SteveKlinko

You cannot know for example if a Blind person is incorporating Visual Experiences in with their Hearing experiences. If they were, then they probably could not possibly know that they are experiencing Conscious Light phenomena with their Auditory Experience. Just a thought, because we cannot know what their Experience is and they cannot properly tell us. Conscious Experiences are not explainable in language. They must be Experienced.

I don't know that but it make sense. I would limit it to any living thing that has a Visual Cortex.

We don't know what the Conscious experience is for Blind people. Blindness is a degenerate case of Vison or non Vision. All we can do for now is explore and figure out what Redness is for normally developed Sighted people that can see Redness. I See Redness but I don't know what it is. It is some sort of Conscious Phenomenon. I say the Conscious Experience of Redness, to emphasize that we are talking about a Phenomenon of the Mind. So how about if I just say Redness. Can you see the Color Red? That's what I'm talking about. I like to say Redness instead of Red. I have found that if I talk about Red that people start talking about Wavelengths of Electromagnetic Light. If I say Redness it makes them stop and think a little Deeper about the Perception of the Red or the Redness of the Red.

You are not representing what I have said correctly. I never said I have a theory for the Screen. My only goal was to to make people think more outside the box by noticing something they probably never noticed before. I always ask what is the Explanation for the Screen. It's probably just some kind of Illusion that our Visual System produces. But it is there. What is your complaint? Are you saying the Screen is not there for you? But the real topic of this thread is not about the Screen. That was a different thread. This is about the Conscious Perception of Redness and the mechanism in the Brain that produces it. Where does the Redness come from? How do Neurons make this Redness happen. It's a simple and direct question. There is no ambiguity to the question. So what is the answer to that?

Ok, what happens in the Prefrontal for Executive Processing that produces Redness? What is the decades of Empirical Data disproves the Conscious Visual Screen? The Screen is unfortunately there for all to See. If you are talking about Redness then what Data disproves the Existence of Redness as a separate Phenomenon from anything we know about Neural Activity? Redness could be all about Neural Activity but until someone Explains how it is inside the Neurons it is more honest to just say that Science does not know what Redness is or how it is produced.

I do depend on you recognizing your own inner Conscious Experiences like Redness or the Conscious Visual Screen to be something worth talking about, and Exploring, and Explaining. Are you saying you still don't know what Redness is? I can work with you some more on that if you like. I frankly cannot figure out what it is that you don't understand about Redness. Do you not See Red? Are you Color Blind?

I fully and completely know how the Visual System works from Retina to Cortex. It's not about simple detection it is about the Conscious Experience or Perception of Redness. Think about the Redness itself. Extract the Perception of Redness from anything you know about Retinas, and Neural Activity. Start with the Redness. Experience the Redness. When you think about the Redness itself it is impossible (at least for me) to push that Redness into the Neurons in any Scientific or Logical way. Neurons fire and the Redness just seems to happen. From all my studies I have concluded that Science has no Explanation for the Redness itself. If it does, what is that Explanation?

I explained how anyone can realize the Screen. The Screen is there. You don't have to Believe it is there. If you follow the steps that I presented you will observe that the Screen is there. It is an object of the Mind. Do you reject objects of the Mind as having any reality? Sorry but the Screen is there and Redness is there to torment the Physicalists on this forum. These Conscious Mind things cannot be argued away, but rather they should be studied and Explained.

Maybe you are more used to the terminology of Qualia. The Conscious Experience of Redness that I am talking about would be the Redness Quale. Yes but Action Potentials etc. are just part of the Neural Processing. But how does the Redness that you See happen. You are saying that I have to accept something on pure Belief. You might also be more used to the terminology of Qualia. So the Redness Experience would be the Redness Quale. I can only assume that Dogs have Conscious Experiences but I cannot say that I know they do. Don't know anything about the Consciousness of Amoebas and Trees, but I would assume they don't.

It all began 20 years ago when I decided it might be fun to understand how Consciousness occurs in the Brain. I decided that Conscious sensory perception, specifically Light and Sound, were the things I would study. I can see Light and I can hear Sound. I eventually narrowed my studies to the Visual Experience. The thinking was that if I could understand more and more how the physical Brain, Eye and Ear actually worked then the Conscious perception of Light and Sound would become obvious. That was naïve. The Brain Physiologists have become pretty good at finding the Neural Correlates of Consciousness but they have hit a brick wall beyond that. Unfortunately, that was my conclusion after 20 years of studying the problem. I started posting on the various Consciousness Forums that I could find to try to understand what other people were thinking on this. Much to my surprise the people on these Forums were very dismissive of the thought that there is something more to Visual Perception than what Science already has discovered. They seemed to think that showing Neural Activity in a particular area of the Cortex, for example for the Visual Input of something Red, was all that was needed to Explain the Conscious Experience of Redness in the Mind. In their way of thinking: The Neurons fire and that Explains it. But in my way of thinking I don't see how just because Neurons Fire, I then have a Conscious Experience of Redness. They always give me all kinds of links to basic Eye Physiology and Brain Physiology and say this Explains it. Then when I say that this is all just the Neural Correlates of Conscious Experience they say I'm not reading their links. Well I studied what is in their links and a lot more for 20 years. I maintain that they are ignoring the final and most important step in the Visual Process. That is the actual Conscious Experience of Redness, or the Standard A Tone, or even the Salty Taste. For some reason they are satisfied with saying that the Conscious Experience of Redness is in the Neurons. This seems like pure Belief to me. There is no Chain of Logic that can get you from Neurons Firing to the Experience of Redness. They always get angry and rude and basically say that there is something wrong with me because I don't have their Belief. Some, but not many, admit there is no Scientific Explanation at this point in time. I'm interested once and for all to understand what is happening in that final step that might Explain the Conscious Experience of Redness. I like this prototype structure to pose a question, Given: 1) Neural Activity for Red happens in the Brain. 2) "Something" happens with the Neural Activity or as a result of the Neural Activity. 3) A Conscious Experience of Redness happens in the Mind. What "Something" can be put in 2 that would be a Logical Chain of Reasoning to bridge the Gap between 1 with 3? What is that final Step before Conscious Experience? If Redness does not work for you pick another Color, or an Audio Tone, or may be a Taste for this.

They were questioning the existence of the Visual Screen, or in other terms, the Conscious Light Screen. The experiment is: to follow the instructions in my post with regard to finding your Screen. If you follow the instructions are you able to see the Screen? Then, where do you perceive the Screen to be located? Each individual person must prove the existence of the Screen for themselves. I can only give the steps for doing this. But I am interested in the perceptions of people about this. I make no further claims except that the Screen is there embedded in the front of our faces. I don't claim any theories for what it is, so no theories are required from me about that. I am however open to all theories or other proposals of experiments that anyone might have. It may be silly but it is still there staring you in the face. Actually, it is helping you stare out into the external world. I explained exactly how to find your own Conscious Light Screen. It's not a story it is an Experiment that anyone can do. It can have negative results where you don't actually perceive the Screen, but among the vast majority of people I have surveyed over the years there is agreement that this Screen actually appears embedded in front of our faces as I have described. Also, people that were initially scoffers eventually calmed down and performed the steps that I listed and they ultimately also agreed that the Screen is as I said it was.

Did you actually read it? Were you not able to see your own Visual Noise? If you did see it then was it not embedded in the front of your face? If not, then where was this Noise located for you? I'm interested in all the different experiences that people might have. Wasn't this at least a pretty cool exercise?

If you still don't understand it, then all I can say is I gave it my best try. Don't you think it was at least a pretty cool observation? Did you really not see the Visual Noise, and wasn't it apparently embedded in the front of your face? If not, then where was the Noise located for you. I'm still compiling data on this so I would be happy to get your experience of this.

We do not See things in the external World, but rather we Detect things by using internal Conscious processes that we are born with. We all have a personal Conscious Light Screen (CLS) that we use to detect what is happening in the external World. All the Conscious Light of your Visual Experience is painted onto that Screen. If we try to describe where this CLS is located it seems to be embedded in the front of our faces in some way. The CLS is vaguely horizontally rectangular with ambiguous edges that are hard to locate exactly. The screen seems to just fade into nonexistence at the borders. But wherever you look, that screen is there showing you with Conscious Light what is in the scene you are looking at. To understand this better close your eyes and observe what you See. At first there may be various After Images that represent remnants of what you were looking at, but eventually these fade away. What is left is not totally black. Note that you might have to put your hand over your eyes if you are in a bright place in order to cut off external Light from leaking through your eyelids. Most people will notice a background that has a vague grainy noise almost like the video snow noise that used to appear on old analog TVs. Let's call this Conscious Light Noise (CLN). It is due to random Retinal and Cortical firings. CLN really is the background noise in your Visual detection system. Most people easily perceive that this CLN, and possible After Images, are close to the front of their faces. If you move your head around you will See the CLN, and After Images, move around with your head to keep them in front of your face. If you move your eyes up, down, left, or right, the CLN and After Images will seem to be displaced a little in those directions but will still basically be located in front of your face. It is interesting to note that After Images will always look close even if the scene element that caused the After Image is far away. Now you know where your CLS is located. Of course this is probably only an apparent Location because the CLS is a Conscious Mind phenomenon and is not constructed from any Physical Material that can be Located anywhere. However, it sure seems to be Embedded in the front of our faces. When you open your eyes the scene that you are looking at is painted onto your CLS and it is harder to perceive that the Conscious Light making up the image is still close to your face. Your Visual system tries to give you the illusion that there are things that are far away and things that are close. If you look through only one eye the depth illusion is less pronounced. But the Conscious Light that the scene is painted with is actually still located close to your face and is at the same distance as the CLN. The illusion of distance is absolutely necessary for moving around in the World. It should be mentioned that the things and scenes you See while Dreaming are painted onto your CLS. If you try to imagine some object, you will see a grainy, hazy, version of that object painted onto your CLS. If you rub your eyes, the Lights that you might See are painted onto your CLS. The CLS is a general purpose Visual Display Device for all Conscious beings, whether Human or Animal. The Light that is painted onto your CLS is your Light. We walk around all day long looking at our CLSs which are embedded in the front of our faces. We cannot See the CLSs of other people but if we could it would be as if everyone was wearing Virtual Reality goggles. But instead of goggles it would be Conscious Light Screens. We think we are Seeing the external World directly but we (our Conscious Minds) are always just looking (in some Conscious way) at our own CLSs.

I completely understand Neurological Function, plus I understand that Neurological Function does not Explain Conscious Sensory Experience. The links that have been posted are about the Neural Correlates of Conscious Experience, but never about actual Conscious Experience itself. It has been known for a Hundred years that there is Neural Activity correlated with Conscious Experience but nobody has ever Explained how the Neural Activity leads to a Conscious Experience of something like Redness. Wavelength and Saturation are irrelevant to the issue at hand. Please at least try to understand the issue.

I don't care if you will not even try to understand your own Conscious Experience.

So I have to assume you think my particular Speculation does not belong here in the Speculations Forum. You called it a Blog. Was it too long? What is your reason?

You clearly do not understand the issue if you want to talk about Wavelength and Saturation. But I understand it is difficult for some people. I can work with you if you want. The best way to start is to think about the Color Red or whatever Color you like for the perception of Light. If not Color then think about a Tone for the perception of Sound. Start with the Conscious Experience (Qualia) of these things. You will, if you think Deeply about them, come to understand the unique and Special nature of these simple things. You will eventually understand that there is no way to Explain how Neural Activity produces these kind of things.

Don't understand your complaint. I think this is an amazing possibility as a Speculation? This is the Speculation part of the forum, after all.

Some People Might Not Have Conscious Experiences I have always assumed that all normally functioning Human Minds would have at least similar kinds of Conscious Experiences. I have thought this for decades. But after many years of discussions about this with people it has finally become clear to me that some people actually must not have Conscious Experiences or Qualia. I limit this observation to things like the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone, the Salty Taste and so on. The Experience of Colors and especially the Experience of Redness has been a major target for my discussions with people on the various Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness Forums. There are people that flat out deny the Existence of the Experience of Redness. I think they give it their best shot at understanding it but they always fall back to just dismissing the Experience of something like Redness as pure Fantasy, Superstition, Magic, and Illusion. I have become convinced that their denials of Conscious Experience, their very words, show that they truly and simply do not perceive Redness as a kind of Experience. There is no Redness Experience. They are not Color blind so they can Detect Red in their Visual Field in some way but it seems to be more at the level of the Neural Activity. They can somehow sense that their Neurons are Firing for Red and indicate that there is Red in their Field of View but there seems to be no Experience of Redness in their Field of View. They deny any such extra Consciousness Phenomenon is happening. I used to think they were just messing with me, and I was hoping that after all these years that they would get tired of continuing their Fraud. But they are not messing with me, they truly do not have Conscious Experiences or Qualia. In fact they say that Qualia was invented by Idiot Philosophers. They are usually nasty and arrogant like that and I wonder if that is a symptom of their lack of Qualia. It is interesting that their lack of Qualia would make them living examples of the P-Zombies from Philosophy. One thing I can say is that if they really never have had an Experience of something like Redness then I can completely understand how they would think it was something Magical, and Illusory. These people simply deny the Existence of Qualia and are completely stymied by talk of Qualia. I have been astounded by the possibility that some people (mostly the Physicalists) actually might not Experience the Color Qualia. It is a mystery to me what their Inner Experience of Color could be like. I have always tried to use the Experience of Redness as a discussion point for talking about Conscious Experiences. These people literally will say that there is no such thing as Redness and they always try to compare descriptions of Experiences of Redness to Religious Experiences. I have tried for a long time to get them to describe what the Experience of Redness means to them. After receiving mostly insults, one of them gave me a description of what the Experience of Redness was from their own point of view. He dismissively said that his Experience was the same as everybody else. He described the multitude of Emotions and Memories that were Experienced while Seeing Red. He went on to describe particular Emotions and Memories. I noticed that there was no recognition of the Experience of the Redness itself, but rather it seemed like his Experience of Redness wholly consisted of Associations to other things. This seemed a little odd, but telling. So I then asked him to strip away all the Emotions, Memories, and other Associations from his Experience of Redness and tell me if there was anything still remaining in the Experience. Here is his reply: "How the {!#%@} would I know? It isn't possible for me to 'strip out all the Emotions, Memories, and any other Associations'. Further, I don't believe for a moment that you can either, Steve. This is navel-gazing, pure and simple." This person obviously does not Experience the Redness, but rather Experiences all these other things in place of the Redness Experience. He literally can not figure out what I am talking about. Notice the reference to Navel-Gazing. He still thinks that the Redness is a Religious Experience. After some further conversations I now understand what an Experience of Redness is for these Physicalists. When they think about Experiencing Redness they always branch off into talking about Emotions and Memories. For them, it appears that the actual Experience of Redness is an Experience of Emotions and an Experience of Memories. That is the Experience for them and there is nothing else for them to report. This is of course why they hate the word Qualia, because it does indeed imply that there is something else happening with the Experience of Redness. I can fully see how they would think that the concept of Qualia is Redundant to their Experience. I can fully now understand why they would think that Qualia and the Experience of Redness are different things. For the Physicalists the Experience of Redness is not what I expected. It is something different than my Experience of Redness. I Experience Redness as a Quale and they Experience Redness as associated Emotions and Memories. In fact I can say I really don't even Experience Redness as Emotions and Memories at all. I just simply Experience Redness as a Thing In Itself. Another discussion thread I have participated in where the people denied the Existence of Qualia was one where the people were convinced that we cannot see a Color until we have a Word for the Color. This seems like a very strange thing to believe. I tried in vain to convince them that the Word for the Color does not make the Color real but that the direct Experience of the Color is real. They could not understand what I was talking about. This can only make sense if you consider that they might never have Experienced a Color Quale. They instead receive some kind of Signals from their Neurons that gives them some type Indication of the different Colors but without an actual Conscious Experience of the Colors. I can see how the Words might be of prime importance to them. But yet another example of People that probably have no Conscious Experiences or Qualia are the people that don't understand the difference between a Computer detecting Red and a Human detecting Red. They probably also just Detect Red in some way but have never had an actual Experience of Redness. The evidence for this lack of Conscious Experience in some people is continuing to grow. It explains the endless arguments about Conscious Experience and Qualia. These people simply do not have Qualia. The Lights are out in their Minds. It occurred to me that the people who claim they have no Qualia or Conscious Experiences like Redness, Standard A Toneness, or Salty Tasteness are actually not even Sentient Beings. Machines can Detect Red Electromagnetic Waves , or Detect a 440Hz Tone, or Detect the presence of Salt, but a Machine is not a Sentient Being. Likewise, the Physicalists on the Forum are technically not Sentient Beings if their claim about not having Qualia is true.

I don't say: Conscious Experience = The Redness of Red. But I do say : The Redness of Red is a Conscious Experience.

That's ok if you want to continue to Mess with me. The post was not vague: I'm talking about the Redness of Red in the Visual Experience, the A-ness of the Standard A Tone, and the Saltiness of the Salty Taste. From Philosophy it would be the Qualia of Redness, A-ness, and Saltiness. It is the thing that you Experience in your Mind as a result of the Neural Processing. Let me read this for you: "I'm talking about the Redness of Red in the Visual Experience, the A-ness of the Standard A Tone, and the Saltiness of the Salty Taste. From Philosophy it would be the Qualia of Redness, A-ness, and Saltiness." No mention of "Heat". I specifically said what it is that I am looking for. For you to bring up Heat means you cannot read three sentences and put the thoughts together from them.

I'm talking about the Redness of Red in the Visual Experience, the A-ness of the Standard A Tone, and the Saltiness of the Salty Taste. From Philosophy it would be the Qualia of Redness, A-ness, and Saltiness. It is the thing that you Experience in your Mind as a result of the Neural Processing.

All I'm trying to do is to get you to think in different ways about things. I did not say that Consciousness itself was embedded n the front of my face. But I must insist though that the Conscious Visual Experience does seem to be embedded in the front of my face as an actual Screen of some sort. Maybe not embedded in your face. Maybe you just have not realized it yet.

For emphasis. It is the way humans experience the audio A tone. Which leads to How humans experience the audio A tone?