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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: RGV's Consciousness 101 Basics [Re: redgreenvines]
    #27451339 - 08/31/21 06:15 PM (2 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
I often get into little discussions with people about what I think consciousness is or is not, ....]




.  A funny thing about consciousness is that it depends upon itself. Not to be conscious that one is conscious, is in a sense not to be conscious. This is an aspect of dreaming, where there is some consciousness, but it is, what we might call, a deluded consciousness, as the self in a dream, often does not correspond to what the self ordinarily takes itself to be.

.  In the case of driving a car we take ourselves to be conscious, and making decisions based on free will. However we now know that a self driving car can do the same thing (on a simple highway, not necessarily in busy inner city, where kids play in the streets). So we see that much of driving is actually dictated by (constantly changing) environmental conditions, and that the sense, of being free on the open road, and making conscious decisions, may not be as straight forward as we take it to be.

.  Quite possibly this works as a metaphor for much of life, as much of our behavior is habitual, or in other words, it has been delegated by 'the mind', to run as an automatic routine, in the interests of efficiency.

.  When we learned to write, getting every letter right was a task. Now we don't even think about it, instead we think about what we want to write. So it seems, consciousness is not a unified process, that is equally distributed, so to speak.

.  Another example is the illusion that happens when we watch a movie, that is really nothing but a series of still images, yet we take it to be, a complete depiction of reality.
.  This is compounded, by the fact that movies are edited to make the action keep flowing, and all the boring parts, are (usually, or often) cut out. Yet the average movie goer becomes involved in emotions and is not conscious of the work done in the editing room.
.  This is even more obvious in comics and graphic novels, but the same thing happens in our own dreams.

.  So in summary, it seems to me that consciousness is not a unified process, that is equally distributed, so to speak, but is a complex of functions and narratives, that functions like the eye of a hurricane, to organize an organism, in a way that promotes survival, but does not really have any inherent reality, anymore than an 'I' does. But a sense of self is projected, just like an illusory avatar, to allow the game to have direction, for a while.
.  So it seems one could even say with some justification, that the function of consciousness, is to create the illusion, that a provisional self, is both (more) conscious, and more substantial than it is.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: RGV's Consciousness 101 Basics [Re: redgreenvines]
    #27452252 - 09/01/21 12:45 PM (2 years, 4 months ago)

So what is your conclusion RGV? Can AI become conscious?
I am not sure what your aim is.
It could be to explain how "it" arises.
Or it could be to explain what it is.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: RGV's Consciousness 101 Basics [Re: redgreenvines]
    #27452526 - 09/01/21 04:27 PM (2 years, 4 months ago)

Related to questions of consciousness, are these investigations, that could be considered relevant (ignoring both some interesting Buddhist views as well as considerations of biochemistry, madness, hypnosis, dreams, and psychedelics)

1)
"The  Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950,[2] is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human."....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

2)
theory of mind

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=theory+of+mind%2C+by+children&t=hx&va=g&ia=web

3)
Elisa the computer therapist
a very peculiar & interesting story, especially as it plays out over time as regards both the inventor and some later users

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elisa+computer+therapist&t=hx&va=g&ia=web

4)
mirror test, sometimes called the mark test, seems surprisingly, if memory serves, that some birds...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=mirror+test&t=hx&va=g&ia=web


5)
'Agency'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_%28psychology%29
and from the extensive bibliography
comes this complete article
6)
"Can a Self-Propelled Box Have a Goal?
Psychological Reasoning in 5-Month-Old Infants"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3351378/

7)
interface theory of consciousness
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=interface+theory+of+consciousness&t=hx&va=g&ia=web


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: RGV's Consciousness 101 Basics [Re: redgreenvines]
    #27452673 - 09/01/21 07:15 PM (2 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
I am not sure exactly why you bring up these disparate concepts.
...
I agree that infants engage in physical reasoning: They attempt to predict and interpret the outcomes of physical events, and they love to explore how they also can affect those outcomes.

....
The essence of what I am talking about is that facets of experience are being projected in sequences of pulses at the cerebral cortex from the thalamus,
this creates a wave energy movie of life that stimulates the hooking together of all activated cortical neurons in that frame of the movie.
When some of the same facets are later projected to the same set of neurons the rest of the  memory of the previous event is brought back to the conscious stream.

The wave activity in the cerebral cortex represents our body state and our mental contents as a continuously changing stream of consciousness.

I am interested in seeing how the tissues do that and the chart pretty much explains the questions I have about mind and consciousness, learning, memory, behavior etc.

Without the resonating fields [projected by the thalamus] (and the pyramidal neuron linkage of active cortical neurons) there could be no memory formation, without the memory there could be no perception, and without sensation and memory there would be nothing to perceive and nothing to perceive it as.




...If we disregard, those who imagine everything to be conscious, we are confining our discussion to people, and the human brain. In the case of humans, consciousness always occurs as a self or subject, both perceiving and remembering, and that which is perceived, which our grammar refers to as 'object' ; (as in: subject, verb, & object). Which seems to be an aspect you consider as well.
...Post Einstein, their is some sense that matter and energy are aspects of the same essence which can't be accurately defined as permanently one or the other.
...(In the case of light which is said to have momentum but not mass, it seems that this view can only make sense to mathematicians, who abandon words, in favor of numbers & equations).
...So it would seem to make sense to wonder, how precisely words can explain consciousness, and how exactly 'self' functions in relation to consciousness, and furthermore what the self is presumed to be, especially in relation to consciousness, as well as whether, either 'self' or 'consciousness" are stable entities, or separate entities.
...In the case of what appears to us as solid matter, we now know that around 90%  of matter, & atoms, is space, and that what keeps us from walking thru walls is not that either our bodies or walls are solid, but because of electromagnetic forces, of which we have no consciousness, and that further more solid stable matter is actually in motion due to both, heat energy, the nature of the electron clouds, and the motions of the earth, galaxy & so on.
.  The point being that the concepts we use to explain things, are only approximate generalities, that have only limited meanings within certain contexts.
.  As our perceptions are all very limited approximations, whose main function is a survival brief enough to allow genes to survive, for a generation; and the sense of self within a family & tribe, like wise serves a similar limited approximation, it would seem that consciousness being based on insubstantial temporary constellations & configurations of energy patterns, is itself likewise insubstantial and possibly abstract.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: RGV's Consciousness 101 Basics [Re: Moses_Davidson]
    #27455218 - 09/03/21 06:03 PM (2 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Moses_Davidson said:
Quote:

redgreenvines said:
interesting that you say "aware",
I used to agree with that, 'that awareness is a measure of consciousness', but have come to consider that consciousness or being conscious is the potential of awareness, of sensation, of perception and thought.





Differences in consciousness, awareness, and sentience could perhaps be deep enough subjects to be the topic of an entire thread.

A bee operates on a serotonin-based nervous system. It must feel like something to be a bee. Is a bee more conscious than a squirrel, and is a squirrel more conscious than a chimpanzee, and are we more conscious than a chimpanzee? Are some humans more conscious than others while awake? I would say if consciousness is a function of neural connections in the brain (as related to sensory input, perception, and memory via repetition), then a bee would have fewer neural connections, less perception, and less memory.

So consciousness could, theoretically, be quantified.




.    Note that you assume sort of generally, -  that the consciousness of a bee, squirrel, and a chimp etc. are stable, which seems to be where a neurological explanation also anchors itself.

.    If we backup and wonder a bit more about say, lucid dreaming it immediately appears that not only is 'consciousness' on a spectrum, but that it is dynamically variable, and that furthermore it seems in everyday life to be inextricably interlinked with self (what ever 'that' is). While within a lucid dream the assumption of what the self is, changes - while in a state related to REM sleep, the moment lucidity occurs !!

.    There are also a number of odd psychological conditions where dissociations of various sorts occur, which may raise more interesting questions.
.    For some examples see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization-derealization_disorder
or the writings of Oliver Sacks

.  Short of a Zen approach which is often just "preaching to the choir", this free pdf of Ajahn Sumedho's commentary on the subject, may provide some useful clarity on the matter,
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=intuitive-awareness.pdf&t=hx&va=g&ia=web
there is  a choice of links that have free downloads.


Edited by laughingdog (09/03/21 06:18 PM)


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: RGV's Consciousness 101 Basics [Re: redgreenvines]
    #27456107 - 09/04/21 02:58 PM (2 years, 4 months ago)

The post about Bees was by Moses_Davidson on 09/03/21 05:44, & not my self.

I will cease to make posts in your thread, that relate to the subjective nature of awareness/consciousness/experiencing. That was the common thread, uniting what you refer to as buckshot. That last post, by myself, was about Lucid dreaming, and not bees. In any case your intent is clearly not in that direction, so I will cease bringing up that aspect. In any case many others have already done so, particularly as it relates to meditation, as many are already aware.

:smile:


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: RGV's Consciousness 101 Basics [Re: Moses_Davidson] * 1
    #27466173 - 09/12/21 10:00 PM (2 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Moses_Davidson said:
... So it is feasible to me to believe that the spirit of a person is that breath of life of a person, and the resurrection is the bodily resurrection of that life and of that body, in another dimension... and that there could be nothing beyond our physical bodies in this dimension/universe.

Or maybe there is a ghost-like spirit within us. I've thought on this a lot, and have talked with many theologians on the subject. I still don't have enough information to make a confident decision on the subject.




.    Of course you have enough information. Even in this life our memories are nothing but a few highlights that we assume are accurate representations, of some hypothetical cohesive story. The idea of this going on eternally (way beyond trillions of years) is simply absurd and preposterous. And without memory ( and/or the unconscious memory of habit patterns) there is nothing to particularize a self.

.    Humans simply don't like contemplating their own insignificance, after all, almost everyone's mother told them, or treated them as if they were "the greatest thing since sliced bread", however our mom's were biased, after all they sacrificed much of their own lives to raise us.


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Re: RGV's Consciousness 101 Basics [Re: redgreenvines] * 1
    #27571435 - 12/06/21 02:02 PM (2 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
...
even a flat-worm has trainable reflexes without significant multisensory learning and consciousness. That is the type of complexity you will find in the ganglia.
...





Seems memory is not dependent brain structures or even ganglia. It would seem a complete theory of memory must account for this data linked below/;

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=conditioning+of+planaria+%2C+1955+Thompson+and+McConnell&t=h_&ia=web

“In 1955 Thompson and McConnell reported the conditioning of planaria (flatworms). Weak electric shock causes the planaria to contract their bodies. When the shock was paired with a light, the planaria eventually learned to contract to the light alone. (This is a form of respondent conditioning to be discussed in Chapter 5.)

Later McConnell (1962), using the planaria, began the controversial memory transfer experiments. These experiments involve training one animal on a specific task and then seeing if the animal’s memory of this task can be biochemically transferred to some extent to another animal.

McConnell began by conditioning some planaria to contract to light. These planaria, called donors, were then chopped into small pieces and fed to untrained cannibal planaria, the recipients. Control recipients were fed untrained donors. All recipients then were conditioned to contact to the light.

The recipients that ate trained donors learned faster than recipients that ate untrained donors, making more correct responses from the first day of conditioning. This suggested to McConnell that perhaps some of the memory of the donor was biochemically transferred to the receiver. It appeared that RNA might be the molecule responsible for the transfer.”

also we do not yet have complete, peer reviewed, replicated, data on how:
'Butterflies Remember What They Learned as Caterpillars',
depending on what nervous system tissues survive metamorphosis,
it may prove relevant, as well, to your concerns.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/
https://www.wired.com/2008/03/butterflies-rem/
etc.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: RGV's Consciousness 101 Basics [Re: redgreenvines] * 1
    #27571642 - 12/06/21 05:04 PM (2 years, 1 month ago)

A web search for: "recent research on memory with planaria & butterflies"

yields this:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=recent+research+on+memory+with+planaria+%26+butterflies&t=h_&ia=web

not sure if it clarifies anything, but its been a long time since 1955 & 1962

and likewise:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=recent+research+on+memory+with+Caterpillars%2C+moths%2C+%26+butterflies&t=h_&ia=web


Edited by laughingdog (12/06/21 05:07 PM)


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Re: RGV's Consciousness 101 Basics [Re: BrendanFlock] * 1
    #27589039 - 12/21/21 02:04 AM (2 years, 1 month ago)

Sounds like you felt for a moment that you had really grasped something, that might be held onto.

Seems at times, I liked a slightly different flavor,
which some geniuses encapsulated long ago, as:
"And this too shall pass."
and
"I had a great insight into impermanence, but I forgot what it was."

But these sentences maybe too simple for your taste;
seems some like rather more complex flavors,
that seem graspable, & worth enthroning.


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