Hi
On 6/16/07, Colin Hales <c.hales.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
....
" >Chemical potentiation IS electric field...<
...
What is electric field?
John M (frmr chemist)
> Hi,
> I am going to have to be a bit targetted in my responses.... I am a TAD
> whelmed at the moment.....
>
> COLIN
> >> 4) Belief in 'magical emergence' .... qualitative novelty of a kind
> utterly unrelated to the componentry.
>
> RUSSEL
> > The latter clause refers to "emergence" (without the "magical"
> > qualifier), and it is impossible IMHO to have creativity without
> emergence.
>
> COLIN
> The distinction between 'magical emergence' and 'emergence' is quite
> obviously intended by me. A lake is not apparent in the chemical formula
> for water. I would defy anyone to quote any example of real-world
> 'emergence' that does not ultimately rely on a necessary primitive.
> 'Magical emergence' is when you claim 'qualitative novelty' without having
> any idea (you can't point at it) of the necessary primitive, or by
> defining an arbitrary one that is actually a notional construct (such as
> 'information'), rather than anything real.
>
>
> COLIN
> >> The system (a) automatically prescibes certain trajectories and
>
> RUSSEL
> > Yes.
>
> COLIN
> >> (b) assumes that the theroem space [and] natural world are the same
> space
> and equivalently accessed.
>
> RUSSEL
> > No - but the system will adjust its model according to feedback. That is
> the very nature of any learning algorithm, of which EP is just one
> example.
>
> COLIN
> Ok. Here's where we find the big assumption. Feedback? HOW?...by who's
> rules? Your rules. This is the real circularity which underpins
> computationalism. It's the circularity that my real physical qualia model
> cuts and kills. Mathematically:
>
> * You have knowledge KNOWLEDGE(t) of 'out there'
> * You want more knowledge of 'out there' ....so
> * KNOWLEDGE(t+1) is more than KNOWLEDGE(t)
> * in computationalism who defines the necessary route to this?...
>
> d(KNOWLEDGE(t))
> --------------- = something you know = YOU DO.
> dt
>
> So this means that in a computer abstraction.
>
> d(KNOWLEDGE(t))
> --------------- is already part of KNOWLEDGE(t)
> dt
>
> You can label it 'evolutionary' or 'adaptive' or whatever...ultimately the
> rules are YOUR rules and come from your previously derived KNOWLEDGE(t) of
> 'out there', not intrinsically grounded directly in 'out there'. Who
> decided what you don't know? YOU DID. What is it based on? YOUR current
> knowledge of it, not what is literally/really there. Ungroundedness is the
> fatal flaw in the computationalist model. Intrinsic grounding in the
> external world is what qualia are for. It means that
>
> d(KNOWLEDGE(t))
> ---------------
> dt
>
> is
> (a) built into the brain hardware (plasticity chemistry, out of your
> cognitive control)
> (b) partly grounded in matter literally/directly constructed in
> representation of the external world, reflecting the external world so
> that NOVELTY - true novelty in the OUTSIDE WORLD - is apparent.
>
> In this way your current knowledge minimally impacts
>
> d(KNOWLEDGE(t))
> ---------------
> dt
>
> In other words, at the fundamental physics level:
>
> d(KNOWLEDGE(t))
> ---------------
> dt
>
> in a human brain is NOT part of KNOWLEDGE(t). Qualia are the brain's
> solution to the symbolic grounding problem.
>
>
> RUSSEL
> > Not at all. In Evolutionary Programming, very little is known about the
> ultimate solution the algorithm comes up with.
>
> COLIN
> Yes but that is irrelevant....the programmer said HOW it will get
> there....Sorry...no cigar....see the above....
>
> >> My scientific claim is that the electromagnetic field structure
> literally the third person view of qualia.
>
> > Eh? Electromagnetic field of what? The brain? If so, do you think that
> chemical potentiation plays no role at all in qualia?
>
> Chemical potentiation IS electric field. There's no such thing as
> 'mechanical' there's no such thing as 'chemical'. These are all metaphors
> in certain contexts for what is there...space and charge (yes...and mass
> associated with certain charge carriers). Where did you get this weird
> idea that a metaphor can make qualia?
>
> The electric field across the membrane of cells (astrocytes and neurons)
> is MASSIVE. MEGAVOLTS/METER. Think SPARKS and LIGHTNIING. It dominates the
> entire structure! It does not have to go anywhere. It just has to 'be'.
> You 'be' it to get what it delivers. Less than 50% of the signalling in
> the brain is synaptic, anyway! The dominant cortical process is actually
> an astrocyte syncytium. (look it up!). I would be very silly to ignore the
> single biggest, most dominant process of the brain that is so far
> completely correlated in every way with qualia...in favour of any other
> cause.
> -------------------
>
> Once again I'd like to get you to ask yourself the killer question:
>
> "What is the kind of universe we must live in if the electromagnetic field
> structure of the brain delivers qualia?"
>
> A. It is NOT the universe depicted by the qualia (atoma, molecules,
> cells...). It is the universe whose innate capacity to deliver qualia is
> taken advantage of when configureed like it appears when we use qualia
> themselves to explore it....cortical brain matter. (NOTE: Please do not
> make the mistake that sensors - peripheral affect - are equivalent to
> qualia.)
>
> My original solution to
>
> Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
>
> stands. The computer must have a qualia-depiction of its external world
> and it will know it because it can do science. If it doesn't/can't it's a
> rock/doorstop. In any computer model, every time an algoritm decides what
> 'is' (what is visible/there) it intrisically defines 'what isn't' (what is
> invisible/not there). All novelty becomes thus pre-ordained.
>
> anyway.....Ultimately 'how' qualia are generated is moot.
>
> That they are _necessarily_ involved is the key issue. On their own they
> are not sufficient for science to occur.
>
> cheers
> colin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Mon Jun 18 2007 - 23:38:28 PDT