[ExI] Mental Phenomena

Tue Feb 11 19:17:18 UTC 2020

John and Stathis,

you are conflating “computational binding” with mere communication.  If you
want to communicate physical (or spiritual if you must) redness facts, you
need a substrate independent communication channel for which the message
can be instantiated on any particular causal physical representation
between our two brains.  In order to be substrate independent, you always
need a dictionary system to know the meaning intended by any particular
physical representation. For example, the retina, is the mechanical
dictionary transducing system which interprets the red information in the
light, to the red information in the physically different red signal in the
optic nerve.  Ultimately, you need to interpret this abstract word like
‘red’, whatever happens to be representing it, as the real  “Stathis’
‘behavior’ which, if it remains the same, the subjectivity remains the
same.”  If you do all these interpretations correctly, you will have
communicated the facts about “Stathis’ ‘behavior’ which, if it remains the
same, the subjectivity remains the same.”

“Computational binding” is what is done in a CPU.  You need to load a value
into a register, representing the color of a point on the surface of the
strawberry, and the value of a ‘ripe enough’ color in another register.
The computational binding is the difference operation done between these
two representations in the CPU so you can have an abstract numerical
resulting representation of if the target color is ripe enough or not.

Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory describes a quantitative way to
measure consciousness, by how integrated things are.  This is measuring the
amount of connections there are, between registers in a CPU, or the amount
of computational binding. But it is more than just integration, it is
programming integration.  For example, difference operation integrations
are different than multiplication integrations. In a CPU, this programming
is done via LOTS of discrete logic units. Any one of which has very little
integration, and once you have this difference value, for one pixel, that
only gets you a tiny part of the way to the decision of whether you want to
pick the strawberry or not.

“Stathis’ ‘behavior’ which, if it remains the same, the subjectivity
remains the same.” being computationally bound is very different.  Not only
can all of the pixels be computationally bound to all the other pixels, an
extreme amount of computational meaning is programmed into the
integration.  For each meaning full relationship, there must be some amount
of programming, in the CPU, that is that meaning which we are aware of.
Everything from the computational meaning of having one (not two)
strawberries in our hand, to how a strawberry of that particular color will
taste, are all different programmed computational binding.

So, if you consciously know something, there must be something physical (or
spiritual if you must) that is in this CPU that is this knowledge, and this
knowledge must be computationally bound to all the other knowledge which
also must be in the CPU.  If you are seeing these words on the computer
screen, if you are aware of them, there must be something in your CPU,
which is each pixel of this “Stathis’ ‘behavior’ which, if it remains the
same, the subjectivity remains the same.” which is bound to all the other
pixels, along with all the other computational meaning.  That is what it
means to be directly aware of this “Stathis’ ‘behavior’ which, if it
remains the same, the subjectivity remains the same.”  There is no
interpretation required because it is what it is, in a physical (or
spiritual if you must) dependent way.

John mentioned there are “300 million nerve fibers in the Corpus
callosum”.  It is these that are enabling the “Stathis’ ‘behavior’ which,
if it remains the same, the subjectivity remains the same.” to be
sufficiently integrated to be computationally bound into one CPU that is
our composite consciousness knowledge of the strawberry.  When I (and
V.S.Ramachandran, in his “Three laws of qualia
<https://philpapers.org/rec/RAMTLO-8>” paper back in the 90s) are talking
about a “Neural Ponytail
<https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails/comments/80yvzf/in_avatar_the_navi_dont_bind_their_prisoners_arms/>”
we are talking about exactly this, which does not require interpretation,
unlike mere communication.

The programming can be changed in a "Field programmable gate array" (FPGA).
We're more like a sleep programmed system running directly on the “Stathis’
‘behavior’ which, if it remains the same, the subjectivity remains the
same.”

On Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 5:45 AM John Clark via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 9, 2020 at 10:18 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> *> I'm having a hard time seeing all this as anything more than lots of
>> hand waving, with an embedded "A miracle happens here".*
>
>
> If you demand a total explanation of ANYTHING, not just consciousness,
> then there always comes a point where you must say "a miracle happens here"
>  because an infinite chain of "why" questions is not a total explanation.
> But the simpler the miracle is the better the explanation, and that's why I
> like data processing, things don't get much simpler than on/off. And feel
> free to substitute "brute fact" for "miracle" if you like.
>
> *> Our left hemisphere knows absolutely, that it isn't the only conscious
>> hemisphere in existence, because it is computationally bound to the other.*
>
>
> Yes the 2 hemispheres of our brains are normally computationally bound to
> each other by the 300 million nerve fibers in the Corpus callosum, which
> means that whatever one hemisphere knows the other one knows almost
> immediately, and with communication that good it's meaningless to speak of
> 2 seperate individuals in our head. And yes I'm familiar with Roger
> Sperry’s Split Brain Experiments, and they tell me that in a pathological
> brain in which that all important communication link, the Corpus callosum,
> has been severed the 2 hemispheres behave in ways very different from that
> of a healthy brain. And that is not at all surprising, if you start cutting
> transoceanic fiber optic cables the Internet would start behaving
> differently too.
>
>  John K Clark
> _______________________________________________
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> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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