BS: Things I know about consciousness

Subject: RE: BS: Things I know about consciousness
From: Amos
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 10:05 PM

Heric:

The notion that qualia -- discriminations in awareness -- can be made by rapid variance in neural circuits is (to my view) kind of like asserting that thought and voices are hidden inside the circuitry of telephones, because they ar ecapoable of consucting so many different kinds of conversations. The porosition entirely omits the aware source behind the circuit.

Edelman's assertion that circuitous loops can account for awareness just doesn't add up to me, sorry. I think it is some kind of academic cop out, actually.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Things I know about consciousness
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 07:34 PM

Well, here's what Gerald Edelman knows about consciousness:

Competition for advantage in the environment enhances the spread and strength of certain synapses, or neural connections, according to the "value" previously decided by evolutionary survival. The amount of variance in this neural circuitry is very large. Certain circuits get selected over others because they fit better with whatever is being presented by the environment. In response to an enormously complex constellation of signals, the system is self-organizing according to Darwin's population principle. It is the activity of this vast web of networks that entails consciousness by means of what we call "reentrant interactions" that help to organize "reality" into patterns. The thalamocortical networks were selected during evolution because they provided humans with the ability to make higher order discriminations and adapt in a superior way to their environment. Such higher order discriminations confer the ability to imagine the future, to explicitly recall the past and to be conscious of being conscious. Because each loop reaches closure by completing its circuit through the varying paths from the thalamus to the cortex and back, the brain can "fill in" and provide knowledge beyond that which you immediately hear, see or smell. The resulting discriminations are known in philosophy as qualia. These discriminations account for the intangible awareness of mood, and they define the greenness of green and the warmness of warmth. Together, qualia make up what we call consciousness.

Wider Than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness (Yale University Press, 2004)

Subject: RE: BS: Things I know about consciousness
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 03:36 PM

Great quote there, Amos! You have outdone Abe Lincoln.

The normal mental consciousness is exactly like a lightbulb, thinking all light is gone when it's been turned off.

There is actually quite a bit of simple consciousness in a sleeping body. For instance, if I set an alarm clock for any time at all, I invariably wake up just 5 minutes or less before the alarm is set to go off. This is because my body consciousness knows perfectly well what time it is all the time, and it doesn't want to hear that alarm go off. That doesn't mean my busy mind knows what time it is, though. It may be unconscious. The body itself has a simpler and more basic consciousness than the mind, and that consciousness is still regulating the body while the mind rests.

The mistake of the average human mind is imagining that it and only it is capable of consciousness. It is 1/3 of the human consciousness, but it thinks it's the whole shebang. It's the one that normally talks, reasons, remembers, compares, uses numbers, and regards itself as separate from everything else and everyone else around it. It's the Ego.

Above and beyond that mind is a higher intelligence which does not think in terms of separation. That intelligence is accessible through meditation and other disciplines. You cannot access it without calming and stilling the mind...while awake. It can then be used in concert with the mind, to great good effect.

The mind is not the Captain of the ship, it's the first mate and other lesser officers. The body is the crew and the ship. A first mate who denies the validity or existence of the Captain is engaging in mutiny, whether he knows it or not. This is not wise, and it leads to a variety of foolish human behaviours, mostly based on insecurity or egotism of one kind or another.

Subject: RE: BS: Things I know about consciousness
From: Amos
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 03:19 PM

...ah -- there's the rub!!!

Am I Amos dreaming that I am a didactic jerk? Or a didactic jerk, dreaming that I am Amos?

It's a mystery!

lol


A

Subject: RE: BS: Things I know about consciousness
From: GUEST,brucie
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 02:21 PM

To sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream . . .

Shakespeare said that.


Go to sleep fer crissake.

I said that.

Subject: RE: BS: Things I know about consciousness
From: mack/misophist
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 02:11 PM

And some people are all asleep all the time - I am that.

Subject: RE: BS: Things I know about consciousness
From: Amos
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 01:05 PM

The lightbulb, turned off, believes all light is gone....

Anyway, there are many things of which you are conscious while your body is sleeping. And you and your body may sleep in synch or not. SOme people are half-asleep all the time, and some poeple are all asleep- half the time. :>) I said that.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Things I know about consciousness
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 01:00 PM

There are episodes in consciousness during sleep. They are called "dreams". There are also periods in sleep when the mental consciousness is completely still. That is a deeper form of sleep, and it is the form needed to restore full vitality.

The purpose of meditation is to still the mental consciousness while one is still awake.

Ask yourself why, Pied Piper. What would be the purpose in doing that? Have you ever done it? Have you ever tried to do it? Most people never have, therefore they don't know what it's like.

Subject: RE: BS: Things I know about consciousness
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 12:20 PM

So what are you, Pied Piper, when you're sleeping and dreaming? Conscious, not conscious, or something else?

Subject: RE: BS: Things I know about consciousness
From: wysiwyg
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 12:05 PM

Things I "know" about consciousness include that whatever I think I know, I can only really accurately say that I experience or have discovered so far or suspect or have been told or think or believe.

YMMV.... but I doubt it. I think "consciousness" is part of objective reality, but that our experience of it is subjective.

~Susan

Subject: BS:Some things I know about consciousness
From: Pied Piper
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 11:55 AM

Some things I know about consciousness.

1 It's intermittent; we all sleep and have periods of non-consciousness.
2 It's slow (it takes time); as musicians we know from first hand learning needs consciousness to direct coconscious plastic systems in generating repeatable mechanical movements, but this is slow. Consciousness cannot operate by itself faster than about 1/2 to 1 second.
3 It is possible to be conscious without thought, but not without emotion, that is to say that it always "feels" like something to be conscious.

I think these are fairly obvious and testable statements.

PP