Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Sep 19, 2018 - 07:38am PT
|
Werner: All Gill's photos look like chocolate is being made .....
Yes, like the eddies of water behind a moving boat . . . fluid dynamics that are just like experience: we see things in them, but those things don’t actually exist.
|
|
Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
|
|
|
Sep 19, 2018 - 03:13pm PT
|
What massively interconnected neurons can accomplish is still an open question.
I read a really old sci fi book where they were growing huge brains in glass jars. I think they got out of control but forget the story now. Anyway the brain isn't just a lot of interconnected neurons. It has different parts that do different things - the cerebellum, hippocampus and whatnot. It is also just a component of the nervous system with a lot of functionality in the spinal cord. All regulated by chemicals in equilibrium. So there is a good example of the whole being more than the sum of its parts (neurons).
|
|
Jim Clipper
climber
|
|
|
Sep 19, 2018 - 06:42pm PT
|
Just here to note that DMT referenced a foreign cooking program in the mind thread. Truly, a man for all seasonings. #nothatin'
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
|
Sep 19, 2018 - 10:36pm PT
|
Yes, Don Paul. The neurons of the brain show anatomical and functional groupings. However, neurons that are quite distant from each other and perform quite different functions can still influence each other through a chain of fibers and synapses.
There are still many important unanswered question about how individual neurons function. How they behave in such a massively interconnected network as the brain is a long way from being understood. Some ideas about the statistics of such networks have been explored:
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-87596-0_17
What you quoted from my post was only meant to say that there is a lot we do not yet know. Therefore it seems premature to conclude that neurons cannot be the basis for our conscious experience.
Yes, the spinal cord is important but people can continue having conscious experience after loss of function in the spine.
Yes, electrolytes, hormones, and other substances in the body fluids can also influence the behavior of neurons, but those kind of influences are unlikely to be the basis of our personality, which is wonderfully persistent during our lifetime. I say that neuronal networks are the most likely candidate for producing our consciousness, feelings, memories, and associations.
Whether the whole is greater than the sum of the parts depends on how you do the math.
Good for you for bringing math into the discussion. Neuroscience could probably use better mathematical models of brain function. My thesis advisor Jay Goldberg did a harmonic analysis of the responses of vestibular primary receptors to angular and linear accelerations. That system is linear over a range of frequencies important for eye and neck movements. There are advantages to linearity for the kind of jobs the vestibular system does. Deeper in the brain, though, getting twice the output for twice the input is probably the exception rather than the rule.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Sep 20, 2018 - 07:19am PT
|
MH2: . . . the basis of our personality, which is wonderfully persistent during our lifetime.
A problematical assertion, and an intellectual concern or interest presented in many guises.
Is personality the result of nature or nurture? Is personality developmental, and hence changes as one proceeds through various life passages / stages (infancy, childhood, adolescence, early maturity, maturity, old age)? Is personality an artifact of measurement and tests? Is personality a label for what would otherwise be considered by some, “soul?” Are personalities dependent upon environmental conditions beyond personal experience—like culture, like socialization, like institutionalization? Is personality socially constructed in cahoots with other social participants ritually (see, for example, Goffman’s article on “Face Work” that I pointed to above)? Is personality an image that is given to individuals prior to birth by the unconscious or the collective muse of a species?
Subjectively, is oneself the same “person” that one perceived in consciousness at the start? Look at mind.
Objectively, does brain constitute personality, and if it does, then why are not personalities not all entirely unique (given the almost infinite number of neutral pathways)? Furthermore, if the body replaces itself cellularly every seven years, then what objectively is one talking about “persistently?”
If there is learning, to what extent does it influence or affect personality?
Conundrums, questions, and paradigms, as far as the mind can imagine. The APA has its answers, but close readings show that as a body of practitioners, it is unsure.
As Whitman wrote: "Do I contradict myself? Then I contradict myself. I am multitudes."
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Sep 20, 2018 - 07:38am PT
|
I say that neuronal networks are the most likely candidate for producing our consciousness, feelings, memories, and associations.
You are NOT neuronal networks.
Neuronal networks are part of the material body.
We are NOT the material body itself.
Thus consciousness does NOT originate nor produce consciousness.
The actual source of consciousness is the living entity as yourself which is NOT the physical body nor material.
The modern gross material mental speculating so-called scientists are always in poor fund of knowledge .....
|
|
Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
|
|
|
Sep 20, 2018 - 08:24am PT
|
MH2 - I think you are on the right track and understand your points far better than others arguments about phenomenology, which to me all sound like saying "the world isn't real, only an imaginary spirit world is." An oversimplification, but I think just about all religions are based on that. And preying on people's fear of death, which is no problem at all for imaginary spirit beings.
Although the anatomy and mechanics of the brain are only part of the answer. I think it's also important that the brain is "live wired" to sensory input and always modifying itself to model its environment. I was just busy crushing ants as they ran across my desk, and even their tiny brains could understand they were under attack. They must have some hard wired ability to sense danger.
MikeL - the answer to your questions is "yes, all of the above." It's fascinating how people have evolved to take huge shortcuts by believing what other people think as if they were their own thoughts. There is some kind of distributed processing going on, and even emergent behaviors, like ants. 🐜
Werner where do you get those numbers, 1/4 physical and 3/4 spirit? I guess I was assuming a 50/50 split.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Sep 20, 2018 - 08:31am PT
|
Nobody is saying the the world isn't real.
The whole material cosmic manifestation IS real but only temporary.
The whole material cosmic manifestation is only 1/4 of the entire whole manifestation.
It is the spiritual manifestation 3/4 of that whole that is permanent and eternal.
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
|
Sep 20, 2018 - 08:33am PT
|
Mike,
Personality in the sense I was talking about it is a you-know-it-when-you-see-it thing. It is the characteristic way people react to events. We build a picture of it from seeing how people react. It is one of those pictures that is built mostly on a subconscious level, but if a person does something well outside what we expect, we notice.
One aspect of personality is whether a person sees the glass as half-empty or half-full. Pessimist or optimist? It is not a clear or scientific distinction, but it is real.
The best thumbnail idea about personality and its persistence I heard from Candace Pert. She said she thought we are all born with a different mix of receptors (and sensitivities) to the molecules that affect our moods. She was a person to listen to.
Molecules Of Emotion: The Science Between Mind-Body Medicine Scribner (1999)
edit:
Yes again, Don Paul. The brain is hugely dependent on sensory input and needs continuous up-dating, to risk a computer metaphor. It is miraculous to me how the brain balances the competing needs for stability and adaptability.
I hope the ants were not escaping local flood waters. If you crush one, I think a chemical is released that lets the others know there is trouble. I once had a rope covered in ants that I had to run through the belay device as my partner came up. The smell of formic acid was impossible to miss.
|
|
Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
|
|
|
Sep 20, 2018 - 08:56am PT
|
No, the ants were just after some food crumbs, hopefully there is enough of that formic acid left over to keep them off my food.
By the way ants don't like to swim. To keep them off your plate, put a small dish of water under each table leg. The same technique works for bedbugs if you poison the water.
|
|
Jim Clipper
climber
|
|
|
Sep 20, 2018 - 09:10am PT
|
I think this thread is immortal. Why......?, eh, nevermind.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Sep 21, 2018 - 09:35pm PT
|
John,
Yeah, that does look like molten chocolate now.
Don Paul: "the world isn't real, only an imaginary spirit world is." An oversimplification, but I think just about all religions are based on that. And preying on people's fear of death, which is no problem at all for imaginary spirit beings.
Your characterization is offensive and gives people no room for what you might not be aware of. It’s disrespectful of consciousness. It says you know other people’s minds better than they could. You’re using logic that has no basis to it. It’s a sign of ignorance in many ways. It’s narrow-minded. (How do you feel about lgbtq?)
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
|
|
|
Sep 22, 2018 - 08:19am PT
|
jgill missed his calling. When he isn't being a neurobiologist, he's a Rorshach based psychologist. And the medium is math. Who would have guessed it?
|
|
Trump
climber
|
|
|
Sep 22, 2018 - 10:29am PT
|
Your characterization is offensive and gives people no room for what you might not be aware of. It’s disrespectful of consciousness. It says you know other people’s minds better than they could. You’re using logic that has no basis to it. It’s a sign of ignorance in many ways. It’s narrow-minded.
It’s good to know what “is.” Maybe second best is believing that we know what “is.” We all seem pretty skilled in the latter.
But if it turns out that we’re wrong about what we so confidently believe is, hopefully a fitter righter thinking individual will survive to help shape the future in the right way. There are plenty of us to spare to get it done that way.
But if we humans still can’t manage it, I expect it will get done one way or another, regardless, with or without us and the dinosaurs.
Best maybe to plan on our future thinking being survival biased, just like our current thinking is.
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 22, 2018 - 07:52pm PT
|
Go back and think this over. If you "enlarged" atoms, as Liebniz proposed for his didactic purposes, would such a machine, if it is purely material, be able to do photosynthesis? How would it perform what happens when photons are given two slits to pass through?
The reference to the Mill thought experiment shows a perspective preserved in the peat.
--
In the Philosophy of Mind, the above is universally accepted as a misdirect for one obvious reason: Consciousness is not LIKE anything in the objective, classical, physical world, ergo appealing to physical examples to show the capacity of dancing neurons to "create" consciousness is to be stuck blind by --- you guessed it: Mechanitus.
I certainly can understand where you're coming from, though. But John's warning to keep an open mind, that a new paradigm might show in the future that the boundary between objective and subjective is not what some think, deserves a closer look to understand the nuances and hope that usually couch this kind of warning.
First, it almost always is to defend the first assumption that the objective is the real deal and that sometime in the future - when the new neurological data rolls in - a linear, physical mechanism will be found that can "explain" consciousness in strictly physical terms, or better yet, it can confirm the verity of Identity Theory.
It's my belief that any new paradigm per consciousness will be as radical and shattering to our "folk beliefs" as relativity was. It begins, I believe, by looking closely at what the Philosophers of Mind HAVE agreed upon - not uniformally, but a review of the main points (of wide agreement) has been enlightening, at least to me.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Sep 23, 2018 - 07:17am PT
|
Trump: It’s good to know what “is.”
There seems to be a difference between what is objectively, and what is subjectively. To report the latter, all it would seem to take is circumspect sincerity. The former looks to be unknowable.
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
|
Sep 23, 2018 - 07:24am PT
|
First, it almost always is to defend the first assumption that the objective is the real deal and that sometime in the future - when the new neurological data rolls in - a linear, physical mechanism will be found that can "explain" consciousness in strictly physical terms, or better yet, it can confirm the verity of Identity Theory.
Speaking only for myself, I put aside any firm ideas about where science will take us as the workings of the brain are studied. Physical mechanisms are necessarily studied to check on and to generate ideas about how things work.
The human mind may never be understood. That would be fine with me, and much preferred to a science-fiction future in which mind control gets down to the level of neurons.
I have great respect for the splendid diversity and beauty of what comes out of the portmanteau we inadequately condense to "consciousness."
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Sep 23, 2018 - 08:14am PT
|
mind control gets down to the level of neurons
These modern fools can't even control their own minds, to begin with, nor do they even have a clue to what the mind is, to begin with.
Just useless mental speculators with "ideas".
The minute they have "ideas" means they have no clue and are guessing as usual
because they get "ideas" from their uncontrolled minds and not from the source of their mind which operates and controls the mind itself.
There are no new ideas or old ideas, there is only as it is .......
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 23, 2018 - 09:26am PT
|
The future philosophers of mind are going to have their hands full if they remain rooted to old ideas and philosophical "agreements."
It might be interesting to see, in specific instances and references, what your understanding of those old ideas and philosophical agreements actually are.
Or are we guessing, Dingus?
Just saying...
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!