On 1 Sep, 17:29, David Nyman <david.ny....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> On 1 Sep, 09:49, Flammarion <peterdjo....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> There are two points you make that I'd like to comment specifically
> on:
>
> > OK. Memory is relevant to consciousness. It is relevant
> > specifically to access consciousness. it is also easily explained
> > physically and not therefore part of the HP and not
> > therefore of much philosophical interest.
>
> I agree that this is not part of the HP. It is however highly
> relevant to the grain issue and the apparent conscious-unconscious
> dichotomy, which are two of the things you have been pressing me on.
Well, it might explain why we have a coarse-grained something-or-
other,
but it doesn't explain why that something-or-other would be qualia.
> Hence given such relevance I can hardly agree that it lacks
> philosophical interest.
>
> > > By the way, if you have a
> > > simple extrinsic account of the phenomena of the specious present, I'd
> > > be genuinely interested in more detail.
>
> > I think I gave one. Slow communications in the brain=short term
> > information storage=specious present
>
> > You could hardly *not* have one.
>
> Yes, I thought this was probably what you had in mind. This is what I
> meant by the assumption of a simple traverse through time, and hence
> your proposal is at odds with either flux or block models of time.
> The "slow communications" you refer to, under the flux interpretation,
> would simply decompose into multiple slices, which taken individually
> could not plausibly constitute the specious present.
Not at all. Slow communications would mean that any time-slice
of the brain contained information that arrived at the periphery of
the nervous
system at an earlier time slice. I am leanign on the idea that we
access the past trhough records existing in the present.
You seem to be resing on the idea that we have to have some
sort of direct access to the past.
> Hence "short
> term information storage" outside such individual slices already
> presupposes some form of integration 'through time' - i.e. across
> slices.
It presupposes that one moment of time *causes* what
happens in later moments. What's wrogn with that?
>This points to the fact that there is something deeply
> counter intuitive about our actual experience of the 'present moment'
> with respect to either of the standard temporal analyses.
I stil don't see any real problem with the specious present.
> My strong suspicion (and be clear I'm not putting it any higher than
> this) is that the same mechanism that synthesises and presents
> integrated temporal experience (think of melody as opposed to pitch)
> is also central to the qualitative aspect of self-conscious states.
> IOW there's something going on that both integrates and differentiates
> the internal worlds we inhabit, in this characteristic way, that is
> not analysable in terms of simple linear process through the standard
> time dimension of physics.
You mean the specious present specifically isn't capable of physical
analysis? That is very far from demonstrated.
>I would also suspect that this is relevant
> to why qualia have been so elusive on the basis of such analyses. The
> basic 'temporal' notion bears some family resemblance to ideas such as
> Barbour's time capsules, although in discussion he did not commit
> definitively on the precise relationship between this conception and
> the full duration of the specious present.
>
> David
time capsules are just what I am talking about. Why would you need
anythign more for the specious present than a "snapshop" some of
which is out of date?
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Received on Tue Sep 01 2009 - 09:46:16 PDT