Re: Us and Consciousness

Neil W Rickert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Maybe bees have a trait not available to humans.  And maybe bees
> consider themselves superior to humans.
> 
> My point:  We have no standard of comparison.  Your ">" is
> meaningless here.
> 

Let's say that > means a super set of human cognitive capacity here...
If we take computational view of mind to be truthful, this would at
least mean that the complexity of such a system is greater than
complexity of human mind.

> >I am trying to formulate a conscious ability that I think we humans do
> >not normally possess. We name self-reference and control of thought to
> >be among conscious traits. The trans-human feature of the day is
> >improved memory management facility.  For instance, I'd like to be
> >able to erase a particular memory by will completely or construct a
> >new kind of index by explicitly programming my cognitive system.
> 
> You are, of course, assuming that you actually have some kind of
> memory that could be erased.  It is far from obvious that this is
> correct.

I assume that I have some kind of memory. Whether it can be erased is
a question, and whether forgetting involves erasing of some sort is
another.

> >In fact, we could view emotions as mechanisms of modifying/selecting
> >our ways of thinking. Then, it makes a lot more sense when we say that
> >a strong emotion like anger can suppress self-criticism.
> 
> Maybe we could view thinking as a mechanism for modifying/selecting
> our ways of emoting.

Strangely, both can be correct at the same time, but thinking does not
seem to be restricted to playing with emotions. :) Higher level
thinking processes we might call emotions are themselves a way of
thinking. And yet, there are other processes that observe the effects
of emotions. This brings to my mind the encoding of positive/negative
moods:

On Mood and Memory
http://cognews.com/1063412673/index_html

Also of interest:
How memory and dreams may be related
http://cognews.com/1069435060/index_html

See you,

--
Eray Ozkural