I just came across this thread - I never am up to date - but I feel I must comment. I have never before seen the conceptual differences described as Grey has here. It makes sense and yet embodies the paradox which causes people to argue round and round like so many moths drawn to a candle. I can't help thinking though that the UMSITW idea caters to all the arguments and objections. Consciousness is a process rather than a thing of some sort, but it is embodied by relatively discreet component processes which none the less can rapidly mutate, disappear, reincarnate themselves, or endure either explicitly or implicitly sometimes for both short and or long periods, One aspect of the paradox is displayed in Steve Lehar's insistence that we look carefully at what we see - ie as it appears to us, because it has to be true that the details of the experience must exist somewhere inside one's own head. Many people don't like this idea because it offends their naively realistic assumptions about the world. If we make clear however that the experience at any given moment is NOT our apprehension of the "actual" world but rather the active construction of a rendition of all the salient features. In other words the experience is the brain's modelling of its universe, and of Its self in that universe. Or, to put it my favorite way, it is what it is like to be the updating of the brain's model of self in the world.. At any given moment this will only involve part of what the brain is doing, and the rest is unconscious. It would be extremely difficult to pin down at that moment exactly which of the billions of neuronal events occurring every second are part of the conscious experience and which not. Indeed the question doesn't really make sense.

Part of the problem with answering that last question, is the implication that might be taken from a positive answer, that I believe that there is a single neural correlate of consciousness, that has a 1 to 1 relationship to conscious experience. That is not what I believe, and I want to be clear about that. The greater question, of whether a subset of representation is equivalent to conscious phenomena, is of considerably more interest to me. Part of the problem is to define what we mean by experience, or phenomenal experience. Perhaps what I would say, is that we have a superset of subsets that makes up our conscious experience. In other words we experience the superset, and it is clearly made up of smaller experential elements that are bound together in some way so as to seem Qualar. Because the superset is Qualar, Phenomenal Philosophers, claim that the subsets can't exist. And because there is no 1 to 1 mapping between the sets that the subsets are made from, and the subsets, it is very difficult to argue that the superset represents the sets that the subsets were based on.

Thanks Grey, That makes lots of sense, as long as you understand the goals, and have a good rational for structuring things the way you have. And thanks for updating your mind expert camp. The related nick name id simply allows the algorithm to relate the camp (and how many are supporting it) to your nick name. So when your nick name is supporting a camp, it knows how to calculate a score for you from your mind expert camp, when it is selected on the side bar. After our extended discussions on consciousness I recognize you as clearly an expert in this field. So I've also joined your camp. Out of all the experts in the world, I'm indicating I think you are one of the top 10. And since Sphire000 has delegated his vote to me on this topic, his vote goes along with me in your camp. So you now have 3 camp supporters that agree you are a world class expert on consciousness. Sphire000 is not an expert, so his vote doesn't count like mine when the Mind Experts canonizer is selected. As I indicated, you can increase your mind expert value by indicating who else are experts relative to each other besides yourself, simply by joining at least one other camp on the mind experts topic. As far as your belief about representations, I would completely agree that there is much more to the representations in the brain than that which we are consciously aware of. Would you also agree that there must be something, perhaps a significant subset, or some 1 to 1 property of such that is precisely our conscious knowledge or conscious awareness? In other words, there is not anything that is our knowledge, that it not part of something in our brain? Upward, Brent Allsop

Ok, first of all, let me try to explain why I have built so many camps. The problem lies in the fact that most current camps in the physicalist/materialist/not-supernatural camps are based either on the assumption that there is some ghostly aspect to consciousness that can't be synthesized by existing science, hence a need to study QM, Dark matter or something exotic, or that there is a 1 to 1 correspondence between brain representations and phenomenal aspects of consciousness. To say that the brain is representative falls into the trap of choosing between one or the other of these camps. Philosophers are having a hey day attacking the 1 to 1 correspondence approach with I think some reason, and the Exotic camps seem to be stuck on regressive approaches which haven't changed materially since the homunculus. The representative/Illusary approach explains why there isn't a 1 to 1 mapping of representation to Phenomenal aspect of consciousness, and the reason is that the Phenomenal aspect of Consciousness is often simplified by the nature of the control mechanisms that regulate it, so that it seems simpler than the representations actually required to make it work. In other words there are more states of representation than can be detected from conscious phenomena. This is the point of view I hope to promote in the representational/illusary camp. The problem with this approach is that it eliminates a major viewpoint that of the 1 to 1 or identity camp. The second camp, the Architectural Illusion camp, represents a suggestion for how to replace the identity camp. Now this camp is controversial in a way that the representative /illusary camp isn't. What it suggests is that there are architectural reasons for the way that the representations are formed, and for the illusions that are formed as a result of simplification for control purposes. Thus a different architecture of mind would not necessarily have the same representative and illusary elements. The differences between the early representational forms, and the Illusary phenomenal might therefore tell us something about the architecture required for the particular phenomenal illusions to exist. Finally we come to my third camp where I present the opinion that consciousness according the architectural Illusary camp, is probably the private preserve of Mammals and Birds. This is based on the idea that the seeds of consciousness probably lie in the architectural changes that were made at the time of the Dinosaur Die-off where birds and Mammals outsurvived many lizard like animals by becoming more flexible. Possibly indicating a role for Omnivorus species in the development of consciousness. This is of course even more controversial than the last camp. I will try to see if I can fix the mind-experts linkage, I should note that I did not fill out the link value because the program suggested that I didn't need to and that it was standard not to. I am not really clear on what exactly the field does.

Hi Grey, Yes, adding survey capabilities, and POV structure (critically important so people can focus on what they agree on, rather than their disagreements) definitely makes things much more complicated than a simple wiki. Thank you for taking the time to figure out what we have so far. It sounds like you are quite literate with computers. This entire system is being developed in an open source way by volunteers. In addition any time spent on development by anyone, including making suggestions or pointing out problems is recognized equally with 'shares' of Canonizer LLC (see the [http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/4 topic on development compensation] for more info and disclaimers.) So feel free to make suggestions or help us make things better. There is still lots that can be done to this still early system. Just a few comments about your contributions so far. And remember, this is just my POV, so if you want to do things differently - that is fine too. Our goal is to make the system what everyone wants it to be. One goal is to have as few camps as possible - while still fully concisely capturing what all participators believe. We want to make it very easy for the lay person to learn exactly what most experts think - and the more camps there are - the more difficult this becomes. Currently, your beliefs are spread across 4 nested camps. Typically, the only reason to split a camp is if there are multiple people in a camp that disagree on a particular doctrine. I think it would be great if you combined all this into one concise camp. As more people join your camp, you will likely find disagreements, and at that time you can start 'forking' things to best represent what you all believe. We don't yet have a way to delete camps, but you can recycle them by changing their name and parent camp as is done [http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/23/23 here]. (It's better to use a recycled camp than to create a new one since you get a lower camp id.) Also, in your [http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/81/24 Mind Expert Camp], you've included more than just your name in the title. I would think such would be inappropriate because while someone may think you are a great expert, they may or may not support something like an Institute. I would think including information about something like this is perfectly appropriate in the camp statement - just not in the name. Before your camp can be used by the 'mind experts' canonizer algorithm your nick name id must be linked to the camp. Your nick name id for Grey is 131. If you "Manage/Edit" your mind expert camp, there is a field where you can add this "Related Nick Name" id number. Once you make these modifications, let me know and I'll join your camp. Once there are more people than you in the camp, any modifications you make must be in review for one week before they go live - in case anyone objects to the modification. All changes made to unsupported camps go live instantly like Wikipedia. Finally, you are currently only supporting your camp on this Mind Experts topic. As is described in the [http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/53/11 camp describing how the 'Mind Expert' algorithm currently works] anyone only supporting themselves is significantly punished in the amount of mind expert points they get. You can rank multiple people by supporting more than one 'camp' in a specified order. If you do this, even if you still rank yourself as the top expert, you will earn much more influence by the 'mind experts' scientific consensus algorithm. Thanks!! Brent Allsop

Thanks Brent, It took a while for me to find the time to figure out the interface far enough to register to my own camp structure. I hope you do find people that will join me in my new representative/illusary camp, where we recognize that part of the problem with defining consciousness is seeing through the illusions to the real representative nature of the system that produces it.

Hi Grey, Welcome to the "Consciousness Has Nothing To Do With The Supernatural" camp. Thanks for your new camp contributions. I'm sure there is a significant number of people that would agree with you, and we're always happy to have someone take the initiative to get this camp started. I'll be encouraging other people I find that think like this to also join the camp you've started. Also, I'm sure everyone supporting a camp on this topic on consciousness would like to get to know you, so feel free to start a thread in the [http://canonizer.com/forum.asp/88/1 Topic Forum] where you introduce your self. Also, you are clearly an expert on consciousness, so at least I would like to see a new camp representing you in the [http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/81 Mind Experts] topic which is used by the [http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/53/11 Mind Experts] canonization algorithm. Feel free to create a camp about you containing some biographical information, and to vote for who you think are the best or 'top 10' 'Mind Experts'. Upward, Brent Allsop