--- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM
On Tue, Jul 9, 2024, 5:35 PM Santafe <desm...@santafe.edu> wrote: > Yeah; wish it were possible to say something interesting. > > The aspect of, or within, the field of experience, that “consciousness” > and other related words are somehow “about", should be general among all of > us who are made of about the same stuff. (So, the vertebrates, the > mammals, the social mammals, the hunting-social mammals; etc.) I say that > as an assertion within the network of scientific representations, in the > kind of way we normally walk around that network by extrapolation, like > spiders along threads in a web. So should have many of the familiar > successes; surely has all the recognized hazards. > > But [consciousness]-the-term is a word in a language. So it has formal > aspects. What is it doing as we use it? Maybe it is putting up “an > object” toward which attention can be directed. One would glibly say > “making consciousness available as an object of attention”, but I don’t > want to say that. The aspect of, or within, the field of experience is > whatever it is. When the capacity for, and use of, a language brings > objects into that formal world which can be targets for attention, we don’t > have any promises for how good the objects are as proxies for whatever they > are meant to be proxies for. Or even what is the nature of such “objects”, > a thing that has to be made more clear, along with whatever those objects > are proxies for, and whatever is the associational relation of the two. > > I am aware, while speaking, that what I would like is to go one step > further than the logical positivists in characterizing formal systems as > opposed to characterizing all of life. I would like to say that, when > something is really a formal system, it has been made an object in the > world. So one can mechanise it. What Hilbert imagined maybe mathematics > could be, and which we seem to be pretty sure mathematics cannot _only_ be, > though it can have parts of that nature. That means we can say things > about the mechanistic relations among tokens in formal systems. > > The positivists seemed to me (in my ignorance of almost-everything > historical) to have the tastes of logicians; they wanted to work out > technical things. They were willing to put to the side the questions of > how that logical edifice ever “stands for” “something” in the broader field > of life. If they made an important mistake, it was to go beyond putting > them to the side, to dismissing them entirely. Their notion of > “pseudo-questions” is generally apt where I can find concrete applications > of it; but in dismissing what was driving people to make those > unsatisfactory attempts, they threw out much of what is interesting to try > to do. > > That is the more-literal landscape to which my metaphor of the spider in > the web alluded. > > Anyway, whatever its form, which varied among people and changed over time > on into the modern era, that separation left what they were doing very > limited, but within that, I feel like they made category distinctions that > remain useful. They get even more useful when one is very clear about how > limited they are, and tries to put them in a Pragmatist frame. Even better > when we apply Pragmatism to itself. This is where we try to deal, for > real, with the way everything formal hangs in mid-air, as its very nature. > > Back from that digression: > > The things that we can’t export into machinery in the world (formal > systems with the definition written in the language of the formalism), may > remain actually still formal systems, but they become like a computer > program that can only run on a certain kind of hardware, which is us, and > as we don’t understand that hardware very well, we can’t make very good > proxies of it (or know whether we have done so), leaving us unsure what > formal systems can run on which hardware. > > With all those caveats and hedges in all the over-interpretations I don’t > want for wording, if I were to suggest what is different about us with > language from dogs that are not using this particular kind of formal layer > (I strongly suspect, again said like the spider walking along the web), it > is this “making consciousness an object of attention”. > > It seems to me that, if we promised to remain constantly alert to the fact > that all those terms are placeholder terms in placeholder usage > conventions, we could ask why it matters and what it does to “make > consciousness an object of attention”, while also “inhabiting” it (or > whatever word), as contrasted with mostly-just inhabiting, and letting > attention do all the other things it is already also doing. > > Eric > > > > > > On Jul 10, 2024, at 7:37 AM, Nicholas Thompson <thompnicks...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > > Frank > > > > What you laid out is an abduction,,isn't it?; I don[t think I am doing > that in either of my syllogisms. But I am no logician; > > > > An induction is a valid inference, although a probabilistic one, at > least on Peirce's account. > > > > David, > > > > If humans are conscious, I am pretty sure that animals are conscious, . > > > > I am just not sure that humans are conscious. > > > > I am not sure why the fact that your dog loves you, implies its > consciousness. George agrees with you that things like love are signs of > consciousness, but he could never explain why. > > > > Eric, > > > > Yes, I am pretty sure I am a worthless piece of Baconian Behaviorist > Crap. Stipulated. Still, I like your questions. So, do you see any way > of proceeding to develop those question in a such a way that we are roughly > on the same page as we go? If you do, I would love your help, here. > > > > All, > > > > Sorry, it is hot, here, and I am cranky. I resent you all sitting in > your air-conditioned offices being paid huge sums of money to be cool. I > just thought it might be nice to have a conversation about consciousness in > which everybody is not sitting in front of their own hut shouting. Happy > to abide by any method that isn-t like an explosion in a concept shop. > > > > Nick > > > > Nick > > > > > > > > On Tue, Jul 9, 2024 at 5:00 PM Frank Wimberly <wimber...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Nick, That is not a valid syllogism. > > > > All X have Y > > x has Y > > Therefore x is an X > > > > Is that a correct formalization of what you said? > > > > --- > > Frank C. Wimberly > > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, > > Santa Fe, NM 87505 > > > > 505 670-9918 > > Santa Fe, NM > > > > On Tue, Jul 9, 2024, 1:54 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnicks...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > While I find all the ancillary considerations raised on the original > thread extremely interesting, I would like to reopen the discussion of > Conscious as a Mystery and ask that those that join it stay close to the > question of what consciousness is and how we know it when we see it. Baby > Steps. > > > > Where were we? I think I was asking Jochen, and perhaps Peitr and > anybody else who thought that animals were not conscious (i.e., not aware > of their own awareness) what basis they had in experience for thinking > that.. One offering for such an experience is the absence of language in > animals. Because my cat cannot describe his experience in words, he > cannot be conscious. This requires the following syllogism: > > > > Nothing that does not employ a language (or two?) is conscious. > > Animals (with ;the possible exception of signing apes) do not employ > languages. > > Ergo, Animals are not conscious. > > > > But I was trying to find out the basis for the first premise. How do we > know that there are no non-linguistic beings that are not conscious. I > hope we could rule out the answer,"because they are non-linguistic", both > in its strictly tautological or merely circular form. > > > > There is a closely related syllogism which we also need to explore: > > > > All language using beings are conscious. > > George Peter Tremblay IV is a language-using being. > > George Peter Tremblay IV is conscious. > > > > Both are valid syllogisms. But where do the premises come from. > > > > Nick > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,B-B2V1TZH7YtIWFzsBqQx8TSyQdoTMVJYb8aLkKru-9uz6z7D4XfnViEzncqqrVal3b2lkZ4LGWu-yBiHtTcV8W8wWQFvvjgsL0vO2FMYR3W-dpM_uOCyQgbqwg,&typo=1 > > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,L3qZPpIKPNxIiwnZsQTUwDYxO_Mp6XDPYr4UG0nlCwM9BG9_Ftyd7m8dvFII4_FlI8g-Iu-vbzD4ubwFZCwSyCd9RpuHyRjfk4esML5yaQ,,&typo=1 > > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,lUexUzOdNoUxqMCQtpcUp_YQdts8N-qbSPvS_mmwv7C8E-pq719XqVXNm2dq1R6flwgd53RUdmHpNfD0J3wneQR7D_B0BQP6vjsuaTOO&typo=1 > > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,z1m7QhtwEWqbCe8hjYh_yoTrtGCvMGkirBhoeh-3HRyJ-JQiNE5ke24rvJkDZ924-ydMPm9oecHl849ptOBboENooALO6jW5jGj0ocl_R6AJQjBuxIkpQJa4&typo=1 > > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
