Where (or what) is the link to the 'stages of mind' source you refer to? Thanks.
-
NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!
Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12
- Thread starter Gene Steinberg
- Start date
Free episodes:
- Status
Where (or what) is the link to the 'stages of mind' source you refer to? Thanks.
smcder
Paranormal Adept
Information generation as a functional basis of consciousness
Abstract. What is the biological advantage of having consciousness? Functions of consciousness have been elusive due to the subjective nature of consciousn
academic.oup.com
"Dennett’s formulation of stages of evolution of minds (Dennett 1996) illustrates the benefit of counterfactuals in evolution and intelligence. Dennett proposed useful distinctions among different stages of the evolution of creatures. These include the following four types of creatures.
The first stage of creatures is called Darwinian. Darwinian creatures are the most primitive form of creatures. The organisms at this stage do not learn from experiences but have a fixed set of behaviors determined by their genetic composition. They adapt to the environment only as a species through natural selection and mutation to their genes. Thus, learning occurs at a population level but not as individual agents.
The second stage is called Skinnerian. Skinnerian creatures—named after the psychologist Skinner—learn from their own experience through associative learning. If a particular action led to a reward (e.g. food), then that action is reinforced, whereas an action that led to an aversive result will be avoided. Skinnerian creatures can adapt to the environment during the lifetime of individual organisms through trial and error. However, there is a limitation in that they can only learn from their own experiences. They would have to learn danger from surviving dangerous situations.
Then, there comes the third stage of creatures—Popperian creatures named after the philosopher Popper. They have internal simulation of the environment and select an action based on predictions about simulated consequences of repertoires of future action sequences. This ability allows Popperian creatures to learn from their simulated, counterfactual experience, and to select reasonable actions even in a new environment when their internal model approximates it reasonably well. Moreover, the ability to form counterfactual representations of sensory consequences contingent upon their future action is the core function of intention. The information generation theory of consciousness suggests that consciousness appears at this stage of the evolution of the mind. In other words, our theory suggests the origin of consciousness is the functional advantage of having counterfactual predictions using an internal model of the environment, as it allows Popperian creatures to simulate consequences of possible actions and avoid executing actions that could be dangerous for survival.
Finally, the fourth stage is called Gregorian. Gregorian creatures can learn from their cultural environment through words and language. This requires the ability to run a simulation of the environment using information they learned through books and the Internet. In Popperian creatures, internal models had to be built upon their own experiences. Gregorian creatures on the other hand can improve their internal models through communication with other agents, which endows them with an additional leverage of intelligence. Here, the ability to internally represent counterfactual states is a prerequisite."
Information generation as a functional basis of consciousness
Abstract. What is the biological advantage of having consciousness? Functions of consciousness have been elusive due to the subjective nature of consciousn
"Dennett’s formulation of stages of evolution of minds (Dennett 1996) illustrates the benefit of counterfactuals in evolution and intelligence. Dennett proposed useful distinctions among different stages of the evolution of creatures. These include the following four types of creatures.
The first stage of creatures is called Darwinian. Darwinian creatures are the most primitive form of creatures. The organisms at this stage do not learn from experiences but have a fixed set of behaviors determined by their genetic composition. They adapt to the environment only as a species through natural selection and mutation to their genes. Thus, learning occurs at a population level but not as individual agents.
The second stage is called Skinnerian. Skinnerian creatures—named after the psychologist Skinner—learn from their own experience through associative learning. If a particular action led to a reward (e.g. food), then that action is reinforced, whereas an action that led to an aversive result will be avoided. Skinnerian creatures can adapt to the environment during the lifetime of individual organisms through trial and error. However, there is a limitation in that they can only learn from their own experiences. They would have to learn danger from surviving dangerous situations.
Then, there comes the third stage of creatures—Popperian creatures named after the philosopher Popper. They have internal simulation of the environment and select an action based on predictions about simulated consequences of repertoires of future action sequences. This ability allows Popperian creatures to learn from their simulated, counterfactual experience, and to select reasonable actions even in a new environment when their internal model approximates it reasonably well. Moreover, the ability to form counterfactual representations of sensory consequences contingent upon their future action is the core function of intention. The information generation theory of consciousness suggests that consciousness appears at this stage of the evolution of the mind. In other words, our theory suggests the origin of consciousness is the functional advantage of having counterfactual predictions using an internal model of the environment, as it allows Popperian creatures to simulate consequences of possible actions and avoid executing actions that could be dangerous for survival.
Finally, the fourth stage is called Gregorian. Gregorian creatures can learn from their cultural environment through words and language. This requires the ability to run a simulation of the environment using information they learned through books and the Internet. In Popperian creatures, internal models had to be built upon their own experiences. Gregorian creatures on the other hand can improve their internal models through communication with other agents, which endows them with an additional leverage of intelligence. Here, the ability to internally represent counterfactual states is a prerequisite."
Thanks Steve. I remember reading these quoted paragraphs now and will reread them and the entirety of the linked text from which they are drawn.
This amazon review of one of Jim Tucker's books -- Life Before Life: Children's Memories of Previous Lives --provides a succinct summary of key elements of reincarnation research in the last half-decade:
"Dennis Zeunert
June 9, 2015
Jim Tucker documents past earthly lives remembered by very young children, ages 2-7 years old. His team visits each child and researches the “past personality” of the child, often confirming such stated details as names of the child’s former self and past family members, the town and home of residence, and manner of death. So far, the team has compiled 2500 cases, from across the world.
This is commonly called reincarnation, where a soul or consciousness survives physical death, then later, enters the mind of an emerging baby from the womb, and takes on another physical body. Of course, this concept, or belief, is not accepted by the Abraham religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism), whose members comprise 74% of Americans and 55% of the world. Therefore, the University of Virginia and Tucker’s team are certainly brave, breaking new ground, attempting to prove that this core belief of Hinduism and Buddhism, representing about 21% of the world’s population, could be factual. Also, most spiritual organizations, psychics, and followers of the paranormal believe in reincarnation.
Birthmarks fascinated Tucker. This area of investigation covered many cases, especially in India and Sri Lanka where parents accept children’s comments about past lives. He found that a child’s birthmarks were often the result of the sudden death of the last personality. Since “the median time between the death of the previous personality and the birth of the subject is only 15-16 months,” a child’s recitation of a past life to the team could be easily verified since often the family residence of the previous personality is relatively close to the subject child.
In the case of Purnima Ekanayake, a Sri Lankan girl, her body at birth revealed “colored birthmarks over the left side of her chest and lower ribs.” When four years old she recognized a temple on television, saying that in her recent past life she was a man living close to that temple. He had made incense sticks in his in-laws business, sold them via bicycle, and was killed in an accident with a big vehicle. The father of Purnima asked a friend, who planned to travel to the temple’s location on business, to check his daughter’s statements. While interviewing local incense makers, he found one where the brother-in-law of the owner had been killed by a bus while taking incense sticks to market on his bicycle two years before Purnima was born. Later, Purnima visited her previous family, correctly identifying her former mother and wife. The previous personality’s autopsy report documented fractured ribs on the left, a ruptured spleen, and abrasions running diagonally from the right shoulder to the left lower abdomen.
Interestingly, Tucker attempts to find the most logical explanation for this phenomenon, including fraud, fantasy, knowledge acquired through normal means, faulty memory by informants, genetic memory, extrasensory perception, possession, and reincarnation. He concludes “If we stand back and look at this worldwide phenomenon as a whole, then we see a pattern of remarkable events. Even though the cases are only evidence and not ‘proof’ of a paranormal process, when we consider the weaknesses of the normal explanations . . . reincarnation provides a much more straightforward explanation overall . . .”
"Dennis Zeunert
June 9, 2015
Jim Tucker documents past earthly lives remembered by very young children, ages 2-7 years old. His team visits each child and researches the “past personality” of the child, often confirming such stated details as names of the child’s former self and past family members, the town and home of residence, and manner of death. So far, the team has compiled 2500 cases, from across the world.
This is commonly called reincarnation, where a soul or consciousness survives physical death, then later, enters the mind of an emerging baby from the womb, and takes on another physical body. Of course, this concept, or belief, is not accepted by the Abraham religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism), whose members comprise 74% of Americans and 55% of the world. Therefore, the University of Virginia and Tucker’s team are certainly brave, breaking new ground, attempting to prove that this core belief of Hinduism and Buddhism, representing about 21% of the world’s population, could be factual. Also, most spiritual organizations, psychics, and followers of the paranormal believe in reincarnation.
Birthmarks fascinated Tucker. This area of investigation covered many cases, especially in India and Sri Lanka where parents accept children’s comments about past lives. He found that a child’s birthmarks were often the result of the sudden death of the last personality. Since “the median time between the death of the previous personality and the birth of the subject is only 15-16 months,” a child’s recitation of a past life to the team could be easily verified since often the family residence of the previous personality is relatively close to the subject child.
In the case of Purnima Ekanayake, a Sri Lankan girl, her body at birth revealed “colored birthmarks over the left side of her chest and lower ribs.” When four years old she recognized a temple on television, saying that in her recent past life she was a man living close to that temple. He had made incense sticks in his in-laws business, sold them via bicycle, and was killed in an accident with a big vehicle. The father of Purnima asked a friend, who planned to travel to the temple’s location on business, to check his daughter’s statements. While interviewing local incense makers, he found one where the brother-in-law of the owner had been killed by a bus while taking incense sticks to market on his bicycle two years before Purnima was born. Later, Purnima visited her previous family, correctly identifying her former mother and wife. The previous personality’s autopsy report documented fractured ribs on the left, a ruptured spleen, and abrasions running diagonally from the right shoulder to the left lower abdomen.
Interestingly, Tucker attempts to find the most logical explanation for this phenomenon, including fraud, fantasy, knowledge acquired through normal means, faulty memory by informants, genetic memory, extrasensory perception, possession, and reincarnation. He concludes “If we stand back and look at this worldwide phenomenon as a whole, then we see a pattern of remarkable events. Even though the cases are only evidence and not ‘proof’ of a paranormal process, when we consider the weaknesses of the normal explanations . . . reincarnation provides a much more straightforward explanation overall . . .”
I take this introductory paragraph in the linked text to be a thesis statement for what is to follow, and the underscored portion of it raises an initial question for me which you or @Soupie might be able to answer:
"Drawing upon empirical literature, here, we propose that a core function of consciousness be the ability to internally generate representations of events possibly detached from the current sensory input. Such representations are constructed by generative models learned through sensory-motor interactions with the environment. We argue that the ability to generate information underlies a variety of cognitive functions associated with consciousness such as intention, imagination, planning, short-term memory, attention, curiosity, and creativity, all of which contribute to non-reflexive behavior. According to this view, consciousness emerged in evolution when organisms gained the ability to perform internal simulations using internal models, which endowed them with flexible intelligent behavior. To illustrate the notion of information generation, we take variational autoencoders (VAEs) as an analogy and show that information generation corresponds [to] the decoding (or decompression) part of VAEs. In biological brains, we propose that information generation corresponds to top-down predictions in the predictive coding framework. This is compatible with empirical observations that recurrent feedback activations are linked with consciousness whereas feedforward processing alone seems to occur without evoking conscious experience. Taken together, the information generation hypothesis captures many aspects of existing ideas about potential functions of consciousness and provides new perspectives on the functional roles of consciousness."
What is the evidence underlying the claim italicized in red?
just joking...i don't know.
F
Farlig Gulstein
Guest
Well, I won't claim to be able to express myself accurately on these issues. But this sentence is from the Wiki page, which seems to cover the bases pretty well:
Hindu traditions consider soul to be the unchanging eternal essence of a living being, and what journeys across reincarnations until it attains self-knowledge.
So, as I understand reincarnation from such impeccable sources as Wikipedia and the New York Post, a "soul" (or as I termed it, "incorporeal sentient entity") makes the various journeys incarnating in human beings in the Hindu concept of reincarnation, anyway. The wiki post also pointed out differentiating ideas between various groups included under the overarching term reincarnation. For example, some Jewish groups hold to "gilgul neshamot" and the idea is that after death some people are again born into this world. Regarding the Akashic records, as far as I can tell, the specific term is relatively recent, according to Wiki.
I don't claim any deep familiarity with any of these subjects. But it seems to me that a child who speaks English quite well while growing up in an Arabic culture has something beyond the "normal" going on in his life.
I'll take your suggestion of contacting Dr. Jim Tucker into consideration. Thanks.
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
I don’t think they directly address this claim in the article but there is quite a bit about this in the literature. If you’re sincerely curious about it, I could link some articles here. Lmk
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
@Constance
I don’t think they directly address this claim in the article but there is quite a bit about this in the literature. If you’re sincerely curious about it, I could link some articles here. Lmk
Interestingly, the authors admit in the article that consciousness may be linked to feedforward processes, so long as they produce counterfactual information. Ie information counterfactual to information coming from sensory systems.
In other words, they admit that counterfactual information could be generated by feedforward or feedback neural systems.
For my own part, I don’t think the manifestation of consciousness is necessarily contingent on representations generated by feedforward or recurrent networks. I think it’s contingent on the intrinsic nature of the representation. Something that we will never be able to determine from the “outside.”
I don’t think they directly address this claim in the article but there is quite a bit about this in the literature. If you’re sincerely curious about it, I could link some articles here. Lmk
Interestingly, the authors admit in the article that consciousness may be linked to feedforward processes, so long as they produce counterfactual information. Ie information counterfactual to information coming from sensory systems.
In other words, they admit that counterfactual information could be generated by feedforward or feedback neural systems.
For my own part, I don’t think the manifestation of consciousness is necessarily contingent on representations generated by feedforward or recurrent networks. I think it’s contingent on the intrinsic nature of the representation. Something that we will never be able to determine from the “outside.”
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
In other words, the difference between a conscious representation and a non-conscious representation (whether manifested by an organism or theoretically by a machine) has to do with the intrinsic character of the representation.
Physical systems aren’t conscious, simulations are.
Physical systems aren’t conscious, simulations are.
Michael Allen
Paranormal Adept
Or for the second revised is "Agents that generate models of a world that includes themselves and retroactively assign the term "agent" to a particular component that appears to be the generator? Agent definition falls back on itself as well as the statement above..."
Bees "possess" as in the way "we" think of when we feel mineness ... group consciousness seen this way makes it seem as though the "grouping" arrives after something already in existence has the ability to "take possession" or perhaps to be "possessed." But turn the entire proposition upside-down and take away the component of meaning when we say "communication." Primordial foundations of consciousness will retroactively appear as "group consciousness," but temporality may turn this on its head. We start with the group and perhaps end in a kind of awkward "possession" or demonic (don't take this in a bad sense) central "seat" of self-awareness of decisiveness.
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
What do you mean by “agent definition falls back on itself as well as the statement above...”?
It’s true that the mind body relationship is one of self-reference, or “falling back.”
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Or perhaps a third tier:
Self-aware agents: Agents that generate models of themselves generating models of themselves sensing the world.
Michael Allen
Paranormal Adept
Agent may be thought of as something that acts in place of a group of other somethings (i.e. other agents?) Agents that generate models of the world that include themselves and retroactively act in place with respect to a component nearest to their ____ (base bare metal functioning?) . The "agent" we use in these types of sentences are pointing to an externalized formation or subsystem without which the definition would cease to make any "sense"
So yes...when put in the "mind-body" way of thinking, we do end up "falling back."
So yes...when put in the "mind-body" way of thinking, we do end up "falling back."
Michael Allen
Paranormal Adept
I was actually going to write that very sentence and realized something like an infinite regress and decided on some silly whimsical finishing move on the chain. But I think it gets closer to the problem--the hard problem even. Agents doing such modelling cannot exist with externals that have no practical or praxeological finality ...but turned against the praxeological engine against itself, such would break down under any formulae, theorem, assumption or definition provided by the engine.
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
It could be an infinite regress if our cognitive powers were infinite. I think our models can only be so rich.
Re the hard problem: Im operating under the assumption that the phenomenal aspect of consciousness just is the intrinsic nature of the physical. Therefore any physical system/agent capable of creating a self model will have created a conscious self.
re externals that have no practical finality. But isn’t that exactly what models do? Create a weak snap shot of a greater, infinite reality. We recognize that our perceptual and conceptual models of an infinite, unlimited, and rich reality are finite, limited, and relatively poor. And this is true when the perceptual and conceptual machinery is turned on itself.
So does that mean the agent > model metaphor itself is DOA? I don’t think so, but there’s certainly more to the story
Michael Allen
Paranormal Adept
Information generation as a functional basis of consciousness
Abstract. What is the biological advantage of having consciousness? Functions of consciousness have been elusive due to the subjective nature of consciousn
"Dennett’s formulation of stages of evolution of minds (Dennett 1996) illustrates the benefit of counterfactuals in evolution and intelligence. Dennett proposed useful distinctions among different stages of the evolution of creatures. These include the following four types of creatures.
The first stage of creatures is called Darwinian. Darwinian creatures are the most primitive form of creatures. The organisms at this stage do not learn from experiences but have a fixed set of behaviors determined by their genetic composition. They adapt to the environment only as a species through natural selection and mutation to their genes. Thus, learning occurs at a population level but not as individual agents.
The second stage is called Skinnerian. Skinnerian creatures—named after the psychologist Skinner—learn from their own experience through associative learning. If a particular action led to a reward (e.g. food), then that action is reinforced, whereas an action that led to an aversive result will be avoided. Skinnerian creatures can adapt to the environment during the lifetime of individual organisms through trial and error. However, there is a limitation in that they can only learn from their own experiences. They would have to learn danger from surviving dangerous situations.
Then, there comes the third stage of creatures—Popperian creatures named after the philosopher Popper. They have internal simulation of the environment and select an action based on predictions about simulated consequences of repertoires of future action sequences. This ability allows Popperian creatures to learn from their simulated, counterfactual experience, and to select reasonable actions even in a new environment when their internal model approximates it reasonably well. Moreover, the ability to form counterfactual representations of sensory consequences contingent upon their future action is the core function of intention. The information generation theory of consciousness suggests that consciousness appears at this stage of the evolution of the mind. In other words, our theory suggests the origin of consciousness is the functional advantage of having counterfactual predictions using an internal model of the environment, as it allows Popperian creatures to simulate consequences of possible actions and avoid executing actions that could be dangerous for survival.
Finally, the fourth stage is called Gregorian. Gregorian creatures can learn from their cultural environment through words and language. This requires the ability to run a simulation of the environment using information they learned through books and the Internet. In Popperian creatures, internal models had to be built upon their own experiences. Gregorian creatures on the other hand can improve their internal models through communication with other agents, which endows them with an additional leverage of intelligence. Here, the ability to internally represent counterfactual states is a prerequisite."
Just responding to the abstract here which I find most amusing:
"Functions of consciousness have been elusive due to the subjective nature of consciousness and ample empirical evidence showing the presence of many nonconscious cognitive performances in the human brain. "
(1) Functions...identified external entities that allow consciousness to apply rules to cause and effect...again identified after the fact or are mere derivatives
(2) "Subjective nature," a nasty tangled word-salad that tries to point in two different components and unify them by fiat. Nature has already found its way through some subject trying to expand it's own accuracy of predictive functionality and then generalize into a "nature" or "essence"
(3) "Ample empirical evidence showing..."
Showing to whome?
(4) "....showing the presense of many nonconscious cognitive performances ..."
"Performance," as if in a play or some kind of theatre assumed to exist ... theory of mind here assumes presence based on something "nonconscious"--then the stupid logician's retort "but then you are saying that the basis of what you are looking for [consciousnesss] is non-conscious?
(5) "in the human brain."
Well I suppose that's the thought-terminating cliche that helps dissolve all of the mysteries "we" are trying to find the root of...
A word such as "consciousness" once written to paper (or typed) already assumes the very root we are searching for...it assumes the basis or framework of what is being "proved"--again only a process understood by consciousness ( and thus that process of consciousness found and attributed to itself becomes the best fiction).
Michael Allen
Paranormal Adept
So the physical is the foundation of the phenomenal -- I think that is a truism. The word is "physical" and we are "conscious"...what's the problem? I think the real problem is that most have a very narrow notion of what is physical.
Agents create models...you can't just throw in a ">"... we're not even dealing with the same class of entity (as an agent trying to construct models)...how do you determine a relationship like ">" in such a nasty confusing framework? DoA is too generous...and there is definitely more to the story (told by the creators and readers of the entire epic of models....)
Now if you take both agent and model as class of metaphors created by the "agent" we are discussing...then we are in serious trouble.
Edit: Answering another point (Soupie)
We don't actually know if we are capturing an infinite reality; although the term "snap shot" may lead us to a metaphore that throws out temporality--i.e. as an example ask what it means to take a "spatial snapshot" vs a "temporal snapshot." The term "snapshot" has already excluded a primordial component of what we are trying to investigation (i.e. our experience of time...or temporality). In order to construct the notion of "snapshot" we must exclude a major pre-conscious component which allows such snapshots to even be meaningful in some kind of temporality matrix...
And what of the "infinite" we ascribe to "reality?" Are we simply giving up because our own experience must include such a notion. My thinking is that a complete understanding (removing the "infinite") actually removes consciousness (eventuallly)...because consciousness to persist requires a lacuna.
Last edited:
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
I feel like you’re having your cake and eating it too.
I know we know nothing, he said. We only know enough to know that we don’t know. Or I know enough to know that we don’t know enough.
Are you an idealist?
how do you know consciousness (human mind in this case) doesn’t terminate in the organism/agent/brain?
re > That was just shorthand for derives from. Wasn’t supposed to be “greater than.“
Of course for the agent we would put an X. (Sticking with the math symbols that I inadvertently started.) I take a critical realist approach to what-is; to what exists external to my mind. I don’t think we perceive reality as it is. to think we do or could is akin to a category error. However I don’t think what-is is so exotic that none of our human perceptions and conceptions capture certain aspects/patterns/relationships.
the way you speak, how can you say anything about the physical?
re the article above. I don’t think the authors are native English speakers. Regardless I’m not sure they “assume” anything other than standard physicalism. I think they are doing good honest work and frustrates me how some in this thread would spite them. They are seeking the same understanding we are. And I dare say they are doing a bit more than us to get there.
- Status