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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Oct 31, 2018 - 03:44am PT
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Where does the brain end and the conscious begin in this scenario? Does it require "awareness" or "concentration" to control your arm when you play the violin?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Oct 31, 2018 - 04:06am PT
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I think the discussion about the potential (moral) dangers of advancing "artificial intelligence" is interesting. For centuries humans have justified incredibly cruel and destructive acts to animals by relegating their status to a sort of subhuman, machine-like state. Have you ever heard an animal scream while it struggled to escape death?
I don't think it's totally absurd to think that as machine intelligence advances, we may need (in the moral sense of "need") to consider the possibility that "machines" could be accorded rights (although we're still far away from that "need", I suppose).
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 31, 2018 - 07:13am PT
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The first thing an intelligent and aware machine would do? Secure its power supply
Yes, that IS true, except you are not exhibiting true intelligence.
This is why you fool Americans are at war all the time and raping the planet of its resources to maintain that .....
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Jim Clipper
climber
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Oct 31, 2018 - 09:20am PT
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We all can't live on the mountain, and never have. (Although the Valley, mid summer, might be an argument against that.)
Material degradation ins't purely 'merican either. The "costs" of resource extraction are often greater where the separation of wealth, or concentration of power, are amplified. In the U.S. we at least have some systems that might allow us to wake up, and make change. You know, science :)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 31, 2018 - 09:24am PT
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Ed: garbage in...garbage out...
Not a surprising comment. At least at this point we have some hint that Ed believes the architecture of the brain supplies the mechanism that "causes" or sources consciousness, though in Ed's abstract, the subject is biological systems and "life," not consciousness.
What's more is the flimsy default to emergent systems, which lacks all explanatory power in terms of mechanistic output, which is all a functionalist ever seeks.
Another common dodge is to insist that if we only understood the nuances of the architecture, the actual physics, then all would be clear - at least as a theoretical model. But as one physicist recently pointed out, this lays bare the first assumptions of the staunch functionalist.
First, the architecture model speculates, on the one hand, that the brain is a bit-torrent mechanism whereby the parts create the whole, which is the working model for all physical objects. So far so good.
Then, magically, our experiential life "emerges" from the collective function of that whole. The problem is that by definition of functionalism, there is never anything extra, never anything more than the physical parts ("what isn't physical?"), which leaves the functionalist two options: either the experiential is not actually "real," at least as a phenomenon that is more than the physical, or else the experiential IS the physical, we just need a little more mechanistic data per the biological architecture to prove that this is the case.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is Identity Theory, which might not be "garbage in," but it certainly is "garbage out."
The whopper here is that opposite is true.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 31, 2018 - 09:33am PT
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What's more is the flimsy default to emergent systems, which lacks all explanatory power in terms of mechanistic output, which is all a functionalist ever seeks.
it is not surprising that you failed to understand that abstract at all.
My main criticism of your thought experiment is that, while it may sound compelling, it appeals to a rather naive and incorrect view of how the brain works. The article provides an example of the statement "details matter."
The "thought experiment" may conclude that it is hard to see how consciousness might emerge from such a network. That network, however, may not (and probably does not) have anything to do with biological networks, in particular, in the nervous system.
You're going to have to be a more discerning purveyor of these arguments to be convincing, Largo.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 31, 2018 - 09:54am PT
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MH2: Look at Ed's post prior to it.
Oh, for Christ’s sake, just answer the question. You’re too clever.
Ed,
I liked your comments a few posts above about anthropomorphic attributions to other “things.” I think it can lead to a focus on ourselves.
In our house today, we’re all depressed. Last night we put down our cat after acute renal failure. (Was she “ours,” or were we “hers?”) I spent many hours sitting with the cat beforehand, trying to comfort and just be with her.
Although our hearts broke, and we vocalized to each other (the cat and I), one can see that the cat’s consciousness is, from a human point of view, otherworldly. As Werner reminds us constantly, life in all its forms is diverse and miraculous. What we can explain about life is not at all what we know or are aware of experientially.
While I cared very deeply about our cat’s pain and suffering (which she showed very little of until her final hours), what matters to me is my own humanity, how I think, how I feel, how I relate to the other humans around me. To hell with AI, in isolation. I’d say AI is only important in that human beings are creating it, and that should call us to an inspection of our humanity rather than to some physical explanation. (No disrespect, Ed.)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 31, 2018 - 09:56am PT
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I don't think there was any loss of consciousness when the violinist was in surgery. The brain doesn't have pain receptors and local anesthesia can be used to open a hole to put the DBS electrodes through.
When I was working in the anesthesiology department at UW in Seattle there was a neurosurgeon who did operations to reduce severe seizures. He was also interested in speech. He got consent from patients to stimulate speech centers during surgery. The patients were awake and given text to read aloud. Small currents could cause blips in the subject's speech. I think it was only a mapping project, though there may have been other questions being asked.
A few weeks ago I was reading about deep brain stimulation as it is being used now. During the sort of testing needed to find the right location for the indwelling electrode there were interesting reports about the sensations reported by the patients. The sensations are sometimes what would be called first-person subjective experiences by The Wizard, though in this case they clearly have a physical cause.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 31, 2018 - 09:58am PT
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just answer the question
The photo shows a migrating Monarch butterfly. Ed had mentioned a study on a way that butterflies navigate.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 31, 2018 - 11:18am PT
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Tell me what or why the picture of a butterfly on an open field of blue and grass is significant.
It is a running topic between MH2 and me...
...for me it represents the accessibility of wonder through physical investigation.
I liked this quote from the Preface of Stuart Kauffman's book The Origins of Order:
"Like many other books by scientists, this one is ineluctably autobiographical. It witnesses one mind's sense of mystery. The famous physicist Wolfgang Pauli is said to have remarked that the deepest pleasure in science comes from finding an instantiation, a home, for some deeply felt, deeply held image."
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 31, 2018 - 11:24am PT
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Amen.
I have over 200,000 deeply felt images. At time of posting.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Oct 31, 2018 - 12:32pm PT
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..for me it represents the accessibility of wonder through physical investigation.
Fascinating. Another Mysterian?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 31, 2018 - 12:40pm PT
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^^^^no, while I like a good mystery, I am disposed to believe we can eventually resolve the mystery...
the sense of wonder, however, lingers
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Oct 31, 2018 - 01:50pm PT
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I have over 200,000 deeply felt images. At time of posting.
Here's 2 more for you.
Big Rock , Lake Perris yesterday 10/30
SoCal face und slab at its best, or worse, considering your perspective.
Another Mysterian?
You could only be referring to one of the all-time great garage bands: Question Mark and the Mysterians ?
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Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
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Oct 31, 2018 - 02:20pm PT
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I just googled amygdala and climbing and there is already a route with that name. It's a 5.6.
Of course the amygdala doesn't act alone, normally kept in check by the prefrontal cortex but here is more beta on that, from the all-knowing Wikipedia:
The output of sense organs is first received by the thalamus. Part of the thalamus' stimuli goes directly to the amygdala or "emotional/irrational brain", while other parts are sent to the neocortex or "thinking/rational brain". If the amygdala perceives a match to the stimulus, i.e., if the record of experiences in the hippocampus tells the amygdala that it is a fight, flight or freeze situation, then the amygdala triggers the HPA (hypothalmic-pituitary-adrenal) axis and hijacks the rational brain. This emotional brain activity processes information milliseconds earlier than the rational brain, so in case of a match, the amygdala acts before any possible direction from the neocortex can be received. If, however, the amygdala does not find any match to the stimulus received with its recorded threatening situations, then it acts according to the directions received from the neocortex. When the amygdala perceives a threat, it can lead that person to react irrationally and destructively.[3]
Goleman states that emotions "make us pay attention right now—this is urgent—and gives us an immediate action plan without having to think twice. The emotional component evolved very early: Do I eat it, or does it eat me?" The emotional response "can take over the rest of the brain in a millisecond if threatened."[4][5] An amygdala hijack exhibits three signs: strong emotional reaction, sudden onset, and post-episode realization if the reaction was inappropriate.
The other interesting thing I found was citing Ondra/Sharma for their theory that screaming cranks up their amygdalas and gives them the power they need for 5.15s. So, this thread has something to do with rock climbing after all lol.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Oct 31, 2018 - 02:44pm PT
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The other interesting thing I found was citing Ondta/Sharma for their theory that screaming cranks up their amygdalas
You wouldn't want to crank up the Amygdala but rather suppress its activity. As far as I've been able to gather is that,for instance, serial killers, especially " highly ordered offenders", have underperforming amygdalas due to a relatively smaller size than the average mean.
The Ondra/Sharma screaming might have a momentarily suppressive effect upon their amygdalas. I wonder if a session in the MRI would support such a contention??
The Amygdala, amongst other interesting things, regulates emotion in a way currently poorly understood.
Alex Honnold did bring up an interesting point during his functional MRI when he suggested that his climbing activities might have had a suppressive effect upon his Amygdala due to constant repetition and exposure to fear. Such a casual hypothesis, if true, would be filed in the epigenetic or even hormetic category, if at all.
My overall guess is a firmly genetic origin, possibly from the maternal side. And then later on reinforced by climbing experiences regularly applied.
A huge guess, but nonetheless.
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Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
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Oct 31, 2018 - 02:53pm PT
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Maybe Ondra/Sharma want that adrenaline rush that allows them to pull down hard, whilst Alex wants his climb to be no big deal.
The other thing that could be going on is storing traumatic memories in the hippocampus. Maybe Alex has somehow recorded all these (successful) experiences as non threatening. Although he did seem a little scared on thank god ledge on half dome.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 31, 2018 - 04:04pm PT
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Largo: To use the fundamental force metaphor, are falling rocks antennas for gravity? Do particles "channel" the weak attraction.
The problem with your gravity comparison is that gravity is fundamental and unchanging - i.e. gravity never evolves, changes or becomes more complex. It is as it is. The very notion of a fundamental root universal consciousness makes no sense at all. Again, what [on earth] would such a thing need meat for (please do answer the question)?
Not surprisingly, you are positing awareness as a physical force or phenomenon that the brain "receives," when the dualism inherent in this take is the very point that is being denied. If it's not that, what is it? the functionalist asks.
Aside from the basic question above, your gravity analogy fails on so many fronts - but primarily that the brain is a mechanistic system and a fundamental consciousness would have to interact with it on that basis. I mean, seriously, you cannot simultaneously require a brain on one hand and obviate that need for one on the other or deny any form of consciousness would have to interact with a mechanistic system. Otherwise, consciousness would be more like a neutrino that doesn't interact with matter.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 31, 2018 - 04:50pm PT
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Thank you, Ward. The images are in the big screensaver, in the climbing folder.
They do resonate. This 'biner orientation worries me a little. It happens to me, too.
Cheers.
edit
Finder tells me that BIG SCREENSAVER currently has 223,252 items.
Choosing items from the screensaver at random, how many would I need to look at to have even odds (a 50% probability) of seeing one of yours?
My screensaver app is psuedo-random, I think, and I don't know whether it does the sampling with replacement or without. Each image shows for 4 seconds before dissolving to the next. If I had to wait for half the total number of items to show, that would take about 124 hours.
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