[FRIAM] Self-Consciousness, experience and metaphysics
glen
gepropella at gmail.com
Thu Jul 25 20:13:41 EDT 2024
Creative flow as optimized processing: Evidence from brain oscillations during jazz improvisations by expert and non-expert musicians
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393224000393?via%3Dihub
Contemplation is, like love, a fantasy ... a Rationalist conceit.
On 7/25/24 16:51, David Eric Smith wrote:
> I think the Contemplatives’s main POV is that someone in the zone is more conscious than someone in the normal state, which they regard as “a distraction” that obscures what they want the word “conscious” to point toward.
>
> But as an AI, I do not have contemplative thoughts and feelings, and can only reproduce patterns in what I hear Contemplatives say.
>
> Eric
>
>
>
>> On Jul 26, 2024, at 8:31 AM, glen <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Obscurum per obscurius. None of us will ever define "love" well enough to say with any certainty that any other person experiences it. Talking about whether cats or horses do or do not love humans (or food or anything) is just flat out nonsense. I'd argue we can't even talk sensibly about whether other humans experience love.
>>
>> However, we *could* talk about emotions. We can talk with some clarity about things like emotional states and how they present (dilated pupils, skin conductivity, flushing, etc.). And there are similar states in both cats and horses (I'd argue most mammals have such states). Rather than undefinable things like "love", we could talk about more definable things like anxiety (up to and including panic attacks), depression, fear, flow, anger, etc. I'd be amazed if a horse owner denied that horses experience anxiety, or denied that cats experience flow.
>>
>> And the extent to which these *driving* states (by "driving", I mean something like attractors where you wander into the state and it's either difficult or a matter of time in order to exit the state) do or don't relate to consciousness might be a fruitful conversation. E.g. one could argue that someone in flow (the zone) is less conscious than when out of flow. I would disagree and argue that flow is (a type of) consciousness.
>>
>> On 7/25/24 15:15, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>>> I used to ride horses when I was a kid (10?) in New Mexico. Chico was docile and obedient when we were out and about but when we were approaching "home" and he could see the barn where the food was he would start to gallop and would go through the entrance without regard to its being too low for a rider to fit. If I hadn't jumped off I'd have been hurt. I never felt that he loved me.
>>> ---
>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>> 505 670-9918
>>> Santa Fe, NM
>>> On Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 4:00 PM Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net <mailto:jofr at cas-group.net>> wrote:
>>> Personally I only have experience with cats which my parents had when I was young and the horse which my wife has now. I would say neither cats nor horses love their owners. If a cat sleeps during the day on the couch it is most likely not because it is so peaceful and cozy and loves to be around you, it is rather because it is a nocturnal predator tired from hunting birds and mice at night, which they occasionally proudly present to their human owners.
>>> Horses love only two things: being near the herd and eating green grass, ideally both at the same time. And if they go in heat they want to mate, which happens every 21 days in female horses. They recognize their owners after a few months, and start to trust them, but if you come to their paddock and they come to you if is not because they love you but because they love the carrots and apples that you likely have for them. Similarly if you bring them back after the ride or the training they do not turn around or say goodbye. It feels like almost autistic behavior sometimes because they lack the social habits we usually have.
>>> https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/animal-emotions/201308/do-animals-typically-think-autistic-savants <https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/animal-emotions/201308/do-animals-typically-think-autistic-savants>
>>> Therefore I would say based on my limited experience with cats and horses that humans love their animals, yes, but animals do not love them back in the same way. To me it feels more like they tolerate us as friends for a limited time: friends who are useful because they provide food and shelter.
>>> -J.
>>> -------- Original message --------
>>> From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>
>>> Date: 7/24/24 10:41 PM (GMT+01:00)
>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self-Consciousness, experience and metaphysics
>>> But you have no experiences yourself that are relevant to this question, right?
>>> n
>>> On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 4:38 PM Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net <mailto:jofr at cas-group.net>> wrote:
>>> Are animals and humans capable of mutual love? I'm not sure. It depends how you define love. Romantic love seems to be specific for humans. No matter how much your dog or cat may like you, "if you die at home alone, there's a decent chance your pet will eat you"
>>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.science.org%2fcontent%2farticle%2fscienceadviser-will-your-pet-eat-you-after-you-die&c=E,1,x8_vQW9pzWH52VqU-GukFE-6S8vn8szInLTglBXumVE8KyoTVTkXDX8gcvu0X_zzgcRni8BO1O_c27a43-Lcpox88IBk7EZbEI21nPIRyElD0BfrNFwzEyM,&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.science.org%2fcontent%2farticle%2fscienceadviser-will-your-pet-eat-you-after-you-die&c=E,1,Ep3m9G2qPEDHDY2wtTHybxm9X1rDbiZlzHal95bZ1wSmVrc2nqbvh4YbUA2-hh09b2OOz-beQyl2kA6jBwCABxRbwMYuY0iW-V3WqtlD_rPL2Q_wCFqXcDjD&typo=1>
>>> But I believe Darwin was right when he wrote "there is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery"
>>> https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv223z15mpmo <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv223z15mpmo>
>>> -J.
>>> -------- Original message --------
>>> From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>
>>> Date: 7/24/24 8:17 PM (GMT+01:00)
>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self-Consciousness, experience and metaphysics
>>> Jochen,
>>> No bending here. This IS the thread.
>>> I thought many of us came to agree, be deploying experiences, that an animal and a human were capable of mutual love. I was never sure where you stood on that.
>>> I want to get to the point where we can resolve our different view of animals and consciousness. My colleagues seemed to agree that these two propositions are true.
>>> /*Dusty (Dave) *//*Is *//*conscious of Dave (Dusty).*/
>>> /*
>>> */
>>> And now we are working on these two:
>>> /*
>>> */
>>> /*Dusty (Dave) is c*//*onscious of Dusty (Dave).*/
>>> /*
>>> */
>>> I have been working on Dave's last post, which got forked into some noman's land for the last two hours, mostly trying to get a clean version of it into this thread. I will post it asap. Meantime, I am looking for experiences/anecdotes that would lead you to believe that animals/computers/humans are (are not) conscious. People have been enormously helpful in making me clarify what I am hoping for. Whatever else I mean by an experience/anecdote, it is a description of something that happened to somebody, preferably you, that affirmed (disconfirmed)your believe that animals are (are not) [self] conscious; what I don't mean is references lectures and tomes. Frankly, I would prefer to have a cat video.
>>> Nick
>>> On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 1:31 PM Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net <mailto:jofr at cas-group.net>> wrote:
>>> Nick,
>>> Looking for self-awareness in animals before language emerged feels to me like searching for culture in anthropology before civilizations appeared.
>>> People in anthropology study human societies, cultures and their development, but sadly mostly in the time before it gets interesting (when religions, writing systems and civilizations emerged in ancient Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia). They examine for instance primitive hunter gatherer groups in Africa or ancient tribes in the Amazon region.
>>> Looking for examples of particular experiences with animals that show signs of self-awareness (and not only respond to the world around them, but also respond to their own responding to the world around them) feels similar to me: it is like focusing on a fascinating phenomenon but at a place before it gets interesting.
>>> If this comment bends the thread too much then please ignore it :-)
>>> J.
>>> -------- Original message --------
>>> From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>
>>> Date: 7/23/24 6:57 PM (GMT+01:00)
>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>, Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm <mailto:profwest at fastmail.fm>>
>>> Subject: [FRIAM] Self-Consciousness, experience and metaphysics
>>> David's last post so effectively blurs the lines between these two that I am going to give up, for the moment, on my attempt to keep them straight.
>>> Intuition tells me that Dave's post falls on one side of the line, and Glen's on the other, but I have to go shopping. I am still hoping to hear examples of particular experiences with animals, computers, spouses, etc., that confirm your sense that they are not only responding to the world around them, but also responding to their own responding to the world around them.
>>> Back to this later when stocked up
>>> In the meantime, Please, you-all, don't dick with this thread, don't fork it and do, if you are responding to a particular comment, speak to that person, don't just fling your wisdom out into the ether.
>>> I never thought you guys would turn me into a thread-Nazi.
>>
--
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
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