From: cpshelle@logos.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley)
Subject: Re: what is consciousness for?
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 13:29:26 GMT

rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> In article <BtJJ7x.1AL@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca> cpshelle@logos.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley) writes:
> >rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> 
> >> But the formal structures of conscious knowledge are usually encoded
> >> linguistically, and the unconscious can learn to recognize the patterns
> >> of associated words without regard to whether they represent a formal
> >> structure or not.
> >
> >By "encoded linguistically" I take you to mean for the purpose of
> >communication.
> 
> No, that was not my meaning.  Language is far more important to us than
> mere communication.  Doubtless our language capability evolved because
> of the advantages of communication.  But we use language far more for
> thought than for communication.  Language, particularly language based
> thought, acts as a memory refresh mechanism.  That is, we can repeatedly
> return to the same thoughts, and every time we do so we strengthen our
> memory of them.  I believe we would have almost no memory recall ability
> if it were not for this phenomenon.

Possibly not, but having studied communication a little, I can't
concieve of it as "mere".  I'm also unsure what use a monadic
intelligence would have for linguistic representation, but as I don't
know any such entities (Aristotle's god, perhaps?), I suppose the
answer will have to wait.  When I notice myself thinking in words, and
I'm not sure how much of this I do, I have the sensation that I am
conversing with myself, which is still a form of communication. 
However, since my mental conversants can `read each others thoughts',
the sensation often collapses.  I would be interested if your theory
could be tested empirically.

> >I find the idea of consciousness as feedback quite interesting.  But
> >it does seem to render the term "conscious learning" something of a
> >misnomer.
> 
> The point here is that we use consciousness to reinforce our learning.
> Unconscious learning is based on extensive experience.  But consciousness
> provides us the ability for thought, and that allows us, through a
> thought based simulation, to repeat a single experience many times, and
> get the same learning effect as if there had been multiple real repetitions
> of the identical experience.

Possibly quite true, but I'm not sure why this ability to
re-experience is unique to the consciousness.

> >                 If they are so closely related, how does
> >consciousness abstract the representation of unconscious knowledge?
> 
> If I understand what you are asking, this is the big question which has
> baffled many people.  Namely, where does semantics come from?  I believe
> that unconscious learning is very broadly oriented, and can perhaps best
> be described as a contextually oriented learning to recognize complex
> patterns of associations.  As we thus learn to associate a word with
> sensory input, or with other words, all in some contextual setting, we
> build up those semantics.

This sounds like I. A. Richards' theory of meaning.  Curiously enough,
I've been working on a contextually oriented theory of speech acts
(and performative verbs), but one in which context is represented by
propositions---discrete rather than non-discrete.  However, this is
certainly an oversimplification and, as you point out, an open
question.  Hmm.

</dev/cam
--
      Cameron Shelley        |"In the beginning, there was nothing.  Then
cpshelle@logos.uwaterloo.ca  | God said `Let there be light', and there
    Davis Centre Rm 2136     | was still nothing, but youse could see it."
 Phone (519) 885-1211 x3390  | --Dave Thomas, SCTV:_Sunrise Semester_
Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:5936 rec.arts.sf.misc:2787 alt.cyberpunk:4092