charleswood

<p>Phil, point taken.</p>

<p>Probably a better summary of the idea that camera's are self-aware:</p> <p>From the transcript a <a href=" Chalmers Ted Talk</a> "How do you explain consciousness?": "Consciousness also is what makes life worth living. If we weren't conscious, nothing in our lives would have meaning or value. But at the same time, it's the most mysterious phenomenon in the universe. Why are we conscious? Why do we have these inner movies? Why aren't we just robots who process all this input, produce all that output, without experiencing the inner movie at all? Right now, nobody knows the answers to those questions. I'm going to suggest that to integrate consciousness into science, some radical ideas may be needed."</p> <p>I agree radical ideas may be needed. Here goes.</p> <p>CONSCIOUSNESS DESCRIBED</p> <p>Directly examining my own consciousness, I describe it: Consciousness in me is my field of awareness at whose center lies my sense of my own existence. It is I - I who senses my own existence - who is aware that I am the subject of my experiences. It is I who senses my own existence who experiences a stream of conscious content that includes my self-awareness.</p> <p>QUALITATIVE PROPERTIES</p> <p>What is it like, my sense of my own existence? First, I sense myself as unique, as separate and distinct from others. Second, that unique self is always recognizable to me as being 'me'. About my sense of my own existence I can say "Except for my experiences, I'm the same me today that I was when I was five"; and I can say of it "Be me happy or sad, it is the same me." That self-recognizing me is tacitly and explicitly present in my lived experience.</p> <p>I can say nothing more about what that core sense of my own existence is like. I can say what my lived experience is like. From the vantage point of my core sense of my own existence, everything else is in flux. Experience notwithstanding, at core I sense myself as being the same 'me' today that I was yesterday.</p> <p>FIXED POINT CONSCIOUSNESS</p> <p>I use the term 'fixed point consciousness' to convey my sense of having a recognizable, permanent 'me', a 'self-sensing' self at the center of consciousness that articulates within my lived experience. David Hume termed that sense of self as his sense of his own continuing presence in the world. Others refer to it as a fixed, permanent sense of one's self as separate and distinct from everything else, a permanent, separate and distinct self that is continuously recognizable as one's self regardless of time and place. Regarding time and place, I noted above that my core sense of self articulates tacitly and explicitly through my lived experience and that my core sense of self is present among all the other objects that comprise my stream of consciousness / lived experience.</p> <p>By direct observation I identify but three qualitative properties of fixed point consciousness: 1) Differentiated from all else, separate and unique; 2) Continuous, always feels itself to be the same self regardless of time and place; and 3) Articulated throughout my lived experience tacitly and explicitly. I assume that others observe those three properties when observing their own fixed point consciousness.</p> <p>DAVID CHALMERS' HARD QUESTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS REPHRASED</p> <p>With fixed point consciousness identified and described qualitatively, I'll use the term fixed point consciousness to rephrase the hard question of consciousness. Why does consciousness have a sense of its own existence at its core? Why does fixed point consciousness exist in Nature? We understand we need to sense our environment to live. But why would we also sense our own existence? Why should we have a sense of self at all, why should there be fixed point consciousness, a 'me' that senses its own existence?</p> <p>To address that question I propose that fixed point consciousness is a fundamental in organisms.</p> <p>FIXED POINT CONSCIOUSNESS A FUNDAMENTAL IN ORGANISMS</p> <p>Why a fundamental in organisms? An organism is a living body moving relative to other bodies where those other bodies are also in motion. I propose that without a sense of its own existence as a fixed point relative to other bodies in motion, an organism would not exhibit evolutionarily advantaged behavior. I argue that an organism would not exhibit evolutionarily advantaged behavior absent a sense of its own existence because absent that sense of a self with physical boundaries, an organism's behaviors would be "... one great blooming, buzzing confusion" (William James). In my view, James with his phrase blooming, buzzing confusion described a hypothetical world where the physical laws of relative motion don't allow in a reference frame a fixed point from which to measure relative motion. In my view, fixed point consciousness is the fixed point in an organism which makes possible its computations of relative motion and brings meaning (position and momentum) to an organism's behaviors. In my view, an organism's fixed point consciousness is an organism's fixed point in a reference frame against which the positions and motions of itself and other sensed objects are measured. (See Note 1)</p> <p>I want to stress that as I argue it, fixed point consciousness is common to all organisms and can't have resulted from complexity because organisms without a brain also display evolutionarily advantaged behavior. (See Note 2) Although I functionally describe fixed point consciousness in an organism, I do not argue that fixed point consciousness arose from evolution. Instead I argue that fixed point consciousness is a precondition for evolutionarily advantaged behavior in organisms and I am consequently proposing that fixed point consciousness is not in its origins solely a product of biologicals, is a fundamental in organisms not derived from anything else.</p> <p>Where then did the first evolutionarily advantaged organisms get fixed point consciousness?</p> <p>The same place cameras get it.</p> <p>Your thoughts?</p>

<p>Charles W "What I can’t go on to say is that consciousness is a prerequisite for life."<br> <br> Now I think I can say that. Define self-awareness as a sense of one's own existence as in: I am the same person today as I was when I was five. That sense of our own existence doesn't change; it is permanent, fixed. Everything changes around it. But whether I am happy or sad, it is still the same unchanged me I sense as the object of things that make me happy and things that make me sad. But it is the same me. Things change all around me, things change all within me: but that sense of a continuous me feels the same today as when I was five. Call that particular sense of self a fundamental in organisms and that's an answer to Hume's personal identity essay. Why a fundamental in organisms? Organisms require a sense of of their own existence as separate and distinct from other objects in order for an organism's behavior to be advantaged behavior in evolution. Otherwise all is a blooming, buzzing confusion. A sense of self-existence is a prerequisite for life. Then where did it come from, that sense of one's own existence? From objects that aren't organisms.<br> <br> As to objects that aren't organisms: Begin with the observation that it is a measurement that causes the collapse of the wave function, an observer making a measurement. From that observation, Erwin Schrödinger offered: "I–I in the widest meaning of the word–am the person, if any, who controls the ‘motion of the atoms’ according to the Laws of Nature." How? Eugene Wigner conjectured that consciousness' observations created the world of lived experience, conscious minds. He offered that some ethereal mind-consciousness bridged the world of quantum mechanics to the world of general relativity. What I offer is that elemental particles, the super small, have a sense of their own existence. So the fundamental building blocks of nature have a sense of their own existence and that sense of themselves is what makes the world of our lived experience real. The subjectivity of each elemental building blocks of matter is a fundamental property of matter, rooting the observer in matter itself, not rooting the observer in some cosmic conscious mind.</p> <p>So. That all leads to the question: Is your camera self-aware?<br> </p>

<p>So this is some kind of mind reading machine, your site? And I believe it is the case that we don't have AI because we don't know what intelligence is or how to model it, run into an infinite regression at the core of the AI problem. </p>

<p>Bill I need more time to explore your site link.</p>

<p>Re quoted Joel Meyerowitz "What you <em>feel </em>in that instant, that glimpse of something just out of reach, is what tells you to make a photograph. It is a <em>feeling. </em>That's my physical equivalent out there. For a moment she fills that place that is always open, a place where sensation can reside for an instant ..."<br> <br> Joel has a feeling of something being out of reach. She is out of reach yet she is seen daily. Our shadows follow us around. So does our anima. (I can't speak for the women who are the unfortunate objects of such attention.) Where ever you go, there you are. Where ever you go, she is there. You can count on that.</p>

<p>OP - "Making sense of reality with pictures turns time to Tarot, collapsing meanings like shuffled and splayed cards, but to what end?"</p> <p>The end seems to be even more change and what's the point of all that change? I know that the answer is that "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."(MLK, Jr.). The currently acknowledged forces of nature are: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and the Higgs force. The as yet to be acknowledged sixth physical force is love. Love, like each the other five, is a fundamental, an irreducible. Love doesn't boil down to anything else. Add to those 6 forces a sense of one's presence as a 'self of sorts' in the world and you have the 7th force of nature: that nature 'knows' it exists. </p> <p> </p>

<p>Not much into poetry though...too many mental visual images to deal with?</p> <p>And Brad, I also noticed within the last couple months that either your street work has changed or I have changed because like with Allen's, I noticed I actually spend more time when at your city snaps and like what I see. </p> <p> </p>

<p>Actually I'm starting to like Allen's pictures. Talk about looking at many many samples of his work to arrive at a point where I can say that instead of where in the first couple seconds before a look away I just thought: trash.</p>

<p>Phil, no argument from me on that :).</p>

<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/senior-dogs-across-america_us_578ccd82e4b0867123e1c26d">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/senior-dogs-across-america_us_578ccd82e4b0867123e1c26d</a></p> <p>Nice execution of senior dog pictures on a road trip across America. </p>

<p>Circling around what?</p>

<p>Is Michael Nelson getting warm and fuzzy because two photographers each took a photo of the a similar subject and where those two photos then conveyed to viewers similar feeling tones? That is, is he emoting because two photographers in different parts of the world felt the same way about a subject and effectively conveyed those similar feelings? And then by extension, Michael feels that since two such photographers aren't alone in their feelings about a subject, no one else is every truly alone with their feelings either? If so then it seems Michael Nelson is creating a homily for himself about his life circumstance of being isolated and confined.</p> <p>I kinda think Michael Nelson isn't arguing that his own emotional response to the photographs as a viewer shows unity of reactions across viewers. He instead may be arguing that the unity of mind existing between two photographers is emotionally meaningful to him as a viewer, emotionally meaningful because if the two photographers aren't alone in their perceptions, their treatment of a subject being so similar, then neither is he, Michael Nelson alone and isolated.</p> <p>Solitary confinement can be a metaphor for what Julie describes in the OP: "...[viewers of the same photograph] will argue; they will argue about what they feel, they will argue about the emotions it provokes. Nelson's "shared by others" just doesn't happen." <br /> <br /> On the one hand "shared by others" feelings help reduce our sense of isolation and, on the other hand, arguing can exacerbate our sense of isolation. Nelson's circumstances are confinement and isolation. So I think that Nelson's interpretation of the photographs begins with the photographs representing 'significant spaces' (worth looking at) and then he conjures. We conjure as viewers. What we come up with tells us and others about ourselves.</p>

<p>...and/or(?): Since human appreciation of beauty, whatever the identifiers, is common to all human cultures past and present, then calling human appreciation of beauty a construct is to offer that it isn't innate to human biology. That's not my view because of the glaringly obvious role beauty plays in human sexual reproduction, putting our appreciation of beauty on a par with other basic human instincts and drives like faith, hope, and charity. Oh, and eating, the least of them.</p>

<p>Looks like Ruiz is taking 'decorative' photographs? Some thought that LeRoy Neiman was a great painter, Rod McKuen a great poet, etc.</p>