noahfor

What we think and know and perceive all originates in the brain, which functions on its own, free of the consciousness. And in my view, consciousness, this non physical thing, whatever it is, does not act on the brain in any way. Choice is just our perceived understanding of the relation between stimulus and response, but then why do we have the word 'consciousness.' How did we get it? I'm typing the word now. It exists in the physical world, but couldn't have been inspired by actual consciousness, since consciousness cannot act on the brain. Would the word still exist if there was no consciousness. What other thing am I refering to, or what causes my use of this word, which to me appears to refer to my own consciousness?

asaris

Why can't consciousness act on the brain?

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

CSflim

When I take two marbles and put them in a bag with two other marbles, I get four marbles. Why? Because 2 + 2 = 4.
But maths is a non-physical thing. It does not appear to have any causal powers to act upon the marbles or the bag. So given this, why is there then four marbles in the bag?

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noahfor

Well the point of the argument is that it must either be able to interact with matter, which opens up a whole new world or that the word was developed to refer to something other than consciousness, but maybe analogous in some way to consciousness, and we interpret it as refering to what we call consciousness, or it could be some other possibility that I haven't thought of.

noahfor

Right, but it is easier to imagine some happening in the brain analogous to our conscious conceptualization of mathematics, and some neurological system creating a word for that happening than it is for consciousness.

And even though I think what I just said has more to do with things, I'll say that in your example our knowledge and vocabulary of mathematics is inspired by things in the physical world, but the word consciousness seems to be inspired by the non-physical mind.

asaris

I would say that consciousness can operate on the brain because it arises from the brain, but something tells me, CSFlim, that we've had this discussion before...

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

noahfor

I'm sorry if you have had this conversation before.

I mean I don't really understand consciousness. I guess that there is something both different and the same about consciousness than the brain, or some happening within the brain. Everything I perceive or think has some analogy in the brain, but is also not an event in it. So it doesn't matter whether the consciousness can interact with the brain or not because both act in parallel. What I want or how I choose to act has some analogy in the brain. It's just hard to imagine how consciousness itself has some analogy, not hard to imagine that it comes from the brain, but you know what I'm saying right.

If you think I'm way off track, please help.

CSflim

Ok, since my first example failed to inspire, let me try another one.

Think of a computer (I seem to be using the computer/brain quite a bit on this board lately. It is a useful comparrison from a philosophical point of view. However, just to avoid any confusion, let me just say the differences between the brain and any existing digital computer are enormous, it works as an analogy, similar to people comparing the orbits of the planets to clockwork - clearly the planets are not literally anything like a clock)

Anyway - think of a computer. It consists basically of a CPU and a memory. The memory is a whole bunch of transistors, each capable of holding a charge, or not (usually denoted as '1' and '0' respectively). Depending on the pattern of charges in one area of the memory (the 'instructions') charges in another area of the memory (the 'data') get manipulated in the CPU by being pushed through a complex maze of semiconductors. Though an over-simplification, this is more-or-less all there is to it when it comes to understanding the operation of a digital computer.

We now see a computer operator inputting an algorithm into the computer's memory as a series of charges (programming). Let's say, for the sake of the example, that the algorithm in question is Euclid's Algorithm - an algorithm for finding the highest common factor of two integers. The computer operator now enters two numbers into the appropriate location in the computer's memory (also encoded as charges), and sets the computer in motion. Low and behold, a few nanoseconds later the HCF of the two numbers is retrieved from memory.
I am sure that we can all agree that there is nothing mysterious here.

However, if we started to reason about this pile of semi-conductors and electrical charges, if we are not careful we could easily make a category mistake and get ourselves terribly confused. For instance we might ask how did the computer actually manage to get the correct answer to the problem of finding the HCF of our two numbers? At first we may answer 'because it executed an algorithm to do so'. But did it? Where is the algorithm? No matter how closely I look, I can find no algorithms, at all, anywhere in this tangled heap of semiconductors and electrical charges. All I see is silicon and electrons blindly following the laws of physics - as if they had any choice in the matter!
So there don't seem to be any algorithms involved here. In fact, algorithms don't even seem to be the type of things that could possibly have any effect on anything in the physical world - they lack any kind of causal powers.
So it seems our computer's ability to find the HCF of two numbers is deeply mysterious!

Hopefully it can be seen that this mystery is only due to our confusion. And I also hope that the source of our confusion is reasonably obvious.

But so too it is with the brain and consciousness. Roughy, from our analogy, Brain<->computer, consciousness<->algorithm. The algorithm is real (as is consciousness). However the algorithm is not something 'extra' that we will find in the computer along side the diodes and the transistors and the electrons. the algorithm is not something which shoves the electrons around in order for them to do its bidding.

I am reminded of the phrase "mind is what the brain does".

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tecoyah

Words define....that is all they are intended to do. It would seem to me the word "consciousness" is an attempt to explain the act of examining/defining Self. As for a word acting on the Brain, this is a given as it is the brain that allows the word to exist in the first place, and it is the brain that created the word as well as the need for the word.
Consciousness in my view, is the ability of a creature to understand that it "Is", and knowing that the world will force interaction, and effect percieved reality. Consciousness is the word we use to state we are here, and that we "Know" we are here.

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

CSflim

I would agree with this. Good post. Concise and to the point.

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tecoyah

Thanx....I put in a Conscious effort....heh

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

noahfor

CSflim I understand and have been understanding what you are saying.

I guess maybe my use of the word 'analogous' and 'analogy' are confusing or incorrect, it's probably the wrong word, but I'm talking about the same thing you are. In your example, I would say the algorithm is 'analogous' to the structure or happening or sequence inside the computer, so you can see I've been saying the same thing all along.

However, in your example, maybe the structure inside the computer can be thought of as representing the brain, but what is keeping me from saying that the algorithm doesn't just represent the word 'consciousness' and not actual consciousness. The word generates the structure, instead of the other way around. The conclusion is that a representation of 'consciousness' is missing in your example, which doesn't really prove or disprove anything.

Yea, but that can't be all it is. Of course, right now my brain is what is typing this and talking about it, so obviously it can be all there is, and it has no idea what I am seeing, and yet it is the one talking about it, but it must be refering to something else, some sequence of neurons, that behave in exactly the same way as what I perceive. What is this more it is refering to, which I perceive as being me.

And I realize by saying this I'm proving that I don't know what you are talking about.



But examining and conscious are the same thing. I still don't believe a sense of self is neccessary for consciousness. How does one have a sense of self before one is conscious? But I agree that the brain created the word, but it created it for something else, some structure or happening in the brain that results in consciousness, and acts and behaves just like consciousness, but in consciousness it refers to something else, something which has nothing to do with the brain.

The same could be said for green. Green isn't in the brain, and at the same time it is. The brain is able to refer to green in a way that is harmonious with the way 'I refer' to it.


I just think consciousness/awareness/sense/perception is something more, but I do realize whatever is the cause for me to type that has no idea, even though it seems it does. I realize there is something to that. Why can't I just accept that there isn't something more, otherwise how could the brain be saying something about something more if there is more. I don't know. There is and there isn't.

noahfor

I mean it's hard to believe that everything that has ever been said about love has been churned out by this mechanical thing, and that love has a physical idenetity within the brain, with the same relation to things as the real thing. AND I BELIEVE THAT, but I just think there is also something more, that doesn't matter to anything, but it's still there, again, even though I know it's just my brain saying this, which knows nothing of this other thing, but speaks about it in soeaking about something else.

tecoyah

Logical thought would point to the wiring of the brain to explain all thought, but as you have pointed out, emotion is difficult to define logically. My mind tells me there must be a way to "Feel" that is caused by the complex structure of neural connections that constitute the human brain, but I have no idea what it consists of, and so I need to guess. It is this incomplete understanding of the brain that forces us to consider there is something more to us, than our parts can define....thus we have the soul, which to me is a result of conciousness.
With thought, comes the need to know. The need to know leads us to create answers when they are not obvious to our form of perception. It is the ability to imagine new realities that make us who we are....
Complex, Compassionate Creatures, Currently Caught in Conscious Confusion, Capable of Conquering thru Collective Cognisance.

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

macmanmike6100

the meme theory describes that consciousness is merely an after-effect, not precondition, of our actions. it's an interesting concept that, after reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/019286212X?v=glance">"The Meme Machine" (Susan Blackmore)</a>, and mostly convinced of.

Here's another excellent article on the subject: http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/ns02.htm

noahfor

I think pretty much all perceptions are equally as puzzling as emotion, for instance, sight. At first it doesn't seem puzzling because we are so familiar with it. It is too rich and its meaning too apparent for us to question. When we see a 3D image, we know it is 3D because certain parts appear in front of other parts. But what does that mean? They just pop out. But what does that mean? I know why it arises, and I know what it means, but I don't know why it means what it means, aparts from its physical origins. Right now I'm talking about the world of perceptions apart from any physical connection, which might seem like a fantasy to some of you.

When I say 'something more,' I'm never talking about something that could have any effect on what happens, including what I'm saying.

micmahsi

I think the brain is the processor for thought. I interpret conciousness as you: your soul, your inner energy, your spirit, whatever you want to call it. Your conciousness has no relation to your body in my opinion.

Nimetic

It's, I think, the ability to form a feedback loop. The ability of the brain to observe itself in a manner.

Or else... is it the ability to put an "I" in a plan. For example - "I" am hungry and need to go hunting, but it will be more successful if "I" don't hunt by myself.

But these are seperate concepts aren't they. The planning one and the reflection one? (Sigh).

roachboy

micmahsi:

it seems that you have a particular notion of consciousness that would seperate it (strangely enough) from everyday perception--i say that because, if you linked the two and thought about cnss as, say, the organizing center of a visual field (what you see) and then think for a moment about what shapes your relation(s) to that visual field, it becomes pretty clear straight away that phyiscal orientation--movement---and the schemata that come to be condensed around movement, that enable it to be coded at once as itself and again as a function subordinated to processes of--um---resolution (say--i hesitated because the word drags one into traditional subject-object style thinking in that a meaningful object is assumed to be simply present to consciousness----are the result of a directing of attention toward.....or of intentionality (means the same as directing toward...)---constitution/resolution then entails a process of recognition of what is present in the world--which is false)---and so are integral to the functioning of this curious platform across which normal perception unfolds that we call consciousness.

=====

in general, i think that consciousness is an effect.

kids develop a sense of their own agency within a given situation as a function of their level of language acquisition---at about 4 years old, they have trouble following instructions in ways that are not embedded in imitation (within the situation, say)--by a year or so later, they can act with considerable autonomy within the same situation.

what seems to change is the sense of relatedness of the "i" to its surroundings--that is, the relation of the "i" to the world comes to be modelled across grammatical relations (the first person pronoun (subject) engages in an action (verb) that involves interaction with the world understood as an accumulation of objects external to the self (object))---in the earlier phase, the relations to the world are still heavily embedded in imitation--in the later phase, the grammatical relations seem to have been internalized more and so a range of possible actions appears to be thinkable insofar as the seperation of subject from environment seems to acquire a kind of givenness that it does not previously have.

first person pronoun-verb-object seems to be a primary mode of staging interaction with the environment. this same structure also functions as a sequence of objects amenable to investment on their own--that is, the linguistic particles (and their attributes as words--their properties/effects) stage relations--but they are also themselves objects (words)--they become nodes around/upon which other schemata are fashioned---these schemata are shot through with the characteristics of linguistic elements----the characteristics of which come to be fundamental characterisitics of the world processed through them----and of the elements that perform/shape that processing.

so the "i" is at once an element that functions in staging relations with the environment and is itself the root particle in schemata that function recursively---the result of these recursive schemata is the development of a sense of the "i" in its various aspects---central to these is perception and the experience of the conditions of possibility of perceptions (largely, in the context of this thread, the wide range of features that are loosely referred to as consciousness--i say loosely because of how the term slips around here)

even from the little outline of developmental psych research above, it is pretty clear that the result--a sense of autonomy relative to the environment--leans on a ton of social factors, the primary relay of which are the people who surround the kid--the parents, etc.--and that much of the preconditions for acquiring a sense of self are thereby social. which makes sense, particularly if you find yourself thinking about this kind of process with some end of explaining how folk come to function socially.

not all traditional western philosophy does this--quite the contrary, in fact. if you view the world through a determininist ontology, questions of the social nature of the "i" are bracketed almost from the outset because these factors would appear to be changing and so accidental---while "knowledge" is transcendent (a function of the framing assumptions--to be is to be determined, in this case)---the goal of philo is the generation and clarification of transcendent statements--so the traditional genre "philo" requires a bracketing of questions that relate to the social.

anyway, these grammatical particles come to at once stage relations to the world and to function as a framework for thinking about relations to the world---this a function of the properties of the particles themselves and/or the status particular social groups impute to them (hard to know the difference, if there is one)---you could follow this out: the first person pronoun stipulates a kind of relation in a simple grammatical sequence---the first person pronoun is also a form of noun in itself, and so functions to stabilize the notion of consciousness by linking its modalities back to an unchanging core. you can see this as following from the characteristics of the "i" as a noun.
this core is itself an object of affective investment. these investments, like any other, really, is to a significant extent socially conditioned---that is most types of investment in the "i" are socially sanctioned to the extent that they are functional.

the "i" then, as a linguistic element, is at once immanent and transcendent--its transcendent features come to be filled out variously as there are many discourses that speak to the content of the "i"--and as a transcendent element, the "i" is amenable to multiple types of investment--investments that, with time and reinforcement, come to BE how you function in the world.

so you could simultaneously hold a number of positions relative to the nature of the "i" and its acts (perception)---
in real time, consciousness is a function--it is the organizing center of any given visual field--you process information around your own viewpoint such that you are functionally the cause of the phenomena (one wya to think abuot how you can account for your own movement within the riot of visual inputs that any complex scene brings with it)--you use this organization of the visual field as a primary way to limit information (and the limitation of information is as or more important a function as taking in information)...at this register, one of more or less immediate experience, the content of the "i" is continually shifting insofar as it is only present as effect of organization.

but you can shift very easily to a more analytic level (a possibility generated by the same range of relations to linguistic elements embedded in the stuff i wrote above) and ask questions about the various features involved in everyday perceptual acts. it is at this level you see the power of frame-effects---when you shift to thinking about perception, your have a number of possiblities for giving this shift orientation.

if you think in traditional western philosophical terms, you have the enormous weight of the assumption that there is a soul which drags across thinking about perception in debilitating ways--it is the origin of the mind-body split, for example, and can correspond to a certain view of the nature of the ego/consiousness (it tends to result in the imputing of an essence to the ego/consciousness which is of a piece with a wide range of moves to delimit the topic of the ego/consciousness such that developmental factors are not relevant)---with this move, the ego becomes a variety of a thing and so is thought about as such--as bounded (by the skull relative to the environment, by the experience of perception taken on its own terms relative to the body, etc.) as identical to itself across time, as unconditioned socially in any meaningful way (social conditioning would at best be split into a sequence of a priori results that could be accounted for via a cut analysis on eht one hand, and understood as accidental on the other---so it is that the condition of possibility for any functioning ego at all get dissolved as a result of frame assumptions). thinking about the ego as a variety of a thing impacts upon ways in which cognitive science frames problems of linking patterns of brain activity to consciousness as a result--you see this relation in the assumption that there has to be sequences of stable neural networks within the brain--so the analysis of the biological underpinnings of perception are organized around the same philosophical assumptions as traditional western epistemology--so the locating/positing of these stable neural patterns is shaped, at one level or another, by a search for essence which only even begins to make sense from within a very particular conceptual framework--that is, that the ego is a variety of object--to know an object is to know something of its essence (a set of predicates)---more recent work in cognitive science have developed very different conceptual frames which have opened up very different ways of looking at brain activity that do not simply replicate these more outmoded philsophical assumptions--check out the work of fransisco varela in cognitive science (the embodied self in particular), henri atlan on the philosophical implications of recent developments microbiology and how they force a reconceptualization of scientific activity itself (from enlightenment to enlightenment in particular, but much of his work speaks to this)....

i think i have been rattling on for a while.
i have been working on a project that deal with some of this stuff and so it is on my mind--sorry about the length....

summation:
consciousness is an effect.
how you think about that effect is itself an effect.
the mechanism that gives content to these effects is projection.
the root of projection is patterned affect.
these projections are shaped fundamentally by your own biography.
you encounter patterns as given as a function of your socialization.
you later have the possibility of pushing into or through these patterns analytically.
you can link them, their structure and effects, to general modes of thinking that operate without necessarily being avowed as such---so thinking about real-time percpetion can lead you to questions of ontology and these questions can route you back into thinking about everyday perception----and so it goes, continual self-alteration that you may or may not experience as such as a function of the frame assumptions that you drag across.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite