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Subject: Re: Thought Question
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Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 00:08:40 GMT
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In article <3ilku4$hip@news.u.washington.edu>,
Gary Forbis  <forbis@cac.washington.edu> wrote:
>I've lopped off some of the conversation so as to focus on meaningful 
>differences.  Deleted text not indicated.

same here.
[the 'original pain' and pain-as-felt are two faces of the same thing]
>Well, if they are the same thing then certainly the implication holds (A->A).
>I recognize your desire to define away problems but do not share this 
>propensity.  I'm looking for a proof that they are the same thing (or are 
>different things.)
>
>|> If you could look _inside_ the subjective 
>|> sensation of pain, all you would see is signals being pumped into certain 
>|> areas in certain ways.  
>
>I've looked for years.  I feel pain but there is nothing inside to see.  I
>have a rudimentary theory that assumes something like what you say, however,
>the theory appears to be untestable.  It is untestable because it can make
>no distinction between something with what I mean by consciousness (and I
>believe most who have not blurred the meaning of consciousness to suit their
>theories mean the same) and something without what I mean by consciousness
>but without externally observable differences.  I have been unable to observe
>others' subjective existences (although I can observe their effects) and 
>suspect others cannot observe mine.

You're right, I am defining away the problem, like Copernicus defining
away the problem of what makes epicycles.  The reason I like my definitions 
is that they do sweep away a lot of problems like this (without, hopefully
throwing away any phenomena.)

I just don't think your pain is an entity at all, until something happens
to it to transform it away from the original signal.  You think that it
is an entity in the first place;  there we must agree to disagree, I
suppose.

(BTW, you mention, "like consciousness, but without externally observable
 differences" ... why can't you theorize a glass window onto somebody's
 mind, and try to think what you would see there?  At least in theory,
 you DON'T have to rely on a sort of Turing test.)

I maintain that there is no privileged subjectivity that's different
in nature from every other phenomenon.

>|> That is the function; the experience of pain
>|> occurs as the signals are mediated out of this locus, giving this locus
>|> the (justified) appearance of radiating 'pain' -- the feeling.
>
>The function of pain is not pain.  Pain fulfills a function in humans and
>others.  Why must this function be fulfilled by pain in all cases?

I'm sorry, I misconstrued your 'function', and I still don't get this quite.
Are you saying 'if function=pain, then something else could function like
pain and not _be_ pain, hence your assertion function=pain is absurd!' ??
If the function of pain is very immediately tied to pain (i.e. part of
yourself hurting) nothing else will fulfill that function very well.

>|> Function 'A' radiating information to B,C,D is NOT 'A' -- it is AB+AC+AD -- 
>|> subjectively anyhow -- and this is added up to construe 'A'.   We may be able 
>|> to dissect 'A' and find interesting things, but it doesn't mean anything 
>|> until it relates. 
>
>While "pain" has a meaning, pain does not have a meaning in and of itself.
>We attach meaning to pain felt.

What I'm maintaining is that the pain felt _IS_ a sort of very immediate
attaching-meaning to pain.  The common use of 'having meaning' probably
happens a few levels further on, attaching meaning to the meaning attached
to .. the meaning attached to the signal.
You would disagree, I believe, and say that the pain _IS_ pain, of itself,
and there we must simply disagree, I suppose.

>|> Pain is the existence of pain (meaningless)
>
>Pain is a feeling just as red is a color.

Ah, that's a tempting point of view.  I sincerely believe that that's just
the result of being conscious several levels above the hierarchical layer 
where pain is first construed as a feeling.  But it's intuitively appealing!
Still, out of context, it won't be pain ... (I know, you disagree.)

Try this on:  why do you feel pain _more_ when you are helpless?  How can
you feel anguish (just as immediately!) at someone else's suffering?
Pain is not just your pain, not just this thing ... a lot of things (unexpected
from your worldview) can alter pain, which I believe you're trying to say
exists in isolatio.

>I believe I've allowed for this.  I was trying to convey the notion that
>emergent behavior emerges from the behavior of the smallest set of a systems
>components necessary to support the behavior.  If two instances of these 
>components behave differently, especially in ways not predicted by the
>context in which they exist, something is probably wrong with the theory
>describing their behavior.

Aside ... some difference may have existed in the beginning systems below
the level of measurement, below any given level of measurement.

>One may not be able to predict the specific behavior of a system but one should
>be able to show how this behavior is consistent with the theory as to how it
>emerges from the behaviors of its subcomponents.

Could you remind me, how does this fit into the discussion of subjectivity?
It's interesting, but I don't see the relation right off.

>|> When you're dealing with information, the distinction between a model
>|> of an information system and the real thing is going to be pretty fuzzy.   
>
>This is probably true but unimportant.  Just as pain is not a signal, it is
>not information.

This, I suppose, is where we part ways ...

>|> Since when did I say anything about a model of pain ... ?!?  I'm saying
>|> that 'pain' (as you experience it) IS a certain kind of information dynamic.
>
>There it is again.  You've defined away what I'm asking you to prove.

yep...I guess I admit it.  You want to know what a rainbow is, and where
it lives, and I'm saying it's just something that happens with refracted 
light.

>|> If we can take consciousness out of the realm of "it's what I feel like" and
>|> recast it as something that happens to or with information, then we may
>|> hope to approach this.  
>
>Then how does one refer to "it's what I feel like?"

Hopefully we can rebuild that out of something that happens with information.
It's not the first thing we should tackle, although I have some ideas.

>|> Underneath all this, there resounds a cry, "it's meeee ... I exist!"
>|> Well, sort of ... consider this: your subjectivity has no clear boundaries;
>|> everything around you is helping to create 'you' ... or on the other hand
>|> you might feel as if you were living in your mind and there were other parts
>|> 'out there' elsewhere in your mind ... and maybe sometimes these parts feel
>|> like you and the 1st part that was observing them before feels like 'other'.
>
>Yes, I think that's it.
>
>|> This 'you' has no home ... just an ill-defined home range.
>
>No, that's not it.  What is the subjective "me" emerges from a nexus of
>subjective components.

Riight ... but this subjective me is reformed and dissolved ad hoc, with
some continuity from persistent states, memory, etc.

My feeling about this "subjective-me" feeling is that a certain ongoing
process (think of a smoke-ring or the like) is radiating information
about what it's transforming and how it's transforming it;  other processes,
acting as 'slaves' do something with this information and radiate it back.
This process is _also_ picking up information about itself from very-short-
term memory, and cycling on it, giving it continuity.  The interesting
thing about this process is that it's the only process which is entitled
to feel that it has an inside and an outside, since it is 'seeing' what
it 'looks like' from external to itself.  The other slave processes
do have a sort of inside&outside, inasmuch as they are continually
tracking through sort of discrete information spaces, but they never 
get to experience it!  Anyhow, once an information wave is treated as if 
it has an inside and an outside, it's certainly entitled to be an entity, 
at least for the duration.

I don't know if I can examine your dilemmas about subjectivity any further,
since we're starting from different premises ... but perhaps it would
help you to consider consciousness (your consciousness) as a _process_
rather than a thing ... call it a wave ... I would say the 'water' is
information, you may have other ideas.

(or I should say, the 'water' is information which inhabits a certain space
of transformations -- that's a given where water is concerned (physical
laws) but not so with information.)

>--gary forbis@u.washington.edu


