What If Consciousness Comes First?

[mikkel_the_dane]

OK, I simply disagree with that definition of the word 'information'. The book has a LOT of information. Some people know how to access it and others do not. But the information itself is still there.

And I disagree that if you remove all humans there would be no information. There simply would be nobody to think about it. But it would still be there.

As an example, there is light coming from a star that carries information about the composition and temperature of that star. if nobody actually sees that light or if someone sees it that cannot interpret it, that information is lost. But it was still there. if someone with knowledge of how to interpret it accessed it, they could tell somehting about that star.

In fact, what we mean by information—the elementary unit of information—is a difference which makes a difference, and it is able to make a difference because the neural pathways along which it travels and is continually transformed are themselves provided with energy.

Gregory Bateson; an anthropologist who applied cybernetics to the social sciences

Information is a process in a brain

 

[Truly Enlightened]

"All of these therapies, practices, and techniques, are both used to treat a dysfunctional brain and have other uses.

You initially stated, "No, they are not". Are you now saying that you understand that I did NOT say that the therapies you mentioned, were all about a dysfunctional brain? And, what I actually said was, "All of these therapies, practices, and techniques, are used to treat a dysfunctional brain. There is a clear distinction. Is it also clear that I don't believe that students, psychologists, or physiologists, all have a dysfunctional brain. Good, I agree that the practices, strategies, and techniques, of the therapies you mentions, may have other uses.

I take it that you have no problems with my understanding of the different levels of consciousness? Or, at least have nothing to add.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

You initially stated, "No, they are not". Are you now saying that you understand that I did NOT say that the therapies you mentioned, were all about a dysfunctional brain? And, what I actually said was, "All of these therapies, practices, and techniques, are used to treat a dysfunctional brain. There is a clear distinction. Is it also clear that I don't believe that students, psychologists, or physiologists, all have a dysfunctional brain. Good, I agree that the practices, strategies, and techniques, of the therapies you mentions, may have other uses.

I take it that you have no problems with my understanding of the different levels of consciousness? Or, at least have nothing to add.

First off. Yes, I misunderstood. Sorry. Second, I am glad we agree.

Now the way I see it as a human with in part(more later about that) a dysfunctional brain is that it is a good way to use the 5%, because it has given me a better life. Now I don't have a totally dysfunctional brain, because there are things I could do even before therapy which humans with normal brains also do.
So the point is that some of the benefits, which normal brains get, I have also gotten, besides the benefits for my dysfunctional part.
So with that unless you have further to add, I consider this part over.

 

[Riju]

Some brain processes *are* the experience of self-awareness. others *are* the 'will to do something' and others *are* the emotion of 'love'.

Except that we *do* have evidence. We have brain scans galore that show where and when in the brain these emotions, feeling, etc are processed. We know how, if certain areas of the brain are damaged, these abilities are affected. We can point to where planing happens, where different emotions happen, etc.

How much do you want? There is tons of evidence going back to brain studies of bullet injuries over 100 years ago to more recent brain scans showing which areas of the brain are active in real time. We can point to what happnes when we become aware of something, etc.

Not at all.

Examples that you cite are mainly of correlations between first party subjective experience to third party records that have no causal explanations. On the other hand, Spinoza’s double-aspect theory (or current dual aspect monism) is perfectly consistent with the correlations.

Neither the mental nor the biological domain is causally closed; there are mental and biological events whose causes are not themselves mental or biological events. A trauma to the head can cause the loss of manifest consciousness and exposure to intense radiation can cause cells to mutate.

 

[Polymath257]

Not at all.

Examples that you cite are mainly of correlations between first party subjective experience to third party records that have no causal explanations. On the other hand, Spinoza’s double-aspect theory (or current dual aspect monism) is perfectly consistent with the correlations.

Consistent, sure. But it is also consistent to say that the planets are pushed by fairies in just the way that gravity dictates. That doesn't make it a sensible position to take.

ALL 'causal explanations' are ultimately just very persistent correlations. So saying that this is a very good correlation isn't really saying anything against it. If is can be used to make predictions of conscious states that can be verified (even by personal reports) and tested, then there really isn't anything more required.

If the correlation is as good at it already is in our data, it is just perverse to postulate a whole non-physical realm just because of historical biases.

Neither the mental nor the biological domain is causally closed; there are mental and biological events whose causes are not themselves mental or biological events. A trauma to the head can cause the loss of manifest consciousness and exposure to intense radiation can cause cells to mutate.

Right, that's because the biological realm is, ultimately, physical. In fact, it is ultimately chemical in nature. And the reason a blow to the head can affect consciousness is, similarly, because the mental processes are, ultimately, brain processes.

 

[Bear Wild]

Who do you have feelings? I mean in a physical, chemical, computational and evolutionary sense? Such a system don't need them, it is just cause and effect. There is no need for them in a physical world. There are physical process, yes! But why are there internal states of feeling? How come you have internal states of feeling?
You haven't answered that!
And that is qualia! There are no need for them in a psychical world, so have come you have that? Internal states of feeling?

The feelings we feel is the result of the sensory input integrated with the limbic system and influenced by the cognitive brain through a series of neural networks and possibly but the influence of microtubules in the nerves. These are physical processes that when in any certain pattern creates what we feel then attempt to described in words. The words are inadequate but the best approximations we have to communicate with each other. Clearly the biological network came before consciousness awareness did.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The feelings we feel is the result of the sensory input integrated with the limbic system and influenced by the cognitive brain through a series of neural networks and possibly but the influence of microtubules in the nerves. These are physical processes that when in any certain pattern creates what we feel then attempt to described in words. The words are inadequate but the best approximations we have to communicate with each other. Clearly the biological network came before consciousness awareness did.

And how do you know that? Have you observed that?
What I am getting is this: I have no problem with no souls and a physical world, but you haven't observed that, you describe. You can't from the outside observe feelings as felt first person,
Further how come in evolutionary terms that we have a first person experience at all. Not behavior, but that we feel at all. There seems to be no need for us to have this first person experience. Check out the concept of a p-zombie.

 

[Bear Wild]

Huh? Very unique. You mean the physical processes of brain somehow have 'self awareness' and subjective experiences? Or are you saying that there is nothing like 'self awareness' and no subjective experience? Do mean that brain processes develop will and desire? Or are you saying that there is no will and desire?

Your statements seem more like assertions of religionists, sans any evidence.



Again. Can you give some evidence, instead of just asserting? Or are you indicating that matter-mind distinction is not true?

The brain works through physical processes - by way of neurotransmitters, neuronal conduction, hormones. The active pattern of these processes creates the conditions of emotions and self awareness. Thus there are external stimuli creating a bottom up signaling from the subcortical brain to the cortex and then top down regulation from the cortex. Thus external stimuli influence our consciousness but there is internal signaling within the cortex influencing the interpretation and response. There is also internal signaling such as when dreaming that creates communication between the cortical and sub cortical brain and can create efferent signals to cause organ responses.
In the end it is till physical biological processes that are creating what we experience as feelings, self-awareness and consciousness without the need for language to describe it as is the case in other animals.

 

[Bear Wild]

And how do you know that? Have you observed that?
What I am getting is this: I have no problem with no souls and a physical world, but you haven't observed that, you describe. You can't from the outside observe feelings as felt first person,
Further how come in evolutionary terms that we have a first person experience at all. Not behavior, but that we feel at all. There seems to be no need for us to have this first person experience. Check out the concept of a p-zombie.

We know much of this from genetic defects in aspects of the brain, lesions in different brain tissue, and from direct stimulation of brain tissue. There are genetic defects that affect the amygdala that eliminate the feeling of fear. There are lesions in the hypothalamus that create feelings of aggression not to mention more simple behaviors such as eating. Oxytocin influences bonding in relationships. It also affects empathy. So we do not have a complete picture of what is actually happening during self-awareness we do not that it comes from signals from the subcortical brain. Newer imaging techniques are starting to map out the distribution of activity showing the simultaneous activity in the subcortical brain (much smaller thus was harder to image until recently) and the cortex when different emotional states occur and it correlates with hormonal and physiological responses in the body.
When we feel emotions - we feel them in other anatomical parts than just the brain.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

We know much of this from genetic defects in aspects of the brain, lesions in different brain tissue, and from direct stimulation of brain tissue. There are genetic defects that affect the amygdala that eliminate the feeling of fear. There are lesions in the hypothalamus that create feelings of aggression not to mention more simple behaviors such as eating. Oxytocin influences bonding in relationships. It also affects empathy. So we do not have a complete picture of what is actually happening during self-awareness we do not that it comes from signals from the subcortical brain. Newer imaging techniques are starting to map out the distribution of activity showing the simultaneous activity in the subcortical brain (much smaller thus was harder to image until recently) and the cortex when different emotional states occur and it correlates with hormonal and physiological responses in the body.
When we feel emotions - we feel them in other anatomical parts than just the brain.

We are speaking past each other. I am asking this: How come we feel at all? How come we have first person experiences at all? How come a physical and chemical causal system give rise to first person experiences at all? Please check out the "problem" of a p-zombie.
All you do, is to list indirect causation between 3rd person observation and first person experience. That is not what I ask for. I know this - so again, how come in a physical and chemical causal system, that there are first person experience at all? There seems to be no need for it. How come there is this emergent first person experience, when all it is physical and chemical processes.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

First off. Yes, I misunderstood. Sorry. Second, I am glad we agree.

Now the way I see it as a human with in part(more later about that) a dysfunctional brain is that it is a good way to use the 5%, because it has given me a better life. Now I don't have a totally dysfunctional brain, because there are things I could do even before therapy which humans with normal brains also do.
So the point is that some of the benefits, which normal brains get, I have also gotten, besides the benefits for my dysfunctional part.
So with that unless you have further to add, I consider this part over.

It is probably NOT a good idea to champion that a dysfunctional brain is a good way to highlight our 5% conscious state. Especially, since our underlying persona, and conscious decision making processes, are the outward product of the function of the other 95% of our brain. Therefore, if the majority of the brain is dysfunctional, then the 5% will also be dysfunctional. Unless you think that psychopathy, sociopathy, manic-depression, bipolar personality, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases are not obvious dysfunctional psycho-neural pathologies? Surely you would agree that an unconscious dysfunctional 95% would also affect a conscious 5%?

Regarding your own condition(that is none of my business), if the treatment works, it works.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It is probably NOT a good idea to champion that a dysfunctional brain is a good way to highlight our 5% conscious state. Especially, since our underlying persona, and conscious decision making processes, are the outward product of the function of the other 95% of our brain. Therefore, if the majority of the brain is dysfunctional, then the 5% will also be dysfunctional. Unless you think that psychopathy, sociopathy, manic-depression, bipolar personality, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases are not obvious dysfunctional psycho-neural pathologies? Surely you would agree that an unconscious dysfunctional 95% would also affect a conscious 5%?

Regarding your own condition(that is none of my business), if the treatment works, it works.

My wife has a work colleague, who has schizophrenia. He is not on meds, have 3 masters and function in a regular job by using the 5% to manage his schizophrenia.
I reset that you effectively judge people based on something, which is not our fault and consider it irrelevant that some of us actually cope. I don't like that. I AM NOT A DYSFUNCTIONAL BRAIN. A part of my brain is dysfunctional, but I am still a person, a personality and all that. I am a human and if you cut me, I bleed. That is also the case the other way around.
As long as you use words to judge us as less, I won't stop.
I have a dysfunctional psycho-neural pathology and I am proud of that, because I cope with it.
I am crazy, I have the papers to prove it. Now what is your problem?

 

[Polymath257]

We are speaking past each other. I am asking this: How come we feel at all? How come we have first person experiences at all? How come a physical and chemical causal system give rise to first person experiences at all? Please check out the "problem" of a p-zombie.

We feel because we have senses that are integrated into our information processing.

Again, I find the 'problem' of a p-zombie to be incoherent. It seems clear to me that anything physically the same as a conscious entity will, itself, be conscious.

In other words, p-zombies are impossible.

We have first-person experiences because somethings happen to us and not to someone else. I really don't see anything more to it than that.

First person = it happens to me and not to you.

All you do, is to list indirect causation between 3rd person observation and first person experience. That is not what I ask for. I know this - so again, how come in a physical and chemical causal system, that there are first person experience at all? There seems to be no need for it. How come there is this emergent first person experience, when all it is physical and chemical processes.

I have no idea why you say there is 'no need' for it. To me, this seems like saying there is 'no need' for pressure when a bunch of atoms are in a container since no atom has pressure. It is an *emergent* phenomenon. The experience *is* how the brain reacts. Consciousness is simply one aspect of how the brain reacts.

 

[Polymath257]

Let me give another example.

Given that a water molecule is H2O, why is water wet? There seems to be no 'good reason' for such, but yet it is an emergent property of those molecules.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

My wife has a work colleague, who has schizophrenia. He is not on meds, have 3 masters and function in a regular job by using the 5% to manage his schizophrenia.
I reset that you effectively judge people based on something, which is not our fault and consider it irrelevant that some of us actually cope. I don't like that. I AM NOT A DYSFUNCTIONAL BRAIN. A part of my brain is dysfunctional, but I am still a person, a personality and all that. I am a human and if you cut me, I bleed. That is also the case the other way around.
As long as you use words to judge us as less, I won't stop.
I have a dysfunctional psycho-neural pathology and I am proud of that, because I cope with it.
I am crazy, I have the papers to prove it. Now what is your problem?

I meant no disrespect to you personally. Dealing with any mental illness is not something that I take lightly. My father died of Parkinson's Disease, and my sister-in-law died of complications from Down Syndrome(enlarged heart). My brother has Asperger's syndrome, and my next door neighbour has Alzheimer's Disease. So, I do have some practical experience and some understanding of some mental illnesses. But, again you are misrepresenting my comments. I am responding to your implication that a dysfunctional brain, is somehow controlled by our 5% conscious mind. This is just not true. In fact, it is more accurate to say, that it is the 95% unconscious and subconscious mind, that control the 5% conscious mind. The only subjective control you have is NOT TO RESPOND OR ACTION. The rest is just an illusion of control.

We can directly and indirectly see the functional, structural, and cognitive changes in a dysfunctional brain. This also includes changes in the brain of schizophrenic patients(ventricular enlargement, cortical atrophy, language anomalies, decreased non-localized white and grey matter). These changes are clearly recognizable on a number of scans. So I do not judge, or have a problem with mentally ill patients. In fact, I can now better understand the points you are making, and why.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I meant no disrespect to you personally. Dealing with any mental illness is not something that I take lightly. My father died of Parkinson's Disease, and my sister-in-law died of complications from Down Syndrome(enlarged heart). My brother has Asperger's syndrome, and my next door neighbour has Alzheimer's Disease. So, I do have some practical experience and some understanding of some mental illnesses. But, again you are misrepresenting my comments. I am responding to your implication that a dysfunctional brain, is somehow controlled by our 5% conscious mind. This is just not true. In fact, it is more accurate to say, that it is the 95% unconscious and subconscious mind, that control the 5% conscious mind. The only subjective control you have is NOT TO RESPOND OR ACTION. The rest is just an illusion of control.

We can directly and indirectly see the functional, structural, and cognitive changes in a dysfunctional brain. This also includes changes in the brain of schizophrenic patients(ventricular enlargement, cortical atrophy, language anomalies, decreased non-localized white and grey matter). These changes are clearly recognizable on a number of scans. So I do not judge, or have a problem with mentally ill patients. In fact, I can now better understand the points you are making, and why.

Correct, I can't change the aspects of the parts of my brain, which are dysfunctional. I have learned to act differently as coping, not that it changed the dysfunctions.
Now some of that also apply to higher learning. I.e. to "think about how I think" and then act differently than just reacting. Let me explain reacting, some people in some cases are the subconscious mind and do not engage the conscious mind to think over what they are doing; i.e. they react.

There was a test including brain scans, where some people were given moral paradoxes. Some only used emotions, others used emotions and the frontal lopes. That is my point about the 5%, some people do not engage the "thinking" as much as others and some of it can be learned. So yes, most of what we humans are subconscious and only 5% are conscious, but that is not that simple as that. Because how people use those 5% varies. That is my point.
Now what is better, is morality and that is not relevant here.

 

[Polymath257]

Gregory Bateson; an anthropologist who applied cybernetics to the social sciences

Information is a process in a brain

I prefer Claude Shannon, inventor of information theory. Here's a brief overview:

Information theory - Wikipedia

Information is definitely NOT just a process in the brain!

 

[Bear Wild]

We are speaking past each other. I am asking this: How come we feel at all? How come we have first person experiences at all? How come a physical and chemical causal system give rise to first person experiences at all? Please check out the "problem" of a p-zombie.
All you do, is to list indirect causation between 3rd person observation and first person experience. That is not what I ask for. I know this - so again, how come in a physical and chemical causal system, that there are first person experience at all? There seems to be no need for it. How come there is this emergent first person experience, when all it is physical and chemical processes.

We feel because it we have a neuronal network that allows us to feel as a result of evolution and the selective advantage to feel. We are individuals thus we recognize self. If have seen the zombie argument but zombies do not exist and would have been selected out log ago. Individuals who have damage to different aspects of the brain involved with what we feel. Example an defect in the amygdala as already mentioned causes the loss of fear. While this might seem ok in reality this will lead to behaviors that lead to high risk and low survival. As for how it is either a complex activation of multiple networks of nerves at one time or it has something to do with the microtubules of neurons. The later gets into quantum theory which I do not have the knowledge of. But as one proton and one electron give the characteristics of hydrogen and 6 protons and 6 electrons give characteristics of carbon even though they are the same particles the neural connections of a single neuron transmits a single signal but collective neural transmissions creates a far more complex pattern. Enough of a pattern to create what we feel is self and feelings.

One important aspect of this which is not always understood is the concept of the whole organism as apposed to the individual organs. Medicine has made this mistake for a long time and only recently is accepting it. Ex. Diabetes once seen as a failure of insulin now seen as a complex interplay of a dysfunction of the neurological system and brain in conjunction a loss of sensitivity of tissue to insulin as well as a decreased hormone secretion by the intestines. It is all interconnected.

How does this affect the concept of consciousness. Western philosophy has seen the brain disconnected from the rest of the body with a greater value placed on it. In addition western philosophy and science used to see the Cortex as the most important with everything supporting it.
The new research gives an entirely different view. The cortex, subcortical brain, and body are equally important and dynamically interconnected. We feel emotions literally. The signals downward through the autonomic system affect how or organs respond. Thus consciousness is thus interconnected with brain and body.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

We feel because it we have a neuronal network that allows us to feel as a result of evolution and the selective advantage to feel. We are individuals thus we recognize self. If have seen the zombie argument but zombies do not exist and would have been selected out log ago. Individuals who have damage to different aspects of the brain involved with what we feel. Example an defect in the amygdala as already mentioned causes the loss of fear. While this might seem ok in reality this will lead to behaviors that lead to high risk and low survival. As for how it is either a complex activation of multiple networks of nerves at one time or it has something to do with the microtubules of neurons. The later gets into quantum theory which I do not have the knowledge of. But as one proton and one electron give the characteristics of hydrogen and 6 protons and 6 electrons give characteristics of carbon even though they are the same particles the neural connections of a single neuron transmits a single signal but collective neural transmissions creates a far more complex pattern. Enough of a pattern to create what we feel is self and feelings.

One important aspect of this which is not always understood is the concept of the whole organism as apposed to the individual organs. Medicine has made this mistake for a long time and only recently is accepting it. Ex. Diabetes once seen as a failure of insulin now seen as a complex interplay of a dysfunction of the neurological system and brain in conjunction a loss of sensitivity of tissue to insulin as well as a decreased hormone secretion by the intestines. It is all interconnected.

How does this affect the concept of consciousness. Western philosophy has seen the brain disconnected from the rest of the body with a greater value placed on it. In addition western philosophy and science used to see the Cortex as the most important with everything supporting it.
The new research gives an entirely different view. The cortex, subcortical brain, and body are equally important and dynamically interconnected. We feel emotions literally. The signals downward through the autonomic system affect how or organs respond. Thus consciousness is thus interconnected with brain and body.

Yes, I get all that.
Here is the other side. Take physics and chemistry - there are a lot of theory/laws expressed in formulas and with measurement standards and procedures for how to calibrate an instrument, Where is the theory/law of consciousness as formula and what is consciousness measured in and what consciousness measured in?
Yes, I know, you will know explain all the indirect observations and all that. I get it, but here is the hard problem of consciousness in natural terms and not philosophical terms. We don't have a one to one theory/law of consciousness as how it matches, that people feel conscious at all. Now it means, that what is consciousness as consciousness as such is unknown in natural terms as far as science goes.
That is the hard problem.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I prefer Claude Shannon, inventor of information theory. Here's a brief overview:

Information theory - Wikipedia

Information is definitely NOT just a process in the brain!

No, it is not, but a brain is necessary, but not sufficient for information.
So read these words: Information theory studies the quantification, storage, and communication of information.
They require brains or computers. Computers being like brains, in that they process information. Without a process in a brain or computer there is no information. Information is a process about something.
You focus on "about something". I get that, but it is a process about something, not just something. Information is a relationship and you focus on one part of it. I am just saying there are 2 parts in a relationship.