An Engineer's Thoughts on Consciousness
Power relationships - the "elements" that reason operates on - are the actual information carriers, organized into logical patterns.
The real problem of the mechanics of C is what is the "currency" of C - i.e., what common characteristics do the triggering sense data (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, thought) share which allows this data to be commonly accessible to the mechanisms of C? I favor the concept of power relationships, because logic is a method of ordering relationships and logic is certainly going to be a major player in the final structure of C. Although the derivation of power relationships may sound exotic (the energy relationships among all the particles composing a physical idea) in practice all I mean is that, given X and Z , then Y fits the pattern better than M.
Godel, Kurt {gur'-dul}
Kurt Godel, b. Apr. 28, 1906, d. Jan. 14, 1978, was a Czech-born American mathematician and logician. He is best known for his proof of Godel's undecidability theorems, which state that any rigidly logical mathematical system contains questions that cannot be proved or disproved on the basis of the AXIOMS within the system. These results were an epochal landmark in 20th-century mathematics, indicating that mathematics is not a finished object, as had been believed. His proof first appeared in a German technical journal in 1931. This paper ended nearly a century of attempts to establish axioms that would provide a rigorous basis for all mathematics. Godel became a member of the faculty of the University of Vienna in 1930, where he belonged to the school of logical positivism. In 1940 he emigrated to the United States; he was a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, N.J., from 1953 to his death.
H. Howard Frisinger
Bibliography: Hofstadter, Douglas, Godel, Escher, Bach (1979);Shanker, S.G., ed., Godel's Theorem in Focus (1988).
Tony,
Your alternative approach has rattled some skeletons in the closet.
1. Information theory was developed by communications Engineers as a mathematically precise set of rules for handling signal information.
2. The early days of IT were very careful to distinguish data from information, I am currently at a loss to find an academic reference to this, but I think that the Engineers information is actually raw data, this needs looking at more closely since a single bit of data can under certain circumstances unlock an enormous amount of information. The Engineers actually cover this in terms of information content and probabilities.
3. Robert Pirsig discusses at a metaphysical level concepts of programme, and data and I need to review his thinking on this subject.
4. The pattern building or organisation elements need further study on my part, especially any quantitative approach that has been developed.
Here are a few "maybe's"
Consciousness includes the process of removing the redundancy from a received message,
Consciousness includes the ability to transform information from one information Dimension into another.
Consciousness is the localisation and ordering of a (growing) sub-set of total information space. (the word concentration is particularly appropriate here)
BTW - Mind is the environment of Consciousness, is reprogrammable and is accessible by it.
Richard
Hello, Richard.
>> Consciousness includes the process of removing the redundancy from a received message. <<
OK. Phil made a comment about redundancy that I didn't understand, but phrasing this as you did is no problem. Filters are a given.
>> Consciousness is the localisation and ordering of a (growing) sub-set of total information space.(the word concentration is particularly appropriate here) <<
This is consistent with my preliminary definition of C. By "concentration" I assume you mean tighter idea organization, including more associations (pathways) between protocols.
>> Consciousness includes the ability to transform information from one information Dimension into another. <<
I am very boring when it comes to the subject of definition - for me the exactness of a definition determines whether I am doing entertainment or work. Please forgive this failing in me, it is a comment about me and not you. What do you mean by "information dimensions"?
>> Mind is the environment of Consciousness, is reprogrammable and is accessible by it. <<
I think you are agreeing with me here. C is a subset of mind, C can reprogram mind, and C necessarily can access mind.
You set out a list of things you'd like checked out; if you ask specific questions that require hard thinking (but not necessarily a big learning curve) I certainly volunteer.
On a personal note, I enjoyed Persig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; in fact, thinking about it now, my concept of a Geometric Outline is derived from his definition of Buddah.
Tony