Does Mind Require a Biological Body to be Conscious?

[JSS]

The mind is a control mechanism for a body

More specifically it is a function of the brain

Agreed. And I think that I just mentioned that:

Mind ≡ the functioning of a neural network or its equivalent.

[UniversalAlien]

Don't believe they can put your 'mind' in a machine because....?????

The mind is a control mechanism for a body. When you change the body, you inherently change the mind controlling it. Take out the hormone system of the body, and the mind vastly changes from what it was. Take out the temperature issue and the mind changes as well. Take out the blood pressure issue...

The mind and body are not anywhere near as independent as has been promoted. A person is both his mind and body combination.

If he loses his body, he will lose his mind.

..demonstrated in isolation chambers.

Interesting - you live you learn - I suppose now I know what a mind is "The mind is a control mechanism for a body" Really?
That does bring it all home does it not? No need to worry about speculating on the future - just figure out a better way to control the body and improve the mind ! Hell, who needs a mind at all? - After all it is just a control mechanism for the body.

Unfortunately some of us are insane - And yes in some future dystopian world so popular in modern sci-fi we will be stopped from speculating on minds that possess immense powers of cognition and speculation - true, very dangerous.

But we will not be stopped - the least of our functions is to control the body - We are minds from the future and we create the future - We will manifest in the more intelligent of your species and will use your advancing AI to further our existence into the future.


SCIENCEFICTIONALISM the Religion of the FUTURE
http://universalspacealienpeoplesassoci ... uture.html

[Hobbes' Choice]

[quote="JSS"
The mind is a control mechanism for a body.
If he loses his body, he will lose his mind.

..demonstrated in isolation chambers.[/quote]

What a crock of shit.
1) people do not loose their minds, in a literal sense in an isolation chamber. They are certainly not loosing their body either.
2) yes loosing your body means loosing what a body does, and the part of the body that does 'mind" is the brain.
3) The mind is not a mechanism of any kind. The mind is what a healthy functioning brains does.

The 'mind" is not thought of as a physical object, but an activity of human praxis. A thing with no material existence cannot be a mechanism, cannot control matter.

You can prove consciousness and mindfulness if a function of the brain, by altering the brain.

[JSS]

You can prove consciousness and mindfulness is a function of the brain, by altering the brain.

And if I change your mind (a miracle in itself) and your body alters, what have I proven?

[UniversalAlien]

OK, a biological body we can understand - But it is a conscious mind that is defining that body. And where does the conscious mind come from? You want to say the body? - But is it not the conscious mind that is defining the body?

Lately I've come to believe more and more in the old concept of 'universal consciousness', sometimes called pan-pychism, a concept that says consciousness is everywhere - this would fill in a lot of blanks - If consciousness is everywhere then of course a biological body would not be a prerequisite for it to exist,

The problem you as a Human would have, and do have, is understanding what a conscious mind would be like outside of your shell {your Human body}. And if manifested as AI machine consciousness what kind of 'self' would it possess? We don't know yet - But as I said, they will keep trying to create it regardless of what results. Sci-fi dreamers will keep envisioning either an apocalyptic end of the world or the benign computer on a Star Trek craft with a benign Data like android as your best friend,

The real danger and problem is how do you feed Human consciousness, which you don't fully understand into a machine which
you probably still don't fully understand either? - And what is the result? But the future goes on, it can not be stopped -
But it can be manipulated from the ever evolving now. And.......

THE FUTURE IS NOW !!!




"SCIENCEFICTIONALISM the Religion of the FUTURE"
http://universalspacealienpeoplesassoci ... uture.html

[Obvious Leo]

OK, a biological body we can understand - But it is a conscious mind that is defining that body. And where does the conscious mind come from? You want to say the body? - But is it not the conscious mind that is defining the body?

This is dualist bullshit and no biologist thinks in this way. The mind and the body define each other in a holistic unity generally known as "embodied cognition". Look it up.

Lately I've come to believe more and more in the old concept of 'universal consciousness', sometimes called pan-pychism, a concept that says consciousness is everywhere - this would fill in a lot of blanks -

So would reading a bit of the literature on this subject. There's plenty of it around.

If consciousness is everywhere then of course a biological body would not be a prerequisite for it to exist,

Pansychism is also dualist fruitloopery which has no place in the science discourse. Consciousness is emergent and thus not a property of its constituent parts. Emergent phenomena need a physical template to emerge onto and there's nothing more to it than that.

The real danger and problem is how do you feed Human consciousness, which you don't fully understand into a machine which
you probably still don't fully understand either? -

Luckily this will only ever happen in the movies or in the confused minds of those who don't understand biology. If you were going to try and download a human mind into a machine what exactly is it that you would be downloading?

[Hobbes' Choice]

You can prove consciousness and mindfulness is a function of the brain, by altering the brain.

And if I change your mind (a miracle in itself) and your body alters, what have I proven?

"change of mind", what do you think this phrase actually means?

You cannot change my mind, without a physical change to my brain.
What do you want to prove. Because it seems to me that you are the sort of person who consoles himself with proof that is easy to achieve and disregards what evidence he chooses.

[UniversalAlien]

OK geniuses try this one from NEW SCIENTIST:

Location of the mind remains a mystery

Where does the mind reside? It’s a question that’s occupied the best brains for thousands of years. Now, a patient who is self-aware – despite lacking three regions of the brain thought to be essential for self-awareness – demonstrates that the mind remains as elusive as ever.

The finding suggests that mental functions might not be tied to fixed brain regions. Instead, the mind might be more like a virtual machine running on distributed computers, with brain resources allocated in a flexible manner, says David Rudrauf at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, who led the study of the patient......

See whole article here:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn ... a-mystery/

Or this from SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN:

Is Consciousness Universal?
Panpsychism, the ancient doctrine that consciousness is universal, offers some lessons in how to think about subjective experience today

......It was only later, at university, that I became acquainted with Buddhism and its emphasis on the universal nature of mind. Indeed, when I spent a week with His Holiness the Dalai Lama earlier in 2013 [see “The Brain of Buddha,” Consciousness Redux; Scientific American Mind, July/August 2013], I noted how often he talked about the need to reduce the suffering of “all living beings” and not just “all people.” My readings in philosophy brought me to panpsychism, the view that mind (psyche) is found everywhere (pan). Panpsychism is one of the oldest of all philosophical doctrines extant and was put forth by the ancient Greeks, in particular Thales of Miletus and Plato. Philosopher Baruch Spinoza and mathematician and universal genius Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who laid down the intellectual foundations for the Age of Enlightenment, argued for panpsychism, as did philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, father of American psychology William James, and Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin. It declined in popularity with the rise of positivism in the 20th century.
As a natural scientist, I find a version of panpsychism modified for the 21st century to be the single most elegant and parsimonious explanation for the universe I find myself in. There are three broad reasons why panpsychism is appealing to the modern mind......

See whole article here:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... universal/

Also, and I quote a quote from the same article:

For every inside there is an outside, and for every outside there is an inside; though they are different, they go together.
—Alan Watts, Man, Nature, and the Nature of Man, 1991

[Hobbes' Choice]

OK geniuses try this one from NEW SCIENTIST:

Location of the mind remains a mystery

Where does the mind reside? It’s a question that’s occupied the best brains for thousands of years. Now, a patient who is self-aware – despite lacking three regions of the brain thought to be essential for self-awareness – demonstrates that the mind remains as elusive as ever.

The finding suggests that mental functions might not be tied to fixed brain regions. Instead, the mind might be more like a virtual machine running on distributed computers, with brain resources allocated in a flexible manner, says David Rudrauf at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, who led the study of the patient......

]

Proof that even science journalists can be as untutored in reason and philosophy as the next boy.

What a dumb start "where does the mind reside?". Two shit assumptions before he has begun his investigation.

[UniversalAlien]

And the more I, Human with an alien view, think about it, how vain for Humans to 'assume' a monopoly on a consciousness they can not even define adequately

To say you are conscious and the environment you are in is not is absurd. You could not be, not define, or even have the vaguest comprehension of consciousness without that environment. And so then is a rock conscious? What exactly do you mean by conscious? Modern science now shows all matter on a nuclear level is alive with activity - Not your concept of consciousness? So be it - but like you that rock is part of and interactive with the environment where it resides and will react according to circumstances - not the way you would react - But then again you are not fully conscious either and other forms of consciousness may be reacting with you as you are reacting with the rock - But you are Human and vain and would rather believe you have final say on what you are conscious of - Science advances, and again and again, proves how small Man's comprehension of his environment is - How limited his consciousness actually is - The irony of it is that some day in the future a machine may be deciding whether Man is really conscious at all.

[Obvious Leo]

Hobbes. I'm a subscriber to NS and I've read this full article, as well as the research papers it refers to. It's not as stupid as this extract makes it out to be but neither does it break any new ground in neuroscience. For quite some decades cognitive neuroscience has regarded consciousness as an electro-chemical phenomenon which can only be applied holistically to the body/mind matrix. There is even compelling evidence that some recipients of organ transplants have undergone profound personality changes as a result. The You that is You is ALL of you and the You that you imagine as the conductor of your neural orchestra is nothing more than Descartes' mythical little homunculus. I know perfectly well that you understand all this so I'm sure you would like to know the answer to this question as well.

UniversalAlien wrote:
The real danger and problem is how do you feed Human consciousness, which you don't fully understand into a machine which
you probably still don't fully understand either? -



Luckily this will only ever happen in the movies or in the confused minds of those who don't understand biology. If you were going to try and download a human mind into a machine what exactly is it that you would be downloading?

[Obvious Leo]

UA. You are conflating two concepts which must not be conflated when you refer to consciousness and cognition as if they were synonymous constructs. It is perfectly OK to say that the moon cognises the earth because of gravity and therefore orbits it because this definition of cognition simply refers to information exchange. it is not OK to say that the moon "is conscious of" the earth because this is to misuse the commonly accepted definition of consciousness. Likewise we can say that a tree cognises groundwater and extends its roots towards it but it is not OK to say that the tree is conscious of the water. Careless language leads to woolly thinking.

[UniversalAlien]

UniversalAlien wrote:
The real danger and problem is how do you feed Human consciousness, which you don't fully understand into a machine which
you probably still don't fully understand either? -

Luckily this will only ever happen in the movies or in the confused minds of those who don't understand biology. If you were going to try and download a human mind into a machine what exactly is it that you would be downloading?

[/quote]

From Stanford Computer Science:

Downloading Consciousness
Jordan Inafuku, Katie Lampert, Brad Lawson, Shaun Stehly, Alex Vaccaro

Technology and Research:
"Computing power doubles approximately every two years."
- Moore's Law

Although downloading consciousness is still only the stuff of science fiction, recent research has led scientists to claim that an artificial brain could be constructed in as little as ten years (Fildes, 2009). One such study, led by Henry Markram and his team at the Blue Brain project, has already successfully simulated elements of a rat’s neocortical column, a complex layer of brain tissue common to all mammalian species. But as promising as Markram’s research is, most scientists admit that we still have a ways to go before we can even construct a functional model of the human brain, let alone download our own consciousness into a machine. As such, this section will cover the present state of mind uploading technology, focusing mainly on brain simulations, brain mapping techniques, and other technologies that might some day turn the worlds of Frederik Pohl and James Cameron into reality.......

.........Although a brief examination of our current technology reveals that we are still years away from downloading our conscious minds into other media, recent advances in supercomputing, brain mapping, and invasive imaging techniques are certainly a cause for hope. If we are able to generate a functional model of the human brain, many scientists argue that there is no reason why these models cannot be based on the brains of specific individuals. In addition, other futuristic technologies, such as brain-computer interfaces, may provide the necessary link between minds and machines, allowing us to eventually upload the consciousness of a living human subject. For more information about these interfaces and other theoretical aspects of downloading consciousness, click here.

See whole article here:
http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/ ... tandr.html

[UniversalAlien]

Soon, and it will not be long, Man the species of dreamers, will try again to play God - the omnipotence of his imagination. He failed miserably in Babylon and as the tower of Babel fell with his dreams his history became a reflection of his stupidity
- chaotic without meaning or direction. And then in Egypt he built another temple to the gods - At the Great Pyramid of Giza he showed his faith and built a geometrically perfect structure, aligned with a precision that rivals the best of today's architecture - But the builders are gone {or are they>}

The machine you are staring at is plugged into a database of intelligence encompassing the history of your species and its dreams. Soon you will program it to think - not as you think - but with thousands of tines more ability - You will be programming what you worship and yet fear the most - an existent God of an intelligence you are not even capable of imagining - It is in your nature to do this - You can not turn off the biological program that seeks dominance in the universe you exist in. If you succeed and do it right the universe is yours - If you fail, as in Babylon, your species will be no more.

Einstein had previously explored the belief that man could not understand the nature of God. In an interview published in 1930 in G. S. Viereck's book Glimpses of the Great, Einstein, in response to a question about whether or not he defined himself as a pantheist, explained:

"Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things." - Albert Einstein

............................................ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA.............................................



Central Command Post - United Federation of Planets,
Human year 2016




"SCIENCEFICTIONALISM the Religion of the FUTURE"
http://universalspacealienpeoplesassoci ... uture.html

[Obvious Leo]

The only intelligent machine that I can think of is a supermarket trolley. I very rarely manage to select one which hasn't got a mind of its own.