[cheryl j]

So if these drivers serve a purpose, and have a function, and effects that are often very predictable, how are they not machine like?

By being feelings/qualia. There's no problem creating a model which shows a drive process whereby the response is greater in proportion to the size of an input signal, but there are no feelings involved in that.

Ok, that's good enough for me. The function of emotions seems enough to salvage them from the pure qualia of consciousness box and put them into the machine box.

Even reasoning and analytic thought processes are accompanied by some sensation or feeling. Curiosity? Confusion? The sense of certainty of a right answer? The nagging feeling of a tip-of-the-tongue experience when you know you know something but can't quite name it? Doubt? I don't know if there is a computational equivalent to doubt, in which one thinks one has the right answer based on all the available information but still thinks that it could be wrong. Does it stem from a more primitive feeling, as in "My predator acts like he doesn't know I'm here, but what if I'm wrong, should I run or stay put?"

One could argue that emotion is too broad a term. Some people sub divide it into things like physiological arousal, cognitive appraisal, the conscious experience or feeling of an emotion, action tendency, and expressive behavior. But I don't think dissecting emotion completely lets one off the hook as in "Okay feeling goes in the qualia box, but arousal or expression goes in the machine box." Fear  would be a good example of an emotion that is harder to dissect in that way, especially since a person can be afraid before one has had time to identify or figure out the cause, but can also fear things one has had a great deal of time to consider. And fear as a big effect on memory and aversion to things in the future, both rational and irrational.

If it sounds like I've contradicted myself along the way, I probably have. I'm not trying to formulate an argument, or convince anyone of anything, really just figure it out myself.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

CliffordK:
Stop editing my posts , please : you have no right whatsoever to do just that .
Do not be an inquisitor either  .Stop your silly and biased censorship also .
Who gave you the "right " to mess with people's posts anyway ?

[David Cooper]

The function of emotions seems enough to salvage them from the pure qualia of consciousness box and put them into the machine box.

You have to separate out feelings from functions. Pain is not an emotion, but it is a feeling associated with a function which is to guide you away from damage. Emotions are also feelings which are associated with drives, such as with love where it guides you to care for things that are beneficial to your life. What actually distinguishes emotions from other feelings is simply that they are triggered by events in the brain rather than by external inputs. Colours, sounds, smells, pain, touch, heat sensors, balance sensors, etc. are things that result in qualia being experienced which are not labelled as emotions. Emotions may then be triggered in response to music, scenes or the sight of something disasterous befalling someone, but the cause of that is internal, coming from the results of processing inputs and not from the simple inputs themselves.

Even reasoning and analytic thought processes are accompanied by some sensation or feeling. Curiosity? Confusion? The sense of certainty of a right answer? The nagging feeling of a tip-of-the-tongue experience when you know you know something but can't quite name it? Doubt? I don't know if there is a computational equivalent to doubt, in which one thinks one has the right answer based on all the available information but still thinks that it could be wrong. Does it stem from a more primitive feeling, as in "My predator acts like he doesn't know I'm here, but what if I'm wrong, should I run or stay put?"

There appear to be feelings that go along with everything that goes through the main processor in the brain, such as a feeling of understanding whatever is the focus of attention at any point in time, or feeling confused about it if something doesn't appear to add up properly. A feeling of doubt about it would be there if it isn't clearly correct. These are all things that don't need to have feelings involved at all and the feeling aspect of them doesn't appear to fit in the model at all

One could argue that emotion is too broad a term. Some people sub divide it into things like physiological arousal, cognitive appraisal, the conscious experience or feeling of an emotion, action tendency, and expressive behavior. But I don't think dissecting emotion completely lets one off the hook as in "Okay feeling goes in the qualia box, but arousal or expression goes in the machine box." Fear  would be a good example of an emotion that is harder to dissect in that way, especially since a person can be afraid before one has had time to identify or figure out the cause, but can also fear things one has had a great deal of time to consider. And fear as a big effect on memory and aversion to things in the future, both rational and irrational.

You can make different sets of qualia and separate them on the basis that some are associated with vision, some with hearing, some with internal triggers, etc., but all of them are qualia/feelings/sensations. The different sets are merely dividing them on the basis of associated functionalities and say nothing about the qualia themselves. Fear is a danger warning where the actual feeling is tied to the amount of calculated danger. The feeling is simple, but the trigger is complex and can be affected heavily by different thoughts from moment to moment, some of which may be subconscious and it therefore may not be clear why you are afraid of something, but some background process has detected something that is suggestive of a threat.

[cheryl j]

The function of emotions seems enough to salvage them from the pure qualia of consciousness box and put them into the machine box.

You have to separate out feelings from functions. Pain is not an emotion, but it is a feeling associated with a function which is to guide you away from damage. Emotions are also feelings which are associated with drives, such as with love where it guides you to care for things that are beneficial to your life. What actually distinguishes emotions from other feelings is simply that they are triggered by events in the brain rather than by external inputs. Colours, sounds, smells, pain, touch, heat sensors, balance sensors, etc. are things that result in qualia being experienced which are not labelled as emotions. Emotions may then be triggered in response to music, scenes or the sight of something disasterous befalling someone, but the cause of that is internal, coming from the results of processing inputs and not from the simple inputs themselves.

An interesting aspect of function related to emotion is maintaining a response or state over time. Hormones like adrenalin and epinephrine duplicate and amplify the effects of sympathetic nerves. The explanation for this duplication in physiology books is that it sustains changes in state, like the fight or flight response - keeps it going longer. Some hormones function as neurotransmitters and but also have direct effects on target cells that have receptors for them. Nerves are quick, work point to point, but stop firing once the stimulus stops, and sometimes they fatigue or adapt and ignore a repetitive stimulation. Hormones take 30 minutes or longer to clear the system.

A person can and does cognitively assess a threat, and can even make plans for avoiding or dealing with it in the future. But once the threat is not apparent and the brain is focused on other cognitive tasks, the threat is almost forgotten, even though it may lurk around the next corner. Emotions like fear seem to sustain the response longer, and in extreme cases, like post traumatic stress disorder, hyper-vigilence and the unpleasant qualia that goes with it, is maintained for months or years. Fear and happiness are internally generated sensations of pain and pleasure when the stimulus is not present. After all, it's almost pointless to experience pain after the predator has sunk his teeth into you, since you are going to be dead soon anyway, and not likely to pass on your genes. But arguably, it gets one no closer to understanding qualia, if you see physical pain as qualia as well, not just a signal amplifier of some kind.

It's a fair request to say "Show me the links between neurons and consciousness, show me how you get from A to B," since that is what I presume you are expected to do in your work every day. On the other hand, it's difficult for me to believe that all the specific structures in the brain and the biochemistry associated with emotion are just bells and flashing lights that are set off as the pin ball of consciousness gets slammed around. They would seem to be responsible in some way, especially when interfering with those structures or chemistry, changes emotional response and experience, and often changes cognition and what is being attended to.

I do sometimes wonder, though, whether qualia are illusions. After all, the brain does convince itself that it is more conscious than it is. We fill in the blind spot in our visual field from the optic nerve. We ignore the nose on our own face, and believe we have a clear and colorful 180 degree view even though we can't distinguish colors in our peripheral vision. We assume factual knowledge we don't have (I saw an experiment in which a group of people were asked to draw a bicycle, and even though everyone was confident they knew how a bicycle worked,  only one of them drew anything that would actually function as a bicycle.) So if the brain can tell all these little lies, maybe consciousness is just one big fat lie.

But if it is an illusion, it's a stubborn one. As Stephen Hawking said, “I have noticed that even those who assert that everything is predestined and that we can change nothing about it still look both ways before they cross the street." It may be an illusion we are simply stuck with and can't make sense of the world without it. Yeah, I'm aware that statement is somehow a contradiction of itself. As was that one. And that one, too.

[David Cooper]

The chemicals released in the brain are part of the network of causation that leads to the brain making decisions, different chemicals triggering different emotions at some point somewhere in the system (if feelings are real). I don't think we're going to get to the answers though until we can model the brain well enough to track back the claims that come out of it to see the evidence they were based on. My hope (why do I hope it though?) is that there is another system of processing that computer science does not yet understand, a system which depends on qualia and something of substance that experiences them for real (an I in the machine) and which is somehow able to make itself known to the information system that generates the data claiming that consciousness is real. I don't think this is something anyone's going to work out until we've actually seen it and discovered how it works.

[David Cooper]

By the way, I can draw a proper bicycle - I like to put one in my signature using the two "o"s as wheels.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

The chemicals released in the brain are part of the network of causation that leads to the brain making decisions, different chemicals triggering different emotions at some point somewhere in the system (if feelings are real). I don't think we're going to get to the answers though until we can model the brain well enough to track back the claims that come out of it to see the evidence they were based on. My hope (why do I hope it though?) is that there is another system of processing that computer science does not yet understand, a system which depends on qualia and something of substance that experiences them for real (an I in the machine) and which is somehow able to make itself known to the information system that generates the data claiming that consciousness is real. I don't think this is something anyone's going to work out until we've actually seen it and discovered how it works.

[/quote]

haha :  Pardon me for laughing , but i could not help just that , sorry , David :
Typical mechanistic materialism at work in science : unbelievable :
"The chemicals released in the brain are part of the network of causation that leads to the brain making decisions, different chemicals triggering different emotions at some point somewhere in the system (if feelings are real)..."  haha : listen to yourself saying this mechanistic materialist non-sense and more here above :
How can chemicals do just that via machine -like , computer -like computation or whatever = pure mechanistic materialist non-sense ,unbelievable .

Just know that reality as a whole is not just physical material , as materialism wanna make you believe it is = reality in that materialist sense that can be explained just in terms of physics and chemistry  alone  , how can the latter account for emotions , feelings , human love , let alone for consciousness in general, life in general , ...human reason ...?

Physics and chemistry alone can never account for such processes , not even in a trillion years to come , logically = you are just wasting your time on trying to 'figure out " how qualia or the feeling of pain , feelings , emotions , human reason , consciousness, life in general ...can 'rise from " physics and chemistry = that's not possible, obviously = physics and chemistry alone cannot "generate " sentient alive living organisms  that are no machines ,per definition, , by some sort of inexplicable magical materialist mechanistic belief assumptions in science haha
  Ludicrous .........
I could not help but hard laughing that that brought tears to my eyes haha

[alancalverd]

How can chemicals do just that via machine -like , computer -like computation or whatever = pure mechanistic materialist non-sense ,unbelievable .

Instead of laughing at those who know better, how about telling us what you think goes on in the brain?

And don't just quote slabs of Sheldrake. I know what he thinks.

[David Cooper]

...by some sort of inexplicable magical materialist mechanistic belief assumptions in science haha

You're the one trying to bring in bucketloads of magic. I'm trying to remove as much magic from the model as possible. Your solution is to explain things by replacing cause-and-effect mechanisms with magic, not only for the bits that I can't explain, but for a whole stack of things that I can explain. Unbelievable! You still don't get it!

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

...by some sort of inexplicable magical materialist mechanistic belief assumptions in science haha

You're the one trying to bring in bucketloads of magic. I'm trying to remove as much magic from the model as possible. Your solution is to explain things by replacing cause-and-effect mechanisms with magic, not only for the bits that I can't explain, but for a whole stack of things that I can explain. Unbelievable! You still don't get it!

[/quote]

Haha

You're the one trying to bring magic into life ,buddy,  life that's no machine or computer either : materialist magic in the form of some sort of elaborate neuronal computation , in the form of "specific neurons triggering  specific emotions ..." : simply ludicrous .
You're bringing magic into life ,and into the whole reality as a whole as such , by reducing life to just physics and chemistry ,as materialism does in fact , and as modern science nowadays does ,unfortunately enough ,  the latter thanks to materialism .
While science just tries to deal with the observable, the empirical ...

[David Cooper]

You materialists are stoopid - you believes that a calculator works by cause and effect mechanisms, but it doesn't. No one can explain how a calculator works. It actually works by non-materialistic science, but that isn't magic because I say so.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

You materialists are stoopid - you believes that a calculator works by cause and effect mechanisms, but it doesn't. No one can explain how a calculator works. It actually works by non-materialistic science, but that isn't magic because I say so.

[/quote]

Please , be serious , David :
Science has been pretending to know the whole nature of reality as such already , thanks to materialism , in the sense that the whole reality as such is just material physical = reducing everything to just physics and chemistry + to their materialist extension , while science should in fact confine itself only to the observable, empirical  ...once again .
Is that so difficult to get ? Amazing .

[David Cooper]

What is amazing is that you want to replace explanations based on cause-and-effect mechanisms which work with magical "explanations" which don't explain anything and then you deny that they are magical. You have more magic in your model than anyone else here.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

What is amazing is that you want to replace explanations based on cause-and-effect mechanisms which work with magical "explanations" which don't explain anything and then you deny that they are magical. You have more magic in your model than anyone else here.

[/quote]

My friend : you are the one introducing inexplicable , inconsistent , illogical, irrational , unscientific and incoherent materialist magic in science or in the computer-like ,machine -like  "information system "  materialist analogy regarding life in particular and regarding reality as a whole in general   ,by reducing everything to just mechanical physics and chemistry + to their materialist macroscopic extensions such as the alleged neuronal computational  mechanisms  regarding the nature , so-called emergence or origins evolution and function of human reason , idem ditto for feelings emotions , consciousness .... while science should be only confined to the observable , empirical ...part of reality .
I do not blame you for that in fact : science istelf has been reducing the whole reality as a whole as such to just material physical biological processes for centuries now , thanks to materialism , so = a materialist belief assumption regarding the nature of reality = not a scientific empirical fact or assumption .
Science has therefore been pretending to know the  nature of reality as a whole already (Wao haha ) , thanks to materialism thus , by reducing the whole reality as a whole as such to just material physical biological processes that can be thus explained only in terms of physics and chemistry , once again, while science in fact should limit itself only to the observable, empirical...part of reality = the rest of the potential reality out there is therefore both outside science's realm and outside of science's jurisdiction as well... .

[alancalverd]

Science has therefore been pretending to know the  nature of reality as a whole already

Rubbish. Science is an inanimate activity. It cannot pretend.

"This above all: to thine own self be true." If you tell yourself untruths, you will end up believing them even if nobody else does. Believing things that are false is a big step on the road to insanity. Stop now.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Science has therefore been pretending to know the  nature of reality as a whole already

Rubbish. Science is an inanimate activity. It cannot pretend.

[/quote]

Come on, do not be silly , be serious , please : i did respond to this non-sense of yours on many occasions : i talk about science "pretending , seeing , doing , saying ..." in the metaphorical sense , as a metaphorical (not literal ) figure of speech .

See that materialist meta-paradigm dominating in all science at least , once again , a materialist meta-paradigm that considers the whole reality as a whole as such as just being physical material = science has thus been "pretending " to know the nature of the whole reality as a whole as such  already , by considering it to be just material physical, as a result ...thanks to materialism .

"This above all: to thine own self be true." If you tell yourself untruths, you will end up believing them even if nobody else does. Believing things that are false is a big step on the road to insanity. Stop now.

Why should i stop ? Are you afraid of ...facts ? Are you afraid of the "truth ". whatever the latter might be , only dogmatic people are , as science is , as science has been dogmatic for so long now , thanks to materialism , science gotta be liberated from , in order for science to be delivered from its materialist dogmatic belief system ,the latter that gets taken for granted as ...science .

[David Cooper]

My friend : you are the one introducing inexplicable , inconsistent , illogical, irrational , unscientific and incoherent materialist magic in science or in the computer-like ,machine -like  "information system "  materialist analogy regarding life in particular and regarding reality as a whole in general   ,by reducing everything to just mechanical physics and chemistry + to their materialist macroscopic extensions such as the alleged neuronal computational  mechanisms  regarding the nature , so-called emergence or origins evolution and function of human reason , idem ditto for feelings emotions , consciousness .... while science should be only confined to the observable , empirical ...part of reality .

Why are you dragging emotions/consciousness into that? You know full well that I label that as the part science appears to be unable to handle. The rest of it needs no magical explanation, but you insist on giving it one while denying that your magical explanation is magical. That puts you in a ridiculous position.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

My friend : you are the one introducing inexplicable , inconsistent , illogical, irrational , unscientific and incoherent materialist magic in science or in the computer-like ,machine -like  "information system "  materialist analogy regarding life in particular and regarding reality as a whole in general   ,by reducing everything to just mechanical physics and chemistry + to their materialist macroscopic extensions such as the alleged neuronal computational  mechanisms  regarding the nature , so-called emergence or origins evolution and function of human reason , idem ditto for feelings emotions , consciousness .... while science should be only confined to the observable , empirical ...part of reality .

Why are you dragging emotions/consciousness into that? You know full well that I label that as the part science appears to be unable to handle. The rest of it needs no magical explanation, but you insist on giving it one while denying that your magical explanation is magical. That puts you in a ridiculous position.

[/quote]

Well, that's the core issue here :
 (By the way , you're the only one here who does realise the fact that science is unable to handle the nature of consciousness , feelings ,emotions ...I know that , that's 1 of the reasons why i do think highly of you , simply because you are intelligent and with integrity  enough to admit that, despite your "materialist promissory messianism " on the subject , in the sense that science will be able , some day , to explain all that, just via physics and chemistry ....or via some extensions of physics and chemistry , such as via some sort of still unknown -to-us neuronal computation....of some sort   . ) :
The core issue here  thus  is , as follows :
The materialist "scientific world view " cannot , per definition , explain consciousness , emotions , feelings , human intellect, memory  ...just via physics and chemistry alone , that's the main core issue here , but , you , David , cannot or do not want to realise that simple fact .
Worse : you have been trying to find a way to explain consciousness, human intellect , emotions ...just via physics and chemistry , via those materialist macroscopic computational extensions "mechanisms " = cannot be done , simply because living organisms are no machines or computers , and simply because life or reality as a whole are not just material physical , as materialism and therefore as science assumes them to be ...
Get that , Dave ?

I just want science to stick to its own unparalleled and effective method that's like no other , by confining itself just to what it can observe , test , verify , falsify , reproduce ...instead of reducing reality as a whole, life as a whole, consciousness, emotions, human intellect , memory  ...to just physics and chemistry biochemistry, thanks to materialism thus , materialism that's just a reductionist naturalist false conception of nature = a belief assumption  ....the rest is , obviously , outside of science's realm ,and outside of science's jurisdiction as well, including   thus the nature or origins of consciousness, emotions, human intellect, including the nature or origins of life , including the nature and origins of reality as a whole thus  ...

So, i am not introducing any magic in science , unlike what you try to do , i just  remind you of what science is actually , what it can and cannot do , that's all .
Thanks, appreciate indeed.
Cheers.

[cheryl j]

What was the question again? Oh yeah, it was "What was the origin of human language." Sorry for getting so off topic. I don't know how that keeps happening.

[David Cooper]

Human intelect and memory can be accounted for by what we already know about mechanistic computation systems. Life can be accounted for as complex chemistry. I see no point in imagining magical solutions for those to use in place of perfectly good mechanistic models which already work perfectly. The only difficulty left is consciousness.