--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "hodossphaenodon" <bunny5000@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, Eray Ozkural <erayo@> wrote:
>>> ...
>>> If you can't plan, you're not intelligent. It's that simple.
>>
>> But you are alive, awake, conscious and that is the hard question.
>
> Seems to be a statement rather than a question ...

I get the feeling some people just don't get the hard question
when they go on about closet dualism or magic. They make up all
these strawmen arguments that have nothing to do with it and
practice name calling to try and denigrate those that believe
there is something to explain by claiming falsely they want a
magic or dualistic explanation.

There is no need to attack others or name call if you actually
know how the trick is done. Just explain the trick.

That was my gripe against Dennett. "Consciousness explained".
"The card trick explained". No he hasn't explained the card
trick only pointed out it is only a physical trick.

Yes the hard question may have an easy answer once you have
the answer and the easy questions may required a lot more
work to explain.


>> Let's not confuse "intelligence" with "sentience".
>
> Agree there. Dim people and even 'dumb' animals have exactly the
> same brain bits and pieces as Einstein.

Our personal experience is that in order to answer an IQ test
we need to be awake, conscious. So because the two seem to go
together the word "intelligence" has implied "conscious". But
in fact most of our processing is "unconscious". The conscious
state only seems to be required for directed learning.

The intelligent brain is not working harder than a not so
intelligent brain. PET scans show it is working less hard
because most of the processes are on automatic. It is the
ability to automate our thinking, hand it over to a
subconscious process, that makes some people smarter in
the number of mental push ups they can do.


JohnC

>
> There is no need to attack others or name call if you actually
> know how the trick is done. Just explain the trick.
>
> That was my gripe against Dennett. "Consciousness explained".
> "The card trick explained". No he hasn't explained the card
> trick only pointed out it is only a physical trick.
>
> Yes the hard question may have an easy answer once you have
> the answer and the easy questions may required a lot more
> work to explain.
>
Hi JohnC
>
> >> Let's not confuse "intelligence" with "sentience".
> >
> > Agree there. Dim people and even 'dumb' animals have exactly the
> > same brain bits and pieces as Einstein.
>
> Our personal experience is that in order to answer an IQ test
> we need to be awake, conscious. So because the two seem to go
> together the word "intelligence" has implied "conscious". But
> in fact most of our processing is "unconscious". The conscious
> state only seems to be required for directed learning.
>
> The intelligent brain is not working harder than a not so
> intelligent brain. PET scans show it is working less hard
> because most of the processes are on automatic. It is the
> ability to automate our thinking, hand it over to a
> subconscious process, that makes some people smarter in
> the number of mental push ups they can do.
>
>
Is certainly true that to generate 'consciousness' you need an energy source.
That is a problem for those who want to claim that 'spirits' or 'conscious
entities' can exist entirely outside the physical realm, since mass and energy
are interchangeable here. It also helps explain how the primal eye can still
exist - no longer has any mass- but because formed from neuronal information
(brain processing) it has energy.

True that tournament chess players lose as many calories as sports athletes. But
I don't think the amount of energy Einstein's brain used was any greater than
average (at a guess), for the following reason: the best solution is the
simplest or most efficient explanation, which is true in maths (shorter proof
better than a longer proof which must have some redundancy built in), and the
genius mind goes straight to the solution rather than faffing about so uses less
effort. During trimming of neuronal connections in childhood, the high IQ brain
tends to get rid of more unnecessary neuronal maps or individual string yet
retaining full functionality. That makes thinking quicker and easy, less is more
in that particular example from 'Connectionism'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectionism

This paper was quite influential - Fodor & Pylyshyn
Connectionism and Cognitive Architecture. 1988 Cognition 28:3-71.

This paper explores the difference between Connectionist proposals for cognitive
architecture and the sorts of models that have traditionally been assumed in
cognitive science. We claim that the major distinction is that, while both
Connectionist and Classical architectures postulate representational mental
states, the latter but not the former are committed to a symbol-level of
representation, or to a `language of thought': i.e., to representational states
that have combinatorial syntactic and semantic structure. Several arguments for
combinatorial structure in mental representations are then reviewed. These
include arguments based on the `systematicity' of mental representation: i.e.,
on the fact that cognitive capacities always exhibit certain symmetries, so that
the ability to entertain a given thought implies the ability to entertain
thoughts with semantically related contents. We claim that such arguments make a
powerful case that mind/brain architecture is not Connectionist at the cognitive
level. We then consider the possibility that Connectionism may provide an
account of the neural (or `abstract neurological') structures in which Classical
cognitive architecture is implemented. We survey a number of the standard
arguments that have been offered in favor of Connectionism, and conclude that
they are coherent only on this interpretation.
http://philpapers.org/rec/FODCAC

Some further discussion of this -

Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn use the notion of cognitive architecture in their
defense. Cognitive architecture is the set of basic functions of an organism
with representational input and output. They argue that it is a law of nature
that cognitive capacities are productive, systematic and inferentially coherent
- they have the ability to produce and understand sentences of a certain
structure if they can understand one sentence of that structure.[4] A cognitive
model must have a cognitive architecture that explains these laws and properties
in some way that is compatible with the scientific method. Fodor and Pylyshyn
say that cognitive architecture can only explain the property of systematicity
by appealing to a system of representations and that connectionism either
employs a cognitive architecture of representations or else does not. If it
does, then connectionism uses LOT. If it does not then it is empirically
false.[3]

Connectionists have responded to Fodor and Pylyshyn by denying that
connectionism uses LOT, by denying that cognition is essentially a function that
uses representational input and output or denying that systematicity is a law of
nature that rests on representation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_thought_hypothesis

I tend not to agree with Fodor since I often use a Connectionist approach in
therapy. Hypnotist, Milton Erickson, stressed non verbal 'tells' and
conventionalists (plus philosophers) tend to overemphasize the importance of
language in mentation. Many academics have a vested interest in keeping their
particularly lines of blathering alive (and funded) within educational
establishments worldwide. However, much mentation seems non-verbal,
kin-aesthetic and aesthetic basically. Dreams do manipulate symbols but also
involve feelings and emotional responses. The focus, or monad, of the primal eye
helps combine these and other seeming but superficial dualities.

Steve
http://jungian.org

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "hodossphaenodon" <bunny5000@...> wrote:

> JohnC wrote:
>> Our personal experience is that in order to answer an IQ test
>> we need to be awake, conscious. So because the two seem to go
>> together the word "intelligence" has implied "conscious". But
>> in fact most of our processing is "unconscious". The conscious
>> state only seems to be required for directed learning.
>>
>> The intelligent brain is not working harder than a not so
>> intelligent brain. PET scans show it is working less hard
>> because most of the processes are on automatic. It is the
>> ability to automate our thinking, hand it over to a
>> subconscious process, that makes some people smarter in
>> the number of mental push ups they can do.
>
>
> Is certainly true that to generate 'consciousness' you need
> an energy source.

The context was 'consciousness' vs. 'intelligence' and my
belief the two need not coexist except maybe with respect
to directed learning.

I don't see consciousness as being generated unless you mean
that as some kind of metaphor.


> It also helps explain how the primal eye can still exist -
> no longer has any mass- but because formed from neuronal
> information (brain processing) it has energy.

?????

> The focus, or monad, of the primal eye helps combine these
> and other seeming but superficial dualities.

Sorry but I have no idea what you are talking about.

This is AI philosophy and I do understand computers and
programming and something about neurons and brains.

I am interested in scientific explanations not made up stuff.

At this stage I take mind to be something the brain does
not something it "generates". An analogy is walking, running,
jumping and skipping is something that legs do.

I suspect the duality is simply two points of view. One from
the outside and one from the inside. Hopefully we will be
able to explain the inside view in terms of the outside view.
The point of view of the program vs. the point of view of an
objective observer of the logic gates turning on and off
which is all a program is regardless of its point of view.


JohnC

Hi JohnC

> > JohnC wrote:
> >> Our personal experience is that in order to answer an IQ test
> >> we need to be awake, conscious. So because the two seem to go
> >> together the word "intelligence" has implied "conscious". But
> >> in fact most of our processing is "unconscious". The conscious
> >> state only seems to be required for directed learning.
> >>
> >> The intelligent brain is not working harder than a not so
> >> intelligent brain. PET scans show it is working less hard
> >> because most of the processes are on automatic. It is the
> >> ability to automate our thinking, hand it over to a
> >> subconscious process, that makes some people smarter in
> >> the number of mental push ups they can do.
> >
> >
> > Is certainly true that to generate 'consciousness' you need
> > an energy source.
>
> The context was 'consciousness' vs. 'intelligence' and my
> belief the two need not coexist except maybe with respect
> to directed learning.
>

Do you simply mean that e.g. a chess-playing computer is not necessarily self
aware but still makes 'intelligent' moves?


> I don't see consciousness as being generated unless you mean
> that as some kind of metaphor.
>

Don't you think that brains generate consciousness? If you are a philosopher you
probably get hung-up on use of words, so I accept alternatives such as
'manifest', 'evoke', or 'instantiate' if you don't like 'generate' (and would
probably accept several other alternatives since it matters little).

If not the brain, where do you think consciousness derives from? In the Davidson
case perhaps his ideas come from out of his arse!

>
> > It also helps explain how the primal eye can still exist -
> > no longer has any mass- but because formed from neuronal
> > information (brain processing) it has energy.
>
> ?????

Oh dear, perhaps you need to do a foundation course in neuroscience.

Energy is in the form of action potential signals in the brain
In physiology, an action potential is a short-lasting event in which the
electrical membrane potential of a cell rapidly rises and falls, following a
consistent trajectory. Action potentials occur in several types of animal cells,
called excitable cells, which include neurons, muscle cells, and endocrine
cells, as well as in some plant cells. In neurons, they play a central role in
cell-to-cell communication. In other types of cells, their main function is to
activate intracellular processes. In muscle cells, for example, an action
potential is the first step in the chain of events leading to contraction. In
beta cells of the pancreas, they provoke release of insulin.[1] Action
potentials in neurons are also known as "nerve impulses" or "spikes", and the
temporal sequence of action potentials generated by a neuron is called its
"spike train". A neuron that emits an action potential is often said to "fire".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential




>
> > The focus, or monad, of the primal eye helps combine these
> > and other seeming but superficial dualities.
>
> Sorry but I have no idea what you are talking about.
>
> This is AI philosophy and I do understand computers and
> programming and something about neurons and brains.
>
> I am interested in scientific explanations not made up stuff.
>
> At this stage I take mind to be something the brain does
> not something it "generates". An analogy is walking, running,
> jumping and skipping is something that legs do.
>

Now you are the one peppering us with analogies. I take a more holistic view
than you, since obviously your legs do not skip, run and jump without the rest
of the body being involved. How many pairs of legs do you meet walking along?

Your analogy is just silly.

The individual thinks, not just the brain. The spinal cord extends to the tips
of the toes after all.


> I suspect the duality is simply two points of view. One from
> the outside and one from the inside. Hopefully we will be
> able to explain the inside view in terms of the outside view.
> The point of view of the program vs. the point of view of an
> objective observer of the logic gates turning on and off
> which is all a program is regardless of its point of view.
>
>

View from outside a person would be the view of another outside observer. I
don't think you make any sense.

Here is a summary of Primal Eye theory since you obviously haven't bothered to
watch the videos:


First to clarify some terminology. The terms Pineal/ Parietal/ Old/ Median
/Primal or Primary are interchangeable alternatives when describing the ancient
‘eye’ or ‘sense-organ.’ "Third eye" is sometimes used although this is a
misnomer since the pineal-eye pre-dates our two ‘lateral eyes.' The
intracranial pineal body (glandular structure) can also be called the epipyphis
or epiphyseal complex when it includes the median eye. I shall use the notation
E-2 indicating the presence of both pineal body and median eye ... the most
primitive condition and E-1 when just the pineal body (or impression in fossil
skulls) remains. E-0 indicates a complete absence of any pineal apparatus.



By consciousness I refer to the ability to have any mental representations
whatsoever. Other words (sentience, attentionality, etc.) might equally suffice.
Analytic academic philosophy is concerned with words, but MVT draws from and
examines the PHENOMENA found in nature. A good natural theory always beats a
non-natural one.



It is important to establish some scientific ground. The a slight foramen (skull
opening) in which once house the median eye is a common feature of vertebrate
skull morphology. Most living vertebrates belong to type E-1. An E-O condition
exists among certain dinosaurs who appear to have lost their entire epiphyseal
complex; along with modern members of crocodilia.



The more primitive E-2 categories, retaining median eyes, are relatively
uncommon among living animals. Experiments have been made on the median eyes of
certain families of lizards (Gundy et al, 1975), and importantly, by Dendy on
the Sphenodon (1899, 1911) before these creatures became highly protected and
intrusive experiments banned. Interestingly, the eye atrophies during the
lifetime of the sphenodon, and older animals lose sensitivity of the organ.
Lampreys, a primitive, parasitic fish, and the Stirnogen, observed in three
families of anuran amphibians, apparently complete the distribution of E-2
median eye-like photoreceptors among modern vertebrates.

The refinement of sensory systems and accompanying perception of environmental
stimuli has been a major theme in over 400m years of vertebrate evolution. The
later and more adapted lateral eyes usurped median apparatus as the sole
supplier of light-information and seemingly made the old eye redundant because
of their greater optical sophistication, muscular control, and stereoscopic
advantages.

The organ is (normally) unpaired and connected by a stalk to the pineal body
that lies central in the brain. It has no muscles to control direction, no
eyelid allowing it to be closed, and no iris allowing it to focus. The eye
varies in complexity from a simple sac-like vesicle to the well-developed
structures found in sphenodon and certain lacertilians, with a lens, retina,
rods and cones, a fluid-filled space corresponding to the humours of lateral
eyes, and a nerve that transmits impulses to the brain.... in fact all the
components of lateral eyes except an iris sphincter and orbital musculature.



Experiments on young  E-2 sphenodon, covering their median eyes, have confirmed
that the organ has a wide range of functions. The pineal eye seems necessary to
detect the presence of predators. It assists in temperature regulation, and
informing when to bask in the sun and when to move to shade. It has a role in
changing the skin colour according to prevailing conditions of light,
particularly by exuding melatonin like substances that affect pigmentation
variation occurring between day and night. Changes in the season are detected by
noting variations in radiation emitted by the sun. Such information is
particularly important to determine breeding time.

As the main collector and communicator of sense-information from the external
environment, and having existed millions of years before auditory and
lateral-visual systems, the median eye was seemingly the 'interface' and
receptacle in which any 'awareness' that primitive creatures had of things and
events outside of its body. It could be described as a "spotlight of
consciousness," or as I would contend, a "physical site of mind". [Philosophers,
here is your chance to jump in and quibble about words! I would accept several
alternatives].

Evolutionary LOSS of Primal Eye &

The Cold to Warm-Blooded interface



Loss of the median eye seems to have occurred gradually among mammal-like
reptiles, and quite suddenly among ancestral dinosaurs (Thecodonts). Fossil
skulls suggest that ancient pineal systems included a median eye in reptiles
directly ancestral to birds and mammals, as well as among proto-amphibians and
fishes. The long history of this sensory organ, from the Ordovician fishes to
present day lizards, attests to its importance as an adaptation.



In our cold-blooded ancestors, regulations of the storage and use of body-heat
was critical to survival. Metabolic activity was dependent on sufficient
availability of solar-energy and we can observe that present day reptiles only
become active once they have warmed up their bodies sufficiently by basking or
by exposure to warm surfaces on the ground. Thermo-regulation and the role of
the pineal in transition from cold-blooded ectothermic to warm-blooded
endothermic animals is an important theme, to which I shall return.



Recapitulation is wrong as pure theory, but is sometimes useful as an
explanatory component within the Darwinian evolutionary paradigm. Haeckel’s
theory puts the case that the stages of embryonic development retrace the whole
evolution of that species. It is the case that embryos of different vertebrate
species are indistinguishable at early stages of formation, but not true that
they replicate the order of evolutionary changes, as Haeckel claimed. Human
embryos during intrauterine development pass through stages from fish-like to
reptilian, and then via non-primate mammalian to human primate. We have
gill-(like) slits at one stage, and develop and lose a tail during our life as
an embryo. The parietal foramen develops as though a median eye is to form and
interestingly this opening is not completely lost during embryonic life but in
humans takes about a year to close after birth. This is roughly the same time
before a baby develops the idea of "self", i.e. can recognize its reflection in
a mirror.

There is some debate regards the extent to which recapitulation takes place and
no general agreement whether it is necessary in some measure to explain
Darwinian selection. Darwin himself believed that the theory was important. All
I wish to establish for now is that the parietal opening has existed in each of
us, during our early life, and that a physiological 'memory' of this stage of
development might exist. I only claim partial recapitulation, not Haeckel's
position.

The nature of brain evolution is that as adaptations take place and new sensory
capacities develop, new parts are added to the brain from the core outwards. The
pre-frontal lobes in humans are amongst the very latest stages of evolutionary
development. However, the brain stem and old reptilian parts of the brain are
retained and continue to function.

There are disadvantages for a cold-blooded animal with a ‘physical mind’. If
behaviour is governed entirely by the quality of sunlight and the availability
of body warmth, then damage to the exposed sense-organ could lead to behavioural
incapacitation. Emerging warm-blooded animals are free to move about at night
and attack the sluggish ectotherms and their eggs. In the analysis of fossil
material, possession of an E-2 entire complex indicates an ectothermic
physiology, while absence of the median eye E-1 may suggest either endothermy or
ectothermy. A transitional evolutionary phase is possible if the pineal body is
retained, whereas an  E-0 fossil indicates that such vertebrates utilised some
other means of temperature control. Conservation of body warmth, and allocation
of energy to different parts of the body, is of central importance, and an
inverse relationship has been shown to exist between dependence on environmental
sources of heat and the complexity of the epiphyseal complex. An evolutionary
reduction of the E-2 complex occurred in most vertebrates under the gradual
warming and less seasonal climates the early Mesozoic. Loss of the median eye in
mammal-like reptiles as they crossed the reptilian-mammalian boundary.
Incidentally, small size is important in the emergence of competent endothermy,
since metabolic rate increases as size decreases irrespective of
thermoregulatory strategy, and small size in warm-blooded reptiles may have been
an important adaptation in warming climates, since a greater surface-to-volume
ratio facilitates heat loss.

PHYSICAL (pineal eye)TO "CONSCIOUSNESS ENGRAM" OR TRACE (phantom eye:

I propose that the pattern of evolution of mental representations has been away
from direct 'physical and chemical responses' (such as exhibited by a simple
organism like the amoeba whose behaviour can be predicted by chemical attraction
towards food and aversion to harmful light radiation and toxins) and towards
increasing levels of self-volition and control of behaviour. Increased powers of
abstraction, as shown by the human abilities to manipulate symbols (language,
math's etc.) have evolved as the median eye (physical spotlight of
'consciousness') becomes more historically remote and its areas of control are
eroded. For example, the invention of electric light has allowed greater
‘mental’ or 'self control' (volition if you prefer) over circadian rhythms.
I claim that levels of 'consciousness and self-volition have occurred in direct
inverse proportion to the atrophy of the median eye. Abstract, or non-physical
structures (holes, gaps, minds or conceptual 'structures') have 'replaced' and
emerged from the earlier physical cellular structure.

When I first formulated these ideas back in 1980, the title "Phantom Eye" came
from the close analogy between the phantom effect that invariably occurs after
losing a limb and the ‘experiential trace’ that similarly follows from the
loss of an organ of sense. Recently I have been examining evidence from "Phantom
Vision" cases, where strong and persistent images occur after total loss of
eyesight. Blind patients facing an empty field have described a house (which is
not there) in incredible detail. In the case of phantom legs, no amount of
treatment to the stump can dispel the feelings of pain whose location is
reported as being in the-leg that is absent. In both these examples there is no
physical ‘stimuli’, although sensation is as strong as if there were. The
notion of a gap in the organisational structure of the brain by means of which
we can view perhaps solves some inane "physical Vs non-physical" arguments and
distinctions in previous philosophical debate. It seems to me that in many ways
a lump of lead or stone is more "physical" than a cloud of gas. Its mass and
density are greater and its spatial location is more precise.

When trying to place various sub-atomic particles on a postulated "scale of
physicality" we meet with greater difficulty since some of these ‘particles’
can only be inferred and cannot be precisely located or quantified. Obviously in
the non-physical region of the scale are fictional characters, probably
including the medieval legions of gods and devils. Placing Napoleon Bonaparte on
our scale presents yet another problem. If it was the nineteenth century and he
was still alive then he would fall safely into the ‘physical camp.' Although
he is no longer alive bits of his atomic structure are still whizzing around the
material universe. Furthermore it does seem fair that he counts as being ‘more
physical’ than a character such as "the Wizard of Oz," who as far as we know
has never lived or existed. The ‘trace’ or ‘imprint’ of Napoleon on the
world is well established ... we have portraits of him, documentation, and
possess items known to have been his. It also seems reasonable to claim that a
sense-organ that once existed, and with which we still have a ‘trace memory’
or physiological imprint, is more ‘physical’ than a sense-organ that is
purely fictional. However is clearly lower down the physicality "scale" than our
cellular lateral eyes.

Our primal eye has left a structural impression, and thus still determines how
neural pathways operate, and form in early development.

If you should take a piece of paper and tear a piece out the middle, you have
created a ‘hole’. This hole has a definite location and spatial boundaries,
but is not composed of any physical stuff or form of energy and cannot be
detected except by reference to the paper that borders it. A materialist
philosopher would presumably deny the existence of the 'hole', although this is
clearly absurd since we can all recognize the 'hole' to be present. I consider
the mind to be the "hole" left by the atrophy and disappearance of the median
eye. This is based on replicable experiments on the pineal eye of living
reptiles, supplemented by the fossil records and computational simulations.


We cannot see a 'hole' itself but may see through it. I would argue that
reflective or "abstract" thought, imagination and visualization are only
possible because there is a ‘hole’ in our physical structure through which
to peer. We may mistake this hole for the ‘background’ and procession of
events and percepts seen through it.

We are free to populate this abstracted sense-organ with anything that we care
to imagine. The less the physical restraint (and the further we are away from
the loss of a physical mind) the greater become our powers of abstract thought.
I contend that our capacity to close our eyelids yet still ‘see’
dream-pictures or mental visualizations that clearly have no optic path to the
outside environment or any ontological correlate, is only possible by virtue of
this sense-organ that forms part of our ‘matrix’, yet is itself just a
phantom. Like can only interact with like .... hence the problems with
Descartes’ notion that the physical pineal gland and was the ‘seat of
consciousness’.

The pineal gland bears much the same relationship to "soul" (Descartes word) or
'mind' as the leg-stump bears to the phantom limb. If the leg was severed higher
up the stump, the phantom sensation would still be present (perhaps even
greater). When a pineal gland is calcified or surgically removed, a disruption
such as the condition of precocious puberty might occur, but mental life is
substantially unaffected. Our brains still expect or assume the ancient organ of
‘unitary sense’ to be present. You might even say that the brain imagines it
still there ... but not an imagination or memory that requires effort ....for it
arises naturally out of the deep structure and organization of the brain. The
phantom eye forms a part of the genetic whole-body matrix or gestalten that also
gives rise to the ontogeny of the neuronal brain along with the rest of the
foetus.

DREAMING

If what I claim is correct, then we would expect the theory to explain many
aspects of mental life and perception, including dreams. Consider our distant
ancestor, a land based exothermic vertebrate with a median eye on top of its
skull. During the day there is sun to warm its body and it moves around seeking
food and avoiding predators. At night when it has become cooler the animal is
unable to move around and becomes stationary. The median eye cannot be closed
and continues to survey the feint measures of illumination received from the
moon and stars.


Despite hugely reduced metabolic activity, occasional ‘twitches’ might
occur, triggered by fluctuations in moonlight caused by passing clouds. The
creature would have experienced a reduced intensity ‘simulation’ of daytime
activity, the twitching being a scaled down day-time muscular reaction to shifts
in light. It is worth noting that whilst modern mammals (and to a lesser extent,
birds) do seem to dream, their common ancestor the reptile does not. When humans
dream, I suggest the ‘mind’ that cannot be switched off continues to
register a ‘shadow’ or ‘phantasy life’ which resembles or simulates
waking life, but with locomotive and sensory systems ‘disengaged’ allowing
greater freedom for subjective consciousness. This phenomenon is highly
comparable with the night-time ‘median vision’ of our exothermic progenitor
... the difference being that our dreaming is ‘symbolic’ in content whereas
the median vision of the stem-reptile was ‘direct’.

There is a more technical level to MVT of origins of dreaming. The Academic
Papers on origins of REM, phasic transients, loss of external clock and
resultant change of brain circuitry from (hardwired) finite-state to a
(softwired) ANALOG-ous to the warm-blooded brain with infinite-state circuit
morphology are now available in my book of collected papers.

E-2 Finite-State Brain to E-1 Infinite-State Brain


My Papers on origins of REM in dreaming, phasic transients, loss of external
clock and resultant change of brain circuitry from (hardwired) finite-state to a
(softwired) ANALOG-ous to Infinite-State circuit are  published elsewhere. Some
of this material which tries to prove Globus’ Real-Time hypothesis and is from
my time at Stirling University Centre for Cognitive and Computational
Neuroscience (CCCN) is too heavy-going for this introductory site.  Details and
full scientific bibliographies and references in the 334 pp. Primal Eye book.


Without becoming embroiled in details of the neuroscience I would like to offer
an analogy explaining how the 'phantom eye' might interact with the substrate of
neurons and glial cells, connections, and electrochemical events that compose
the brain. Given that the brain is a kind of neuro-computer or connectionist
machine, and that patterns of electrochemical events represent the information
that it is carrying then the 'phantom eye' is a 'virtual computer screen' to
which attention messages are passed.

The "trick of nature" involves the fact that there is no longer a physical
screen (sense-organ) to which output is directed, and from which input is
received. Pathways to the expected device have been so established over
evolutionary history that the brain can reconstruct how this organ once acted,
and internalise its functions. The virtual screen decodes information conveyed
by complex neuronal firings in much the same way that a computer-monitor redraws
electron impulses as patterns of coloured pixels that are 'meaningful' to a
viewer. Decisions concerning behaviour are then based on this 'meaningful' level
of representation rather than low-level messages. Behavioural choices previously
determined by light information as it affected the median eye are now taken by
the computational brain and its abstract 'sense appendage'.... no longer a slave
to direct environmental impressions.

To conclude, no doubt conventionalist philosophers will quibble about shades of
meaning regards particular words, thus try to throw up clouds of obfuscation.
That is all they can do since they have no empirical mandate: provide hindrances
to enlightenment. But the primal eye case does not rely on any particular
formulation of words as it provides a broad evolutionary narrative, stemming
from observations of nature and is based on replicable experiments. Change the
terminological if it makes you understand it better by all means.

Furthermore I have found arguing with fundamentalist believers in
conventionalist philosophy and medieval religion to be largely a waste of time
since "the unenlightened mind cannot fully comprehend enlightenment" and so
nowadays I concentrate on developing applications from primal eye theory to
further my commercial and political objectives.

Steve
http://posthuman.org

An interesting, if highly speculative, account of how brains do consciousness.
Is your research on the history of the pineal gland/"third eye" in evolutionary
time well documented?

Having been recently and definitively booted from the Analytic philosophy list
where Eray and I both posted (and began corresponding occasionally) on the
grounds . . . well I'm not really sure what the grounds were other than that my
insistence on defending a Dennettian model of consciousness offended many of the
players there and, especially the host . . . I have been thinking about posting
a bit more frequently here than my occasional jaunts to this list have so far
involved. Your write up below caught my attention. Here are some thoughts for
what they may be worth. You write:

"I consider the mind to be the 'hole' left by the atrophy and disappearance of
the median eye."

This seems to be the crux of your position, no? You continue:

"We cannot see a 'hole' itself but may see through it. I would argue that
reflective or 'abstract' thought, imagination and visualization are only
possible because there is a 'hole' in our physical structure through which to
peer."

This seems inadequately elaborated from my perspective. It's not at all clear
why a "hole" (as in a gap or lacuna in some kind of operating system?) should be
the basis for consciousness on your view.
Moreover, your use of "physical" throughout strikes me as sometimes odd,
idiosyncratic and frequently overly broad. This has the effect of masking what
look like some important gaps in your case. Do you mean by "physical" whatever
is made up of sensible phenomena? Whatever is derived from the theoretical
picture of sensible phenomena which physics hands us? Or something else?

Your main point about consciousness being the variation on an operational gap in
the brain mechanisms seems to be highly speculative at best and is certainly not
implied or explained by the mere historic fact of pineal gland atrophy over the
course of evolutionary history:

"When a pineal gland is calcified or surgically removed, a disruption such as
the condition of precocious puberty might occur, but mental life is
substantially unaffected. Our brains still expect or assume the ancient organ of
'unitary sense' to be present."

What's missing, it seems to me, is an account of how the pineal gland/"third
eye" of ancient vintage in evolutionary times performed the unifying function
you claim for it (heat seeking?) and why its disappearance in later species
should have led to the development of the condition of being conscious in them
to plug the gap left by the so-called lost organ.

Why do we need an account of this atrophied organ to explain the fact that the
brain has abilities to "see" (and otherwise represent) without corresponding
stimuli outside it to trigger those representations? Isn't it much simpler, and
so more elegant (less offensive to Occam?), to simply recognize that the brain
is a naturally formed organ with many naturally occurring glitches?

While your account of the pineal gland in the hierarchy of species is
interesting, is it necessary at this point to provide an account of mind?

Your conclusion is interesting as an explanation for the brain mechanism in
producing or doing consciousness:

"The 'trick of nature' involves the fact that there is no longer a physical
screen (sense-organ) to which output is directed, and from which input is
received. Pathways to the expected device have been so established over
evolutionary history that the brain can reconstruct how this organ once acted,
and internalise its functions. The virtual screen decodes information conveyed
by complex neuronal firings in much the same way that a computer-monitor redraws
electron impulses as patterns of coloured pixels that are 'meaningful' to a
viewer. Decisions concerning behaviour are then based on this 'meaningful' level
of representation rather than low-level messages. Behavioural choices previously
determined by light information as it affected the median eye are now taken by
the computational brain and its abstract 'sense appendage'.... no longer a slave
to direct environmental impressions."

But in the end it leaves open the same question which seems to trouble so many
when other physically-based accounts are proposed, namely how is it that merely
physical things like brains (and maybe computers) can produce instances of
subjectivity (subjectness)?

You speak of representing and decoding and so on, but these notions aren't
qualitatively different from the way they're deployed in other accounts of how
brains do consciousness, leaving the same problem for those who cannot reconcile
themselves to the idea that minds are physically based like everything else we
think we know about the universe.

Anyway, thanks for that interesting exercise in speculation. Who knows, it might
even turn out to be more true than otherwise?

SWM



--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "hodossphaenodon" <bunny5000@...> wrote:
>
> Hi JohnC
>
> > > JohnC wrote:
> > >> Our personal experience is that in order to answer an IQ test
> > >> we need to be awake, conscious. So because the two seem to go
> > >> together the word "intelligence" has implied "conscious". But
> > >> in fact most of our processing is "unconscious". The conscious
> > >> state only seems to be required for directed learning.
> > >>
> > >> The intelligent brain is not working harder than a not so
> > >> intelligent brain. PET scans show it is working less hard
> > >> because most of the processes are on automatic. It is the
> > >> ability to automate our thinking, hand it over to a
> > >> subconscious process, that makes some people smarter in
> > >> the number of mental push ups they can do.
> > >
> > >
> > > Is certainly true that to generate 'consciousness' you need
> > > an energy source.
> >
> > The context was 'consciousness' vs. 'intelligence' and my
> > belief the two need not coexist except maybe with respect
> > to directed learning.
> >
>
> Do you simply mean that e.g. a chess-playing computer is not necessarily self
aware but still makes 'intelligent' moves?
>
>
> > I don't see consciousness as being generated unless you mean
> > that as some kind of metaphor.
> >
>
> Don't you think that brains generate consciousness? If you are a philosopher
you probably get hung-up on use of words, so I accept alternatives such as
'manifest', 'evoke', or 'instantiate' if you don't like 'generate' (and would
probably accept several other alternatives since it matters little).
>
> If not the brain, where do you think consciousness derives from? In the
Davidson case perhaps his ideas come from out of his arse!
>
> >
> > > It also helps explain how the primal eye can still exist -
> > > no longer has any mass- but because formed from neuronal
> > > information (brain processing) it has energy.
> >
> > ?????
>
> Oh dear, perhaps you need to do a foundation course in neuroscience.
>
> Energy is in the form of action potential signals in the brain
> In physiology, an action potential is a short-lasting event in which the
> electrical membrane potential of a cell rapidly rises and falls, following a
> consistent trajectory. Action potentials occur in several types of animal
cells,
> called excitable cells, which include neurons, muscle cells, and endocrine
> cells, as well as in some plant cells. In neurons, they play a central role in
> cell-to-cell communication. In other types of cells, their main function is to
> activate intracellular processes. In muscle cells, for example, an action
> potential is the first step in the chain of events leading to contraction. In
> beta cells of the pancreas, they provoke release of insulin.[1] Action
> potentials in neurons are also known as "nerve impulses" or "spikes", and the
> temporal sequence of action potentials generated by a neuron is called its
> "spike train". A neuron that emits an action potential is often said to
"fire". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential
>
>
>
>
> >
> > > The focus, or monad, of the primal eye helps combine these
> > > and other seeming but superficial dualities.
> >
> > Sorry but I have no idea what you are talking about.
> >
> > This is AI philosophy and I do understand computers and
> > programming and something about neurons and brains.
> >
> > I am interested in scientific explanations not made up stuff.
> >
> > At this stage I take mind to be something the brain does
> > not something it "generates". An analogy is walking, running,
> > jumping and skipping is something that legs do.
> >
>
> Now you are the one peppering us with analogies. I take a more holistic view
than you, since obviously your legs do not skip, run and jump without the rest
of the body being involved. How many pairs of legs do you meet walking along?
>
> Your analogy is just silly.
>
> The individual thinks, not just the brain. The spinal cord extends to the tips
of the toes after all.
>
>
> > I suspect the duality is simply two points of view. One from
> > the outside and one from the inside. Hopefully we will be
> > able to explain the inside view in terms of the outside view.
> > The point of view of the program vs. the point of view of an
> > objective observer of the logic gates turning on and off
> > which is all a program is regardless of its point of view.
> >
> >
>
> View from outside a person would be the view of another outside observer. I
don't think you make any sense.
>
> Here is a summary of Primal Eye theory since you obviously haven't bothered to
watch the videos:
>
>
> First to clarify some terminology. The terms Pineal/ Parietal/ Old/ Median
/Primal or Primary are interchangeable alternatives when describing the ancient
‘eye’ or ‘sense-organ.’ "Third eye" is sometimes used although this is a
misnomer since the pineal-eye pre-dates our two ‘lateral eyes.' The
intracranial pineal body (glandular structure) can also be called the epipyphis
or epiphyseal complex when it includes the median eye. I shall use the notation
E-2 indicating the presence of both pineal body and median eye ... the most
primitive condition and E-1 when just the pineal body (or impression in fossil
skulls) remains. E-0 indicates a complete absence of any pineal apparatus.
>
>
>
> By consciousness I refer to the ability to have any mental representations
whatsoever. Other words (sentience, attentionality, etc.) might equally suffice.
Analytic academic philosophy is concerned with words, but MVT draws from and
examines the PHENOMENA found in nature. A good natural theory always beats a
non-natural one.
>
>
>
> It is important to establish some scientific ground. The a slight foramen
(skull opening) in which once house the median eye is a common feature of
vertebrate skull morphology. Most living vertebrates belong to type E-1. An E-O
condition exists among certain dinosaurs who appear to have lost their entire
epiphyseal complex; along with modern members of crocodilia.
>
>
>
> The more primitive E-2 categories, retaining median eyes, are relatively
uncommon among living animals. Experiments have been made on the median eyes of
certain families of lizards (Gundy et al, 1975), and importantly, by Dendy on
the Sphenodon (1899, 1911) before these creatures became highly protected and
intrusive experiments banned. Interestingly, the eye atrophies during the
lifetime of the sphenodon, and older animals lose sensitivity of the organ.
Lampreys, a primitive, parasitic fish, and the Stirnogen, observed in three
families of anuran amphibians, apparently complete the distribution of E-2
median eye-like photoreceptors among modern vertebrates.
>
> The refinement of sensory systems and accompanying perception of environmental
stimuli has been a major theme in over 400m years of vertebrate evolution. The
later and more adapted lateral eyes usurped median apparatus as the sole
supplier of light-information and seemingly made the old eye redundant because
of their greater optical sophistication, muscular control, and stereoscopic
advantages.
>
> The organ is (normally) unpaired and connected by a stalk to the pineal body
that lies central in the brain. It has no muscles to control direction, no
eyelid allowing it to be closed, and no iris allowing it to focus. The eye
varies in complexity from a simple sac-like vesicle to the well-developed
structures found in sphenodon and certain lacertilians, with a lens, retina,
rods and cones, a fluid-filled space corresponding to the humours of lateral
eyes, and a nerve that transmits impulses to the brain.... in fact all the
components of lateral eyes except an iris sphincter and orbital musculature.
>
>
>
> Experiments on young  E-2 sphenodon, covering their median eyes, have
confirmed that the organ has a wide range of functions. The pineal eye seems
necessary to detect the presence of predators. It assists in temperature
regulation, and informing when to bask in the sun and when to move to shade. It
has a role in changing the skin colour according to prevailing conditions of
light, particularly by exuding melatonin like substances that affect
pigmentation variation occurring between day and night. Changes in the season
are detected by noting variations in radiation emitted by the sun. Such
information is particularly important to determine breeding time.
>
> As the main collector and communicator of sense-information from the external
environment, and having existed millions of years before auditory and
lateral-visual systems, the median eye was seemingly the 'interface' and
receptacle in which any 'awareness' that primitive creatures had of things and
events outside of its body. It could be described as a "spotlight of
consciousness," or as I would contend, a "physical site of mind". [Philosophers,
here is your chance to jump in and quibble about words! I would accept several
alternatives].
>
> Evolutionary LOSS of Primal Eye &
>
> The Cold to Warm-Blooded interface
>
>
>
> Loss of the median eye seems to have occurred gradually among mammal-like
reptiles, and quite suddenly among ancestral dinosaurs (Thecodonts). Fossil
skulls suggest that ancient pineal systems included a median eye in reptiles
directly ancestral to birds and mammals, as well as among proto-amphibians and
fishes. The long history of this sensory organ, from the Ordovician fishes to
present day lizards, attests to its importance as an adaptation.
>
>
>
> In our cold-blooded ancestors, regulations of the storage and use of body-heat
was critical to survival. Metabolic activity was dependent on sufficient
availability of solar-energy and we can observe that present day reptiles only
become active once they have warmed up their bodies sufficiently by basking or
by exposure to warm surfaces on the ground. Thermo-regulation and the role of
the pineal in transition from cold-blooded ectothermic to warm-blooded
endothermic animals is an important theme, to which I shall return.
>
>
>
> Recapitulation is wrong as pure theory, but is sometimes useful as an
explanatory component within the Darwinian evolutionary paradigm. Haeckel’s
theory puts the case that the stages of embryonic development retrace the whole
evolution of that species. It is the case that embryos of different vertebrate
species are indistinguishable at early stages of formation, but not true that
they replicate the order of evolutionary changes, as Haeckel claimed. Human
embryos during intrauterine development pass through stages from fish-like to
reptilian, and then via non-primate mammalian to human primate. We have
gill-(like) slits at one stage, and develop and lose a tail during our life as
an embryo. The parietal foramen develops as though a median eye is to form and
interestingly this opening is not completely lost during embryonic life but in
humans takes about a year to close after birth. This is roughly the same time
before a baby develops the idea of "self", i.e. can recognize its reflection in
a mirror.
>
> There is some debate regards the extent to which recapitulation takes place
and no general agreement whether it is necessary in some measure to explain
Darwinian selection. Darwin himself believed that the theory was important. All
I wish to establish for now is that the parietal opening has existed in each of
us, during our early life, and that a physiological 'memory' of this stage of
development might exist. I only claim partial recapitulation, not Haeckel's
position.
>
> The nature of brain evolution is that as adaptations take place and new
sensory capacities develop, new parts are added to the brain from the core
outwards. The pre-frontal lobes in humans are amongst the very latest stages of
evolutionary development. However, the brain stem and old reptilian parts of the
brain are retained and continue to function.
>
> There are disadvantages for a cold-blooded animal with a ‘physical mind’.
If behaviour is governed entirely by the quality of sunlight and the
availability of body warmth, then damage to the exposed sense-organ could lead
to behavioural incapacitation. Emerging warm-blooded animals are free to move
about at night and attack the sluggish ectotherms and their eggs. In the
analysis of fossil material, possession of an E-2 entire complex indicates an
ectothermic physiology, while absence of the median eye E-1 may suggest either
endothermy or ectothermy. A transitional evolutionary phase is possible if the
pineal body is retained, whereas an  E-0 fossil indicates that such vertebrates
utilised some other means of temperature control. Conservation of body warmth,
and allocation of energy to different parts of the body, is of central
importance, and an inverse relationship has been shown to exist between
dependence on environmental sources of heat and the complexity of the epiphyseal
complex. An evolutionary reduction of the E-2 complex occurred in most
vertebrates under the gradual warming and less seasonal climates the early
Mesozoic. Loss of the median eye in mammal-like reptiles as they crossed the
reptilian-mammalian boundary. Incidentally, small size is important in the
emergence of competent endothermy, since metabolic rate increases as size
decreases irrespective of thermoregulatory strategy, and small size in
warm-blooded reptiles may have been an important adaptation in warming climates,
since a greater surface-to-volume ratio facilitates heat loss.
>
> PHYSICAL (pineal eye)TO "CONSCIOUSNESS ENGRAM" OR TRACE (phantom eye:
>
> I propose that the pattern of evolution of mental representations has been
away from direct 'physical and chemical responses' (such as exhibited by a
simple organism like the amoeba whose behaviour can be predicted by chemical
attraction towards food and aversion to harmful light radiation and toxins) and
towards increasing levels of self-volition and control of behaviour. Increased
powers of abstraction, as shown by the human abilities to manipulate symbols
(language, math's etc.) have evolved as the median eye (physical spotlight of
'consciousness') becomes more historically remote and its areas of control are
eroded. For example, the invention of electric light has allowed greater
‘mental’ or 'self control' (volition if you prefer) over circadian rhythms.
I claim that levels of 'consciousness and self-volition have occurred in direct
inverse proportion to the atrophy of the median eye. Abstract, or non-physical
structures (holes, gaps, minds or conceptual 'structures') have 'replaced' and
emerged from the earlier physical cellular structure.
>
> When I first formulated these ideas back in 1980, the title "Phantom Eye" came
from the close analogy between the phantom effect that invariably occurs after
losing a limb and the ‘experiential trace’ that similarly follows from the
loss of an organ of sense. Recently I have been examining evidence from "Phantom
Vision" cases, where strong and persistent images occur after total loss of
eyesight. Blind patients facing an empty field have described a house (which is
not there) in incredible detail. In the case of phantom legs, no amount of
treatment to the stump can dispel the feelings of pain whose location is
reported as being in the-leg that is absent. In both these examples there is no
physical ‘stimuli’, although sensation is as strong as if there were. The
notion of a gap in the organisational structure of the brain by means of which
we can view perhaps solves some inane "physical Vs non-physical" arguments and
distinctions in previous philosophical debate. It seems to me that in many ways
a lump of lead or stone is more "physical" than a cloud of gas. Its mass and
density are greater and its spatial location is more precise.
>
> When trying to place various sub-atomic particles on a postulated "scale of
physicality" we meet with greater difficulty since some of these ‘particles’
can only be inferred and cannot be precisely located or quantified. Obviously in
the non-physical region of the scale are fictional characters, probably
including the medieval legions of gods and devils. Placing Napoleon Bonaparte on
our scale presents yet another problem. If it was the nineteenth century and he
was still alive then he would fall safely into the ‘physical camp.' Although
he is no longer alive bits of his atomic structure are still whizzing around the
material universe. Furthermore it does seem fair that he counts as being ‘more
physical’ than a character such as "the Wizard of Oz," who as far as we know
has never lived or existed. The ‘trace’ or ‘imprint’ of Napoleon on the
world is well established ... we have portraits of him, documentation, and
possess items known to have been his. It also seems reasonable to claim that a
sense-organ that once existed, and with which we still have a ‘trace memory’
or physiological imprint, is more ‘physical’ than a sense-organ that is
purely fictional. However is clearly lower down the physicality "scale" than our
cellular lateral eyes.
>
> Our primal eye has left a structural impression, and thus still determines how
neural pathways operate, and form in early development.
>
> If you should take a piece of paper and tear a piece out the middle, you have
created a ‘hole’. This hole has a definite location and spatial boundaries,
but is not composed of any physical stuff or form of energy and cannot be
detected except by reference to the paper that borders it. A materialist
philosopher would presumably deny the existence of the 'hole', although this is
clearly absurd since we can all recognize the 'hole' to be present. I consider
the mind to be the "hole" left by the atrophy and disappearance of the median
eye. This is based on replicable experiments on the pineal eye of living
reptiles, supplemented by the fossil records and computational simulations.
>
>
> We cannot see a 'hole' itself but may see through it. I would argue that
reflective or "abstract" thought, imagination and visualization are only
possible because there is a ‘hole’ in our physical structure through which
to peer. We may mistake this hole for the ‘background’ and procession of
events and percepts seen through it.
>
> We are free to populate this abstracted sense-organ with anything that we care
to imagine. The less the physical restraint (and the further we are away from
the loss of a physical mind) the greater become our powers of abstract thought.
I contend that our capacity to close our eyelids yet still ‘see’
dream-pictures or mental visualizations that clearly have no optic path to the
outside environment or any ontological correlate, is only possible by virtue of
this sense-organ that forms part of our ‘matrix’, yet is itself just a
phantom. Like can only interact with like .... hence the problems with
Descartes’ notion that the physical pineal gland and was the ‘seat of
consciousness’.
>
> The pineal gland bears much the same relationship to "soul" (Descartes word)
or 'mind' as the leg-stump bears to the phantom limb. If the leg was severed
higher up the stump, the phantom sensation would still be present (perhaps even
greater). When a pineal gland is calcified or surgically removed, a disruption
such as the condition of precocious puberty might occur, but mental life is
substantially unaffected. Our brains still expect or assume the ancient organ of
‘unitary sense’ to be present. You might even say that the brain imagines it
still there ... but not an imagination or memory that requires effort ....for it
arises naturally out of the deep structure and organization of the brain. The
phantom eye forms a part of the genetic whole-body matrix or gestalten that also
gives rise to the ontogeny of the neuronal brain along with the rest of the
foetus.
>
> DREAMING
>
> If what I claim is correct, then we would expect the theory to explain many
aspects of mental life and perception, including dreams. Consider our distant
ancestor, a land based exothermic vertebrate with a median eye on top of its
skull. During the day there is sun to warm its body and it moves around seeking
food and avoiding predators. At night when it has become cooler the animal is
unable to move around and becomes stationary. The median eye cannot be closed
and continues to survey the feint measures of illumination received from the
moon and stars.
>
>
> Despite hugely reduced metabolic activity, occasional ‘twitches’ might
occur, triggered by fluctuations in moonlight caused by passing clouds. The
creature would have experienced a reduced intensity ‘simulation’ of daytime
activity, the twitching being a scaled down day-time muscular reaction to shifts
in light. It is worth noting that whilst modern mammals (and to a lesser extent,
birds) do seem to dream, their common ancestor the reptile does not. When humans
dream, I suggest the ‘mind’ that cannot be switched off continues to
register a ‘shadow’ or ‘phantasy life’ which resembles or simulates
waking life, but with locomotive and sensory systems ‘disengaged’ allowing
greater freedom for subjective consciousness. This phenomenon is highly
comparable with the night-time ‘median vision’ of our exothermic progenitor
... the difference being that our dreaming is ‘symbolic’ in content whereas
the median vision of the stem-reptile was ‘direct’.
>
> There is a more technical level to MVT of origins of dreaming. The Academic
Papers on origins of REM, phasic transients, loss of external clock and
resultant change of brain circuitry from (hardwired) finite-state to a
(softwired) ANALOG-ous to the warm-blooded brain with infinite-state circuit
morphology are now available in my book of collected papers.
>
> E-2 Finite-State Brain to E-1 Infinite-State Brain
>
>
> My Papers on origins of REM in dreaming, phasic transients, loss of external
clock and resultant change of brain circuitry from (hardwired) finite-state to a
(softwired) ANALOG-ous to Infinite-State circuit are  published elsewhere. Some
of this material which tries to prove Globus’ Real-Time hypothesis and is from
my time at Stirling University Centre for Cognitive and Computational
Neuroscience (CCCN) is too heavy-going for this introductory site.  Details and
full scientific bibliographies and references in the 334 pp. Primal Eye book.
>
>
> Without becoming embroiled in details of the neuroscience I would like to
offer an analogy explaining how the 'phantom eye' might interact with the
substrate of neurons and glial cells, connections, and electrochemical events
that compose the brain. Given that the brain is a kind of neuro-computer or
connectionist machine, and that patterns of electrochemical events represent the
information that it is carrying then the 'phantom eye' is a 'virtual computer
screen' to which attention messages are passed.
>
> The "trick of nature" involves the fact that there is no longer a physical
screen (sense-organ) to which output is directed, and from which input is
received. Pathways to the expected device have been so established over
evolutionary history that the brain can reconstruct how this organ once acted,
and internalise its functions. The virtual screen decodes information conveyed
by complex neuronal firings in much the same way that a computer-monitor redraws
electron impulses as patterns of coloured pixels that are 'meaningful' to a
viewer. Decisions concerning behaviour are then based on this 'meaningful' level
of representation rather than low-level messages. Behavioural choices previously
determined by light information as it affected the median eye are now taken by
the computational brain and its abstract 'sense appendage'.... no longer a slave
to direct environmental impressions.
>
> To conclude, no doubt conventionalist philosophers will quibble about shades
of meaning regards particular words, thus try to throw up clouds of obfuscation.
That is all they can do since they have no empirical mandate: provide hindrances
to enlightenment. But the primal eye case does not rely on any particular
formulation of words as it provides a broad evolutionary narrative, stemming
from observations of nature and is based on replicable experiments. Change the
terminological if it makes you understand it better by all means.
>
> Furthermore I have found arguing with fundamentalist believers in
conventionalist philosophy and medieval religion to be largely a waste of time
since "the unenlightened mind cannot fully comprehend enlightenment" and so
nowadays I concentrate on developing applications from primal eye theory to
further my commercial and political objectives.
>
> Steve
> http://posthuman.org
>

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "hodossphaenodon" <bunny5000@...> wrote:
> > JohnC wrote:

>> The context was 'consciousness' vs. 'intelligence' and my
>> belief the two need not coexist except maybe with respect
>> to directed learning.
>>

> Do you simply mean that e.g. a chess-playing computer is not
> necessarily self aware but still makes 'intelligent' moves?

Yes just as my visual system makes intelligence interpretations
of the raw visual data and presents it to the conscious process
as qualia.


>> I don't see consciousness as being generated unless you mean
>> that as some kind of metaphor.

> Don't you think that brains generate consciousness? If you are
> a philosopher you probably get hung-up on use of words, so I
> accept alternatives such as 'manifest', 'evoke', or 'instantiate'
> if you don't like 'generate' (and would probably accept several
> other alternatives since it matters little).

We can generate a sentence. We can generate waves (both with a
boat or an electric oscillator. We can generate heat.

> If not the brain, where do you think consciousness derives from?

I made it clear that I hold the current view that "consciousness"
or "the mind" is something the brain does. My objection to the
word "generate" is it implies producing something like a "conscious
field" analogous to a "magnetic field" in which case we could
detect its presence with some kind of "conscious field detector".

However it is clear that you cannot detect if a neural activity
is "conscious". I assume you are conscious when awake but apart
from your behaviors all I have to make that assumption with is
that we are alike in that way. I don't know of any method even
in theory for saying a particular brain activity is conscious.

I don't believe there is any physical difference in a subconscious
or conscious activity. In the physical sense they will both look
the same. A physical activity (firing neurons). It will be in
what they are doing differently and indeed I suspect the
subconscious process will be part of the conscious process.



>>> It also helps explain how the primal eye can still exist -
>>> no longer has any mass- but because formed from neuronal
>>> information (brain processing) it has energy.
>>
>> ?????
>
> Oh dear, perhaps you need to do a foundation course in neuroscience.
>
> Energy is in the form of action potential signals in the brain.


I know what the words mass and energy refer to in physics and
what energy means in terms of electrochemical activity in the
brain.

But talk of a "primal eye" triggered off a leery eye for me.
Your sentences read like pseudo science to me.

>> At this stage I take mind to be something the brain does
>> not something it "generates". An analogy is walking, running,
>> jumping and skipping is something that legs do.
>
>
> Now you are the one peppering us with analogies.

Well I don't have the answer to what the mind is exactly and
that was just an attempt to categorize where it might fit in.


> I take a more holistic view than you, since obviously your
> legs do not skip, run and jump without the rest of the body
> being involved.

That still doesn't change the analogy. You can think of walking,
running, jumping and so on as something the nervous system is
doing but it is a description of something it does not something
it generates. The walking is just the visible part. And simple
walking and running is mediated in lower animals, like chooks,
in the spinal cord which I suspect does not do Mind.

> The individual thinks, not just the brain.

What do you mean here by "individual"? The body? The way you
talk can completely change what you are talking about, it is
not just words. The conscious thinking we are talking about
is something the brain does. If you want to extend the idea
of thinking to other processes, like for example those that
take place in the cells, fine but that is not answering what
a conscious thought is.


>> I suspect the duality is simply two points of view. One from
>> the outside and one from the inside. Hopefully we will be
>> able to explain the inside view in terms of the outside view.
>> The point of view of the program vs. the point of view of an
>> objective observer of the logic gates turning on and off
>> which is all a program is regardless of its point of view.
>
>
> I don't think you make any sense.

> Here is a summary of Primal Eye theory since you obviously
> haven't bothered to watch the videos:

When I start reading how something works I get it it from the
start there is no hand waving. Understanding the brain is for
me like understanding how a computer works. It has nothing to
do with word play as you suggested above.


> By consciousness I refer to the ability to have any mental
> representations whatsoever. Other words (sentience,
> attentionality, etc.) might equally suffice.

I disagree. Consciousness and metal representations is a
circular definition it doesn't begin to mean anything more
until you explain the mechanics of the representation.


> Analytic academic philosophy is concerned with words, but
> MVT draws from and examines the PHENOMENA found in nature.
> A good natural theory always beats a non-natural one.

I am not an academic philosopher. I understand computers,
programming and some things we now know about the brain.
Philosophers pose problems, science solves them. The best
philosophy is done by practical scientists.

I have googled median eye and it pops up in pseudo science
pages and I don't see any scientific explanations that use
it to explain consciousness.


> It is important to establish some scientific ground.

  http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/median_eye.aspx


  "median eye (pineal eye) An eyelike structure, with a lens
  and retina, found on the top of the head of some lizards,
  Sphenodon, and the Cyclostomata (lampreys) as well as in
  many fossil vertebrates. It corresponds to the pineal
  gland of other vertebrates and is thought to act as a
  photoreceptor, detecting changes in light insensitivity and
  modifying the physiology and behaviour of the animal."

  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/

  " the pineal gland is an endocrine organ, which produces
  the hormone melatonin in amounts which vary with the time
  of day. But this is a relatively recent discovery."


> Recently I have been examining evidence from "Phantom Vision"
> cases, where strong and persistent images occur after total
> loss of eyesight.

The best layman's book I have read on that subject is:
"Phantoms in the Brain", Ramachandran.

> If you should take a piece of paper and tear a piece out the
> middle, you have created a hole. This hole has a definite
> location and spatial boundaries, but is not composed of any
> physical stuff or form of energy and cannot be detected except
> by reference to the paper that borders it.

The hole is an abstraction it doesn't actually exist as a thing.

The effects are caused by the shape of what does exist physically.

You call that shape a hole in the paper.

> A materialist philosopher would presumably deny the existence
> of the 'hole', although this is clearly absurd since we can
> all recognize the 'hole' to be present.

Only as an abstraction made possible by what clearly does exist,
the rest of the paper.

> I consider the mind to be the "hole" left by the atrophy and
> disappearance of the median eye.

Sorry makes no sense to me.

JohnC

>
>
> >> I don't see consciousness as being generated unless you mean
> >> that as some kind of metaphor.
>
> > Don't you think that brains generate consciousness? If you are
> > a philosopher you probably get hung-up on use of words, so I
> > accept alternatives such as 'manifest', 'evoke', or 'instantiate'
> > if you don't like 'generate' (and would probably accept several
> > other alternatives since it matters little).
>
> We can generate a sentence. We can generate waves (both with a
> boat or an electric oscillator. We can generate heat.
>

I answered this point previously -

"Don't you think that brains generate consciousness? If you are a philosopher
you
probably get hung-up on use of words, so I accept alternatives such as
'manifest', 'evoke', or 'instantiate' if you don't like 'generate' (and would
probably accept several other alternatives since it matters little)."

The neural wetware 'generates' (or creates or whatever word you like) action
potential signals.

The neural information encoded by the action potential signals (I hate qualia, a
gibberish word) generates (or instantiates &c blah de blah) comprises both sense
data gathered by the special senses AND the reconstruction of the unitary median
sensor(gan), conscious component.

Both what is seen/ heard/ smelled, and what is seeing/ hearing/ smelling is
comprised of neural information. That is how the problem of how "like can only
interacting with like" is solved. The self/ soul/ mind and the contents/ qualia/
conscious experience/ (your term goes here) both comprise of neuronal
information.

Please don't expect me to indulge your pointless caviling about words. If my
phraseology isn't to your liking then change it.

If you want all the scientific references and full text then buy the book or
download. http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/multisell

Steve

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <swmaerske@...> wrote:
>
> An interesting, if highly speculative, account of how brains do consciousness.
Is your research on the history of the pineal gland/"third eye" in evolutionary
time well documented?
>

I suppose it is. Papers start 1979 Surrey Uni BSc dissertation, through to MSc
and PhD papers mid 1990's published as a book with some other bits.

> Having been recently and definitively booted from the Analytic philosophy list
where Eray and I both posted (and began corresponding occasionally) on the
grounds . . . well I'm not really sure what the grounds were other than that my
insistence on defending a Dennettian model of consciousness offended many of the
players there and, especially the host . . . I have been thinking about posting
a bit more frequently here than my occasional jaunts to this list have so far
involved. Your write up below caught my attention. Here are some thoughts for
what they may be worth. You write:
>
> "I consider the mind to be the 'hole' left by the atrophy and disappearance of
the median eye."
>
> This seems to be the crux of your position, no? You continue:
>

In one of the papers I talk about structural gaps, I think it is not quite the
same as a hole in paper which is why I use that only as an analogy (you need a
gap in order to see through the physical substrate).

> "We cannot see a 'hole' itself but may see through it. I would argue that
reflective or 'abstract' thought, imagination and visualization are only
possible because there is a 'hole' in our physical structure through which to
peer."
>
> This seems inadequately elaborated from my perspective. It's not at all clear
why a "hole" (as in a gap or lacuna in some kind of operating system?) should be
the basis for consciousness on your view.
> Moreover, your use of "physical" throughout strikes me as sometimes odd,
idiosyncratic and frequently overly broad. This has the effect of masking what
look like some important gaps in your case. Do you mean by "physical" whatever
is made up of sensible phenomena? Whatever is derived from the theoretical
picture of sensible phenomena which physics hands us? Or something else?
>

The functions of the pineal eye are no longer performed by the physical
(CELLULAR) sense organ, but have been internalized and are carried out by the
rest of the massively distributed system.

> Your main point about consciousness being the variation on an operational gap
in the brain mechanisms seems to be highly speculative at best and is certainly
not implied or explained by the mere historic fact of pineal gland atrophy over
the course of evolutionary history:
>
> "When a pineal gland is calcified or surgically removed, a disruption such as
the condition of precocious puberty might occur, but mental life is
substantially unaffected. Our brains still expect or assume the ancient organ of
'unitary sense' to be present."
>

> What's missing, it seems to me, is an account of how the pineal gland/"third
eye" of ancient vintage in evolutionary times performed the unifying function
you claim for it (heat seeking?) and why its disappearance in later species
should have led to the development of the condition of being conscious in them
to plug the gap left by the so-called lost organ.
>

I look in depth how 'phantom experiences' of other lost body parts, both limbs
such as phantom arms, and sense organs, e.g. phantom vision, arise. The phantom
median eye is formed out of the whole body gestalten or memory in a similar way
to these other phantom experiential phenomena.

> Why do we need an account of this atrophied organ to explain the fact that the
brain has abilities to "see" (and otherwise represent) without corresponding
stimuli outside it to trigger those representations? Isn't it much simpler, and
so more elegant (less offensive to Occam?), to simply recognize that the brain
is a naturally formed organ with many naturally occurring glitches?
>

During ontogeny of the human and other mammals, at an early stage in
development, the pineal eye starts to form and then atrophies, recapitulating to
some extent the foregoing evolutionary history of the species.

> While your account of the pineal gland in the hierarchy of species is
interesting, is it necessary at this point to provide an account of mind?
>
> Your conclusion is interesting as an explanation for the brain mechanism in
producing or doing consciousness:
>
> "The 'trick of nature' involves the fact that there is no longer a physical
screen (sense-organ) to which output is directed, and from which input is
received. Pathways to the expected device have been so established over
evolutionary history that the brain can reconstruct how this organ once acted,
and internalise its functions. The virtual screen decodes information conveyed
by complex neuronal firings in much the same way that a computer-monitor redraws
electron impulses as patterns of coloured pixels that are 'meaningful' to a
viewer. Decisions concerning behaviour are then based on this 'meaningful' level
of representation rather than low-level messages. Behavioural choices previously
determined by light information as it affected the median eye are now taken by
the computational brain and its abstract 'sense appendage'.... no longer a slave
to direct environmental impressions."
>
> But in the end it leaves open the same question which seems to trouble so many
when other physically-based accounts are proposed, namely how is it that merely
physical things like brains (and maybe computers) can produce instances of
subjectivity (subjectness)?
>

Subject and content are both manifested from neuronal information.

> You speak of representing and decoding and so on, but these notions aren't
qualitatively different from the way they're deployed in other accounts of how
brains do consciousness, leaving the same problem for those who cannot reconcile
themselves to the idea that minds are physically based like everything else we
think we know about the universe.
>

If you count energy as physical, then consciousness is "physical". But it isn't
matter so isn't "material":)

A brain that exhibits null state, no energy or possible activity in the system,
I propose is not conscious.

> Anyway, thanks for that interesting exercise in speculation. Who knows, it
might even turn out to be more true than otherwise?
>

The key point to bear in mind, is that my theory can be studied by using living
animals since we are lucky that certain walking fossil E2 creatures still have
well developed primal eye. My ideas are not speculations since the theory arises
from observations from such experiments, for example covering the pineal eyes of
yellow tailed lizards with metal foil and noting how their behaviour becomes
modified, thereby giving us a clear idea how the pineal eye actual functions.

Similarly I stress that a silicon reconfigurable circuit in which the lock-step
(clocking mechanism or component) is taken away results in subsequent phasic
transients that herald the shift from hard-wired (enslaved to an algorithm) to
soft-wired self-determination. These results stem from experiments, and can be
replicated if you wish.

It is no longer legal to remove primal eye of sphaenodon's, but those type of
experiments were carried out end of the C19th.

The pineal eye in evolution clearly has the function of a lock-step mechanism
that causes the behaviour of the E2 cold-blooded animal to be governed by light
shifts (day to night and seasonal &c). Once the pineal eye goes the animal can
internalise control of its body temperature (enables warm blooded strategies)
plus many other parts of the behavioral repertoire comes under 'self-volition'
of the creature, and no longer are controlled by direct environmental factors.
That is to say in a word "sunlight". We abstract our decision making models from
environmental impressions, and are not forced to e.g. breed because it is
springtime, or go to bed because it is dark outside.

I try to keep focused on these important, evolutionary biological ideas rather
than responding to the ridiculous foregoing verbal confections beloved of wordy,
vacuous, academic philosophers.

Regards you perceptions about science and pseudo-science all I have to say is
that pineal eye research has featured on the front page of Nature in the past,
and is a perfectly legitimate area of study.

Steve
http://tsakli.org


> SWM
>
>
>
> --- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "hodossphaenodon" <bunny5000@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi JohnC
> >
> > > > JohnC wrote:
> > > >> Our personal experience is that in order to answer an IQ test
> > > >> we need to be awake, conscious. So because the two seem to go
> > > >> together the word "intelligence" has implied "conscious". But
> > > >> in fact most of our processing is "unconscious". The conscious
> > > >> state only seems to be required for directed learning.
> > > >>
> > > >> The intelligent brain is not working harder than a not so
> > > >> intelligent brain. PET scans show it is working less hard
> > > >> because most of the processes are on automatic. It is the
> > > >> ability to automate our thinking, hand it over to a
> > > >> subconscious process, that makes some people smarter in
> > > >> the number of mental push ups they can do.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Is certainly true that to generate 'consciousness' you need
> > > > an energy source.
> > >
> > > The context was 'consciousness' vs. 'intelligence' and my
> > > belief the two need not coexist except maybe with respect
> > > to directed learning.
> > >
> >
> > Do you simply mean that e.g. a chess-playing computer is not necessarily
self aware but still makes 'intelligent' moves?
> >
> >
> > > I don't see consciousness as being generated unless you mean
> > > that as some kind of metaphor.
> > >
> >
> > Don't you think that brains generate consciousness? If you are a philosopher
you probably get hung-up on use of words, so I accept alternatives such as
'manifest', 'evoke', or 'instantiate' if you don't like 'generate' (and would
probably accept several other alternatives since it matters little).
> >
> > If not the brain, where do you think consciousness derives from? In the
Davidson case perhaps his ideas come from out of his arse!
> >
> > >
> > > > It also helps explain how the primal eye can still exist -
> > > > no longer has any mass- but because formed from neuronal
> > > > information (brain processing) it has energy.
> > >
> > > ?????
> >
> > Oh dear, perhaps you need to do a foundation course in neuroscience.
> >
> > Energy is in the form of action potential signals in the brain
> > In physiology, an action potential is a short-lasting event in which the
> > electrical membrane potential of a cell rapidly rises and falls, following a
> > consistent trajectory. Action potentials occur in several types of animal
cells,
> > called excitable cells, which include neurons, muscle cells, and endocrine
> > cells, as well as in some plant cells. In neurons, they play a central role
in
> > cell-to-cell communication. In other types of cells, their main function is
to
> > activate intracellular processes. In muscle cells, for example, an action
> > potential is the first step in the chain of events leading to contraction.
In
> > beta cells of the pancreas, they provoke release of insulin.[1] Action
> > potentials in neurons are also known as "nerve impulses" or "spikes", and
the
> > temporal sequence of action potentials generated by a neuron is called its
> > "spike train". A neuron that emits an action potential is often said to
"fire". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >
> > > > The focus, or monad, of the primal eye helps combine these
> > > > and other seeming but superficial dualities.
> > >
> > > Sorry but I have no idea what you are talking about.
> > >
> > > This is AI philosophy and I do understand computers and
> > > programming and something about neurons and brains.
> > >
> > > I am interested in scientific explanations not made up stuff.
> > >
> > > At this stage I take mind to be something the brain does
> > > not something it "generates". An analogy is walking, running,
> > > jumping and skipping is something that legs do.
> > >
> >
> > Now you are the one peppering us with analogies. I take a more holistic view
than you, since obviously your legs do not skip, run and jump without the rest
of the body being involved. How many pairs of legs do you meet walking along?
> >
> > Your analogy is just silly.
> >
> > The individual thinks, not just the brain. The spinal cord extends to the
tips of the toes after all.
> >
> >
> > > I suspect the duality is simply two points of view. One from
> > > the outside and one from the inside. Hopefully we will be
> > > able to explain the inside view in terms of the outside view.
> > > The point of view of the program vs. the point of view of an
> > > objective observer of the logic gates turning on and off
> > > which is all a program is regardless of its point of view.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > View from outside a person would be the view of another outside observer. I
don't think you make any sense.
> >
> > Here is a summary of Primal Eye theory since you obviously haven't bothered
to watch the videos:
> >
> >
> > First to clarify some terminology. The terms Pineal/ Parietal/ Old/ Median
/Primal or Primary are interchangeable alternatives when describing the ancient
‘eye’ or ‘sense-organ.’ "Third eye" is sometimes used although this is a
misnomer since the pineal-eye pre-dates our two ‘lateral eyes.' The
intracranial pineal body (glandular structure) can also be called the epipyphis
or epiphyseal complex when it includes the median eye. I shall use the notation
E-2 indicating the presence of both pineal body and median eye ... the most
primitive condition and E-1 when just the pineal body (or impression in fossil
skulls) remains. E-0 indicates a complete absence of any pineal apparatus.
> >
> >
> >
> > By consciousness I refer to the ability to have any mental representations
whatsoever. Other words (sentience, attentionality, etc.) might equally suffice.
Analytic academic philosophy is concerned with words, but MVT draws from and
examines the PHENOMENA found in nature. A good natural theory always beats a
non-natural one.
> >
> >
> >
> > It is important to establish some scientific ground. The a slight foramen
(skull opening) in which once house the median eye is a common feature of
vertebrate skull morphology. Most living vertebrates belong to type E-1. An E-O
condition exists among certain dinosaurs who appear to have lost their entire
epiphyseal complex; along with modern members of crocodilia.
> >
> >
> >
> > The more primitive E-2 categories, retaining median eyes, are relatively
uncommon among living animals. Experiments have been made on the median eyes of
certain families of lizards (Gundy et al, 1975), and importantly, by Dendy on
the Sphenodon (1899, 1911) before these creatures became highly protected and
intrusive experiments banned. Interestingly, the eye atrophies during the
lifetime of the sphenodon, and older animals lose sensitivity of the organ.
Lampreys, a primitive, parasitic fish, and the Stirnogen, observed in three
families of anuran amphibians, apparently complete the distribution of E-2
median eye-like photoreceptors among modern vertebrates.
> >
> > The refinement of sensory systems and accompanying perception of
environmental stimuli has been a major theme in over 400m years of vertebrate
evolution. The later and more adapted lateral eyes usurped median apparatus as
the sole supplier of light-information and seemingly made the old eye redundant
because of their greater optical sophistication, muscular control, and
stereoscopic advantages.
> >
> > The organ is (normally) unpaired and connected by a stalk to the pineal body
that lies central in the brain. It has no muscles to control direction, no
eyelid allowing it to be closed, and no iris allowing it to focus. The eye
varies in complexity from a simple sac-like vesicle to the well-developed
structures found in sphenodon and certain lacertilians, with a lens, retina,
rods and cones, a fluid-filled space corresponding to the humours of lateral
eyes, and a nerve that transmits impulses to the brain.... in fact all the
components of lateral eyes except an iris sphincter and orbital musculature.
> >
> >
> >
> > Experiments on young  E-2 sphenodon, covering their median eyes, have
confirmed that the organ has a wide range of functions. The pineal eye seems
necessary to detect the presence of predators. It assists in temperature
regulation, and informing when to bask in the sun and when to move to shade. It
has a role in changing the skin colour according to prevailing conditions of
light, particularly by exuding melatonin like substances that affect
pigmentation variation occurring between day and night. Changes in the season
are detected by noting variations in radiation emitted by the sun. Such
information is particularly important to determine breeding time.
> >
> > As the main collector and communicator of sense-information from the
external environment, and having existed millions of years before auditory and
lateral-visual systems, the median eye was seemingly the 'interface' and
receptacle in which any 'awareness' that primitive creatures had of things and
events outside of its body. It could be described as a "spotlight of
consciousness," or as I would contend, a "physical site of mind". [Philosophers,
here is your chance to jump in and quibble about words! I would accept several
alternatives].
> >
> > Evolutionary LOSS of Primal Eye &
> >
> > The Cold to Warm-Blooded interface
> >
> >
> >
> > Loss of the median eye seems to have occurred gradually among mammal-like
reptiles, and quite suddenly among ancestral dinosaurs (Thecodonts). Fossil
skulls suggest that ancient pineal systems included a median eye in reptiles
directly ancestral to birds and mammals, as well as among proto-amphibians and
fishes. The long history of this sensory organ, from the Ordovician fishes to
present day lizards, attests to its importance as an adaptation.
> >
> >
> >
> > In our cold-blooded ancestors, regulations of the storage and use of
body-heat was critical to survival. Metabolic activity was dependent on
sufficient availability of solar-energy and we can observe that present day
reptiles only become active once they have warmed up their bodies sufficiently
by basking or by exposure to warm surfaces on the ground. Thermo-regulation and
the role of the pineal in transition from cold-blooded ectothermic to
warm-blooded endothermic animals is an important theme, to which I shall return.
> >
> >
> >
> > Recapitulation is wrong as pure theory, but is sometimes useful as an
explanatory component within the Darwinian evolutionary paradigm. Haeckel’s
theory puts the case that the stages of embryonic development retrace the whole
evolution of that species. It is the case that embryos of different vertebrate
species are indistinguishable at early stages of formation, but not true that
they replicate the order of evolutionary changes, as Haeckel claimed. Human
embryos during intrauterine development pass through stages from fish-like to
reptilian, and then via non-primate mammalian to human primate. We have
gill-(like) slits at one stage, and develop and lose a tail during our life as
an embryo. The parietal foramen develops as though a median eye is to form and
interestingly this opening is not completely lost during embryonic life but in
humans takes about a year to close after birth. This is roughly the same time
before a baby develops the idea of "self", i.e. can recognize its reflection in
a mirror.
> >
> > There is some debate regards the extent to which recapitulation takes place
and no general agreement whether it is necessary in some measure to explain
Darwinian selection. Darwin himself believed that the theory was important. All
I wish to establish for now is that the parietal opening has existed in each of
us, during our early life, and that a physiological 'memory' of this stage of
development might exist. I only claim partial recapitulation, not Haeckel's
position.
> >
> > The nature of brain evolution is that as adaptations take place and new
sensory capacities develop, new parts are added to the brain from the core
outwards. The pre-frontal lobes in humans are amongst the very latest stages of
evolutionary development. However, the brain stem and old reptilian parts of the
brain are retained and continue to function.
> >
> > There are disadvantages for a cold-blooded animal with a ‘physical
mind’. If behaviour is governed entirely by the quality of sunlight and the
availability of body warmth, then damage to the exposed sense-organ could lead
to behavioural incapacitation. Emerging warm-blooded animals are free to move
about at night and attack the sluggish ectotherms and their eggs. In the
analysis of fossil material, possession of an E-2 entire complex indicates an
ectothermic physiology, while absence of the median eye E-1 may suggest either
endothermy or ectothermy. A transitional evolutionary phase is possible if the
pineal body is retained, whereas an  E-0 fossil indicates that such vertebrates
utilised some other means of temperature control. Conservation of body warmth,
and allocation of energy to different parts of the body, is of central
importance, and an inverse relationship has been shown to exist between
dependence on environmental sources of heat and the complexity of the epiphyseal
complex. An evolutionary reduction of the E-2 complex occurred in most
vertebrates under the gradual warming and less seasonal climates the early
Mesozoic. Loss of the median eye in mammal-like reptiles as they crossed the
reptilian-mammalian boundary. Incidentally, small size is important in the
emergence of competent endothermy, since metabolic rate increases as size
decreases irrespective of thermoregulatory strategy, and small size in
warm-blooded reptiles may have been an important adaptation in warming climates,
since a greater surface-to-volume ratio facilitates heat loss.
> >
> > PHYSICAL (pineal eye)TO "CONSCIOUSNESS ENGRAM" OR TRACE (phantom eye:
> >
> > I propose that the pattern of evolution of mental representations has been
away from direct 'physical and chemical responses' (such as exhibited by a
simple organism like the amoeba whose behaviour can be predicted by chemical
attraction towards food and aversion to harmful light radiation and toxins) and
towards increasing levels of self-volition and control of behaviour. Increased
powers of abstraction, as shown by the human abilities to manipulate symbols
(language, math's etc.) have evolved as the median eye (physical spotlight of
'consciousness') becomes more historically remote and its areas of control are
eroded. For example, the invention of electric light has allowed greater
‘mental’ or 'self control' (volition if you prefer) over circadian rhythms.
I claim that levels of 'consciousness and self-volition have occurred in direct
inverse proportion to the atrophy of the median eye. Abstract, or non-physical
structures (holes, gaps, minds or conceptual 'structures') have 'replaced' and
emerged from the earlier physical cellular structure.
> >
> > When I first formulated these ideas back in 1980, the title "Phantom Eye"
came from the close analogy between the phantom effect that invariably occurs
after losing a limb and the ‘experiential trace’ that similarly follows from
the loss of an organ of sense. Recently I have been examining evidence from
"Phantom Vision" cases, where strong and persistent images occur after total
loss of eyesight. Blind patients facing an empty field have described a house
(which is not there) in incredible detail. In the case of phantom legs, no
amount of treatment to the stump can dispel the feelings of pain whose location
is reported as being in the-leg that is absent. In both these examples there is
no physical ‘stimuli’, although sensation is as strong as if there were. The
notion of a gap in the organisational structure of the brain by means of which
we can view perhaps solves some inane "physical Vs non-physical" arguments and
distinctions in previous philosophical debate. It seems to me that in many ways
a lump of lead or stone is more "physical" than a cloud of gas. Its mass and
density are greater and its spatial location is more precise.
> >
> > When trying to place various sub-atomic particles on a postulated "scale of
physicality" we meet with greater difficulty since some of these ‘particles’
can only be inferred and cannot be precisely located or quantified. Obviously in
the non-physical region of the scale are fictional characters, probably
including the medieval legions of gods and devils. Placing Napoleon Bonaparte on
our scale presents yet another problem. If it was the nineteenth century and he
was still alive then he would fall safely into the ‘physical camp.' Although
he is no longer alive bits of his atomic structure are still whizzing around the
material universe. Furthermore it does seem fair that he counts as being ‘more
physical’ than a character such as "the Wizard of Oz," who as far as we know
has never lived or existed. The ‘trace’ or ‘imprint’ of Napoleon on the
world is well established ... we have portraits of him, documentation, and
possess items known to have been his. It also seems reasonable to claim that a
sense-organ that once existed, and with which we still have a ‘trace memory’
or physiological imprint, is more ‘physical’ than a sense-organ that is
purely fictional. However is clearly lower down the physicality "scale" than our
cellular lateral eyes.
> >
> > Our primal eye has left a structural impression, and thus still determines
how neural pathways operate, and form in early development.
> >
> > If you should take a piece of paper and tear a piece out the middle, you
have created a ‘hole’. This hole has a definite location and spatial
boundaries, but is not composed of any physical stuff or form of energy and
cannot be detected except by reference to the paper that borders it. A
materialist philosopher would presumably deny the existence of the 'hole',
although this is clearly absurd since we can all recognize the 'hole' to be
present. I consider the mind to be the "hole" left by the atrophy and
disappearance of the median eye. This is based on replicable experiments on the
pineal eye of living reptiles, supplemented by the fossil records and
computational simulations.
> >
> >
> > We cannot see a 'hole' itself but may see through it. I would argue that
reflective or "abstract" thought, imagination and visualization are only
possible because there is a ‘hole’ in our physical structure through which
to peer. We may mistake this hole for the ‘background’ and procession of
events and percepts seen through it.
> >
> > We are free to populate this abstracted sense-organ with anything that we
care to imagine. The less the physical restraint (and the further we are away
from the loss of a physical mind) the greater become our powers of abstract
thought. I contend that our capacity to close our eyelids yet still ‘see’
dream-pictures or mental visualizations that clearly have no optic path to the
outside environment or any ontological correlate, is only possible by virtue of
this sense-organ that forms part of our ‘matrix’, yet is itself just a
phantom. Like can only interact with like .... hence the problems with
Descartes’ notion that the physical pineal gland and was the ‘seat of
consciousness’.
> >
> > The pineal gland bears much the same relationship to "soul" (Descartes word)
or 'mind' as the leg-stump bears to the phantom limb. If the leg was severed
higher up the stump, the phantom sensation would still be present (perhaps even
greater). When a pineal gland is calcified or surgically removed, a disruption
such as the condition of precocious puberty might occur, but mental life is
substantially unaffected. Our brains still expect or assume the ancient organ of
‘unitary sense’ to be present. You might even say that the brain imagines it
still there ... but not an imagination or memory that requires effort ....for it
arises naturally out of the deep structure and organization of the brain. The
phantom eye forms a part of the genetic whole-body matrix or gestalten that also
gives rise to the ontogeny of the neuronal brain along with the rest of the
foetus.
> >
> > DREAMING
> >
> > If what I claim is correct, then we would expect the theory to explain many
aspects of mental life and perception, including dreams. Consider our distant
ancestor, a land based exothermic vertebrate with a median eye on top of its
skull. During the day there is sun to warm its body and it moves around seeking
food and avoiding predators. At night when it has become cooler the animal is
unable to move around and becomes stationary. The median eye cannot be closed
and continues to survey the feint measures of illumination received from the
moon and stars.
> >
> >
> > Despite hugely reduced metabolic activity, occasional ‘twitches’ might
occur, triggered by fluctuations in moonlight caused by passing clouds. The
creature would have experienced a reduced intensity ‘simulation’ of daytime
activity, the twitching being a scaled down day-time muscular reaction to shifts
in light. It is worth noting that whilst modern mammals (and to a lesser extent,
birds) do seem to dream, their common ancestor the reptile does not. When humans
dream, I suggest the ‘mind’ that cannot be switched off continues to
register a ‘shadow’ or ‘phantasy life’ which resembles or simulates
waking life, but with locomotive and sensory systems ‘disengaged’ allowing
greater freedom for subjective consciousness. This phenomenon is highly
comparable with the night-time ‘median vision’ of our exothermic progenitor
... the difference being that our dreaming is ‘symbolic’ in content whereas
the median vision of the stem-reptile was ‘direct’.
> >
> > There is a more technical level to MVT of origins of dreaming. The Academic
Papers on origins of REM, phasic transients, loss of external clock and
resultant change of brain circuitry from (hardwired) finite-state to a
(softwired) ANALOG-ous to the warm-blooded brain with infinite-state circuit
morphology are now available in my book of collected papers.
> >
> > E-2 Finite-State Brain to E-1 Infinite-State Brain
> >
> >
> > My Papers on origins of REM in dreaming, phasic transients, loss of external
clock and resultant change of brain circuitry from (hardwired) finite-state to a
(softwired) ANALOG-ous to Infinite-State circuit are  published elsewhere. Some
of this material which tries to prove Globus’ Real-Time hypothesis and is from
my time at Stirling University Centre for Cognitive and Computational
Neuroscience (CCCN) is too heavy-going for this introductory site.  Details and
full scientific bibliographies and references in the 334 pp. Primal Eye book.
> >
> >
> > Without becoming embroiled in details of the neuroscience I would like to
offer an analogy explaining how the 'phantom eye' might interact with the
substrate of neurons and glial cells, connections, and electrochemical events
that compose the brain. Given that the brain is a kind of neuro-computer or
connectionist machine, and that patterns of electrochemical events represent the
information that it is carrying then the 'phantom eye' is a 'virtual computer
screen' to which attention messages are passed.
> >
> > The "trick of nature" involves the fact that there is no longer a physical
screen (sense-organ) to which output is directed, and from which input is
received. Pathways to the expected device have been so established over
evolutionary history that the brain can reconstruct how this organ once acted,
and internalise its functions. The virtual screen decodes information conveyed
by complex neuronal firings in much the same way that a computer-monitor redraws
electron impulses as patterns of coloured pixels that are 'meaningful' to a
viewer. Decisions concerning behaviour are then based on this 'meaningful' level
of representation rather than low-level messages. Behavioural choices previously
determined by light information as it affected the median eye are now taken by
the computational brain and its abstract 'sense appendage'.... no longer a slave
to direct environmental impressions.
> >
> > To conclude, no doubt conventionalist philosophers will quibble about shades
of meaning regards particular words, thus try to throw up clouds of obfuscation.
That is all they can do since they have no empirical mandate: provide hindrances
to enlightenment. But the primal eye case does not rely on any particular
formulation of words as it provides a broad evolutionary narrative, stemming
from observations of nature and is based on replicable experiments. Change the
terminological if it makes you understand it better by all means.
> >
> > Furthermore I have found arguing with fundamentalist believers in
conventionalist philosophy and medieval religion to be largely a waste of time
since "the unenlightened mind cannot fully comprehend enlightenment" and so
nowadays I concentrate on developing applications from primal eye theory to
further my commercial and political objectives.
> >
> > Steve
> > http://posthuman.org
> >
>

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "hodossphaenodon" <bunny5000@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <swmaerske@> wrote:
> >
> > An interesting, if highly speculative, account of how brains do
consciousness. Is your research on the history of the pineal gland/"third eye"
in evolutionary time well documented?
> >
>
> I suppose it is. Papers start 1979 Surrey Uni BSc dissertation, through to MSc
and PhD papers mid 1990's published as a book with some other bits.
>
> > Having been recently and definitively booted from the Analytic philosophy
list where Eray and I both posted (and began corresponding occasionally) on the
grounds . . . well I'm not really sure what the grounds were other than that my
insistence on defending a Dennettian model of consciousness offended many of the
players there and, especially the host . . . I have been thinking about posting
a bit more frequently here than my occasional jaunts to this list have so far
involved. Your write up below caught my attention. Here are some thoughts for
what they may be worth. You write:
> >
> > "I consider the mind to be the 'hole' left by the atrophy and disappearance
of the median eye."
> >
> > This seems to be the crux of your position, no? You continue:
> >
>
> In one of the papers I talk about structural gaps, I think it is not quite the
same as a hole in paper which is why I use that only as an analogy (you need a
gap in order to see through the physical substrate).
>
> > "We cannot see a 'hole' itself but may see through it. I would argue that
reflective or 'abstract' thought, imagination and visualization are only
possible because there is a 'hole' in our physical structure through which to
peer."
> >
> > This seems inadequately elaborated from my perspective. It's not at all
clear why a "hole" (as in a gap or lacuna in some kind of operating system?)
should be the basis for consciousness on your view.
> > Moreover, your use of "physical" throughout strikes me as sometimes odd,
idiosyncratic and frequently overly broad. This has the effect of masking what
look like some important gaps in your case. Do you mean by "physical" whatever
is made up of sensible phenomena? Whatever is derived from the theoretical
picture of sensible phenomena which physics hands us? Or something else?
> >
>
> The functions of the pineal eye are no longer performed by the physical
(CELLULAR) sense organ, but have been internalized and are carried out by the
rest of the massively distributed system.
>
> > Your main point about consciousness being the variation on an operational
gap in the brain mechanisms seems to be highly speculative at best and is
certainly not implied or explained by the mere historic fact of pineal gland
atrophy over the course of evolutionary history:
> >
> > "When a pineal gland is calcified or surgically removed, a disruption such
as the condition of precocious puberty might occur, but mental life is
substantially unaffected. Our brains still expect or assume the ancient organ of
'unitary sense' to be present."
> >
>
> > What's missing, it seems to me, is an account of how the pineal gland/"third
eye" of ancient vintage in evolutionary times performed the unifying function
you claim for it (heat seeking?) and why its disappearance in later species
should have led to the development of the condition of being conscious in them
to plug the gap left by the so-called lost organ.
> >
>
> I look in depth how 'phantom experiences' of other lost body parts, both limbs
such as phantom arms, and sense organs, e.g. phantom vision, arise. The phantom
median eye is formed out of the whole body gestalten or memory in a similar way
to these other phantom experiential phenomena.
>

I agree with the comment nearby that Ramachandran gives a fascinating and
perhaps definitive account of phantom phenomena, at least as of now. His account
pivots on the particular brain being designed to create particular "maps" of
different bodily sections and then failing to relinquish those maps when the
parts are removed. Damasio thinks that the mapping phenomenon has a core role in
forming the basis of consciousness. Your claim seems to involve extending the
phantom mapping phenomenon from individuals to species. Two questions:

1) Is there a basis for speculating that what the particular brain does (in
terms of preserving maps of lost body parts in its mapping memory) extends to
what whole classes of brains do, even relatively unsophisticated ones, across
multiple species with increasing levels of sophistication? (After all, the
pineal gland/"third eye" seems to have disappeared a long time ago.)

2) How does vestigial mapping for heat sources (or coordinating other inputs for
same) result in consciousness?


> > Why do we need an account of this atrophied organ to explain the fact that
the brain has abilities to "see" (and otherwise represent) without corresponding
stimuli outside it to trigger those representations? Isn't it much simpler, and
so more elegant (less offensive to Occam?), to simply recognize that the brain
is a naturally formed organ with many naturally occurring glitches?
> >
>
> During ontogeny of the human and other mammals, at an early stage in
development, the pineal eye starts to form and then atrophies, recapitulating to
some extent the foregoing evolutionary history of the species.
>


I'm not going to dispute that as I'm not knowledgeable about it.
But seeing is part of what a working brain does and also a constituent of our
consciousness (though not an essential constituent, since being blind is not a
bar to being conscious) and my question was why do we need talk of a "third eye"
(an inner visualizer?) to account for consciousness? What role in the occurrence
of consciousness is played by the "third eye" (in this case its absence qua the
hole in the system)? Why not just look at how brains work without postulating
some as yet unilluminated mechanics set up by a brain system compensating for
the loss of its "third eye"? Occam seems especially relevant here.


> > While your account of the pineal gland in the hierarchy of species is
interesting, is it necessary at this point to provide an account of mind?
> >
> > Your conclusion is interesting as an explanation for the brain mechanism in
producing or doing consciousness:
> >
> > "The 'trick of nature' involves the fact that there is no longer a physical
screen (sense-organ) to which output is directed, and from which input is
received. Pathways to the expected device have been so established over
evolutionary history that the brain can reconstruct how this organ once acted,
and internalise its functions. The virtual screen decodes information conveyed
by complex neuronal firings in much the same way that a computer-monitor redraws
electron impulses as patterns of coloured pixels that are 'meaningful' to a
viewer. Decisions concerning behaviour are then based on this 'meaningful' level
of representation rather than low-level messages. Behavioural choices previously
determined by light information as it affected the median eye are now taken by
the computational brain and its abstract 'sense appendage'.... no longer a slave
to direct environmental impressions."
> >
> > But in the end it leaves open the same question which seems to trouble so
many when other physically-based accounts are proposed, namely how is it that
merely physical things like brains (and maybe computers) can produce instances
of subjectivity (subjectness)?
> >
>
> Subject and content are both manifested from neuronal information.
>


Sure. So what's gained by speculations about a "third eye", especially if we
don't really have any need to add it to the story? Do we have a reason?


> > You speak of representing and decoding and so on, but these notions aren't
qualitatively different from the way they're deployed in other accounts of how
brains do consciousness, leaving the same problem for those who cannot reconcile
themselves to the idea that minds are physically based like everything else we
think we know about the universe.
> >
>
> If you count energy as physical, then consciousness is "physical". But it
isn't matter so isn't "material":)
>


I would say that anything associated with explaining the phenomena of a physical
universe is physical. So energy and such certainly are physical in that sense.
But I'm not sure how that makes consciousness energy even if I see no reason to
think it's not fully explainable in physical terms.


> A brain that exhibits null state, no energy or possible activity in the
system, I propose is not conscious.
>


A non-working brain? Well, of course.


> > Anyway, thanks for that interesting exercise in speculation. Who knows, it
might even turn out to be more true than otherwise?
> >
>
> The key point to bear in mind, is that my theory can be studied by using
living animals since we are lucky that certain walking fossil E2 creatures still
have well developed primal eye. My ideas are not speculations since the theory
arises from observations from such experiments, for example covering the pineal
eyes of yellow tailed lizards with metal foil and noting how their behaviour
becomes modified, thereby giving us a clear idea how the pineal eye actual
functions.
>

But getting from there to functioning as a producer of consciousness is not yet
explained by you.


> Similarly I stress that a silicon reconfigurable circuit in which the
lock-step (clocking mechanism or component) is taken away results in subsequent
phasic transients that herald the shift from hard-wired (enslaved to an
algorithm) to soft-wired self-determination. These results stem from
experiments, and can be replicated if you wish.
>

Have you done them yourself? Have you a record of them to share with this list
which is pretty computer savvy?


> It is no longer legal to remove primal eye of sphaenodon's, but those type of
experiments were carried out end of the C19th.
>
> The pineal eye in evolution clearly has the function of a lock-step mechanism
that causes the behaviour of the E2 cold-blooded animal to be governed by light
shifts (day to night and seasonal &c). Once the pineal eye goes the animal can
internalise control of its body
> temperature (enables warm blooded strategies)


But what of cold blooded creatures without it since not all of them alive today
have it? They seem able to get along quite well without it nor do many of them
exhibit a high level of consciousness as we understand it. Does loss of the
pineal eye lead inevitably to internalization and warm blooded strategies? If it
doesn't, then oughtn't we to be looking elsewhere to get an understanding of the
consciousness causing mechanism in brains?


> plus many other parts of the behavioral repertoire comes under 'self-volition'
of the creature, and no longer are controlled by direct environmental factors.
That is to say in a word "sunlight". We abstract our decision making models from
environmental impressions, and are not forced to e.g. breed because it is
springtime, or go to bed because it is dark outside.
>

This still doesn't tell me that consciousness is the result of the lost organ or
how it might be.

> I try to keep focused on these important, evolutionary biological ideas rather
than responding to the ridiculous foregoing verbal confections beloved of wordy,
vacuous, academic philosophers.
>


I think you've made an interesting proposal but I see big gaps in it as of now
which you have yet to plug in these discussions. (As to academic philosophers,
have no fear. I'm not one. Just ask the folks on the Analytic philosophy list!)


> Regards you perceptions about science and pseudo-science all I have to say is
that pineal eye research has featured on the front page of Nature in the past,
and is a perfectly legitimate area of study.
>
> Steve
> http://tsakli.org
>

It certainly sounds intriguing and I wouldn't say you must be wrong on this. But
I think you have a lot further to go if you're to make this case.

SWM


>
> > SWM
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "hodossphaenodon" <bunny5000@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi JohnC
> > >
> > > > > JohnC wrote:
> > > > >> Our personal experience is that in order to answer an IQ test
> > > > >> we need to be awake, conscious. So because the two seem to go
> > > > >> together the word "intelligence" has implied "conscious". But
> > > > >> in fact most of our processing is "unconscious". The conscious
> > > > >> state only seems to be required for directed learning.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> The intelligent brain is not working harder than a not so
> > > > >> intelligent brain. PET scans show it is working less hard
> > > > >> because most of the processes are on automatic. It is the
> > > > >> ability to automate our thinking, hand it over to a
> > > > >> subconscious process, that makes some people smarter in
> > > > >> the number of mental push ups they can do.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Is certainly true that to generate 'consciousness' you need
> > > > > an energy source.
> > > >
> > > > The context was 'consciousness' vs. 'intelligence' and my
> > > > belief the two need not coexist except maybe with respect
> > > > to directed learning.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Do you simply mean that e.g. a chess-playing computer is not necessarily
self aware but still makes 'intelligent' moves?
> > >
> > >
> > > > I don't see consciousness as being generated unless you mean
> > > > that as some kind of metaphor.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Don't you think that brains generate consciousness? If you are a
philosopher you probably get hung-up on use of words, so I accept alternatives
such as 'manifest', 'evoke', or 'instantiate' if you don't like 'generate' (and
would probably accept several other alternatives since it matters little).
> > >
> > > If not the brain, where do you think consciousness derives from? In the
Davidson case perhaps his ideas come from out of his arse!
> > >
> > > >
> > > > > It also helps explain how the primal eye can still exist -
> > > > > no longer has any mass- but because formed from neuronal
> > > > > information (brain processing) it has energy.
> > > >
> > > > ?????
> > >
> > > Oh dear, perhaps you need to do a foundation course in neuroscience.
> > >
> > > Energy is in the form of action potential signals in the brain
> > > In physiology, an action potential is a short-lasting event in which the
> > > electrical membrane potential of a cell rapidly rises and falls, following
a
> > > consistent trajectory. Action potentials occur in several types of animal
cells,
> > > called excitable cells, which include neurons, muscle cells, and endocrine
> > > cells, as well as in some plant cells. In neurons, they play a central
role in
> > > cell-to-cell communication. In other types of cells, their main function
is to
> > > activate intracellular processes. In muscle cells, for example, an action
> > > potential is the first step in the chain of events leading to contraction.
In
> > > beta cells of the pancreas, they provoke release of insulin.[1] Action
> > > potentials in neurons are also known as "nerve impulses" or "spikes", and
the
> > > temporal sequence of action potentials generated by a neuron is called its
> > > "spike train". A neuron that emits an action potential is often said to
"fire". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > >
> > > > > The focus, or monad, of the primal eye helps combine these
> > > > > and other seeming but superficial dualities.
> > > >
> > > > Sorry but I have no idea what you are talking about.
> > > >
> > > > This is AI philosophy and I do understand computers and
> > > > programming and something about neurons and brains.
> > > >
> > > > I am interested in scientific explanations not made up stuff.
> > > >
> > > > At this stage I take mind to be something the brain does
> > > > not something it "generates". An analogy is walking, running,
> > > > jumping and skipping is something that legs do.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Now you are the one peppering us with analogies. I take a more holistic
view than you, since obviously your legs do not skip, run and jump without the
rest of the body being involved. How many pairs of legs do you meet walking
along?
> > >
> > > Your analogy is just silly.
> > >
> > > The individual thinks, not just the brain. The spinal cord extends to the
tips of the toes after all.
> > >
> > >
> > > > I suspect the duality is simply two points of view. One from
> > > > the outside and one from the inside. Hopefully we will be
> > > > able to explain the inside view in terms of the outside view.
> > > > The point of view of the program vs. the point of view of an
> > > > objective observer of the logic gates turning on and off
> > > > which is all a program is regardless of its point of view.
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > View from outside a person would be the view of another outside observer.
I don't think you make any sense.
> > >
> > > Here is a summary of Primal Eye theory since you obviously haven't
bothered to watch the videos:
> > >
> > >
> > > First to clarify some terminology. The terms Pineal/ Parietal/ Old/ Median
/Primal or Primary are interchangeable alternatives when describing the ancient
‘eye’ or ‘sense-organ.’ "Third eye" is sometimes used although this is a
misnomer since the pineal-eye pre-dates our two ‘lateral eyes.' The
intracranial pineal body (glandular structure) can also be called the epipyphis
or epiphyseal complex when it includes the median eye. I shall use the notation
E-2 indicating the presence of both pineal body and median eye ... the most
primitive condition and E-1 when just the pineal body (or impression in fossil
skulls) remains. E-0 indicates a complete absence of any pineal apparatus.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > By consciousness I refer to the ability to have any mental representations
whatsoever. Other words (sentience, attentionality, etc.) might equally suffice.
Analytic academic philosophy is concerned with words, but MVT draws from and
examines the PHENOMENA found in nature. A good natural theory always beats a
non-natural one.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > It is important to establish some scientific ground. The a slight foramen
(skull opening) in which once house the median eye is a common feature of
vertebrate skull morphology. Most living vertebrates belong to type E-1. An E-O
condition exists among certain dinosaurs who appear to have lost their entire
epiphyseal complex; along with modern members of crocodilia.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > The more primitive E-2 categories, retaining median eyes, are relatively
uncommon among living animals. Experiments have been made on the median eyes of
certain families of lizards (Gundy et al, 1975), and importantly, by Dendy on
the Sphenodon (1899, 1911) before these creatures became highly protected and
intrusive experiments banned. Interestingly, the eye atrophies during the
lifetime of the sphenodon, and older animals lose sensitivity of the organ.
Lampreys, a primitive, parasitic fish, and the Stirnogen, observed in three
families of anuran amphibians, apparently complete the distribution of E-2
median eye-like photoreceptors among modern vertebrates.
> > >
> > > The refinement of sensory systems and accompanying perception of
environmental stimuli has been a major theme in over 400m years of vertebrate
evolution. The later and more adapted lateral eyes usurped median apparatus as
the sole supplier of light-information and seemingly made the old eye redundant
because of their greater optical sophistication, muscular control, and
stereoscopic advantages.
> > >
> > > The organ is (normally) unpaired and connected by a stalk to the pineal
body that lies central in the brain. It has no muscles to control direction, no
eyelid allowing it to be closed, and no iris allowing it to focus. The eye
varies in complexity from a simple sac-like vesicle to the well-developed
structures found in sphenodon and certain lacertilians, with a lens, retina,
rods and cones, a fluid-filled space corresponding to the humours of lateral
eyes, and a nerve that transmits impulses to the brain.... in fact all the
components of lateral eyes except an iris sphincter and orbital musculature.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Experiments on young  E-2 sphenodon, covering their median eyes, have
confirmed that the organ has a wide range of functions. The pineal eye seems
necessary to detect the presence of predators. It assists in temperature
regulation, and informing when to bask in the sun and when to move to shade. It
has a role in changing the skin colour according to prevailing conditions of
light, particularly by exuding melatonin like substances that affect
pigmentation variation occurring between day and night. Changes in the season
are detected by noting variations in radiation emitted by the sun. Such
information is particularly important to determine breeding time.
> > >
> > > As the main collector and communicator of sense-information from the
external environment, and having existed millions of years before auditory and
lateral-visual systems, the median eye was seemingly the 'interface' and
receptacle in which any 'awareness' that primitive creatures had of things and
events outside of its body. It could be described as a "spotlight of
consciousness," or as I would contend, a "physical site of mind". [Philosophers,
here is your chance to jump in and quibble about words! I would accept several
alternatives].
> > >
> > > Evolutionary LOSS of Primal Eye &
> > >
> > > The Cold to Warm-Blooded interface
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Loss of the median eye seems to have occurred gradually among mammal-like
reptiles, and quite suddenly among ancestral dinosaurs (Thecodonts). Fossil
skulls suggest that ancient pineal systems included a median eye in reptiles
directly ancestral to birds and mammals, as well as among proto-amphibians and
fishes. The long history of this sensory organ, from the Ordovician fishes to
present day lizards, attests to its importance as an adaptation.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > In our cold-blooded ancestors, regulations of the storage and use of
body-heat was critical to survival. Metabolic activity was dependent on
sufficient availability of solar-energy and we can observe that present day
reptiles only become active once they have warmed up their bodies sufficiently
by basking or by exposure to warm surfaces on the ground. Thermo-regulation and
the role of the pineal in transition from cold-blooded ectothermic to
warm-blooded endothermic animals is an important theme, to which I shall return.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Recapitulation is wrong as pure theory, but is sometimes useful as an
explanatory component within the Darwinian evolutionary paradigm. Haeckel’s
theory puts the case that the stages of embryonic development retrace the whole
evolution of that species. It is the case that embryos of different vertebrate
species are indistinguishable at early stages of formation, but not true that
they replicate the order of evolutionary changes, as Haeckel claimed. Human
embryos during intrauterine development pass through stages from fish-like to
reptilian, and then via non-primate mammalian to human primate. We have
gill-(like) slits at one stage, and develop and lose a tail during our life as
an embryo. The parietal foramen develops as though a median eye is to form and
interestingly this opening is not completely lost during embryonic life but in
humans takes about a year to close after birth. This is roughly the same time
before a baby develops the idea of "self", i.e. can recognize its reflection in
a mirror.
> > >
> > > There is some debate regards the extent to which recapitulation takes
place and no general agreement whether it is necessary in some measure to
explain Darwinian selection. Darwin himself believed that the theory was
important. All I wish to establish for now is that the parietal opening has
existed in each of us, during our early life, and that a physiological 'memory'
of this stage of development might exist. I only claim partial recapitulation,
not Haeckel's position.
> > >
> > > The nature of brain evolution is that as adaptations take place and new
sensory capacities develop, new parts are added to the brain from the core
outwards. The pre-frontal lobes in humans are amongst the very latest stages of
evolutionary development. However, the brain stem and old reptilian parts of the
brain are retained and continue to function.
> > >
> > > There are disadvantages for a cold-blooded animal with a ‘physical
mind’. If behaviour is governed entirely by the quality of sunlight and the
availability of body warmth, then damage to the exposed sense-organ could lead
to behavioural incapacitation. Emerging warm-blooded animals are free to move
about at night and attack the sluggish ectotherms and their eggs. In the
analysis of fossil material, possession of an E-2 entire complex indicates an
ectothermic physiology, while absence of the median eye E-1 may suggest either
endothermy or ectothermy. A transitional evolutionary phase is possible if the
pineal body is retained, whereas an  E-0 fossil indicates that such vertebrates
utilised some other means of temperature control. Conservation of body warmth,
and allocation of energy to different parts of the body, is of central
importance, and an inverse relationship has been shown to exist between
dependence on environmental sources of heat and the complexity of the epiphyseal
complex. An evolutionary reduction of the E-2 complex occurred in most
vertebrates under the gradual warming and less seasonal climates the early
Mesozoic. Loss of the median eye in mammal-like reptiles as they crossed the
reptilian-mammalian boundary. Incidentally, small size is important in the
emergence of competent endothermy, since metabolic rate increases as size
decreases irrespective of thermoregulatory strategy, and small size in
warm-blooded reptiles may have been an important adaptation in warming climates,
since a greater surface-to-volume ratio facilitates heat loss.
> > >
> > > PHYSICAL (pineal eye)TO "CONSCIOUSNESS ENGRAM" OR TRACE (phantom eye:
> > >
> > > I propose that the pattern of evolution of mental representations has been
away from direct 'physical and chemical responses' (such as exhibited by a
simple organism like the amoeba whose behaviour can be predicted by chemical
attraction towards food and aversion to harmful light radiation and toxins) and
towards increasing levels of self-volition and control of behaviour. Increased
powers of abstraction, as shown by the human abilities to manipulate symbols
(language, math's etc.) have evolved as the median eye (physical spotlight of
'consciousness') becomes more historically remote and its areas of control are
eroded. For example, the invention of electric light has allowed greater
‘mental’ or 'self control' (volition if you prefer) over circadian rhythms.
I claim that levels of 'consciousness and self-volition have occurred in direct
inverse proportion to the atrophy of the median eye. Abstract, or non-physical
structures (holes, gaps, minds or conceptual 'structures') have 'replaced' and
emerged from the earlier physical cellular structure.
> > >
> > > When I first formulated these ideas back in 1980, the title "Phantom Eye"
came from the close analogy between the phantom effect that invariably occurs
after losing a limb and the ‘experiential trace’ that similarly follows from
the loss of an organ of sense. Recently I have been examining evidence from
"Phantom Vision" cases, where strong and persistent images occur after total
loss of eyesight. Blind patients facing an empty field have described a house
(which is not there) in incredible detail. In the case of phantom legs, no
amount of treatment to the stump can dispel the feelings of pain whose location
is reported as being in the-leg that is absent. In both these examples there is
no physical ‘stimuli’, although sensation is as strong as if there were. The
notion of a gap in the organisational structure of the brain by means of which
we can view perhaps solves some inane "physical Vs non-physical" arguments and
distinctions in previous philosophical debate. It seems to me that in many ways
a lump of lead or stone is more "physical" than a cloud of gas. Its mass and
density are greater and its spatial location is more precise.
> > >
> > > When trying to place various sub-atomic particles on a postulated "scale
of physicality" we meet with greater difficulty since some of these
‘particles’ can only be inferred and cannot be precisely located or
quantified. Obviously in the non-physical region of the scale are fictional
characters, probably including the medieval legions of gods and devils. Placing
Napoleon Bonaparte on our scale presents yet another problem. If it was the
nineteenth century and he was still alive then he would fall safely into the
‘physical camp.' Although he is no longer alive bits of his atomic structure
are still whizzing around the material universe. Furthermore it does seem fair
that he counts as being ‘more physical’ than a character such as "the Wizard
of Oz," who as far as we know has never lived or existed. The ‘trace’ or
‘imprint’ of Napoleon on the world is well established ... we have portraits
of him, documentation, and possess items known to have been his. It also seems
reasonable to claim that a sense-organ that once existed, and with which we
still have a ‘trace memory’ or physiological imprint, is more ‘physical’
than a sense-organ that is purely fictional. However is clearly lower down the
physicality "scale" than our cellular lateral eyes.
> > >
> > > Our primal eye has left a structural impression, and thus still determines
how neural pathways operate, and form in early development.
> > >
> > > If you should take a piece of paper and tear a piece out the middle, you
have created a ‘hole’. This hole has a definite location and spatial
boundaries, but is not composed of any physical stuff or form of energy and
cannot be detected except by reference to the paper that borders it. A
materialist philosopher would presumably deny the existence of the 'hole',
although this is clearly absurd since we can all recognize the 'hole' to be
present. I consider the mind to be the "hole" left by the atrophy and
disappearance of the median eye. This is based on replicable experiments on the
pineal eye of living reptiles, supplemented by the fossil records and
computational simulations.
> > >
> > >
> > > We cannot see a 'hole' itself but may see through it. I would argue that
reflective or "abstract" thought, imagination and visualization are only
possible because there is a ‘hole’ in our physical structure through which
to peer. We may mistake this hole for the ‘background’ and procession of
events and percepts seen through it.
> > >
> > > We are free to populate this abstracted sense-organ with anything that we
care to imagine. The less the physical restraint (and the further we are away
from the loss of a physical mind) the greater become our powers of abstract
thought. I contend that our capacity to close our eyelids yet still ‘see’
dream-pictures or mental visualizations that clearly have no optic path to the
outside environment or any ontological correlate, is only possible by virtue of
this sense-organ that forms part of our ‘matrix’, yet is itself just a
phantom. Like can only interact with like .... hence the problems with
Descartes’ notion that the physical pineal gland and was the ‘seat of
consciousness’.
> > >
> > > The pineal gland bears much the same relationship to "soul" (Descartes
word) or 'mind' as the leg-stump bears to the phantom limb. If the leg was
severed higher up the stump, the phantom sensation would still be present
(perhaps even greater). When a pineal gland is calcified or surgically removed,
a disruption such as the condition of precocious puberty might occur, but mental
life is substantially unaffected. Our brains still expect or assume the ancient
organ of ‘unitary sense’ to be present. You might even say that the brain
imagines it still there ... but not an imagination or memory that requires
effort ....for it arises naturally out of the deep structure and organization of
the brain. The phantom eye forms a part of the genetic whole-body matrix or
gestalten that also gives rise to the ontogeny of the neuronal brain along with
the rest of the foetus.
> > >
> > > DREAMING
> > >
> > > If what I claim is correct, then we would expect the theory to explain
many aspects of mental life and perception, including dreams. Consider our
distant ancestor, a land based exothermic vertebrate with a median eye on top of
its skull. During the day there is sun to warm its body and it moves around
seeking food and avoiding predators. At night when it has become cooler the
animal is unable to move around and becomes stationary. The median eye cannot be
closed and continues to survey the feint measures of illumination received from
the moon and stars.
> > >
> > >
> > > Despite hugely reduced metabolic activity, occasional ‘twitches’ might
occur, triggered by fluctuations in moonlight caused by passing clouds. The
creature would have experienced a reduced intensity ‘simulation’ of daytime
activity, the twitching being a scaled down day-time muscular reaction to shifts
in light. It is worth noting that whilst modern mammals (and to a lesser extent,
birds) do seem to dream, their common ancestor the reptile does not. When humans
dream, I suggest the ‘mind’ that cannot be switched off continues to
register a ‘shadow’ or ‘phantasy life’ which resembles or simulates
waking life, but with locomotive and sensory systems ‘disengaged’ allowing
greater freedom for subjective consciousness. This phenomenon is highly
comparable with the night-time ‘median vision’ of our exothermic progenitor
... the difference being that our dreaming is ‘symbolic’ in content whereas
the median vision of the stem-reptile was ‘direct’.
> > >
> > > There is a more technical level to MVT of origins of dreaming. The
Academic Papers on origins of REM, phasic transients, loss of external clock and
resultant change of brain circuitry from (hardwired) finite-state to a
(softwired) ANALOG-ous to the warm-blooded brain with infinite-state circuit
morphology are now available in my book of collected papers.
> > >
> > > E-2 Finite-State Brain to E-1 Infinite-State Brain
> > >
> > >
> > > My Papers on origins of REM in dreaming, phasic transients, loss of
external clock and resultant change of brain circuitry from (hardwired)
finite-state to a (softwired) ANALOG-ous to Infinite-State circuit are 
published elsewhere. Some of this material which tries to prove Globus’
Real-Time hypothesis and is from my time at Stirling University Centre for
Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience (CCCN) is too heavy-going for this
introductory site.  Details and full scientific bibliographies and references in
the 334 pp. Primal Eye book.
> > >
> > >
> > > Without becoming embroiled in details of the neuroscience I would like to
offer an analogy explaining how the 'phantom eye' might interact with the
substrate of neurons and glial cells, connections, and electrochemical events
that compose the brain. Given that the brain is a kind of neuro-computer or
connectionist machine, and that patterns of electrochemical events represent the
information that it is carrying then the 'phantom eye' is a 'virtual computer
screen' to which attention messages are passed.
> > >
> > > The "trick of nature" involves the fact that there is no longer a physical
screen (sense-organ) to which output is directed, and from which input is
received. Pathways to the expected device have been so established over
evolutionary history that the brain can reconstruct how this organ once acted,
and internalise its functions. The virtual screen decodes information conveyed
by complex neuronal firings in much the same way that a computer-monitor redraws
electron impulses as patterns of coloured pixels that are 'meaningful' to a
viewer. Decisions concerning behaviour are then based on this 'meaningful' level
of representation rather than low-level messages. Behavioural choices previously
determined by light information as it affected the median eye are now taken by
the computational brain and its abstract 'sense appendage'.... no longer a slave
to direct environmental impressions.
> > >
> > > To conclude, no doubt conventionalist philosophers will quibble about
shades of meaning regards particular words, thus try to throw up clouds of
obfuscation. That is all they can do since they have no empirical mandate:
provide hindrances to enlightenment. But the primal eye case does not rely on
any particular formulation of words as it provides a broad evolutionary
narrative, stemming from observations of nature and is based on replicable
experiments. Change the terminological if it makes you understand it better by
all means.
> > >
> > > Furthermore I have found arguing with fundamentalist believers in
conventionalist philosophy and medieval religion to be largely a waste of time
since "the unenlightened mind cannot fully comprehend enlightenment" and so
nowadays I concentrate on developing applications from primal eye theory to
further my commercial and political objectives.
> > >
> > > Steve
> > > http://posthuman.org
> > >
> >
>

>
> > I look in depth how 'phantom experiences' of other lost body parts, both
limbs such as phantom arms, and sense organs, e.g. phantom vision, arise. The
phantom median eye is formed out of the whole body gestalten or memory in a
similar way to these other phantom experiential phenomena.
> >
>
> I agree with the comment nearby that Ramachandran gives a fascinating and
perhaps definitive account of phantom phenomena, at least as of now. His account
pivots on the particular brain being designed to create particular "maps" of
different bodily sections and then failing to relinquish those maps when the
parts are removed. Damasio thinks that the mapping phenomenon has a core role in
forming the basis of consciousness.

Your claim seems to involve extending the phantom mapping phenomenon from
individuals to species. Two questions:

No! What makes you think that, where do I say that? I think the pineal eye
arises during foetal development in individual animals, and the atrophying also
recapitulates. The parietal foramen takes about a year to close after birth of
an infant humanoid.

I don't rule out or in something like Jung's race memory. But I don't need to
postulate anything like that for primal eye theory to work.

My original 1979 thesis concentrated on phantoms, long before Ramachandran was
around, but my original references (from memory Edwards and Papp, Arendt and
other contemporary literature) was supplemented by Melzack in particular, e.g.
(1992) "Phantom limbs". Scientific American (April): 120–126. As an acupuncture
student then I was particularly interested in pain control and phantoms, which
remains of interest.

By the late 1980s, Ronald Melzack had recognized that the peripheral neuroma
account could not be correct. In his 1989 paper,"Phantom Limbs, The Self And The
Brain"[8] Melzack proposed the theory of the "neuromatrix." According to Melzack
the experience of the body is created by a wide network of interconnecting
neural structures. In 1991, Tim Pons and colleagues at the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) showed that the primary somatosensory cortex undergoes
substantial reorganization after the loss of sensory input.[9] Hearing about
these results, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran theorized that phantom limb sensations
could be due to this reorganization in the somatosensory cortex, which is
located in the postcentral gyrus, and which receives input from the limbs and
body.[3][7] Ramachandran and colleagues illustrated this theory by showing that
stroking different parts of the face led to perceptions of being touched on
different parts of the missing limb.[10]

Ramachandran argued that the perception of being touched in different parts of
the phantom limb was the perceptual correlate of cortical reorganization in the
brain. However, research published in 1995 by Flor et al. demonstrated that pain
(rather than referred sensations) was the perceptual correlate of cortical
reorganization.[11] In 1996 Knecht et al. published an analysis of
Ramanchandran's theory that concluded that there was no topographic relationship
between referred sensations and cortical reorganization in the primary cortical
areas[12] Recent research by Flor et al. suggests that non-painful referred
sensations are correlated with a wide neural network outside the primary
cortical areas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb

> 1) Is there a basis for speculating that what the particular brain does (in
terms of preserving maps of lost body parts in its mapping memory) extends to
what whole classes of brains do, even relatively unsophisticated ones, across
multiple species with increasing levels of sophistication? (After all, the
pineal gland/"third eye" seems to have disappeared a long time ago.)
>

What I would say is that all E1 animals likely experience the same type of
mental events. Mammals and Avia have REM so I assume they all dream. Whereas
dreaming would be impossible for an E2 animal.

> 2) How does vestigial mapping for heat sources (or coordinating other inputs
for same) result in consciousness?
>

Bluntly; it allows greater freedom of action and new types of behaviour.

There are many advantages to being warm-blooded. Warm-blooded animals can remain
active in cold environments in which cold-blooded animals can hardly move.
Warm-blooded animals can live in almost any surface environment on Earth, like
in arctic regions or on high mountains where most cold-blooded animals would
have difficulty surviving. Warm-blooded animals can remain active, seek food,
and defend themselves in a wide range of outdoor temperatures. Cold-blooded
animals can only do this when they are warm enough. A cold-blooded animal's
level of activity depends upon the temperature of its surroundings. A reptile,
for example, will increase its body temperature before hunting and is better
able to escape predators when it is warm. Cold-blooded animals also need to be
warm and active to find a mate and reproduce.
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/image_galleries/ir_zoo/coldwarm.html


>
> > > Why do we need an account of this atrophied organ to explain the fact that
the brain has abilities to "see" (and otherwise represent) without corresponding
stimuli outside it to trigger those representations? Isn't it much simpler, and
so more elegant (less offensive to Occam?), to simply recognize that the brain
is a naturally formed organ with many naturally occurring glitches?
> > >

I am not inventing "this atrophied organ" it existed in nature long before me,
or any other mammal, ever existed.

If any theory of the evolution of brain and mind excludes an account of it, then
that theory is incomplete and flawed.

To airbrush it out just in case maybe it offends Quim and Davidson, or casts
doubt on Jesus or Allah and the promise of eternal afterlife, or isn't
observable in dead brains because it manifests in circuits or fields with energy
only, is to be scientifically negligent.

If you have a better theory than mine as to why and how humanoids experience
dreams, please share.

> >
> > During ontogeny of the human and other mammals, at an early stage in
development, the pineal eye starts to form and then atrophies, recapitulating to
some extent the foregoing evolutionary history of the species.
> >
>
>
> I'm not going to dispute that as I'm not knowledgeable about it.
> But seeing is part of what a working brain does and also a constituent of our
consciousness (though not an essential constituent, since being blind is not a
bar to being conscious) and my question was why do we need talk of a "third eye"
(an inner visualizer?) to account for consciousness? What role in the occurrence
of consciousness is played by the "third eye" (in this case its absence qua the
hole in the system)? Why not just look at how brains work without postulating
some as yet unilluminated mechanics set up by a brain system compensating for
the loss of its "third eye"? Occam seems especially relevant here.
>

You haven't read my Summary http://extropia.net/page3.html

First to clarify some terminology. The terms Pineal/ Parietal/ Old/ Median
/Primal or Primary are interchangeable alternatives when describing the ancient
'eye' or 'sense-organ.' "Third eye" is sometimes used although this is a
misnomer since the pineal-eye pre-dates our two 'lateral eyes.'

>
> > > While your account of the pineal gland in the hierarchy of species is
interesting, is it necessary at this point to provide an account of mind?
> > >


It happens to prove an account of mind. Why don't you think one is necessary?
And if not what why are you wasting your time on a list discussing the theory of
mind? And my time replying to you.

To be frank I am starting to get bored and remember now why I left academia. The
reason I made the film and published the book was so I didn't have to repeat
myself endlessly to successive waves of students. All of the points you raise
subsequently would be cleared up by diligent reference to the primal eye book or
the free videos.

My latest thinking remains my own intellectual and commercial property, I don't
trust academia, and have never submitted my material to any academic journal or
any wank-fest conference. Will inform you all here when I publish anything new,
or you can check out http://posthuman.TV or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/posthuman/ or thestevenichols twitter

All the best, Steve
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=690434973&ref=tn_tnmn

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "hodossphaenodon" <bunny5000@...> wrote:
>
>  >
> > > I look in depth how 'phantom experiences' of other lost body parts, both
limbs such as phantom arms, and sense organs, e.g. phantom vision, arise. The
phantom median eye is formed out of the whole body gestalten or memory in a
similar way to these other phantom experiential phenomena.
> > >
> >
> > I agree with the comment nearby that Ramachandran gives a fascinating and
perhaps definitive account of phantom phenomena, at least as of now. His account
pivots on the particular brain being designed to create particular "maps" of
different bodily sections and then failing to relinquish those maps when the
parts are removed. Damasio thinks that the mapping phenomenon has a core role in
forming the basis of consciousness.
>
> Your claim seems to involve extending the phantom mapping phenomenon from
individuals to species. Two questions:
>
> No! What makes you think that, where do I say that? I think the pineal eye
arises during foetal development in individual animals, and the atrophying also
recapitulates. The parietal foramen takes about a year to close after birth of
an infant humanoid.
>
> I don't rule out or in something like Jung's race memory. But I don't need to
postulate anything like that for primal eye theory to work.
>
> My original 1979 thesis concentrated on phantoms, long before Ramachandran was
around, but my original references (from memory Edwards and Papp, Arendt and
other contemporary literature) was supplemented by Melzack in particular, e.g.
(1992) "Phantom limbs". Scientific American (April): 120–126. As an acupuncture
student then I was particularly interested in pain control and phantoms, which
remains of interest.
>
> By the late 1980s, Ronald Melzack had recognized that the peripheral neuroma
account could not be correct. In his 1989 paper,"Phantom Limbs, The Self And The
Brain"[8] Melzack proposed the theory of the "neuromatrix." According to Melzack
the experience of the body is created by a wide network of interconnecting
neural structures. In 1991, Tim Pons and colleagues at the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) showed that the primary somatosensory cortex undergoes
substantial reorganization after the loss of sensory input.[9] Hearing about
these results, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran theorized that phantom limb sensations
could be due to this reorganization in the somatosensory cortex, which is
located in the postcentral gyrus, and which receives input from the limbs and
body.[3][7] Ramachandran and colleagues illustrated this theory by showing that
stroking different parts of the face led to perceptions of being touched on
different parts of the missing limb.[10]
>
> Ramachandran argued that the perception of being touched in different parts of
the phantom limb was the perceptual correlate of cortical reorganization in the
brain. However, research published in 1995 by Flor et al. demonstrated that pain
(rather than referred sensations) was the perceptual correlate of cortical
reorganization.[11] In 1996 Knecht et al. published an analysis of
Ramanchandran's theory that concluded that there was no topographic relationship
between referred sensations and cortical reorganization in the primary cortical
areas[12] Recent research by Flor et al. suggests that non-painful referred
sensations are correlated with a wide neural network outside the primary
cortical areas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb
>

Interesting. Where can I find your work on this?


> > 1) Is there a basis for speculating that what the particular brain does (in
terms of preserving maps of lost body parts in its mapping memory) extends to
what whole classes of brains do, even relatively unsophisticated ones, across
multiple species with increasing levels of sophistication? (After all, the
pineal gland/"third eye" seems to have disappeared a long time ago.)
> >
>
> What I would say is that all E1 animals likely experience the same type of
mental events. Mammals and Avia have REM so I assume they all dream. Whereas
dreaming would be impossible for an E2 animal.
>
> > 2) How does vestigial mapping for heat sources (or coordinating other inputs
for same) result in consciousness?
> >
>
> Bluntly; it allows greater freedom of action and new types of behaviour.
>

I'm not sure how that translates into consciousness (experience, whether of a
self-aware nature or just of greater awareness of the environment).

> There are many advantages to being warm-blooded. Warm-blooded animals can
remain active in cold environments in which cold-blooded animals can hardly
move. Warm-blooded animals can live in almost any surface environment on Earth,
like in arctic regions or on high mountains where most cold-blooded animals
would have difficulty surviving. Warm-blooded animals can remain active, seek
food, and defend themselves in a wide range of outdoor temperatures.
Cold-blooded animals can only do this when they are warm enough. A cold-blooded
animal's level of activity depends upon the temperature of its surroundings. A
reptile, for example, will increase its body temperature before hunting and is
better able to escape predators when it is warm. Cold-blooded animals also need
to be warm and active to find a mate and reproduce.
> http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/image_galleries/ir_zoo/coldwarm.html
>

Yes, but does being warm blooded mean being conscious while being cold blooded
doesn't? As you've noted there are many cold blooded animals without the "third
eye", too. Yet, at a very basic level there is a form of consciousness to be
found in them. If not like ours, with our degree of awareness (of environment,
history, imagination, etc.), then surely at a basic level that isn't
qualitatively different. A reptile or amphibian seems quite able to feel pain as
demonstrated by its behaviors. And to possess and seek to satisfy basic wants.
The same can be said of many lower order animals though perhaps with less
certainty. Fishermen often deny that fish feel pain when you hook them! My
instinct is to say they certainly do, based on their behaviors, but then they
are so different than we are that they are hard to read. Nevertheless a fish is
nothing like a stone!

>
> >
> > > > Why do we need an account of this atrophied organ to explain the fact
that the brain has abilities to "see" (and otherwise represent) without
corresponding stimuli outside it to trigger those representations? Isn't it much
simpler, and so more elegant (less offensive to Occam?), to simply recognize
that the brain is a naturally formed organ with many naturally occurring
glitches?
> > > >
>
> I am not inventing "this atrophied organ" it existed in nature long before me,
or any other mammal, ever existed.
>

Sorry, I didn't intend to give the impression that I thought you were inventing
it but only that perhaps you are making more of it than it is. But then again,
that IS how human knowledge proceeds. People speculate, sometimes in a seemingly
outlandish way, and sometimes those speculations pay off in real theories that
predict!


> If any theory of the evolution of brain and mind excludes an account of it,
then that theory is incomplete and flawed.
>

Why? Isn't the burden on you to show why the pineal gland matters in accounting
for consciousness? After all, the appendix is another vestigial organ (though
not associated with the brain, of course). Should we assume that it must also be
accounted for? Granted that the pineal gland, being associated with the brain,
poses a much more intriguing question for us in this matter, as you've proposed.
Still, is it enough to assume that it's role in the arrival of consciousness in
species was critical?

Are you distinguishing types of consciousness here? If so, how? What lines do
you want to draw?

> To airbrush it out just in case maybe it offends Quim and Davidson, or casts
doubt on Jesus or Allah and the promise of eternal afterlife, or isn't
observable in dead brains because it manifests in circuits or fields with energy
only, is to be scientifically negligent.
>

I think you make an interesting point that it's worth considering the pineal
gland here. But considering is not yet a full fledged theory and perhaps you are
making THAT jump prematurely?

> If you have a better theory than mine as to why and how humanoids experience
dreams, please share.
>

I don't pretend to have a theory per se. But I think that a Dennettian model of
consciousness, that it's a function of information processing on an organic
computer-like platform, makes a lot of sense. Certainly it offers us a way of
understanding consciousness in purely physical terms. Nor is it necessarily at
odds with your claims though it also doesn't need your claim to be true for it
to turn out to be. That's why I think the onus is on you here to show why your
proposal is key.


> > >
> > > During ontogeny of the human and other mammals, at an early stage in
development, the pineal eye starts to form and then atrophies, recapitulating to
some extent the foregoing evolutionary history of the species.
> > >
> >
> >
> > I'm not going to dispute that as I'm not knowledgeable about it.
> > But seeing is part of what a working brain does and also a constituent of
our consciousness (though not an essential constituent, since being blind is not
a bar to being conscious) and my question was why do we need talk of a "third
eye" (an inner visualizer?) to account for consciousness? What role in the
occurrence of consciousness is played by the "third eye" (in this case its
absence qua the hole in the system)? Why not just look at how brains work
without postulating some as yet unilluminated mechanics set up by a brain system
compensating for the loss of its "third eye"? Occam seems especially relevant
here.
> >
>
> You haven't read my Summary http://extropia.net/page3.html
>

I've only read what you've recently posted here.

> First to clarify some terminology. The terms Pineal/ Parietal/ Old/ Median
/Primal or Primary are interchangeable alternatives when describing the ancient
'eye' or 'sense-organ.' "Third eye" is sometimes used although this is a
misnomer since the pineal-eye pre-dates our two 'lateral eyes.'
>

Okay: a vestigial proto eye or eye-like structure?

> >
> > > > While your account of the pineal gland in the hierarchy of species is
interesting, is it necessary at this point to provide an account of mind?
> > > >
>
>
> It happens to prove an account of mind.


Did you mean "provide"?


>  Why don't you think one is necessary? And if not what why are you wasting
your time on a list discussing the theory of mind? And my time replying to you.
>

I am actually interested in understanding how consciousness works in organisms
up to and including us. As to why you're "wasting your time" replying to me,
well that's your call. I read your earlier posts and thought I saw something
interesting though they raised some questions in my mind. I posted to present
those questions. If you don't want to answer them, or find it burdensome to do
so, then don't bother, I guess.

Frankly, I've had quite enough of prickly posters who just want to expound but
never deal with the questions and challenges to their assumptions and beliefs
that others may have.


> To be frank I am starting to get bored and remember now why I left academia.
The reason I made the film and published the book was so I didn't have to repeat
myself endlessly to successive waves of students. All of the points you raise
subsequently would be cleared up by diligent reference to the primal eye book or
the free videos.
>

Well if you just want to point me to your work elsewhere, that's all right. I
thought you wanted to present your thinking for some back and forth discussions
on the topic. I'll look at your summary if and when I get the chance. Maybe
it'll answer my questions. If not, then what the hey? No skin off your nose, or
mine.

SWM

> My latest thinking remains my own intellectual and commercial property, I
don't trust academia, and have never submitted my material to any academic
journal or any wank-fest conference. Will inform you all here when I publish
anything new, or you can check out http://posthuman.TV or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/posthuman/ or thestevenichols twitter
>
> All the best, Steve
> http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=690434973&ref=tn_tnmn
>

> > Ramachandran argued that the perception of being touched in different parts
of the phantom limb was the perceptual correlate of cortical reorganization in
the brain. However, research published in 1995 by Flor et al. demonstrated that
pain (rather than referred sensations) was the perceptual correlate of cortical
reorganization.[11] In 1996 Knecht et al. published an analysis of
Ramanchandran's theory that concluded that there was no topographic relationship
between referred sensations and cortical reorganization in the primary cortical
areas[12] Recent research by Flor et al. suggests that non-painful referred
sensations are correlated with a wide neural network outside the primary
cortical areas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb
> >
>
> Interesting. Where can I find your work on this?
>

free!
http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/phantom-eye-theory/17517381?productTrackingCon\
text=author_spotlight_343567_


> >
>
> Yes, but does being warm blooded mean being conscious while being cold blooded
doesn't?

Differently.

>As you've noted there are many cold blooded animals without the "third eye",
too. Yet, at a very basic level there is a form of consciousness to be found in
them. If not like ours, with our degree of awareness (of environment, history,
imagination, etc.), then surely at a basic level that isn't qualitatively
different. A reptile or amphibian seems quite able to feel pain as demonstrated
by its behaviors. And to possess and seek to satisfy basic wants. The same can
be said of many lower order animals though perhaps with less certainty.
Fishermen often deny that fish feel pain when you hook them! My instinct is to
say they certainly do, based on their behaviors, but then they are so different
than we are that they are hard to read. Nevertheless a fish is nothing like a
stone!
>
> >
> > >
> > > > > Why do we need an account of this atrophied organ to explain the fact
that the brain has abilities to "see" (and otherwise represent) without
corresponding stimuli outside it to trigger those representations? Isn't it much
simpler, and so more elegant (less offensive to Occam?), to simply recognize
that the brain is a naturally formed organ with many naturally occurring
glitches?
> > > > >
> >
> > I am not inventing "this atrophied organ" it existed in nature long before
me, or any other mammal, ever existed.
> >
>
> Sorry, I didn't intend to give the impression that I thought you were
inventing it but only that perhaps you are making more of it than it is. But
then again, that IS how human knowledge proceeds. People speculate, sometimes in
a seemingly outlandish way, and sometimes those speculations pay off in real
theories that predict!
>
>
> > If any theory of the evolution of brain and mind excludes an account of it,
then that theory is incomplete and flawed.
> >
>
> Why? Isn't the burden on you to show why the pineal gland matters in
accounting for consciousness? After all, the appendix is another vestigial organ
(though not associated with the brain, of course). Should we assume that it must
also be accounted for? Granted that the pineal gland, being associated with the
brain, poses a much more intriguing question for us in this matter, as you've
proposed. Still, is it enough to assume that it's role in the arrival of
consciousness in species was critical?
>
> Are you distinguishing types of consciousness here? If so, how? What lines do
you want to draw?
>

I agree with the real-time hypothesis, so only one type.

> > To airbrush it out just in case maybe it offends Quim and Davidson, or casts
doubt on Jesus or Allah and the promise of eternal afterlife, or isn't
observable in dead brains because it manifests in circuits or fields with energy
only, is to be scientifically negligent.
> >
>
> I think you make an interesting point that it's worth considering the pineal
gland here. But considering is not yet a full fledged theory and perhaps you are
making THAT jump prematurely?
>
> > If you have a better theory than mine as to why and how humanoids experience
dreams, please share.
> >
>
> I don't pretend to have a theory per se. But I think that a Dennettian model
of consciousness, that it's a function of information processing on an organic
computer-like platform, makes a lot of sense. Certainly it offers us a way of
understanding consciousness in purely physical terms. Nor is it necessarily at
odds with your claims though it also doesn't need your claim to be true for it
to turn out to be. That's why I think the onus is on you here to show why your
proposal is key.
>
>
> > > >
> > > > During ontogeny of the human and other mammals, at an early stage in
development, the pineal eye starts to form and then atrophies, recapitulating to
some extent the foregoing evolutionary history of the species.
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I'm not going to dispute that as I'm not knowledgeable about it.
> > > But seeing is part of what a working brain does and also a constituent of
our consciousness (though not an essential constituent, since being blind is not
a bar to being conscious) and my question was why do we need talk of a "third
eye" (an inner visualizer?) to account for consciousness? What role in the
occurrence of consciousness is played by the "third eye" (in this case its
absence qua the hole in the system)? Why not just look at how brains work
without postulating some as yet unilluminated mechanics set up by a brain system
compensating for the loss of its "third eye"? Occam seems especially relevant
here.
> > >
> >
> > You haven't read my Summary http://extropia.net/page3.html
> >
>
> I've only read what you've recently posted here.
>
> > First to clarify some terminology. The terms Pineal/ Parietal/ Old/ Median
/Primal or Primary are interchangeable alternatives when describing the ancient
'eye' or 'sense-organ.' "Third eye" is sometimes used although this is a
misnomer since the pineal-eye pre-dates our two 'lateral eyes.'
> >
>
> Okay: a vestigial proto eye or eye-like structure?
>
> > >
> > > > > While your account of the pineal gland in the hierarchy of species is
interesting, is it necessary at this point to provide an account of mind?
> > > > >

You see that is why I have given up with you. No matter how many times, and in
how big letters that I state that the pineal gland is not particularly
significant to my theory, that was Descartes' thing!

Front page, first paragraph in big italics http://extropia.net/

"Before going any further, because I have been asked to clarify this a thousand
times, the Pineal or Primal (predating the modern lateral eyes) or "Phantom eye"
is NOT the Pineal "gland"!



> >
> >
> > It happens to prove an account of mind.
>
>
> Did you mean "provide"?
>

The first interesting question that I've had from you:. Yes, originally it was a
typo for 'provide', and I was aware of it but liked the Freudian slip better, so
I left it in, a stronger assertion than my normal modest self would ever make.
"Proof" is open to several different interpretations:)

>
> >  Why don't you think one is necessary? And if not what why are you wasting
your time on a list discussing the theory of mind? And my time replying to you.
> >
>
> I am actually interested in understanding how consciousness works in organisms
up to and including us. As to why you're "wasting your time" replying to me,
well that's your call. I read your earlier posts and thought I saw something
interesting though they raised some questions in my mind. I posted to present
those questions. If you don't want to answer them, or find it burdensome to do
so, then don't bother, I guess.
>

You hadn't bothered even to read the first paragraph of the extropia.net site
that gives a summary of the research. Given your profound misunderstandings of
the theory and repeated insistence that is about the pineal "gland" there really
wasn't any discernible point to any of your questions.

>
> Well if you just want to point me to your work elsewhere, that's all right. I
thought you wanted to present your thinking for some back and forth discussions
on the topic. I'll look at your summary if and when I get the chance. Maybe
it'll answer my questions. If not, then what the hey? No skin off your nose, or
mine.
>

If you can afford to squander $2 the book download is better
http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/the-primal-eye/18650109?productTrackingContext\
=author_spotlight_343567_

Most of the main topics are covered in the free documentary at
http://posthuman.tv/page8.html

Steve
http://tsakli.org/shakyamuni.html

> SWM
>
> > My latest thinking remains my own intellectual and commercial property, I
don't trust academia, and have never submitted my material to any academic
journal or any wank-fest conference. Will inform you all here when I publish
anything new, or you can check out http://posthuman.TV or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/posthuman/ or thestevenichols twitter
> >
> > All the best, Steve
> > http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=690434973&ref=tn_tnmn
> >
>

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "ray scanlon" <rscan@...> wrote:
>
>
> It seems idle to advance an enigma as a solution to
> something as unknown as the relation of the soul to
> the mind. But people so it all the time.
>
> A far more likely candidate is the reticular formation.
> Here is enough mystery for a regiment of neuroscientists.
> The fundamental activities of life
>
> Are involved, respiration, heart beat, fear of death,
> sleep, striving for life itself. If there is any place
> in the brain for the soul, it is here.

> The pineal gland was advanced by Descartes as the seat
> of the soul, leave it be.


I presume this is the kind of thing you are making
reference to?

A thalamic reticular networking model of consciousness.

http://www.tbiomed.com/content/7/1/10

I see that as one more piece in the puzzle, part of
many clues such as the unity of consciousness being
suggestive of an integration process,

Information integration theory of consciousness.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC543470/

I suspect the answer, if one is possible, will arise
from new discoveries about the brain and not from
armchair fantasies based on our current understanding
of the brain.

JohnC

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "jgkjcasey" <jgkjcasey@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "ray scanlon" <rscan@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > It seems idle to advance an enigma as a solution to
> > something as unknown as the relation of the soul to
> > the mind. But people so it all the time.
> >
> > A far more likely candidate is the reticular formation.
> > Here is enough mystery for a regiment of neuroscientists.
> > The fundamental activities of life
> >
> > Are involved, respiration, heart beat, fear of death,
> > sleep, striving for life itself. If there is any place
> > in the brain for the soul, it is here.
>
> > The pineal gland was advanced by Descartes as the seat
> > of the soul, leave it be.
>
>
> I presume this is the kind of thing you are making
> reference to?
>
> A thalamic reticular networking model of consciousness.
>
> http://www.tbiomed.com/content/7/1/10
>
Not really. This paper references tha thalamic reticular nucleus that I see as
intimately connected with intelligence.

I refer to the reticular formation which I think more involved with
the soul and thus conciousness.

> see that as one more piece in the puzzle, part of
> many clues such as the unity of consciousness being
> suggestive of an integration process,
>
> Information integration theory of consciousness.
>
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC543470/
>
> I suspect the answer, if one is possible, will arise
> from new discoveries about the brain and not from
> armchair fantasies based on our current understanding
> of the brain.
>
> JohnC
>

Some people simply don't want any solutions to be found.

If you have been following the conversation or read any of my work at all you
might realize there is no " place in the brain for the soul".

Activity in the brain is massively distributed. The primal eye (not gland, yawn)
is instantiated from neuronal information and has no spatial location, unlike
the reticular formation, which like the pineal gland identification, falls to
Leibniz objections and other objections against mind/brain dualism.

Steve

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "ray scanlon" <rscan@...> wrote:
>
> It seems idle to advance an enigma as a solution to something as unknown as
> the relation of the soul to the mind. But people so it all the time.
>
> A far more likely candidate is the reticular formation. Here is enough
> mystery for a regiment of neuroscientists. The fundamental activities of
> life
>
> Are involved, respiration, heart beat, fear of death, sleep, striving for
> life itself. If there is any place in the brain for the soul, it is here
>
> The pineal gland was advanced by Descartes as the seat of the soul, leave it
> be.
>
>
>
> Ray
>
>
>
> From: ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com]
> On Behalf Of hodossphaenodon
> Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 6:29 PM
> To: ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [ai-philosophy] Re: Why I think Davidson is irrelevent
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > > Ramachandran argued that the perception of being touched in different
> parts of the phantom limb was the perceptual correlate of cortical
> reorganization in the brain. However, research published in 1995 by Flor et
> al. demonstrated that pain (rather than referred sensations) was the
> perceptual correlate of cortical reorganization.[11] In 1996 Knecht et al.
> published an analysis of Ramanchandran's theory that concluded that there
> was no topographic relationship between referred sensations and cortical
> reorganization in the primary cortical areas[12] Recent research by Flor et
> al. suggests that non-painful referred sensations are correlated with a wide
> neural network outside the primary cortical areas.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb
> > >
> >
> > Interesting. Where can I find your work on this?
> >
>
> free!
> http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/phantom-eye-theory/17517381?productTrackin
> gContext=author_spotlight_343567_
>
> > >
> >
> > Yes, but does being warm blooded mean being conscious while being cold
> blooded doesn't?
>
> Differently.
>
> >As you've noted there are many cold blooded animals without the "third
> eye", too. Yet, at a very basic level there is a form of consciousness to be
> found in them. If not like ours, with our degree of awareness (of
> environment, history, imagination, etc.), then surely at a basic level that
> isn't qualitatively different. A reptile or amphibian seems quite able to
> feel pain as demonstrated by its behaviors. And to possess and seek to
> satisfy basic wants. The same can be said of many lower order animals though
> perhaps with less certainty. Fishermen often deny that fish feel pain when
> you hook them! My instinct is to say they certainly do, based on their
> behaviors, but then they are so different than we are that they are hard to
> read. Nevertheless a fish is nothing like a stone!
> >
> > >
> > > >
> > > > > > Why do we need an account of this atrophied organ to explain the
> fact that the brain has abilities to "see" (and otherwise represent) without
> corresponding stimuli outside it to trigger those representations? Isn't it
> much simpler, and so more elegant (less offensive to Occam?), to simply
> recognize that the brain is a naturally formed organ with many naturally
> occurring glitches?
> > > > > >
> > >
> > > I am not inventing "this atrophied organ" it existed in nature long
> before me, or any other mammal, ever existed.
> > >
> >
> > Sorry, I didn't intend to give the impression that I thought you were
> inventing it but only that perhaps you are making more of it than it is. But
> then again, that IS how human knowledge proceeds. People speculate,
> sometimes in a seemingly outlandish way, and sometimes those speculations
> pay off in real theories that predict!
> >
> >
> > > If any theory of the evolution of brain and mind excludes an account of
> it, then that theory is incomplete and flawed.
> > >
> >
> > Why? Isn't the burden on you to show why the pineal gland matters in
> accounting for consciousness? After all, the appendix is another vestigial
> organ (though not associated with the brain, of course). Should we assume
> that it must also be accounted for? Granted that the pineal gland, being
> associated with the brain, poses a much more intriguing question for us in
> this matter, as you've proposed. Still, is it enough to assume that it's
> role in the arrival of consciousness in species was critical?
> >
> > Are you distinguishing types of consciousness here? If so, how? What lines
> do you want to draw?
> >
>
> I agree with the real-time hypothesis, so only one type.
>
> > > To airbrush it out just in case maybe it offends Quim and Davidson, or
> casts doubt on Jesus or Allah and the promise of eternal afterlife, or isn't
> observable in dead brains because it manifests in circuits or fields with
> energy only, is to be scientifically negligent.
> > >
> >
> > I think you make an interesting point that it's worth considering the
> pineal gland here. But considering is not yet a full fledged theory and
> perhaps you are making THAT jump prematurely?
> >
> > > If you have a better theory than mine as to why and how humanoids
> experience dreams, please share.
> > >
> >
> > I don't pretend to have a theory per se. But I think that a Dennettian
> model of consciousness, that it's a function of information processing on an
> organic computer-like platform, makes a lot of sense. Certainly it offers us
> a way of understanding consciousness in purely physical terms. Nor is it
> necessarily at odds with your claims though it also doesn't need your claim
> to be true for it to turn out to be. That's why I think the onus is on you
> here to show why your proposal is key.
> >
> >
> > > > >
> > > > > During ontogeny of the human and other mammals, at an early stage in
> development, the pineal eye starts to form and then atrophies,
> recapitulating to some extent the foregoing evolutionary history of the
> species.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I'm not going to dispute that as I'm not knowledgeable about it.
> > > > But seeing is part of what a working brain does and also a constituent
> of our consciousness (though not an essential constituent, since being blind
> is not a bar to being conscious) and my question was why do we need talk of
> a "third eye" (an inner visualizer?) to account for consciousness? What role
> in the occurrence of consciousness is played by the "third eye" (in this
> case its absence qua the hole in the system)? Why not just look at how
> brains work without postulating some as yet unilluminated mechanics set up
> by a brain system compensating for the loss of its "third eye"? Occam seems
> especially relevant here.
> > > >
> > >
> > > You haven't read my Summary http://extropia.net/page3.html
> > >
> >
> > I've only read what you've recently posted here.
> >
> > > First to clarify some terminology. The terms Pineal/ Parietal/ Old/
> Median /Primal or Primary are interchangeable alternatives when describing
> the ancient 'eye' or 'sense-organ.' "Third eye" is sometimes used although
> this is a misnomer since the pineal-eye pre-dates our two 'lateral eyes.'
> > >
> >
> > Okay: a vestigial proto eye or eye-like structure?
> >
> > > >
> > > > > > While your account of the pineal gland in the hierarchy of species
> is interesting, is it necessary at this point to provide an account of mind?
>
> > > > > >
>
> You see that is why I have given up with you. No matter how many times, and
> in how big letters that I state that the pineal gland is not particularly
> significant to my theory, that was Descartes' thing!
>
> Front page, first paragraph in big italics http://extropia.net/
>
> "Before going any further, because I have been asked to clarify this a
> thousand times, the Pineal or Primal (predating the modern lateral eyes) or
> "Phantom eye" is NOT the Pineal "gland"!
>
> > >
> > >
> > > It happens to prove an account of mind.
> >
> >
> > Did you mean "provide"?
> >
>
> The first interesting question that I've had from you:. Yes, originally it
> was a typo for 'provide', and I was aware of it but liked the Freudian slip
> better, so I left it in, a stronger assertion than my normal modest self
> would ever make. "Proof" is open to several different interpretations:)
>
> >
> > > Why don't you think one is necessary? And if not what why are you
> wasting your time on a list discussing the theory of mind? And my time
> replying to you.
> > >
> >
> > I am actually interested in understanding how consciousness works in
> organisms up to and including us. As to why you're "wasting your time"
> replying to me, well that's your call. I read your earlier posts and thought
> I saw something interesting though they raised some questions in my mind. I
> posted to present those questions. If you don't want to answer them, or find
> it burdensome to do so, then don't bother, I guess.
> >
>
> You hadn't bothered even to read the first paragraph of the extropia.net
> site that gives a summary of the research. Given your profound
> misunderstandings of the theory and repeated insistence that is about the
> pineal "gland" there really wasn't any discernible point to any of your
> questions.
>
> >
> > Well if you just want to point me to your work elsewhere, that's all
> right. I thought you wanted to present your thinking for some back and forth
> discussions on the topic. I'll look at your summary if and when I get the
> chance. Maybe it'll answer my questions. If not, then what the hey? No skin
> off your nose, or mine.
> >
>
> If you can afford to squander $2 the book download is better
> http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/the-primal-eye/18650109?productTrackingCon
> text=author_spotlight_343567_
>
> Most of the main topics are covered in the free documentary at
> http://posthuman.tv/page8.html
>
> Steve
> http://tsakli.org/shakyamuni.html
>
> > SWM
> >
> > > My latest thinking remains my own intellectual and commercial property,
> I don't trust academia, and have never submitted my material to any academic
> journal or any wank-fest conference. Will inform you all here when I publish
> anything new, or you can check out http://posthuman.TV or
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/posthuman/ or thestevenichols twitter
> > >
> > > All the best, Steve
> > > http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=690434973
> <http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=690434973&ref=tn_tnmn> &ref=tn_tnmn
> > >
> >
>

What is this "soul" exactly?

Perhaps Jesus is hiding inside your head somewhere?

Steve

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "scanlonray" <rscan@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "jgkjcasey" <jgkjcasey@> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "ray scanlon" <rscan@> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > It seems idle to advance an enigma as a solution to
> > > something as unknown as the relation of the soul to
> > > the mind. But people so it all the time.
> > >
> > > A far more likely candidate is the reticular formation.
> > > Here is enough mystery for a regiment of neuroscientists.
> > > The fundamental activities of life
> > >
> > > Are involved, respiration, heart beat, fear of death,
> > > sleep, striving for life itself. If there is any place
> > > in the brain for the soul, it is here.
> >
> > > The pineal gland was advanced by Descartes as the seat
> > > of the soul, leave it be.
> >
> >
> > I presume this is the kind of thing you are making
> > reference to?
> >
> > A thalamic reticular networking model of consciousness.
> >
> > http://www.tbiomed.com/content/7/1/10
> >
> Not really. This paper references tha thalamic reticular nucleus that I see as
intimately connected with intelligence.
>
> I refer to the reticular formation which I think more involved with
> the soul and thus conciousness.
>
> > see that as one more piece in the puzzle, part of
> > many clues such as the unity of consciousness being
> > suggestive of an integration process,
> >
> > Information integration theory of consciousness.
> >
> > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC543470/
> >
> > I suspect the answer, if one is possible, will arise
> > from new discoveries about the brain and not from
> > armchair fantasies based on our current understanding
> > of the brain.
> >
> > JohnC
> >
>

hodossphaenodon wrote:


  >[SWM] While your account of the pineal gland in the hierarchy of
  >species is interesting, is it necessary at this point to provide an
  >account of mind?

  >You see that is why I have given up with you. No matter how many times,
  >and in how big letters that I state that the pineal gland is not
  >particularly significant to my theory, that was Descartes' thing!

  >Front page, first paragraph in big italics http://extropia.net/

  >"Before going any further, because I have been asked to clarify this a
  >thousand times, the Pineal or Primal (predating the modern lateral
  >eyes) or "Phantom eye" is NOT the Pineal "gland"!

I take it from your website and your reply to Stuart that this is sort
of a hot-button issue; and, I'm wondering why. it seems natural to infer
that there is *some* sort of relation between the pineal eye and the
pineal gland.


  >If you can afford to squander $2 the book download is better
 
>http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/the-primal-eye/18650109?productTrackingContex\
t=author_spotlight_343567_

thanks for the link. I've downloaded a copy; but, it will be a while
before I get thru it.

meanwhile, I'm wondering if you'd clarify something. it is said that the
pineal gland is a vestigal organ that has atrophied over time. however,
AFAICS, that view was already old when magnetite was discovered in the
pineal gland; and, that view (functioning in the role of 'conventional
wisdom') seems to have prevented serious consideration of the
possibility that the pineal gland may be sensitive to ambient magnetic
fields.

suppose that scientists eventually confirm that the pineal *gland* is
sensitive to ambient magnetic fields. would such a finding have any
effect on your theory concerning the pineal *eye*.

Joe


--

Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware

@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
        http://what-am-i.net
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@

Hi Joe

>  >You see that is why I have given up with you. No matter how many times,
>  >and in how big letters that I state that the pineal gland is not
>  >particularly significant to my theory, that was Descartes' thing!
>
>  >Front page, first paragraph in big italics http://extropia.net/
>
>  >"Before going any further, because I have been asked to clarify this a
>  >thousand times, the Pineal or Primal (predating the modern lateral
>  >eyes) or "Phantom eye" is NOT the Pineal "gland"!
>
> I take it from your website and your reply to Stuart that this is sort
> of a hot-button issue; and, I'm wondering why. it seems natural to infer
> that there is *some* sort of relation between the pineal eye and the
> pineal gland.
>

For a long time following Galen and Descartes only the gland was studied because
- of course - the eye was more or less unknown (discovered as late as 1822 from
memory), and often the two were conflated. Of course there is quite a lot of
common history since the gland and eye were attached.

The main reason that it is not critical to my theory is that it bears a similar
relation to the phantom eye as the stump of an arm bears to a phantom hand, or
the leg stump to a phantom foot. The phantom hand would still be present even if
amputated higher up the arm or leg.

So it is with the pineal gland, even if it is entirely removed. In fact surgical
pinealectomy or calcification of the pineal gland often results in little
impairment to mental functioning, which I think is because brain processing is
massively parallel and distributed, and the phantom pineal eye does not depend
for its existence on the presence of the cellular pineal gland.

The crucial philosophical point is that 'like can only interact with like' and
to be fully identical, both subjectivity and subject should be "fully
interchangeable". This can only happen if both are comprised of neuronal
information, and is not possible if one is cellular and the other not. That is
the reason Descartes pineal gland model of consciousness fails, and it applies
equally to various brain-mind identity theories such as the reticular formation
identification with consciousness, or indeed any other part of the brain. The
primal eye is the only candidate because it is the only brain structure that has
been entirely lost (in mammals). Hope that clarifies for you?



>
>  >If you can afford to squander $2 the book download is better
> 
>http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/the-primal-eye/18650109?productTrackingContex\
t=author_spotlight_343567_
>
> thanks for the link. I've downloaded a copy; but, it will be a while
> before I get thru it.
>
> meanwhile, I'm wondering if you'd clarify something. it is said that the
> pineal gland is a vestigal organ that has atrophied over time. however,
> AFAICS, that view was already old when magnetite was discovered in the
> pineal gland; and, that view (functioning in the role of 'conventional
> wisdom') seems to have prevented serious consideration of the
> possibility that the pineal gland may be sensitive to ambient magnetic
> fields.
>
> suppose that scientists eventually confirm that the pineal *gland* is
> sensitive to ambient magnetic fields. would such a finding have any
> effect on your theory concerning the pineal *eye*.
>

The pineal gland is interesting and has importance in several ways, cite Arendt
who was at Surrey, and many later studies. The E1 and E2 complex taken together
does involve very many processes, and recently the gland has had attention since
it is not considered quite as 'vestigal' as once thought.

"Migratory birds, as well as many other animals, are able to sense the magnetic
field of the earth, but how do they do it? "A fascinating possibility is that
they may actually see the earth's magnetic lines as patterns of color or light
intensity superimposed on their visual surroundings," said John B. Phillips of
Blacksburg, associate professor of biology at Virginia Tech. The results of more
than two decades of research allow him to let such an image cross his mind.

A paper in the May 13 issue of Nature, "Resonance effects indicate a
radical-pair mechanism for avian magnetic compass," reports evidence that the
earth's magnetic field is sensed by light-absorbing molecules in the retina of a
bird's' eye.

Thorsten Ritz, a postdoctoral associate in the Phillips' lab at Virginia Tech
who is now a faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the
University of California, Irvine, co-authored the paper with Peter Thalau of the
Zoologisches Institut, Fachbereich Biologie und Informatik, at J.W. Goethe
University, Siesmayerstrasse, John Phillips of Virginia Tech, and Roswitha
Wiltschko and Wolfgang Wiltschko, also of J.W. Goethe University.

Any effect of the earth's magnetic field on a photoreceptor's response to light
is expected to be extraordinarily weak -- so weak in fact that the possibility
of such effects have been largely ignored. But animals have developed
specialized visual systems. "Some animals can see ultraviolet light. Some
animals can see polarized light," Phillips said.

How animals' nervous systems become adapted to detect different things is the
subject of Phillips' research. "As a biologist interested in specialized sensory
systems, the question of whether photoreceptors have become specialized for
detection of the earths' magnetic field is a fascinating topic," he said.

Asking the question: "Are magnetic sensing and light sensing related?" Phillip's
lab has conducted research that has demonstrated that the magnetic "compass"
sense involves a light-dependent mechanism in some animals. In earlier papers
published in Nature, Phillips' lab showed that changing the color of light
altered directional information obtained from the magnetic compass in
amphibians, and that the photoreceptors responsible were not located in the
eyes, but in the pineal organ, or "third eye," located on top of the head.

For a photoreceptor to detect light, a molecule, referred to as a photopigment,
has to absorb light, Phillips said. Light energy then starts a series of
biochemical events that result in a change in the electrical charge across the
cell membrane. This neural impulse can then be communicated to other cells in
the nervous system.

Several theoretical models, including models proposed by lead author Thorsten
Ritz and his Ph.D. advisor Klaus Schulten at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, have suggested ways in which the magnetic field can interact
with a photopigment to divert energy and make the photoreceptor more or less
responsive to light, Phillips said. These changes in the response to light may
depend on the alignment of the earth's magnetic field relative to the
photopigment molecules in the eye, producing a "visual" pattern that could be
used to obtain directional ("compass") information from the magnetic field, he
said.

Although the earlier studies by Phillips' lab and others indicated that birds
and amphibians' magnetic compass involves a light-dependent magnetic detector,
these findings did not provide convincing evidence that the magnetic field was
having a direct effect on the energy states of the photopigment molecules, as
suggested in the models by Ritz and Schulten. An alternative suggested by other
investigators is that the magnetic field might affect particles of the mineral
magnetite, synthesized by living systems, which act like miniature compass
needles.

The new experiments reported in the May 13 issue of Nature took advantage of the
fact that migratory birds held in "orientation cages" during their normal
seasonal migrations use the magnetic field as a source of compass information to
hop in the appropriate migratory direction. To distinguish between the
photoreceptor and magnetite mechanisms, European robins orienting to the north
during the Spring migration were exposed to low-level radio frequencies
predicted to disrupt the energy states of any light-absorbing molecules involved
in sensing the magnetic field. In the presence of the radio frequency fields,
the robins were unable to orient with respect to the magnetic field. This effect
was also shown to depend on the alignment of the radio frequency field relative
to the earth's magnetic field, a further prediction of Ritz and Schulten's
model. Alternative mechanisms that involve the alignment of magnetite particles,
rather than changes in the energy states of molecules within these particles,
would not be affected by the low-level radio frequency fields used in these
experiments.

"This is the first data to show that an effect of the magnetic field on energy
states of a molecule is the basis of the magnetic compass," Phillips said. "The
importance of this finding extends beyond this field of research, because it
suggests that interactions much weaker than any thought to be possible in living
systems are playing an important role in the behavior of these animals".

Virginia Tech researchers are currently carrying out related experiments to
characterize the biophysical basis of the magnetic compass in insects,
amphibians, and mice."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-05/vt-bev051304.php

Steve

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "scanlonray" <rscan@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "jgkjcasey" <jgkjcasey@> wrote:

> > I presume this is the kind of thing you are making
> > reference to?
> >
> > A thalamic reticular networking model of consciousness.
> >
> > http://www.tbiomed.com/content/7/1/10
> >
> Not really. This paper references tha thalamic reticular nucleus that I see as
intimately connected with intelligence.
>
> I refer to the reticular formation which I think more involved with
> the soul and thus conciousness.

The reticular system maintains the degree of arousal but I wouldn't see it at
the seat of consciousness. My understanding was it was activated by sudden
changes in the sensory input to get the rest of the brain working and paying
close attention to the current input. However brains with an advanced cortex can
activate the activator to maintain a state of awareness. The reticular system
seems more like a volume control of the brain's activity rather than a seat of
consciousness.

JohnC

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "hodossphaenodon" <bunny5000@...> wrote:
>
>
> > > Ramachandran argued that the perception of being touched in different
parts of the phantom limb was the perceptual correlate of cortical
reorganization in the brain. However, research published in 1995 by Flor et al.
demonstrated that pain (rather than referred sensations) was the perceptual
correlate of cortical reorganization.[11] In 1996 Knecht et al. published an
analysis of Ramanchandran's theory that concluded that there was no topographic
relationship between referred sensations and cortical reorganization in the
primary cortical areas[12] Recent research by Flor et al. suggests that
non-painful referred sensations are correlated with a wide neural network
outside the primary cortical areas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb
> > >
> >
> > Interesting. Where can I find your work on this?
> >
>
> free!
http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/phantom-eye-theory/17517381?productTrackingCon\
text=author_spotlight_343567_
>
>
> > >
> >
> > Yes, but does being warm blooded mean being conscious while being cold
blooded doesn't?
>
> Differently.
>
> >As you've noted there are many cold blooded animals without the "third eye",
too. Yet, at a very basic level there is a form of consciousness to be found in
them. If not like ours, with our degree of awareness (of environment, history,
imagination, etc.), then surely at a basic level that isn't qualitatively
different. A reptile or amphibian seems quite able to feel pain as demonstrated
by its behaviors. And to possess and seek to satisfy basic wants. The same can
be said of many lower order animals though perhaps with less certainty.
Fishermen often deny that fish feel pain when you hook them! My instinct is to
say they certainly do, based on their behaviors, but then they are so different
than we are that they are hard to read. Nevertheless a fish is nothing like a
stone!
> >
> > >
> > > >
> > > > > > Why do we need an account of this atrophied organ to explain the
fact that the brain has abilities to "see" (and otherwise represent) without
corresponding stimuli outside it to trigger those representations? Isn't it much
simpler, and so more elegant (less offensive to Occam?), to simply recognize
that the brain is a naturally formed organ with many naturally occurring
glitches?
> > > > > >
> > >
> > > I am not inventing "this atrophied organ" it existed in nature long before
me, or any other mammal, ever existed.
> > >
> >
> > Sorry, I didn't intend to give the impression that I thought you were
inventing it but only that perhaps you are making more of it than it is. But
then again, that IS how human knowledge proceeds. People speculate, sometimes in
a seemingly outlandish way, and sometimes those speculations pay off in real
theories that predict!
> >
> >
> > > If any theory of the evolution of brain and mind excludes an account of
it, then that theory is incomplete and flawed.
> > >
> >
> > Why? Isn't the burden on you to show why the pineal gland matters in
accounting for consciousness? After all, the appendix is another vestigial organ
(though not associated with the brain, of course). Should we assume that it must
also be accounted for? Granted that the pineal gland, being associated with the
brain, poses a much more intriguing question for us in this matter, as you've
proposed. Still, is it enough to assume that it's role in the arrival of
consciousness in species was critical?
> >
> > Are you distinguishing types of consciousness here? If so, how? What lines
do you want to draw?
> >
>
> I agree with the real-time hypothesis, so only one type.
>
> > > To airbrush it out just in case maybe it offends Quim and Davidson, or
casts doubt on Jesus or Allah and the promise of eternal afterlife, or isn't
observable in dead brains because it manifests in circuits or fields with energy
only, is to be scientifically negligent.
> > >
> >
> > I think you make an interesting point that it's worth considering the pineal
gland here. But considering is not yet a full fledged theory and perhaps you are
making THAT jump prematurely?
> >
> > > If you have a better theory than mine as to why and how humanoids
experience dreams, please share.
> > >
> >
> > I don't pretend to have a theory per se. But I think that a Dennettian model
of consciousness, that it's a function of information processing on an organic
computer-like platform, makes a lot of sense. Certainly it offers us a way of
understanding consciousness in purely physical terms. Nor is it necessarily at
odds with your claims though it also doesn't need your claim to be true for it
to turn out to be. That's why I think the onus is on you here to show why your
proposal is key.
> >
> >
> > > > >
> > > > > During ontogeny of the human and other mammals, at an early stage in
development, the pineal eye starts to form and then atrophies, recapitulating to
some extent the foregoing evolutionary history of the species.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I'm not going to dispute that as I'm not knowledgeable about it.
> > > > But seeing is part of what a working brain does and also a constituent
of our consciousness (though not an essential constituent, since being blind is
not a bar to being conscious) and my question was why do we need talk of a
"third eye" (an inner visualizer?) to account for consciousness? What role in
the occurrence of consciousness is played by the "third eye" (in this case its
absence qua the hole in the system)? Why not just look at how brains work
without postulating some as yet unilluminated mechanics set up by a brain system
compensating for the loss of its "third eye"? Occam seems especially relevant
here.
> > > >
> > >
> > > You haven't read my Summary http://extropia.net/page3.html
> > >
> >
> > I've only read what you've recently posted here.
> >
> > > First to clarify some terminology. The terms Pineal/ Parietal/ Old/ Median
/Primal or Primary are interchangeable alternatives when describing the ancient
'eye' or 'sense-organ.' "Third eye" is sometimes used although this is a
misnomer since the pineal-eye pre-dates our two 'lateral eyes.'
> > >
> >
> > Okay: a vestigial proto eye or eye-like structure?
> >
> > > >
> > > > > > While your account of the pineal gland in the hierarchy of species
is interesting, is it necessary at this point to provide an account of mind?
> > > > > >
>
> You see that is why I have given up with you. No matter how many times, and in
how big letters that I state that the pineal gland is not particularly
significant to my theory, that was Descartes' thing!
>

Well you brought in the "pineal gland", not I.


> Front page, first paragraph in big italics http://extropia.net/
>
> "Before going any further, because I have been asked to clarify this a
thousand times, the Pineal or Primal (predating the modern lateral eyes) or
"Phantom eye" is NOT the Pineal "gland"!
>


If you'be been "asked to clarify this a thousand times" then maybe the problem
is bringing it into the mix in the first place? Or something unclear about the
way you've introduced it?


>
>
> > >
> > >
> > > It happens to prove an account of mind.
> >
> >
> > Did you mean "provide"?
> >
>
> The first interesting question that I've had from you:. Yes, originally it was
a typo for 'provide', and I was aware of it but liked the Freudian slip better,
so I left it in, a stronger assertion than my normal modest self would ever
make. "Proof" is open to several different interpretations:)
>

So you meant "prove" and go on to say "proof" has more than one meaning? Then
shouldn't you have elaborated on the meaning you had in mind? After all, there's
a reason it sounds odd to read that sentence. How do you think your thesis about
the "third eye" (from which the pineal gland we have today is descended -- is
that a fair way to put this?) "proves" an account of mind? What is to be proved?
That mind is real? That it's what you say it is? The reason "proved" struck me
as a typo (which you acknowledge it initially was) is that it makes an odd
point. Certainly any account of what mind amounts to wants something more than a
deductive proof and if you're after an empirical one then what needs to be
proved is the role of the "third eye" mechanism in the production of
consciousness, no? And while I've said from the outset that I think it's an
interesting speculation, thus far it seems to be little more than that. I
wouldn't dismiss it out of hand but I think there are better and cleaner ways to
account for mind as of now -- though all await empirical results to see if the
proposed mechanisms work as advertised.


> >
> > >  Why don't you think one is necessary? And if not what why are you wasting
your time on a list discussing the theory of mind? And my time replying to you.
> > >
> >
> > I am actually interested in understanding how consciousness works in
organisms up to and including us. As to why you're "wasting your time" replying
to me, well that's your call. I read your earlier posts and thought I saw
something interesting though they raised some questions in my mind. I posted to
present those questions. If you don't want to answer them, or find it burdensome
to do so, then don't bother, I guess.
> >
>
> You hadn't bothered even to read the first paragraph of the extropia.net site
that gives a summary of the research. Given your profound misunderstandings of
the theory and repeated insistence that is about the pineal "gland" there really
wasn't any discernible point to any of your questions.
>

Have it your own way. You don't need to respond to me, if you feel that way. I'm
not committed to a long term dialogue here in any case.


> >
> > Well if you just want to point me to your work elsewhere, that's all right.
I thought you wanted to present your thinking for some back and forth
discussions on the topic. I'll look at your summary if and when I get the
chance. Maybe it'll answer my questions. If not, then what the hey? No skin off
your nose, or mine.
> >
>
> If you can afford to squander $2 the book download is better
http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/the-primal-eye/18650109?productTrackingContext\
=author_spotlight_343567_
>
> Most of the main topics are covered in the free documentary at
> http://posthuman.tv/page8.html
>
> Steve
> http://tsakli.org/shakyamuni.html
>

I'd want to be more comfortable that you were doing more than just providing an
apologia of sorts for a particular mystical perspective, which a cursory glance
at your website seems to suggest. For the record, I'm a former practicing Zen
Buddhist who gave it up a while back so I'm not unfamiliar with the kind of
thinking you seem to be interested in explicating in a possibly scientific way.
I don't dismiss the possiblity that your thesis could be true but it looks a
little too much like special pleading for Eastern ways of thinking about mind to
me at this point to be purely scientific. But I've an open mind, despite that.

SWM


> > SWM
> >
> > > My latest thinking remains my own intellectual and commercial property, I
don't trust academia, and have never submitted my material to any academic
journal or any wank-fest conference. Will inform you all here when I publish
anything new, or you can check out http://posthuman.TV or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/posthuman/ or thestevenichols twitter
> > >
> > > All the best, Steve
> > > http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=690434973&ref=tn_tnmn
> > >
> >
>

> >
>
> So you meant "prove" and go on to say "proof" has more than one meaning? Then
shouldn't you have elaborated on the meaning you had in mind? After all, there's
a reason it sounds odd to read that sentence. How do you think your thesis about
the "third eye" (from which the pineal gland we have today is descended -- is
that a fair way to put this?) "proves" an account of mind? What is to be proved?
That mind is real? That it's what you say it is? The reason "proved" struck me
as a typo (which you acknowledge it initially was) is that it makes an odd
point. Certainly any account of what mind amounts to wants something more than a
deductive proof and if you're after an empirical one then what needs to be
proved is the role of the "third eye" mechanism in the production of
consciousness, no? And while I've said from the outset that I think it's an
interesting speculation, thus far it seems to be little more than that. I
wouldn't dismiss it out of hand but I think there are better and cleaner ways to
account for mind as of now -- though all await empirical results to see if >the
proposed mechanisms work as advertised.

Any account of mind must overcome Leibniz objection against dualism.

I have been thinking about an experimental proof, which will be in the new book,
and that is why I left it.


>
> I'd want to be more comfortable that you were doing more than just providing
an apologia of sorts for a particular mystical perspective, which a cursory
glance at your website seems to suggest. For the record, I'm a former practicing
Zen Buddhist who gave it up a while back so I'm not unfamiliar with the kind of
thinking you seem to be interested in explicating in a possibly scientific way.
I don't dismiss the possiblity that your thesis could be true but it looks a
little too much like special pleading for Eastern ways of thinking about mind to
me at this point to be purely scientific. But I've an open mind, despite that.
>

Yes, I work as a psychotherapist and also sell antiquarian books and tsakli
paintings, as well as publish various games. But I don't bring any tarot cards
or buddhist ideas into the theory, they just happen to be things I am interested
in and currently publish, and don't really know why you think they form part of
the theory? I thought this it was obvious they do not. Here are some more
websites of special interest that I publish, perhaps you will try to confuse all
these topics with Phantom eye theory as well:)

http://stores.ebay.com/Knightsbridge-Antiquarian
http://chaturanga.com
http://shogi.co.uk
http://ericksonian.co.uk
http://enochianchess.com
http://88taro.com
http://enochia.net
http://jungian.org

Steve

hodossphaenodon wrote:

  >Yes I was aware of the magnetic sensitivity, it seemingly has to do
  >with migration, and indeed probably has indirect significance.

  >"Migratory birds, as well as many other animals, are able to sense the
  >magnetic field of the earth, but how do they do it? "A fascinating
  >possibility is that they may actually see the earth's magnetic lines as
  >patterns of color or light intensity superimposed on their visual
  >surroundings," said John B. Phillips of Blacksburg, associate professor
  >of biology at Virginia Tech. The results of more than two decades of
  >research allow him to let such an image cross his mind.

  >A paper in the May 13 issue of Nature, "Resonance effects indicate a
  >radical-pair mechanism for avian magnetic compass," reports evidence
  >that the earth's magnetic field is sensed by light-absorbing molecules
  >in the retina of a bird's' eye.

one interesting aspect of recent research concerning the avian magnetic
compass is that the radical-pair mechanism requires postulating the
involvement of a certain quantum effect, the quantum zeno effect, to
slow down the chemical reaction time enough to allow ambient magnetic
fields to affect it.

[Side Bar: DARPA has taken note of this. Here's a link to a page
relating to a conference on QuBE (DARPA-speak for Quantum Effects in a
Biological Environment):
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=f33d12cf924cf2df4cfd8228f54\
b5005&tab=core&_cview=0]

Another interesting aspect of current research, a spin off of research
in birds, concerns the chemical basis for magneto-reception:
cryptochrome.

humans have a version of this chemical. while it is not yet known
whether it is related to human magnetic sensitivity, researchers have
shown that the human version will restore magnetic sensitivity in flies
that were engineered to be deficient in endogenous cryptochrome.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110621121319.htm

Joe


--

Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware

@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
        http://what-am-i.net
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@

I think this a profound misunderstanding of the position of the reticular
formation in the scheme of life. The reticular formation makes the sleep-wake
cycle. It puts the brain to sleep, and utilising the thalamic reticular nucleus
to halt incoming sensory information it causes dreaming. When it deems the time
has come, it awakens the brain. This is not due to sensory input but to the
genome. The soul and the genome are entwined.

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "jgkjcasey" <jgkjcasey@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "scanlonray" <rscan@> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "jgkjcasey" <jgkjcasey@> wrote:
>
> > > I presume this is the kind of thing you are making
> > > reference to?
> > >
> > > A thalamic reticular networking model of consciousness.
> > >
> > > http://www.tbiomed.com/content/7/1/10
> > >
> > Not really. This paper references tha thalamic reticular nucleus that I see
as intimately connected with intelligence.
> >
> > I refer to the reticular formation which I think more involved with
> > the soul and thus conciousness.
>
> The reticular system maintains the degree of arousal but I wouldn't see it at
the seat of consciousness. My understanding was it was activated by sudden
changes in the sensory input to get the rest of the brain working and paying
close attention to the current input. However brains with an advanced cortex can
activate the activator to maintain a state of awareness. The reticular system
seems more like a volume control of the brain's activity rather than a seat of
consciousness.

It does not maintain the degree of arousal, it causes arousal.
It has been hypothesized that the retricular formation is the original
pre-vertebrate brain.

>
> JohnC
>

Hi
>
> I think this a profound misunderstanding of the position of the reticular
formation in the scheme of life. The reticular formation makes the sleep-wake
cycle. It puts the brain to sleep, and utilising the thalamic reticular nucleus
to halt incoming sensory information it causes dreaming. When it deems the time
has come, it awakens the brain. This is not due to sensory input but to the
genome. The soul >and the genome are entwined.

"The reticular formation consists of more than 100 small neural networks
[wiki]."

The reticular functions are all pretty low-levels of consciousness, it doesn't
seem involved with language or visual processing and any higher level types of
mentation.

Seems to me it is essentially a relay system. Crucial for functioning, yes. But
not where very much processing happens. In hardware terms wouldn't it equate to
something rather basic such as the on/ off/ sleep-mode computer switches, plus
the fan controllers for homeostasis and something to filter out signal spikes/
repetitive noises? Wouldn't you want to claim the whole reptilian brain as
fundamental, if not can you justify exclusion of the cerebellum and rest of the
R-complex? And why do you insist on using the religious term "soul"?


> >
> > > > I presume this is the kind of thing you are making
> > > > reference to?
> > > >
> > > > A thalamic reticular networking model of consciousness.
> > > >
> > > > http://www.tbiomed.com/content/7/1/10
> > > >
> > > Not really. This paper references tha thalamic reticular nucleus that I
see as intimately connected with intelligence.
> > >
> > > I refer to the reticular formation which I think more involved with
> > > the soul and thus conciousness.
> >
> > The reticular system maintains the degree of arousal but I wouldn't see it
at the seat of consciousness. My understanding was it was activated by sudden
changes in the sensory input to get the rest of the brain working and paying
close attention to the current input. However brains with an advanced cortex can
activate the activator to maintain a state of awareness. The reticular system
seems more like a volume control of the brain's activity rather than a seat of
consciousness.
>
> It does not maintain the degree of arousal, it causes arousal.
> It has been hypothesized that the retricular formation is the original
> pre-vertebrate brain.

Hitting you over the head would cause sleep or unconsciousness to occur. A
bucket of water might then cause arousal. I agree it might be important or even
essential within the overall massively distributed structure, but by itself it
wouldn't create much awareness.

Why not the cerebellum (small brain) instead? Or any other old part of the
brain, eg Descartes pineal gland? Same problem ..... the reticular formation is
just a bunch of cells ....  consciousness is a seamless unitary but
multi-modality all-encompassing sensory realm of experience. Activity happens
all over the brain (and beyond, down the spinal cord) at once, and doesn't
happen just locally. Dennet's explanation of consciousness falls for similar
reasons to the Reticular theory, that they rely ultimately on brain-mind
identity. The reticular formation theory does not explain the 'binding problem'
whereas the phantom pineal eye as a pre-lateral eye and pre-hearing sense organ
is the only real candidate for Descartes' sens commens, a binding and projection
of the underlying syn-aesthetic sense.  Neuronal information is generic!

Steve-Nichols.com

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "scanlonray" <rscan@...> wrote:
> ...
> It [the reticular system] does not maintain the degree of
> arousal, it causes arousal. It has been hypothesized that
> the retricular formation is the original pre-vertebrate
> brain.

Brains are body controllers. The sea squirt needs a brain
to find somewhere to settle after which it dissolves its
brain which conserves energy and material resources.

If the animal is not actively seeking food or a mate or
escaping a predator they usually sleep. It is the need
to eat or a change in the sensory input requiring further
analysis (eg. predator or sexual mate) that activates the
brain. How resources are distributed in the animal depends
on its life style.

I doubt the reticular system "causes" arousal, rather
it would be aroused by sensory inputs or internal needs.
I don't know what processing it might do but whatever
it does would be very low level otherwise there would
be no need for the cerebellum, basal ganglia, amygdala
and so on up to the neocortex.

Looking for the "conscious function" in a particular
part I think is a mistake. It would be like looking for
the "car function" in a wheel, brake, cylinder, radiator,
spark plug and so on. It is how they are connected that
makes them behave like a car. And I would suggest it
will be the way the brain components are connected that
will make it behave like a conscious system.

Of course some parts may simply add to the contents of
consciousness rather than be required for the function
itself just as an air conditioner adds to the car but
isn't a requirement. What parts are required for "mind"
and how they are connected is to be discovered.

The unity of consciousness I suspect depends on the
degree of integration. A split brain patient probably
does not have the same degree of unification as those
with an intact corpus callosum. Although they may feel
unified it is an illusion. The degree of unification
would be limited to the degree of integration but the
feeling of unification would be complete regardless.


JohnC

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "jgkjcasey" <jgkjcasey@...> wrote:
>
> --- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "scanlonray" <rscan@> wrote:
> > ...
> > It [the reticular system] does not maintain the degree of
> > arousal, it causes arousal. It has been hypothesized that
> > the retricular formation is the original pre-vertebrate
> > brain.
>
> Brains are body controllers. The sea squirt needs a brain
> to find somewhere to settle after which it dissolves its
> brain which conserves energy and material resources.
>
> If the animal is not actively seeking food or a mate or
> escaping a predator they usually sleep. It is the need
> to eat or a change in the sensory input requiring further
> analysis (eg. predator or sexual mate) that activates the
> brain. How resources are distributed in the animal depends
> on its life style.
>
> I doubt the reticular system "causes" arousal, rather
> it would be aroused by sensory inputs or internal needs.
> I don't know what processing it might do but whatever
> it does would be very low level otherwise there would
> be no need for the cerebellum, basal ganglia, amygdala
> and so on up to the neocortex.
>
> Looking for the "conscious function" in a particular
> part I think is a mistake. It would be like looking for
> the "car function" in a wheel, brake, cylinder, radiator,
> spark plug and so on. It is how they are connected that
> makes them behave like a car. And I would suggest it
> will be the way the brain components are connected that
> will make it behave like a conscious system.
>

Robots might 'behave' like a conscious system but not be conscious.

> Of course some parts may simply add to the contents of
> consciousness rather than be required for the function
> itself just as an air conditioner adds to the car but
> isn't a requirement. What parts are required for "mind"
> and how they are connected is to be discovered.
>

I claim it already has, and will be putting various applications of primal eye
theory into effect, without the need for academia at all.

> The unity of consciousness I suspect depends on the
> degree of integration. A split brain patient probably
> does not have the same degree of unification as those
> with an intact corpus callosum. Although they may feel
> unified it is an illusion. The degree of unification
> would be limited to the degree of integration but the
> feeling of unification would be complete regardless.
>

Your post has been entirely content-free. To say that damaged brains will not
function properly is hardly any sort of observation at all.

Some academics (and religious believers) have a vested interested in trying to
kick all possible solutions into the long grass. Complexity does not give rise
to consciousness. A small thimbleful of cellular spaghetti is not a tad more
conscious than a huge bowlful. You have failed completely to address the
question.

Steve

Hi ai-philosophers

As a fairly poor lecturer who tends to talk over people's heads, and who uses
too much technical jargon, I try to compensate by 'triangulating' in other words
giving several differently worded accounts of the same thing also coming from
different subject areas. Repetition is unavoidable, but does help to anchor the
basic ideas.

So I am forwarding different answers about Primal Eye theory as they occur on
several different types of list I am on. Today's post is from a Gnosticism list:

> Thank you for the images. I understand that you are a psychotherapist who
formerly practiced Zen.

Kagyu and deity yoga. Not much Zen.

>What, if I may ask, is your opinion of the relationship of sentience to the
mental objects of sentience? And what is your opinion of Searle's Chinese Room
Argument? Thank you.

As a neural net scientist I naturally disagree with Searle's analogy, which is
couched in language of conventional Turing/ von Neumann AI. Massively
distributed nets can solve quantum entanglement problems, and the Halting
Problem, which are known to be insolvable by a universal Turing machine.
Mammalian (and all) brains are instantiated on massively parallel distributed
neural wetware, and not on a UTM.

My theory of mind specifically overcomes Leibniz objection to Cartesian dualism,
and Leibniz is also a main contributor to Searle's position: Searle's argument
has three important antecedents. The first of these is an argument set out by
the philosopher and mathematician, Gottfried Leibniz (1646â€"1716). This
argument,
often known as "Leibniz' Mill", appears as section 17 of Leibniz' Monadology.
Like Searle's argument, Leibniz' argument takes the form of a thought
experiment. Leibniz asks us to imagine a physical system, a machine, that
behaves in such a way that it supposedly thinks and has experiences
(perception).

17. Moreover, it must be confessed that perception and that which depends
upon it are inexplicable on mechanical grounds, that is to say, by means of
figures and motions. And supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to
think, feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size,
while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill.
That being so, we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work
one upon another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it
is in a simple substance, and not in a compound or in a machine, that perception
must be sought for. [Robert Latta translation]

Notice that Leibniz's strategy here is to contrast the overt behavior of the
machine, which might display evidence of thought, with the way the machine
operates internally. He points out that these internal mechanical operations are
just parts moving from point to point, nothing that is conscious or that can
explain thinking, feeling or perceiving. For Leibniz physical states are not
sufficient for, nor constitutive of, mental states.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/

My original 1979 work postulated a phantom sense organ consistent with Melzack
and others I looked in depth how 'phantom experiences' of other lost body parts,
both limbs such as phantom arms, and sense organs, e.g. phantom vision, arise.
The phantom median eye is formed out of the whole body gestalten or memory in a
similar way to these other phantom experiential phenomena. Free download at -
http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/phantom-eye-theory/17517381?productTrackingCon\
\
\
text=author_spotlight_343567_

Later MSc and PhD research looked into early evolution of dreaming, and the
effect in reconfigurable circuits of losing the lock-step (clocking) mechanism
and subsequent shift of circuit state from finte-state (hard-wired) to
ANALOG(ous to) infinite-state, or soft-wired, with resultant phasic transients
being highly correlated to emergence of REM in vertebrate brains.
http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/the-primal-eye/17571120?productTrackingContext\
\
\
=author_spotlight_343567_

There is a documentary that covers much of this http://posthuman.TV

Summary of my theory is at http://extropia.net and
http://extropia.net/page3.html

The same problem ..... that to be fully identical two things must be completely
interchangeable, which stops intangible or non-cellular 'thought' being
identical with observable cellular structures inthe brain, such as the reticular
formation (one suggestion for seat of conscousness) is just a bunch of cells
.... whereas consciousness is a seamless unitary but multi-modality
all-encompassing sensory realm of experience. Activity happens all over the
brain (and beyond, down the spinal cord) at once, and doesn't
happen just locally. Dennet's explanation of consciousness falls for similar
reasons to the Reticular theory, that they rely ultimately on brain-mind
identity. That is Searle's and Leibniz point. But with Primal Eye theory both
the conscious Subject and the sense-data or Subjectivity are manifested from
generic neuronal information (energy), so like can interact with like.

Also any theory such as reticular formation theory has to explain the 'binding
problem' whereas the phantom pineal (Primal) eye as an organ pre-dating both
lateral eye and hearing sense organs is the only real candidate for Descartes'
"sens commens", which can account for binding and projection of the underlying
syn-aesthetic sense. Neuronal sense information is generic!

Hope that all makes sense. There should be a new book sometime 2012.

Steve

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "jgkjcasey" <jgkjcasey@...> wrote:
>
> --- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "scanlonray" <rscan@> wrote:
> > ...
> > It [the reticular system] does not maintain the degree of
> > arousal, it causes arousal. It has been hypothesized that
> > the retricular formation is the original pre-vertebrate
> > brain.
>
> The reticular formation, ascending portion, sends0 activating pulses to the
entire forebrain. This is arousal.

> Looking for the "conscious function" in a particular
> part I think is a mistake.

We look, not for a "consciousness function". but rather for any evidence of a
connection between the soul and the brain.


> What parts are required for "mind"
> and how they are connected is to be discovered.

The notion that the sustitution of "mind" for soul, is a peculiar briticism of
the nineteenth century. Forget sll that crap.

>
> JohnC
>
The best to you,
Ray

--- In ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com, "hodossphaenodon" <bunny5000@...>
wrote:
>
> Hi
> >
> > I think this a profound misunderstanding of the position of the
reticular formation in the scheme of life. The reticular formation makes
the sleep-wake cycle. It puts the brain to sleep, and utilising the
thalamic reticular nucleus to halt incoming sensory information it
causes dreaming. When it deems the time has come, it awakens the brain.
This is not due to sensory input but to the genome. The soul >and the
genome are entwined.
>
> "The reticular formation consists of more than 100 small neural
networks [wiki]."
>
> The reticular functions are all pretty low-levels of consciousness, it
doesn't seem involved with language or visual processing and any higher
level types of mentation.
>
> Seems to me it is essentially a relay system. Crucial for functioning,
yes. But not where very much processing happens. In hardware terms
wouldn't it equate to something rather basic such as the on/ off/
sleep-mode computer switches, plus the fan controllers for homeostasis
and something to filter out signal spikes/ repetitive noises? Wouldn't
you want to claim the whole reptilian brain as fundamental, if not can
you justify exclusion of the cerebellum and rest of the R-complex? And
why do you insist on using the religious term "soul"?


I never intended to exclude any part of the brain.  The nervous system
is all of a part. Some of the parts are more democratic than others.



> > > The reticular system maintains the degree of arousal but I
wouldn't see it at the seat of consciousness. My understanding was it
was activated by sudden changes in the sensory input to get the rest of
the brain working and paying close attention to the current input.
However brains with an advanced cortex can activate the activator to
maintain a state of awareness. The reticular system seems more like a
volume control of the brain's activity rather than a seat of
consciousnes
> >
> > It does not maintain the degree of arousal, it causes arousal.
> > It has been hypothesized that the retricular formation is the
original
> > pre-vertebrate brain.
>
> Hitting you over the head would cause sleep or unconsciousness to
occur. A bucket of water might then cause arousal. I agree it might be
important or even essential within the overall massively distributed
structure, but by itself it wouldn't create much awareness.


Not pertinent.


Dennet is far too full of himself. The binding problem is a self
generated problem

>Neuronal information is generic!


Of course.  The genome rules.


> Steve-Nichols.com
>