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I agree they seem trivial but if you really pay attention to Gaylen's excellent posts you will see they are far from trivial issues . . . in fact his last post on conversion factors really nails it very cleverly.
Do you even try to read and comprehend what Gaylen writes????
If this post does not break through the wall of incomprehension, Gaylen . . . nothing will! You are a great teacher. You seem to know what is causing the hangups in comprehension and how to cleverly illustrate the issues. It is quite a talent, my friend . . . for a heathen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
Yes that is quite a good explanation of the problem - if that's the Hard problem, I must confess I didn't get the idea before now that it was conversion of bio -electricity nerve impulses to qualia - whatever in fact they are. We can talk about them, but it's hard to grasp what they are. The mental pixels that create pictures in our mind is not to hard to get, but the sensation of touch or the impression of sound, is a bit harder. Yet i don't see it as as beyond feasibility that it is the mind and its electric patterns that is producing these sensory -experience events in our consciousness and the key to understanding what this is and how we got it may come from tracing the way it developed from the earliers critters.
So, while I can understand the impatience and the demand that biology produce and answer now, I have to say that i could imagine or expect that the answer will be found and it is easier to anticipate what sort of answer it would be that to imagine black holes or quantum, before the event.
The bold is as close as you have come to recognizing the concept of a "resonant neural field" comprising what we experience as consciousness. I like you, Arq and I do not expect you to be cognizant of the neuroscience of "resonant neural fields." But you do have the intellect and intuition to grasp that what you naively call "electric patterns" cannot reside in the physical matter of the brain . . . any more than the electric patterns of TV signals we see as programs reside in the TV station that broadcasts them.
That might be a useful analogy, if you explain where the electric patterns we see as programmes do reide, if not in the TV station and it mechanical gadgetry.
yeah he is right. The less you know the better qualia sounds for sure.
The pattern of the movements is the key. The "thought" is not in a molecule. It is in the movement of many molecules. Just like that TV screen's picture is not stored in the TV.
The "electric patterms" more precicly the electric field and the magnetic field are not "stored" most of the time while thinking. that would be poriential energy and you would have no thoughts. They are generated when ions or e' are moving. Or when a magnetic field is present to cause change.
The "electric patterns" are the movement of electrons, ions and proteins, Many proteins. From proteins in the cell that are forming the neuron transmitters to the proteins that "getting the pieces" for the builder protein. And The cell wall moving aside to let the transmitter free in to the synapse. Also, let's not forget the axons. Then repeated 10^14 times, thats not including internal cell maintiance stuff like atp production and co2 o2 exchanges.
All these charges moving around cause a magnetic field that can feed back on the circuits, or more precisely, the pathways forming the magnetic fields to produce an illusion that an e-, protien, or even a thought moved for some "outside" reason. When in fact it could be a magnetic field causeing some of the patterns seen. There is so much going on in the brain that two positive sides of two different fields can repel causing things to move about as if magically or unseen events caused them.
One thing I don't know about is how much capacitance effects the pathway ways because pathways work differently then wires. The e-s are sliding down in wires and being passed down in the brain. But a build up of charge in one area will move stuff around up there.
The bold is as close as you have come to recognizing the concept of a "resonant neural field" comprising what we experience as consciousness. I like you, Arq and I do not expect you to be cognizant of the neuroscience of "resonant neural fields." But you do have the intellect and intuition to grasp that what you naively call "electric patterns" cannot reside in the physical matter of the brain . . . any more than the electric patterns of TV signals we see as programs reside in the TV station that broadcasts them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
That might be a useful analogy, if you explain where the electric patterns we see as programmes do reside, if not in the TV station and it mechanical gadgetry.
They are still "out there" to be intercepted by ET's lightyears away. IOW they are in the unified field . . . not the TV station and not the TV set. The patterns that were transmitted may be captured on tape or DVR or DVD and can be played back . . . pretty much what our brains do with the consciousness we produce. That is why we live a "delayed broadcast" of our actual reality.
any more than the electric patterns of TV signals we see as programs reside in the TV station that broadcasts them.
And yet you are entirely unable to support in any way any notion at all about consciousness being broadcast from external sources or being external to the brain.
You merely assert this and that to be impossible - never explain why it is impossible - and you do so to chisel away all other possibilities except your own. As if that negates the requirement to evidence a thing you say.
think of a person running.
Is the running "stored" in the legs? When the legs are stopped can you see the "running"? when you take the legs apart and find no "running", not a trace, does that mean "running" does not exists? was the running "transmitted into the body because we didn't find it?
lmao ... motor proteins gave me the idea of running.
Last edited by Arach Angle; 11-26-2014 at 05:22 AM..
Reason: same ol', flipped words and spllering.
They are still "out there" to be intercepted by ET's lightyears away. IOW they are in the unified field . . . not the TV station and not the TV set. The patterns that were transmitted may be captured on tape or DVR or DVD and can be played back . . . pretty much what our brains do with the consciousness we produce. That is why we live a "delayed broadcast" of our actual reality.
The analogy won't be exact, because that would have us producing mental patterns which we then project to be picked up by telepaths. Surely the analogy is that electricity exists all through the cosmos, sure, but it is the putting together into a meaningful image that takes place in the studio.
In the same way, though I haven't anything more than a vague groping idea of how, I am inclined to think that meaningful mental patterns (which I am sure are known to be electrical impulses) related to sensory information are produced in the mind.
Gaylen's point about conversion made me wonder why. I actually don't see why why the electrical particles that make up input, transmitted information, mental processing and the messages that get sent out, need to be converted to some other Thing in order to provide sensory experience (if that is the same thing as Qualia) It would certainly seem more productive to investigate how thought patterns can function as sensory experience than to look for something else.
I really do see the mind experiment of another world with critters that lack sensory experience as proving anything about consciousness in this worls of ours any more that a world where a race of critters lacked hair, arms or body oudour. To say that this is logically possible and that isn't stuck me as pretty arbitrary.
Gaylen's point about conversion made me wonder why. I actually don't see why why the electrical particles that make up input, transmitted information, mental processing and the messages that get sent out, need to be converted to some other Thing in order to provide sensory experience (if that is the same thing as Qualia) It would certainly seem more productive to investigate how thought patterns can function as sensory experience than to look for something else.
It seems like my posts keep getting interpreted as if I'm supporting substance dualism. I do not believe that physical processes need to be "converted to some other Thing in order to provide sensory experience." I do not believe that qualia emerge as some new type of stuff out of physical processes. Qualia are patterns in physical processes, just as four lines of equal length forming right angle are a square. Take 4 popsicle sticks and lay then on your table so that they meet at right angles. Has this process created some new "stuff"? No, it has not. What has emerged is a pattern - it is patterns that emerge - i.e., new properties of stuff, not new stuff. (In fact, it is not even "new" properties - as such - it is really just new concepts needed to explain/model the potentials for properties that are always already intrinsic aspects of reality.) That's why its property dualism, not substance (stuff) dualism.
As for conversion of units: Mathematically, the lines forming a square are one-dimensional. The units of measure are units of length. Let's say inches. But the square is two-dimensional. The units of measurement are units of area. Since we've specified inches for the unit of length, it easiest to express the units of area as "square inches." The area of the square emerged as a property of the pattern of lines. The potential for "area" to emerge as a pattern is not built into the concept of one-dimensional lines. So long as you stick with the one-dimensional units used to measure lines, you will never be able to make a square. The "power" to make a square is not inherent in the one-dimensionality of lines. Mathematically, there is absolutely no way to derive the properties of squares from the purely one-dimensional units of measure used to measure lines. The concept of "one-dimensional lines" is "contained within" (so to speak) the concepts of two-dimensional geometry, but two-dimensional geometry is not contained within the one-dimensional geometry. The "magical" emergence of 2D properties from one-dimensional lines was only possible because you started with 2D (or higher-dimensional) concepts and you applied these concepts in the right way. Thus, it wasn't really magical after all. The magician had the bunny all along; he just didn't let you see it when he first showed you the hat.
The residents of Flatland [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland] had a really tough time trying to think in terms of three dimensions. The idea of the third dimensional was, for them, extremely weird, abstract, and felt magical. They didn't know how to measure "volume" with their yardsticks. The mathematicians in Flatland could not derive the units of measure for volume so long as they limited their proofs to the one- and -two-dimensional units of measurement that they were familiar with. It is mathematically impossible to derive 3D math from 2D math so long as you insist on restricting yourself to the 2D-defined concepts of 2D math. In order to explain how the 3D meanies managed to keep robbing their bank, the 2D mathematicians had to "think outside the square," so to speak, and introduce concepts that were previously not inherent within their mathematical toolbox.
Given that the 3D meanies were successfully robbing from 2D banks, it is clear that reality was higher-dimensional than the 2D folks knew. The third dimension didn't emerge from the 2D world. No new stuff was created when the 2D folks started doing 3D math. The potential for 3D concepts was already there - build into the fabric of reality - but to mathematically model 3D patterns you need to introduce new units of measurement into your conceptual toolbox. No matter how creatively you string together your 2D units, you simply cannot construct 3D models to explain 3D reality unless you introduce some 3D units of measurement into your models.
My proposal is that you won't be able to successfully model the emergence of qualitative patterns of experience if you refuse to introduce units of measure that are adequate to the task. Qualia are not entities "beyond" the physical processes of our world. They are simply patterns in our physical world that can't be modeled if you insist upon sticking with the units of measure that are currently available in the toolbox of physics. You don't need to throw out the old toolbox, you just need to add some new tools. You don't need to add new stuff to the ontological foundations of reality, you just need to recognize that some patterns of the stuff that we've already accounted for have properties that we simply can't model at the moment because we have not yet accounted for the necessary dimensions.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 11-26-2014 at 09:43 AM..
BTW: I cannot yet say exactly what the "new units of measurement" will need to be, but I can speculate this far: I suspect the new units will need to be holistically conceived dynamic patterns that are discovered at the level of neuroscience (the physical correlates of consciousness), but these patterns won't be just the usual physical units of measure defined over time. The newness of the concepts will stem from the fact that the units of measure will need to be defined in terms of the qualitative responses of subjects who undergo testing the process of finding the neural correlates. These qualitative responses - built in to the foundational definitions of the new concepts - are what will track back to fundamental physics.
Sorry. I certainly had the impression at the start of this 'hard question' debate a long time ago that Chalmer's dualism was what you were convinced of, and the talk of conversion looked like it, too. If there is no conversion from electrical mental stuff to something else, then the hard question is looking a bit less hard than it did before - not that I can answer it any more than i could before, but I can imagine that an answer is more likely than i thought.
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