David Nyman wrote:
> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> > As for memory being encoded in or accessible to an OM, that is an unnecessary complication.
> > As you said previously, the OM's are related solely by their information content. If the seconds
> > of your life were sliced up, shuffled and thrown to the wind, (t1) 3:10:02 PM of 10/10/06 would
> > still subjectively follow (t2) 3:10:01 PM of 10/10/06 even though there is no connection or "flow"
> > of information between them. If you look at how t1 and t2 are generated, then yes, there is a
> > connection - they both come out of your head - but once generated, they form a natural sequence
> > which cannot be disrupted.
>
> But my point about the 'coherence' of consciousness is that it seems
> (especially from what occurs, or fails to occur, when it deteriorates)
> that complex representation and processing of *temporally extended*
> information sequences (e.g. grasp of the entirety of the content and
> meaning of a sentence or proposition) is necessary for one to
> experience and act as a fully-functioning conscious individual.
> Consequently, it seems to me that such processes must converge on OMs
> in which all the necessary information is fully encoded and expressed
> (which is essentially what Barbour seems to be claiming for his 'time
> capsules' - e.g. his 'flight of the kingfisher' example). Without this,
> the alternative seems to be that the individual random, wind-blown
> seconds of your metaphor would need to be totalised in some additional
> non-information-based manner in order to coordinate an ensemble of
> informationally incomplete, discrete elements into coherent
> experiences. AFAICS they only 'form a natural sequence' from the
> quasi-objective perspective of our philosophical stance.
What is "our philosophical stance"?
> And such
> coordination is in any case what we were assuring Peter was both
> unnecessary and impossible.
What coordination? External time parameters, or internal time capsules?
> The 'snapshot with memory' view of things is surely only viable if each
> snapshot can be shown to be fully efficacious in reconstituting what we
> do in fact experience - and this, short of magic, surely requires the
> discrete presence within each snapshot of all the necessary process and
> information. It seems to me that this might be a productive slant on
> what work the brain might actually be doing in constructing the sort of
> spatio-temporally dimensioned experiences we encounter. IOW, it isn't
> just 'recording and replaying', but creating and continually updating a
> coherent informational construct, centred on an embedded 'I', that
> reads-out 'self-referentially' as a 4D world.
A 4D block world?
> Any given OM would
> represent the state-of-update of this construct, with consequent full
> access to its resources at that particular state-of-update.
>
> David
>
> > David Nyman writes:
> > >
> > > Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> > >
> > > > (b) can't be right. However many copies of you there are, you only experience being one at
> > > > a time.
> > >
> > > Stathis, I concur with this view, and for the reasons you give.
> > > However, much as I hate to complicate this issue further, I wonder if
> > > you have a view on the following. I mentioned to Peter the issue of the
> > > destructive effect of loss of short-term memory on the coherence of
> > > 'normal' conscious processes - e.g. forgetting the beginning of a
> > > sentence before getting to the end of it - an affliction to which I'm
> > > not entirely a stranger myself! From this, it seems to me that the
> > > notion of a 'state of consciousness' as being discrete with an OM, or
> > > 'time-capsule', might be overly simplistic, unless we conceive of the
> > > necessary extent of memory as being entirely encoded in, and accessible
> > > to, an individual OM - i.e. an OM can represent a 'fully-conscious
> > > individual'. For that matter, what temporal duration is an OM supposed
> > > to encompass - a 'Planck-length' instant; the entire 'specious present?
> > > This whole issue seems to be under-defined, but the danger is that the
> > > very notion of 'the present' might need to be treated as an emergent
> > > from a coordinated ensemble, rather than being inherent in individual
> > > OMs. But then what would coordinate them?
> > >
> > > Any thoughts?
> >
> > It's certainly possible to have a very fragmented stream of consciousness. While
> > fortunately rare these days, the most extreme forms of disorganised schizophrenia
> > are from the patient's point of view something like having random, disconnected thoughts
> > and perceptions without even a sense that they belong to a single enduring individual to
> > bind them together.
> >
> > I think of an OM as the shortest possible period of conscious experience, which would make
> > its apparent duration many milliseconds. Much of the discussion in which the term OM is used
> > could as easily (and less ambiguously) use observer-second or observer-minute without loss
> > of the general point. Of course, hours of real time physical activity might have to occur for
> > each subjective moment of consciousness, and those hours may be divided up into infinitesimals
> > in a block universe, or whatever the underlying physics dictates. The OM concept has analogies
> > with block universe models, but it is philosophically useful regardless of what the actual nature
> > of time is.
> >
> > As for memory being encoded in or accessible to an OM, that is an unnecessary complication.
> > As you said previously, the OM's are related solely by their information content. If the seconds
> > of your life were sliced up, shuffled and thrown to the wind, (t1) 3:10:02 PM of 10/10/06 would
> > still subjectively follow (t2) 3:10:01 PM of 10/10/06 even though there is no connection or "flow"
> > of information between them. If you look at how t1 and t2 are generated, then yes, there is a
> > connection - they both come out of your head - but once generated, they form a natural sequence
> > which cannot be disrupted.
> >
> > Stathis Papaioannou
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail.
> > http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Thu Oct 26 2006 - 10:32:34 PDT