[FRIAM] A Question For Tomorrow

Sun Apr 28 19:11:15 EDT 2019

D

I like this example!  I might parse it differently.  I might say, you were conscious of the fact of the polypectomy but not of the damage done to your colon in the process.  I think of “pain” as a damage sensor.  

N

N

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2019 2:51 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A Question For Tomorrow

Last colonoscopy I was thoroughly anesthetized but totally conscious. In recovery room, doctor explaining he had removed three minor polyps and I interrupted to say I thought I counted four. Shocked look on his part then told me the fourth was more like a skin tag. The anesthesia did prevent feeling, just not consciousness. 

Dave west

On Sat, Apr 27, 2019, at 8:35 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

No.  But people who are under light anesthesia such as during a colonoscopy sometimes talk.  I don't think they remember that.

-----------------------------------

Frank Wimberly

My memoir:

https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 12:32 PM Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> > wrote:

Oh, yes.  We agree that I was unconscious.  And if you had been there, you would have experienced my unconsciousness.  But did I?  I think a person who adopts your position has to say, “No.”

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2019 12:16 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A Question For Tomorrow

Yes, you were unconscious.  As you know, I had that experience a few days ago.

Frank

-----------------------------------

Frank Wimberly

My memoir:

https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 12:13 PM Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> > wrote:

Hi Frank, 

The problem is that one has immediately to ask, what is the contrast class of experiencing consciousness?  Experiencing non-consciousness?  I think for your line of thinking, where consciousness is direct, that’s an oxymoron.  For my line of thinking, when I woke up from my surgery and 24 hours had passed, I had a powerful experience of my non-consciousness.  

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2019 11:33 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A Question For Tomorrow

Jon,

How about "experiences consciousness" in place of has consciousness.

Frsnk

-----------------------------------

Frank Wimberly

My memoir:

https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 11:03 AM Jon Zingale <jonzingale at gmail.com <mailto:jonzingale at gmail.com> > wrote:

Nick,

I love that the title of this thread is 'A question for tomorrow'.

My position continues to be that the label `conscious` is meaningful,

though along with you, I am not sure what language to use around it.

For instance, can something have consciousness? That said, a

conservative scoping of the phenomena I would wish to describe

with consciousness language begins with granting consciousness

to more than 7 billion things on this planet alone. Presently, for those

that agree thus far, it appears that the only way to synthesize new things

with consciousness is to have sex (up to some crude equivalence).

This constraint seems an unreasonable limitation and so the problem

of synthesizing consciousness strikes me as reasonably near, ie.

 `a question for tomorrow` and not some distant future.

You begin by asking about the Turing machine, an abstraction which

summarizes what we can say about processing information. Here,

I am going to extend Lee's comment and ask that we consider

particular implementations or better particular embodiments.

Hopefully said without too much hubris, given enough time and

memory, I can compute anything that a Turing machine can compute.

The games `Magic the Gathering` and `Mine Craft` are Turing

complete. I would suspect that under some characterization, the

Mississippi river is Turing complete. It would be a real challenge

for me state what abstractions like `Mine Craft` experience, but

sometimes I can speak to my own experience. Oscar Hammerstein

mused about what Old Man River knows.

Naively, it seems to me that some kind of information processing,

though not sufficient, is necessary for experience and for a foundations

for consciousness. Whether the information processor needs to be

Turing complete is not immediately obvious to me, perhaps a finite-

state machine will do. Still, I do not think that a complete description of

consciousness (or whatever it means to experience) can exist without

speaking to how it is that a thing comes to sense its world.

For instance, in the heyday of analogue synthesizers,  musicians

would slog these machines from city to city, altitude to altitude,

desert to rain-forested coast and these machines would notoriously

respond in kind. Their finicky capacitors would experience the

change and changes in micro-farads would ensue. What does an

analogue synthesizer know?

Cheers,

Jonathan Zingale

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

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