What is thinking?

[Jyera]

What is thinking?

1. When I put a word "house" in front of your eyes and a picture of a house pop up in your brain. Did you think?

2. Is recalling something from memory considered thinking?

3. Is imagining up a picture of a ficticious house thinking?

4. Recalling and Imagining a house,
which is a more TRUE form of thinking?

[apoger]

1: Yes
2: Yes
3: Yes
4: Neither


1> Cat
2> Comprehensive

Which is a more TRUE word? Neither. They are both words.

All thoughts are thoughts. They are equally thoughts.

May I ask what are you trying to express by calling the thought process "TRUE".
Are you suggesting that one is more complex than the other? Probably. But that does not make it more "True".
Are you suggesting that one form of thought is more "real", or closer to an objective reality?

Where are you going with this?

[Jyera]

Recalling, Analysing, imagining are all categorised as thinking by the dictionary.

One common quote "I thinkth therefore I am".
Suggests that thinking is associated with consciousness, being alive and also having free will. Whether this is accurate, is another matter. The point is having freewill and freedom of original thought is desired in general. At least desired by me.

I watched BBC series about "The Brain Story" hosted by Susan Greenfield. They questioned if we have freedom of thought.

We seems to be bound by our brains, which receives most of the input from external sources.

Something that is recalled from our mind, seems to me, a passive process. It is not original. We cannot control it, it depends on the input. We do not want to control it to preserve the integrity of an input for recollection. Eg. We see some picture of a house and retain it.
Although the input could be controlled by us. But most often than not, it is heavily influnence by external sources. Ads, TV, other's opinion, and bad or good personal experience not planned by us.

Therefore it seems that the saving grace to our freedom of thought lies in imagination. Where things can be "created".

But there is still a question whether a person (eg. new born baby) can imagine a ficticious house without knowledge what a house is or how it looked liked.

It seemed impossible to imagine a ficticious house, (not to recall a house), if the baby do not know what a house is and have not seen or heard about a house. Which implied that imagination can only happen with a foundation of recallable stuffs (images or thought. )

And the logic seems to imply the "contradictory" and unfavourable conclusion that we do not have freedom of thoughts and do not have freewill.

[Jyera]

1. On why I use TRUE.
If we just do recalling and do not imagine we'll be just like a robot or Zombie, we do not exists.
It give us no freedom.
TRUE think ought to give us freedom of thought and freewill.
If you could think of a a better word than TRUE.

2. On implying recalling as not thinking.
Sometimes in a simple chess game, where the young child simply mimic a move out of memory. ( the instructor made the silly opening move previously to test the child) And we gets comments like...

"Why do you make such a foolish chess move? I can capture if you move it there you. Why are'nt you thinking?"

Which implies thinking have to be more that just simple recalling.
And it seems "wrong" to retort that recalling is indeed thinking.

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
...

Which implies thinking have to be more that just simple recalling.
And it seems "wrong" to retort that recalling is indeed thinking.
It may seem “wrong� to consider recalling as thinking, but you would be hard-pressed to separate it from thinking. (For more on recall, see O.G. Selfridge’s 1959 Pandemonium model or, more recently, Dominic Masaro’s Fuzzy Logical Model of Perception – FLMP.)

Nevertheless, recalling and imagination are quite different forms of thinking. The former is a “matching� process – matching sensory input to stored memory patterns. The latter is a constructive process of taking stored memory patterns and mixing/integrating them in new and unusual ways. For instance, you can take the image of a pencil sharpener and integrate it with the image of a cup of coffee. The slot where the pencil goes suddenly becomes the bowl to fill with coffee. Or you could attach a cup handle onto the pencil sharpener. Either way, something emerges which you may have never considered before.

Even so, the creative process I used is a learned technique. I happen to have a pencil sharpener nearby, and I just opened a Reader’s Digest randomly. By happenstance, I opened it to an advertisement showing a man in pajamas bending down to pick up a newspaper with one hand while holding a coffee cup with the other. I selected the coffee cup but could easily have selected his pajamas. In that case, I would have created little pajamas for my pencil sharpener. (Hey, this might turn into a cottage industry.)

The point is that even creativity has experience and knowledge tied into it. To try and separate the ultimate “free will� or “this is uniquely me� thinking from mundane thoughts is fraught with peril.

As you walk through life gathering thoughts and experiences – as well as adapting and creating – you are becoming a unique you, a unique thinker. In fact, part of your uniqueness stems from what you do with the images you fetch from memory – creativity and imagination.

Still ... what you do with those memories (the creative process) has a lot to do with your experiences with others and with the environment.

Why is it important for you to clarify this issue? Are you searching for uniqueness? Or something else?

[woodguard]

A computer can do all of these things, in one way or another.
But it is not thinking.

Want do you call the operator, the one who decides to do these things, the thinker?

Is thinking and processing data the same thing?

[JAK]

Originally posted by woodguard
A computer can do all of these things, in one way or another.
But it is not thinking.

Want do you call the operator, the one who decides to do these things, the thinker?

Is thinking and processing data the same thing?
You are correct that "the one who decides" is critical and separates us from the computer. Basically, this is what humanist psychologists call "values" and proposed by Abraham Maslow almost half a century ago. It is also what Wilder Penfield uncovered in the late 1940s with his experiments with live and awake humans with their brains exposed. When he touched points on the cortex, the patients recalled a specific memory. Further, they recalled the emotion(s) tied to the experience in the memory.

It is by tying a "value" to a memory that allows us to make a decision through competing that memory with other memories. The memory/idea of highest "value" becomes dominant and controls behavior. This appears to occur in the nucleus reticulus thalami (nRt) - see Bernard J. Baars and James Newman.

Tying a dynamic, adjustable value to any piece memory is not presently available with computer technology. When it is, we may need to change our attitudes toward computers (or refer to them differently).

[Jyera]

Hi JAK,

Firstly thanks for your contribution.
But I would like to apologise for not replying soon.
I'm not trying to be rude by ignoring, but I'm really quite confused by myself about what to reply. Especially "Why is it important for you to clarify this issue?".

I do not know why is it important, but to put it simply, I have been constantly interested to know how the brain works and how we think. To know the truth about what is thinking appealed to me. And thus I think it is "important" to me.

After knowing the truth, I had to deal with the implication of the truth. Eg. Some info implied "no Freewill", while other "evidence/experience/logic" implied there is such thing as freewill. Thus it is confusing to me. And I suppose the lack of freewill unsettles me quite a bit. I suppose it is important for me to sort it out.

Thirdly it seemed to me there are some language/communication problem. Eg. what does thinking means to everyone? Different people have different meaning to "thinking". Some even implied recalling is not thinking. I suppose, it is important for me to settle the generic "language/communication" problem.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by woodguard
A computer can do all of these things, in one way or another.
But it is not thinking.

Want do you call the operator, the one who decides to do these things, the thinker?

Is thinking and processing data the same thing?

A computer can "recall" a piece of information or data.
Since recalling is thinking, according to the dictionary definition, then the computer can think. But everyone else would mock such deduction.

A computer can do a logical thinking based on the logic provided by a programmer. Just as I'm able to do logical thinking if the same programmer taught me how to do it. I would declared I did some thinking. Then why do we not refer to the computer as thinking?

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
...
I'm really quite confused by myself about what to reply. Especially "Why is it important for you to clarify this issue?".

I do not know why is it important, but to put it simply, I have been constantly interested to know how the brain works and how we think. To know the truth about what is thinking appealed to me. And thus I think it is "important" to me.
...

I could produce significant theoretical and factual support about our need to learn and gain knowledge. But it is very general and does not speak to the specific yearnings of each individual. Just knowing and feeling that ".. it is 'important' to me" is reason enough to follow your sojourn. Much work has been done in the field, and I have encapsulated on my website what I consider many of the most compelling ideas of other researchers and theorists. Because the ideas integrate with each other, they satisfy the Coherence Theory of Truth, or at least they satisfy the spirit of it. If you are looking for a starting point, my website is one place to try.

Originally posted by Jyera
...
After knowing the truth, I had to deal with the implication of the truth. Eg. Some info implied "no Freewill", while other "evidence/experience/logic" implied there is such thing as freewill. Thus it is confusing to me. And I suppose the lack of freewill unsettles me quite a bit. I suppose it is important for me to sort it out.
...

Sorting out "free will" takes you into very muddy waters. One classic murky area is your internal bodily systems. Can you choose to increase your blood pulse? Can you choose to digest only proteins and no fats? Can you choose to hold your breathe for 30 minutes? All of these reveal our inherent functions of life which operate seemingly without our direct thought or act of "free will." In many ways, we are victims of "who we are" - not masters of "who we are."

Similarly, when you walk, do you command each muscle? each neuron? How do you select nouns and verbs in a sentence? Are your choices of your volition? Or are they the products of your genetic background, your upbringing, your culture, and the sum of your life experiences?

Personally, I accept that I am part of the universe. I affect it, and it affects me. I am unique, and the expression of my uniqueness is as close to "free will" as I wish to explore. You have chosen a difficult question. Perhaps you will succeed in finding a clear answer where I have failed.

Originally posted by Jyera
...
Thirdly it seemed to me there are some language/communication problem. Eg. what does thinking means to everyone? Different people have different meaning to "thinking". Some even implied recalling is not thinking. I suppose, it is important for me to settle the generic "language/communication" problem.

In most disagreements, I have found that almost always the understanding of the terms is either unclear or not agreed upon. It is my preference to try and start with simple terms and define them. Unfortunately, this can be tedious and time consuming. As such, it is not commonly done in a forum.

Clear, effective knowledge is always worth patience and persistence. If you would like to start with some definition of terms, I will be glad to join in your endeavor. Lead the way ...

Originally posted by Jyera
A computer can "recall" a piece of information or data.
Since recalling is thinking, according to the dictionary definition, then the computer can think. But everyone else would mock such deduction.
...
Then why do we not refer to the computer as thinking?
Again, I believe the key difference is in "values." The computer, as a machine does not "want" or "not want." It has no feelings, no aspirations. It is only when feelings and aspirations are introduced into "thinking" do we uncover that special ability only living beings have. Computers do not feel "good" or "bad" - or anything for that matter. Only living beings feel, and it is an itegral part of our thinking.

[Jyera]

Hi Jak,

I read some articles from your site and found it quite informative.
http://www.theoryofmind.org

What do you intend to do with the knowledge?

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
Hi Jak,

I read some articles from your site and found it quite informative.
http://www.theoryofmind.org

What do you intend to do with the knowledge?
The whole theoretical approach points toward the incredible importance of creativity. Creativity is a foundation or a synonym for many terms: innovation, adaptation, problem solving, imagination, artistry. It is the means by which we see relationships and work with them either to enhance our feelings or to overcome obstacles and dangers. Here are a few reasons to enhance creativity:

Creativity is fun.
Creativity allows us to uniquely express ourselves.
Creativity helps us solve problems.
Creativity enhances communication (verbal or written).
Creativity facilitates social interactions.

Ultimately, I can show a hint or more of creativity in virtually everything we do - every moment of our lives. Of course, some actions are only vaguely creative while others are brilliantly creative. Unfortunately, our technological society has produced many, many, "robotic" jobs filled by humans ("Would you like to 'Biggie Size' your order?").

One day, I would love to help someone achieve a new level in robotics. I can provide theoretical assistance and facilitate any group. Even though I started my career as an assembler programmer supporting a "homegrown" mainframe executive, I am lacking in much "hardware" expertise required for robotics.

Anyway, as a result of the theoretical basis, I co-authored a creativity game over 15 years ago. It was a tool to enhance everyone's innate creativity, and it was well received. Unfortunately for me, no one seemed interested in why or how it worked. My partners likened it to inventing a jet airplane. Many people fly in jets every day, but few are interested in how the engines work. Similarly, people loved to play The Creativity Game, but no one cared why it was effective or how it worked. A downturn in the U.S. economy sent my partners and me back to our cushy IT jobs, and The Creativity Game went into hibernation.

[Jyera]

The Creativity Game you mentioned sounds interesting.

Is it a boardgame or Card game of computer game?

You mentioned creativity to enhance social interaction.
Does your game seeks to improve what people described as EQ?

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
The Creativity Game you mentioned sounds interesting.

Is it a boardgame or Card game of computer game?

You mentioned creativity to enhance social interaction.
Does your game seeks to improve what people described as EQ?

It's a card game. Presently, I am rebuilding it as a web game which should be ready within about a month.

The use in social interaction has various aspects. As you play the game, you become adept at seeing more and more relationships. While in a conversation, you can see analogies as well as different viewpoints - including reasonable support for them. The benefit from this is that it tends to soften extreme viewpoints which helps people become more flexible in working relationships and social interactions. In fact, it strongly supports team efforts - especially for planning and problem solving. But the list of uses in social interaction (including humor) goes on and on.

EQ? The only term that comes to mind is "encephalization quotient" used to "guesstimate" the relative intelligence of animals and dinosaurs. Is that the EQ that you meant?

As for increasing a person's intelligence, no formal studies have been done, but anecdotal results suggest a marked improvement in problem-solving abilities. If EQ or IQ doesn't relate to solving problems, what good is it? The creativity game MAY enhance this ability. Plus, it's fun!

[Jyera]

By EQ. I meant "Emotional Quotient".

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
By EQ. I meant "Emotional Quotient".
Great lead! THANK YOU, Jyera!!

I'm unfamiliar with the work, but it looks like Mayer/Salovey are the focal point for this. I'll start catching up on their work.

In general, my work recognizes the critical element of emotions in any and all human interactions and thinking. But I have not formulated many techniques other than in creativity and philosophic directions for life.

Any other thoughts about EQ/EI?

[jmercer]

Originally posted by Jyera
A computer can "recall" a piece of information or data.
Since recalling is thinking, according to the dictionary definition, then the computer can think. But everyone else would mock such deduction.

A computer can do a logical thinking based on the logic provided by a programmer. Just as I'm able to do logical thinking if the same programmer taught me how to do it. I would declared I did some thinking. Then why do we not refer to the computer as thinking?

I figured I'd address this single post since one of the few things I can claim to be is a "computer expert". And please don't take this as mocking - it's not. It's a technical explanation.

While a computer can recall information and/or data, it cannot interpret or assign significance to that data. So citing a computer's ability to retrieve information, data - even images - as "thinking" is clearly false.

When you say "house" and an image of a house appears in your mind, your mind assigns it a certain value, and often sub-values as well. This automatically happens as a part of the process of recalling the image. Many of these values (such as feelings if you're thinking of your home) are generated by the image, and are not "stored" somewhere in your mind.

A computer has no such automatic process for assigning value to something retrieved. If you tell a computer program (NOT a computer!) to retrieve "house", it will retrieve everything related to "house" by taking the binary string that equals the word "house", and mathematically comparing binary strings in the searchable elements of the data. Whenever it gets a match, it retrieves the object. The computer program assigns no intrinsic or emotional value to what it retrieves - in fact, even the value "house" is embedded in the data, and not in the computer itself.

Regarding programs - the same argument applies. A programmer writes a series of rules, which - again using binary comparisons and arithmetic operations - appears to assign values to data. However, this is an illusion - it's the programmer that has assigned value to the data when he or she devised the rules of the program.

So, while the process of recall in a computer resembles thinking in human beings, that's only because human beings crafted computers to provide the desired results. It's not because the computer itself "decides" what value to assign to any particular piece of data.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by jmercer
I figured I'd address this single post since one of the few things I can claim to be is a "computer expert". And please don't take this as mocking - it's not. It's a technical explanation.

While a computer can recall information and/or data, it cannot interpret or assign significance to that data. So citing a computer's ability to retrieve information, data - even images - as "thinking" is clearly false.

[...]

So, while the process of recall in a computer resembles thinking in human beings, that's only because human beings crafted computers to provide the desired results. It's not because the computer itself "decides" what value to assign to any particular piece of data.

While true, there is a meta-issue that you're glossing over, which is the ability of computers to self-program; to decide "for themselves" what value to assign to a particular datum in accordance with a broader meta-program written by a human. This kind of self-modification is a key aspect of the various disciplines of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data mining, pattern recognition, and so forth.

A classic example of this is in the way that connectionist networks work -- the system is presented with a set of (in some cases unlabelled) data, and modifies itself, usually by adjusting a set of numeric "weights," in order to produce a "better" fit to the data. The results of such a calculation are typically very good, but they are specifically not the result of a human being hand-crafting computers (more accurately, programs) to provide the results. Instead, they come from humans hand-crafting programs to machine-craft programs to produce the results. There's also no reason to stop the meta-issues here; Nakisa, for example, has had quite good results with "genetic connectionism," where the network design itself was the output of yet another optimization program -- in other words, a human hand-crafted a program to craft a program to craft a program to get results. And there's still no reason to stop : lather, rinse, repeat.

There are, however, other examples -- one of my favorites is a computer program designed to look for interesting graph theory problems. Basically, it generates random conjectures of the form "[Graph property 1] >= [Graph property 1]," and generates graphs a random until it finds a counterexample. If no counterexample is found in a zillion random trials, it puts the conjecture into an automated theorem prover and tries to prove it. Obviously, a human had to design and write this program -- but that human may never have "thought" about the particular new theorem that the system finds.

The real trouble, though, is that this meta-problem mimics a lot of what we know about human intelligence as well. Humans obviously get most of their information by observation of the world, but they are also well-fit (by design or by evolution) to observe the world and to collect information. How is this different than a neural network that is designed to observe a problem space, to collect information about it, and then to respond?

[jmercer]

You make some good points, and I concede that some of these systems do some amazing things. But to keep things on an even-keel here, Artificial Intelligence does not exist at this time.

I'd like to also point out that you (very properly!) used the term "mimic" in regards to the behavior of neural nets, machine "learning", data mining, etc. Systems are flexible, and the combinations of rules and constraints placed on them can indeed allow them to perform life-like acts. But to think - to actually think - I believe would require artificial intelligence and self-awareness - not an emulation of it.

Even the Turing test wouldn't establish self-awareness... it would simply determine that some system had reached a state of sophistication that could fool a human into thinking he/she was in communication with another human.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but as I said - I don't think you can separate thinking from self-awareness.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by jmercer

I'd like to also point out that you (very properly!) used the term "mimic" in regards to the behavior of neural nets, machine "learning", data mining, etc. Systems are flexible, and the combinations of rules and constraints placed on them can indeed allow them to perform life-like acts. But to think - to actually think - I believe would require artificial intelligence and self-awareness - not an emulation of it.

This is a legitimate, but unfortunately unsupported position. Especialy since psychologists cannot in any meaningful way define, discuss, or test for "self-awareness," this really isn't any different than someone insisting that intelligence is a function of the "soul" and since computers are "obviously" soul-less, they can never be intelligent no matter how human-like their behavior is.

This may be a limitation of the empirical paradigm; I can't test for the presence of a "soul," and any of the tests I can perform for the presence of "self-awareness" could be programmed into a sufficiently complex machine. Would it satisfy you if I built a robot that was demonstrably able to "recognize" its reflection in a mirror?

[jmercer]

Originally posted by jmercer
But to keep things on an even-keel here, Artificial Intelligence does not exist at this time.


I should point out that my above statement depends on one's definition of AI, which is a matter of great debate. Depending on what definition you adhere to, one can claim that AI does exist - or not.

[jmercer]

Originally posted by new drkitten
This is a legitimate, but unfortunately unsupported position. Especialy since psychologists cannot in any meaningful way define, discuss, or test for "self-awareness," this really isn't any different than someone insisting that intelligence is a function of the "soul" and since computers are "obviously" soul-less, they can never be intelligent no matter how human-like their behavior is.

This may be a limitation of the empirical paradigm; I can't test for the presence of a "soul," and any of the tests I can perform for the presence of "self-awareness" could be programmed into a sufficiently complex machine. Would it satisfy you if I built a robot that was demonstrably able to "recognize" its reflection in a mirror?

Good point, and I agree. (BTW, isn't there a similar (but larger) debate going on about what constitutes intelligence and self-awareness? As in "Do animals think", and "Do animals have feelings", etc.? I think there is, but I haven't seen much on it recently.)

Regarding the robot... I'd have to say the answer is probably "no". The problem (to me, anyway) would be demonstrating that the robot not only succeeded in pattern-matching against an image, but was able to spontaneously assign an intrinsic value to the image. "This is me."

The martian rovers "recognize" boulders, rocks, holes, and all sorts of other obstacles... which could be mistaken as a form of self-awareness, even though the rover isn't really aware of itself. ("I am here, my wheels are here, that rock is there, I must drive around the rock.")

The fact that it can assess the terrain and make decision branches to protect itself from injury while advancing to a goal doesn't mean it's either self-aware or thinking.

It's a fascinating debate - please don't think my mind is 100% made up on it, by any means. :)

[JAK]

Originally posted by jmercer
...
The fact that it can assess the terrain and make decision branches to protect itself from injury while advancing to a goal doesn't mean it's either self-aware or thinking.
...

I think some clarification would help me. For you, what indicates "self-awareness"? What observable and/or testable factors are necessary?

[jmercer]

Originally posted by JAK
I think some clarification would help me. For you, what indicates "self-awareness"? What observable and/or testable factors are necessary?

OMG, JAK - why not ask me a really hard question while you're at it? (LOL)

I'd like some clarification on this myself. I don't have any definitive answers - but I'll share my thinking with you. Please don't assume that I have any idea what I'm talking about. What follows is simply my opinion, and is certainly subject to change if people give me good insights. And keep in mind that I'm going to make some pretty "soft and subjective" statements. Sorry, but it's the best I can do, and it's why I've been skirting the issue here.

Just to keep it simple (like me!), I'm going to go for the lowest possible denominator for self-awareness - just something that indicates "me" and "not me" beyond the simple perception that something is external to the subject.

Observable and/or testable factors for self-awareness:

1) Spontaneous dreaming. I believe that in order to dream, one must be self-aware to an extent, have a distinct sense of "me" vs. "not me".

2) Spontaneous personal assignment of intrinsic values to an object, space or other entity - as in "my toy, not yours", "my territory, not yours", "my food, not yours", "My mate, not yours", etc.

3) Social skills - even instinctive ones. This can include mating rituals, maternal instincts, etc. Again, these show a recognition of "me" and "not me", or a sense of "self".

4) Some form of communication, however primitive. (Grunts, pheromones, whatever.)

5) Learned behavior from experience. (Dunno why that's in there, but it just seems to fit with having an identity. I guess I feel that part of being self-aware is being able to recall, process and create change based on remembered experiences.)

I realize that all of these things can be emulated (except maybe dreaming). Putting them all together, though... now, that would be difficult to determine if the subject were self-aware, or just a good simulation.

Hm. Why do I suddenly feel like I'm going to take it in the shorts for getting drawn into this kind of philosophical discussion? :D

[vafalls]

Hello, I'm new :)

Anyways, I decided to stop lurking and post the following questions:

1) If the robot talked about earlier was running an atomic-level simulation of a human brain, could it be said to be self aware and intelligent?

2) There has been said that there is no way to prove that a machine is really self aware, but is there really a way for a person to prove that even other people are self aware?

Thank you, carry on :)

[jmercer]

Hi, vafalls... good question. I think the answer - for both - is "no". At least, not until we can clearly define what self-awareness is, at any rate. Maybe once we know what it is, we can test for it...

[Jyera]

Seems like we got stucked on definition of "self-awareness".
There seems to be something interesting about "nothingness" and about "flaw".

Let me attempt to define "self-awareness". To gain "self_awareness", is to gain an "enduring/surviving flaw", an "enduring/surviving lack of destiny", an "enduring/surviving nothingness"

vafalls mentioned that "There has been said that there is no way to prove that a machine is really self aware, but is there really a way for a person to prove that even other people are self aware?"

My response based on my definition is ...

Firstly a counter-question.
Every day, how do we prove to ourselves that other people are self aware? We don't know if they are self aware. But we do know that we do not control other people. Other people, to us, are "enduring/surviving flaws". They do not serve our purpose. Sometimes they are inconsisent, and they do change their mind.
And thus they are "self-aware".

Machines, on the other hands, do exactly as they are "told". They are "perfect", with totally no uncertainty. We humans do not allow them to "fall from the grace"(perfect logic sequence) we endowned upon them. If they deviate, they are obsoleted.

New_drKitten's description of the computer program that build "program" to find new theorem is a little "imperfect". It starts off with "nothing" and doesn't "know" what it will contribute. But then again, it'll gain "immortality" once people find that we need to keep it "alive" to serve our purpose.

But it is still too "perfect" if it can "live" forever and need no replacement. If it is, like humans, are mortal (an "imperfection"). Then it'll need to "reproduce" to keep surviving. Humans may build them to be perfectly imperfect. Let them "live", "reproduce" and "die".

There are many "imperfections" to be included but, perhaps one of the ultimate "imperfection", would be to let the computer program decide it's own destiny. Does it want to be a scientist? or does it want to be a soldier? etc.

When we see an individual robot, doing what it likes, and not what we want, nor what other robots want of it; And if we are unable to terminate it, it become enduring and is nearer to attaining self-awareness. The "sense of loss" within the robot's about "what-to-do", and about "not-being-able-to-do-what-it-wants" comes as a byproduct of being "Free".

Any comment ? Hopefully this throws out more intelligent and fruitful discussion.

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
Let me attempt to define "self-awareness". To gain "self_awareness", is to gain an "enduring/surviving flaw", an "enduring/surviving lack of destiny", an "enduring/surviving nothingness"
...

What does having a flaw have to do with "self-awareness"? If an entity is totally aware of its own existence and has self-determination (free will), how do you separate life from machine? Are they both not energy systems? Do they both not exhibit self-awareness and free will via internal processes?

[Jyera]

QUOTE]Originally posted by JAK
What does having a flaw have to do with "self-awareness"?...snipe...[/QUOTE]

"Flaw" in the sense as in "lack of perfection" , "Nothingness"
And it must be enduring or able to survive.

I notice that in many cases, things are debatable because the thing involved are about "nothing", or something abstract.

Eg. Soul.
Eg. Freewill.
Eg. Self-awareness.

What is a river? It is never the same river. It is never something fix, but it is enduring enough for us to identify it as unique.

What is a hole? It is never possible to prove that a hole on a piece of paper exist if we remove the paper itself. The hole existed because there is "nothing in something", because there is "flaw" on the paper.

I suggest self-awareness is similar to the "hole on paper".

A robot may have all the physical sensors. But looking at the physical sensors to find self-awareness is like trying to look at the paper to find the hole.

[Jyera]

Nothingness, that is really Nothing , which easily fade away into Nothingness, gets forgotten quickly.

Nothingness that is an enduring something, especially because of it's nothingness, becomes something.

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
Nothingness, that is really Nothing , which easily fade away into Nothingness, gets forgotten quickly.

Nothingness that is an enduring something, especially because of it's nothingness, becomes something.
Forgive me, but I am not "tracking" your thoughts very well.

You speak of seemingly intangible facets of life - soul, free will, self-awareness. I believe these can be understood when examined closer.

I also am still not grasping how you are using "flaw." Free will is recognized by what? A flaw? A soul is recognized by what? A flaw? Self-awareness is recognized by what? A flaw? What flaw or flaws separate the three? How do we recognize a flaw as opposed to perfection?

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Jyera
Nothingness, that is really Nothing , which easily fade away into Nothingness, gets forgotten quickly.

Nothingness that is an enduring something, especially because of it's nothingness, becomes something.


What is the sound of one lung wheezing?

[Jyera]

Originally posted by JAK
Forgive me, but I am not "tracking" your thoughts very well.

You speak of seemingly intangible facets of life - soul, free will, self-awareness. I believe these can be understood when examined closer.

I also am still not grasping how you are using "flaw." Free will is recognized by what? A flaw? A soul is recognized by what? A flaw? Self-awareness is recognized by what? A flaw? What flaw or flaws separate the three? How do we recognize a flaw as opposed to perfection?

See my previous post quoted as below...
Let me attempt to define "self-awareness". To gain "self_awareness", is to gain an "enduring/surviving flaw", an "enduring/surviving lack of destiny", an "enduring/surviving nothingness"

Note my previous post which I also included " lack of" and "Nothingness". I'm using "flaw" in the same way as the "lack of" and "nothingness". Maybe you can choose have a better term. But I essentially intended it to mean "a lack of something" to make it whole and perfect.

Also note the importance of the word "Enduring" and "Surviving".

A hole on a piece of paper is an Enduring concept of nothingness.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Jyera
A hole on a piece of paper is an Enduring concept of nothingness.

So, in your own terms, then, your posts are simply paper holes, eh?

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
See my previous post quoted as below...
Let me attempt to define "self-awareness". To gain "self_awareness", is to gain an "enduring/surviving flaw", an "enduring/surviving lack of destiny", an "enduring/surviving nothingness"

Note my previous post which I also included " lack of" and "Nothingness". I'm using "flaw" in the same way as the "lack of" and "nothingness". Maybe you can choose have a better term. But I essentially intended it to mean "a lack of something" to make it whole and perfect.

Also note the importance of the word "Enduring" and "Surviving".

A hole on a piece of paper is an Enduring concept of nothingness.
If the paper is burned, the hole disappears, but nothingness remains. Is that what you're trying to say?

[Jyera]

Originally posted by JAK
If the paper is burned, the hole disappears, but nothingness remains. Is that what you're trying to say?
No, that is not what I meant.

If you use a hole puncher to punch a hole on a piece of paper,
You create an empty space, which is nothing.
But this "nothingness" is as Endurable as the piece of paper.
It is also made Endurable by the paper existence of the paper.

You may assert that "nothingness" still remains after burning the whole piece of paper. But I would argue that, this "nothingness", is not as "tangible" as the hole on a piece of paper.

Consider a paper face mask with 2 holes for the eyes,
these two holes (nothingness) are more tangible and important.

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
No, that is not what I meant.

If you use a hole puncher to punch a hole on a piece of paper,
You create an empty space, which is nothing.
But this "nothingness" is as Endurable as the piece of paper.
It is also made Endurable by the paper existence of the paper.

You may assert that "nothingness" still remains after burning the whole piece of paper. But I would argue that, this "nothingness", is not as "tangible" as the hole on a piece of paper.

Consider a paper face mask with 2 holes for the eyes,
these two holes (nothingness) are more tangible and important.
So the hole is defined by the paper, and the paper is defined by the hole. The paper and hole are further defined by how they are used together - the relationship (2 holes for eyes).

Am I catching on?

[Metullus]

I can test for self-awareness in only one case - my own.

Cogito ergo sum.

I think therefore I am. I am satisfied that I am self-aware.

Thought experiment: If I am self aware, then would it be reasonable to expect that my clone would be as well? My clone would, after all, be in all ways physically identical to me. I propose that absent any physical difference my clone would also be self aware.

If my clone would be self aware, would it be reasonable to expect that my identical twin would be so? Again, for the same reasons, I think the answer would be yes.

So, in the only case I can test, the answer is yes. I can extrapolate to include clones and twins. Does the arguement extend to brothers, sisters, in-laws and the like? I don't know. There is, after all, always a question when it comes to in-laws.

I have little reason to doubt that most of the rest of you are self aware, but no proof. But all the testable evidence supports the conclusion that you are.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by JAK
So the hole is defined by the paper, and the paper is defined by the hole. The paper and hole are further defined by how they are used together - the relationship (2 holes for eyes).

Am I catching on?
I think so. Although you made no mention about the "enduring" , and "surviving" factor, I guess you do understand their importance.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by BillHoyt
What is the sound of one lung wheezing?
Someone who pretends to be a stripclub bouncer?

As to thinking, the answer is 'thought exists'. Materialists give themselves a couple extra hurdles to jump before admitting "duh, wedunno".

[Fontwell]

Two add my 2 cents worth: The normal use of the word thinking is all about being aware. For instance, my blinking is normally done automatically - I don't think about it. If there is a bright flash, I will automatically blink. But if I want to I can blink at will and I will be aware of my blinking. BTW, I am not saying that blinking is thinking, it is just to point out that brain functions can be done in a fashion where we are aware of them, or in a way where we are not aware of them. Others, we can never be aware of.

After (years of) thinking about this it seems to me that a big criterion for the definition of thinking is the ''being aware" part. By using this criterion I can try out some different scenarios and see if they tally with my use of the word think.

I was thinking of General Relativity when I drove into the car in front. Thinking/aware of GR. PASS
Not fully thinking of driving- reverting to automatic brain control. PASS

I don't think about regulating my heart beat. PASS

I forgot your Birthday. I just didn't think about it.
The information was known to me but was not in the part of mind/brain that is aware (minefield alert!!). PASS

Computers don't think (yet).
In my opinion (unverifiable) they can process information but have no more awareness than a rock. PASS

etc

Where this gets me is this: This the question of thinking resolves to the question of awareness i.e. what is it and how can it be properly defined. (Although we all seem to have a general idea of what is meant by self awareness/consciousness.) This, as has already been mentioned is a biggy. Probably we are not going to sort that one out here but hey, lets try any way. The Philosophers/Psychologists refer to this as the The Hard Problem Of Consciousness (I think), to distinguish it from the soft/easy problems which are general brain functions.

You have also got the topic of freewill running here but I will refrain from comment on that at the moment, other than to say that, in principal I can imagine thinking happening (using my definition of awareness of brain function) without freewill, even if it normally doesn't. I think it is more profitable to ignore the freewill part and sort out thinking first - mainly because a lot of freewill discussion reverts to ideas about thinking.

[JAK]

Originally posted by hammegk
Someone who pretends to be a stripclub bouncer?
...

My goodness, Hammegk! How would a curmudgeon like you know about stripclub bouncers??!!

[JAK]

Originally posted by Fontwell
...
After (years of) thinking about this it seems to me that a big criterion for the definition of thinking is the ''being aware" part. By using this criterion I can try out some different scenarios and see if they tally with my use of the word think.
...
Where this gets me is this: This the question of thinking resolves to the question of awareness i.e. what is it and how can it be properly defined. (Although we all seem to have a general idea of what is meant by self awareness/consciousness.) This, as has already been mentioned is a biggy. Probably we are not going to sort that one out here but hey, lets try any way. The Philosophers/Psychologists refer to this as the The Hard Problem Of Consciousness (I think), to distinguish it from the soft/easy problems which are general brain functions.
...

Gee, this sounds a lot like the "unconscious" thread going on next door. (I think they're hunting "quail.")

[hammegk]

Originally posted by JAK
My goodness, Hammegk! How would a curmudgeon like you know about stripclub bouncers??!!

Self-awareness allows and/or forces and/or defines differentiation *I* from *not-I*.

[Jyera]

Now I shall attempt to skip the step of drafting a word-based definition of self-awareness.

I have gone direct to device this simple procedure for testing self-awareness.

1. Choose a Target (person/animal/object/robot).
2. Communicate to this Target to do something this Target is able to do.
3. Verify that the communication is successful.
4. Check if this Target is able to NOT do it.
5. If Target is "able to NOT do it", it has self-awareness.
6. If it has self-awareness, it also has ability to think.

Note the emphasis on the "ability".
Not just the non-action "Not doing it".

I believe all here wishes to see a workable test.
So I invite constructive comments on how to improve.

[Jyera]

Example:

1. I choose a friend.
2. I note that he can read a story to me.
3. I talk to him to ask him to read to me.
4. I can verify that he nodded in agreement he knows what I wanted.
5. I noted that he is ABLE to don't read to me, by putting asdie my story book.
6. Since he is able to NOT do what I ask, I conclude he is self-aware.
7. I conclude also that he can think.

Note: Based on Jyera's self-awareness test procedure version 1.

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
Example:

1. I choose a friend.
2. I note that he can read a story to me.
3. I talk to him to ask him to read to me.
4. I can verify that he nodded in agreement he knows what I wanted.
5. I noted that he is ABLE to don't read to me, by putting asdie my story book.
6. Since he is able to NOT do what I ask, I conclude he is self-aware.
7. I conclude also that he can think.

Note: Based on Jyera's self-awareness test procedure version 1.
I'm not sure I can comment directly ...

Researchers frequently use the "mirror" test to verify self-awareness. Some animals upon seeing their reflection in a mirror will attack it. (Definitely not self-aware.) Some birds will talk to the image in the mirror as if it was another bird. (Probably not self-aware.) A few will use the reflection for pruning and making faces. (Bingo! Self-aware! Give that critter a kewpie doll!)

I believe that any constructive criticism might entail comparing your test scenario with that of the researchers and looking for similarities and differences.

(Here's an interesting link: http://geowords.com/lostlinks/b36/7.htm)

[Jyera]

On the particular "mirror" test mentioned in
(Here's an interesting link: http://geowords.com/lostlinks/b36/7.htm)

I do not see them defining specific steps to test for self-wareness.
The "Mirror" test made a definition about what self-awareness is.
Which seems to imply an reaction "Hey! that's me in the mirror" .

On the other hand, the procedure I proposing here, I am attempting to side step the need to even define self-awareness.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by Jyera

The "Mirror" test made a definition about what self-awareness is.
Which seems to imply an reaction "Hey! that's me in the mirror" .


Well, yes. I would certainly think that "awareness of self" would be almost irrefutable evidence for "self-awareness." Perhaps you disagree?

The problems with your proposed test for self-awareness are that, first, you need to be able to communicate with it. This can be extremely difficult with something like dolphins (which have been proven self-aware via the mirror test). Second, you need to be able to ensure that the subject is willing to cooperate with you. Third, you need an accurate assessment of what the subject "can" and "can't" do at any point in time, something that is probably unavailable for most systems. This makes the problem of false negatives extremely serious.

More worrisome, however, is the problem of false positives. Your same "please read to me" test would result in judging a bobblehead doll to be self-aware. After all,.... he nodded when I asked him to read to me too, so he obviously understood what I was asking.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by new drkitten
Well, yes. I would certainly think that "awareness of self" would be almost irrefutable evidence for "self-awareness." Perhaps you disagree?
I agree. But it requires us to be able to prove the "awareness of self" in people/robot/animal beyond doubt.
We do not have intimate access to their mind (not brain). And how can we be sure it is not just a robot that is not-self-aware that behave just like a apparently self-aware human?

Originally posted by new drkitten
The problems with your proposed test for self-awareness are that, first, you need to be able to communicate with it. This can be extremely difficult with something like dolphins (which have been proven self-aware via the mirror test). Second, you need to be able to ensure that the subject is willing to cooperate with you. Third, you need an accurate assessment of what the subject "can" and "can't" do at any point in time, something that is probably unavailable for most systems. This makes the problem of false negatives extremely serious.

I intend the procedure to be "usable" on robot or on a rock.
The communication will be no less of a challenge compared to a dolphin.

Willingness to cooperate is not needed, although desired.
This is because the Target need to demostrate that it is "able to NOT do it". That is , despite being "able to do" , perhaps initially willing to do. The element of "rebel" and to have it's own mind to abstain.

You can get a simple computer program to co-operate without fail. But it doesn't move itself any closer to being self-aware.
On the other hand, a simple computer program that defy all logic and showed a rebellious trait may warrant a second look.

Originally posted by new drkitten
More worrisome, however, is the problem of false positives. Your same "please read to me" test would result in judging a bobblehead doll to be self-aware. After all,.... he nodded when I asked him to read to me too, so he obviously understood what I was asking.
Bobblehead doll, would, in the first place, not have demostrated it's ability to do "read to me". So the procedure for the test cannot proceed.

The emphasis is on the "ABLE to NOT do it" (despite understanding what we want it to do).

[FreeChile]

I have a simple comment on this here.

The problem of thinking can not be solved by thinking which is what this critical thinking thread is about. To solve the problem of thinking we would need to stop and look at thought itself. But because anything we do to look at thought is itself a thought, we will never look at thought.

Also, the only tool at our disposal to examine thought is thought itself. So we are doomed when it comes to this.

One philosopher in particular has addressed this issue and concluded there are limits to thought: Ludwig Wittgenstein. He did this by looking at language, the expression of thought.

This leaves us with a guestion: can we live intelligently without thinking? Well, it seems that if we think about it, we will not solve this one either.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by Jyera
I agree. But it requires us to be able to prove the "awareness of self" in people/robot/animal beyond doubt.


So what is a creature aware of, if not "self," when it interprets an (external) image (of self) as a cue for grooming behavior?

If you doubt the evidence of the mirror test as being evidence of "self-awareness," what other interpretation can you place on it?

Absent such alternative explanations, I submit that it is, in fact, evidence 'beyond doubt.'

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Originally posted by FreeChile
I have a simple comment on this here.

The problem of thinking can not be solved by thinking which is what this critical thinking thread is about. To solve the problem of thinking we would need to stop and look at thought itself. But because anything we do to look at thought is itself a thought, we will never look at thought.

Also, the only tool at our disposal to examine thought is thought itself. So we are doomed when it comes to this.

One philosopher in particular has addressed this issue and concluded there are limits to thought: Ludwig Wittgenstein. He did this by looking at language, the expression of thought.

This leaves us with a guestion: can we live intelligently without thinking? Well, it seems that if we think about it, we will not solve this one either.

Very well said.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by new drkitten
So what is a creature aware of, if not "self," when it interprets an (external) image (of self) as a cue for grooming behavior?
I suggest the awareness of ability to control his/her action or non-action.

Originally posted by new drkitten
If you doubt the evidence of the mirror test as being evidence of "self-awareness," what other interpretation can you place on it?
Absent such alternative explanations, I submit that it is, in fact, evidence 'beyond doubt.'
I do not doubt the usefulness of mirror tests but there are instances that challenges it.

Consider your earlier post which I quote below.
Originally posted by new drkitten This may be a limitation of the empirical paradigm; I can't test for the presence of a "soul," and any of the tests I can perform for the presence of "self-awareness" could be programmed into a sufficiently complex machine. Would it satisfy you if I built a robot that was demonstrably able to "recognize" its reflection in a mirror?I take it that you meant that, the robot may be observed to behaved as it has self-awareness, by it's observed ability to recognize and groom itself. And that you asked if it is enough to accept that the robot is self-aware.

Consider also ...
(A) 100 "successful" mirror tests of a robot recognizing and grooming a specific part of itself.

Compared with ...

(B) 10 instances where the robot "agreed" to do something and then later "defied" the agreement and refuse to cooperate.

I suspect the "rebellious" robot looks like it has more life and self-awareness.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by FreeChile
I have a simple comment on this here.

The problem of thinking can not be solved by thinking which is what this critical thinking thread is about. To solve the problem of thinking we would need to stop and look at thought itself. But because anything we do to look at thought is itself a thought, we will never look at thought.

Also, the only tool at our disposal to examine thought is thought itself. So we are doomed when it comes to this.

Whether or not problem of thinking can be solved by thinking...
Thinking about thinking in this thread helps understanding.

In the end, we need some TOOLs.
Eg. Tool to be used in the daily lives, to proof if the robot that behaves as if it has self-awareness, is indeed self-aware.

Originally posted by FreeChile

One philosopher in particular has addressed this issue and concluded there are limits to thought: Ludwig Wittgenstein. He did this by looking at language, the expression of thought.

This leaves us with a guestion: can we live intelligently without thinking? Well, it seems that if we think about it, we will not solve this one either.

Agree this is tough to solve.

[FreeChile]

Let's see what we can come up with about this quote.

UG Krishnamurti on consciousness:

The consciousness of the body does not exist. There is no such thing as consciousness at all. The one thing that helps us to become conscious of the non-existing body, for all practical purposes, is the knowledge that is given to us. Without that knowledge you have no way of creating your own body and experiencing it. I am questioning the very idea of consciousness, let alone the subconscious, the unconscious, the different levels of consciousness, and higher states of consciousness. I don't see that there is any such thing as consciousness. I become conscious of this (touching the arm of the chair) only through the knowledge that I have of it. The touch does not tell me anything except when I translate it within the framework of knowledge. Otherwise I have no way of experiencing that touch at all. The way these senses are operating here is quite different from the way we are made to believe. The eye is looking at the movement of your hand, and is not saying anything about that activity, except observing what is going on there.

Feeling is also a translation. This touch does not say anything about the touch per se except through the help of the knowledge that we have. You have no way of experiencing the fact that this is 'soft' or 'hard' except through the knowledge that you have of it. I don't know if this makes any sense to you.

That sensation of touch is through the sense of touch. It is translated by the activity of memory, the neurons, or whatever you like to call them, and only then you say that it is soft and not hard. So, you can kid yourself by telling yourself that this touch is one with feeling and not just a simple touch. But all that is superimposed on that.

If it (touch) is left purely on the physiological level, there is no reaction on your part. And which part is it?

That is the physical response. It is not translated. Probably that is a kind of pleasure for the body. I don't know. I have no way of finding out whether that is the response of pleasure or a purely physical response to the touch. I say that it is just a response like any other response to a stimulus.

[drkitten]

Originally said by UG Krishnamurti and quoted by FreeChile

The one thing that helps us to become conscious of the non-existing body, for all practical purposes, is the knowledge that is given to us. Without that knowledge you have no way of creating your own body and experiencing it.


Unless I'm dreadfully misinterpreting, this claim is equivalent to the statement that newborn babies can't feel anything (since they have no knowledge). This does not give me confidence that the rest of the selection is worth analyzing in detail.

[FreeChile]

Posted by Jyera:
Whether or not problem of thinking can be solved by thinking...
Thinking about thinking in this thread helps understanding.


Oh, so this thread in about understanding and not thinking! Then why call it “What is thinking?� What do you mean by “understanding�? From your following lines, I assume you mean the understanding of tools. Then why talk about the self-awareness of robots and animals?

Posted by Jyera:

In the end, we need some TOOLs.
Eg. Tool to be used in the daily lives, to proof if the robot that behaves as if it has self-awareness, is indeed self-aware.


Assuming we do need some tools to be used in daily lives, why would we need to prove if a machine or an animal is self-aware? What is it that we are seeking to understand by this?

[FreeChile]

Posted by new drkitten:

Unless I'm dreadfully misinterpreting, this claim is equivalent to the statement that newborn babies can't feel anything (since they have no knowledge).

Can they feel? Have you seen a child sad at a funeral? In that sense, that is what the UGK quote is about. It is their knowledge and experience of funerals and death that gives them the foundation to feel. This is Kantian philosophy.

Also posted by new drkitten:

This does not give me confidence that the rest of the selection is worth analyzing in detail.

Why would some words be more worthy of analysis than others?

[drkitten]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Can they feel?

Yes. Demonstrably. Slap a child and see if it cries. The fact that I know this and Krishnamurti apparently doesn't is not a point in his favor.

[QUOTE]
Why would some words be more worthy of analysis than others?

I don't need to eat an entire apple to know that it's rotten.

[FreeChile]

Posted by new drkitten:

Yes. Demonstrably. Slap a child and see if it cries. The fact that I know this and Krishnamurti apparently doesn't is not a point in his favor.

What is it that you know? That if you present food to a dog it salivates. What makes you conclude that the dog has any feeling about it?

I don't need to eat an entire apple to know that it's rotten.

Here, you have not shown this apple to be rotten, yet!

[Jyera]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Oh, so this thread in about understanding and not thinking! Then why call it “What is thinking?� What do you mean by “understanding�? From your following lines, I assume you mean the understanding of tools. Then why talk about the self-awareness of robots and animals? What I meant is that the discussion here may help some of us better understand what is thinking. There is NO intention to change the topic to "What is understanding?"

This thread has 60 replies as of now. While I understand it might tough to read through all post, reading through them allow you to follow those who has been following it from the start.

Nevertheless...

Discussion about self-awareness in this thread, came about from the debate about whether animals and robot is capable of thinking. There was comment within this thread, about such argument as, "no self-awareness therefore cannot think".
OR "No soul therefore cannot think".

At some point within the thread, there are comment that a definition of "self-awareness" is needed in order to test "self-awareness".

Please read all the post if possible.

Originally posted by FreeChile
Assuming we do need some tools to be used in daily lives, why would we need to prove if a machine or an animal is self-aware? What is it that we are seeking to understand by this?

I would say a tool is just a tool. What the user do with the info "extracted" by the tool is up to the individual.

On the presumption that "no self-awareness therefore cannot think", I believe those who participated in discussion here do wish to have a "tool". A tool to detect or test for self-awareness. Perhaps For the sole purpose of inferring that a person/robot/animal can think.

Perhaps for JAK and others, who wishes to help develop a thinking robot/computer, this "tool" could be useful to test if they have succeeded.

[Jyera]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally said by UG Krishnamurti and quoted by FreeChile

The one thing that helps us to become conscious of the non-existing body, for all practical purposes, is the knowledge that is given to us. Without that knowledge you have no way of creating your own body and experiencing it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by new drkitten
Unless I'm dreadfully misinterpreting, this claim is equivalent to the statement that newborn babies can't feel anything (since they have no knowledge). This does not give me confidence that the rest of the selection is worth analyzing in detail.

I do think clarification is needed on the meaning of "knowledge"
as mentioned by UG Krish.

new drkitten, I understand what you mean about the newborn. But newborn babies do have "knowledge". It has 9 months within the womb to gain "knowledge". But I have no problem for you to replace your reference to "newborn babies" to "embroyo" or anything smaller.

To me ...
The fact that it is a human embroyo, is a hardwired "knowledge".
The fact that it is a human DNA, is a hardwired "knowledge".
It is upon the foundation of a human DNA and embroyo that it further gain "knowledge".

New drkitten, if you happen to be a newborn kitten, the type of knowledge you would gain would be very bias towards the awareness and perspective of cats.

[FreeChile]

Jyera recommended:
I do think clarification is needed on the meaning of "knowledge"
as mentioned by UG Krish.

Here are additional UG quotes to help clarify what he means by knowledge. You two appear to share a similar definition for knowledge in which you include heredity.

Knowledge is not something mysterious or abstract. I look at the table and ask myself, "What is that?" So do you. Knowledge is just naming things. It tells you that that is a "table", that I "am happy" or "miserable", that "you are an enlightened man and I am not". Is there anything to thought other than this?

The knowledge you have of the world creates the objects you are experiencing. The actual existence or non-existence of something "out there" in the world is not something you can determine or experience for yourself, except through the help of your knowledge. And this knowledge is not yours; it is something which you and your ancestors have accumulated over a long time. What you call the "act of knowing" is nothing other than this accumulated memory. You have personally added to and modified that knowledge, but essentially it doesn't belong to you at all.

There is nothing there inside you but the totality of this knowledge you have accumulated. That is what you are.

To experience anything you need knowledge. Knowledge is the entire heritage of man's thoughts, feelings, and experiences, handed on from generation to generation.

I have every reason to believe that the totality of knowledge is not only transmitted through our education in all forms, shapes, sizes, and degrees, but also, to a greater extent, through the genes.

[FreeChile]

Are the following questions relevant to these discussions?

1. Do any non-humans knowingly end their own lives? Please note that this question is non-sensical because we cannot be inside an animal or something else to know why the entity decides to end its own life, if it does. For example, a domesticated dog may die in the process of saving a victim. Yet, we cannot know the reason why the dog acted this way or if the dog knew it could die. But under normal cirscumstances, a dog would avoid a dangerous situation, if possible.

Intuitively, most of us believe that animals and machines cannot terminate nor risk their own lives knowingly.

2. Would knowingly taking your own life result from thinking?

3. When a human sacrifices its own life, we say that the person is acting selflessly. Is this true? Or is the person acting primarily based on a selfish belief really because it makes the person feel good?

4. Why do these questions cause distress?

[FreeChile]

Consider a computer. Like humans, a computer can remember. The memory there is not always in use. It is used only when the system or program needs it to perform some function. Humans may be operating similarly. However, because we cannot see how we remember as transparently, we feel it is somehow special.

If thinking and remembering were the same thing, then we have to say that a computer also thinks.

But computers can’t remember unless instructed to do so. Do humans also remember by instruction? Humans don’t remember unless there is a need or demand to do so.

Computers have proven that it is possible to remember without thinking.

Remembering does not imply that there is memory. Can something be remembered without memory? It depends on what we mean by memory. For example, I rarely forget people's birthdays because I record them in my electronic organizer. However, from their point of view when I call them to wish them a happy birthday, I remembered. Unless I tell them what I do, of course; in which case they would say I cheated.

There is a similar case with the computer. When using a computer application, you don't really know where the information is coming from and you have to be more specific. Is it coming from random access memory, or from the hard disk, or from the Internet, etc?

The scenario above is just to show the categorical issues in our language. We say there is memory when in fact all we know is that we remember. Likewise, we say that there is awareness, self-consciousness, thought, etc. In some cases, we see this categorical problem quite easily. For example, we would be fools to say that there is something we call 'imagination' or 'creativity' which resides inside a part of our body (let's say the brain or some other part).

Assuming there is such a thing called memory, it does not imply that it operates the same way in everything. We have computer memory, cellular memory, social memory, personal memory, shared memory, etc.

It also does not imply that the memory should be situated in a single place. Perhaps every cell in our body has our memories. After all we are finding that there is more capacity for memory and computation in the small than we think--I am talking about quantum computation and memory, of course.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by FreeChile
... snipe ...
The scenario above is just to show the categorical issues in our language. We say there is memory when in fact all we know is that we remember. Likewise, we say that there is awareness, self-consciousness, thought, etc. In some cases, we see this categorical problem quite easily. For example, we would be fools to say that there is something we call 'imagination' or 'creativity' which resides inside a part of our body (let's say the brain or some other part). I Agree.

Originally posted by FreeChile

Assuming there is such a thing called memory, it does not imply that it operates the same way in everything. We have computer memory, cellular memory, social memory, personal memory, shared memory, etc.

It also does not imply that the memory should be situated in a single place. ...snipe... . I agree.
And to add, memories need not be extremely precise, and accurate.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Are the following questions relevant to these discussions?

1. Do any non-humans knowingly end their own lives? Please note that this question is non-sensical because we cannot be inside an animal or something else to know why the entity decides to end its own life, if it does. For example, a domesticated dog may die in the process of saving a victim. Yet, we cannot know the reason why the dog acted this way or if the dog knew it could die. But under normal cirscumstances, a dog would avoid a dangerous situation, if possible.

Intuitively, most of us believe that animals and machines cannot terminate nor risk their own lives knowingly.

2. Would knowingly taking your own life result from thinking?

As you said it, Q1 may have no answer.
But I think the tricky word is "knowingly". Which implied awareness and thinking. So thinking about taking your own life results from thinking.

Originally posted by FreeChile
3. When a human sacrifices its own life, we say that the person is acting selflessly. Is this true?
A mother may put herself at risk to protect a child.
While the act is noble, there is no denying the possibility that it is inherently "programmed" in the genes to protect and proliferate her genes.

Originally posted by FreeChile
Or is the person acting primarily based on a selfish belief really because it makes the person feel good?
Could be true.

Originally posted by FreeChile

4. Why do these questions cause distress?
Perhaps you may share why does it make you feel distressed.

[FreeChile]

Jyera suggested:Perhaps you may share why does it make you feel distressed.
Well, I get the impression that people are unconfortable when confronted this way. I personally have no problem when people compare me to animals or talk about enderlying beliefs and assumptions.

[JAK]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Are the following questions relevant to these discussions?

1. Do any non-humans knowingly end their own lives? Please note that this question is non-sensical because we cannot be inside an animal or something else to know why the entity decides to end its own life, if it does. For example, a domesticated dog may die in the process of saving a victim. Yet, we cannot know the reason why the dog acted this way or if the dog knew it could die. But under normal cirscumstances, a dog would avoid a dangerous situation, if possible.

Intuitively, most of us believe that animals and machines cannot terminate nor risk their own lives knowingly.

You have a duplicity of issues - self-sacrifice as in martyrdom and self-sacrifice as in suicide. You are also comparing humans and non-humans. As much as we may like dogs, they are a far cry from human capabilities. The level required to enable self-sacrifice may be too advanced for canines. Gorillas or chimps or dolphins may be a closer comparison. Even so, after the disappearance of beloved humans, dogs have been known to stop eating and drinking until death overtakes them. This is a form of self-sacrifice in lower animals.
Originally posted by FreeChile
2. Would knowingly taking your own life result from thinking?

Hurling oneself voluntarily from the Golden Gate bridge requires some thinking regarding which direction to jump, otherwise the "jumper" would land in oncoming traffic on the bridge or simply slightly bruised on the walkway. Just locating the bridge itself takes forethought.
Originally posted by FreeChile
3. When a human sacrifices its own life, we say that the person is acting selflessly. Is this true? Or is the person acting primarily based on a selfish belief really because it makes the person feel good?

A clear argument can be made that all acts are selfish in nature. (Interestingly, that subject could create a lively separate thread.)
Originally posted by FreeChile
4. Why do these questions cause distress?
They may distress others, but they do not distress me.

You seem to have presented a variety of issues and ideas. It is difficult to continue without narrowing the subject. What aspect do you wish to explore? Self-sacrifice as martyrdom/heroism? Self-sacrifice as suicide? Self-sacrifice as a purely human characteristic (despite what we know of ants and bees)? Self-sacrifice as proof of UG's belief system? Self-sacrifice as proof of thinking (or non-thinking)? (Any issue related to thinking would be much more in harmony with the intent of this thread and its title.)

Again, what aspect do you wish to explore?

[FreeChile]

JAK said:

You have a duplicity of issues - self-sacrifice as in martyrdom and self-sacrifice as in suicide. Martyrdom, self-sacrifice and suicide tend to collide depending on the context. They also carry certain connotations. So I kept it general by saying “knowingly end their own lives.�You are also comparing humans and non-humans. As much as we may like dogs, they are a far cry from human capabilities. The level required to enable self-sacrifice may be too advanced for canines. Gorillas or chimps or dolphins may be a closer comparison. Even so, after the disappearance of beloved humans, dogs have been known to stop eating and drinking until death overtakes them. This is a form of self-sacrifice in lower animals. What do you mean by “This is a form of self-sacrifice in lower animals�? Are you giving a different meaning to “self-sacrifice� than the meaning you would give to it for a human? Would you compare this to a grieving spouse or something else? Hurling oneself voluntarily from the Golden Gate bridge requires some thinking regarding which direction to jump, otherwise the "jumper" would land in oncoming traffic on the bridge or simply slightly bruised on the walkway. Just locating the bridge itself takes forethought.

A clear argument can be made that all acts are selfish in nature. (Interestingly, that subject could create a lively separate thread.) Yes. This actually hit me one time I was running (jogging). It impacted me so much that it made be stop. It was not about philosophy I had read or anything. In fact, I had not read too much philosophy when this happened. It does not necessarily mean that your selfishness helps or harms other lives, but simply that your actions are also intrinsically selfish.They may distress others, but they do not distress me.

You seem to have presented a variety of issues and ideas. It is difficult to continue without narrowing the subject. What aspect do you wish to explore? Self-sacrifice as martyrdom/heroism? Self-sacrifice as suicide? Self-sacrifice as a purely human characteristic (despite what we know of ants and bees)?What do you mean by “despite what we know of ants and bees�? I’m curious. I am not asking because I want to attack your response to this but simply because if in fact what we know of dogs (as above) and of ants and bees is as significant as you imply, then it would negate my premise that the question “Do any non-humans knowingly end their own lives?� is non-sensical. Self-sacrifice as proof of UG's belief system?I don’t see the connection you are making here. I was not trying to make any connection between this post and the previous UG quotes I posted. I’m interested in knowing what connections you have made. I would not present anything I said here as proof of any belief systems. Self-sacrifice as proof of thinking (or non-thinking)? (Any issue related to thinking would be much more in harmony with the intent of this thread and its title.)
Again, what aspect do you wish to explore?I am not interested in exploring anything per se. I simply made the observation that knowingly taking ones own life is a significant human behavior. My intent is not to judge this behavior, but to perhaps note it in the context of this thread. If we could indeed create a computer that was self-conscious as has been discussed in this thread, then a very good test of this, along with the Turing test, is to see if this computer would take its own life or the lives of others, knowingly, like humans do—assuming the other necessary human self-conscious qualities are present, of course. I don’t mean this in a sarcastic way, yet (LOL). This kind of test is something we actually do in certain cases. For instance, in the military, we simulate the pressing of the button. This is a test of “knowingly taking life.� Some soldiers proceed with the simulation some don’t.

Now let me get sarcastic just for fun!

There are so many interesting tests we can perform on machines to see if they have emotions and feelings, for instance. We can perform lobotomies to see what happens to their sense of self once we discover it. Put electrodes on them and tinker with their different body parts, … But in some cases they may claim psychological damage and this may open a whole new field of law.

[Kumar]

Originally posted by Jyera
What is thinking?

1. When I put a word "house" in front of your eyes and a picture of a house pop up in your brain. Did you think?

2. Is recalling something from memory considered thinking?

3. Is imagining up a picture of a ficticious house thinking?

4. Recalling and Imagining a house,
which is a more TRUE form of thinking?

Can we add to it;

5. Is recalling our own house?

[JAK]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Martyrdom, self-sacrifice and suicide tend to collide depending on the context. They also carry certain connotations. So I kept it general by saying “knowingly end their own lives.�What do you mean by “This is a form of self-sacrifice in lower animals�? Are you giving a different meaning to “self-sacrifice� than the meaning you would give to it for a human? Would you compare this to a grieving spouse or something else?Yes. This actually hit me one time I was running (jogging). It impacted me so much that it made be stop. It was not about philosophy I had read or anything. In fact, I had not read too much philosophy when this happened. It does not necessarily mean that your selfishness helps or harms other lives, but simply that your actions are also intrinsically selfish. What do you mean by “despite what we know of ants and bees�? I’m curious. I am not asking because I want to attack your response to this but simply because if in fact what we know of dogs (as above) and of ants and bees is as significant as you imply, then it would negate my premise that the question “Do any non-humans knowingly end their own lives?� is non-sensical.

It is known that "army ants" will sacrifice themselves by forming a "living bridge" across streamlets so that the rest of the advancing hoard can walk safely across. Those forming the bridge will eventually fall and die when they weaken and lose their grips with each other. Similarly, honey bees die after stinging a foe. Many other animals also exhibit some form of self-sacrifice. Birds and monkeys call out to warn others when a predator appears. Yet, warning their group (flock, troop, etc.) also draws attention and, thus, endangers them individually more than the others. In other words, each one calling an alarm increases personal risk in order to serve the good of the whole.

However, all of this leads to discussions of whether any of these acts were truly selfless or just instinctual (without forethought). In the end, only acts of self-sacrifice by "self-aware" creatures should be of consideration - humans, chimps, dolphins, and perhaps a few others. It is only a self-aware creature that could possibly choose death "knowingly."

I think your premise should be restated: “Do any non-humans which are self-aware knowingly end their own lives?�

Originally posted by FreeChile
...
I don’t see the connection you are making here. I was not trying to make any connection between this post and the previous UG quotes I posted. I’m interested in knowing what connections you have made. I would not present anything I said here as proof of any belief systems. I am not interested in exploring anything per se. I simply made the observation that knowingly taking ones own life is a significant human behavior.

Again, "knowingly" is the key.
Originally posted by FreeChile
...
My intent is not to judge this behavior, but to perhaps note it in the context of this thread. If we could indeed create a computer that was self-conscious as has been discussed in this thread, then a very good test of this, along with the Turing test, is to see if this computer would take its own life or the lives of others, knowingly, like humans do—assuming the other necessary human self-conscious qualities are present, of course. I don’t mean this in a sarcastic way, yet (LOL). This kind of test is something we actually do in certain cases. For instance, in the military, we simulate the pressing of the button. This is a test of “knowingly taking life.� Some soldiers proceed with the simulation some don’t.

If we pay income taxes knowing that they pay for weopons used to kill others in Iraq, we might as well be pulling the triggers ourselves.
Originally posted by FreeChile
Now let me get sarcastic just for fun!

There are so many interesting tests we can perform on machines to see if they have emotions and feelings, for instance. We can perform lobotomies to see what happens to their sense of self once we discover it. Put electrodes on them and tinker with their different body parts, … But in some cases they may claim psychological damage and this may open a whole new field of law.

I suggest you rethink emotions and feelings as being purely mechanical.

Bodily resources are finite at any moment in time. When faced with danger, a living creature must divert its resources to benefit survival. The better this is done, the more likely it will survive.

Blood is the primary form of resource distribution within the body. When danger is perceived, blood distribution within the body dramatically changes. The extremities become more engorged (arms, legs, feet and hands) while the torso is drained. This redistribution prepares the entire body to engage in "fight or flight" (a process explained by Walter Cannon in the 1920s). Meanwhile, since digestion is a slow and useless process for the immediacy at hand, rather than waste precious resources digesting, blood is diverted away from this activity or held in reserve. (Immune functioning appears similarly shutdown. Who cares if you catch cold running from a lion? We'll deal with that AFTER the escape!)

The net result of this redistribution is a "sinking" or "sick" feeling in the gut and nervous tension (fidgeting) in the limbs when danger is imminent. During depression, some form of hopelessness is perceived, and blood is drained from the limbs to conserve even more resources (see Gregg Henriques' "Behavioral Shutdown Model"). The result is outward lethargy. Upon release from stress, blood is rediverted into the torso (a "warmth in the heart," an "inner glow," etc.). It may also be drained from the limbs ("I melt in your arms").

If blood is diverted, being self-aware should entail sensing this redistribution. Though we mask this mechanical process with subjective and obtuse words such as "feelings" and "emotions," the net effects do have survival benefits and being aware of these redistributions should be naturally selected. Again, feelings and emotions may be just as mechanistic as the boolean algebra performed in a processor "ANDing" and "ORing" circuits.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by Kumar
Can we add to it;

5. Is recalling our own house?
Hi Kumar,
I do not understand this sentence.
Can you rephrase it to make your point clearer?

[Kumar]

Originally posted by Jyera
Hi Kumar,
I do not understand this sentence.
Can you rephrase it to make your point clearer?

To give this a reasonably understandable look, I am enhancing the sentance & adjusting it in your previous post;(don't mind, bold one yours, italic mine)

1. When I put a word "house" in front of your eyes and a picture of a house pop up in your brain. Did you think?

1a. When I put a word "house" in front of your eyes, a picture of your/or some previously known house pop up in your brain.Is it thinking or recalling?

2. Is recalling something from memory considered thinking?

3. Is imagining up a picture of a ficticious house thinking?

4. Recalling and Imagining a house,
which is a more TRUE form of thinking?

Btw, HOW thinking, imaginations, illusions, dreams, thoughts recognizing, understanding, memory---means other than, so said as recalling, can be possible without "recalling"? How our adaptions, inherited & aquired informations are related & relavent to all these?

[FreeChile]

"A thought is a proposition with a sense."

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein
-- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

[Jyera]

Originally posted by FreeChile
"A thought is a proposition with a sense."

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein
-- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
I don't understand. Could you elaborate?

[drkitten]

Originally posted by Jyera
I don't understand. Could you elaborate?

No one understands Wittgenstein. Not even Wittgenstein understood Wittgenstein.

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by Jyera
I don't understand. Could you elaborate?

Let's start with the meaning of "sense". The distinction between sense and reference was proposed by Gottlob Frege. Here's a link to a Wikipedia description.

Sense and Reference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_reference)

Here's an example taken from that link:

"The distinction can be illustrated with an example from Frege. Take the two expressions "the Morning Star" and "the Evening Star". It looks like these expressions have quite different meanings: "the Morning Star" means the bright object in the eastern sky at sunrise and "the Evening Star" means the bright object in the western sky at sunset. But, as it turns out, both expressions refer to the same object—the planet Venus. That is, the Morning Star is exactly the same thing as the Evening Star. This interesting fact was discovered by an ancient astronomer (perhaps Pythagoras); before that, people thought they were observing two different celestial bodies.

Now we can apply the sense-reference distinction. Both expressions have the same reference—that is, "the Morning Star" and "the Evening Star" refer to the same object. But they have different senses—after all, "the Morning Star" means something quite different from "the Evening Star". The two aspects of meaning should now be clear. On the one hand, there is the object referred to (reference). On the other hand, there is a more cognitive aspect of meaning (sense). And, as the case of Venus shows, sometimes we cognize a single object in several ways—with different senses corresponding to the same reference."

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by Jyera
I don't understand. Could you elaborate?

Here's what Wittgenstein explains a sense to be.

2.11 A picture presents a situation in logical space, the existence and non-existence of states of affairs.
2.1 We picture facts to ourselves.
2.221 What a picture represents is its sense.

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by Jyera
I don't understand. Could you elaborate?

Now here's Wittgenstein's concept of a proposition in the context of thought. Does this help explain the statement "A thought is a proposition with a sense"?

4.001 The totality of propositions is language.
3.1 In a proposition a thought finds an expression that can be perceived by the senses.
3.221 Objects can only be named. Signs are their representatives. I can only speak about them: I cannot put them into words. Propositions can only say how things are, not what they are.
3.3 Only propositions have sense; only in the nexus of a proposition does a name have meaning.
4.01 A proposition is a picture of reality. A proposition is a model of reality as we imagine it.
4.022 Man possesses the ability to construct languages capable of expressing every sense, without having any idea how each word has meaning or what its meaning is--just as people speak without knowing how the individual sounds are produced. Everyday language is a part of the human organism and is no less complicated than it. It is not humanly possible to gather immediately from it what the logic of language is. Language disguises thought. So much so, that from the outward form of the clothing it is impossible to infer the form of the thought beneath it, because the outward form of the clothing is not designed to reveal the form of the body, but for entirely different purposes.

[JAK]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Now here's Wittgenstein's concept of a proposition in the context of thought. Does this help explain the statement "A thought is a proposition with a sense"?

4.001 The totality of propositions is language.
3.1 In a proposition a thought finds an expression that can be perceived by the senses.
3.221 Objects can only be named. Signs are their representatives. I can only speak about them: I cannot put them into words. Propositions can only say how things are, not what they are.
3.3 Only propositions have sense; only in the nexus of a proposition does a name have meaning.
4.01 A proposition is a picture of reality. A proposition is a model of reality as we imagine it.
4.022 Man possesses the ability to construct languages capable of expressing every sense, without having any idea how each word has meaning or what its meaning is--just as people speak without knowing how the individual sounds are produced. Everyday language is a part of the human organism and is no less complicated than it. It is not humanly possible to gather immediately from it what the logic of language is. Language disguises thought. So much so, that from the outward form of the clothing it is impossible to infer the form of the thought beneath it, because the outward form of the clothing is not designed to reveal the form of the body, but for entirely different purposes.
It appears to me that we are moving toward the qualia discussion of the old "unconsciousness" thread - a mere 14 pages long.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by JAK
It appears to me that we are moving toward the qualia discussion ....
You are beginning to understand ??? :D

[Jyera]

Originally posted by FreeChile
"A thought is a proposition with a sense."

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein
-- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Hi FreeChile,

After reading your posts on ...
- Sense and Reference. ...
- Here's what Wittgenstein explains a sense to be. ...
- Now here's Wittgenstein's concept of a proposition in the context of thought. ...

I now understand the meaning of the sentence.

Thanks.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by Jyera
What is thinking?

1. When I put a word "house" in front of your eyes and a picture of a house pop up in your brain. Did you think?
...snipe...

How will ... the statement,
"A thought is a proposition with a sense.", contribute to the above scenario?

[SIZE=1](In my mind, the sentence translates to ...
"a thought is a picture reality with a meaning.")[SIZE]

I suppose the house that pops up in the mind is a thought?
Since it is a thought, I "thinked" (thought).

If I cannot stop the house from popping up, is it still a thought?
If I cannot stop the house from popping up, did I think?

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by Jyera
How will ... the statement,
"A thought is a proposition with a sense.", contribute to the above scenario?

(In my mind, the sentence translates to ...
"a thought is a picture reality with a meaning.")

I suppose the house that pops up in the mind is a thought?
Since it is a thought, I "thinked" (thought).Firstly, you would need to have the experience of a house in your "world", to use Wittgenstein's terminology. Without this experience, you would need to create the house based on the experiences you've had and/or input from the world outside. If noone is there to tell you what the object is, you may not even call it a house. You may not even give a name at all. Yet, it is possible for you to make use of the house as it would be related to other objects from its world. These relationships would be new experiences to you, just like the house would be a new experience to you.

With the experience of a house as a base, one thing you would tell yourself is "The object that I am looking at is a house." You may also tell yourself how the house sits in connection with other objects. For example, "the house has a front lawn."If I cannot stop the house from popping up, is it still a thought?
If I cannot stop the house from popping up, did I think?Yes. In both cases.

[JAK]

Originally posted by hammegk
You are beginning to understand ??? :D
Hey, I haven't reached 200 posts while you are over 4000. I think I am catching on relatively quickly.

On the other hand, if this is all so hopeless, what keeps bringing you back? ;)

[Jyera]

I agree with what FreeChile mentioned in the last post.

Let me push it further.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Jyera
What is thinking?

1. When I put a word "house" in front of your eyes and a picture of a house pop up in your brain. Did you think?
...snipe...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With the above scenario....

(Q1) If the effect of the putting a word "house" in front of a baby's eyes caused some apparently "non-related" image/concept to be "pop-up". Did the baby think?

Answer : I suppose we would agree is, "Yes, the baby did think."

(Q2) What if no image pop-up. But a voice echoed "house" in the mind? Did you think?

(Q3) What if no image pop-up, no voice pop-up, but an urge to do something pop-up? Did you think?

(Q3a) Is an urge for action, prompted by external stimuli, a thought ?

[Jyera]

Originally posted by JAK
It appears to me that we are moving toward the qualia discussion of the old "unconsciousness" thread - a mere 14 pages long. JAK, I understand and noted some similarity.

However, I do hope that the Quality-Quantity ratio of this thread will be much better. It is up to us to make it happen.

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by Jyera

If I cannot stop the house from popping up, is it still a thought?
If I cannot stop the house from popping up, did I think?Correct me if I'm wrong, but in asking these two questions, your central concern appears to be "freedom of thought." Yet, you have not defined what you mean by "freedom of thought." The idea expressed in these sentences concerning this freedom is problematic. In stopping or not stopping the house from popping up, you are concerned with the process of thinking. This process works the same way for everyone. It is like the other functions of the body. Why should it be any special for you so as to give you freedom? So looking at thinking itself does not tell you much about freedom.

I would look at the opposite of things to see if they get you any closer. Look at "not thinking" and at "bondage." What are you not allowed to think? What is everyone else not allowed to think? People are not allowed to have the same thoughts as you. Also, they are not allowed to know what you are thinking just like you are not allowed to know what someone else is thinking. So we are bound to our own thoughts.

[JAK]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in asking these two questions, your central concern appears to be "freedom of thought." Yet, you have not defined what you mean by "freedom of thought." The idea expressed in these sentences concerning this freedom is problematic. In stopping or not stopping the house from popping up, you are concerned with the process of thinking.

I agree up to here.
Originally posted by FreeChile
This process works the same way for everyone. It is like the other functions of the body. Why should it be any special for you so as to give you freedom? So looking at thinking itself does not tell you much about freedom.

In general, our minds think alike just like everywhere on the planet there is "weather" which works upon the same principles. But in specifics, none of us think alike. The weather in Anchorage, Alaska, is dramatically different from Mombai, India. Weather in the Gobi desert is different from weather in the Caribbean. Yet, the principles are the same in all of those places. Likewise, in the details, we all think differently.

I believe I understand what you are getting at, Free Chile, but it is not entirely clear.
Originally posted by FreeChile
I would look at the opposite of things to see if they get you any closer. Look at "not thinking" and at "bondage." What are you not allowed to think? What is everyone else not allowed to think? People are not allowed to have the same thoughts as you. Also, they are not allowed to know what you are thinking just like you are not allowed to know what someone else is thinking. So we are bound to our own thoughts.
Seemingly, we will never know the thoughts of others except in discourse and written word. We do not hear sounds nor see sights exactly as another. (This is most apparent with someone who is color blind or suffers a hearing loss.) Even if we stand side by side, the perspective changes. Further, one may focus on the door of a house while the other focuses upon the roof.

But FreeChile's main point is important. Are we to discuss "how thinking works" (such as Bernard J. Baars, In the Theater of Consciousness, or Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens), or are we to discuss "freedom of thought"? With the later, we will eventually fall back on the former for the very same reasons FreeChile presented. How you make "free" choices about the images in your mind are the direct result of your biochemical makeup and experiences (such as Gerald Edelson's Neural Darwinism and the classic "Nature VS Nurture" debate). Your choice of thoughts is the result of your inbred, natured, nurtured, "all of your life's experience" thinking.

Jyera, do you want to detour through "freedom of thought" land and other destinations, or do you want to go straight for the "end of the line" and neural processing - Baars' Global Workspace Theory (GWT), Powers' Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), Solomon's Opponent-Process Theory (OPT), and Masaro's Fuzzy Logical Model of Perception (FLMP)?

[Jyera]

[quote:]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Jyera

If I cannot stop the house from popping up, is it still a thought?
If I cannot stop the house from popping up, did I think?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi FreeChile and JAK,

I have no intent to detour to "Freedom of Thought".

I simply meant to presume that the "popping up" is automatic, and involves no explicit attempt to create the image.

I also DO NOT want to emphasize the element of willfully trying to stop the the image of the house from popping up.

We could presume the popping up is almost immediate. So fast that we cannot even stop it.


Which does means that I can accept the following scenario (A) as equivalent:

(A) " If I flash the word "house" in front of you, and a picture of a doll pops up, did I think ? "

BUT NOT this ...

(B) "If I flash the word "house" in front of you, and you think of many stuff and finally tries to fix a mental image of a house in your mind?"

[Jyera]

Originally posted by JAK
...snipe...
Jyera, do you want to detour through "freedom of thought" land and other destinations, or do you want to go straight for the "end of the line" and neural processing - Baars' Global Workspace Theory (GWT), Powers' Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), Solomon's Opponent-Process Theory (OPT), and Masaro's Fuzzy Logical Model of Perception (FLMP)? I do not intend to step into "freedom of thought" land.

But I do not intend to avoid it just because it is problematic.

I would like to know the truth of how we think.
GWT, OPT, PCT and FLMP are fine for discussion.
I'm keen to know the theory but I hope they are simple and insightful. I would prefer to discuss those that have a strong clinical emperical evidence.

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
I do not intend to step into "freedom of thought" land.

But I do not intend to avoid it just because it is problematic.

I would like to know the truth of how we think.
GWT, OPT, PCT and FLMP are fine for discussion.
I'm keen to know the theory but I hope they are simple and insightful. I would prefer to discuss those that have a strong clinical emperical evidence.

GWT, OPT, PCT, FLMP, etc. are insightful, but they are not simple.

In any case, to understand the ideas, it would be best to discard the notions of being human fraught with emotion and feelings.

The new perspective is that you are an energy system, as postulated by Elizabeth Duffy circa the 1930s-1940s. All subsequent interpretations are reduced into energy related terms (thermodynamics). Emotions are a manifestation of energy. If your emotions change, then the direction and/or magnitude of energy distribution within the brain/body changes. The same is true of thought. If your thoughts change, then the distribution of energy within the brain/body changes.

The ultimate purpose of these changes (energy redistributions) is to achieve homeostasis, as postulated by Walter Cannon in the 1920s. (In Perceptual Control Theory, this would be the "reference signal." The most likely site for this is the hypothalamus.) When homeostasis is disturbed, the brain redirects resources in an effort to restore homeostasis. "Thinking" is one of the evolved tools of the brain to help maintain and/or restore homeostasis from disturbances caused by the external environment.

Those who have the strongest empirical evidence wrote the theories (GWT, OPT, PCT, FLMP, etc.). The "umbrella" theories are Behavioral Investment Theory (BIT), by Dr. G. Henriques, and Theory of Emotive Energy (TEE), by J. Keeran, which are two variations on a theme - effective management of bodily resources.

Of key importance is recognizing thinking as not a self-contained object but as an evolved mechanism which supports the body as a whole. Essentially, the purpose of the brain is the management of bodily resources and their distribution to effect survival. The proof of effectiveness is, as Dr. G. would say, the return on investment (ROI). The better the ROI, the more effective the brain's contribution to life. I encapsulate Gregg's ROI idea with the phrase, "We feed success and starve failure." In other words, we direct our resources into behaviors which benefit us and remove resources from behaviors which prove detrimental to us.

Again, what we call "conscious thinking" is just a part of the brain's resource management systems. "Conscious thought" appears to focus on external factors affecting the brained creature. In particular, conscious thought is typically used to fabricate new behavior as well as to adjust old behavior in order to meet the needs of the immediate environment. As Freud said, "Thinking is rehearsal work." To that, I would add another important function - prioritizing and providing direction.

When life is working well, homeostasis returns, and we "feel good" - even euphoric. When problems arise, the brain starts rationing and redirecting energy resources which results in our "feeling bad." This constant ebb and flow (or even "roller-coaster") of feelings results from the ever-changing interactions we have with the environment.

[hammegk]

I agree -- given naturalism as all there is -- we are maximum perceived benefit algorithms. The alphabet soups mentioned, and behaviorism/etal, all examine that concept in detail.

However, is all I/O in the 4 dimension space we inhabit? Or may I and/or O also be available in dimensions 5 on up? If the latter, I suspect that worldview, and objective idealism, would be equivalent. :)

[JAK]

Originally posted by hammegk
I agree -- given naturalism as all there is -- we are maximum perceived benefit algorithms. The alphabet soups mentioned, and behaviorism/etal, all examine that concept in detail.

However, is all I/O in the 4 dimension space we inhabit? Or may I and/or O also be available in dimensions 5 on up? If the latter, I suspect that worldview, and objective idealism, would be equivalent. :)
"Naturalism" is limited by our present body of knowledge and our technology. Other dimensions are theoretical, and technology is only grasping in those directions.

The universe must be integrated and systematic. To be otherwise would render a void due to lack of systematic processes and integration. With integration comes the ability to affect and interact. Given that other dimensions ("5 on up") exist, for any usefulness to occur, some means of systematic interaction must exist at some level. As our knowledge and technology grows, such other dimensions will likely be discovered (again, should they exist). And just as the explorers of "The New World" in the 15th and 16th centuries, we, too, may find "native inhabitants" of these new dimensions. We may even find ourselves.

Whatever exists beyond our present knowledge/technology could be amazing beyond our wildest dreams.

I encourage all not to limit those dreams.

[Jyera]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by FreeChile
"A thought is a proposition with a sense."

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein
-- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question:
Does what Wittgenstein's reference to as "proposition" limited to just "picture reality" ? Or does he allows "sound", "emotion"?

[Jyera]

"What is thinking?", Leads to ... "How we think" and "Why we think".

On "Why we think",
There seems to be lots of consensus that the reason "why we think" is to ensure survival. I agree, but I would say that it is equally logical to simply assume that we can think for "NO apparent reason". Perhaps some of us "think" so as to send our species to doom (opposite of survival). Illogical it may sound, but I think it does happens.

"How we think"
I think "how we think" is more meaningful to pursue.

JAK, I 'm perhaps less knowledgeable about the various theory, but my impression of the various theory is that, they use "survival" as a very strong basis for "Why we think", to support their theory of "How we think".

But shouldn't it be the other way round?

ie. "This is how our brain have been built to think".
(Thus "how we think")
Since we seemed to be successful in surviving on planet earth, Therefore our brain and it's way of thinking is good for "survival".
So I may convienently state that the reason "why we think", is to ensure survival.

JAK,

I think many of the theory has it's merit.
However, more talk means more misintepretation.
I would think it is useful for us to expose their CORE MERIT in as simply as possible.

Can any of the theory be distilled down to it's essence, AND be turned into a repeatable experiment?

Eg. How to prove importance of homeostasis?
Does removal of hypothalamus, "proves" homeostasis, by showing that a person no longer seek to bring himself back to the state of "homeostasis"

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
...
So I may convienently state that the reason "why we think", is to ensure survival.
...
I think many of the theory has it's merit.
However, more talk means more misintepretation.
...
I would think it is useful for us to expose their CORE MERIT in as simply as possible.

Can any of the theory be distilled down to it's essence, AND be turned into a repeatable experiment?
...
Eg. How to prove importance of homeostasis?
Does removal of hypothalamus, "proves" homeostasis, by showing that a person no longer seek to bring himself back to the state of "homeostasis."
First, without the hypothalamus, the brain is dead. It is the single most important part of the brain. Evolution has buried the hypothalamus deep in brain tissue, high on the brain stem, far from bone on all sides, packed by all other brain parts. Evolution protects it, by sheer location and packing, above all other parts of the brain. It is critical for life.

But let's return to your key point: "Can any of the theory be distilled down to it's essence, AND be turned into a repeatable experiment?" I believe so. But you, and the others, will have to help in the clarification.

BACKGROUND: We are immersed in dynamic and complex world which continues to evolve in complexity and dynamism. (Heraclitus, Schrodinger, Kauffman)

EVOLUTION: To survive, we must constantly adapt to the ever-changing environment. (Darwin/Spencer, Shrodinger, Kauffman, others)

LIFE: Life is an array of feelings running from bad to good, from misery to ecstacy. Life is dynamic, 3-D feelings. (Maslow, Plutchik, Johnston, Keeran)

LIFE & HOMEOSTASIS: Perfect homeostasis is the ultimate feeling of life. Ecstacy, a sense of fulfillment, and peace of mind are all close to homeostasis. (Sleeping may be the closest to homeostasis.) The further away you go from homeostasis, the more stress you endure, and the worse you feel. With stress, your body begins malfunctioning, and it eventually leads to destruction and death. (Cannon, and others)

PERSONAL CHALLENGE: Do you want to feel miserable or ecstatic? Whatever your feelings are now, do you want to keep them the same or feel even better? Or do you miss feeling bad? Do you want to feel more sickness and pain? Most people choose feeling good or even feeling better. (Aristotle, Maslow, and others)

THINKING: Thinking is plotting a course to your goal of feeling better or worse, success or failure, happiness or stress, life or death. This primarily includes prioritizing (choosing), planning (adapting), and modeling.

TYPES OF THINKING: Fundamentally, there are two: SEEK and AVOID (also called approach and avoidance). You plot and plan in order to gain something, achieve something. You SEEK it. Similarly, you plot and plan to avoid or destroy other things. (Skinner, Plutchick, McCelland, and many others)

So, "can any of the theory be distilled down to it's essence, AND be turned into a repeatable experiment?"

Let's try this: We constantly strive to feel as good as possible and avoid whatever makes us feel bad. (Aristotle, Darwin, Cannon, Maslow, Johnston, Henriques, Keeran, many others)

Technically, we seek homeostasis (a balanced state) and avoid thermodynamical equillibrium (a state of chaos). (Duffy, Schrodinger, Kauffman, Henriques, Keeran, others)

[Jyera]

"can any of the theory be distilled down to it's essence, AND be turned into a repeatable experiment?"

Let me add that, for a scientific experiment to be useful as an evidence to a theory, it must have clear, unambigious, objective and predictable result.

Okay Let's try this:

"We constantly strive to feel as good as possible and avoid whatever makes us feel bad. (Aristotle, Darwin, Cannon, Maslow, Johnston, Henriques, Keeran, many others)"

Before looking at a Doable experiment. Lets look at the statement.

This statement while it sounds sensible isn't stripped down to it's undisputable essence. It also contains some ambigity.

(1) "constantly strives" is hard to prove and easily defeated.
There should be plenty of example of
"Constantly" ought to be removed.

(2) There exist people in society who do thing that makes them feel bad. This may be countered with explanation that making themselves feel bad might actually make them feel good.

(3) Which opens the issue of "feel good" and "feel bad" can be subjective. Subjective interpretation is not to be allowed as it makes the result of the experiment ambigious.

(4) We may argue that the "feel good" and "feel bad" has it's context based on survival. Then the statement should be
to strive to "survive" and avoid being eliminated.

(5) "We" can be individual or can be a whole "species".

The proposed theory/statement.
"An individual creature's brain works based on familiarity."

Which I think it is still relevant to the idea of
"homeostasis"; which is akin to "home state" "balanced, chosen, comfortable", in short familiar.
I would say "Seeking good", and "avoiding bad", are the symptoms exhibition of "homeostasis" .

Any comments before we talk about experiments?
And perhaps we could work the other way round.
Ie. think of a do-able experiment that can shows evidence of the theory.

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by Jyera
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by FreeChile
"A thought is a proposition with a sense."

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein
-- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question:
Does what Wittgenstein's reference to as "proposition" limited to just "picture reality" ? Or does he allows "sound", "emotion"? In his earlier work, Wittgenstein was mostly concerned with logic and the possibility of clarifying philosophy using logic. He later stepped away from that. In his later works, he maintains emphasis on meaning (sense) and compositions (how you would look at an object from different perpectives based on meaning). My guess is that he would think of feelings and emotions as another composition of the thinking process--one perhaps best addressed by the field of psychology.

Taking your use of the word "sound" to mean "hearing", Wittgenstein would mention a number of things here like sense, composition, interpretation and imprecision. This all contributes to our inability to describe language (also thinking) in a precise way.

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
...
Any comments before we talk about experiments?
And perhaps we could work the other way round.
Ie. think of a do-able experiment that can shows evidence of the theory.

I believe we are facing a dilemma.

On the one hand, Jyera, you seek a simple solution for an incredibly complex phenomena.

After diluting, over-simplifying, and generalizing a theoretical approach in order to create something comprehensible to laymen, the response is that it is too subjective, with aspects which are "easily defeated" (which you did not attempt to defeat ).

The human organism is an energy system built with components (organs, bones, tissue, etc.) which interact with predictable processes (thinking, breathing, digestion, etc.). Fundamentally, the processes rely upon energy created in each cell my mitochondria exchanging phosphate ions. This is known as the Krebs cycle and is the root of what we call metabolism. (Try here for starters: http://www.courseworld.com/bio/cellmetab.html)

Through energy metabolism, or metabolic rate, all activities of the body are performed. The ability to produce energy is finite at any point in time. Thus, the body has an "energy budget" at all times. The organism can "choose" where and how much energy to distribute to each of the body's components, but it cannot exceed the maximum output potential (the budget). (This is the source of Henrique's reference to ROI.)

For any testing of a single individual, the proper factor to target is energy usage - metabolism. Any such test is cumbersome at best. (With animals, respiration is frequently used as an indicator.)

After metabolism, the next best measure of value ("good" and "bad") is money. Money is a surrogate indicator of value in humans. Rubies and diamonds, gold and silver, are of no interest to bees, hedgehogs, or chickens (except maybe to swallow for use in their gizzards). Originally, there was no money, and all trade was done through bartering. Of course, trade assigns relative human value. Thus, money becomes a measuring device for an individual's personal value system as well as a culture and society as a whole.

Do people pay money to have raw sewage dumped in their homes (seek)? Or do they pay to have it removed (avoid)? Do people pay to get food and water (seek)? Or do they pay to eradicate it from the planet (avoid)? Do people walk outside for sunshine and fresh air (seek)? Or do they hide from it in a dark vacuum (avoid)? Further, do they give away all of their money for these, or do they find the cheapest way of getting each of the jobs done (ROI)?

If you want "simple," you lose the strength of integrated ideas (The Coherence Theory of Truth) - you lose "convincibility." You also lose the ability to tailor exacting experiments. If you choose "convincibility" and exacting experiments, you lose simplicity.

What do you want?
- a simple but workable layman's idea which is fraught with ambiguity and conjecture?
- or a tight integration of ideas from Aristotle, Heraclitus, Newton, Darwin, Spencer, Freud, Cannon, Duffy, Schrodinger, Maslow, Skinner, Plutchik, Solomon, Baars, Newman, McClelland, Keeran, Henriques, and many others which is exacting and testable?

If it's the latter, then go to my website. It's all there: www.theoryofmind.org (But even my website glosses over important detail found in the bibliographical references. A proper analysis and dissertation would make "War and Peace" look like a magazine.)

If you want something easy to test and measure which we all can relate to, then I suggest efficient use of money (ROI) and time. They can be used for laundry soap, combs, chairs, autos, electricity, music, food, water, and just about anything you can think of - including strolls on the beach for fresh air and sunshine.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by JAK
...snipe... Jyera, you seek a simple solution for an incredibly complex phenomena.
I do.
E=MC2 ; F=MA;
An experiment to show that light travels in straight line using pins, mirror and card board.
These are Simple "truth" and practical experiments.
These equations and experiment do not tell the full story, but they are simple, elegant and reliable starting point.

Originally posted by JAK
After diluting, over-simplifying, and generalizing a theoretical approach in order to create something comprehensible to laymen, the response is that it is too subjective, with aspects which are "easily defeated" (which you did not attempt to defeat ). I appreciate VERY VERY much your extensive knowledge, and attempt to make it understandable.

I do not disagree with the statement:
"We constantly strive to feel as good as possible and avoid whatever makes us feel bad.�

But it is possible to find a person, or a moment of weakness in a person, where he is depressed, demoralised and suicidal. Such a person SEEK to feel as bad as possible.

"Constantly" is "easily defeated" if it means "all the time".

Once again, I appreciate your knowledge and willingness to attempt to convey it concisely, I know it is a tough job.

I have no intention to erode, what you believe, is the critical essence of the theories, you come to understand.

Originally posted by JAK
...snipe...energy system ....energy metabolism ..."energy budget" ... money .... values.
You talked about energy system, energy metabolism, "energy budget", money, values, ROI.

But what does these energy theories tell us about "thinking" ?

It does tells us about "why we think?". Which is to survive as a SPECIES by maintaining good ROI in terms of energy.

But your post has not SHOWN convincingly "how we think?".
I find it not convincing that, just because we need to manage our energy budget, therefore we have brain, and need to think, in order to achieve better ROI.

How about the other way round? Ie. I happen to have a brain to think, therefore I use it to improve my ROI in terms of energy.

In our case, I don't think it is important to know how human individuals use the brain and thinking to manage the energy budget.

If we are still standing around as individuals, we as a species, must have done something right for our species to be selected to be surviving. If a theory insists, that we must have structured our body, brain, and thinking process to make sensible use of our "energy budget", then so be it, I'm okay with it. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Trees must have relatively good ROI in terms of managing their "energy budget", they survived and they have the simplest approach to "thinking". Almost zero thinking. Just do it, and let natural selection do the job.

Originally posted by JAK
Do people pay money to have raw sewage dumped in their homes (seek)? Or do they pay to have it removed (avoid)? Do people pay to get food and water (seek)? Or do they pay to eradicate it from the planet (avoid)? Do people walk outside for sunshine and fresh air (seek)? Or do they hide from it in a dark vacuum (avoid)? Further, do they give away all of their money for these, or do they find the cheapest way of getting each of the jobs done (ROI)? If I am god, I could design a world where creature strive based on "Seek Good" and "Avoid Bad".
But then I have to define Good and Bad. I not a creationist fan. But if I’m god, I would simply build the foundation for a neutral self sustaining system.

Most individual humans/creatures do what they think fancies them.
They do not, in general, strive to find the cheapest way of getting the jobs done.
It just happens that those that get the job done in the cheapest way have better chance to win. In fact if there is no competitive pressure, they can do it in the most expensive way they like. Even if there is competition, mother nature could reward the less energy efficient ones, and punish the most energy efficient ones.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by JAK
...
If you want "simple," you lose the strength of integrated ideas (The Coherence Theory of Truth) - you lose "convincibility." You also lose the ability to tailor exacting experiments. If you choose "convincibility" and exacting experiments, you lose simplicity.

What do you want?
- a simple but workable layman's idea which is fraught with ambiguity and conjecture?
- or a tight integration of ideas from Aristotle, Heraclitus, Newton, Darwin, Spencer, Freud, Cannon, Duffy, Schrodinger, Maslow, Skinner, Plutchik, Solomon, Baars, Newman, McClelland, Keeran, Henriques, and many others which is exacting and testable?


You provide only 2 options. I want option 3. Exacting experiment.
Exacting Experiment/s, with simple, objective, reliable, consistent, unambiguous result.

I’m fine with citing and integrating ideas of famous persons to have “convincibility�. But that is the art of persuasion, not scientific experiment.

Newton’s laws of physics are proven, via experiment, over and over again everyday by numerous students in school.

Just as in JREF million dollar challenge.
Make a Claim, Talk enough to describe how to test it. Do it. And See it.

[JAK]

Originally posted by Jyera
[B]I do.
E=MC2 ; F=MA;
An experiment to show that light travels in straight line using pins, mirror and card board.
These are Simple "truth" and practical experiments.
These equations and experiment do not tell the full story, but they are simple, elegant and reliable starting point.
...

Okay, we feed "success" and starve "failure." Success brings us happiness and life, failure brings us unhappiness and death.

There you have it - a simple, elegant (well ... maybe not elegant), and reliable starting point.

I will take any scenario as a test - from putting your shoes on to maintaining a political career, from playing a game to attending a funeral, from driving to work to listening to music on the beach, from a child's crayon scrawls on scrap-paper to an architect's blue prints, from being awake to being asleep.

Anything you think of is a valid test.

Let's proceed, shall we?

Jyera, please choose an idea, situation, activity, or feeling.

[JAK]

Originally posted by JAK

Anything you think of is a valid test.

Let's proceed, shall we?

Jyera, please choose an idea, situation, activity, or feeling.

Wow, that put a cork in the bottle.

Anyone else wish to pose a scenario?

[Jyera]

Originally posted by JAK
Okay, we feed "success" and starve "failure." Success brings us happiness and life, failure brings us unhappiness and death.

There you have it - a simple, elegant (well ... maybe not elegant), and reliable starting point.

These are just statements. They aren't mathematical formula neither are they a description of experiment that people can perform.

If these sentences are meant to be the essence of the theories you support, you may want to describe an experiment that everyone may do.

And thus providing support to your theories every time the experiment turn out in support to your theory.
On the other hand if the experiment fails, it immediately put to question the theory.
Originally posted by JAK

...snipe...
Anything you think of is a valid test.

Let's proceed, shall we?

Jyera, please choose an idea, situation, activity, or feeling.

I am unable to devise any test for you.
Because for every test I can think of, I would find loop holes.

Please devise a test/experiment for others to perform.

The test ought to be independent of scenarios.

[JAK]

Okay, Jyera, let's use your post as a test.

Originally posted by Jyera
These are just statements.
...

The sentence, "These are just statements," is a gramatically correct english sentence. You could have typed this in innumerable ways:
"Are these just statements."
"Just statements are these."
"Statements just are these."
"Th es e ar e ju st st at em en ts . "
".stnemetats tsuj era esehT"
"Sjtuastteamreentthsese."
With your sentence, did you achieve what you wanted to do? If so, then you were successful. You "fed" your energy resources into what you wanted to achieve, and you were successful.

Meanwhile, you withheld your energy resources from the variations I presented. So, for whatever reasons, you avoided other variations you did not want. You "starved" other variations from your energy resources.

Moreover, you fed your energy into english rather than chinese or some other language. I suspect that you are bi-lingual, so english was a choice. If you are bi-lingual, then there will be some situations where english will produce effective communication (like on JREF). At other times, english will prove fruitless and a waste of time (perhaps in your native country). Thus, for you, sometimes english succeeds and sometimes it fails. It depends upon the situation.

Going a step higher, a sentence is a part of language. At the point in time you wrote your post, you "wanted" to use english, presumably because it has the widest audience on JREF and, thus, facilitates communication. You avoided other languages which would not have communicated your thoughts as well on JREF. Once again, you fed what you believed to be successful behaviors for JREF, and starved your other language talents which would have failed to be as effective if used on JREF. You fed success and starved failure. Conversely, in your home country, you likely starve english and feed your mother tongue which is far more effective for communication there.

Let's look at JREF itself. Posting on JREF is a choice. Even if it were "life and death," it is still a choice. Whatever your alternatives were at the time you posted (laundry, dinner, sleep, etc.), you chose to post on JREF. For the time taken to write your post, you fed energy into posting behaviors and starved other behaviors of energy.

Now, just for grins, let's suppose that a couple minutes into your post, you were overcome by an uncontrolable urge to eat an apple. So you stopped posting, ate an apple, and then returned to posting. This would be an example of the progressive formation and destruction of perceptual gestalts (Gestalt psychology). During the time of the sudden urge, your priorities shifted, and to continue to post while denying the apple urge was suddenly deemed "failure" for you (or less successful), and you shifted your energy into alternate behaviors which you deemed more successful (apple eating). Once the apple urge was satisfied, the old urge to post re-established itself.

Originally posted by Jyera
They aren't mathematical formula neither are they a description of experiment that people can perform.

You obviously believe a mathematical formula or experiment are pertinent. Thus, you fed your energy into communicating this thought. Not only did you feed the thought, but you fed the circuits that control the fingers of your hands for typing. You also fed the circuits which select the behavior of communication.

Moreover, mathematics are human processes we have devised. They are, thus, behaviors. Similarly, every experiment requires human thought and behavior.

Further, though you wish to avoid "scenarios," once you plug numbers into a mathematical formula or put objects into an experiment, you have just created a scenario.

I will gladly take and mathematical formula or scientific experiment and show how it relates to the underlying concept of "feed success and starve failure."

Originally posted by Jyera
If these sentences are meant to be the essence of the theories you support, you may want to describe an experiment that everyone may do.

And thus providing support to your theories every time the experiment turn out in support to your theory.
On the other hand if the experiment fails, it immediately put to question the theory.


Because it is formed around thermodynamics, it has never failed in over 20 years. It is not possible to create an experiment devoid of energy. At this very moment, you are traveling at over 100,000 kilometers per hour.

Humans are energy systems. We manage our energy resources. If we feed them into successful behaviors, we survive. If not, we die. Further, the quality of life is directly affected by our management of energy. The better we manage our energy resources, the better our quality of life.

Originally posted by Jyera
I am unable to devise any test for you.
Because for every test I can think of, I would find loop holes.

So you "seek" an ironclad test with no loop holes. You have fed energy into devising such a test, but you have failed to achieve your goal. Having failed, it seems that you have stopped looking. For a while, you "fed" the "search for ironclad test" behavior, but you have since given up and now "starve" the "search for ironclad test" behavior.

Okay, let's look at any of your tests. Choose one. What loop holes do you see?
Originally posted by Jyera
Please devise a test/experiment for others to perform.

The test ought to be independent of scenarios.
I see it everywhere, constantly - from corporate budgets to government funding, from climbing stairs to sporting events, from compassion to anger. Everything is a vaild test to me. And I test it over and over and over, day after day after day. There is NOTHING that isn't a test.

Everything is "success/fail." Have you reached to pick up a pencil? Were you successful? Have you tried to put shoes on? Were you successful? Have you gone outside to enjoy a wonderful day and to feel great? Were you successful? Have you gone to bed to rest and sleep? Were you successful?

And most of all, are you happy with life? That is the ultimate success. The more fulfilled you are, the happier you are, and the more wonderful you feel - these are the things of life.

Let's try this: write a 1 hour diary. Take an hour of activity during your day. Write down a summary of what you're doing and why. The reason "why" can be: "I needed a new hat" or "I was hungry" or "I was going to work" or "Because I wanted to" or any other reason that sounds good to you. Next, post your diary and we'll use it for a test. We can put it to the Aristotle test ("happiness is the ultimate end").

[JAK]

Originally posted by JAK
...

Everything is "success/fail." Have you reached to pick up a pencil? Were you successful? Have you tried to put shoes on? Were you successful? Have you gone outside to enjoy a wonderful day and to feel great? Were you successful? Have you gone to bed to rest and sleep? Were you successful?

And most of all, are you happy with life? That is the ultimate success. The more fulfilled you are, the happier you are, and the more wonderful you feel - these are the things of life.
...


Things have gotten mighty quiet again ...

Is everyone so satisfied with my explanation that no one has a question or a test?

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by JAK
Okay, we feed "success" and starve "failure." Success brings us happiness and life, failure brings us unhappiness and death.

There you have it - a simple, elegant (well ... maybe not elegant), and reliable starting point.

I will take any scenario as a test - from putting your shoes on to maintaining a political career, from playing a game to attending a funeral, from driving to work to listening to music on the beach, from a child's crayon scrawls on scrap-paper to an architect's blue prints, from being awake to being asleep.

Anything you think of is a valid test.

Let's proceed, shall we?

Jyera, please choose an idea, situation, activity, or feeling. It isn't clear what you mean by success, by failure, by feeding, by starving. After all, success and failure are not living things that you can feed like pigeons. Maybe you can form these statements in a more literate sense. I don’t mean literate in a derogatory way, as in illiterate—I mean without metaphors.

I understand you are talking about conservation of energy and the process of directing one’s energy towards a goal. However, you make it sound as if you could “feed� or give energy to this goal. The goal itself is non-existent at the time you direct your energy. Therefore, you cannot feed it. You can only feed what exists.

What you seem to be saying sounds to me like football where you want to hit a goal. Players direct their energy in the direction of this goal. They prepare for the game and they play the game the best they can. This is a projection and not an eventuality. In the end, only one team will win, in the usual sense of winning. Yet both teams would have put energy into the game. However, even within the winning team, the sense of winning may be different. Some take winning to mean having played, others may take it to mean defeating the opposing team, others may take it to mean getting paid.

Perhaps you can say precisely what it is that the energy is being transformed into in this model—potential, kinetic, atomic, etc. Physically speaking, it makes no difference where energy goes—whether it ends up in a failure or a success is irrelevant. You could see this if you replaced the word failure by success and vice-versa in your posts. It would all make the same logical sense. For example,

“With your sentence, did you fail to achieve what you wanted to do? If so, then you were successful. You "fed" your energy resources into what you did not want to achieve, and you were successful.�

Finally, how would the human tendency to self-destruct fit into this model? I guess we could think of self-destruction as a goal, or we could think of it as a failure to succeed. How is a failure to succeed represented in your model?

[JAK]

Originally posted by FreeChile
[B]It isn't clear what you mean by success, by failure, by feeding, by starving. After all, success and failure are not living things that you can feed like pigeons.

Actually, you do feed success and starve failure. Any thought you have, and muscle you move requires increased blood flow into that area. For the brain, changes in blood flow is monitored with positron emission tomography (PET) and/or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. The theory is that when an area of the brain is active, it will use more blood (nutrients and oxygen). However, quite literally, those parts of the brain which are active are getting fed more nutrients and oxygen via the blood than other less active or inactive parts. My contention is that one of the restorative factors of sleep is an even distribution of blood to the brain to "feed" any and all neurons that did not get sufficient nourishment during the day. (I believe a case could be made for having diverse interests, thoughts, and actions just so that the brain is exercised more fully during waking hours.)

Now, if any behavior has worked for you in the past, you are likely to reuse it in the future. When you do so, the neural circuits involved receive greater blood flow at that time. Let's take your football example. When a player runs down the field, the chosen behavior is "running." For however long it takes to get down the field, the neural circuits which comprise "running" are all getting more blood flow than the circuits which comprise "changing a light bulb." "Running" is fed, and "changing a light bulb" is starved.

Later, after the game, the player may actually change a light bulb, a behavior which is usually in conflict with "running." At that time, "changing a light bulb" is fed and "running" is starved.

Even at a minute level, this feeding/starving occurs. "Running" is actually a complex sequencing of muscle activations and deactivations. As each muscle is needed, a neural circuit is activated to contract the muscle (muscles only contract). Blood flow is then increased to both muscle and circuit. Thus, both muscle and neural circuit are "fed" together.

Now, as the muscle/neural circuit are deactivated, blood flow decreases and the "feeding" tapers off. And herein lies the first problem with the "feed/starve" explanation. "Feed" and "starve" imply an "on/off" switch. In truth, all of our muscles and neural circuits are more like rheostat switches. The are turned up or turned down. As a result, all of our circuits/memories are fed in a variety of ways and at varying levels. So, the "feeding" and "starving" are only relative to each other. Some are fed more while others are fed less. At the end of the day, some muscles/circuits have been fed more blood (nutrients and oxygen) than others. These tend to grow in strength (Hebb's Law for the neural circuits). Those that have been fed less tend to atrophy (relatively).

To make matters more complex, some of the muscles used for running are also used for changing a light bulb. And the same is true for neural circuitry. Some neurons have many connections - literally thousands of the them. With each connection comes the ability to participate in multiple thoughts and behaviors. Though it is not proven, it seems possible that a single neuron may be part of a blue sky in memory as well as part of a chirp in a bird's song. This is similar to your computer's screen. The many pixels don't move, yet they are used in many different pictures. This would benefit the "feeding" in that it increases the likelihood of any neuron getting its share of nutrients during the day since it may participate in a diverse set of behaviors and memories.

Originally posted by FreeChile
...
Perhaps you can say precisely what it is that the energy is being transformed into in this model—potential, kinetic, atomic, etc. Physically speaking, it makes no difference where energy goes—whether it ends up in a failure or a success is irrelevant.
...

Kinetic and potential energy are all that is needed. Potential energy is within the nutrients delivered to each cell (muscle, neuron, etc.), and kinetic energy is created via the Krebs cycle in the mitochondria of each cell. By the deft orchestration of this process, the multitude of human thoughts and behaviors are created.
Originally posted by FreeChile
You could see this if you replaced the word failure by success and vice-versa in your posts. It would all make the same logical sense. For example,

“With your sentence, did you fail to achieve what you wanted to do? If so, then you were successful. You "fed" your energy resources into what you did not want to achieve, and you were successful.�

I believe the meaning has changed. If you "fail to achieve what you wanted to do," then your were UNsuccessful. Yes, you fed your energy into something which "failed," but failure was not the intention. (With humor, sometimes the intention is to fail. In that case, failure is success. This, too, fits the model, but let's not go there until you fully understand the basics.)

Abraham Maslow stated that at any point in time, we can place all of our likes and dislikes, all of our desires and hatred, all of our whims and distains, and all of our needs and goals into a hierarchy of "wants." You want to eat. You want to go to the store. You want to pick up a pencil. The football player wants to run down the field.

With the hierarchy, somethings are "wanted" more or less. When running, the football player wants to run "down" the field more than running "up" the field. Yet, in the blink of an eye, the ball is kicked the other way, and suddenly the player wants to run "up" the field more than "down" it. The hierarchy is not stagnant but very dynamic. All Maslow said was that a hierarchy is always there. (This sets up decision-making as a "survival of the fittest" competition.)

This hierarchy of "wants" is basically a prioritizing system. That which is most important to you at the moment takes charge either in thoughts or both thoughts and outward actions. The "want" that is on top of the heap is the immediate goal. For the football player, that is likely "keeping an eye" on the ball. (When you watch a football game, how often are players looking away from the ball?) Concentrating on the location of the ball is top priority. That is the intention or "goal" of the moment.

Originally posted by FreeChile
...
Finally, how would the human tendency to self-destruct fit into this model?
...


Wow, let's crawl before we walk, walk before we run, and run before we fly. Dr. Gregg Henriques is a specialist in suicide, and he has an adjunct model called the Behavioral Shutdown Model which does much to answer your question. Natural selection also comes to bear - the ability to self-sacrifice has benefits to the species.

Originally posted by FreeChile
...
How is a failure to succeed represented in your model?


If the behavior fails to achieve what is intended, the offending behavior is either modified (to fix the problem) or returned to the archive. Archived behaviors are never trashed in case they (either in part or in whole) be brought forth for some unforeseen purpose. (A humorous story about one's own failings or the failings of another has benefits for social communication.)

Thank you, FreeChile, for your questions. Such questions not only help clarify ideas for others, but usually for me, too.

[BPScooter]

Wonderful detail, great, JAK. I'm reading Damasio just now and re-reading Sacks so I suppose I'm about 10 years behind on my reading list. Any thoughts on what it takes for a musician to read music at sight? I'm guessing, in the best case, this sort of loop: visual perception, early sensory cortex, that triggers auditory, cognitive, and motor representations of the musical pattern (but auditory image is most important), motor program is initiated (put left index finger just *there* breathe that way, and move the tongue just *so* to create the articulation). Monitor results, adjust, and simultaneously plan the next thing. In a way no different from football, but just different modalities, right? A football team with a moving ball could be analogous to a great improvisational group or chamber orchestra, monitoring the moment with tremendous attention and skillled response.

I can just tell I'm not even close. It's the way that a great artist plays that pitch, the sum of sound plus what we'd have to call artistic cognitive knowledge (of the way Mozart vs. Wagner vs. Ellington) would have imagined that note to sound) plus some playful imagination. Just to sight-read a melody on a clarinet.

I'm way more interested in neurology than theology, at least at the moment. More mysteries.

[JAK]

Originally posted by BPScooter
Wonderful detail, great, JAK. I'm reading Damasio just now and re-reading Sacks so I suppose I'm about 10 years behind on my reading list.

Any thoughts on what it takes for a musician to read music at sight? I'm guessing, in the best case, this sort of loop: visual perception, early sensory cortex, that triggers auditory, cognitive, and motor representations of the musical pattern (but auditory image is most important), motor program is initiated (put left index finger just *there* breathe that way, and move the tongue just *so* to create the articulation). Monitor results, adjust, and simultaneously plan the next thing. In a way no different from football, but just different modalities, right? A football team with a moving ball could be analogous to a great improvisational group or chamber orchestra, monitoring the moment with tremendous attention and skillled response.

I can just tell I'm not even close. It's the way that a great artist plays that pitch, the sum of sound plus what we'd have to call artistic cognitive knowledge (of the way Mozart vs. Wagner vs. Ellington) would have imagined that note to sound) plus some playful imagination. Just to sight-read a melody on a clarinet.

I believe that in some ways you are very close. IMO, your reference to "sort of loop" and "monitor results, adjust and simultaneously plan" are right on target. Here is info off of my website, www.theoryofmind.org:

As Walter B. Cannon explained:

"If a state remains steady, it does so because any tendency towards change is automatically met by increased effectiveness of the factor or factors which resist the change. ... If changes threaten, indicators at once signal the danger, and corrective agencies promptly prevent the disturbance or restore the normal when it has been disturbed." (Cannon, 1932, 1967. Pg. 299, 303)

This principle also underlies William T. Powers' Perceptual Control Theory (PCT):

"When a disturbance occurs, a control system acts automatically to oppose the incipient change in the controlled variable. ... perceptual control theory says that behavior is not produced by computing output; it is produced by comparing inputs with desired inputs, and using the difference to drive output." (Powers, 1990.)

Remarkably, descriptions of the hypothalmus are perfectly in accord with Cannon and Powers:

"Factors such as blood pressure, body temperature, fluid and electrolyte balance, and body weight are held to a precise value called the set-point. Although this set-point can migrate over time, from day to day it is remarkably fixed. ... To achieve this task, the hypothalamus must receive inputs about the state of the body, and must be able to initiate compensatory changes if anything drifts out of whack." (Molavi, et al., 1997. pg. 1,2)



The feedback system can also be understood with Bernard Baars "theater of consciousness" analogy. Parts of the brain create images (sounds, etc) on the mind's "stage." Other parts of the brain receive these mental constructs as input. These are the "audience" parts of the brain. After the "audience" reacts to the stimuli, they send new commands to the "stagehands" who make the adjustments you noted. These commands include selecting the next behavioral and emotional suite.

However, this conscious manipulation is very time-consuming and resource intensive. The brain tries to "optimize" any such behaviors. In doing so, they fall below conscious control. Playing the clarient is a good example. Remember when you were just learning to play and you had to look and hunt for the correct tab/button to push? Then you looked at the finger you were to use and watchfully placed it on the tab/button. Later, after practicing for hours (or longer) your "fingers" seemed to know where to go without your conscious involvement. Your brain "optimized" the process creating a "habit" which was more efficient and faster. Now your conscious mind could focus on other ideas such as emphasis on certain notes and adjusting the speed with which you played - even improvising.

Sight-reading is just another example of this optimization. But you can see it everywhere in your life from riding a bicycle, feeding yourself, dressing, typing, driving, dancing - even simple walking. That, too, was once an arduous task and major accomplishment in all of our lives. All of these became "second nature" or "habits" which no longer require conscious control. They became "optimized" behaviors running more efficiently and faster at a lower or "subconscious" level.

I believe you may benefit from reading my website along with some other sources noted therein.

[BPScooter]

Once again, wonderful post and great website, JAK. I have some learning to do, along with my teaching.

Those of us that start from a subjective, artistic, even "literary" background only have our intuitions confirmed by neuroscience. When the evidence comes in bit by bit, it is great to bring the 2 together. Music is one of the high level cognitive areas that allows, say Jeff Beck, or Richard Wagner, to touch the common man in some way. If you think it through, too much, then your music becomes remote. If the music retains some of the basic rhythms and tones that belong to our common heritage, then it stays in our minds.

I challenge any and all of us to sit through a good execution of "Beethoven's 7th Symphony" without either palpitating or shedding a tear. It has it all, vibrant loudness and funereal quiet. The perplexing part is that LVB was just some old white dead guy old Viennese/German composer dude. Somehow he "knew" how to manipulate human emotion, through his musical choices.

[JAK]

Originally posted by BPScooter
...
Those of us that start from a subjective, artistic, even "literary" background only have our intuitions confirmed by neuroscience. When the evidence comes in bit by bit, it is great to bring the 2 together. Music is one of the high level cognitive areas that allows, say Jeff Beck, or Richard Wagner, to touch the common man in some way. If you think it through, too much, then your music becomes remote. If the music retains some of the basic rhythms and tones that belong to our common heritage, then it stays in our minds.
...

It was music that led me to my breakthrough of 1985. Listening to melodies and perceiving their emotional effects in me played a central role in setting up my concept of "tension levels" which ebbed and flowed with the music. I had been trapped, as many others have been, with how the "tension levels" related to love, inspiration, angst, peace, etc. But I suddenly realized that the focus should be just the opposite. The tension levels were the important idea, and they must be manifestations of energy. With that, it quickly tied into thermodynamics, systems, and all fell into place with "efficiency" as the cornerstone. In six weeks, the basic structure fell into place. By 1997, when my website was published, a lot more "meat was on the bone."

The complexity of human emotion is best recognized through music. And we have far, far, more emotions than we have names or descriptions of. The intricacies of musical interplay highlight how truly amazing feelings are.

I spent years investigating subtleties of crescendo, diminuendo, fermata, fortissimo, etc. and their emotional effects. For instance, minute pauses tend to give a sense of reluctance. (However, some can show "anticipation" depending upon placement.) Lack of these pauses (smooth and flowing melodies) tends to bring a sense of freedom and joy. Placement of these pauses and their length is crucial. Slowly increasing the length of pauses in a stair-step downward melody may express a reluctant loss.

If you would like to discuss "music and emotion" with me off-line, send me a PM.

[Jyera]

Some people are so called "tone deaf" by their friends.
They are unable to realise that they are singing out of tune.
In fact they think they are singing in tune.

Some not "totally deaf", but just unable to discern slight inaccuracy in the tone.

1. Why are people tone deaf ? (From brain and thinking point of view)

2. What does an incident of "tone deaf" tells us about the way their brain works? Ie. how they think, recall and retain a memory?

3. It seemed to me that it is tough to "cure" a person from "tone deaf" ? Do you have similar observation?

4. The more times a person sing a song in a slightly wrong tune in his shower, the more this "wrong" "habit" get stuck to the person.

[BPScooter]

OK, just a quick response but I haven't a great deal to say anyway--

Whether or not a person's singing is judged by others to be "in tune" or "out of tune" is in large measure a cultural thing. I have training in Western music and still have a hard time listening to gamelan from Indonesia, or Indian sitars, because a big part of me wants it to conform to the 12 tone scale. When it doesn't, over a long period, I feel fatigued and overwhelmed.

If a person fails to conform to the tuning of their native culture, when singing, it leads me to suspect that the person lacks either enough grounding in that system to give them a reference point in their mind, or that they are producing their singing tone in such a way that they are reacting more to bone conduction than acoustic feedback. That's why we like to "sing in the shower" I think, because we get a little chance to hear our voices resonate in a chamber that gives our ears something new to do.

My approach would be to seek real feedback, not electronic karaoke-style, on what the voice is doing. Good voice teachers start with that, get the student singing freely with a natural tone, with healthy breathing, and then have them listen, listen, listen to themselves during the process.

It is essential that the learner have an internally consistent harmonic reference. The piano is the usual one, but a well-tuned guitar is fine too. One needs to hear the overtones of in-tune intervals, at great length, to the point where they are internally mapped and can be used as references.

So the "tone deaf" problem is probably some combination of sub-optimal singing (motor) technique combined with sub-optimal memory (audiation of references) plus some social skills deficit (insisting on singing when others beg them to stop). :-) Just so you don't get mad at me, I don't sing too well but have gotten better.

[JAK]

Originally posted by BPScooter
...
Whether or not a person's singing is judged by others to be "in tune" or "out of tune" is in large measure a cultural thing. I have training in Western music and still have a hard time listening to gamelan from Indonesia, or Indian sitars, because a big part of me wants it to conform to the 12 tone scale. When it doesn't, over a long period, I feel fatigued and overwhelmed.

If a person fails to conform to the tuning of their native culture, when singing, it leads me to suspect that the person lacks either enough grounding in that system to give them a reference point in their mind ...


This is a very interesting area of the mind. A good chapter in COGNITION: Conceptual and Methodological Issues (ISBN#1-55798-165-5) seems related to this. In "The Organization and Reorganization of Categories: The Case of Speech Perception" chapter by James J. Jenkins, he discusses research as to why Japanese and Americans (U.S.) have troubles with each other's language. In paticular, the Japanese truly do not hear a difference between the /r/ and the /l/.

As it turns out, our ability to learn language is like a lump of clay. By the end of our first year, this "clay" becomes sculpted by the indigenousness (cultural) language. Sensitivities to sounds not needed by the cultural language are, effectively, "cut out" of the mind and discarded.

I once spoke about this to an acquaintance born in Moscow. She gave me a russian word to pronounce which I attempted. To me, my verbal repsonse sounded identical to what she said. But she responded every time by shaking her head and saying, "no, try again," whereupon she would say the word again. I couldn't hear the difference in sound. I was obviously "tone deaf" to something in that particular russian word. It was eerie having the tables turned on me.

If our musical growth has a similar "path," then BPscooter's comment about "... not enough grounding in that system ..." appears to be a very strong candidate. It would also point to a reason for his being "fatigued and overwhelmed" by listening to music from another culture. Moving outside one's cultural heritage would definitely stretch ones listening abilities - something like using muscles you hadn't used for many, many years.

Regarding music specifically, an experiment (forgive me for not having a reference) was done with mice growing up with constant music. I believe one heard nothing but Schumann while the other heard strictly Strauss, Schubert, or some other composer whose last name begins with "S". After conditioning, when given a choice of habitats where one or the other music played, each mouse chose the music it had grown up with.

As an aside, while a-Googlin' for the reference to the mice experiment, I came across this heart-warming tale about Krissy who survived a premature birth seemingly due to Mozart being played at her bedside: http://hs.riverdale.k12.or.us/~dthompso/exhib_03/jasonc/Research_Paper.html

Back to the point, this area highlights the term, qualia. Essentially, everything we perceive is filtered and modified by the brain before we realize it within the mind. Colors and sounds are mental interpretations, and we do not know what has been filtered in and what has been filtered out. Moreover, the red you see may not be the red that I see. We both acknowledge it is red, but our personal mental image may differ - even if only slightly. This is most notable with "color blindness" which is a sort of a "tone deafness" for the eyes.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by BPScooter
....snipe ....
So the "tone deaf" problem is probably some combination of sub-optimal singing (motor) technique combined with sub-optimal memory (audiation of references) plus some social skills deficit (insisting on singing when others beg them to stop). :-) Just so you don't get mad at me, I don't sing too well but have gotten better. Your 3 components Sounds Sensible to me.

1. Motor ability and Technique.
2. Memory (Audiation or reference).
3. Social skill/adaptation.

To analyse...

With Good 1 and 2, 3 is non critical.

With Good 2, the singer will realise his inaccuracy.
And will not sing out of tune unless he intend to irritate.

With Poor 2 and 1, the singer is likely to be your typical "tone deaf" singer who sincerely attempt to sing his best in vain.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by JAK
This is a very interesting area of the mind. A good chapter in COGNITION: Conceptual and Methodological Issues (ISBN#1-55798-165-5) seems related to this. In "The Organization and Reorganization of Categories: The Case of Speech Perception" chapter by James J. Jenkins, he discusses research as to why Japanese and Americans (U.S.) have troubles with each other's language. In paticular, the Japanese truly do not hear a difference between the /r/ and the /l/.
...snipe...
Anyone can ascertain if japanese are unfamiliar with /r/ or /l/. ?

[BPScooter]

Jyera, thanks for reading!

I would only add one more thing:

4. Novel content in singing.

If I tried, right now, to sing for my family the "Ave Maria" by Palestrina, or the "Fly Me to the Moon" of Sinatra, I could probably do it. I suppose 4 is an outgrowth of 3. I wouldn't try to sing like Frank in church, also not try to sing like Palestrina in a nice Rat Pack lounge. But those two vocal styles are so different that it takes a level of 1 and 2 to even notice the difference, and then call on 3. What I'm calling "level 4 singing" is what Ella Fitzgerald does, or Louis Armstrong, when they're listening in the moment and not only imitating, or replicating, but improvising.

The worst thing I can remember, in this regard, is sitting with a person that doesn't sing well, to begin with, and that sings the wrong song at the worst possible time, and then "does their own thing with it." I have witnessed this. It is a unique form of human pain to all.

[BPScooter]

One more thought--

I hope it's obvious that I'm not talking about Western tonal music exclusively or with preference.

Chinese opera is amazing (I don't understand it). Gamelan ROCKS (I don't play it). Ragas are beyond my understanding (but I appreciate their depth and significance). Hip hop and loud dance music has a new aesthetic, but count me out.

So when I say "internally consistent harmonic reference" I am not saying that the Western scale is the standard. Rather, any internally consistent system is capable of patterning the human brain.

"Edited to include the key word "not"

[Jyera]

Originally posted by BPScooter
One more thought--

I hope it's obvious that I'm not talking about Western tonal music exclusively or with preference.

Chinese opera is amazing (I don't understand it). Gamelan ROCKS (I don't play it). Ragas are beyond my understanding (but I appreciate their depth and significance). Hip hop and loud dance music has a new aesthetic, but count me out.

So when I say "internally consistent harmonic reference" I am not saying that the Western scale is the standard. Rather, any internally consistent system is capable of patterning the human brain.

"Edited to include the key word "not" In the context of the topic of this thread, here's a few questions.
(1) How is "internally consistent harmonic reference"(ICHR) formed or establish?
(2) Where is ICHR formed? In the Brain as part of thinking?
(3) When is ICHR formed?
I don't have scientifically established answer to the questions, but do feel that discussing them might provide intersting exploration.

[BPScooter]

Originally posted by Jyera
In the context of the topic of this thread, here's a few questions.
(1) How is "internally consistent harmonic reference"(ICHR) formed or establish?
(2) Where is ICHR formed? In the Brain as part of thinking?
(3) When is ICHR formed?
I don't have scientifically established answer to the questions, but do feel that discussing them might provide intersting exploration.

Best answers, quickly done:

1) How: it is an environmental stimulus, that is repeated over time, for a number of years. The organism responds and receives feedback.

2) Where: it is a brain thing. As we learn language, social behavior, or whether a rattle sound is a snake or a happy baby toy. It is all stored away in the multiplex of the brain tissue. Just before you get too confident, however, the brain is capable of using its resources in many many ways.

3) Earlier, now, and later. The brain's plasticity is renowned. But that being said, some things seem easier to learn, and last longer, if they are learned younger. I have taught very young children and very old grumpy people how to play and listen to music. You might ask, well, did that child become Menhuin or did that oldster become Grandma Moses, and I would respond-- why do you ask?

Music is one of the only things of our god/neurogift that seems to move beyond words and to help the life narrative of the individual under many circumstances. I have never yet found a downside to playing/listening/enjoying music, when it's part of a situation without fear.