What Wind Tunnels Can Tell Us About Consciousness

[lorenzop]

A model is a model of something. The cosmos is everything so it can't be a model of something else. Even if it were or could be, it is irrelevant to the discussion because consciousness arises in the organisms in the cosmos, not in the cosmos in its entirety.

This is were we differ - except in the most trivial sense, a model is NOT a model of something that exists. A model is a physical pattern, shape etc.
If an engineer is developing a aircraft wing, that engineer might test (model) various shapes and patterns, simple or complex, perhaps in a wind tunnel - that's the point of a model - to test a pattern or shape or design that does not exist.

This ismy understanding of the claim evolution is a model - natural selection models or tests the suitability of patterns, shapes, designs, etc.

Another use of a model is to make predictions, which what I think you are getting at when you suggest consciousness is a model. Like a weather\climate model makes predictions . . . but this is not a physical model so I don't quite get how consciousness is a physical model.

So, does nature build\evaluate models or not?
If consciousness is a physical model, what space does it occupy, where is it located?

[Jim Cross]

A model is a model of something. The cosmos is everything so it can't be a model of something else. Even if it were or could be, it is irrelevant to the discussion because consciousness arises in the organisms in the cosmos, not in the cosmos in its entirety.

This is were we differ - except in the most trivial sense, a model is NOT a model of something that exists. A model is a physical pattern, shape etc.
If an engineer is developing a aircraft wing, that engineer might test (model) various shapes and patterns, simple or complex, perhaps in a wind tunnel - that's the point of a model - to test a pattern or shape or design that does not exist.

This ismy understanding of the claim evolution is a model - natural selection models or tests the suitability of patterns, shapes, designs, etc.

Another use of a model is to make predictions, which what I think you are getting at when you suggest consciousness is a model. Like a weather\climate model makes predictions . . . but this is not a physical model so I don't quite get how consciousness is a physical model.

So, does nature build\evaluate models or not?
If consciousness is a physical model, what space does it occupy, where is it located?

Good discussion.

that's the point of a model - to test a pattern or shape or design that does not exist.

It must exist physically to test it in a wind tunnel.

So, does nature build\evaluate models or not?
If consciousness is a physical model, what space does it occupy, where is it located?

Evolution builds physical models. Through random mutation, epigenetic influences, genes transfers, and other mechanisms not fully understood, it creates new attributes and eventually new species. Each organism in this process has a physical existence and is subject to natural selection in the physical world. Each physical organism is a model tested by natural selection. To the extent it survives and reproduces, its design is passed on.

The brain is a real-time extension of this process with its own internal model developed from learning.