[MD] MD Looking for the Primary Difference

[Case]

[Case said]
First you offer up an anthropomorphic definition, then you attempt to define
the undefined with more undefineds. I find this difficult to take this
seriously. From other threads I am getting the idea that you are identifying
consciousness with Quality. If so, fine but when you begin to name the Tao
it is no longer the Tao. You cannot start making it causal and leave it
undefined. That is just sloppy.

Scott:
Your insistence on having only well-defined terms is, I think, a copout. In
the MOQ, the following terms are used but undefined: value, quality,
dynamic, static, pattern. Further, none of them are definable. The word
'definition' is undefinable. And so are consciousness and intellect (and,
yes, I hold that quality, consciousness, and intellect are three aspects of
the same (non-)thing.). So when I say there can't be awareness of anything
larger than a chemical reaction (if one assumes that consciousness is
produced by spatio-temporally separated chemical reactions), I am inviting
you to disprove it by taking any example, such as Chalmers', and tell me how
it happens. How does neural activity give rise to a sensation of blue, for
example? How do 440 changes of air vibration per second give rise to hearing
the note 'A'? One doesn't need exact definitions of consciousness to
understand these questions.

[Case]
I hardly see that defining ones terms is a cop-out. I accept the MoQ to the
extent that it has a single undefined term. I do this because I see that it
is impossible to a to "know" reality beyond the limits of our senses and
storage capacity. I would be much happier to name this undefined Tao or
fnord. I have objected to even the term Quality because the name itself
carries with it an emphasis on certain aspects of the greater undefined.
Using a term we know provides the illusion that we then know something about
the unknown. In this sense the Jews were right never to utter the name of
God. But beyond that single recognition of the unknowable center of things I
see no need to pile up more undefined terms.

If you are simply saying that Consciousness, with a "C", is Tao. Then like
Ian I would have to say you and I have a tendency to agree violently. To me
at least this does not imply anything like a purpose, direction, goal or
final plan. 

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Case said:
I am saying that the questions you raise are interesting but that their
answers are to be found in the study of complex phenomena, in the
neurosciences, in computer simulations, in the weather. You seem to be
saying that this alleged paradox makes all further study useless and it is
best to retreat into speculative idealism.

Scott:
And I am saying that I am well aware of what has been found in the study of
complexity, etc., and it all doesn't come anywhere near answering my
objections. If one changes one's assumption from yours to mine, the paradox
disappears. Isn't that a good reason to make the change? And no, I don't
think further study is useless. One studies consciousness with philosophy
and introspections, and perhaps meditation, rather than science, which can
only study form, not awareness of form.

[Case]
I would say that your question "How does neural activity give rise to a
sensation of blue, for example?" emerges from complexity in this fashion:

With from 10 to 100 billion nerve cell each making from 1000 to 10,000
connections to other cells, the human brain is the most complex bit of
matter in the known universe. It is without question a "computer" but it is
an analog computer. I will use digital computer terminology a bit here
because I think it works metaphorically even though the mechanisms are
certainly different between digital and analog processing.

Among the brain's capabilities is the ability to record and recall
experiences from the past. That is sensory experience occurs as a result of
electo-chemical activity inside the neural network. These patterns of
electro chemical activities are preserved inside the network and can be
replayed or perhaps they resonate continuously inside the network.
Theoretically at least, if this recording was of sufficient fidelity, one
could relive experiences exactly and make no distinction whatever between
past and present. Of course this does not seem to be the case but conscious
beings are able to access the past, present and project into the future
simultaneously. Because experience remains as a set of impressions or
pathways or interactions inside the network. This I have called temporal
buffering. While all brains and nervous systems have this ability human
brains have more of it than other animals. 

It is also known that short term and long term memory is handled differently
inside the brain. So that there are at least two layers of temporal
buffering. To use the digital metaphor. Short term memory is like RAM and
long term memory is like disk storage. Long term memories are retrieved into
short term memory, mingle with present stimulation and the result is
consciousness. This results from the ability to transcend the instant.
Because reality is in some sense recreated and stored inside the network and
can be accessed inside the network, space and time are also represented,
either as a function of the structure or the brain itself, a priori, or as a
result of the brain's experience, learning.

It is this ability to replay the past within the temporal buffer that allows
associations between past and present circumstance to occur. It allows
patterns of electro-chemical activities to interact in ways that transcend
space and time. After all inside the neural network, space and time are
recreated, replayed, sorted, and shuffled. I would say that we as
individuals are restricted to the interior of this network as homunculi. Our
access to the world of objects is limited to their persistent knocking on
our doors.

But transcendence of space and time are the result of the brain's ability to
allow multiple temporal representations to exist simultaneously. The result
is space in no-space and time in no-time or "the color blue."

You seem to be saying that consciousness causes this complex set of
interactions to occur and pushes nature in this evolutionary direction. Or
that once brain stuff is here consciousness jumps on board rather like a
hermit crab snags a shell for a home. I see it as property that emerges
because our environment supports complex interactions.

In any case that is a stab at showing how consciousness is a description of
the interaction of brain stuff.

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Scott:
Ok, then build me something out of transistors that has blue sensations.

[Case]
I might have to get back to you on that but the way things have been going
it might not be very long. One of the limitations of the digital analogy is
in the processor itself as you know. A digital processor is limited by the
spans of time during and between clock cycles as well as the size of its
registers, or the amount of information it can process in a single clock
cycle. It took something like 3 billion years for our analog computers to
get were they are while Moore's Law seems to be holding up nicely in the
digital realm so this does not seem to be to be an insurmountable barrier.

But the real question you are raising is whether it is in principle possible
to create a digital consciousness. I see no reason why not. Whether or not
it would be identical to organic consciousness is questionable but that
doesn't strike me as a big deal.

After all I am the only being in the universe that I am certain has blue
sensations. I have to take your word for it when you say that you do. If
someday Commander Data says he sees blue who am I to argue. The Turing test
and all that.

---------------------------

Scott:
I didn't refuse -- I just didn't realize that that was what that long ramble
was about. Ok. The answer to what happened is the beginning of the end of
original participation by the rise (in humans) of intellect. This brought
about the separation into subject and object, where thinking became "my
thinking" and objects began to lose their spiritual meaning, which
eventually (in the last few centuries), allowed materialism to flourish. The
etymological evidence for this is that way back then, many words did not
distinguish between what we see as something mental and something physical
(like 'pneuma' meaning both 'wind' and 'spirit', 'davar' in Hebrew meaning
both 'word' and 'thing').

[Case]
I have seen several authors try to construct theories based on their
interpretations of what ancients people said and did. I mentioned Jaynes
having ideas that seemed similar to Barfield's but then there are Sitchin
and Von Daniken talking about ancient astronauts and Velcovsky having
planets wandering into the solar system. There are hundreds of folks out
there making much ado over the pyramids. 

Language is metaphorical. It is difficult to reconstruct the meaning of
those metaphors outside of their context. Getting too specific in this area
just makes my palms sweat.

---------------------------

Case said:
Even if I took your fallacy fantasy seriously I would think the logical
conclusion would be that consciousness as you define it does not and can not
exist. Which I have maintained from the start. You on the other hand seem to
think that the fallacy demonstrates that consciousness said, "Let there be
light."

Scott:
No, the logical conclusion is that conscious produces the spatio-temporality
of things and events. It's not news that perception produces color, sound,
and so on. And it produces the space and time of dreams. So why is this
conclusion so hard to accept?

[Case]
I have tried to show above that consciousness transcends space and time by
allowing representation of the past to interact freeing with the present to
model the future. It is complexity the creates this transcendence. Dreams
seem to play a role in the organization and classification of memory.

-----------------------------------
[Scott said]
Irrational numbers are no problem (as a math major I learned that they are
no more 'irrational' than integral ratios, likewise so-called 'imaginary'
numbers' are just as real as so-called 'real' numbers.) 

[Case said] 
The Greeks are said to have honored their discoverer by rowing him out to
sea and throwing him overboard.

Scott:
True. New ideas are hard for some to accept, aren't they :-)

[Case]
Indeed! One of the ideas I have been messing with is the idea of self
sustaining reactions. I pointed out elsewhere that irrational numbers are
abstract examples of this. Once the calculation begins is it eternal. I
don't think it odd that the Greeks attached mystical significance to Math.

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[Case]
I snipped a bit here and there to prune away bits of the fractal/organic
structure of this dialog. Feel free to regraft anything you like back into
the form. I was shooting for Bonsai. You may prefer kudzu.