Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Multiple Drafts

There is a theatre but it may not be Cartesian. I...

2007-01-26T19:24:15.610-05:00

There is a theatre but it may not be Cartesian. It's the one in which you year your inner voice, sounding quieter than your actual voice; it's the one in which you see in an imagined way, the events of the past, or made-up fantasies combining visual memories. Why can't that be consciousness? And why can't that be perceived in a reflective way? Dennett just likes the aggressiveness of Ryle and Wittgenstein seeming to or actually taking arms Descartes and the concepts of 'depth' psychology. The fact of the inner voice that gets grandiosely invested with the term consciousness, doesn't mean that all brain activity is part of consciousness. We're unconscious of most brain activity. But the bits that we are conscious of are, at least, at times, dramatic. Drafts is an interesting metaphor, because as we write we speak internally. Indeed writing must be a tool for helping to produce the inner voice.

I know exactly what you mean David! I've felt tha...

2006-08-04T15:58:56.543-04:00

I know exactly what you mean David! I've felt that a couple of times. It's very... uh... I guess it's exhilerating in a way- It made me realize that I really am nothing but a collection of atoms and that my perspective is not as unique as I had thought- that is, I will be someone else's clouded history book; just a passing thought to someone else. It's very humbeling and exhilerating at the same time.

Well my guess is that you are talking about turnin...

2005-01-02T03:19:40.230-05:00

Well my guess is that you are talking about turning off (telling them to tell themselves to not do anything) temporarily the higher parts of your brain somthing which you seem to define as "you" and to contain your "sense of self". Thus the er "self" as some others might define it is able to listen to the more primitive parts of the brain (for lack of a better term) without the higher parts draining them out.

Posted by GeniusNZ

What would a person WITHOUT a sense of self be lik...

2005-01-01T23:53:28.476-05:00

What would a person WITHOUT a sense of self be like?
I'm not sure I should say this, but I can ( from experience) describe states of awareness that FEEl like that.
To define better .. there is awareness of a 'world' around (though it is not seen as 'familiar' nor even a 'world' in a way ) but there is an astonishing ( though the experiencer is not able to be very astonished!) lack of anything that is felt to be 'me" or at least a familiar 'myself'.
I cannot be too clear on this because:-
1. it is a very rare, passing and fluctuating state .. once or twice for many minutes together, but usually brief and with a 'distant' sense of self that may flit through the system.

2. the normal modes of thought AND FEELING are so remote that there is little connection left ( i presume) in the network to ordinary concepts and thought processes when you become more normal again.

These states are related to those reported by the eastern religious enthusiasts when they meditate etc. Presumably accompanied by a change in brain wave speed/domimance. More alpha and theta ..

It does not really help explain what awarness is. The eastern 'mystics. would say it is a taste of ...( sorry about this) ... the self existent, universal self/mind whose nature is pure consciousness, knowledge and bliss.
That is an interesting explanation! but it could be also considered as the reduction of mind function to the most primtive level. . by some 'method' ( meditating) or chance condition which nullifies the rationalizing/choosing process we normally are preoccupied with.

Actually, i have just remembered that there was lot more to this than i have said. I will not say more .. other than the sense of reality, its "realness' is very much greater in this state, not less as you might think.
The sense of being a particular person was less, but the value of everything much greater and deeper.

Oh well.. its an example of what i meant about awareness reflecting, or being co-existent with, the brain's state .
But to feel it's reality you 'have to be there' , as they say.
Maybe it will spark a new thought in someones brain!
David

Posted by david L

Maybe we need to ask the opposite question. What w...

2005-01-01T21:02:20.243-05:00

Maybe we need to ask the opposite question.
What would a person WITHOUT a sense of self be like? what would it be like to be that person? is it possible?
If it is impossible not to have a sense of self then there is no need to ask why we have it. if it is possible but inferior in an evolutionary way we can explain a good part of it.
Then in addition one can explain the formation of an "experience of self" in terms of these mechanisms guided of course by evolution.

Posted by GeniusNZ

Right, Dennett wants to quine qualia. He also hold...

2005-01-01T20:46:41.126-05:00

Right, Dennett wants to quine qualia. He also holds that phenomenal and access consciousness cannot be separated (see his response to Block's BBS target article on this). So perhaps one way to organize Dennett's overall view of consciousness is as follows: (i) phenomenal consciousness has a qualitative and an access aspect; (ii) let's be eliminativists about the qualitative aspect; (iii) let's be multiple-draftists about the access aspect.

Posted by uriah

I hope Richard that you will return to this subjec...

2005-01-01T04:54:18.490-05:00

I hope Richard that you will return to this subject over time, it has for years struck me as the most important question around. Any thing you suggest is welcome.
I am not going to discuss the multiple drafts model , because for me, it largely misses the main point about ‘consciousness’. Though I believe there is some truth in the chain of ‘brain operations described. .

But I always find myself returning to the question ... HOW can these physical brain operations under any circumstance whatsoever become an “experience’ by a ‘self’ ?
I have for a while provisionally accepted that the network brain operations follow the pattern of our ‘experience’, ( though I suppose it cannot be absolutely proved, that all thoughts and perceptions correspond to ‘physical ‘ operations .) but still cannot see any place in the normal concept of the world of space, time and material /energy objects , for anything which is other than that. A material /energy pattern is that … and nothing more. To me, conscious awareness is not physical .. by definition. It is awareness of ‘physical’ and ‘sensations’.
And awareness .. of awareness.

I also think there are different states of this awareness which offer greater understanding , but which are not easily maintained by us. If I could only manage to get the matter sorted in my mind I would offer you ‘the solution’ !
The explanations I have seen offered, scientifically, ASSUME at the start that brain operations and patterns can be ‘conscious’ ... ‘causing’ it in some way. Then the patterns are explored, the match noted and the matter considered proved.
Hmmm .. seems like a loop of logic to me.
It needs some NEW concept of matter and the world, and of mind, to conclude the problem I think.
The only world/universe ‘model ‘ I have come up with that could incorporate the brain and mind as one are so radical there is no chance I will suggest it here ….
I guess your super logical mind will find this unsatisfyingly obscure and and example of a common delusion, but I still think that though a more detailed understanding of the brains working will help , it will never be a real solution.
( he said, somewhat hopefully!)

David L

Posted by david L

> consciousness requires a single narrative stream...

2004-12-31T18:47:11.360-05:00

> consciousness requires a single narrative stream

hmm so if I was thinking on two lines at hte same time - I would either not be concious or would have two conciousneses.. hmmm

It seems like in the debate with concious robots we are defining conciousness as a part of the brain.
For example conciousness could be taken to be very close to long term memory - in this way you get a clear narative but it is not very active or even detailed it could on the other hand be very close to the senses in which case one gets a jumble of information.

usually we will take some complex combination of parts of the brain to describe it as in this debate but it seems a little arbitrary.

Posted by GeniusNZ

Uriah, Something like the Multiple Drafts model se...

2004-12-31T17:47:06.956-05:00

Uriah,
Something like the Multiple Drafts model seems necessary to explain the empirical data. I think the theory provides a very good explanation of what we might call 'informational' or 'access' consciousness (I don't know the proper term, but I'm talking about the sense of 'consciousness' which simply means what info is [introspectively] 'accessible' to an agent.)

I have a lot of trouble understanding how it is supposed to account for the qualitative aspects of consciousness, however. (Dennett seems to want to do away with qualia altogether!) But that's a topic that warrants a future post of its own.

Genius: "doesn't all of this mean we CANT TELL about conciousness without probes"

One could say that, I suppose, but as I quoted Dennett in my 'Cartesian Theatre' post:
"Putative facts about consciousness that swim out of reach of both 'outside' and 'inside' observers are strange facts indeed."

Further, it follows from the multiple drafts model that there really are no facts of consciousness independent of particular probes. This is because consciousness requires a single narrative stream, and this is only triggered by probes. Until probing occurs, we have multiple narratives ('drafts') in progress, so we cannot say which one of them is the objectively true narrative of our consciousness. There simply is no fact of the matter, according to this theory.

So even though it's possible that we just "can't tell" the contents of unprobed consciousness, we would be justified in accepting the "no fact of the matter" interpretation, if that is what our best scientific theory tells us.

Posted by Richard

"no fixed facts about the stream of consciousness ...

2004-12-31T07:39:23.226-05:00

"no fixed facts about the stream of consciousness independent of particular probes"
Er maybe i didnt understand it properly but doesn't all of this mean we CANT TELL about conciousness without probes
the conciousness should exist without the probes it is just that they help a person to remember and to prove things about the conciousness.

as to the rabit again he mostly said this but htee may be a point of disagreement - what may happen is that the brain recieves information it them tries to match it with previous experiences (or somthing similar) - this may actualy take some time maybe a fraction of a second maybe longer depending on all sorts of factors. But if you ask to early the brain has not had time to find that sort of an answer (as argued it seems above) so it gives the sensory answer instead or a half complete answer or even poentially a mangled one. later on it records the second answer AS WELL as the first one but since you can only recall option it may be as if it overwrote the sensory information but technically I doubt it would do exactly that though. This means that there may well be a narative but if somthing dominant is recorded that narative may be hard to find - and be subject to the normal decay of neuron connections.
Then one has a problem of defining what conciousness is. is it the chain of instaintanious "you"s or is it the agregate apparent you as you seem to be suggesting here or for example can we take it to a whole new level and define it as some sort of chain of events not even bound to you physically?

Posted by GeniusNZ

OK, so that's the overview. Now let's talk plausib...

2004-12-31T01:05:31.150-05:00

OK, so that's the overview. Now let's talk plausibility... What do you think, Richard? I've never been a fan. It's just about conceivable to me that multiple drafting is a necessary condition for consciousness. But it seems completely unbelievable that it's a sufficient condition.

Posted by uriah