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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 23, 2019 - 03:45pm PT
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From my perspective, consciousness IS, and from it everything arises
JL,
From my perspective you are a walking toy fallen on its side. Your legs keep pumping but you go nowhere. You seem to like where you are. You may have no ambition to leave where you are.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 23, 2019 - 04:39pm PT
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the level of complexity, hierarchy, and subconscious involvement
Not how it always falls to me to clarify what people are actually saying here. I would bet you a burger that while the "complexity argument" (which has NEVER been related to consciousness), hierarchy (no doubt relating to the hierarchy of mechanical brain processes, also never been related to "creating" consciousness) and the subconscious, the boogie man of behavioralim, is all an attempt to posit consciousness itself (while focusing on content) as one might posit an unimaginably intricate clock - mechanical top to bottom. If Healje were to say that consciousness were inexorably related to brain function, I would have no problem with that. The problem is that in this model, the brain is fundamental to mind as an operate, mechanical cause, in the linear sense of the word. And science has gone no distance is demonstrating how this is remotely possible.
And MH2 - I seem to go nowhere. Where would "somewhere" be for such a man. A physical explanation that "explains" mind as the linear-causal output of the brain. Once we have that, then by golly we would have "gone somewhere." This, as the dude said, is like trying to explain the emergence of the field by way of measurable particles. Not a great metaphor, but you get the picture.
Like I said, give a dog a classical bone, and don't expect him to ever relax his jaws, even thought said bone yields no juice per how and why we have experience and are conscious of same. The point is, the how and the why in linear-causal terms is a matter of asking the wrong questions. Like looking in Texas expecting to find Zurich, and when you don't, just keep looking cause according to first assumptions, it HAS to be there.
Writing off Identity Theory on the grounds that the mechanistic parameters are not complex enough is to totally miss the point on why IT is so logically hare-brained and absurd.
Healje, by default, is left with emergence, which everyone knows is not an explanation. What, specifically emerges in scientific terms (meaning that off which we can directly take a measurement, which in this case rules out measuring the brain itself, which harks back to the Identity Theory he just dismissed). Closed loop, amigos.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Apr 23, 2019 - 05:04pm PT
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JL: "If Healje were to say that consciousness were inexorably related to brain function, I would have no problem with that."
OK! You admit as much. Consciousness => brain function. Not causal necessarily. Could be a consciousness field operating through a brain mechanism. (Though I doubt it)
"This is what is meant by the Heroic Progress Scripture when it says, 'Inwardly keeping to recondite tranquility is still a reflection of discrimination of objects.' How could it be the true mind?"
Sounds like Eastern religious thought to me.
;>)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 23, 2019 - 05:52pm PT
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JL: "If Healje were to say that consciousness were inexorably related to brain function, I would have no problem with that."
OK! You admit as much. Consciousness => brain function. Not causal necessarily. Could be a consciousness field operating through a brain mechanism. (Though I doubt it)
No, John. The arrow function => means "What It Is. "Related" does not mean identical. That is, conscious is not what the brain IS, or vica versa. That's Identity Theory. A dead end like behavioralism.
For example, blue sky is related to earth, but it is not what earth IS. Nor is earth sky.
The point is that nothing is NOT inexorably related t everything else. What I totally disagree with is that the "field" of consciousness is the linear-causal output of the brain that "created" it. Again, I hark back to the Dude who said this is like believing that the particles "create' the field.
--
"This is what is meant by the Heroic Progress Scripture when it says, 'Inwardly keeping to recondite tranquility is still a reflection of discrimination of objects.' How could it be the true mind?"
Sounds like Eastern religious thought to me.
;>)
What amazes me is that you would get so hung up on the word "scripture" that you failed to look at what was actually said, to check your own process, and see if you might understand what the old guy was driving at. By identifying with the pyrite of "scripture," you have IMO missed the gold of the observation. And who gives a damn if true insight comes from a priest or a pan handler. The verity rests with the message, wouldn't you agree. I would be interested in hearing your experiential take on what he actually said. I could care less (and never have) about Asian accretions per wisdom traditions. The stuff either rings true in your experience, or not. But the first step is in experientially investigating his drift. He is not presenting an idea, per se.
Healje's take largely derives from articles like these:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170818/
While complexity plays a part (along with randomness, chaos theory etc) in these beliefs, the basic notion has nothing to do with complexity per se, but is summed with this:
Mental states emerge from physical states by strong emergence, that is in a nonreducible and highly dependent manner: mental properties do not exist or change unless physical properties exist or change.
Note the word "exist." That is, mind "exists" (is created) by brain activity. That, in my opinion, is where all emergence theories default into pure magic and woo. To say nothing of the glaring question that still remains with all emergence, strong or otherwise: What, in scientific terms (measurable) emerges?
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Apr 23, 2019 - 06:41pm PT
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Was thinking along these lines when I brought up the insect brain.
A living entity is required for consciousness to exist period.
Even simple one cell amoeba, a blade of grass has consciousness because there is a living entity there (soul) although very low consciousness.
What I was wondering about is the levels of consciousness and how they differ.
If the do.
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his dome-like brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 23, 2019 - 06:54pm PT
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jgill --Sounds like Eastern religious thought to me.
You obviously know very little about this.
Schrodinger invested heavily in the Vedas to understand this stuff.
Vedas is NOT a religion.
It's all in his book, Meine Weltansicht ....
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 23, 2019 - 07:02pm PT
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I seem to go nowhere. Where would "somewhere" be for such a man.
No, you actually go nowhere:
give a dog a classical bone, and don't expect him to ever relax his jaws, even thought said bone yields no juice per how and why we have experience and are conscious of same. The point is, the how and the why in linear-causal terms is a matter of asking the wrong questions. Like looking in Texas expecting to find Zurich, and when you don't, just keep looking cause according to first assumptions, it HAS to be there.
Have a closer look at how the brain functions and you will get an inkling of how and why we have experience and are conscious of same.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 23, 2019 - 08:24pm PT
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Largo is criticizing something that doesn't yet exist, a scientific theory of "mind"
until we have such a thing, it seems rather absurd to continue to play this game of what it can and cannot explain...
one can have opinions regarding the possibility of achieving such a thing, as the Fish once observed, opinions are like as#@&%es, everybody has one...
it is my opinion that a single physical description of the universe suffices to explain everything, there is no need to make up some new part of the universe to accommodate "consciousness"
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Apr 23, 2019 - 08:51pm PT
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there are lots of stories in zen about the book learned expert (sutra master)coming to teach the zen monks who only meditate and don't read sutras or watch sam harris on U tube. The book learned master is always exposed as not being able to do off-width!!!! He knows it inside and out but he does not actually do it.
He /she lacks experience of doing the thing they expound about.
So JL has asked "what is mind?" Many have responded with responses that are devoid of experience ie mind is what is created by brain; mind is an algorithm; mind is clustered neurons; mind is a process part of evolution. Just substitute climbing for mind in those last statements and it might joggle your view. Climbing ? what is it ? I will take you up one and then you will get a " feel" for what it is! The explanation will be insignificiant is an understatement.
Long story short "we" have become so attached to words,concepts and conditioned mental constructs that "we " have lost connection with "our" immediate experience. It is not that the words and concepts aren't wonderful necessary ways to communicate . It is the forgetting that the words are not the experience. When you lose contact with your experience things typically get really messy.
So us meditators are a lot like climbers we practice trying to pay attention to what is right in front of us and working with the fear that can come up ; learning to let go of fear and just concentrate on technique. Or learning to look at mental constructs and remembering and realizing they are just an idea not the whole truth and possibly completely off base.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Apr 23, 2019 - 09:29pm PT
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JL: "No, John. The arrow function => means "What It Is. "Related" does not mean identical. That is, conscious is not what the brain IS, or vica versa. That's Identity Theory. A dead end like behavioralism."
Once again you show an embarrassing richness of error in mathematics and logic. I explained the use of the symbol "=>" a few posts back. "Consciousness => brain activity" simply means that whenever consciousness exists, brain activity exists as well. Of course consciousness is not what the brain IS! MH2 is correct; you've been tilted over but your legs still run. Sigh . . .
JL: "What I totally disagree with is that the "field" of consciousness is the linear-causal output of the brain that "created" it."
I never said the brain might "create" a field of consciousness, only that the field might exist and the brain somehow captures it, like a radio. I don't promote this concept.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Apr 23, 2019 - 09:51pm PT
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it is my opinion that a single physical description of the universe suffices to explain everything, there is no need to make up some new part of the universe to accommodate "consciousness"
Ain't that a bitch (potentially)
An explanation that all of us nonphysisist types won't be able to understand.
What is "Mind?"
I cannot tell you, but the guy over there with the beard can. :)
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 24, 2019 - 02:40am PT
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Largo wrote: Not sure how it always falls to me to clarify what people are actually saying here.
Well, it could be you're just arrogant that way or are trying to grasp what others are saying. Unfortunately, either way, your attempts at 'clarification' are invariably inaccurate, wide of the mark in interpretation, and are mysteriously twisted to suit your argument. For example:
...is all an attempt to posit consciousness itself (while focusing on content) as one might posit an unimaginably intricate clock - mechanical top to bottom.
Here you twist things straight back to your [mindless] mechanical argument and endless harping on the now beaten-to-death distinction between thinking and what is thought about. In other words, the above is self-serving rubbish and not at all what was said. But ignoring Largo's interpretive genius for a moment, let's get a couple of things clear at this very late juncture:
 No brain => No mind
Given the above there are only one of two conclusions one can choose among:
Option A: Brain creates mind
Option B: Brains are antennas for and aggregators of a fundamental/universal consciousness
If you don't acknowledge the reality of the first point above then a discussion is pointless which leaves everyone else to choose which side of the debate they're on: either Option A or Option B - there is no Option C.
For adherents to Option B, I'll say this: in 22.5k posts here, nor in any references I've seen, there has never been a single coherent answer to these questions:
1. Why would a fundamental/universal consciousness need physical or individual expression at all?
2. Why brains (why biology/organisms)?
3. What is it about the biology, evolution, anatomy, or organization of brains is conducive to or in any way useful for tuning into and aggregating/consolidating a fundamental consciousness?
4. How does it work?
5. Why would 'content' reside in brains separate from consciousness?
6. How would consciousness access materially-sourced content?
7. How would consciousness store subjective experience in a material brain?
8. What's the relationship between the conscious and subconscious mind[s]?
Beyond being an attractive philosophical or mystical notion, the idea of fundamental/universal has zero [non-magical] support from either science or meditation (which can't penetrate its no-thing event horizon). Hell, even Chalmers can't stammer out a clear explanation with regard to the emergence/sourcing of quale or how/why we'd ever experience such a phenomenon. Last, that adherents to Option B (and really most of this thread) tend to assiduously avoid the questions raised by the mere existence of the subconscious mind is rather telling in a myriad of ways.
In contrast, you can look at the taxonomy of extant species from viruses to humans and it is clear to see:
Life is behavior
Biological and behavioral complexity are intrinsically linked
Consciousness is an inherent behavior of sufficiently complex organisms
And with regard to Bassett and Gazzaniga's 2011 work. That survey of the problem space still holds up as a seminal attempt to step back from the various individual efforts tackling the mind/brain question (12 blind men and the elephant) and place those efforts within a broader, more coherent framework which brings disciplines together to do more collaborative research.
As for "emergence is not an explanation", that is exactly correct, it is not an explanation, it's an observation - i.e. emergence of mind from the brain is the question, not the answer. No one I've ever read has suggested it's the answer, but rather the unavoidable conclusion of going with Option A above. That we don't know and may never know how is another matter altogether similar to the questions of what happened before the Big Bang or how did life happened.
But Largo runs afoul of what I consider a profound and fundamental aspect of human behavior - a deep and abiding intolerance of unanswered questions rooted in an instinctual fear of the unknown. That, when combined with our ability to create and imagine, invariably leads humans to simply fabricate answers to unanswered questions. In fact, the history of man is almost defined by the evolution of our religious and secular mythologies. And in that context, I view science as more a matter of holding off the panic unanswered questions provoke just long enough for rational thought to prevail over emotions - to quell irrational fear. In that same vein in my way of thinking, repeatedly shouting "science has no answer!!!" and "emergence not being an explanation!!!" is basically akin to saying no one has ever climbed El Cap and so obviously no one ever will so there's no point in speculating whether it's even possible, let alone attempting it.
So for adherents to Option B - fundamental/universal consciousness - rather than an endless plaintive based on science not having the answer to the emergence of minds from brains, I'd love to hear a single, coherent answer to any of questions 1-8 listed above.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 24, 2019 - 07:34am PT
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Healyje: I'd love to hear a single, coherent answer to any of questions 1-8 listed . . . .
1. Why would a fundamental/universal consciousness need physical or individual expression at all?
2. Why brains (why biology/organisms)?
3. What is it about the biology, evolution, anatomy, or organization of brains is conducive to or in any way useful for tuning into and aggregating/consolidating a fundamental consciousness?
4. How does it work?
5. Why would 'content' reside in brains separate from consciousness?
6. How would consciousness access materially-sourced content?
7. How would consciousness store subjective experience in a material brain?
8. What's the relationship between the conscious and subconscious mind[s]?
#1. No "need" at all.
#2. Why not? This particular reality is the one you're in. Brains is what has showed up. It is easy to imagine other life forms that operate differently.
#3. (see #2).
#4. You've stipulated many concepts here. It's your stipulation; that's for you to argue here.
#5. "Content resides in brains?" Sez who? Open up a brain, and see what content falls out.
#6. An unclear question to me.
#7. Who sez consciousness stores subjective experience? See #5.
#8. For a fella who doubts anything that isn't brain when it comes to consciousness (and can't say what consciousness is anyway), how can you be so sure that there is something that you refer to as a subconsciousness? Both seem to be ungraspable.
Largo, rest his soul, makes reasonable attempts to talk physicality, rationality, and objectively to you folks. Your most damning criticism appears to be: show me consciousness when someone's brain is not working (a purely physical concern). You get a point for that, but what of all the other criticisms of a purely physical (brain-only) model of consciousness?
If you can't even say what you're talking about (i.e., consciousness--WHAT IS IT?), then any question and models are for naught. It's like spitting in the wind. Everyone here claims he or she has consciousness, but not one person here has been able to say what consciousness is--least not in any way that a physicalist could rest upon. An algorithm? A controller? A computer? An evolutionary mechanism that promotes survival? Metaphors and vague descriptions. WHAT IS IT?
The title of the thread is: "What IS Mind?" Everyone has one, don't they? There should be oodles of reports converging on a single definition. But no.
I'm with PSP here completely (I think). It seems apparent that the words, concepts, and mental constructs get in the way of the very experience of consciousness (irrespective of content). It can even happen right here right now as you read or as I type on this keyboard. Somehow I'm experiencing consciousness and *not* thinking about typing or even what I'm saying so much. The experience appears to be completely improvisational. I'd suggest that is how everything is: expressively creative, unitary yet infinitely variegated, wide-open, spontaneous, and absent of substantiality: wu wei.
On the other hand, we can analyze experience / mind / consciousness to death and miss the entire show.
Oh, wait. We can't. No one seems to be able to get outside of consciousness. We're fish swimming in water. No matter where you go, there you are. Funny, that. Consciousness is as plain as the nose on your face.
Be well.
P.S. BTW, since when is the number of comments relevant to anything other than perhaps interest and a divergence of opinions? Scientifically, metrics by themselves mean nothing.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 24, 2019 - 07:45am PT
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Open up a brain, and see what content falls out.
You just opened yours. The content that fell out can be viewed above.
We don't need to go anywhere all together, Mike. It is fun to just talk about our individual points of view and to hear from others.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 24, 2019 - 08:00am PT
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Somehow I'm experiencing consciousness
No you are not experiencing consciousness separate from yourself.
You are consciousness itself, a part parcel of the whole consciousness with individuality and variegatedness.
Why would a fundamental/universal consciousness need physical or individual expression at all?
Because that is what we really are, individuals with minute independent free will.
When we rebel against the original whole (fundamental/universal consciousness) then we get sent to the temporary material world to try to act fully independently.
Here's your sandbox do as you please.
But the (fundamental/universal consciousness) still ultimately rules and any real attempt against that rule immediately creates suffering.
Only thru suffering and pain will jiva atma want to change as the jiva atma (living entity itself, soul) in its original state is always blissful.
In the material world, the living entity spends its entire life counteracting pain and suffering ......
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 24, 2019 - 08:47am PT
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Here you twist things straight back to your [mindless] mechanical argument and endless harping on the now beaten-to-death distinction between thinking and what is thought about.
-
I raised some interesting question and yet here we go again ranting on deliveries having nothing to do with the questions raised. It's like John, given on a golden platter an insight about mind and instead of taking it seriously and investigating himself, he goes off on some sill thing about symbols. I double checked the symbol used and the reference I say said exactly what I wrote.
Now the "mindless" mechanical argument Healje rants about is not my own. It is his, but he won't sack it up and come clean about it - as though emergence, randomness, chaos and so forth somehow transposes his beliefs into an non-mechanical, non-creation-based premise in which an objective world DOES NOT exist separate from consciousness.
What's more, even when he goes on the attack his woefully flubs the distinctions. Let's make it clear so even he can get it:
He says: ... the now beaten-to-death distinction between thinking and what is thought about.
Why "beaten to death?" Because of the preposterous conflation that goes on in most of these daffy descriptions. Look, it's something every first-day meditation student can verify for him or herself: The issue with mind is less about WHAT we think, sense, feel and remember, but rather the fact that we are conscious of same.
"Thinking and what is thought about" is a kind Elmer Fudd take on all of this. "What is thought about" is merely the specific instance of the general act OF thinking. Sort of like saying "the now beaten-to-death distinction between the forest and a tree." Of course this is not the distinction at all, which is the crucial difference between WHAT (trees, forests, carbiners, etc) one experiences (as thought etc.) and the fact that we are conscious OF not only the content, but our presence and knowing of same - the "what it's like" to experience a thought, feeling, ans so forth.
Whiffed again on this one amigo, rather handsomely. The reason one has to beat this distinction to death is that A) it is crucial to understand mind, and B) many are either not getting the distinction, having no experience of making that distinction, or (fill in the blank).
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 24, 2019 - 09:25am PT
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no argument has been given why a materialistic explanation for mind should be excluded.
arguing that our acquaintance with "mind" is a "fact" fails because such a fact is not unchangeable, but more, Largo and others have stated that we cannot describe "mind" which implies that our acquaintance with mind falls far short of "fact"
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Apr 24, 2019 - 11:24am PT
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FYI--
According to the Gospel of Mary, Mary Magdalene, seeing the Lord in a vision, asked him, "How does he who sees the vision see it? [Through] the soul, [or] through the spirit?" He answered that the visionary perceives through the mind. The Apocalypse of Peter, discovered at Nag Hammadi, tells how Peter, deep in a trance, saw Christ, who explained that "I am the intellectual spirit, filled with radiant light."
from The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Apr 24, 2019 - 02:42pm PT
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Tony Bird, great to see you back here again after such a long absence!
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Apr 24, 2019 - 03:55pm PT
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MikeL: "Largo, rest his soul, makes reasonable attempts to talk physicality, rationality, and objectively to you folks."
-------------------------------------------------
Me to JL: "OK! You admit as much. Consciousness => brain function. Not causal necessarily"
JL: "No, John. The arrow function => means "What It Is". "Related" does not mean identical. That is, conscious is not what the brain IS, or vica versa."
JL: "he [John] goes off on some sill thing about symbols. I double checked the symbol used and the reference I say said exactly what I wrote."
Wikipedia math or logic tables: A ⇒ B means if A is true then B is also true; if A is false then nothing is said about B
JL: "Norm, here [Hilbert space], means “something that is usual, typical, or standard.”
Wikipedia: In linear algebra, functional analysis, and related areas of mathematics, a norm is a function that assigns a strictly positive length or size to each vector in a vector space—except for the zero vector, which is assigned a length of zero.
Do we live in two different realities?
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