Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote:
> >
> >
> > Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote:
> >> >> The problem is that cells are defined and understood only through
> >> being
> >> >> observed with our phenomenal consciousness.
> >> >
> >> > Not "only". Cognition and instrumentation are needed too.
> >>
> >> Yes. But the instruments are observed. All the instruments do is extend
> >> the causal chain between your phenomenality and the observed phenomena.
> >> Provided you can justify the causal source...all is OK... but that's
> >> part
> >> of the critical argument process using existing knowledge. The observer
> >> is
> >> fundamentally in the causal chain from the deepest levels all the way
> >> through all of the instrumentation and into the sensory systems of the
> >> observer. The observer is part of every observation.
> >
> > Hmmm. Are you sure? Is an earthbound astronomer fundamentally
> > part of a supernovca which exploded millionsof years ago ? What
> > do you mean by "fundamentally" ?
> >
> Yes. Causal chains, no matter how improbable, executed at the tiniest of
> scales the same ones that make LUCY our literal ancestor..... connect us.
It depends what you , mean by "connect". I am connected to these
things, but they can manage without me. It is a one-way
kind of connection.
> Consider them entropy transactions. When you objectify it, formalise it
> and it looks (is equivalent to) 'light cone' causal proximity, but that's
> only how it appearas.
> Causal chains all the way from the sub-sub-quark level, all the way out of
> the experiment, up through the instruments, across the room, into your
> eye, action potentials along nerves and then the neuron(s) that deliver
> the qualia... observation.
>
> >> Consciousness is not a 'high level' emergent property of massive numbers
> >> of neurons in a cortex context. It is a fundamental property of matter
> >> that single excitable cells make good use of that is automatically
> >> assembled along with assembling cells in certain ways.
> >
> > There are a number of leaps there. from "basal" areas
> > to "single neurons", for instance.
>
> When you look at the imaging it's very small cohorts of neurons. They look
> identical to other sorts of neuron cohorts nearby. One set delivers
> qualia. The others do not.
How do you know ?
> So there are 2 parts to an explanation:
> a) single neuron properties
> b) cohort organisation
>
> Unless thesre is a property of single neurons to use for a cohort to do
> something with, you are attributing 'magical emergence' to a cohort. This
> is a logical inevitability.
y-e-e-s. But where are you without emergence ? Qualia would
then be properties of quarks. Wihich brings on a Grain problem with
a vengeance.
> Magical emergence means attributing some sort of property inherent in
> organisation itself.
The point of emergence is rather that the property is *not* inherent in
the
lower-level parts and realtions.
> This leads to logical nonsense in other
> considerations of organisation (eg sentient plumbing in Beijing).
>
> That leaves us with a property of excitable cells which can
> a) be optionally established by a single cell
> then
> b) be used to collective effect (including cancellation/nullification)
A phenomenal property of a single cell would be emergent relative to
the
molecular/atomic level.
> At this stage I don;t know which option does the priordial emptions. What
> I do know is that without single cell expression of a kind of
> 'elemental-quale' you can't make qualia.
>
> Crick and Koch also attributed qualia to small cohorts or possibly single
> cells (but in cortical material in 2003). No we have moved it out of the
> cortext, the arrow is pointing towards single cells... and what do you
> know? they are all different - 'excitable' = electromagnetic behaviour. We
> have a fairly large pointer which says this is a single cell
> electromagnetic phenomenon as like a pixel in a qualia picture.
>
> colin hales
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Received on Fri Sep 29 2006 - 14:35:12 PDT