S:C Posted September 10, 2023 What advice for the caveman, who got out of the cave to see the light, just to be pulled back by gravity and fell back in the shadow cave, @kakapo? Not telling about it for sure, but else… a paradigm jump like that doesn’t happen and settles down in the mind/the screen. How to live a good life in the cave now? Get out again? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel Posted September 10, 2023 (edited) 54 minutes ago, kakapo said: You get to live in a simulated holographic experience, which you hope is an accurate representation of reality outside of yourself. I operate under the assumption there is an external reality and the experience that is occurring represents it accurately (most of the time), but this is not something I philosophically defend. I am open ideas like this being a quantum computer simulation, or that we could be Boltzmann brains. What I do understand is that almost all humans alive on earth are chained to a wall, and seeing shadows on the wall and believing the shadows to be reality, exactly like Plato's allegory of the cave. Respectfully, this did not answer the question. I asked: what does this communicate about what is beyond 'you'? It seems like the answer is 'nothing', but you are reluctant to simply answer the question. If it is unknown, then, there is no rational reason to make any assertions about being 'chained'. That cannot be known. But it is expected and understood that projecting this 'chained' status on 'almost all humans' is rewarding to the few who claim to be free. So, what you're saying about the inner experience, communicates nothing about what is beyond 'you'. Projecting captivity on others is completely unfounded from the inner experience as described above. It cannot be earnestly denied. Moving on (hopefully): ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You said: "You get to live in a simulated holographic experience, which you hope is an accurate representation of reality outside of yourself." Hope is not correct. Trust is correct. The holo-deck, the inner experience is trusted to be accurate for good reasons. There's scientific evidence, of course, but, like I said. In this conversation, you posted pictures which were trusted to carry content to make your message clear. If you did not trust that this diagram would be accurately rendered by my inner-experience, you ould not have sent it. Every word spoken or typed is expressed in trust that the audience will be able to render it accurately in their mind. Each and everytime an interaction occurs as expected between two humans, this reinforces the trust in the accuracy that the observations in the mind accurately describe the objects outside the mind. This is how babies learn language. Maybe-maybe a hermit could deny this. But the minute they speak, are understood, then spoken to, and that is understood, then the internal-experience is reinforced as accurate. Therefore, it's not that this inner-experience is false. It's not HOPE that it is accurate. It is trusted to be accurate, for very good reasons. And you have demonstrated your own trust in their accuracy. And I have confirmed that they are accurate by taking those diagrams and editting them to reconcile the claimed communication gap. Those reasons are a direct consequence of the existence of qualia outside the mind which are accurately abstracted inside the mind. 51 minutes ago, kakapo said: Images on a television have no inherent reality, experiences that you have no inherent reality for the same reason. At best they can accurately represent something else, like a painting of a pipe accurately represents a pipe but they can never substitute for actual reality. I very carefully wrote about the qualia behind the question mark outside the mind. None of this is relating to that. If it is unknown what is behind the question mark, then no claims can be made about the pipe or reality at all. Therefore what is written below is false. 21 hours ago, kakapo said: Such abstractions are only mental constructs and lack any inherent reality. The correct statement is: "I don't know if such abstractions are mental constructs. I don't know if they lack inherent reality." The exaggeration, I think, is a consequence of sloppy language which conflates "objects" and their "observations" in the mind. Edited September 10, 2023 by Daniel Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 10, 2023 7 minutes ago, stellarwindbubble said: What advice for the caveman, who got out of the cave to see the light, just to be pulled back by gravity and fell back in the shadow cave, @kakapo? Not telling about it for sure, but else… a paradigm jump like that doesn’t happen and settles down in the mind/the screen. How to live a good life in the cave now? Get out again? I wish I had more answers. My philosophy is try not to rock the boat, be good, pay taxes, and enjoy what you can where you can as long as it doesn't harm others. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel Posted September 10, 2023 8 minutes ago, stellarwindbubble said: What advice for the caveman, who got out of the cave to see the light, just to be pulled back by gravity and fell back in the shadow cave, @kakapo? Not telling about it for sure, but else… a paradigm jump like that doesn’t happen and settles down in the mind/the screen. How to live a good life in the cave now? Get out again? My question is: what is the connection between the chain and the shadows? There are none, right? The shadows are still shadows. The person is still a person. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 10, 2023 (edited) 14 minutes ago, Daniel said: The correct statement is: "I don't know if such abstractions are mental constructs. I don't know if they lack inherent reality." The correct statement is: "I don't know if such abstractions are mental constructs. I don't know if they lack inherent reality." Hi Daniel, I would like to ask that you please not respond to me any more until you have watched this video in full twice for comprehension. https://www.anilseth.com/bio/ I am Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where I am also Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. I am also Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness, and of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness. I was recently an Engagement Fellow with the Wellcome Trust. I am Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness (Oxford University Press); I sit on the Editorial Board of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B and on the Advisory Committee for 1907 Research and for Chile’s Congreso Futuro. I was Conference Chair for the 16th Meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC16, 2012) and was an ASSC ‘member at large’ from 2014-2022. My research has been supported by the EPSRC (Leadership Fellowship), the European Research Council (ERC, Advanced Investigator Grant), the Wellcome Trust, and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). Check out these profiles of me and my research in The Observer, The New Statesman, and Quanta. Edited September 10, 2023 by kakapo 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 10, 2023 10 minutes ago, Daniel said: Respectfully, this did not answer the question. I asked: what does this communicate about what is beyond 'you'? It seems like the answer is 'nothing', but you are reluctant to simply answer the question. If it is unknown, then, there is no rational reason to make any assertions about being 'chained'. That cannot be known. But it is expected and understood that projecting this 'chained' status on 'almost all humans' is rewarding to the few who claim to be free. So, what you're saying about the inner experience, communicates nothing about what is beyond 'you'. Projecting captivity on others is completely unfounded from the inner experience as described above. It cannot be earnestly denied. Moving on (hopefully): ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You said: "You get to live in a simulated holographic experience, which you hope is an accurate representation of reality outside of yourself." Hope is not correct. Trust is correct. The holo-deck, the inner experience is trusted to be accurate for good reasons. There's scientific evidence, of course, but, like I said. In this conversation, you posted pictures which were trusted to carry content to make your message clear. If you did not trust that this diagram would be accurately rendered by my inner-experience, you ould not have sent it. Every word spoken or typed is expressed in trust that the audience will be able to render it accurately in their mind. Each and everytime an interaction occurs as expected between two humans, this reinforces the trust in the accuracy that the observations in the mind accurately describe the objects outside the mind. This is how babies learn language. Maybe-maybe a hermit could deny this. But the minute they speak, are understood, then spoken to, and that is understood, then the internal-experience is reinforced as accurate. Therefore, it's not that this inner-experience is false. It's not HOPE that it is accurate. It is trusted to be accurate, for very good reasons. And you have demonstrated your own trust in their accuracy. And I have confirmed that they are accurate by taking those diagrams and editting them to reconcile the claimed communication gap. Those reasons are a direct consequence of the existence of qualia outside the mind which are accurately abstracted inside the mind. I very carefully wrote about the qualia behind the question mark outside the mind. None of this is relating to that. If it is unknown what is behind the question mark, then no claims can be made about the pipe or reality at all. Therefore what is written below is false. The correct statement is: "I don't know if such abstractions are mental constructs. I don't know if they lack inherent reality." The exaggeration, I think, is a consequence of sloppy language which conflates "objects" and their "observations" in the mind. "but you are reluctant to simply answer the question." If what I answered doesn't make sense I am not sure there is much more I can say about the matter. If you want to have a private discussion that is fine, but our exchange is approaching the level where people are going to start complaining. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 10, 2023 13 minutes ago, Daniel said: Respectfully, this did not answer the question. I asked: what does this communicate about what is beyond 'you'? It seems like the answer is 'nothing', but you are reluctant to simply answer the question. If it is unknown, then, there is no rational reason to make any assertions about being 'chained'. That cannot be known. But it is expected and understood that projecting this 'chained' status on 'almost all humans' is rewarding to the few who claim to be free. So, what you're saying about the inner experience, communicates nothing about what is beyond 'you'. Projecting captivity on others is completely unfounded from the inner experience as described above. It cannot be earnestly denied. Moving on (hopefully): ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You said: "You get to live in a simulated holographic experience, which you hope is an accurate representation of reality outside of yourself." Hope is not correct. Trust is correct. The holo-deck, the inner experience is trusted to be accurate for good reasons. There's scientific evidence, of course, but, like I said. In this conversation, you posted pictures which were trusted to carry content to make your message clear. If you did not trust that this diagram would be accurately rendered by my inner-experience, you ould not have sent it. Every word spoken or typed is expressed in trust that the audience will be able to render it accurately in their mind. Each and everytime an interaction occurs as expected between two humans, this reinforces the trust in the accuracy that the observations in the mind accurately describe the objects outside the mind. This is how babies learn language. Maybe-maybe a hermit could deny this. But the minute they speak, are understood, then spoken to, and that is understood, then the internal-experience is reinforced as accurate. Therefore, it's not that this inner-experience is false. It's not HOPE that it is accurate. It is trusted to be accurate, for very good reasons. And you have demonstrated your own trust in their accuracy. And I have confirmed that they are accurate by taking those diagrams and editting them to reconcile the claimed communication gap. Those reasons are a direct consequence of the existence of qualia outside the mind which are accurately abstracted inside the mind. I very carefully wrote about the qualia behind the question mark outside the mind. None of this is relating to that. If it is unknown what is behind the question mark, then no claims can be made about the pipe or reality at all. Therefore what is written below is false. The correct statement is: "I don't know if such abstractions are mental constructs. I don't know if they lack inherent reality." The exaggeration, I think, is a consequence of sloppy language which conflates "objects" and their "observations" in the mind. "Therefore, it's not that this inner-experience is false. ' It has no more reality than pixels of light on a television screen. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 10, 2023 (edited) 29 minutes ago, Daniel said: My question is: what is the connection between the chain and the shadows? There are none, right? The shadows are still shadows. The person is still a person. Here's the rub. There is no person. There is only an experience which observes itself. It's like a TV with no one watching it. It makes no sense but it's exactly what is happening. Edited September 10, 2023 by kakapo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel Posted September 10, 2023 18 minutes ago, kakapo said: Hi Daniel, I would like to ask that you please not respond to me any more until you have watched this video in full twice for comprehension. No thank you. I am not watching 34 minutes of video ( 17 minutes repeated ). I have demonstrated I understand hat you ar saying on page 1. Using the picture below: Yes, I know, you don't want the little man in the picture. But since this is your diagram, and it included the little man, there should not be objection on the grounds of "you just don't get it, you just don't understand." This describes your experience under the influence where the object did not match the obervation/observed. This diagram shos I understand what you are describing. If you can point out a flaw in this diagram EXCLUDING the little man. Then maybe I will consider spending time on watching the video 1 time. Claiming I need to watch it twice is pretty silly. 21 minutes ago, kakapo said: If what I answered doesn't make sense I am not sure there is much more I can say about the matter. If you want to have a private discussion that is fine, but our exchange is approaching the level where people are going to start complaining. I didn't say it didn't make sense. I said, you seem to be reluctant to acknolewdge that nothing about what have typed communicates anything about the objects beyond 'you'. Let the people complain. I'm not the one repeating and rewinding. 22 minutes ago, kakapo said: Therefore, it's not that this inner-experience is false. ' It has no more reality than pixels of light on a television screen. The pixels of light are not "on a television screen". The inter-atomic forces which produce physical sensations which are interpretted by the brain as observations accurately describe the physical attributes of the objects that are outside of 'you'. Those physical sensations accuratey describe the physical attributes in part, but not in total. The exceptions are physical impairments on the brain or dreaming, which hopefully you recall was an example I brought long ago as maybe a worth while avenue to explore. The proof of the accuracy of perception and your own trust in it is the conversation we're having, your reaction to it, the diagram you posted, and the diagrams I posted in response. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel Posted September 10, 2023 (edited) 9 minutes ago, kakapo said: Here's the rub. There is no person. There is only an experience which observes itself. It's like a TV with no one watching it. It makes no sense but it's exactly what is happening. I have repeatedly said "I know". It's not crazy at all. It's easy to understand. The issue is about making claims about objects, and projecting the "chains" on others as if it is some sort of priviledged few who are free. But if what you're saying is applied guess what? There is no bondage, that is imagined too. Edited September 10, 2023 by Daniel Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 10, 2023 (edited) https://singjupost.com/anil-seth-your-brain-hallucinates-your-conscious-reality-full-transcript/ Here is the full transcript of neuroscientist Anil Seth’s TED Talk: Your Brain Hallucinates Your Conscious Reality. Anil Seth – Neuroscientist Just over a year ago, for the third time in my life, I ceased to exist. I was having a small operation, and my brain was filling with anesthetic. I remember a sense of detachment and falling apart and a coldness. And then I was back, drowsy and disoriented, but definitely there. Now, when you wake from a deep sleep, you might feel confused about the time or anxious about oversleeping, but there’s always a basic sense of time having passed, of a continuity between then and now. Coming round from anesthesia is very different. I could have been under for five minutes, five hours, five years or even 50 years. I simply wasn’t there. It was total oblivion. Anesthesia — it’s a modern kind of magic. It turns people into objects, and then, we hope, back again into people. And in this process is one of the greatest remaining mysteries in science and philosophy. How does consciousness happen? Somehow, within each of our brains, the combined activity of many billions of neurons, each one a tiny biological machine, is generating a conscious experience. And not just any conscious experience — your conscious experience right here and right now. How does this happen? Answering this question is so important, because consciousness for each of us is all there is. Without it there’s no world, there’s no self, there’s nothing at all. And when we suffer, we suffer consciously whether it’s through mental illness or pain. And if we can experience joy and suffering, what about other animals? Might they be conscious, too? Do they also have a sense of self? And as computers get faster and smarter, maybe there will come a point, maybe not too far away, when my iPhone develops a sense of its own existence. I actually think the prospects for a conscious AI are pretty remote. And I think this because my research is telling me that consciousness has less to do with pure intelligence and more to do with our nature as living and breathing organisms. Consciousness and intelligence are very different things. You don’t have to be smart to suffer, but you probably do have to be alive. In the story I’m going to tell you, our conscious experiences of the world around us, and of ourselves within it, are kinds of controlled hallucinations that happen with, through and because of our living bodies. Now, you might have heard that we know nothing about how the brain and body give rise to consciousness. Some people even say it’s beyond the reach of science altogether. But in fact, the last 25 years have seen an explosion of scientific work in this area. If you come to my lab at the University of Sussex, you’ll find scientists from all different disciplines and sometimes even philosophers. All of us together trying to understand how consciousness happens and what happens when it goes wrong. And the strategy is very simple. I’d like you to think about consciousness in the way that we’ve come to think about life. At one time, people thought the property of being alive could not be explained by physics and chemistry — that life had to be more than just mechanism. But people no longer think that. As biologists got on with the job of explaining the properties of living systems in terms of physics and chemistry — things like metabolism, reproduction, homeostasis — the basic mystery of what life is started to fade away, and people didn’t propose any more magical solutions, like a force of life or an élan vital. So as with life, so with consciousness. Once we start explaining its properties in terms of things happening inside brains and bodies, the apparently insoluble mystery of what consciousness is should start to fade away. At least that’s the plan. So let’s get started. What are the properties of consciousness? What should a science of consciousness try to explain? Well, for today I’d just like to think of consciousness in two different ways. There are experiences of the world around us, full of sights, sounds and smells, there’s multisensory, panoramic, 3D, fully immersive inner movie. And then there’s conscious self. The specific experience of being you or being me. The lead character in this inner movie, and probably the aspect of consciousness we all cling to most tightly. Let’s start with experiences of the world around us, and with the important idea of the brain as a prediction engine. Imagine being a brain. You’re locked inside a bony skull, trying to figure what’s out there in the world. There’s no lights inside the skull. There’s no sound either. All you’ve got to go on is streams of electrical impulses which are only indirectly related to things in the world, whatever they may be. So perception — figuring out what’s there — has to be a process of informed guesswork in which the brain combines these sensory signals with its prior expectations or beliefs about the way the world is to form its best guess of what caused those signals. The brain doesn’t hear sound or see light. What we perceive is its best guess of what’s out there in the world. Let me give you a couple of examples of all this. You might have seen this illusion before, but I’d like you to think about it in a new way. If you look at those two patches, A and B, they should look to you to be very different shades of gray, right? But they are in fact exactly the same shade. And I can illustrate this. If I put up a second version of the image here and join the two patches with a gray-colored bar, you can see there’s no difference. It’s exactly the same shade of gray. And if you still don’t believe me, I’ll bring the bar across and join them up. It’s a single colored block of gray, there’s no difference at all. This isn’t any kind of magic trick. It’s the same shade of gray, but take it away again, and it looks different. So what’s happening here is that the brain is using its prior expectations built deeply into the circuits of the visual cortex that a cast shadow dims the appearance of a surface, so that we see B as lighter than it really is. Here’s one more example, which shows just how quickly the brain can use new predictions to change what we consciously experience. Have a listen to this… (distorted voice) Sounded strange, right? Have a listen again and see if you can get anything… (distorted voice) Still strange. Now listen to this. (Recording) I think Brexit is a really terrible idea. Which I do. So you heard some words there, right? Now listen to the first sound again. I’m just going to replay it… (distorted voice) Yeah? So you can now hear words there. Once more for luck… (distorted voice) OK, so what’s going on here? The remarkable thing is the sensory information coming into the brain hasn’t changed at all. All that’s changed is your brain’s best guess of the causes of that sensory information. And that changes what you consciously hear. All this puts the brain basis of perception in a bit of a different light. Instead of perception depending largely on signals coming into the brain from the outside world, it depends as much, if not more, on perceptual predictions flowing in the opposite direction. We don’t just passively perceive the world, we actively generate it. The world we experience comes as much, if not more, from the inside out as from the outside in. Let me give you one more example of perception as this active, constructive process. Here we’ve combined immersive virtual reality with image processing to simulate the effects of overly strong perceptual predictions on experience. In this panoramic video, we’ve transformed the world — which is in this case Sussex campus — into a psychedelic playground. We’ve processed the footage using an algorithm based on Google’s Deep Dream to simulate the effects of overly strong perceptual predictions. In this case, to see dogs. And you can see this is a very strange thing. When perceptual predictions are too strong, as they are here, the result looks very much like the kinds of hallucinations people might report in altered states, or perhaps even in psychosis. Now, think about this for a minute. If hallucination is a kind of uncontrolled perception, then perception right here and right now is also a kind of hallucination, but a controlled hallucination in which the brain’s predictions are being reigned in by sensory information from the world. In fact, we’re all hallucinating all the time, including right now. It’s just that when we agree about our hallucinations, we call that reality. Now I’m going to tell you that your experience of being a self, the specific experience of being you, is also a controlled hallucination generated by the brain. This seems a very strange idea, right? Yes, visual illusions might deceive my eyes, but how could I be deceived about what it means to be me? For most of us, the experience of being a person is so familiar, so unified and so continuous that it’s difficult not to take it for granted. But we shouldn’t take it for granted. There are in fact many different ways we experience being a self. There’s the experience of having a body and of being a body. There are experiences of perceiving the world from a first person point of view. There are experiences of intending to do things and of being the cause of things that happen in the world. And there are experiences of being a continuous and distinctive person over time, built from a rich set of memories and social interactions. Many experiments show, and psychiatrists and neurologists know very well, that these different ways in which we experience being a self can all come apart. What this means is the basic background experience of being a unified self is a rather fragile construction of the brain. Another experience, which just like all others, requires explanation. So let’s return to the bodily self. How does the brain generate the experience of being a body and of having a body? Well, just the same principles apply. The brain makes its best guess about what is and what is not part of its body. And there’s a beautiful experiment in neuroscience to illustrate this. And unlike most neuroscience experiments, this is one you can do at home. All you need is one of these. And a couple of paintbrushes. In the rubber hand illusion, a person’s real hand is hidden from view, and that fake rubber hand is placed in front of them. Then both hands are simultaneously stroked with a paintbrush while the person stares at the fake hand. Now, for most people, after a while, this leads to the very uncanny sensation that the fake hand is in fact part of their body. And the idea is that the congruence between seeing touch and feeling touch on an object that looks like hand and is roughly where a hand should be, is enough evidence for the brain to make its best guess that the fake hand is in fact part of the body. So you can measure all kinds of clever things. You can measure skin conductance and startle responses, but there’s no need. It’s clear the guy in blue has assimilated the fake hand. This means that even experiences of what our body is is a kind of best guessing — a kind of controlled hallucination by the brain. There’s one more thing. We don’t just experience our bodies as objects in the world from the outside, we also experience them from within. We all experience the sense of being a body from the inside. And sensory signals coming from the inside of the body are continually telling the brain about the state of the internal organs, how the heart is doing, what the blood pressure is like, lots of things. This kind of perception, which we call interoception, is rather overlooked. But it’s critically important because perception and regulation of the internal state of the body — well, that’s what keeps us alive. Here’s another version of the rubber hand illusion. This is from our lab at Sussex. And here, people see a virtual reality version of their hand, which flashes red and back either in time or out of time with their heartbeat. And when it’s flashing in time with their heartbeat, people have a stronger sense that it’s in fact part of their body. So experiences of having a body are deeply grounded in perceiving our bodies from within. There’s one last thing I want to draw your attention to, which is that experiences of the body from the inside are very different from experiences of the world around us. When I look around me, the world seems full of objects — tables, chairs, rubber hands, people, you lot — even my own body in the world, I can perceive it as an object from the outside. But my experiences of the body from within, they’re not like that at all. I don’t perceive my kidneys here, my liver here, my spleen. I don’t know where my spleen is, but it’s somewhere. I don’t perceive my insides as objects. In fact, I don’t experience them much at all unless they go wrong. And this is important, I think Perception of the internal state of the body isn’t about figuring out what’s there, it’s about control and regulation — keeping the physiological variables within the tight bounds that are compatible with survival. When the brain uses predictions to figure out what’s there, we perceive objects as the causes of sensations. When the brain uses predictions to control and regulate things, we experience how well or how badly that control is going. So our most basic experiences of being a self, of being an embodied organism, are deeply grounded in the biological mechanisms that keep us alive. And when we follow this idea all the way through, we can start to see that all of our conscious experiences, since they all depend on the same mechanisms of predictive perception, all stem from this basic drive to stay alive. We experience the world and ourselves with, through and because of our living bodies. Let me bring things together step-by-step. What we consciously see depends on the brain’s best guess of what’s out there. Our experienced world comes from the inside out, not just the outside in. The rubber hand illusion shows that this applies to our experiences of what is and what is not our body. And these self-related predictions depend critically on sensory signals coming from deep inside the body. And finally, experiences of being an embodied self are more about control and regulation than figuring out what’s there. So our experiences of the world around us and ourselves within it — well, they’re kinds of controlled hallucinations that have been shaped over millions of years of evolution to keep us alive in worlds full of danger and opportunity. We predict ourselves into existence. Now, I leave you with three implications of all this. First, just as we can misperceive the world, we can misperceive ourselves when the mechanisms of prediction go wrong. Understanding this opens many new opportunities in psychiatry and neurology, because we can finally get at the mechanisms rather than just treating the symptoms in conditions like depression and schizophrenia. Second: what it means to be me cannot be reduced to or uploaded to a software program running on a robot, however smart or sophisticated. We are biological, flesh-and-blood animals whose conscious experiences are shaped at all levels by the biological mechanisms that keep us alive. Just making computers smarter is not going to make them sentient. Finally, our own individual inner universe, our way of being conscious, is just one possible way of being conscious. And even human consciousness generally — it’s just a tiny region in a vast space of possible consciousnesses. Our individual self and worlds are unique to each of us, but they’re all grounded in biological mechanisms shared with many other living creatures. Now, these are fundamental changes in how we understand ourselves, but I think they should be celebrated, because as so often in science, from Copernicus — we’re not at the center of the universe — to Darwin — we’re related to all other creatures — to the present day. With a greater sense of understanding comes a greater sense of wonder, and a greater realization that we are part of and not apart from the rest of nature. And when the end of consciousness comes, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all. Thank you. Edited September 10, 2023 by kakapo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 10, 2023 https://www.anilseth.com/bio/ I am Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where I am also Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. I am also Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness, and of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness. I was recently an Engagement Fellow with the Wellcome Trust. I am Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness (Oxford University Press); I sit on the Editorial Board of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B and on the Advisory Committee for 1907 Research and for Chile’s Congreso Futuro. I was Conference Chair for the 16th Meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC16, 2012) and was an ASSC ‘member at large’ from 2014-2022. My research has been supported by the EPSRC (Leadership Fellowship), the European Research Council (ERC, Advanced Investigator Grant), the Wellcome Trust, and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). Check out these profiles of me and my research in The Observer, The New Statesman, and Quanta. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 10, 2023 31 minutes ago, Daniel said: No thank you. I am not watching 34 minutes of video ( 17 minutes repeated ). I have demonstrated I understand hat you ar saying on page 1. Using the picture below: Yes, I know, you don't want the little man in the picture. But since this is your diagram, and it included the little man, there should not be objection on the grounds of "you just don't get it, you just don't understand." This describes your experience under the influence where the object did not match the obervation/observed. This diagram shos I understand what you are describing. If you can point out a flaw in this diagram EXCLUDING the little man. Then maybe I will consider spending time on watching the video 1 time. Claiming I need to watch it twice is pretty silly. I didn't say it didn't make sense. I said, you seem to be reluctant to acknolewdge that nothing about what have typed communicates anything about the objects beyond 'you'. Let the people complain. I'm not the one repeating and rewinding. The pixels of light are not "on a television screen". The inter-atomic forces which produce physical sensations which are interpretted by the brain as observations accurately describe the physical attributes of the objects that are outside of 'you'. Those physical sensations accuratey describe the physical attributes in part, but not in total. The exceptions are physical impairments on the brain or dreaming, which hopefully you recall was an example I brought long ago as maybe a worth while avenue to explore. The proof of the accuracy of perception and your own trust in it is the conversation we're having, your reaction to it, the diagram you posted, and the diagrams I posted in response. Daniel, I have posted a transcript of the video, and made some bold highlights for you to read. If possible please read the bold parts, twice for comprehension. I think in all honesty our conversation here is over. I will chalk the difficulty here in communication to me being a bad communicator. I've done my best but we still aren't making the connection. Anywho I will be happy to continue in private with you if you wish, feel free to send me a DM. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel Posted September 10, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, kakapo said: What we consciously see depends on the brain’s best guess of what’s out there. Our experienced world comes from the inside out, not just the outside in. First, thank you for the transcript. That is light years better than watching a video. What I have been saying repeatedly, and has been ignored, is that the "best guess" is very-very accurate. Anytime a professional baseball player hits the ball traveling at approx 70 mph with a bat, and the outfielder catches it in their mitt, this confirms the accuracy of the "best guess". The fact that I am reading this transcript accurately, and you are reading the transcript accurately and both of us are consuming the identical content confirms that this remarkable accuracy of the "best guess" is shared by you and I. The fact that you copied this transcript into this thread confirms that you strongly trust that the "best guess" is accurate not only for both of us, but also for anyone reading this thread. 50 minutes ago, kakapo said: twice for comprehension. This ^^ is insulting. I do not need to read things twice for comprehension. i have understood you perfectly from the first word you typed in this thread to the current post. 50 minutes ago, kakapo said: I've done my best but we still aren't making the connection. Ignoring what is written is the opposite of doing your best. Edit: unless you are doing your best to ignore the conversation. Edited September 10, 2023 by Daniel Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel Posted September 10, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, kakapo said: I will chalk the difficulty here in communication to me being a bad communicator. If this is true, you would not be asking me to watch videos repeatedly, and read transcripts repeatedly. However, if I'm wrong, then my suggestion is to aspire to be a better listener. Not literally, this is a text-based forum. But I have been asking questions, making comments, which are all being ignored. It seems like you have a strongly held belief. And part of this strongly held belief is that those who do not share your belief are in 'chains'. And as you said all most all humans are in the state of bondage. Because of this, if a person, any person, says anything which challenges the belief, then, they are immediately categorized as being in 'chains' just like allmost all humans. A person comes to the thread and asks simply "to what end?" This was interpretted as a challenge, and as a result, it is immediatley translated into gibberish. It's not their fault that you chose to scramble their question. "To what end?" means "what's the point?" "what's the purpose?" Someone else asked the same question and your response was simple: "I don't know". The same thing happened to me. I said: "while it's an interesting thought experiment to consider objective compared to subjective phenomena, it seems foolish to me to apply this idea globally to the point of "everything is subjective, everything is in the mind" This could have been a benign comment, and there was nothing illogical about it or any of the remainder of what I wrote before it. But after a few posts, the same claim as made "I don't understand the words [drunk driver]". So, if your intention is to communicate, not to preach, I suggest listening and not dismissing, not ignoring, just because it doesn't match your preconceived ideas. Edited September 10, 2023 by Daniel Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 10, 2023 Daniel, I think it's best we end conversation here my friend. You are welcome to DM me if you have further things you feel you need to discuss. Thanks for your understanding! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel Posted September 10, 2023 (edited) 23 minutes ago, kakapo said: Daniel, I think it's best we end conversation here my friend. You are welcome to DM me if you have further things you feel you need to discuss. Thanks for your understanding! No problem, all I ask is that you refrain from quoting me formally or informally. Doing so, naturally, invites a reply. Edited September 10, 2023 by Daniel 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel Posted September 12, 2023 (edited) On 9/10/2023 at 12:58 PM, stellarwindbubble said: What advice for the caveman, who got out of the cave to see the light, just to be pulled back by gravity and fell back in the shadow cave, @kakapo? Not telling about it for sure, but else… a paradigm jump like that doesn’t happen and settles down in the mind/the screen. How to live a good life in the cave now? Get out again? Sorry. I saw the ~confused~ reaction to my post. What I meant to say is: "My question is: what is the connection between the chain cave and the shadows? There are none, right? The shadows are still shadows. The person is still a person." In context of the conversation, the OP was claiming that almost all humans are in some sort of 'chains' or 'bondage' in plato's-cave. My hope was that the OP and I would discuss the accuracy of the perception of these shadows. Accuracy is the key-point which is being ignored. So, in your question, you are asking about leaving the cave and returning. In this thought-experiment, what do you think happens when the person returns to the cave? Are the shadows still shadows? Is the person's arm still an arm? Is there any change in the individual's perceptions? I vote: no. There is no change in perception. Instead, there is a recognition that there is MORE than shadows. It's not that the shadows are false. It's that the perception has been proven to be incomplete. Then we can go back to the very first question typed in this thread... On 3/23/2023 at 7:08 AM, kakapo said: What if that was a lie? It's not a lie. it's incomplete. There's many many good reasons to trust our perceptions as accurate even though it can be fooled and impaired. But this does not discredit perception nor render all attributes and qualia void. That seems to be religious doctrine, aka dogma. Edited September 12, 2023 by Daniel Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 13, 2023 (edited) 6 hours ago, Daniel said: Sorry. I saw the ~confused~ reaction to my post. What I meant to say is: "My question is: what is the connection between the chain cave and the shadows? There are none, right? The shadows are still shadows. The person is still a person." In context of the conversation, the OP was claiming that almost all humans are in some sort of 'chains' or 'bondage' in plato's-cave. My hope was that the OP and I would discuss the accuracy of the perception of these shadows. Accuracy is the key-point which is being ignored. So, in your question, you are asking about leaving the cave and returning. In this thought-experiment, what do you think happens when the person returns to the cave? Are the shadows still shadows? Is the person's arm still an arm? Is there any change in the individual's perceptions? I vote: no. There is no change in perception. Instead, there is a recognition that there is MORE than shadows. It's not that the shadows are false. It's that the perception has been proven to be incomplete. Then we can go back to the very first question typed in this thread... It's not a lie. it's incomplete. There's many many good reasons to trust our perceptions as accurate even though it can be fooled and impaired. But this does not discredit perception nor render all attributes and qualia void. That seems to be religious doctrine, aka dogma. Daniel, I don't think you are a bad person, but it is very frustrating to say the least for me to communicate with you. You read my words and understand them to mean things I never intended. " discuss the accuracy of the perception of these shadows." The Mahayana Buddhists compared the mind to a mirror in it's function. The mind offers reflections of reality, just as a mirror would. The issue here is "what exactly am I looking at, reality or simulation?" The answer is 100% "simulation", no ifs, no ands, no buts. We do not perceive reality, we perceive only an abstraction of it. Color does not exist out there, it only exists in the mind. Shape does not exist out there, it only exists in the mind. Scents do not exist out there, they only exist in the mind. None of what we see or experience exists in actual reality, it' just how our brain makes sense of the stimuli provided from our sensory organs. The reality we see and experience is not real, though it is possible it bears a passing resemblance reality outside our skulls. The key problem here almost all humans on earth believe they look outwards into the world and universe, but they do not. We do not look out. We look in. What we see is the contents of our own mind and nothing more. We do not see an external world, we see only an internal one. This is just like the men chained to the wall in Plato's cave, watching the shadow puppets. It is just like the Buddhist teachings of a mirror that reflects reality. Imagine mistaking a painting of a pipe for an actual pipe. Imagine mistaking a reflection in a mirror for the thing being reflected. Imagine mistaking the experience of a physical object, for the actual object. Edited September 13, 2023 by kakapo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 13, 2023 (edited) 6 hours ago, Daniel said: Sorry. I saw the ~confused~ reaction to my post. What I meant to say is: "My question is: what is the connection between the chain cave and the shadows? There are none, right? The shadows are still shadows. The person is still a person." In context of the conversation, the OP was claiming that almost all humans are in some sort of 'chains' or 'bondage' in plato's-cave. My hope was that the OP and I would discuss the accuracy of the perception of these shadows. Accuracy is the key-point which is being ignored. So, in your question, you are asking about leaving the cave and returning. In this thought-experiment, what do you think happens when the person returns to the cave? Are the shadows still shadows? Is the person's arm still an arm? Is there any change in the individual's perceptions? I vote: no. There is no change in perception. Instead, there is a recognition that there is MORE than shadows. It's not that the shadows are false. It's that the perception has been proven to be incomplete. Then we can go back to the very first question typed in this thread... It's not a lie. it's incomplete. There's many many good reasons to trust our perceptions as accurate even though it can be fooled and impaired. But this does not discredit perception nor render all attributes and qualia void. That seems to be religious doctrine, aka dogma. Kakapo:When I was a child I was told, you can't see your own brain. Kakapo:What if that was a lie? Kakapo:What if the ONLY thing you can see is your own brain? Daniel: It's not a lie. Daniel I think this is another instance of you hearing things I never said, and understand words I wrote in a way different then I intended them to be understood. When I was a child I was told you can't see your own brain. As I have grown older and thought about the situation, I have determined that not only can you see your own brain, but that your own brain is the only thing you can possibly see. When you watch a nature documentary on your 85" QLED 8K TV you might think man, nature is freaking gorgeous! The only problem is you are not looking at nature. You are looking at an abstract representation of it, crafted out of light emitted from pixels on your television. It's just like how a painting of a pipe, no matter how realistic is not an actual pipe. The map is not the territory. The experience you are having right now has no more reality than a painting of a pipe does. It's not real. There may be a real world outside of your skull, on which this experience is based on. What you are looking at however is not actual reality. It is simulated reality. Edited September 13, 2023 by kakapo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel Posted September 13, 2023 (edited) 58 minutes ago, kakapo said: Daniel, I don't think you are a bad person, but it is very frustrating to say the least for me to communicate with you. You read my words and understand them to mean things I never intended. Not true, I am understanding you perfectly you are denying a whole list of things. But the evidence does not support it. You are *telling* me and asserting. But the evidence does not support it. That is not a discussion. Quote " discuss the accuracy of the perception of these shadows." What follows is not a discussion. It is preaching. Quote The Mahayana Buddhists compared the mind to a mirror in it's function. The mind offers reflections of reality, just as a mirror would. The issue here is "what exactly am I looking at, reality or simulation?" The answer is 100% "simulation", no ifs, no ands, no buts. Note: this is not discussing the accuracy of the simulation. You are repeatdly asserting it is a simulation. I have agreed multiple times. Can we move on to the original question you asked: "what if it is a lie?" Quote We do not perceive reality, we perceive only an abstraction of it. As you have repeatedly stated it is a best guess. But how good is the guess? This is what is being ignored. Accuracy. It's a simulation. Is it a good simulation? what is wrong with the data that is being recieved and delivered in the mind. Quote Color does not exist out there, it only exists in the mind. Per your on words, you don't know that. Per your own words you do not know what is outside your own mind. Color could exist, but you would never know. In fact there are good reasons to trust that color exists. But you keep ignoring what I've said. No problem. Let's just go with what you are saying. Per your own words you do not know what is outside your own mind. Color could exist. You would never know one way or the other. Quote Shape does not exist out there, it only exists in the mind. Per your on words, you don't know that. Per your own words you do not know what is outside your own mind. Shape could exist, but you would never know. In fact there are good reasons to trust that shape exists. But you keep ignoring what I've said. No problem. Let's just go with what you are saying. Per your own words you do not know what is outside your own mind. Shape could exist. You would never know one way or the other. Quote Scents do not exist out there, they only exist in the mind. Per your on words, you don't know that. Per your own words you do not know what is outside your own mind. Scents could exist, but you would never know. In fact there are good reasons to trust that shape exists. But you keep ignoring what I've said. No problem. Let's just go with what you are saying. Per your own words you do not know what is outside your own mind. Scents could exist. You would never know one way or the other. Quote None of what we see or experience exists in actual reality, it' just how our brain makes sense of the stimuli provided from our sensory organs. Note: this is not discussing the accuracy of the simulation. You are repeatdly asserting it is a simulation. I have agreed multiple times. Can we move on to the original question you asked: "what if it is a lie?" Quote The reality we see and experience is not real, though it is possible it bears a passing resemblance reality outside our skulls. Note: this is not discussing the accuracy of the simulation. You are repeatdly asserting it is a simulation. I have agreed multiple times. Can we move on to the original question you asked: "what if it is a lie?" Quote The key problem here almost all humans on earth believe they look outwards into the world and universe, but they do not. Note: this is not discussing the accuracy of the simulation. You are repeatdly asserting it is a simulation. I have agreed multiple times. Can we move on to the original question you asked: "what if it is a lie?" Quote We do not look out. We look in. Not true. Your own diagram has the indivdual looking out. Your own video has the individual looking out. Quote What we see is the contents of our own mind and nothing more. Note: this is not discussing the accuracy of the simulation. You are repeatdly asserting it is a simulation. I have agreed multiple times. Can we move on to the original question you asked: "what if it is a lie?" Quote We do not see an external world, we see only an internal one. Note: this is not discussing the accuracy of the simulation. You are repeatedly asserting it is a simulation. I have agreed multiple times. Can we move on to the original question you asked: "what if it is a lie?" Quote This is just like the men chained to the wall in Plato's cave, watching the shadow puppets. Not true. The shadows accuratey describe shadows. They are not an abstraction. Quote It is just like the Buddhist teachings of a mirror that reflects reality. How accurate is the mirror? Is the mirror warped or inverted? Quote Imagine mistaking a painting of a pipe for an actual pipe. It doesn't happen that way in real life. That is a gross exaggeration. Quote Imagine mistaking a reflection in a mirror for the thing being reflected. It doesn't happen that way in real life. That is a gross exaggeration. Quote Imagine mistaking the experience of a physical object, for the actual object. It doesn't happen that way in real life. That is a gross exaggeration. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You have repeated all of these points. But you are still not discussing the accuracy of this simulation. And you are still denying that color, shape, and scent exist in spite of claiming absolute ingnorance of anything outside your mind. It doesn't matter if Buddhism teaches it. Buddhism also teaches letting go of doctrine and dogma. Are you ready to discuss the accuracy? That means, you say something. I respond, then you respond to what I said, not just repeat the same thing over and over and over and over...... Edited September 13, 2023 by Daniel Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel Posted September 13, 2023 (edited) 53 minutes ago, kakapo said: Kakapo:What if that was a lie? Kakapo:What if the ONLY thing you can see is your own brain? Daniel: It's not a lie. Daniel I think this is another instance of you hearing things I never said, and understand words I wrote in a way different then I intended them to be understood. You asked "what if it's a lie?" I answered "it's not a lie, it's incomplete" I've given various reasons to support what I'm saying. You have ignored each and every one and restarted preaching from a pulpit. come down off the soap-box, and let's talk about the lies being told. Pick a lie. 1 statement. pick 1 thing, and let's see if it's a lie. Color? Shape? Scent? pick 1 and let's talk about it instead of preaching Buddha Buddha says... Edited September 13, 2023 by Daniel Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 13, 2023 34 minutes ago, Daniel said: You asked "what if it's a lie?" I answered "it's not a lie, it's incomplete" I've given various reasons to support what I'm saying. You have ignored each and every one and restarted preaching from a pulpit. come down off the soap-box, and let's talk about the lies being told. Pick a lie. 1 statement. pick 1 thing, and let's see if it's a lie. Color? Shape? Scent? pick 1 and let's talk about it instead of preaching Buddha Buddha says... Kakapo:When I was a child I was told, you can't see your own brain. Kakapo:What if that was a lie? Daniel: I answered "it's not a lie, it's incomplete" The lie here being that you can't see your own brain. This is an example of what I am talking about with my words not reaching you. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 13, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Daniel said: You asked "what if it's a lie?" I answered "it's not a lie, it's incomplete" I've given various reasons to support what I'm saying. You have ignored each and every one and restarted preaching from a pulpit. come down off the soap-box, and let's talk about the lies being told. Pick a lie. 1 statement. pick 1 thing, and let's see if it's a lie. Color? Shape? Scent? pick 1 and let's talk about it instead of preaching Buddha Buddha says... I've given various reasons to support what I'm saying. You remember when I posted the transcript of the TED talk with top neuroscientist Anil Seth, and I asked you to please read the bold parts twice for comprehension. The reason I did that wasn't to insult you, it's because it's like your brain is just forgetting everything that is being said as soon as it's said then going off on a tangents where you interpret things I said in ways I never intended you to to interpret them. I don't know man, but I think you might need to take a time out on this topic, it's getting a little bit weird with you. Edited September 13, 2023 by kakapo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kakapo Posted September 13, 2023 1 hour ago, Daniel said: Not true, I am understanding you perfectly you are denying a whole list of things. But the evidence does not support it. You are *telling* me and asserting. But the evidence does not support it. That is not a discussion. What follows is not a discussion. It is preaching. Note: this is not discussing the accuracy of the simulation. You are repeatdly asserting it is a simulation. I have agreed multiple times. Can we move on to the original question you asked: "what if it is a lie?" As you have repeatedly stated it is a best guess. But how good is the guess? This is what is being ignored. Accuracy. It's a simulation. Is it a good simulation? what is wrong with the data that is being recieved and delivered in the mind. Per your on words, you don't know that. Per your own words you do not know what is outside your own mind. Color could exist, but you would never know. In fact there are good reasons to trust that color exists. But you keep ignoring what I've said. No problem. Let's just go with what you are saying. Per your own words you do not know what is outside your own mind. Color could exist. You would never know one way or the other. Per your on words, you don't know that. Per your own words you do not know what is outside your own mind. Shape could exist, but you would never know. In fact there are good reasons to trust that shape exists. But you keep ignoring what I've said. No problem. Let's just go with what you are saying. Per your own words you do not know what is outside your own mind. Shape could exist. You would never know one way or the other. Per your on words, you don't know that. Per your own words you do not know what is outside your own mind. Scents could exist, but you would never know. In fact there are good reasons to trust that shape exists. But you keep ignoring what I've said. No problem. Let's just go with what you are saying. Per your own words you do not know what is outside your own mind. Scents could exist. You would never know one way or the other. Note: this is not discussing the accuracy of the simulation. You are repeatdly asserting it is a simulation. I have agreed multiple times. Can we move on to the original question you asked: "what if it is a lie?" Note: this is not discussing the accuracy of the simulation. You are repeatdly asserting it is a simulation. I have agreed multiple times. Can we move on to the original question you asked: "what if it is a lie?" Note: this is not discussing the accuracy of the simulation. You are repeatdly asserting it is a simulation. I have agreed multiple times. Can we move on to the original question you asked: "what if it is a lie?" Not true. Your own diagram has the indivdual looking out. Your own video has the individual looking out. Note: this is not discussing the accuracy of the simulation. You are repeatdly asserting it is a simulation. I have agreed multiple times. Can we move on to the original question you asked: "what if it is a lie?" Note: this is not discussing the accuracy of the simulation. You are repeatedly asserting it is a simulation. I have agreed multiple times. Can we move on to the original question you asked: "what if it is a lie?" Not true. The shadows accuratey describe shadows. They are not an abstraction. How accurate is the mirror? Is the mirror warped or inverted? It doesn't happen that way in real life. That is a gross exaggeration. It doesn't happen that way in real life. That is a gross exaggeration. It doesn't happen that way in real life. That is a gross exaggeration. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You have repeated all of these points. But you are still not discussing the accuracy of this simulation. And you are still denying that color, shape, and scent exist in spite of claiming absolute ingnorance of anything outside your mind. It doesn't matter if Buddhism teaches it. Buddhism also teaches letting go of doctrine and dogma. Are you ready to discuss the accuracy? That means, you say something. I respond, then you respond to what I said, not just repeat the same thing over and over and over and over...... "But the evidence does not support it." I posted a TED talk with top Neuroscientist Anil Seth, I posted his credentials, I posted a transcript, and even bolded sections and asked you to please read them. I am not sure what more to tell you here. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
