from [ Marc Abrams (2003.06.22.1301) ]
[From Bill Powers (2003.06.22.0916 MDT)]
Higher orders are needed to understand it, yes. To see it, no.
What's the difference?
Understanding, as near as I can understand the meaning of the word, means
to symbolize/categorize something and then incorporate the symbol into the
whole network of higher-order perceptions in which symbols are manipulated
according to learned and invented rules. I think this is what Churchland
means by his network theory of knowledge.
Yes. I beleive that to bde the case as well.
But awareness is not limited to those levels, or to any one part of the
network (or even to any one
network, since there can be several existing at the same time in the same
person).
To be 'aware' to me, is always _of_ something. That is, awareness _always_
has an object. Intentionality and awareness arise from the interactions of
nonintentional matter . Your vision of 'awareness' is undefined. Your
definition of awareness in B:CP is "A subjective phenomenon...". I don't
agree with that definiton. I am saying that awareness is a biological
process. Most of our cognitive intentionality arises out of our awareness.
It's not the name we attach to the experience (which is either learned, or
like the name you gave above, invented) that I'm concerned about, but the
experience itself, the thing to which the name is supposed to point.
Isn't that what the hierarchy is all about? Your 'experience' can _only_
come from your _awareness_ of things. If you are not aware of something you
can't possibly think about it.
One of my liberating experiences that made the control model possible
occurred in
high school, when I came across "General Semantics," the brainchild of
Alfred Korzybski. Korzybski was the one who said, "The word is not the
object, the map is not the territory." All these years later, it's hard
for
me to remember when I didn't know that, but I surely didn't at one time,
and the message didn't sink in right away.
I can certainly relate to this :-). But words _are_ objects. They 'mean'
whatever it is you want them to mean. The map quote is often cited but I
beleive is a misnomer. Each of us has our own 'maps'. What is necessary and
vital for one might be dangerous and meaningless to another. Like words, our
'maps' ( beliefs, notions, ideas, etc. ) have specific 'meanings' only to
ourselves. The 'map' is the territory for each of us and our own maps. It is
_not_ for the maps of others.
In 1953 the late R. K. Clark and I started a series of weekly evening...
Bill, did you ever conceive of consciousness and awareness as being a
biological process?
Applying this to the present subject: The word "red" or "rojo" or "rot" or
"rouge" or "_poioijoij_" is a symbol that indicates the experience (in
present time or from memory) of a certain sensation.
It's more then a simple symbol. Attached to that word is a network of
objects and meanings. The hierarchy 'explains' it beautifully. It helps
provide meaning to other objects as well.
Normally we experience the word, the category it indicates, and the
lower-level perceptions being
categorized simultaneously, so they seem to be almost the same thing. But
we can also put the word and the category aside, with a little effort, and
focus attention on the nonver[b]al infrastructure, the perceptual items
that
belong to the category of things we call red, without the word or the
category getting in the way.
This is an illusion. You can't 'bypass' your awareness. Your 'awareness' is
a process that exists for _all_ things. Your ability to discriminate
different properties of an object is a learned skill. It has nothing to do
with how the way things work.
Then we're being aware of the lower-order signals directly rather than from
the viewpoint of a categorizing/naming
system.
You are _never_ 'aware' of the biological nature of the lowest ordered
systems ( 1 & 2 ) You cannot discrimanate wavelengths nor can you
discriminate frequencies. No matter how much you give thought to it. The
warmth of the summer air does not 'feel' like the mean kinetic energy of
millions of tiny molecules, but that is what it is.
This is the state in which we can see a color for which we have no
name, a configuration we have never seen before and don't recognize (but
would know if we saw it again), a relationship that seems consistent and
repeatable but doesn't fit in with anything else, and has no name (the
relationship, for example, of your fork tines to the spaghetti they are
about to wind up).
Yes. This is not inconsistent with my thoughts. That was my point in using
'poioijoij'. Whatever we are aware _OF_ we usually have a name for. We need
someway to think about it.
Look at Demo 1, step H, and the choice called "SHAPE."
What does 'shape' mean? 
The word 'shape' has a network of meanings
embedded in this use.
When you start the experimental run, cover the reference shape with one
hand so you have to use a remembered reference shape. I don't know about
you, but I can certainly see the shape, remember it, and control the
variable shape to match the memory, even though I have no name for that
shape or any category to put it in.
Sure, but _however_ you 'remember' the shape, that is how you define it and
label it. Whether it is by saying or thinking something is 'warm' or has a
high molecular kinetic energy. They 'mean' the same thing.
Just because you don't use a label, doesn't mean you have not defined it.
How did you program that shape into the computer? That is another name for
the shape..
It says, perhaps, that the wordless infrastructure of perceptions is what
we should mean by "qualia," but it by no means tells us how that works.
Not
even an inkling.
It is not solely the infrastructure of perceptions. Qualia is much more
encompassing. It is _all_ biologically based. Of that I am convinced.
Through empirical research we will ultimately come up with the answers.
Introspection, although helpful is not sufficent to answer these questions.
What is looking at this wordless infrastructure? All I can
say is that _I_ am looking at it. OK, then, what am I, that I can look at
perceptual signals? That's the big mystery that Demasio, the Churchlands,
Dennett, and everyone else who has tried has failed to explain. Either
they
explain it away (dualism, yuck!) or they invoke some form of magic, like
quantum mechanics.
Churchland is very much against dualism. Try reading his book. You might try
Edelman and Fuster as well. You also might try reading my posts a bit more
thoughtfully. There is _no_ magic involved.
> What is 'doing the best' mean? 'Awareness' is _always_ of something,
that
>is, it _always_ has an object. If I am 'aware' of anything I _must_ have
>_some_ associated object in mind. If I can't sense it, it then must come
>from imagination. What am I missing here?
Levels of perception. If the person is missing one color receptor, then
any
sensation-signal that is a function of the two remaining color intensity
signals will indicate the presence of something, but it won't correspond
to
external wavelengths in the same way my own sensation signals do.
Sure it will. The 'wavelengths' remain the same no matter who or what is
perceiving it. Our sensory input receptors might have a problem, which means
we ultimately will 'perceive' things 'differently' than others. But this can
also happen because of the embedded or learned network we use to perceive
the world with.
Great confusion can arise, because at the levels where there is a network
of
knowledge, we try to make sense of all experiences, our own and what other
people tell us of theirs.
_Everything_ is interpreted. Whether it be internal or external. We do a
very nice job of kidding ourselves sometimes. Just ask Chris Argyris. A
subject's item's being recognized, perceived, or known as
some-thing-or-other is not a genuine property of the item itself, fit for
divinig identities, since one and the same subject may be successfully
recognized under another description.
Leibniz' identity law comes into play here.
Ex 1.
1) Aspirin is recognized as a pain killer
2) Acetylsalicylic acid is not recognized as a pain killer.
therefore, According to Leibniz
3) Aspirin is not identical with acetylsalicylic acid.
Ex. 2
1) Muhammad Ali is known as a former heavy weight champ
2) Cassius Clay is not known as a former champ
therefore,
Muhammad Ali is not identical to Cassius Clay.
Leibniz' law is not valid for these bogus 'properties'. Logicians call this
an 'intensional fallacy'. Just because you 'know' something under a
different name doesn't necessarily mean you don't 'know' about the same
thing.
Of course when I say "greeny-gray" I'm just assigning an arbitrary label,
since I don't know what function of the color intensity signals the other
person is using, and I don't know how the resulting sensation signal would
look to the other person. The color-blind person doesn't call it
"greeny-gray," anyway, but "red."
Nice story, but you did not answer my question. What am I missing? The
orders of perception, as I said twice in my previous posts, is the way we
discriminate the properties of the objects we perceive.
I said he was unable to organize his world into objects, meaning to say
visual objects, and colors. He could still deal with tactile objects,
olfactory objects, and so forth -- I would assume that those were the
terms
in which he defined his whole world.
I think Rick hit it right on the head. I think it was a matter of , or lack
of control. Plain and simple.
I think I've addressed this in the early parts of this post. The
perceptual
hierarchy, as I've proposed it, extends from intensities to system
concepts, but awareness is not the same thing as perception.
To be conscious is to be aware from the standpoint of some system or level
of
systems in the hierarchy, not necessarily or even often the highest level.
The systems above the level where awareness is operating continue to
control their perceptions, but outside consciousness. They supply our
highest conscious goals at the levels where we do operate, which we
normally ignore or take for granted, since our attention is on lower
levels
of perception. But we wouldn't be doing what we're doing if those
reference
signals were not there.
Bill, its _all_ integrated. Our perceptions and our awareness of them come
from the same place. The hierarchy is a way of discriminating the inputs and
adjusting the outputs. Our 'awareness' of them has nothing to do with the
hierarchy itself. We 'know' much more than we are 'aware' of at any point in
time. Why are we 'aware' of somethings and not others? I believe that this
has to do with control and error. It has to do with the way the brain
processes the inputs and delivers the outputs. This of course is all
conjecture. Needed is research and experimentation to see empirically what
stands up and what doesn't. Some things are beginning to emerge and a
general consesus is _starting_ to develop. The notion of neuronal networks
is very popular. Discriminatory hierarchies are coming into vogue. Feedback
is also starting to get some attention. Control is the one big area that has
the least amount work being done in it, but _some_ work is in fact being
done.
Maybe -- I don't know much about cognitive stuff as a subject-matter. I
just use the machinery and am happy that it still works. You can't study
_everything_.
The answers to all of our questions reside in _one_ place, the brain. It's
all about pattern's and process. How can you say your not interested in
"cognitive stuff" 50% of your work is directly related to it.
Good. I hope Paul Churchland is, too, which is why I'm cc'ing this to him.
Hope the address is still good -- I got it from the Web a day or two ago.
Great. I hope he responds.
Marc
