Re: Global Consciousness - more than metaphor

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hugh Trenchard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 3:21 AM
Subject: Global Consciousness - more than metaphor

I am new to this listserv group.  I have prepared the following draft paper
which I am hoping members of this group may be willing to review and
provide some comments on.  It is in APA style. I have sent it to Dr.
Heylighen's Global Brain group (search "Principia Cybernetica") and am
hoping to post it elsewhere too. Thanks to anyone willing to comment.
_____________________________________________

GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS - MORE THAN METAPHOR

Global Consciousness-More than a Metaphor

Hugh A. Trenchard
830 Princess Ave,
Victoria, B.C., Canada
V8T 1K8
(250) 360-0595

[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Abstract
Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. Still, reductionist studies of
neural activity are necessary for understanding consciousness.
Consciousness is fundamentally describable as a continuum of the complexity
of the interactions of components; varying degrees of consciousness arise
at corresponding degrees of complexity.  Hence consciousness is exhibited
in all systems of dynamically interacting components.  Of a high degree of
complexity are populations of interacting humans, implying a degree of
consciousness emerging from this system, the global consciousness.  Thus
the complexity of human populations may be analysed for analogs of brain
complexity, and vice versa.  Attempts to identify analogs of the neural
correlates of individual consciousness and the socio-economic interactions
of humans may further our understanding of the nature of consciousness.

<paper and references snipped - see root post for paper details>

RKS:
The bold statement <Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon.> requires
careful analysis.  Is consciousness emergent and, importantly, what does it
'emerge' from?

The second question is often ignored.  The statement that 'X' is emergent
declares that there can never be discovered any antecedent forms or
fundamental units of 'X'.  This statement can not be sustained.

In the case of consciousness, we may say that if consciousness can be found
both in humans via a brain and robots via a silicone substrate, then neither
the silicone nor neuron could possibly be the essential building block.
Therefore, one might conclude, that relative to neurons or silicone chips,
consciousness is emergent.

But that does not mean that consciousness rises above, say, the algorithms
shared by both the human's brain and computer, or that there may be more
other fundamental unit from which consciousness is formed regardless of its
manifestation eg in robots, planets, communities, humans, modules within
humans brains etc.

In other discussions, esp 'Evolutionary Psychology', I have tentatively
introduced the word "manifold" as the complimentary term accompanying
"emergent".

I'm borrowing 'manifold' from the geometry of space such as utilised in
General relativity, where it refers to a set of dimensions that can be
ultimately mapped onto an n-dimensional Euclidean space.

I am borrowing the term to indicate functions, behaviours or symbolic
representations that can be mapped onto ponderable constituents as opposed
to those which are emergent and therefore cannot be so mapped.

In most, if not all cases, a property emergent from some constituents will
be a manifold of some others.  In the above example I have suggested that
consciousness may have emerged from neurons but be a manifold of algorithms.

The manifold elements of the algorithms may be a composite of the
interaction between genetic predisposition as expressed via the brain and
the environmental impact acting on that brain, so that two loops for any
algorithm - one via the brain (a closed loop) and one via the brain's
expression and subsequent perception or visa versa (an open loop).

Let the emergent property be E;
the composite be O;
the constituent parts of O be H.

There is a big difference between the prediction of properties that the
composite O will have as deduced from complete knowledge of its constituents
H and the attribution of property E discovered in O to its constituent parts
H.

These two views represent what might be termed "bottom up" and "top down"
ie, from the initial observation of the complex O (top down) or the initial
observation of the constituent parts H (bottom up).

To verify that a property, observed as E, is not emergent from H, all the
properties of H must be known and it must be shown that ONLY the property E
occurs when H forms into O, that is, that no alternative property is
anticipated (or that E is always in the collection of properties that occurs
when O forms).

Further, and most importantly, it must be shown that property E can only
occur when constituents H form into composite O, that is, that property E
does not occur when some other constituents, say I, form into some other
composite, say P, and that O can only be formed from H.

If consciousness can occur both in human brains and computers, then it is
emergent relative to its physical parts.  But if consciousness is a result
of underlying algorithms (assuming that the programmer of the computer
intended the result obtained) then it is not emergent relative to the
algorithm (in my terminology, it could be said that consciousness is a
manifold of algorithms).

Therefore the property 'consciousness' can be both emergent and non-emergent
depending on the substrate to which it is compared (physical constituents or
algorithms).

The empirical scientist will attempt to find the constituents of property O
that form its deterministic substrate (manifold), rather than the sometimes
more obvious or intuitive substrate from which the property O apparently
emerges.

It is incorrect to claim that a property is "emergent" without giving,
implying, or for it to be understood which constituents the property is
emergent relative to.

In the case of consciousness as a property emergent relative to the neural s
ubstrate that is to be considered a property of systems other than
individuals, it is up to the proponent of these ideas to identify the
manifold that IS the common substrate of all forms of consciousness.

Personally, I have pointed out in biology threads that the idea that the
Earth is not alive can not be sustained in view of the truth that both the
human and the cells in a human are both alive, but it does not follow that
in sustaining only the cells of a human (each in its own Petrie dish) the
human would also be alive.  By extension, the Earth is alive in addition to
its constituent living parts.

Kind Regards,
Robert Karl Stonjek.