[ExI] consciousness and perception

Sat Jan 24 17:33:26 UTC 2009

Ian,

Yes, all higher 'cognitive' abilities including emotions, love, 
intuition, free will..., and all of consciousness itself are much more 
complex squishy and difficult to comprehend than simple red vs green 
phenomenal properties and a unified 3D visual field made of these 
phenomenal properties.

The theory goes that there is a 'hard problem' of consciousness.  And 
this 'hard problem' is simply the phenomenal nature of simple red vs 
green.  And within the visual system this is the most obvios, solid, and 
simple.  So, the theory goes, this is where we should first focus our 
efforts to achieve an understanding of this 'hard problem'.

The theory also predicts that this 'hard problem' is the only 'hard 
problem'.  In other words, once we fully understand how and what simple 
red vs green are, and how they are unified into 3d realms of awareness - 
this combined with simply more advance and complex information 
processing theory, will be all that is required to fully understand and 
reproduce all of consciousness.

So, before you can hope to understand what red vs green are, you have to 
admit that they exist and are fundamentally important.  Then you also 
have to know what they are a property of (i.e. where they are located).  
Most of the 'nuts and bolts' neural researchers either don't believe 
that qualia exist, or they are looking for them in the wrong place.  
This is the only reason we haven't found them yet.  When you go to 'nuts 
and bolts' neural conferences, they refuse to even consider anything 
like qualia - and this is the big problem.

As evidence, at the recent Decade of the Mind conference, Christof Koch, 
and me for asking him a question on qualia during a forum, were 
attacked, and many there claimed 'nobody is interested in that here'.  
See: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/91

If we can attack and resolve this issue, and get the 'nuts and bolts' 
neural researchers to understand representationalism, and what 
phenomenal properties are - I believe discovering them will be easy and 
almost immediate.  And that this will be THE  most important scientific 
discovery ever.  Hence the motivation for a topic like this to concisely 
measure scientific consensus:

http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6

There is a powerful 'scientific consensus' amongst theoretical 
researchers of the mind surrounding  representationaism as is clearly 
becoming evident in the above topic/camp.  There are various competing 
theories describind in supporting sub camps about what 'qualia' are and 
how that are concicely stated and quantitatively measured in the 
supporting sub camps of the above representational super camp.  All this 
lack of consensus about what qualia are is much less important than how 
much consensus there is on the idea of representationalism as stated in 
that super camp.

We believe no other theory can achieve anywhere close to the amount of 
consensus amongst experts than this representational theory is already 
achieving.  Once this theory finally clearly stands out from all the 
noise and all the many junk theories of consciousness, the 'nuts and 
bolts' neural researchers will finally 'get it' and start looking for 
the right stuff in the right place in the right way.  And soon 
thereafter the most important and world changing scientific discovery of 
all time will be made (at least this is what the theory predicts.)   And 
this discovery, along with more advanced information and AI theory, will 
finally give us the ability to understand consciousness in its 
entirety.  Additionally, after all this, the world and humanity will 
soon become unrecognizable in almost every way compared to what it is today.

So, will you support our effort, join this camp, and help enlighten the 
world, to help bring all this to pass sooner?:

http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6

It'd be great to also get your phenomenal papers 'canonized' with this 
list of other representational publications:

http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/85

Upward,

Brent Allsop

Ian Goddard wrote:
>> I didn't know you were a representationalist.  
>>     
>
>  Thanks for the good words and invite! When I wrote [*] for ought I knew 
> it was a new idea. I was pondering the question, since my percept of a 
> star in the heavens is actually just photos from a star that have struck 
> my optic nerve and been processed in my brain, how is it that the percept 
> appears 'out there'. Suddenly I concluded that what I see as being 'out 
> there' must be a model in my brain built up from sensory data emanating 
> from a real 'out there' that I can't see directly except by way of neural 
> acquisition and representation.
>
>  Then, while doing research for my longer paper in the student journal I ran into Lehar's extensive work and found that the idea goes way back.
>
>
>   
>> I'm betting we'll soon be able to congratulate each other as being the 
>> first members of the camp that represents THE ONE true theory of 
>> consciousness.
>>     
>
>  I don't know what representationalism tells use about consciousness. I 
> see it as a mechanical way of assembling percepts for an 'observer', ie, 
> a conscious self. But this process does not necessarily entail an 
> observer. Take for example 'absence epilepsy' during which an epileptic 
> can interact with the world, but only in a mechanical lifeless way. By all 
> appearances, both from other observers and the epileptic afterward, there 
> was no conscious self there during the seizure. And yet it seems clear 
> that the brain was assembling a model of the world all the while.
>
>  Also, there can be things in our field of vision that we fail to notice, 
> even though the brain assembled a representation of them. So it seems like 
> the conscious self is something still higher. I suspect we agree about 
> that. Obviously consciousness is an exceedingly complex and mysterious 
> issue. But I'd be interested to know how you see representationalism as 
> an inherent feature of the right theory of consciousness. Though I 
> suspect you can't have a conscious being interacting with the world in 
> complex ways without that being having assembled a world model. ~Ian
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> [*] http://www.iangoddard.com/paranorm.htm
>
>
> http://IanGoddard.com
>
> "It is Art, and Art only, that reveals us to ourselves." - Oscar Wilde
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