11/27/2013
Behaviors are sequences of outputs of nervous system. Behaviors are generated in response to perceptions. Does consciousness direct behavior or is consciousness a reflection of behavior after the fact or is it a combination of the two? Suppose all or some of the time consciousness directs behavior. Implication is that consciousness decides behavior in response to the perceived world. So consciousness reads the sensory inputs, memories, and inputs from mental simulations of various possibilities in the real world for each of the possible action. And then it decides on the behavior that is a best fit for the desired result. Desired result has to be predetermined as a goal. Goals are needed to direct behavior. We experience the drive to reach goals as desire. In every step of the way, feeling is experienced of sensory and neurological inputs. It is feelings - feel food, rights, pleasant, fear, anger, irritation etc.. that guide us toward our goals. It is also feeling that makes us set goals. eg. I want a good job goal. To come to this goal, I simulate life with a good job and life with out one. The simulations generate information and we can feel the consequences in simulated feelings. We sense a feeling of the would be future in our imagination. Now, if it feels good, we set the goal as something we want to accomplish in the real world.
Suppose consciousness directs behavior. This can be possible if consciousness is a state of mind that is always simulating a model of the world and integrating information coming through senses. The state of mind also uses information from memory and then generates behavior so as to move closer to goals. Drives to do anything is experienced as a desire for or against. That feeling keeps guiding actions. Now the big problem is how is brain able to produce consciousness or how does it feel any thing. If we can solve that problem, then synthesizing consciousness in machines can be worked on. An example - think of a robot that can feel hungry when it is battery needs charging. It then proceeds to a power outlet and charges itself. Artificial Intelligence is being used to implement such automatic machines. Such machines can perform as programmed. But they do not have a desire to produce any particular behavior because they do not feel. If they could feel, then they will start behaving as animals rather than machines. If we can produce feeling in a machine, then self awareness will be possible. Self awareness is a feeling of one's self being apart from the world around. Self aware beings model the world around them with themselves being apart from it but inside this world.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Monday, November 25, 2013
Letting reason intercept emotion
11/25/13
Brain has physiological (breathing, digesting food etc), emotional (eg. urge to win an argument even when we are wrong) and rational (eg. let me not spend my last bit of money on booze) functions. In the evolutionary context, recognizing harmless events as threats even at the cost of erring favoured survival more so than erring by dismissing real threats. So, we were naturally selected to latch on to negative perceptions - for example we remember unpleasant experiences more frequently than positive experiences. We can alert our brains when we feel a negative emotion such as anger, frustration, fear, avarice etc.. by naming the emotion we feel precisely without any judgement (eg. I am jealous that a coworker found a better job). Expressing the feeling in language brings the higher functions of the brain (language, reason etc. )to be stimulated by the experience. Language is handled by that part of the brain which also provides for rational thinking. The same can also be done in case of postive emotions, but it is more important to regulate our selves under the spell of negative emotions (eg. car driven badly by a fellow road user). By alerting our selves to the negative emotion we experience, we give the logical brain to come up with responses that are more effective in the real world.
Brain has physiological (breathing, digesting food etc), emotional (eg. urge to win an argument even when we are wrong) and rational (eg. let me not spend my last bit of money on booze) functions. In the evolutionary context, recognizing harmless events as threats even at the cost of erring favoured survival more so than erring by dismissing real threats. So, we were naturally selected to latch on to negative perceptions - for example we remember unpleasant experiences more frequently than positive experiences. We can alert our brains when we feel a negative emotion such as anger, frustration, fear, avarice etc.. by naming the emotion we feel precisely without any judgement (eg. I am jealous that a coworker found a better job). Expressing the feeling in language brings the higher functions of the brain (language, reason etc. )to be stimulated by the experience. Language is handled by that part of the brain which also provides for rational thinking. The same can also be done in case of postive emotions, but it is more important to regulate our selves under the spell of negative emotions (eg. car driven badly by a fellow road user). By alerting our selves to the negative emotion we experience, we give the logical brain to come up with responses that are more effective in the real world.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Pleasure and Pain
10/25/13
Desire to experience pleasure and avoid pain are the elemental drives we have. All other drives can be reduce to this. Synthesis of the feeling and experience is the biggest puzzle to me. If the puzzle is solved, then we can synthesize consciousness in man made objects.
A thought experiment: Suppose a machine is given artificial intelligence and a goal. eg. self driving cars. Suppose it is given a goal of reaching a far away place. Suppose it is not endowed with ready answers to questions sush as - where to fill gas, how to pay for gas, how to fix when a part or process goes wrong, hot to be safe and so on. The car is given sensors to sense the world around it and algorithms to learn things by experimentation, simulations of potential scenarios, memory to save useful factual information. The computer will have to make use of all these resources to move towards it's goal. Will such a car be considered conscious? Feeling good or bad is the primary guiding force.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
My Depression
What exactly do I experience?
It is a worry about losing my job and not being able to support my family expenses in the way we are used to. Not being able to send my daughter to the school of our choice, take annual trips to India, not being able to help my mother and brothers in India in case they need help. The concern comes out of not being able to complete my tasks on time.
I am also anxious about getting old and not having a social network of family and friends to keep life going happily.
I also am fearful of dying and not being there to take care of my daughter and support my wife. The thought of life getting very hard for them saddens me.
These concerns are always present in the back of my mind. Any little thing that would not have been a source of anxiety in earlier times is often a source of worry now. eg. When fixing a lamp, if a screw does not fall into place as easily as I expect, I get a little worried. Matters that never used to bother me have started bothering me. Small success at playing cricket or soccer lightens me momentarily. A recent concert brought a lot of beautiful memories from my twenties. I experienced joy and wakefulness. Gives me a hint - perhaps scheduling things I enjoy more often into daily life might help. What I enjoy - authentic conversations with friends and family, playing cricket and soccer, live music, doing well at work.
Are the sad thoughts rational?
About the job - if I lose my job now, it may be hard to get a comparable one. But I will be able to find a lower paying one. So, the concern is real but the consequences are probably not as bad as I imagine.
About getting old - all people do. There are a lot of people that are happy in old age. I can be happy too by building supportive network of friends and acquaintances. Am already doing that by taking the initiative to nourish friends ships. Reading to educate myself on the nature of the mind helps. Meditation is proving to generate insights that lead to wisdom. I have also minimized occurrences of physical risk such as driving safely.
There are no reasons to worry about not being there for my family. I am in good health, keep fit, and keep a very healthy diet. Though the concern is not very rational, it is never the less present.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Self Awareness Naturally Selected For Complex Organisms
An organism may have two paths before it to get food. Path A may have
predators on route. Path B is safer. Using memory of past experiences
and ability to play out various scenarios upon taking either of the
paths and picking the safest path applies memory and logical thinking.
But we can think of entities that can behave logically and have memory
that are consciousness. A Robot, computers with artificial
intelligence. Organism could have thinking machinery similar to robots
physically realized with living cells.
Consider an organic molecule that is surrounded by other molecules.
If the organic molecule had an affinity to attach other molecules
until it become unstable and breaks away. If the part that breaks away
is able to repeat the behavior of adding other molecules until it is
unstable, breaks away and then repeats the process. Say such molecules
goes changes in very many different ways. Some that absorb certain
kind of molecules have better survivability than others. Molecules
that absorbed others no may have had multiple survival
characteristics, and in consequence better survivabilty relative to
other kinds of rudimentary organisms. perhaps the first living cells
were just such grouping of molecules in which molecules specialized in
sub-functions of the overall function of the cluster of molecules.
With time, through natural selection, such clusters of molecules
(cells) may have chanced upon associating with others. Some of the
associations had better survivability and reproduceabilty than others.
Extrapolating, we get multi-cellular organisms. Now in
multicellular, different cells do different things. For the organism
as a whole, there needs to be logical thinking to speculate on
outcomes for the variety of possible actions. Those that tended to
take best path will have to consider competing needs and make a
decision for the whol unit. Hunger drives the organism to get food.
But if there was a predator near the food, then it needs to avoid that
food. This is best done by a central processing of various perceptions
and pieces of memory and overruling less valuable tendencities and
giving higher weightage to more valuable tendencities. Situation ripe
for central nervous system. Perceptions produces drives. Considering
many such drives at the instance of perceptions, considering them for
survivabilty necessitates logical thinking.
Tendencies for survival necessitates a sense of self. That is, a
group of molecules seeing the group as different from rest of the
universe. With that sense comes the possibility of taking decisions on
behalf of the self in a changing environment. The path to artificial
consciousness may be planting a desire to survive in a machine. Desire
is possible only with self awareness. The two must have evolved
together and not in isolation from each other.
predators on route. Path B is safer. Using memory of past experiences
and ability to play out various scenarios upon taking either of the
paths and picking the safest path applies memory and logical thinking.
But we can think of entities that can behave logically and have memory
that are consciousness. A Robot, computers with artificial
intelligence. Organism could have thinking machinery similar to robots
physically realized with living cells.
Consider an organic molecule that is surrounded by other molecules.
If the organic molecule had an affinity to attach other molecules
until it become unstable and breaks away. If the part that breaks away
is able to repeat the behavior of adding other molecules until it is
unstable, breaks away and then repeats the process. Say such molecules
goes changes in very many different ways. Some that absorb certain
kind of molecules have better survivability than others. Molecules
that absorbed others no may have had multiple survival
characteristics, and in consequence better survivabilty relative to
other kinds of rudimentary organisms. perhaps the first living cells
were just such grouping of molecules in which molecules specialized in
sub-functions of the overall function of the cluster of molecules.
With time, through natural selection, such clusters of molecules
(cells) may have chanced upon associating with others. Some of the
associations had better survivability and reproduceabilty than others.
Extrapolating, we get multi-cellular organisms. Now in
multicellular, different cells do different things. For the organism
as a whole, there needs to be logical thinking to speculate on
outcomes for the variety of possible actions. Those that tended to
take best path will have to consider competing needs and make a
decision for the whol unit. Hunger drives the organism to get food.
But if there was a predator near the food, then it needs to avoid that
food. This is best done by a central processing of various perceptions
and pieces of memory and overruling less valuable tendencities and
giving higher weightage to more valuable tendencities. Situation ripe
for central nervous system. Perceptions produces drives. Considering
many such drives at the instance of perceptions, considering them for
survivabilty necessitates logical thinking.
Tendencies for survival necessitates a sense of self. That is, a
group of molecules seeing the group as different from rest of the
universe. With that sense comes the possibility of taking decisions on
behalf of the self in a changing environment. The path to artificial
consciousness may be planting a desire to survive in a machine. Desire
is possible only with self awareness. The two must have evolved
together and not in isolation from each other.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Advantages of Self Awareness in Living Things
06/06/2013
If self awareness can be synthesized in nature, ho natural selection might have chanced upon it?
Explore the idea with a simple example - While walking to a park, the road splits into two. I decide to walk the road that goes left. The decision is taken by referencing my knowledge about both roads. We could have had muscle memory that decides to take the better road. But, in order to accommodate large number of variables, mental simulation of the walk down both roads are perhaps cheaper and more effective against the comparison hardwired into muscle memory. Mental simulation is nothing but thinking. For this to be effective, one should have sense of self, cost and benefits of possible actions with respect t o that self. Can this thinking and ability to take a decision by weighing in the cost and benefit be effective without sense of self i.e self awareness.?
The ability to think abstractly about various situations by not having to be in those situations (future, past, a imagined surroundings) requires a sense of self. Everything is seen with respect to that sense of self. All the thinking and sensing used in survival in the midst of uncertainty calls for flexibility in action. SO, a large number of variable have to be accounted for. Each against the backdrop of other variables. So, this sensing and thinking processes will have to communicate with each other. Hence the natural selection of thecentral nervous system. So close to getting to self awareness. I can still imagune a thinking decision making organism with out a sense of self.
If self awareness can be synthesized in nature, ho natural selection might have chanced upon it?
Explore the idea with a simple example - While walking to a park, the road splits into two. I decide to walk the road that goes left. The decision is taken by referencing my knowledge about both roads. We could have had muscle memory that decides to take the better road. But, in order to accommodate large number of variables, mental simulation of the walk down both roads are perhaps cheaper and more effective against the comparison hardwired into muscle memory. Mental simulation is nothing but thinking. For this to be effective, one should have sense of self, cost and benefits of possible actions with respect t o that self. Can this thinking and ability to take a decision by weighing in the cost and benefit be effective without sense of self i.e self awareness.?
The ability to think abstractly about various situations by not having to be in those situations (future, past, a imagined surroundings) requires a sense of self. Everything is seen with respect to that sense of self. All the thinking and sensing used in survival in the midst of uncertainty calls for flexibility in action. SO, a large number of variable have to be accounted for. Each against the backdrop of other variables. So, this sensing and thinking processes will have to communicate with each other. Hence the natural selection of thecentral nervous system. So close to getting to self awareness. I can still imagune a thinking decision making organism with out a sense of self.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Rituals.
Observing rituals, I can see that they originated from people's want to simplify life. Take best practices that have been time tested and use it as a template for future occasions. The best practices come about from a open minded, enlightened vision. When people follow rituals, they use it to save time in original thought to conduct an occasion well. Rituals shut out the room for innovation and adaptation. It is good for people without sufficient mental resources to create ease, elegance, efficiency and completeness. For those with these skills, rituals can only take away from the experience. They could have done so much better if there was not a ritual to follow. This demerit of ritual is what instilled a dislike for them in me. I never could point it out until recent times. But there it is.
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