[FRIAM] This makes me think of this list...

[glen]

I can't shake the feeling that "unified" and "unitary" are too simplistic.

> For example, human consciousness is often said to be unified, in the sense that all the various experiences that one has at the same time occur as components or elements of a single complex experience. [...]
> Some theories of consciousness, such as the Integrated Information Theory, assume that any form of consciousness must be unitary, but that assumption is questionable. Octopus consciousness, if indeed there is such a thing, might be anything but unified.

That's why I prefer "fusion". The ganglia (~2 in humans, ~9 in octopuses?) execute functions broadly describable as fusion. But our gut ganglion most likely fuses different perception signals from that of our brains. The fusion in an octopus' central brain is prolly different from that of its arm brains, maybe even higher order (fusion of fusions). So, no, neither the octopus' consciousness nor our consciousness are "unitary". That seems preposterous to me. But "fused"? Yeah ... somehow. Another decent term might be "mixed" or "mixture". That seems more agnostic and general. Maybe fusion is a sub-type of mixing. And allowing that neural structures, down to individual cells and organelles, do mixing (chemical-electrical transduction) but ganglia do fusion gives us a spectrum of integration? Of course, ideally, we'd like to be able to extend a functional description down to dictyostelium signaling. I can't do that even in COVID-induced fever dreams. [sigh]

On 8/14/24 21:31, Santafe wrote:
> Cool.  Nepal even has mystical hillsides.
> 
> My colleage The Mystic has informed me that only we (in “the west” in “the modern era") are degraded and malformed people; all other cultures have Wisdom Traditions.  So any child in one of those Other Cultures already has an understanding of Reality that all of us Westerners are incapable of achieving because we grew up in the absence of Wisdom Traditions.  It kind of reminds me of the Krell in whatever film it was.  (Forbidden planet?)
> 
> I have often wondered what I am supposed to do with declarations like that one.  I have to accept that it is true, since he has told me that he has an apprehension of Reality, but that it could not explained to me, because that’s not how those apprehensions work.  Hopefully the Noema mag will provide further input, when I can get time to read it.
> 
> Eric
> 
> 
> 
>> On Aug 15, 2024, at 2:38, Roger Critchlow <rec at elf.org> wrote:
>>
>> https://www.noemamag.com/exploring-the-boundaries-of-consciousness/ <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.noemamag.com%2fexploring-the-boundaries-of-consciousness%2f&c=E,1,JPgTSlb6W5BoLUrZDMDHXpPYcHDxQIowhbHRnbBn9D_s7Owuzgw3iIapMGGo0msXQyFsLwcfkxz5zG4x1AocbX1T_E7qze8Fajc2H8A_rkZ9GB_yCA,,&typo=1>
>>
>> Whaddya know, its on topic.
>>
>> -- rec --
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 14, 2024 at 2:11 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Claude remarks:____
>>
>>     __ __
>>
>>     << Good Soldier Švejk might respond to questions about consciousness and information determinism with a seemingly irrelevant anecdote, perhaps about a drunk man convinced his goldfish was controlling his thoughts through "information in the water." >>____
>>


-- 
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