Qualophiles,

Just wanted to report on my great experience at the recent Decade of the Mind conference.

It was very much fun to rub shoulders with the likes of Christoff Koch and so many others. And I learned so much. There were also lots of people that really liked the idea of what we are working on as far as attempting to 'canonize' theories of the Mind.

In particular, I may have made a spectacle of myself trying to do a raise of hands survey about the importance of qualia. I've described the experience in this topic:

http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/91

And of course I express my opinion that we may already have the ability to discover what the mind / qualia are - and that the only reason we haven't yet discovered what they are is that not enough of the 'nuts and bolts' researchers studying neurons understand what the scientific consensus we're demonstrating says qulia are. They either aren't looking for them, or are looking for them in the wrong place.

If you agree with me, and Christoff Koch, that qualia are an appropriate topic at such conferences about the brain and neurons, it would be great to have you join this camp or petition indicating such.

I'd also like to know if any of you think we should include something about this idea in this consciousness is real and representational camp.

Thanks

Brent Allsop

Brent,

You have talked about this many times but I'm still not sure what exactly you mean. If you are saying that neuroscientists should be interested in what physiological events exactly are associated with particular experiences, then I don't think anyone would disagree with you. That's essentially what a large part of neuroscience research is about. But then some philosophers, like Chalmers, would say that even if you figure that out, you are still left with a mystery, the "Hard Problem", which is not a scientific problem at all. And if it isn't a scientific problem, it's not surprising that some scientists are not interested in it.

Stathis

Brent,

I think that before we can discuss the possibility that consciousness can be explained in words or scientific terms (since that's what "effing" could mean, as the opposite of "ineffable") -- we would also have to know exactly what you mean, specifically, by the words "Real" and "Representational".

I can touch what I call a real or material object and can represent it by a computer simulation, photograph or holographic image... But I can't imagine touching awareness or will or qualia -- which is what I see constitutes the subjective experience of consciousness, as well as whatever insubstantial, immaterial, or unmeasurable substance it is that experiences it... Which, apparently, cannot be described as an objective thing in itself... Other than, perhaps, as an indescribable aspect of the "real" although empty space that must exist within and surrounding every thing composed of mass-energy (or that "space in motion" -- as Einstein saw it).

Therefore, just like that absolute or aether space itself, since none of those aspects of consciousness can be simulated or touched, how can they be "real" or "representational"? Represented by or representational of what -- we might ask?

Obviously, then, I cant see any way of explaining consciousness (i.e., awareness, will, qualia, perceiving, discerning, creating, thinking, etc.) in objective terms, scientific formulas, or any combination of words explaining their cause, quality or nature -- as we can explain the matter-energy fields and forms.

Thus, in my view consciousness in all its qualitative subjective aspects must forever remain, like absolute empty space, ineffable from a "scientific" or reductive materialist point of view.

Is it any wonder then, why most academic scientists, and particularly physicists -- who are essentially, "eliminative materialists" -- refuse to take an interest in consciousness? ... (Besides, the fact that if they did turn to such study, all their jobs and grants would dry up.;-)

Therefore, I regret that I cannot support this camp -- even though I might partially agree with the views of one of its supporters -- concerning the graphical interpretation of the mechanisms of visual perception -- which could be in close agreement with my ABC holographic field model, under the "Not Supernatural" camp.

Best regards,

Leon Maurer

present state of physics and consciousness is lack of understanding

i waste a lot of time haggling on the forum for the Natural Philosophy Alliance about the nature of 'space-time' and it seems related to the discussion here .. i agree, there are mystical-like qualities of the human mind just as there are confounding aspects of space-time. but those are no reasons to throw up our hands and proclaim "we will never understand" or succumb to totally mystifying the human being or space-time. engineering approaches and principles can successfully demystify both domains if properly applied. for instance, electrical engineering has impedance and mechanics has elasticity and when properly applied to space-time, effectively demystify it and make it approachable from a practical pov. similarly, systems science approaching consciousness produces a number of simplifying constructs which when integrated holistically, demystifies the 'human animal' presenting us with a realistic and practical view of the human mind. so i categorically reject any move toward mystification of human beings or space-time because it is essentially ignorance and bias against practical engineering constructs which are wholly applicable to these domains. i cannot agree with the dissenter because doing so would essentially push us back into the middle-ages where we cast spells to ward off evil spirits and were content to basically worship our semi-divine state. again, i agree that there are some presently ineffable aspects of our nature, but these do not make the entire being incomprehensible. those aspects include: synchronicity, creativity, inspiration, intuition, and any other similar attribute. but again, not understanding those does not prohibit comprehension of consciousness which i argue is largely a physical process. you see, i do not ascribe intuition as essential to consciousness. i do not say you must be inspired to be conscious either. you must have senses and these senses must be able to 'cross-check' each other verifying your environment. your place in your environment is also crucial - this establishes your sense of identity. so a very crude simplification of consciousness is our eyes and ears systems interacting with our 'floating model' of ourselves and local environ. this is very crude and resembles a 'low level' approximation toward fully understanding consciousness. qualia play a part in this because our model of ourselves and local environ are basically a sequence of dynamic qualia which presently is the best model for the symbolic (in a general sense) aspects of the system. in my model, i try to implement it in what i call visualization register which is a kind of 3D 'retina' with purpose to model objects and other visualizable things. of course, ideas will be much more difficult to approach but should be amenable in the integrated system of symbol registers and visualization registers .. again, i cannot subscribe to the dissenter's view/criticism of qualia. qualia in the study of mind is like my view of time in relation to space-time: time has a complex attribute similar to Minkowski space and time has an elastic attribute similar to that proposed by EA's general relativity. these are essential concepts as we move forward toward holistic, integrated, and ultimately practical povs of consciousness and space-time.

I agree with Sam pretty much. I think Leon is misconstruing the situation. The so called "hard problem" emerges from a particular way of describing the universe. What I mean is that for most of human history it has been, and may still be, most common for people to speak about virtually everything as if naive realism is true.

The modern era, the world being transformed through the application of scientific method, is only four or five hundred years old [I take Feb 1600 as a poignant cusp]. In time however the pre-scientific universe will be more definitely a thing of the past and so many of the traditional view points and their supporting idioms will be more clearly seen to be outdated metaphors and rules of thumb. We can help this along by accepting that subjectivity is what it is like to be a model of self in the world [better: the updating of such]. As time goes by the means will become ever clearer, whereby characteristic activities of neuronal networks embody experience and all our unconscious background mental behaviour.

Consciousness is only a "mystery" if you think it arises in someway other than through the activity of your brain. There is however, no good evidence now available to support the idea of mental activity/perceptual experience occurring in the absence of neuronal activity. It is therefore most reasonable to accept that our lack of knowledge is temporary, concerning what a healthy brain needs to effectively embody clear, competent, reportable and hopefully serene awareness. What we are faced with is a puzzle, not a deep and abiding mystery. The pieces of the puzzle are being ever more clearly defined by our contemporaries and the way they all fit together will be discovered. It is just a matter of time and effort.

The term qualia is used in relation to *what it is like* to be experiencing something. So information about qualia was always, in the past, a matter of what was self-reported or the product of assumptions based on inferences. Nowadays images of the brain as it works can be correlated with self-reports and behaviours supporting inferences. The smart bets are going on ever improving accuracy in measurement of such correlations. In time, predictability and forensic assessment using such technology will become *business as usual* for medicine, policing, national defence, remote control of mining machinery, interplanetary navigation and who knows what else.