How is a thought created Options

[mattalbie]

Hi

Can anyone tell me how a thought is created\? How does an initial chemical reaction become what we know as a thought?

[lucid_dream]

you are assuming some building-block approach to consciousness which is fallacious. See Searle 2000.

[mattalbie]

Can you prove my assumption is fallacious?

By the way I cannot prove it is true. My assumption is based on the fact that thoughts or rather types of thoughts can be altered by medication, like prozac.

[lucid_dream]

the building-block approach is false because it provides no mechanism for binding of blocks, nor for supervenient relations within the system, whereas field theories of consciousness propose consciousness is a field that is modified and whose form determines or is isomorphic to our phenomenal conscious experience.

[Joesus]

It is possible to follow any thought to it's source.
Since the nature of self is not bound to the chemical meat bag container and can experience itself outside of the meatbag container having thoughts, then the awareness may be influenced by the meatbag if it is made into the source through false belief and follows shifting fluctuations of the container.

[Trip like I do]

.... what a great question?

[wan]

It is possible to follow any thought to it's source.
Since the nature of self is not bound to the chemical meat bag container and can experience itself outside of the meatbag container having thoughts, then the awareness may be influenced by the meatbag if it is made into the source through false belief and follows shifting fluctuations of the container.

Lacking a location does not entail that experience lack a container of sorts. It might be useful to draw some parallels between experience lacking a location and other more common physical quantities. Consider the temperature of the air in the room. No one air molecule has a part that contains temperature. Temperature is perfectly meaningless to a single air molecule. A huge range of physical quantities have no container parts. Water waves does not even significantly move individual water molecules, and the wave lacks meaning to those individual molecules. Sound is the same way. Given Quantum Mechanics, it's quiet likely even the physical existence of your body lacks meaning on the sub-Plank scale in the same way.

Coming from a physics background, my jaw drops every time I see "non-local" used to describe consciousness. I must remind myself that it's being used in an entirely different context. Yet there is nothing unique in the "non-local" descriptor of consciousness that is not common in essentially all physical quantities. It in no way indicates any independence from the physical predicates that defines it. It's called emergent properties, and the prior parts must interact in order for the emergent property to exist.

[ofmelancholy788]

the building-block approach is false because it provides no mechanism for binding of blocks, nor for supervenient relations within the system, whereas field theories of consciousness propose consciousness is a field that is modified and whose form determines or is isomorphic to our phenomenal conscious experience.

what?

[ZeekyBoogeyDoog]

the building-block approach is false because it provides no mechanism for binding of blocks, nor for supervenient relations within the system, whereas field theories of consciousness propose consciousness is a field that is modified and whose form determines or is isomorphic to our phenomenal conscious experience.

what?

I think he's saying that counciousness is essentially a "bubble"(for lack of a better word) that shapes or is represented by our experience of conciousness.

I am not that smart so this is just what i gathered

[Rick]

To say that "consciousness is a field", using the terminology of physics, implies that consciousness has locality, which is false.

[Hey Hey]

To say that "consciousness is a field", using the terminology of physics, implies that consciousness has locality, which is false.

If it was a field, it might have grass and flowers. Then it would need a gardener. Maybe a head gardener?

[Rick]

"Head gardener"! If your joke translated into a foreign language, it wouldn't be a pun.

[Phi]

fun..how.was.an.original.thought.created???

[ZeekyBoogeyDoog]

To say that "consciousness is a field", using the terminology of physics, implies that consciousness has locality, which is false.

If it was a field, it might have grass and flowers. Then it would need a gardener. Maybe a head gardener?

If it was a field then it would have frolicking hippies, not a gardener.

Also if conciousness doesn't have locality then what does it have?
Is it just one of those things we can't define... like a preposition?

[Rick]

Consciousness is non-local and private. It has qualia. Pain, color, sound, feelings of all kinds. Consciousness is diminished by anaesthetics and expanded by psychedelics.

Consciousness is defined like this:

Consciousness is what it is like to be a human being.

There is something that it is like to be a bat. That something is the bat's consciousness. Similarly with other conscious beings. All consciousnesses are totally private and non-local. That's about all we can say for sure. My theory is that consciousness was created (by evolution) to facilitate predator-prey computation in hunting/avoidance scenarios by enabling memory so that organisms can learn and develop complex behaviors. Nothing we do is remembered unless it first passes through consciousness.

[Rick]

Is it just one of those things we can't define... like a preposition?

A preposition can be defined as a word that denotes a relationship between two objects:

I am on the stairs. This event came before that event.

[ZeekyBoogeyDoog]

Is it just one of those things we can't define... like a preposition?

A preposition can be defined as a word that denotes a relationship between two objects:

I am on the stairs. This event came before that event.

I was only making a joke... I was referring to the dictionary definition of it
i.e. Preposition-a word that makes a prepositional phrase

[ZeekyBoogeyDoog]

Consciousness is non-local and private. It has qualia. Pain, color, sound, feelings of all kinds. Consciousness is diminished by anaesthetics and expanded by psychedelics.

Consciousness is defined like this:

Consciousness is what it is like to be a human being.

There is something that it is like to be a bat. That something is the bat's consciousness. Similarly with other conscious beings. All consciousnesses are totally private and non-local. That's about all we can say for sure. My theory is that consciousness was created (by evolution) to facilitate predator-prey computation in hunting/avoidance scenarios by enabling memory so that organisms can learn and develop complex behaviors. Nothing we do is remembered unless it first passes through consciousness.

Wow! that is quite a compelling theory which is more than I can say for the chemical reactions in the brain theory ( building block theory right?)

[Rick]

Thanks. The chemical reactions "explanation" says nothing about why we have consciousness. That's the so-called "hard problem of consciousness" (Chalmers), phrased like this:

Why should it be that there is something that it is like to be a human being?

The "how" part, by implication, is the "easier" problem of consciousness, but nobody has any clue on that one either. My memory theory is only an attempt to throw something on the wall and see if it sticks.

[ZeekyBoogeyDoog]

Would you mind if I used parts of your theory in my paper
(it's only an english essay so you don't need to worry about your work being stolen)
I want to boost my grade since english isn't my forte` so I decided to write a paper on the most complex thing I could think of.
Its going to have a lot of pseudo deep philisophical B.S. with some science(that's where your theory comes in)

[Rick]

Sure, use it if you want. I have prior claim on the idea in correspondence with Susan Blackmoore. Beware of too much BS. Just be honest as if you're talking to someone who is your friend. Professors can see through much of the BS. I know, I used to be one.

[Hey Hey]

If it was a field then it would have frolicking hippies, not a gardener.

Fair enough; it was just a thought.

[Hey Hey]

The chemical reactions "explanation" says nothing about why we have consciousness.

Consciousness confers an evolutionary advantage, that's why. That's why so many animals seem to have maintained the facility, though I've worn myself out trying to think of an example of clear and direct evidence (from the evolutionary past) outside of the human species. (Did other hominids leave any cave art or messages?)

(ps I realise that's probably not the 'why' you meant.)

[IamThat]

Hi

Can anyone tell me how a thought is created\? How does an initial chemical reaction become what we know as a thought?

It is created in exactly the same way as any other perception is created.

Right now - you are perceiving an image. This image is created by 3 things:

1. Object (computer screen for example)
2. Object of perception (your eyes)
3. Consciousness (that something...)

Thought is created the same way.

1. Object (language, verbal or non-verbal)
2. Object of perception (Brain & body)
3. Consciousness. (that something...)

To talk about a chemical reaction that becomes thought is as useful or meaningless as it would be to talk about the incalculable chemical reactions that take place in your body - before a smell or sound becomes a smell or sound.

[Hey Hey]

the incalculable chemical reactions that take place in your body - before a smell or sound becomes a smell or sound.

Actually, the chemical reactions are not incalculable. It is the qualia that are the essence of the problem, not the preceding biochemistry that is already quite well characterised and understood.

[Rick]

(ps I realise that's probably not the 'why' you meant.)

What other why did you have in mind? Yes, it confers an evolutionary advantage, or it wouldn't stick around. Nature is efficient. Buy why does it give an advangage? Electronic computers can make dicisions too, and they aren't conscious. Robots have sensing and control. How would you like to be a fighter pilot being pursued by a robot combat jet fighter that can pull 100 Gs when you pass out at 10 Gs? Maybe evolution will replace us with unconscious species. That would give new meaning to some of these zombie movies, wouldn't it?

[Hey Hey]

(ps I realise that's probably not the 'why' you meant.)

What other why did you have in mind? Yes, it confers an evolutionary advantage, or it wouldn't stick around. Nature is efficient. Buy why does it give an advangage? Electronic computers can make dicisions too, and they aren't conscious. Robots have sensing and control. How would you like to be a fighter pilot being pursued by a robot combat jet fighter that can pull 100 Gs when you pass out at 10 Gs? Maybe evolution will replace us with unconscious species. That would give new meaning to some of these zombie movies, wouldn't it?

Why in terms of an emergent property from the brain. That is, why does the brain give rise to consciousness? Some seed of consciousness must have preceded the evolutionary advantage conferred by the seed of consciousness (simple order of events) that was then selected for. Why did the organic come up with the intangible? Or should it be how?

[Rick]

Both. Why is the hard problem. How is the not as hard problem. Both are currently unsolved.

[adovid]

The thought process is not atomic to the neurons which is where everyone is failing.

A thought is not a path through the brain, its a reaction of the brain to any kind of disruption. Be it internal or external, the whole of the brain is inherent in the process like a wave is inherent to the ocean. No single molecule makes a wave nor do the same molecules remain in the same wave. But once the wave passes over-- each patch of neurons have an identity which allows them to react to the wave in their own autonomous way.

[utnap]

This is an interesting idea. The brain that interprets interference with a certain background state. Brain's coherent oscillations, brain-waves if you will, seem a good candidate for such a background. But there is also solid evidence that not all environmental stimuli ("disruptions") are consciously perceived. Since thoughts cannot exist without consciousness and are in a certain sense an epiphenomenon of consciousness, it follows that some stimuli wlll not trigger a thought. The question then becomes, how does the brain pick the particular disruptions to the conscious experience that end up becoming thoughts?

The thought process is not atomic to the neurons which is where everyone is failing.

A thought is not a path through the brain, its a reaction of the brain to any kind of disruption. Be it internal or external, the whole of the brain is inherent in the process like a wave is inherent to the ocean. No single molecule makes a wave nor do the same molecules remain in the same wave. But once the wave passes over-- each patch of neurons have an identity which allows them to react to the wave in their own autonomous way.