From: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.cognitive
Subject: Consciousness
Keywords: cognition free-will
Date: 20 Aug 92 17:50:14 GMT
Followup-To: comp.ai.philosophy
Organization: TRW Systems Division, Fairfax VA

This is a summary of recent comments on consciousness.

Mark Rosefelder suggests "I would hazard a guess that consciousness allows
us to observe and therefore change our own behavior; in effect it expands
the range of objects we can manipulate to include ourselves."

Cameron Shelley: "Consciousness seems necessary to make culture work....
It provides the ability to quickly learn, adapt, and transmit culture."

Neil Rickert: "While I agree with this assessment of culture, I would
hesitate to say that it can be used as an explanation of consciousness."

Neil Rickert: "Actually, it is my suspicion that consciousness is there to
increase the speed of learning."

I have a comment on this: The dynamics of cultural and genetic
transmission differ. In particular, genetic transmission can't track the
evolution of a chaotic strategy, while cultural transmission can. (This is
based on some simulation work and an analysis of why a difference was
apparent in that work.) This is the reason that I believe social group
behavior and consciousness are connected.

Neil Rickert: "I do agree that there is some culture in apes.... In most
cases, I don't believe there is any persuasive evidence that there is
enough culture to be significant for survival, although the ages might be
an exception."

Comment: apes also have self-awareness. Also, the selective advantage
needed for the genes associated with culture to fixate is extremely small.
A third factor may be related to my speculations about distributed
cognition. 

Neil Rickert: "I would imagine that when a carnivore is attacking its
prey,and the prey kicks it in the face, it is very useful to learn to
anticipate this so the predator can duck the next blow. There are many
circumstances where rapid learning would seem to be highly beneficial."

Comment: it doesn't have to be that dramatic. Mammalian predators need to
learn the characteristics of their prey to calibrate their fear/attack
threshold.

Don McLane: "I think the feeling of freewill may arise from our
disconnectedness with the past."

Mark Shanks: "Without getting into a behaviorist/free will discussion, I
don't see any reason to invoke chaos as an influence on the perception of
free will...."

Comment: free will probably depends on being able to trace the causal
chain backwards.

Neil Rickert: "Usually we think of free will as the ability to make a
decision, and have that decision affect what we do in the future.... Our
sense that we have free will is really a strong argument for determinism."

Comment: Rickert seems to be arguing that consciousness is a memory of
previous decisions and outcomes. In my terminology, plans and payoffs.

Rujith S. DeSilva: "Your decisions are not pre-determined. I think quantum
theory (specifically the absence of 'hidden variables') allows this
possibility, but would like an expert opinion."

Comment, not expert: I doubt very much whether quantum mechanics is
involved in cognition. It seems to be possible to use QM statistics to
describe the brain and its processing, but in somewhat the same way that
you can find holography or dynamic programming in the brain--via analogy
and only crudely. Yes, neurons fire in correlated patterns and their
firing is statistical, and you can probably use QM to describe the
process, but that doesn't mean the brain should be analyzed as a truly
quantum system. It only means that a lot of different non-linear systems
are mildly similar...

It's been a pleasure to watch this discussion evolve.

Cheers,
-- 
Harry Erwin
Internet: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com