Consciousness and the illusion of choice

[tar]

I am talking the logic of the subconscious, of evolution, that would make a dangerous thing seem bad, and a helpful thing seem good.

I am thinking in terms of my dopamine theory. That equates good with dopamine release.

Applied to addiction, one is evolutionarily drawn to dopamine. If you find it in a cancer stick, or a hypodermic the unconscious thinks its good, regardless of what the conscious, rational minds has to say about it.

But the conscious, rational mind can tell the unconscious to shut up and sit it out, because what feels good, and releases dopamine is not always actually a good thing.

Like I said in the nicotine thread, quitting smoking does not mean you will never feel good again. You just are deciding not to get dopamine THAT way. There are plenty of other, actually good ways, to get dopamine. To feel good, to enjoy life, and make it possible for others to do the same.

Edited May 18, 2017 by tar

[dimreepr]

You're misunderstanding (edit) misappropriating logical thought with logical progression.

Edited May 18, 2017 by dimreepr

[DrmDoc]

DrmDoc,

 

While I am not suggesting magical precognition, I am a believer in logic. Like on the court shows I watch, the judges know when somebody is lying, when they make up a story that is just not how a reasonable person would react under the manufactured situation, a person will "decide" on a thing that works, that makes sense. In this sense, I can "guess" what dimreepr might be struggling with (and overcoming), without actually reading his mind.

 

In the context of input and output, you have to allow for millions of years of evolution as input. In the context of input and output, you have to allow for input into others, to become part of your tool box. That is, if the apple hits Galileo on the head, and he tells you about it, it is as if the apple hit you in the head.

 

In any case, making the choice NOT to step off the cliff, is a choice already somewhat made. Even children and dogs have a hard time walking on glass with nothing but a drop beneath it.

 

Regards, TAR

 

so if I "decide" that rotten things smell bad (that might contain bacteria and maggots and toxins that will make me sick or kill me), and flowers smell good (that attract bees, and pollination, and later there is fruit and seeds in the fruit that I can eat to survive,) how much of the decision was actually made by the history of my genes, already

or I can choose to read Jampelyang's impermanence as a real thing, that reflects on the history of our genes as an enduring thread that ties us to the past and present and future, even though our own consciousness is fleeting and impermanent, without requiring a magical former life

 

​We really actually are connected to our ancestors by both physical genes and by the works, and decisions, and discoveries they have made.

 

After millions of years of evolution, our survival continues to depend on an accurate assessment of what is real and what isn't. The intake and analysis of real sensory experience is how we have evolved to assess our reality. I can confidently say that no species on our little blue marble (Earth) has an ability to assess what is real without real sensory experience. Therefore, even our guesses can't be made by means other than this way we have evolved. The seemingly intuitive guesswork of either a judge or average person is a product of real and prior perceptual experiences giving that person an ability to detect and accurately interpret the associated subconscious clues. No person is capable of knowing anything without an intake of some perceptual experience associated with that knowledge.

Edited May 18, 2017 by DrmDoc

[tar]

"No person is capable of knowing anything without an intake of some perceptual experience associated with that knowledge."

 

Well granted, but not completely granted. Are you saying an "insight" or a pattern or a symbol, is not knowledge? That is, those things are not "out there" in the real world for others to perceive. One can only know those things, if they have a theory of mind, concerning the other person. You have no way of seeing or hearing or smelling or touching or feeling a quale of mine. Yet I know about such things. We know about a lot of things through analogy. Like I can know a little about what dimreepr is going through, quitting smoking by drawing a comparison to what I went through.

perhaps everything we know is through analogy, as we have stored, in our brains, the whole universe, in an analogous fashion

I know about the Sun for instance, but it can not fit in my brain, I must be holding an analogous Sun in my memory.

 

My dad taught me, that when a newborn first opens his or her eyes, he/she see the world backward and upside down, according to the way the lens focuses the world on the back of the eyeball. Only after moving around in it and seeing people stand and walk and such does the brain put all the senses together to witness a unified model.

Let me add "knowledge" of up, and level and down and moving from a stop or to a stop, according to input from the inner ears as afferent knowledge.

Edited May 18, 2017 by tar

[DrmDoc]

"No person is capable of knowing anything without an intake of some perceptual experience associated with that knowledge."

 

Well granted, but not completely granted. Are you saying an "insight" or a pattern or a symbol, is not knowledge? That is, those things are not "out there" in the real world for others to perceive. One can only know those things, if they have a theory of mind, concerning the other person. You have no way of seeing or hearing or smelling or touching or feeling a quale of mine. Yet I know about such things. We know about a lot of things through analogy. Like I can know a little about what dimreepr is going through, quitting smoking by drawing a comparison to what I went through.

perhaps everything we know is through analogy, as we have stored, in our brains, the whole universe, in an analogous fashion

I know about the Sun for instance, but it can not fit in my brain, I must be holding an analogous Sun in my memory.

 

My dad taught me, that when a newborn first opens his or her eyes, he/she see the world backward and upside down, according to the way the lens focuses the world on the back of the eyeball. Only after moving around in it and seeing people stand and walk and such does the brain put all the senses together to witness a unified model.

Let me add "knowledge" of up, and level and down and moving from a stop or to a stop, according to input from the inner ears as afferent knowledge.

 

I'm not saying that having insight or the ability to recognizing patterns and symbols isn't knowledge. What I am saying is that knowledge isn't innate. Knowledge requires life experience and a conscious apparatus for that experience. We cannot know a thing, as it relates to thought, without the conscious quality and experiences through which we gain relevant knowledge of all things.

[tar]

But wait, DrmDoc, innate is what some of our experience consists of. That is, for instance what having DNA is. Innate. We know how to metabolize fat and starch and sugar, and pump our blood and breathe and such, without any conscious effort. That is the subconscious that is being talked about here. We can not both say that no knowledge is innate, and that we know how to breath.

 

Our conscious efforts, we already determined, sort of, are unconscious efforts, phrased in sharable language. Math, or logic, or reference to a model, or some analogy to the info we obtain through our senses or "something we can say about a thing" in Kant's understanding of understanding.

 

When Ten Oz changed his route to walk in the shade, he imagined the angle of the Sun, compared to his memory of the trees and buildings on the other route. He "knew" it would be a cooler route, before he made his calculations.

 

Since much of our knowledge consists of the external world, internalized through our senses, there is a great deal of knowledge, that exists, that we have yet to internalize through our senses. We know the Sun is there, even at night. The pull of the Sun on our every cell exists, even when we are not thinking about. And we have at least an innate intuition of space and time.

 

My dopamine theory says we also have an innate knowledge of what is good. We feel happy, or good, when we satisfy our hunger, or thirst, or find shade on a hot day, or warmth during a winter storm. Any time we do it right, we get a dopamine reward. How do you know having sex is the right thing to do? You probably did alright the first time, without having prior knowledge of how exactly to handle yourself. Some of what we know is innate. Some expressions of a baby are understood by a parent, no matter what language is normally used to communicate in that part of the world.

 

Last year, the dogs were barking one morning, just before sunrise. I stood out on the front porch trying to make out some reason for their barking in the gloom. A hissing roar that I had never heard before came from above. Instantly adrenaline flowed and I took refuge immediately in the house...looking out the living room window I made out a shadow in the medium size oak in front of my house. It was a bear. I did not expect that the barking of the dogs had treed a bear...but I knew innately that the bear was not happy with me being on the porch, and it was a good idea, to go inside. I remember the sound, now, but at the time I just "understood" it as danger.

 

I think the world does some thinking for us. We just learn from its wisdom. Some knowledge is internally innate, and some knowledge is externally innate. What I mean is that what is true is true, whether we notice it or not, and whether we have a word for it or not.

 

Regards, TAR

[DrmDoc]

But wait, DrmDoc, innate is what some of our experience consists of. That is, for instance what having DNA is. Innate. We know how to metabolize fat and starch and sugar, and pump our blood and breathe and such, without any conscious effort. That is the subconscious that is being talked about here. We can not both say that no knowledge is innate, and that we know how to breath.

 

Our conscious efforts, we already determined, sort of, are unconscious efforts, phrased in sharable language. Math, or logic, or reference to a model, or some analogy to the info we obtain through our senses or "something we can say about a thing" in Kant's understanding of understanding.

 

When Ten Oz changed his route to walk in the shade, he imagined the angle of the Sun, compared to his memory of the trees and buildings on the other route. He "knew" it would be a cooler route, before he made his calculations.

 

Since much of our knowledge consists of the external world, internalized through our senses, there is a great deal of knowledge, that exists, that we have yet to internalize through our senses. We know the Sun is there, even at night. The pull of the Sun on our every cell exists, even when we are not thinking about. And we have at least an innate intuition of space and time.

 

My dopamine theory says we also have an innate knowledge of what is good. We feel happy, or good, when we satisfy our hunger, or thirst, or find shade on a hot day, or warmth during a winter storm. Any time we do it right, we get a dopamine reward. How do you know having sex is the right thing to do? You probably did alright the first time, without having prior knowledge of how exactly to handle yourself. Some of what we know is innate. Some expressions of a baby are understood by a parent, no matter what language is normally used to communicate in that part of the world.

 

Last year, the dogs were barking one morning, just before sunrise. I stood out on the front porch trying to make out some reason for their barking in the gloom. A hissing roar that I had never heard before came from above. Instantly adrenaline flowed and I took refuge immediately in the house...looking out the living room window I made out a shadow in the medium size oak in front of my house. It was a bear. I did not expect that the barking of the dogs had treed a bear...but I knew innately that the bear was not happy with me being on the porch, and it was a good idea, to go inside. I remember the sound, now, but at the time I just "understood" it as danger.

 

I think the world does some thinking for us. We just learn from its wisdom. Some knowledge is internally innate, and some knowledge is externally innate. What I mean is that what is true is true, whether we notice it or not, and whether we have a word for it or not.

 

Regards, TAR

 

Your initial paragraph here regards a purely physical process that isn't guided by the mental qualities I believe we were discussing here. The qualities we were discussing, as I understood, involved attributes of knowledge relative to that produced by brain function. My perspective is that such knowledge can't proceed from brain function without some prior conscious experience and a means to engage that experience. A baby innately knows how to suckle and that is a response produced by brain function without the benefit of prior experience; however, that is a physical response that does not require the direction of thought, conscious or otherwise. When we are required to make guesses or intuit responses from the recesses of thought, those guesses and responses require the assemblage of knowledge based on real, conscious experience. The knowledge at the basis of our thoughts and decisions, whether it proceeds from a conscious or unconscious layer, emerges as a result of our varied life experiences rather than genetic memory.

[tar]

DrmDoc,

 

Purely physical?

 

I am not sure where and why you make a distinction between physical reality and mental reality.

 

Perhaps I am guided by an insight I had many years ago on a hilltop in Germany, where I "understood" treeness. Perhaps more an epiphany than an insight, but I "knew" that life grabbed form and structure for a fleeting moment from an immense and extremely long lived universe, headed otherwise toward entropy.

 

Purely physical makes no sense to me, because it insinuates that mental activity is somehow above that purely physical stuff. A ghost in the machine type explanation, that makes little sense to me, since we absolutly are purely physical, both in the equipment we use to experience and record and match and move through and modify the place, and in the fact that the place is the ONLY thing we are internalizing and matching and remembering and moving through and modifying. In general, we are of and in the place, and mental pursuits are not separate from it, but completely bound and contained by it.

 

What magic, other than the waking, purely physical world, are you proposing?

 

Regards, TAR

Edited May 19, 2017 by tar

[DrmDoc]

DrmDoc,

 

Purely physical?

 

I am not sure where and why you make a distinction between physical reality and mental reality.

 

Perhaps I am guided by an insight I had many years ago on a hilltop in Germany, where I "understood" treeness. Perhaps more an epiphany than an insight, but I "knew" that life grabbed form and structure for a fleeting moment from an immense and extremely long lived universe, headed otherwise toward entropy.

 

Purely physical makes no sense to me, because it insinuates that mental activity is somehow above that purely physical stuff. A ghost in the machine type explanation, that makes little sense to me, since we absolutly are purely physical, both in the equipment we use to experience and record and match and move through and modify the place, and in the fact that the place is the ONLY thing we are internalizing and matching and remembering and moving through and modifying. In general, we are of and in the place, and mental pursuits are not separate from it, but completely bound and contained by it.

 

What magic, other than the waking, purely physical world, are you proposing?

 

Regards, TAR

 

Perhaps you misunderstand; the distinctions I'm trying to make regards the processes of conscious and unconscious thought and decisions. As support, I've discussed those processes relative to my perspective of brain function, which is how those conscious and unconscious attributes of consciousness emerge according to the science. The empirical science suggests our thoughts and decisions are products of the environment of cognitive activity within the brain that arises from brain function. I consider that suggestion the most definitive definition of mind. As suggested to me by the likely path of our brain's evolution, mind ​is quantified in the brain by a capacity to integrate diverse sensory information is such a way as to produces behaviors independent of instinct. Instinct, relative to mind, regards those preprogrammed, innate behaviors and responses we engage without benefit or direction of conscious thoughts. However, thought requires a language and language cannot be acquired without experience. Conversely, some might suggests that newborns are able to communicate with their parents without benefit of language; however, what newborns communicate nonverbally are feelings rather than thoughts. The complexity of though and its conveyance requires the assimilation of a shared language, which newborns acquire with experience.

 

Relative to reality, there's reality rooted in real physical/material experiences and reality rooted in imagination. One is definitively physical, while the other is definitively mental. Indeed, there are distinctions between the two that I think are quite clear and evident. Although our perception of those realities emerge from the same place--i.e., the mind--their perceptual sources are indeed distinct.

[Ten oz]

 

I think bringing up abnormalities (as highlighted) to the norm only muddies the waters, essentially we are clones (within a bell curve) and whilst I agree we have no control over our individual shaping factors, I don't agree that we're not capable of breaking the cycle, depression or addiction, for instance, I have.

The water is muddy. No two people are the same. People have different degrees of everything from eyesight to bone density. The brain develops till adulthood. What we are taught, what we see, what we hear, the way we are taught, what we eat, and a million other things influences the way a person's brain develops. The physical way it develops. Not just memories but the actually physical size of different areas of the brains and the way the the neurons connect. ADHD is a disorder but one which wasn't determined to be one until a little over 30 yrs ago. How many other disorders exist, we find new ones all the time. It can be argued that everyone gots a little of something: narcissism, passive agression, paranoia, anxiety, dyslexia, low self esteem, perversion, kleptomania, agoraphobia, insomnia, etc, etc, etc, etc.

 

There is no single standard we can look at and say it is the perfect example for how the brain should work. Depending on environment many things we might consider a disorder today might be critical to survival in another enviroment.

[tar]

DrmDoc,

 

To the thread title, we have to determine to everyone's satisfaction, how much of our choices are determined by other factors, like dreams and imagination, social conventions and traditional behavior, to conform to other's desires, and to respond to and adjust the chemical​​s coursing through our brain (the hormones the endorphins, the adrenaline, the pheromones drifting through the air and such,) and how much of our choices are made by the point of focus consciousness that thinks, is in control of the decisions. While it is part of the discussion to consider all those factors, as part of one's mentality, it does not seem proper to me, to make a distinction between that which is physically real, and what is going on that we consider thought.

 

In another thread several years ago I made the analogy of the border of Canada and the U.S. as being a mental construct, a convention, made real by agreement of humans. The border is real, but where there is no physical fence, the trees and birds and streams and worms and air and rocks, do not notice the thing. It exists, like alliances and agreements, and promises and threats and patterns and equations and language and analogies and one thing standing for another, in the synapses of our brains, and written down in documents and now stored on computer hard disks. So I get that there are real things that exist in our imaginations, which in many cases we have brought into reality in the form of buildings and artworks, systems and procedures, rules and regulations and conventional "thought" of all kinds. I get the distinction between real and imagined, and where the line is crossed. But one can not stand on the imagined side of the line, and say the physical has no role, in the play, when it obviously is the MAIN player.

 

Regards, TAR

[Ten oz]

 

Let's begin again for a place of empirical certainty where I think we can both agree on the science. Physically, we operating on a system of input and output, wherein without the input or intake of nutrients our body cannot sustain the energy output essential to life and survival. Neurologically, our central nervous system (CNS) is comprised of a system of neural relays dedicated to bringing sensory information (tactile, aural, oral, ocular, etc.) into brain structure (afferent neurons) and a system of relays dedicated to the delivery of directives and motor commands from brain structure (efferent neurons). Regardless of our personal beliefs, empirically, we are physiologically and neurologically binary.

 

If we agree that our unconscious resides in brain structure, then we must agree, given the science, that no sensory information or stimuli reaches that structures without passing through our brain's afferent neural systems. We experience life and accumulate knowledge by way of our afferent neural systems. This means that we can't accumulate knowledge on how to respond to our experiences without the information we receive through our afferent systems. Admittedly, there are behaviors we engage that do not require prior knowledge or experience; e.g., a newborn seems to instinctively knows how to suckles its mother's tit without the appearance of prior experience. However, thought requires language and language requires conscious experience to acquire.

 

The science suggests there's only one path (inward) for the accumulation of the language at the basis of thought. Conversely, the science also suggests there's only one neural path (outward) for the expression of thought. It's a binary system and if we were to assign a relative nature of consciousness to the separate aspects of that system, it afferent aspects most aligns with our conscious nature while its efferent aspects aligns with our unconscious nature.

Yes, I agree with all other that. None of that means one must consciously perceive the the afferent process as it happens. Clearly the thoughts we perceieve in realtime and the thoughts which lead to things we know yet have no perception of how/why are both processes of the brain.

 

As a simple expirement I have just sat in a chair and relaxed. Tried not to think of anything specific and to not purposefully move or prevent myself from moving. Within several minutes I nearly always find myslef doing something that I wasn't aware I was doing and am not sure how long I had been doing it for. I will sit, relax, tell myself to just do nothing, and then after several minutes come to realize I have been countinng the buttons on my remote, tapping my foot, or whatever. The action began at some point without any perceived conscious instruction and continued unnoticed for some unknown duration of time. A buddy and I both did this several years ago in his living room. After 10 minutes he said he noticed nothing. That for ten minutes he had just sat doing and not really thinking anything. Being there in the same room with him I noticed him humming some tune for most the time and at one point he mouthed something and shrugged. Yet in his own perceived conscious thought he had done absolutely nothing. He did not believe he was humming and thought I was totally pranking him when I said he had mouthed something and shrugged.

 

As an add on to that anecdote I often catch myself mouthing things. From time to time my wife will look at me and ask "what" thinking I am saying something to her. It is how I first noticed it. I was otherwise unaware and when it happens I am not thinking about anything special. Just watching TV, cooking dinner, or whatever. I am not under the impression that what I am mouthing is related to what I am doing or thinking (perceived conscious thought) about. Don't honstly know though. I don't do it in public. I think most of us have some standard faces we keep in public as opposed to just being relaxed and that prevents it from happening. I assume.

[tar]

As an example of innate factors, let's for an instant consider how thought might be affected by having a vagina or a penis. Not being a man or a woman, the provider of seed, or the provider of egg and womb and tit, but just having a thing that is a receptacle, a space within, and having a thing that projects out. Personality is in general somewhat affected by one's size and strength and intelligence and speed and such, but I am, for this example just considering, in terms of innate physical influences to thought, the difference in "thinking" that would result from having a vessel or a tool. Not to really ask what differences in thought would occur, but to point out that any differences in thinking that would naturally flow from having the one or the other, would be innate "ideas" that would not rise in the one, simply because they were not outfitted or infitted like the other.

 

I once noted that women in my family, though equal in status and responsibility in the greater world, tended to take care of the inside of the house, where the man had responsibility for the outside. Not completely, as my wife painted the house and takes care of her flower gardens and such, and I have my duties to the dishes and cooking and such, but in general, there is a difference between men and women, the way we shop, the way we "think" about relationships and situations, what we pay attention to, and the like. Enough of a similarity of roles amongst the men vs the women in my experience to consider that the difference is not totally accounted for by societal roles, but is to at least a small degree, influenced by innate factors.

Edited May 19, 2017 by tar

[Ten oz]

@ tar, DrmDoc is describing what I see as a rather linear systems of inputs and outputs. I see the relationship more being more akin to electrical feedback where outputs are routed back as inputs.

 

I don't have a good grasp of your dopamine theory. It is outline in pieces across different posts. It has been used as a counter position which has muddled it some. At least for me. Can you summarize it as a stand alone theory and not a response?

[DrmDoc]

DrmDoc,

 

To the thread title, we have to determine to everyone's satisfaction, how much of our choices are determined by other factors, like dreams and imagination, social conventions and traditional behavior, to conform to other's desires, and to respond to and adjust the chemical​​s coursing through our brain (the hormones the endorphins, the adrenaline, the pheromones drifting through the air and such,) and how much of our choices are made by the point of focus consciousness that thinks, is in control of the decisions. While it is part of the discussion to consider all those factors, as part of one's mentality, it does not seem proper to me, to make a distinction between that which is physically real, and what is going on that we consider thought.

 

In another thread several years ago I made the analogy of the border of Canada and the U.S. as being a mental construct, a convention, made real by agreement of humans. The border is real, but where there is no physical fence, the trees and birds and streams and worms and air and rocks, do not notice the thing. It exists, like alliances and agreements, and promises and threats and patterns and equations and language and analogies and one thing standing for another, in the synapses of our brains, and written down in documents and now stored on computer hard disks. So I get that there are real things that exist in our imaginations, which in many cases we have brought into reality in the form of buildings and artworks, systems and procedures, rules and regulations and conventional "thought" of all kinds. I get the distinction between real and imagined, and where the line is crossed. But one can not stand on the imagined side of the line, and say the physical has no role, in the play, when it obviously is the MAIN player.

 

Regards, TAR

 

Agreed; physical reality and perception does have a role but only as a source of input, sensory, or stimuli for the mental matrix that comprises and originates thought. Thought is merely a reaction to stimuli emerging from our perceptual interactions with the physical, whether that be the body physical or physical/material reality

 

Yes, I agree with all other that. None of that means one must consciously perceive the the afferent process as it happens. Clearly the thoughts we perceieve in realtime and the thoughts which lead to things we know yet have no perception of how/why are both processes of the brain.

 

As a simple expirement I have just sat in a chair and relaxed. Tried not to think of anything specific and to not purposefully move or prevent myself from moving. Within several minutes I nearly always find myslef doing something that I wasn't aware I was doing and am not sure how long I had been doing it for. I will sit, relax, tell myself to just do nothing, and then after several minutes come to realize I have been countinng the buttons on my remote, tapping my foot, or whatever. The action began at some point without any perceived conscious instruction and continued unnoticed for some unknown duration of time. A buddy and I both did this several years ago in his living room. After 10 minutes he said he noticed nothing. That for ten minutes he had just sat doing and not really thinking anything. Being there in the same room with him I noticed him humming some tune for most the time and at one point he mouthed something and shrugged. Yet in his own perceived conscious thought he had done absolutely nothing. He did not believe he was humming and thought I was totally pranking him when I said he had mouthed something and shrugged.

 

As an add on to that anecdote I often catch myself mouthing things. From time to time my wife will look at me and ask "what" thinking I am saying something to her. It is how I first noticed it. I was otherwise unaware and when it happens I am not thinking about anything special. Just watching TV, cooking dinner, or whatever. I am not under the impression that what I am mouthing is related to what I am doing or thinking (perceived conscious thought) about. Don't honstly know though. I don't do it in public. I think most of us have some standard faces we keep in public as opposed to just being relaxed and that prevents it from happening. I assume.

 

If I understand, you described an experiment involving a conscious or purposeful effort to suppress all forms of mental and physical activity and behaviors. In doing so, you discovered that certain activities invariably emerged regardless of your deliberate efforts otherwise. You perceive this emergence as evidence of the spontaneity of unconscious responses without benefit of conscious input or direction. If true, then I disagree; they were most certainty responses generated by conscious input, perception, and direction.

 

The perceptual void created by preventing yourself from thinking and moving is itself conscious input and stimuli. Essentially, your unconscious actions were a response to the vacuum of activity that, in fact, you were aware of consciously. I say "in fact" because your suppressed mental and physical state was a deliberate conscious effort. The deliberate conscious effort to maintain that state of suppressed activity generated the unconscious responses you observed. The behaviors we engage unknowingly are indeed all responses to stimuli we consciously perceive but may not connect with those unconscious behaviors because of nuanced conscious perceptions. Our unconscious is responsive and its responses only emerge as a consequence of stimuli.

Edited May 19, 2017 by DrmDoc

[Ten oz]

 

Agreed; physical reality and perception does have a role but only as a source of input, sensory, or stimuli for the mental matrix that comprises and originates thought. Thought is merely a reaction to stimuli emerging from our perceptual interactions with the physical, whether that be the body physical or physical/material reality

 

 

If I understand, you described an experiment involving a conscious or purposeful effort to suppress all forms of mental and physical activity and behaviors. In doing so, you discovered that certain activities invariably emerged regardless of your deliberate efforts otherwise. You perceive this emergence as evidence of the spontaneity of unconscious responses without benefit of conscious input or direction. If true, then I disagree; they were most certainty responses generated by conscious input, perception, and direction.

 

The perceptual void created by preventing yourself from thinking and moving is itself conscious input and stimuli. Essentially, your unconscious actions were a response to the vacuum of activity that, in fact, you were aware of consciously. I say "in fact" because your suppressed mental and physical state was a deliberate conscious effort. The deliberate conscious effort to maintain that state of suppressed activity generated the unconscious responses you observed. The behaviors we engage unknowingly are indeed all responses to stimuli we consciously perceive but may not connect with those unconscious behaviors because of nuanced conscious perceptions. Our unconscious is responsive and its responses only emerge as a consequence of stimuli.

"purposeful effort", the opposite of that. Sitting in a chair and relaxing is the oppisite of purposeful effort.

 

Feedback circuits use outputs as inputs. Just because inputs and outputs exist doesn't mean they must function in a linear manner. Outputs can be feedback creating loops that change proceeding actions. The input you are calling perception could be created by feedback and not the initial generating source. Our minds are significantly more complicated that a simmple circuit of linear inputs and outputs.

 

"Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause and effect that forms a circuit or loop.^[2] The system can then be said to feed back into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled carefully when applied to feedback systems:

"Simple causal reasoning about a feedback system is difficult because the first system influences the second and second system influences the first, leading to a circular argument. This makes reasoning based upon cause and effect tricky, and it is necessary to analyze the system as a whole."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback

[dimreepr]

The water is muddy. No two people are the same. People have different degrees of everything from eyesight to bone density. The brain develops till adulthood. What we are taught, what we see, what we hear, the way we are taught, what we eat, and a million other things influences the way a person's brain develops. The physical way it develops. Not just memories but the actually physical size of different areas of the brains and the way the the neurons connect. ADHD is a disorder but one which wasn't determined to be one until a little over 30 yrs ago. How many other disorders exist, we find new ones all the time. It can be argued that everyone gots a little of something: narcissism, passive agression, paranoia, anxiety, dyslexia, low self esteem, perversion, kleptomania, agoraphobia, insomnia, etc, etc, etc, etc.

 

But if I lived your life (and we're both near the center of the bell curve) then, other than obvious physical differences, we'd be the same. Yes, we are all unique but we're still human and act as humans, but as I type this I realise our arguments are converging on the OP; by which I mean, if we are all as different as you say, then the chances are, emergent qualities of such a diverse group of individuals would suggest the OP to be wrong. Clones (in essence) as I suggest would add credence to it.

[Ten oz]

 

But if I lived your life (and we're both near the center of the bell curve) then, other than obvious physical differences, we'd be the same. Yes, we are all unique but we're still human and act as humans, but as I type this I realise our arguments are converging on the OP; by which I mean, if we are all as different as you say, then the chances are, emergent qualities of such a diverse group of individuals would suggest the OP to be wrong. Clones (in essence) as I suggest would add credence to it.

No exactly. Just because the perceived choice we are making was actually already decided unconsciously doesn't me it isn't still we (me, myself, and I) that made it. Our unconscious is in our brain same as our perceived conscious. Neither is more us (me, myself, I) than the other. Both my unconscious and conscious are mine, me. Which ever one is driving the decisions made are still equally as individual.

[dimreepr]

No exactly. Just because the perceived choice we are making was actually already decided unconsciously doesn't me it isn't still we (me, myself, and I) that made it. Our unconscious is in our brain same as our perceived conscious. Neither is more us (me, myself, I) than the other. Both my unconscious and conscious are mine, me. Which ever one is driving the decisions made are still equally as individual.

 

Probability would suggest otherwise.

[DrmDoc]

"purposeful effort", the opposite of that. Sitting in a chair and relaxing is the oppisite of purposeful effort.

 

Feedback circuits use outputs as inputs. Just because inputs and outputs exist doesn't mean they must function in a linear manner. Outputs can be feedback creating loops that change proceeding actions. The input you are calling perception could be created by feedback and not the initial generating source. Our minds are significantly more complicated that a simmple circuit of linear inputs and outputs.

 

"Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause and effect that forms a circuit or loop.^[2] The system can then be said to feed back into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled carefully when applied to feedback systems:

"Simple causal reasoning about a feedback system is difficult because the first system influences the second and second system influences the first, leading to a circular argument. This makes reasoning based upon cause and effect tricky, and it is necessary to analyze the system as a whole."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback

 

Your sitting in a chair and relaxing wasn't a purposeful effort? As I understood, that effort had a purposeful intent which you described as an "experiment." If there was intent to your actions, then they were definitively purposeful. Further, I do not deny feedback as an internal aspect of brain function and reasoning; however, that feedback loop must have a beginning and that beginning emerges from some initial input.

 

I agree that the nature of thought does indeed involve feedback between separate neural groups before a thought outwardly emerges as some behavioral expression. Our brain's various structures and levels are connected by reciprocate neural relays that allow back-and-forth, send-and-receive exchanges between distinct neural groups. Even these relays, however, operate as input and output. Reciprocal exchanges do not occur spontaneously in isolation without some input initiating those exchanges. It's likely that a conscious intent to enter a clear minded and immobile state of relaxation is more than sufficient input to initiate such reciprocal exchanges.

As an example of innate factors, let's for an instant consider how thought might be affected by having a vagina or a penis. Not being a man or a woman, the provider of seed, or the provider of egg and womb and tit, but just having a thing that is a receptacle, a space within, and having a thing that projects out. Personality is in general somewhat affected by one's size and strength and intelligence and speed and such, but I am, for this example just considering, in terms of innate physical influences to thought, the difference in "thinking" that would result from having a vessel or a tool. Not to really ask what differences in thought would occur, but to point out that any differences in thinking that would naturally flow from having the one or the other, would be innate "ideas" that would not rise in the one, simply because they were not outfitted or infitted like the other.

 

I once noted that women in my family, though equal in status and responsibility in the greater world, tended to take care of the inside of the house, where the man had responsibility for the outside. Not completely, as my wife painted the house and takes care of her flower gardens and such, and I have my duties to the dishes and cooking and such, but in general, there is a difference between men and women, the way we shop, the way we "think" about relationships and situations, what we pay attention to, and the like. Enough of a similarity of roles amongst the men vs the women in my experience to consider that the difference is not totally accounted for by societal roles, but is to at least a small degree, influenced by innate factors.

 

I, again, disagree; sexual distinctions as an affect upon thought occur by experience rather than innately. The clearest examples are the perceptions of toddlers who seemingly remain unawareness of their male/female distinction from other children without the experiences from which they learn that distinction. There's no denial that our hormonal differences influence our thoughts but there's no evidence that we are born with thoughts or knowledge emerging from those differences.

Edited May 19, 2017 by DrmDoc

[tar]

DrmDoc,

 

One of my dad's associates had done his doctoral thesis on activation theory. I did not read it or ever have more than a wine party conversation about it with him, but what I got, was that us humans like to have something going on that we are paying attention to. In this, not having any input, I am thinking the consciousness would scrape up something to think about. Feedback loop wise I would say that one can be conscious of one's body. "Does my knee feel OK after the replacement?" "Is it getting strong, should I do a few quad contractions?"

 

Or perhaps one reviews the day and checks on what other people might be thinking about them, or if other people need a visit or some help doing something. This greater community, one's property, one's body, are all subjects of conscious attention, conscious thought. But one is subconsciously aware of these things as well. A crash on the street, draws your attention, and may need to be looked into, requiring some motor movement, some output, but some of the input, come from your model of the world, your body and your body's position in the greater world, which is yours, as well. While I agree that conscious thought requires at some points some perceptual input, there is more than just what we hear and see and smell and feel, and taste, that we are conscious of.

 

My dad says that the human mind will construct stuff, when starved of input. Look at a white wall for more that about 30 secs and you will start seeing colors and shapes shifting around. Generated by your mind. The input is not actual, but you are conscious of it, none-the-less.

 

The world indeed is what we are conscious of, but part of that world, that physical world is the humans in it, or on it, including primarily ourselves. That single point of focus consciousness, that is TAR, is actual as well a real physical entity in DrmDoc's model. That is, if we were both to go to Times Square tomorrow at 6pm and stand where the car that ran over the people yesterday wound up stopping against a steel barrier post, we would physically be able to see and hear and hopefully not smell or taste each other. But we can "imagine" the meeting, with no input but my suggestion, required.

 

Things can "happen" physically in my brain, that will cause me to experience the meeting, without it ever having to happen.

 

And did you ever consider, as dimreepr suggests, that we are, just because we are humans, similar. Our brains have THE SAME afferent and efferent neural connections, we have the same structures in our heads at the base of the brain attaching neurons to the top of the spinal cord. Same structures, with the same functions. Not reliant on experience. Built in, developing as we grow in the womb. Same innate mechanisms, same physical stuff, grey matter, and chemicals, and ion discharges and the like. These are all part of what we are conscious of, and how we are conscious at all. We don't need any input from the outside to be conscious of a toothache, or to feel our heart breaking, we are innately outfitted to be conscious humans.

 

Regards, TAR

Ten Oz,

 

I really should go out and put a few shakes up, so I will just give an outline.

 

Evolutionarily, as our brains developed, I think it was useful to have a reason to want to do a successful thing again. That is, I think that we feel good when we do a good thing. That way we want to do it right, again, and continually doing it right ensures our survival and the survival of our family, clan, and helps to show others of the species how to do it right and thereby live and pass on one's genes and knowledge.

 

The neurotransmitters involved in the pleasure/reward system include dopamine. When the nicotine receptors in your brain receive nicotine, they release dopamine or the precursors to dopamine. The nicotine gets the dopamine into the synapses and one "feels good". But there are 100 other, real ways to get dopamine. Same dopamine. Look at a pretty girl, or a handsome body, win a game of solitaire, get a joke, defeat an adversary, feed your children, hug your mate... 100 ways, at least, that evolution has prepared for us, to get dopamine. To feel good when we are successful at life. So we want to keep on living, surviving, doing it again.

 

So the theory is, that when we feel good its because dopamine is released, and when dopamine is released we feel good. So one can use the two, good and dopamine, interchangeably in discussions. Pertaining to addiction, one feels they need the addictive substance or behavior to survive, because it provides dopamine, and the dopamine is telling us we are surviving, doing it right, feeling good, feeling victorious, on top of the world...even if we are penniless, friendless, homeless, lying in our own filth in the gutter.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited May 20, 2017 by tar

[DrmDoc]

DrmDoc,

 

One of my dad's associates had done his doctoral thesis on activation theory. I did not read it or ever have more than a wine party conversation about it with him, but what I got, was that us humans like to have something going on that we are paying attention to. In this, not having any input, I am thinking the consciousness would scrape up something to think about. Feedback loop wise I would say that one can be conscious of one's body. "Does my knee feel OK after the replacement?" "Is it getting strong, should I do a few quad contractions?"

 

Or perhaps one reviews the day and checks on what other people might be thinking about them, or if other people need a visit or some help doing something. This greater community, one's property, one's body, are all subjects of conscious attention, conscious thought. But one is subconsciously aware of these things as well. A crash on the street, draws your attention, and may need to be looked into, requiring some motor movement, some output, but some of the input, come from your model of the world, your body and your body's position in the greater world, which is yours, as well. While I agree that conscious thought requires at some points some perceptual input, there is more than just what we hear and see and smell and feel, and taste, that we are conscious of.

 

My dad says that the human mind will construct stuff, when starved of input. Look at a white wall for more that about 30 secs and you will start seeing colors and shapes shifting around. Generated by your mind. The input is not actual, but you are conscious of it, none-the-less.

 

The world indeed is what we are conscious of, but part of that world, that physical world is the humans in it, or on it, including primarily ourselves. That single point of focus consciousness, that is TAR, is actual as well a real physical entity in DrmDoc's model. That is, if we were both to go to Times Square tomorrow at 6pm and stand where the car that ran over the people yesterday wound up stopping against a steel barrier post, we would physically be able to see and hear and hopefully not smell or taste each other. But we can "imagine" the meeting, with no input but my suggestion, required.

 

Things can "happen" physically in my brain, that will cause me to experience the meeting, without it ever having to happen.

 

And did you ever consider, as dimreepr suggests, that we are, just because we are humans, similar. Our brains have THE SAME afferent and efferent neural connections, we have the same structures in our heads at the base of the brain attaching neurons to the top of the spinal cord. Same structures, with the same functions. Not reliant on experience. Built in, developing as we grow in the womb. Same innate mechanisms, same physical stuff, grey matter, and chemicals, and ion discharges and the like. These are all part of what we are conscious of, and how we are conscious at all. We don't need any input from the outside to be conscious of a toothache, or to feel our heart breaking, we are innately outfitted to be conscious humans.

 

Regards, TAR

 

If I now understand, your perspective here regards our unconscious capacity to conceptualize or create mental images and scenarios in the absence of direct or real sensory stimuli. If true, then you must agree that we can't conceptualize anything without acquiring the conceptual building blocks to do so. For example, our ancient ancestors likely required several thousand years of real perceptual experiences to conceive the wheel, which doesn't appear in human history until well after our ancestors exited Africa.

 

Unconscious conceptualization requires an accumulation of real conscious experiences and, as I have stated, real conscious experience is also the vacuum of that experience. We have evolved as a perceptual species; wherein, the absence of real perceptual experiences drives our unconscious conceptualizations. All of this can be traced back to the evolved metabolic needs of the brain and its primary physiological mechanisms for supplying those needs. Our brain's nutrient requirements are supplied by way of blood-flow into brain structure and blood-flow increases to the brain whenever it engages thought. This is the mechanism behind dreaming, which is the most empirical evidence of unconscious thought.

Edited May 20, 2017 by DrmDoc

[tar]

DrmDoc,

 

So the basis of thought is the internalization of the world, provided by the analog representation of what was around, through the senses, into a model of the world, which can be navigated, in miniature, requiring less energy to accomplish a trial.

 

The trial, being the thought. Real in that it requires connections and signals between brain cells, but symbolic in nature, as we both were able to visit Times Square, without burning any gas.

 

Regards, TAR

the subconscious is, like we said before, working on the problem, running inexpensive, non permanent manipulations of the world (the model of) and when it arrives at a solution that appears to work (put a log on top of two other logs) and imagine the assemblage moving, you can then actually cut the trees down and try it out for real

but, as for the wheel and axle, it probably was not "thought" of, without someone seeing a log roll down hill, adding credence to my thought that the world does some thinking for us

 

Which adds weight to Ten Oz's thought that some "choices" that we make, are already made.

[DrmDoc]

DrmDoc,

 

So the basis of thought is the internalization of the world, provided by the analog representation of what was around, through the senses, into a model of the world, which can be navigated, in miniature, requiring less energy to accomplish a trial.

 

The trial, being the thought. Real in that it requires connections and signals between brain cells, but symbolic in nature, as we both were able to visit Times Square, without burning any gas.

 

It's not an internalized world as I understand the terms. Our unconscious mind doesn't creating something from nothing. Creativity requires input and even our unconscious mind requires sensory experiences to conceptualize dreams. Again, as evidence, the dreams of congenitally blind individuals do not contain visual content because they cannot conceptualize visual dream imagery without ever having had real visual experiences. Even our imagined trip to Time Square would not be possible without the prior perceptual experiences enabling our conception of such a trip.

 

the subconscious is, like we said before, working on the problem, running inexpensive, non permanent manipulations of the world (the model of) and when it arrives at a solution that appears to work (put a log on top of two other logs) and imagine the assemblage moving, you can then actually cut the trees down and try it out for real

 

but, as for the wheel and axle, it probably was not "thought" of, without someone seeing a log roll down hill, adding credence to my thought that the world does some thinking for us

 

Which adds weight to Ten Oz's thought that some "choices" that we make, are already made.

 

 

Subconscious is an influence and not the mental matrix that unconscious describes. Where I use the word subconscious, I'm referencing a type of influence ​and its path to and from brain function. Where I use unconscious, I'm referencing a state of brain function that generate mentation or thought. The distinction between the two terms is quite clear from my perspective. From that perspective, there's ever only one mind at work at any time. What we perceive as solutions emerging from an unconscious process is merely a product of how we consciously perceive and reevaluate problems. It's akin to viewing a painting in a single glance, turning away, then seeing something different when you look again at that painting.

[tar]

DrmDoc,

 

Well OK, the subconscious is an influence, but I am not clear on what you consider unconscious. Is it no thought. Like you are knocked out or under anesthesia...and is a dream happening when you are unconscious. If a dream is under your unconscious umbrella, does it receive subconscious influences as well?

 

If for instance we have all the sensory information from a lifetime, stored in some fashion in our memories, do both the conscious mind, and the unconscious mind have access to these memories?

 

Regards, TAR

Specifically I am after the role of reconstituted memories as afferent input. That is, if I remember something wrong, can I count that as a sensory experience. The example I am using in my own mind at the moment, is a time I saw a man dressed in white at the end of a driveway (we were running scared) as a teenager. We later found out a man that dressed like that had hung himself from a lamppost at the end of the driveway. So did I see a ghost? Does the sensory input required for thought include remembering or reconstructing a sensory experience?

 

Seems there is room in the unconscious to manipulate the pieces of sensory experience and form a workable story, that one cannot easily discern as having happened, or as having been influenced by the subconscious.

 

My brother in law was in the car that day (before he met my sister) and I asked him whether he saw the man 30 years later. He remembers other reasons we were hurrying out of the place, but he did not see a man at the end of the driveway.

Edited May 21, 2017 by tar