larryc@poe.jpl.nasa.gov (Larry Carroll) (11/04/90)
A response to one of my messages in this forum likened consciousness to a grain of sand. It may affect the rest of the universe, but the effect is vanishingly small. Perhaps so. We know so little about the form & function of the brain, & the part that consciousness plays, that to discuss consciousness may be more of a game than a serious effort. Yet it FEELS important, & I've learned to trust my intuitions. Thus the following: ----- A mind has been likened to a ghost in a machine. A nice metaphor, but wrong. It suggests that minds are somehow unreal, & that mind & body are two separate things with little connection. It's the result of 19th Century thinking; 20th Century thought, informed by modern physics & cybernetics, has another view. Information is as important a physical reality as matter and energy. In fact, it might be considered more fundamental, since matter has been shown to be a sort of "frozen" energy & energy a sort of "fluid" matter--the same "substance" in two forms. This is the message of E=mc**2. Life arises when matter somehow takes a form that is self-repairing. Evolution arises when life somehow becomes self-replicating, but imperfectly, so that some life-forms are less able to repair themselves & die before they can replicate, or are less able to replicate & fail in comparison to other life-forms. Life, then, is a particular kind of fourth-dimensional pattern. Intelligence is a mechanism which gives some life-forms an advantage in surviving. It re-creates within the life-form a model of the universe, which the life-form uses to try out actions that it might perform, & then acts according to which actions help it. Simulation is much safer than experimentation, normally. Science arises because simulations can fail. A model can never perfectly match reality, because the brain has limited capacity to store patterns & the universe is more complex than the brain. Further, the brain has to include a model of itself within it, & a model of the model, & a model of the model of the model, out to an infinite regress. Thus intelligent life-forms must experiment, in a pragmantic way or in the more organized & careful fashion that is science. The latter has been so successful that other disciplines--logic, religion, economics--often also label themselves sciences. We know little of the basis of consciousness, & only a little of its usefulness to a mind. Perhaps it acts as a unifying influence on an organism that is pulled in many different directions by conflicting needs & confused by conflicting parts of its model of reality. But it is real & part of the universe, & thus must affect the universe in some fashion. This affect can be small or quite large because of the triggering effect. Mind is not something separate from matter & energy. It IS matter & energy, just as the grooves on a phonograph record or the magnetic domains of a computer program are real, just as real as the music from a phonograph or the control of a spacecraft by its computer. By this triggering effect a whim & a whistle may destroy a city by causing an avalanche. By this effect hate & poison gas can destroy a culture, or love & work can make a desert bloom & a people grow. By this effect & advanced science & technology someday we may be able to move planets & suns, all with the small minds & dim awareness that we think the pinnacle of evolution. Yet just as consciousness affects the universe, so can "external reality" affect consciousness. Drugs (CAREFULLY applied) or exhilarating exercise or meditation can expand our consciousness & make us more creative & motivated. Our brains can be expanded with prosthetics. We already do this with mind tools as simple as equations, & memory tools as simple as books. Soon, we will be able to do it by direct neural connections with computers. Eventually -- when we know enough about the form & function & uses of consciousness -- those parts of us we now call computers will be enhanced so that we can become immensely more aware. And perhaps then God (or gods) will come into existence -- though Satan (or demons) could just as easily result. So what we discuss in this forum may be more important than a game or an exercise or even a serious research undertaking. It may ultimately connect with that most unscientific discipline we call theology in an altogether real way. Larry Carroll "Takes-us" (correct pronunciation of Texas) Dancin' Fool
csmith@cscs.UUCP (Craig E. Smith) (11/06/90)
In <10231@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> larryc@poe.jpl.nasa.gov (Larry Carroll) writes: >A mind has been likened to a ghost in a machine. A nice metaphor, but wrong. >It suggests that minds are somehow unreal, & that mind & body are two >separate things with little connection. It's the result of 19th Century >thinking; 20th Century thought, informed by modern physics & cybernetics, >has another view. I see the difference between the brain, and the mind to be roughly equivalent to the difference between a computer with the power turned off, and a computer with the power on and the software loaded, or more specifically the brain is the information processing device, and the mind is the combination of the brain, the information it contains, and the processing it does on the information. >Information is as important a physical reality as matter and energy. In >fact, it might be considered more fundamental, since matter has been shown to >be a sort of "frozen" energy & energy a sort of "fluid" matter--the same >"substance" in two forms. This is the message of E=mc**2. Information is the only reality that can be known. There is truly nothing that can be known or experienced which is not purely information, because knowledge, and experiences themselves are nothing but the processing of information in the brain based on signals sent by the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and feel. However, I am not sure I would consider information to be a physical thing. In fact, information is such a basic, and intrinsic part of thought that I find it difficult to come up with a good non-circular definition of what is information. A definition itself is information, and in trying to define what we mean by information we are forced to define it in terms of itself. In a sense, I guess you can look at information as physical, since the only manner in which it manifests itself, is in a physical state of a particular object, such as the internal state of a brain or computer, or the shape of certain characters on a piece of paper, but all information ultimately is derived from an interpretation of external events or objects by some specific type of sensing device be it a part of a human or animal, or an electronic device, and information ceases to be information when it is removed from its supporting context. >Life arises when matter somehow takes a form that is self-repairing. >Evolution arises when life somehow becomes self-replicating, but imperfectly, >so that some life-forms are less able to repair themselves & die before they >can replicate, or are less able to replicate & fail in comparison to other >life-forms. Life, then, is a particular kind of fourth-dimensional pattern. As I see it, life is primarily a prolonged and very complicated chemical reaction, which spontaneously occurs under certain conditions, and which is, with some random variations, perpetual, provided that the necessary physical conditions, and energy inputs remain within certain specifications. Evolution is the (largely random) process by which certain of the chemical structures dissipate, while others are in a position to continue the reaction. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you want a picture of the future, | Internet: csmith@cscs.UUCP imagine a boot stomping on a human | UUCP: ... uunet!cscs!csmith face - forever. - George Orwell |---------------------------------