*new* mind is more than brain (???)

Ok can we not talk about me but about the thread rubric, don't get my thread locked two posts in

But yeah that really is a pic of me. So is this:



SO, GUYS, HOW ABOUT THE MIND THEN?

It could be the case that there is a hierarchy based on not just the ammount of neurons, but the organizational efficiency of said neurons. This efficiency could be the result of the nutrition of the neurons (glia cell count, possibly other sources). This would explain why someone can loose a large portion of their brain and still function, as long as the core organizational structure is intact.

In another way, siince humans have seeming similar consciousnesses and this most likely cannot be caused solely by the brain, the statement seems only a partial explanation.

We would not expect an artificial brain however complex, even it could receive cognitive data, to be able to process it on its own without human programming. Still less, perhaps, can the human brain do so.

Could an artificial brain, on its own, learn to comprehend that it has a closed past, a fleeting present, and a future into which it must reach?

This has some interesting consequences. It leads me to believe live that consciousness exists on a continuum, because no one neuron is reponsible for the whole experience. So an array of disembodied rat neurons like this one:



being used as a kind of living computer has some kind of conscious experience, though very diminished compared to that of a full-fledged rat.

... and even enhance various brain functions. (In fact, they are even now.)

"If the human brain were outfitted with the ability to sense infrared or use echolocation, how would these things be perceived?"

... and "What else could exhibit consciousness?" e.g., an artificial brain based on belief networks or something similar.

... I am disinclined to agree with that assertion ... emergents that we are simple enough for us to study are typically layered ... for example, you don't automatically get liquid water by pumping a room full of two parts oxygen and one part hydrogen ... you only get water by first causing oxygen and hydrogen atoms to organize into H2O molecules and then allowing a large collective of the emergent properties of H2O molecules interact at room temperature to produce the higher-level emergent property "liquid" ... given that such a simple example as this is layered, I would hazard to guess that conscious experience is pretty far removed from neurons in terms of intermediate emergent layers ... so a small network of disembodied neurons is probably not enough to realize many of the intermediate emergent layers that pave the road to mind, let alone conscious experience ...

... that being said, technology in general is already enhancing various mind functions (ever read Andy Clark's "Natural Born Cyborgs"?) ...

... probably as space filled with objects ... there is a technology that has been developed for the blind that turns visual scenes into tactile representations ... at first, it just feels like a random tickle on the skin ... after a while, the brain begins to correlate the patterns in these tickles with other proprioceptive and perceptive inputs ...

... possibly ... but in the case of belief networks, it would be a distinctly non-human consiousness (the human mind notoriously sucks at intuiting conditional probabilities)

... but I would also suggest that this artificial brain would need to be given embodiment and put in charge of it's own survival before it would have any chance of exhibiting consciousness - without the responsibility of self-perpetuation, there doesn't seem to be any reason for it to develop a sense of "self" and "other" ...

given that such a simple example as this is layered, I would hazard to guess that conscious experience is pretty far removed from neurons in terms of intermediate emergent layers ... so a small network of disembodied neurons is probably not enough to realize many of the intermediate emergent layers that pave the road to mind, let alone conscious experience ...

At a conscious level, that is usually the case, but "under the hood," that is not necessarily true:

Bayesian brain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You are using a kind of behaviorist approach to intelligence which has pretty much fallen apart.

Rupert Sheldrake, a British biologist/scientist, suggests that all in the universe is evolving and the evolving forms are contained with morphic fields (energy fields with shape) that consist of patterns that govern the development of forms, structures and arrangements.

For me, consciousness uses energy to create these morphic fields, one of which, for example, would be a brain that can transmit and receive the form representations.

... ah - if you're talking about using Bayesian mathematics at a substrate level as a functional approximation (improvement?) of basic brain functioning, that's one thing ... but "belief networks" are abstractions/models of higher-level conscious reasoning, are they not?

... actually, I'm using an autopoietic approach to the emergence of meaning, which isn't even in the same ballpark as behaviorism ...

... I'm with ya up to this point ... I just don't see any reason to posit that consciousness is anything but one of the multitude of forms/structures/laws that have emerged/evolved over time ...

Ok since I don't know what that means, I'm simply going to ask why self-preservation is necessary to self-awareness

I'm pretty sure kamikaze pilots were self-aware...

... of what evolutionary value is a sense of self in the absence of any responsibility for self-perpetuation?

... ah, but now we're talking about a social animal that has instincts to balance the perpetuation of self with the perpetuation of its offspring/tribe, yes? ...

I can think of some, but that's not the point.

Self-preservation is conducive to developing self-awareness, but not necessary.

Especially in the case of an artificial brain.

Ok, different approach:

"I'll bet people who commit suicide are often (painfully) self-aware."

... you may have a point there ... in principle, I could make an exact functional copy of my brain in-silico and it would be self aware ... but is this the same thing as developing self awareness? - or am I merely copying an existing instance of it? ... and is this relevant to the question of self awareness emerging out of any arbitrary collection of artificial/biological neurons (and not just appearing in exact functional copies of existing instances of self awareness)?

... things go wrong in animals all the time, both physical and psychological ... deformity, injury, disease, mutation, etc. ... if suicide were the norm, you'd have a point ...

I'll cut to the chase and say that any sufficiently advanced brain hooked up with sensors and at least enough effectors to give itself an impression that it has a real presence in the world will definitely exhibit self-awareness

e.g., eyes to see, legs, or wheels or whatever to get in front of a mirror

This has nothing to do with self-preservation

I didn't say it was "the norm", and that's not the issue.

Each year, approximately one million people die of suicide. I imagine that nearly all of them are, or were, self-aware.

Also mutation is essentially productive.

... I'm with ya up to this point ... I just don't see any reason to posit that consciousness is anything but one of the multitude of forms/structures/laws that have emerged/evolved over time ...