--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@...> wrote:

<snip>

> > But the issue on the table is something a little different, i.e., it
> > is what do brains, that are the product of evolutionary development,
> > do to make/cause/produce consciousness in the world?
>
> People are conscious. Brains aren't, as far as I can tell. That is,
> brains are not enough.

I didn't say brains are conscious but that they make/cause/produce consciousness in the world. That is, they are the seat and source of our consciousness.

Of course we don't speak of stand-alone brains because, to the best of our knowledge, there are no such things (though, if tomorrow a stand-alone brain showed up and could communicate with us in some way and, via such communication demonstrated that it was as conscious as a brain in a body like ourselves, then we would certainly have to change the way we speak, don't you think?).

> It isn't some magical internal processing that
> results in consciousness.

Well, of course we don't know what it is precisely, which is part of the problem. The issue here, though, is what could it be.

We are certainly not going to resolve this in the course of a mere discussion on a list. But we could conceivably resolve at least what makes sense and what doesn't.

Now note, as well, that I don't reference "magical internal processing" so your response concerning it seems to miss (or mischaracterize) some of what I've said. I am, rather, talking about perfectly ordinary processes, the kinds we can observe and track in brains using the right instrumentation. Or the kind that computers can perform (if, as on the view I am supporting, they can do the same things as brain processes do).

As to what I mean by consciousness, I am contending that it is just an agglomeration of certain features we find in ourselves, features that fit the bill of what Minsky calls "system properties" (which I have dealt with in more detail elsewhere on this list). So I am certainly not talking about something magical happening in some fundamentally mysterious or inexplicable way. That we don't currently know doesn't imply that we can never know, that there is some magic at work.

> Rather, it is a way of interacting with the
> world.
>

But what is doing this interacting and what does the interacting consist of? After all, the claim that qualia (understood as subjective experience) are part of consciousness is not just about interacting because there is the phenomenon of being a subject, having awareness, intentionality, etc., etc. This implies an actor to hold up one end of the relation that is otherwise known as interacting with the world.

Now I will agree that we can and probably should understand interaction at some level in physical terms as Josh would certainly have it but what we know as "physical" is already a construct of experience as, perhaps, some of our dualist friends will contend. That is, physical phenomena can be understood, in a sense, as a way of interpreting, of putting relations on raw sensation.

So there is still this problem of subjectness that, perhaps, speaking of interaction with the world is not quite sufficient to address.

> Unfortunately, you don't seem to be receptive to a discussion of that
> way of interacting. Nor does anybody else, for that matter. Whenever I
> try to get to that topic, I see a lack of interest.
>

Well perhaps it is that we (or at least I) don't really understand what you are saying. Certainly it seems I have missed your points before and, when talking about consciousness, we do end up slipping into this realm where language seems to break down, where it becomes hard to distinguish meanings, to pick out referents. Thus the work of being clear becomes what sometimes seems to be an insurmountable task.

>
> > That is, what is the mechanism that living entities of a certain type
> > (those with brains at least like ours) require for consciousness
> > to happen?
>
> The summary term that is used for what is required, is "perception."
> Everybody (other than me) seems to want to take perception for granted,
> without trying to examine what is required for perception. Note that I
> am following J.J Gibson in distinguishing between perception and
> sensation. Perception is involved with getting useful information
> about the world.
>

Where sensation is that raw material from which the useful information is extracted or constructed then? How does perception then produce consciousness (if I understand right that you are saying that it is perception that is the mechanism used by the pragmatic inclination prompted by the homeostatic drives that produces consciousness)?

>
> > What is the pragmatic because homeostatic driven feature(s) of the
> > brain that gives us the features we associate with being conscious,
> > with having a mind.
>
> There are lots of decisions that need to be made by the system in order
> to implement perception. And many of these decisions are somewhat
> arbitrary (not dictated by evidence). There are no suitable criteria
> of truth that can settle them. That leaves pragmatic judgement as a
> basis for such required decisions.
>
> Regards,
> Neil
>
> =========================================

Maybe it's just me Neil. I really don't follow this well enough. Normally when we speak of decisions being made we already have a conscious entity making decisions in mind. Machines don't make decisions though we can use computers to make pre-programmed choices and, thus, decisions in a sense.

Non-aware, non-thinking entities and systems don't make decisions in the usual sense, not decisions like we make. So this kind of selection among competing options isn't what we usually mean by "decision making" and, indeed, the point of the AI project is to construct a computer that CAN make decisions more like a subject, more like us.

This means it needs to be able to know and understand its choices and to come to the point of selection in a way that is at least roughly analogous with how and what we do what we do.

But you seem to want to start with the decision making in order to say how we get to an entity capable of decision making. This just seems wrong to me because it seems to assume what we are trying to explain. Perhaps you are using the term "decision making" in more than one way, both of which may be legitimate in their appropriate contexts but which are not simply interchangeable in a discussion like this?

Can you explain: 1) how a non-conscious homeostatic system is said to decide (doesn't it just react in an unaware way?); and 2) how that translates into whatever it is brains do to bring about consciousness? Where does perception as an active process rather than the mere receipt of sensation fit in?

What are the homeostatic operations in brains (or that underlie brains) that are relevant?

How can a brain that isn't conscious (since you say brains aren't) make decisions?

And, assuming that you just mean the kind of things thermostats do, what are the thermostat-like behaviors that become the features we recognize as part of what it means to be conscious?

Is this picture really all that different from Dennett's proposal that brains run processes in the way computers run algorithms? Or, if you object to the computer model that Dennett relies on, then how is it different from Hawkins' notion that brains (or, at least, cortexes) run certain internal matching displays that capture, retain and recapitulate various patterns occurring in the world external to them via sensory channels picking up auditory, visual, tactile and other inputs?

(I know you don't like Hawkins' model but he has, at least, given us a proposed mechanism for how the phenomenon of intelligence might operate -- isn't that what's really missing in your proposal: a clear and, at least potentially, measureable statement of the mechanism that homeostatic pragmatics relies on to establish consciousness in the world?)

SWM

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