"Kevin Aylward" wrote in message
...
: Ruud Broens wrote:
: "Kevin Aylward" wrote in
: message ...
: Ruud Broens wrote:
: "Kevin Aylward" wrote in
: message ...
: Please explain to me how you actually *perceive* an emotion
: *without*
: consciousness? Its a tautology. Its that simple. Consciousness is
: *how* feelings are recognised, i.e. how emotions are recognised.
: Emotions are feelings, i.e. we are consciously aware of them.
:
: Hm, well, this is leading a bit astray, but if you want to discuss
: such matters, let's start with definitions: so what is perception,
: Kevin ?
:
: Most aspects of consciousness gets one into a self referral
: situation. Perception is that which the conscious is aware of. What
: is consciousness, that which can perceive things. Get the drift. I
: have updated my site to address this in more detail.
:
:
http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/understanding.html
:
:
: Consciousness is simple a result that occurs when systems get
: sufficiently complicated. However, although it is *only* a function
: of its mass-energy parts, it can not be derived from its parts. It
: just is. It is an example of a Goedel system. True, but not
: derivable.
:
: Mmm, yesss... this is referred to as the excretionist theory.
:
: Never heard of the word excretionist.
Actually, it's called excretionism, just playing there with letters
& words - call it a little eccentricity - to denote a person holding
such a belief.
:
: But you know all that, being the self-proclaimed expert,
:
: What I will say here, is that most of what has been written in the past
: is wrong. The fundamental reason for this is that they did not know
: about computers, or truly understand that the brain is it. They is
: nothing else. We are a machine. Sure, the brain operates a bit
: different, but the main features are all that is required to get a
: reasonable handle on the issues.
:
: so tell us more about other theories of consciousness,
: sure you are aware of them ?
:
: Quite frankly, whenever I have trolled the web on this, its all crap.
: Every, bit of it.
: e.g.
http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/liane/papers/api/api.html
:
: "This paper proposes that an entity is conscious to the extent it
: amplifies information, first by trapping and integrating it through
: closure, and second by maintaining dynamics at the edge of chaos through
: simultaneous processes of divergence and convergence. The origin of life
: through autocatalytic closure, and the origin of an interconnected
: worldview through conceptual closure, induced phase transitions in the
: degree to which information, and thus consciousness, is locally
: amplified. Divergence and convergence of cognitive information may
: involve phenomena observed in light e.g. focusing, interference, and
: resonance. By making information flow inward-biased, closure shields us
: from external consciousness; thus the paucity of consciousness may be an
: illusion."
:
:
: Philosophers, by and large have no idea whatsoever. Consciousness is an
: engineering problem.
:
: No hard feelings, Kev',
:
: None at all.
Some, knowledgeble in the fields of cognitive psychology, AI, etc. might
have chuckled there, as it's a key debating issue : hard vs. soft
interpretation
of observations in the matter. Interesting as the subject can be, I think
it's better
to give it a rest, most ppl. will consider this way OT anyway.
Great though the web can be for all sorts of matters, I don't think some
cut & paste actions constitutes the base from which you gather an
in-depth knowledge & understanding of subjects such as these.
FYI, the computer metaphor *has* been used for many a year now,
before that it was the telephone exchange..
Now, where philosophy, valid reasoning, belief systems, what constututes
knowledge, etc. come in is : if the metaphor (model) describes & predicts
behaviour perfectly, is this actually 'what's going on' in the world ?
The hard AI party line says: quack like a duck, walk like a duck, duck
dropping's
all' round -- must be a duck
While the 'softies' say: for all practical usage, the model is great...but
ad-lib
applying Occam's razor - not some proven law, mind you, 'just' a rule of
thumb,
common sense - is simply not valid.
This has all a lot to do with the basic philosophic distinction of
Realist vs. Idealist a matter of epistomology
Where as for a realist, walking into a brick wall, bleeding nose and all,
certainly is proof of this brick wall 'being out there'
Not so for an Idealist, who maintains, there is no way to
verify this, it is only 'the sensation' of brick wall, bleeding nose
etc. that one can talk about
Just a final bit of spice then: physicists do *not* hold a realist's
view of reality, that is, a physicist will tell you physics deals with
correlations of perceived sensory data, a phenomenological approach.
And, sorry to say, common sense just gets you so far.
May I suggest, if the subject interests you, to get a copy of
Foundations of Cognitive Science, ed. Michael I. Posner - MIT Press 1986
or a somewhat more compact
The Mind's New Science - Howard Gardner - Basic Books1985
:
:
: Kevin Aylward
:
: http://www.anasoft.co.uk
: SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
: Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
: Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.
:
:
http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/index.html
:
: Understanding, is itself an emotion, i.e. a feeling.
: Emotions or feelings can only be "understood" by
: consciousness. "Understanding" consciousness can
: therefore only be understood by consciousness itself,
: therefore the "hard problem" of consciousness, is
: intrinsically unsolvable.
:
: Physics is proven incomplete, that is, no
: understanding of the parts of a system can
: explain all aspects of the whole of such system.
:
Here's a little piece by Gilbert Ryle - 1949:
"I'm not interested in the issues of how one sees or
understands something if those seeings or
understandings involve the positing of some
internal understanding or perceptual mechanisms"
Happy readin',
Rudy