Re: Which part of the brain (or subject-object system) is conscious?

[Dan Fiscus <***>]

Howard,

This is all well and good for a formal system and for a
static model. But I think if you try to extend it to into the
material realm and a continuous and changing modeling
process, this view itself needs a complement. The
complement can be seen best when we consider ecology
and life support issues as fundamental and required for
any mind, brain or observer to exist, be alive and have
consciousness. When we consider that the observer only
can observe with aid of a continuous stream of energy
and material from the environment (air, water, food, etc.)
- including likely interactions with the objectified system
he/she observes so the object system and observer's life
support cannot be disentangled - and that also a continual
stream of energy and materials that have been altered in
quality, quantity and configuration (waste and other
products, impacts), it seems to me that the epistemic cut is
fully bridged, or healed.

So not only is the location of the cut arbitrary, but I think
the cut itself is arbitrary or a choice too when one considers
that there is an alternative. Maybe both choices are required
at various times or under varying circumstances, which is an
odd kind of choice I guess. So there may be two middle ways
of consciousness existing in complementarity relations in
between the polar extremes of totally dead material
object and totally omnicient spirital subject - a cut formal
mode with a discontinuity at the boundary of observer self,
like a particle model of a localized, intesive self in world, and
an uncut material mode that is continuous across the
boundary, like a wave or field model of an extensive,
non-local self-world unity.

If I had to describe a general or generic mode to summarize
the interaction of formal and material - like a relational mode
- I think I'd have to say something like neither/both cut
or/and uncut.

If you want to experience the reality of the uncut mode, just
hold your breath (5-10 minutes), or stop drinking water
(some number of days) or stop eating food (some number
of weeks) and see what effects these have on your models
and/or modeling :-). The epistemic-ontic continuity is organic
and integral to the products and process of modeling, in my
ecological opinion. The facts that many aspects of life support
have been relegated to the sub-conscious and/or autonomic
nervous system makes them no less integral to consciousness.
In fact, older = more fundamental, if not more complex in
function (like old "lizard" brain vs cerebral cortex).

Some (hopefully) complementary thoughts...

Dan


Howard Pattee wrote:
> Steve,
>
> As Judith says, you have stated a very deep question.  Where in the 
> brain do we see red or smell the bacon? How can we make a model of a 
> brain seeing or smelling?
>
> Consciousness exists as a direct perception as do all qualia, like color 
> and smell. But if you want to model these perceptions then you are stuck 
> with the Hertz condition as expressed in Rosen's modeling diagram. 
> Consciousness is no exception. There is necessarily a left and right 
> side of the diagram separated by the epistemic cut (encoding or 
> measurement). All models require a distinction between the model and 
> what is modeled, the knower and the known, otherwise "model" doesn't 
> make sense. Here is one physicist's expression of this necessity:
>
> "The concept of consciousness in fact demands a cut between subject and 
> object, the /existence/ of which is a logical necessity, while the 
> /position/ of the cut is to a certain extent arbitrary. Failure to 
> recognize this state of affairs gives rise to two different kinds of 
> metaphysical extrapolation, which may themselves be described as 
> mutually complementary. One of these is that of the material, or more 
> generally, physical object whose nature is supposed to be independent of 
> the manner in which it is observed. We have seen that modern physics, 
> compelled by facts, has had to abandon this abstraction as too 
> restrictive. The complementary abstraction is that of Hindu metaphysics, 
> with its pure apprehending subject, without any object standing opposed 
> to it. Personally, I have no doubt that this idea must also be 
> recognized as an untenable extrapolation. The western mind 
> (abendländischer Geist) cannot accept such a conception of a 
> supra-personal cosmic consciousness without a corresponding object, and 
> must hold to the middle course prescribed by the idea of 
> complementarity. Regarded from this point of view a duality of subject 
> and object is already postulated by the concept of consciousness."
> *W. Pauli*, The philosophical significance of the idea of 
> complementarity, in /Writings on Physics and Philosophy/, C. P. Enz and 
> K. von Meyenn, eds., Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1994, pp. 35-48 (Quotation 
> on p. 41)
>
> Howard