Questioning Consciousness

[DrEvil]

[jakell]

Hard to believe that some folks didn't see the gorilla, I didn't notice a black player had gone until they stopped passing the balls, at which point I rewound to see when they did step out of the shot. I didn't bother counting the passes though so probably this helped.

As to the background changing colour, I didn't spot that, but when you are concentrating on a busy foreground, I would think that is something most people overlook.

[DrEvil]

To my eternal shame I didn't see the gorilla, but it says something about human perception that half of all people don't see it. We're not as in charge of our brains as we like to think.

Just take something mundane like driving to work. How often do you get there only to realize you can't remember the actual drive? Your brain does a much better job at it if you don't think about it. Or just find a video of someone with no proprioception (they have no awareness of their limbs in relation to their body). They suck at it, because they have to constantly think about it (they literally have to go "left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot", all the time).

I'm starting to wonder if we're suffering from a species-wide case of Dunning-Kruger.

Edit: I was looking for a different video than the one I posted that's way cooler. It's a short sketch with several props and actors in costumes coming and going. If anyone knows which one I mean pretty please post it.

[Wombaticus Rex]

First time I saw that video -- which was Bushadmin -- I didn't see the fucking gorilla at all.

Most instructional.

[jakell]

what interests me is were you counting the passes?.

Probably because the video is billed as an illusion, I instinctively went into misdirection mode and ignored it (plus it's a boring activity). A double bluff or reverse psychology might have got around that.

(maybe if the gorilla was wearing blue jeans and had a ponytail it would have blended in)

[bks]

First time I saw that video -- which was Bushadmin -- I didn't see the fucking gorilla at all.

Most instructional.

Same thing with me.

[DrEvil]

I wasn't counting since I knew there would be some kind of visual trickery, which makes it all the more baffling that I failed to see a freaking gorilla walking right in front of me.

Makes you wonder what else our brains ignore.

[jakell]

This one has 'gorilla' in the title, so it's a bit of a giveaway, see if you can spot him:

[Wombaticus Rex]

I wasn't counting since I knew there would be some kind of visual trickery, which makes it all the more baffling that I failed to see a freaking gorilla walking right in front of me.

Makes you wonder what else our brains ignore.

^^Almost verbatim how I would have answered, so yeah, that.

At the time I was coming off a lot of NLP study, and boy howdy, nothing will make you more carelessly arrogant than learning them sleight of mouth casual hypnosis scripts. I thought it was something special, briefly, until I came to appreciate I was just putting a little awareness and intent behind something I'd been doing my whole life, along with most other humans. When I read mystic authors talk about "shared dreams," I can only wince at the flowery metaphor and see it operationally.

It's pretty, as models go: a resonance field of mutual hypnosis.

My friends who do sleight of hand -- the more valuable skill, despite my Buyer's Remorse trying to trick this fox into sour grape-ing -- have taught me something that seems relevant: people out-think you reactively, which is why it is very easy to not get arrested for crimes you actually plan, among other perks. It's also a key insight for magicians doing patter, because what you cue people to expect is also putting their monkey mind into a prison of your creation, whereby the parameters of what they can think about your trick get established.

"Don't think about a white bear" is just some second-order stuff. You can build a f'ing tesseract in a single sentence, though.

[82_28]

Last night I made a beer run before the "cut off" of 2AM. There was some dude laying outside and when I came back out and he asked me for a smoke. I'd just bought a pack so, why the hell not? So he begins to tell me his story and like I always do I paid attention. It was dark, so I didn't notice. But he went on to tell me he had lost an eye and sure enough there was no eye in the socket. Long story short, I wound up sitting down next to him, tempted to film it all on my camera but would be way too obvious. So I lit up a smoke and he started screaming at me so I just got up and walked away.

Here's another who I fed daily with soup that would go to waste:



Also this that I filmed.



Consciousness is subjective.

[zangtang]

'wild ? - i was bloody livid !'

[coffin_dodger]

Jackell said (re: Halton Arp)

Well, it's certainly an alternative explanation (sort of), but why do you think it is more convincing or credible?

Because my intuition tells me it is. I know that sounds like a joke to the rational mind. I guess I've become more 'romantic' in the second half of my life, swinging from hard-nosed realist in the first half. I still have moments of doubt - am I going mad, to see things so differently from how I used to? - but to leave behind the 'life is nasty, brutish and short' theory of existence (exemplifyed by the big bang theory - there was a massive explosion, the universe is chaotic and uncaring, we are governed by a set of immutable laws, there is only one lifetime and you should grab what you can for yourself as selfishly as possible - the sun will explode one and day and everything will be destroyed etc etc) -all of this serves to lock thoughts into a doomish and self-interest mind-set that I now feel trapped me.

Halton Arp presents a theory based on observations, which is just as valid as other current theories. It's the mind-set perceiving an idea which makes it strong or weak. He may not be spot-on, but it ties in with my comprehension of re-incarnation, consciousness, creation, the way things work (based on my own observations) etc.

..................

Even though they are equally valuable, I would say that intuition can exist without rigour and this can be imagined by those who accept that we evolved from an animal state, ie rigour is the late-comer.

Fitting in with the thread title I would say that rigour is more in line with our conscious state, as it takes intention and effort, and that intuition is in line with our unconscious processes. the two working together to provide communicable ideas

I still don't know whether you agree with me that the unconscious state preceded the conscious one in our evolution. If this is the case then there certainly would have been a time when there was no (or less) equilibrium and possibly a useful way of looking at consciousness, ie, the development of it

.

Crikey, this could get long-winded. You've made me think that I should approach the above question from a 3state point of view - and I may not like the answer I get. But that's what excites me about 3state - it throws up unexpected and unseen outcomes. Ok, I'm going to do this in real-time.

I would say that intuition can exist without rigour

Hopefully, we can start by agreeing terms on the concept and definition of intuition - but I can only speak for myself:

Pele's Daughter mentioned upthread 'stepping outside yourself and becoming an impartial observer'.
Doing this has shown that there are two 'mes' inside my mind. One, the inner me - and two, the me that falls in line to be presented to the world.
The inner me is 'me' in it's truest essence - it's the truly private me that reacts instantly to conscious stimuli. That inner 'me' (which is again split because it) has conversations with itself - one half is totally unbound by social niceties, the other side counterbalancing the 'rogue' thoughts - both governed and counterbalanced by personal interpretations of morality based primarily on feelings opposed by reason. This me is free.

The other 'me' is the conformist, if for nothing more than survival. The me that keeps the inner me in check by opposition. The inner me that, for instance, on meeting someone for the first time might say to itself "this person is sweating profusely, their eyes are darting all over the place, they are exhibiting signs of disinterest in me, I don't really want to talk to this person, they are creeping me out, I'm getting a bad vibe' whilst the outer me outstretches a hand, creates a smile and says 'nice to meet you'. This outer 'me' is caged - balancing the inner 'free' me.

These two mes are bridged by 3state. The point of equilibrium, where there is nothing and everything, itself a 3state. All possibilities and no possibilities. And both 'all possibilities' and 'no possibilities' are bridged again by 3state. 3state is wheels within wheels. Up and down the scale, from observable reality to unobservable reality, it sits between and connects everything. It is the definition of 'hidden in plain sight'. I've digressed, as usual.

Sorry - back to the point: Intuition comes in (via 3state - accessing all probablities, balanced by accessing no probablities) to the 'inner me, the opposing and counterbalance to the 'outer' rigorous me'. Sometimes intuition makes perfect sense, other times it's non-sense. Applying 3state principles, this makes sense. There is a tendency to discard from 'mind' that which does not make sense and retain that which does make sense. Applying 3state principle, this makes sense. The mind, constantly moving through equally opposing and balancing states of sense and non-sense, pulls from 3state that which it needs to retain equilibrium, thus we are either more intuitive or more rigorous as equilibrium dictates.

Intuition is 'knowing', without reason. Applying 3state, the counterbalancing and opposing state will be 'not knowing, with reason'. This appears a spot-on terminology for a 'rigorous mind' to me. Belief or scepticism. But as I say, we all experience differently.

Regarding the other questions you posed, it would be helpful (to me) to define our individual understanding of 'consciousness'. My definition of 'conscious' is 'aware'. i.e. experiencing, feeling, thinking, being, cognisant, presence, awake - with unconscious being the counterbalancing opposite - void, stillness, nothing, inactivity, asleep - you get the picture, I hope.

[jakell]

Jackell said (re: Halton Arp)

Well, it's certainly an alternative explanation (sort of), but why do you think it is more convincing or credible?

Looking for reasons to disregard the conventional red shift explanations, especially as they fit in with several other area of physics.

Because my intuition tells me it is. I know that sounds like a joke to the rational mind. I guess I've become more 'romantic' in the second half of my life, swinging from hard-nosed realist in the first half. I still have moments of doubt - am I going mad, to see things so differently from how I used to? - but to leave behind the 'life is nasty, brutish and short' theory of existence (exemplifyed by the big bang theory - there was a massive explosion, the universe is chaotic and uncaring, we are governed by a set of immutable laws, there is only one lifetime and you should grab what you can for yourself as selfishly as possible - the sun will explode one and day and everything will be destroyed etc etc) -all of this serves to lock thoughts into a doomish and self-interest mind-set that I now feel trapped me.

Actually, and I pointed this out in a subsequent post, his theory is not an alternative, but an additional one.
There are already three components to the current redshift model:

1) Cosmological redshift (expansion of space)
2) Standard redshift (due to ordinary velocities)
3) Gravitational redshift (small)

So it can be seen we already have an inclusive scenario, to which Arp's can be added. Some work needs to be done on it to make this so, and any of the standard complaints by the 'Electric Universe' crowd won't cut any ice.. NASA etc aren't hiding their data, it's all open, and neither are they preventing people from working on this. No massive funding is needed as it all theoretical at this point.
It's worth pointing out that, if we throw out no. 1 (the one you don't like), we still have expansion, and hence the initial sea of elementary particles, and reconnecting back to the original anti-matter subject.

There is nothing remarkable about initially using your intuition, all other thinkers do this, but they don't stop there, they then apply some rigour to examine this, and hence we get communicable ideas rather than individual notions. I've already given my own mechanism for sorting between intuitions, are you willing to look at yours? Here's one way to look at this particular issue.... When Halton Arp's work is presented nowadays (plus that of several others), it is nearly always padded out with an overwhelming David and Goliath narrative, plus one of unfairness, force, manipulation, rejection, treachery etc etc, which is all very entertaining, but it's got nothing to do with the underlying matter, it's all emotional persuasion and rhetoric.
It's worth considering that it is this that informs your intuition, and that storytellers have taken over here, pushing aside the initial spirit of Arp's work, and hijacked it in favour of a personal theme. I, possibly unfairly, identify these 'storytellers' as the 'Electric Universe' Crowd and their fingerprints (overwhelming narrative over content) can be seen in all the scientific fields they purport to question.

So, to sum up.. you can question your intuitions if you choose, it's the start of a journey, not a conclusion. A clue might be that, if your intuition is telling you something concrete about a field you have little or no personal contact with, then there may be other factors at work, as described above,

Halton Arp presents a theory based on observations, which is just as valid as other current theories. It's the mind-set perceiving an idea which makes it strong or weak. He may not be spot-on, but it ties in with my comprehension of re-incarnation, consciousness, creation, the way things work (based on my own observations) etc.

[SonicG]

I haven't read everything here but I assume this fits in well...

The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality
we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions — sights, sounds, textures, tastes — are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it — or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion — we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.

Not so, says Donald D. Hoffman, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine. Hoffman has spent the past three decades studying perception, artificial intelligence, evolutionary game theory and the brain, and his conclusion is a dramatic one: The world presented to us by our perceptions is nothing like reality. What’s more, he says, we have evolution itself to thank for this magnificent illusion, as it maximizes evolutionary fitness by driving truth to extinction.

Getting at questions about the nature of reality, and disentangling the observer from the observed, is an endeavor that straddles the boundaries of neuroscience and fundamental physics. On one side you’ll find researchers scratching their chins raw trying to understand how a three-pound lump of gray matter obeying nothing more than the ordinary laws of physics can give rise to first-person conscious experience. This is the aptly named “hard problem.”

On the other side are quantum physicists, marveling at the strange fact that quantum systems don’t seem to be definite objects localized in space until we come along to observe them. Experiment after experiment has shown — defying common sense — that if we assume that the particles that make up ordinary objects have an objective, observer-independent existence, we get the wrong answers. The central lesson of quantum physics is clear: There are no public objects sitting out there in some preexisting space. As the physicist John Wheeler put it, “Useful as it is under ordinary circumstances to say that the world exists ‘out there’ independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld.”

So while neuroscientists struggle to understand how there can be such a thing as a first-person reality, quantum physicists have to grapple with the mystery of how there can be anything but a first-person reality. In short, all roads lead back to the observer. And that’s where you can find Hoffman — straddling the boundaries, attempting a mathematical model of the observer, trying to get at the reality behind the illusion. Quanta Magazine caught up with him to find out more.
....
But how can seeing a false reality be beneficial to an organism’s survival?

There’s a metaphor that’s only been available to us in the past 30 or 40 years, and that’s the desktop interface. Suppose there’s a blue rectangular icon on the lower right corner of your computer’s desktop — does that mean that the file itself is blue and rectangular and lives in the lower right corner of your computer? Of course not. But those are the only things that can be asserted about anything on the desktop — it has color, position and shape. Those are the only categories available to you, and yet none of them are true about the file itself or anything in the computer. They couldn’t possibly be true. That’s an interesting thing. You could not form a true description of the innards of the computer if your entire view of reality was confined to the desktop. And yet the desktop is useful. That blue rectangular icon guides my behavior, and it hides a complex reality that I don’t need to know. That’s the key idea. Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. They guide adaptive behaviors. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be. If you had to spend all that time figuring it out, the tiger would eat you.

[coffin_dodger]

So, to sum up.. you can question your intuitions if you choose, it's the start of a journey, not a conclusion. A clue might be that, if your intuition is telling you something concrete about a field you have little or no personal contact with, then there may be other factors at work, as described above

Fair enough - thanks for the interest.