Hi Peter and all (especially Horse, who will be interested in the "fuzzy"
aspect of consciousness I suggest),
Thanks Peter for a really interesting and thought-provoking post . . .
PETER
> It's intresting, because I'm working on a model of perception (for the last
> 6 years!) which includes "selective inattention" which is kind of the
> opposite to the more widely known "selective attention". Now, how that's
> achieved is a matter for speculation.
This raises several interesting points, particularly on the nature of
consciousness.
Peter's idea implies that we to an extent become "conscious" of something in
order to then disregard it.
Once I perceive that I am walking on the beach, I can then almost completely
ignore the billions of randomly shaped rock granules that make up the sand.
Just by "perceiving" it as sand, I can then cubicle it off as something that
needs no further attention.
I am unsure as to whether or not to consider this inattention as something
conscious or not. Clearly, we can learn to ignore the irrelevant, and focus on
the important. One can even learn to do do this automatically.
It might help if we stop regarding conscious vs. unconscious as binary
alternatives, and instead regard them as extremes on a sliding scale.
Thus perception becomes a process of the dynamic allocation of consciousness.
What is interesting is that it is easier to ignore something once it has been
conceptualized as an irrelevant pattern (background noise).
I still need to look more carefully at the details of Peter's ideas, and at
elephant's response.
Jonathan
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