Part 1 - The Open Questions In Neuroscience

[Trailer1220]

I found the last few points she made particularly interesting!

[1simonmatthews]

Surely some ability to think would have to have been there from the beginning for it to be possible for that ability to improve over time?

[4Dmetricology]

Qualia is not a problem. As Dr. Dennet says, there is no qualia. Although it is a most persistent illusion.

One yardstick is to try to derive modern physics from qualitative perception; this method would never bring us to relativity&Q.M.

Neuroscience is a much more complex science than either of these, and limiting the science to what is directly perceived will keep it in the Newtonian age.

Space-time does warp, and there is no qualia. But first hand experience would never tell you so.

[nspeert]

@4Dmetricology There may be no qualia, but there is the having of qualia and this is what needs to be explained.

[4Dmetricology]

@nspeert

oxytocin entirely = having the qualia of motherly(fatherly) love.

Explained.

Next?

[nspeert]

@4Dmetricology assuming you're not trolling me, there is more to the qualia of parental love than oxytocin for the following reason. There is a feature of love that *isn't* intersubjectively verifiable (that is, there is something about it that is private to the subject). Oxytocin though *is* something that is intersubjectively verifiable. Therefore oxytocin can't be identical with the qualia of love.

[nspeert]

@4Dmetricology You misunderstand what I mean by private, oxytocin isn't private because it can be extracted from the body and be viewed by people other than the person who it was taken from. What I mean by private is like how you can't even know trully what it is like to be me and vice versa. I can explain to you my experience, but for all you know, what I call green might look like what you call red for example.

[4Dmetricology]

@nspeert

I am familiar with the old arguments

[4Dmetricology]

what it "feels like".

how can we know Turing machine is or isnt sentient, etc.

[4Dmetricology]

with a moniker like 4Dmetricology, how could I be a troll?...

Indeed, the release of oxytocin within ones endocrine system/crainium is entirely private to that "subject". Just as the experience of that subject is private. Of course I am over simplifying with my exactly equal statement, but you let it pass in the interest of dialog. Appreciated.

I must bring up the fact that oxytocin also hightens empathy, or the ability to intersubjectively verify experience.

[mergatroidal]

From 2:50 to 2:57, "Behavior [really] is the fundamental thing for which nervous systems are designed." Designed? Odd choice of word. I find these Freudian slips every so often, and I'm sure every speaker I here it from only meant to imply, designed from Nature, or the former universe of chaos.

In the future, what theories were relevant and which ones were chucked to cause a functional computer system mimicking biological cognition to eventually exist? A capacity for volition?

[rrritalin]

It's just the intentional stance to use the word 'designed'. As long as you don't propose intelligence, there's no problem with it. It's unproblematic to say "ions want to acquire a hydration shell" or something, as long as you don't put in actual homunculi.

[mergatroidal]

Rigamarole perhaps, to some, but to follow up on this comment (as if I were a Colombo, or a Sherlock Holmes, and investigating the situation further,) "... just one more thing, ma'am," there is a reason why the square root of negative one is not three. Or that the speed of lights is a fundamental constant. Etc.

The force/energy of the Big Bang did not come from nothing. It originated from some "thing" else. With this logical consequence of thought (if not one, the other), what is this "thing?"

[maddtappin]

I find it odd you chose to type "here" instead of hear... I find these Freudian slips every so often.

[mergatroidal]

Off on a tangent? No "matter."

[Rampenknecht]

Yeah, the problem of the qualia is really messing up the nice, orderly, geeky computational-paradigm. Interesting, though, that there are so many women active in neuroscience nowadays. The feminization of thinking about the mind? *mild, patronizing chuckle*

[LennyBound]

Word.

Qualia is a bitch. :-)

[robotaholic]

the complexity cascade she talks about is awesome- I'm so linear - I need help lol - I'm such an eliminative materialist- (and that's not self-refuting) I wish she would have given my graduation speech lol

[0ThouArtThat0]

Her emphasis on nature and nurture being intertwined I really resonate with. The idea that genes sort of offload the responsibility for neural development onto environmental regularities makes a lot of sense. So too does the reciprocal relationship between genes and conditioning.

I think assuming natural selection is the sole cause of evolution (and consciousness), though, is troublesome. That we all share a common ancestor is obvious, but saying that nervous systems are designed for behavior

[0ThouArtThat0]

, and that all perception is a result of the effect of natural selection on that behavior, misses the essential point that behavior (intentional behavior, at least) is never present unless consciousness is present (ie, perception, awareness, etc.). So rather than say that behavior gives rise to and constrains perception, I'd say the relation between the two (between motor and sensory faculties) is reciprocal in much the same way that genes and the environment are.

[0ThouArtThat0]

So we cannot say that behavior is more fundamental than consciousness, that motor control is responsible for sensory awareness. Sensation does serve behavior in many instances, but so too does behavior serve sensation. It is neither way exclusively.

[Ignare]

And what do you answer to her point that a specie that have awesome color vision but cannot use this sensory input for useful behavior will not have any fitness advantage.

[0ThouArtThat0]

lack of advantage won't necessarily lead to extinction. But the enhanced sight increases the possibility that an advantage will be found, this would be a good example of sensation directing behavior.

[DanHipp]

I think you're missing the point. All of these components of consciousness that you mention (perception, etc) are themselves forms of behavior. Perception, cognition, and other behavioral sets performed by the brain are covert forms of behavior.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Behavior by definition is that which can be observed, right? So where does the neuroscientist look to observe my observation? They can't look anywhere because my ability to look (my phenomenological, 1st person experience) is no where to be found in the physiology of the brain. It is correlated with brain states, to be sure, but it is not equivalent to them. Behaviorism neglects the interiority of consciousness, that it has a third person component (the brain state) and a 1st person component.

[DanHipp]

The first person component IS the third person component. Having "first-personhood" is a necessary feature of any biological system, or else it would not be able to maximize its own adaptive utility. Now just because we can, from a 3rd person perspective, describe how the brain achieves subjectivity does not imply that they are distinct. I see where your coming from (epiphemonalism, etc), but I just think that your stance hides a certain amount of dualism. Nice talking to you

[0ThouArtThat0]

Mind and matter aren't two separate substances, but matter is capable of being aware. So while it is true that there is no awareness without the brain, the awareness cannot be reduced to the brain. The taste of ice cream may be correlated to a patch of neurons, but that patch of neurons is not the taste of ice cream. The taste is an experience, the brain is a piece of meat.

[Gnomefro]

I think it's slightly misleading to think about matter as "being capable of being aware". Instead, matter can be organized into a process that can be aware. Much like matter can be organized into an adder circuit. The ability to add two numbers is not really a property of "matter", but the adder's logical organization.