I think it would be inaccurate because not all matter has six sense bases and the storehouse is itself an aggregate.
The first five are basically one, in the sense that a blind or deaf person is not fundamentally less of a human than the rest of us. The model also misses some stuff, e.g. mere touch doesn’t include proprioception or sense of balance and if you read it as if it did (“body sense”) then why distinguish touch from e.g. sense of taste. Seventh I’d say is a subsystem (and so pervasive that the Stoics allow for both preferred and unpreferred indifferents – yes you can prefer pudding over gruel or the other way round just don’t think it’s a virtue), eighth is a stage of development, what you get when everything aligns well. The impression of a well-lubed machine.
I understand your objections to assumptions matter could be conscious based on this model. I think it would be inaccurate because not all matter has six sense bases and the storehouse is itself an aggregate.
I generally have no real idea of where to put the line. This stuff here might help, anything less than a T3 system can’t have experience of mind (they can’t learn to learn, which requires feeding back information about the changes in mind (for lack of better term) into the mind), OTOH that doesn’t mean that all T3 systems are actually integrating different sources, or balancing them: If you only ever were conscious of one aspect, there could be no conflict or interaction with another aspect, and thus consciousness would serve no role (and not evolve in the first place). It’s a matter of a required number of subsystems needing coordinating, and that coordinating itself having a necessary level of adaptiveness, be T3. Also I can authoritatively say that the human mind is not made to think about that kind of stuff. It’s all maps and models, direct knowledge fails I’m not sure the territory can even understand the question. Look, a squirrel!
In the case of the deaf blind person, and this is an aside, I don’t believe we’re born a blank slate in this regard even if the physical eyes don’t see. Helen Keller described actively in what I would call eye consciousness. Closed eye visual space/dream space. I’m sure there’s variance here depending on the nature of a person’s disability. I.e. neurology vs physiology.
I’m interested in the link and will read it. I’m only an amateur when it comes to coding and a layperson with AI.
And yeah, I don’t think it’s something we can put in a box. The map isn’t the territory and at some point describing consciencness from within using concepts (thinking, with language or otherwise) turns into a dog chasing its own tail. Thanks for the reminder not to bite myself in the chasing (your comment earlier about subtle forms of self aggression).
Okay, I’ve read over the article and a few links to help my understanding.
I think in the yogacara/eight consciousness model, we’d say store consciousness is the t4 evolving consciousness that stores the collective and individual seeds. T3 would be discriminative awareness or volitional awareness, i.e. what I want (manas or the wisdom of equality in its enlightened state). T2 would be mind consciousness, which through skillful application we can find that well lubed machine you mentioned (aligning itself and manas with store consciousness through practice and deep looking, which resolves fear of death as we’re able to look beyond our individual lives). And T1 the sense gates with only reflexive awareness.
I appreciate this conversation btw and hear what you’re saying about the maps only being maps and how they miss some things like sense of balance.
So yeah, I don’t think machines are T3 systems. No sense of agency. A working space for learning (like mind consciousness) but not ‘self aware’.
In principle subsystems that aren’t awareness can also be T3 systems, I suspect that at least from the motor cortex, mine does seem to have gotten more effective at learning from moment to moment, meaning it learned how to learn better and that’s T3. At least I think it’s not just me learning to not micro-manage it as much, it’s very hard to be sure about any of this, too many intersecting possibilities.
From the cybernetic/information theory side we don’t really know how these kinds of systems work in the first place, we’re barely getting started understanding T2 systems. All the AI tech we have is basically ways to breed fruit flies to fly left or right when seeing certain patterns, with enough computing power thrown at it to look impressive. We already had that kind of tech in the 50s (first implementations 54 for genetic algorithms, 57 for the perceptron), of course less impressive.
Learning to not micromanage it as much was advice I first came across in a Shambala book and took years to put into practice. (Still takes practice tbh).
That said I think there’s also learning involved. As I mentioned earlier I do physical flow practices and muscle memory is some kind of learning. I don’t know how this learning takes place though as muscle biology isn’t much of an area of interest for me.
I was thinking about our conversation more last night after I went to bed. Are you aware of the moon in the dew drop metaphor? I think I’ve been looking for hierarchies when it’s all cybernetic feedbacks up and down multiple layers. Like the T4 layer, we could call the root, but we’re a reflection of it and it is a reflection of us.
Really hard to not think in terms of hierarchy though.
I’m trying to think of a good way to draw it with language. (1-5)-6-7-8. Sense impressions from the five sense gates (I know there’s more) comes in reflexively from the 8th consciousness (the evolving environment). Mind consciousness (reflective) sits between the sense consciousnesses and volitional consciousness (what do I like/dislike/want/need, i.e discriminatory) forming a map (data set) out of sense experience and a direction out of volitional formations. Enlightenment is turning mind consciousness around and seeing that volitional awareness itself is evolving along/with the eighth or T4 because we’re in a feedback loop. But it’s always multiple loops even if the T4 system seems to be separate from our little 60-80 year lives, it’s not. Our brief period evolved from it and evolves it. No birth and no death.
Sorry that’s more Buddhism than AI or cybernetics. Trying to communicate my understanding (map which is not the territory) to the best of my ability. And this conversation has deepened my own understanding, learning the T4 systems model was a helpful way to look at things and something I’ll keep studying as time goes on :)
The first five are basically one, in the sense that a blind or deaf person is not fundamentally less of a human than the rest of us. The model also misses some stuff, e.g. mere touch doesn’t include proprioception or sense of balance and if you read it as if it did (“body sense”) then why distinguish touch from e.g. sense of taste. Seventh I’d say is a subsystem (and so pervasive that the Stoics allow for both preferred and unpreferred indifferents – yes you can prefer pudding over gruel or the other way round just don’t think it’s a virtue), eighth is a stage of development, what you get when everything aligns well. The impression of a well-lubed machine.
I generally have no real idea of where to put the line. This stuff here might help, anything less than a T3 system can’t have experience of mind (they can’t learn to learn, which requires feeding back information about the changes in mind (for lack of better term) into the mind), OTOH that doesn’t mean that all T3 systems are actually integrating different sources, or balancing them: If you only ever were conscious of one aspect, there could be no conflict or interaction with another aspect, and thus consciousness would serve no role (and not evolve in the first place). It’s a matter of a required number of subsystems needing coordinating, and that coordinating itself having a necessary level of adaptiveness, be T3. Also I can authoritatively say that the human mind is not made to think about that kind of stuff. It’s all maps and models, direct knowledge fails I’m not sure the territory can even understand the question. Look, a squirrel!
In the case of the deaf blind person, and this is an aside, I don’t believe we’re born a blank slate in this regard even if the physical eyes don’t see. Helen Keller described actively in what I would call eye consciousness. Closed eye visual space/dream space. I’m sure there’s variance here depending on the nature of a person’s disability. I.e. neurology vs physiology.
I’m interested in the link and will read it. I’m only an amateur when it comes to coding and a layperson with AI.
And yeah, I don’t think it’s something we can put in a box. The map isn’t the territory and at some point describing consciencness from within using concepts (thinking, with language or otherwise) turns into a dog chasing its own tail. Thanks for the reminder not to bite myself in the chasing (your comment earlier about subtle forms of self aggression).
Okay, I’ve read over the article and a few links to help my understanding.
I think in the yogacara/eight consciousness model, we’d say store consciousness is the t4 evolving consciousness that stores the collective and individual seeds. T3 would be discriminative awareness or volitional awareness, i.e. what I want (manas or the wisdom of equality in its enlightened state). T2 would be mind consciousness, which through skillful application we can find that well lubed machine you mentioned (aligning itself and manas with store consciousness through practice and deep looking, which resolves fear of death as we’re able to look beyond our individual lives). And T1 the sense gates with only reflexive awareness.
I appreciate this conversation btw and hear what you’re saying about the maps only being maps and how they miss some things like sense of balance.
So yeah, I don’t think machines are T3 systems. No sense of agency. A working space for learning (like mind consciousness) but not ‘self aware’.
In principle subsystems that aren’t awareness can also be T3 systems, I suspect that at least from the motor cortex, mine does seem to have gotten more effective at learning from moment to moment, meaning it learned how to learn better and that’s T3. At least I think it’s not just me learning to not micro-manage it as much, it’s very hard to be sure about any of this, too many intersecting possibilities.
From the cybernetic/information theory side we don’t really know how these kinds of systems work in the first place, we’re barely getting started understanding T2 systems. All the AI tech we have is basically ways to breed fruit flies to fly left or right when seeing certain patterns, with enough computing power thrown at it to look impressive. We already had that kind of tech in the 50s (first implementations 54 for genetic algorithms, 57 for the perceptron), of course less impressive.
Learning to not micromanage it as much was advice I first came across in a Shambala book and took years to put into practice. (Still takes practice tbh).
That said I think there’s also learning involved. As I mentioned earlier I do physical flow practices and muscle memory is some kind of learning. I don’t know how this learning takes place though as muscle biology isn’t much of an area of interest for me.
I was thinking about our conversation more last night after I went to bed. Are you aware of the moon in the dew drop metaphor? I think I’ve been looking for hierarchies when it’s all cybernetic feedbacks up and down multiple layers. Like the T4 layer, we could call the root, but we’re a reflection of it and it is a reflection of us.
Really hard to not think in terms of hierarchy though.
I’m trying to think of a good way to draw it with language. (1-5)-6-7-8. Sense impressions from the five sense gates (I know there’s more) comes in reflexively from the 8th consciousness (the evolving environment). Mind consciousness (reflective) sits between the sense consciousnesses and volitional consciousness (what do I like/dislike/want/need, i.e discriminatory) forming a map (data set) out of sense experience and a direction out of volitional formations. Enlightenment is turning mind consciousness around and seeing that volitional awareness itself is evolving along/with the eighth or T4 because we’re in a feedback loop. But it’s always multiple loops even if the T4 system seems to be separate from our little 60-80 year lives, it’s not. Our brief period evolved from it and evolves it. No birth and no death.
Sorry that’s more Buddhism than AI or cybernetics. Trying to communicate my understanding (map which is not the territory) to the best of my ability. And this conversation has deepened my own understanding, learning the T4 systems model was a helpful way to look at things and something I’ll keep studying as time goes on :)