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Jeromy Anglim
Jeromy Anglim
12:01 AM
@BenBrocka I know what you mean about asking questions and then getting to the answer before you've posted. Then you have the dilemma of whether to post and whether to answer your own question. I think it's good for the internet, but it can look a little silly.
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
@JeromyAnglim yeah. In this case I decided not to post because I couldn't find a good way to phrase the question
@JeromyAnglim That's a case where it's an issue of completeness (thus CW with one large, "canonical" answer)
 
Jeromy Anglim
Jeromy Anglim
12:47 AM
Just posted some conference promotion ideas: meta.cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/150/52
 
Josh
Josh
Good ideas @Jeromy!
Now, I am off to eat dinner, as I have just witnessed my ideas for some new code crumble before my eyes, lol
Have a nice night!
 
Jeromy Anglim
Jeromy Anglim
ciao
 
Stack Exchange
Stack Exchange
0
Q: Are there any email discussion lists popular in cognitive science or psychology?

Jeromy AnglimIn the world of the programming language, R, there is the R tag on stack overflow and there is the old-school r-help mailing list. From an infrastructure perspective stack overflow is so much better, but r-help has a really smart community. Are there any popular email discussion lists in psycho...

discussion site-promotion
 
Stack Exchange
Stack Exchange
1:23 AM
0
Q: How to include cogsci.se as an accompanying Q&A site for a conference?

Jeromy AnglimWhen thinking about conference promotion ideas in order to reach out to academic experts, I thought the following might be really cool: Integrated conference Q&A Site: See if cogsci.se can be linked to a conference similar to the way that some conferences use Twitter and hashtags; i.e.,...

discussion site-promotion
 
 
5 hours later…
Stack Exchange
Stack Exchange
6:23 AM
0
Q: Are questions about the publication process in psychology and cognitive science permitted?

Jeromy AnglimI recently asked what I believe is the first question on the site about the publication process rather than about substantive knowledge in psychology and cognitive science. What are the major changes the APA Publication Manual between the 5th and 6th editions? I think this is an important que...

discussion scope
 
 
8 hours later…
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
2:24 PM
What do we do about this question?
-2
Q: Regarding imagined beings and identity

alan2hereI think here the key part of identity is a seperation of you'r thoughts from others. By imagined beings I mean sentient seeming entites from places such as dreams and imagination as well as in physiological conditions that seem to cause such separation. A being can seem to have identity, but per...

consciousness dreams
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
@BenBrocka Phew ... you mean questionS perhaps? :)
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
@BenBrocka if I had enough rep to vote-to-close, then I would have voted as such. I think there are interesting related cogsci questions the author could ask, but the current question is not very scientific.
Also, the question is not particularly researched. If there was a substantial effort put into framing the question in view of existing literature, then I might be less inclined to close.
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
I already VtC but wasn't sure if I should flag it. I agree about the lack of research
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
remember, it is okay to close questions, they can be reopened after if the user puts effort into improving it.
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
It's very specific yet I don't even know where I would begin to find the information they want or what they know
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
2:30 PM
@BenBrocka Flag it, this question can't be fixed. I wouldn't know how. He can however post a new much more limited question, which might not get closed if he can relate it to cogsci.
@BenBrocka Very specific? I can imagine 20+ possible questions arising from this 'one' question.
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
It's specific because he wants it all at once...making it almost impossible to answer even if all the answers to these questions are out there
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
@BenBrocka Oh, that's what you implied. :) Yes, true.
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
In general, I think there is nothing wrong with being happy with the close button. I like this comment-template from cstheory that explains that it is not the end of a question's life if it is closed.
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
visitors per day still climbing
 
Josh
Josh
Morning everyone
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
2:34 PM
@ArtemKaznatcheev those are some looooong templates :P
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
Nice idea though, comment templates.
If just you could link those automatically to custom close reasons. :)
 
Josh
Josh
@StevenJeuris there's a userscript which gives you comment templates... um...
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
userscript shudder
 
Josh
Josh
80
Q: AutoReviewComments - Pro-forma comments for SE

Benjol No more re-typing the same comments over and over! This script adds a little 'auto' link next to all comments boxes. When you click the link, you see a popup with 6 configurable auto-comments, which you can easily click to insert. This script was inspired by answers to this question on meta...

script
@BenBrocka awww come on, userscripts ftw!
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
@Josh Thanks.
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
2:38 PM
@Josh No better way to break other people's sites :P
 
Josh
Josh
lol true
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
@BenBrocka yeah, but cstheory gets A LOT of off-topic questions... so you would be surprised how often that comment (or a subset of it) is used.
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
AH. Yeah I was wondering how often you must get those questions to make a question just for templates
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
His comment: "How about question 4 then, "How much identity do sentient seeming entites found in dreams typically have?", defining in detail what I mean by identity in the question as I have here. I lack some of the terminology as well, for example the inception paragraph could presumably be reduced to a single word or turm if I knew what the word or term was. "
I invited him to chat. Will probably be a bit easier.
Welcome @alan2here!
 
alan2here
alan2here
Thanks Steven Jeuris, this is most appreciated.
This should probably be a meta question, sorry for clogging up the comments with this :¬P I didn't realise that the question would be so controversial or that I has asked it so badly.
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
2:52 PM
There are some people active here who can help determining whether or not one of the questions you are interested in relating to your original question would be on-topic.
@BenBrocka, @ArtemKaznatcheev ;p
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
@alan2here Badly for the format of our site anyway. It's currently very hard to answer and almost impossible to answer completely with proper research
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
@alan2here Well for one thing, I suggest you stick to just one question. Decompose it and see whether topics you address would be on-topic for CogSci, or ask that here.
Ideally, look around on the internet what information you can find already and incorporate that into your question.
So for starters I would wonder whether or not 'identity' is a CogSci subject. @BenBrocka?
 
alan2here
alan2here
It's hard to word in a way for Google that gets relevent information. I'm not for example asking about your sence of self in dreams, something I know much more about.
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
@alan2here it is hard work to ask a good question, that is to be expected.
 
alan2here
alan2here
I've sugested one of the 9 possible questions to break it into, question 4, see above. Is this a good sub-question for a more specific question to re-ask?
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
3:00 PM
@alan2here before re-asking. I would take the time to figure out if 'identity' is well defined in psychology, and if so how it is defined
I think knowing that will already clear up many things for you
sometimes wikipedia is not the best source for this
I also recomend looking at scholarpedia and the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
@StevenJeuris depends how you define it, lots of interesting stuff can be gleaned about identity from memory studies and how we store types of memories (particularly episodic). I'm sure I've heard theories of identity
If you can think up a good question on identity with at least a theory or study to ask about it might be a good start
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
@ArtemKaznatcheev @alan2here: And to add on that ... if you have any questions while browsing for that information, you can of course ask these on the site. ;p
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
I've got to get this damn database query working for now though
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
@alan2here Does that answer what is to be expected from an improved question?
 
alan2here
alan2here
Unusually the wikipedia article is nicely understandable and concise, it seems I'm after a specific property of identity, the sepeation from other entites. For example how two people don't share thoughts, there are things they don't know about each other, etc...
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
3:05 PM
@StevenJeuris @alan2here although hopefully you will try to answer the questions yourself before putting it up.
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
@alan2here If your source was wikipedia, you should also have cited that in your question and linked to it.
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
@alan2here so ask yourself if imagined being share thoughts, if there are things they don't know about each other, etc. and maybe do a search for that. I also recommend sources like scholarpedia and stanford encyclopedia of philosophy which will provide you with slightly more academic takes on this.
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
P.s.: It's 'entities' not 'entites'.
 
alan2here
alan2here
I'm thinking that perhaps I should ask a question about what the best way to describe that facet of identity is.
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
Those questions can be useful, such as this one I asked after another question:
9
Q: What is an effective metric of complexity for an Artificial Neural Network?

Ben BrockaAfter asking the question What is the most complex neural network... I realized I don't really have a good metric of "complexity" in a general sense. The simplest measure would likely be count of neurons or number of synapses, but that fails to take into account the structure of the network. A c...

measurement terminology neural-network
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
3:09 PM
@alan2here before asking the question, take some time to try to answer it yourself first.
 
alan2here
alan2here
Thanks for the Scholarpedia info. I havn't used it before.
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
But wikipedia/ect might have what you want for identity. There's got to be some stuff out there
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
@alan2here if the reader can tell that you've put in research effort into asking your question, then they are much more likely to take the time to provide a good answer and upvote.
 
alan2here
alan2here
Artem. I described that property of identity in my question which is where the problem lies. I need to describe it using the correct terminoligy or it's no good as a question.
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
@BenBrocka I am kind of sad that nobody else has answered that question :( I am very curious to know more than just my VC-dimension answer.
 
alan2here
alan2here
3:12 PM
Perhaps theroretical CS is a good place to ask.
I mean, to Artems question.
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
@alan2here If after doing proper research you didn't find suitable terminology, you can formulate that as a question, describing what you are looking for. But don't 'suggest' terminology and built upon that to ask x more questions. That's how I interpret your current question, and is probably the reason why it got down voted that much.
@ArtemKaznatcheev Add a bounty? :)
 
alan2here
alan2here
Artem, could be states_per_neuron^nurons.
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
@alan2here cstheory is not a good place to ask that question
 
alan2here
alan2here
ok, seemed like the sort of thing places like that and stack overflow answer well. I'm probbably thinking about it too mechanicly if you'r here for an answer.
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
@StevenJeuris I might just rephrase it in more technical terms and ask it on the new Machine Learning SE.... especially if @BenBrocka doesn't mind (I will ofcourse include back-links)
@alan2here cstheory is only for research level questions.... we have not thought about this question enough to make it research level
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
3:16 PM
@ArtemKaznatcheev It's creative commons, he's not allowed to mind. ;p
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
@StevenJeuris haha, yeah... although creative commons is great for knowing what is legal, knowing what is legal is not always useful for knowing what is friendly :P
Actually, speaking of stealing questions. There is a great question of interest to cogsci at cstheory. It has some awesome answers, but also left a few hanging threads. I might try picking up those threads and asking them here.
 
alan2here
alan2here
Reguarding my dream question, the best I have been able to find so far is "individuality", although this seems to most to be about being noticably differnt to others it's technical meaning appears to be just about being seprate, which is what I'm after.
I can't believe we are talking about exactly the words I should use when there is a questio like that great question on cogsci, surly the answer is all of them depending on the task.
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
@alan2here what are you talking about?
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
@alan2here I suggest you reread our comments.
 
alan2here
alan2here
Sorry, going off topic, talk about the CS one later.
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
3:28 PM
@alan2here My "I suggest you reread our comments" reply was meant to address "I can't believe we are talking about exactly the words I should use".
 
alan2here
alan2here
Should I expect that people know the technical meaning of the word individuality over the common usege?
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
@alan2here Link to it and there isn't any confusion, and you indicate you did an effort.
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
@ArtemKaznatcheev same here. I posted on reddit's NeuroScience board but got nothing and I don't know where else I could share it to get a good answer
 
alan2here
alan2here
I supose it keeps being sugested that I havn't looked into the question and I spend considrable time doing so.
ok, will prove a link as well as text describing what it means, because I personality don't expect anyone to look it up if it's meaning is obvious :¬P
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
@alan2here In that case you can try to formulate a new question on the main site. And we'll see whether this one is answerable. But please take into account all the comments we made here in chat.
And read through this:
 
alan2here
alan2here
3:31 PM
I'm probbably not ready to post yet. I'll test the question here first.
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
@alan2here except the answer ISN'T "surely all of them" and the reason its not is because the question asker phrased his question semi-formally and we were able to give formal to semi-formal answers
 
alan2here
alan2here
I know thease things in the FAQ. I've used stack excange for a while. If I could just look something up I would.
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
@alan2here In that case I can only advise you to scope your question down considerably.
As is the second guideline: Be specific
 
Artem Kaznatcheev
Artem Kaznatcheev
@StevenJeuris @alan2here also, try to imagine what an answer would look like. If you can't imagine an answer, then you haven't asked a question.
 
alan2here
alan2here
I'm not that knolegable of the subject of the CS question Artem and I didn't mean to be too direct. It just seemed like such a suprisingly unintuative answer to me.
ok
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
3:35 PM
@ArtemKaznatcheev Sounds logical if you put it that way. :)
 
alan2here
alan2here
Actually self-hood seems a more precise word.
@ArtemKaznatcheev I see what you'r saying, it dosn't apply so much in this case. If I knew a lot about the answer then I would probbably be able to work it out myself.
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
4:03 PM
I'm off. @alan2here, good luck with the question!
 
alan2here
alan2here
Thanks for the help
Scholarpedia seems not to a page about Lucid Dreaming.
 
alan2here
alan2here
4:32 PM
Ok, how is this for a better answer?
*question
A part of [Identity][1], a physiological entity, is [Individuality][2], more precisely in this case [selfhood][3], means being seperate from others. For example two people who are Individual and have selfhood don't share thoughts except though actions.

Most nuro-typical people while awake can tell if another person is individual or part of themselves, for example being from there imagination.

Dream characters are sentient seeming entities in dreams, the terminology comes from lucid dreaming, although they also occur in non-lucid dreams. They appear to experience selfhood, whats more other…
Hopefully it's apprent that I'm not talking about the more established idea of a personal level of conciousness. I removed amoung other things the information from the film Inception, although it did give the question some weight it wasn't academic.
 
alan2here
alan2here
4:48 PM
Guess I'll have to ask and find out, took so long re-formulating everyone has gone.
 
Josh
Josh
5:05 PM
Sorry guys, busy day for me at work, I wasn't able to help out this morning
@alan2here you still around?
@alan2here that seems more specific, but I'll let @BenBrocka and @StevenJeuris give their opinions as they were the two specifically helping you earlier
@alan2here I do agree with @ArtemKaznatcheev's comment:
> if a dream character is in your imagination then how can they 'experience' anything? What do you mean by 'experience'? As stated, this is a philosophy question, and if written carefully (by using 'their' instead of 'there' and 'neuro-' instead of 'nuro-', for example) it might be on-topic at phil.SE – Artem Kaznatcheev
I also am not clear on that. @alan2here do you mean, does the dreamer personify the imaginary characters and keep track of what those characters' identities would be if they were real?
In a broad sense, that's empathy.
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings (such as sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by another sentient or semi-sentient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B. Titchener as an attempt to translate the German word "Einfühlungsvermögen", a new phenomenon explored at the end of 19th century mainly by Theodor Lipps. It was later re-translated into the German language (Germanized) as "Empathie", and is still in use there. Etymology The Eng...
Going AFK for a moment but will be back shortly.
 
alan2here
alan2here
I'm still around, one moment.
@Josh Because the mind creates consciousness and the concept of experience, and then creates a barrier between different, somewhat seprate beings, like what oocurs in multiple personalities that can all experience.
There must be some seperation/abstraction and information hiding right?
Or you couldn't explore things effortlessly, you'd have to think everything up.
And sometimes you don't know what the dream charecter is going to say next.
So there is some thought you'r not aware of
So is it such a leap to think that might apply the other way round too?
And this does cirtainly apply to multiple personalities while there awake too.
Does that make sence?
If I can't ask here then I'll have to ask on phil.SE, but in such a way as to not get opinion or as if it's a thought experment. Somone said on the comments they thought it was nonsence and then in the next sentance they thought I should try phil.SE, which didn't fill me with confidence.
 
Josh
Josh
5:23 PM
@alan2here maybe you should start by asking if characters in a dream really are beings
Which borders on the subjective...
 
alan2here
alan2here
Good idea
however, what is "really are beings"?
 
Josh
Josh
@alan2here what they say next is up to the dreamer
@alan2here exactly why I said this borders on the subjective
 
alan2here
alan2here
in a strictly physical sence all the calculation is occuring one brain
but what they say next is not always up to the dreamer
 
Josh
Josh
exactly. in reality there is only one mind at play. The dream characters are invented by the dreamer
@alan2here maybe not at a... conscious level... then again dreams are by definition unconscious. However ultimately everything that happens in the dream is up to the dreamer, just at different levels
It sounds like the real question should be "how are the events which occur duringa dream generated?"
I don't know if such a question has been answered yet, but I would be fascinated to find out
@alan2here I think when people said it's "nonsense", what they're trying to say is "there is no way to research this with the current tools we have available"
A lot about how dreams work is still a mystery. You're trying to touch on some pretty low-level concepts here
 
alan2here
alan2here
I suspect there could be, in the dream, two conciousnesses, able to access memories and other recouces, but not each other, so they don't know what each other are thinking.
"there is no way to research this with the current tools we have available" :¬(
 
Josh
Josh
5:28 PM
@alan2here there could be. I suspect it's still just one consciousness, using the dreamer's own sense of empathy to determine what the characters in the dream will say/do
 
alan2here
alan2here
you'r saying the word for what the dream charecter is doing is "inferring", not "thinking".
 
Josh
Josh
right. they may not actually be separate. the dream characters may not have their own thoughts
I'm not sure, I'd be interested to see if any research has been done in this area
thinking about it, I'm not sure how research in this area could be conducted... fMRI imaging perhaps, but, such abstract concepts would be difficult to research with a conscious person, let alone someone who is asleep
but I'm not a research professional, there may be methods I just cannot conceive of
let's see how a question like "Do characters in dreams have their own separate thoughts?" does. I for one would upvote that
 
alan2here
alan2here
Could a question be formed on the "inferring" vs "thinking" front?
"Do characters in dreams have their own separate thoughts?" is cool
Can you ask it though, I don't think I should try again. I don't know what happens if you loose all you'r rep somewhere.
we know some of the answer already
the thought or inferencing alogryhthm is from our point of view seprate
 
Josh
Josh
@alan2here haha, don't worry. You can't lose all your rep. Also, if a question is deleted, you gain any rep back which you lost on that question
But I can certainly ask if you prefer!
 
alan2here
alan2here
yes please :¬)
 
Josh
Josh
5:35 PM
hmmm, chat is failing me
in The Heap, 1 hour ago, by Aarthi
@jcolebrand Not much. Just appointing protems and stuff. The usual.
^^ @BenBrocka @StevenJeuris
There we go
Looks like we'll find out who the mods will be very soon!
@alan2here I will ask now!
 
alan2here
alan2here
superb
 
Josh
Josh
Here you go!
0
Q: Do characters in a dream have their own separate thoughts or identity?

JoshI am very curious as to if any research has been done in this area, or if such a question even can be researched given the current tools and methods available to cognitive scientists. When one dreams, one may experience interactions with other characters, be those characters based on people one k...

consciousness dreams
 
alan2here
alan2here
Finally, well done :¬P Although it wasn't me. I think i'm going to stick to Stack Overflow more in future.
 
Josh
Josh
5:50 PM
@alan2here please don't let this one experience discourage you from participating in our site!
I did see this answer and think it's very well written
Maybe your question should be merged with mine. That may depend on the answers mine receives.
I think you're victim of your subject with this question @alan2here. In my experience dreams are one of the least understood aspects of the human mind
 
alan2here
alan2here
Between us we can merge you'r question with the answer on my question?
I've deleted the original now btw, the 1st of the 3.
Thanks :¬) It's taken all day but we are finally almost there.
 
Josh
Josh
@alan2here please do not delete this question. A mod can merge it with my question. If that's what you want done, flag it and ask a mod to merge it with mine
@alan2here if you would like to get your points back, click here and click "trigger reputation recalc" at the bottom
I take back what I said @alan2here re: deleting, Ben Cole duplicated his answer and posted it on my question as well, meaning a merge would be moot at this point :-p
 
alan2here
alan2here
I've flagged for moderation and requested deletion.
oh, thats nice, points back for the -5 on 1 of 3 :¬P
 
Josh
Josh
6:09 PM
Okay, headed to lunch, be back shortly!
 
alan2here
alan2here
6:24 PM
 
Josh
Josh
7:03 PM
has returned
 
alan2here
alan2here
I'm not really back yet
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
@Josh yeah, I saw the posts in The Heap :P
 
Josh
Josh
@BenBrocka After I posted that I saw you were in there and she @ed you
Let me give you an early congrats ;-)
 
Ben Brocka
Ben Brocka
Thanks :P
 
 
2 hours later…
alan2here
alan2here
8:55 PM
I'm back properly now Josh
@Josh To
 
Josh
Josh
@alan2here to Ben
Our site should be getting Pro Tem mods soon. It's likely Ben will be one of them!
4
Q: Who should our Pro Tempore Moderators be?

JoshWe've just gone from private beta to public beta! Please vote for moderator candidates by voting on their answers below. Because of this momentous occasion, I think it's time to ask our community who our Pro Tem moderators should be. From that blog post, I quote: If your meta site does not h...

discussion moderator essential-beta-questions
 
alan2here
alan2here
9:09 PM
Not putting youself forward?
 
Josh
Josh
@alan2here Oh, I did... I just have the last votes of all three of us
Also, sorry for the delayed reply. I'm at work, so I may not see new messages unless you reply to me or include @Josh in your message. just FYI
 
alan2here
alan2here
Oh yeah, there you are.
only 1 more vote to go
 
Josh
Josh
yup! But I'm not worried, both Ben and Jeromy will make great mods!
They may appoint all three. We'll see!
Have to make a call, bbs
 
Josh
Josh
9:54 PM
My work is just annoying me today
growls
 
Josh
Josh
10:22 PM
Okay, I'm headed out for the evening. If anyone needs me, @Josh me and I'll respond when I return (or maybe via my cell phone)
 
 
2 hours later…
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
11:53 PM
Great work helping out @alan2here @Josh!
 
Josh
Josh
Thanks!
 
Steven Jeuris
Steven Jeuris
See y'all tomorrow. :)
Oh wait ... just one thought ...
I never figured I might be able to ask this here, but this must be entirely on topic!
You know the saying 'the brain flips the image your eyes receive, because they work just like a lens'?
 

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