, and many times its merely an illusion that consciousness is the root of causation, simply because we're blind to the physical inputs and stimuli and brain processing which triggers consciousness in the first place.

 

[voidx]

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?

Your putting words in my mouth here. I didn't specifically go into any requirements for chemical processes and consciousness, another poster did. Not that I disagree that obviously the brain and the body in general operate in electro-chemical processes.

You keep assuming that there is a theatre for consciousness, where a conscious stream must play out, and so, how do we decide which one is actively playing in the theatre, and what happens to those that aren't.

I don't think anyone really suggests that the brain works in that fashion.

If you take the view that consciousness is an amalgamation of brain processes, that its a tool or an extension of those processes, then the question is moot. Certain processes in response to stimulus and input and also feedback from consciousness itself can obtain and hold the focus within consciousness. However all these other processes are still present, roiling around inside the brain and being processed, and if triggered, or through stimulus somehow managed to co-opt themselves into being the focus of consciousness, this does not suggest that the previous stream of conscious focus has magically disappeared.

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

Evasion duly noted. Obviously with no concsiousness present anywhere, there could be no conscious pondering about consciousness. What I was getting at is that basing your model of consciousness purely on what you perceive and recollect is a dangerous path, because we aren't fully conscious of all the input our brains receive and process. I think we can all agree that this is obvious. We have to use objective observation, combinations of behavioural observervation, neurology, chemistry/biology, in order to get a better picture of how consciousness works. Things that can be objectively reviewed by 3rd parties.

 

[Cueshark]

Now, please try to explain how you did that.

Where I lived at that age, my journey walking to school ( in part ), this distinctive long path to the school which started from the pavement beside a busy road.....however when I think up to the school it goes hazy and I can't picture the school. Strange I remember the path and not the school.

Although I guess remembering a flat bit of concrete is no great memory feat

Where you lived for long periods of time are bound to be etched strongly in your mind. The memories of regular journeys made from those places are unlocked from the long term memory of those places.

I had completely forgotten that long path to the school. Yet I remember the house I lived at the time extremely well.

It's made me think. :O

 

[Corpse Cruncher]

This also is used to explain people who say they have precognitive dreams. They have many dreams every night, but don't remember most of them, because they are all 'misses'. But when, finally, a real life situation becomes similar, it jogs their memory of that particular dream, and they perceive this as having had a precognitive dream. Since none of their 'misses' come to mind to compare against a 'hit', it seems to them they have a significant rate of accuracy.

That is quite interesting. I always thought that a memory needed either a visual, sound, taste or smell key to prompt recall. By dreaming wouldn't most of the senses have been shut down?

 

[Matt the Poet]

Not asking much then

Not really a winking matter. I'm asking what I have to ask - setting out the parameters for me to be remotely convinced that there are 'non-physical' processes. If you can't do that, then I'm not going to believe you when you tell me that consciousness is one of them

So if no real choice has taken place why would reality have 'gone to all the bother of' creating a completely superfluous thing called consciousness and then fooling that pointless consciousness into believing that it had actually made a real choice?
Why would nature have 'selected for' such a weird, unnecessary, and incredibly over-complex state of affairs?
It doesn't make sense.

First answer: I'm not sure that it has. Remember that 'making a choice' are just words that we use to describe a particular mental sensation, attached to a certain class of events. Please explain to me how you would experimentally confirm that this sensation is a genuine expression of 'free will' - that is, how you would demonstrate that given identical circumstances, you could have done something other than what you did.

Second answer: given that we'll accept your presumably metaphorical description of 'nature' as having some sort of agency or say in the matter, why wouldn't 'it' create such a thing? Anyone who's studied intracellular signalling pathways, for example, will be aware that apparently over-engineered, massively redundant processes seem to be pretty much the norm in biological entities. The nylon argument still holds - there are lots of processes that reality could survive perfectly well without.

 

[Cuddles]

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

Unfortunately I can't seem to find them. I think the one I'm thinking of was published in Nature, and I know there was a New Scientist article about it a few months ago.

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

Beliefs have nothing to do with it. The evidence says that the physical processes in the brain affect conciousness, and that there is nothing else that affects conciousness. The only way you can avoid conciousness merely being an emergent property of the brain is by making up things like souls. Once you start making things up, you're talking about religion, not science.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Plumjam- I have not read the whole thread, so apologies if someone already suggested this. I think you might find the work of Benjamin Libet of interest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet

 

[Cuddles]

Plumjam- I have nit read the whole thread, so apologies if someone already suggested this. I think you might find the work of Benjamin Libet of interest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet

Cool, I think that's what I was looking for. Thanks.

 

[chillzero]

It's interesting how people are assuming this is some kind of woo topic. As far as I can see it's not. Remembering stuff is just about as normal and everyday as you could get.

Then don't post it in the woo topics section.