Ned Block – Language and Consciousness

26 thoughts on “Ned Block – Language and Consciousness”

1. It's becoming clearer that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with primary consciousness will probably have to come first.

2. Can you have consciousness without perception ? This is a question for life !

3. What?

4. Consciousness explained. https://studylib.es/doc/8080182/una-explicación-para-la-conciencia

5. No.

6. I'm in college and feel dumb AF. Like if you agree.

7. What is the basis for Block's animal judgments? As far as I can tell, it is pure prejudgment grounding these claims about this or that animal – these guys really need to do field work. Though, that helps only where people are willing to learn (rather than to merely confirm judgments).

8. My decades of observing and interacting with wild animals has convinced me that there are many levels of consciousness, and many types of language, and we have no clue which, if any of them, are superior or inferior to ours. All I can say for certain is that we have separated ourselves from the natural world around us to such an extent that we will likely never be able to get back to it, and I find that very, very sad.

9. Telepathy is proven to be real. This would suggest that “language” means little imo but Communication would be a key component in consciousness.

10. Kudos — 444 Gematria — 🗽

11. Wow these comments are wordy, and is it just that I'm over my head or does it seem like too much thinking out loud with more if it simply being loud than thinking. This stuff is hard and it's okay to admit that you don't know what the hell your talking about. At least that seems better than belching out loud whatever random disjointed jumble of thoughts enter your mind on the subject with no consideration whether someone will be able to make sense of them. That's your job … To make you into a genius. Not the job if your reader to do that.

12. I think in terms of concepts, and I use language to try to explain the concepts and their meaning. The concepts are independent of language.

13. There are two kinds of animal experiments, necessary and just business as usual. It's not like any animal has ever filed a complain or those people care about their suffering, but to be an intellectual presuppose capacity for a significant level of ethics and empathy. One important fact, if somebody want to understand how being a living creature feels like, he doesn't need any technology, blueprint or subjects, since everybody can examine himself or people can learn about animal organisms by trying to heal and help them when they're naturally damaged. And after organism is dead, scientist are free to do whatever they must or they simply want to learn about inner composition and workings of what was left from it's body. But it's probably most easy to just order few packs or lab mouses, since they're cheap and easy to farm. And large majority of experiments are not necessity, vivisection is performed as daily corporate routine or for educational purposes, also just for the Hell of it, like those mammals are no different than a toilet paper and other consumer stuff. Only hundred years ago people were debating if animals can feel true agony or just strong sensations, because some organic part broke down and torn muscles were twitching on their own, since animals were not supposed to feel pain. Than somebody stud up to those idiots and prove once and for all animals can very much feel the same kind of pain humans do, even if they can't make sense of their own deliberately caused and meaningless agony. Most useful knowledge in human medicine came from procedures performed on soldiers and civilians during wars and natural disasters.
    Question is, how could human and animals consciousness be the same? I'm not saying animals are innocent victims and humans are just evil, animals can be brutal and cruel beyond believe, but evil they are most definitely not, just bad to the bones, irrational and selfish, like all life is. If we want to compare animal and human consciousnesses, than we should recognize human kind as divergent anomaly or we simply can't attribute conscious mental state to an animal world.

14. Anything which can be made into a computer is not an essential part of consciousness, consciousness is the irreducible part of the mental world.

15. What about sign language? Definitely it was used before we became vocally intelligent…. Even a new born child has consciousness no?

16. The perception of reality just after birth develops the basic cognition of a rational environment and thus rationality. Because reality is rational, we become rational. We can rationalize before we can verbalize. Consciousness emerges from cognition. As we recognize that our body is 'independent of other real world entities' so we come to recognize that we have a dominant mental cognitive thread and we take this to be consciousness.

17. My cat does not talk to me but my cat tells
    me what to do.

18. The cakra (chakra) model of a person illustrates how consciousness creates experience using Sanskrit. The cakras form between the tiers of abstraction as consciousness manifests objects. The Sanskrit alphabet is the vibrations produced by the expansion of energy into more detailed forms and is represented as petals around the wheels.

19. Consider the following:
    Un-named concept -> Given a name -> With an attached meaning -> With maybe other meanings depending upon context -> And maybe even other names with the same meaning.
    (Basically a dictionary and thesaurus for a specific language).

    So, 'Un-named' concepts would be the beginning of language itself, an 'Un-named' concept which may or may not exist in actual reality. But, if it does not exist in actual reality (ie: 'absolute nothingness'), only apparently come into existence as a concept from a conscious entity in 'absolute somethingness'. Consciousness would be a requirement to have concepts come into existence that do not actually exist. So, 'Consciousness' would have to exist BEFORE items come into existence AS CONCEPTS ALONE.

    BUT, an actual 'absolute somethingness' would seem have to come BEFORE 'Consciousness', for how could 'Consciousness' exist without something existing allowing it to exist? At a minimum, that 'absolute somethingness' would have to interact with itself in some way for it to have Consciousness as well as having memories and thoughts. For how could it exist and do what it apparently does otherwise?

    Now, modern science claims that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Hence, energy is truly eternally existent, or modern science is wrong. In addition, an 'absolute somethingness' cannot come from 'absolute nothingness', ('absolute nothingness' just being a concept from a conscious entity in 'absolute somethingness'). So, an actual 'absolute somethingness' most probably truly eternally exists. That 'absolute somethingness' most probably being energy itself.

    And energy interacting with itself could cause things to occur, and apparently does. Our consciousness, memories and thoughts are most probably energy interacting with itself in various ways.

    But now, for 'God', or 'Universal Consciousness', or 'Intelligent Designer', etc., to actually exist and do what they are claimed as doing, they would have to be made up of an 'absolute somethingness' that would come BEFORE their existence, here again, that 'absolute somethingness' most probably being energy itself.

    And then also, if 'God', or 'Universal Consciousness', or 'Intelligent Designer', etc., could come into existence from interacting eternally existent 'absolute somethingness', then why couldn't a functioning universe come into existence from interacting eternally existent 'absolute somethingness'? Which is harder to do in actual reality? Creating 'God's' Consciousness with memories and thoughts, or creating a functioning universe with just interacting eternally existent 'absolute somethingness'?

    Occam's razor, a scientific principal, would seem to indicate that a universe coming into existence from interacting energy would be more probable rather than 'God's' Consciousness coming into existence and then a universe coming into existence from 'God'.

    And then also, the universe most probably ALWAYS existed as an eternally existent 'absolute somethingness', most probably being energy interacting with itself, and NEVER had a beginning, and most probably will never ever end. (As modern science claims that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. That, or here again, modern science would be wrong if energy could be destroyed.)

    And since supposedly energy interacting with itself did so throughout all of eternity past, it would most probably do so throughout all of future eternity. (No guarantees though. Future eternity is a really, really long time.)

    And with 'spacetime', 'space' being energy itself, and 'time' being the flow of energy, 'space' and 'time' ALWAYS existed and most probably ALWAYS will. There was never a time when 'space' and 'time' did not actually exist.

    Of which also, does everything in existence even actually exist, OR does ONLY eternally existent 'absolute somethingness' (most probably eternally existent energy), exist as all things? How could "I" ever die if "I" never ever existed at all in the first place but that eternally existent 'absolute somethingness' was existing as 'me'? By giving up my entire being, I obtain an actual eternal conscious existence in an environment that has no beginning and most probably will never end. (No guarantees though. Here again, future eternity is a really, really long time.) "I" will exist for however long "I" exist for, possibly even eternally throughout all of future eternity, but probably not. Why would "I" want to actually exist throughout all of future eternity? What ultimately for? Just to exist and to be able to claim that "I" am eternally existent? Or maybe just exist as interacting eternally existent energy that allows other things to experience existence? "I" am 'Universal Consciousness'? "I" am in essence 'God'? Or maybe not.

20. How do percepts turn into concepts without language? What is an example of a concept that does not require language?
    Also, aren't there only 2 cognitions: compare and contrast, and one to one correspondence or the association of two different things? What other cognitions are there?

21. 0:34
    activedating.online

22. To me, language is just 1 of many skills that is acquired through learning. Learning emerges from consciousness.

23. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

24. “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
    ― George Orwell

25. “silence is the language of god,
    all else is poor translation.”
    ― Rumi

26. “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
    ― George Orwell

Comments are closed.