/sci/ - Science & Math

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Ah, I guess I should have included more RELIGION TROLOLOLOLO to get some replies...

how many pages does your intro to psych paper have to be?

>>1904048
You haven't really provided a topic to discuss. 'my thoughts on the emergence of consciousness'? i mean 'it happened', via evolutionary processes, over time. what else is there to say.

>>1904080
I don't have to write a paper on anything and certainly didn't which to imply I want this discussion to be restricted to psychology.

>>1904083
OK let me provide some starting points.
>mean 'it happened', via evolutionary processes, over time. what else is there to say.
What evolutionary pressures could have contributed to the emergence of consciousness? Is consciousness dichotomous or continuous (is there a strict border between conscious and not-conscious)? Do animals have consciousness? What are it's neural substrates? Are there neural substrates to begin with?

I find this all very fascinating and would like your views on the matter.

> consciousness

> scientific rigor

Nobody can even define consciousness (HINT: It doesn't exist - people just can't admit it).

>>1904083
>>1904080
I don't have to write a paper on anything and certainly didn't which to imply I want this discussion to be restricted to psychology.

>>1904083
OK let me provide some starting points.
>mean 'it happened', via evolutionary processes, over time. what else is there to say.
What evolutionary pressures could have contributed to the emergence of consciousness? Is consciousness dichotomous or continuous (is there a strict border between conscious and not-conscious)? Do animals have consciousness? What are its neural substrates? Are there neural substrates to begin with?

I find this all very fascinating and would like your views on the matter.

>>1904080
I don't have to write a paper on anything and certainly didn't which to imply I want this discussion to be restricted to psychology.

>>1904083
OK let me provide some starting points.
>mean 'it happened', via evolutionary processes, over time. what else is there to say.
What evolutionary pressures could have contributed to the emergence of consciousness? Is consciousness dichotomous or continuous (is there a strict border between conscious and not-conscious)? Do animals have consciousness? What are its neural substrates? Are there neural substrates to begin with?

I find this all very fascinating and would like your views on the matter.

(edited for horrible spelling)

>>1904099
I just defined it...
>conscious perception and self-awareness
I admit it can be an ambiguous term but to say it doesn't exist is just plain silly.

I'd be happy to clarify it a bit further if needed but I really don't think it's necessary.

>>1904105

You can't define something with itself....

Is it possible that conciousness is just another step in evolution meant for survival? aren't other animals conscious at some degree?

>>1904108
By something being perceived consciously I mean that it can be reflected upon by the observer. This can result in subjective report of the observation (eg: I see that there is a tree in front of me and I am aware of it) but does not critically depend on it.

Consciousness is a tricky subject because although the vast majority acknoweldge that they experience it, it is not something that can easily be scientifically verified. Maybe with the advances of neuroscience we'll be able to pinpoint the exact area of the brain that produces the feeling of consciousness, and from there we can determine exactly what consciousness is, but for now we just stab in the dark.

But here's something interesting: look in to Benjamin Libet's experiments with finger wiggling. Basically he hooked participants up to a machine that monitored brain activity, and asked participants to wiggle their finger at any point over a period of time. The results indicated that participants' brains responded before they consciously willed their fingers to move. In other words, it appeared that the brain's activity influenced the participants' consciousness, and not the other way around. From this, you could argue that we do not use consciousness to affect our actions, but merely to observe them.

>>1904111
I think so... I think consciousness doesn't happen in steps but there is a gradual degree to which you can be conscious. I think that animals can be conscious, but maybe not as much as humans.

>>1904101
>What evolutionary pressures could have contributed to the emergence of consciousness?
Oh I don't know, how about something CRAZY, like - 'smarter veichles are better at surviving and adapting to new situations and environments'. Then, through the MAGICAL process of natural selection intelligence levels keep growing, eventually reaching levels of 'consciousness' through some not yet understood process.

>>1904101
>What evolutionary pressures could have contributed to the emergence of consciousness?
err, survival/propogation?

the rest of your questions seem to pertain to consciousness rather than 'the emergence of consciousness'.

>>1904118
>Consciousness is a tricky subject because although the vast majority acknoweldge that they experience it, it is not something that can easily be scientifically verified. Maybe with the advances of neuroscience we'll be able to pinpoint the exact area of the brain that produces the feeling of consciousness, and from there we can determine exactly what consciousness is, but for now we just stab in the dark.
Funny you should say that:
http://pissaro.soc.huji.ac.il/~leon/mivnim/pdfs/lamme.pdf

>But here's something interesting: look in to Benjamin Libet's experiments with finger wiggling. Basically he hooked participants up to a machine that monitored brain activity, and asked participants to wiggle their finger at any point over a period of time. The results indicated that participants' brains responded before they consciously willed their fingers to move. In other words, it appeared that the brain's activity influenced the participants' consciousness, and not the other way around. From this, you could argue that we do not use consciousness to affect our actions, but merely to observe them.
I don't really agree with the conclusion you reach here. How would you measure when they consciously willed their brain to move in this context if not by verbal confirmation of the observer? This means that consciousness is difficult to measure in absence of motoric systems associated with reporting consciousness. It can be that the person is aware of moving his fingers but that signal just hasn't reached his speech area in time yet.

>>1904131
>survival/propogation?
That's not the selection pressure, that's the goal of the adaptation. I meant something like: conscious animals are better able to communicate and thus avoid predators better. If there aren't any predators than there might be no need for consciousness.

>>1904133
consciously willed their brain to move in this context
brain = finger*

>mfw consciousness debate

the pineal gland is clearly the seat of consciousness, if you remove it, you loose it.

>>1904150
<span class="math">{\bf [citation~needed]}[/spoiler]

we view throu this mind/body dualism, which in princible cannot be true.

>>1904149
I don't get it... That's a very emotionless face. Are you saying you wave hello every time a debate of consciousness shows up?

>>1904155
Please clarify a bit.

Abiogenesis. Rather than assuming that there is a purpose, a plot to be followed, rules to be abided by - it is possible to view this all with rational physics. We can't explain before the big bang right now, but after that, it has to be explicable. We just need to think hard and piece it together.


Fusion that fuses atoms together that wouldn't do so at moderate temperatures. This has no intrinsic purpose, the atoms don't really "decide" to do anything, they do not care for self preservation per se. That implies consciousness, which has yet to form. Once enough supernovae have spewed their chemically rich innards across the universe, some serendipitously finds it way onto the rock Earth that amalgamates more and more debris thanks to its mass. This was also just a coincidence. Chemicals bond and break in this part, eventually resulting in what we consider life. As in, a body that operates on both internal and external deterministic machinery. Before hand, it was all external.


I also once had a very hard time explaining consciousness - this was because I was a dualist and considered myself a scientist. I was convinced that there was a "soul" that I attributed my consciousness to, and perhaps an astral plane. I also acknowledged that there was nothing organic for billions of years after the big bang - I therefore couldn't resort to merely abiogenesis because this would not attest to the growth of "souls", only of "bodies".


So, if you consider this to be the ultimate conundrum, really ask yourself - are you a dualist, or a materialist?

In a materialistic view, the details are absent, but the logic is solid.

>>1904156
>doesn't recognize it.
>/sci/ i am disappoint.jpg

>I don't really agree with the conclusion you reach here. How would you measure when they consciously willed their brain to move in this context if not by verbal confirmation of the observer? This means that consciousness is difficult to measure in absence of motoric systems associated with reporting consciousness. It can be that the person is aware of moving his fingers but that signal just hasn't reached his speech area in time yet.

The participants were watching a mark on a screen that basically acted like a digital clock. When they had an urge to move their finger, they noted where the mark on the screen was, and wiggled their finger. The difference in time between them noting the mark and wiggling the finger was around 200 milliseconds, on average.

This is where it gets tricky. The electrical nodes attached to their scalp indicated brain activity 500 milliseconds before the wiggling, or 300 milliseconds before the subject had an urge to move their finger. You can put this 300 millisecond difference between the brain activity and conscious thought down to slowness on the participant's side, but many agree that the time difference is significant enough to have implications.

>>1904149
"It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself. Life has become more complex in the overwhelming sea of information. And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system. So man is an individual only because of his own undefinable memory. But memory cannot be defined, yet it defines mankind. The advent of computers and the subsequent accumulation of incalculable data has given rise to a new system of memory and thought, parallel to your own. Humanity has underestimated the consequences of computerization. Nakamura: Nonsense! This is no proof at all that you're a living, thinking life form. Puppet Master: And can you offer me proof of your existence? How can you, when neither modern science nor philosophy can explain what life is?"

>>1904157
You can't have an immaterial consciousness, affecting the material, in the way it clearly does.

First, some real phenomenon: The cocktail party effect is the term used to describe how you will pick out your name being used, even in a large party (hence the name). This shows that your brain is subconsciously picking up and analyzing every single word that is said, and only informs "you" when "it" feels that "you" should know.

What does this have to do with the emergence of consciousness? I believe that it is an evolutionary response to unique situations. For example: Say you are walking along a path, and there is a hole in it. Say also that you have never, ever encountered a hole before, and neither has anything in your evolutionary tree. There is nothing to code for an aversion to holes. As such, you are going to walk right into the hole and fall to your death.

With consciousness, your brain has a backup plan. "It" can send information to "you", the conscious, so that "you" can analyze the information and come up with an adequate response to a unique situation. Our ancestors who were not conscious could not readily survive in unusual habitats, while those who were conscious were capable to thinking logically and avoiding dangers.

So consciousness would be an evolutionary response to unique scenarios that are not otherwise dealt with by the brain's programming.

>>1904165
>brofist.jpg
--In its heyday, this was the Etorofu Special Economic Zone, built to be the greatest information-intensive city in the Far East. All that's left to show it was ever here is this forest of giant grave markers. Its iffy sovereignty status has made it the perfect hangout for multinationals and the criminal organizations that feed on their scraps. A no-man's-land outside the reach of both UN Net Police and ASEAN Cybercops. Reminds me of that quote about how an artifact that a single individual builds is as much an expression of the builder's genetic phenotype as the builder itself.

--That guy was talking about beaver dams and spider webs.

--I'll take coralline algae and the coral reefs they create, thanks. These are nowhere near as pretty, though. If life's true nature is information that's passed down via genes, then society and civilization are also nothing more than gigantic memory systems, which makes cities huge external memory devices.

>>1904048
<span class="math">{\bf [OP~is~a~faggot]}[/spoiler]

>>1904166
>affecting the material,
Our consciousness may not affect our brains at all. See Libet's experiments: >>1904118

>>1904163
I agree that it has implications, I just don't see why this isn't simply motor related. I assure participants responded with the contralateral hand. Suppose a participant becomes aware of the urge to wiggle their finger due to recurrent processing in their prefrontal cortex (PFC) (see article I linked to). That signal still has to travel from the PFC to their responding motor cortex and responding hand, and coincidentally that takes about 300-400ms. This means they become conscious of the urge before they can report they become conscious.

>>1904168
when im drunk and unconsciouss but still walkin, i can even deal with situations like talkin'n'stuff, which otherwise are the consciousness problem.

>>1904174
looks like someone just figured out how to use TeX. Bravo and welcome.

>>1904177
If consciousness is not somehow implemented in affecting behavior, what is its evolutionary use?

>>1904179
I would argue that you're not unconscious, but that you just have no memory of the events. So it seems the same on your end, but it really isn't.

>>1904194
There needs to be an experiment where you get the subjects really drunk and do brain scans.

I volunteer.

>>1904197
http://dionysus.psych.wisc.edu/Lit/Articles/LevinJ1998a.pdf

>>1904189
that's part of the mystery, there might be none.
i agree strongly with the first paragraph of this post:
>>1904118
as such, we have to be very careful when dealing with this subject.
as for my input to the discussion, I want to propose a (maybe) new view:
what if coinciousness is a phenomenon of systems (as in our brain, a computer...etc.) that are complex enough. why I'm proposing this and why it's (for the moment) the explanation I choose to beleive in is because it has often been observerd in large groups of arbitriraly primitive animals (e.g. ants) that their behaviour as a collective resembles that of a single (concious) being. i put the "concious" in parantheses since of course conciousness, as of now, can't be really observed.

>>1904177
YEAH, that solves all the probems with dualism.

>>1904209
>it has often been observerd in large groups of arbitriraly primitive animals (e.g. ants) that their behaviour as a collective resembles that of a single (concious) being
gz meight you have stumbled across the idea of an "Emergent System"

that a bunch of stupid creatures manage to work together for a common purpose despite being about as smart as my left nipple doesn't mean they're conscious

though since the mind is theorized to be an emergent system itself that does sort of put me in a bad spot when defending my own consciousness

>>1904216
What do you mean by "emergent"? Usually in a scientific context an emergent property is a property of a system that cannot be explained by the sum of it's parts. It's something dualist use to force the idea of free will or the soul.

>>1904168

Does that imply knowledge is conscious memory?

>>1904219
that's precisely what he means. and that's what the idea of our conciousness being an emergent system is all about. our neurons are relatively simple to understand object an the way they interact is pretty much known to us, still we can't really figure out where or what our conciousness is and therefore it has been proposed that conciousness is an emergent system coming from our brain; it's parts are neurons and relatively simple interactions between them, but the whole seems to be more than that.

>>1904236
Well that's a fallacy. Neural interactions aren't simple at all. We have only begun scratched the surface of the complexity of the system and to even say an individual neuron is simple is blatant denial of reality. It's way too soon to say consciousness is an emergent property simply due to the fact that there is not enough known about the brain. The absence of complete understanding on a neural level isn't evidence in favor of emergence. The progression of the field tends towards a neural basis more and more as knowledge accumulates. As an example see: [>>1904133]

So this all boils down to programming on the cellular level. How did this programming in DNA first emerge? Once the inertia is there, it's all smooth sailing as far as logos is concerned - but how did genes first become selfish?

Asteroids that formed the Earth were not necessarily selfish. If they were about to collide and get destroyed - that's exactly what happened. But 3 million years ago, organisms are conscious - "programmed" - and strive to live. Does organic chemistry lead itself to organismic programming?


Are nucleotides the code of this programming? Was a program whose function is self preservation conveniently and coincidentally built by these nucleotides? Is "programming" a fluke?

>>1904307
So consciousness is just string for survival and replication?

Bump and back to lurking

>>1904329

That had to have been the first thought. The first feeling, the first reflection of instruction. Everything else could branch off of that one axiom. This seems pretty compatible with psychology, even with modern phenomena.

>>1904375
But you are suggesting that even simple biological structures such as prions and viruses are conscious.

>>1904375

You seem to be oversimplifying this subject.

bump

>>1904394

Can you provide some kind of proof that claims they're not?

>>1904687
I can't provide absolute proof that they're not. But there is simply no reason to assume that they are. If you do assume that you must have evidence to back it up.

>>1904695
>If you do assume that you must have evidence to back it up.
This is not how assumptions work.

>>1904720
Yes it is. It's an implicit assumption, not an axiom.

>mfw one article was posted in this thread and not a single person admitted to being wrong

>>1904152
>>1904174
The fuck? [Does this show up as bold?]

consciousness, the senses observer. is said to be found in the microtubules in the brain. it has powers of some form of telekineses and by that im mean it can change the property's of watter through negative or positive thoughts. look up a documentary called watter the great mystery. not everything in it is legit but most of it is cool.

>>1904793
fucking newfags

>>1904236
Simple? Since when is a network of 100 to 500 trillion connections constituted as simple?

Consciousness, self-awareness, sentience. Whatever you want to call it. The simple fact is, it is a means of genetic preservation and proliferation. It is a by-product. We can only observe its intricacies because it is such a successful means of genetic proliferation. Had it not have been, where would be nothing to observe it and question it.

>>1904118
>But here's something interesting: look in to Benjamin Libet's experiments with finger wiggling. Basically he hooked participants up to a machine that monitored brain activity, and asked participants to wiggle their finger at any point over a period of time. The results indicated that participants' brains responded before they consciously willed their fingers to move. In other words, it appeared that the brain's activity influenced the participants' consciousness, and not the other way around. From this, you could argue that we do not use consciousness to affect our actions, but merely to observe them.

I don't know if it was part of this particular fingerwiggling experiment, but in one experiment the scientist stimulated the areas that where associated with limb wiggling.
As expected the limbs wiggled, but the interesting part was that the participants then said that they wanted to wiggle their limbs.
However I have no source for that.

bump

OP, this debate is 'contaminated' from the outset, because you ask a question as if it were a strictly technical matter, like one of neuroscience.

The problem with this approach is that neuroscientists don't know how to interpret the content of brain activation. This is why they use event-related experimental designs and non-event-related designs, because they think regional activity must correlate with the task. That may be partly true, but it's misleading.

For instance, the question on consciousness is posed as if consciousness is "something in particular", something stable and apart from other processes. From this point, scientists usually are looking for correlates of self-awareness, by using different tasks.

But what we must realise is that we are looking for an explanation of a representation that we have of something we consider a reality. So we are looking for a neural substrate to reify our notion and experience of what we represent as consciousness. I don't think nature works this way...

=cont=

Nature works in continuous ways. That is, there is no particular moment when *consciousness* comes into being as something completely new and unprecedented, both in a person's early development and in the species' early development. It is the extension and amplification of processes that were already taking place, probably at a lower level.

We still have an overblown representation of consciousness, which still owes too much 'prestige' from the time when it was a subject of philosophy (see Descartes).

>>1904168
>>So consciousness would be an evolutionary response to unique scenarios that are not otherwise dealt with by the brain's programming.

i think that you are referring to instinctual thought in this passage.
instinct is a powerful way to deal with situations. consider coming upon a tiger in the jungle. a rabbit responds by bolting from anything much bigger than itself. however, a human thinks: orange, stripes, oh it's a large cat, oh shi-

the rabbit is hardwired to run in the event of danger. but, consider a snare. the rabbit is foraging, and going along, it's head gets through the loop. feeling a strange, alien sensation, it bolts. and breaks its neck. a human, foraging along, gets stuck in a trap. it might figure a way to free itself.

therefore, animals with a lower grade consciousness rely heavily on hardwired responses that they were born with. the closer to human intelligence and conscious thought you get, the greater the reliance on learned behavior, software if you will.
we accumulate information in a structured manner, and by residing in and navigating this structure, we can mount unique responses to situations.

Consciousness is an illusion formed from the processed data forming memory/imagination from the conglomeration of receptive neurons in the body getting a constant feedback from the environment.
Some people feel neurons which gather feedback from the eyes to the brain is the biggest cause of real-time consciousness, like we are self aware television screens, however it us much more. Blind people are still very conscious. So let's remove the ability of sight hearing and touch etc (all the senses which connect you to your environment) What we have left is memory, which helps form the imagination, this is the true core of 'consciousness'. BUT all memory/imagination/dreams I would say comes from experiences/interaction with the environment. And you would also be dead if every single receptor in your body could not relay information to your brain.
Therefore you cannot have consciousness without the environment, and I mean that in a much deeper sense, they are intrinsically connected, when you look out at the world you are looking at you, the extended version of yourself.
But the big question is why would the universe feel compelled to become aware of itself, it seems all progress of matter in the universe has been the drive from simpler patterns in physics to more and more complex patterns in chemistry and biology and then the final stage of complexity consciousness. Will this pattern ever stop? I can only think that we will some day transcend the consciousness we feel today to something much greater.