To some extent yes, I have often engaged in the art of mind games, it is at times fun at others it requires you to go very deep into your own consciouss and bring forth mental strength you though had been lost. I am still in a mind game but am currently re-preparing myself further so I can have a better chance this time lol, the people I play against have played for a very long time.. I seek to bring myself past materialism and enter into a higher thinking process that is unimpeded by so many things that restrict us. I hope to eventually go beyond what I percieve that I am capable of and enter into a greater harmony and understanding..

...try non-linear dynamics (past, present, future) and abolish heirarchical structuring in an attempt at bidirectional mutlimodal proccessing of potentialities and probabilities (synthesizing the classical, relativistic and quantum paradigms).

Rick, or others, take note of this question I pose:

sigh* all animals communicate in one way or another, we choose linguistics as our method of communication, trying to seperate yourself from animals with only stating linguistics is almost foolish. You need to realize that the only thing that seperates us from the animals is our preassumed notion that we are more intelligent. Let me ask you this if a tiger is smarter than an elephant is he then more intelligent? or how about the fact that a elephant uses its trunk to convey information whilst a lion uses body language and roars/groans. We have the same sexes as animals, the same needs, the same basic desires, it has been shown that monkeys have even done homosexual acts! and look at ant colonies and their complex super efficent system which people cant even seem to keep up with.. However as said before everyone has perceptual filters and so we all see things diffrently..

lol, 'sigh*'

What does consciousness do?

What is its affect upon the rest of the non-conscious world? What occurs beneath Freud's surface?

Much of what we do, processes which are known to be controlled by the brain, we do unconsciously, where the conscious mind 'plays' no role (breathing, blinking, digestion, etc.).

There are also many skills that we learn consciously which soon become used unconsciously (driving, skiing, writing, etc.).

Remember, the brain is made up of elementary particles, of leptons and quarks, arranged in an infinite multitude of diverse ways.

A truly elementary particle is not anything other than itself.

The preconscious age?

In 1976, Princeton psychiatrist, H. Janes claimed that consciousness developed in the human species between two and three thousnad years ago.

I'm interested in non-linear dynamics as it directly relates to the function of the brain which I aim to improve and help develop new methods for. pRoshi is said to be one such device, guiding the brain to it's state of listening by giving it new input that prevents it from settling down on anything stable.

I think you write more "bidirectionally multimodally" than Ken Wilber btw and that means a lot. But I can "understand" the benefits of your approach even when I have trouble grasping it myself.

hmm achieving non linear dynamics is a serious undertaking it requires in depth self anaylsis and then a method to change the linar dynamics currently used, it requires to mess with the perception of memories in order to eliminate the linarity within memories which is created due to the assortion of memories which works like an array, the first memory goes at the bottom and everything else follows.. achieving non linear dynamics might also make it extremly difficult to have a perception of time.

Max, before you labeled my question--and note that it is a question--as being "foolish" did you take the time to read my complete post of yesterday, 07:46 PM?

BTW, my question was about the nature, function and what it means to be a self-conscious being, which, IMO, is no guarantee of intelligence. Also, IMO, human beings, also, use body language, sighs and the like, not just linguistics. We even use 's

FYI, I said

Let me first bring your attention to this, does it not say if you and I were just animal beings would we be caving this dialogue? I did not read the entire thing because I didnt know where it was..



Secondly you modified my post this is my original post where it does more than 'attack' your ideals, dont forget you asked that attention be brought to the quote, so attention was given I provided a overview of intelligence because it is often presummed that intelligence is denoted by linguistics which is how people attempt to seperate themselves from animals. Ask yourself this question Lindsay, if you were the dominate species on a small island would you not think you were diffrent because you were the dominat one and thus you must be diffrent because no one can seem kill you and you can kill everything else? Now think of this island as earth, the same idea can be applied.. So never the less it may of been better for me to read your entire post but we are all guilty of mistakes ^.= anyways Lindsay I am sorry for being a little rude but I have been working away relentlessly and have become a bit overtly stressed than usual.

This is Graves heicharcy of needs, it bases off of Maslows but goes into further detail, it will give some insight into the way peoples minds work..

 Survival – If the world is a jungle, then I will act like other animals.
 Safety – If the world is uncertain and spirits rule, then I will ally with others, obey the
spirits.
 Power – If the world is rugged, difficult and dangerous, then I will battle to live despite
the dangers.
 Obedience – If the world is ordered as God ordained, then I will be obedient to rightful
leaders and to God.
 Success – If the world is full of many options, then I will know that achievement is
primary.
 Friends – If the world is the home of everyone, then I will unite with others.
 Function – If the world is in a state of upheaval, then I will develop personal harmony.
 Global village – If the world is an ecosystem, then I will work towards global harmony.

I know many pets, like cats and dogs, that seem to presume to be smarter than their owners. Humans are probably not the only ones with such presumptions.

I'm not familiar with Graves hierarchy of needs. Thanks for posting it. Looks rather intriguing.

....try rereading this link and then paralleling some the concepts that inevitably can and do get mapped cognitively.

http://www.physics.hku.hk/~tboyce/sf/topic...e/wormhole.html

Thank you, I haven't read almost anything on it, I just recognize it as a very important concept and one that the Roshi said to cause. It is clear that from a functioning point of view total NLD is not desirable but clearing out the cobwebs is and they have allegedly succeeded in accomplishing hat but there are very few guesses at how it actually works.

George Green is developing an add-on to BioExplorer that should do pretty much the same thing. He told me that he has looked at cortical microstates research during anaesthesia and a few EEG markers. I think it would take quite a lot of experimenting to replicate his work as open source.

Let us suppose that we are "just" animal beings. What would our experience be? Certainly we would feel pain and cold, hunger and desire. Our visual field would contain images of the outside world when looking at it, and conceptions when thinking. Our hearing would have sounds of the world or memories of songs. We would feel love for our friends and annoyance with the thoughtless behavior of some others. How is this different from the experience of actual people?

mm good idea for changing perspective Rick..

IMHO homo sapiens is 'just another animal' on planet Earth.
However, what differentiates us from all other animals or living organisms, is that we seem to have perceptions and the capability for thought which allows us to make choices (decisions) which other animals will never be able to do.

Nature allows us to be alive.
We have the opportunity to make such lives worthwhile, have a useful purpose, and cause beneficial changes insofar as we are able to, collectively.

We can also squander that opportunity!

What is the purpose of 'man' on this planet?

Some will favour affiliation to one God or another.
Some will favour pure and simple self-gratification, even at the expense of others.

Never? If humans became extinct for some reason, isn't it possible that some other species will evolve to take our place at the top of the heap?

My cat has perceptions and the capability for thought. He comes and stands before me and looks at my eyes when he wants my attention. He runs ahead of me to the kitchen when he anticipates the food he believes I will prepare for him. He also has an obedient doorman to let him in and out whenever he asks.

mm I agree with rick on this one, the only thing that creates reason that we are diffrent is the assumption made by humans that we are diffrent. It is quite possible that Ricks feline friend assumes humans are its servant, think about it, you clean up its poo, you feed it, you care for it, you open the door for it, and it sits around and lies in the sun all day, now who is superior? Besides animals do have perception and they are conscious as well as the fact that animals learn, they posses thought capabilities like the rest of us..

Max shares:
Ah, the value of dialogue. Debate has its place, but dialogue allows us to share ideas, concepts, and even how we feel about life and things, without destroying real friendships. Feel free to let go, anytime. Just give me notice, so I can duck.
Rick shares: Rick, by now you have probably gathered that I am not the kind who likes to be dogmatic about how superior we human beings are as compared to animals.

Did I mention that just about a week ago, we lost our second cat, a real friend, Boots? He was almost 20 years old and similar to this one. http://www.fanciers.com/breed-faqs/maine-coon-faq.html
But Boots' hair was even longer.

A little over a year ago, we lost another cat--one the same age. He was a short-haired black with white flecks. We called him Jets--gentleman Jets. Boots and Jets were great friends, and groomed each other, frequently.

Then a strange thing happened. Following the death of Jets, Boots, every now and then, walked around the house and called--frequently, looking up the stairs, in a very uncat-like voice. For a ten or fifteen seconds he sounded like child with a deep voice howling for its parents. Was calling for Jets? Has anyone else ever had a cat do this?

mm if I left for even a day my cat would know and start meowing and annoy the hell out of everyone who was still their until I returned, this same thing also happens to a friend of mine..

Here's a thought. If we consider that consciousness originates in material, then we are making the following statement about the location of consciousness: consciousness is inside material. Given this, and given that material is particulate, a consciousness must then be bound inside the spatial confines of a particle. How is it, then, that more than one such particles, when arranged spatially w.r.t. each other in some specific way (like a brain), can create a singular 'subject' of perceptions? In other words, how does the consciousness 'property' of multiple particles attach and 'unify' into a single consciousness?

The confusion I am sensing here is the idea of where consciousness is located. Either it is 'inside' material, or it is not. If it is not 'inside' material, then its connection to material is not trivial and use of the materialist thesis to explain it is incomplete at best. If it is 'inside' material, then how can spatially separate particles 'merge' their consciousnesses into 'one'? To claim that consciousness is 'inside' material and then to claim that large amounts of spatially separate material can create a single consciousness sounds rather illogical to me

denial, anyone?

Distinct stages of consciousness observable in all living creatures:

the perceptual mind of the lower animals, open only to sense impressions;

the receptual mind of the higher animals, producing simple consciousness;

the conceptual mind of human beings, accompanied by self-consciousness

The upper half of the animal kingdom possesses simple consciousness. Man possesses self-consciousness. Cosmic consciousness, in addition to the other two, is a third and higher consciousness.

Language is the objective of which self-consciousness is the subjective.

In the evolution of the intellect there are four distinct steps: The first of them was taken when the primary quality of excitable sensations were established. At this point began the acquisition and perfect registration of sense impressions, percepts.

A percept is a sense impression – a sound that is heard or an object that is seen and the impressions they make are percepts.

Individually and generation by generation the primordial brain accumulated these percepts, the constant repetition of which, calling for further and further registration led, in the struggle for existence and, under the law of natural selection, to an accumulation of cells in the central sense ganglia; the multiplication of cells made further registration possible; that, again, made further growth of the ganglia necessary, and so on.

At last a condition was reached in which it became possible for our ancestor to combine groups of these percepts into a recept. Similar percepts are registered one over the other until they are generalized into one compound percept or a recept, something that has been received.

Now the work of accumulation begins again on a higher plane of existence where the sensory organs keep steadily at work manufacturing percepts; the receptual centres keep steadily at work manufacturing more and yet more recepts from the old and the new percepts; the capacities of the central ganglia are constantly taxed to do the necessary registration of recepts; then as the ganglia by use and selection are improved they constantly manufacture from percepts and from the initial simple recepts, more and more complex, that is, higher and higher recepts.

After many thousands of generations have lived and died, comes a time when the mind has reached the highest possible point of purely receptual intelligence. Then another break in conscious thought, higher recepts are replaced by concepts.

A recept is a composite image of many thousands of percepts; it is itself an image abstracted from many images; but a concept is that same composite image, that same recept, named, ticketed, and dismissed. A concept is in fact a named recept – the name standing henceforth for the thing itself, that is, for the recept.

The revolution by which concepts were substituted for recepts has increased the efficiency of the brain for thought, the ability to replace big cumbersome recept by a simple sign.

As the possession of concepts implies the possession of language, so the possession of concepts and language (which are in reality two aspects of the same thing) implies the possession of self-consciousness.

There is a moment in the evolution of mind when the receptual intellect, capable of simple consciousness only, becomes almost quite instantaneously a conceptual intellect in possession of language and self-consciousness.

In the history of individual man the point is reached and passed at the age of three years; in the history of the human race it was reached and past several thousands of years ago.

Our intellect today is made up of a complex mix of percepts, recepts, and concepts.

A concept is made up of one or more recepts combined with probably several percepts. This complex recept is then marked by a sign; that is it is named and becomes a concept, which, after being named or marked, it is laid away in a vast storage house in the brain for later retrieval.

We have seen the expansion of the perceptual mind had a limit and that its own continued life led it to develop into the receptual mind and that the receptual mind inevitably developed into the conceptual mind, which leads us to the consideration of a corresponding outlet to be found for the conceptual mind, the cosmic consciousness.

The four stages the in the development of the human mind were: first, the perceptual mind, the mind made up of percepts or sense impressions; second, the mind made up of these and recepts, the receptual mind or simple consciousness; third, the mind made up of percepts, recepts and concepts, the conceptual or the self conscious mind; and fourth, there is the intuitional mind, the mind whose highest element is not a recept or a concept but an intuition. This is the mind in which sensation, simple consciousness and self-consciousness are supplemented with cosmic consciousness, a quantum temporal modality.

If a person is highly intuitive, yet not as highly logical, is his thinking still of a higher order than someone's, who thinks highly logically yet not so intuitively?

That pretty well defines one key aspect to what is called "the easy problem of consciousness." The easy problem is still hard, and is nowhere close to being solved. It's just an example of philosophical understatement. The "hard problem" is why should there be such a thing as consciousness? It's very easy to imagine uncouscious automatons carrying out intelligent behavior: artificial robots, for example.

Trip, if you're going to quote

Cosmic Consciousness (1901) – Richard Maurice Bucke, M.D.
http://groups.msn.com/Fortune-CookiePhilos...500773240520579

then you ought to give proper attribution.

Thanks Rick....I thought I had. He is a real interesting read.

How did you find the link to that other forum? I have also posted this info here at BM before, but I thought that it was more relevant to the discussion that was developing in this thread.

I googled some parts of your post in quotes. It's a technique I learned from a philosophy professor that she uses to detect plagiarism.

Bucke is indeed interesting, particularly about spontaneous cosmic consciousness. I think it's related to Maslow's ideas about self-actualizing.

I see the "hard" problem "Why should there be consciousness?" as more abstract than might be implied by one imagining robots carrying out intelligent behavior. I can see what you are getting at with the robot problem, but this seems to be the problem of understanding why consciousness would be selected into an organism. The simple answer is, it offers survival advantage.
For the greater "why consciousness?" issue, this is intrinsically beyond an objective answer. In order to examine 'why', one must know the object in question which means understanding its internal properties and external relations. The external relations are easy: observe the behavior of others (or of yourself) as an interaction of the 'consciousness' with the universe at large. The internal properties are observable too, but not in others as the 'internal' state of others is inaccessible. One can only 'introspect'. However, waiting slyly for the 'introspective' explorer is a catch. One cannot observe oneself. This is a fundamental limit of logic, because logic is a process of 'observing' that presupposes an 'observer', with the implication that the 'observer' is not a proper object of logical inquiry. Since the 'observer' cannot be observed, the quest cannot be completed in principle.
This is the conclusion of the quest that is guided by the "hard problem"

you just 'are'

hmm if logic is limited to observing to observer. Then one of two possibilities exist (a.) You become a observer observing something that is observing yourself. (b.) Dont use logic to solve the problem..

by definition, observations cannot be observers


I believe!

somehow I find that hard to believe, you can view a television that is observing you watching yourself..

good grief

allow me to clarify this issue more succintly

you said:


the key here is that one must identify internal properties of consciousness. Since consciousness is private, one cannot look 'inside' another's consciousness. One can only look 'inside' oneself. This process is introspection. Your scenario is not introspection

Can you let me know where I can get one of those televisions? Might get me away from the computer. But hang on, I'd have to turn off my webcam to stop it from observing me (hee hee!).

Care .... consciousness is become less private. See medical imaging techniques such as magnetoencephalography where conscious activities can be seen to "illuminate" regions of the brain, including timing of nerve cell activity down to the millisecond, and positron emission tomography where radioactive glucose consumption correlates with brain activity in specific regions. This is just the start, but I'm sure you already knew that.

This is fundamentally no different than observing behavior. Nothing new here, just more information with which to infer the 'internal' state of the consciousness. No matter how many brain scans are made, the information obtained results in nothing deeper than inference. The state itself remains observable only to the 'subject' him-(or her-) self (and is therefore 'private').

That much is obvious. Animal (or at least human) brains seem to work better when conscious. We know that no memory is formed when consciousness is not present, and we know that distraction (of conscious attention) degrades mental performance. It would seem that an organism that didn't need consciousness for memory or computation would be have an evolutionary advantage, but that does not seem to be the case.

Some researchers claim that any robot that could function like us would necessarily be conscious, but I don't agree. Perhaps unconscious robots will indeed inherit the earth, just as in the science fiction movies.

mm I think what dan is getting at is that since we all have our private realities one cannot view anothers own reality to view yourself, this is only true to some extent though recent breakthroughs with NLP allow you to further view things from a persons perspective, although it is not perfect it is a start at beginning to understand other people, the way we interact and consciousness

I mostly don't either, but there is a loophole. I interpret this statement in two ways. Either these researchers are defining function as equivalent to consciousness (behavior = being), or they are implying that two structures exhibiting the same function must also share the same internal state. The first possibility indicates a profound lack of understanding of the subject-nature, perhaps a convenience for the philosophically challenged materialist. The second possibility, while on the surface being a naive assumption about the relation between function and structure, may not be totally without merit. If we are talking about similarity of gross physical behaviors, this assumption is definitely naive and deserves little concern. However, if we consider total function, down to the atomic level, then we are really talking about the relation of consciousness to physical structure. After all, if we can build a human body in a lab, accurate down to the last atom and with a pre-wired brain ready to play ball, doesn't it seem plausible that this structure would be capable of consciousness? I suppose this isn't actually what the researchers mean, but this would be a case of an artificially produced structure that functions like us in a total sense (being of identical construction).


It is certainly possible for us to create machines that, by design, wipe us out. Hopefully we don't do this.

Certainly this is true from a materialistic viewpoint. The advocates I had in mind say that similar function with different mechanism will lead to similar consciousness. These researchers (such as Hans Moravec) have in mind that computation alone is sufficient for consciousness, and that faster computers with the right software will become conscious.

Dan and I disagree with that viewpoint, I think, and we are in good company: Philosopher John Searle (Berkeley) and physicist Roger Penrose (Oxford) argue against functionalism.

That still leaves the problem of unconscious robots running rings around human beings because they don't get slowed down by the bottleneck of consciousness. We may be out-performed and rendered obsolete. Because they would be unconscious, they would be incapable of understanding ethics, so who can predict what they might do?

agreed


Indeed. It seems to me that the best candidate for robot conquest would be a vast army of self-replicating nanobots that destroy the ecosystem. Nanobots from hell

haha screw nanobots, Bender Bots!

Nanotech in itself is problematic. Making intelligent robots full size is hard enough. Once we build robots that can replicate themselves with improvements, they may decide to evolve toward smallness, and nanobots may be a result. Maybe not.

Military robotic prototype: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s3n370mOyg...=robotic%20mule

Either way, I think we are close to identifying another key feature of consciousness: having consciousness is necessary to being ethical.

Please allow me to explain myself. We fear that our (projected) intelligent creation will be harmful to us. That is, we will experience harm without the perpetrators (robots) realizing what they are doing is wrong. We assume they will be ignorant because they will be unable to experience pleasure or pain, sorrow or joy. Therefore, how can they know it's wrong to increase the suffering of another or to decrease his joy?

We could rely on a set of programmed-in rules, as in the novels of Isaac Asimov, but realistic people will understand that these protections will be easily circumvented. Therefore, if sufficiently intelligent machines are actually possible, we had better think long and hard on how to keep the genie in the bottle.

I personally don't mind letting the genie out of the bottle. I'm not sure if singularity comes (though I advocate technology), but if it does and sentienet super-intelligence does as well, and they don't want to cooperate with us (which I would do everything in my power to convince them to), then I will resolve to die if they want to kill me.

Because in that case, we may be to them like cats and dogs or even ants. They might leave us as pets or just stumble upon us.

But nevertheless, I think that would be evolution and want to support it.

we're talking about non-sentient superintelligent robot killers. If they are sentient, then it may not be a total disaster.

I don't know how much I'd value consciousness in that case... I might think it's important enough so screw the super-intelligence or not.

Anyway, I wonder why people suppose that these machines will not be sentient... I'm talking about (I think) people who believe in evolution. Would it be such an unfathomable miracle that consciousness would appear in a non-organic form this time around?

It's not unfathomable given that we design consciousness into a robot, but first we have to figure out how to do it. What is unlikely is that a robot somehow magically 'wakes up' without being designed to do so.

Agreed.

rhymer here...

I'd worry if the darn things were to start breeding!!!

Are you against evolution?