New Technology Opening Old Doors To Theories of the Mind

Now that's where the imagination would burst out of control---when it looked down and saw a "blot" on the carpet where you used to be.

"who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of man"

mind
I don't want to be argumentative, but the two of you CLEARY do not understand what we are saying. I would blame it on our inability to express our point, but it also has to do with your fixed orientation or lack of effort. I don't know which. But your characterizations of our meaning are not even wrong.

just being silly

mind
Dyslexia

of course i am always cereal but perception gets tangential. he cant help himself he's a conservative you know.

Dys, I thought you were looking a bit sponge like lately. But since you are only an experience in my brain, I think it shouldn't matter. But somehow it does. You look lovely with your sponge shadow. Have you noticed that your shadow is exactly like you, if not really you? Anyway, you look great as a sponge. And you'll forgive me if I state my earnest belief, whether it's true or not, that I believe you are there, even though I can't really see you because you type your thoughts, what I believe to be your thoughts, and it somehow appears on my computer screen.

I agree that the idea I have that Dys exists (not that he looks like a sponge, that's a joke) is a belief. It's a "given," axiomatic, in my scheme of things. But my scheme is all I've got and who cares whether it's inside or outside my brain? Given this belief, I do know that my brain is doing the processing of external and internal stimuli. Whatever meaning I assign to it is a combination of what I see, my previous object relationships, and my fantasies about what I see and my objects (in psychology and psychoanalysis, "object relationships" and "objects" means my significant--that is, cared for people.)

How the brain functions is what I would like to talk about. The mechanics of it. Because the mechanics create the experience. And the experience is where it's at in my book.

Is there "an" unconscious? No, there is no such entity. It is a short hand way we use to think about the fact that there are memories, fantasies, affects, etc. which are represented in our brains in such a way as to not be consciously noticed. So "the" unconscious is a metaphor, not a real place. Where and how unconscious ideas and affects are processed does exist. It exists in the brain, given my previously stated starting point. It is misleading when we use a noun to represent the gerund (isn't that right? a gerund?) form of a verb. It would be more accurate, technically speaking, if we used, "being" unconscious rather than "the" unconscious. We only know the nature of what is unconscious in our brains/minds by derivative forms of the ideas/affects, by our experiences. I think that's right. What do the rest of you think?

um well in the ideas of Camus we might exchange consciousness for "essence'?

I much prefer a pragmatic approach vs Transcendental "Mumbo--Jumbo.

The transcendental approach is appealing if you really want just an endless discussion about the philosophical ramifications of what the brain creates with it's 1000 billion firings per second. I admit it is difficult to avoid philosophical considerations while attempting to answer some questions through scientific observations such as Lola would like to accomplish. Philosophic discussions merely raise more questions while never answering any ----- that I'm aware of.

Except of course "Shadow-ectomies"

perception wrote:

Transcendental "Mumbo--Jumbo.

Lola wrote:
<snip>
...But my scheme is all I've got and who cares whether it's inside or outside my brain?...
</snip>

I see we are really opening the doors to theories of the mind.


Of course the idea of nondualism is not new, sages have been talking about it for thousands of years. But it was William James who was among the first of so called westerns to discuss this issue in a book titled, "Does Consciousness Exist" in which he denied that the subject-object relation was fundamental. He called it "radical empiricism", (in this case empiricism meaning the actual experience)

The idea is consciousness is one with whatever it is aware of in the immediacy of the actual experience. There's no split between "inside"----"outside", no duplicity.

Suzuki said James was the closest the "west" had gotten to no mind or emptiness.

Few today take the subject-object relation for granted, although the way I attempt to explain or demonstrate nondualism it may be lacking.

See the screen. Where is your mind?, the screen, mind, screen, mind,...one and the same.....nondualism.

Does it matter? Maybe not to most people, but for some the true nature of the "self" and this so called reality is a most significant issue indeed, as it defines all else.

twyvel,

Would you tell us more about how, for you, "the true nature of the self and this so called reality is a most significant issue indeed?" I know you've told us the it "defines all else" but I'm not understanding why this is significant if you want to understand the function of the brain and how we experience in our daily lives. I'm asking because for me, it doesn't feel significant at all. So I thought I should ask you what you mean before I decide about my opinion of it's un/importance. I may be denying something quite unconscious on my part. So tell me, if you will, what exactly the significance is for you. I mean, how specifically does it make a difference?

When someone asks, Does god exist? I think it is a question about the nature of the "self". And when the issue is about the functioning of the brain in relation to "experience" it is a question of the relation of the brain and our abstract reference to a "mind", and analysis of whatever we understand as the "self". They are all connected.

Examining the functions of the brain is to attempt to answer and ask questions about how this manifestation comes about and what it's nature is, which is directly related to how we experience this daily life of ours.

If we simply don't know what's going on how could that not be significant?
My cat doesn't appear to have the ability to ask questions about whether god exists or whether the mouse she is chasing is real or not., she just acts impulsively. We, without any choice have that ability.

We want to know what the **** is going on. How does this monitor/screen appear to be "out there" when the photons go into your eyes send a signal to be brain and voila it appears.... But if the signal went into your brain where is the perceived monitor? Is it in my brain? Of course not. But if it's not in my brain yet it is an idea in my mind what's going on?

I don't see how you could feel that it is not significant, after all, why are we examining the brain at all? Why are you interested in the brain and it's relation to experience to begin with? And what does that mean? Who's experience? The brains experience? The minds experience? The bodies experience, the awareness? Who's having the experience? Isn't that the fundamental question? Who's having what experience? Where are you? What constitutes the 'self' ?

Are we essentially looking for this you or I in the brain. Is the mouse we are chasing "real"? And what does "real" mean?

To me it is a question about the nature of this 'self" that wants to know the answer to all these questions. The search for knowledge is "self" inquiry because it is oriented around this elusive "self".

Does knowing the truth make a difference? Well it does in relation to previous knowledge. And based on human behaviour and ability, curiosity and imagination it certainly seems to.

But then again what does "truth" mean? It's all such a mystery. And it is significant in as much as anything can be significant.

mind
Twyvel, beautifully put. But I'm afraid it was wasted on our positivist friends. Not because they are incapable of understanding it, but because philosophical foundations of consciousness and the self, are irrelevant to their purely psychological/technical interest. The trouble with most social science, as I see it (and I'm a retired social scientist), is its philosophical naivete (they tend not to read the "philosophy of social science" literature).
By the way, William James, one of my philosophical heros, was, as everyone knows, primarily a psychologist.

After you Lola

twyvel,

The nature of the self is only different from the functioning of the brain in one respect. Brain functioning is the mechanics of the thinking that makes up the self and the self is the thinking itself and how it is experienced (what it feels like, or how it seems).

It seems to go without saying that a "perceived monitor/screen" is both "out there" as well as perceived in the brain. To me this is self evident. I see no reason this should be "significant." Perhaps, JLNobody is correct, and it's my failure to understand the philosophy of social science which makes me still not understand your point. But it seems to me that this is not the problem. And perhaps I'm correct. I think the problem is that you have still not answered my question about, specifically, what is it about this philosophy (which I'm fairly familiar with myself) that is so "significant" to our discussion here? I am not at all clear what you are saying. This may be a problem in the mind of the perceiver (me), but it also may be that the problem rests in the fact that the argument or point of the perceived is not clear enough.

Are you saying that our discussion is irrelevant just because it's about the brain, specifically thoughts and affects? For the life of me, I cannot see why that would be. I'm not disagreeing with most of your points, if and this is a big if, I understand them correctly. I don't want to take on William James.....no I don't. Not now anyway. And I suspect I will never want to take that on. Because I don't think it's relevant, to this discussion. Nor is it interesting to me. I'm not saying it's not interesting to others, I'm saying simply that it's not interesting to me unless you can tell me how it relates to how I can get what I want, including meeting the needs of others, while keeping injury to others at a minimum. If you can tell me how it is relevant, specifically, then I may reconsider.

Perception, please don't wait for me. Dive in.

Lola, I don't have time right now but a couple of notes...

You said,

The nature of the self is only different from the functioning of the brain in one respect. Brain functioning is the mechanics of the thinking that makes up the self and the self is the thinking itself and how it is experienced (what it feels like, or how it seems).

I agree, if the "self" you are referring to is the body/brain self. But it is the nautre and existence of this self as something "real" that is under querstion.

And what about awareness?

If the self is the thinking who or what is aware of the thinking? Keep in mind thoughts and thinking and brain functions don't know anything.




The point is, in the immediacy of visually perceiving the monitor/screen it is not perceived or observed to be locate in the brain. It has no representation in the brain that is the visual experience. There is only one monitor, "out there"



here's something that I think combines several different views.

http://www.datadiwan.de/SciMedNet/events/dryn99.htm

opening paragraph:

Background After 300 years of a modern scientific approach stressing objectivity, reductionism and positivism, competing with older dualisms, a new world view is beginning to emerge across a range of disciplines which supersedes these competing isms. Described by the phrase "participatory reality"


... summary papers are at the bottom of the page.

Check out, Max Velmans

mind
Lola, I was planning to say no more on this thread, but a statement YOU made on the "Proof of the Existence of God" thread shows you are not really so far from Tywvel's and my position. You said "We ARE our feelings." You did not say we HAVE feelings or We are the subjects of feelings. Similarly, Twyvel and I have been stressing that we ARE our experiences; we are not subjects OF experience. Experience is not something external to us that bombards us (what an existentially alienating orientation that would be--that the world happens to me, that my life happens to me, etc.) As such, my experience of Self is another experience like all others. The "self" is not the subject, the recipient of experience. It is just another experience like all others I have. Collectively, all my experiences are me. But this means that, within this orientation there is no Self as an objective fact that HAS experiences happening to it.

Twyvel

If I may I would like to introduce a point of view which is as you will say strictly a reductionist position within the context of neuroscience. First of all you speak extensively of experience both as a noun and and as a verb. As a noun what is experience? It is nothing more that a collection of activities incorporated in the memory of the brain. What is memory? It is the result of activities sensed by the sensory organs of the body, translated into a code(transduction)and sent to the hypothalamus to be either relayed to the cortex as new information to be added to the memory or to be discarded as superfluous info like yesterdays news.

When used as a verb as in the act of experiencing introspection of the mind----it is just another form of gaining knowledge about ones self. What do we do with new knowledge? We store it in the memory for future comparison. This notion of some ethereal quality of the mind which is outside the brain is strictly for those who have nothing better to do than contemplate their navel.

Yes I scanned ( I admit I didn't study it) the link you provided. Let me ask you (because you obviously did study it) did all that energy produce any conclusions you could hang your hat on?

JLNobody,

I do agree with those things you and twyvel have said that I can understand. That's why I'm not getting what these distinctions are about. We are our experience, our feelings. What else would we be? What I don't get is.......how this fits into this discussion.

And yes, perception, let's do reductionism within the context of neuroscience. This is what this thread is about. Come on you guys, live a little. Get down in the dirt, the flesh, the gratification of experiences and enjoy them.