I've taken a lot of psychedelics, and I don't think it's at all similar to dreaming. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is not what I was saying. I said that the similarities are in how it disconnects or scramble the verification process in the brain. Making the brain trying to predict something it does not get a verification to ground the predictions into an easily navigational space.

I can agree that this prediction process, is an important aspect of consciousness, but I do not really agree with the verification aspect you are suggesting. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's part of predictive coding theory which is the current dominant theory in the science of consciousness. If you don't agree, you need to provide something else that explains how the predictions are structured into a consistent experience.

I think you have this reversed, the predictions require sense perception as the basis of the prediction, what the prediction is derived from. To know what comes next requires sensing what just happened. Therefore, when sense perception is not there, in the dream, predictions simply cannot be made. This implies that what is produced in the dream state is something other than predictions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Why are you concluding it to be something else rather than unbound predictions based on the flow of memories? As I mentioned, in predictive coding, it's already stated that our sensory data grounds the predictive process, so you're simply wrong against the dominating theory. The basis of prediction is not sensory perception, it's the long term memory forming a predictive model of reality around us and using sensory perception to ground those predictions into a coherent experience of time and space. Short term memory is a form of RAM memory bridge that is constantly feeding experiences into long term memory to restructure it for better predictions. This process is energy intensive and sleep is a consolidation process where we essentially flush our RAM and organize the chaotic experience into a solid long term structure. This is why sleep deprivation leads to similar hallucinations and problems similar to taking drugs and alcohol.

It goes like this: Long term memory draws from previous memorized experiences to predict a construct model of reality - This construct is tested against the sum experience of sensory perception in our short term memory - The verified experience is stored in a temporal sequence in our short term memory - This sequence restructure and change the long term memory's "biases" and "weights" for the prediction model, and the process repeats.

This cycle is how we experience consistent reality. But the process is energy intensive and our short term memory is always operating in an "interfered mode" while we're awake, balancing the real-time processing and feeding long term memory sequences. When we sleep we decouple the verification from our sense perception and let the short term memory focus on streaming the sequences to long term memory formation. It's basically an optimized phase for neuroplasticity in order to update the prediction capabilities more broadly.

If we don't sleep we're constantly operating on this lower state ability to restructure long term memory and eventually are unable to construct a reliable model of reality around us, leading to hallucinations.

When we dream, it's our experience of this stream of sequences being consolidated into a restructuring of our predictive model. We experience our brain trying to predict reality based on the stream of sequences from our short term memory, but there's no sensory perception to ground that stream of experiences that's flushed out of our short term memory. So it predicts without solid footing and we experience this interplay between old and new memories as they're being consolidated into long term memories to later be used for future predictions when we wake up.

In a dream, all of the so-called "conditions" are created by the dreaming mind. Therefore it is the brain generating the conditions directly, and the person dreaming believes them regardless of how scrambled they are. Verification is irrelevant, unless perhaps the person is lucid dreaming and has purposedly forced the desire for verification to become part of the dream. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is this "dreaming mind"? You're not describing an actual process here, just referring to some elusive conjecture called "the dreaming mind".

The reason we "believe" in the dream experience is the same reason why people believe in the hallucinations at a certain point using psychedelics. Psychosis is an intense such state where the one taking drugs fully believes in what is happening and getting an emotional reaction to it. We believe the dream experience because the verification process has nothing to do with verifying our awareness, it has to do with verifying the prediction.

Our awareness of what is real and what is not has nothing to do with the prediction and verification process. There's nothing that answers that the experience is truly real. If the verification process is scrambled or decoupled and we just experience the stream of disjointed experiences as our brain change neural structure, that becomes an experience as real as anything else.

We essentially believe what the sum of the process provides us. If we have verification of our prediction through sense perception, we believe this to be real. If we dream and the sense perception verification isn't there, we still believe in the sum of that experience.

The reason why drugs don't directly get us into a psychosis is because we've balanced the right amount to exist on the edge in which our predictions essentially predict the state of intoxication. We're predicting our experience of intoxication. But at a certain point, the amount of drugs we have in us disjoints the normal processing so much that our experience is altered by this scrambling of interplay between long term memory, short term memory and sense perception.

If going too far, we enter a state of psychosis in which we essentially dream while being awake and the experience can be so extreme that it scrambles what short term memory feeds into long term memory so much that we destroy our ability to predict correctly. It's what happens when someone gets a psychosis and never recovers from it, they essentially scrambled their prediction ability by restructuring their long term memory into a scrambled mess, which when trying to predict, does so in a way so far from what their sense perception feeds them that the process never aligns and sync up.

You are neglecting the fact that a stream of sensory data is required to produce a prediction in the first place. And this is not available to the dreamer. Therefore the dream does not consist of predictions. — Metaphysician Undercover

If your read what I'm saying, that's what I'm saying. Even though you're a bit off on the role of the sensory data (the sum experience of interplay between long term memory predictions and sensory data verifying it - is the thing that feeds the long term memory with alterations for how to predict the next moment), the concept is that without the sensory data to ground the prediction model, it can only use the short term memory's stored sequences from the last awaken state as its verification, which scrambles the experience as it's not raw data constantly grounding the predictions.

The only reason you can experience a changing experience, the sense of time in your dreams is if the brain operate its predictions. We cannot experience anything without predictions as its what produces our experience of time moving forward.

Although, an alternative interpretation could be that the time we experience in dreams is that of the processing of short term memory into long term memory - Essentially like having a solid block of both spatial and temporal data that when moved into long term memory forms an experience of time through that process. But this wouldn't really account for the behavior of dreams combining experiences of both present day and long term stored memories. That there's an interplay between new experiences we just had and memories we might consciously have forgotten about. The interplay between them is the brain looking for connections, neural paths that combine into a solid prediction before the next day.

As explained above, dreams are not predictions, and verification is irrelevant. So I think the rest of your post is derived from false premises. — Metaphysician Undercover

You essentially counter-argue with the same conclusion I've already made. Which implies you don't really understand what I'm talking about. And you're not really explaining anything, you're saying an opinion and then use that to form a conclusion. You need actual science and theories behind what you conclude, not just what you agree or don't agree with, otherwise it's just opiniated conjecture.

I think you need to read up on predictive coding and what that implies for this topic. Otherwise you're getting lost in what I'm talking about.

Here's a summery from wiki:

In neuroscience, predictive coding (also known as predictive processing) is a theory of brain function which postulates that the brain is constantly generating and updating a "mental model" of the environment. According to the theory, such a mental model is used to predict input signals from the senses that are then compared with the actual input signals from those senses. Predictive coding is member of a wider set of theories that follow the Bayesian brain hypothesis. — Wiki

Aren't the perceptual functions and imaginative functions pretty much the same though? — Metaphysician Undercover

Perceptions require external objects, and the state of consciousness. Imaginations can happen with no external objects in the real world. When imagination happens from past memories or subconsious desires with no consciousness (while asleep), they are dreams.

I think I explained this already. The conscious part of your mind must have the ability to cause the subconscious part to present things to it in a sensible, rational way, or else the subconscious would be doing it in a random way like when we dream. So it is the ability to think rationally, and in a more general sense the ability to stay awake, which is the conscious mind exercising causal power over the subconscious.

For instance, you say that what is learned is registered in the subconscious. Let's call this a memory, and we'll say that the subconscious has a whole lot of memories. When the conscious mind thinks in a rational way, it needs to recall memories from the subconscious which it uses in that activity. Therefore it must have causal power over the subconscious, to cause the subconscious to present these memories to it in a way which makes sense. If the conscious did not have causal power over the subconscious, the subconscious would be presenting things in a random way, like in a dream. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think that the conscious mind has such a causal power at all. The conscious mind owes all its experiences to the subconscious mind. It has very limited memory so-called working memory. It can only work on a very limited scope because it does not have access to the memories that are stored in the subconscious mind. It is also not necessary to have access to all memory when it comes to a topic that is the subject of focus. When the conscious mind focuses on a topic it requires the related knowledge of what is experienced in the past. This knowledge is registered in the subconscious mind's memory. The conscious mind does not have direct access to this memory and this memory is delivered to the conscious mind by the subconscious mind.

I consider "memorizing" to be an activity of the conscious mind, not the subconscious. It is a repetitive practise of recollection. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you have access to all your memory at once? Sure not. A specific memory just pops into your conscious mind and this is due to the subconscious mind delivering this memory to you. Anyhow I was commenting on people who have memories of their past lives. I was arguing that such memory is not stored in the brain since such individuals do not own the same body. So I don't understand how your comment is related to what I was arguing.

That is not what I was saying. I said that the similarities are in how it disconnects or scramble the verification process in the brain. Making the brain trying to predict something it does not get a verification to ground the predictions into an easily navigational space. — Christoffer

I explained to you why "verification" is irrelevant.

It's part of predictive coding theory which is the current dominant theory in the science of consciousness. If you don't agree, you need to provide something else that explains how the predictions are structured into a consistent experience. — Christoffer

No, I do not have to provide something else. I demonstrated logically, from sound premises, why your "predictive coding theory" is false in its application to dreams. There is no need for me to provide an alternative. In fact, the reason for starting this thread, was to ask others for theories. I simply reject yours, for the reasons given.

Why are you concluding it to be something else rather than unbound predictions based on the flow of memories? As I mentioned, in predictive coding, it's already stated that our sensory data grounds the predictive process, so you're simply wrong against the dominating theory. — Christoffer

Unless there is something experienced as "the past", there is no grounds for any prediction of "the future". Anything predicted of the future must be derived from something already experienced of the past. When you say that predictions are based on the flow of memories you admit to this. So unless you provide another source for memories, you have not any principles to deny that prediction is based in, and requires sensation.

Short term memory is a form of RAM memory bridge that is constantly feeding experiences into long term memory to restructure it for better predictions. — Christoffer

You have provided no principles to support this speculation that the purpose of this "memory bridge" is "better predictions". You simply assume "prediction" as your principle, and you see that this "bridge" could produce better predictions, so you conclude therefore it's purpose is better predictions. That is not a valid conclusion.

When we dream, it's our experience of this stream of sequences being consolidated into a restructuring of our predictive model. We experience our brain trying to predict reality based on the stream of sequences from our short term memory, but there's no sensory perception to ground that stream of experiences that's flushed out of our short term memory. So it predicts without solid footing and we experience this interplay between old and new memories as they're being consolidated into long term memories to later be used for future predictions when we wake up. — Christoffer

This makes no sense at all. If there is no sensory perception then there is no short term memory. Therefore the "stream of sequences" within a dream, when there is no sensory perception, is not "from our short term memory". It's very clear, from what a dream actually is, often involving relations from the distant past, that a dream is not a "stream of sequences from our short term memory". And since it is clearly not short term memories involved in a dream, it is equally ridiculous to claim that a dream is some sort of predictive process.

What is this "dreaming mind"? You're not describing an actual process here, just referring to some elusive conjecture called "the dreaming mind". — Christoffer

The "dreaming mind" is a mind which is dreaming. Have you never actually had a dream before? If you have, then I'm sure you've experienced your mind to be dreaming, and you know exactly what I mean by "the dreaming mind".

Our awareness of what is real and what is not has nothing to do with the prediction and verification process. — Christoffer

Then why present me with this theory of prediction and verification, if it has no bearing on what is expressed in the op? Are you admitting that your prediction theory is irrelevant here?

If your read what I'm saying, that's what I'm saying. Even though you're a bit off on the role of the sensory data (the sum experience of interplay between long term memory predictions and sensory data verifying it - is the thing that feeds the long term memory with alterations for how to predict the next moment), the concept is that without the sensory data to ground the prediction model, it can only use the short term memory's stored sequences from the last awaken state as its verification, which scrambles the experience as it's not raw data constantly grounding the predictions. — Christoffer

This is clear evidence that your prediction model is incapable of accurately representing the reality of the situation. First, there is no separation between sensory data and short term memory, as. Sensory data is short term memory, as the thing sensed is in the past by the time sensation of it is recognized. So, without sensory data (short term memory) the mind must rely on long term memory. This is why dreams often consist of long ago acquaintances. Next, long term memory does not predict the next moment. That's nonsensical, the next moment must be predicted from the last moment, i.e. short term memory. Finally, when we visit long term memories we are reflecting, or trying to learn some general principles, we are not predicting. Predicting is when we apply such principles.

So the dreaming mind, which is drawing on the long term memory, because the short term is incapacitated by sleep, is not predicting at all. Let me present you with an example, my childhood recurring dream of falling. My dreams would progress through many stages, until they'd reach the point when I am falling. Then, with the "prediction" of hitting the ground, I would wake up instantaneously. Waking up was simultaneous with predicting. So we can see that there was no predicting within the dream itself, and the occurrence of prediction coincided with waking up, as being a feature of the mind in its awake condition, not its dreaming condition.

But this wouldn't really account for the behavior of dreams combining experiences of both present day and long term stored memories. That there's an interplay between new experiences we just had and memories we might consciously have forgotten about. The interplay between them is the brain looking for connections, neural paths that combine into a solid prediction before the next day. — Christoffer

I do not think that this is representative of common dreaming at all. My dreams practically never have present day experiences within them. They are almost always completely removed and distinct from what I was doing that day, having no relationship to that whatsoever.

You essentially counter-argue with the same conclusion I've already made. Which implies you don't really understand what I'm talking about. And you're not really explaining anything, you're saying an opinion and then use that to form a conclusion. You need actual science and theories behind what you conclude, not just what you agree or don't agree with, otherwise it's just opiniated conjecture. — Christoffer

Again, all I need to show is the evidence to support my premises, and logic, which demonstrates that your predictive coding theory is not applicable to dreams. Then I have a sound conclusion, and I need no science, or other theories, because I have sound premises and valid logic.

I think you need to read up on predictive coding and what that implies for this topic. Otherwise you're getting lost in what I'm talking about. — Christoffer

As I said last post, I have no problem recognizing the importance of prediction in the workings of the mind. However, for the reason explained, and the logical argument I presented, I believe that Predictive coding is not applicable to the dreaming mind (activity of a mind in the dreaming condition).

I think that what is misleading you is that predictive coding is somewhat applicable to a mind under the influence of hallucinogens, and you seem to think that hallucinating is the same as dreaming. This is why I was very quick to tell you that being under the influence of psychedelics is completely different from being asleep and dreaming.

I don't think that the conscious mind has such a causal power at all. The conscious mind owes all its experiences to the subconscious mind. — MoK

Then how would you account for the difference between awake experiences, and dream experiences? If each is the subconscious presenting experience to the conscious, in the exact same way, why is there a difference between the two? We can't simply say that the senses are active in one case, and inactive in the other, because we need to account for whatever it is which activates the senses. The senses do noy activate themselves. Nor does it appear like the subconscious activates the senses, or else they would be activated in dreams. But in most cases, when a sense is activated (a loud sound for instance), it coincides with waking up.

Then how would you account for the difference between awake experiences, and dream experiences? — Metaphysician Undercover

The difference is that when a person is awake, his conscious mind experiences a simulation of reality that is the result of sensory inputs -- he also experiences thoughts, feelings, etc., whereas when he is asleep, he only experiences a simulation constructed by the subconscious mind.

If each is the subconscious presenting experience to the conscious, in the exact same way, why is there a difference between the two? — Metaphysician Undercover

The difference between the two is that the conscious mind can only function properly when a person is awake, while the subconscious mind is always active. The conscious mind is also responsible for creating new thoughts based on what it perceives from the subconscious mind. These new thoughts then are registered in the subconscious mind's memory for further analysis in the future.

We can't simply say that the senses are active in one case, and inactive in the other, because we need to account for whatever it is which activates the senses. — Metaphysician Undercover

Correct.

The senses do not activate themselves. — Metaphysician Undercover

Becoming awake is partly due to senses (from Google): People wake up at a certain time in the morning primarily due to their "circadian rhythm," which is essentially the body's internal clock located in the brain's hypothalamus, that regulates sleep-wake cycles by releasing hormones like melatonin based on light exposure, causing us to feel sleepy at night and alert in the morning when light hits our eyes; essentially signaling the body to wake up.

Nor does it appear like the subconscious activates the senses, or else they would be activated in dreams. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I mentioned, the subconscious mind is always active otherwise it could not construct dreams.

But in most cases, when a sense is activated (a loud sound for instance), it coincides with waking up. — Metaphysician Undercover

Correct.

The difference is that when a person is awake, his conscious mind experiences a simulation of reality that is the result of sensory inputs -- he also experiences thoughts, feelings, etc., whereas when he is asleep, he only experiences a simulation constructed by the subconscious mind. — MoK

This does not address the problem. You said: "The conscious mind owes all its experiences to the subconscious mind". This implies that in both dreaming and awake, the consciousness "only experiences a simulation constructed by the subconscious mind".

Now you have simply asserted that in the awake condition the simulation is the result of sensory inputs, thoughts and feelings. But these are things experienced in the consciousness. And, you have in no way answered my question, which was how do you account for this difference. If the conscious mind owes all of its experiences to the subconscious, why, and how, would the subconscious be creating these two very distinct types of experience for the consciousness, the asleep experience, and the awake experience?

The difference between the two is that the conscious mind can only function properly when a person is awake, while the subconscious mind is always active. The conscious mind is also responsible for creating new thoughts based on what it perceives from the subconscious mind. These new thoughts then are registered in the subconscious mind's memory for further analysis in the future. — MoK

You are being inconsistent. If the consciousness owes all of its experience to the subconscious, as you claim, then it is inconsistent to say that the conscious mind can create something itself (new thoughts). And if we allow that the conscious mind has such a creative capacity, then we need principles to distinguish between what is created by the conscious and what is created by the subconscious. Without such principles, one could argue, as Cartesian skeptics do, that everything supposedly presented from the subconscious, along with sense data, are a creation of the conscious.

Becoming awake is partly due to senses (from Google): People wake up at a certain time in the morning primarily due to their "circadian rhythm," which is essentially the body's internal clock located in the brain's hypothalamus, that regulates sleep-wake cycles by releasing hormones like melatonin based on light exposure, causing us to feel sleepy at night and alert in the morning when light hits our eyes; essentially signaling the body to wake up. — MoK

I don't understand what you are saying. You explain the circadian rhythm as something completely independent from the senses, yet you claim that being awake is partly due to the senses.

As I mentioned, the subconscious mind is always active otherwise it could not construct dreams. — MoK

Again, this doesn't address the issue, which is the following. If the subconscious is always active, therefore always providing something for the consciousness, why would it at sometimes provide sense data, and at other times not? If things are as you say, that the subconscious is always in complete control over what the consciousness receives, and the consciousness has no causal influence over this, then how does the subconscious turn off and on the sense input, when it appears to be the opposite, because it is actually the consciousness which goes to sleep and wakes up? Since the consciousness is what goes to sleep and wakes up, it appears obvious that the consciousness itself turns off and on the sense data.

This does not address the problem. You said: "The conscious mind owes all its experiences to the subconscious mind". This implies that in both dreaming and awake, the consciousness "only experiences a simulation constructed by the subconscious mind". — Metaphysician Undercover

I should have said: The conscious mind owes most of its experiences to the subconscious mind". This is now an accurate statement.

Now you have simply asserted that in the awake condition the simulation is the result of sensory inputs, thoughts and feelings. But these are things experienced in the consciousness. And, you have in no way answered my question, which was how do you account for this difference. If the conscious mind owes all of its experiences to the subconscious, why, and how, would the subconscious be creating these two very distinct types of experience for the consciousness, the asleep experience, and the awake experience? — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know the purpose of dreams. There is however a collaboration between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind and that is necessary. The conscious mind is fast but it has access to its memory which is very limited. The conscious mind works on its memory and can produce a thought for example if that is possible. When the thought is produced as a result of the work of the conscious mind then there is nothing to work on anymore so the conscious mind stays silent unless it receives the new input from the subconscious mind.

You are being inconsistent. If the consciousness owes all of its experience to the subconscious, as you claim, then it is inconsistent to say that the conscious mind can create something itself (new thoughts). — Metaphysician Undercover

Correct. Please see my first comment and thanks for your comment.

And if we allow that the conscious mind has such a creative capacity, then we need principles to distinguish between what is created by the conscious and what is created by the subconscious. — Metaphysician Undercover

Correct. The conscious mind has the capacity to create thoughts when the person is awake. The subconscious mind can also create thought and it is intelligent as well but the most of thoughts are created by the conscious mind. The subconscious mind is intelligent because it knows what sort of input the conscious mind requires when the conscious mind focuses on a topic. The subconscious mind can create thoughts as well. It occurred to me on several occasions in my life that I was thinking about something very hard without reaching a conclusion. An idea then just popped up into my conscious mind when I was resting and the idea was very enlightening for what I was thinking. I think that such ideas are created by the subconscious mind.

Without such principles, one could argue, as Cartesian skeptics do, that everything supposedly presented from the subconscious, along with sense data, are a creation of the conscious. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think I have discussed the responsibilities of the conscious and subconscious mind to a good extent by now.

I don't understand what you are saying. You explain the circadian rhythm as something completely independent from the senses, yet you claim that being awake is partly due to the senses. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think it is both circadian rhythm and senses that are involved when we become awake.

Again, this doesn't address the issue, which is the following. If the subconscious is always active, therefore always providing something for the consciousness, why would it at sometimes provide sense data, and at other times not? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because the conscious mind needs to rest for a period of time, what we call sleeping.

If things are as you say, that the subconscious is always in complete control over what the consciousness receives, and the consciousness has no causal influence over this, then how does the subconscious turn off and on the sense input, when it appears to be the opposite, because it is actually the consciousness which goes to sleep and wakes up? — Metaphysician Undercover

The conscious mind has control over things, such as the creation of thoughts, decisions, etc. when the person is awake.

Since the consciousness is what goes to sleep and wakes up, it appears obvious that the consciousness itself turns off and on the sense data. — Metaphysician Undercover

The conscious mind does not receive any sense data when the person is asleep. It however receives hallucinations so-called dreams when the person is asleep. The situation is different when the person is awake.

I explained to you why "verification" is irrelevant. — Metaphysician Undercover

But you provide no support for that explanation. I'm referring to predictive coding which has experimental verification.

No, I do not have to provide something else. I demonstrated logically, from sound premises, why your "predictive coding theory" is false in its application to dreams. — Metaphysician Undercover

"My" predictive coding theory? Sorry, but if you're to reject an actual scientific theory that has experimental proof behind it, then I'm sorry, but you're not operating on a level enough for critical thinking around this subject.

If you are to object to it, provide references to other experimental data and theories that criticize it. There are some that do this, all thought today they're in a minority due to the experimental evidence backing predictive coding.

Unless there is something experienced as "the past", there is no grounds for any prediction of "the future". Anything predicted of the future must be derived from something already experienced of the past. When you say that predictions are based on the flow of memories you admit to this. So unless you provide another source for memories, you have not any principles to deny that prediction is based in, and requires sensation. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is just you being confused about what I'm talking about. It seems you're inventing some odd interpretation of what I wrote and try to argue against it.

Predictions are based on past experiences, that's what I'm saying, but these predictions are similar to generative computation in which the generated predictions are chaotic and filled with errors. Sense data grounds this and verifies it in real-time.

If you cared to engage with the actual science of predictive coding you would understand this, but you seem to ignore it.

You have provided no principles to support this speculation that the purpose of this "memory bridge" is "better predictions". You simply assume "prediction" as your principle, and you see that this "bridge" could produce better predictions, so you conclude therefore it's purpose is better predictions. That is not a valid conclusion. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's based on how memory consolidation operate within the framework of predictive coding.

What theories are you basing your arguments on? I see no references for your rejections and conclusions.

This makes no sense at all. If there is no sensory perception then there is no short term memory. — Metaphysician Undercover

Short term memory is not just a logic-gate, it's a RAM storage, it holds experiences in short term. If you shut off the flow of sensory data, it still holds experiences in memory until its flushed into long term memory based on biases rooted in emotional values around these experiences. Higher emotional values attached to certain experiences increases their importance to become solid neuro-pathways as long term memory.

The "dreaming mind" is a mind which is dreaming. Have you never actually had a dream before? If you have, then I'm sure you've experienced your mind to be dreaming, and you know exactly what I mean by "the dreaming mind". — Metaphysician Undercover

No, you are using "the dreaming mind" as a elemental object in your rhetoric as if it was an object in support of your conclusions. The "dreaming mind" means nothing without the facts on how it operates and function and why we dream in the first place. I'm speaking of the mechanics behind it, which then informs the reason why we experience the belief in our dreams as they happen. You can't just say "the dreaming mind" as some illusive part of your argument and ignore the reasons why we dream.

Then why present me with this theory of prediction and verification, if it has no bearing on what is expressed in the op? Are you admitting that your prediction theory is irrelevant here? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because it is part of understanding why it happens. When sensory verification gets cut off, people still believe the reality that is scrambled in their experience. Because there's no other system in the mind that operates as a form of separate perception of the experience able to deduce its validity or not, it's a holistic system in which the distortion of reality and the belief in that reality depends on how well the whole system is able to operate. A gradual process that at a certain point of distortion, distorts the whole process and in turn the ability to discern what's real and what's not based on our experience of verified reality.

It's hard to explain this when you seem to get lost in even the most basic explanation.

This is clear evidence that your prediction model is incapable of accurately representing the reality of the situation. — Metaphysician Undercover

For the second time, it's not "my" theory, it's a scientific theory with experimental evidence. Look it up before getting more confused about this. If you ignore engaging with the actual science on this subject, there's no point in arguing anymore as you're stuck in a bubble of your own thinking and biases.

First, there is no separation between sensory data and short term memory, as. Sensory data is short term memory, as the thing sensed is in the past by the time sensation of it is recognized. — Metaphysician Undercover

Why are you interpreting things like this? I never said there's some separation or that short term memory doesn't store sense data. But it stores not just sense data, it stores the experience of sense data verifying the predicted reality by the brain, it's the sum that's being stored.

I don't know why you don't understand this and then believe it's an objection to past "things" stored in short term memory? You seem to get confused and then construct some weird strawman that you then argues against. It's not even a simplistic interpretation of what I'm saying, it's just a confused scramble of my argument. It's weird.

So, without sensory data (short term memory) the mind must rely on long term memory. — Metaphysician Undercover

No... ugh...

Short term memory stores the sum experience in the short term, which is then consolidated (Memory consolidation) into long term memory which is the sum of all our experiences using biases as "weights" for predicting reality. While this process is constantly happening, it's when we sleep that we consolidate and flush our short term memory and produce stronger neurological pathways.

The brain does not operate well in plasticity when we are awake due to how much energy is used for navigating reality. When we sleep is when plasticity is working optimally.

Predictive operation happens through the interplay between short term memory, long term memory and sense verification. Cutting out one of these out or distort it, will scramble the entire process, making the experience jarring for us, as we experience in hallucinations and dreams.

I can even argue that the reason we even experience dreams may be because the brain is testing the emotional response of the information in order to figure out the bias value of its importance before storing it in long term memory.

This is why dreams often consist of long ago acquaintances. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, what you experience is the brain attaching new experiences to older ones through neuro-pathways. Your recent experiences require context to be stored as comprehensive information in the long term memory and for the predictions to function correctly. These things develop from when we were born. As infants, they can't recognize objects in the same way as older children. Because they're developing this pool of information that is used to predict moments in time and for the brain to interpret experiences correctly. As their brains develop, the neuro-pathways forms into better and better predictive models until they start to operate on an advanced ability to predict.

It's why infants believe their parents are gone when they hold their hands in front of their faces. They are still unable to predict the outcome of the disappearing parent. They cannot predict the parent being behind an object (hands) and they can't predict that when the hands are moved away, they will see their parent again.

And as this process is constantly changing our brain, it goes fast, exponential, experiences in long term memory gets more and more complicated and the ability to navigate reality and perform complex tasks increase with time. After a few years, we're highly advanced in this regard, to the point we have problems quantifying how it all works. Which is why the brain and mind is such a hard subject to study. It's not just how the object operate at the moment, it's how it developed that informs the totality of its operation.

Finally, when we visit long term memories we are reflecting, or trying to learn some general principles, we are not predicting. Predicting is when we apply such principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are thinking about yourself as being attached from your own mechanics and functions. There's no "we" who visit long term memories. There's no agency in these processes that is attached, the process is us.

This is the problem with people who don't understand the neuroscience of the brain and mind, and the psychology of it. You believe these functions are some separate part of your mind in which your "identity" interact with it. It's what I refer to as the "arrogance of man", in which we as humans constantly elevates our own perspective and existence above everything else before judging or evaluating it. It's the reason why people become religious through the reasoning that we humans are somehow separate from nature and the universe, something higher and above it all. It's an arrogant perspective that ignores the simple truth that ALL science about us constantly verifies... that we're the products of reality and nature and can only operate as part of this system.

You do not visit long term memory. It's not a damn book store.

So the dreaming mind, which is drawing on the long term memory, because the short term is incapacitated by sleep — Metaphysician Undercover

Wrong, memory consolidation and the processes of the mind are proven to be "on" even when we sleep. You are denying the science here, making shit up to support your own ideas.

It's even written as the first sentence on the general page about sleep itself:

It has been widely accepted that sleep must support the formation of long-term memory, and generally increasing previous learning and experiences recalls. — Wiki

And since the consolidation process is the process of short term memory going into long term memory, how can you say that short term memory is "off". Like, what more sources and support for what I say do you need before accepting it?

Let me present you with an example, my childhood recurring dream of falling. — Metaphysician Undercover

Anecdotal evidence... jeez, philosophy 101. Your experience is not evidence and proof of what you say.

My dreams would progress through many stages, until they'd reach the point when I am falling. Then, with the "prediction" of hitting the ground, I would wake up instantaneously. Waking up was simultaneous with predicting. So we can see that there was no predicting within the dream itself, and the occurrence of prediction coincided with waking up, as being a feature of the mind in its awake condition, not its dreaming condition. — Metaphysician Undercover

Predictive coding at its core is not about you "consciously" predicting anything. What does this have to do with predictive coding? You're just confused. I recommend you read up on what you're arguing against before making up odd interpretations of what the prediction aspect is about.

And you're still placing yourself in detachement from the functions that make up the "you".

I do not think that this is representative of common dreaming at all. My dreams practically never have present day experiences within them. They are almost always completely removed and distinct from what I was doing that day, having no relationship to that whatsoever. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's not how it works. And you're still using your own dreams as anecdotal evidence. Come on!

People barely remember all their dreams, or all aspects of them. They're an unclear mess in which some aspects are remembered more than others. The problem with your anecdotal evidence experience of your own dreams is that the process merge recent and old memories. It can be visually a memory of the distant past, but the situation is linked to what recently happened. But the problem here is that you use your own interpretation of your own memories as a foundation for an entire conclusion about how the mind works.

Why don't you read up on actual sleep science and neuroscience instead? You can't use just yourself and your experiences to form a conclusion, that's like the most basic type of failure of philosophical reasoning.

However, for the reason explained, and the logical argument I presented — Metaphysician Undercover

No, you have not presented a logical conclusion. You have no scientific sources, you have not even addressed the most basic science on sleep and how the mind works. You use anecdotal evidence and circular reasoning in which you make a line of assumptions to fit your conclusion.

That's not even close to logical reasoning.

I believe that Predictive coding is not applicable to the dreaming mind (activity of a mind in the dreaming condition). — Metaphysician Undercover

Your belief is irrelevant when the science says otherwise. And your belief is not enough for a conclusion, it's just you demanding that others accept your fantasy concept based on your personal anecdotal experience of dreaming. This is not philosophy or science, it's just nonsense.

I think that what is misleading you is that predictive coding is somewhat applicable to a mind under the influence of hallucinogens, and you seem to think that hallucinating is the same as dreaming. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, as I repeatably have been saying, hallucinations and being under the influence, inflicts a disruption to the interplay in predictive coding, primarily sense perception verification, which makes our brain predicting unreliable and producing distortions to our experience. It is similar to how when we dream, there's also not a fully operating predictive coding function, which leads to the brain unable to predict the temporal experience of the process of memory consolidation as it sifts through it into long term memory.

You obviously don't seem to understand the basics of what I'm talking about here, which leads to you being confused about what is different between hallucinations when awake and dreams when asleep. It doesn't matter if I tell you over and over, if you don't understand the basic concept your don't understand what differs between the two and what is similar.


Fundamentally, you ignore the science behind all of this. My argument is based on memory consolidation, predictive coding and furthermore the Bayesian approach. All which are fundamental in the most up to date explanation of how the brain works. Drawing on these, forming a holistic theory of what happens when the chain of operation is disrupted, either through chemical psychedelics and when we sleep. Your argument, however, is based on wild speculations derived from anecdotal evidence that isn't even evidence for anything you conclude.

Case closed.

I should have said: The conscious mind owes most of its experiences to the subconscious mind". This is now an accurate statement. — MoK

Now, all you need to do is notice that the conscious mind has some causal power over the subconscious, and we'd be in agreement. From this agreement we could proceed to discuss the effect of this causal power, and the extent of it. Would you agree that what we call "will power" is an example of this causal power.

The subconscious mind is intelligent because it knows what sort of input the conscious mind requires when the conscious mind focuses on a topic. — MoK

How do you know that this is not just an automatic type of action, like a computer? Maybe the conscious indicates to the subconscious what to do, and the subconscious does it, like machine. You say that the conscious mind's access to memories is limited, and that's obvious from the fact that memory is not perfect, and degrades with time, but I think that this is generally a degradation of the subconscious part.

The subconscious mind can create thoughts as well. It occurred to me on several occasions in my life that I was thinking about something very hard without reaching a conclusion. — MoK

This is obvious, in dreams, and that is the point of the op. It is the subconscious which creates those thoughts. And we must call them "thoughts", because they are not memories, but imaginative fictional experiences. But what I was arguing, is that in these instances where the subconscious is "thinking", without being directed by the conscious, the thoughts are very random and not logically consistent.

But I do not agree that you could have been "thinking about something very hard" with only the subconscious part of your mind, because "very hard" implies conscious effort. And whether you reached a conclusion or not is irrelevant to whether you were thinking consciously or subconsciously.

The conscious mind does not receive any sense data when the person is asleep. It however receives hallucinations so-called dreams when the person is asleep. The situation is different when the person is awake. — MoK

Dreams are not hallucinations. The two are completely different because the hallucinating person is awake. There my be a blurred boundary between the two, such as when the hallucinating person passes out, or goes into a coma. Also, the lucid dreaming discussed earlier takes advantage of a similar blurred boundary between sleeping and being awake.

But you provide no support for that explanation. I'm referring to predictive coding which has experimental verification. — Christoffer

I provided you a very good argument demonstrating that dreaming cannot possibly be a predictive process. This leaves verification, which is related to predictive process, as totally irrelevant. That was my support.

"My" predictive coding theory? Sorry, but if you're to reject an actual scientific theory that has experimental proof behind it, then I'm sorry, but you're not operating on a level enough for critical thinking around this subject. — Christoffer

So-called "scientific theory" is rejected when it is not consistent with empirical evidence. That is the nature of one form of critical thinking.

If you are to object to it, provide references to other experimental data and theories that criticize it. There are some that do this, all thought today they're in a minority due to the experimental evidence backing predictive coding. — Christoffer

I've provided you the argument which eliminates the possibility that dreaming is a predictive process. To reiterate, a "prediction" consists of extending the immediate past into the future, to predict what will happen. Without any sense data there is no immediate past upon which to base a prediction for the future, therefore prediction is impossible. A dream is not a predictive process. "Predictive process" theory applies only to a brain which is actively sensing

Further, I provided personal evidence, of when I have dreamed about falling. In these dreams I awaken at the precise instance that prediction enters the experience. These dreams flow by, as experience at the present, with absolutely no predictive process, and when I start falling, the awakening is simultaneous with the prediction of hitting the ground. This clearly indicates to me, that prediction is a part of the awake mind, but not a part of the dreaming mind. That is my "experimental data".

Predictions are based on past experiences, that's what I'm saying, but these predictions are similar to generative computation in which the generated predictions are chaotic and filled with errors. Sense data grounds this and verifies it in real-time. — Christoffer

It seems that you have no rigorous criteria for what constitutes a "prediction". For you, a random generation would qualify as a prediction. And then instead of recognizing that a specific type of thinking is not a form of prediction at all, you look at that form of thinking which is not a form of prediction, as a prediction which is "chaotic and filled with errors". This is just sophistry, which allows you to include into a category, things which are not of that category at all, by saying that they are erroneous aspects of that category.

My "experimental data", explained above, demonstrates that prediction is actually excluded from the dreaming process. Whenever prediction attempts to infiltrate the dreaming process, the dreaming person is plunged into awakeness. This shows that the dream is not a prediction which is chaotic and filled with errors due to a lack of data from past experience. The dream actually consists of an exclusion of the predictive process. When prediction tries to force its way into the dream, the dreamer awakens.

And, when you look at the dream from the premise that thinking is fundamentally a predictive process, the dream appears to consist of predictions which are chaotic and filled with errors. But that's simply because the dream is not a predictive process, and the premise that thinking is fundamentally a predictive process is therefore proven to be false.

No, you are using "the dreaming mind" as a elemental object in your rhetoric as if it was an object in support of your conclusions. The "dreaming mind" means nothing without the facts on how it operates and function and why we dream in the first place. I'm speaking of the mechanics behind it, which then informs the reason why we experience the belief in our dreams as they happen. You can't just say "the dreaming mind" as some illusive part of your argument and ignore the reasons why we dream. — Christoffer

It is you who is making "the dreaming mind" into an elemental object, through your false premise. You premise that thinking is fundamentally a predictive process, and then you view all mental activity from this perspective. This gives you a significantly biased perspective.

Instead of viewing predictive capacity as a higher aspect proper only to a highly developed consciousness, with a highly developed intellectual capacity, you view predictive capacity as a fundamental aspect of any form of thinking. So when you look at the more base aspects of thinking, such as those demonstrated by dreaming, you improperly impose this highly developed aspect, predictive capacity, onto that base aspect, and conclude that the base aspect is carrying out the higher aspect to a lesser degree, which is chaotic and full of error. This robs you of the ability to properly understand the base capacity, for what it really is, and how it allowed for the development of the higher capacity, because all you can see is a lack of the higher capacity (chaotic and filled with errors), and you have no principles by which to understand what the base capacity really is.

Because it is part of understanding why it happens. When sensory verification gets cut off, people still believe the reality that is scrambled in their experience. Because there's no other system in the mind that operates as a form of separate perception of the experience able to deduce its validity or not, it's a holistic system in which the distortion of reality and the belief in that reality depends on how well the whole system is able to operate. A gradual process that at a certain point of distortion, distorts the whole process and in turn the ability to discern what's real and what's not based on our experience of verified reality.

It's hard to explain this when you seem to get lost in even the most basic explanation. — Christoffer

I agree that this is hard for you to explain to me. Your false premise makes "verification" irrelevant. So you'll never get through to me in this way. It's like you are saying that you can explain how the different shades of red are different degrees of sweetness, and you are going on about these different shades of sweetness, when I am insisting that your basic premise, "red is sweet" is false.

That's what I'm doing, I'm claiming that your basic premise "thinking is a predictive process" is false. So you'll never get through to me by talking about verification, because I've already excluded verification as irrelevant by denying your basic premise.

For the second time, it's not "my" theory, it's a scientific theory with experimental evidence. — Christoffer

It is your theory. You have adopted it, and support it. Therefore it is your theory, and it forms your bias, regardless of who invented it.

While this process is constantly happening, it's when we sleep that we consolidate and flush our short term memory and produce stronger neurological pathways. — Christoffer

OK, let's look at this. Would you agree, that when we sleep, and we "consolidate and flush our short term memory and produce stronger neurological pathways", that this is not a predictive process? If so, then why would you think that dreaming, which is also what occurs when we sleep, is a predictive process?

Predictive operation happens through the interplay between short term memory, long term memory and sense verification. Cutting out one of these out or distort it, will scramble the entire process, making the experience jarring for us, as we experience in hallucinations and dreams. — Christoffer

This is completely wrong, and misrepresentative. You are just making it up.

If "predictive operation" requires three aspects, and one of them is removed, then we no longer have "predictive operation". That is simple logic. If three parts are required to make a specific whole, and one is missing, then we do not have that specific whole. Taking one part out does not "scramble the entire process", it denies the possibility of that process.

You do not visit long term memory. It's not a damn book store. — Christoffer

It appears like you are so wrapped up in your pseudo-science, and deceptive false premises, that you do not even consider your own personal experiences, and how they would easily refute what you appear to believe. When I want to think about something which occurred years ago, I "visit long term memory", just like if it was a conveniently located book store.

Wrong, memory consolidation and the processes of the mind are proven to be "on" even when we sleep. You are denying the science here, making shit up to support your own ideas. — Christoffer

This demonstrates clearly what your problem is. You characterize "the processes of the mind" as fundamentally predictive, and you take this as a primary premise. Then you admit evidence which demonstrates that the mind is active even when we are asleep. But instead of admitting the evidence which demonstrates that the activity while asleep is not predictive, thereby disproving your primary premise, you wrongly assert that the activity while one is asleep is predictive.

Your experience is not evidence and proof of what you say. — Christoffer

If experience is not evidence then you are not doing science. This is more evidence that what you present is pseudo-science.

Predictive coding at its core is not about you "consciously" predicting anything. What does this have to do with predictive coding? You're just confused. I recommend you read up on what you're arguing against before making up odd interpretations of what the prediction aspect is about. — Christoffer

Why don't you read up on actual sleep science and neuroscience instead? — Christoffer

I think it's you who needs to read up on "predictive coding". You are wrongly applying the science of the neurological activity which depends on sense perception (awake), to the neurological activity which occurs without sense perception (asleep). This has gotten you totally confused.

Your belief is irrelevant when the science says otherwise. — Christoffer

Personal experience is irrelevant to you, because you are a pseudo-scientist. A true scientist knows that verification relies on experience.

No, as I repeatably have been saying, hallucinations and being under the influence, inflicts a disruption to the interplay in predictive coding, primarily sense perception verification, which makes our brain predicting unreliable and producing distortions to our experience. — Christoffer

Maybe we can get somewhere if you'll seriously consider this statement of yours. What do you think constitutes this "disruption"? Since predictive coding requires sense perception, difficulties in sense perception, evidenced as hallucinations, are responsible for the stated unreliability. Now, I ask you to remove all sense perception, like in the case of sleeping. Do you not see that there is no predictive coding at all? Therefore dreaming cannot be described by predictive coding theory.

Fundamentally, you ignore the science behind all of this. — Christoffer

What I ignore is the pseudo-science which you are professing.

Drawing on these, forming a holistic theory of what happens when the chain of operation is disrupted, either through chemical psychedelics and when we sleep. — Christoffer

I am waiting for you to respect the fact that when the disruption is complete, as in the case of sleeping, the operation, which is the predictive coding process, no longer occurs. Therefore we cannot apply predictive coding theory to the dreaming mind.

I provided you a very good argument demonstrating that dreaming cannot possibly be a predictive process. This leaves verification, which is related to predictive process, as totally irrelevant. That was my support. — Metaphysician Undercover

An argument needs support in evidence, otherwise an argument is just an opinion. It doesn't matter how logical it seems if its relying on conjecture as its support. It becomes a fallacy with you being biased towards your own conclusion. You believe you are right and therefore conclude yourself to be.

And this is the core problem with how you tackle this topic. You believe yourself to be in the right and therefore every answer following it just use that belief as its support, without you ever questioning your own logic as its entangled in that fallacy from the beginning.

You reject the actual science because it doesn't align with what you believe and therefore you believe that your own argument is more accurate than an argument based in the actual science. It's impossible to argue with someone who is so fundamentally entrenched in their own belief.

So-called "scientific theory" is rejected when it is not consistent with empirical evidence. That is the nature of one form of critical thinking. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, a scientific theory is a scientific fact. When new evidence is found to contradict it that doesn't mean its wrong, it means not all aspects of it is complete. It makes it an incomplete theory that requires additional parameters to explain it fully. The empirical evidence that proved the initial theory doesn't disappear just because new evidence demands a new perspective or further explanation.

Science isn't about theories being thrown in the trash can and replaced, science is a malleable shape that attempts to shape itself as close to reality as possible. Any new evidence slightly adjusts the shape to be better at predicting reality. Amateurs and non-scientists believe that science is about theories being thrown in trash cans and new ones built from scratch. That's not how science works.

And what empirical evidence do you have that rejects predictive coding? Your own beliefs again? Your own dreams? Your statement that your logic is sound, regardless of that logic being built upon your belief?

I've provided you the argument which eliminates the possibility that dreaming is a predictive process. — Metaphysician Undercover

No you didn't. You ignore the science and demand that I accept your argument as valid, without you actually having the support for a deductive conclusion.

This is the main problem, you just try to demand people to accept that you provided a logical argument, you haven't proven a single thing as you don't have anything from which your logic is built upon.

a "prediction" consists of extending the immediate past into the future, to predict what will happen. Without any sense data there is no immediate past upon which to base a prediction for the future, therefore prediction is impossible. A dream is not a predictive process. "Predictive process" theory applies only to a brain which is actively sensing — Metaphysician Undercover

You don't understand what predictive coding is and how it works. You invent your own interpretation of it and then argue against it. This is an "iron man fallacy", similar to strawman, but instead of intentionally distorting my argument, you simply don't understand what I'm talking about and starts to argue against your own misinterpretation.

You invented the idea that sense data is the root for predictions. It's not, it's what grounds predictions. This is a key point in predictive coding and you just ignore it. It's the stored memories that is the foundation for predictions. Actions are taken based on predictions out of long term memory, then verified and grounded by sense data to form a coherent action. Without the sense data, or with distorted sense data, predictions can still be made, but without grounding, they aren't aligned to a temporal and spatial experience, they start to free-flow. If sense data is totally cut off, the brain starts to predict things and only getting verification from its own source for those predictions, creating a form of feedback loop. If sense perception is limited or distorted, the distorted sense data becomes the verification alignment, distorting the predictions, hence, hallucinations. It's why people in sense deprivation tanks experience hallucinations as it's a perfect condition to lower and limit sense perception to a minimum, within a state of being awake.

Further, I provided personal evidence — Metaphysician Undercover

That you don't even understand why this is the reason you fail your argument is rather astounding. It's like you don't even know the basics of philosophical rigor. Your personal evidence is not enough to support your logic, nor to even come close to rejecting an actual scientific theory... I mean, come on, what the fuck is this?

That is my "experimental data" — Metaphysician Undercover

Experimental data requires thousands of repetitions to reach the experimental value needed to be considered a source for a theory. If you want me to laugh, you did.

It is you who is making "the dreaming mind" into an elemental object, through your false premise. You premise that thinking is fundamentally a predictive process, and then you view all mental activity from this perspective. This gives you a significantly biased perspective. — Metaphysician Undercover

What are you talking about? You're so lost in all this. That predictive process is a fundamental aspect of thinking is not "my" premise, it's a scientific theory that you reject because you don't agree with it. And then you raise the issue of being biased while you rely on your own experience as a single anecdotal evidence.... the irony of this seems too complex for you. :lol:

Instead of viewing predictive capacity as a higher aspect proper only to a highly developed consciousness, with a highly developed intellectual capacity, you view predictive capacity as a fundamental aspect of any form of thinking. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't view it like this, the science verifies this. Stop ignoring the fact that you try to reshape the scientific theory into some unsupported belief I hold. You simply don't understand the science and strawman my argument into being built on belief. It's your argument that's built on belief.

So when you look at the more base aspects of thinking, such as those demonstrated by dreaming, you improperly impose this highly developed aspect, predictive capacity, onto that base aspect, and conclude that the base aspect is carrying out the higher aspect to a lesser degree, which is chaotic and full of error. This robs you of the ability to properly understand the base capacity, for what it really is, and how it allowed for the development of the higher capacity, because all you can see is a lack of the higher capacity (chaotic and filled with errors), and you have no principles by which to understand what the base capacity really is. — Metaphysician Undercover

What science are you drawing upon to make this counter-argument? Please provide the foundational knowledge behind your concept here. Because if you have actual scientific foundation that counters predictive coding, then we can talk. Otherwise you're just presenting bs trying to demand it to be taken seriously.

Where's your foundation? What are the corner stones of your logic? I mean, actual science and evidence? I presented you with the corner stones for my argument, you have the links in there. You provided nothing other than one example of your own dream, presented as experimental evidence.

I agree that this is hard for you to explain to me. Your false premise makes "verification" irrelevant. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's not false, it's what the science says. Why the fuck are you so dense about this? Really, why are you so unable to understand that it's not some premise I make out of thin air. Are you so in love with your own theory that you have to distort your interpretation of someone else's argument this much in order to have a sense that you are in the right? You're showing signs of absolute delusion here.

It is your theory. You have adopted it, and support it. Therefore it is your theory, and it forms your bias, regardless of who invented it. — Metaphysician Undercover

What the fuck are you talking about? Can you click on a link or is that too complex of an action for you?

Predictive coding

This demonstrates clearly what your problem is. You characterize "the processes of the mind" as fundamentally predictive, and you take this as a primary premise. Then you admit evidence which demonstrates that the mind is active even when we are asleep. But instead of admitting the evidence which demonstrates that the activity while asleep is not predictive, thereby disproving your primary premise, you wrongly assert that the activity while one is asleep is predictive. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you unable to read what I actually write? The whole argument is that a limitation or distortion in the predictive coding feedback loop, creates the experience of distorted reality and dreams. That's the concept here. That our brain is active during sleep is a scientific fact, you can look it up, but I guess you won't and will continue acting like a fool. And since the brain is active during sleep, so is the predictive coding process. The only difference is that one part of the feedback loop is distorted and subdued, mainly the sense perception, as its subdued by glycine and gamma-aminobutyric acid. And thus, the grounding of predictions is lost or subdued so much that predictions become unreliable, producing the surreal experience.

You simply seem to not understand what's actually written, or ignore it in order to form a strawman. Regardless, you fail.

That's what I'm doing, I'm claiming that your basic premise "thinking is a predictive process" is false. So you'll never get through to me by talking about verification, because I've already excluded verification as irrelevant by denying your basic premise. — Metaphysician Undercover

You ignore a scientific theory, that I've linked to and provided further reading on, in order for your logic to work. That you don't see any problem with this is ridicules. I can't get through to you because you're stuck in your own echo chamber. You reject what I'm saying because it doesn't fit your opinions and ideas.

Simply put, you fail at both philosophy and science.

It is your theory. You have adopted it, and support it. Therefore it is your theory, and it forms your bias, regardless of who invented it. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is pure nonsensical. How can anyone read this and not laugh?

OK, let's look at this. Would you agree, that when we sleep, and we "consolidate and flush our short term memory and produce stronger neurological pathways", that this is not a predictive process? If so, then why would you think that dreaming, which is also what occurs when we sleep, is a predictive process? — Metaphysician Undercover

We are constantly flushing short term memory into creating new neuro-pathways, not just when we sleep. But the energy conservation to focus on that process is better when we sleep, forming stronger connections through more careful consolidation. Our entire being is being driven by predictive coding, it's always on, regardless of sleeping or being awake.

Why don't you read about the science first?

This is completely wrong, and misrepresentative. You are just making it up. — Metaphysician Undercover

On what basis do you form that conclusion? In what way does not the science support what I say? Please provide that in order to reject it, your opinion of it is totally irrelevant.

If "predictive operation" requires three aspects, and one of them is removed, then we no longer have "predictive operation". That is simple logic. — Metaphysician Undercover

Does the other parts stop operating on their own principles because one of the parts is limited or stops working? If you have a car that is driving at 100 km/h and you decouple the engine through the clutch, does the car immediately stop? Of course not, the wheels function is being a wheel and doing what wheels do.

A system of individual parts operating with each other does not mean that if one of the systems fails then all other systems immediately fail as well. If your liver fails, then you don't just die instantly, the body tries to continue operating based on the new conditions you're in.

The "predictive operation" is the operational mode in which all three functions normally, what constitutes your experience being awake and navigating through reality. If you distort one of the systems, the experience will alter, but it wouldn't shut off the entire system.

This is the simple logic you fail to understand. Primarily because you ignore looking up the science I'm referring to.

It appears like you are so wrapped up in your pseudo-science, and deceptive false premises — Metaphysician Undercover

Predictive coding is not pseudo science. That you talk like this while not understanding that your own logic is based on your own personal experiences is remarkably stupid.

You're just trying to create a framework about my argument that fits your own opinion. You don't understand the science, so you don't agree with me and therefor you construct this false narrative of my argument being fallacious, biased and pseudo-science in order to be in the right.

This is a complete failure of reasoning that you are totally blind towards.

When I want to think about something which occurred years ago, I "visit long term memory", just like if it was a conveniently located book store. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your experience of remembering is not the same as the physical function of long term memory. Your experience is more or less the byproduct of the function, it is not the function itself. You're debating on a six-year old level here, in which your basis of logic is your personal experience.

Do you even understand what anecdotal evidence is? And why it is a fallacy? Do you even grasp the basics of why such use of personal experiences is considered wrong to be used in critical thinking? It's like you use words like bias, critical thinking, theory, argument etc. without even understanding the meaning behind the words. An absolute confused mess.

I think it's you who needs to read up on "predictive coding". You are wrongly applying the science of the neurological activity which depends on sense perception (awake), to the neurological activity which occurs without sense perception (asleep). This has gotten you totally confused. — Metaphysician Undercover

Stop acting like you know what you're talking about when you don't even read the initial segment of the text:

...which postulates that the brain is constantly generating and updating a "mental model" of the environment. According to the theory, such a mental model is used to predict input signals from the senses that are then compared with the actual input signals from those senses. — Wiki

A) Predicting the inputs - B) compare signals to the predictions.

This aligns and grounds the experience and actions we do. If sense information is disrupted or cut off, the mental model is still trying to predict, but getting no input signals and when comparing, is biased towards the prediction. Since this is then feeded back into the next temporal moment, the prediction basically only have its own previous prediction as the source for the new prediction, gradually distorting reality and our experience. When you sleep, you subdue sense input data, but the brain is still operating in its other systems.

So no, stop trying to turn the tables and say that I need to read up on it. You need to engage with the science, because its YOU who are driving a pseudo-science argument.

The proof is in the pudding of your reasoning. Just saying that the opposing side is doing pseudoscience or being bias or not read up on something does not make it so. However, the way your reason proves you're the one doing it.

It's rather desperate of you to try and frame my argument by attacking it with such labels in order to try and discredit it. But it's so blatantly obvious how limited you are in rational reasoning.

If experience is not evidence then you are not doing science. This is more evidence that what you present is pseudo-science. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you actually stupid? Or just so uneducated to what science is and how ti works? Do you not know what Replication, Iterative experimentation and Reproducibility is? Do you understand concepts like Empirical validation, Objective inquiry, Falsifiability, Controlled experimentation, Inter-subjective verification and Meta-studies?

Find ANY source that support your interpretation of how science works. Like, try it, try and blast me with some irrefutable source of information that is common knowledge and support the idea that a personal experience by a single person is enough to verify a scientific conclusion that this very same person is arguing for, and also reject an already empirically verified theory. Like, are you so dense that you don't even understand that your type of reasoning is the very foundation for what pseudo-science is? The text-book answer on it?

Are you for real?

Personal experience is irrelevant to you, because you are a pseudo-scientist. A true scientist knows that verification relies on experience. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, a true scientist knows that verification relies on reproducibility and prediction, on empirical validation, on objective inquiry and meta-studies to further verify and remove eventual biases.

You are trying to force a narrative that you are the only one looking at things scientifically, while saying what science "is" that is totally at odds with what science actually is.

Like, it's crystal clear how you fail at this and how far up your own ass you are. A delusion of grandeur in which everyone who don't agree with your opinion is a pseudo-scientist, to the point you actually try to redefine what science is to support your stance. It's absolutely stupid.

Maybe we can get somewhere if you'll seriously consider this statement of yours. — Metaphysician Undercover

We can't get anywhere because you are not educated enough on the topic, you ignore educating yourself further and you are stuck in an echo-chamber in which any opposing perspective are branded pseudo-science while you interpret what science is in order to fit your opinion, rather than testing your opinion against the science in order to find out if it is valid or not.

It's impossible to have a discussion with such a person, because any rational person and anyone with enough philosophical scrutiny will debate within a philosophical framework in order to get away from biases and beliefs. You're not doing this, you are doing the opposite of this and because of that, you're not doing philosophy or science.

What I ignore is the pseudo-science which you are professing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Saying it over and over doesn't make it so. You ignore what doesn't fit in your echo chamber. I rely on what the science points towards. You simply have nothing in support of your confused argument, so you rely on trying to change the narrative of the discussion in order to sound like you are right.

But people aren't falling for it. The only one who seem to fall for it is yourself. Believing your own construct reality about the discussion itself. Who are you trying to fool? I see right through you.

I am waiting for you to respect the fact that when the disruption is complete, as in the case of sleeping, the operation, which is the predictive coding process, no longer occurs. Therefore we cannot apply predictive coding theory to the dreaming mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm waiting for you to provide any actual scientific sources for your argument. Since you're never doing it, and never engaging with the material so far provided in opposition to your argument, all I have is you trying to force your belief down my throat while telling me how the science is wrong, because you say so. :lol:

In conclusion, the only thing I can provide is a reflection on your failure, presented by John Cleese.

Now, all you need to do is notice that the conscious mind has some causal power over the subconscious, and we'd be in agreement. From this agreement we could proceed to discuss the effect of this causal power, and the extent of it. Would you agree that what we call "will power" is an example of this causal power. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think the conscious mind and the subconscious mind collaborate. For example, without a conscious mind, no new thought is possible but new thought requires a constant exchange of information between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. I think that even completing a sentence is not possible without this collaboration since the conscious mind has a very limited memory so-called working memory.

How do you know that this is not just an automatic type of action, like a computer? Maybe the conscious indicates to the subconscious what to do, and the subconscious does it, like a machine. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think that is the case. The subconscious mind is a part of the brain, that part is a neural net, therefore the subconscious mind is intelligent. I also think that all the memories stored in the subconscious mind are present to it at once otherwise we are dealing with a regress when we try to recall something.

You say that the conscious mind's access to memories is limited, and that's obvious from the fact that memory is not perfect, and degrades with time, but I think that this is generally a degradation of the subconscious part. — Metaphysician Undercover

The conscious mind's memory is very limited, so-called the working memory. From Google: "According to current research, the conscious mind's working memory size is generally considered to be around three to five items or "chunks" of information, meaning that you can actively hold and manipulate only a small amount of information in your conscious awareness at any given time." The rest of the memories are stored in the subconscious mind.

This is obvious, in dreams, and that is the point of the op. It is the subconscious which creates those thoughts. And we must call them "thoughts", because they are not memories, but imaginative fictional experiences. But what I was arguing, is that in these instances where the subconscious is "thinking", without being directed by the conscious, the thoughts are very random and not logically consistent. — Metaphysician Undercover

All I can tell is that dream is constructed by the subconscious mind. It could be a supernatural phenomenon as well. Who knows!? Thinking to me, when we are awake is the byproduct of collaboration between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind as I illustrate above.

An argument needs support in evidence, otherwise an argument is just an opinion. — Christoffer

I provided the evidence. Were you not paying attention?

You reject the actual science because it doesn't align with what you believe and therefore you believe that your own argument is more accurate than an argument based in the actual science. It's impossible to argue with someone who is so fundamentally entrenched in their own belief. — Christoffer

I have no problem with the science of predictive coding, I think it's fine in its application to the mental activity of an awake human being. But since an essential aspect of that theory is sensation, and this does not occur when we are asleep and dreaming, I reject, as pseudo-science, your attempt to apply the theory to dream activity.

And what empirical evidence do you have that rejects predictive coding? — Christoffer

The evidence is clear and obvious, sensing does not occur in the dream state. Further, sensing is an essential feature of predictive coding. Those two premises are well supported by evidence. Therefore the conclusion, that predictive coding is not applicable to dream activity is well supported by evidence.

You don't understand what predictive coding is and how it works. You invent your own interpretation of it and then argue against it. — Christoffer

Look, this is a direct quote from the link which you provided:

In neuroscience, predictive coding (also known as predictive processing) is a theory of brain function which postulates that the brain is constantly generating and updating a "mental model" of the environment. According to the theory, such a mental model is used to predict input signals from the senses that are then compared with the actual input signals from those senses. Predictive coding is member of a wider set of theories that follow the Bayesian brain hypothesis. — Wikipedia

Notice that the "model is used to predict input signals from the senses that are then compared with the actual input signals from those senses." If you really believe that the theory has been scientifically proven to apply to the dream state, then please explain the science. And don't simply refer to supposed chaotic and erroneous predictions that occur without sense input. These chaotic and erroneous "predictions" are not predictions at all, but acts of creativity.

What science are you drawing upon to make this counter-argument? — Christoffer

Are you familiar with theories of adversarial dreaming? Such theories use the concept of general adversarial networks, they focus on the creative capacity of dreams, and are completely distinct from predictive coding theory:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9071267

Predictive processing theories propose that these representations emerge from predicting or reconstructing sensory inputs. However, brains are known to generate virtual experiences, such as during imagination and dreaming, that go beyond previously experienced inputs. Here, we suggest that virtual experiences may be just as relevant as actual sensory inputs in shaping cortical representations.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38097096/

Where's your foundation? What are the corner stones of your logic? — Christoffer

See above please.

And since the brain is active during sleep, so is the predictive coding process. — Christoffer

According to your referenced material, the predictive coding process operates with the use of "signals from the senses", which are noticeably absent from the dreaming process. Therefore, predictive coding is absent from the brain process occurring during sleep.

On what basis do you form that conclusion? In what way does not the science support what I say? Please provide that in order to reject it, your opinion of it is totally irrelevant. — Christoffer

See above please.

A system of individual parts operating with each other does not mean that if one of the systems fails then all other systems immediately fail as well. — Christoffer

Sure, but the way you describe predictive coding all three parts are required for it, as essential aspects. If one part is missing, then the process cannot be called predictive coding. Clearly, "signals from the senses" is an essential aspect of predictive coding, which is missing from the dream activity. Therefore the dream activity cannot be represented as predictive coding.

If you distort one of the systems, the experience will alter, but it wouldn't shut off the entire system. — Christoffer

This is not a case of distorting one of the systems, it is a case of one being absent. That's why I very intentionally stressed the point that hallucinating is not the same as dreaming, when you first engaged me.

If sense information is disrupted or cut off, the mental model is still trying to predict, but getting no input signals and when comparing, is biased towards the prediction. — Christoffer

If you are so convinced by "the science", then I assume you can produce the science which shows that the predictive coding model is applicable to brain activity which occurs, with no signals from the senses. I'll be waiting.

I don't think that is the case. The subconscious mind is a part of the brain, that part is a neural net, therefore the subconscious mind is intelligent. I also think that all the memories stored in the subconscious mind are present to it at once otherwise we are dealing with a regress when we try to recall something. — MoK

How could it be that all memories which a person has could be present to a mind (subconsciously) at the same time? Wouldn't this be amazingly confusing for that subconscious mind?

The rest of the memories are stored in the subconscious mind. — MoK

Do you think that the memories are actually "stored" in the subconscious? Or is it a subconscious activity which brings the memories to the attention of the conscious mind, and the memory itself is not actually stored anywhere?

How could it be that all memories which a person has could be present to a mind (subconsciously) at the same time? — Metaphysician Undercover

I said that all memories stored in the subconscious mind are present to it at once. If not, then there must be many subconscious minds each knowing a certain memory at once. There are however two problems here which depend on how the memories are stored in the brain: 1) Either the memories are stored in different subconscious minds independently or 2) The memories are stored in different subconscious minds hierarchically, tree likes.

In (1), there are many memories that could be related or unrelated when it comes to a topic that is the subject of focus of the conscious mind. The unrelated memories then must be filtered by another mind otherwise the conscious mind cannot function when it focuses on a specific topic. Even if the memories are related to a topic, the conscious mind needs the most recent memory since it has very limited memory and it is not economical for the conscious mind to work on something that it already worked on so we again need another mind that filters the memories and just delivers the most recent memory to the conscious mind. So in both cases we need a new mind to filter the memories. But the memories are either present to this mind at once or this mind just receives memories one by one. In the first case we achieve my argument, I call this mind the subconscious mind that is conscious of all memories at once. In the second case, this mind has to wait and check all memories one by one to find out what is the proper memory among all memories. This task if not impossible is very time-consuming since this mind receives more and more memories as time passes because we learn new things. The conscious mind however receives the proper memory very quickly therefore the second case cannot be true.

In (2), although the memories are stored hierarchically we still need a mind to go through all the memories that are stored in subconscious minds and look for the proper information that is needed. This approach, (2) however is more economical than (1) but it is time consuming. People read many books and they know the contents of books. When they are asked about something that is related to a passage in a book, they right away remember the proper book and the proper passage. Therefore, there must be a subconscious mind that is aware of the memories at once.

Wouldn't this be amazingly confusing for that subconscious mind? — Metaphysician Undercover

Not at all. We cannot function very quickly at all otherwise. Please see above.

Do you think that the memories are actually "stored" in the subconscious? — Metaphysician Undercover

The memories are mainly stored in a part of the brain, what I call the subconscious mind.

Or is it a subconscious activity which brings the memories to the attention of the conscious mind, and the memory itself is not actually stored anywhere? — Metaphysician Undercover

The process of recalling is a subconscious activity.

I provided the evidence. Were you not paying attention? — Metaphysician Undercover

No, you provided anecdotal evidence, your personal experience. If you do not understand why this doesn't work, then you do not understand the basics of critical thinking or how science works. It's as simple as that.

What is the point in trying to explain anything to someone who have such a bad understanding of scientific scrutiny? You're not even able to understand the basics of the process, yet try to operate within the parameters of it. It becomes impossible to even show you why you are wrong, where you are wrong and how, because the explanation of it demands that you understand the basics of it in the first place. An understanding that has been proven non-existent over and over now by the sheer level of the response you give. The constant rejection of critique by trying to forcibly turn the table and say the same thing back without the same critique even applying in the other direction. Like how you reject the critique of not engaging with the scientific sources of information by just saying "maybe you should read more about it", as if that applies back at a person who formulated their entire argument out of this science, who's already read enough about it to do so.

It's a display of fundamental stupidity and bias, by the very definition of Dunning Kruger and the psychological display of denial that such a person express when not able to actually address criticism. You're so proud of your argument that you are unable to process any critique it gets and so you fall back on a childish defense with "YOU TOO!" arguments.

It's impossible to engage with such a person about their argument or ideas, because you are only interested in yes-men around them. You're interested in getting praise for it, positive reviews. But philosophy is just as much about forming a good argument as it is to deconstruct and rework a faulty one. Since we cannot ignore science when talking about this topic, there are major gaping holes in your logic and ideas that you ignoring them in the way you do just makes you look like a fool.

I think it's fine in its application to the mental activity of an awake human being. — Metaphysician Undercover

Or, you're just ignorant and don't engage with the actual scientific material specifically mentioning predictive coding functioning during sleep and dreaming, in the exact way I've been describing having disruptions due to the subdued or cut off sensory inputs which normally grounds the predictions, leading to the surreal experience of dreams:

The brain is a prediction machine that continually minimizes free energy—a process that persists even during sleep, when it can update its internal generative models without external sensory input. — Karl Friston

Atienza et al. (2001) reported results where MMN vanished after the subjects fell asleep but
reappeared in phases of REM sleep (Loewy, Campbell, Lugt, Elton, & Kok, 2000; Nittono,
Momose, & Hori, 2001). In this stage, amplitudes were smaller and short-lasting compared to
wakefulness which was hypothesized to result from missing contributions of frontal brain areas
to the responses as well as from unstable, brief representations (Loewy, Campbell, & Bastien,
1996; Nashida et al., 2000). — Lisa Reisinger

Phenomenological aspects of dream experiences were studied in the PC framework (26–28). During sleep, the balance between top-down and bottom-up influences changes; sensory stimuli processing during sleep is attenuated, and attention is directed away from sensory afferents toward internally generated cognitive processes (26, 29), especially during phasic REM sleep (when the most intense forms of dreaming take place) (30). Attenuated precision on lower-level priors shifts the system toward top-down processes, and prediction errors are minimized mainly by higher-order predictions (more abstract, middle- to high-level priors), in contrast to wakefulness when perception is also constrained by sensory afferents (26, 28). Moreover, even if low-level prediction errors occur, they may not reach supramodal frontal and parietal cortices as these regions are relatively quiescent during REM sleep (31–34).Low precision assigned to sensory inputs leads to the dynamic creation of novel predictions to fit rapidly changing neural activations during dreaming (30). Given the lack of external constraints (feedbacks from sensorium), the brain will jump from one prediction to another, leading to bizarre, fragmented, and discontinuous dream narratives with vague, uncertain perceptual qualities (26). — Péter Simor, Tamás Bogdány and Philippe Peigneux

That last one dives into predictive coding and dreaming, in clear support of what I say.

I reject, as pseudo-science, your attempt to apply the theory to dream activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

You aren't just calling what I argue about, pseudo-science, you actively point at these studies I've referenced and the science overall, calling it pseudo-science.

This is why I conclude you're just trying to bullshit your way out of this. Without realizing how you look while doing so.

The evidence is clear and obvious, sensing does not occur in the dream state. Further, sensing is an essential feature of predictive coding. Those two premises are well supported by evidence. Therefore the conclusion, that predictive coding is not applicable to dream activity is well supported by evidence. — Metaphysician Undercover

What fucking evidence are you talking about? And in what way does any evidence of that argue against what I'm saying? This is just bullshit rhetoric from someone believing their use of "therefore" is enough to make the appearance of an actual argument. This is below amateur understanding of philosophical scrutiny of how to formulate an argument. Using standard straw-man tactics to try and squeeze yourself out of the critique. Are you even aware that you're doing this? Or is John Cleese right about you?

Notice that the "model is used to predict input signals from the senses that are then compared with the actual input signals from those senses." If you really believe that the theory has been scientifically proven to apply to the dream state, then please explain the science. And don't simply refer to supposed chaotic and erroneous predictions that occur without sense input. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, it actively predict input signals... and because they're disrupted during sleep, the predictions become scrambled as they only rely on their own feedback. As mentioned above:

Low precision assigned to sensory inputs leads to the dynamic creation of novel predictions to fit rapidly changing neural activations during dreaming (30). Given the lack of external constraints (feedbacks from sensorium), the brain will jump from one prediction to another, leading to bizarre, fragmented, and discontinuous dream narratives with vague, uncertain perceptual qualities (26). — Péter Simor, Tamás Bogdány and Philippe Peigneux

Are you familiar with theories of adversarial dreaming? Such theories use the concept of general adversarial networks, they focus on the creative capacity of dreams, and are completely distinct from predictive coding theory:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9071267 — Metaphysician Undercover

Here's a comment posted on that same paper:

In the predictive processing literature, it is generally assumed that *at every layer* feedback forms an effective generative model of that layer. In the hierarchical model here, there is no relation between the intermediate activations in the feedforward path to those in the feedback path. This prevents the integration of top–down information in intermediate sensory areas and makes the model unrealistic.

With further answer from the authors:

First, we would like to clarify that the generative pathway in our model generates activities across all layers during both NREM and REM sleep. Second, we agree that our implementation contrasts with the traditional view of the visual cortex where all bottom-up and top-down activities are merged at every layer. From a computational perspective of representation learning, such an architecture can be challenging to train, due to information shortcuts, e.g., V1 → V2 → V1, which would prevent information (at least during reconstruction learning) to propagate to higher areas (e.g., Inferior-Temporal cortex) where compressed representations should be learned. Naturally, this issue would also arise in predictive processing models (unless explicitly or implicitly prevented) as these information shortcuts are a property of the underlying graphical model and not of a particular implementation thereof.

Meaning, it does not oppose predictive coding, not even during dreaming. Being distinct about a certain aspect of sleep and dreaming does not remove the underlying mechanisms causing it. Just because predictive coding is a large part of why the experience of dreaming is what it is, doesn't mean the system and operation is lacking complexity and this proposition is in addition to predictive coding, focused on the generative aspect of forming virtual sensations as virtual grounding.

It seems you were just skimming through in an attempt to oppose predictive coding, without realizing it doesn't oppose it at all but is a theory to explain a specific detail within the holistic topic of dreaming. It's in addition to current theories, not contradicting anything. All while still in need of follow-up due to the critique included on it. Thus, in comparison to the body of work on predictive coding, this part, is both being an addition as well not yet being fully verified outside computational simulations.

Predictive processing theories propose that these representations emerge from predicting or reconstructing sensory inputs. However, brains are known to generate virtual experiences, such as during imagination and dreaming, that go beyond previously experienced inputs. Here, we suggest that virtual experiences may be just as relevant as actual sensory inputs in shaping cortical representations.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38097096/ — Metaphysician Undercover

The quote you refer to here is not in opposition to predictive coding. What I argue for is aligned with this; that when sleeping, sensory input is cut off, but the predictive operation continues, forming predictions from long term memory to test against experiences in our short term memory. The adversarial process is just a layer that grounds this experience through virtual sensations. And for imagination and creativity when we are awake, it's the same thing, a decoupling of sensory verification using virtual verification to direct predictions from merely operating on reality. Something that in this paper is postulated to also be a controllable aspect responsible for utilizing predictions while being awake against a construct in order to form mental imaging and imagination.

None of this is a rejection of predictive coding, it's just expanding on details.

But since you're not even grasping the basics of what I'm talking about, what's the point in going into depth? You can't even represent my argument correctly in the first place when trying to counter-argue.

See above please. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's not supporting the conclusion you've made, it's rather expanding in depth the argument I've been making. So I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish with this?

According to your referenced material, the predictive coding process operates with the use of "signals from the senses", which are noticeably absent from the dreaming process. Therefore, predictive coding is absent from the brain process occurring during sleep. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm constantly mentioning how the senses are cut off or scrambled and how it's this very fact that makes predictions unreliable and responsible for the surreal experience. I don't know why you don't get this simple fact and constantly try to change what I say to being that the process is relying on the senses and "have to include it". It's only relying on sense input for us to operating normally when we are awake through grounding the mental predictions. But I've said, numerous times, and it's the damn main point in my argument, that distortion of sense input or a complete lack of it scrambles the prediction ability; generating an experience we can either have as hallucinations or dreams. Just because the grounding data is distorted or gone doesn't mean the brain stops trying to predict in order to reach a state of normal operation.

What is so hard to understand here? Or are you unable to read what is actually written? Or intentionally or unintentionally ignoring things in order for your brain to maintain a sense of control over the narrative? You're not even displaying a basic understanding of what I write, or you're intentionally just straw-manning. And don't try and Tu quoque the situation with some additional made up misrepresentation as another layer, that would just solidify how pathetic this is.

Sure, but the way you describe predictive coding all three parts are required for it, as essential aspects. If one part is missing, then the process cannot be called predictive coding. Clearly, "signals from the senses" is an essential aspect of predictive coding, which is missing from the dream activity. Therefore the dream activity cannot be represented as predictive coding. — Metaphysician Undercover

All three parts are essential for the normal operation when we are awake. They're essential for us to be grounded in reality in order to navigate it. Our eyes do not see any "framerate" like cameras do, they operate on very few samples from our visual sense and generating predictions in-between. This is the foundation for any visual illusion experiments you can find everywhere. It's our brain predicting what we see, "filling in" between samples images collected by our eyes and visual cortex. But this is just the basic level for our ability to see.

On a deeper level, it's not only filling in the image, but the context; your brain predicts actions and spatial constructs in order to be able to navigate in 3D space. That prediction of the larger context is formed out of long term memory which have been constantly updating its mental construct of reality since our birth. This means that the predictions made from our long term memory is extremely dense with information and constantly attempting to predict any possible outcome of every temporal sample of our surrounding reality.

When our sense data is scrambled through drugs, or during sleep, any predictions made have no temporal samples to ground predictions, so it grounds it in something else; the stored experiences in our short term memory as that's where our conscious experience has been stored when awake. But since memory isn't a one-to-one representation of reality in the way sense data produces, the predictions become distorted, entangled in the memory consolidation process. While still in debate, the adversarial process may subsequently also be part of attempting to ground this experience with a virtual construct grounding the experience of these short term to long term consolidations.

That you say that it can't be called predictive coding if one part isn't working, is just some odd straw-man attempt to render the theory invalid because what exactly? The theory itself describes what happens when parts of the chain is missing or disrupted. How does this make it unable to be called predictive coding? It doesn't even make sense as a bad straw-man response. I'm trying to wrap my head around how lost you get in your own rhetoric.

This is not a case of distorting one of the systems, it is a case of one being absent. That's why I very intentionally stressed the point that hallucinating is not the same as dreaming, when you first engaged me. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, that is you interpreting it in a straw-man fashion. I've constantly mentioned one part of the system being either "distorted" or "cut off". With clear references to "distorted" being what happens with hallucinations as they're not cutting off sense input completely, rather distorting them and thus scrambles the predictions based on unreliable sense inputs. While when we sleep they're cut off or effectively subdued, and predictions must rely on something else for grounding.

It's you who straw-man my argument into leaving out the the crucial parts of my argument in order to counter it. Who are you trying to fool here? Just go back and read again and stop waste my time with these obvious misrepresentations of my argument.

If you are so convinced by "the science", then I assume you can produce the science which shows that the predictive coding model is applicable to brain activity which occurs, with no signals from the senses. I'll be waiting. — Metaphysician Undercover

I did... it's in the reading material provided and there's enough online for you to engage with. It's not my problem that you either can't understand it, don't care to actually read, or both. Normal people do some googling and research on their own if they aren't up to date on certain sciences, but your inability or active decision to not do it seems to reflect the actual reason behind why you're arguing like this; mainly to defend your ill-concieved ideas through the use of glaringly obvious fallacies in your rhetoric, in the hope they will obscure the problems with your arguments.

You still has a burden of proof for your original argument. For which your evidence is merely your anecdotal personal experiences... still.

So again, who are you trying to fool here? Your rhetoric within this type of arrogant self-indulgent behavior just becomes epistemically irresponsible. Stating that what I provide is pseudo-science and misrepresenting what I say in some textbook straw-man arguments. It's downright laughable how obviously out of depth your are while desperately trying to keep face with these pathetic attempts to miscredit other's arguments and calling actual science pseudo-science with a straight face. How on earth can anyone with even miniscule understanding of the construction of philosophical arguments and science take what you say and your rhetoric seriously? Your echo chamber is so extreme you actually believe that by simply keep hitting back in whatever fallacious form possible is making you look like you know what your talking about. But you don't, you still look like a fool and John Cleese is still right about you.

I said that all memories stored in the subconscious mind are present to it at once. If not, then there must be many subconscious minds each knowing a certain memory at once. There are however two problems here which depend on how the memories are stored in the brain: 1) Either the memories are stored in different subconscious minds independently or 2) The memories are stored in different subconscious minds hierarchically, tree likes. — MoK

What if memory is like I suggested, a pattern of neural activity which is repeated?

It becomes impossible to even show you why you are wrong, where you are wrong and how, — Christoffer

That's the obvious consequence of a person being right. Accept the reality.

You aren't just calling what I argue about, pseudo-science, you actively point at these studies I've referenced and the science overall, calling it pseudo-science. — Christoffer

That's right, its pseudo-science. The final sentence in the passage confirms this. The author says, "the brain will jump from one prediction to another". Where's the verification in this? What actually occurs is not recognizable as prediction, so the author just claims, it's jumping around. The author is just assuming this to be some sort of predictive operation, so when the appearance is inconsistent with prediction, the claim is that it's jumping around.. The proper conclusion, the "bizarre, fragmented, and discontinuous dream narratives with vague, uncertain perceptual qualities" are not predictions at all.
The author makes the same mistake as you do, and provides the same pseudo science.

The author then supports this pseudo-science with what you call "anecdotal evidence", an example of a dream analyzed. How do we even know whether it's the report of an actual dream, and not just an example made up by the author?

And in what way does any evidence of that argue against what I'm saying? — Christoffer

I conclude that you are not very good with basic logic or critical thinling.

What I argue for is aligned with this; that when sleeping, sensory input is cut off, but the predictive operation continues, forming predictions from long term memory to test against experiences in our short term memory. — Christoffer

Then it's not predictive coding anymore, as the adversarial model indicates. That the two models are consistent with each other but applicable at different times, sleeping and awake, is not at all surprising, it is to be expected.

The adversarial process is just a layer that grounds this experience through virtual sensations. — Christoffer

The big issue though, is that the internal sensations, what you call "virtual sensations" are completely different from external sensations, as the difference between top-down and bottom-up. And this is the difference which makes verification irrelevant. And since verification is irrelevant the predictive coding model is not applicable.

In the article you quoted above, the author makes a half-ass attempt to show verification in the anecdotal evidence of the example dream, but it's clearly contrived and most likely fabricated evidence.

And for imagination and creativity when we are awake, it's the same thing, a decoupling of sensory verification using virtual verification to direct predictions from merely operating on reality. — Christoffer

"Virtual verification" is nonsense. It's a self-contradicting concept, fabricated in an attempt to apply the theory where it is not applicable.

None of this is a rejection of predictive coding, it's just expanding on details. — Christoffer

As I said, the adversarial model does not reject the predictive coding model. Nor did I ever reject the predictive coding model. I accept that it has its areas of application. However, the adversarial model is not an "expanding on details" of predictive coding. It is a representation of a distinct activity.

What I'd like to point out to you is that the two models are very distinct, modeling two distinct types of brain activity, one known as top-down, the other as bottom-up. They each have there place in the brain of a living human being, one taking priority when we are awake, the other when we are asleep. That these two are distinct is the reason for the op.

I'm constantly mentioning how the senses are cut off or scrambled and how it's this very fact that makes predictions unreliable and responsible for the surreal experience. I don't know why you don't get this simple fact and constantly try to change what I say to being that the process is relying on the senses and "have to include it". It's only relying on sense input for us to operating normally when we are awake through grounding the mental predictions. But I've said, numerous times, and it's the damn main point in my argument, that distortion of sense input or a complete lack of it scrambles the prediction ability; generating an experience we can either have as hallucinations or dreams. Just because the grounding data is distorted or gone doesn't mean the brain stops trying to predict in order to reach a state of normal operation. — Christoffer

I see you still refuse to differentiate between hallucinations which involve an input of sense data, and dreams, which do not. You do this intentionally so that you do not have to distinguish between a brain process which relies on sense input, and one which does not. This allows you to argue that predictive coding is applicable to dream activity.

Do you not recognize that being asleep is completely different from being awake? If you understand this, and recognize this difference, why wouldn't you also accept that the principal brain process when a person is asleep, is different from the principal brain process when a person is awake?

All three parts are essential for the normal operation when we are awake. — Christoffer

This is true if "normal operation" is restricted to predictive coding. That restriction however, is your mistake. Since dreaming is not explainable as predictive coding, this restriction leaves dreaming outside the category of "normal operation".

When our sense data is scrambled through drugs, or during sleep... — Christoffer

Sense input is not "scrambled" in sleep, it is absent. See you keep clutching at straws in your attempt to apply predictive coding where it is not suited.

so it grounds it in something else; the stored experiences in our short term memory as that's where our conscious experience has been stored when awake. — Christoffer

This is pure speculation, and it really makes no sense. If the predictive operation relies on sense input, how could it suddenly switch this reliance to memory instead? Even if it did, it wouldn't be predictive coding anymore, it would be a different process.

That you say that it can't be called predictive coding if one part isn't working, is just some odd straw-man attempt to render the theory invalid because what exactly? — Christoffer

When an essential aspect of a theory is missing from the thing which the theory is being consider to be applied to, the theory is not applicable. That's simple logic, it's not a straw man.

While when we sleep they're cut off or effectively subdued, and predictions must rely on something else for grounding. — Christoffer

If it's grounded in something else, then it's not consistent with predictive coding theory. The obvious conclusion, is that predictive coding is not applicable, as the supposed jumbled "predictions" are not really predictions at all, and there is no point in even looking for the "something else", because it's a completely distinct process.

What if memory is like I suggested, a pattern of neural activity which is repeated? — Metaphysician Undercover

I didn't deny that.

If it is the case, then memories are not things stored in the subconscious, and your post is pretty much irrelevant.

If it is the case, then memories are not things stored in the subconscious, and your post is pretty much irrelevant. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I call the part of the brain where the main part of memories, long-time memories, is held as the subconscious mind.

But if memories are simply neural activity, then they are not "held" anywhere. They are something which happens, and it happens only when the memory is present to the mind.

But if memories are simply neural activity, then they are not "held" anywhere. — Metaphysician Undercover

The memories are stored in the synapses. Synapses are the junctions between nerve cells. They change when we memorize something new.

They are something which happens, and it happens only when the memory is present to the mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

What do you mean with the mind here? If by the mind you mean a substance, rather than physical, that ideas, such as thoughts, feelings, psychological time, etc. are present to it then I have to say there is a mind with the ability to experience the ideas. The ideas are however the manifestation of the neutrals' activities.

IMO, the most amazing part of it is that, in my dreams, I am entirely surprised by everything. The scenery. What I find when I walk into a room. Who I run into. What others do. Events like the weather. I, obviously, created everything in my dream. Yet I chose to hide things from myself, and am somehow sble to do so. How do I make a character in my dream do and say everything it does and says, and still be surprised by everything it does and says?

The memories are stored in the synapses. — MoK

I don't think that's accurate. Memory is attributed to synapse regulation, which works through synapse plasticity. So memory is a feature of this plasticity, which is a feature of synapse regulation, not the synapse itself. To understand memory is to understand how synapse plasticity is regulated.

What do you mean with the mind here? If by the mind you mean a substance, rather than physical, that ideas, such as thoughts, feelings, psychological time, etc. are present to it then I have to say there is a mind with the ability to experience the ideas. The ideas are however the manifestation of the neutrals' activities. — MoK

No, I don't think of the mind as a substance, I think of it as a cause of activity.

IMO, the boat amazing part of it is that, in my dreams, I am entirely surprised by everything. The scenery. What I find when I walk into a room. Who I run into. What others do. Events like the weather. I, obviously, created everything in my dream. Yet I chose to hide things from myself, and am somehow sble to do so. How do I make a character in my dream do and say everything it does and says, and still be surprised by everything it does and says? — Patterner

This is the real feature of dreams, the reality of dreams, which Christoffer is busily denying by reducing dreams to predictive coding.

I don't think that's accurate. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is accurate.

Memory is attributed to synapse regulation, which works through synapse plasticity. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. The synapses only change when a new thing is memorized or learned.

So memory is a feature of this plasticity, which is a feature of synapse regulation, not the synapse itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, memory is only a feature of synapses.

To understand memory is to understand how synapse plasticity is regulated. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, without synapse plasticity we just cannot memorize a new thing.

How do I make a character in my dream do and say everything it does and says, and still be surprised by everything it does and says? — Patterner

My way of explaining this is that it is not that you (i.e., that I-ness) which is the agential first-person point of view (i.e., which is the conscious intellect during waking states) that devises the given dream which one as first-person point of view experiences – no more than it is you as an agential first-person point of view which produces that which you see, smell, hear, etc. during waking states. Rather, it is that you (that I-ness) which consists of one’s total self or being (more specifically: one’s total mind, the unconscious aspects of it included) which produces the REM dream which is experienced by you as a first-person point of view during sleep. Just as its your unconscious mind which produces that which you are conscious of during waking states.

But this gets bound up in the philosophy or else psychology of what a self is constituted of. To use William James' basic dichotomy, which mirrors that of Kant’s and of Husserl’s, the first-person point of view is the “pure ego” which is that I-ness that experiences and thereby knows the phenomenal aspects of one’s total self; i.e., the “I” as knower of the experienced self; e.g., I see; I choose, I remember, etc. All aspects of selfhood that are experienced by this same pure ego is then broadly classified as the “empirical ego”; i.e., the “I” as the self which is known via experience (this by the pure ego); e.g. I am tall/short (or: I have two hands); I am stupid/smart in relation to some topic (or: I have an unconscious mind); I am of this or that nationality, etc. The first consciously experiences phenomena; the second is constituted of the phenomena experienced. So, during a dream, the agential first-person point of view (the pure ego) can well be surprised by that which agencies of its total unconscious mind present to it. To further complicate matters, the pure ego can in certain dreams hold an empirical ego quite distinct from its empirical ego during waking states. But this is a very broad and possibly very different topic.



Apropos, to add to the anecdotal accounts, some years back I’ve had a series of REM dreams (rather than daydreams) that were as coherent as any waking reality, in which I interacted with others in a coherently stable town and environment. In this series of dreams, it was always the same town, the same environment, and the same general cohort of people. What tripped me out upon awakening from these rather vivid dreams was that, in the later portion of these dreams, I’d while dreaming remember as vividly as any waking memory events that had occurred during previous dreams in this series. These dreams where clearly distinct from waking reality, but they were not distinct from each other and certainly not inconsistent.

The synapses only change when a new thing is memorized or learned. — MoK

Things are being learned and memorized at every moment in time.

Well, without synapse plasticity we just cannot memorize a new thing. — MoK

Memorizing is not a one time thing. Each time a person recollects, and memorizes, one does this in a new situation, under new conditions, therefore a new thing is memorized each time. Notice that to memorize something requires repeating the same thing over and over in the mind. The strength of the memory is dependent on the quality of the repetition. Whenever repetition is done under different conditions it is not really "the same thing" which is repeated. because of the new conditions. Plasticity allows that the memory can be strengthened or altered depending on the conditions of the repetition.

Things are being learned and memorized at every moment in time. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, the synapses change accordingly to allow for memorizing things in time.

Memorizing is not a one time thing. Each time a person recollects, and memorizes, one does this in a new situation, under new conditions, therefore a new thing is memorized each time. Notice that to memorize something requires repeating the same thing over and over in the mind. The strength of the memory is dependent on the quality of the repetition. Whenever repetition is done under different conditions it is not really "the same thing" which is repeated. because of the new conditions. Plasticity allows that the memory can be strengthened or altered depending on the conditions of the repetition. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you disagree that memorizing requires synapse plasticity?

So, the synapses change accordingly to allow for memorizing things in time. — MoK

Don't you think so?

Do you disagree that memorizing requires synapse plasticity? — MoK

I think I was arguing the opposite. What I was saying is that despite talking about memories as if they are fixed objects, stored somewhere, they are never truly fixed. The plasticity means that they are always changing with each recollection.

Don't you think so? — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, I think that the synapses change all the time. The memory however is stored in a chunk of synapses so it is a collective thing. Any neural net however has a capacity for memorizing things. If you enforce a neural net with limited capacity to learn new things which is beyond its limit then a part of memory is erased as a result.

I think I was arguing the opposite. What I was saying is that despite talking about memories as if they are fixed objects, stored somewhere, they are never truly fixed. The plasticity means that they are always changing with each recollection. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, any memory is stored in a chunk of synapsics. Changing one synapse does not necessarily remove the memory but if you insist on changing more synapses then there is a point at which changing one more synapse destroys the memory.

My way of explaining this is that it is not that you (i.e., that I-ness) which is the agential first-person point of view (i.e., which is the conscious intellect during waking states) that devises the given dream which one as first-person point of view experiences – no more than it is you as an agential first-person point of view which produces that which you see, smell, hear, etc. during waking states. Rather, it is that you (that I-ness) which consists of one’s total self or being (more specifically: one’s total mind, the unconscious aspects of it included) which produces the REM dream which is experienced by you as a first-person point of view during sleep. Just as its your unconscious mind which produces that which you are conscious of during waking states.

But this gets bound up in the philosophy or else psychology of what a self is constituted of. To use William James' basic dichotomy, which mirrors that of Kant’s and of Husserl’s, the first-person point of view is the “pure ego” which is that I-ness that experiences and thereby knows the phenomenal aspects of one’s total self; i.e., the “I” as knower of the experienced self; e.g., I see; I choose, I remember, etc. All aspects of selfhood that are experienced by this same pure ego is then broadly classified as the “empirical ego”; i.e., the “I” as the self which is known via experience (this by the pure ego); e.g. I am tall/short (or: I have two hands); I am stupid/smart in relation to some topic (or: I have an unconscious mind); I am of this or that nationality, etc. The first consciously experiences phenomena; the second is constituted of the phenomena experienced. So, during a dream, the agential first-person point of view (the pure ego) can well be surprised by that which agencies of its total unconscious mind present to it. To further complicate matters, the pure ego can in certain dreams hold an empirical ego quite distinct from its empirical ego during waking states. But this is a very broad and possibly very different topic. — javra

Thank you for your response. I'm understanding it a little more with each reading. But I'm not understanding this:.
Just as its your unconscious mind which produces that which you are conscious of during waking states.
I am conscious of the temperature, various sounds, my hunger, things that I see, itches and pains, symptoms of illness... How is my unconsciousness mind producing all of that? I would have thought it's role is in different areas.