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Ethics & The Future of Brain Research



 
 
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  #21  
Old February 23rd 13, 12:10 PM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
casey
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Posts: 17
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Feb 23, 5:44*pm, "Rod Speed" wrote:
casey wrote
[...]
What machines can do better than us is: Carry out tasks
we give them at great speed which means they can do
things we can't because we can't write that fast and
we at this stage can't rewire our brain for those tasks.


They can also do tasks which require much more
reliable memory than any human can have too.


There may well be a reason we don't have such computer
perfect memories.


That's why navigation system do much better than any
human can ever do, they can use immense databases
which produce a much better result when say producing
an optimum route to cover a very wide variety of places
that must be visited with say a complex delivery run etc.


But all that was coded by humans and there may well be
a reason we are not that "perfect". Car navigation systems
have failed in a way a human would probably not fail
leading the drivers into dangerous situations.



Also our neurons are slow compared with electronic
switching devices which is a physical limitation not
a cognitive limitation. We can process visual data very
fast because we have parallel wiring for that task.


But it remains to be seen if we can do much better
with a machine that say uses measurement for facial
recognition when the image quality is poor etc.


Machines may well do better than humans but again it
depends on how clever we are at writing their code
unless of course new connections are learned in an ANN
of some kind. TD-Gammon is a good example of an ANN
that learnt to recognize high value backgammon board
states.


So let us not confuse speed of execution with intelligence.


Sure, but not all computing is about speed of execution.


And I wasn't suggesting otherwise. It is however the reason
we use computers for what they do so far is mostly what we
code them to do and which given their speed we could do also.
They don't write their own code or have their own goals.


  #22  
Old February 23rd 13, 05:03 PM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
Howard Brazee
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Posts: 261
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 20:42:06 -0800 (PST), casey
wrote:

... there is no reason to suppose that the optimal
thinking machine finding the answer to life, the universe,
and everything has to be modeled on human thinking.


But it would be a good start. If you don't understand how
humans think what chance have you of building a machine
that can think even better?


If we don't understand how humans walk, or birds fly could we make
cars or airplanes?

Thinking "better" is better for a task. If the task is to think like
humans, that's one thing, but if it is to solve some tough problem,
there is no reason to assume our way of thinking is appropriate
anymore than it is to assume that our way of walking is best for all
kinds of transportation.

We certainly don't want to duplicate human thinking flaws into, say,
our computer overlord.

--
Anybody who agrees with one side all of the time or disagrees with the
other side all of the time is equally guilty of letting others do
their thinking for them.
  #23  
Old February 23rd 13, 05:06 PM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
Immortalist
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Posts: 83
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Feb 22, 2:29 pm, " wrote:
On Feb 22, 8:57 am, Immortalist wrote:









On Feb 22, 7:00 am, Dare wrote:


On 2/21/2013 7:36 PM, Immortalist wrote:


On Feb 21, 4:29 pm, Howard Brazee wrote:
On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:45:13 -0800 (PST), casey


wrote:
Something that would be good for science to answer.


If you found yourself in heaven with a heavenly body
how would you know if it was you who lived that
physical life on Earth or if you simply had the
memories of that now dead human?


If you assume that the 5 year old version of you was "you", despite
you being very, very different now - we need to determine what "you"
means.


If the self is a series of clones throughout life, then there may be
no "version" of your self but instead just a "range" of neural
activities that are a sense of your self.


I concur on the (implied potential) range of activities meme. The
series of clones thing I disagree with- it implies that all cells (as
mentioned elsethread) in a tissue (and by implication the whole body)
get "turned over" every so many years *all at the same time* which is
unreasonable.


Which phrase made it seem like I was implying that it all happened all
at once?

Heraclitus thought that the contents of things change, but their form
remains the same. He wondered under what conditions do objects persist
through time as one and the same object. In ancient times, this
problem came to be associated with the Ship of Theseus;

The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty
oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of
Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they
decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch
that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for
the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the
ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the
same. --Plutarch (c. 46- 127).

The original puzzle is this: over the years, the Athenians replaced
each plank in the original ship of Theseus as it decayed, thereby
keeping it in good repair. Eventually, there was not a single plank
left of the original ship. So, did the Athenians still have one and
the same ship that used to belong to Theseus?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Theseus is famous in Greek mythology as the slayer of the Minotaur, a
half-man, half-bull monster who lived in the Labyrinth in the island
of Crete. According to Plutarch, the ship in which Theseus sailed back
to Athens was preserved for many generations, its old planks being
replaced by new ones as they decayed.

Now suppose that a few hundred years later,
all the original parts of the ship had been
replaced, one by one, so that none of
the original ship remained.

Is the preserved ship still Theseus' ship?
Or is it a copy? And if the latter, then at what point did it cease
to be Theseus' ship?

It seems that if just one plank were replaced, it would still be
Theseus' ship. And if it was still his ship, and another plank were
replaced, then it should still be Theseus' ship. By this reasoning
(which is the same as in the sorites paradox), it would be Theseus'
ship even after all planks are replaced.

We are about process, not state. A so-called state of mind is not a
photograph, it's a three-panel cartoon. Perception, "filter",
reaction. "filter" = particular set of "neural activities" in that
range.


Some ongoing and constantly changing processes create "stable states".
I suppose the simplest example would be a water fountain where a
constantly changing column of water shoots up but at the top there is
a stable flat and smooth spot persists over time.

Also don't forget The Multiple Drafts Modal

....there are a variety of sensory inputs from a given event and also a
variety of interpretations of these inputs. The sensory inputs arrive
in the brain and are interpreted at different times, so a given event
can give rise to a succession of discriminations, constituting the
equivalent of multiple drafts of a story. As soon as each
discrimination is accomplished, it becomes available for eliciting a
behaviour; it does not have to wait to be presented at the theatre.

Like a number of other theories, the Multiple Drafts model understands
conscious experience as taking time to occur, such that "percepts do
not instantaneously arise in the mind in their full richness". The
distinction is that Dennett's theory denies any clear and unambiguous
boundary separating conscious experiences from all other processing.
According to Dennett, consciousness is to be found in the actions and
flows of information from place to place, rather than some singular
view containing our experience. There is "no central experiencer [who]
confers a durable stamp of approval on any particular draft".

Different parts of the neural processing assert more or less control
at different times. For something to reach consciousness is akin to
becoming famous, in that it must leave behind consequences by which it
is remembered. To put it another way, consciousness is the property of
having enough influence to affect what the mouth will say and the
hands will do. Which inputs are "edited" into our drafts "is not an
exogenous act of supervision, but part of the self-organizing
functioning of the network, and at the same level as the circuitry
that conveys information bottom-up".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_Drafts_Model

Once those activities go
outside the range of your -selfing- you are not cloned during those
successions of neural events.


Well, a clone is (loosely speaking) an exact replica, but me right
now is not an exact replica of me ten, twenty etc. years ago. What
continues as "I"? I think it's just a particular constellation of
"things I'm good at" and "things I'm bad at" due to brain structure/
disposition(s) from genetics modulo diet, environment, socialization,
yada yada.


The most popular theory at the time in science is that this "me" is
the same thing as the brain doing something over time: the theory that
subjective experience is only what the brain does even if it involves
quantum spluge. Though it seems static or stable and located in a
place it could instead be distributed in a complex way in space and
time much like "poly-sensory" modality is.




When a cat hears a dog bark some think it has visual memories of dogs.
The association areas of the brain are mainly between the areas where
sensory inputs are mapped and these areas connect the senses together.

Most memories are poly-sensory. Poly-sensory data input through more
than one sense at a time, hearing and seeing simultaneously, associate
many memories in diverse areas of the brain. For example;

Vision is no doubt one of the most sophisticated systems of the brain,
and its peculiar information-coding system, together with that of
hearing, may have given rise to other aspects of intelligence. In the
mammal's brain, the 'association areas' of the cortex allow codified
data from various senses to be exchanged and compared. To give a very
simple example, if a dog in a dark room hears a cat's miaow, he no
doubt 'pictures' the cat, or at least conjures up an idea of a whole
cat, not just of its isolated miaowing. All of this exchange of
information goes on automatically-it is part of the routine
intelligence of a dog. Furthermore, the animal's ability for such
poly sensory modelling of the environment may have been the
evolutionary basis for the phenomenon of self-consciousness! (More on
that, and its philosophical implications, later.)

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Hum.../9780231059466

I agree with my pal Mahipal- "me" always changes.


All known objects are processes. Consciousness is as much an object as
other processes that re-present a present moment through changing
stuff, everything is constantly changing and opposite things are
identical, so that everything is and is not at the same time. In other
words, Universal Flux and the Identity of Opposites may entail a
denial of the Law of Non-Contradiction, since all things go and
nothing stays, and comparing existents to the flow of a river which
you cannot step twice into. On those stepping into rivers staying the
same other and other waters flow. There is an antithesis between
'same' and 'other,' different waters flow in rivers staying the same,
though the waters are always changing, the rivers stay the same.
Indeed, it must be precisely because the waters are always changing
that there are rivers at all, rather than lakes or ponds. The message
is that rivers can stay the same over time even though, or indeed
because, the waters change. The point, then, is not that everything is
changing, but that the fact that some things change makes possible the
continued existence of other things. Perhaps more generally, the
change in elements or constituents supports the constancy of higher-
level structures.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/heraclit/


As for "activities outside the range of [one's] -selfing-, I refer
you to Lovecraft's _At The Mountains Of Madness_.


Isn't that more like the Terminator scenario where the creation takes
over the creator and makes war against it?

SciFi literature has traditionally sucked the dick of Christianity and
Capitalism. Try and mention immortality or replication of a soul and
yer condemned from the start. This area could be a growth Industry
once the myth and money are violently knocked back into their place.
This science fiction obsession with libertarian philosophy dooms it
temporarily also. For example, currently my favorite lecture, think of
all the concepts tarnished by either supporting or going against some
economic framework while discussing the consequences of the evolution
of technology.

Sonia Arrison: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYMjCfywRCQ









from A Treatise of Human Nature Book I, Part 4, Section 6


SECTION VI: OF PERSONAL IDENTITY


There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately
conscious of what we call our self; that we feel its existence and its
continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a
demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. The
strongest sensation, the most violent passion, say they, instead of
distracting us from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and
make us consider their influence on self either by their pain or
pleasure. To attempt a further proof of this were to weaken its
evidence; since no proof can be derived from any fact of which we are
so intimately conscious; nor is there any thing of which we can be
certain if we doubt of this.


Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very
experience which is pleaded for them; nor have we any idea of self,
after the manner it is here explained. For, from what impression could
this idea be derived? This question it is impossible to answer without
a manifest contradiction and absurdity; and yet it is a question which
must necessarily be answered, if we would have the idea of self pass
for clear and intelligible. It must be some one impression that gives
rise to every real idea. But self or person is not any one impression,
but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to
have a reference. If any impression gives rise to the idea of self,
that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole
course of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that
manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and
pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other,
and never all exist at the same time. It cannot therefore be from any
of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is
derived; and consequently there is no such idea.


Well yeah, self-examination on the fly is difficult.


Especially in the late 1700s when that was written.

That's why we study other people.


Ironic since the quote by David Hume was in part a critique of George
Berkeley's Solipsism and Idealism.

From----
http://www.wutsamada.com/alma/modern/humepid.htm


Is a feeling of identity or self related to experiencing Time?
What happens to "self" if there is no time...


Zen adepts claim that self vanishes without time-bound experience.


Cool.

The second part of your question addresses issues relating to
consciousness and continuity. Can the activities of the brain that are
the self, if stopped be started again? Would it be only a clone that
believes it is you or have we always just been a bunch of clones that
produce this feeling of being one me? But to this continuity dilemma
you raise; there are too many things and processes happening to give
some simple answer. Why would we believe that consciousness can or
cannot be stopped and then started in the first place? If the heart
stops tissues die but when we sleep consciousness seems to stop, so
simple comparisons will probably fail us. Religion and philosophy seem
to be the culprits that make us invent such ideas.


In sleep consciousness is altered; it does not stop. Look up lucid
dreaming and sleep learning for starters.


While it is true that neurons are always active at some rate of
patterned firing, there is a big difference between dreaming and deep
sleep. Researchers have found that we deep dead sleep for more than an
hour and then dream for 15 or 20 minutes and then go back into deep
dead sleep. Some think that the reason outside noises make it into the
dream is so the organism can wake if the dream becomes radical. The
just so story then predicts that we dream to periodically check the
outside world before we drop back into a vulnerable state of deep
sleep.

The central principle of neurophysiogy is that nerves don't just turn
off and on but that each changes it's rate of firing so that various
parts of the brain dance together. An area of the brain considered not
active is active but is firing at the wrong rate to make any
difference.

What if consciousness is full of stops and starts? Again time seems to
be necessary if consciousness is the same thing as activities in a
brain.


Consciousness seems to me to be more like a conversation between
different specialized wetware modules of the brain. It can be a
roaring rock party babble or a low indistinct mutter. If nobody has
anything to say to each other at a party there's a lull, but not
really a stop. Same with our "selves".


Bravo, that sounds similar to the nerves are always firing at some
rate argument. Things don't really stop. (It's qualitative not
quantitative)

......In a sparse distributed network - memory is a type of
perception.....The act of remembering and the act of perceiving both
detect a pattern in a vary large choice of possible patterns....When
we remember we recreate the act of the original perception - that is
we relocate the pattern by a process similar to the one we used to
perceive the pattern originally.


The stored patterns change over time as the physical substrate
they're "written" on (cerebral neurons and their interconnections)
change over time.


Can you show in the presented text where such an argument was
presented for or against the notion of change in memory structures?

Could all parts of our experience and reasoning abilities be very
similar to a type of perception? If the act of remembering and the act
of perceiving both detect a pattern in a vary large choice of possible
patterns and when we remember we recreate the act of the original
perception - that is we relocate the pattern by a process similar to
the one we used to perceive the pattern originally, and trigger areas
of the brain which our senses would, in essence bypassing the senses,
then it seems possible that most of our experience works in a similar
way.


Yes, of course. Some modules perceive sensory input, some only
perceive the output of other modules.


Mostly it's like with vision where primary areas break up the data and
other nearby areas detect or specialize in detecting particular
features in that data.

http://reanimater.tripod.com/StagesOfDecoding.html

Benjamin Libet famously suggested it takes about half a second for the
brain to get through all the processing steps needed to settle our
view of the moment just past. But this immediately raises the question
of why don't we notice a lag? How does anyone ever manage to hit a
tennis ball or drive a car? The answer is that we anticipate. We also
have a level of preconscious habit which "intercepts" stuff before it
reaches a conscious level of awareness. And yet it really does take
something like half a second to develop a fully conscious experience
of life. You can read about the cycle of processing story and its
controversies in the following....


The implication is that the whole brain "get(s) through all the
processing steps" at the same time. That's unreasonable since
different parts of the brain process information at different rates;
there's no computer-analogous "system clock" for organic brains.


That's not quite true since most animals with a brain stem have
something equivalent to the Reticular Activating System which is a
series of neural loops or feedback circuitry that time and coordinate
larger functions in widely separated regions of the brain.

Also many areas of the brain are simple "drivers" in that they
translate data from one area of the brain into the language of other
areas. Major groups of the brain have their own language that is
different than others. Again this is probably influences by the
different data from different sense perceptions, sound vs sight.

On The Reticular Activating System

http://www.google.com/search?q=retic...ivating+system

The activity of this system is crucial for maintaining the state of
consciousness. It is situated at the core of the brain stem between
the myelencephalon (medulla oblongata) and mesencephalon (midbrain).

It is involved with the circadian rhythm; damage can lead to permanent
coma. It is thought to be the area affected by many psychotropic
drugs. General anesthetics work through their effect on the reticular
formation.

Fibers from the reticular formation are also vital in controlling
respiration, cardiac rhythms, and other essential functions.

Although the functioning of this system is a prerequisite for
consciousness to occur, it is generally assumed that this system's
role is indirect and it does not, by itself, generate consciousness.
Instead, its unique anatomical and physiological characteristics
ensure that the thalamocortical system fire in such a way that is
compatible with conscious experience. The reticular activating system
controls our sexual patterns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticul...ivating_system

The Brain Clocks man in the hypothalamus;

The suprachiasmatic center is one of the body's two major biological
clocks. It not only regulates hormones related to the day/night cycle,
but it orchestrates the activities of many other internal clocks. In
numerous experiments, it has been shown that when the SCN is not
innervated, the human body clocks free run; they set their own time.

The body is awash with internal clocks. Researchers know of over one
hundred clocks so far (Carol Orlock; from the book "Inner Time"). The
human body has inner clocks in nearly every organ, every type of
tissue, and inside many cells. All of these clocks have to be
synchronized, and all are controlled (and influence) the body's two
master clocks, the SCN inside the hypothalamus, and a second
unidentified clock that regulates body temperature and alertness. (the
activities of the second clock are well known, but its locale within
the brain is unknown)

Chronobiologists divide the clocks into three areas: ultradian rhythms
(those shorter than a day); circadian rhythms (24 hour cycles); and
infradian rhythms (those cycling in intervals greater than 24 hours).
Heart beats, body temperature, breathing patterns, and blink rates are
examples of ultradian rhythms. The day/night cycle is circadian. A
woman's menstrual cycle is infradian. All of these cycles are governed
by hormones released by internal body clocks.

http://www.wayfinding.net/hypothal.htm

Ontogeny of the circadian clock: Dysfunction of the circadian clock
may underlie several disease states, including Seasonal Affective
Disorder, and sleep disorders. My PhD thesis work concentrated on the
development of the circadian clock, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)
of the hypothalamus. In particular, the synchronization of the
neonatal circadian clock by cues derived from the mother, and the
development of the light synchronizing pathway which allows the
ambient light-dark cycle to influence synchronization of rhythms in
the mature mammal. A combination of neuroanatomical, biochemical and
behavioral approaches in the rodent were used to characterize maternal-
entrainment mechanisms and the neuronal changes within the biological
clock at key developmental stages. Results have revealed a role for
maternal cues in the co-ordination of circadian rhythmicity during the
postnatal period. A role for the neurotransmitter dopamine has been
implicated in transducing these maternal cues prenatally. I have
provided neuroanatomical and biochemical evidence for this system in
the postnatal rodent. Since completing the PhD my recent experiments
have demonstrated a loss of dopaminergic influence and a continued
effect of melatonin on adult circadian entrainment, and have examined
the role of the transcription factor pCREB in various entrainment
pathways within the SCN.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jdunlap/people/giles.html
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jdunlap/people/giles2.jpg

Many tissues in mammals, e.g., liver and skeletal muscle, have
endogenous clocks. But all of these are under the control (more or
less, see note) of a "master clock", the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)
- clusters of neurons in the hypothalamus. Small wonder, then, that
the blood levels of hormones

synthesized in the hypothalamus, e.g. arginine vasopressin (also
called the antidiuretic hormone, ADH) or
whose secretion is controlled by the hypothalamus such as
growth hormone and
cortisol
have strong circadian rhythms.

http://tinyurl.com/eyz4

In humans and other mammals the primary body clock is located in the
suprachiasmatic nuclei, a cluster of around 10 000 neurones located on
either side of the midline above the optic chiasma, about 3 cm behind
the eyes. 3 4 If these nuclei are destroyed, either experimentally in
animals or as a result of disease in humansfor example, compression by
expanding pituitary tumoursthe ability to express any overt circadian
rhythms is destroyed. The temporal programme of behaviour and
physiology is scrambled.

In experimental animals with such ablation, central grafting of
neonatal hypothalamic tissue containing the suprachiasmatic nuclei can
restore circadian patterning to the activity-rest cycle. Not only is
this compelling evidence that the clock is an autonomous property of
the suprachiasmatic nuclei, it is also an excellent example of the
restoration of function by neural grafting.

The daily clock is crucial for longer term processes in many animals.
Migration, hibernation, fattening, and fur growth are all adaptations
to winter, while the annual rut of large animals and the summer
population explosion of smaller ones are all cued, months in advance,
by the change in day length. The circadian clock is central to this
effect because the signal it gives out changes its shape to reflect
the longer nights of winter. As a result, the nocturnal peak of
melatonin secretion by the pineal gland, which is tightly controlled
by the suprachiasmatic nuclei, provides an internal endocrine
calendar. A lengthening melatonin signal from night to night indicates
the season is moving through autumn to winter, while progressive
shortening means the worst of winter may soon be over.

http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/317/7174/1704

Circadian Rhythms and Clocks
Daily biological rhythms, including sleep-wake cycles, are called
circadian rhythms. These internal clocks, sometimes referred to as
biological clocks, exist in mammals, plants, fungi, insects, etc., and
run on approximately a 24 hour cycle. The molecules that control this
process have been studied in a number of organisms. Although the
clocks do not function in exactly the same way in all species, they
are very similar. In Drosophila, a fruit fly, the clock mechanism is
better understood, so it will be presented first, followed by the
mammalian system. Lastly, a brief overview of the circadian clock
mechanism in a fungus is included.

The SCN is a distinct group of around 10,000 cells located in the
hypothalamus of the brain. Peripheral clocks are located in every
cell, and are regulated by the SCN. The retina has light receptors and
is connected to the SCN through a pathway called the
retinohypothalamic tract. Recent studies suggest that these light
receptors, sometimes called photoreceptors, are located in a small
group of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). Most RGCs receive signals from
the rods and cones and then pass the signals on to vision areas of the
brain. A small percent respond directly to light and pass their
signals to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) instead. The SCN then
sends these signals to the clocks in the rest of the body.

http://www.allsciencestuff.com/mbiol...arch/circadian

De Mairan s apt observations illustrate one critical feature of
circadian rhythms- their self-sustained nature. Thus, almost all
diurnal rhythms that occur under natural conditions continue to cycle
under laboratory conditions devoid of any external time-giving cues
from the physical environment (e.g., under constant light or constant
darkness). Circadian rhythms that are expressed in the absence of any
24-hour signals from the external environment are called free running.
This means that the rhythm is not synchronized by any cyclic change in
the physical environment. Strictly speaking, a diurnal rhythm should
not be called circadian until it has been shown to persist under
constant environmental conditions and thereby can be distinguished
from those rhythms that are simply a response to 24-hour environmental
changes. For practical purposes, however, there is little reason to
distinguish between diurnal and circadian rhythms, because almost all
diurnal rhythms are found to be circadian. Nor is a terminology
distinction made among circadian rhythms based on the type of
environmental stimulus that synchronizes the cycle.

The persistence of rhythms in the absence of a dark-light cycle or
other exogenous time signal (i.e., a Zeitgeber) clearly seems to
indicate the existence of some kind of internal timekeeping mechanism,
or biological clock. However, some investigators have pointed out that
the persistence of rhythmicity does not necessarily exclude the
possibility that other, uncontrolled cycles generated by the Earth s
revolution on its axis might be driving the rhythm (see Aschoff 1960).

http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh25-2/85-93.htm

Here them are;
http://www.psycheducation.org/emotion/hypothalamus.htm

If there is one thing that seems certain about consciousness it is
that it is immediate. We are aware of life's passing parade of
sensations -- and of our own thoughts, feelings and impulses -- at the
instant they happen. Yet as soon as it is accepted that the mind is
the product of processes taking place within the brain, we introduce
the possibility of delay. It must take time for nerve traffic to
travel from the sense organs to the mapping areas of the brain.


It also takes different amounts of time for each module to process
its allotment of data.


Straw Man distorted version of the argument presented. The author did
not argue for or against the notion of how much time modules need to
function. The author did admit that "it must take time" for some
processes to take place.

Worse, some data goes through more than one module, in series and or
parallel, introducing more delays.


Can you show where the author made such a claim either for or against
such a notion?

The point is a good one but the relevance to the argument is weak.

Some information may take multiple frames of consciousness to be
structured enough for translation into poly sense modes.

It must then take more time for thoughts and feelings about these
messages to propagate through the brain's maze of circuitry. If the
processing is complex -- as it certainly must be in humans -- then these
delays ought to measurable, and even noticeable with careful
introspection.


It's worse- the delays can be negative. There's experimental
evidence that we start to perform physical responses based on sensory
inputs *before* the parts of the brain allegedly responsible for
mediating decisions do their thing. Clearly all our attempts at
modeling the mind are flawed.


Clearly your attempt to critique Libet's half second frame rate of
consciousness is insufficient since he is the very person that made
the pre-consciousness dilemma you mention popular and with his proofs
of how long it takes for a frame of consciousness presented in my
arguments and links.

David Chalmers has a hard problem, he wants certainty with no
theories. Funny he bases much of his proof of unknowability on Libet's
theory of the half second frame rate of consciousness. Libet's
evidence has cripple the mind/brain debate especially the pre-
conscious part you mentioned earlier.

Mark L. Fergerson


Oh you, how's it go!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_CqOd1zSxc








  #24  
Old February 23rd 13, 09:42 PM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
casey
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Posts: 17
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Feb 24, 3:03*am, Howard Brazee wrote:
On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 20:42:06 -0800 (PST), casey
wrote:
... there is no reason to suppose that the optimal
thinking machine finding the answer to life, the universe,
and everything has to be modeled on human thinking.


But it would be a good start. If you don't understand how
humans think what chance have you of building a machine
that can think even better?



If we don't understand how humans walk, or birds fly
could we make cars or airplanes?


Well we don't know how brains "think" and yet we have
made computer programs that do things that if done by
a human we would call "thinking".

Just as we have duplicated some of the things humans
do such as playing a game of chess we have also
duplicated walking and flying in machines. Do they
walk like us or fly like a bird? Maybe one day.

Thinking "better" is better for a task. If the task
is to think like humans, that's one thing, but if it
is to solve some tough problem, there is no reason
to assume our way of thinking is appropriate anymore
than it is to assume that our way of walking is best
for all kinds of transportation.


And I don't disagree with that. We evolved legs as the
best way of walking although wheels are better in the
environment we have created. But we invented the wheel
and we invented the methods machines use to fly so it
is our way of thinking that has done all these things.
There is no program I know of that thinks "better"
than we do rather it things faster than we do but its
methods are methods our thinking has created. That is
true for chess programs, logic programs and Watson.

We certainly don't want to duplicate human thinking
flaws into, say, our computer overlord.


Overlord? Let us avoid that! To avoid duplicating
human thinking flaws we must first identify them
as flaws. What appears to be a flaw may have served
us well in the past and that is the reason we think
that way. However what works well for one task may
not work so well for another task.



--
Anybody who agrees with one side all of the time or disagrees with the
other side all of the time is equally guilty of letting others do
their thinking for them.



  #25  
Old February 23rd 13, 11:55 PM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
Rod Speed
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Posts: 387
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

casey wrote
Rod Speed wrote
casey wrote


What machines can do better than us is: Carry out tasks
we give them at great speed which means they can do
things we can't because we can't write that fast and
we at this stage can't rewire our brain for those tasks.


They can also do tasks which require much more
reliable memory than any human can have too.


There may well be a reason we don't
have such computer perfect memories.


Corse there are, but they don't apply to computer systems
and that's why computer can leave humans for dead in some
areas.

That's why navigation system do much better than any
human can ever do, they can use immense databases
which produce a much better result when say producing
an optimum route to cover a very wide variety of places
that must be visited with say a complex delivery run etc.


But all that was coded by humans


Doesn't have to be, most obviously with automatic mapping
systems that just record all the detail for themselves etc.

and there may well be a reason we are not that "perfect".


Corse there is, but that's not relevant to why
computers can leave humans for dead in that area.

Car navigation systems have failed in a way a human would
probably not fail leading the drivers into dangerous situations.


Irrelevant to whether they can and do leave humans for dead.

Also our neurons are slow compared with electronic
switching devices which is a physical limitation not
a cognitive limitation. We can process visual data very
fast because we have parallel wiring for that task.


But it remains to be seen if we can do much better
with a machine that say uses measurement for facial
recognition when the image quality is poor etc.


Machines may well do better than humans but again it
depends on how clever we are at writing their code unless
of course new connections are learned in an ANN of some
kind. TD-Gammon is a good example of an ANN that learnt
to recognize high value backgammon board states.


So you have now just blown both your feet off and can fall over now.

So let us not confuse speed of execution with intelligence.


Sure, but not all computing is about speed of execution.


And I wasn't suggesting otherwise.


I wasn't suggesting you did.

It is however the reason we use computers for
what they do so far is mostly what we code them
to do and which given their speed we could do also.


We in fact use them for a hell of a lot more than just the speed.

We also use them for a level of accuracy that humans can't
ever get within a bulls roar of too.

They don't write their own code or have their own goals.


They can do and do.
  #26  
Old February 24th 13, 02:15 AM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
casey
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 17
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Feb 24, 9:55*am, "Rod Speed" wrote:
casey wrote

Rod Speed wrote
casey wro

There may well be a reason we don't
have such computer perfect memories.



Corse there are, but they don't apply to computer
systems and that's why computer can leave humans
for dead in some areas.


Your hero worship of our current computer programs
is I believe scary and dangerous.

TD-Gammon is a good example of an ANN that learnt
to recognize high value backgammon board states.



So you have now just blown both your feet off and
can fall over now.


If you think that we are not on the same page.

  #27  
Old February 24th 13, 03:47 AM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
Rod Speed
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Posts: 387
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

casey wrote
Rod Speed wrote
casey wrote
Rod Speed wrote
casey wro


There may well be a reason we don't
have such computer perfect memories.


Corse there are, but they don't apply to
computer systems and that's why computer
can leave humans for dead in some areas.


Your hero worship of our current computer programs


That's just your silly little fantasy.

I JUST recognise that they can do SOME things much
better than humans can and it remains to be seen if there
will always be some thing that humans can do better.

I expect there will be, with creativity alone.

I don't see how it can ever be possible for a computer
program to ever produce what Beethoven produced
for example, but it is clear that they can certainly do
better than say pre school children painting wise.

I have repeatedly said that while we can certainly do
a hell of a lot better at flying a modern heavy jet aircraft
than any human can do, we still haven't worked out how
to do better at sheering sheep, or wiping little kid's arses
than even very stupid humans can do.

is I believe scary and dangerous.


You haven't actually got a clue about how I feel about computers.

TD-Gammon is a good example of an ANN that learnt
to recognize high value backgammon board states.


So you have now just blown both your feet off and
can fall over now.


If you think that we are not on the same page.


Yes, you don't have a ****ing clue what I think about computers.
  #28  
Old February 24th 13, 05:51 AM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
Mahipal
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Posts: 42
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Feb 22, 5:29*pm, " wrote:
On Feb 22, 8:57*am, Immortalist wrote:

On Feb 22, 7:00 am, Dare wrote:


On 2/21/2013 7:36 PM, Immortalist wrote:


On Feb 21, 4:29 pm, Howard Brazee wrote:
On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:45:13 -0800 (PST), casey


wrote:
Something that would be good for science to answer.


If you found yourself in heaven with a heavenly body
how would you know if it was you who lived that
physical life on Earth or if you simply had the
memories of that now dead human?


If you assume that the 5 year old version of you was "you", despite
you being very, very different now - we need to determine what "you"
means.


If the self is a series of clones throughout life, then there may be
no "version" of your self but instead just a "range" of neural
activities that are a sense of your self.


* I concur on the (implied potential) range of activities meme. The
series of clones thing I disagree with- it implies that all cells (as
mentioned elsethread) in a tissue (and by implication the whole body)
get "turned over" every so many years *all at the same time* which is
unreasonable.

* We are about process, not state. A so-called state of mind is not a
photograph, it's a three-panel cartoon. Perception, "filter",
reaction. "filter" = particular set of "neural activities" in that
range.

Once those activities go
outside the range of your -selfing- you are not cloned during those
successions of neural events.


* Well, a clone is (loosely speaking) an exact replica, but me right
now is not an exact replica of me ten, twenty etc. years ago. What
continues as "I"? I think it's just a particular constellation of
"things I'm good at" and "things I'm bad at" due to brain structure/
disposition(s) from genetics modulo diet, environment, socialization,
yada yada.

* I agree with my pal Mahipal- "me" always changes.


I will cherish that sentence construct until like forever.

You are too kind Mark! Still, you turn me on... do you want to be
poet?

"You see it really doesn't matter
When you're buried in disguise
By the dark glass on your eyes
Though your flesh has crystallised
Still...you turn me on"

Ergo I Mahipal am me on... me_on... meon, rhymes with neon.
If you can't laugh, then you can't grasp... so I have learned.

* As for "activities outside the range of [one's] -selfing-, I refer
you to Lovecraft's _At The Mountains Of Madness_.

from A Treatise of Human Nature Book I, Part 4, Section 6


SECTION VI: OF PERSONAL IDENTITY


There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately
conscious of what we call our self; that we feel its existence and its
continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a
demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. The
strongest sensation, the most violent passion, say they, instead of
distracting us from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and
make us consider their influence on self either by their pain or
pleasure. To attempt a further proof of this were to weaken its
evidence; since no proof can be derived from any fact of which we are
so intimately conscious; nor is there any thing of which we can be
certain if we doubt of this.


Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very
experience which is pleaded for them; nor have we any idea of self,
after the manner it is here explained. For, from what impression could
this idea be derived? This question it is impossible to answer without
a manifest contradiction and absurdity; and yet it is a question which
must necessarily be answered, if we would have the idea of self pass
for clear and intelligible. It must be some one impression that gives
rise to every real idea. But self or person is not any one impression,
but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to
have a reference. If any impression gives rise to the idea of self,
that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole
course of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that
manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and
pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other,
and never all exist at the same time. It cannot therefore be from any
of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is
derived; and consequently there is no such idea.


* Well yeah, self-examination on the fly is difficult.

* That's why we study other people.


Without other people, we -- especially me, myself, or I -- are
nothing.

From----
http://www.wutsamada.com/alma/modern/humepid.htm


Is a feeling of identity or self related to experiencing Time?
What happens to "self" if there is no time...


* Zen adepts claim that self vanishes without time-bound experience.

The second part of your question addresses issues relating to
consciousness and continuity. Can the activities of the brain that are
the self, if stopped be started again? Would it be only a clone that
believes it is you or have we always just been a bunch of clones that
produce this feeling of being one me? But to this continuity dilemma
you raise; there are too many things and processes happening to give
some simple answer. Why would we believe that consciousness can or
cannot be stopped and then started in the first place? If the heart
stops tissues die but when we sleep consciousness seems to stop, so
simple comparisons will probably fail us. Religion and philosophy seem
to be the culprits that make us invent such ideas.


* In sleep consciousness is altered; it does not stop. Look up lucid
dreaming and sleep learning for starters.

What if consciousness is full of stops and starts? Again time seems to
be necessary if consciousness is the same thing as activities in a
brain.


* Consciousness seems to me to be more like a conversation between
different specialized wetware modules of the brain. It can be a
roaring rock party babble or a low indistinct mutter. If nobody has
anything to say to each other at a party there's a lull, but not
really a stop. Same with our "selves".

......In a sparse distributed network - memory is a type of
perception.....The act of remembering and the act of perceiving both
detect a pattern in a vary large choice of possible patterns....When
we remember we recreate the act of the original perception - that is
we relocate the pattern by a process similar to the one we used to
perceive the pattern originally.


* The stored patterns change over time as the physical substrate
they're "written" on (cerebral neurons and their interconnections)
change over time.

Could all parts of our experience and reasoning abilities be very
similar to a type of perception? If the act of remembering and the act
of perceiving both detect a pattern in a vary large choice of possible
patterns and when we remember we recreate the act of the original
perception - that is we relocate the pattern by a process similar to
the one we used to perceive the pattern originally, and trigger areas
of the brain which our senses would, in essence bypassing the senses,
then it seems possible that most of our experience works in a similar
way.


* Yes, of course. Some modules perceive sensory input, some only
perceive the output of other modules.

Benjamin Libet famously suggested it takes about half a second for the
brain to get through all the processing steps needed to settle our
view of the moment just past. But this immediately raises the question
of why don't we notice a lag? How does anyone ever manage to hit a
tennis ball or drive a car? The answer is that we anticipate. We also
have a level of preconscious habit which "intercepts" stuff before it
reaches a conscious level of awareness. And yet it really does take
something like half a second to develop a fully conscious experience
of life. You can read about the cycle of processing story and its
controversies in the following....


* The implication is that the whole brain "get(s) through all the
processing steps" at the same time. That's unreasonable since
different parts of the brain process information at different rates;
there's no computer-analogous "system clock" for organic brains.

If there is one thing that seems certain about consciousness it is
that it is immediate. We are aware of life's passing parade of
sensations — and of our own thoughts, feelings and impulses — at the
instant they happen. Yet as soon as it is accepted that the mind is
the product of processes taking place within the brain, we introduce
the possibility of delay. It must take time for nerve traffic to
travel from the sense organs to the mapping areas of the brain.


* It also takes different amounts of time for each module to process
its allotment of data.

* Worse, some data goes through more than one module, in series and or
parallel, introducing more delays.


Life and mind really cannot be about its mechanics, down deep.

It must then take more time for thoughts and feelings about these
messages to propagate through the brain's maze of circuitry. If the
processing is complex — as it certainly must be in humans — then these
delays ought to measurable, and even noticeable with careful
introspection.


* It's worse- the delays can be negative. There's experimental
evidence that we start to perform physical responses based on sensory
inputs *before* the parts of the brain allegedly responsible for
mediating decisions do their thing. Clearly all our attempts at
modeling the mind are flawed.

* Mark L. Fergerson


I really am still reading Immortalist's response. Wish he would IRL
name himself.

Enjo(y)... Cheers!
--
Mahipal, pronounced "My Pal" or "Maple" leads to... Maple Loops.

http://mahipal7638.wordpress.com/meforce/
"If the line between science fiction and science fact
doesn't drive you crazy, then you're just not tr(y)ing!"

  #29  
Old February 24th 13, 06:08 AM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
casey
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 17
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Feb 24, 1:47*pm, "Rod Speed" wrote:
[...]

I just looked back over our exchanges to see if I should
have expressed myself differently or better and clearly
we aren't going to be able to have an constructive
exchange take place.

Yes, you don't have a ****ing clue what I think about
computers.


Which doesn't help in fostering a useful exchange.

The ability to make your thoughts and views clear to
others is the hallmark of a good writer. A bad writer
will of course blame it all on the reader.

  #30  
Old February 24th 13, 06:33 AM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
Rod Speed
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Posts: 387
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

casey wrote
Rod Speed wrote


I just looked back over our exchanges to see if I should
have expressed myself differently or better and clearly
we aren't going to be able to have an constructive
exchange take place.


Yeah, you don't have a ****ing clue about anything
at all to do with computers and can't even manage
to work out what I think about them either.

Yes, you don't have a ****ing clue what I think about
computers.


Which doesn't help in fostering a useful exchange.


Your mindlessly silly claim about what I think
about the capability of computers in spades.

The ability to make your thoughts and views
clear to others is the hallmark of a good writer.


You are nothing even remotely resembling anything like that.

A bad writer will of course blame it all on the reader.


And that is precisely what you did.
 




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