Dear John,
I agree: consciousness is not the place to start, so that’s why I am treating it as
an unknown variable, in structure, form and content still to be
determined.
It will eventually have to be further
elaborated, but first I think it might be wise to concentrate on the other term,
which he called paralysis.
Paralysis means, in his rendition, has to do with loss of specific
capabilities that neurosci SMEs have names for. That use of the words is
what I am trying to capture in the Self Interest Ontology.
To ultimately define the whole Ontology,
we first have to define the self, in the words that
specialist SMEs use. So both consciousness and paralysis eventually have
to be refined in an iterative way.
Paralysis has to be refined first, IMHO, because consciousness is created in part by the experiences we associate with actions
and objects.
Our experiences are memories of the objects
we have experienced in the past, and memories of the actions we have observed, or
performed by our self, or by other selfs.
Those stored memories are retrieved, and
they define what we can think about, and what we experience, in the future.
Paralysis refers to the loss of the capabilities enumerated in the
vocabulary of those actions and objects which we are no longer able to
perform. So they are intensively interrelated semantically.
Thus I am suggesting a top down design of
the Self Interest Ontology using words which are mentioned and related to his
theory of what maps into or out of what in neurophysiology terms.
That way, in future work, we can still further
refine those terms. Wherever the need for further refinement exists and
is justifiable, that’s where we should focus further refinement.
I think he is saying that consciousness is
based on sensory and motor feedback loops, and the purposes to which they are
put when using the neurosci viewpoint.
Clearly we can only go so far before
reaching a practical limit of what its worth to us. Consider this exploratory.
Refinement stops when no TBDs are worth the effort to further refine.
That makes it a top level ontology waiting
for further applications.
Each application, by contrast, has words to
start from the bottom of the ontology. At some point, they refine the words
in the upper ontology onto their application words to render the
application.
The result is a Self Interest Ontology in
refinement. We started with defining Self. Now there is neuroscientist with a clear and elaborate
explanation of what Self actually is, in physiological terms. That is the basis of
the Self Interest Ontology, as I have proposed it.
Interest comes later.
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
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From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of John Bottoms
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2012 6:55
PM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest Ontology
Rich,
It certainly is an interesting topic for anyone who has passed time thinking
about consciousness.
However...I am more than a little suspicious about any neuro*-work that has
been turned into a music composition.
Further, consciousness is such a large topic that it touches on every bit of an
ontology. It might even define the scope and domain of the ontology. That is
too large a work area to attempt. A reduction in scope is in order. Don't get
me wrong; I am intrigued but it reminds me of my 7th grade days when I wanted
to study calculus. My mother explained that I needed algebra, trig and geometry
before that would be possible.
And, as I have said before; it is nigh on to impossible to make any progress in
defining a useful ontology without a problem statement or a set of use
cases. Linguists know that environment defines and shapes a language. It is true
of ontologies also.
-John Bottoms
FirstStar Systems
Concord, MA
On 8/24/2012 8:33 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:
If there is any interest in this topic, here is a TED
talk by Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist, who correlates the self with
conscious awareness of self, locates it in the brain, and describes many
related thing (structure, fiber pathways, damage to specific regions …)
and how those things interact with the experience of self.
http://www.ted.com/talks/antonio_damasio_the_quest_to_understand_consciousness.html
His rendition from a neurosci perspective, is that the
information sensed by each body sensor, and processed in the cortex, visual, auditory
parts of the brain, is “made available to the motor cortex and the
hindbrain”.
That is where he locates the self, in two small
regions adjacently spanning the width of the brainstem.
His perspective is literate and informative and he
spells out his theories of how that perspective was justified in his view. I
propose that his rendition of the self is what needs to be nominated as the
official
SELF INTEREST ONTOLOGY
And I so nominate it. Now the problem will be to
codify it into assertions that can be agreed on. It would be useful to
transcribe his statements into text. Does any agree, disagree or has quit
reading object to this?
Damage in each one of those two regions has unique
results, which he describes eloquently as “consciousness” on the
one hand, and “paralysis” on the other. So I propose
this, in my own chosen form of logic:
type Self =
Consciousness : TBD0;
Paralysis : TBD1;
;
At this point, that’s all I have to contribute
about how to refine the Self in each of the ways that the good professor
related so well.
Refinements of TBD0 and TBD1 according to his
perspective would be welcome comments if anyone wants to make one. Are
there any specialists in the crowd?
-Rich
The regions seem to be paired parallel to the kidney
pairing further down in the brainstem than I find comfortable.
Together, a cross-section of the region would be the
size of your neck bone’s nerve bundle. That’s thinner than I
am comfortable with, but who would have known?
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
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