Re: 'Multiverse Theory' - Universe is a Virtual Reality Matrix
From: Alex Green (dralexgreen_at_yahoo.co.uk)
Date: 07/29/04
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Date: 29 Jul 2004 03:01:07 -0700
"Jaxtraw" <jaxtraw@nospamnobigfoot.com> wrote in message news:<1091032395.9260.0@nnrp-t71-03.news.uk.clara.net>...
> "Alex Green" <dralexgreen@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:42c8441.0407280149.6138c7fc@posting.google.com...
> > "Jaxtraw" <jaxtraw@nospamnobigfoot.com> wrote in message
> news:<1090944134.14321.0@echo.uk.clara.net>...
> > > "Alex Green" <dralexgreen@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> > > news:42c8441.0407270645.21edcfd9@posting.google.com...
> > > > "Jaxtraw" <jaxtraw@nospamnobigfoot.com> wrote in message
> > > > [snip]
> > > > >
> > > > > As to how you know how many "directions" consciousness requires, or
> that
> it
> > > > > is a "geometrical form within the brain", I am at a loss.
> > > >
> > > > This is the crux of the matter. Is conscious experience a state or a
> > > > process? If it is a process then obviously it may well exist inside an
> > > > information processor. If it is a state in the same way as, say, a
> > > > particular arrangement of electrical fields in space are a state, then
> > > > changing this state by encoding it in an information system will not
> > > > reproduce consciousness unless the state in the processor is congruent
> > > > with the original state. The fact that we experience many things
> > > > simultaneously suggests that conscious experience is indeed a state.
> > >
> > > We do? I find my poor brain can only deal with one thing at a time.
> >
> > This is not true, much of your brain is an elegant parallel processor.
>
> Okay, I used slopping language. My *consciousness* can only deal with one
> thing at a time.
>
> > Consider ordinary experience. When you look at this screen the first
> > image corresponding to the screen is on the retinas of your eyes so at
> > best you are looking at the retinas. But 'looking at retinas' is an
> > incorrect description. No light flows from your retinas into your
> > brain, an information processing system combines the input from both
> > of the retinas, cleans up the 'image' and this simultaneous array of
> > things in the brain becomes, by some physical phenomenon, what we call
> > 'conscious experience'. How the brain does this is the truly
> > interesting problem. It is not understood. But it does involve a huge
> > number of simultaneous things.
>
> I'm sorry, but you're just making things up. The combination and cleaning up
> of the image can clearly be an algorithmic process.
Notice that I wrote "an INFORMATION PROCESSING system combines the
input from both of the retinas, cleans up the 'image'.." . Of course
this part is algorithmic.
> The suggestion that all
> this in some way contributes to conscious experience, and that this somehow
> means your consciousness is doing multiple things simultaneously is contrary
> to everyday experience and unsupportable. Do an experiment; right now. Start
> thinking about this posting. Then, while actively thinking about that, start
> thinking about waht you would like for dinner. Now, while thinking about
> both those things, start thinking about Godel's theorem. If you've actually
> just managed to do those things, congratulations, you're the next stage of
> human evolution, or God :o) The fact is, you will have to direct your
> attention, your *consciousness* at each of those things one at a time.
My conscious experience, like yours contains this computer screen, the
room around, the pressure on parts of my body etc.. I sit back and
look round the room. Lots of things are there, in my perceptual field
all at the same time. I can see where our difference lies: you seem
to think that the perceptual field is not brain activity (!) and you
are only allowing the verbal thoughts that pop into your head to have
the title 'conscious experience'.
> Only
> the low level stuff, like image filtering, is running independently, and the
> fact is that if you think about something, you'll stop even actively being
> aware of what you're looking at. Your low level, non-conscious brain is
> still monitoring it (checking what you're typing, keeping an eye out for
> marauding predators) but should a marauding predator arrive, you'll find
> your consciousness wrenched away from the intellectualisation and towards
> what you're looking at.
Relax, look around, have a dream. conscious experience can contain
lots of things at the same time if we are not monomaniacs. Though
even monomaniacs can imagine a written word or line .... or two dots
.. - this is sufficient to prove my point that conscious experience is
things occurring simultaneously.
>
> *Nobody* can think about more than one thing at a time; and *thinking about
> a thing* is what consciousness *is*.
So all the things you see and feel and dream are not part of conscious
experience? Your declaration that only "*thinking about a thing*"
ie:'inner speech' is consciousness explains why you believe a computer
might be conscious. Language is a symbol stream, computers use symbol
streams.
The term 'conscious experience' is preferrable to the term
'consciousness'. 'Conscious experience' is all the things during that
short period of time that you call 'now'. It includes your inner
speech, perceptual fields, dreams if they are happening, imagination
etc. The small part of conscious experience that you call *thinking
about a thing* is a good skill for success in better paid jobs.
All the remarks I have made in earlier posts are about 'conscious
experience'. It is conscious experience that has a definite state or
form, that contains many things simultaneously. It is conscious
experience that cannot be modelled in an information system. It is
conscious experience that is the output of cortical processing.
I do not like the term "consciousness" because, unlike 'conscious
experience', it is scarcely defined and has been abused by cults etc.
>
> > > At
> > > least, I can only direct my attention to one thing at a time. I can't
> solve
> > > an equation and write a poem simultaneously; the best I can do is to
> switch
> > > rapidly between them, it seems :( If while writing the poem somebody
> stamps
> > > on my foot, I'll immediately stop the poetry and start thinking about
> the
> > > pain in my foot.
> >
> > These things are administered by auxillary information processors in
> > the brain (speech areas etc). The main activity of the brain is simply
> > creating and maintaining the conscious experience that naive people
> > call the world but neuroscientists call the 'perceptual field'.
>
> I doubt it. The main activity of most brains on the planet is running basic
> processes that maintain the organism. The perceptual field is a useful,
> associative model of the outside world, but it isn't consciousness.
> Consciousness is that thinking thing.
All the remarks I have made in earlier posts are about 'conscious
experience'. It is conscious experience that cannot be simulated in an
information system. If you define 'consciousness' as a symbol stream
like language then sure, that could be in a computer. I dont like this
definition of 'consciousness' and would choose another definition such
as the manifold that contains (or 'is') concious experience. Unlike
language this cannot be encoded in a bit stream.
On the subject of language, you seem to believe that inner speech is
consciousness. Are you conscious of selecting the phonemes of a word?
Are you even conscious of selecting the words in your inner speech or
do they just flow? Inner speech seems to be produced by an auxillary
processor in the brain. It can be surgically removed (both Broca &
Wernickes areas) and you will then be conscious without being
disturbed by so many thoughts (global aphasia). Deaf and dumb people
report having been conscious - there is a delightful story by a
Scottish man who was deaf and dumb who reported how, when he was a
very young boy he endured terrible grief when going to his first
special, boarding school after the holidays, each time he believed he
was losing his parents for ever because he had no language to
understand the situation.
Best Wishes
Alex Green
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