[MD] In and out of intellect.

Sat Dec 13 10:48:15 PST 2008

Morning Bo;

----- Original Message -----
From: <skutvik at online.no>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2008 1:25 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] In and out of intellect.

<snip>Interleaved reply...

BO:
Thanks for your comment Mel, but  what about my point which is that
SOM postulates a self-consciousness that shuts down when falling
asleep and switches on when awakening (if it's just memory that
switches off, the same applies to animals).

mel:
Going on the principle that the way in which one structures a
problem opens or restricts the domain of the solution, I'd say
that the SOM binary off/on postulate fails to take into account
the way consciousness is observed to work--it causes the
observer of consciousness to 'throw away" data, to ignore
what doesn't fit the hypothesis.

BO:
Thus all creatures that sleep must have a similar shutting
down/switching of  .... of what  ....  because an animal isn't
supposed to be self-conscious.

mel:
Any animal that exhibits a 'survival instinct' is by definition
self-conscious; it has to understand what is self versus
what is not self and what is a threat to itself.  Now there
is a definitional matter to clear up, which is the distinction
between:
1) dynamic self-consciousness in an immediate
     situation in the present,
     and
2) 'remembered' self-consciousness in social roles
     or comparisons with static knowledge build up
     in memory over time.

Animal self-consciousness tends towards the dynamic
immediate for the majority of its life, because that is
what is most successful in staying alive.
Remembered self consciousness for them is less about
social roles, because they have only very rudimentary
social structures, but in the course of living they build up
remembered experience (as opposed to instinctual)
and the integration of acquired memory into the
immediate requires a self-consciousness.
(I won't discuss it here, but the implicatiions of animal
play make self-consciousness apparent in a different way)

BO:
A dog doesn't yawn and think "linguistically" "...another day in
my doggy life". Yet it must wake up to some state different from
sleep (that sleep feels like oblivion (except for the REM dream
phase is plain). The nineteenth century thinkers invented the
"slumber" term to circumvent the problem, but whatever animals
do isn't walk around slumbering..

mel:
If language is abstract mapping of meaning, then obviously
the richness of human language is not matched by the dog,
however, dogs do 'map meaning' although differently and less
richly.  tail position, head position, body attitude, all are used
by fido to convey meaning.  We will likely never know if they
"talk to themselves" or if they have some internal "narrative."

Of course the animal changes state upon awakening,
just as we do.  The complexity of our brains and the
minds that 'emerge' from that complexity are simply
different in degree from the dog's.

Anthropomorphically, we have carried the story that
our narrative is different from the beasts' in kind.
Some have  thought that a conceit on our part, and
it probably is, although it may be true anyway, because
in emergent systems there is often a "critical mass"
that once exceeded causes behavior to change in quality.

Our Victorian antecedents can rest in their graves in
confidence that they won't spontaneously shed their top
hats and morning coats and start 'sniffing butts' alongside
dogs.

Bo:
PS. It's this self-consciousness issue that prevents Artificial
Intelligence to make any breakthrough. It demands/fears an AI to
"wake up to consciousness" and say (to itself) "I'm a computer, now I'll
take control" This won't happen because SOM has no levels, they may
replicate the biological neural network to the least "neuron" but the
social level will not emerge and then clearly not the intellectual. NOT
that the intellectual level ISs "self-consciousness" far from that, but it's
intellect that has invented the subject that the is supposed to be self-
conscious.

mel:
I have read., observed, and worked too much with complexity
and adaptive and emergent systems to believe it impossible
that consciousness won't arise on/in other 'platforms' than the
biological.  But, given the evolutionary history, I doubt it will be
very similar to or maybe even recognizable to man.
Much of our desire to "take control" is a result of the inborn
need/desire to breed and to survive potential predation.
A consciousness that arises with out the need to breed or the
pressure of predation may have no compulsion or interest in
'taking control' of anything.  It may have other "gredients" that
it find relevant in its development.

thanks for letting me run on...

thanks--mel

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <skutvik at online.no>
> To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
> Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 12:50 AM
> Subject: Re: [MD] In and out of intellect.
>
>
> Hi Plumber Joe
>
> 5 Dec. you responded to my my question:
>
> Bo before:
> > > Almost all creatures sleep, thus when an animal wakes up it must
> > > be to a state different from oblivion. Is this state a weaker
> > > version of the human "selfconsciousness" (nineteenth century
> > > thinkers spoke about "slumber"). Animals are known for their
> > > alertness and do not slumber. Please address this issue before
> > > going on it seems to be much like Phaedrus' "hot stove" insight
> > > that obviously launched him om his Q-track, but no one seems to
> > > understand. I have tried the "sleep" question on a lot of people
> > > without receiving a single response.
>
> Joe:
> > A wonderful question.  Does a rock sleep? It is worn smooth by the
> > brook. It is melted by volcanic action. It flies into space from
> > volcanic explosions. A rock sleeps underground, and is awakened by
> > the erosion in the riverbed. Sunlight warms it and makes it grow
> > beyond its boundaries.  Freezing water is irresistible and it
> > splits.
>
> I  thought it was a straightforward question, but you either didn't
> understand it or evaded it. Sleep is a biological phenomenon and -
> again - animals that sleep must necessarily wake up to a state
> different from oblivion, yet animals aren't supposed to "have"
> consciousness so what is the state they wake up to? IMO this wrecks
> SOM's most pompous concept consciousness.
>
> > Sleep is a state of being.  My bones are awake while my
> > consciousness sleeps!
>
> But what kind of consciousness is it that shuts down when a dog or a
> bird or a fish fall asleep? This is what it's about. Only humans are
> supposed to be (have) consciousness - at least the "hey, I am a human
> being" type -  but can there be an unconscious consciousness? It's
> here that the MOQ supplies an answer by introducing "value perception"
> instead of the consciousness hoax.
>
> > Does a single cell have different functions?  Conscious cells sleep
> > and re-supply their energy base in order to operate at full
> > capacity.  What if they haven¹t been trained in how to operate?
> > Then, they know only sleep or awake!  Nothing in between, like when
> > to rest for a greater challenge.
>
> Your deliberations may be valid, but a bit off regarding my question
> so I leave it here in the hope that you will be a bit more to the
> point .... if you care to pursue the issue that is?.
>
>
> Bo
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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