From: ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon)
Subject: Re: The Easlon Model of Consciousness
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 22:55:55 GMT


Profuse apologies, this is the second correction to earlier canceled posts.
It might seem an abuse of the network, but I sincerely believe the
corrections now can save a lot of traffic later, assuming anyone takes an
interest.
 
In this article I will address mind-body dualism, conceptual orientation
and a model of consciousness.  I'm going to cover a lot of territory
without full explanation simply because it would take too many words.  If
anyone finds a particular area interesting, I will be happy to expand and
expound.  

I fully expect this material to be boringly irrelevant to most
comp.ai.philo readers, but the next time someone accuses me of knocking
present theories without offering anything better, I want to have something
to point to.
 
A MODEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
First the model.  I think I'm going to abandon my idea of using a bit
mapped model (article <BzBK0M.J5L@iat.holonet.net>) and stick to visual
forms that have more intuitive appeal.  It is left as an exercise for the
programmer to use bit map or vector graphics when translating to
computereze. 
 
The core of the model consists of sensory patterns in modal fields of
sensory possibilities. 
 
VIDEO 
 
Take vision for example, a sense that can be translated to computereze in a
relatively straightforward manner.  The modal field can be thought of has
the sum total of all possible visual experience, a blur of white light. 
 
If we stick to a strict visual mode perception of this light field, we
perceive it to lie in front of the observer.  To imagine light in back of
the observer, we must imagine turning our head, which would involve other
sensory modes. 
 
This brings up an integral component of the sensory experience, the
observer.  In the visual mode, the essence of observerhood consists of
orientation: up, down, left, right, and an axis extending from the observer
to the scene. 
 

From an objective point of view, we need posit no more details of
observerhood than a pair of eyeballs, the second eye being needed for depth
perception.  Of course I'm referring to the basic visual sensation itself,
the "point of view", not the subsequent processing of the visual signal.  

AUDIO 
 
Now let's add the auditory field.  If we hold the head still, two ears can
tell us the angle of the direction of the sound in a 180 degree horizontal
plane.  The two ears alone cannot distinguish if the sound is coming from
front or rear, up or down, and they can not distinguish if the sound is
coming from the space between the ears or the space outside. 
 
This statement seems counter intuitive because in reality we have no
difficulty in distinguishing auditory front from auditory rear.  So let's
add another basic sense, head position. 
 
Our mind intuitively adds enough signal processing to the audible sound to
tell us which way to point our head to focus on the sound source.

Our mind intuitively adds enough signal processing to the visual scene to
tell us which way to point our eyes to focus on areas of interest in the
scene.  

HEAD SPACE 
 
Now we've added a few more elements to our basic model: head and automated
audio/visual source locator.  We have the basics here of what I call head
space.  

ORIENTATION 
 
Next we need to consider exactly how we perceive the orientation of our
eyeballs.  I think we have two basic reference systems here: 
 
     (1)  with respect to the visual sensory source 
     (2)  with respect to the head that the eyes are attached to 
 
How do we perceive the orientation of our head?  I think we have three
basic reference systems here: 
 
     (1)  with respect to the audio visual sensory source 
     (2)  with respect to the body that the head is attached to 
     (3)  with respect to gravity and inertia, using information supplied 
          by the vestibular system 
 
Item (1) has been discussed.  Item (2) brings the body into our model, and
item (3) brings in a dose of reality: gravity, inertia, and a sense of 
effort in effecting head and body movement with respect to inertial space. 
 
Having brought the body into the picture, we need to consider other body
movements besides head and eye movement.  Here we have all kinds of body
part movements with respect to each other, and with respect to that
ubiquitous environmental feature: the ground. 
 
Overcoming inertia and gravity requires effort.  We can think of effort as
a mode of body sensation, muscular tension balanced by resistance to
movement, either inertial or material.  Material resistance can be provided
by other body parts, or by objects in the environment.  
 
Welcome to the physical environment, an array of objects that impede the
movement of body parts. 
 
DISPLEASURE 
 
Coming soon, emotions.  Muscular effort becomes tiresome after a while,
relaxing and resting are generally less unpleasant.  The double negative
here is intentional as I find the concept of displeasure easier to model
than the concept of pleasure. 
 
The displeasure of fatigue and pain is another body sensation.  The message
to our body model operator (BMO) is "lay off", this peripheral is currently
unavailable. 
 
TIME, INTENTION AND MEMORY 
 
This brings up the distinction between body perception and intention. 
Think of intention as an perception of future body perception.  It's
simplest form I think of intention as one phase of a dynamic perception of
body movement.  Intention is the phase slightly in the future, instinctive
memory is the phase slightly in the past.  
 
As we travel the dynamic movement path farther into the future, we come to
decision points where body movement might go this way or that way.  
 
As we travel the dynamic movement path farther into the past, we come to
decision points where the current body movement was selected from one of a
number of remembered predecessor movements. 
 
If we dwell on the decision points, past or future we shift the center of
our dynamic movement awareness from an awareness state which is centered on
the step being executed to an awareness state centered on a step which is
experientially linked with the step being executed. 
 
When we dwell on the decision points to see where we came from and where we
are going, we are shifting from actual perceptions to imagined perceptions. 

The imagining of future and past body positions can be thought of as body
modeling.  The mental facilities that allow us to engage in body modeling
can be thought of as the body model operator. 
 
EMOTIONS 
 
If there is a sense of displeasure associated with the imagined change of
position, we say forget it, unless there is another greater displeasure
that would result from not moving.  Say the displeasure of an aching
bladder, or a wet bed if we yield to the call of nature without moving. 
 
I think THE basic emotion is displeasure, and a great deal of out time and
energy are spent planning and acting to minimize displeasure. 
 
Next, the toughie, pleasure. 
 
I think pleasure is likewise a basic body sensation, a message to the BMO
saying, "Hey, this pretty neat, let's keep on doing it for a while."  
 
As displeasure tells the BMO to "forget it", pleasure tells the BMO to
"remember it".  Pain quenches a chain of thought, pleasure enhances it. 
 
NEW DIMENSIONS IN COORDINATE SYSTEMS 
 
I think our thoughts about the real world center around the locations of
areas that we associated with pleasure and displeasure.  If the location is
variable, as it generally is with moving entities, then we associate the
pleasure/displeasure with a specific entity, and leave details of time and
space to secondary consideration. 
 
In any event, our consideration of locations and entity orbits associated
with pleasure and displeasure are all oriented with respect to gravity and
a map of the real world.  
 
Our considerations of pain and pleasure associated with a given entity are
less likely to be oriented specifically to a real world location, but to
identity characteristics of the entity in question, and to the kind of
emotionally driven activity that we generally engage in with respect to the
entity.  
 
Consider entity as food.  All our thoughts about the experience of
interacting with a food entity are likely to be centered on the concept of
eating, with auxiliary thoughts extending out to food gathering and after
dinner naps.  Just as we can think of spatial directions as basic
parameters of a coordinate system we use for organizing memories of
traveling, we can use emotional archetypes (eating, mating, fighting, etc)
as basic parameters for organizing memories of emotionally significant
experience. 
 
Just as we think of spatial parameters as dimensions of data coordinating
systems, we can think of emotional parameters in a similar way.  I know
this is a difficult concept to communicate, but if you follow my line of
reasoning, statements like "Sex can be thought of as the 6th dimension"
make perfect rational sense. 
 
MIND-BODY DUALISM 
 
To sum it up, if we're talking about concepts that we relate to other
concepts by their relative position on a gravity or inertially oriented
coordinate system, then we are thinking of what kind of changes in body
position it's going to take to go from one concept to the next. This is our
rational coordinate system, and the data contained therein is the stuff of
the material universe. 
 
If we're talking about concepts that we relate to other concepts by their
relative position on an emotionally oriented coordinate system, then we are
thinking of what kind of primal act we are thinking about when going from
one concept to the next. This is our emotional coordinate system, and the
data contained therein is the stuff of the non-material universe. 

My view is that we intuitively think about emotionally organized experience
in a way that is so different than the way we think about geographically
organized experience that the two sets of data are almost in separate
universes.
 
APPEAL 

I went to a lot of work to put this article together, and if I don't get
any responses I'm going to be pissed :-)
 
Ken Easlon 
ken@holonet.net 
 
 
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