X-Message-Number: 16887
From: 
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 12:52:48 EDT
Subject: Re:The Cure may be Worse than the Disease + conciousness

<< On the other hand, perhaps the cure IS worse than the
 disease.  Hmm.  Now, I am frankly a little worried who
 or what the Almighty is going to send next.
 
 Lee Corbin
  >>
May be I could try to be up to the job? :-)

Here are my ideas about conciousness, this subject is often badly defined so 
it seems that the concious property is something mysterious, something given 
by GOd or something similar.
I think conciousness is a simple mind property.
Let me start at the basis.
Plants have no neural system, it would be too costly for them in energy 
therm. Animals have them, because they can pay for it and need it because 
they move. Moving turns the world into an hazardous place, and you need some 
sensory systems to "see" where you go. 
Sensing the environment is only the first step, the next one is to predict 
it. 
To do that, you must not only process informations from the sensory system, 
you must too know how the world evolve in time. From that "science" and the 
sensory input, you can predict what will happen. If you see a tree falling, 
you may predict where it end its fall and move so that you are not here at 
the critical time.
The third, neural function is to model the behavior of creature similar to 
you. They are in the environment and how they react is useful for you .
The best way to know how they react, is to see how you react, so you must 
have a kind of split personality: part 1 watch how part 2 behave. Part 2 is a 
simulation of a nearby person.
For example, my 5 black cats prefered food is chiken. when they see me, they 
model me as a very large cat, a super cat. A supercat must eat supercat food, 
and that must be chiken. So they ask forcefully for everything  is on the 
table. Most of the time they are very and badly surprized by what is here.

The last step is when part 2 don't simulate any exterior system. It is a copy 
of part 1, this is a system looking at itself, this is conciousness.

You need only two clock systems to have part 1 and part 2.  A computer could 
have a conciousness with that definition, it could even have a beter one that 
us. Any social animal must be concious with that definition.

Yvan Bozzonetti.

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