Graham Glass, etc.

Rails no-brainer?

I've been using Rails for about 4 years and have often wondered why it doesn't implement the following concept; a Rails controller could define a method like:

def mymethod(a, b)
end

and if you invoked the method with mymethod&a=14&b=hi that Rails would automatically set the variable "a'" to "14" and "b" to "hi".

Right now, you have to write methods like:

def mymethods
  a = params[:a]
  b = params[:b]
  ...
end 

Does anyone have any insight into why Rails doesn't support this?

An alternative theory for "subconsciousness", Part 2

When people talk about consciousness versus unconsciousness, there's usually the assumption that there's a "conscious" part of the brain that is thinking and experiencing the world, and other "subconscious" parts of the brain that are in the dark and just doing stuff without actually experiencing the world on their own.

But the disconnect/reconnect thought experiment made me consider an alternative explanation.

Perhaps a brain can be thought of as comprised of a set of regions, where each region is independently conscious? When two regions merge (i.e. integrate their information flows), they form a single unified consciousness, and when a region splits it forms into two separate consciousnesses. 

For example, imagine that you're concentrating very hard on a tough intellectual problem. A significant portion of your brain would orient around solving the problem and isolate itself from other areas such as the audio region and somatic region in order to work undisturbed. According to my theory, these regions are still conscious, even thought they're much "dumber" than the unified consciousness they were part of. The audio center would still experience sounds, although it would not be able to identify them in any high-level way. Similarly, the somatic regions would still experience a movement of your leg but would not be able to articulate this in any way.

From the "dominant" brain region's perspective, the audio and somatic regions are now effectively invisible since information is no longer flowing between them. But each region is in fact still conscious in its own right. If something in the audio region was jolting enough, the signals from the audio region would probably trigger reintegration with the "dominant" brain region, which would consider the audio region as being previously in its "subconscious". But the audio region was actually conscious the entire time!

In everyday life, I imagine that the regions of a brain are continuously splitting and merging, sometimes within milliseconds. I visualize a brain as a shimmering, continuously reorganizing set of regions, and consciousness as something that merges and splits according to the topology of the regions.

And somewhere in this theory potentially lurks some more clues to the Hard Problem...

An alternative theory for "subconsciousness", Part 1

I've entertained myself with quite a few fun thought experiments about consciousness recently, and here is one example that's inspired by split-brain patients.

Imagine that you have a way to disconnect/reconnect the two hemispheres of a brain by flipping a switch. What would it be like from the brain's perspective?

From what we know of split-brain patients, an individual hemisphere can be independently conscious when separated from its partner. So when you disconnect two hemispheres, each would continue to be conscious, albeit with a subset of its original senses, memories, and processing capacity. 

So you'd go instantly from a single, unified consciousness to two completely independent consciousnesses. Each hemisphere would have an unbroken experience of being conscious, perhaps experiencing a "dimming" effect when it's disconnected from the other hemisphere. Each hemisphere would be "dumber" than the original unified consciousness, and might experience monocular instead of binocular vision as well as mono audio instead of stereo.

Now imagine what would happen when you reconnected the hemispheres.

Each hemisphere would suddenly feel more intelligent and regain its original sensory capabilities. It would be opposite of the original "dimming" effect - perhaps more like a "brightening" of the world. Monocular vision would become binocular, and mono audio would become stereo.

I spent an hour lying on my bed trying to imagine the process from a particular hemisphere's perspective. I'd cover up one eye, cover up an ear, and pretended to forget certain facts and skills. Then I'd uncover the eye and ear, and experience "fullness" again.

This thought experiment underscores the relation between consciousness and integration. When two hemispheres are integrated, they form a single, unified mind and a single consciousness. When they're separated, they form two simpler minds, each with its own consciousness. And since the process is reversible, it's possible to recombine the two minds/consciousnesses into one.

And it's this thought experiment that led me to an alternative theory for subconsciousness.....

The Hard Problem

I've been interested in the "Hard Problem" of consciousness for a long time, and have decided to start blogging about my thoughts in this area.

In a nutshell, the "Hard Problem" is: why do brains experience anything?

Cognitive Science/A.I. specialists have lots of theories about how a brain can analyze a visual scene, set and accomplish goals, make predictions, etc. and this is the realm of information processing. The "Hard Problem", on the other hand, tackles what at first seems like a simpler question: why does a thinking machine "experience" the color red or the sound of a harp?

To the best of my knowledge, no-one has come close to answering this question, which is why it's so attractive. It's like Fermat's last theorem for cognitive scientists!

I'm going to try and regularly blog my theories, thought experiments, and ideas related to consciousness and the Hard Problem.