Dear Erin,
It is not strange that my 22/6 22:25 +0200 feedback to Grossberg's Adaptive
Resonance Theory about consciousness is not completely understandable to
you. I didn't understand that theory myself completely. My dictionary lacks
an entry for 'inhibitory'. Your quotes lack a more detailed explanation of
'the inhibitory matching process that supports these spatial and motor
processes'. The last paragraph of your quotes was a bit tangled. So I was a
bit handicapped in giving feedback.
I supposed that Grossberg explains 'moving a tennis racket and the rest of
your body in order to get the tennis ball approximately where you want it to
go' also as a top-down and bottom-up matching process and that the
'resonance' needed for this matching produces 'awareness' according to
him/her. How else does he/she think I can manage such an activity if not by
matching intention, sensory data using attention? I am aware of what I am
doing when I am playing tennis, but I am not aware of all the detail of the
processes needed. Something like 'procedural memories' is obviously involved
(this is included in the term 'habitual repetition' that I used). I don't
get Grossberg's explanation for them being 'unconscious' though.
I wrote:
'Not "learning" and "intentionality" should be core concepts in a model of
subconscious mental activity, but "habitual repetition" and "imitiation".'
You replied:
'Intentionality is essential to consciousness.'
I agree that intentionality is essential to awareness. Exactly for that
reason I propose not to use it in a model for subconscious (unaware) mental
activity.
You wrote:
'Consciousness is very limited to me-- it is just focusing on part of the
subconscious.'
I get what you mean as awareness being the act of focusing on part of our
mental activity.
When you are explained what 'things' can be brought to awareness, you talked
about 'memories' however and not about 'mental activity' anymore. You also
agreed that 'memories are constructed and reconstructed' (which is a mental
activity). So maybe it is not necessary to think about them as 'things' (SOM
objects).
You wrote:
'when you ask is it the same idea [we restore from memory when we need it
again] ... asking but I would say no, the memory is reconstructed each time
it is brought into consciousness.'
So there are no 'things' moving unchanged from one part of our 'mind' to
another part.
I try to avoid terms like 'consciousness' and 'mind', because they can both
refer to the whole of our mental activity and the part of which we are
aware.
My model is as follows:
Intellectual patterns of values, involving 'awareness' and 'intention', hold
together systems of ideas, consistency of adoption/denial of ideas and
'personal identity'. The process of focusing awareness and intention belongs
to the intellectual level. 'That on which we focus' and 'that which we
intend' can belong to any level of values. It can also be (and is usually)
experienced in terms of SOM subjects and objects.
Social patterns of values, involving 'habitual repetition' and 'imitation',
hold together 'groups', a sense of belonging and 'personal skills'. The
processes involved are unaware. We can focus awareness and intention on the
results of these processes (and label them as 'emotion' and 'intuition')
however.
Biological patterns of values, involving hard-wired reactions and
bio-chemical interaction (as between ants), hold together species, patterns
of instinctual behavior that are needed to feed, procreate etc. and
recognizable features of one's looks and way of moving (enabling us to
recognize someone we haven't seen for decades). We cannot even focus
awareness and intention on separate processes involved (not without the help
of science).
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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