Brain Physiology, Cognition and Consciousness group: topic
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Discussing "What is conciousness?"
Hans Ricke
Tuesday, 07 July 2009 04:53 UTC
Serge started discussing our article in the JCS newsgroup.The abstract can be found here
There have been a few remarks and comments here and there, maybe these can be repeated in this thread. Unfortunately I am very busy, so I will just try my best to help with this discussion.
As an incentive thre quotes from our article: we suggested to reconceptualize the term “quale”:
Our earlier argument implies both that the term ‘qualia’ is useful
and that its meaning should follow from more general properties of
subjective experiences: 1. they occur in the present only, 2. they are
complex, 3. they are not repeatable and also 4. they are not fully
retrievable.
Also: In this theoretical framework, the human individual does not seem to have an unchangeable ‘Self’ or center. On the contrary: Human beings seem to be changing constantly.
And: Human consciousness has to be understood as a product of a long
process of evolution in which it has been shaped by cycles that include
action, perception, memory, cognition, interpretation, etc.
Happy discussion
Hans
Dear All,
thank you for your input, the discussion of the article is by now closed.
Yours friendly
Hans
Updated 09 September 2009 07:29 UTC
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Arnold Trehub on 22 Jul 2009 wrote:
“Not so! There are no sound principled grounds for claiming that the core self is a homunculus. See The Retinoid Model in Scholarpedia.For more detailed accounts of the core self in the brain’s retinoid mechanism, see Space, Self, and the Theater of Consciousness, and Two Arguments for a Pre-reflective Core Self."
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[S.P.] Dear friends, we are not in the library, but on the online scientific forum where every scientist is welcomed to explain his/her position in a succinct and intelligible way. Here we have a unique possibility to hear the author’s explanations, so to say, at first hand. For me to understand what is “core self” means to receive the answers to the questions I’ve formulated in my previous post.
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My suspicion is that the term “core self” contains inner contradiction. It is something like “crowded solitude”. The term “core” means singularity, since it would be nonsensical to state that something has simultaneously two cores. If there is a core, this core is always one and alone. At the same time, the term “self” means plurality or, better say, duality — something A recourses to (relates with) something B. As I pointed out in my post, the self exist always as being split into the self-subject and self-object. It is me (as the self-subject) who recourses to me (as the self-object) — and this is called self-reference. Without such a split, the term “self” has no sense at all.
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As I see, the 99 percents of my arguments were ignored again. I would much like to know in which way does the “biophysical mechanisms of the cognitive brain” correlate with “consciousness mechanism”, and do we really mean that the latter may be substituted by the former.
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Best,
Serge Patlavskiy -
Serge
As far as I understand, this is Arnold’s basic theory :
The problem Arnold sets is simple and needs to be answered, given the fleeting, saccadic nature of the retinal image and the presence of two, disparate images in two eyes how do we get a stable view of the world?
His answer is elegant: our view of the world exists as activity in sheets of self excitatory (autaptic) neurones that favour persistence of the visual image. Arnold calls these “retinoid sheets”. But the the retinoid system does not just favour persistence, the sheets can interact so that the motion of the body, head and eyes can be juggled to maintain a steady egocentric view represented as activity in a retinoid sheet or sheets.
The attributes of “self” are, in Arnold’s theory, linked to the neural egocentric locus of the retinoid system.
This is my interpretation and Arnold will almost certainly correct it. The theory is consistent with known neuronal properties. I dont want to sound like an Arnold Trehub fan club but he has been proposing this theory for a long time and something like it is required even if it were not the stage of the phenomenal self.
I might go a step further and suggest that attributes of ‘self’ are located in sheets that deal with self image. I would also answer the “homunculus criticism” by pointing out that time is not arranged as a succession of durationless instants as is assumed in all of the recursion arguments in philosophy of mind.
Trehub, A. (2007) Space, self, and the theater of consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition 16 (2007) 310–330 http://www.people.umass.edu/trehub/YCCOG828%20copy.pdf
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Ok John I will forgive you for not reading my from neuron to memory system, how Mind Might Work thread here on the board. But your comment is incompatible with my model, so I thought I should at least comment on it. The idea of SPRITES or discrete data entitites such as words, is not as immediate an occurance as you seem to suggest.
In my theory there is actually processing required and a transfer from core to belt areas, before discrete data entitites can come into existence. This is because of the nature of the technology involved in building brains out of neurons. It turns out that discrete data entitities need a demand memory to process, and that neurons are more suited to content addressable type memories.
The demand memory is therefore an add-on to the basic implicit (content addressable) memory, and requires a re-description to achieve. The transfer of information from the core to the belt, and the bottleneck are required for the transcription between the one representation and the other.
Since each step takes time we expect it to take at least 160 milliseconds before the conversion is complete. This corresponds to a peak of attention activity according to the MEG. partly because the attention is needed to achieve the conversion between implicit and explicit (demand-able) forms of memory.
Your sprites can only be expressed in a demand-able form therefore they are not the premiere perceptual form that memory takes.
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Just a slight correction that was “How Memory Might Work” not “How Mind Might Work” in the title of my thread. Sorry I have threads with both names but the Mind thread depends on the memory thread.
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SP: “As I pointed out in my post, the self exist always as being split into the self-subject and self-object. It is me (as the self-subject) who recourses to me (as the self-object) — and this is called self-reference. Without such a split, the term “self” has no sense at all.”
Serge, notice what you have written and you will better understand my theory of the core self.
In the retinoid model, the core self is the self-as-subject. The self-as-object is the reflective self.
The self as object cannot exist without the prior existence of the core self!
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Arnold Trehub on 23 Jul 2009 wrote:
“*In the retinoid model, the core self is the self-as-subject. The self-as-object is the reflective self.*The self as object cannot exist without the prior existence of the core self!"
[S.P.] Well, such is much better. Now, the next question. The case is that the “retinoid model” is a physical model, and both “core self” and “reflective self” are the elements of that model. My approach presumes making the difference between the brain functioning and consciousness functioning, between the physical models (which include such elements as “signal”, “retinae”, “optic nerve”, “brain”, “neuron”, “living organism”, “body”, etc.) and informational models (which include such elements as “experience”, “increment of information”, “point of view”, “subject of cognitive activity”, “object of cognition”, “system{organism}”, “conceptualization”, “self”, “self-subject”, “self-object”, “person”, etc.).
As I correctly understand, the “retinoid model” presumes a transfer of information from retinae to a “core self”. In other words, the retinae is the source of information. Here, information is objective. My approach presumes that information (or better say, the increment of information) — it is a difference between the known and the unknown for the given subject of cognitive activity (or, self-subject). In other words, information is purely subjective. It shouldn’t be mixed up with the physical sensory signals. If there is no subject of cognitive activity, there will be no information whatever intense the physical sensory signals might be.
Moreover, my approach presumes that the subject of cognitive activity always deals with cumulative data input. Such an approach makes it possible to explain why, say, the deaf persons have their other senses exacerbated.
At the same time I am not confident whether Arnold, having made the self the element of the physical retinoid model, grants possession of the self and self-reference to the blind organisms.
Friendly,
Serge Patlavskiy -
Serge,
You wrote: “As I correctly understand, the “retinoid model” presumes a transfer of information from retinae to a “core self”.”
No. In the retinoid model kinetic information is transfered from the retinas to the retinoid system. The core self is the coordinate of origin within the retinoid system. The details do matter.
SP: “Here, information is objective. My approach presumes that information (or better say, the increment of information) — it is a difference between the known and the unknown for the given subject of cognitive activity (or, self-subject). In other words, information is purely subjective.”
Please see my distinction between kinetic information and manifest information in my post of July 12, 2009 in this thread. What you call “subjective information” is what I call “manifest information”. In my theory, kinetic information becomes manifest information (phenomenal content) only when it is neuronally represented within the egocentric space-time of the retinoid system.
SP: “At the same time I am not confident whether Arnold, having made the self the element of the physical retinoid model, grants possession of the self and self-reference to the blind organisms.”
In the retinoid model, possession of a self does not depend on any particular sensory modality. So, for example, people who are born both deaf and blind still have a core self and a reflective self, and can navigate in the world (via its egocentric representation in their retinoid system) albeit with some impairment.
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Arnold Trehub on 24 July 2009 wrote:
“Please see my distinction between kinetic information and manifest information in my post of July 12, 2009 in this thread. What you call “subjective information” is what I call “manifest information”. In my theory, kinetic information becomes manifest information (phenomenal content) only when it is neuronally represented within the egocentric space-time of the retinoid system.”Also: “In the retinoid model, possession of a self does not depend on any particular sensory modality.”
Also: “The core self is the coordinate of origin within the retinoid system.”
[S.P.] If all this is true, then Arnold’s retinoid model is a “Trojan Horse” for the cognitive neurophysiology — he uses such terms as “retinoid” and “kinetic” only for not provoking the mainstream’s repulsion. :) Speaking seriously, I really cannot still understand why we use the term “retinoid”. For me, this term denotes any of a group of compounds having effects in the body like those of vitamin A. What this all may have to do with consciousness? Also, why to use such term as “kinetic information” instead of much more unambiguous term “physical sensory signals”?
Also, I have a problem with understanding the phrase “The core self is the coordinate of origin within the retinoid system.” The question is: the “origin” of what? Maybe, we mean that the “core self” coordinates some processes or acts (say, the act of processing the physical sensory signals, if to use my own terminology)? But in this case we return back to the problem of homunculus, because if a “core self” performs some sort of coordination, then it must possess consciousness prior to the very consciousness appears.
The concept “egocentric space-time” looks a bit misty too. I suppose that it may correlate with my concept “cognitive frame of reference” (which I introduce in contradistinction to the concept “physical frame of reference”).
Best,
Serge Patlavskiy
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