What is consciousness

[Gurdur]

I don't know how you could possibly say there is no connection between quantum events and consciousness. Show us an experiment that says consciousness is not related to quantum events Gurdur.

You seem not to have understood my comments.

But show me an experiment that explains consciousness by quantum events.

[Erasmus00]

Since consciousness is so badly understood as yet, it might well be worthy trying other approaches fully first to to explain the reiterative build-up of consciousness, rather than the pop approach of simply saying quantum, which explains nothing -- it's pure speculation and doesn't help at all.

 

Modeling the brain as a digital computer is a totally ad hoc assumption that doesn't really help at all either. It, in fact, misleads more than it helps. We know the brain doesn't operate anythings like digital computers do, but even today some cognitive psychologists start with that model.

 

And Penrose, at least, wasn't simply saying "quantum, that explains everything" he was just asserting his belief that an understanding of neural actions will probably require a quantum mechanical treatment. I agree with him, though its a long way off. What Penrose (and others) are trying to do is remove the often unspoken assumption that brains work like digital computers.

-Will

[CraigD]

... What Penrose (and others) are trying to do is remove the often unspoken assumption that brains work like digital computers.

-Will

Succinctly put. Hence the name of his book on the subject “The Emperors New Mind”, a reference to the fable of the emperor’s new cloths. He was inferring that all those clearly smart AI researchers are walking around naked, but everybody’s too doubtful of their understanding of the subject to say anything.

 

I think his message is now widely understood by serious students of AI. It’s had a long time – 7 years – to spread.

 

I also think he’s completely wrong about the role of quantum effects in the brain. Check out the Upload your mind into a computer by 2050? and Mental processing is continuous, not like a computer for more along these lines.

[Little Bang]

In my opinion Stern-Gerlack if you can understand it's significence without using a biased view of it.

[tarak]

Every living organism as a self sustaining system has evolved response mechanisms to internal and external stimuli and irritability.Based on the nature of the interaction the response manifests as a decision an individual entity takes in that existing background.Every living being according to its own complexity is wired up with neurons through ganglia and different kinds of associations, but I think the manner in which they are networked holds the key for the way consciousness manifests in them.Ofcourse

human consciousness stands on a different pedestal showcasing an evolutionarily radical event.

[Gurdur]

Modeling the brain as a digital computer is a totally ad hoc assumption that doesn't really help at all either. It, in fact, misleads more than it helps.

Since I agree with you, it's a good thing that I don't do that --- on the whole.

Modelling parts of the brain like a "digital" computer (*) actually helps understanding and gains results.

We know the brain doesn't operate anythings like digital computers do, but even today some cognitive psychologists start with that model.

Probably because it's the best model floating around as yet --- it models well the more simple circuits of the brain, and the simulations using neural nets and parallel processing do have some explanatory power and interesting results in and of themselves.

Whereas the quantum theory remains a speculation, not even a model as yet, and without any results.

What Penrose (and others) are trying to do is remove the often unspoken assumption that brains work like digital computers.

That was one of his aims, yet I disagree that was his only aim or primary aim.

____________

 

(*) In modelling fields of complex neural nets, evolutionary algorithms and the like, and when looking at how the brain works, including active amplifiers and consequent singnal production in even theoretically only-sugnal-receiving parts such as the cochlea, using the phrase "digital" computer may give the wrong impression of 1 vs. 0 binary dichotomies.

[emessay]

Consciousness Paradox :

 

How can 'WE' surviellence UNIVERSE 13.7 bya without :

 

1.EYES

2.EARS

3.NOSES

4.TONGUES

5.SKINS

 

and

 

i. NEURONS

ii. BLOODS

iii. OXYGEN

[emessay]

Consciousness Paradox :

 

How can 'WE' surviellence UNIVERSE 13.7 bya without :

 

1.EYES

2.EARS

3.NOSES

4.TONGUES

5.SKINS

 

and

 

i. NEURONS

ii. BLOODS

iii. OXYGEN

 

or how can 'WE' start to surviellence UNIVERSE from 'a virus-like' [DNA/RNA] 3.8 - 4.5 billion years ago and now we believe it as evolution mechanism ??

 

Note : 'WE' = possibly 'a nothingness-like'

[geokker]

I think an excellent approach to the concept of human consciousness is to examine the reasons for such (perceived) complexity of thought in a purely physiological context.

 

Throw away the notion that consciousness is anything other than a kind of extended phenotype. We are machines, and we came about through natural selection. If we find an impenetrable wall - then we can start down the supernatural path.

[jerryo]

The human brain has billions and billions of neurons and each one is connected to every other cell in a humans body. All of these cells make a conscious human being and every cell is an entity unto it’s self. By that I mean that each cell can make it’s own conscious decisions about stimulus in it’s own environment. Most people would argue that an amoeba is not a conscious entity but that is not true because it makes decisions based on stimulus in it’s environment just like we do.

The total number of cells in an entity can not be the determining factor in the interaction of a consciousness with it’s reality because an elephant obviously has more total cells than a human but it’s interaction with reality is far below the complexity of man. You might then think that the total number of neurons might be the reason for this complexity but that can’t be true because there are a few animals that have as many as we do, although the more neurons an animal has the more complex it’s interaction with reality. It might be a combination of factors and one thing that must be looked at would be the way humans communicate abstract ideas.

 

Fluids Combine and 'I am' appears...the human brian is an echo chamber of aquired memory

[MEL555]

:)

First, i dont know anything.

i must return from a very strange

state to post here.

 

i sit in my favorite chair looking at a table.

i will not use scientist lingo. They have no choice.

That's how that works.

 

i am not a scientist. i am an ordinary bubba.

 

i look at the table and discover that if

the table suddenly does not exist, neither does my body(avoiding the I AM stuff)

That "my looking collapses the wave form" is just scientist lingo.

My existence and the table are not two separate things.

 

i dont know what i just saw.

i dont know what i just said.

i dont know anything.

Good night.

:)

[MEL555]

i couldn't resist...

 

So, if i really don't know anything,

isn't consciousness just an idea?

 

The not-knowing is that state

when i am just looking.

 

And, there is no one there looking.

And, i am just rearranging words and repeating here.

:) :D :D :D

Are we ok so far? ho ho ho

:D :)

[Little Bang]

Can anyone think of a test that would prove an event had occurred even though no one had observed the event. That would be pretty hard to do because you could always claim that the event didn't occur until someone went to check the test. The record of the event is what makes it real. If I had two friends, we'll say Jim and Bob, and they were digging two shafts straight down separated by ten feet. I had rigged a pulley system that would raise and lower a basket into each shaft at the same time. Thier down about thirty feet and they yell up to me that they want a cold Seven-Up. I yell back that I only have one Seven-Up and one Coke, so I will close my eyes reach into the cooler take the two drinks and put one in each basket and then lower the baskets without knowing who gets what. Now in my case the two events are a superposition ( a mix of the two possibilities ). Jim, as soon as he records in his memory that he got the coke, instantaneously records that Bob got the Seven-Up without ever receiving any information from Bob. Now you could say that Jim proved that an event occurred to Bob without any information, but that is not strictly true because something could have happened to the pulley in Bob's shaft and Bob didn't get anything.

[bartock]

so jim is guessing what bob got?

jim is using logic and assuming that bob got the 7up.

[Little Bang]

I don't know, you bring up a good point. If Jim really believes that Bob got the 7up the event happened (?)

[bartock]

I don't know, you bring up a good point. If Jim really believes that Bob got the 7up the event happened (?)

far from reality,in jim's mind the event happened.

[Qfwfq]

Now in my case the two events are a superposition ( a mix of the two possibilities ).

I disagree. The system could hardly be in a coherent linear superposition of the two possibilities.