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Guidosoft,I know you're not a scientist, let alone a cognitive scientist. I agree with NosyNed that consciousness is not a "thing".Really understanding emergence and really understanding consciousness takes a lot of hard work. Are you up for some reading? There's quite a bit of research on consciousness and visual experience. The things that we see... are strange. Are you willing to do some difficult reading and to consider some interesting but difficult observations about human consciousness?If you are, I can try and work through some of this stuff with you. But it's some hard work; so I don't want either of us to spend our time on it unless you really want to think hard about this stuff.Let me know!Ben

OK Guidosoft,Glad to see you're interested in finding out more, and really pushing your ideas with new information. I think it's the best way to go, so I'm happy to see your willingness.I'm going to take data from a very interesting, but difficult, research paper:O'Regan, J.K. & Noe, A. (2001). A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24: 939-1031.Since the paper is very difficult, I will be taking the scientific experiments and observations out, one by one for you, and posting them here for you, for your consideration. I'm offering the observations as a way for you to think about consciousness, and how it changes in different situations. I'll try to answer questions you have and ask you critical questions about thoughts or explanations for what is being observed.I gotta run for now; I'll post a short list of observations made here later; then I'll post an in-depth look at the first one in the list. So expect a post back from me later today, explaining the first observation.Ben

Guidosoft,Just to let you know, my computer basically crashed two days ago, and I've been busy getting things back together; that's why I haven't been able to post per my promise. Sorry about that.As for the paper I ref'd; the purpose I mentioned the paper is not because it explains consciousness, but because it brings up many scientific scenarios where conscious experience behaves strangely. Focus on the experiments and data; I believe they speak to the relationship between the mind, the body, and consciousness.I'll work on getting things together, but I'm 2 days behind at the moment... sorry about all that.Ben

Hi nwr,Don't mean to pull this thread too far astray, but I was hoping you'd clarify: If pragmatic judgments are not partially based on truth or falsity, what are they based on? Are you saying they are not deductive, but rather probabilistic? Or are you just saying they're deductive, but executed without "true" or "false" knowledge of all conditions?I think computers can have "free will" just fine (to the degree that it can have general cognitive capacities at all). I see humans and computers as both built off of deterministic systems, but each being capable of executing pragmatic decisions.Anyway.Ben