it senses the presence of nourishment and consumes i — Relativist
This reflects biochemical reaction, — Relativist
More complex life-forms have more sophisticated sensory apparatus that enable more effective interaction with the environments — Relativist
exactly - it senses the presence of something and reacts appropriately. How do you sense without consciousness? — Pop
How do you sense without consciousness? — Pop
Chemical stimuli.exactly - it senses the presence of something and reacts appropriately. How do you sense without consciousness? — Pop
Consciousness is a vague term, aside from the fact that it reflects an aspect of human existence. It surely didn't "pop" into existence. Brains process input from sensory organs and through the nervous system, much of it autonomically. Consider a human body in a persistent vegitative state ("brain-dead") - incapable of consciousness. At least some autonomic brain function continues - and this function entails integrating input from the nervous system and reacting to it. Similarly, consciousness entails the integration of input - input from senses (e.g. the visual cortext processing visual input; auditory complex processing auditory input), plus memories - and integrating these. The brains of all complex animals engage in this integrative function. I think it's a stretch to call it "consciousness" at every step of the way - but at any rate, you'd need define exactly what you mean my the term - specify specific functionality.This is true but they all started with a simple consciousness, which evolved.Or are you saying consciousness is something that just pops into existence? — Pop
Let's say you go on to donate blood. Your blood is then packed with appropriate preservatives and stored until needed or till the cells degenerate. The RBCs and WBCs present in the pack of the blood sense their immediate environment and reacts to maintain their internal homeostasis as long as they can (about a month for RBCs). Will you consider this pack of blood to be conscious? — debd
How does a computer sense when I hit the space bar? — Kenosha Kid
exactly - it senses the presence of something and reacts appropriately. How do you sense without consciousness?
— Pop
Chemical stimuli. — Relativist
The brains of all complex animals engage in this integrative function. I think it's a stretch to call it "consciousness" at every step of the way - but at any rate, you'd need define exactly what you mean my the term - specify specific functionality. — Relativist
Red blood cells are the only human cells that lack DNA, so not conscious . White blood cells however are a whole different story. They act independently in the body chasing down pathogens via a process of gradient tracking, as per this video: — Pop
it cannot choose whether or not to follow the gradient. — debd
Apparently we can choose not to follow a gradient. — debd
What are the predictions of your theory? — Francis
It that 'sensing'? Do you think there is an experiencer in the computer? At what point does cause and effect become sensing on the effected substance/object/thing/life form? Rocks when hit by other rocks. IOW there are chains of causes and effects, sometimes very simple, sometimes complicated. Do all of these involve sensing?How do you sense without consciousness?
— Pop
How does a computer sense when I hit the space bar? — Kenosha Kid
I've always believed emotions are a digest, or quick summary of the mind's state that alerts the consciousness. — Philosophim
Philosophies time in the sun on matters of mind is outdated and quickly becoming obsolete as we learn more. — Philosophim
Its happens one tiny small change at a time, similar to how evolution in general works. It does not simply leap from one system to another. After a large number of small changes, that build onto one another, big changes start to emerge."but I can't see how a system can emerge and displace the already existing system of self organization" — pop
What's interesting is that it is easy to theoretically develop an organism that has a system built into its brain where it will move away from things which damage it, and move towards things which advantage it (lets say give it energy, such as food.) You do not need phenomenal experiences of pain and pleasure to perform this task at all. — Francis
For some reason, evolution found it better to do it with phenomenal experiences within humans and other mammals. I have my own theory — Francis
My greatest frustration is articulating the ideas, and finding a balance between sufficient explanation and wide accessibility, which I don't feel i've achieved. I have condensed 90 pages into 9, and lost a lot of detail in the process which must make it sound a little glib and simple. — Pop
I will take another look at Lisa Fieldman Barrett, as you suggest, and see if I can interpret her understanding from my model. Thanks again. — Pop
Value spectrums such as affect (pleasure/pain), morality (right/wrong) or light (black/white) described in these binaries create false dichotomies that suggest little more than a linear complexity to the relation. — Possibility
Inanimate matter falls to zero point energy, whilst life resists zero point energy. In death we fall to zero point energy. This resistance to zero point energy is uniform amongst living creatures. Given genetic information leads to life, it means DNA contains this common bit of information. The information is to resist zero point energy - live and do not die. This seems to be the first bit of information in DNA. Compare this to the Death Pain / pleasure Life spectrum. — Pop
There is no way to evaluate two unrelated experiences other then as values on a common measure for qualitative information. Qualitative information is essential for reality orientation. Each experience is self contained, experienced only once, so unique and unrelated, To ascertain its quality we must compare it to other experiences, and the only way to do this is by assigning the experience a value on the PPS. Once the experience has a value, we can compare the experience to other experiences. From this process we orient ourselves in reality, via an emotional gradient.
A PPS value grounds us in reality by telling us whether the experience is ordinary or extraordinary, painful or pleasurable. Reason alone cannot do this – every moment would require a theory of the moment to resolve - can you imagine comparing every moment to every other moment in life reasonably? I don't think we would have the computational power to do so even once, let alone all the time. — Pop
also : Having faith in this construction, I realized that the qualia of a moment could not be stored in memory. We cannot recall an emotion any more then we can describe an emotion. We must recall the memory that gave rise to the emotion, and experience the emotion on the PPS afresh every time. Which is interesting - as this way the memory and associated emotion would likely be different, as present circumstances add their qualia to the moment of recollection. When I introspect and recall my first heartbreak and this time smile, this would seem to be true.
This view prejudiced my willingness to explore what Lisa Fieldman Barrett had to offer as she speaks of emotions being made by brains. I will check her out, but if you agree with the above statements, then you will understand that brains are not handling emotions - the emotions are being felt body wide via values resolved to a death / pain / pleasure / life spectrum - an emotional gradient. — Pop
Of course the PPS may well reside in the brain, but note how there are two languages of consciousness - Reason and emotion, they are not miscible. They are not languages that belong to one system. A computer could not work with two different languages unless there was something in between to translate the languages
Why would one system have two languages? It doesn't make sense. It makes sense that there are two systems each with their own language. A brain based extracellular consciousness using reason and a biological intracellular consciousness using emotion. With a PPS translating in between - this makes sense, to me at least. :lol: — Pop
If you are saying here that all inanimate matter falls to zero point energy without resistance, then we may struggle to reach an understanding. — Possibility
Yes - I am only interested in the matter that jumps to life.The way I see it, your death pain / pleasure life spectrum is just a small part of this — Possibility
I agree that each experience is unique, but NOT that each is unrelated nor self-contained. It is only possible to isolate an experience as a conceptual structure in the mind. — Possibility
Barrett’s theory of emotions might surprise you. The body feels not emotion but affect - the brain processes this affect through the conceptual systems as an emotion concept by recognising interoceptive patterns from previous experiences — Possibility
summarised efficiently in the interoceptive network — Possibility
Yes, I will have to rephrase this. I was really referring to a low energy state - the boundary of life and death. Classical mechanics has no such theory. Ground state is inadequate. Zero point energy is good, but then people focus on quantum rather then classical matter - which is understandable.
The way I see it, your death pain / pleasure life spectrum is just a small part of this
— Possibility
Yes - I am only interested in the matter that jumps to life. — Pop
The problem that reason has with emotion is that it can not describe it. If the interoceptive network processes emotions then emotions would be describable by reason - they can not be. they must be experienced and their effect felt. - body wide. The other problem is that the end construction must be self interested - ie pleasurable. The interoceptive network is primed to construct self interested constructions because in the end they resolve to a pain / pleasure spectrum - in my view. — Pop
What gets forgotten here is that it is cellular complexity that has created all this stuff. It doesn't seem to use a reasonable means of self organistion - it had no brain. Through evolution it created a brain to facilitate the triangulation and mechanics necessary for hearing and eyesight, etc and subsequently reason grew. But the whole extracellular / brain system has to slot into the underlying biological system somehow, and inform the underlying system in terms it understands. What I postulate creates a model that dose this. — Pop
From the perspectives that you have characterized, the hard problem of consciousness can not be solved. For this reason the paradigm is likely false. — Pop
The beauty of my theory is that it is easily provable, or negated by the end user. In the OP is an instance of consciousness. I am postulating this is the state of consciousness roughly at all times - sometimes the information source is memory rather then external. There are many other things going on of course, and the mechanics of it are exceedingly complex, and as you point out, but essentially this is what is happening. The related qualia articulation, I take to be a sort of logic. I think everybody has the ability to introspect and reflect on this. Thus prove or negate the theory.
I don't expect many converts of course - it is a monism, and we are talking consciousness. But it is a viable contender, currently rough around the edges, but difficult to reasonably dismiss. Very easy to dismiss off hand as most people will, and as it predicts. — Pop
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