The subjective observer is a fictional character

[Gawdzilla Sama]

When someone is pissed it has been my experience that I'm usually somewhere on the list.

First off, I don't admin when I'm pissed. (Any definition of the word.) A general warning to play nice was posted as a result of a series of reports and counter-reports. A couple of idiots needed a reminder and "gentle" was used up much earlier in this thread. "Blunt" was chosen at that point.

Second, "play nice" isn't hard, you just have to treat the other person with neutrality if not respect. Attacking the person is not allowed, but you can chew up the idea as you wish. It's not hard to do the latter and avoid the former.

Finally, making decisions without good information is usually a bad idea. You decided to move on based on an assumption that you were the target of a blue note without confirming that assumption. If you want to move on that's your choice, but don't do it because you're guessing and not asking questions.

[SpeedOfSound]

Am I in the middle of something here? This is the third day of negativity about this thread after one day of playing a little rough.

I'm a bit confused here.

BTW I shouldn't have to guess about mod intervention. It should be specific about who and exactly what. It saves us from a great deal of trouble and bad feelings.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Am I in the middle of something here? This is the third day of negativity about this thread after one day of playing a little rough.

I'm a bit confused here.

When I got six reports in just a few minutes from two different people I dropped a note in the thread. A general note. The parties that needed it seems to have picked up on it, and, unfortunately, so did some who didn't need it. "a little rough" is a relative term. People will say things on the web that they would never say to someone's face because of immediate repercussions. That's when the staff has to remind people to play nice. Once again, is that so hard?

[SpeedOfSound]

Am I in the middle of something here? This is the third day of negativity about this thread after one day of playing a little rough.

I'm a bit confused here.

When I got six reports in just a few minutes from two different people I dropped a note in the thread. A general note. The parties that needed it seems to have picked up on it, and, unfortunately, so did some who didn't need it. "a little rough" is a relative term. People will say things on the web that they would never say to someone's face because of immediate repercussions. That's when the staff has to remind people to play nice. Once again, is that so hard?

See my edit above.

Was I or was I not the subject of the complaint and if I was which post and which part. Is that so hard?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Am I in the middle of something here? This is the third day of negativity about this thread after one day of playing a little rough.

I'm a bit confused here.

When I got six reports in just a few minutes from two different people I dropped a note in the thread. A general note. The parties that needed it seems to have picked up on it, and, unfortunately, so did some who didn't need it. "a little rough" is a relative term. People will say things on the web that they would never say to someone's face because of immediate repercussions. That's when the staff has to remind people to play nice. Once again, is that so hard?

See my edit above.

Was I or was I not the subject of the complaint and if I was which post and which part. Is that so hard?

No, you were not, that I'm aware of.

[colubridae]

Concur with the "granularity" and "chaotic systems" references.


SD and SOS I take from your posts:-

(within the context of the thought experiment, that all external influences except the test stimulus are identical – temp. nutrition state – impossible in reality I know)

"granularity" coming down to the digital nature of individual synapses. Digital amounts of neurotransmitter and digital counts of receptors.
(with possible QM involved at the insertion of neurotransmitter into receptor)


"chaotic systems"
the entire neural network (brain) is so complex that 'identical inputs' to near identical initial states could produce similar or wildly differing responses.



Leading to the appearance of a separate observer distinct from brain tissue.


Given the two above, which (or both) leads to self-awareness?
Is there a threshold of complexity that has to be reached?

Is this what jamest is seeking?


Actually, the more I think of it the more insane the idea of identical initial states becomes. Re Cosmic particles, stray EM, stray alpha-beta-neutron. Given the chaotic nature of such a complex network the slightest nudge anywhere could lead to vastly different responses.

[Surendra Darathy]

Leading to the appearance of a separate observer distinct from brain tissue.


Given the two above, which (or both) leads to self-awareness?
Is there a threshold of complexity that has to be reached?

Is this what jamest is seeking?

I'd be careful (myself) about attributing "self-awareness" to an organism that knows so little for sure about all the data that contribute to any action taken (or any thought pondered linguistically) exclusive of the logico-deductive framework that one can write down. It's odd how other people are sometimes more aware of those data than we are ourselves. It's not odd that thoughts exclusive of awareness of direct sensory inputs are not identifiable until they reach the level of language. Whether you speak them to others, or talk to yourself, some language learning is involved. At the very least, it's the only way anyone else is ever going to find out about those thoughts.

Since we can't bend any spoons with our "subjective awareness", but can only sing about it to other people, I'm not much enamoured of it as a force of nature, summed up in the simple acronym YMMV.

[colubridae]

I'd be careful (myself) about attributing "self-awareness" to an organism that knows so little for sure about all the data that contribute to any action taken (or any thought pondered linguistically)

Think I understand

exclusive of the logico-deductive framework that one can write down.

I don’t understand

It's odd how other people are sometimes more aware of those data than we are ourselves.

I don’t understand

It's not odd that thoughts exclusive of awareness of direct sensory inputs are not identifiable until they reach the level of language.

I didn’t feel that was correct. Am trying to identify a non-linguistic thought.
All I could come up with was memory. Or dream.
Unless you mean ‘exclusive of direct sensory input’ includes random/transient neural activity.

Whether you speak them to others, or talk to yourself, some language learning is involved. At the very least, it's the only way anyone else is ever going to find out about those thoughts.

Ok

Since we can't bend any spoons with our "subjective awareness", but can only sing about it to other people, I'm not much enamoured of it as a force of nature, summed up in the simple acronym YMMV.

Ok

[Surendra Darathy]

It's not odd that thoughts exclusive of awareness of direct sensory inputs are not identifiable until they reach the level of language.

I didn’t feel that was correct. Am trying to identify a non-linguistic thought.
All I could come up with was memory. Or dream.
Unless you mean ‘exclusive of direct sensory input’ includes random/transient neural activity.

I don't mean to leave out the remark that we do a lot of processing of environmental conditions without pushing it up into the linguistic, which is where we finally establish it as "conscious". There's a whole host of simple experiments, though, in which organisms respond non-linguistically to stimuli, such as pressing a button. Even lab rats do it.

If the experimentalist sees you press a button, though, she will note that you were "aware" of the stimulus. Later, you can report that you were aware of the stimulus, by remembering that you were.

I want to keep hammering, though, on how paltry is this "self-awareness" in comparison to the stuff of which we can be made only subsequently "aware". Or we could fly off in the direction of dissecting that for which people first claim to have been aware, that then rapidly decays into the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.

What I am expressing is that "self-awareness" looks to me like a lot less than is sometimes made of it. We give the notion so much respect because we've simply inherited the awe that ancient people expressed in relation to it. Now we put down our superstitions, and give up hunting for ghosts. It's up to any individual whether or not she thinks the cure is worse than the disease on that account.

A thought is a thought, and a dream is a dream. That's why we have separate words for two different kinds of activity in a brain. Language is notoriously inadequate for recapturing the "content" of dreams, or so I would say.

[colubridae]

As an aside here is my result from the water bending.
I used a cheap biro and my own greasy hair...
(water molecules are electric dipoles. In the field from the biro they swivel to line up then move en masse
The dipole is a result of two electron pairs and two hydrogen-shared pair bonds so the whole molecule is asymmetric about one axis)
I thought it was cool when I first saw it.

100_9464.JPG

edit spelling

[Surendra Darathy]

I thought it was cool when I first saw it.

I repeated the experiment just now in my own "laboratory". Furthermore, I tested whether it worked by rubbing the biro on my fleece pullover, or just by rubbing the greasy hair. Only the latter trial actually bent the water.

Electric dipoles! It takes a pretty thin stream of water. I wonder if you could evaluate the shielding effects in the interior of the stream if you used a big enough biro and a big enough head of hair.


Hell, later today I might consider plugging in my toaster and taking it in the bath with me to see where consciousnessness goes after it leaves the bathtub. I don't even want to speculate where electricity goes once it leaves the toaster.

[SpeedOfSound]

I thought it was cool when I first saw it.

I repeated the experiment just now in my own "laboratory". Furthermore, I tested whether it worked by rubbing the biro on my fleece pullover, or just by rubbing the greasy hair. Only the latter trial actually bent the water.

Electric dipoles! It takes a pretty thin stream of water. I wonder if you could evaluate the shielding effects in the interior of the stream if you used a big enough biro and a big enough head of hair.


Hell, later today I might consider plugging in my toaster and taking it in the bath with me to see where consciousnessness goes after it leaves the bathtub. I don't even want to speculate where electricity goes once it leaves the toaster.

Doing this sort of thing is the only use I ever found for cats. Cats work great.

[Surendra Darathy]

Doing this sort of thing is the only use I ever found for cats. Cats work great.

I have found it nothing but trouble to try to pick up a cat and rub it against my greasy hair, and then put it anywhere near running water. I do know of one cat that won't drink from a bowl of standing water, but demands to have the kitchen tap turned on for him. He sits in the sink and drinks, even though his paws are getting wet. Go figure. There was one cat I met who enjoyed swimming.

[SpeedOfSound]

"chaotic systems"
the entire neural network (brain) is so complex that 'identical inputs' to near identical initial states could produce similar or wildly differing responses.



Leading to the appearance of a separate observer distinct from brain tissue.


Given the two above, which (or both) leads to self-awareness?
Is there a threshold of complexity that has to be reached?

Is this what jamest is seeking?


Actually, the more I think of it the more insane the idea of identical initial states becomes. Re Cosmic particles, stray EM, stray alpha-beta-neutron. Given the chaotic nature of such a complex network the slightest nudge anywhere could lead to vastly different responses.

It's less spooky than all of that. Neurons respond to various types of inputs such as spike trains or even several firings within a certain time period. The response can cause an influx of Ca ions into the synapse that eventually turns on genes which in turn grows new dentritic spikes(inputs) or add transmembrane receptors to the post or pre-synapse. Hence the connection is strengthened. Neurons come in many different types and have varied responses.

So if an input is continuous a neuron will fire, than fall back into a 'recovery' state, then fire again, and repeat. The result is a spike train of some naturally tuned frequency in the circuit. The brain will change it's overall response to the signal in some way.

There are many other systems that amount to a type of memory in that a neuronal cluster is more likely to fire again after having fired once. These systems all have their own decay rates from 2 seconds to several days. These systems apparently work without gene expression and are a result of accumulations of ions or transmitters in the cells. The subjective result of this is that you know what has happened to you in the recent past and things that you have recently thought about will readily pop into your mind again.

Another system. Our consciousness has been correlated with oscillating groups of neurons. There is a type of neuron in the thalamus that sets up natural oscillatory loops at the gamma frequency and the resulting thalamo-cortical loop oscillations are correlated with conscious perception if they last longer than a fifth of a second.

With a system as complicated as this quantum effects would seldom if ever enter into the picture. Thank the gods for that.

[SpeedOfSound]

Doing this sort of thing is the only use I ever found for cats. Cats work great.

I have found it nothing but trouble to try to pick up a cat and rub it against my greasy hair, and then put it anywhere near running water. I do know of one cat that won't drink from a bowl of standing water, but demands to have the kitchen tap turned on for him. He sits in the sink and drinks, even though his paws are getting wet. Go figure. There was one cat I met who enjoyed swimming.

That's what duct tape is for.

Simply duct tape the cat to the counter near the sink.