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• 1

  Alfredo Pereira Jr

  18 September 2008 | 12:17

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  Dear Brent and All:

  Many thanks for opening this Forum. All questions you raise are cogent. To help with the discussion, I call your attention to older Forums that I opened here about “Consciousness Researchers”. I posted abstracts of papers from 8 consciousness (science) researchers. I did not cover what is published in books (authors like Damasio and Dennett are more famous for their books).
  Another remark I make is that Nature Network simplified the format of the groups. Now these groups are called “Forums”, and their main page lists the (sub)Forums opened for discussion. I still did not understand how the (sub)Forums are ordered.

  Best

  Alfredo

• 3

  Elisabeth Daegling

  19 September 2008 | 09:07

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  Dear Samer,

  you wrote:
  „Consciousness initiates the transformation of matter into energy.“, and:
  „Consciousness creates form, time and space."

  Sorry, Samer, but I disagree with you.

  My opinion is, that consciousness ´initiates` the transformation of energy into qualia and behavior.
  And not consciousness creates form, time and space but neurons do. But consciousness enables us to an access to these neuronal „creations“.

  Elisabeth

• 4

  Rybo six

  19 September 2008 | 12:59

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  Samer wrote;

  ..“Consciousness initiates the transformation of matter into energy. What so-called expert knows that?”..

  Samer, “matter”( fermionic ) is a form of “energy”( physical ).

  4 kinds of ‘bosons’ is the other form of “energy”.

  Consciousness = physical interrelationships between bosons and fermions.

  Quality = high and low amplitude of various physical interrelationship occurrences/phenomena.

  metaphysical mind = a discerning of the complementarary patterns associated with the previous interrelationship phenomena.

  There is no connection between physical and metaphysical, however, there may very well be, an ultra-micro quasi-physical buffer-zone between the physical and metaphysical.

  The weakest, of all allegedged physical forces, is gravity aka ‘spacetime’ and may be acting deterministically to all of our percieved, if only limited, free will choices i.e. cause and effect is taking place at ultra-micro scales of physical/quasi-physical existent, ergo, every thought, no matter how micro, may be the resultant of all previous thoughts.

  Since there is no connection, between our access to metaphysical mind and physical consciousness, the mind does not and can not steer the physical.

  At this juncture/point, I would remind the reader of the placebo effect, i.e. what you believe, true or not, real or not, is the saving grace for all of our predetermined, conscious and unconscious actions.

  We have faith, trust and hope that the vehicle coming from the other direction on the highway will not cross the center line, into our lane, as we approach one another, however, there are a multitude of possible scenarios that could lead to such an event.

  There are not guarantee’s, that come with universe, beyond those cosmic principles/laws, which we ascertain to be inviolate.

  We believe they are inviolate based on our direct or indirect experiences.

  Life, what a trip!

  Rybo

• 7

  Rybo six

  19 September 2008 | 22:53

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  Samer wrote;

  ..“Some things are true, whether you believe them or not.”…

  Samer, I stated exactly that in post and in the same paragraph you quoted from ergo I’m not sure what your point is?

  Samer then writes;

  …“If everything is energy, how do you know what is?”..

  I’m sorry Samer, but I don’t understand what your asking. Perhaps you mistyped/mispoke your thought.

  Samer then writes;

  …“How do you know it has forms?”

  Is you question how do I know energy has a form?
  I guess that depends on how we define the word “form”. There are two fundamental kinds/types/ forms/states/cases/phenomena we call energy Samer. If the word “forms” throws you for a loop then feel free to choose a differrent word from the others I give, or even another, to fill that concept that goes with both conditions of energy.

  Samer then writes;

  ..“How do you identify some physical interaction as an energetic interaction?”….

  I’m sorry Samer but again, I’m not sure what exactly it is your asking.

  There are 6 fundamental kinds/types/cases/conditions of interference, that I can list for you and give visuals, -which I did in this thread or another one recently- however, I’m not sure that will satisfy your queries. I dunno.

  With these semi-vague questions I’m dubious of where exactly your going with these lines of questioning. H,mmm?

  Rybo

• 9

  Rybo six

  20 September 2008 | 13:18

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  Samer writes;

  …“You stated, ‘matter is a form of energy.’ right?”…

  That is correct Samer. “Energy” = finite physical universe.

  Samer then writes;

  ...“In the absence of something else, energy is not.”…

  Your argument appears to be that of no otherness = no awareness i.e. relativity is not involved, ergo since we have only one finite physical/energy universe and no others to relate too, it can not know that it exists, as one whole universe.

  I’m find with that, however, you comments … “energy is not”.. may be interpreted to infer/imply that our finite physical/energy universe does not exist.

  Those are two differrent conclusions that your initial comments do not make clear.

  Later on you state that energy can only ..“know itself conceptually”….

  Wrong!

  This gets into degrees of consciousness i.e. degrees of awareness and self-awareness, however, be clear here Samer, that degrees of consciousness relates to both local entities and to universe as a whole, with the exception of the universe, as a whole, conceptually knowing it exists aka universe self-awareness.

  Humans conceptually know that they and universe exist. Humans conceptually place themselves outside of the physical universe ergo humans have access to the metaphysical beyond.

  Samaer then writes;

  …“And yet, we are conscious, experience tells us that. So, there must be something else going on.”…

  What is going on is is a fundamental threeness Samer;

  1. macro-micro infinite metaphysical non-occupied beyond

  1. finite, occupied, quasi-physical gravitational spacetime buffer-zone inbetween

  1. finite occupied physical

  So Samer, because there is physical differrentiations e.g. occupied and the superficial appearence of non-occupied physial space there exists consciousness.

  Varying degrees of consciousness is the a resultant of fermionic occupying physical spaces and superficial-only, bosonic non-occupying spaces.

  The most complex resultant set of consciousness thereof, is that of the human consciousness with human female physiology being more complex than male.

  P.S. that list of three above, each has a subcatagory, excpeting perhaps gravitational spacetime.

  Rybo

• 10

  Brent Allsop

  20 September 2008 | 20:16

  [ Permalink ]

  Alfredo,

  I found and red through some of the abstracts you posted. Looks like some good information. It would be nice to know how many people agree with each of those views as being likely models.

  Samer Taleb asked:

  “Who qualifies as an expert?”

  Of course, having a PhD is some measure. We’ve completed a PhD canononizer at http://canonizer.com that only counts votes of people with PhDs so you can use this to quantitatively measure consensus amongst PhDs.

  But of course, having a PhD is not always sufficient, nor necessary to being an expert, nor does it indicate the quality of expertise.

  We are now working on a peer ranking canonizer where everyone will be able to rank people which will result in a quantitative ranking of each ‘peer’ by all other peers relative to everyone else.

  With such a quantitative ranking, you will then be able to see in yet another way, quantitatively, which are the most well accepted models according to these highest ranked ‘experts’.

  And we are working on other ways of ranking experts. Such as, who do ‘christians’ think are the best experts, and so on. Eventually, people will be able to develop canonizer to rank things any way they want to. For example, what to the ‘elimitive materialist’ experts think vs what the Chalmers like experts think and so on.

  We welcome anyone that is interested in the development of such. If you have some good ideas on how to do this kind of stuff, we’d love to here about it at http://canonizer.com

  Sure non of this will be in any way perfect, but it will certainly be moving in that direction.

  Thanks

  Brent Allsop

• 12

  Rybo six

  21 September 2008 | 00:51

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  Samer states;

  …“Rybo agrees, matter is a form of energy.”…

  Agree, recall my self-initiation of such comment in recent post.

  Smer then states;

  …“If there is only one thing, energy, how can you say there are other things, such as forms of energy, without equivocating?”..

  Because it ‘IS’, that way Samer.

  A single thought is also complex ergo composed of differrentiated parts, as is the finite, one whole universe.

  Samer states;

  ..“You can’t say there is one thing and there are many things.”…

  Sure i can, as do many others and you can say it also. There is no cosmic law/principle that keeps you from making the same comment.

  Apparrently Samer, you have trouble juggling duality, of no less than four kinds/types/cases/forms/conditions, etc…

  There exists the symbols for unitary sets of complex/compound numbers i.e. the symbols 8, 11, 243 are all unitary numbers, or numerical symbols if you so choose, that represent a set of more than one(1).

  What is Fullers motto Unity is plural and at a minimum two.

  The one set of twoness is eternally existent physically, and metaphysically, however, that gets back into the subcatagorys of the previously mentioned, primary threeness. imho

  And, there are many kinds of twoness and I suspect many kinds of fourness. I dunno about the latter.

  Rybo

• 13

  Mark Peaty

  21 September 2008 | 04:54

  [ Permalink ]

  Elaizabeth,
  your wrote;
  “My opinion is, that consciousness ´initiates` the transformation of energy into qualia and behavior.
  And not consciousness creates form, time and space but neurons do. But consciousness enables us to an access to these neuronal „creations“.”

  I think what you say is closest to my understanding, but I would prefer to say that consciousness is what it is like to be certain of these transformations of energy.

  I take it more that what the brain is doing is to create up to date assessments of key features of self and of the environment and of important relationships between self and environment. At any given moment there will only be one such complete assessment, ie a model of self in the world [MSITW] although there will be many other partial assessments on the go. Reason: there is one self body that needs to survive and do its stuff.

  As things change in the world and one’s body, so the brain must update; new assessments must be made all the time, only some of which will coalesce into a sufficiently complete MSITW at the ‘given moment’. There must be before-and-after checking of change and progress to ensure things are going as planned/desired. Aspects of all these components which go differently from what is planned, or are intrinsically uncontrolable, must be fed back into MSITW so that corrections are made to plans, predictions and movements. Each time a MSITW forms this is a real thing – as real as any bubble, vortex, cloud, or flock anyway – made up of neuronal interaction patterns. Part of the MSITW entails labelling of “self” as self so, maybe 20 times per second, “I” am created. Then “I” am recreated and the differences before-and-after assessed and fed back into the system.

  I call this UMSITW [pron “umm see two” for English speakers]: the updating model of self in the world.

  Cheers,
  Mark

• 15

  Mark Peaty

  21 September 2008 | 15:19

  [ Permalink ]

  Firstly: OOPS! Sorry Elisabeth! It’s a form of slycdexia …

  Second:
  Samer Taleb wrote:
  “How is MSITW self-aware? [a]
  How does consciousness initiate energy transformations? [b]
  What is consciousness such that it can do that?”©

  MP: Our experience of being ‘here’ and ‘now’ is intrinsically paradoxical. We assume our experience is Me seeing and feeling That Which Is, but in truth our experience is the series of registrations of important relationships between self and world. In other words our experience of awareness is what it is like to be the updating of the brain/body/self’s model of self in the world [UMSITW].
  I think Antonio Damasio describes why/how there is something which can be like something – my take on it is:

  • The animal responds instinctively to everything which happens;
  • these instinctive reactions are noted and registered in various regions of the brain;
  • these registrations of reaction are in turn noted and registered elsewhere in the brain and correlated with registrations of the events which precipitated them – and which generally are inferred to have “caused” them, because consistent and systematic close temporal association is “9/10 of the law”;
  • the correlations and imputed causations are registered and compared with the various action sequences and story lines which are currently on the go;
  • deviations from plan are assessed and corrected as necessary/where possible, and all novelty perceived as such is assigned a value in terms of threat versus resource;
  • and the process repeats unceasingly.
    That answers [a] and ©.
    The answer to [b] is: It doesn’t! Consciousness is simply what it is like to be part of the processes going on within the brain.
    The answer to © can be elaborated in that we mistake the experience and the feeling of registation of what is going on with the processes which construct in all.
    What I mean is that we react to things and make decisions about 1/3 to 1/2 a second before we become “aware” of doing so. This delay is so ingrained in everything we do that we do not notice it and normally do not notice it in others either.

  Furthermore we assume that our experience IS all that is going on whereas in fact it is only a very sparce representation of the world around us and within us and ususally entails systematic denial of various things going on within.

  Cheers,
  Mark Peaty

• 19

  Bob Marsden

  23 September 2008 | 07:51

  [ Permalink ]

  Samer Taleb 22.09.08: “I assume you are conscious, which contradicts are conclusion that the process, and consequently you, are unconscious.”
  Presupposes ‘having unconscious functioning equates with being unconscious’ → fallacious conclusions from poor rhetoric.

  The two rhetorical assaults on Mark Peaty’s offered ‘updating’ fiction don’t disqualify it. Continual comparing of a model of non-self with what happens to self seems useful.
  One of my “sponsoring beliefs” is that we have fictions in our inner experience which refer to invariants of bits of the worlds we have lived in, and that we use these fictions when we proceed in such worlds of experience. A fiction is good enough if, when you proceed in its world, things turn out as the fiction had it. A new fiction would be useful if, when you proceed in its world, you can experience and do things that are good for you that you couldn’t before – as if fresh magics (unprecedented usable causalities) were available to you.
  Implicit in Mark’s fiction outline is the notion that the active self is unconscious (not Samer’s death-equivalent state) and operates itself temporally and causally prior to its deeds being represented in inner experience. This is different from the ‘conscious rational behavioural causality’ fiction favoured by Alfredo and others.
  Of the ‘impossible things before breakfast’ folk-tale tasks set by Samer and Otmar, one is pertinent for me: “… given that these claims are true, what would be their practical application?”. Fictions don’t have to be true or realistic to be useful, but the query about how you might proceed differently on the basis of this fiction,
  and what might ensue, are proper queries.

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