translating physical data (from the brain) to phenomological awareness...

[qwedsa]

shouldnt there be a point in the brain where all incoming data (memory, intellect feedback, senses, etc) converge and, after an attention-selection mechanism filters what should be phenomologically experienced, the data is "experienced" by consciousness in a way seemingly different from a normal computer?

a computer can have senses, intellect, can have emotions impact it, and store memory, but seems to have no "real" perception of what its doing like the brain does

it could be called a soul (without any metaphysical or spiritual attachments). its just our "awareness" (actual experience) of our awareness-es (inner experience, sense experience)

perhaps its a bit more complex than what ive described, perhaps it happens at multiple locations at once, but you get the idea. is there some part of the brain that translates data (physical energy patterns) to phenomological awareness? how the hell would this work?

 

[elemenohpee]

heres my take on it:
most of your brain models the outside world and your relationship to it. some other part, call it the ego if you want, models the brain itself. this is how we are aware of what is going on in our brain. of course this is on a very high level, we obviously can;t perceive individual neurons firing.

 

[ebola?]

We have no, no, NO idea of why or how experience emerges from neurology. . .but it does. I think LMNOP is on the right track, and what he says is congruent with the work of Damasio. I would say, though, that the brain's self-modeling is likely more decentralized than he suggests.

ebola

 

[qwedsa]

We have no, no, NO idea of why or how experience emerges from neurology

true. conjectures are all we have. anyone have any?

lmnop and ebola, the brain modelling/mapping reality (inner and outer), while relevent to what is experienced by consciousness, is more relevant to the calculations and programming of the brain rather than my question (how does the 'what' become translated into conscious experience)

i found this book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained

which suggests that consciousness arises from any exchange of information. it uses the mocking term "cartesian theatre" to describe a point where information is converted to conscious experience, claiming that consciousness arises due to the calculation system as a whole. thus (my conjecture, not Dennett's), carrying this line of thought further makes it seem like a computer could easily be conscious like we are, though its experience would be worlds apart, and philisophical zombies are impossible ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie )

i'm hardly convinced, we've no proof, but there's a direct antithesis to what i suggested, which may turn out to be right

 

[elemenohpee]

I would say, though, that the brain's self-modeling is likely more decentralized than he suggests.

ebola

I didn;t mean to suggest that there is some area of the brain that does this. What I meant is that some amount of neurons in the brain are involved in this task.

I'm gonna have to look into this Damasio guy, looks interesting.

 

[Nebulae]

shouldnt there be a point in the brain where all incoming data (memory, intellect feedback, senses, etc) converge and, after an attention-selection mechanism filters what should be phenomologically experienced, the data is "experienced" by consciousness in a way seemingly different from a normal computer?

a computer can have senses, intellect, can have emotions impact it, and store memory, but seems to have no "real" perception of what its doing like the brain does

it could be called a soul (without any metaphysical or spiritual attachments). its just our "awareness" (actual experience) of our awareness-es (inner experience, sense experience)

perhaps its a bit more complex than what ive described, perhaps it happens at multiple locations at once, but you get the idea. is there some part of the brain that translates data (physical energy patterns) to phenomological awareness? how the hell would this work?

I believe the conscious experiences of sensation are called qualia. I dont know so much about it, but it is fundamentally the end result of whatever process allows us to be conscious. I couldn't even begin to speculate on how it would work, but it is pretty mindblowing to think about.

 

[protovack]

The brain models *itself*? Interesting. Could somebody provide a quick summary of the proposed model?

Or do you just mean the integration centers and their role in memory of prior stimuli.

I mean....trying to divide the brain into "model the world" and "models the self" seems like a horrible oversimplification.

 

[Akoto]

I mean....trying to divide the brain into "model the world" and "models the self" seems like a horrible oversimplification.

Anything but would require alot more than anyone on this board is willing to put out

 

[qwedsa]

the brain models anything it comprehends. im not sure why you'd split its modelling system into a model of the self and every other model?

 

[elemenohpee]

Douglas Hodstatder calls is "the monitoring of brain activity by a subsystem of the brain itself."

Of course the distinction between the self and the outside world is not sharply defined, but a fundamental aspect of my consciousness is that I feel in some way seperate from the world. After some higher level thinking and maybe some lsd, this intuitive belief can be at least intellectually proved to be false.

 

[protovack]

^^^
How is it proved false?

 

[elemenohpee]

we're gonna have to wait till we learn more about the mechanisms of the brain

 

[restless-nemesis]

hmm...

as anaimals with relatively small brains can have sometimes superior sensory awareness compred to us, e.g. a hawk spotting prey hundreds of feet away while flying, bats with super-sonic hearing, cats and dogs that can smell stuff we could't dream of it is safe to assume that sensory information works independently of conscious thought. It seems to me a matter of time: senses act instantly, all at once, with no need for conscious effort, however comprehending a thing, distingusihing it from something else takes that much longer and that many more neural connections.

Our senses are at one with our bodies. We cannot control them, much as we cannot control our liver. This is the old Cartesian arument of mind-body seperation or duality as mentioned earlier. Many modes of religion and drug taking seek to blur this boundary so that a sense of unity is brought about.

There is a bridge between the mind and body, the hippocampus and thalamus, in the brain, which guide emotive behaviour, and the pineal gland which is said to be the seat of the mind's eye. Despite this, interpretation of sensory information is spread throughout the brain, with vision at the back in the occipital lobes and hearing in the temporal. Our brains are geared to spot sudden changes in the senses, as a warning.

It is probably impossible thus far in scientific and philosophical understanding to reallly say where mind and body meet, is it at the brain stem, or is it the whole brain generally. Clearly the cerebellum (little brain) deals with the body directly outside of consciousness, however fine sensory data is distributed throughout the whole brain.

One interesting point is to understand why you're senses act the way they do while on acid and hallucinogens. I believe that the info crucnhing power of the cortex usually left for problem solving and creativity is handed over to the sensory system so that intricate and complex neural firing patterns normally the reserve of deep thought are projected onto the occipatal lobes at the back of the brain dealing with vision. The underlying pattern formation of nature is unleashed and so fractal type patterning comes forth, which is theorteically a waste of energy in evoltionary terms but not when taking acid or mushies. The natural proclivity toward connection making is amplified massively on acid so that all things come together, meaning that things on the outside affect you dramatically on the inside when normally these connections are not made.

Thats my bash at it, i could go on but i'm tired... have yet to read Damassio but have been aware of the importance of his books for a while

 

[elemenohpee]

^^^
How is it proved false?

ha, i just realized i didn't really answer the right question. What I meant is that a human being is merely a specific arrangement of atoms within the universe. So the disticntion between the self and the outside world is an artificial construct of the mind.

 

[Mehm]

perhaps its a bit more complex than what ive described, perhaps it happens at multiple locations at once, but you get the idea. is there some part of the brain that translates data (physical energy patterns) to phenomological awareness? how the hell would this work?

look towards the temporal lobes as they contain long term memories..which help us interpert the world we are living in.

However, short circuting any one part of the brain will destroy some sort of fucntion. When taken in this context, it would seem that subjective reality is no more than a combination of senses and cognition. These systems are widely spread through the body and brain.

BTW, I just finished a neruo cognition class that focused on paying attention and percieiving one's environment. That is kind of where this post came from.

peace.

 

[restless-nemesis]

to comment on the quote above, 'how the hell would that work?'...

i think the neural connections in our brains act as analogies to whats really happening, so over eons of evolution, neural maps have been laid out that accurately represent the environmental stimuli.

i guess its a bit like a software emulator of some hardware... there are physical principles to how a piano works but these priniciples can be coded into electrical signals (binary code) to work within a computer environment.

Neurons also work on a binary basis, i.e. they are either on or off, but there may be literally billions of them acting according to certain pathways laid out by our upbrining and our DNA.. (nature and nurture).

I too do cog neuro psych and develeopmental cog sci along with general psych, hence my keen interest...

 

[qwedsa]

^that describes how we map reality, but not how there is an observer in our brain phenomologically experiencing reality and his reality maps

 

[elemenohpee]

your brain is also part of reality. Perhaps your brain also includes a map of itself?

 

[restless-nemesis]

i guess it may be hard to accept that you ARE you're brain and you cannot argue otherwise, unless you wish to get spiritual...

those maps are YOU not some external bit that you experience as a person within a person... the part of you that thinks words, cogntive action is typically thought to be at the front of the brain, with all the other parts working for this part, where the information coallecess(?).

you are the sum of you're parts, the total of all parts put together, although the i believe strongly that humans are more than the sume of their parts... e.g i am more than a heap of skin, organs, bones and brain, i am the sum of these things and then something more, some kind of magic i guess, becuase there is no other way of really knowing why you are expereicning this right now...

hence religion, which has an annoying habit of filling the gap in knowledge between what we know and what we may never understand by the convenient inclusion of a formn of magic from God.

Science really cannot provide the answers to the deeper human need (Dostoyevsky), and that includes philospophy... all we can hope to do is be as wise as we can and attempt to grasp or become the radiance of the higher realms of consciousness. You are the sum of all those neural pathways, it is those pathways that are the answer but then thats no answer at all is it...

this kind of question can only lead to more questions...

as mentioned above, its all atoms, and atoms are DEAD not alive, so how does a whole lot of dead things make something alive?

 

[elemenohpee]

you are the sum of you're parts, the total of all parts put together, although the i believe strongly that humans are more than the sume of their parts... e.g i am more than a heap of skin, organs, bones and brain, i am the sum of these things and then something more, some kind of magic i guess, becuase there is no other way of really knowing why you are expereicning this right now...

There is nothign there besides dead atoms. This other thing you speak of is an emergent phenomena which comes from the way these atoms interact. On the lowest level, there is only atoms. On a higher level, however, you are ahuman being, capable of creativity, consciousness, etc.

Science really cannot provide the answers to the deeper human need (Dostoyevsky), and that includes philospophy... all we can hope to do is be as wise as we can and attempt to grasp or become the radiance of the higher realms of consciousness. You are the sum of all those neural pathways, it is those pathways that are the answer but then thats no answer at all is it...

Science cannot answer these questions as of yet, but that doesn't mean it never will. When these pathways are studied in more detail, and actually decoded, we will get many of the answers we have been looking for.