Philosophy Now Forum

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 8:26 am Thought needs awareness to be known, but awareness does not need thought to BE

But doesn't also awareness need thought to be known? And so then, how can you be aware of something if you don't know you are aware of it?

Zelebg wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 10:37 am But doesn't also awareness need thought to be known? And so then, how can you be aware of something if you don't know you are aware of it?

If you actually understood recursion you would observe the meta-epistemic problems this question poses: How do you know that you know?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:20 am If you actually understood recursion you would observe the meta-epistemic problems this question poses: How do you know that you know?

...by testing what I know.

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 3:06 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:20 am If you actually understood recursion you would observe the meta-epistemic problems this question poses: How do you know that you know?

...by testing what I know.

How do you test that you know what you know?

And if you are going to self-science yourself - how do you test that you don't know?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 3:24 pm

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 3:06 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:20 am If you actually understood recursion you would observe the meta-epistemic problems this question poses: How do you know that you know?

...by testing what I know.

How do you test that you know what you know?

And if you are going to self-science yourself - how do you test that you don't know?

Testing depends on whether you believe the answer sheet or not.

So, I can always believe that I know what I know.

If what I know is true, then I know what I know.

If what I know is false, then I know that I don’t know what I thought I knew.

If it were possible that I do not know what I know, then I would not know whether what I know is true or false.

If I don’t know whether what I know is true or false, then I just don’t know it.

If I just don’t know, then I don’t know what I don’t know, while I still know what I know.

Here’s the catch: who is going to decide what is true and what is false?

If there is no knower to do that, then I cannot know anything.

But I could still believe that I know what I know.

In fact, I can only believe that I know what I believe I know.

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 4:49 pm Testing depends on whether you believe the answer sheet or not.

And where would the answers come from if you are the one putting together the question-paper?

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 4:49 pm So, I can always believe that I know what I know.

If what I know is true, then I know what I know.

If what I know is false, then I know that I don’t know what I thought I knew.

But you are no closer to answering the question: how do you determine whether what you know is true or false?

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 4:49 pm Here’s the catch: who is going to decide what is true and what is false?

Exactly. Everything boils down to choice/decisions.

So if you believe that you know anything, something/somebody must have decided that to be true.

That's why the axiom of choice is the foundation of Mathematics.
That's why the decision problem is the foundation of Computer Science.

Whether that's an argument for free will - you decide.

The purpose and function of Conscious experience awareness and attention
The human brain Perceives the world, or rather creates a world of perception based on correlates of sensory signals from external to us. As we have multiple sensory modalities, and within each modality, a multiplicity of possible states, the possible state space of consciousness requires there be a selectivity of all of the possible sensory signals. How many different sensory inputs can we apprehend in awareness at any one time?

I would argue that we can experience at least two modalities that any one time, for instance you might be walking past the house and see a red gate and as you passed that red gate you hear a loud dog barking, so you learn to associate the two stimuli of the visual red gate and sound of the dog barking together, Evolution has found it necessary to be able to link any consciously experienced sensory modalities at once for the purpose of association and learning.

One purpose then of conscious experience is to allow The linking of multiple sensory modalities and experiences to form associations of networks for the purposes of learning.

The question then would be is it possible to form such associations without the help of conscious awareness or is conscious awareness a necessary faculty?

What are the limits of unconscious associated associative learning?

When we are doing repeated or non-novel tasks, our experience does not capture the resources of awareness and higher cognitive function, however that lower level of baseline consciousness acts as a kind of trigger towards attention which can then attract the focal point of awareness and its resources.

The broader perceptual baseline conscious experience performs the task of filtering the perceptual sensory signals for important and unexpected information which it then notifies our conscious awareness to focus directly on. Awareness’ role then is to mediate between multiple different sensory modalities to achieve learning and higher level cognitive functions which will assist in the given scenario which has been detected.

Question: could these described functions be performed without the baseline level of consciousness in the perceptual systems as well as in awareness? Would we be able to unconsciously detect novel stimuli and act upon it? Because our brain does not function like a computer program then this is not likely. The broader baseline of conscious experience then is like a signalling system if there were no signal it could not achieve the desired functions. The signals purpose is to draw attention to a particular area in a sensory modality and allow focused awareness to act upon that with broader resources from the entire brain. Consciousness and awareness then is the medium by which different parts of the brain can combine their efforts to achieve functions which would otherwise not be possible call without a hardwiring and explicit programs. On the fly creative solutions are what conscious awareness is tasked for. An argument from people looking to discredit the potency and usefulness of consciousness and awareness would be that the brain can unconsciously do all of that which has been described, however this is not true of novel situations where hardwiring is not present between the different areas of the brain which are required to function together and swap information and share that information to achieve some non programmed novel function.

Zelebg wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 11:58 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 7:50 pm How experience can be stored in unconscious mind?

Unconscious mind or subconsciousness is just a bio-electro-mechanical storage for data and automatic functions like heart pumping or reflex responses. I think with neural networks we can completely if not emulate it, then simulate it.

Keeping in mind what I've said earlier, experience is stored into unconscious mind by consciousness integrating and encoding cognition, emotion and sensation into "learning input feed" compatible for use with neural network, which then affects creation, destruction, weakening, or strengthening of neural connections between neural nodes, just like AI. How all that makes sense inside the network and what is really going on in there, we don't really know, but it's something a PC or a worm can do if learning input feed is provided by humans in the case of AI, or the network comes already preconfigured by DNA in the case of a worm.

Materialists argue that matter is different from experience, objective and subjective respectively. I am wondering how the experience can be stored in matter? They are different categories and there is nothing in matter which is similar to experience.

Dimebag wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 1:15 pm The purpose and function of Conscious experience awareness and attention
The human brain Perceives the world, or rather creates a world of perception based on correlates of sensory signals from external to us. As we have multiple sensory modalities, and within each modality, a multiplicity of possible states, the possible state space of consciousness requires there be a selectivity of all of the possible sensory signals. How many different sensory inputs can we apprehend in awareness at any one time?

I would argue that we can experience at least two modalities that any one time, for instance you might be walking past the house and see a red gate and as you passed that red gate you hear a loud dog barking, so you learn to associate the two stimuli of the visual red gate and sound of the dog barking together, Evolution has found it necessary to be able to link any consciously experienced sensory modalities at once for the purpose of association and learning.

One purpose then of conscious experience is to allow The linking of multiple sensory modalities and experiences to form associations of networks for the purposes of learning.

The question then would be is it possible to form such associations without the help of conscious awareness or is conscious awareness a necessary faculty?

What are the limits of unconscious associated associative learning?

When we are doing repeated or non-novel tasks, our experience does not capture the resources of awareness and higher cognitive function, however that lower level of baseline consciousness acts as a kind of trigger towards attention which can then attract the focal point of awareness and its resources.

The broader perceptual baseline conscious experience performs the task of filtering the perceptual sensory signals for important and unexpected information which it then notifies our conscious awareness to focus directly on. Awareness’ role then is to mediate between multiple different sensory modalities to achieve learning and higher level cognitive functions which will assist in the given scenario which has been detected.

Question: could these described functions be performed without the baseline level of consciousness in the perceptual systems as well as in awareness? Would we be able to unconsciously detect novel stimuli and act upon it? Because our brain does not function like a computer program then this is not likely. The broader baseline of conscious experience then is like a signalling system if there were no signal it could not achieve the desired functions. The signals purpose is to draw attention to a particular area in a sensory modality and allow focused awareness to act upon that with broader resources from the entire brain. Consciousness and awareness then is the medium by which different parts of the brain can combine their efforts to achieve functions which would otherwise not be possible call without a hardwiring and explicit programs. On the fly creative solutions are what conscious awareness is tasked for. An argument from people looking to discredit the potency and usefulness of consciousness and awareness would be that the brain can unconsciously do all of that which has been described, however this is not true of novel situations where hardwiring is not present between the different areas of the brain which are required to function together and swap information and share that information to achieve some non programmed novel function.

That doesn't make any sense to me: How something which is byprodcut of matter movement could itself give a task to matter? In materialism the process of motion of matter is blind. There is no experience when something is moving.

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 8:26 am

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 10:39 pm So, you can read my thoughts? I mean, if you can achieve a state of mind which you have universal consciousness then you are aware of everything including my thoughts.

You cannot even read your own thoughts. Because the reader is one with itself. In other words, many many different thoughts arise, but there is only one reader reading thoughts no one is thinking. The one aware of thoughts is the same one in every one, there is only that one awareness...apparently appearing as the many awarenesses.
Notice as aware beings we all see the same things, we can all see the same things in that we have arms and legs, and live in houses etc..the objects we see are the thoughts known, projected as a world in front of our eyes. Every person has the same seeing ability, and that's who you are. You are the seer, not the thing seen. For example: when you look at your hand, what is looking at your hand is the same awareness that another person uses to look at their hand. The hand in and of itself doesn't exist apart from the one knowing it, the hand has no idea it exists or what it is, the hand is only known as and through the seer awareness that the hand is appearing in. Awareness is not in the hand....the hand is a projection appearing on the screen of awareness.

Thoughts are spontaneously arising in awareness. Thoughts trigger other thoughts to appear, there is no thinker making thoughts happen, there is no actual space where you can become conscious you are making a thought happen, simply because there is no one making thoughts happen. There is awareness of thought (which are just concepts known by awareness) but awareness is not the thought it is aware of because awareness is just the empty screen on which the thought is projected, and the thought too being inseparable from the empty awareness is just an empty image of the imageless awareness appearing as if it is real like a hologram.

Thought needs awareness to be known, but awareness does not need thought to BE

You are awareness, you cannot know awareness, you can only BE awareness...and it is this awareness that is knowing each and every thought as and when thought arises in awareness. Both thought and awareness have to be present in the exact same instant. Knower and known are ONE - you are that, there is no you because there is no other than you. And that's the same for every one. When you understand the concept of ONE...you will see there is no other one when you refer to others.


Awareness is the projection screen on which all thoughts manifest as things known. And since awareness is the only one reality, there is no other reader reading thought but this one...which is just another term for no one.

This will not make sense to you unless you have had a full blown awakening.

.

Of course, I can read my thoughts. Thoughts very often come to my mind when I am thinking about a subject. Like know, what I should write for you. There is a correlation between what we perceive and what we do. Consciousness, actively play a role in here. We are observing a fantastic correlation between what we experience and what we do.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 9:08 am

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 4:49 pm Testing depends on whether you believe the answer sheet or not.

And where would the answers come from if you are the one putting together the question-paper?

Exactly. The answers will come from me IF I BELIEVE that I am free to determine them, in which case I would always be right no matter what the answers are. OR, the answers will come from a higher intelligence IF I BELIEVE such a being exists. So, the answers depend on what I believe about what I know.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 9:08 am

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 4:49 pm So, I can always believe that I know what I know.
If what I know is true, then I know what I know.
If what I know is false, then I know that I don’t know what I thought I knew.

But you are no closer to answering the question: how do you determine whether what you know is true or false?

By believing the unsubstantiated assumption that what I know is true if I, or a higher intelligence, wants it to be true; and in the same fashion for what is false.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 9:08 am

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 4:49 pm Here’s the catch: who is going to decide what is true and what is false?

Exactly. Everything boils down to choice/decisions.

So if you believe that you know anything, something/somebody must have decided that to be true.

That's why the axiom of choice is the foundation of Mathematics.
That's why the decision problem is the foundation of Computer Science.

Whether that's an argument for free will - you decide.

For for &/or for against according to my words above. It just depends on what I believe about what I believe.

What, I wonder, is the source of knowledge? Reality? Something else?

Do we know reality or this something else to be true? Or must we take it on faith that whatever is the source of knowledge is true?

After all, if we know this source of knowledge to be true, then there must be a known source behind the initial source, and so on.

Perhaps any basic source of knowledge must be accepted without evidence, accepted via ignorant belief.

Yet science provides us evidence of what we know to be real. Or is our reality only a projection of imagination?

How can we know that our evidence of what is real is real itself? Are we actually left with belief as the basis of knowledge?

I wonder.

bahman wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 3:48 pm

Dimebag wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 1:15 pm The purpose and function of Conscious experience awareness and attention
The human brain Perceives the world, or rather creates a world of perception based on correlates of sensory signals from external to us. As we have multiple sensory modalities, and within each modality, a multiplicity of possible states, the possible state space of consciousness requires there be a selectivity of all of the possible sensory signals. How many different sensory inputs can we apprehend in awareness at any one time?

I would argue that we can experience at least two modalities that any one time, for instance you might be walking past the house and see a red gate and as you passed that red gate you hear a loud dog barking, so you learn to associate the two stimuli of the visual red gate and sound of the dog barking together, Evolution has found it necessary to be able to link any consciously experienced sensory modalities at once for the purpose of association and learning.

One purpose then of conscious experience is to allow The linking of multiple sensory modalities and experiences to form associations of networks for the purposes of learning.

The question then would be is it possible to form such associations without the help of conscious awareness or is conscious awareness a necessary faculty?

What are the limits of unconscious associated associative learning?

When we are doing repeated or non-novel tasks, our experience does not capture the resources of awareness and higher cognitive function, however that lower level of baseline consciousness acts as a kind of trigger towards attention which can then attract the focal point of awareness and its resources.

The broader perceptual baseline conscious experience performs the task of filtering the perceptual sensory signals for important and unexpected information which it then notifies our conscious awareness to focus directly on. Awareness’ role then is to mediate between multiple different sensory modalities to achieve learning and higher level cognitive functions which will assist in the given scenario which has been detected.

Question: could these described functions be performed without the baseline level of consciousness in the perceptual systems as well as in awareness? Would we be able to unconsciously detect novel stimuli and act upon it? Because our brain does not function like a computer program then this is not likely. The broader baseline of conscious experience then is like a signalling system if there were no signal it could not achieve the desired functions. The signals purpose is to draw attention to a particular area in a sensory modality and allow focused awareness to act upon that with broader resources from the entire brain. Consciousness and awareness then is the medium by which different parts of the brain can combine their efforts to achieve functions which would otherwise not be possible call without a hardwiring and explicit programs. On the fly creative solutions are what conscious awareness is tasked for. An argument from people looking to discredit the potency and usefulness of consciousness and awareness would be that the brain can unconsciously do all of that which has been described, however this is not true of novel situations where hardwiring is not present between the different areas of the brain which are required to function together and swap information and share that information to achieve some non programmed novel function.

That doesn't make any sense to me: How something which is byprodcut of matter movement could itself give a task to matter? In materialism the process of motion of matter is blind. There is no experience when something is moving.

How do you view consciousness? Is it an epiphenomenal byproduct of the mind? If that’s the case, of course you view consciousness existing at the END of a causal chain, not as part OF the causal chain of human awareness and action selection. You thereby specify that consciousness has no function, and is then a useless byproduct, which of course is ridiculous. It obviously serves a purpose, otherwise we wouldn’t have it.

You also imagine that consciousness is something apart from the operation of the brain, and so have removed its potency and usefulness. Let us observe. When you are not paying attention to something, your potential for behaviour acting on that thing in question is limited, likely to some specific prelearned task, which no longer requires awareness to achieve a desired result. This is because the sensory and motor pathways have become that systematised that all possible outcomes have been accounted for, nothing unexpected will happen when performing that task, and so attention directs your awareness to more pertinent tasks, like daydreaming about what to have for lunch, or thinking about how consciousness works, or worrying about some meaningless silly thing which contains a higher degree of uncertainty.

There is still a low level of attention paid to the task being performed, monitoring the task, and flagging anything abnormal which will then direct the attention towards the anomaly, for further inspection. If I am, for instance, wiping the dishes, not paying attention, simply following set routines of wiping motions with the dishcloth to remove excess moisture from the dishes, and all of a sudden, something unexpected enters this lower level of perceptual monitoring, then this will direct my attention, my focus of vision, onto the anomaly in question, a piece of food which hasn’t been cleaned yet, and so the awareness determines that there is someone responsible for this anomaly, the dishwasher, and they must be notified of the issue, and so a novel verbal utterance is instantiated which will resolve the issue.

The awareness is basically the space in which issues are resolved and delegations to other sensory motor areas are tasked, based on previous understandings of routine and rules. If no existing rule or routine exists based on the detected anomaly, awareness then needs to recruit further abstract problem solving centres, and liaises with the various areas required for action, like a director or middle man.

So the system consists of:

Perceptual sensory modalities, operating with minimal attention, flagging issues where necessary as they interact with prelearned behaviour patterns, guiding those actions and providing sensory feedback to allow the motor areas to perform the correct actions. This involves an experiential consciousness, but which does not engage with awareness and so short term memory of these perceptions is very minimal, unless awareness is directed towards such an anomaly.

These lower level perceptions still produce a phenomenal consciousness, as this acts as the trigger or flag for which awareness is directed via attention mechanisms, which themselves exist outside of awareness, they simply pass information back and forth between the senses, awareness, and the motor cortex.

Awareness is a system or layer which exists on top of these lower perceptual and attentional layers, which serves as a space to assemble complex actions which aren’t part of existing learned behaviours. This system directs behaviours and, as those behaviours are repeated, stronger connections are formed between the systems in question, and learning occurs, which removes the need for awareness’ resources to be used to monitor those behaviours.

Dimebag wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 1:15 pm The purpose and function of Conscious experience awareness and attention

One purpose then of conscious experience is to allow The linking of multiple sensory modalities and experiences to form associations of networks for the purposes of learning.

Consciousness:
1. is focused awareness, is computation system, is awareness focusing mechanism
2. function A. direct attention
3. function B. process information
4. purpose X. to learn
5. purpose Y. to be creative

Is this complete and true summary of what you're saying? Please add, remove or modify what I failed to understand correctly.

Would we be able to unconsciously detect novel stimuli and act upon it? Because our brain does not function like a computer program then this is not likely.

Consciousness and awareness then is the medium by which different parts of the brain can combine their efforts to achieve functions which would otherwise not be possible call without a hardwiring and explicit programs.

I don't think you showed there is necessity for the "subjectiveness" of the experience, or 'qualia'. Basically, I think you're saying neural network can't accept raw sensory input, so it needs some interfacing, encoding, or pre-processing in order to receive "learning feed". But if it is just a matter of information processing or bare functionality, then there is no causal reason for there to be some "self-observer" of that inner process going on.

Zelebg wrote: ↑Sat Nov 09, 2019 6:16 am

Dimebag wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 1:15 pm The purpose and function of Conscious experience awareness and attention

One purpose then of conscious experience is to allow The linking of multiple sensory modalities and experiences to form associations of networks for the purposes of learning.

Consciousness:
1. is focused awareness, is computation system, is awareness focusing mechanism
Assumption of a point of reality, be it an abstraction, intuition or physical action that is percieved.


2. function A. direct attention
In assuming, thus being imprinted by this point, the point is inverted into a new set of points and is projected either into the observer or outwards thus forming a pattern.

3. function B. process information
This pattern is then reassummed, as a point of reality itself, and then divided/multiplied into new patterns that are projected.

4. purpose X. to learn
Assuming localized portions, points, of reality.

5. purpose Y. to be creative
Converging and diverging these patterns into new patterns.

Is this complete and true summary of what you're saying? Please add, remove or modify what I failed to understand correctly.

Would we be able to unconsciously detect novel stimuli and act upon it? Because our brain does not function like a computer program then this is not likely.

Consciousness and awareness then is the medium by which different parts of the brain can combine their efforts to achieve functions which would otherwise not be possible call without a hardwiring and explicit programs.

I don't think you showed there is necessity for the "subjectiveness" of the experience, or 'qualia'. Basically, I think you're saying neural network can't accept raw sensory input, so it needs some interfacing, encoding, or pre-processing in order to receive "learning feed". But if it is just a matter of information processing or bare functionality, then there is no causal reason for there to be some "self-observer" of that inner process going on.

?