The Mind is a computer. The Body is a Machine. The Self is what I'll call "Self". For my purposes Self is the energy that experiences the data that it receives from the computer. Life is the every changing environment in which we live. Self evaluates that information and inputs the requisite commands reflective of Self's decisions. The Mind and Machine work together to process the commands all while gathering data. Self faces choices that will impact the very fabric of how they experience Life.

Life is often referred to as a game which is in some ways accurate but in truth is more an open world MMO (an open explorer formatted world online game in which anyone around the world can play and interact with each other).

Much like the game we start at birth with nothing. Now modern life might toss a few basics your way. A home of some kind, clothes, perhaps some food. Granted as humans we are giving very little in the way of instinctive memories. So we learn from the world around us.

You see in this game the player is your self. It arrives with no instructions, no training and little else. We are 100% reliant on the machine we assigned and those who birthed out machine.

I will leave the example at this point and ask that you consider your position on this topic with a certainty that the self remains regardless of the condition of the machine. Once the Machine is damaged beyond repair and function the self moves on but that topic has enough threads no doubt. I will add that the self also is with certainty separate from the machine. The self experiences all the physical and emotional feelings and sensations provided by the machine and the computer but the self is definitely separate.

This all being said does it chance what you think and how? — MiloL

You are probably directing this to Tyler. But I think what you are saying tracks pretty good with what The Inter Mind is all about. Although, I think I am less certain that the Conscious Self can exist after loss of the Physical body, I do see that the possibility exists.

You can be certain the conscious self does exist separate from the body and while I'm certain there is a point of departure I am not so certain humanity has a solid understand of the when but certainly it is tied to a total physical death of the machine. I am actually working on a way to prove it.

Just looking for the right partners.

Just looking for the right partners. — MiloL

Proof of that would probably solve the Hard Problem of Consciousness and eliminate the Explanatory Gap all at the same time. I have also toyed with someway to do that but am not there yet. Good Luck.

I could prove it with help of a professor and perhaps a few phd candidates. I know how to accomplish it. Just requires the proper management, data collection, etc.

I have one in mind but since I'm not an academic I'm not sure I would be heard seriously. We shall see.

What is the evidence that suggests that consciousness involves brain activity? — Marcus de Brun

> Assuming by "consciousness", we mean the awareness and comprehensive perception, the evidence is that brain activity has proven to be directly correlated with being awake, thinking, remembering, and interpreting sensory input. Consciousness involves these concepts as well.

I would suggest that consciousness has been more thoroughly investigated by Philosophy than brain activity has been explained by Science — Marcus de Brun

> This very well may be true, and the lack of explanation of brain activity by science, is what leaves the open potential for brain activity to still be the explanation of consciousness. Since there is that unexplored potential, it seems most logical to assume that with further investigation of brain activity, using science, we will then discover the explanation of consciousness.

Consciousness in Philosophical parlance would appear to cause and or contain brain activity, in the same manner that it may contain our perception of 'objective' reality. — Marcus de Brun

Yes, and wouldnt you consider "perception of 'objective' reality" to be the basic concept of "consciousness"?

How does 1 produce 2?

Think about the Redness of a Red experience. Think about Neurons firing. How on Earth do think that these are not two different categories of Phenomenon? — SteveKlinko

> 1 produces 2 by a complex but coordinated combination producing an intricate outcome.
I think they are the same category because it seems logical that the 1 process (of neural activity) is the functional explanation of the other (Redness of Red).

By my theory, I might say, I use consciousness to access memories of the concepts relative to the explanation, simultaneously to accessing new memories of incoming sensory input of the image of red.
When I look at and think about red, I also think about the function of my eye measuring the light wave-lengths of red, and my neural activity coding it and saving it as a memory. So the appearance of red, is just the interpretation of the coding of wave-length measurements.

consider your position on this topic with a certainty that the self remains regardless of the condition of the machine. Once the Machine is damaged beyond repair and function the self moves on but that topic has enough threads no doubt. — MiloL

> I see no reason to believe that the self remains regardless of the condition of the machine, or that it moves on after damage.
If "self" consists of the machine and computer, and functions by means of processing data of the environment, why would you assume (and be certain) that self exists without that which it is made of, and without that which is its function?

because my brain is dying yet my self remains far more intact than most people assume

Since there is that unexplored potential, it seems most logical to assume that with further investigation of brain activity, using science, we will then discover the explanation of consciousness. — Tyler

I suggest that this position is a consequence of a; pleasing, tempting, fashionable, contemporary and entirely materialist bias.

Consciousness in Philosophical parlance would appear to cause and or contain brain activity, in the same manner that it may contain our perception of 'objective' reality. — Marcus de Brun

Yes, and wouldn't you consider "perception of 'objective' reality" to be the basic concept of "consciousness"? — Tyler

The word I use is 'objective' you have negated the fact that the word is contained within apostrophes. IE there is no objective reality, merely that which consciousness offers as suggestion that, there might be something external to the mind. Nothing more. Objectivity is an entirely subjective experience. Berkley has thoroughly explained this aspect of reality.

M

I would suggest everyone consider there position on the separate nature of self and the body and see if it still applies to all people in all situations. Think of Prof Hawkins or the kid down the street with autism. They physical does not dictate the self but merely our ability to communicate and/or interact directly. Look around you and see the human tendency to feel be satisfy with someone's inability to contribute in some way as it relates to something you see in front of you. Missing legs or arms, wheelchairs, etc. yet a person can be far worse off and without these things the mind can't as easily label and categorize what it sees with the actual functionality. No one sees a person talking in the street and thinks oh poor guy maybe he has dementia. Most times its drugs, alcohol or some other mental condition that associates someone with being out of their mind. Yet someone like Prof Nash is applauded and people readily accept that there was the normal person plagued by tricks of the mind. Point is humans rely so deeply on the memories and related associations of their own experiences to process information. You're brain doesn't know its a donut without the memory that taught you what it was. remove that and the problems can cascade but the self who learned it and now can't recall it..well. Think bigger. Your reality is your own but when looking for answers they have to be a bit more applicable to everyone.

How does 1 produce 2?

Think about the Redness of a Red experience. Think about Neurons firing. How on Earth do think that these are not two different categories of Phenomenon? — SteveKlinko> 1 produces 2 by a complex but coordinated combination producing an intricate outcome.
I think they are the same category because it seems logical that the 1 process (of neural activity) is the functional explanation of the other (Redness of Red).

By my theory, I might say, I use consciousness to access memories of the concepts relative to the explanation, simultaneously to accessing new memories of incoming sensory input of the image of red.
When I look at and think about red, I also think about the function of my eye measuring the light wave-lengths of red, and my neural activity coding it and saving it as a memory. So the appearance of red, is just the interpretation of the coding of wave-length measurements. — Tyler

All you just said is that it is Complicated and involves Memory and some kind of Interpretations. Maybe this is all true but there is no explanation in what you say.

It is the Redness of the Red experience that we are trying to explain. Regardless of how Complicated the Neural Activity is, and regardless of how much Memory is accessed how do those Brain events produce the Redness of a Red experience? More to the point what is the Redness of the Red experience? How do we See it when the Brain events happen? Think about the absolute inexplicable nature of the Redness itself. Redness is a Property of the red Conscious experience. Redness is not a Property of Red Physical Light. Red Physical Light has Wavelength as a Property. The Red Conscious experience is a Surrogate for the Red Physical Light. Think about the Redness of Red. The more you think about Redness the more you can understand that it is not even something that exists in the Physical World. It exists in your Conscious Mind World. This is just the way it is and even the best Minds in Science have zero insight into what the Redness is.

But is Red even Red? How would your Redness of the Red experience change if no one taught you the word red? Does you theory account for the variety of ways one might learn to interpret all the photons and wave length considerations?

But is Red even Red? How would your Redness of the Red experience change if no one taught you the word red? Does you theory account for the variety of ways one might learn to interpret all the photons and wave length considerations? — MiloL

Doesn't matter what I call the Red experience. The red experience is still an experience of Redness. The Redness of the Red is beyond any words that you can say to interpret it. I'm not sure what your last question is asking.

The Redness of the Red — SteveKlinko

Maybe I'm not understand what you mean by this ^. What is this to you?

Think about the Redness of Red. The more you think about Redness the more you can understand that it is not even something that exists in the Physical World. It exists in your Conscious Mind World. — SteveKlinko

The redness is a property of the some objects, which has the property of being view as red (at least for humans), so redness perception is which "exists" in the mind world. This is the "problem of universals". It is a nonsense to say: "My viewing of this tomato is red". Instead, we say "This tomato (as I view it) is red". As pragmatists philosopher have suggested, many (if not all) philosophical problems are originated by a confused use of language.

Maybe I'm not understand what you mean by this ^. What is this to you? — MiloL

It is a slightly internally redundant statement that I use to get people to concentrate on the Conscious experience itself. Just think about Red.

The redness is a property of the some objects, which has the property of being view as red (at least for humans), so redness perception is which "exists" in the mind world. This is the "problem of universals". It is a nonsense to say: "My viewing of this tomato is red". Instead, we say "This tomato (as I view it) is red". As pragmatists philosopher have suggested, many (if not all) philosophical problems are originated by a confused use of language. — Belter

I agree with this. But where does this leave us? If you agree that there is a separate Mind World where Conscious experience exists then you must agree that there is a Hard Problem of Consciousness. I can illustrate the Problem by asking the question ... Given:

1) Neural Activity for Red happens in the Brain (Physical World)
2) A Conscious Red experience happens in the Mind World

There is definitely Correlation between 1 and 2, but how does 2 happen when 1 happens? If the language is wrong with this question then I don't understand what's wrong.

you agree that there is a separate Mind World where Conscious experience exists then you must agree that there is a Hard Problem of Consciousness — SteveKlinko

I do not agree it. Mind world is part of the physical world, referred to certain abilities of individuals, and realized by brains. I am not a dualist, and the hard problem presupposes it, but not justify it.

When Kripke or Chalmers say "C-fibers can be firing without pain" at using "modal" arguments I am not able to conceive it as imaginable. In my view it is impossible to conceive. The inverse one (mind but not concrete human brain) is possible in the same way that you can cut onions with a knife or and laser sword (both are a "cutting instrument"; the analogy is that brain is the "thinking instrument").

I do not agree it. Mind world is part of the physical world, referred to certain abilities of individuals, and realized by brains. I am not a dualist, and the hard problem presupposes it, but not justify it. — Belter

Even if Mind World is part of Physical World there has to be an explanation for Conscious experience. You cannot say the Mind (Conscious) World is all just part of the Physical World and That Explains It. That does not explain anything. You must Explain not just Say. The Hard Problem does not presuppose Dualism. The solution to the Hard Problem could very well be that Consciousness is all Physical. But Science has not shown that yet. The Hard Problem is alive and well whether you are a Dualist or a Physicalist.

The explanatory gap is jumped everyday by psychological researchers. I recommended you for example, "I of the vortex" if you want to know this "mysterious" problem of how brain is used for individuals to think.

The explanatory gap is jumped everyday by psychological researchers. I recommended you for example, "I of the vortex" if you want to know this "mysterious" problem of how brain is used for individuals to think — Belter

The book says things like there is a Virtual Reality generated by the Mind. it assumes this Virtual Reality without explaining what it actually is. You can speculate about a Virtual Reality but it is in the long run just speculation. There are no Explanations of what the Virtual Reality is. Explaining exactly what the Virtual reality is, is the Hard Problem.

it assumes this Virtual Reality without explaining what it actually is — SteveKlinko

I think that the book permit us to know a lot of not evident features of mind. The synchronicity in groups, circuits, etc., of specialized neurons when firing is the basic "explanation": "what the Virtual reality is, the Hard Problem".
In the book you can encounter one of the most advanced theories of mind (role of calcium channels, 40 Hz of frequency in the synchronized fired, etc.). I consider that the explanations of mind must be in this form or another one with the same (psychological) method. It is a "hard" problem such as "life" one is: we still not be capable of replicating artificially. But there are not a priori reasons for its skepticism.

I agree with this. But where does this leave us? If you agree that there is a separate Mind World where Conscious experience exists then you must agree that there is a Hard Problem of Consciousness. I can illustrate the Problem by asking the question ... Given:

1) Neural Activity for Red happens in the Brain (Physical World)
2) A Conscious Red experience happens in the Mind World

There is definitely Correlation between 1 and 2, but how does 2 happen when 1 happens? If the language is wrong with this question then I don't understand what's wrong. — SteveKlinko

There can be no doubt that accuracy of words is both approaching “Lost Art” status and the key to effective communication. I would offer that this premise if part of what draws us to people from our childhood. Everyone has friends that they went to high school with and later in life they run into with an openness and even excitement at seeing someone with whom they share geographical memories with. In truth many times they really where even friends when they shared that proximity. In some case they may have even not liked each other or one was unkind to the other. Time and distance give humans some measure of unspoken agreement to ignore the truth in favor of enjoyment of spending time with people who speak your ‘language’. Language refers all facets of language that we take for granted. The subtle references to places or people of the shared memories. The colloquialisms that are native to that region and maybe even the anecdotal stories of people within your shared - we’ll call it “separation degrees”. Consider the premise of 6 degrees of separation. Without debating that point lets just assume 6 is a good number. If you live in a small town and the range we are going with is 6 then by the time you reach adulthood you will likely be part of a social circle that is more like 3. Bear with me here as I stray a little but it seems worth noting that for those who stay home (their hometown). Everyone will age obviously and take jobs, go to college, pursue hobbies and careers - whatever it is. In my day people would start watching the news and read papers etc but I suppose in this day and age the process starts much soon. In any event you’ll reach a point where you will begin working and socializing with other people your age so essentially the collection of neighborhoods that make up your town become smaller and smaller as you being working, dating, and all around journey through adulthood.. As for those who move away while the number may be 6, they will likely find the same reactions to connections as spread out as 10. They may have no one in common directly but the feeling like you’ve walked the same streets or been to the same places brings about its own level of connection. In both cases its rooted in the same linguistic need to clearly understand the other person and be understood. This is something is best achieved through shared references and perspectives of those references. If you are a nerdy type consider the episode responsible for ‘Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel’. The Children of Tama spoke only through reference. The references came from the stories of their people. Thus figuring out the story was the only means be which to even fathom the proper reference to communicate your own message. We think we have difficulty communicating. Yet it illustrates that even trying to understand their stories humans require some point of comparison. In our own language its interesting that Gilgamesh presents nearly every base of story plot that it predates. Moving away from the originality of stories, or lack thereof, one can’t help but notice that even a concept non story related such as math is taught using stories and comparisons. 3 apples, 4 oranges - it only highlights further the importance of your question. I teach my children daily on the importance of accuracy of words yet as for their references all I can do is strive to open their minds to all the perspectives of the world with a guide for how to make decisions along the way.

Where this intersects with the Red problem is that there really is no problem but rather something important to future generations that can only be taught. Then as with most applications of knowledge we hope for the future. I believe that knowledge might have its moments where it makes immediate impact but most impact is long term although as the knowledge base increases the duration between change becomes shorter. Consider the current day and the impact of social media. Granted its not the kind of knowledge I’d like to see the world sharing but it is establishing the beginnings of what I think will become an age of knowledge (discussion for another time).

So the Red problem for me is simple. You put an apple in front of my eyes then tell me to open them. The mind will scan its visual range to collect data. So I’m driving a starship and scanning everything . I might even slam on the brakes if I pick up something right in front of me much like I might even pull my head back if you had it up to close and upon opening my eyes they detected the nearby object and focused in then pulled back. I’d like to point out that this is all done before you are even asking yourself “wtf?”. Think about it. Then when the ship has cleared the obstacle, your self begins to question what was it? why’d you do that? Etc.

You might call this instinct or maybe good reflexes. I call this the bios acting as intended before the software can process the data. Or if you’re 12 flinching. Now some people are more in tune and can override the instinct to flinch better than some whether through conscious effort or maybe a subprocess like pride or maybe even fear. Still its the ships bios acting apart from the software (ship OS) being used by the pilot (self).

So once your software kicks in and it begin presenting the data to the pilot he/she can then engage more in after action analysis and processing. This is where self decides on a course of action. The data is presented and sometimes simply filed without action because while factors might be too numerous to list, key factors might supersede the need for action. A common example is a child or pet. We don’t normally find a need for action to be taken instead shifting mental gears and resources to what is likely a request for help or maybe a simple need for attention. The same cannot be true about a random hobo doing it in a corner market.

So while I agree with number one I would have worded it differently but we talked about the language enough.

As for number 2, I think they words give way to problems for understanding it because the experience happens regardless of what the color is called. Maybe its not even red but rojo. Does that change the experience? So your quote becomes the mind taking all the information given to it by the machine, the mind processing it and explaining it to the self using all available references, labels, categories and even stereotypes (consider how hard these are to change). So red is irrelevant at the self stage of the process as it only matters when communicating and can therefore be changed via learning. The experience however can’t be altered through language (in this context) however language can narrow or widen the experience.

As the Oracle might say - “What’s really going to bake your noodle…” is when you move past the issue of red and take a bite of the apple. How do you communicate that without use of references in language.


EDIT: I also wanted to mention that something I didn't factor into this was the idea of embodied cognition because I felt it was more macro to this discussion but in considering these things you might find it worthwhile to examine the overlaps.

I think a scientific treatment of consciousness is premature, at the least. The distance between the concepts of brain and mind is just too large at the moment. There may come a time when this is no longer the case, but we haven't reached it yet. IMO, of course. ;)

I have long used this example: Microsoft Word is a stream of bytes. True. Winword.exe is just that. A more useful truth is that Word is a word processor. The conceptual/abstract gap between a stream of bytes and a word processor is just too large to bridge. And the gap between brain and mind is much, much bigger than this.

I think that the book permit us to know a lot of not evident features of mind. The synchronicity in groups, circuits, etc., of specialized neurons when firing is the basic "explanation": "what the Virtual reality is, the Hard Problem".
In the book you can encounter one of the most advanced theories of mind (role of calcium channels, 40 Hz of frequency in the synchronized fired, etc.). I consider that the explanations of mind must be in this form or another one with the same (psychological) method. It is a "hard" problem such as "life" one is: we still not be capable of replicating artificially. But there are not a priori reasons for its skepticism. — Belter

Synchronicity in Groups, Circuits, Specialized Neural Firing, Calcium Channels, 40 Hz synchronized Firing, etc. all involve Neural Activity of one sort or another. All these things are related to the Easy Problem. None of these solve the Hard Problem. None of these explains what the Conscious experience of Red could be. So, even if all these Neural things have to happen for me to experience the color Red, these are just Neural Correlates of experiencing the color Red. The fact that these things happen does not get us any closer to solving the Hard Problem. The fact that these things happen does not explain the Red experience. We have known for a hundred years that Neural Activity is related to Conscious experience but we are no closer today in understanding how the Conscious experience happens when the Neural Activity happens.

Thank You for that well written and lengthy reply. But I think a lot of people miss the Primacy of the Conscious experience. Think about the Redness of the Red. The Red is a thing in itself. It is a Conscious thing that exists only in our Conscious Minds. The Redness is a Property of a Conscious thing. Redness is not a Property of the Apple. All the Apple can do is reflect Red Physical Light that has Wavelength as a Property. The Physical Red Light does not even have Redness as a Property. The Conscious Red experience is a Surrogate for the Physical Red Light. The Physical red Light does not look like anything. In fact the Apple does not look like anything. You have never seen an Apple only the Conscious representation of it. We are so used to looking at our Conscious representations of things (because that's all we can do) that we think the representations are the way things look. The Conscious representations enable us to Detect what is out there in the World around us. The question then is and this is the Primary question: What are these Conscious representations and how do we experience them. Specifically what is the Red experience and how do we experience it? This is the Hard Problem of Consciousness and nobody has even a clue as to what the answer is.

these are just Neural Correlates of experiencing the color Red — SteveKlinko

You continue assuming that brain and mind are like two effects, that can "correlate" such as the increasing of educative and economical level. If you identify the two thing, we have not hard problem, only psychological problem. If you differentiate them, so conscience is "to know if you brain is or not lying you", that is, to differentiate reality from fiction, then the hard problem is the "transcendental" deduction problem. That is, following to Kant, we are conscience bears, but to be conscious and to know conscience are two different things. We can say that conscience is a condition of possibility of knowledge, in the sense that this requires a subject and its conscience to be produced. Then, we can not study conscience empirically because we presuppose it when try to know it.