write4u:
Only if you make it mysterious. There is no light inside a skull, the brain resides in total darkness (absence of light). When we see a lighted object we do not generate light inside our brain, we experience light as a neural excitation. Perhaps a better example is “pain” as a neural excitation. When we stub our toe, the pain we feel is not inside our brain, it’s in our toe. The brain merely translates the neural excitation into a experiential event. And so it does in translating “light”. Our brain and skull remain dark, but the brain translates the neural input as an experiential event. If we are blind we are unable to experience “sight” altogether. There is only darkness. OTOH some people can taste light and color. This is possible because it is not a representation of reality, but only a “best guess” by the brain of what it is experiencing.
Of course there is no Electromagnetic Light inside anyone’s Skull, but that not what the issue is. The Light is the Conscious Light (See http://TheInterMind.com) or what some people like to call the Light Qualia.
write4u:
Consider this; a blind person can generate a mental picture of his surroundings by sonar. Many animals use echo-location to scan and visualize their environment.
Sorry but I don’t understand the relevancy of this.
The only Consciousness that anyone can study is their own. We can then compare notes about our own findings when we discuss Consciousness.
You're contradicting yourself here, and it's the core problem of your entire thesis. Of course we can study the consciousness of other beings. That's what "compare notes" means.
lausten:
Of course we can study the consciousness of other beings. That’s what “compare notes” means.
Do you really think that hearing someone’s description of their Conscious Experience is just as good as you examining your own Conscious Experience? Your statement manifests a complete lack of interest in the subject, or a complete misunderstanding of the issue, or a purposeful intention to Obfuscate.
Do you really think that hearing someone’s description of their Conscious Experience is just as good as you examining your own Conscious Experience?
Learning is found in the comparison, not just the examining. It was only very recently that humans understood that thoughts are related to the brain. We do not sense thoughts happening. There are no feelings in the brain. Headaches come from blood vessels around it. It's only because we now are told that thoughts are in our head that we imagine them being there. Why do you think there are charts for your chakras? Because people believe they experience things in those parts of their body.
People who examine their own consciousness think they are soul travelling to Jupiter, but I’m sitting there watching them and can pretty much confirm they didn’t go anywhere. Your examinations of what’s going on in your head are about on that level.
lausten:
Learning is found in the comparison, not just the examining. It was only very recently that humans understood that thoughts are related to the brain. We do not sense thoughts happening. There are no feelings in the brain. Headaches come from blood vessels around it. It’s only because we now are told that thoughts are in our head that we imagine them being there. Why do you think there are charts for your chakras? Because people believe they experience things in those parts of their body.
People who examine their own consciousness think they are soul travelling to Jupiter, but I’m sitting there watching them and can pretty much confirm they didn’t go anywhere. Your examinations of what’s going on in your head are about on that level.
Now that’s an example of Obfuscation right there. You equated Examining the Conscious Experience of Redness with soul travel to Jupiter. Looks like you don’t want to have any kind a rational conversation about Consciousness. A little Grammar School off topic quip is your level of discussion.
lausten: Of course we can study the consciousness of other beings. That’s what “compare notes” means.
steveklinko: Do you really think that hearing someone’s description of their Conscious Experience is just as good as you examining your own Conscious Experience? Your statement manifests a complete lack of interest in the subject, or a complete misunderstanding of the issue, or a purposeful intention to Obfuscate.
All your brain can do is make a “best guess” of the information your senses distribute to the brain. It is when we agree on our guesses, that we can call it reality (by consensus).
You told me I keep drawing attention to the lecture by Anil Seth, but it is clear you have not given any thought to what this scientist is talking about.
Therefore I urge you to watch that lecture one more time and give thought to the implications of what he is talking about. The brain creates our subjective reality from the inside out as much as from the outside in. Think about that for a moment.
The brain creates our subjective reality from the inside out as much as from the outside in. Think about that for a moment.
I thought about it a long time ago and still think about it now and then. The brain is just an organ. I don't know what it is for. I can accept that the heart pumps blood and the lungs are for breathing. The brain is definitely connected to the spinal cord spreading the nerves all over the body making muscles twitch and stuff. Subjective reality is something else. It's a leap of faith to conclude that the brain is like the IMAX cinema, a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors having very large screens with a immense aspect ratio.
sree said: Subjective reality is something else. It’s a leap of faith to conclude that the brain is like the IMAX cinema, a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors having very large screens with a immense aspect ratio.
Yes, that's what is called the "hard problem". How is the brain able to present a life-size landscape in the space of some 1200 cm^3 ? This is the reason why we can so easily take a leap of faith in believing that our consciousness resides outside our brain as a "soul". But that is not at all how it works. But is not a matter of looking at a screen like a cinemax either. It is an experiential event. We experience reality and our brain tries to make sense out what we experience. It makes a best guess of what it thinks is out there.
There are some sensory abilities which we don’t even consciously experience at all. This is called “interoception”, the control mechanism of our internal organs that keep us alive. Can you perceive the trillions of bacteria in your gut? They are there, but your brain doesn’t need to know that they are there. It only needs to know when they are not doing their job and you get an upset stomach. That is an unconscious but functional “control” mechanism of the brain.
But conscious awareness of our external environment requires direct “observation” by all our senses. The brain has “learned” (evolved) to represent those external experiences as a visual (meme) experience. Memes are one known example of informational viral patterns.
My own belief is that the trillions of microtubules in our brains and bodies (the neural network) allows us to fashion a kind of composite holographic experience. Microtubules are nano-scale processors of the electro-chemical information generated by our sensory receptors. Arrays of Microtubules are used for memory storage, which allows us to “recall” and “compare” new information against our stored experiential memories.
From that self-referential process the brain is able to make a best guess of what is going on externally. And when most of us agree, we call that reality. This already starts at the bacterial level, with quorum sensing. A termite mound is a marvel of engineering by a “hive mind”, which creates an entire city.
Structure of an M. natalensis mound
Other species experience reality completely different from us. A whale or a bat (and some blind people) can create an image of their landscape or prey generated by sonar (like our fish finders) .
It all depends on how the actual environment shapes “perception” over billions of years of adaptation to the environment. It is really easy to forget the evolutionary process which is a constant refinement of perceptional abilities in almost all organisms over enormous times and spatial scales.
The mathematical function of “passive natural selection” is just as effective as the human ability to effect “active human selection” for desirable traits.
write4u:
All your brain can do is make a “best guess” of the information your senses distribute to the brain. It is when we agree on our guesses, that we can call it reality (by consensus). You told me I keep drawing attention to the lecture by Anil Seth, but it is clear you have not given any thought to what this scientist is talking about. Therefore I urge you to watch that lecture one more time and give thought to the implications of what he is talking about. The brain creates our subjective reality from the inside out as much as from the outside in. Think about that for a moment.
All I am saying is that what Seth says is old news. Talking about Consciousness as being like a Hallucination goes back to the 60’s and 70’s. That there is an anticipation aspect to the Brain is well known and has been studied for decades and probably goes back to the earliest brain studies in modern times. The problem that I am interested in is what is that Hallucination that I Experience when I am Experiencing Redness in my Visual Scene? This is the problem that I am trying to figure out. All I’m saying about Seth is that he does not offer any solution to the Hard Problem.
All I’m saying about Seth is that he does not offer any solution to the Hard Problem.
It's called the Hard Problem for a good reason. Your inter mind theory is not helpful; at least, not to us dummies here. Have you tried reaching out to David Chalmers yet? He is the Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Consciousness at the Australian National University.
sree:
It’s called the Hard Problem for a good reason. Your inter mind theory is not helpful; at least, not to us dummies here. Have you tried reaching out to David Chalmers yet? He is the Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Consciousness at the Australian National University.
Thank you for the suggestion. I incidentally keep up with what Chalmers is saying these days. He seemed to be going through a Panpsychism stage last time I heard anything.
"What we are Seeing is our own Internal Conscious Light. We have never Seen an actual Object out in the World, nor do we See the actual reflected Light from an Object, nor do we See actual Neural Activity. Instead, we have always only Seen our own Internal Conscious Light. It is this Conscious Light (not Physical Electromagnetic Light) that is generated by our Internal Brian/Mind mechanism."
Why do you assume humans require this special brain/mind activity in order to sense the environment through the electromagnetic spectrum? All other organism that can do the same don't require a brain/mind like ours, yet they see (in some cases much better than us.)
3point14r:
Why do you assume humans require this special brain/mind activity in order to sense the environment through the electromagnetic spectrum? All other organism that can do the same don’t require a brain/mind like ours, yet they see (in some cases much better than us.)There are many different types of eyes that have evolved. How far back up the evolutionary tree do we have to go for your explanation to not apply? I am not saying you are wrong, but I fundamentally don’t understand why you invented a special ‘human’ form of sight. Maybe you are attaching the thoughts and ideas that are sparked by seeing an object with the act of seeing the object.
Why do you think that I have to study every type of Visual System on the planet? I have chosen to study the Human Visual System. Are you serious when you imply that you don’t understand why I would pick the Human Visual system over others to study. The evolution of Vision is a whole different topic. You are just trying to Obfuscate the topic without taking any time to consider the topic.
When someone keeps asking “seriously”, it’s a sign they aren’t open to others input. I don’t use the term “closed minded” lightly, but you have demonstrated consistent resistance to input. The question is simple, what is vision? The basic principles are the same in all animals, otherwise the word doesn’t have meaning. You keep trying to change those meanings, by saying, “really seen” or “actual objects”. “See” and “objects” are words with meaning. You could describe them with additional detail about neurons and the process of forming images in brains, but that doesn’t change the meaning of those words.
lausten:
When someone keeps asking “seriously”, it’s a sign they aren’t open to others input. I don’t use the term “closed minded” lightly, but you have demonstrated consistent resistance to input. The question is simple, what is vision? The basic principles are the same in all animals, otherwise the word doesn’t have meaning. You keep trying to change those meanings, by saying, “really seen” or “actual objects”. “See” and “objects” are words with meaning. You could describe them with additional detail about neurons and the process of forming images in brains, but that doesn’t change the meaning of those words.
Yes, but what is the benefit of trying to make believe we know the Conscious Experience of animals before we know what our own Human Conscious Experience is. You are just adding to the Obfuscation and creating more Diversion for the topic. It’s almost like an Attention Deficit Disorder with you people. It’s right in the title of the topic “…Human Visual Experience”. Forget Lemurs think about Humans. Thank You
Yes, but what is the benefit of trying to make believe we know the Conscious Experience of animals
Because you are trying to make vision be something different for humans. It's like trying to nail jello to the wall. If we talk about color being a light wave frequency, you say that isn't it. If we talk about waves existing at all, you argue about that. If we try to talk about qualia, you disallow all the arguments of what that is except your personal favorite. At that point, you're just the pigeon who has turned over the chess board.
Structure of an M. natalensis mound