What is "Mind?"

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Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jun 14, 2015 - 11:37am PT

THE PROCESS OF SENTIENCE, THE TECHNICAL COMPONENTS OF PERCEPTION AVAILABLE TO KEEN EMPIRICAL OBSERVATION

so "the process of sentience" is an objective "thing" and is defined by the attributes:

AWARENESS, FOCUS AND ATTENTION

Let's stay on this for a bit. In particular, your theory of "the process of sentience" [tPoS] relies on our definition of those attributes.

HOWEVER THIS OBJECTIVE STUDY WILL NOT BETRAY THE EXPERIENTIAL, TECHNICAL (NOT CONTENT) COMPONENTS OF SELF-AWARENESS OR SENTIENCE, WHICH ARE NOT THEMSELVES COMPUTATIONS. A MACHINE MODEL OF SENTIENCE CAN ONLY POSIT AWARENESS, FOR EXAMPLE, AS (IE - the act or action of computing : calculation; the use or operation of a computer; a system of reckoning; an amount computed). ALL OF THESE DEFINITIONS INVOLVED CONTENT THAT IS BEING COMPUTED. BUT AWARENESS ITSELF NEED NOT BE TIED TO CONTENT, SOMETHING WE CAN NEVER HOPE TO UNDERSTAND NOR YET GRASP BY SIMPLY LOOKING AT NEURO FUNCTIONING (COMPUTATIONS). FOR THIS AND OTHER REASONS, SENTIENCE ITSELF, ON ITS OWN TERMS, IN THE EXPERIENTIAL REALM WHERE IT ACTUALLY EXISTS, MUST BE THE STARTING POINT.

let's presume that we have your tPoC down so well that we are able to "understand" the phenomenon, and by that I mean we have a useful theory that allows us "predict" the outcome of situations involving sentience, or at least the process. I'm not necessarily talking about quantitative predictions, but predictive enough for a teacher to guide a student.

Now if we use that theory to "program" a machine, the machine behaves as if it engages in the process of sentience. If our theory is successful, the machine does a good job of it. This success has nothing to do with the "meanings" of our machine's interaction, only that we agree on behavior.

Now that agreement is "subjective."

So you have an "objective" criterion?

If you do not, then your statement that

COMPONENTS OF SELF-AWARENESS OR SENTIENCE, WHICH ARE NOT THEMSELVES COMPUTATIONS. A MACHINE MODEL OF SENTIENCE CAN ONLY POSIT AWARENESS

is in no sense, absolute, that is, your subjective assessment of the agreement of behavior always fails the machine.

But you have no objective reasons for doing so, and you cannot (it turns out, unless you have a theory that is irrefutable and firmly established, which you do not).

It is our "mind" that causes the description but that is distinct from the meaning of the description. You seem to equate the two, but you have no basis for doing so. And it distinctly possible that your description, which has "meaning" we can all recognize, e.g.:

WITH SENTIENCE WE ARE FACED WITH THE STRANGE BUT INCONTROVERTIBLE FACT OF EXPERIENCE, OUR SUBJECTIVE SENSE AND DIRECT PERCEPTION OF BEING ALIVE, PSYCHOLOGICALLY, EXISTENTIALLY, AND IN TIME AND SPACE. THIS SUBJECTIVE COMPONENT IS NOT PART OF THE PACKAGE WITH "THINGS" (INANIMATE, NON-CONSCIOUS OBJECTS). THE EXPERIENTIAL IS "EXTRA," THE MORE-THAN SIMPLY OBJECTIVE.

does not, by its utterance, have anything at all to do with production of that description, that is, how the mind works.

Your theory of tPoS, if it were at all relevant, would provide the possibility of a programed machine that could "utter" equal descriptions, but in your judgment, not exhibit sentient behavior. Either your theory of pToS is no good, or you judgement subjective, but in so being, does not rule out the possibility of a physical theory of tPoS.

Actually, the theory is good, and that's why we have machines that exhibit all of your attributes of sentience,

AWARENESS, FOCUS AND ATTENTION

so we are left with trying to understand how you distinguish, objectively, between the behavior of the machine, and the behavior of a "sentient being."

BASE104

Social climber

An Oil Field

Jun 14, 2015 - 11:39am PT

I've been railing about the evolutionary roots of intelligence for about as long as this thread has been going on.

The Zen guys have never been interested, while I find it revealing. We can see how the increase of brain size with H. Erectus led to his spread beyond just Africa.

The earliest stone tools are 3.3 million years old. It continued to almost the present day with Native Americans. The discovery of Bronze, an alloy of mostly copper with a little tin, made a much harder metal, and for those with the technology it was a big step.

This involves abstract thought. There was accurate language with which the technology could spread. When written language showed up, it was a huge breakthrough. With written language, knowledge could easily be spread both between humans and beyond generations. That's why we are typing instead of grunting and groaning.

There was obviously some abstract thought that went into the first stone tools, over 3 million years ago. Long before H. Sapiens showed up.

Intelligence, consciousness, awareness, intuitive thinking. It started millions of years ago. Sure, the progress was slow, but it did progress into better tools and no doubt better technique for using them.

Comparative biology in hand with evolution shows that at some point real intuitive consciousness appeared, even in our present definition.

It is kind of silly to ignore all of this.

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Jun 14, 2015 - 11:40am PT

Interesting thing about this thread, when someone doesn't understand something, or when answers are not phrased on equation-speak, but a conversation is opened up, an investigation, people get so antsy for an "answer" or an end-game that the process stalls.

What I was saying earlier is quite simple and easy to know directly if you have the discipline to shut up and stop calculating for even half an hour.

Basically, we all need a brain to respond to stimulus. These responses will largely be based on evolutionary processes and our accrued disposition to the outside world per survival. These responses cold be called "objective functioning." When we try and wrestle down "mind" by way of what we are doing - believing that we now what something IS by virtue of what they do and only what they do - we need not go part investigating our objective functioning, and we are never required to shut up and stop calculating. We can approach mind as simply another
calculation or digital phenomenon, made tricky by dint of randomness, chaos and complexity, but we need not even attempt to go where materialism leave off - not for fear of woo, or God, or witch doctors, but because the whole story is tied to our evolutionary responses.

Now responses are always going to be tied to discrete people, places things and phenomenon in our field of awareness. A lion appears in the door of the cave and we go for weapons. We fell hungry and and eat. Ands so forth. However when we leave off tasking and doing (stop calculating), and keep our focus open - thwarting the discursive process - all that lives in our consciousness is inchoate, unborn, boundless and nameless. At this level, before differentiating occurs, exactly what is IN consciousness is ungraspable. Not till objective functioning "measures" (closes focus) do "things" take form for our discursive brains to start calculating once more.

From a survival or "doing" perspective it makes no sense to try and hang in that undifferentiated, unborn world. My sense of it - and I could be entirely wrong here - is that QM specialists exploring particle physics have no choice but to peer directly into this indefinite world, and to watch real things emerge into waves or stuff or (fill in the blank). It alway makes perfect sense that they would be most interested in the stuff or content that emerges, not the indefinite realm itself.

But if you want to get jiggy with sentience itself, and not just "doing," you have to leave off tasking - which is a very unnatural mode of consciousness - and dwell for a time with no-thing. AKA "no-mind."
And accept from the outset that it will make no sense till you have an experiential reference point. Also know that this is the exact opposite of vegging or spacing out, al la a zombie, which happens when alertness lags.

JL

dave729

Trad climber

Western America

Jun 14, 2015 - 11:43am PT

I think the day we'll be truly screwed is when a self driving 18 wheeler
arrrives at a new housing development site, vomits dozens of robots that
build a complete luxury home in under 24hrs without a single human.

BASE104

Social climber

An Oil Field

Jun 14, 2015 - 11:44am PT

Ed,

So the three parent quarks of a neutron, if you just look at rest mass, don't come close to reaching the mass of the parent neutron. Please explain. Keep it simple for us morons.

edit: For that matter, enlighten us on what "rest mass" is.

jstan

climber

Jun 14, 2015 - 11:46am PT

My post above posits awareness promotes our ability to survive. So we may have a reason why we develop awareness. This may then show one way humans may be ineluctantly different from the machine. Even were we to program computers so that they self destruct under certain conditions how would this property be reproduced in other machines? That seems a critical link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnT1xgZgkpk

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jun 14, 2015 - 12:47pm PT

So the three parent quarks of a neutron, if you just look at rest mass, don't come close to reaching the mass of the parent neutron. Please explain. Keep it simple for us morons.

a side from Largo's appropriation of quantum mechanics to argue from analogy, it doesn't quite seem relevant or appropriate to discuss this particular issue on this thread.

There is no "problem" with defining the mass of the neutron in terms of its constituents... the problem is getting it right, which we haven't yet. No one is declaring a crisis in physics because our current calculations aren't up to explaining what the mass is...

But to argue that it would be silly to further attempt to explain the mass of the neutron because we don't have a successful calculation to date would seem a stretch, yet that is what is being argued in the OP.

jstan

climber

Jun 14, 2015 - 12:54pm PT

But to argue that it would be silly to further attempt to explain the mass of the neutron because we don't have a successful calculation to date would seem a stretch, yet that is what is being argued in the OP.

If we don't now have a calculation then we should not learn how to calculate.

To wit, "eat not of the tree of knowledge."

Somewhere, I have heard this before. Off hand I can't place where I heard it.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jun 14, 2015 - 01:04pm PT

What I was saying earlier is quite simple and easy to know directly if you have the discipline to shut up and stop calculating for even half an hour.

but as far as you are concerned, you cannot "know" that I know, we agree on behavior... but that has nothing to do with what is "actually happening."

You don't want to concede that your "theory" is any worse than a physical theory. Yet you have not provided anything to show that it does better than a physical, materialistic theory.

A theory of consciousness needs to explain how a set of neurobiological processes can cause a system to be in a subjective state of sentience or awareness.

or it needs to discard the language used which has nothing at all do to with consciousness.

As you can see in all the confusion over what is a particle and what is a wave in quantum mechanics, we actually have to discard both notions... we modify their post-quantum mechanics meaning to attempt to apply our pre-quantum mechanics view, but they do not have the same meaning across the discovery of quantum mechanics divide.

If we posit "states of mind" then we have a task defining those states, their interactions and dynamics, i.e. their time-evolution. This will surely involve changing the meaning of many descriptive phrases which show up in Largo's arguments.

If Largo is saying that a physical theory of "mind" is impossible because it has not already been created then he really doesn't have anything.

If he is saying the reason is because it is impossible, he hasn't given any evidence that it is, in fact, impossible.

If he is saying that a physical theory cannot describe some common experiential phenomena, he is absolutely correct. However, the inability to describe these phenomena at this time does not have any relevance to whether or not they may be described, or if it is even relevant to describe them.

Aside from the fact that they are part of our common experience, he hasn't established that they are beyond description. The fact that I cannot describe them now is not proof that they cannot be described.

If he has such proof, he should bring it to the table.

BASE104

Social climber

An Oil Field

Jun 14, 2015 - 01:12pm PT

Yeah, but Largo, who in the original post on this thread railed against "scientism," started using examples from particle physics over on the God, Religion vs Science thread. He was very precise.

His notion was that some particles are dimensionless and have no mass, such as the photon, it jived with his Zen notion of emptiness. I tried to say it wasn't the same thing, by a long shot, but his carpool kept on posting. I was wondering where you went, not realizing that you were on this Mind thread all along.

It got downright nasty. My position that Largo knows some cats from Cal Tech and JPL, and readily scarfed their gravy, while having dissed science for years.

That really struck me. That Largo was pilfering from science after his dismissing it for so many years. I think it is dishonest, in a way. Certainly conflicting.

I just know rocks and their properties. I'm no physicist. I use logging tools designed by guys like you, but I don't need to know how a watch works to tell what time it is. The upside being that modern logs, which measure the properties of rocks penetrated in a deep borehole, owe their existence to particle physicists. I guess that you know a little about logs.

So I will stick with rocks and earth history (mainly Cambrian to the present).

Jan

Mountain climber

Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa

Jun 14, 2015 - 01:35pm PT

Blue, I sense increasingly in America and for sure among my young students. that there is a new respect for animals. Videos of animals, their intelligence and their emotions, are some of the most popular subjects on the internet. There are whole animal cop shows now on TV showing people who neglect and abuse animals getting arrested and punished for that.

It is when we study the great apes and their abilities however, that it becomes especially obvious that consciousness, emotions and ethics, exist on a spectrum and that apes, particularly Bonobos, are amazingly like us. Once, we see this, it seems only natural to extend human ethics and consideration to them. Increasingly, this idea is applied to less intelligent animals as well. Hence the rise of things like vegetarianism and animal welfare societies.

Check out these videos for really interesting illiustrations.

http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_savage_rumbaugh_on_apes_that_write#t-36514

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBUHWoFnuB4

(This one is a four part series that loads automatically a few seconds after the last one is finished).

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Jun 14, 2015 - 02:18pm PT

It is kind of silly to ignore all of this

Didn't you tell us once that the Grand Canyon took millions of yrs to develop?

Do you know therea a new theory for that?

And that the Contenental Shift is a slow moving phenom? But we just saw India move 10 ft last month.

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Jun 14, 2015 - 03:09pm PT

Jan, that's a great link.
That's the first I've seen about the influence of environment over biology. Well she called it culture vs biology.

The similarities between bone structures, along with that computer generated stride comparison are very convincing. But I've never seen any video of a monkey walking like that, do know of any? And the monkey have a decisively different pelvis and more bones in their vertebrae. Do you know of any info or vids that would show anything conclusive on the evolutional change in skeletal systems?
Thanks

Norton

Social climber

Jun 14, 2015 - 03:16pm PT

Do you know of any info or vids that would show anything conclusive on the evolutional change in skeletal systems?

not speaking for Jan, blue

but it has taken some 5 million years for the lineage of home sapiens to evolve from
purely ape/monkey like creatures

and there were no cameras or videos around to document those slow changes

however, the fossil record is quite huge, showing the changes in brain size to upright or bipedal walking to use of controlled fire to.....to ....to modern humans who arrived slowly to our present configuration as recently as some 150,000 years ago

apes/monkeys, etc, did not continue to evolve however, they stayed pretty much the same

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Jun 14, 2015 - 03:17pm PT

My sense of it - and I could be entirely wrong here - is that QM specialists exploring particle physics have no choice but to peer directly into this indefinite world, and to watch real things emerge into waves or stuff or (fill in the blank) (JL)

I must admit that your hypothesis is quite interesting, particularly intriguing in that particle physicists must go down to infinitesimal measures to engage what you think you are experiencing at a much larger scale. Viz., your Zen quotes about "form is emptiness and emptiness is form." But your central tenet hinges on whether the no-thingness you engage is something more than just a peculiar mental state induced by meditation.

This does not appear to be verifiable at this time, and so you attempt to convince others of your theory by having them enter the same mental state - which proves nothing, other than the brain, and by extension the mind, can get really "jiggy" as you say.

Nevertheless, if you can demonstrate that raw awareness takes one into the infinitesimal world of QM by uncovering something physicists have not seen, you will have earned a Nobel Prize in (meta)physics. But you must produce at least one tangible result to entice others to follow your lead.

Simply writing about emptiness but not demonstrating a verifiable link to where things "have no physical extent" is entertaining but fictional literature.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Jun 14, 2015 - 03:21pm PT

https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY

I sure wish a science person would watch and comment on this... sigh.

cintune

climber

The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen

Jun 14, 2015 - 03:30pm PT

More likely to happen if you take the few simple steps to just embed it.
[Click to View YouTube Video]

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Jun 14, 2015 - 03:56pm PT

Jstan

How far would I get if I continued to believe the theory of realitivity is E=mc, and not E=mc2?

Pretty sure all bibles say, "..but the tree of knowledge OF good and evil you shall not eat.."

Now I don't care if you believe it or not. But as a scientist you are one who knows where falsified information belongs. The trash can. And not left on the side of the road were someone else may find it and become misconstrued. Maybe you just got taught half the message i don't know. But what your teaching isn't a half truth, it's a lie. And it has congealed into your emotional being as hate. To wit, you throw out the opinion that if bibles readers don't know something they should just write it off. As if they should just not learn anything. Did you not know it was a Christian who saw the need for continued education beyond HS, and started the first university? I'm really sorry you feel this way. I do care. I believe ALL Truth points to the Creator and the day when this will reveled is coming very soon.

Good day Sir.