Re: Emotions
Le 31-oct.-08, à 06:39, Russell Standish a écrit : On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 05:48:11PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: ... Physical supervenience is the conjunction of the following assumptions: -There is a physical universe -I am conscious (consciousness exists) -(My) consciousness (at time x, t) supervenes on some physical activity, at time (x, t) of a portion of the physical universe. Supervenience (of consciousness on brain states) is just the latter two assumptions. The brain need not exist in some concrete fashion. It could be some illusionary phenomena for instance. I took your work as negating the conjunction of the first assumption and computationalism, but saying nothing about the latter two. I don't understand. The first assumption (there is a physical universe) is needed for giving sense to the third assumption which use that physical universe. Regards, Bruno Marchal http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
2008/10/30 Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The seven first steps of the UD Argument show this already indeed, if you accept some Occam Razor. The movie graph is a much subtle argument showing you don't need occam razor: not only a machine cannot distinguish real from virtual, but cannot distinguish real from arithmetical either. Many people does not know enough in philosophy of mind to understand why the movie graph argument is necessary to complete the proof, so I rarely insist. Maudlin's 1989 paper can be said answering to the counterfactual- objection against the MGA (Movie-Graph Argument). Bruno, I'm not sure why you de-emphasise step 8 of the UDA. The other steps are relatively straightforward and uncontroversial compared to step 8. People who encounter the argument will naturally ask, how can you have a computation without a computer or a mind without a brain? I think I understand your reasoning (and Maudlin's) here, but it needs to be spelled out if the UDA is not to be dismissed on the grounds that it proves nothing about reality, assumed to be at the bottom level comprised of hard physical objects. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 05:48:11PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 29 Oct 2008, at 06:09, Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 09:04:15AM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: Ah! See my papers for a proof that indeed consciousness does not emerge from brain function. See the paper by Maudlin for an independent and later argument (which handles also the counterfactual objection). You have to assume the body is a machine. I presume by emerge, you mean supervene on. I was trying not to be technical, nor more precise that is needed. (cf the 1004 fallacy). supervene on already means different things according to mechanism, naturalism, etc. By supervenience, I mean that there is some underlying state such that if my consciousness differed from what it is now, then the underlying state must differ also. In this case, the underlying state being discussed is the state of the brain. Emergence also has many meanings, supposedly. The meaning I use (which is the most coherent I've come across) as described in chapter 2 of my book would make emerge from and supervene on equivalent, when referring to consciousness and brain states. ... without which supervenience? Is it the usual physical supervenience (called just supervenience by most philosopher of mind), or my 1988 (see also 1998) computationalist supervenience? Just to be clear, and for the benefits of the others: Physical supervenience is the conjunction of the following assumptions: -There is a physical universe -I am conscious (consciousness exists) -(My) consciousness (at time x, t) supervenes on some physical activity, at time (x, t) of a portion of the physical universe. Supervenience (of consciousness on brain states) is just the latter two assumptions. The brain need not exist in some concrete fashion. It could be some illusionary phenomena for instance. I took your work as negating the conjunction of the first assumption and computationalism, but saying nothing about the latter two. Cheers -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
On 29 Oct 2008, at 06:09, Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 09:04:15AM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: Ah! See my papers for a proof that indeed consciousness does not emerge from brain function. See the paper by Maudlin for an independent and later argument (which handles also the counterfactual objection). You have to assume the body is a machine. I presume by emerge, you mean supervene on. I was trying not to be technical, nor more precise that is needed. (cf the 1004 fallacy). supervene on already means different things according to mechanism, naturalism, etc. I don't see how you prove this in your thesis, just the contradiction of computationalism with naive physicalism, which is not the same thing. See the footnote in my book on page 69. On that footnote you are correct! I don't see the relevance, though. My 1988 paper shows that if I am a (digitalizable) machine then physics cannot be the fundamental science (physicalism). I have no idea what yopu mean by naïve physicalism (naïve materialism? This is already in contradiction with QM and even with Newton) I show that with the comp hyp, physics has to emerge from mathematics (even arithmetics). And I show how it emerges. It is the reversal physics/math, or physics/theology that I have explained all along in this list (notably through the Universal Dovetailer Argument). The seven first steps of the UD Argument show this already indeed, if you accept some Occam Razor. The movie graph is a much subtle argument showing you don't need occam razor: not only a machine cannot distinguish real from virtual, but cannot distinguish real from arithmetical either. Many people does not know enough in philosophy of mind to understand why the movie graph argument is necessary to complete the proof, so I rarely insist. Maudlin's 1989 paper can be said answering to the counterfactual- objection against the MGA (Movie-Graph Argument). Its an important point, as without supervenience, the Occam catastrophe happens, which contradicts what we observe. ... without which supervenience? Is it the usual physical supervenience (called just supervenience by most philosopher of mind), or my 1988 (see also 1998) computationalist supervenience? Just to be clear, and for the benefits of the others: Physical supervenience is the conjunction of the following assumptions: -There is a physical universe -I am conscious (consciousness exists) -(My) consciousness (at time x, t) supervenes on some physical activity, at time (x, t) of a portion of the physical universe. Computationalist supervenience is the conjunction of the following assumptions: -I am conscious (consciousness exists) -(My) consciousness of time (x, t) supervenes on some arithmetical relation between numbers. In the reasoning I do not presuppose comp supervenience, but I show it is a consequence of the comp hyp, and I show this by, as you say in the footnote page 69 of your book, showing that comp is incompatible with physical supervenience. Ofg course with comp-supervenience we have the white rabbits, and a long time ago I thought those could be used to reftute the comp hyp, but then I use computer science (and incompleteness related work) to show such a refutation is harder to develop than we intuit at first sight. The computer science notion of first person is non trivial and gives, with a natural definition of probable observation all we need to have destructive interference of the white rabbits histories. Don't hesitate to ask if anything seems unclear in the derivation. I guess you have no problems with the seven first step of the UDA? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
On 24/10/2008, at 8:44 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: And then there's the big white elephant in the room: consciousness. I don't know what it is ... I am sure you know what it is. I guess you just cannot defined it, nor prove that it applies to you (it's different). and I don't believe it somehow emerges from brain function. Ah! See my papers for a proof that indeed consciousness does not emerge from brain function. See the paper by Maudlin for an independent and later argument (which handles also the counterfactual objection). You have to assume the body is a machine. You can find the reference (Marchal 1988, Maudlin 1989) here: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/lillethesis/these/node79.html#SECTION00130 I have already explain a lot of this on this list, but if you have precise question I can answer it. The main thing is the first person indeterminacy, which forces physics to be a branch of computer science. To be sure we have mainly discussed the first person indeterminacy, bearing on the universal dovetailing. I have not explained the movie-graph/olympia argument, if only because I am not yet entirely satisfied on the pedagogical level. It is too much redundant with the Universal Dovetaling argument, but I work on it (when I find the time). I do believe this mystery to be an indication that some very fundamental insights are still missing in our model of reality. The missing insight is the original platonist insight of Plato (but see also Plotinus). The physical world is the border of our ignorance, with our pertaining not to *us the humans* but to *us the the universal (and mathematical-immaterial) machine. This can be (and has been) derived from the digital mechanist hypothesis: the idea that the brain or the body is a machine. The fundamental science has been named theology by the greeks, but we have to backtrack up to the Aristotle/Plato bifurcation. Bruno Marchal http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
That's exactly what I was referring to above about 'superposition of emotional states' - neither positive nor negative; but SPECIFIC in some wordless way nonetheless Once again, I would be more inclined to call this a 'feeling state' as opposed to an 'emotional state'. There's a much higher intellectual component Well, I see the brain as an highly complex, emotion-based learning machine. Maybe highly is an understatement. As per usual in complex systems, unpredictable behaviors emerge at higher level layers. I have no problem in believing that our brains has the ability to create very strange states that have no survival/replication value. However, I tend to believe that self-organization based on emotions with survival/replication value are all that is needed to explain their existence. I'm not sure I'm making myself clear... Music to Math: Whenever I watch Garrett Lisi rotate his mathematical object E8 through all those dimensions and the architecture of the thing changes right before my eyes I feel like weeping and laughing at the same time. Does E8 affect anyone else like this? I recently watched Lisi's presentation at TED and I agree it is really exciting. I'm no expert in theoretical physics, far from it, but from what I can grasp, it's much more elegant and beautiful than superstring theory. I don't have such a strong emotional response as you but I don't find it strange. Cheers! --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 09:04:15AM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: Ah! See my papers for a proof that indeed consciousness does not emerge from brain function. See the paper by Maudlin for an independent and later argument (which handles also the counterfactual objection). You have to assume the body is a machine. I presume by emerge, you mean supervene on. I don't see how you prove this in your thesis, just the contradiction of computationalism with naive physicalism, which is not the same thing. See the footnote in my book on page 69. Its an important point, as without supervenience, the Occam catastrophe happens, which contradicts what we observe. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
On 24/10/2008, at 8:44 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Wonder is more of a feeling though - don't need wonder as a survival mechanism I can imagine wonder having survival value for highly evolved organisms like the homo sapiens. It is the driving force behind great scientists and engineers. It's an emotion that drive us to want to decode reality. The knowledge gathered in this process allows us, for example, to build better tools. I believe there's an interplay between biological and social evolution (the Baldwin effect). As society becomes more and more complex, new emotions evolve to guide the adaption of its individuals. Artists love to 'intellectualise' about their inner qualia. They have distinctions others find forced or artificial that's fine Sure it is. I'm like that myself :) Somebody suggest a better word than 'feeling' for what I am describing - I think we all know what emotions are My suggestion is: thoughts. I'd say one of the main characteristics of the brain is its ability to anticipate future states. We seek future states with more positive emotions. As we learn about the environment, we develop brain mechanisms that guide us away from negative emotions of towards positive emotions without the need for further emotional responses. Yes indeed The brain is a time machine, which, when fully cranked-up, will simulate alternative futures, only one of which we can have any purchase on ;-D But This positive/negative thing, Telmo What's the role for 'emotions' which are neither positive nor negative, possibly because they exist in a superposition of more than one value? Is that possible? Have you ever experienced that? 'Great' music seems able to generate emotions that are so refined and precise that the listener would be hard-pressed to say what grade of emotional reaction they are having As Felix Mendelssohn said It's not that music is too vague in what it is trying to say that makes it hard for people to understand; it's that it is too precise I see artists as mind hackers. They are able to push buttons in our minds without the need for specific scientific knowledge about the underlying mechanisms. Bastards!!! How can they do that Surrealists, for example, amaze me, because they are able to evoke emotions that I didn't even know existed. That's exactly what I was referring to above about 'superposition of emotional states' - neither positive nor negative; but SPECIFIC in some wordless way nonetheless Once again, I would be more inclined to call this a 'feeling state' as opposed to an 'emotional state'. There's a much higher intellectual component Music to Math: Whenever I watch Garrett Lisi rotate his mathematical object E8 through all those dimensions and the architecture of the thing changes right before my eyes I feel like weeping and laughing at the same time. Does E8 affect anyone else like this? Maybe I'm just crazy Now THAT'S surreal, Telmo! And then there's the big white elephant in the room: consciousness. I don't know what it is and I don't believe it somehow emerges from brain function. I do believe this mystery to be an indication that some very fundamental insights are still missing in our model of reality. Maybe one day some new Einstein will come up with a great insight and our current paradigm will be replaced, making all these discussions seem rather naive. Telmo Menezes. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
Kim Jones wrote: On 24/10/2008, at 4:14 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: I'm not sure what distinction you're making. As far as I'm concerned feelings=emotions. Brent which of the following portray 'feelings' and which portray 'emotions': I have a ( ) my uranium shares might go up soon I have a ( ) it might rain God exists. If you don't agree then you must be a freakin +**I I had a ( ) that someone was trying to manipulate me I had this ( ) that things will work out OK between us God does not exist. If you can't reason that you must be a ^*H*$!@ In all your examples () can only be feeling in idiomatic english. In this context it denotes association of a weak emotion of belief with the proposition following (). I'm suggesting that emotions are tethered to survival need and protection of values etc. I don't disagree, but I regard values and, in particular the positive value placed on survival, as both derivative from evolution. And this explains the willingness of parents to sacrifice themselves for their children in many circumstances. Evolution cares about the survival of genes, not individuals. There is radical brain-chemistry change of state under emotions They have a physical effect on the organism having them that can be spotted easily by a 3rd party Feelings are mildly intellectual sensations of value that we have that give us a compass for general decision-making (not warefare or survival) OK, but that's just a matter of degree, a question of how much the person cares. So you take feelings to be mild the emotions which are easily concealed. Not the same chemistry involved at all How do you know that? Brent Do you feel like tea or coffee, Brent? Or would you prefer to see Sarah Palin ripped to shreds by a pack of wolves? cheers, Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
On 24/10/2008, at 5:47 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: There is radical brain-chemistry change of state under emotions They have a physical effect on the organism having them that can be spotted easily by a 3rd party Feelings are mildly intellectual sensations of value that we have that give us a compass for general decision-making (not warefare or survival) OK, but that's just a matter of degree, a question of how much the person cares. So you take feelings to be mild the emotions which are easily concealed. Not the same chemistry involved at all How do you know that? OK - I don't 'know' that except in the sense of having the feeling that I read it somewhere - usually New Scientist... I'm sure that I could dig up the appropriate reference for you but I think you should maybe trust my 'feelings' on this ;-) Or maybe I just have this emotional need for that to be true.you could easily accuse me of that; in fact you're too polite! Feeling=knowing in the sense of recognising (ie a form of perception - the mind's information gathering task; if something fits a recognised, filed pattern we assign it a value so we can extract usefulness ) I am keen to see discussion on this point. Feelings are perception via internal mapping functions (probably memory-related - as in this worked well/this didn't work well) Emotions are needs (serviced by logic in battle such as debate and other forms of information processing) Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
Why do we have emotions? Aren't simple, value-conferring feelings good enough or something? Through adaption to the environment (non evolutionary), the human brain grows to become a much more complex systems than what could be encoded in the genotype. Lets just say that the Kolomogorv complexity of an adult human brain is much greater than the Kolmogorov complexity of the genotype of the same individual. There is a dimension of being human that is not contained in genes, but in society, the famous memes. Also, genetic evolution seems to be much slower than social adaption. There's no way that the genotype could encode specific programs for things like: you have to mate with the best possible individual, try to stay alive, sacrifice yourself to protect your group in extreme cases and so on. The way out is emotions: strong responses that override whatever states the brain constructs. I believe emotions are very basic things. Just strong, overriding, biological responses. I'm sure animals have them too. How else would their brains develop to hunt, mate or whatever in a complex environment? The thing is, we humans also have the ability to intelectually analyze our own emotions. Given our higher cognitive capabilities, we feel wonder (another emotion) at the way our rational constructs are override sometimes. I'm not sure about the distinction between feeling and emotions. My mother tongue is portuguese. In portuguese, the equivalent phrase to you hurt my feelings! is magoaste-me!, which translated directly to you hurt me!. So the feeling part appears to be just a non-universal cultural interpretation. Cheers, Telmo Menezes. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
On 24/10/2008, at 6:33 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: I believe emotions are very basic things. Just strong, overriding, biological responses. I'm sure animals have them too. Without doubt animals are all 'on the make' - without emotions you cannot have any 'leverage' over your kind How else would their brains develop to hunt, mate or whatever in a complex environment? The thing is, we humans also have the ability to intelectually analyze our own emotions. Given our higher cognitive capabilities, we feel wonder (another emotion) at the way our rational constructs are override sometimes. Wonder is more of a feeling though - don't need wonder as a survival mechanism I'm not sure about the distinction between feeling and emotions. My mother tongue is portuguese. In portuguese, the equivalent phrase to you hurt my feelings! is magoaste-me!, which translated directly to you hurt me!. So the feeling part appears to be just a non-universal cultural interpretation. Cheers, Telmo Menezes. Telmo, you could be right - this whole thing buzzes with cultural associations my distinction is a forced one to be sure; it is the distinction of the aesthete or artist. It is useful to see a difference between simple feeling and powerful emotion if you are in the artistic expression game Artists love to 'intellectualise' about their inner qualia. They have distinctions others find forced or artificial that's fine Imagine designing a fragrance for Dior - what kind of ruler do these people use I'll bet it has increments on it you and I have never heard of Artists explore this vast terrain of our Aspect One of emotions and feelings Bach and Stravinsky give me feelings on the whole Wagner gives me emotions Why would you want to use a plebeian key like G Major for a theme as grand as this, Telmo? Swap it for A flat major which will give it more public-weight, more religiosity... 'aesthetic judgement' is what I am on about Artists have a nose for it It's artificiality is precisely it's survival value. Give me more on why you think 'wonder' is an emotion and why I think it is a 'feeling' Somebody suggest a better word than 'feeling' for what I am describing - I think we all know what emotions are I feel this thread is becoming more interesting Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
2008/10/24 Kim Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On 24/10/2008, at 4:14 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: I'm not sure what distinction you're making. As far as I'm concerned feelings=emotions. Brent which of the following portray 'feelings' and which portray 'emotions': I have a ( ) my uranium shares might go up soon I have a ( ) it might rain God exists. If you don't agree then you must be a freakin +**I I had a ( ) that someone was trying to manipulate me I had this ( ) that things will work out OK between us God does not exist. If you can't reason that you must be a ^*H*$!@ I'm suggesting that emotions are tethered to survival need and protection of values etc. There is radical brain-chemistry change of state under emotions They have a physical effect on the organism having them that can be spotted easily by a 3rd party Feelings are mildly intellectual sensations of value that we have that give us a compass for general decision-making (not warefare or survival) Not the same chemistry involved at all Perhaps what you're thinking of is autonomic arousal: racing heart, flushing, sweating etc., mediated by the autonomic nervous system and by the release of hormones such as adrenaline. The utility of this is that it readies the animal for a fight-or-flight response, and sometimes that it signals this readiness to observers. However, the actual feeling is in the brain, not in the body. Your brain notices how your body is responding, and this adds intensity to what you are calling a feeling, turning it into what you are calling an emotion. Panic attacks are an example of a positive feedback loop where this gets out hand: you get anxious, causing your heart to race, you notice this and get more anxious, causing your heart to race even more, etc. The panic attack can be treated acutely with beta blockers, which reduce the body's ability to react to anxiety, or benzodiazepines, which reduce the brain's ability to feel anxiety and send signals to the body causing arousal. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
Wonder is more of a feeling though - don't need wonder as a survival mechanism I can imagine wonder having survival value for highly evolved organisms like the homo sapiens. It is the driving force behind great scientists and engineers. It's an emotion that drive us to want to decode reality. The knowledge gathered in this process allows us, for example, to build better tools. I believe there's an interplay between biological and social evolution (the Baldwin effect). As society becomes more and more complex, new emotions evolve to guide the adaption of its individuals. Artists love to 'intellectualise' about their inner qualia. They have distinctions others find forced or artificial that's fine Sure it is. I'm like that myself :) Somebody suggest a better word than 'feeling' for what I am describing - I think we all know what emotions are My suggestion is: thoughts. I'd say one of the main characteristics of the brain is its ability to anticipate future states. We seek future states with more positive emotions. As we learn about the environment, we develop brain mechanisms that guide us away from negative emotions of towards positive emotions without the need for further emotional responses. I see artists as mind hackers. They are able to push buttons in our minds without the need for specific scientific knowledge about the underlying mechanisms. Surrealists, for example, amaze me, because they are able to evoke emotions that I didn't even know existed. And then there's the big white elephant in the room: consciousness. I don't know what it is and I don't believe it somehow emerges from brain function. I do believe this mystery to be an indication that some very fundamental insights are still missing in our model of reality. Maybe one day some new Einstein will come up with a great insight and our current paradigm will be replaced, making all these discussions seem rather naive. Telmo Menezes. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
Kim Jones wrote: On 24/10/2008, at 5:47 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: There is radical brain-chemistry change of state under emotions They have a physical effect on the organism having them that can be spotted easily by a 3rd party Feelings are mildly intellectual sensations of value that we have that give us a compass for general decision-making (not warefare or survival) OK, but that's just a matter of degree, a question of how much the person cares. So you take feelings to be mild the emotions which are easily concealed. Not the same chemistry involved at all How do you know that? OK - I don't 'know' that except in the sense of having the feeling that I read it somewhere - usually New Scientist... I'm sure that I could dig up the appropriate reference for you but I think you should maybe trust my 'feelings' on this ;-) Or maybe I just have this emotional need for that to be true.you could easily accuse me of that; in fact you're too polite! Feeling=knowing in the sense of recognising (ie a form of perception - the mind's information gathering task; if something fits a recognised, filed pattern we assign it a value so we can extract usefulness ) I do think that perception is more than just receiving/recording data. It includes an emotion or feeling that this is worth noticing, i.e. paying attention. You don't perceive everything that impinges on your nervous system. Brent I am keen to see discussion on this point. Feelings are perception via internal mapping functions (probably memory-related - as in this worked well/this didn't work well) Emotions are needs (serviced by logic in battle such as debate and other forms of information processing) Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
Absolutely, I don't think anyone could question this. Sensations are so filtered and processed that the sensorium we experience is pretty much just an elaborate fabrication of the brain... and no perception, memory-association or thought comes naked into our qualia - they all have some emotional dressing. Plus, I'm guessing that all the background subconsciousnesses (I mean that literally - all the potential Identities that don't quite make all the way to full conscousness) have their own emotional baggage that surely has a significant affect upon us. 2008/10/24 Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] I do think that perception is more than just receiving/recording data. It includes an emotion or feeling that this is worth noticing, i.e. paying attention. You don't perceive everything that impinges on your nervous system. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
On 24/10/2008, at 9:14 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: I'm suggesting that emotions are tethered to survival need and protection of values etc. There is radical brain-chemistry change of state under emotions They have a physical effect on the organism having them that can be spotted easily by a 3rd party Feelings are mildly intellectual sensations of value that we have that give us a compass for general decision-making (not warefare or survival) Not the same chemistry involved at all Perhaps what you're thinking of is autonomic arousal: racing heart, flushing, sweating etc., mediated by the autonomic nervous system and by the release of hormones such as adrenaline. The utility of this is that it readies the animal for a fight-or-flight response, and sometimes that it signals this readiness to observers. However, the actual feeling is in the brain, not in the body. Your brain notices how your body is responding, and this adds intensity to what you are calling a feeling, turning it into what you are calling an emotion. Panic attacks are an example of a positive feedback loop where this gets out hand: you get anxious, causing your heart to race, you notice this and get more anxious, causing your heart to race even more, etc. The panic attack can be treated acutely with beta blockers, which reduce the body's ability to react to anxiety, or benzodiazepines, which reduce the brain's ability to feel anxiety and send signals to the body causing arousal. -- Stathis Papaioannou Yes - I only add that feelings, which I am differentiating from the highly aroused emotional feedback loops you describe so well, do not seem to lend themselves to this inflationary effect. Which is why i suspect they come packaged with different brain chemistry. It's merely a sensation of value - almost an abstract thing We don't get our knickers in a knot over every reaction we notice going on in our heads. You can actually choose not to react. It's probably one of those 'faking it for fortune' scenarios I described. Kind of where you downgrade an emotion to a feeling in order to control it and avoid being controlled by it Stoicism if you will my chief point is the signalling effect to a 3rd party the emotional state seems to enable, which probably means stoic refusal to express an emotion may have an altruistic basis ie you don't want to 'rain on someone's parade' with bad blood and bile even though you are bursting with it This 'checking of impulsivity' may be the basis of 'long-term thinking' - something I note humans aren't very good at more evidence for the need to get canny about how emotions can cause a 'streaming effect' and cause precipitate headlong rushes It's actually an act of stoicism, say, for a schoolboy to resist running to the door of the bus that takes him home. In doing so he causes a stampede of every other student behind him and the result is sometimes ugly to behold. The fact that the gene for stoicism doesn't seem to be finely distributed throughout the population is read in the prevalence of human bio-mass crushes at the doors of school buses the world over (except Japan) Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
On 25/10/2008, at 8:10 AM, Brent Meeker wrote: OK - I don't 'know' that except in the sense of having the feeling that I read it somewhere - usually New Scientist... I'm sure that I could dig up the appropriate reference for you but I think you should maybe trust my 'feelings' on this ;-) Or maybe I just have this emotional need for that to be true.you could easily accuse me of that; in fact you're too polite! Feeling=knowing in the sense of recognising (ie a form of perception - the mind's information gathering task; if something fits a recognised, filed pattern we assign it a value so we can extract usefulness ) I do think that perception is more than just receiving/recording data. It includes an emotion or feeling that this is worth noticing, i.e. paying attention. You don't perceive everything that impinges on your nervous system. Brent Good. I'm saying that that is what a feeling is. You've just described brilliantly 'a feeling of something'. There is a minimum 'value threshold' below which we don't even NOTICE that something is there. The sense of value is what the feeling is. It can be incredibly subtle and slight. Maybe there isn't even a word to describe it. Why some seize the artist's brush and some compose music etc. It's the low-level energy of feelings that permits exploration of values and concepts, whereas emotions are for decision-time and action in the big nasty and deceptive world, the world where everyone is trying to sell everyone to everyone else - the game of evolution that we should madly try to escape (IMHO) Feelings are not always a reaction to something, either. Feelings (and emotions, yes) can arise 'unbidden' in the mind, although it could probably be demonstrated that a physiological cause for this exists. I would add that this is also the interesting dance that the brain does with data. What comes out is never the same as what went in. Data has to be filed - it has to exist somewhere in the mind. The patterns of recognition do the secretarial work. Patterns of recognition (the brain's neural network) have 'catchment areas'. Feelings have small catchment areas and require a precise fit with data. Emotions have HUGE catchment areas - they resemble Jung's 'Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious or the collective, racial memory of a whole social group. Emotions are always big and monumental. They usually have a face. Everyone can draw an angry or a happy or a frightened face, but most will have difficulty drawing a wise or a humble or an interested face etc. because these faces require an appreciation of more subtle, more low-level emotional states. The 3rd party visual component of emotion gives rise to drama and painting and the whole commerce of human interaction 'Terrorism' is vague-enough a concept to have an extremely large catchment area. Many things can be identified with 'terrorism'. Terror as a concept (or meme) preys on the mind's weakness for the unusual and has a correspondingly high emotional charge linked with it. Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 10:33 PM, Kim Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Admittedly a bit off-topic but hey - there are some great minds on this list and it could give birth to something relevant. There! ;-D I was going to intro myself eventually but because this is interesting to me, I wanted to respond now. :) For now I'll just say I have a background in psychology and computer science engineering. Emotions are primarily useful as an adaptive decision-making heuristic. If you had to act only on rational information, you could take forever to make a decision, and have difficulty committing to it firmly. You also might not have motivation to do important things like eat (or know what you should eat more eagerly) and have sex. Emotions are also vital to social species like humans, because they can automatically and instinctively reinforce social contracts like reciprocity and protection of family. We call people who lack these emotions sociopaths. Emotions like sadness and fear are protective because they tell us what to do more quickly than logic can, and prevent us from social missteps and physical harm. Anna --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
On 24/10/2008, at 1:56 PM, A. Wolf wrote: On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 10:33 PM, Kim Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Admittedly a bit off-topic but hey - there are some great minds on this list and it could give birth to something relevant. There! ;-D I was going to intro myself eventually but because this is interesting to me, I wanted to respond now. :) For now I'll just say I have a background in psychology and computer science engineering. Emotions are primarily useful as an adaptive decision-making heuristic. If you had to act only on rational information, you could take forever to make a decision, and have difficulty committing to it firmly. You also might not have motivation to do important things like eat (or know what you should eat more eagerly) and have sex. Emotions are also vital to social species like humans, because they can automatically and instinctively reinforce social contracts like reciprocity and protection of family. We call people who lack these emotions sociopaths. Yes, but don't forget in saying this you have recognised that this is also our chief weapon against each other. Is it not rather ironic that we can call 'sociopath' someone who cannot 'fake it' emotionally to get his own way? Emotions like sadness and fear are protective because they tell us what to do more quickly than logic can, and prevent us from social missteps and physical harm. Anna Yes - but you can - using the power of your own mind - suppress your emotions which is a kind of 'faking it' ie acting in a sense contrary to how you feel. Takes a bit of practice but anybody can act. I'm suggesting that this was the 'adaptive decision-making heuristic' - that there is great survival value in knowing how to 'fake it' and taking all the rest of what you say into account, this is maybe the reason emotionality or the economy of emotionalism in human civilisation got going... Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
Yes, but don't forget in saying this you have recognised that this is also our chief weapon against each other. Is it not rather ironic that we can call 'sociopath' someone who cannot 'fake it' emotionally to get his own way? Ironically, most sociopaths are actually excellent at faking emotion. They just can't fake it forever, because their contrition doesn't ring true after the third act of arson. Yes - but you can - using the power of your own mind - suppress your emotions which is a kind of 'faking it' ie I'm not certain I agree. I think you can suppress awareness of your own emotions more readily than you can suppress the emotions themselves. It's true that people can learn to control their emotions to an extent, but it's not a large extent. Therapies that aim to control emotion cognitively aren't always successful. They work best in situations where there's a cognitive basis reinforcing the undesirable emotion. Example: depression triggered by ruminating over old traumatic experiences. acting in a sense contrary to how you feel. Takes a bit of practice but anybody can act. This is true, but this is mostly frontal lobe territory...suppressing dominant responses with an interest in long-term benefit. It's good that we have that...people without it are as bad as sociopaths. Frontal-temporal dementias can turn a normal, modest person into a mindlessly cussing, child-molesting exhibitionist; not because it evokes new emotion, but because it prevents the victim from being able to inhibit any of their desires. In those of us with a functioning frontal lobe, the emotions are still there under the surface and still direct action when inhibition is not logically called for. I'm suggesting that this was the 'adaptive decision-making heuristic' - that there is great survival value in knowing how to 'fake it' and taking all the rest of what you say into account, this is maybe the reason emotionality or the economy of emotionalism in human civilisation got going... I agree. Some of the toxic memes today stem from the evolutionary development of us vs. other that was birthed back when we lived in small, tribal groups. At that time, prejudice and discrimination were adaptive, because protection of one's own tribe was of great importance when grappling over limited resources with other groups. Nowadays, these emotions and approaches have a negative effect. Prejudice and discrimination are most commonly directed at members of one's own group (other citizens of the same city or country). It's very difficult to modify that kind of behavior because it stems from a natural and largely innate source. Anna --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
On 24/10/2008, at 2:43 PM, A. Wolf wrote: acting in a sense contrary to how you feel. Takes a bit of practice but anybody can act. This is true, but this is mostly frontal lobe territory...suppressing dominant responses with an interest in long-term benefit. It's good that we have that...people without it are as bad as sociopaths. Frontal- temporal dementias can turn a normal, modest person into a mindlessly cussing, child-molesting exhibitionist; not because it evokes new emotion, but because it prevents the victim from being able to inhibit any of their desires. In those of us with a functioning frontal lobe, the emotions are still there under the surface and still direct action when inhibition is not logically called for. Of particular interest, this. I believe this is why I am suggesting we get more 'canny' about emotions. You can perhaps rely on somebody's intelligence, but can you rely on their (emotional) honesty? Liars get more lovers, apparently - it's in NewScientist somewhere... Emotions are actually at the heart of everything. Our emotional need for whatever. Emotions are always smuggled into any argument. They are often disguised as 'logic'. They are probably at the heart of our choice of direction in any discussion. Our 'emotional need' for such and such to be the case. Emotions channel our values. We will, on occasion fight and die to protect our values. Only with the greatest training do we ever deny our emotions for the sake of rationality as you so brilliantly outline The Titanic was unsinkable - everyone had this emotional need to believe that Wall St - that other Titanic - got a similar 'sinking feeling' recently because they blustered along in a uniform direction The dollar's value is actually based on 'faith' not something real, like gold People do strange or irrational things because of emotional 'needs' A bunch of people here in Sydney turned up week in week out on a daily basis to a view a fence-post. They arrived first in small groups, then a kind of a tourist bonanza took hold. Somebody had seen the likeness of the Virgin Mary in a configuration of wooden beams which when viewed from a certain angle has this effect (particularly if you are a Catholic it seems) Statues weep blood - walls have been seen to cry tears Love this next bit: Some of the toxic memes today stem from the evolutionary development of us vs. other that was birthed back when we lived in small, tribal groups. At that time, prejudice and discrimination were adaptive, because protection of one's own tribe was of great importance when grappling over limited resources with other groups. Nowadays, these emotions and approaches have a negative effect. Prejudice and discrimination are most commonly directed at members of one's own group (other citizens of the same city or country). It's very difficult to modify that kind of behavior because it stems from a natural and largely innate source. Anna So, Anna - is the mind the victim of the brain or is the brain the victim of the mind? Surely it's both. It's kind of weird Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions
Kim Jones wrote: Admittedly a bit off-topic but hey - there are some great minds on this list and it could give birth to something relevant. There! ;-D Why do we have emotions? Aren't simple, value-conferring feelings good enough or something? Emotions cause a host of extraordinary, beautiful and wondrous things to happen in life as well as all sorts of nonsensical and disastrous issues in the world. We should definitely study this a bit more carefully n'est-ce pas? A worm probably doesn't have emotions but we might just allow that it has feelings. There is much evidence to support this, apparently. I'm not sure what distinction you're making. As far as I'm concerned feelings=emotions. Do we have emotions because we are noble, sensitive, artistic, expressive, complex, huge-brained, warm-blooded etc. highly-evolved creatures (intrinsic feature) or because having emotions has Darwinian survival value? (extrinsic feature) Emotions are nature's way of making you do what is necessary to reproduce. --- Robert Wright, Man, the Moral Animal Brent Meeker I favour the second view (whilst acknowledging that the first has many elements of truth to it as well) THE EVIDENCE Emotions change the appearance of an organism in the sight of another organism and are therefore slightly unusual to witness Do I need to illustrate that? No, great- so we'll skip to the next part then. No - just one clean one: Maybe think of the way you or I may view the face of Sarah Palin with mild feelings of amusement at her stereotypical look. Now imagine the violently emotional, brain-boiling, artery-bursting hatred and rage she inspires in most feminists THE CON A person having an emotion even at the periphery of your field of view is virtually impossible not to look at directly if only for an instant to verify This can can be exploited to advantage As Edward de Bono points out near the start of his recent book Six Information Frames, the mind is instantly drawn to the unusual This is not a strength of the mind but a weakness of the mind. This is because the person having the emotion could quite easily be faking it to manipulate us You were really moaning away there darling, I'm glad I excite you. Do any of the others? No. Only you do that to me, honey. See you this time next week? sort of thing So here is the Darwinian survival value part...the human mind - knowing intuitively it's own Achilles Heel - has conspired to manipulate itself to it's own mutual advantage As a schizophrenic might say I'm never lonely. I've always got each other This is kind of how everybody - as Woody Allen puts it - sells everyone to everyone else. Emotions are therefore a signalling device to a 3rd party - we say we 'have' emotions; in fact we 'give' emotions If we forget for a moment the wonderful and vast internal experience of emotions, that vast symphonic chorus of chemicals zapping about in our brains when we are well above the baseline mood-wise and for whatever reason - could even be drugs... like Tchaikowsky's 6th Symphony 1st movement where he claimed to want the audience to feel graphically through his music, the sheer unutterable anxiety and guilt and shame and despair and agony of his existence (trying to be vaguely gay as a public figure in Tsarist RussiaOh boy I can hear that music right now in my head - it's like a freakin drug. If you want to experience true black dog depression for a good twenty minutes or so, have a listen. It's a virtual reality experience of what it is like to have bipolar disorder.) So Let's forget momentarily that so well-known aspect of emotions (Aspect One) Let's hold in our minds the notion that emotions did not arise in this way. The Pleasure and Pain qualia are merely a bonus. Simple feelings are good enough to supply the mind with the information it needs to sort out values and predict futures and survive its collision with reality We only ever needed emotions in the past to avoid being eaten by a Sabre-toothed cat like in some freakin silly Roland Emmerich movie This is Aspect Two of emotions Emotions are there to cause ACTION at critical moments. All the right chemicals start whizzing about in microseconds and we survive the attack by acting in a survival mode Like Woody Allen again - I was like, I was like so scared to death, the, the adrenalin was, was like, squirting outta my EARS! (Love and Death - still his best flick) But that is not enough - humans don't just want to 'break even' - humans want to 'do better than average' Don't they? If not - what's a brain for? (Here's the 'relevant' bit, then) That is the undeniable goal of the human race. To become better than what it is somehow. It's a stage-act we have been rehearsing sinse Adam's Balls
Re: Emotions
On 24/10/2008, at 4:14 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: I'm not sure what distinction you're making. As far as I'm concerned feelings=emotions. Brent which of the following portray 'feelings' and which portray 'emotions': I have a ( ) my uranium shares might go up soon I have a ( ) it might rain God exists. If you don't agree then you must be a freakin +**I I had a ( ) that someone was trying to manipulate me I had this ( ) that things will work out OK between us God does not exist. If you can't reason that you must be a ^*H*$!@ I'm suggesting that emotions are tethered to survival need and protection of values etc. There is radical brain-chemistry change of state under emotions They have a physical effect on the organism having them that can be spotted easily by a 3rd party Feelings are mildly intellectual sensations of value that we have that give us a compass for general decision-making (not warefare or survival) Not the same chemistry involved at all Do you feel like tea or coffee, Brent? Or would you prefer to see Sarah Palin ripped to shreds by a pack of wolves? cheers, Kim f --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions (was: Indeterminism
At this stage you should try to be specific about the reasons why an hardware independent isomorphism cannot exist, or perhaps you are just saying that first person feeling would not be genuine if they were not related to some 'physical reality' in which case I could agree I feel we're getting quite close to any genuine difference between us on these issues, so I'll try my best to clarify. I still believe there are some vocabulary problems, so first I'll have another go at pinning these down (sorry, but please be patient!). One thing that strikes me is that there are (at least) two distinctly different usages of the term `first person': `First person 1' (FP1) is used when I mean to indicate my own internal centred perspective, `looking out', as it were, on the world. It is the word `I' exclusively as used reflexively by a first person about him/ herself. As such, it can't be reported in third person narrative, only directly *uttered* by some FP1-centred individual. I will call it 'FP1-I'. `First person 2' (FP2) is used to describe a point-of-view within a third person narrative. For example: David thought about the problem and realised - I am confused again! The narrative contains the *description* of a first person characterised as `David', whose point-of-view we would call a `first person position'. The use of `I' here is understood to be this *narrative* David's reference to himself. As such it's 'FP2-I' Throughout these discussions, when I have used terms such as `first person, `personal, or `presence' to describe the context within which `individual first persons' IMO could arise, I have meant the sense given in FP1. The intuition that I have is that even when you `strip away' the structuring that provides the perceptual mechanism and its experiential content, what remains must be an FP1-type context - the `Big `I', if you like, the `arena' within which all else takes place. And this 'Big I' could only be 'directly uttered' - metaphorically in this case - by a 'Big FP1'. It is *not* an FP2-type description in a third person narrative. The intuition at the heart of this is that if what I'm calling an FP1-type context is the fundamental ontology, then there is no requirement for the 'FP1-I' to suddenly `spring into existence' when FP2-describable points-of-view subsequently emerge as a consequence of third-person structuring. The idea of such an otherwise completely novel ontology `springing into being' in this way has always struck me as fundamentally incoherent. From this perspective, the discourses of QM, MW, mathematics, comp etc. take place in terms of `third person' structuring of an FP1-type context. Direct FP1-type experience is derived from the global `self-intimacy' of this context with a particular sort of structural content (what I have termed `perceiver/ percept' dyads). Why `self'-intimacy? To eliminate any notion of `observers'. By `self-intimacy I mean to say that such knowledge is an immediate apprehension by the context of its own content, which is why I've termed it an `equivalence', not a `property'. Consequently, individual FP1-type content (`experience') is the direct, immediate acquaintance of demarcated perceivers with aspects of their own structure. `Third person' is then just a narrative or description of this same structure. The world outside the individual, containing other first persons and all manner of additional paraphernalia, is likewise `third person' when read as narrative by first persons (including, of course, their individual representations of shared interpersonal discourse). Notwithstanding this, all of it exists fundamentally `in its own right' as FP1-type context+content (i.e. not just the regions of it that happen to be demarcated `first persons'). In this larger sense, reality itself is that which can only be 'directly uttered'. What is captured in what we call third person discourse - our 'shared reality - are our continued empirical strivings to map these narratives and models to distant regions of 'directly uttered' reality. Because we comprise such nodes within a network of structure-read-as-information, we are each of us able to represent and 'directly utter' our personal versions of 'consensual reality'. If this condemns us to 'solipsism', at least we're justified in the belief that our private worlds are at least partially synchronised by such 'energetic coupling' with the other parts of the forest. I think I'm also able to clarify here why I believe that a certain kind of `structural isomorphism' is the underlying basis of our own phenomenal experience. Since the FP1-type context is, as it were, a superposition of all activity (including that activity read as `experience' by perceivers), we must hypothesise within it organising schemas that demarcate different functional levels. Within the `physical' domain, such schemas are supported by the physical `laws of form'. Consequently, IMO, such `laws of form' must be established (and
Re: Emotions (was: Indeterminism
Le 28-juil.-06, à 22:15, David Nyman a écrit : snip (a bit unclear sorry) In your comments above you refer to Platonism. It seems clear that if we are to regard mathematics or comp as having the kind of 'efficacy' (sorry, but what word would you prefer?), then we must indeed grant them some sort of Platonic independent reality, as we have given up on the 'primitivity' of matter. I suppose in this case I would say that such reality is a 'present' one, which is how we find ourselves to be present within it. Yes. And then the (bad ?) news is that, thanks to theoretical computer science and some mathematical logic, this can be translated into mathematical questions leading to difficult conjectures. To be clear I don't follow you in case you take seriously the idea of making first person experience primitive. I am happy you are open to give some fundamental role to first persons with respect to physical reality, but making them primitive would hide the difficulties (certainly when assuming comp). I am a realist, quasi sure about positive integers, and undecided for the rest. I am not a physical realist but given that, possibly, all there is are numbers I am open (like Plotinus, unlike Aristotle, but like Peter Jones ! (alias 1Z)) to the idea that the big unameable one is a 0 person notion. Intelligibility and sensibility should emerges from inside like any points of view(*). Bruno (*) Technically through Kleene predicate or through universal diophantine sets which embeds machines and computer science in number theory. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions (was: Indeterminism
Le 29-juil.-06, à 18:23, David Nyman a écrit : No doctor! Or rather, it depends what you mean by 'what really describes me'. What I have argued is that, at the 'physical' level of description, running a hardware-independent computation could never 'really describe me' in one of the main senses of 'describe' - to demarcate or individualise. This, IMO, is because there are necessary isomorphisms to brain function that could not be preserved in a hardware-independent implementation (because of the lack of constraint on what the hardware is doing). At this stage you should try to be specific about the reasons why an hardware independent isomorphism cannot exist, or perhaps you are just saying that first person feeling would not be genuine if they were not related to some 'physical reality' in which case I could agree. However, I would be content that if the necessary isomorphisms to brain function at the 'physical' level were fully emulated within comp, - i.e. the 'hardware' is itself emulated - then 'what really describes me' could be preserved. Of course, within comp, all these levels are superposed. In this list/context superposed is perhaps saying too much but those level (which here are better described by person's notion or point of views) are precisely related. Interestingly, to return to the 'doctor' test, our willingness or otherwise to undergo this has interesting connections to the unnameability of the first person. Even when we believe in the 'continuity' of our personhood under these conditions, our interest in preserving this continuity can only be sentimental, or possibly moral, rather than 'concrete'. Since all 'I's are equally unnameable, we should be absolutely agnostic as to which 'I' we are. As comp is 'processing' all of us, comp *is* a superposition of all of us. If you agree, with Lee Corbin, that after a self-duplication(*) you are both of the reconstitution despite they will have divergent experiences, then you can be open that there is only one first person, just experimenting different histories. But strictly speaking this should remain comp-undecidable and could be a matter of personal taste/attachment, etc. Here comp can lead to a variety of beliefs and practices. The key is a bit paradoxal: as long as you don't impose your version of personal identity to others I think you remain coherent with the necessary comp modesty in those matters. But there is a sense in which comp superposes us all, like the quantum without collapse. (*) comp makes it possible that you are read and cut in Brussels, and pasted in both Beijing and Kigali, say. Such self-fuplication are well-suited to illustrate the difference between 1 and 3 person point of view. This leads to a notion of 1-person indeterminacy, and 'hardware' should emerge (and emerges, albeit slowly) from a possible measure of relative self-indeterminacy. I will read with interest (although it may well be beyond my mathematical grasp). However, how do you feel about my suggestion above that comp (being the superposition of all persons - the 'context' in which personhood arises) - is by this token essentially 'personal'? I am not sure. Feel free to dig in that direction, but it seems to me it is easier to accept some sharable part of 3-mathematics and build from that. Especially when we have an unavoidable self-reference for a vast class of machines. Thanks to Turing Co. we can see, like Godel already saw in 1933, that godelian self-reference cannot describe a knower, but then, using some math trick we can define a knower in term of self-reference+ truth which provides a good candidate for a notion of first person (even unameable by the machine). Somehow a physical reality is what Number-Nature needs for entangling closely enough the many possible independent computations, so as to made first person stable and partially sharable. *many*-worlds prevent such approaches against solipsism. Perhaps I agree that the context in which particular personhood arises is first person (plural), but the context in which personhood per se arise is eventually reducible to the behavior of the roots of a universal diophantine polynomial (or choose your favorite turing universal systems). No, I'm prepared to believe in the 3-reality of numbers plus the independent personal reality of the number domain. IMO, only in the presence of such personal reality could individual personhood be structured and demarcated though numbers. OK. As I have suggested above, I would rather postulate that the number domain is personal, than that some (theological?) first person constructed them. Numbers are then 'primitive' in that we do not need anything else to account for the appearances we observe. Within this, IMO, personal point-of-view would be a function of structural relationships and demarcation. All right. We may be getting 'terminological' again. IMO, if 'many
Re: Emotions (was: Indeterminism
Le 27-juil.-06, à 03:21, David Nyman a écrit : Mmmmhh This sounds a little bit too much idealist for me. Numbers exist with some logic-mathematical priority, and then self-intimacy should emerge from many complex relations among numbers. Also, the many universes (both with comp and/or the quantum) contains some complex giant universes without any self-awareness in it (like a parallele world with different constant so that the complexity of histories are bounded. As is regrettably normal in this area, we are having (as you suspected) terminological difficulties. Thanks for you kind attempt to be clearer. I'm afraid we are not just having terminological difficulties, but then this what make a conversation or a discussion interesting. I cc it to the everything list because your theory is close to the one advocated sometimes by George Levy, who seems to like the idea that reality is ultimately first person, which does not really work once we assume comp. I don't think I'm helping the situation by using different formulations to try to convey the same meaning, since none of them are altogether satisfactory (as you will see from the dialogue with Peter Jones). I think I will abandon 'self-intimacy' in this context and substitute 'first person', with the following restricted sense: 1. I claim, motivated by conceptual economy, that 'first person' is the fundamental ontological situation. That is: the context or field of everything that exists is inherently a first person context or field. Even if that was the case, do you agree that the scientific discourse has to be a third person discourse? From this some scientist infer that we cannot even talk on the first person issue in a scientific manner: they are just making a common category error. Nothing prevent us of choosing some definition of first person, and then communicating about it in a first person way. Now, of course two scientists wanting to communicate have to agree on some common third person describable base. With respect to this my axioms are 1) There exists a level of description of myself (whatever really describes me) such that I can survive--or experience no changes---when a digital functional substitution is made at that level. I sum up this by yes doctor. The comp practitioners says yes to his/her doctor when this one proposes an artificial digital brain/body. 2) Church thesis (all universal machine compute the same functions from N to N). I need it just to make the expression digital clear enough. 3) Arithmetical realism: it means that proposition like 5 is divisible by 4 is true or false independently of me. Of course 5 is a name for the number of vertical stroke in |, and 4 is a name for the number of stroke in . perhaps we will agree, because the first person (and the first person plural) plays a major role in the building of the physical world. But numbers are more fundamental. I will (try to) explain you in this post or in another one, how the first person (with her qualia, feeling, suffering, joy, and all that) emerges necessarily and unavoidably from number theoretical relations once we take the comp hyp sufficiently seriously). 2. I have referred to first person as 'a global feature of reality', but IMO it's not logically coherent to describe it as a 'property', as it isn't something superadded to an already existing situation. I totally agree. this is a key point. And this is what is cute with the comp hyp (and some of my results there): although I give a completely transparent third person definition of the notion of first person, it will appear that machines cannot even give a name to its first person. The reason is a generalization of Tarski theorem which shows that no correct machine can even name its own truth predicate. Strictly speaking truth is not even a predicate for the machine, nor is the first person attached to the machine nameable by the machine. It's really an equivalence to 'existence'. That is: whatever exists, is already potentially 'somebody'. Reality is inherently first personal. That's why find ourselves here (or anywhere else in MW of course). This does not really make sense for me. Nevertheless, if you are patient enough to follow some reasoning I propose (see my url), it should even be clear why first persons can believe what you say, but comp makes it wrong at some level. 3. Structure arises through whatever processes within the first person field (this is the subject matter of QM, MW and comp, not to speak of chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, etc.). Some of this structure differentiates 'mini first persons', bounded within 'perceiver/ perception dyads'. This is what putatively gives rise to 'phenomenal consciousness' - structures with the 'efficacy' to differentiate the experiential field into a characteristicly dense informational coherence. The structure within the 'perceiver'
Re: Emotions (was: Indeterminism
Le 24-juil.-06, à 04:23, David Nyman a écrit : Bruno: And this is perhaps the very root of a possible disagreement. I would not compare mathematical with tautological, nor with conventional. This should be clear after the Godelian fall of logicism. We know today that even just the arithmetical realm (studied by number theorist) is not compressible into a unique theory. Actually a complete theory of the number realm has to be infinite, and even of a type of infinity not nameable in any effective way. Math is as full of surprises (and even of contingent facts when seen from inside) than physics is. As David explained in FOR, mathematical reality quick back. Still I appreciate your quote in 'physical, but the whole ambiguity (relatively to the comp emulation of the mind) will rest in what you mean exactly by those quote and what you mean by the difference you are making between efficacious and descriptive. David: Bruno, your observations go to the heart of the matter! I think I could be clearer on some of these points - let me try, but forgive me if I don't adopt precisely the order of your comments. First, you are correct that my starting point is in assigning primacy to what (conventionally or otherwise) we think of as 'physical'. I don't intend this in any 'mystical' sense, but rather as a hopefully robust epistemological point of departure. It seem a little bit ontological for me. So, I am claiming that the structures and relationships elucidated within this domain But this domain is full of obscurity. Now, with the QM and the MW, some light appears at the horizon, but even just among physicist sincerely interested in conceptual issues, it is hard to say there is a consensus. are what is efficacious in producing both 'objective' and 'subjective' phenomena - a distinction, I suggest, that is dependent on 'point of view'. Well, I do agree with you, here. But I still find your notion of efficacious unclear. Linking it with a putative 'physical' thing makes things harder imo. Consequently, I also claim that the type of emulation, and associated isomorphism, necessary to be causally efficacious either 'physically' or 'experientially' must be 'physically constructable'. A Turing emulation, despite the fact that it runs on a 'physical' TM, does not 'physically construct' the subject of the emulation in this sense, because the necessary isomorphisms exist merely descriptively. I meant that the mathematical form of this description is in this sense 'tautological'. However, I wouldn't press this point. The crucial issue is that the description is quite different in form from the thing described. And the description has, if any, a different causal efficacy than the thing described. In the case of a simulation, I would agree with (quasi by definition), but the fact is that computer science provides that non trivial notion of emulation. To be sure I don't really believe in any basic notion of causality other than IF p divides aq, and if p and q are primes then p divides a. Things like that. Of course, we as observers perceive the isomorphisms as metaphors, for example when we read the listing of the relevant programs, but what is 'constructed' on the physical substrate of the run-time system is a syntactical narration of the program, not a physical isomorph of the subject of the narrative. This is not dissimilar to what occurs when a story is 'instantiated' in a storybook. The 'emulation' at the level of the pages of the book is decriptive and syntactical. When we read the narrative, we physically/ experientially construct an isomorph of the subject, and so 'bring it to life'. Unless a TM/ digital computer possesses the same physically constructive capability, it cannot achieve this. I don't pretend you are wrong. But I think that if you are right here, you will need to assume actual uncomputable operations to actualize the mind in your physical constructions (not to mention making that mind unique). Of course you may be true, but from what you say here, it could even more speculative in the sense that with such a proviso, after you are digitally duplicated, you could tell me that the copy is a zombie. You will agree the doppelganger looks like you and behave like you because the descriptive (intensive) sense has been preserved, but it would be a zombie because the copying was not efficacious in the (extended) sense. This means, assuming comp, that your doppelganger will have some hard time to be respected as person ... This depends on whether a 'description' of a person will turn out to be sufficient to completely emulate the behaviour of a 'real' person, let alone 'be' one. This IMO is still an open empirical question. I agree, but probably for a different reason. I think that IF we are capable of surviving a copying process (including annihilation of the original) from a
Re: Emotions (was: Indeterminism
Bruno Marchal wrote: Then if you take your theory seriously enough you will be lead to Chalmers or Penrose sort of theory which needs actual non Turing emulable stuff to make singular your experience or even local nature. I don't see why. The idea that computation can't lead to what you call stuffy existence is not based on some non-computational property of matter. It is based on the idea that computation is just an abstract description of physical behaviour, and real existence cannot spring from abstract descriptions, any more than the characters in a novel can come to life. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emotions (was: Indeterminism
Then if you take your theory seriously enough you will be lead to Chalmers or Penrose sort of theory which needs actual non Turing emulable stuff to make singular your experience or even local nature. Why not? I find this a bit speculative, and I am interested more in the consequence of the old idea that the soul is a number which moves itself, which easily follow from the computationalist hypothesis, I think. See my url for more if you are interested, but I think you will acknowledge we are working with different, and even incompatible hypothesis. I have no problem with that. With the FOR book, it is a bit different, I argue indeed that once you are a number, your neighborhood is *necessarily* given by let us say some series of numbers. Like quantum superposition, immateriality would be contagious. (To be short). Bruno Le 20-juil.-06, à 02:16, David Nyman a écrit : on the FOR list Don't know if anyone is still watching this thread, which I've just browsed with interest. For what it's worth, I don't believe we experience 'emotion', or anything else for that matter, in virtue of the attribution of 'information processing' to certain aspects of brain function. 'Information processing' is a metaphor projected on to highly restricted aspects of the overall behaviour of physical objects. Trivially, any behaviour of any object whatsoever can be described in terms of 'information processing'. By contrast, I take specific experiential structures to be robustly isomorphic with a unique physical constitution, howsoever this arrangement may be described externally in 'informational' terms. Computers also are physical objects and hence the question of whether they experience emotions or other conscious states must be referred empirically to their physical structure and behaviour in itself, not as projected into information processing terms. It must be recalled that what we choose to term a 'computer program' is merely an abstraction of a restricted set of aspects of the computer's physical behaviour under certain conditions. This abstraction is not, other than metaphorically, what is instantiated in an operational computer; rather what is instantiated is a set of physical behaviours. It is these behaviours - modulations of the physical substrate - that constitute the computer's experiential field, if any. Consequently it becomes a matter of empirical investigation to elucidate which aspects of the physical structure and behavior of computers, or brains, ultimately produce relevant experiential states. Abstract 'informational' model building by itself simply creates misleading referential paradoxes. --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Peter D Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bruno Marchal marchal@ wrote: Le 24-avr.-06, à 00:15, Nick Belane a écrit : Peter D jones, I'm sorry but i can't understand you at all. However i think the core of this debate is in Ray's mail. He is much more clear than me and you! I agree with you and ray. Just to prevent misunderstanding, I tend to use consciousness for phenomenal consciousness, and I use cognition or similar term for the access one. Phenomenal consciousness is not third person sharable, and constitutes the most typical first person notion, I would say. But you treat non-communicability as constituting phenomenality (your phenomena are cognitive in every way except being communicable). For most people, being incommunicable is merely a sympton of phneomenality). http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
