danforth@riacs.edu (Douglas G. Danforth) (10/25/90)
In <BURLEY.90Oct24023152@world.std.com> burley@world.std.com (James C Burley) writes: >>In article <1990Oct23.165301.9813@riacs.edu> danforth@riacs.edu (Douglas G. Danforth) writes: >> >> The point is that our pleasures and pains guide and direct our >> paths of thought in ways that have very little to do with rational or >> logical thinking. Both facets (emotion,logic) work together to make us >> "thinking" creatures. ... >So while we may accept the limitation that in a given situation, we respond >to a stimulus in a fashion not directly governed by our capacity for >rational or logical thought, I think it is going too far to extend this >concept to include the limitation that we cannot in any way employ our >"higher" capacities in the training of our own responses. Very nice posting! Now we are begining to attend to issues of substance. I agree that higher level capacities can over-ride our trained responses. It now becomes a facinating question of how these two processes (automatic,conscious) interact and how one can be a benefit to the other. Obviously if nothing were "automated" then we would have to "think" about every step we took. This does not take advantage of the parallelism in a nervous system. Also as James Burley nicely points out that without "thinking" to over-ride automatic responses there would arise situations that would be detrimental to the organism. I introduced the idea of automatic responses in this discussion to counter the trend of over-reliance on the "rational" and "logical" facets of human thought. It has been said that Einstein relied on an almost kinesthetic sense to guide him in his research. This "intuitive" or non-logical component gave him direction. It allowed him to winnow out the wheat from the chaff, to set a course, a direction, to have a standard. Surely, an intelligent system that did not have such facilities would be unlikely to duplicate the accomplishments of an Einstein. -- Douglas G. Danforth (danforth@riacs.edu) Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science (RIACS) M/S 230-5, NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA 94035
fostel@eos.ncsu.edu (Gary Fostel) (10/25/90)
There seem to be a number of assumptions made in many discussions of intuition, rationality, logic, thought, consciousness. For example, it seems to usually be assumed that the conscious thoughts are the ones which are logical, and the thoughts which are not conscious (trying to avoid several value laded terms) are not logical, but automatic, programmed ...etc. For example, James Woods, at RIACS, noted that Einstein may have relied on an almost kinesthetic sense to guide him in his research. This "intuitive" or non-logical component gave him direction. Is there a reason that thoughts which are not conscious are assumed to be thoughts which are not based on logic? Certainly, from an introspective point of view, there is no way to be able to tell if ones thoughts which are not conscious are following the principles of logic, but then again, I have no reason to feel that ANYONES thoughts, conscious or otherwise, are following such processes since I do not have access to the set of observations they have of their own conscious activities. Never-the-less, I am usually willing to agree that another persons thoughts are logical (at least at times :-) based on the observations I do have, e.g. things they say to me, actions they take etc. If I apply the same standard to my own thoughts which are not conscious, I would need to conclude that indeed these thoughts must at times be following sound logical processes. The most striking example is probably chess, where the intense logical process of find a good move is, for most experienced players, not a conscious activity. Many top level players have observed that they can tell quickly (not by conscious means) what the best move is but spend their clock time consciously verifying that the non-conscious process has not made an error. One reaction is to go with the S/R, behaviorist, connectionist flow and say that this supposed logical process that is not conscious is not really a logical process at all. The best move is determined in some other way altogether. Another reaction is to say that the process of logical thought is not inextricably bound to the process of conscious awareness. A crude computational metaphore might be that the logical process is farmed out to another processor with capabilities quite similar to the one which supports the conscious thought process -- except of course that support processor does not have what it takes to support conscious awareness of its working. There are several reasons why this would be an efficient design. The logical process might proceed more rapidly without the extra overhead of awareness, and it might be possible to have more than one such process concurrently working, all without awareness. If memory serves me, this is one of the ideas woven into Minski's Society of Mind book. Perhaps it is also the reason he and others remain skeptical and critical of connectionists who try to squeeze symbolic, logical thought processes into non-symbolic, non-logical models. Connectionists may be too readily combining introspective evidence that some processes are divorced from conscious awareness, with the assumption that only conscious processes are logical and prematurely concluding that something else must be going on. ----GaryFostel---- Department of Computer Science North Carolina State University
Larry E. Carroll (10/25/90)
> It [is] a facinating question of how these >two processes (automatic,conscious) interact and how one can be a benefit >to the other. Obviously if nothing were "automated" then we would have >to "think" about every step we took. This does not take advantage of the >parallelism in a nervous system. > I introduced the idea of automatic responses in this discussion to >counter the trend of over-reliance on the "rational" and "logical" facets >of human thought. > It has been said that Einstein relied on an almost kinesthetic sense >to guide him in his research. This "intuitive" or non-logical component > Douglas G. Danforth (danforth@riacs.edu) In fact, most thinking is done unconsicously. For instance, someone asks me to go dancing at Marcela's. Immediately several processes are initiated that seem to operate in parallel: my energy level is checked & it is high, my emotions are checked & I'm a little depressed, I've been wanting to practice my Salsa & it's Salsa night, knockout Joan said last week she was going to start Salsa & she'll probably be there, Berta may be there & I don't want to see her, I just paid my auto insurance & my money's a bit low, I really should go see Gwynn & see how she & her girls are doing, Sherwin & Bonita want me to go to Norah's to do the Argentine tango & I owe them for giving me the birthday party, I should stay late & get that Motif menu fixed, I really want to reply to the emergence thread, ... Each of these processes delivers a positive or negative motive, some of them with large weights, some of them small. These are summed together & I decide yes or no. Then I come up with a reason for my decision: Joan sounded very friendly the last time I danced with her; I can't let this opportunity go by. Further these are just the top-level processes that will go into the decision. Each one of them may be based on a similar multiplicity of sub-processes. There are several points I want to make about this. (1) Few of the decisions are truly irrational. Sexual motives are the basis for the continuance of the race; an urge to keep our obligations in balance helps make society work; and so on. Further, the decisions follow a logical process. The checking of one's energy level, for instance, can be described formally & implemented electronically (or, when our bioengineering improves, organically). (2) Decisions are made & justified so rapidly that we assume that the justification is the "real" reason. But the justification may have had only a small weight in the decision process. And it may not have contributed at all, especially if my justification isn't acceptable to society, or would hurt my ego. Then I'll create a public reason, something that sounds virtuous: the exercise will do me good; my friends come first. And I may even convince myself that my public reason is the "real" reason. I've several more points, but this is getting too long. Maybe I'll say more later. Larry Carroll "Takes-us" (correct pronunciation of Texas) Dancin' Fool
burley@world.std.com (James C Burley) (10/25/90)
In article <10097@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> Larry E. Carroll writes:
In fact, most thinking is done unconsicously. For instance, someone asks me
to go dancing at Marcela's. Immediately several processes are initiated that
seem to operate in parallel: my energy level is checked & it is high, my
emotions are checked & I'm a little depressed, I've been wanting to practice
my Salsa & it's Salsa night, knockout Joan said last week she was going to
start Salsa & she'll probably be there, Berta may be there & I don't want to
see her, I just paid my auto insurance & my money's a bit low, I really
should go see Gwynn & see how she & her girls are doing, Sherwin & Bonita
want me to go to Norah's to do the Argentine tango & I owe them for giving me
the birthday party, I should stay late & get that Motif menu fixed, I really
want to reply to the emergence thread, ...
Each of these processes delivers a positive or negative motive, some of them
with large weights, some of them small. These are summed together & I decide
yes or no. Then I come up with a reason for my decision: Joan sounded very
friendly the last time I danced with her; I can't let this opportunity go by.
Larry Carroll
"Takes-us" (correct pronunciation of Texas)
Dancin' Fool
I wouldn't agree that your sample set of thoughts is done "unconsciously",
based on the fact that you are so able to elucidate them. They may not be
entirely conscious, either: if you are accustomed to being asked questions
at all, what probably is unconscious is some categorization (object
matching and refinement, if you want to look at things from an inheritance
point of view) that allows you to (perhaps still unconsciously) identify the
question "Do you want to go dancing at Marcella's?" as something you've been
asked before and which therefore has a previously established set of
considerations to examine. Examining these considerations is rapid and does
not require you to recreate them and think about them so carefully;
in particular, I suspect any "final architecture" of the brain, if it can be
discovered, will show that a large part of the unconscious thinking you do
in response to a question like that, aside from categorizing the question,
is determining that the weighing of predetermined considerations may be done
with so little consideration to one's own safety that the desire to provide
a correct answer quickly outweighs the need to carefully think through all
the considerations. By providing a correct answer to such rather innocuous
(i.e. not safety-related) questions, one can avoid embarrassing pauses that
might trouble one's friends, for example.
As far as how the considerations are weighed, perhaps it is true that you
do assign "weights" to them and effectively sum them as you describe them: I
know I do for certain similar situations (which I offhand identify as not
safety-related but commitment-related, i.e. worthy of some thought since my
answer will govern whether I make a commitment of my time for a period).
However, I (again) suspect that the weight-assignment-summing process is not
encoded in your brain's neural nets, at least not yet. I rather doubt one is
able to reasonably think through the activities of one's own components to
that level of detail. So I would guess that, again in a "final architecture",
we would find that such decisions are themselves made in a fashion we would
consider "emergent" from the relevant portions of the brain involved in
those decisions, i.e. they won't be directly encoded.
If you have to repeatedly tap your knee to determine your inevitable reaction,
then I'd say you've discovered a NN-level reaction.
But when you can make a quick decision based on previously considered
information and situations, and then, "offline" as it were, review that
decision and reasonably construct how you came upon it, then I'd say it was
rooted in processes built on one or two layers of abstraction above the
lowest "logic" (NN) level of the brain.
Note that whether you are capable of performing such a review may be
dependent on intelligence, in that if you are a sufficiently low life form
you would lack the ability to perform such a conscious review even though
your perception of the question and your resulting quick decision could be
described as conscious. (If that were so, I'd guess you were a dog, horse,
or cat -- in terms of intelligence level, but I'd guess a dolphin or even a
chimp might be able to perform such a conscious review, and perhaps a pig
as well.)
But it also might be that a previous fear or "higher-intelligent" form of
thought prevents you from correctly analyzing your ability to accurately
review the thoughts that went into your decision. For example, many people
are unwilling to admit to themselves that they didn't choose to go dancing
because they thought they danced goofy. (I don't have this problem; I
readily admit this to myself.) Or some other example (fear of public places,
and so on.) Intelligence may permit them the capability to override the
decision after further thought, and perhaps the set of considerations used to
make future quick decisions, but they might not ever choose to use that
capability in this fashion.
James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson burley@world.std.com
"He -- ven" (even more correct pronunciation of "Texas")
Larry E. Carroll (10/26/90)
>I wouldn't agree that your sample set of thoughts is done "unconsciously", >based on the fact that you are so able to elucidate them. > James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson burley@world.std.com The rest of your post makes sense to me, but I disagree with this comment. I believe it was Whitehead who said (something like): We advance, not by becoming more aware of the elements of our thinking, but by automating & then ceasing to be aware of them. Thus allowing us to think at successively higher levels of abstraction. However, we can become conscious of the elements of our thought through practice at introspection, though most of it has to be done after a decision- making session (else introspection would massively interfere with the session). That is, I focus my attention on the surround of the question that I wanted answered (or problem I wanted solved, or decision needing made). Then the elements rise out of the depths like vast behemoths. (Oops, sorry about that; my metaphor agent malfunctioned.) And if I focus on one of the elements it resolves into components, each of which I can then focus on. This can go on down several layers. Of course, there are several limitations to this process. First, it's private (at least at this state of our technology--in some future time we may be able to hook brains together & share thoughts); science can only be done on observations that are public. Second, observations are always approximate. Third, the act of examining (either during a session or afterward) distorts (a sort of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle). And lastly, we can never be sure that repression/suppression isn't working to shield parts of our psyche from conscious examination. (Related to this, I suppose there are elements that are too alien to our consciousness, or too rooted in the low-level components of thought, that also act as blind spots.) Larry Carroll "Takes-us" (correct pronunciation of Texas) Dancin' Fool
burley@world.std.com (James C Burley) (10/26/90)
In article <10106@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> Larry E. Carroll writes: >I wouldn't agree that your sample set of thoughts is done "unconsciously", >based on the fact that you are so able to elucidate them. > James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson burley@world.std.com The rest of your post makes sense to me, but I disagree with this comment. I believe it was Whitehead who said (something like): We advance, not by becoming more aware of the elements of our thinking, but by automating & then ceasing to be aware of them. Thus allowing us to think at successively higher levels of abstraction. Ok, let me try to elaborate: I consider "consciousness" to be a relative term, in that one being may be more conscious that another, but "unconsciousness" to be fairly absolute in that it connotes no amount of "consciousness". (Kind of like the terms "interesting" and "uninteresting".) So what I meant is that because you can think consciously about your thought processes, I don't consider them unconscious even though I certainly agree they are less conscious than your thoughts about those processes. Further, those thought processes are more conscious than, say, the processes that lead you to find another being attractive if you find it more difficult to usefully examine those processes (which mankind has tried for millenia and, basically, failed). And those processes (the ones determining attractiveness) are more conscious than the ones that form dream images during your sleep. And those are more conscious than the ones that keep your heart beating. My point is that the ultimate process I talk about above clearly is unconscious. I gather most scientists view dreaming as essentially an unconscious process, also. (Note that just because you are aware of, or can review the events of, a process, does not mean the process is conscious, just that your awareness of it can be. What I am interested in here is whether you can be conscious of the subprocesses of the process, which we have never been able to do in any serious, consistent way with hearbeats or dreams.) Some people would argue that being attracted to someone else in that "indescribable" way (i.e. based on considerations one can't understand, as versus "well, he's obviously quite handsome" or "she's obviously quite rich") is an unconscious process also. Here, however, one is far more capable of modifying, or at least inhibiting, the process than the lower processes of dreaming and certainly keeping one's heart beating. (Yes, I know there are people who claim to be able to modify those processes also, but typically only on the short term and with much less flexibility.) So my argument is that "undefinable attractiveness" might be an example of a borderline case between unconscious and (some degree of) conscious thought. Now in a case like the one you mention, where you are answering a question as to whether you want to go to a dance Friday night, even though you feel you answer the question without conscious thought, the very fact that you have so much awareness of the subprocesses of that thought (and, in my opinion, accurately so, and more so than many other people, which might help define your intelligence or at least self-awareness relative to others) suggests that it cannot be an unconscious thought-process. Especially since I think you'll agree that depending on a large number of possible variations on the situations (other people present, time of day, other plans, and such), you are capable of using highly conscious thought to exert control on or even override this somewhat lower thought-process of weighing typical considerations you review when deciding whether to go dancing. You can't exercise nearly that much control over whether you are attracted to another person, whether or what you dream, or how your heartbeat works. This is why I suggest that the should-I-go-dancing thought-process isn't unconscious at all. It is merely somewhat less conscious that other thought-processes, such as those you use to analyze your own thought-processes. And therefore I'd guess that the should-I-go-dancing thought-process is not encoded in base-level brain architecture (neural nets), but in higher-level architectures. Attractiveness, dreaming, and heartbeating, I am guessing, will all be found to be implemented at successively lower layers of architecture in the brain. Of course, this is all just some hair-brained theory! (-: James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson burley@world.std.com
mikeb@wdl31.wdl.fac.com (Michael H Bender) (10/27/90)
Gary Fostel writes:
.....
Is there a reason that thoughts which are not conscious are
assumed to be thoughts which are not based on logic? Certainly,
from an introspective point of view, there is no way to be able
to tell if ones thoughts which are not conscious are following the
principles of logic, but then again, I have no reason to feel that
ANYONES thoughts, conscious or otherwise, are following such
processes since I do not have access to the set of observations
they have of their own conscious activities. Never-the-less, I
am usually willing to agree that another persons thoughts are
logical (at least at times :-) based on the observations I do
have, e.g. things they say to me, actions they take etc.
If I apply the same standard to my own thoughts which are not
conscious, I would need to conclude that indeed these thoughts
must at times be following sound logical processes. The most
striking example is probably chess, where the intense logical
process of find a good move is, for most experienced players,
not a conscious activity. Many top level players have observed
that they can tell quickly (not by conscious means) what the best
move is but spend their clock time consciously verifying that
the non-conscious process has not made an error.
....
It is my interpretation of the research that the majority of the
"reasoning" activity that goes on in the brain is pattern matching and that
only a very small part of this reasoning actually fits our concept of
"rational" thought. (I assume that you mean "rationality", not "logic"
which is really a formal, mathematical, system.)
At one extreme let me point at the lower order functions (e.g., perception)
which are clearly pattern matching activities. However, it is also clear
that many high order functions (such as decision making) rely heavily on
pattern matching heuristics (let me point you to the research by A. Tversky
and D. Cahanman (spelling?) who did a number of classic studies in this
area.)
However, it appears that our brain (or to be more exact, the left side of
our brain) does have a wonderful ability to assign rationalizations (i.e.,
rational interpretations) of our pattern matching behavior to make it more
palatable to .... (our consciousness?). (I would refer you to the studies
that have been done on split-brain patients for evidence of this phenomenon.)
One reaction is to go with the S/R, behaviorist, connectionist
flow and say that this supposed logical process that is not
conscious is not really a logical process at all. The best move
is determined in some other way altogether. Another reaction
is to say that the process of logical thought is not inextricably
bound to the process of conscious awareness. A crude computational
metaphore might be that the logical process is farmed out to another
processor with capabilities quite similar to the one which supports
the conscious thought process -- except of course that support
processor does not have what it takes to support conscious awareness
of its working.
....
It is probable more accurate to imagine a number of "lower level"
processors which use pattern matching and other heuristics to generate data
for a high level processor. These low level processors are goal driven,
just like the high level processor. However, the high level processor has
only a limited ability to impact the goals of the lower level processors.
(As proof, try to not think about a pink elephant for 5 minutes -- you will
note that you cannot completely direct that part of your brain which brings
up the image.)
There are several reasons why this would be an efficient design.
The logical process might proceed more rapidly without the extra
overhead of awareness, and it might be possible to have more than
one such process concurrently working, all without awareness.
If memory serves me, this is one of the ideas woven into Minski's
Society of Mind book. Perhaps it is also the reason he and others
remain skeptical and critical of connectionists who try to squeeze
symbolic, logical thought processes into non-symbolic, non-logical
models. Connectionists may be too readily combining introspective
evidence that some processes are divorced from conscious awareness,
with the assumption that only conscious processes are logical and
prematurely concluding that something else must be going on.
I don't think you have to be a "connectionist" (I presume that its a
derogatory term) to believe that there is a fair amount of connectionist
type processing going on in the brain. I.e., I still doubt very much
whether consciousness is an emergent property from a connectionist
architecture.
Mike Bender
sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (10/27/90)
In article <10106@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> Larry E. Carroll writes: > Then the >elements rise out of the depths like vast behemoths. (Oops, sorry about >that; my metaphor agent malfunctioned.) Just out of curiosity, do you actually believe that the mind is composed of a set of inter-dependent, quasi-independent agents? Just curious. -- --------------- uunet!tdatirv!sarima (Stanley Friesen)
kohout@drinkme.cs.umd.edu (Robert Kohout) (10/31/90)
In article <BURLEY.90Oct26064240@world.std.com> burley@world.std.com (James C Burley) writes: >In article <10106@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> Larry E. Carroll writes: > > >I wouldn't agree that your sample set of thoughts is done "unconsciously", > >based on the fact that you are so able to elucidate them. > > James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson burley@world.std.com > > The rest of your post makes sense to me, but I disagree with this comment. > I believe it was Whitehead who said (something like): We advance, not by > becoming more aware of the elements of our thinking, but by automating & then > ceasing to be aware of them. Thus allowing us to think at successively > higher levels of abstraction. > >Ok, let me try to elaborate: I consider "consciousness" to be a relative term, >in that one being may be more conscious that another, but "unconsciousness" >to be fairly absolute in that it connotes no amount of "consciousness". >(Kind of like the terms "interesting" and "uninteresting".) So what I meant >is that because you can think consciously about your thought processes, I >don't consider them unconscious even though I certainly agree they are less >conscious than your thoughts about those processes. This dialog has motivated a few possibly overdue comments. 1) We are not using the term "concious" consistently. In the main, people seem to be using it as a synonym for "sentience", but is also "that which is not unconcious". 2) When used in this second sense, there seems to be a strong link between what we consider "conscious" awareness and that awareness which is available to our speech centers. If we want to determine whether a subject was conscious of some event, we ask him if he was. If a person clearly observes some phenonmenon, and alters his activities as a result, but cannot say that he has done so, we consider the underlying mental process unconcious (see "Subnliminal Messaging"). One can debate whether or not a person who "knows" a word, but cannot think of it, is at that time actually conscious of the word he is searching for. Many people would say he is not. 3) In my opinion, psychological research has clearly established that people are generally NOT capable of elucidating their thought processes. Rather, we have models of what might plausibly be happening in our minds, and our elucidations are projections based upon this model. It is difficult, if not impossible, for an individual to understand his true motives, for it involves among other things a good deal of behavioral conditioning which has occurred unconciously. Even if one considers the thoughts that flash through one's mind during a decision making process as accurate reflections of the actual alternatives being weighed (which they generally are NOT), they are by their very nature incomplete. Just my 2 cents. Bob Kohout