Atheism and Free Will

[Belindi]

TS

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 1:53 pm
What we know is that mental experience 'manifests' as a discrete, unified field of consciousness.

Your conscious experience must be very different than mine if yours seems "discrete and unified"

You should probably see someone about that.

Gertie and TS are both right. If there were no cognitive dissonance there would be no need to learn anything new. "Discrete and unified" mental experience is a comfort we aim for. The path towards "discrete and unified" mental experience is not mapped or mappable, and the goal transcends this world , although there are useful waymarks many of them tried and tested over time.

[Gertie]

TS

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 1:53 pm
What we know is that mental experience 'manifests' as a discrete, unified field of consciousness.

Your conscious experience must be very different than mine if yours seems "discrete and unified"

You should probably see someone about that.

Gertie and TS are both right. If there were no cognitive dissonance there would be no need to learn anything new. "Discrete and unified" mental experience is a comfort we aim for. The path towards "discrete and unified" mental experience is not mapped or mappable, and the goal transcends this world , although there are useful waymarks many of them tried and tested over time.

My meaning is more down to earth than that, and just a description. The field of consciousness is unified in the sense that all our brain subsystems and correlated types of conscious experience are integrated into this one moment-by-moment ongoing process, a bit like a film playing out in front of our eyes. Attention and focus shifting to different aspects of what's going on. In humans at least.

It's a discrete field of consciousness in the sense that it is bounded, it doesn't stretch for ever or meld into other people's. In the form of a first person pov, located in time and space, correlated with a specific body.

[Belindi]

TS

Your conscious experience must be very different than mine if yours seems "discrete and unified"

You should probably see someone about that.

Gertie and TS are both right. If there were no cognitive dissonance there would be no need to learn anything new. "Discrete and unified" mental experience is a comfort we aim for. The path towards "discrete and unified" mental experience is not mapped or mappable, and the goal transcends this world , although there are useful waymarks many of them tried and tested over time.

My meaning is more down to earth than that, and just a description. The field of consciousness is unified in the sense that all our brain subsystems and correlated types of conscious experience are integrated into this one moment-by-moment ongoing process, a bit like a film playing out in front of our eyes. Attention and focus shifting to different aspects of what's going on. In humans at least.

It's a discrete field of consciousness in the sense that it is bounded, it doesn't stretch for ever or meld into other people's. In the form of a first person pov, located in time and space, correlated with a specific body.

I am quite good at making decisions when I can do so. However sometimes I feel uncomfortably indecisive. As a matter of fact I have problems that I will never solve and I have no doubt my anatomical or neurochemical brain correlates with all my feelings and cognitions .

I think I understand you, that there is such a discrete thing as specific focus on a problem. Some people are able to focus on a problem and its solution whilst they are unaware of hunger, other people, sex, pain, thirst, or an earthquake. At the other extreme are people who cannot focus their attention at all.

[Terrapin Station]

But the fact is information in the non/sub/unconscious can be triggered to become a conscious thought. Further, this "potential consciousness" - repressed or forgotten memories or memories that were never consciously noticed, can have a tangible impact on a person, eg. repressed memories and trauma.

Would you say that washes can be "triggered to become rivers"?

[Terrapin Station]

TS

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 1:53 pm
What we know is that mental experience 'manifests' as a discrete, unified field of consciousness.

Your conscious experience must be very different than mine if yours seems "discrete and unified"

You should probably see someone about that.

Sure, although I should probably try to figure out exactly what it amounts to, as well.

[Terrapin Station]

TS

Your conscious experience must be very different than mine if yours seems "discrete and unified"

You should probably see someone about that.

Gertie and TS are both right. If there were no cognitive dissonance there would be no need to learn anything new. "Discrete and unified" mental experience is a comfort we aim for. The path towards "discrete and unified" mental experience is not mapped or mappable, and the goal transcends this world , although there are useful waymarks many of them tried and tested over time.

My meaning is more down to earth than that, and just a description. The field of consciousness is unified in the sense that all our brain subsystems and correlated types of conscious experience are integrated into this one moment-by-moment ongoing process, a bit like a film playing out in front of our eyes. Attention and focus shifting to different aspects of what's going on. In humans at least.

It's a discrete field of consciousness in the sense that it is bounded, it doesn't stretch for ever or meld into other people's. In the form of a first person pov, located in time and space, correlated with a specific body.

If "unified" just amounts to it making sense to abstract something as a "persistent thing" (because of the way that it's causally, contiguously connected to previous states) then that's fine, but that doesn't suggest something indivisible or something that's literally (that is, not via our abstracted, basically "abbreviated" way of thinking about it) "just one thing."

[Gertie]

TS



You should probably see someone about that.

Gertie and TS are both right. If there were no cognitive dissonance there would be no need to learn anything new. "Discrete and unified" mental experience is a comfort we aim for. The path towards "discrete and unified" mental experience is not mapped or mappable, and the goal transcends this world , although there are useful waymarks many of them tried and tested over time.

My meaning is more down to earth than that, and just a description. The field of consciousness is unified in the sense that all our brain subsystems and correlated types of conscious experience are integrated into this one moment-by-moment ongoing process, a bit like a film playing out in front of our eyes. Attention and focus shifting to different aspects of what's going on. In humans at least.

It's a discrete field of consciousness in the sense that it is bounded, it doesn't stretch for ever or meld into other people's. In the form of a first person pov, located in time and space, correlated with a specific body.

I am quite good at making decisions when I can do so. However sometimes I feel uncomfortably indecisive. As a matter of fact I have problems that I will never solve and I have no doubt my anatomical or neurochemical brain correlates with all my feelings and cognitions .

I think I understand you, that there is such a discrete thing as specific focus on a problem. Some people are able to focus on a problem and its solution whilst they are unaware of hunger, other people, sex, pain, thirst, or an earthquake. At the other extreme are people who cannot focus their attention at all.

I'm talking broadly about what it is like to be a conscious being, how conscious experience manifests - for humans at least.

The closest thing I can think of is like watching a film (or the Cartesian Theatre), the screen is one unified presentation, but lots of things are going on at once, and our attention shifts. We might focus on the actor speaking, taking in the words, what they mean, or a dark shadow looming behind, or flick back and forth.

If there's a loud bang in the cinema, whatever we were focussed on kinda ''switches off' and our attention focuses in on the bang, what is it, what caused it, am I in danger, I might feel scared, etc. If I'm focussed on a problem, the thinky voice in my head might be my focus, trying to work out a strategy, imagining possible outcomes, feeling hopeless or hopeful - and I'm not really noticing it getting dark, or the fan noise in the background. But it's all still kinda peripherally there in the background, available to focus on, within this panorama of sights, sounds, thoughts, emotions, etc. And combined with the first person pov, it adds up to this sense of being a single, unified self.

I meant my unified field of consciousness is itself discrete in the sense that my experience, my first person pov, is limited and separated from from yours. It's correlated with my specific body. When I see you, you are 'out there', external to me, like trees and computers and everything but my own conscious experience.

That's just how conscious experience seems to work.

So my original point was that's not a good fit with how we describe physical stuff imo, as fundamental particles interacting via physical laws to create composite lumps of particles bound by this or that force. Which are divisible into those particles if you can counteract the the effect of the physical force. (Smashing particles together in the Large Hadron Collider, or chopping a carrot or a brain in half). Conscious experience is just different to that. You can call sensations and memories and smells different ''parts'' of conscious experience if you want, but it's not the same way physical particles are part of a table.

Hope that's a bit clearer?

[Belindi]

Gertie and TS are both right. If there were no cognitive dissonance there would be no need to learn anything new. "Discrete and unified" mental experience is a comfort we aim for. The path towards "discrete and unified" mental experience is not mapped or mappable, and the goal transcends this world , although there are useful waymarks many of them tried and tested over time.

My meaning is more down to earth than that, and just a description. The field of consciousness is unified in the sense that all our brain subsystems and correlated types of conscious experience are integrated into this one moment-by-moment ongoing process, a bit like a film playing out in front of our eyes. Attention and focus shifting to different aspects of what's going on. In humans at least.

It's a discrete field of consciousness in the sense that it is bounded, it doesn't stretch for ever or meld into other people's. In the form of a first person pov, located in time and space, correlated with a specific body.

I am quite good at making decisions when I can do so. However sometimes I feel uncomfortably indecisive. As a matter of fact I have problems that I will never solve and I have no doubt my anatomical or neurochemical brain correlates with all my feelings and cognitions .

I think I understand you, that there is such a discrete thing as specific focus on a problem. Some people are able to focus on a problem and its solution whilst they are unaware of hunger, other people, sex, pain, thirst, or an earthquake. At the other extreme are people who cannot focus their attention at all.

I'm talking broadly about what it is like to be a conscious being, how conscious experience manifests - for humans at least.

The closest thing I can think of is like watching a film (or the Cartesian Theatre), the screen is one unified presentation, but lots of things are going on at once, and our attention shifts. We might focus on the actor speaking, taking in the words, what they mean, or a dark shadow looming behind, or flick back and forth.

If there's a loud bang in the cinema, whatever we were focussed on kinda ''switches off' and our attention focuses in on the bang, what is it, what caused it, am I in danger, I might feel scared, etc. If I'm focussed on a problem, the thinky voice in my head might be my focus, trying to work out a strategy, imagining possible outcomes, feeling hopeless or hopeful - and I'm not really noticing it getting dark, or the fan noise in the background. But it's all still kinda peripherally there in the background, available to focus on, within this panorama of sights, sounds, thoughts, emotions, etc. And combined with the first person pov, it adds up to this sense of being a single, unified self.

I meant my unified field of consciousness is itself discrete in the sense that my experience, my first person pov, is limited and separated from from yours. It's correlated with my specific body. When I see you, you are 'out there', external to me, like trees and computers and everything but my own conscious experience.

That's just how conscious experience seems to work.

So my original point was that's not a good fit with how we describe physical stuff imo, as fundamental particles interacting via physical laws to create composite lumps of particles bound by this or that force. Which are divisible into those particles if you can counteract the the effect of the physical force. (Smashing particles together in the Large Hadron Collider, or chopping a carrot or a brain in half). Conscious experience is just different to that. You can call sensations and memories and smells different ''parts'' of conscious experience if you want, but it's not the same way physical particles are part of a table.

Hope that's a bit clearer?

I think it may be a little clearer.

There are always and continuously"loud bangs" in the "cinema", because you are not what you observe on the screen, (that would indeed be Cartesian)you are a unique centre of experience in a changeable environment. You don't exist as a mind separated from an environment (i.e "the cinema /cinema screen")you exist as mind relating to an environment always and invariably.

I meant my unified field of consciousness is itself discrete in the sense that my experience, my first person pov, is limited and separated from from yours. It's correlated with my specific body. When I see you, you are 'out there', external to me, like trees and computers and everything but my own conscious experience.

I think your experiences are unique to yourself, and the more free you are the more unique experiences of which you are the centre.

I think I am "out there" to you however I am "out there" in a different way from trees and computers because you and every human being has an attitude that there is something "out there" that can understand and communicate with you. If you were the very last human being ,and knew it,you would still be able to think of aliens or something that could communicate with you.

[Gertie]

Belindi

I'm talking broadly about what it is like to be a conscious being, how conscious experience manifests - for humans at least.

The closest thing I can think of is like watching a film (or the Cartesian Theatre), the screen is one unified presentation, but lots of things are going on at once, and our attention shifts. We might focus on the actor speaking, taking in the words, what they mean, or a dark shadow looming behind, or flick back and forth.

If there's a loud bang in the cinema, whatever we were focussed on kinda ''switches off' and our attention focuses in on the bang, what is it, what caused it, am I in danger, I might feel scared, etc. If I'm focussed on a problem, the thinky voice in my head might be my focus, trying to work out a strategy, imagining possible outcomes, feeling hopeless or hopeful - and I'm not really noticing it getting dark, or the fan noise in the background. But it's all still kinda peripherally there in the background, available to focus on, within this panorama of sights, sounds, thoughts, emotions, etc. And combined with the first person pov, it adds up to this sense of being a single, unified self.

I meant my unified field of consciousness is itself discrete in the sense that my experience, my first person pov, is limited and separated from from yours. It's correlated with my specific body. When I see you, you are 'out there', external to me, like trees and computers and everything but my own conscious experience.

That's just how conscious experience seems to work.

So my original point was that's not a good fit with how we describe physical stuff imo, as fundamental particles interacting via physical laws to create composite lumps of particles bound by this or that force. Which are divisible into those particles if you can counteract the the effect of the physical force. (Smashing particles together in the Large Hadron Collider, or chopping a carrot or a brain in half). Conscious experience is just different to that. You can call sensations and memories and smells different ''parts'' of conscious experience if you want, but it's not the same way physical particles are part of a table.

Hope that's a bit clearer?

I think it may be a little clearer.

There are always and continuously"loud bangs" in the "cinema", because you are not what you observe on the screen, (that would indeed be Cartesian)you are a unique centre of experience in a changeable environment. You don't exist as a mind separated from an environment (i.e "the cinema /cinema screen")you exist as mind relating to an environment always and invariably.

I agree. I think the unity of the sense of self identified with the panorama of experience (and the stream of attention drawing bangs), isn't because there's really a mini-me homunculus watching the inputs and issuing commands, it just sorta feels that way. It's how it feels/manifests when all the neurally inter-connected sub-systems are integrated into something usefully coherent. (What that means for free will is unclear imo, until we understand the nature of the mind-body relationship).

I meant my unified field of consciousness is itself discrete in the sense that my experience, my first person pov, is limited and separated from from yours. It's correlated with my specific body. When I see you, you are 'out there', external to me, like trees and computers and everything but my own conscious experience.

I think your experiences are unique to yourself, and the more free you are the more unique experiences of which you are the centre.

I think I am "out there" to you however I am "out there" in a different way from trees and computers because you and every human being has an attitude that there is something "out there" that can understand and communicate with you. If you were the very last human being ,and knew it,you would still be able to think of aliens or something that could communicate with you.

I'd say the ''out there-ness'' is to do with conscious experience being bounded and having a specific first person pov. Experiencing subjects come in discrete embodied packages as far as we can tell (tho we can't tell why, or if experience always has to be that way), with some type of correlated relationship to one specific body. We don't have a universal/third person/god's eye pov. Our conscious experience can be said to 'extend' out into the world, eg via interaction with our senses, but in the sense of its content being about the world.

I don't know how communication is relevant? We do crave it tho.

[Pattern-chaser]

I'm not a fan of re-badging the "subconscious" as the "unconscious", which renders an organic and subtly variable phenomenon black-and-white.

Guy Claxton, who wrote a wonderful book about this chooses to use the term "nonconscious". I like it better than "subconscious", which clearly implies that consciousness and the conscious mind are somehow above the rest of our minds. Recent work seems to suggest that, in some ways, the conscious mind is very much the junior partner, junior to the rest of the mind. I think the nonconscious is bigger too, although applying concepts like size to the mind might be a little reckless of me?

I haven't read that book, but just browsing it, note that I'm not saying that there aren't unconscious brain functions that wind up influencing mental phenomena. What I'm saying is that there's no good reason to believe that there are unconscious mental phenomena--that is, phenomena that are more or less just like conscious mental phenomena, with the only significant difference being that we're not aware of it.

I am something of an enthusiast for our recent discoveries as to the nature and function of the nonconscious mind. But I would not go so far as to say that unconscious 'thoughts' are "more or less just like conscious mental phenomena, with the only significant difference being that we're not aware of it". There are significant differences. For example, nonconscious 'thought' is timeless (i.e. not 'aware' of time and its passage).

But the fact is information in the non/sub/unconscious can be triggered to become a conscious thought. Further, this "potential consciousness" - repressed or forgotten memories or memories that were never consciously noticed, can have a tangible impact on a person, eg. repressed memories and trauma.

So there is not only good reason to believe that the subconscious mind exists, but there is bountiful tangible proof in documented triggering of repressed, forgotten and unnoticed memories. There is a huge amount of data coming in, and the conscious mind can only handle a tiny proportion of the constant and largely uncontrolled thoughtstream. The extra information is not wasted but is retained in the background. Bundled together, the unconscious mind helps to form "general impressions" and to shape intuitive behaviours.

Yes, I find the doings of the nonconscious fascinating. It does so much, it seems, at all kinds of different abstract levels, from the hind-brain bodily BIOS all the way through to composing poetry or solving design problems.

[Sy Borg]

But the fact is information in the non/sub/unconscious can be triggered to become a conscious thought. Further, this "potential consciousness" - repressed or forgotten memories or memories that were never consciously noticed, can have a tangible impact on a person, eg. repressed memories and trauma.

Would you say that washes can be "triggered to become rivers"?

No, but old, lost hoardings can be found. Likewise, repressed and forgotten memories can be brought into the conscious arena. Yet these memories can lie in potentia for decades, unconsciously impacting on a person's life. This is a proven fact in PTSD therapy, not conjecture.

[PoeticUniverse]

Yes, I find the doings of the nonconscious fascinating.

Yes, as neurology. Here, reading posts, the nonconscious is quickly interpreting the written words, phrases, and sentences, quickly looking up the individual and overall meanings, analyzing, quickly consulting memory, quickly making associations, quickly formulating a response, quickly structuring it as qualia for consciousnesss, quickly blending it into the ongoing, and much more. 'Quickly' doesn't mean instant.

The two trillion neural connections actually do something, and this takes a bit of time, although not much, and so this necessary time is why there cannot be instantaneous doings. Consciousness itself comes too late in the brain process to be causing anything right then and there, plus it consists of products already completed in the nonconscious. It would be of no use to actually be conscious of the nonconscious brain cells firings, neurotransmitter, chemically carrying the electrical pulses across synapses, etc, so consciousness make no reference to any of the jillion brains states, which is called 'referral'.

[Sy Borg]

t would be of no use to actually be conscious of the nonconscious brain cells firings, neurotransmitter, chemically carrying the electrical pulses across synapses, etc, so consciousness make no reference to any of the jillion brains states, which is called 'referral'.

It would be overwhelming. Reality would seem a barely distinguishable maelstrom.

[ManInTheMoon]

How could I have one comprehensive conscious experience if there is not a single, indivisible thing that experiences everything I experience? It seems like the alternative would be for many things to each experience part of my experiences, but in that case, why would that not be multiple separate consciousnesses? I feel like a single thing, so why should I ever think I might not be? If I'm not a single thing, what exactly is it that feels like I am?

[PoeticUniverse]

one comprehensive conscious experience

There is indeed a unity to the contents of consciousness.

Consciousness is a brain process that has preceding inputs that it reflects.


Consciousness is

Intrinsic—My own, as independent;

Compositional—Structured with many phenomenological distinctions;

Informational—Particular and specific;

Integrated/Whole—Unified;

Exclusive—Definite content, no more no less.


Subjective Features:

Referral—The ‘projection’ of neural states with no perceiving of neural firings/states that only science can inform us of.

Mental Unity—Experienced as a unified field, whereas its sources are all over the brain.

Qualia—The subjectively experienced felt qualities of sensory consciousness.

Continuous—Seamless stitching of the ongoing changing contents, perhaps from short term memory.

Mental causation?—How can consciousness itself right then and there—an intangible, unobservable, and fully subjective entity—cause material neurons to direct behaviors that change the world? Subconscious brain analysis, taking 300-500 milliseconds to complete, is all done and finished in its result before consciousness gets hold of the product.


Uses/Advantages:

Flexibility of Reaction—We’re better able to react to conscious content, in our further subconscious decisions beyond just the automatic reflex-like responses triggered by non conscious content.

Focus—Selective attention allows the brain to focus its activity on what’s important, so that our subconscious decisions can attend to that foremost.

Evaluations—Feelings make one aware of what is good or bad. From emotions and logic both.

Survival Value—Complex decisions possible. Depth.

Behavioral Flexibility—Unlimited associate learning combines multiple cues into a single perception.

Discrimination—Small perceptual differences possible, such as between good and poisonous food.

Diversification of Species—Such as the Cambrian explosion and a kind of evolutionary arms race in finding new ways to avoid detection, spurring predators to become more sophisticated.

Beauty—Such as plants evolving colorful flowers to attract pollination.

Actionizing—Pondering of the consequences of scenarios before committing to action.