From: Ken Clements (Ken@Innovation-On-Demand.com)
Date: Mon Sep 11 2000 - 03:00:34 MDT
Robin Hanson wrote:
> Hal Finney wrote:
>
> > When you speak of a "PR" model, do you mean that consciousness exists
> > (or appears to exist) primarily for the benefit of other people, rather
> > than for yourself? That is pretty much the case with PR departments.
> > Perhaps you are conscious in order to make you appear to be more
> > predictable and therefore reliable? Would consciousness do this, though,
> > if it does not actually affect decision making?
>
> Miller in "The Mating Mind" notes that fitness signals are best if they
> signalan average quality of much of the genome, and hypothsizes that much of
> our conscious thinking is there to impress others with our wit, cleverness,
> etc. So he suggests that this might explain why consciousness seems hard to
> localize in a particular brain module. Our conscious minds are primarily there
> to put on
> a show for others, impressing them with an integrated set of cognitive skills.
>
> We tell stories about how what we do is all part of the integrated plan where
> we talk all our goals into account and use all our skills as appropriate.
> Those
> listening to us can then judge our overall cognitive abilities.
I like the posts from Hal and Robin on this thread very much. Dennet used the
analogy of the 'Show Trials' put on in 1930's Russia where the judgment had been
made before the trial, but it had to look as if justice was being done, to
suggest that consciousness is after the fact in spite of the illusion. Timings
from brain scans indicate that during most of 'normal' consciousness what you
think is happening now really happened about 1/4 second in the past (which is why
you need to train subcortical structures to allow you to do tight servo loop
things like riding a bicycle).
It seems to me that the PR is both for you and for everyone else as well, and is
the key to being able to use symbolic representations for communication (as I am
doing at this moment [I mean 1/4s ago]). The comment from "The Mating Mind"
above matches similar material from "The Meme Machine" (why do these books have
the same initials and much of the same content?). The story that goes along with
the illusion of a stream of consciousness provides a means of structuring the
placement of memories as symbolic representations in linear time (as if talking
to yourself). This is very useful and shows the intimate connection between
communication and memory.
Keep going guys, you are helping folks to see that there is no homunculus in
there, and how useful it is to pretend that there is.
-Ken
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