[HN Gopher] Towards an animal model of consciousness based on th...
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Towards an animal model of consciousness based on the platform
theory
Author : Borrible
Score : 35 points
Date : 2021-12-20 11:00 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencedirect.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencedirect.com)
| alecst wrote:
| I only skimmed the abstract but I wanted to start a conversation
| around this idea:
|
| > The platform theory holds that the brain enters a conscious
| operation mode, whenever mental representations of stimuli,
| associations, concepts, memories, and experiences are effortfully
| maintained (in working memory) and actively manipulated.
|
| If anyone is familiar with certain Buddhist meditations called
| "jhana" then you know that you can be really in the flow of
| experience without really maintaining effort or trying to
| manipulate the experience.
|
| Is there a sliding scale for consciousness allowed by this
| definition? In other words: does this imply that with less effort
| or less manipulation that one is less conscious, or are they
| defining consciousness in a binary way?
|
| And is there some way to reconcile deep Buddhist meditations with
| the platform theory? Are they using different definitions of
| "effort" and "manipulation" than immediately come to mind?
|
| I am giving these guys the benefit of the doubt that they know
| about meditation experience. It's the first thing I'd look into
| if I were a consciousness researcher.
| scribu wrote:
| Maybe you're interpreting the words "effort" and "manipulation"
| too strictly. During a meditation session, the brain could
| still be doing the activities from the definition, even though
| you might not _feel_ like you 're doing much at all.
|
| Or, conversely, perhaps during meditation you're less
| conscious.
|
| NB: I'm not an expert on anything related to this.
| raducu wrote:
| > is there some way to reconcile deep Buddhist meditations with
| the platform theory?
|
| Isn't Buddhism the most non-dogmatic religions out there?
|
| > Are they using different definitions of "effort" and
| "manipulation" than immediately come to mind?
|
| I'm sure they mean biological/non-conscious effort, otherwise
| most people would rarely be conscious at all.
| jbdistaken wrote:
| You might be interested in the work of Thomas Metzinger [0]. He
| works on consciousness and addresses some of the issues you
| mention regarding effort & different states that people have
| experienced/described w/ meditation etc. Eg [1] works towards
| profiling "pure awareness" experiences among meditators of
| various stripes. Scroll down to '(3) Peer-reviewed articles' on
| his page for addl recent research.
|
| He has a dense academic tome called "being no one: the self-
| model theory of subjectivity" that works through a theory of an
| 'emergent phenomenological self' [2]. A shorter book discussing
| the issues is "ego tunnel: the science of the mind & the myth
| of the self" [3]. It is intended for lay audience & is very
| readable. fun stuff.
|
| [0] https://www.philosophie-e.fb05.uni-
| mainz.de/institutes/theor... [1]
| https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
| [2]
| https://scholar.google.de/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl...
| [3]
| https://scholar.google.de/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl...
| namlem wrote:
| I mean it does take a certain amount of effort to reach first
| jhana. I don't know if I'd say it takes "effort" to maintain
| it, but if you lose focus for long enough you will fall out of
| it. I've never personally experienced the higher jhanas so I
| can't speak to what they are like.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| It's like listening to my kid explain how Transformers work!
| Borrible wrote:
| As I understand it, it is proposed that consciousness is the
| brain performing a play on a stage, the platform, the working
| memory, learning to solve a problem. Like children playing with
| their toys and dolls to learn about their world, the social and
| the physical. The toys and dolls are sensory inputs, mental
| states, ideas and so on. So they are phenomena distinct from
| consciousness.
|
| Thank God, I can still confuse people with the dumb question,
| what that strange thing in their head is, they call 'red'. But
| then again, most don't want to play this game anyway.
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