[Wittrs] Is Homeostasis the Answer? (Re: Variations in the Idea of Consciousness)
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:43:02 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "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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