On 2/19/2013 11:34 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Tuesday, February 19, 2013 7:58:15 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote:
On 2/19/2013 12:26 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 6:13 PM, Craig Weinberg
<whats...@gmail.com <javascript:>> wrote:
>>
>> On Tuesday, February 19, 2013 9:02:36 AM UTC-5, telmo_menezes
wrote:
>>> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 2:39 PM, Craig Weinberg
<whats...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Monday, February 18, 2013 9:30:49 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> There is no argument presented in this article. The stock
market and
>>>>> brain
>>>>> and indeed most natural systems are chaotic, but that is not
the same
>>>>> as
>>>>> being not computable.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, I posted it just to show that someone who works closely
with both
>>>> neurology and consciousness professionally comes to the same
conclusion
>>>> that
>>>> I have.
>>> One of the problems of relying on expert opinions is that,
sometimes,
>>> it's hard to see clearly what someone is an expert at. I had a
look at
>>> Nicolelis' lab publication list and there isn't anything there to
>>> suggest that they even look into the issue of consciousness.
It's a
>>> lot of (interesting sounding) work on neural correlates for
sensorial
>>> and motor activities, as well as applications. A few issues
with his
>>> position:
>>
>> If he is making mice conscious of infra-red light though, then
I would say
>> he works with consciousness.
> In that sense, everyone does.
Hi Craig,
Not so fast. Think about what Telmo is saying. When the
researcher
added the ability to sense in IR to the mouse, that aspect or
dimension
of sense would have to be integrated into the totality of the
Sense of
those mice. The dual aspect idea shines here! For any physical system
there is at least one representation and for every representation
there
is at least one object. Given an initial object: Mouse there is a
representation of that mouse to that mouse: it's internal Sense of
being
a mouse in the world.
When we add the IR apparatii to the mouse's body, then there
is a
new representation necesary, no? We no longer have the Mouse minus IR
gadget Sense...
Not necessarily a new representation. It could just itch in a new
place or something. It could have some novelty though, but I think
that has to do with then nature of the electrode, not the IR.
Right, but consider the experiements where blind humans where
rigged up with a camera and an array of electrodes on their stomach or
such... I recall reports of some limited success in the transposition of
the sensations from the stomach to the general location of the camera,
but I am chalking that up to the auto-integrator of the brain. How that
works, is interesting...
>
>>> - Just because the brain has a certain level of complexity,
doesn't
>>> mean it has to. The brain is restricted by a fixed palette of
>>> evolutionary building blocks. It cannot take advantage of, say,
>>> sillicon chips. We can build machines that move faster and are
simples
>>> than any animal, although there's evolutionary pressure for
speed.
>>> Still, no animals with wheels;
>>>
>>> - There is no evolutionary pressure for good design;
>>>
>>> - There is no evolutionary pressure for understandability;
>>>
>>>> It seems like a handy thing to have when one is accused of being
>>>> ignorant of science or anti-science. It turns out that its only
>>>> prejudice
>>>> that makes these kinds of accusation in this case.
>>> Ok.
>>>
>>>> As far as the stock market being computable, how would you go
about
>>>> determining, for instance, whether or not I rebalance my 401k
and on
>>>> what
>>>> day and time?
>>> The stock market is a bad comparison, because it is made of
brains to
>>> begin with. So it's the same problem x10^10.
>>>
>>>> The brain has the same issue - you can't tell what it is
going to do
>>>> from
>>>> the outside, because the behavior on the outside is often
driven by the
>>>> story going on the inside - which cannot be known unless you
too are on
>>>> the
>>>> inside.
>>> Why isn't a complete description of the brain state sufficient?
>>> (disregarding the necessary computational power)
>>
>> Because each brain cell is a living organism in its own right.
The brain is
>> a stock market of smaller brains.
> Agreed, but is it turtles all the way down?
>
>
Why not, so long as there is another turtle to add to the
stack...
Exactly. What's the alternative? Different animals all the way down?
No animal after turtles? It doesn't really apply to how I think of
sense though, since at the absolute level, all distinctions are
neutralized and retained at the same time. Where sense becomes so thin
and so broad that all experiences in history are united in a single
instant, it's not really a turtle.
Craig
OK, don't push an analogy too far...
--
Onward!
Stephen
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