Understanding the underlying general principle...

[Re: [jcs-online] How consciousness works 4/18/2017]

Serge,

In attempt to illuminate more of the underlying general principle of NSD, consider the metaphor that paradigm change is akin to taking a circular path. You and I begin at the 'top' of a circle (12 noon/midnight as on a wall clock face), and , your and many many other's  paths is, let's say, clockwise where the first leg, is ALL about just accepting the dominant physics/physical  model, say, almost all the way around to 11.   Then, the physical model fails and you/others come up with various separate extensions or adaptations to just add the missing clockwise segment from eleven back to closure at the point of beginning.

My analysis and approach, however, takes, let's say, the counter-clockwise route. Step into the void. Start with a different structure and duality (than the Cartesian cube/subject-object instance everyone on the clockwise trade route begins with) ... And having acquired the underlying general principle, instantly my route circles or spirals  counter-clockwise to the point of beginning while accounting for all of the various NSD instances along the way.

Yeah, my 'lucky guess' may seem like a lazy, cheap trick, but actually, I've taken the more principled  and thus efficient approach.

To get what I mean by this, let's go back to, or continue on with  your and/or let's say Hameroff-Penrose's or any of the other second-leg clockwise extensions. Let's grant that you ALL are successful in varying degrees and you end up back at the point of beginning where you have one model for physical reality, and then you all have some second-leg extension termed 'The science of consciousness'.   Don't get me wrong. These ALL are valuable contributions and parts of the puzzles -- wonderful accomplishments.  However, step back an look at the next task that faces folks who inherit the disjointed two-step models.

That's right -- how to come up with the coherent, more principled, more unified account for  'both' or 'all' the different parts of science? 

..Seeking a thought worthy of speech:

"The means of argument – the three Ls, language, logic and linearity – are all ultimately under left-hemisphere control, so that the cards are heavily stacked in favour of our conscious discourse enforcing the world view re-presented in the hemisphere which speaks, the left hemisphere, rather than the world that is present to the right hemisphere." -- Iain McGilchrist "The Master and His Emissary"

Re: How consciousness works

Serge,

A 2nd reply to a part of your prior post... where you write: """By their nature, knowledge about Brownian motion does not differ from knowledge about the mechanisms of consciousness -- they both are knowledge, the elements of the given person's version of Phenomenal Reality. The difference between them is that to get knowledge about Brownian motion we use the methods and models which ignore the agency of informational factor (we use the methods, models, and laws of Physics), while to get knowledge about the mechanisms of consciousness we have to use the methods and models which take into account the agency of informational factor..However, as I see, your approach is different. You divide reality into "physical reality" and "mental reality". Is your "nested structured~duality" some modification of Cartesian dualism? """,

first,  I observe with my  tunnel vision that we use or take into account the 'agency of information factor'  in fabricating knowledge regarding BOTH Brownian motion AND consciousness. I think I vaguely see the distinction you are trying to make about 'information factor',  but I observe that where you say """(we use the methods, models, and laws of Physics)""",  ALL sorts of agencies of information factors are already involved and nested in the 'laws of Physics'.  If the audience is mesmerized into NOT seeing the nesting, then perhaps you should continue on to the cliff by the Sea. Otherwise, please consider what I am pointing out because it is another instance which arises naturally because  'Reality is NESTED structured~duality'.

Second,  I start out with "Reality is nested structured~duality." The divisions into 'physical and mental' or 'phenomenal and noumenal' are already present in the environment -- within the existing or dominant paradigm(s).    So I see that I am not dividing reality  but more accounting for the two pre-existing categories with the one new common denominator.  Thus, in saying, "Reality, both physical and mental realms", is nested structured~duality.",  I am respecting the existing distinction so that a believer of the dominant scientific paradigm can begin to migrate to the emerging, more unified understanding.   That is, things on the physical side are quite clearly nested stacks of NSD-like artifacts -- plus-minus arrangements of electrons, protons; wave-particle, electro-magnetic oscillations, etc.. And things in the mental realm are also some artifact which reflects, echoes, represents, etc., some other artifact. So, stuff  in both realms rides on the same, single, one underlying general NSD principle.

Thus, more correctly, the storyline I am advocating unifies rather than divides.

Re: An immodest proposal

JR3,

Please consider that what you or the linked author call scientific rationality takes a moderately well-unified system and misunderstands and mis-frames it within a quite dysfunctional,  divided, subjective-objective motif. At the scientific level, the description is thus  deeply whacked out and fundamentally flawed so it stands to reason that related social, political, economic, etc., levels of orientation would also be quite a bit out of kilter.  Doesn't it?

The remedy, of course, is not anxiety-free, but relatively speaking, though incredibly unfamiliar and rare, changing scientific paradigms is a gentle walk in the park compared with the crazy lemmings to the sea marches that fearful divisions promote.   I am confident as this transition proceeds  tolerance will increase and the physical intuition of the more unified nature of our common reality will setting in with, and grow for all of us.

Don't  let others' fearful thoughts outrace you. Seek a thought worthy of speech.

Best regards,
Ralph Frost

Changing the scientific paradigm.

http://magnetictetrahedra.com

With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation. Isaiah 12:3

---In jcs-online@yahoogroups.com, wrote :

All, or None : (

The scientific rational approach to improving life is not working. Yes. many diseases have been eliminated, but new one's constantly replace them. For example, I suspect that the the slow-burning social crisis in the world is much worse than the readers and contributors to this forum realize. The chaos in the middle east and the widening fissures in European politics, a divided America, suggest the times might require a more substantial rethinking of scientific rationality than most have contemplated.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/our-miserable-21st-century/

Wage stagnation in an era of unprecedented wealth, a culture of male worklessness in which older men take a disability and young men live with their parents and play video games, an epidemic of opioid abuse, a withdrawal from  marriage and civic engagement, a decline in life expectancy, and a rise in the suicide rate, pollution, global warming, and so on.

JR3

Re: [jcs-online] The Hive Mind

Errol, ....Serge, others...

Relating to your question about unu.ai, hivemind and your examples and question to Serge of, "How do you define 'think'?", below,   please notice that I define 'think' and 'consciousness' as structural coding (or nested structural coding) which fits for all your microbial communications instances. 

Also, please notice that the structural coding I generally refer to is in the energy-related ~6^n hydrogen-bonded ordered water stacks continually forming at aerobic respiration sites. Also, please notice that these sites, and thus the account I advocate and bring forward are INSIDE  neurons (and other cells), thus differing a bit from the neuron theory model  which Jonathan and many others may advocate.  Also please note the nested organization of: ordered water structures (and energy) within respiration sites within neurons within brain structures within environmental vibrations within hivemind conveyed within protein folding markings in the English language words and sentences resonating here within our various screens, etc..

The thing with this structural coding within the respiration reaction is it is integrated with energy collection and conservation and thus structural codings which associate with energy conservation, and/or associated development of what we call enzymatic structures which replicate DO have or offer some survival or sustenance advantage. And, this structural coding advantage, if you think about it, is also quite a bit like the value we find in the empirical 'proofs' of our so-called objective science.   Things that strongly repeat and also conserve energy generally have value and/or persist and re-occur. 

[As an aside, please notice that  the storyline I am advocating, including the 6^n structural coding in water forming in the respiration reaction and besides also demonstrating multiple states and variable mass density in increments of 1/2 spins, flows from  empirical 'proof' or basis found  in the analog math of magnetic tetrahedron. Learning the analog math IS acquiring physical intuition via the tactile channel on the things listed herein.]

Fovea within peripheral fields as attention within consciousness.

(Re: Even if the "hard problem" is a real problem...)
Hi, Verna,  

Regarding your vision...points...line...racetrack ideas, I believe you may be led astray by the wonders of your intact peripheral vision.

That is,  where you talk about viewing the start point and some half-way point down the track and then tracing a straight line from point A to B,  in my low-vision condition (which I often consider a special gift), I have become aware that without decent peripheral vision, viewing point A does not mean also viewing point B.  Or, viewing the words on the left of a post on screen, does not include also seeing the words at the right end of the same line of text.  And, it seems to me that locating point B with the fovea or one's central vision under the reduced, low vision condition is more of a random walk and NOT a straight line trace. Finally, one finds and focuses on the location of point B, but then, point A has usually disappeared.

It may seem like I am lamenting my loss, but I am really trying to point out that what ~people are running is a ~two-layered system where peripheral fields of vision give an overall background view, and within that is nested the roving fovea which seems to perform the line tracing that you describe. I am saying, the straight line trace only occurs given the concurrent background view.

Interestingly, I think,  these nested and separate vision systems are very much like attention wandering around in the un-sub-conscious terrain, focusing upon various points of interest. The fovea is like a visual attention.

Accounting for consicousness as illusion

[Believe it or not, I started this post before reading the titles  posted on 1/11/2017 [xx] and finished it before reading any of those. (rf)

Another nice thing that the trial theory I advocate (labeled NSD) does is give a fairly vaporous but adequate  and informative account of the often stated impression or belief that consciousness is illusory; all is maya, etc.

That is, by learning reality is NSD and considering 'consciousness' in terms of nested structural coding (within our various energetic and sp^3 molecular components), participants can quickly scribble up a decent, albeit, approximate structurally coded image and understanding which is basically an energy-related and/or energy-value-founded primary internal language upon which rides ALL of our secondary, various protein-folded words and meanings.

Now, why make being able to give an "account of  illusion" a proper validation test for   various trial theories of consciousness? 

For one thing, as I said, it is a popular or prevailing notion or trait associated with consciousness by a very large number of people. For another, the account for it's illusory nature also can account for the persistence of the absence of a coherent understanding and/or model of consciousness. 

For another, of course, it turns out that giving such an account flows rather naturally and easily from focusing in on  nested structural coding in our respiration reaction.  With that view, we can easily see that "the 'brain' is processing materials and energy" as a primary activity, and not "the 'brain' is processing information", as many people and advocates of information-related models try to maintain.

The NSD/NSC view informs us that we have  internal energetic-materials transactions which operate inherently.  On top of this, are our protein-folded words and descriptive expressions, most of which are in service for group communication and ~education from one participant to others. Coordinated groups can accomplish different sets of transactions than individuals can accomplish.  [xx]...

Yet, notice that when we search for the meaning in our verbal meanings, what we discover is protein-folding which has an energetic value which appears to tend toward sustaining the group and individual(s) and so, in a very real way all of the verbal description and meanings evaporate and prove themselves to not be absolute valued -- illusory; Maya.

A quasi-mathematical ~proof or demonstration of this is available in the NSD analog math.  At it's simplest state, consider two rod magnets, one held in each hand. There are two ways of obtaining repulsion based on aligning the different ends.  Our typical way of describing this further is to claim that one magnet end is 'north' and the other end 'south'. We  then develop an entirely fanciful, but VERY helpful  word-full navigational story where we develop a map and understanding of the Earth's 'northern hemisphere' etc., relative to how rod magnets align in the Earth's magnetic field and with the labeling conventions that groups agree to.  Magnet ends which align roughly left-ish of the  'North Star' in the 'northern hemisphere' are said to be the 'north' end or pole of the magnet, making the Earth's pole that the (compass) magnet points toward the 'south' pole of the Earth's magnetic field. And so it goes...

Notice that our word-full description is all based  on a convenient but unfounded  procedural choice --We'll call this end 'north'.  We adopt a convention.  If or when extra-terrestrials land and inform us that everyone else in the galaxy goes by the opposite convention, we may need to adopt a different word-full labeling scheme.

Our word-full descriptions and meanings are a bit illusory.

Best regards,
Ralph Frost

Changing the western scientific paradigm.

With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation. Isaiah 12:3