osherd

COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Consciousness Via Philosophy and Psychology But Not AI/Computers
Copyright By Owner Osher Doctorow Ph.D.
First Published 2005.

AI and Computer Science have been concerned with consciousnes to
some extent, but I would like to give some indications of what
can be produced just from Philosophy and Psychology. From the
dogmatism expressed by some contributors to the "Consciousness
Hard Problem" thread, philosophers aren't quite free from the
need to learn a little psychology.

On sci.stat.math, I derived the equation:

1) E = wLF (meaning multiply w times L times F)

for E energy, F force, L length or distance, w the Schrodinger
wave function.

On AERA-D and sci.psychology.personality and a few other places,
I derived a very similar equation in psychology:

2) E = P^(1/2)LF

where P^(1/2) is the square root of P and where P is probability.

3) D = action based on observation

Since "based on" is intuitively "divided by" here, and action is
energy whether inhibitory or excitatory, we can write:

4) D = E/observation

What's observation? In philosophy of science, it's occupied much
interest, but so far without a conclusion. Part of the answer may
be in psychology. Energy as motion is an output, while we know
from the sensorimotor system that the sensory organs convey an
input - observation! So we could write D = output/input, but let's
keep (4) since we'll need it again. So now:

5) D = output/input

although not all types of output and input qualify. Getting back
to (4), one thing that comes from sensory organs is perception (p),
and when we enumerate the different senses (vision, hearing, smell,
touch, internal or proprioceptive) we seem to have counted all
means of observation, but because of thought experiments in
physics and our own intuition and logic, cognition C (including
logic and propositions in whatever form the brain represents them)
is a second type of observation. A third type that immediately
occurs to me is emotion E~ (the symbol E~ isn't intended to be
related to E at all at least not a priori). So we put:

6) D = E/(CpE~)

We might not go very far with this except for one insight that I
had. Decision is not merely action based on observation but also
a "readiness to cause things" in the usual sense of push or pull
which in physics is a force (F). So decision should be some
constant (a fixed number, like 5 or 2.3 or whatever) k times force
F:

7) D = kF

Since D of (6) is the left side of (7) also, the right side of
(6) equals the right side of (7), so:

8) E/(CpE~) = kF

and therefore, multiplying both sides by (CpE~) which cancels
(CpE~) on the left side:

9) E = CpE~kF

Since E = wLF or P^(1/2)LF from earlier, we get:

10) CpE~k = P^(1/2)L

Divide both sides by E~, which cancels it on the left side:

11) Cpk = P^(1/2)L/E~ (the symbol / means divded by)

Now divide both sides by p, so we get:

12) Ck = (P^(1/2)L)/(E~p)

Now comes a curious insight. p is perception and L is length or
distance. But perception "brings far things closer", although it
could also be measured by how far one senses in a particular
sensory modality like vision. I've shown in sci.stat.math and
elsewhere that "proximity", just like distance, involves length,
and so L and p should cancel in 12 except for a constant which we can
incorporate into k. So we have:

13) Ck = P^(1/2)/E

so that, up to a constant k (which we can take as 1 for simplicity),
Cognition increases with Probability and decreases with Emotion.

This last result agrees with intuition and experience provided that
not merely any type of Probability is involved but Probable Cause
or Probable Causation. I've defined and applied that in sci.stat.
math and elsewhere, and it takes the form:

14) P = P(A-->B) ("the probability that A causes/influences B")

where (A-->B) is the set/event analog of the logical conditional
(a-->b) defined by:

15) (a-->b) = (definition) ~(a ^ ~b) = ~a V b

16) (A-->B) = (definition) (AB')' = A' U B

where A' is the complement of set A (the part of the universe out-
side A), AB' is the intersection ("and") of A and B', and U is


Take a look at AERA-D especially, where I've applied this. It's
easy to become a member (it deals with psychological measurement
more or less) free; just type the keyword AERA-D and fill out the
form.

Consciousness from this viewpoint could be defined as Cognition, or
one could try to use similar or somewhat similar methods to develop
separate ideas about consciousness. But I think Cognition helps
a bit in getting on the track.

Osher Doctorow

albert

<snip>

What arrogance. You seem to actually believe that you have said
something important.


--
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the
range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally
impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."
-- George Orwell as Syme in "1984"

raving loonie

Whopee!
I've found my NG.

The Raving Loon