A quote attributed (perhaps wrongly) to Lord Rutherford's is “All science is either physics or stamp collecting.” . I like it in reference to anecdotal evidence we get from thinking about our own mind. This is the stamp collecting part. All of us have plenty to say about our supposed inner worlds and I do think it legitimate to collect these stamps.

Unfortunately we have a lot of amateurs doing the collecting, like really really lots of amateurs and all of them are absolutely convinced that they are the epitome of professionalism when it comes to their own inner view. Philosophy is riddled with this disease of first person access and most famously this starts with that clueless hack René Descartes.

Undeniably we have something to study here. We all have some stamps. We all have shit happening inside of our heads and we all have an opinion about how this is proof of god or the supernatural or some other crazy notion like 'science can't x'. We have a thing for which we would like some explanations.

If we have a bottle of table salt in front of us we have a thing that we think we can explain. We look into sodium and chlorine and ionic species and then crystal formation and many other aspects in the realm of physics. Surprisingly no one says "science knows nothing about table salt".

How do we get to the same place with this first person mind thing? We point at the salt, how do we point at the mind?

One silly approach is to become overly attached to the spook we call 'consciousness'. We all know what a conscious mammal looks like and what an unconscious mammal looks like. Somehow many of us have come to believe that we can attach a -ness to that idea and have a thing worthy of pointing out. A candidate stamp.

I believe that the C with the -ness is just a spook that amounts to no more than an 'undigested bit of beef'. It is not a useful stamp. We have other words like attention, thought, and aware that are sufficient to describe our inner stamps.

So first, what is the thing to which we want to point and ask of science that it explain for us?

I would like to develop a bit of agnosticism about our internal view. A few moments ago I decided to write this. I was aware of some set of things in my body and world. I can say that I was aware of a thought about this post. I may remember looking at the philosophy post title page and remember that it is light blue on my monitor.

There are certain persistent bits. Sometimes these things are memory and sometimes I just happen to be in the same place and now look at them in this moment of remembering and think I was aware when perhaps I was not.

The point is that we have only a few highly processed memories of what we were aware of a moment ago. We can use a method. Mark out a timeline. Think what you were aware of in the last hour. Now the last 15 minutes. Then the last minute, then the last second, then try and divide it even further until you approach the 'now'.

As we approach the 'now' I think it becomes clear that our memory of right now is somewhat just as precarious as the memory of the last hour. We have absolutely zero reason to believe that we can know what our awareness was a moment ago and little real evidence for what it consists of even in this pinacle of moments that we believe is the 'now'.

Play with the idea of being a little bit skeptical here.

I have come to believe that in each broad brush of a momentary now in my mind, I have a rich set of thousands of things impinging on me and blending together into my feeling of being myself. This is the content of mind. I treat it as an intensional set (one I can broadly describe but not extend by listing all it's elements). My last hour is a set of sets of content, having roughly 3600 * 5 members. 5 for each second. I have this set and I am somewhat agnostic about what all it's elements are.

The older I get the more I think that everything can be summed up by that single great line in Withnail and I:

“We’ve gone on holiday by mistake.”

We are a delightful mingling of intent, entropy and confusion.

SOS, have you read Graziano (Consciousness and the social brain, "attention schema theory") ? I've been meaning to start a thread on that because it seems spot on to me.

GrahamH wrote:SOS, have you read Graziano (Consciousness and the social brain, "attention schema theory") ? I've been meaning to start a thread on that because it seems spot on to me.

I actually have two copies of that book. Have read it. Will be reading it again.

Right now I am reading and studying, slowly, David Rose and a few different Oxford and Blackwell compendiums. Doing it as a study rather than a read which is painful and slow.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

GrahamH wrote:SOS, have you read Graziano (Consciousness and the social brain, "attention schema theory") ? I've been meaning to start a thread on that because it seems spot on to me.

I actually have two copies of that book. Have read it. Will be reading it again.

I thought you would have it on your bookshelf. How do you see it as answer to the non-thingness of consciousness?
In that respect it contrasts with IIT and other 'process' theories.

GrahamH wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

GrahamH wrote:SOS, have you read Graziano (Consciousness and the social brain, "attention schema theory") ? I've been meaning to start a thread on that because it seems spot on to me.

I actually have two copies of that book. Have read it. Will be reading it again.

I thought you would have it on your bookshelf. How do you see it as answer to the non-thingness of consciousness?
In that respect it contrasts with IIT and other 'process' theories.

If memory serves me he has one good piece. But just another piece of the whole. A fine theory about one part of what our cognition is on whole. I have always been a theory-slut and I am beginning to understand why. Many theories are good and probably have some or a lot of truth to them. But there is no single thing that consumes all of so-called conscious content unless you want to say the entire brain and environment IS consciousness.

I am suggesting that we consider pushing back on the use of the word consciousness and break it into some finer parts. I think we actually want to talk about attention and awareness.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

GrahamH wrote:SOS, have you read Graziano (Consciousness and the social brain, "attention schema theory") ? I've been meaning to start a thread on that because it seems spot on to me.

I actually have two copies of that book. Have read it. Will be reading it again.

I thought you would have it on your bookshelf. How do you see it as answer to the non-thingness of consciousness?
In that respect it contrasts with IIT and other 'process' theories.

If memory serves me he has one good piece. But just another piece of the whole. A fine theory about one part of what our cognition is on whole. I have always been a theory-slut and I am beginning to understand why. Many theories are good and probably have some or a lot of truth to them. But there is no single thing that consumes all of so-called conscious content unless you want to say the entire brain and environment IS consciousness.

I am suggesting that we consider pushing back on the use of the word consciousness and break it into some finer parts. I think we actually want to talk about attention and awareness.

As I read it he gets at the core of "what consciousness is", relating it to a known physical phenomena (attention). Indeed he avoids that trap that most theories seem to fall into (e.g. IIT) of "the entire brain and environment IS consciousness".

SpeedOfSound wrote:So first, what is the thing to which we want to point and ask of science that it explain for us?

Animavore wrote:someone cracks neurology with a succinct and parsimonious explanation

Brevity is not the soul of wit. Brevity is the soul of parsimony. Levity is the soul of wit. You can't be both parsimonious and succinct and still be, er, succinct. But these guys...? They may not be succinct, but man, are they synced.

SpeedOfSound wrote:A quote attributed (perhaps wrongly) to Lord Rutherford's is “All science is either physics or stamp collecting.” . I like it in reference to anecdotal evidence we get from thinking about our own mind. This is the stamp collecting part. All of us have plenty to say about our supposed inner worlds and I do think it legitimate to collect these stamps.

Unfortunately we have a lot of amateurs doing the collecting, like really really lots of amateurs and all of them are absolutely convinced that they are the epitome of professionalism when it comes to their own inner view. Philosophy is riddled with this disease of first person access and most famously this starts with that clueless hack René Descartes.

Undeniably we have something to study here. We all have some stamps. We all have shit happening inside of our heads and we all have an opinion about how this is proof of god or the supernatural or some other crazy notion like 'science can't x'. We have a thing for which we would like some explanations.

If we have a bottle of table salt in front of us we have a thing that we think we can explain. We look into sodium and chlorine and ionic species and then crystal formation and many other aspects in the realm of physics. Surprisingly no one says "science knows nothing about table salt".

How do we get to the same place with this first person mind thing? We point at the salt, how do we point at the mind?

One silly approach is to become overly attached to the spook we call 'consciousness'. We all know what a conscious mammal looks like and what an unconscious mammal looks like. Somehow many of us have come to believe that we can attach a -ness to that idea and have a thing worthy of pointing out. A candidate stamp.

I believe that the C with the -ness is just a spook that amounts to no more than an 'undigested bit of beef'. It is not a useful stamp. We have other words like attention, thought, and aware that are sufficient to describe our inner stamps.

So first, what is the thing to which we want to point and ask of science that it explain for us?

While I generally agree with this sentiment, or at least the conclusion, I think you are getting hung up in reification, which is what those who propose consciousness is a thing also do. Things are products of mind. Naming is a way to begin to make models.

BWE wrote: Things are products of mind. Naming is a way to begin to make models.

I think you are coming at that from far to high a level. Any attempt to identify what consciousness is should not start with 'mind' or 'products of mind'.

Brains make models (Bayesian predictors if you like) and models can support names.

Why is it important that consciousness be a thing? I mean, the thing is this, things aren't important to metaphysics.

Stop playing with your thing and get a clue.

jamest wrote:Why is it important that consciousness be a thing? I mean, the thing is this, things aren't important to metaphysics.

Stop playing with your thing and get a clue.

Take your own advice and drop the "One God" reification.

jamest wrote:Why is it important that consciousness be a thing? I mean, the thing is this, things aren't important to metaphysics.

Stop playing with your thing and get a clue.

I recently posted a link to Mose Allison singing "I Don't Worry 'Bout A Thing". Sing it with me. I think you and Mose could get along famously, if you didn't care so much whilst telling everyone how little you care.