OKAY PET ME ------->

He even looks like he has an eye.

Jb,

Now, you're attributing wants to single-celled organisms and algae, and the like. You're conflating survival instinct and willful choice. Wants require self-awareness. You're also calling the ability to detect and avoid danger, fire and what have you, with sensory perception.

Perception is possible without memory and/or self-awareness. That is usually called detection. To perceive something usually indicates to become consciously aware of it throught distintion and identification.

But I do not want to argue semantics, I've already shown you where your argument fails. Nothing further need be said. If you wish to continue believing in things which contradict known fact and current knowledge, far be it for me to stand in your way. I've said my piece.

Going back to What is Thought? Synopsis by: Eric B. Baum

JB wrote:


I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this but I think it’s worth mentioning that much of what Baum is researching and discussing as the article JB posted indicates, may have been misunderstood. Baum is discussing why we have not been able to simulate human ‘thought’ with a computer program. Much of what Baum refers to as ‘programming in DNA’ is not something that overrides the brain, rather these are things that have ‘evolved’ through our DNA to work with (compliment) the brain. For example: personality traits, how we see (the eye itself) or hear (the ear itself) and so on, the development of heuristics, instincts, and the components (organs & chemicals) which trigger thought.

Baum discusses and researches the interactions that exist between all of the functions I just wrote above, which give our thought processes a multidimensional quality.

Obviously DNA had to play a role in this process because we simply don’t have the capability of ‘consciously’ assessing every ‘bit’ of data that streams second by minute by hours through our sits of perception.

But this is not a matter of DNA over the brain or instead of the brain, it is a matter of complimentary systems designed by evolution.

.JB wrote:


When a human brain functions normally it creates what we call ‘constructs’. A construct is a literally any one thing about which we build a reference.

Examples of constructs: animals (the top of the hierarchy) then broken down into types of animals, vertebrae and non, mammal or non, four-legged, winged, fins & gills and so on. Each type becomes it’s construct just as each animal becomes its own construct which includes all the attributes/ traits of the particular animal.

Every or any element within any particular construct is often a part of another construct. So for instance, we can begin THINKING about an animal with wings and end up thinking about sonar (via the bat).

We are not born knowing these things, we learn all this information as we grow and develop.

Therefore, “notion” can be a construct by virtue of the attributes that have been constructed around it, just as “intention”, “visualization” and “idea” are constructs.

The most important part of our individual constructs have to do with how well we have related all the parts of our constructs to reality.

Therein lay the foundation of communication our thoughts in the most understandable and efficient manner.

SO MOVING ON:


Creative Wrote:



Perception – perception being all the multidimensional parts of how we perceive, as I have indicated in my explanation of ‘Baum’ above.

Distinction – to me, this would be how we build our constructs

Correlation - I’m not sure what you have in mind here Creative but I think I would make Distinction and Correlation a single unit (distinction/correlation)

as in distinction (enough descriptive detail for each construct )
with adequate correlations between the various constructs to think quickly and make effective assessments.


I have to work tomorrow, so won’t be back till tomorrow night.

OH - as for the rest of the thread - It sees to have gotten a little off track. I think it would be benefical to stick to "human" thought.

I am not 'arguing semantics.' That is always what you end up doing.

Your problem is that you use the human English language which is created by humans (for human consciousness) to argue semantics about my using the word "want" in relation to a single celled animal. "Want" for a single celled animal cannot possibly be the same kind of "want" you attribute to humans.

Humans and animals all have survival instincts Creative. The power of personal will totally depends upon the type of consciousness involved with a particular life form. Lower life forms run mostly on programming and survival instinct which I have said is information that is provided from DNA.

Wants do not 'require self awareness" when you are using the term "wants' loosely in referring to a single celled animal. Even a single celled animal can have preferences. That humans attribute that completely to "survival instinct" or programming is irrelevant.

My argument does not fail. Your argument fails miserably.

You also have not answered my questions. I have posted facts.

************************

You claim that a single-celled organism itself, is incapable of consciously perceiving anything at all to begin with.

Where is your evidence to support that claim?

**************************

You have also refused to address the question that if a single celled organism is incapable of consciousness, then at what point did it magically transform from unconscious to conscious?

Also, if you feel you know the answer to the question of how inanimate matter suddenly begins to produce living organisms that start evolving into intelligent sentient thinking creatures I'm all ears.

Hey I spent billions of years evolving these ears just to hear your answer.

***********************

Well you might have stated that earlier.

The question was "What is thought."

It was not... okay lets discuss human thought. That is a very limited concept. Its like barely skimming the surface. I tend to go very deep in discussions like this. Soo....

Never mind then.

Some like to talk about things which they can know noting about, and others not so much.

Funny thing is, that that becomes a problem nowhere else but here, in this forum with only a couple of individuals, you being one.

Well then if you are going to lay the blame on me, I'll stay out of your threads in the future. I don't need the frustration.

Great thread guys! I've enjoyed reading it.

I was referring to our autonomous physiological sensory perception. The innate and instinct faculty.



I was thinking more alone the lines of the spatiotemporal distinction required for individuation/identification.



Distinction is the realization of 'other'. It can be crude enough to allow a bacteria to distinguish, unknowingly of course, between fire and food source. I find some rudimentary form of it to be necessary for survival instinct, avoiding danger. Whereas correlation would be more like what is necessary to build what you're calling constructs. Correlation between objects of perception either to one another or to the subject. If a single correlation is a thought, then multiple correlations between new objects of perception and former correlations produce more and more complex thought.



Seeing how it is a primary source, I would agree. I find when the register bounces back and forth from casual to formal it tends to become more confused. You and I will do just fine, judging from past discussion.

Creative, I'm glad you found someone you can communicate with.

You and I communicate just fine Jb. You just don't realize it.

ah jeez. how did this crap end up in a forum with the word 'science ' in the title???

No we don't Creative. You think you do, but you don't. If communication is not both ways, it is not communication. When you respond with things like "rubbish" and "incoherent" that is not a good sign that communication is going on. That indicates the opposite. It is a judgement.

(It reminds me of a couple who break up and one of them is clueless that the relationship had any problems. The other one is completely frustrated.)

Lack of connection. Lack of awareness. Arrogance. Cluelessness.

Well that's very judgmental.

Because philosophy is the discipline, and science is the child.

We communicate just fine Jb. We just don't agree. I mean, you understood what I just wrote, and you responded. You understand these words, and you'll respond or not.

That is communication.

Incoherent shallow verbal exchanges are not what I would call productive communication, but okay, what ever you want to call it.

Here, I'll show you...



Here, you are communicating to me that you think that you know what I think better than I do. That is what it would take in order fo you to make a truth claim about my thoughts that contradicts what I've asserted about them.

That objection, however, is not based upon your being privy to my thoughts, rather it is based upon the difference between that which you call "communication" and that which I call "communication", as is shown below by how you continued...



Here, you set out the criterion for what you think constitutes being communication, saying that it must "be both ways" or it is not communication. Now it could be referring to communication itself, which would make the claim redundant and circular, or it could be referring to the mental acquisition that we commonly call understanding.

--

In short form, you're telling me that I do not know what communication is, and I'm disagreeing.

Incoherent... shallow?

Incoherent, in philosophy, refers to a claim or a set of claims that are self-contradictory. So, I must ask what exactly was incoherent about what I wrote?

I think that you bring an emotional attitude to the philosophical discussions that we have, and that that attitude gets in the way. I think that you believe that I am belittling you by my use of terms like "nonsense" and "incoherent" and "rubbish". The two former terms have been explained, in the recent past, and in this post. Those are qualities attributed to certain kinds of argument and/or explanation and are not personal terms that are about the author. Those terms describe claims. "Rubbish" is pure shorthand for any number of different things about the claim that is in response to.

That's what I think.