Subjectivity Explained (Hypothesis)

[Another God]

Of late much of my spare thinking time has been dedicated to trying to understand how the objective world of chemicals and electrical gradients etc are translated into the subjective world of perception. I am not sure that this new hypothesis has made the final connection, but I hope I have worked to at least narrow the gap between the two.

I now present my new hypothesis to you all, awaiting all criticisms and pointers.
I will make side comments, clarifications, and important considerations after each paragraph in this color.
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The Begining of 'Self'
In the begining, we are born as a blank slate with particular tendencies pre-programmed in. We are born with various behaviouralistic qualities, with sense organs, with sensory storage space (memory), and advanced computational hardware (the brain - The Subconscious).

At this stage of life, the very first moments of experience (whenever that actually is), I am claiming that the baby does not percieve. I am claiming that the baby does not 'think', nor does it have conception of the 'Self'. At the first moments of life, the human baby is an automaton, acting out the pre-programmed genetic tendencies that instil other animals, like gazelles to get up and run before they even know what they are running from. The baby is following this programming, and all the time, it is storing the experiences in a cleverly designed 'Experience storage' part of the brain. (Memory)


I claim that the baby cannot perceive. By this I mean to differentiate between an 'experience' and a 'perception' in that an experience = Stimulation to a sense organ, in turn received by the brain. Perception = Meaningful interpretation of that experience.
It is probably clear already that my stance on the subjective mind is a materialistic stance, and as such does have a large dependence on Neurology. I am not overtly knowledgeable in Neurology, so I will not be describing the neurological functions behind my theories of the brain/mind, but simply claim that they occur in some way which is either already known about by some people other than me, or in some way which is yet to be understood.

The child at this stage of life (The stage of first experiences) is only following the genetically programmed directives that control it, and at the same time, recording everything that it experiences in its memory. What is then done with these experiences is the interesting part. The brain stores every piece of sensory input, and instantly starts calculating. It compares the sensory experiences, it contrasts them, it categorizes them, it juxtposes them, it notes how some experiences were received in groups (all at once) and remembers these facts about them. It associates experiences with other experiences. It computes the experiences.

Over time, this computational process begins to make sense of the sensory inputs. As the same inputs are received time and time again, and as the same input associations are made again and again, and as the contrasts are made between Experience and lack of said experience are built up, meaning starts to be derived from experiences. The brain can start associating a stimulus with a soon to follow consequence. It can use these sets of information to figure out the relation between the stimulus 1, consequence 1, and consequence 2. (Our developed perception of this relation may be See thing (Baby Mobile) in front of me, feel thing in front of me, see thing move). It is only through the computational power of the brain, that meaning is slowly derived from a completely internal series of collected facts. This is a major point of consideration towards my final conclusion, that the 'Mind' and the conception of 'Self' is an internally built, self affirming construct of the brain. The subjective experience is no more than a complex collection of experiental shortcuts used by the brain to percieve (see definition above)our environment.

My description of the new-person's assocation of experiences need to be understood as I am attempting to describe it. The new-person does NOT see sticks and space ships and univorns and whatever' haning above its head. Nor does it 'see' 'a combination of blue, red, pink, yellow and green, moving in a particular constellation'. The new-person is still completely unable to see anything let alone differentiate colours. All it can do, is have the eyes receive electromagnetic radiations upon its surface, have that reception change the rods and cones in particular ways, have those changes affect other transmitter cells, and have those messages affect the brains memory in a particular way. That is experience, and that is all that a new-person is able to do. Experience, and store the memory. It is not until later that 1. meaning can be derived from the experience, and then not until much later that 2. subjective experience can be perceived from those experiences.

Through this method of storgae, comparison, classification (categorization), and contrast, the brain is slowly able to form a picture of its world. it is able to figure out that it receives a consistent variety of stimuli from the eyes. It is then able to use this accumulated knowledge, and understand when it receives 'experience 576, 567 and 634' that it is not receiving 'experience 45' and that is information that it can use. (where the three experiences may be 1. Illumination, 2. Blue from the roof, and 3. bright. while the experience lacking, is the experience of no light. These experiences could also be associated with a predictive experience of soon being fed for example). Through all of these experience associations etc, the brain is still working overtime to recieve, store, and calculate everything. Every bit of information is important, and needs to be stored for later recall. Every experience helps the brain to formulate a picture of the outside world, and so is rigourously scrutinized for relevence.

The Subjective View
Eventually, the brain starts to feel comfortable in the use of various regular experiences. It has to deal with these sensory inputs so often that it has been able to categorise them well, it has been able to contrast them appropriately, and it has been able to figure out exactly what the experience 'means'. The brain will then be able to make a 'shortcut' for this experience. The brain doesn't need to associate the sensory stimulus with all other relevant memories to perceive the stimulus, it already knows what the perception is, so it just follows the shortcut, and arrives at the conclusion. The conclusion will be red. Everytime, it will be red. The brain doesn't need to keep checking this, it doesn't need to keep verifying it. it doesn't need to keep affirming its own internal system each time such an experience occurs to it, it just follows the shortcut to 'Perception = Red'.

And thus, is the subjective world view born.

The subjective world view is a construct, by the brain to assist its own goal of finding meaning in its sensory inputs. Once a sensory input is encountered so frequently that it would only clog the calculatory system up to continue analysing it, it is turned into a perceptory shortcut. These shortcuts give us our subjective vision, our subjective touch, our subjective smell, our subjective hearing and our subjective taste.

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I'll leave it there for the moment. Its a lot to take in as it is, and I am incredibly eager for some feedback. I have a lot more to add to this, but I will await initial feedback before I continue.

The next installments will have to do with the claims that all of our 'thinking' consists of this same brain process which occurs from birth (comparing, constrasting, associating and categorizing of past experiences.). I will also claim that our conscious mind, and our 'super-conscious' (the voice in our heads) is just an imperfect playback of our experience memories.

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Everything written in this post comes from my own head, and is not based on anyone elses work. I have briefly read a short paper by U.T Place and J.J Smart recently, and I agree with their materialist conception of Mind/Brain, but their own ideas have had very limited impact on my thoughts, at most giving me more confidence in my own convictions.

 

[wuliheron]

If you are going to insist on viewing life mechanistically you would do better to study those who came before. Radical behaviorists have already managed to link the subjective and objective, cognitive and behavioral with experimental evidence and logical rigor. In fact, they are the only ones to do so yet. The way they did it was by asserting context is more important than content, the opposite of what you are doing here. Skinner and other more conservative behaviorists tried this approach and despite enormous funding, brillance, etc. they failed consistently for over fifty years.

 

[roeighty]

good work.
..i always like a piece of well considered overview on a topic.

[..]and at the same time, recording everything that it [the baby] experiences in its memory.

the brain is still working overtime to recieve, store, and calculate everything. Every bit of information is important, and needs to be stored for later recall. Every experience helps the brain to formulate a picture of the outside world, and so is rigourously scrutinized for relevence.

right, ..brain stores all it perceives, no matter if we're aware of perceiving it, even everything, that's e.g. not in focus of what we see, but in wide range aswell.

[..] final conclusion, that the 'Mind' and the conception of 'Self' is an internally built, self affirming construct of the brain.

..depending on outer world's circumstances and surroundings, the process of "'mind' and 'self' constructed by brain" being due to mechanisms of evolution of man and his brain (survival, assertion, success, try and errance, diversity, variety, interaction, mutation, adaptation, redundance). man's 'tool' to survive.

that is all that a new-person is able to do. Experience, and store the memory. It is not until later that 1. meaning can be derived from the experience, and then not until much later that 2. subjective experience can be perceived from those experiences

this, i think, happening, when babys grow up and brain ripens, can in analogy be found in man's primate ancestor's history, when brain starts forming.

The brain will then be able to make a 'shortcut' for this experience. The brain doesn't need to associate the sensory stimulus with all other relevant memories to perceive the stimulus, it already knows what the perception is, so it just follows the shortcut, and arrives at the conclusion.

abstraction. reducing observations to the meaning they have for us. forming of 'notions'.

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i'm sure you know about the mirror test: paint a red dot on a man's baby's or an animal's nose without them noticing it, and then see what happens when they get in front of a mirror..
this actually fits in your concept of the 'Self', i think.

...then, an experiment with young cats was made, you maybe know of, depriving them of any vertical views (poles, vertical wall's corners, aso.) while growing up, another young cats without horizontal views. first group was unable later to climb trees, latter group couldn't walk any stairs..
this shows, how surroundings have great impact on brains developing.

PS: what you name "perception", i think, is "experience"
and vice versa, so this sounded a little confusing to me..

 

[Kerrie]

interesting hypothesis AG...i found your first part interesting about babies as a clean slate...if i understand your perception correctly, then my only contradiction to your statement of:

I claim that the baby cannot perceive

is that how amazing it is that a baby knows EXACTLY what s/he wants...i guess this is could be partly attributed to the remarkable tuning to their instinct...

roeighty...

what you name "perception", i think, is "experience"

i think the two have a distinct difference actually...for example:

the child perceives snow is a much different meaning then the child experiences snow...

or

perceiving pain is different then experiencing pain...

i think experience is more of an active participation where perception is obtaining and understanding knowledge through the mind, or what i call intuition

 

[Another God]

About to leave for uni, so I can't really reply, but I will change my use of the word 'Experience' into the word 'Senses'. It is much more appropriate.
So now:
Sense = To have external stimulus translated into signals which are sent to, and stored in the brain.
Percieve = To have the brain receive these signals, and place them in the appropriate category, thereby understanding them.

I guess experience can be used synonomously with perceive now. As long as we have this divide between receiving the data, and understanding the data.

Wuli, I haven't been too impressed with behaviourist theories in my short course of reading on the topic. I do appreciate their points, but I feel like they are too stuck on inter-mind relationship. ie: What do I know about your mind?

I don't acre about the problem of other minds. I am only concerned with how each individuals mind develops.

Actually, reconsidering that first sentence there, behaviourism is more appropriate, on my model, to explain what other people feel, but still, I am not concerned here with what other people feel, I am only concerned with how that feeling is developed internally.

But more on that later.

 

[wuliheron]

Wuli, I haven't been too impressed with behaviourist theories in my short course of reading on the topic. I do appreciate their points, but I feel like they are too stuck on inter-mind relationship. ie: What do I know about your mind?

These are Radical Behaviorists, how the mind itself works internally is precisely how they differ from traditional Behavorism which ignores the issue altogether. For example, your explanation of how the physical brain translates and integrates experiences into the mind resembles a linear computer program when the reality is demonstrably unlike any computer in existence today.

A single neuron can remember up to five previous events and possesses up to twenty thousand direct connections to other neurons. Unlike transistors, neurons come in a wide variety and do a great deal more, most of which I will not go into here. The point is they do not merely compare experience one with experience two. They compare contexts, of which each experience we have possesses many.

For example, when a newborn comes into this world they have multiple simultaneous experiences. They may feel pain squeezing out, they may feel pain when bright light touches their eyes for the first time, sounds may become louder and clearer, the air is colder than the embrionic fluid they are used to, etc. and all of these experiences occur simultaneously. Rather than attempting to process each seperately and then integrate them according to some inflexible hardwired predetermined configuration of neurons, the experiences themselves shape the neural nets to a great extent. Likewise, the multiple contexts in which these diverse experiences can be interpreted work in a similar manner to again shape the neural networks.

The neural networks compare and contrast all of these experiences, playing with all the various possible combinations. Does the bright light make sense of the cold air? Or is it the other way around, does the cold air make sense of the bright light? With each new experience and the growing number of contexts in which they can be intpreted grows, complex abstractions begin to develop. Babies will suck on their thumb in the womb, and when they come out usually have no problem breast feeding immediately. After experiencing breast feeding, they have an entirely new and abstract context in which to view sucking their thumb.

Anyway, I don't want to get too complicated and verbose here. Just give you an idea of what I am talking about. :0)

 

[Mentat]

Great piece of work, AG!

I would like to ask you though, are you implying that the new-human is much on the same level of "perception" (as you - rather eloquently - defined it) as a sponge (for example) and then progresses up the evolutionary ladder, so to speak?

 

[Another God]

Thanks for the info Wuli. What you have said though, isn't so much against my hypothesis (at least the last thread isn't. I will re-read your first thread and reply to that again if necessary), but rather a demonstration of how incredible the brain is, and just how possible it is that our subjective experience is entirely internally constructed from mere collated senses.

I didn't mean to make it sound like the brain needs to be a dumb arse linear processor, but rather, I needed to dumb down my explanation to try to explain basic facts. The truth is, I doubt I would be able to explain exactly how the sensory inputs from the external world could be turned into subjective experience. All I wish to achieve, is argue that such a thing is what happens.

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Definitions
Sensory Input= The cold data which is sent to the brain from the senses, and which is then stored.
Perception = The meaning which the brain, over time, learns to ascribe to sensory input.
(subjective) Experience = The subjective phenomenon. The 'vision' which we experience. The 'Touch' which we feel. The 'smells' we smell. No longer are these things just sensory inputs, nor are they just percieved. They are experienced, subjectively.

Please accept these new definitions in place of all previous definitions.

Thanks roeighty and Kerrie for bringing these points to my attention. I hope these new definitions seem a little more logical.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Mentat
I would like to ask you though, are you implying that the new-human is much on the same level of "perception" (as you - rather eloquently - defined it) as a sponge (for example) and then progresses up the evolutionary ladder, so to speak?

Well, i guess you could think of it like that, but I do not believe there is any real evolutionary link here. It is mearly a fact of learning. You start with nothing, then u accumulate knowledge.

So yes, in the begining, the new-person perceives about as much as a sponge. Over time, the person will be able to percieve more and more things, until the brain learns to accept certain perceptions as standard ones, and it creates 'experiental shortcuts' for those perceptions. And thus we become the subjective creatures we are.

I just need to figure out now, how exactly it is that I can make that final step into subjectivity. (I know I am fudging something)

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by wuliheron
If you are going to insist on viewing life mechanistically you would do better to study those who came before.

I probably should, but so far everything I read from people before me either puts me to sleep, or irritates me with its sheer bloodymindedness. I feel like so many of the earlier philosophers of the mind completely ignore the facts which they are faced with every day of their lives. They come up with 'good ideas', but stick by those ideas even through all of the hard evidence against them.

Now its just up to me to not make that mistake! Which is part of the reason for me being here. I'm looking for faults.

Radical behaviorists have already managed to link the subjective and objective, cognitive and behavioral with experimental evidence and logical rigor. In fact, they are the only ones to do so yet.

Strangely, i would have thought that having the subjective phenomenon explained would have attracted more attention. But then again, its not like the world seems to actually care about philosophy I guess.

I will have to find some of the texts written by these radical behaviourists though, because u make it sound like behaviour can explain subjectivity. I don't get how external characteristics can be made to reflect the internal phenomenon in any sort of way. In fact, it seems to me like the whole idea behind behaviourism is to completely dispell the whole concept of subjectivity. AS if subjectivity is a complete myth, and all we have is our own actions.

But I am not the most well informed person on this subject yet. Over the next 6 months or so I will learn a lot. I'll come back at that time and correct myself where appropriate . Until then, you can do that for me.

 

[Siv]

None of us are born blank slates. We all have a big big set of predispositions and instincts.

Its true that as the brain grows and completes its development, our full cognitive faculties come into play.

Aside from that, what are you saying, really ??

- S.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Siv
None of us are born blank slates. We all have a big big set of predispositions and instincts.

Its true that as the brain grows and completes its development, our full cognitive faculties come into play.

Aside from that, what are you saying, really ??

Did you read the original post? I thought I made it pretty clear what I was saying. If I failed to do that, then say so, and I will try again.

 

[Manuel_Silvio]

Greetings,

Another God, have my deep respect and admiration for your being excellent (and for your photo ). I'm used to bow to those I feel respect for, alas, we've got no "bowing" emoticon.

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Then, what you're intending with "subjectivity" is not what I usually understand from that term. You're studying the development of a "symbolic system of interpretation" and call the system "subjectivity." My understanding of the term "subjectivity" implies that it has to do with distortions introduced into the system of interpretation. As long as one has a one-to-one representation (even if it is symbolic, eg uses certain symbols for certain patterns) of the Universe one is an objective device; the twist is that the Universe isn't mapped into the mind through a one-to-one continuous smooth function. We're facing a bizarre function which gives no guarantee on delivery of content and/or form and/or context. This bizarre function is the cause of subjectivity. It introduces totally unknown distortions into the input as well as its symbolic interpretation thus isolating the Universe from its mapped version in the mind and creating the objective-subjective, subject-object, observer-observed, etc dualities.

When, how and why this function develops is obscure (to me) but it is known to be to certain degrees alterable by conscious/unconscious efforts. Alteration of this function can be seen when individuals put aside their prejudices or take over new ones or when a skeptic (say hi, that's me) is in Epoche state.

Regardless of the term "subjectivity", whatever development process you're studying, I think you've forgotten (why?) that a human being is always in "interaction" with the Universe and that interaction is full duplex. A very important part of human experiences are self-induced (stimulus, response) pairs. The newborn human (perhaps because of its genetic program) grips everything close and records the response. These (stimulus, response) pairs, viewed as a general method of information acquisition, have later developed into what we call scientific method. The Scientist stimulates the giant, the Universe, to get the response; she/he asks, the Universe answers in its own terms.

The concept of interaction and its being full duplex is vital to my (perhaps your) idea of the development of consciousness and self-consciousness which is surely vital to your topic, Subjectivity Explained. All living beings constantly experiment with various stimuli to get responses that are necessary to their survival. Eventually, every living being knows a set "triggers" that activate Universe processes useful to it. Every trigger induces a certain process that includes several stages before it causes the desired effect. I call the understanding of these stages "process consciousness". Different living beings of different complexities have different levels of "process consciousness", ie they know more or less of the stages of process, which is directly proportional to their complexity; the more the number and detail of the known stages are the more control over the process is gained. I guess Homo Sapiens has the highest process consciousness among all species on this planet.

A lion can induce the death of a gazelle by interacting with the Universe in a certain way; giving the Universe the right stimuli for its purpose (hunting) while it knows nothing of the quantum level interaction of its jaw and the gazelle's neck, and the lethal respiratory effects of a broken oesophagus. Killing the gazelle is all that lion can do but a Homo Sapiens with higher "process consciousness" is able to alter the process to its own needs, eg not kill the gazelle but capture it.

"Process consciousness" is also directly proportional to self-consciousness. When an individual of a species is able to recognize its own role in an interaction it has gained a degree of self-consciousness depending on the degree of its "process consciousness" which determines how much it knows about its role in that specific interaction. That individual can and does further its self-consciousness by examining the effects of its own behavior on Universe processes hence getting more detail in its self-representation.

A cat is not able to recognize its own picture in a mirror that means its self-representation (and perhaps mental processes) lacks some ability or information. The same cat, however, is well aware of its dimensions when it attempts to go through a hole in a wall that implies that it has a minimal self-representation (much more than an Amoeba).

Self-consciousness is, in fact, one form of "process consciousness" especially interested in the inducer of the process which is the first stage of the process.

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Aside from this whole, you didn't write what measures will be taken to verify your hypothesis. After all, every hypothesis should someway be verified. Should I try to compare it to scientific facts and carry out experiments in cognitive science labs? Or should I compare them to what the Holy Scriptures say? What should be done to verify them and why?

Besides simple questions and concerns like the above there are deeper questions. How did you come to think of something called "subjectivity"? Is there such thing as subjectivity? Why should it be there? Isn't such assumption itself subjective? What is objective?

And if there is such thing subjectivity, what are consequences of studying subjectivity with an essentially subjective mind? How could it ever be related to objective reality? Is there an interface between them? What are the nature, structure and function of this interface? Is it a full duplex interface or half duplex or simplex, eg is subjective reality able to affect objective reality the same way objective reality affects it?

You see, the subjective-objective are an old couple, as old as the occidental (and perhaps parts of oriental) thought. They dawned on Descartes in their other semblance, mind-matter. They've been around for a long time.

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Your hypothesis is an AI expert's everyday life. Those experiencing with artificial neural networks everyday bring up their networks from scratch and with training data, sufficiently large sets of (stimulus, response) to adjust interconnection weights so that the network gains a certain degree of accuracy. Their experiments are scientific (read: objective) and well explain (not yet) what happens inside our brains/minds. In a course of 100 years (actually much less), Neuroscience has become a rich branch of science as rich as the 5000-year-old Mathematics. The biological side has become shockingly complicated; I once saw an equation describing noise spikes in an isolated neuron's output, well, the equation demanded the rest of my life to be understood. The rest of it has another story.

Yet, elementary questions of Neuroscience field have not been answered just like elementary questions of all branches of Science and Philosophy: What are the side effects of perceiving a neural network through another neural network? How accurate is the observer's neural network? Are there limits to the capacity and ability of the observer's neural network? What are the effects of parallel processes running on the same network on the results of an observation? ...

 

[Siv]

Originally posted by Another God
Did you read the original post? I thought I made it pretty clear what I was saying. If I failed to do that, then say so, and I will try again.

What was I replying to, then ??
I did read the entire post, multiple times, but didn;t understand where you were coming from and getting to.

Some parts of what you said (that a child is following instincts) is not true, or rather, it ignores the fact that we all follow instincts. As our brain develops, more instincts come in. Behaviour therefore becomes more complicated.

And no, children are not blank slates. They come complete with all the pre-programming. The brain development happens till puberty of course ... and so the full range of behaviour becomes apparent only later.

A baby perceives too, just like us grown ups.

If your entire post is based on the fact that babies (foetuses and later) do not have fully developed brains/sense organs/cognitive faculties ... then I am with you.
Else I am not.

- S.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Manuel_Silvio
Another God, have my deep respect and admiration for your being excellent (and for you photo ). I'm used to bow to those I feel respect for, alas, we've got no "bowing" emoticon.

Well, i have never felt so honoured Thank you.

Originally posted by Manuel_Silvio
Then, what you're intending with "subjectivity" is not what I usually understand from that term. You're studying the development of a "symbolic system of interpretation" and call the system "subjectivity." My understanding of the term "subjectivity" implies that it has to do with distortions introduced into the system of interpretation.

I don't think our conceptions of Subjectivity are too far different. Your explanation of subjectivity (as I understood it (subjectively )) is a consequence of being subjective beings. So what you say is still completely true, but I am really trying to get to the foundations of subjectivity. Not just the consequences of it.

I will try to explain my own meaning behind Subjectivity. When I talk about subjectivity, I literally mean the world which you experience. I believe that the universe exists objectively, and an objective existence is simply an existence of absolute facts. Subjectivity then may interact with those facts, and gleam meaning from them. Whether the meaning gleamed from them has any actual relevence to the facts or not is up for debate at another time. All I am concerned with though, is the subjective world which I personally live in, or, in your case, your subejctive world which you live in.

Everything you see, you hear, you think, you smell, you touch, you taste...that is your subjective world.

The very reason I am here with a Hypothesis, is because I could not understand how subjectivity could be manifested from an objective universe. Where does it come from? How can 'colours' be made up from chemicals and electrical impulses? How can 'sounds' be 'heard'? Subjectivity is a strange thing which doesn't seem entirely consistent with reality...so how do we explain it?

This is how I am attempting to explain it.

Originally posted by Manuel_Silvio
Alteration of this function can be seen when individuals put aside their prejudices or take over new ones or when a skeptic (say hi, that's me) is in Epoche state.

As of this stage, I haven't really gotten into how the fully developed mind understands complex concepts, nor how it then interacts with the world around. Its sort of funny that I have started at the beginning in the way I have, since this idea actualyl had its origins in the realisation that I, a functionally developed mind, can only think within my own previous experiences. And my thoughts were of a kind which were mere relations of previous experiences, comparisons, rejiggings, and categorizations etc. This hypothesis of initial foundation of the mind, also continues on into later life, but of course, it has a lot more to work with. I believe that 'levels' form in the mind. Where we have our base perceptions, then thoughts built on those, which are then used with other thoughts to get more complicated thoughts etc... I'll get into this properly later though.

Originally posted by Manuel_Silvio
Regardless of the term "subjectivity", whatever development process you're studying, I think you've forgotten (why?) that a human being is always in "interaction" with the Universe and that interaction is full duplex.

I don't know if I have forgotten it as such, but i haven't needed to include it yet. I said that new-people follow basic genetic programming, and from the interactions illicited by that programming, stuff is sensed and recorded. Yes, its true that they reach out and touch stuff, but I didn't need to spell that out I didn't think.

Originally posted by Manuel_Silvio
The concept of interaction and its being full duplex is vital to my (perhaps your) idea of the development of consciousness and self-consciousness which is surely vital to your topic, Subjectivity Explained.

More relevant to the later more developed mind, and how that mind continues to learn and develop. But for the moment, I have only attempted to explain how initial subjectivity is birthed.

Once Subjectivity has been created, then that subjective creature is able to 'experiment' with its subjective experiences, and learn how to manipulate them.

Originally posted by Manuel_Silvio
Aside from this whole, you didn't write what measures will be taken to verify your hypothesis. After all, every hypothesis should someway be verified.

Well, this is still just a philosophical concept more than a Scientific one. I have made some 'Bold Conjectures' in it though, which may one day be turned into falsifiable claims. For example, an experiment may some day be devised which shows that a new born has a meaning already ascribed for various colours. I don't know how such a thing could be tested (since showing that a baby reacts differently to different colours no more reflects the fact that the baby is receiving different sense inputs than the fact that the baby is percieving different things). Perhaps more tests of the kind where someone is raised in an entirely black, grey, and white house. And they are never let out. Bring someone up in such an environment, completely devoid of colour, and see if they are able to meaningfully differentiate colours at the age of 18 when you bring them out into the real world.

Of course such an experiment is unethical, but I think it might be a reasonable experiment.

Originally posted by Manuel_Silvio
How did you come to think of something called "subjectivity"? Is there such thing as subjectivity? Why should it be there? Isn't such assumption itself subjective? What is objective?

I live in it.
Without objectivity, how could there be subjectivity? (where objectivity is the true world. Even in a world where there is only my subejctivity and nothing else, than my subjectivity could still be objectively described) So objective = true. Subjective = What I experience.

Originally posted by Manuel_Silvio
And if there is such thing subjectivity, what are consequences of studying subjectivity with an essentially subjective mind? How could it ever be related to objective reality? Is there an interface between them? What are the nature, structure and function of this interface? Is it a full duplex interface or half duplex or simplex, eg is subjective reality able to affect objective reality the same way objective reality affects it?

Don't know. I'm only working with what I have. I can do no more.

Originally posted by Manuel_Silvio
What are the side effects of perceiving a neural network through another neural network? How accurate is the observer's neural network? Are there limits to the capacity and ability of the observer's neural network? What are the effects of parallel process running on the same network on the results of an observation? ... [/B]

I dream that perhaps, if my hypothesis has any semblance of truth in it, that perhaps one day it can be properly devised, and so it may one day help answer some of these types of questions.

If we understand exactly how our mind works, then we are better equiped to understand our interaction with the outside world, and so we will be able to make more quality assured statements about that world.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Siv
What was I replying to, then ??

Often people skip the long posts and try to pick up on points from shorter posts. I wanted to make sure before I went through and explained it all again.

Originally posted by Siv
Some parts of what you said (that a child is following instincts) is not true, or rather, it ignores the fact that we all follow instincts. [/quote
How can it be not true, but true that we all follow instincts? This is an oxymoron. I will assume that you mean the second statement, since I know that we all follow instincts.
Now, the point about children following instincts has to do with the fact that everything a new-person does (and I use the word new-person, because I do not know exactly when people start to receive their sensory input. It probably happens before birth, so I will use the word new-person, rather than new-born.) is done on instinct, and instinct alone. They are not understanding their actions. Nor are the planning them. But most importantly, they are not even experiencing their actions, nor anything else, in the same sense that you and I experience our environment (keep in mind my definitions of Experience - Perception - Stimulus above). The new-person ONLY receives sensory input, stores it, and computes it.

Originally posted by Siv
As our brain develops, more instincts come in. Behaviour therefore becomes more complicated.

I am unaware of this fact. In fact, i feel compelled to challenge it. (but I am not certain either way) I for the moment continue to believe that all instincts are present at birth, but simply do not have the opportunity to be expressed.

Its academic anyway, the hypothesis has little to do with instincts other than the fact that we can behave without a mind. It is through this initial instinctive behaviour that the mind is able to start a solid development.

Originally posted by Siv
And no, children are not blank slates. They come complete with all the pre-programming. The brain development happens till puberty of course ... and so the full range of behaviour becomes apparent only later.

By blank Slate, I mean that the baby has no... 'memory' essentially. But saying it has no memory seems quite obvious. What is less obvious, and more importantly the fact to be taken from this hypothesis, is the fact that without memory, a new-person can't percieve, nor can it think. So, a new-person ha all the pre-programmed genetic mannerisms, instincts, and behaviouristic qualities that every human child before it has had to some similar degree...but it has no mind at all.

The mind is built through collection, and sophisticated sorting of sensory input data.

The new-person is a blank slate, waiting to develop it's 'self'.

Originally posted by Siv
A baby perceives too, just like us grown ups.

It is this very notion which I am challenging (refer definition of Percieves before you respond. Make sure we mean the same thing).

What makes you so certain children percieve?

Originally posted by Siv
If your entire post is based on the fact that babies (foetuses and later) do not have fully developed brains/sense organs/cognitive faculties ... then I am with you.
Else I am not.

No, my entire post is attempting to claim something which I believe is entirely new. Of course I wouldn't waste all my time and all that space writting 'Babies aren't fully developed'.

The point of this thread, as indicated by the title, is to explain where our subjective world view is created.

I appreciate any further feedback and criticism you can think of.

 

[zimbo]

Nice post AG . . .

Firstly some extra info on development of the visual system in the brain (just learned this in neurophysiology last week hehe):

While the retinal cells are either on or off, multiple retinal cells (photoreceptors) synapse (link) onto multiple ganglion cells (ie each ganglion cell receives input from a cluster of retinal cells) - eg a particular ganglion cell may respond maximally when a vertical line falls on the receptor field of the cluster of retinal cells, and other ganglion cells may recognise horizontal lines instead. Most probably multiple ganglion cells synapse onto higher-level cells that recognise more complicated patterns. In fact neurocscientists have found a region deep in the temporal lobe (ie far away from the primary visual cortex - so it's probably a 'high-level' visual centre)that's responsible for recognising faces and another region responsible for recognising locations.

What's this got to do with anything? The synapses from retinal cells to ganglion cells are selected for and against based on the amount of stimulus received, early in a child's development. So this is a physiological explanation for what roeighty said about the experiment with cats not being able to climb ladders if they are raised in a 'horizontal-free' environment. Pretty good 'evidence' on the neurophysiological front that supports the 'blank slate' hypothesis. I think that such plasticity in the nervous system extends to all sorts of perception - that we are indeed born almost a 'blank slate', with no innate ability to recognise patterns.

There may be some misunderstanding about what AG means by 'blank slate'. I understand what AG means by 'blank slate' as follows (correct me if I'm wrong, please!)- we are not born with the ability to predict such 'obvious' events eg an object falling when unsupported, and we have to be exposed to certain kinds of patterns over a certain period of time early on in life to be able to recognise them later on. In the visual system such patterns are relatively 'basic' building blocks such as lines and curves. (The 'fundamental' building blocks of individual photoreceptors are hard-wired, though.) As we move towards more complex patterns (esp those involving multiple sensory inputs), the brain's plasticity during development becomes more crucial to recognise those patterns. (I use 'pattern' in a loose sense: it covers things such as a visual pattern like a grid, or a 'causal relationship' such as a vase falling on concrete and breaking.)

My description of the new-person's assocation of experiences need to be understood as I am attempting to describe it. The new-person does NOT see sticks and space ships and univorns and whatever' haning above its head. Nor does it 'see' 'a combination of blue, red, pink, yellow and green, moving in a particular constellation'. The new-person is still completely unable to see anything let alone differentiate colours. All it can do, is have the eyes receive electromagnetic radiations upon its surface, have that reception change the rods and cones in particular ways, have those changes affect other transmitter cells, and have those messages affect the brains memory in a particular way. That is experience, and that is all that a new-person is able to do. Experience, and store the memory. It is not until later that 1. meaning can be derived from the experience, and then not until much later that 2. subjective experience can be perceived from those experiences.

AG: I am puzzled as to why you said 'the new person is still completely unable to see anything'. There's definitely 'sensory input' in this case, and it's reaching the brain and doing things to the brain. Now perhaps the brain doesn't ascribe any conscious meaning to the raw input data, but is conscious meaning necessary for 'perception'? You defined perception as 'the meaning which the brain, over time, ascribes to sensory input'. Each time we receive sensory input, something happens in our brain, even if we don't consciously notice it.

Interesting how you put 'subjective experience of the perception' in a separate category from perception. From what I read, you seem to suggest that subjective experience is a subclass of perceptions - those perception repeated frequently enough to be recognised as a pattern. I tend to agree with that stance - the view that subjective experience is not something 'extra' added onto some sensory inputs/brain processes.

I know you'll probably address this sooner or later, but I would be interested to know your position on the absent qualia problem: is it possible for a being to 'receive sensory input', and even 'perceive', the colour 'red', without ever having the subjective experience 'red'? How about the possibility of a being that does all the things a person does, yet has no subjective experience whatsoever?

 

[zimbo]

AG: another point . . . you said that a new-person 'only' receives input and computes/stores it, without experience. Certainly the new-person will not have 'our' experience of the same input, but how can you be sure that no experience at all is present?

You also said that memory is essential for perception. This makes sense if we go from your definition of perception as 'a meaning ascribed' to stimulus. But I don't think memory is essential for experience. (Of course, memory is probably essential for 'our' experience.) In my post above I said that I thought you regard experience as a subset of perception, but that seems to contradict with what I just said, so something is wrong here.

 

[Another God]

Nothing pleases me more than to see Zimbos name in a thread which I have particular interest in

Originally posted by zimbo
Firstly some extra info on development of the visual system in the brain (just learned this in neurophysiology last week hehe):

Thanks for the info.

Originally posted by zimbo
There may be some misunderstanding about what AG means by 'blank slate'. I understand what AG means by 'blank slate' as follows (correct me if I'm wrong, please!)- we are not born with the ability to predict such 'obvious' events eg an object falling when unsupported, and we have to be exposed to certain kinds of patterns over a certain period of time early on in life to be able to recognise them later on. In the visual system such patterns are relatively 'basic' building blocks such as lines and curves. (The 'fundamental' building blocks of individual photoreceptors are hard-wired, though.) As we move towards more complex patterns (esp those involving multiple sensory inputs), the brain's plasticity during development becomes more crucial to recognise those patterns. (I use 'pattern' in a loose sense: it covers things such as a visual pattern like a grid, or a 'causal relationship' such as a vase falling on concrete and breaking.)

I think you have got the essence of what I mean by blank slate. I have to step back for a moment though, and point out that I actually know essentially nothing about phyiological development of humans. So I don't know how much is actually 'innately' programmed. What I am concerned with though, is that there is a degree of genetic programming, and we are born with that. But that programming (which affects how we sense, what we are able to sense, and how we 'compute' those senses) is not our 'mind'. Our programming is not our 'Subjectivity', but rather it is the scaffold upon which our subjectivity is built.

Originally posted by zimbo
AG: I am puzzled as to why you said 'the new person is still completely unable to see anything'. There's definitely 'sensory input' in this case, and it's reaching the brain and doing things to the brain. Now perhaps the brain doesn't ascribe any conscious meaning to the raw input data, but is conscious meaning necessary for 'perception'? You defined perception as 'the meaning which the brain, over time, ascribes to sensory input'. Each time we receive sensory input, something happens in our brain, even if we don't consciously notice it.

Well, this last line gets to the point. What I am concerned with here, is the construction of the conscious and the super conscious mind. See, the origin of this theory (in my mind) actually rests on the fact that our ability to 'think' comes from the computational method of our brain (the comparisons, the contrasting, the categorization etc) combined with all previous experiences. Without those experiences, we are unable to think. Without those previous experiences, we can't even understand our sensory input. Without that understanding, we are unable to 'percieve' (where percieve is understanding the sensory input).

So sure, we sense, and the sensing does something to our brain. Its just that at this early stage (and this is still VERY early), it is not meaningful. Meaning is built up over time, as the brain is able to put the sensory input into practical categories of sensory input, and contrast it to opposing categories of sensory input.

Perhaps I need to spend more time on this factor of the development of understanding. (i'll try to find a way of explaining the analogy)

Originally posted by zimbo
Interesting how you put 'subjective experience of the perception' in a separate category from perception. From what I read, you seem to suggest that subjective experience is a subclass of perceptions - those perception repeated frequently enough to be recognised as a pattern. I tend to agree with that stance - the view that subjective experience is not something 'extra' added onto some sensory inputs/brain processes.

To spell it out (well, try to), perception is receiving the sensory input, and then understanding it, while subjective experience is bypassing the understanding part, and having the sensory input shot through straight into the 'symbolic representation' part of the brain. ie: A picture is worth a thousand words. Instead of having the brain read the paragraph of data, the brain is shown a picture, which is associated with a particular set of data. (this is the part of the hypothesis which is still fudgy. More work needed.)

Originally posted by zimbo
I know you'll probably address this sooner or later, but I would be interested to know your position on the absent qualia problem: is it possible for a being to 'receive sensory input', and even 'perceive', the colour 'red', without ever having the subjective experience 'red'?

well, receiving sensory input comes first, then percieve second, and then subjective experience is last. But, under this hypothesis, I wouldn't say that 'red' is ever percieved. What is percieved is the sensory input (and the meaning derived from it) of the electromagnetic spectrum at wavelength x. Colour only makes sense subjectively.

Originally posted by zimbo
How about the possibility of a being that does all the things a person does, yet has no subjective experience whatsoever?

Absolutely. They would receive sensory data, and they could even percieve their surroundings. They would be able to understand what happens around them, and interact with it. I would just suggest though, that they were slow witted, and too intelligent. they would be lacking the instant recognition process which allows us split second reactions to our environment.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by zimbo
AG: another point . . . you said that a new-person 'only' receives input and computes/stores it, without experience. Certainly the new-person will not have 'our' experience of the same input, but how can you be sure that no experience at all is present?

Well, by experience, I mean the subjective experience (as defined). ie: experience of colour, experience of sound etc. I am 'sure' (If i can be 'sure' about anything because the hypothesis here states that experience has to be derived from abstract correlations between a collections of other stored sensory input data series'. Until such data series' of sensory input is collected, there can be no meaning behind the data, and therefore no experience of it.

let me try to take my hypothesis to the next stage, and see if this helps.

Originally posted by zimbo
You also said that memory is essential for perception. This makes sense if we go from your definition of perception as 'a meaning ascribed' to stimulus. But I don't think memory is essential for experience. (Of course, memory is probably essential for 'our' experience.) In my post above I said that I thought you regard experience as a subset of perception, but that seems to contradict with what I just said, so something is wrong here.

Well, now that you say there is a problem there, I have to confess that I am not sure what you mean by 'subset of perception'.

This is a large part of the fundamental claim I am making here, that memory of previous sensory inputs is required for the brain to form any sort basis upon which 'experience' can be constructed.

----------------------------------------------------------


Hopefully I am not alone here in having done one of those word puzzles which you find in newspapers or crossword books and things like that. The type of word puzzle where you have something similar to a crossword setup, but instead of clues, you have a number code which represents letters. You have to guess, from essentially nothing, what number might be what letter. You then move around filling in letters where that number is, checking to see whether a word might be formed here and there, if it does, than you write it in, and start writting out the new letters you ahve just discovered etc.

This is similar (though much more simple) to how I imagine the brain figuring out its perceptions. It starts with inputs, which have no meaning. But as a collection of these inputs build up, it can 'guess' meanings onto those inputs, and maybe this guess can be matched onto related inputs. If that guess wields useful results (the body instinctively knows what is good for it and bad for it for example), then it might keep that guess for a while, and keep guessing more stuff until the cascade starts, and the rest of the puzzle starts solving itself.

So in the begining, the puzzle has nothing. No meaning. Then, as the first few letters start being placed, and the associations within the puzzle are checked, meaning may start to be derived.

The interesting thing about the brain, as opposed to the puzzle analogy, is that there is no right answer. The brain can guess whatever it wants, and as long as it sets up some sort of logically consistent system for ascribing meaning to new sensory input, it is acceptable. The implication of this, is that we literally do experience something different to everyone else. When our perceptions are translated into subjective experiences, those experiences are so arbitrary, that they may be completely unlike everyone elses arbitrary experiences.

We all have the same 'behaviour' though, because our brains all follow the same sort of genetic rules of logic.

 

[wuliheron]

Strangely, i would have thought that having the subjective phenomenon explained would have attracted more attention. But then again, its not like the world seems to actually care about philosophy I guess.

Oh no, they care about philosophy but are more often than not only excited about the discoveries that support their idiologies. These Radical Behaviorists are truly radical, and like the discoveries of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics the mainstream isn't ready to accept them. Their approach more closely resembles Zen or Buddhism than traditional western philosophies. Not only does it not support traditional views, but it is largely alien and contradicts a great deal about traditional western views on the subject. Thus far it has mostly attracted attention among psychologists, linguists, and cutting edge philosophies.

I will have to find some of the texts written by these radical behaviourists though, because u make it sound like behaviour can explain subjectivity. I don't get how external characteristics can be made to reflect the internal phenomenon in any sort of way. In fact, it seems to me like the whole idea behind behaviourism is to completely dispell the whole concept of subjectivity. AS if subjectivity is a complete myth, and all we have is our own actions.

Here is a website:

http://www.relationalframetheory.com/forum/index.html

Traditional behaviorism does attempt to ignore the inner world because it is a linear logical mechanistic view. Radical Behaviorism took a tangent by studying language. Essentially, they assert that human limitations provide limited contexts for our congnitive lives. I cann't see out the back of my head for example, or through concrete walls. Thus, the context in which I view my life is limited, as is the behavior I display. Our use of language is the bridge connecting the inner and outer worlds that can be studied.

Your assumption that we come into this world as tabula rosa, for example, ignores the context of the situation in favor of focusing on content alone. The subjective and objective are not separate and distinct entities and the bridge between them cannot be understood in such terms, any more than I can understand the concept of "UP" without referring to "DOWN".

 

[Manuel_Silvio]

Another God, you're much welcome and appreciated for accepting my humble respect and admiration.

Then (what evil hides behind this "then?" ), let me ask some questions and explain what I think of them:

00. You wrote that subjective Universe starts forming with the start of input stream into the entity we call a child. When do we start calling that entity a child? There is certainly much ambiguity about the time a set of cells is considered a new individual. If we consider the Zygote an individual then your hypothesis can be also expanded to morula, blastula, gastrula and fetus periods as well and the idea of the blank slate can be seen in its entirety. A Zygote is really a blank slate, it only has the barebones of living - the genome - while fetus is no more so blank because it already has sensed much of its environment, eg it at least has the recognition pattern for a warm cozy place perhaps even for safety.

01. Suppose we've determined the start of this formation, then when does it end? Does it end with death or with the end of puberty? And what happens when the formation of a subjective Universe ends? Is that the individual is sealed against any new elements in its input stream? I guess this is what exactly happens because the majority of individuals are almost blind to new elements in the objective Universe unless it is imposed on them "forcibly" so that they can't ignore it. The word "forcibly" implies that the objective Universe can always penetrate the sealed subjective one. This is equal to implicitly claiming that the objective Universe is the ultimate source and target of interactions and that the subjective Universe is only a temporary and modifiable version kept for achieving optimal performance in processing and storage of sensory information. Such assumption is not necessarily true (some self-critique on my side!).


02. I think some distinction must be made between the subjective Universe and its objective equivalent. You said that "what you drink, taste, ..." is my subjective Universe, well, that isn't. My subjective Universe is the symbolic representation of its objective equivalent so it can't be what I drink but the symbols by which drinking is represented in my mind. Now comes the question, to what degree are the subjective Universe and its objective equivalent compatible? This question is, in fact, study of the behavior of that bizarre function I wrote about. You said you still don't know about the characteristics and behavior of that function, neither do I, but this question is too important to be left without further thought. There is a good chance (as good as other chances) that the degree of compatibility is absolute zero, ie we're detached from the objective Universe, from "the" Universe actually. If this is the case, trying to study subjectivity with the assumption that it is formed by being exposed to the objective Universe is not in the right direction, at least.

By the way, your last post didn't cover all parts of my post. What do I do now?

PS: Read Arthur Charles Clarke's 3001 (1000 years after 2001)? 3001 says that by that time all religions have faded and there are only two groups of people who believe in some deity: deists and theists. Deists believe there isn't more than one God and theists believe there isn't less than one God. What would they do to "Another" God?

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Manuel_Silvio
00. You wrote that subjective Universe starts forming with the start of input stream into the entity we call a child. When do we start calling that entity a child? There is certainly much ambiguity about the time a set of cells is considered a new individual. If we consider the Zygote an individual then your hypothesis can be also expanded to morula, blastula, gastrula and fetus periods as well and the idea of the blank slate can be seen in its entirety. A Zygote is really a blank slate, it only has the barebones of living - the genome - while fetus is no more so blank because it already has sensed much of its environment, eg it at least has the recognition pattern for a warm cozy place perhaps even for safety.

I would consider the moment of new-personness to begin as soon as sensory input starts to be stored in the brain. I don't know when this is, but that isn't important. At the moment, all that matters is whether or not the concept here is possible. Once we have determined whether this hypothesis is possible, or a complete load of crap, then we can start worrying about the technicalities etc.

Originally posted by Manuel_Silvio
01. Suppose we've determined the start of this formation, then when does it end? Does it end with death or with the end of puberty? And what happens when the formation of a subjective Universe ends? Is that the individual is sealed against any new elements in its input stream? I guess this is what exactly happens because the majority of individuals are almost blind to new elements in the objective Universe unless it is imposed on them "forcibly" so that they can't ignore it. The word "forcibly" implies that the objective Universe can always penetrate the sealed subjective one. This is equal to implicitly claiming that the objective Universe is the ultimate source and target of interactions and that the subjective Universe is only a temporary and modifiable version kept for achieving optimal performance in processing and storage of sensory information. Such assumption is not necessarily true (some self-critique on my side!).


02. I think some distinction must be made between the subjective Universe and its objective equivalent. You said that "what you drink, taste, ..." is my subjective Universe, well, that isn't. My subjective Universe is the symbolic representation of its objective equivalent so it can't be what I drink but the symbols by which drinking is represented in my mind. Now comes the question, to what degree are the subjective Universe and its objective equivalent compatible? This question is, in fact, study of the behavior of that bizarre function I wrote about. You said you still don't know about the characteristics and behavior of that function, neither do I, but this question is too important to be left without further thought. There is a good chance (as good as other chances) that the degree of compatibility is absolute zero, ie we're detached from the objective Universe, from "the" Universe actually. If this is the case, trying to study subjectivity with the assumption that it is formed by being exposed to the objective Universe is not in the right direction, at least.

While the questions you ask here are very important questions, I don't think I should go into them in this thread. For the purpose of this thread, let me assume that the universe is a materialistic universe, where our subjectivity is derived from the objective. While I am proposing a 'philosophical' theory here atm, I am doing it in a somewhat scientific vein... I want this theory to be true in a practical sense, not in a flighty 'What if' philosophical theory. And as such, it helps to just assume some basics. (if we need to figure out what the basics are before we can do anything else, then we would never get anywhere).

So, the objective exists, and it is relevant to our subjective.

Originally posted by Manuel_Silvio
By the way, your last post didn't cover all parts of my post. What do I do now?

If you feel like i have missed a question that needs answering, please post it again. I didn't repost all of your text because I would have run out of room. I thought that my replies sort of addressed everything in a vague sense non-the-less. Perhaps I missed something though. Just ask again. (This numbered question format is good. I like that )

 

[Another God]

I think it is time to continue on, and perhaps clear up some factors along the way.

My Reasoning
The original reasoning which led me to propose this hypothesis actually came from the other end of the conscious spectrum. It came from introspection.

I have for a long time believed that thoughts are limited to previous experiences. We are completely unable to think outside of previous experiences. The best we are able to do, is cut up previous experiences, and put them together in novel ways.

This is a claim of mine which, as any claim, is up for rebuttal. I am confident however, that rebuttal of this claim is simply impossible. The only way you could rebut a claim like this, would be to give an example of an original idea. (completely original. And I don't mean 'Nobel Prize original' I mean, completely unlike anything ever experienced. Completely. I am very confident in this claim.

From that claim, it is easy to see that someone without experience, would simply be unable to think. (think used in the way it would be used in daily usage) So this gives me reasoning behind my claim that a new-person is a blank slate (not genetic blank slate, but a mental blank slate).

This sums up the underlying basis of my hypothesis.

Subjective Experience
This is the most problematic point in the whole theory. And at the same time, it is the latest insight on this element which I am about to attempt to re-explain which has made me excited enough to want to post this whole thread.

Firstly, considering the point above, Descartes famous Cogito illustrates where the conception of 'self' comes from. If 'I' am thinking, then 'I' must exist. But what is thought? Thought is just a computed set of experiences. So before the 'self' is constructed, experiences must be had.

And exactly where subjective experience came into this equation has frustrated me for several months now. It still does, because I now I haven't got everything out yet, but I feel I have something interesting to say none the less.

Thanks to some reading of U.T. Place's work "Is Consciousness a Brain Process?", and the defence of the fact that Consciousness is a brain process, I have been able to realize that the step between objective chemical interactions, and subjective world experience, isn't necessarily so large. If u accept the materialistic doctrine that Consciousness really is just a brain process, then you still ahve to account for the experience of it. As certain as we can be that event X in the brain is directly correlated to experience Y, it is still not much of an explanation for why that experience is 'Experienced'.

And this was my insight... (this will be an anticlimax, i know) I realized that it is necessary for productive survival for the brain to understand its surroundings, and understand them quickly. A method of shortcutting the 'understanding' process was to simply assign 'Sensations' or 'Experiences' to well recognised sensory inputs. These assigned experiences are arbitrary. There is not necessarily any similarity between your subjective world and my subjective world at all, other than the fact they are as equally logically consistent.

So, to make this a simple real life example. Colours. We all experience colours, and we all seem to experience them the same. Under this theory, we are experience completely different arbitrary subjective experiences, but we are able to compare them, because they follow identical logical relations. So where I see Blue, you see something else which you call blue, and you call it blue because it is the name u have been told to callthis particular arbitrarily designated experience. This experience has also been chosen to highlight the similarity in experience between it and other similar sensory inputs (the other colours of the spectrum) and it has been chosen to show some sort of relation between those other experiences of the spectrum. It makes sense that a progression up the spectrum should elicit experiences that progress in some sort of way.

This sort of theory could also possibly be applied to people who have the 'Gift' of perfect pitch etc. They got lucky early on, as their brain was able to pick a good arbitrary experience to relate sounds to each other. Someone with perfect pitch may 'hear' in a way which is completely foreign to me, but which is still logically consistent with my own way. This foreign way may allow their brain to better differentiate those vibration sensations.

The Growth of the Mind
Since we start out with a blank slate of mind (a blank slate which will necessarily have certain limitations on what experiences it will be able to give itself, and how those experiences will be logically expressed, and on what it can actually receive as sensory input. I haven't pointed this out yet, but it is becoming more apparent to me that I should have. I don't know where genetic pre-programming drops off, and where the possibility of mind takes over. Perhaps it is true that the experience of 'Red' is actually pre-programmed), the initial experiences set up the 'experiences' which the mind will use as tools for the rest of its life.

As mentioned in example above, perfect pitch may be a result of a lucky selection of arbitrarily chosen experiences to associate with different vibration sense inputs.

These tools which are initially laid down, are then used to store those experiences in memory. The memory of those experiences is then used to 'think'. The more experiences we have, the more material we have to think with. (though this doesn't necessarily say anything about intelligence) These thoughts themselves are even stored, and they can be used like experiences are used, to make new thoughts... This structure builds up on itself in a pyramid like fashion.
(Which reminds me, I should also write a bit about what I think 'Memory' is, and what I think it means to 'remember' something.)

It may be possible that the fundamental experiences which are laid down early in life could be altered as we experience more and more. Perhaps in the beginning the experiences of Red, Blue, Green, Violet, Orange and Yellow are laid down, and as we age, it is forever more and more refined as intermediates are experiened, and those intermediates are meaningfully compared to the previously set down colour experiences.

Can't remember?
Here is a quick side thought.
1. Perhaps we cannot remember our early years because our subjective experiences hadn't been invented, and so what we now see as meaningful wasn;t available to our minds at that time. When we 'remember' our early days, it is meaningless, so we cannot remember it.
2. Perhaps as this process of refinement of experience as we grow is responsible for our 'forgetting' of the past. maybe. Probably not. Think about it!

 

[Manuel_Silvio]

I'll go on with numbers, up to 666 ...

I know nothing of behaviorism, as well as other -isms but Wuliheron wrote of something very interesting, "Your assumption that we come into this world as tabula rosa, for example, ignores the context of the situation in favor of focusing on content alone." This deals with a few things I'd mentioned in another form:

00. The bridge between inside and outside that Wuliheron talks about is what I called the interface between subjective and objective. Before taking further steps in explaining the development of subjective Universe you have to carefully determine the characteristics of this interface. Wuliheron, in his wise manner, says "The subjective and objective are not separate and distinct entities and the bridge between them cannot be understood in such terms ..." which I consider equal to saying that the interface can't be studied methodically because it is the re-director of all interactions between subjective and objective. Hence the interface can be seen the medium through which all methods and all observations are carried out. Resultant is that the interface can't be studied unless it is bypassed. Bypassing the interface is much controversial for now.

01. In my last post I asked of the time you consider a set of cells a new individual. The answer or an answer to this question also is vital for taking further steps with your hypothesis. You said it is when the first input stream starts flowing into the subject but when does the flow start and at what level are you assuming this flow? A single atom is constantly receiving an information flow from the outside. At a much higher scale a Zygote is constantly receiving an information flow into it while each of its atoms is receiving its own part of the flow. As we go up on the structural complexity ladder we will encounter new types of structural information are presented to the subject. At molecular level a cell accepts an information flow carried in the chemicals around it. At cellular level in gains some basic form of sensing and a feeling of what kind of cell it is. At human level we constrain all the information flow into a human being to its five senses. In studying subjectivity, however, you have to consider all the low-level streams of information besides the five senses. This implies that a newborn human is not much of a blank slate but a Zygote is very close to that.

02. On another thread in PF-Philosophy, I started a list of questions dealing with knowledge and I'm very happy with the discussion. The question list also includes questions of verbal definition of knowledge and if it can be shared and its limits. I think it will be beneficial if you take a look at the thread at:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=430

Addendum: I wrote this before you posted your last post. We were writing them at the same time but you posted before me.