Hi Bill,
It seems that question of observing and awarness is top problem question…
BP:
The point here is that what you are doing is called “observing.” It’s fairly easy to show that what you are observing is not the reality itself, directly, but some sensory representation of it.
HB : Some sensory “representation” ?
BP :
All you have to do is close your eyes, and all those visual experiences are replaced by darkness or emptiness with some suggestions of brighter places and perhaps some colors – a background of stray visual signals near the lower threshold of detection. You can still feel your hands but their visual representation is gone. Your breathing continues, as does pressure from the seat you are in.
BP :
If you are following me, you can also observe what you are thinking about this experience (for example, an image, feeling, or statement like “Oh, but all those things are really there”). Those neural signals are being manufactured inside your brain, or so our theories of neurology and physiology tell us. You can imagine things that your senses are not detecting, such as a small orange tiger sitting on the desk beside the keyboard. That experience, too, is a set of neural signals being generated by your brain.
BP :
Maybe we do need an explanation, but the fact is that we don’t have one. I certainly don’t, and I’ve been looking for one for over 50 years. Nobody else has suggested one that I can believe, either.
BP :
I have mentioned the theories I use in explaining the signaling and the generation of the signals. In the context of neurology and physiology I can imagine acceptable organizations of matter that could probably work. What I can’t explain is the fact that we can observe them.
BP :
What I can’t find a way to model is the entity that is aware of the result: aware of the neural signals from which we obtain experiences.
BP :
And something ELSE observes them. I observe mine, you observe yours. It’s the observer, not the signals, that are missing from the PCT model.
HB :
You put my initials on your thoughts in the beginning. I hope that everybody noticed that I’m not so clever J. Seems that we both write in a hurry.
You would do me a favour if you use initials HB as Rick was “playing” with Bob Heinz initials as BH with no explanation. Knowing him, I had a “feeling” that there was something behind. You know his sense of humor. So I’d rather be HB.
Are you trying to say that there is less awarness if we close our eyes ? Are we “playing” with the amount of awarness to see what’s left when there is no actually controlled perceptual signals ? And if I understood right we are looking for “something” in our brain, for the observer, who is “shifting” our attention, is aware of thinking, talking and so on ?
Do I understand right ?
Can we say that awarness exist on every level of hierarchy ? So in the evolution every organism on some lower levels of controlled perceptual organization has some awarness (consciousness) : dogs, cats, mice… worms, maybe even bacteria has some kind of awarness of gradients. I’m guessing. But why not guessing in the course of your hypothesis, that every organism consist of some limited number of organized control units on different levels, which probably exhibit some level of awarness. And the final “observer” in human could be maybe integration of all “lower level awarness”.
INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP AND CONFLICT
BP: So telling me I am going in circles is not a criticism? Should I then understand that you approve of my going in circles?
HB :
I don’t see it as criticism. I was trying to tell you that you could reconsider some basics of PCT. So you see, I’m not approving you “going in circles”.
BP :
I have been trying here to describe my views on consciousness, awareness, and experience as a first step toward resolving any conflicts that exist. This should make it easier to see if there are any actual conflicts with other points of view, and if there are some, exactly what they are about. There’s nothing I’m trying to conceal so there is no need on my side for privacy.
Most objections to what I say turn out, fortunately, to be aimed at misunderstandings of what I mean. When the misunderstandings are corrected, the objections, too, seem to be withdrawn in most cases. I blame the misunderstandings on my imperfect ability to explain clearly, as much as on the recipient’s jumping to conclusions. That’s all right – it’s the best we can do with language.
HB:
Maybe we can really call it misunderstandings. So maybe it’s the best to start where misunderstandings appear. When we were privately talking about connection between genetic control and “essential variables”, you stopped answering at my last question. Two month later you started the thread on CSGnet, so we never finished our conversation.
The topics seemed very important to me, as I thought that you theory is having a “bug”. If “essential variables” have genetically set reference levels, how is possible that there is no direct connection between genes and “essential variables” to set genetic reference levels ? Is this the case also today ?
GENES AND INHERITANCE OF BEHAVIOR
HB : Maybe I don’t understand you right. Are you saying that there is no
inherited particular behavior ? There is no inborn behaviors ?
BP: Yes, that is what I’m saying. What we commonly speak of as a behavior, however, is not a physical action by the brain on its environment at all, but only a sensory consequence of a physical action. Sensory consequences can be inherited if we inherit perceptual input functions and reference signals in inherited control systems.
HB :
If I understand right here you talk about “commonly speaking of behavior” not about all behaviors. But I asked you about inborn behaviors.
I suppose what you explained are “learned” behaviors in Ashby’s notation. Behaviors that are closing the control loop. And I already agreed with you about that
But for ex. Ashby is rather explicit that there are also other behaviors which are inborn. Can you explain “caughing”, newborn babys’ cry, How can we explain other reflexes of newborn ? Can you explain “defending behaviors” of animals when stimulating centers of hypothalamus ?
I don’t doubt in your knowledge about perceptual control theory. But why inborn behaviors are there ? What is their function ?
Best,
Boris