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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Speaking of consciousness and the brain, as we always seem to do, here's an interesting discussion of different parts of the brain as they relate to emotions and will power and the incredible revival of Beck Weathers from his coma on Everest in 1996.
No new facts are given but the illustrations from brain scans are interesting, or at least I thought so. The narrator is Ken Kamler, one of the doctors on the expedition. The actual illustrations are in the middle of the talk.
The next time I need some will power, I am going to visualize stimulating my midbrain where it's supposed to originate and see if that helps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgqc2m7aBzs&NR=1
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MH2
climber
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Well, we may not get anywhere but I still like running in circles. Anyway, we are all just the skin of paint at the top of Gobee's tower of posts.
It was great to hear more from Ed:
That the very "authority" of our mental state fails in very simple ways, for instance, drinking 4 or 5 Old E's and recalling the consequences... "just what was I thinking when I did that?!" Or a bit too much of the bud, or any manner of ways we have of inhibiting, heightening or otherwise altering our consciousness. These affects are directly attributable to changing the chemical environment of the brain.
One doesn't have to be trite, think of anesthetic , how does it happen that by the application of a small amount of chemical to the body, our perception of pain is so radically altered that it allows us to remain placid as our bodies are hacked into? The chemistry of "thought" is profound.
Excellent points, but is it fair to doubt your mental abilities because of what can go wrong with them? What about when you're sober? Are you saying we can't trust our jugement then, either?
The discovery and characterization of the sodium channel did a lot to explain the nerve impulse and action of local anesthetics. In contrast,
general anesthesia has long been an outstanding mystery: how could a molecule as simple as nitrous oxide have such big effects on mental activity? Even nitrogen at high partial pressures can cause narcosis in divers. There is now good evidence that the action takes place through effects on receptors for GABAergic neurotransmitters:
http://www.general-anaesthesia.com/gabaasubtypes.html
If you want weirder ideas, though, you don't have to look far:
http://www.general-anaesthesia.com/anaesthetics.htm
Probably best not to do your pondering of consciousness under the influence, unless you like the smell of fried onions.
The Experimental Epistemologist steps in deeper:
FRANK: But most people when asked what they believe simply tell you. Why do you, to find out your beliefs, go through the fantastically roundabout process of directing a brain-reading machine to your own brain and then finding out what you believe on the basis of the machine's readings?
EPISTEMOLOGIST: What other scientific, objective way is there of finding out what I believe?
It has always puzzled me that so many religious people have taken it for granted that God favors those who believe in him. Isn't it possible that the actual God is a scientific God who has little patience with beliefs founded on faith rather than evidence?
Raymond Smullyan
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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heyt here jan, say.... i've been doing all kinds of stuff all night and finally came back here before i sign off...
oh my:
as to that car accident... say, also, the poor man would have felt sorrow beyond words if his accident had hurt so many more people... and he even had tried to do the right thing, too, by going for medical help before all this happened... and the wife and child... oh my...
in all this, as you said, aside from the neck pain---life was left to be there for so many.... oh my....
there was something mighty powerful going on that day, for sure...
say, jan, and i am so very glad you are still here... too...
who knows, perhaps the ol' neck pain will surprise you one day
and be gone... but---you will still have this fantastic story of life, left to share... :)
oh my... and wow... :)
well, happy good morning, or good night, to all...
:)
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Just checking in to see how Ed (and some others) is keeping up the good fight. Jeez, that last link is a doozy. I've never seen so much idiotic non-sense in one place. This is the stuff of great comedy.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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MH2 asks:
Excellent points, but is it fair to doubt your mental abilities because of what can go wrong with them? What about when you're sober? Are you saying we can't trust our jugement then, either?
I think that "trusting our judgement" obviously works in a statistical sense, an evolutionary sense. We all kid around about "Darwin award winners," those who exhibit such bad judgement that they should be removed from the "gene pool." So the natural end of poor judgement is to run a long term evolutionary experiment on the particular behavior. Our current consciousness is the end result of such an "experiment."
However, it is obvious that many of the situations our current judgement is called upon to judge are quite new, and very much not a part of the pressures of survival and procreation that got us here. So our adaptation to these new situations are using "old" capabilities in "new" ways. Judgement may not be the best even for sober minds.
My point about brain chemistry is that we are always under the influence, it's part of the way the brain works. When flushed with particular hormones judgement can be "clouded" and we might act in ways that are uncharacteristic of our "rational thought." Anyone not experience that? I don't think so.
"Trust, but verify" would be a good way to proceed, and also learn from that. The scientific method has had to confront the subjective nature of human witness and is one methodology which allows a verification. I think your argument above about experimental epistemology points out the circular nature, which I believe is an apt point to make about all epistemology. However empiricism works because it creates a set of quantitative measures which are related by mathematical logic contained in theory.
It is also possible that epistemology is asking the wrong questions.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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My wireless is out!
Late...
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Actually, I am the missing link. And for those of you who do not believe me, just check out my IQ, sub-zero. Oh gosh, that means I could be a creationist.
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MH2
climber
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It is also possible that epistemology is asking the wrong questions.
I wouldn't know. I find philosophy fun for the imagination, sort of like sf.
The parable of the empirical epistemologist is a way to look at what can be trusted and beyond that what should be trusted.
The epistemologist nears the crux:
EPISTEMOLOGIST: This is the most fantastic thing I have ever come across! According to the machine, the best thing I can do is to cease to trust the machine!
FRANK: What do you intend to do about it?
EPISTEMOLOGIST: Good question, let me consult the machine. According to the machine, my present intentions are in complete conflict. And I can see why! I am caught in a terrible paradox! If the machine is trustworthy, then I had better accept its suggestion to distrust it. But if I distrust it, then I must also distrust its suggestion to distrust it, so I am really in a total quandary.
Personally, I think that everyone should test their beliefs if they get an opportunity to do so. Science works at trying to create those opportunities. You must have other knowledgable people around to correct your bias, though. Or at least to make coffee for you and remind you when your wife's birthday is.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Jack Bauer interrogates Santa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6yUCbqAGrg
All of creation was waiting for the coming of Jesus; Peter, Andrew, James, John, Luke, Mark, Matthew...
Genesis 1:1, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Exodus 3:14, God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
Paul Addresses the Areopagus
Acts 17:22-34, So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for
**“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’**
Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
John 1:6-18, There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
John 3:15-16, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 6:35-40, Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but i raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
John 6:44-47, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
John 20:31, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Ephesians 2:1-5, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
John 6:33, For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
John 10:10, The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
How Precious Is Your Steadfast Love
To the choirmaster. Of David, the servant of the Lord.
Psalm 36:1-12, Transgression speaks to the wicked
deep in his heart;
there is no fear of God
before his eyes.
2 For he flatters himself in his own eyes
that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.
3 The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit;
he has ceased to act wisely and do good.
4 He plots trouble while on his bed;
he sets himself in a way that is not good;
he does not reject evil.
5 Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
6 Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
your judgments are like the great deep;
man and beast you save, O Lord.
7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
8 They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
9 **For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light do we see light**.
10 Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you,
and your righteousness to the upright of heart!
11 Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me,
nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.
12 There the evildoers lie fallen;
they are thrust down, unable to rise.
2 Corinthians 4:6, For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
John 14:6, Jesus said to him, “I am l the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
The Son of Man Must Be Lifted Up
John 12:27-36, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
The New Commandment
1 John 2:7-14, Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
I am writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake.
I am writing to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, children,
because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one.(fattrad?)
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MH2
climber
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Ed:
I have friends from the past who have left research in the arcana of particles who now work on developing these sorts of "products" working at places like "Bell Lab" to make your lives convenient. Someday soon those voices on the other end of the phone will not be distinguishable between human and machine. And the first instances of the "Touring Test" will have been met in the general society.
If you will, the understanding of the "illusion of reality" will be the demonstration through the creation of that illusion. And just like any magical illusion, there will be no magic involved.
Jan:
Speaking of consciousness and the brain, as we always seem to do, here's an interesting discussion of different parts of the brain as they relate to emotions
It's those emotions which make Ed's claim seem bold. Granted that the emotional shadings in the human voice could be generated by software but could the software match the tone to the context? Or will the telephone voice only soothe? That would be a big improvement but a pretty weak version of Turing.
However, though prediction is risky, it is true that a lot of people working on a lot of small aspects of the problem will probably make steady progress, or even better than linear progress if we accept the Criswell view. And as Ed suggests, the ability to make a system which exhibits a part of the human repertoire is a version of understanding that part of the human.
My original climbing mentor Bill Thompson is a self-described "lapsed physicist" whose career has been in image processing. For example: How could you get software to use stereo pair images and derive the distance to various objects from binocular disparity? People do it 'without thinking' but the computer scientists don't bother trying to mimic the human, which they regard as proof of the existence of a solution, but not the solution itself.
If a system eventually comes along which passes a strong Turing test, a question relevant to this thread might come up: Would people have created a consciousness? A soul?
The Holy Grail isn't just a simulacrum of human thought, but better-than-human thought. You want a machine that you can ask tough questions and get answers better than you/we could get on our own. I'll believe they are there when we get a smart machine and we pose a hard question and it asks, "What's in it for me?"
I'd also be very happy with a machine that could do real-time language translation in audio and I wouldn't be too fussy about emotional shadings.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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A long gone high performance computing company, Thinking Machines, had the informal motto:
"We want to make a machine that would be proud of us"
that was 20 years ago... but they thought that they were close...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_Machines
I gave a talk there on a type of computer I was involved with building sometime in the mid to late 80s.
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WBraun
climber
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chess playing is now dominated by machines
Stupid
Humans program the machines.
This proves God is The Intelligent Design.
It's very simple to understand. Modern man can't understand simple things anymore.
All modern man understands now is nonsense.
From the one comes the many.
Modern man only sees the many and that's why he's completely bewildered by everything.
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