Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 12:40pm PT
|
Ed Hartouni
Oct 27, 2011 - 08:23am PT
I think the issues that Largo brings up related to mind are serious, and interesting, and unlikely to be answered by a physical theory of mind.
As a set of behaviors that had evolved from other behaviors, "mind" is a conglomeration of many different things, a patchwork which we have come to interpret in particular ways to increase our likelihood of success in surviving.
It is entirely possible that the predominance of the parts of mind which we think is so primary to our experience were less important not so long ago... say in pre-literate times. We may not ever know even with a full theory of mind.
The behaviors generated by the brain based on idiosyncratic sensory systems and brain variability are all a part of that adaptation, too, and insure that each of our specific experiences are individual in many ways, and for a reason.
Taking this all a step further, if we could create mind external to the brain then we'd have just given the "Largo argument" a boost, that is, that "mind" can exist separate from body, which is an important part of his musing on the subject. I know he doubts that, but actually he has made the strongest case for it here at least from a philosophical point of view.
Could we effectively transfer an individuals behavior to a medium outside of their body? Given the ultimate understanding of mind and brain, you'd have to answer "yes." And having so answered, you now have a sort of technological reincarnation, with mind being transferred... at what step do we associate the individual who originated that mind with the body? All these are ancient questions with "gaps" in the understanding of the specifics. Writing is a form of "incarnation" in which the sentience, at least in part, lives on, recreated by those who can read the words.
But how mind/consciousness works is different from what we experience, individually, and suffers the same fate of any evolutionary argument, that is, we can only describe the mechanism that gets us to today in terms of the composition of species, the landscape in which the present day species traveled through is multidimensional and stochastic to a degree. Similarly for our individual experience, it is unique and unlikely to be "explained" by a fully physical theory of mind/consciousness.
That being said, we will still marvel at it all even as we understand how it could have come to be. And wonder if in some way it could survive beyond us.
thank you, Ed, this is a very astute statement from a well-respected scientific mind
you are probably aware that there are well-funded serious efforts underway to allow a person to inhabit a computer
i suspect that the primary barriers keeping us compulsively holding onto the fiction of being separate entities are discreditable thoughts and actions that we try madly to keep others from knowing about
this is especially the case in a barbaric society such as ours that is so thoroughly permeated with secrecy, dishonesty, unfair social and economic advantages, and barbaric actions, both legally sanctioned and not
we have even institutionalized this within our society and legal system on a massive scale with multiple levels of compartmented secret information and black programs
in my way of thinking, the truth always comes out eventually; and no amount of legalities and technologies and passing time will protect the reputations of those who perform discreditable acts
so among those of you who hold tightly to the concept of a purely mechanistic and individuated theory of mind, locked within the brain and ceasing to exist at body death...
how many of you would be willing to share all your most intimate thoughts and actions with your life partners and immediate family?
|
|
wack-N-dangle
Gym climber
the ground up
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 12:44pm PT
|
It seems like the definition of "mind" being used here is plastic. I still believe that it all has a biochemical basis.
Another thought...
They have done fMRI studies on monks (with their encouragement). During deep meditation, the portions our brains that are more active when we are happy, show more activity when the monks are meditating. The scientists proposed that the happy monk you meet may truly be happy. Some monks suggest that we should meditate on compassion (for our own happiness). Humbling.
My uncle practiced traditional martial arts for years. (He said they used to call 3rd dan "beginners". I think he meant it without disrespect). I sent him the story about the meditating monks, and he wrote back, "Imagine that power in your brain!!!".
Monks are able to sit in a cold room with a wet cloth draped over them. They raise their body temperature, eventually drying the cloths. Also, I have heard that they practice bivys at elevation, with only a sheet. Way hard!!!
I am sure that there are some "mad" scientists looking at drugs and technology to replicate these phenomenon. Maybe, sometimes less is more. Maybe we forget to stop and examine who we are or where we are going.
It seems that there is quite a bit to the mind. It can be strongly influenced by experience. Still, I believe it has a biochemical basis (but is still pretty rad).
Finally, I believe that Mr. Braun will be reincarnated as a monkey and spend his next life living in a temple of the monkey gods. People will travel there from around the world to marvel at his monkey climbing exploits. They will shower the monkeys with gifts and ceremonies. Still, he won't climb for the adulation or the monkey chow. He will climb because it is his nature.
|
|
MikeL
Trad climber
SANTA CLARA
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 01:18pm PT
|
Hi, Ed: A couple of responses to your post.
1. You imply that consciousness (and the mind?) are mutations that the environment has selected and rewarded with greater survival rates. (Kinda darwinistic, right?)
If consciousness is anything, it is self-reflection--that is, self-consciousness. If not, then the cat sitting next to me has consciousness. If we think that self-reflection is important, then it implies that a self can change its behaviors of its own accord, and it can change its environment. Man can pull himself by his own bootstraps. He / She can transcend. This is not Darwinism; it's something else. Autopoesis not withstanding, it appears to be self-creation at a very high level.
2. The "Largo experiment" of mind transfer may be interesting from a technological point of view (ala Futurama?), but where would that get us to understand what it means to be a self, human, or regarding the nature of the mind or consciousness? Does it mean that mind is not tied to a body?
A little bit of reflection should get us there without the expense or effort.
I agree what you said about marvel and wonder, though.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 01:30pm PT
|
thoughts and actions that we try madly to keep others from knowing about
this is especially the case in a barbaric society such as ours that is so thoroughly permeated with secrecy, dishonesty, unfair social and economic advantages, and barbaric actions, both legally sanctioned and not
we have even institutionalized this within our society and legal system on a massive scale with multiple levels of compartmented secret information and black programs
Allright, I'll say it, after all we hear worse from our political leadership on tv nowadays: This is just batshit crazy.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 01:40pm PT
|
I've experienced orgasms in the chakras in the spinal cord and out of body experiences meditating alone which left my body rigid and hypothermic
You're crackin me up over here! lol
,,,,,
Oh, I wish you paranormalists would go back to that thread. There you could hook up with Klimmer and Tony Bird, post links to Sylvia Browne and James van Praagh, and leave this one to the mind-brain mechanists.
Oh, and the largocentrism is running rampant again. What is this, celebrity worship since the 60 minutes piece?
|
|
TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 01:45pm PT
|
their consciousness became intermixed through the mingling of their electro magnetic auras.
unfortunately the people in the United States who take this the most seriously and have had unlimited resources to experiment since the end of WWII are locked within the darkest areas of the black programs
with apologies for taking the discussion into uncomfortable directions...
the Operation Paperclip Nazi rocket scientists that we know about i.e. Werner Von Braun; have also been serving as cover-up for the Operation Paperclip Nazi medical and mental doctors who worked in the USA
Edit: can't you mental mechanistic types at least realize there is an electromagnetic aspect to the brain
and electromagnetic phenomena can be transferred from one mechanism to another
and are you incapable of discussing ideas outside your comfort zone without getting rude and crude about it?
|
|
rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 02:00pm PT
|
We are meat-bots. Computers/machines that only believe that we have free will and consciousness because of the feedback mechanisms in our heads and because of the chaotic nature of our IO system and the way we do our decision making.
Ultimately, our brain computers just deal with input and create output, and more input, with no purpose. It just happens that evolution resulted in our minds doing what they do because it worked well enough to beat out the minds and bodies of others within our environment.
Belief in God and other junk like that come about because there is no reason not to believe and it might even benefits us, survival-wise, to do so. Wouldn't it be funny if brains that had this strange belief in the supernatural somehow outperformed non-supernatural-believing brains when it comes to survival of the fittest? The scientists and atheists are doomed!
Yep. We are just meat-bots and nothing more. There is no mind. Just programming to want to talk about it on the internet.
Dave
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 02:10pm PT
|
Taking into account the no-nonsense exacting parlance of young engineering types, I gotta say... a fine post.
Perfect timing, just when I thought the woo-woo types were taking the hill. TFPU.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 02:21pm PT
|
Cochrane,
can't you mental mechanistic types at least realize there is an electromagnetic aspect to the brain... and electromagnetic phenomena can be transferred from one mechanism to another... and are you incapable of discussing ideas outside your comfort zone without getting rude and crude about it?
Let me remind you, my background is electrical engineering, which means I know something about electromagnetic radiation. I used to work for a defense contractor and at one point was lead designer on a radar warning receiver for a military aircraft. -Which, like radio, is all about analyzing, transmitting and receiving em radiation. There's nothing supernatural or paranormal about it and your post above makes ZERO sense to anyone informed in the subject.
I've learned that electromagnetic phenomena is not just the medium of transmission systems and designers and Hollywood fantasy writers but also whacky woo woo charletans. Get real, now.
Beta: Go read Celestine Prophecy and join a Celestine Prophecy forum. There, you'll have lots of groupthink to whet your chakras. ;)
|
|
TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 03:10pm PT
|
HFCS,
no problem admitting that sometimes you know what you are talking about
and i make no claims to understanding everything
not questioning your education or knowledge; so much as your manners and motives
at times you come across as disbelieving and rude about things you clearly don't understand or know about
the limits of one person's experience base does not necessarily define the nature of the universe
that is what makes this discussion interesting
you might better listen respectfully and just admit some things are simply beyond anything you have experienced
you obviously have experience with downloading software from an active computer to a static media and then uploading into another active computer
the written word serves a similar function in our discussions: from active mind downloaded in writing to static words, and uploaded by reading into another active mind
and can't believe you are you honestly trying to say there is no evidence of electromagnetic phenomena in the brain; i.e. it's all biochemical with no electrical current flow or magnetic phenomena
and don't suppose the fact of DNA molecules assuming the form of a double helix could possibly imply electromagnetic impedance effects
is it such a stretch to think that mental patterns could be captured in some media and transferred directly to another mind?
the AI community tends to be very interested in this subject
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 03:20pm PT
|
can't believe you are you honestly trying to say there is no evidence of electromagnetic phenomena in the brain; i.e. it's all biochemical with no electrical current flow or magnetic phenomena
What a third grade misunderstanding. Of course the brain has EMR. It's electrical for godsake. I'm saying there's nothing woo woo about it like some claim there is. It's entirely mechanistic, causal, just like physics claims and engineering proves with every device it makes.
You're right, though. I have no experience with body to body transfer of a ghost, though. Although I did like that Star Trek Original episode where that evil doctor who was scorned by Kirk transferred her ghost into him. And vice versa. That was pretty cool.
Did you see that episode?
.....
As for any "rudeness" I would say (a) this thread is more tame than most threads at supertopo and (b) overall not as bad as some of the crap you hear on tv. By that measure, I don't think it's THAT rude given the Enquirer type bs mixed in with the good.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 03:29pm PT
|
Cochrane,
don't suppose the fact of DNA molecules assuming the form of a double helix could possibly imply electromagnetic impedance effects
This is more of the same: total crazyshit speak. As an ee, I know about impedance (and resistance and conductance and reactance, all ee terminology, realities) and as a former grad student in neuroscience at Stanford who took molecular biology and biochemistry I know about double helix molecular biology mechanisms, so...
Again, this is pure charletan bs one finds on Klimmer threads. No longer worth my time. Gotta say, it is sometimes hard to believe you were an engineer in upper management, apparently having the ear of Buzz Aldrin (from the looks of a pix you posted once). Signs and wonders.
.....
I'll call.
Show me ANY reputable scientific paper drawing a link of ANY relevancy between (a) electrical impedance and (b) the DNA helix.
Is it rudeness to call bullshit when you read it? I don't think so.
|
|
TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 03:51pm PT
|
don't suppose the fact of DNA molecules assuming the form of a double helix could possibly imply electromagnetic impedance effects
i use that as an example of something outside your comfort zone; just because i happen to know an academic researcher experimenting with that
as might be expected; you start throwing bananas about...
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 04:00pm PT
|
cochrane,
i use that as an example of something outside your comfort zone
As I pointed out, it's squarely in my comfort zone. To be clear, I'm challenging you: what you wrote makes no sense.
Still waiting to see any paper or any legitimate link showing any relevancy between DNA and impedance...
.....
you start throwing bananas about...
Better bananas than bullsh#t.
|
|
TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 04:08pm PT
|
do your own Google if you are actually interested in the subject:
cms.bsu.edu/Academics/CollegesandDepartments/.../Research.ashx
Electron transport is an important process that controls physical properties and chemical activities of many molecular and biological systems, including DNA. Many applications of nanotechnology, such as biosensors, solar energy, molecular and bioelectronics have greatly benefited from research on various critical electron transport phenomena. For example, charge migration in DNA is directly related to the detection of damage in DNA which may occur in the cells of human beings. ...
The objectives of our study are to theoretically investigate how DNA molecules support rather high electrical currents given the right environmental condition. Therefore, we develop a simplified model of the DNA double-helix molecular structure in which the effects of base pair sequencing, contact coupling between the DNA and the electrodes, temperature effects, and transport sensitivity to an environmental magnetic field can be varied and studied.
-
Book: Biomedical Applications
By Alaa S. Abd-El-AzizAlaa S. Abd-El-Aziz - 2004 - Medical - 218 pages
Importantly, the effects scale with the length of the DNA. ... Warburg impedance W, which represents mass transfer to the electrode, ... In both cases, the tight interaction of the metal with the DNA double helix is expected to enhance ...
http://books.google.com/books?id=uutygS7ZhIkC&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=DNA+double+helix+impedance+effects&source=bl&ots=P01HOCbkNi&sig=tXKO581XRuStl0YlsRHPCz1cIuM&hl=en&ei=obapTvGyKbHWiAKwg7T4Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&sqi=2&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=DNA%20double%20helix%20impedance%20effects&f=false
this is not a peer reviewed academic forum published in 'Nature'
it is a forum where we can share ideas and speculations and perhaps learn something
i don't doubt your areas of expertise; but you could improve your manners
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 04:09pm PT
|
Electrophoresis is a common instrument / technique in medical school departments (incl. neuro) and has nothing to do with impedence in the context Cochrane used the term.
.....
EDIT to ADD
So where is the relevancy? Let alone to this thread? Every material from DNA to pubic hairs to a sweaty sit harness could be measured for resistance or in your case, impedance. How does that chapter you linked to, which is as obscure as it gets apparently regarding metallated DNA chains of different lengths, tie into anything regarding anything on this thread?
|
|
wack-N-dangle
Gym climber
the ground up
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 04:12pm PT
|
pay no mind,
repeat as necessary,
pay no mind
cheers
|
|
TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2011 - 04:27pm PT
|
HFCS
it seems like you know enough in various areas of expertise to be a significant contributor to this thread
you certainly should know more about some of these things than i do
the possibility of DNA impedance is interesting to me and might be relevant to some of the discussion here, but i make no claim to expertise on the subject
i do know a lot of interesting things; but know there is a great deal more of interest to me where i don't know much
not sure why you think it is so important to run around attacking other people's contributions to the discussion
you say some things that just don't make sense to me
it's not particularly important what we agree with or not
we are trying to learn here and share experiences and levels of understanding
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
In my house, he answered.
Let us know!