Fear of death.

the tiny electrical charges and other physical events are the stuff of consciousness (insofar as consciousness emerges from a certain density of such activity

To me this is just like saying "plant enough apple trees and you're sure to get an orange".

timeout -- do you guys consider pre/non-linguistic thought as conscious or un/sub-conscious?

it's why i'm surprised by the argument that consciousness is inexplicable and perhaps even trans-physical

i'm not arguing for that and i don't think anybody's offered any evidence for it either! i would call it more of an intuition?

i think your computer / machine language / information procesing stuff is straight medieval argument from analogy

great question philip

i mean you could just substitute "a tiny little green man sitting in a cockpit in my head" for "a computer" and the construction of that paragraph would be as logically sound, except we "know" that computers exist and elves don't, which makes the argument seem very reasonable and reassuring

well, i think it's a bit more substantive than that. i'm really just talking about systems dedicated to the collection and processing of information - systems for which computers are a good metaphor, but which have existed in biology for a lot longer than computers, people or even (probably, according to me) awareness.

it may well be that the handy model of computer-type programming and data processing is misleading, that it distorts our sense of how biological cognition and consciousness really work, but i don't see much evidence of that at present. therefore, i'm inclined to use the model until it proves decisively unfit.

The argument from analogy is just as strong or as weak as the resemblance between the things analogized. The fact that it was employed by medieval thinkers is unsurprising. Everyone uses it.

timeout -- do you guys consider pre/non-linguistic thought as conscious or un/sub-conscious?

I think much more thought is non linguistic than is commonly supposed. Perhaps most of it. So it can be conscious, no problemo.

i don't think it's a medieval theory but there's a lot of evidence to show that's not the way it works. for example, the reflexes we have bypass the round trip of executive pain decision-making, and rightfully so, or we'd be burning ourselves on stovetops for longer than necessary.

re: if the non-linguistic thought is conscious, wouldn't we be able to notice it?

timeout -- do you guys consider pre/non-linguistic thought as conscious or un/sub-conscious?

― Philip Nunez, Friday, July 13, 2012 2:41 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't suspect language (in the expansive sense) is a prerequisite for consciousness. i imagine there are forms of reasoning and (self-)representation characteristic of animals with much less complex neural systems that probably grant them something like conscious experience.

xpost what ledge says. keep in mind that some humans lack the capacity for language but still exhibit behaviors that suggest conscious self-awareness.

and there's nothing wrong with argument by analogy. in fact it's arguably a basic component of animal reasoning!

here's a neat trick, try to de-linguify some aspect of your awareness, and i think you'll find it drops into the unconscious realm, and suddenly you'll have lost 5 minutes.

if the non-linguistic thought is conscious, wouldn't we be able to notice it?

Dogs have no language in the sense you are using the term. They give every appearance of being conscious.

there's nothing wrong with argument by analogy?!?

why wouldn't dogs have language?

I guess I was wrong about how you were using the term.

plants which are not watered wither and die like unfed men and those that are watered tend to grow plump and full. likewise, cutting the roots of a tree will cause it to wither. therefore we can conclude the sustenance of the plant is from water and soil and it is from water and soil that it gains the raw materials of growth.

that's argument by analogy

it's your classic "as above, so below" type of move

The argument from analogy has utility, in that it is predictive in many cases and prediction is very useful. It does not aspire to mathematical precision.

the plant analogy provides a pragmatically useful view of the systems involved. especially when you factor in sunlight, pollinating insects and nutrients in the soil. all of which can be understood by means of analogy to other systems. argument by analogy is only a problem when the analogy breaks down, or when it is pushed past the points of actual correspondence. up to that point, it can be extremely useful.

Like if you thought of a store as a brain, and it was constantly adjusting prices, moving around inventory, restocking areas, cleaning, had bustling employees that make store related actions, and then assumed once that store was out of business that all of that specific store's inner functions kept happening for eternity afterwards or just without purpose, why would you think that?

― Evan, Friday, July 13, 2012 12:26 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You may have no understanding of the inner functions, but you frame it all within the idea that they stop when the store stops.

― Evan, Friday, July 13, 2012 12:27 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Your thoughts, late great?

i'm not saying "the brain is like a computer, and a computer works this way, so therefore..."

instead, i'm saying that we should think about the ways in which evolution might have guided biological information gathering and processing systems toward something like consciousness (and noting certain similarities to computer programming in passing). i stress the mechanics of biological evolution since that theory provides the best scientific framework for thinking about the nature of biological systems. and until i have reason to think otherwise, i'm inclined to consider consciousness primarily as a biological phenomenon.

xpost none of which provide sustenance or mass a seed needs to become a redwood tree!

i don't think of the brain as a store, i would only think of the brain as a store if i needed an example-by-analogy to try to convince someone that at some point "the store closes" and "the employee leaves"

timeout -- do you guys consider pre/non-linguistic thought as conscious or un/sub-conscious?

this is a good question, but it opens up so many others. so far, i've been treating the "machine" and "assembly" languages of the body and brain as non-conscious cognition, a soup of in-out/stimulus-response processing that the conscious mind sits atop and both plumbs and guides. it seems possible to me that conscious awareness could predate the development of language. it also seems possible that there are parts of our consciousness - perhaps i should say "parts of our body's consciousness" - that are inacessible to "us". hell, the brain might house several different consciousnesses, each alien to the next. the continuity of self might itself be an illusion.

contenderizer i don't want to come off like a jerk but there are a few things in your last post i don't get

the ways in which evolution might have guided

huge warning buzzer

noting certain similarities to computer programming in passing

you sly dog

i stress the mechanics of biological evolution since that theory provides the best scientific framework for thinking about the nature of biological systems

uh whut

xpost none of which provide sustenance or mass a seed needs to become a redwood tree!

well, sure they do. processes like photosynthesis and nutrient extraction provide the seedling with what it needs in order to grow into a sapling, and the sapling into a tree.

water and soil? nope.

the continuity of self might itself be an illusion.

this book isn't as great as one might hope, but it makes a version of this argument: http://www.amazon.com/Self-Illusion-Social-Creates-Identity/dp/019989759X

the late great, what is your problem with the phrase "the ways in which evolution might have guided"

is it the word "guided"? i agree that suggests a kind of agency that the processes of evolution cannot have.

but i do think it is best to understand the functioning of the brain as essentially adaptive. even if the specific form it takes can produce maladaptive aspects and a fuck ton of exaptations that can't be "explained" in terms of evolution.

when we speak of the way that evolution "guides" the development of biological systems, we are using a common personification to get across a (hopefully) familiar idea. environmental pressures inadvertently "select for" and "select against" (yes, again) certain traits, in the long run shaping biological systems to their environment. my suggestion is that top down cognition - something like awareness - is a characteristic that has probably been selected for. given what we know about biological life, this seems a reasonable hypothesis, though it's by no means proven.

in saying that evolution is the "best scientific framework for thinking about the nature of biological systems", i did not mention that i was talking specifically about the factors that have caused biological systems to be as it seems they are. i sort of hoped that would be clear. evolution is a big part of how we talk about this: the forces that have caused biological systems to assume their present structure and seeming "purpose".

the problem w/ that thinking is that the process of evolution is not clear to us nor does it have a beginning and end

it does not shape biological systems to their environment, because the environment can change much more rapidly than animals can

you can't just look at an animal (or plant or whatever) in an environment and say "well, that animal must have evolved to fit this niche" and work backward

and another key point is that we're not evolved to match our environment but rather just to pass on genes most successfully in a particular environment

it's very tempting to look at things and look at their environment and then try to figure out how they might have evolved to match that environment but that's not actually how the science of it works

water and soil? nope.

― the late great, Friday, July 13, 2012 1:19 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, plants do need water. and they do draw nutrients from the soil. if we're bogging down in where the bulk of a plant's nutrient intake does in fact come from vs. the conceptions of some strawman medieval farmer, then it's time to prune this tangent. we fault an analogy because it it bad, not because analogies are bad in general.

if i were trying to prove something by saying, "no, look, the mind is just like a computer, see?" and then going into specifics about the nature of computers, then you'd have a point. as it is, i'm at a bit of a loss about why you're hammering this.

proof dogs have language
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui9Mm63zpfE&feature=related

xpost

jesus christ man, we fault analogies because they're not deductive tools

how are you NOT saying "the mind is just like a computer" on this thread is what i want to know

pretty sure my dog has an immortal soul, i see it when i look in his eyes

it's very tempting to look at things and look at their environment and then try to figure out how they might have evolved to match that environment but that's not actually how the science of it works

umm, yes it is. that's at least part of it, and it's exactly what darwin was doing. ideally what we do is to look at the record of changes in environment and see how and in what way they correspond to changes in biology, but both approaches are part of a scientific approach. the former helps us generate hypotheses, and the latter helps us test them.

holy shit man you need to go back to your biology books

btw i just wanted to address something that popped up for a second upthread

http://livelovelearnbreathe.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/i-do-believe-in-magic.jpg

seriously dude, i don't really know how else to put it. you just opened a gigantic can of rong.

i think it's not really on topic anyway though

The song "Okay, Let's Talk About Magic" just came on my shuffle.

late great I can't tell if you understood my store analogy with your response.

jesus christ man, we fault analogies because they're not deductive tools

i burn my hand on a fire. i come to another fire. i worry that i might burn my hand if i touch it. i have this worry because though the new fire is not the old fire, i surmise based on certain correspondences that they are of a type, and i further suppose that because of this, they might share the hand-burning characteristic. this is both an analogy and a useful deduction derived from one. analogies are deductive tools. they are not 100% reliable deductive tools, because things that seem alike in certain respects are not necessarily alike in other respects. that's okay, because i'm not trying to prove to anyone that the brain is effectively a computer.

how are you NOT saying "the mind is just like a computer" on this thread is what i want to know

i am observing certain correspondences. i am not using those correspondences to make other types of analogy-driven assumptions. from what i can see, cognition of all sorts (both conscious and not) is in many respects a stimulus response system. that's the root of my argument. it proceeds logically from there, but not because i am trying to enforce some correspondence to the computer model.

holy shit man you need to go back to your biology books

you've done this more than once. if you have an argument, by all means make it. if you don't, just let it drop. i'm just gonna assume you misunderstood...

Science deals with approximations that change over time, so there is no risk ever in being proven wrong. Because proving things wrong is part of the process! There is often no capital-T truth for all time declared.

This is about right - there are falsifiable claims (IE theory X says Y should happen and if Y doesn't happen then theory X is wrong) and then there's "Well we've tested this 1,000,000 times and it's been right every time, it's safe to build stuff around it"

People don't give religion this leeway. They say it is wrong because it should be the capital-T truth and the flaws in doctrine are all examples why the whole thing is irrelevant.

Religion doesn't claim it though - it is the truth but it is not susceptible to disproof.

no, cause i don't want to explain speciation and cladistics and tell you all about the voyage of the beagle

anyway that's inductive reasoning my friend, not deductive

xpost to contenderizer

it would be as much of a rabbit hole w/r/t consciousness as getting into the hows and whys of computer programming

ftr:

darwin developed his theory (at least in part) by looking at animals and noticing that they were well-adapted to the peculiarities of their environments.

in studying the evolution of biological forms, we look at the fossil record not just for changes in anatomy, but for evidence of changes in environment that might have something to do with those changes in anatomy.

that's all i said in the post you freaked at, and it's all true.

anyway that's inductive reasoning my friend, not deductive

come on, you're splitting hairs now. the incident of the first fire is inductively used to generate a conclusion about fires in general. the general conclusion is deductively to generate a theory about the second fire. there's no point in getting hung up in silly minutia like this.

no, cause i don't want to explain speciation and cladistics and tell you all about the voyage of the beagle

the conceit of this is breathtaking. there's been no need in the discussion to go into speciation and cladistics. but we can talk about whatever you want, if you want.

but see, you're saying things that aren't true!

darwin developed his theory by noticing similarities, not differences, and a lot of the differences he found - tortoise shells, for example, on the different galapagos islands - didn't correlate to environmental factors, finches beaks' aside

similarly in california we observe very different salamanders in the north and south of california but very similar salamanders in the northern coast and northern inland forests, which we explain by nothing the existence of an ancient ocean in the central valley which once connected the populations on the northern coast and northern inland, and a historically inhospitable hot and dry range that separated northern and southern salamanders

all of this is based in patterns of coloration and markings on different species of salamanders and not on adaptations to different environment

anyway i don't feel like i'm getting caught up silly minutiae here, do you?