[FRIAM] A Question For Tomorrow
Prof David West
profwest at fastmail.fm
Sun Apr 28 16:51:28 EDT 2019
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> 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/____
>> __ __
>> *From:* Friam [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>
>> *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> 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/____
>>> ____
>>> *From:* Friam [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>
>>> *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> 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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>>> ============================================================
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
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