GENIUS FORUMS

Firstly understanding of the nature of existence (answers to the big questions) and secondly principles that guide me in my behaviour. There seems to be a lot of the first form of philosophy practiced here and precious little of the latter,

The later is kind of like personalised Moral Philosophy. We don't really have an interest in this. The QRS promote masculinity, so that one can deal with such matters themselves, as in self-help by being masculine minded, which in the end is the only way to deal with issues one might have, seeing as all morals and desires for improvement are based on emotions and ego's. The prevailing view is that a deep understanding of the nature of existence will naturally lead to principles that guide a persons behaviour. Understanding the nature of existence allows one to build their behavioural base up on the foundations of core truths - rather than trying to alter the facade of one's personality and ignoring the foundations.

It only seems to fully work if one develops an entirely dominant love of Truth over everything else, so truth becomes one's whole meaning - which few develop, myself included - rather than just a form of entertainment or ego enriching experience (as in what can I get from Truth that will make me more successful).

This discovery is in itself a coincidence of the type that I tried to point to in my first post - what are the odds that I will discuss an idea in a thread on an internet forum and no more than a few days later come across a variation of that idea in a(n admittedly related) book?

It happens a lot. The brain never fully stops evaluating past experiences - for instance thats what dreams are for. What one is presently focusing on leads one to works that are related to what one is curious about, but also it sets up a situation where works can be and are interpreted relative to such curiousities. If you had of read the same passage weeks ago you may have interpreted the passage a lot differently, or more likely read it without any emotional reaction to what you had just read, so it is quickly forgotten as you have moved on to other things.

Laird wrote:

So that's two things that you claim that you know for certain. How many more are there?

Nothing that I can think of right now that doesn't boil down to "I experience" - namely, "I feel" and "I think".

If you define 2 to be 1 more than 1, does 1 + 1 = 2?

Is that another thing you can be sure of?

What I want from philosophy is two things. Firstly understanding of the nature of existence (answers to the big questions) and secondly principles that guide me in my behaviour. There seems to be a lot of the first form of philosophy practiced here and precious little of the latter

I don't know why you say that. We tend to value truth very strongly here, so that is a definite principle to guide your behaviour.

If I am, as you write, "a smart well written guy", then surely this is some evidence for a logical mind, in which case all that need be done is to put the proof in front of me.

That's not the way it works. Many fundamentalist Christians are intelligent, have high IQ's, University degrees, and are well-written, yet they are unable to follow even simple logic. This is because of their mental blocks.

what are the odds that I will discuss an idea in a thread on an internet forum and no more than a few days later come across a variation of that idea in a(n admittedly related) book?

Very high odds. A satisfactory explanation has already been given for this. Whatever you happen to be thinking about, or have recently thought about, you are more likely to notice in the world around you.

Kevin Solway wrote:If you define 2 to be 1 more than 1, does 1 + 1 = 2?

Is that another thing you can be sure of?

This goes to something that Carl G wrote in another thread: what does meaning mean? What does it mean to make that definition in my head? I think that I know, but what is it really? Is it some set of neurons firing to give me a feeling of certainty; are those combined neuron-firings setting up some sort of symbolic structure in my mind? How can I be really sure that I am engaged in any truly meaningful endeavour to make that definition? What does "1" really mean? What does "2" really mean? What does it really mean to apply the additive operator to the repeated symbol "1"?

The best answer that I can come up with is that it really means to apply an abstract function to abstract concepts that have some basis in reality. What basis might that be? Well, right now, through repeated observation, it seems that that definition actually reflects reality. When I put one stone next to another stone, I observe that I now have two stones. But what about Victor's comment in the podcast that adding one litre of one fluid to one litre of another fluid doesn't always result in exactly two litres? So can I be sure that this definition always has meaning? And what if I transcended this reality and discovered that all along I was under the influence of an alien mind-control ray that lead me to believe that 1 + 1 = 2 whereas this was purely a feeling of rightness, and that at a higher level of reality the definition is meaningless. Sure, this is complete speculation and nothing that I feel compelled to believe in, but these sort of possibilities are the reason that I can't claim 100% certitude of anything but the basics (even if the existential experiences that I'm having are entirely under the control of the alien rays, I am nevertheless alive and having experiences).

Laird: What I want from philosophy is two things. Firstly understanding of the nature of existence (answers to the big questions) and secondly principles that guide me in my behaviour. There seems to be a lot of the first form of philosophy practiced here and precious little of the latter

Kevin: I don't know why you say that. We tend to value truth very strongly here, so that is a definite principle to guide your behaviour.

Truth means different things to different people. I'm interested in more specific guidelines than "value truth". I'm interested mostly in the observation that we can broadly class human experience into "good" and "bad" - pleasure and suffering, and in working out how to behave based on minimising the suffering and increasing the good experiences.

Laird: If I am, as you write, "a smart well written guy", then surely this is some evidence for a logical mind, in which case all that need be done is to put the proof in front of me.

Kevin: That's not the way it works. Many fundamentalist Christians are intelligent, have high IQ's, University degrees, and are well-written, yet they are unable to follow even simple logic. This is because of their mental blocks.

I'm not particularly bound to any viewpoint so in principle I don't have a lot of mental blocks (I gave your philosophy a solid hearing with a willingness to be convinced if the arguments were convincing enough).

Regarding the fundamentalist Christian, I'd argue that it's not so much their logic that's out of whack as their sense of plausibility. Anything can be justified, it's just a matter of how plausible that justification is. If you take a certain set of fundamental assumptions, such as that the Bible is the divinely inspired guide for life, then in defending your assumptions you might make some justifications that - whilst logical - are not so plausible to other people whom you communicate them to. It depends on your definition of logic though, which I'm still trying to get from you in another thread.

Laird: what are the odds that I will discuss an idea in a thread on an internet forum and no more than a few days later come across a variation of that idea in a(n admittedly related) book?

Kevin: Very high odds. A satisfactory explanation has already been given for this. Whatever you happen to be thinking about, or have recently thought about, you are more likely to notice in the world around you.

Perhaps so, but I know that often when I come across a new word that I suddenly start hearing it frequently for a few days and that I hear it in places not linked to the original place where I heard that word, and that then that sudden frequency drops back to something more "normal".

Laird wrote:

Kevin Solway wrote:If you define 2 to be 1 more than 1, does 1 + 1 = 2?

Is that another thing you can be sure of?

This goes to something that Carl G wrote in another thread: what does meaning mean?

You need to be clearer about what you are talking about. I have no idea what you mean by "the meaning of meaning".

What is the meaning of an apple? It is a pointless question.

What does it mean to make that definition in my head?

What does an apple mean?

I don't think your question has any meaning.

What does "1" really mean?

What does an apple really mean?

What does it really mean to apply the additive operator to the repeated symbol "1"?

What does it really mean to eat an apple?

But what about Victor's comment in the podcast that adding one litre of one fluid to one litre of another fluid doesn't always result in exactly two litres?

From memory, he didn't say that.

these sort of possibilities are the reason that I can't claim 100% certitude

These are not possibilities.

I'm not particularly bound to any viewpoint

You are particularly bound to the viewpoint that you are not bound to any viewpoint.

I don't have a lot of mental blocks

You have a great many mental blocks, but these prevent you from knowing this fact.

Regarding the fundamentalist Christian, I'd argue that it's not so much their logic that's out of whack as their sense of plausibility. Anything can be justified, it's just a matter of how plausible that justification is. If you take a certain set of fundamental assumptions, such as that the Bible is the divinely inspired guide for life

With Christians, logic is simply discarded.

It depends on your definition of logic though, which I'm still trying to get from you in another thread.

Logic is the fact that a thing is itself and not other than itself. (A=A)

when I come across a new word that I suddenly start hearing it frequently for a few days and that I hear it in places not linked to the original place where I heard that word, and that then that sudden frequency drops back to something more "normal".

That's exactly what I would expect. We naturally tune-out things we don't understand. And when we do do learn something new, we see it everywhere, until such time as it has been thoroughly learnt.

Kevin: What is the meaning of an apple? It is a pointless question.

An apple is a physical entity. The question's not so pointless when you ask "What is the meaning of the word, 'apple'?" Then we have some basis for comparing to the abstract symbol, 1.

Laird: I'm not particularly bound to any viewpoint

Kevin: You are particularly bound to the viewpoint that you are not bound to any viewpoint.

Yes, I've already acknowledged this conundrum elsewhere.

Laird: when I come across a new word that I suddenly start hearing it frequently for a few days and that I hear it in places not linked to the original place where I heard that word, and that then that sudden frequency drops back to something more "normal".

Kevin: That's exactly what I would expect. We naturally tune-out things we don't understand. And when we do do learn something new, we see it everywhere, until such time as it has been thoroughly learnt.

And what if rather than tuning out, we simply didn't encounter that "new" word for some unknown reason, and what if the reason that we see it everywhere after the first time is to inculcate in us its true meaning - could it be that there are more subtle factors at play?

Laird wrote:

Kevin: What is the meaning of an apple? It is a pointless question.

An apple is a physical entity. The question's not so pointless when you ask "What is the meaning of the word, 'apple'?" Then we have some basis for comparing to the abstract symbol, 1.

Are you now saying that what you really wanted to know was the meaning of the word "meaning"? Are you saying that you don't know what you mean by the word?

Laird: I'm not particularly bound to any viewpoint

Kevin: You are particularly bound to the viewpoint that you are not bound to any viewpoint.

Yes, I've already acknowledged this conundrum elsewhere.

It's only a conundrum for you. To others, it is clear that you are bound to a particular viewpoint, even though you state that you aren't.

And what if rather than tuning out, we simply didn't encounter that "new" word for some unknown reason, and what if the reason that we see it everywhere after the first time is to inculcate in us its true meaning - could it be that there are more subtle factors at play?

It's possible, though very unlikely. There's nothing stopping people from doing experiments to see if there's another explanation than the one I offered.

Kevin Solway wrote:Are you now saying that what you really wanted to know was the meaning of the word "meaning"? Are you saying that you don't know what you mean by the word?

In part I'm contemplating the implications of meaning. What does it mean that meaning exists? We could instead live in a universe where there was no meaning - where everything was just a random jumble or where at least we had no means of understanding anything and communicating with each other.

Laird: I'm not particularly bound to any viewpoint

Kevin: You are particularly bound to the viewpoint that you are not bound to any viewpoint.

Laird: Yes, I've already acknowledged this conundrum elsewhere.

Kevin: It's only a conundrum for you. To others, it is clear that you are bound to a particular viewpoint, even though you state that you aren't.

It's a pretty simple if slightly subtle concept but one that I'm sure that you can grasp: I try not to bind myself to any particular viewpoint even though in doing this I recognise the paradox that it's impossible to do so without being bound to the positionlessness-is-desirable viewpoint. I also recognise that "paradox" seems to be a bit of a difficult word for some people on these forums to encounter, so I ask your forbearance in reading that part of my description.

Laird wrote:In part I'm contemplating the implications of meaning. What does it mean that meaning exists?

This is contemplation you should do in private until such time as you've worked something out that you can share with others.

We could instead live in a universe where there was no meaning

I create meaning, so there is meaning, and your question is answered.

I also recognise that "paradox" seems to be a bit of a difficult word for some people on these forums to encounter, so I ask your forbearance in reading that part of my description.

You are bound to a particular viewpoint and there's nothing at all paradoxical about that.

Hi Laird

Computer programmers are all over the place.
Jevovah Witnesses visit everyone's doorstep.
The electrician was probably just coincidence.

I don't believe that your thoughts transcended electromagnetic/chemical laws in a vain search for some other like-minded soul, so they could fix your globe.

"It is established scientific fact that the effects of our thoughts extend beyond our physical brain" - is this true? I've never heard this before. The computer game you mentioned is still controlled by thoughts within your brain, the actual thoughts don't travel outside the brain. Thoughts might be more difficult to understand than brain waves, but different thought processes and emotions happen in different regions of the brain. We don't understand what a thought is, or where its boundary is, but all energy/matter travels the laziest, most efficient route. So a thought would more likely be contained with the brain than travel around looking for other like-minded thoughts, expending energy unnecessarily.

I'd probably take the opposite view to you. I think thoughts are firmly encased in the skull that created them, but here I go off in a completely different tangent. I think all things think to a certain extent. So each person, animal has free will and can operate as a free agent in the world, to a certain degree. But maybe so can cells, enzymes, atoms, quarks. I don't think free will only exists in higher mammals, but evolves all the way up from the most fundamental particles, whatever they are.

So I think thought is contained in the energy/matter host (you, I, a cell, an atom etc) but there is an infinite range of possibilities that everyone and everything in the universe can attain.

Bilby wrote:"It is established scientific fact that the effects of our thoughts extend beyond our physical brain" - is this true? I've never heard this before. The computer game you mentioned is still controlled by thoughts within your brain, the actual thoughts don't travel outside the brain.

Actually they do - the sensors are placed on the scalp, which is on the other side of the skull to the brain. There's a whole lot of bone and skin between the brain and the sensors. Edit: I notice that you wrote "actual thoughts" whereas I am discussing "the effects of our thoughts" so I can after all tentatively agree with you.

Bilby wrote:I think all things think to a certain extent. So each person, animal has free will and can operate as a free agent in the world, to a certain degree. But maybe so can cells, enzymes, atoms, quarks. I don't think free will only exists in higher mammals, but evolves all the way up from the most fundamental particles, whatever they are.

I'm going to summarise what I see as the consequences of your viewpoint - please correct me if/where you differ. Thought is more just than electrical impulses across synapses - it is something non-physical corresponding to will. Thought is not produced by the electricity in the brain, instead this non-physical force called will produces (or at least fundamentally effects) the electricity in the brain that we recognise thought by. So your answer to the mind/body problem is that the mind is a separate force (comprised of this non-physical will-power) that somehow causes the brain's decisions and expressive functions to operate.

I'm somewhat drawn to your ideas because I like to speculate about the existence of will as a primary force in the universe. It might be an evolutionary force and it might affect even the very laws of physics themselves.

I believe thought is purely physical. I think it’s composed of the same stuff that everything else in the universe is composed of: energy/matter. The only difference between thought and say, a chair, is that we can define with reasonable precision where the chair is in space. With a thought, we’re fairly certain that it resides in the brain, but where exactly? Or are there several locations? So I believe that free-will, thought etc are physical phenomena.

The electrical impulses you mention probably describe the action of brain waves more than thought. I don’t know what physical form the actual thought takes, but it would be composed of atoms at least. So thought is atomic.

When faced with two options – say broccoli or chocolate, I sift through a lot of stimuli in order to make a decision. All of these stimuli are physical. Every memory that I evoke, in trying to make a choice, is physical. Somehow I retrieve images of past experiences, that play on my mind’s screen. This collection of atoms might be impossible to categorise, but they are still atoms, and still follow physical laws. Some memories can be so vague and hazy that I probably won’t be consciously aware of them. Maybe the atomic framework is weaker; if it was any weaker it would dissolve until eventually forgotten.

All of these thoughts and memories still follow cause-and-effect physical laws, but not laws that we’re familiar with. If I choose the chocolate and pick it up, there were a lot of self-governing physiological processes that made this possible. And as far as my free-will was concerned, there were a lot of tiny, atomic interactions that led to this as well.

Bilby wrote:I believe thought is purely physical.

And how do you think that free will is related to thought, in the light of your proposition that free will can be possessed even by basic (and presumable non-thinking) particles?

Bilby wrote:With a thought, we’re fairly certain that it resides in the brain, but where exactly? Or are there several locations? So I believe that free-will, thought etc are physical phenomena.

I'm not sure that it's so easy to dismiss thoughts as purely physical, because they have an experiential aspect that doesn't seem to be easily explained by the apparent physical componentry.

Bilby wrote:The electrical impulses you mention probably describe the action of brain waves more than thought.

How do you discriminate between brain waves and thoughts?

Bilby wrote:And as far as my free-will was concerned, there were a lot of tiny, atomic interactions that led to this as well.

And then at the level of the atom itself how do you describe free-will's action?

If thought is non-physical, then it isn’t comprised of energy/matter at all. So what is it comprised of then, and how would a non-physical entity like a thought move a physical entity like an arm? How does a non-physical thought spur a physical action?

Everything that exists in the universe is energy/matter. Nothingness is generally considered to be the absence of energy/matter. If thought isn’t energy/matter, then it’s nothing?

I don’t think that sub-atomic particles “think” in the usual sense. Maybe free-will and thought evolve according to the complexity of the system. So these phenomena are rudimentary in sub-atomic particles, and then find full realisation in humankind. Cells and enzymes display qualities like self-organisation and motivation. How much of this is purely mechanical?

Basically brain waves describe the machinery of the brain. The differing levels of electricity depend of the activity, whether sleeping, calculating etc. These can be located in different areas of the brain, the area of specialisation. But these don’t describe thought. You can’t see from these a picture of Fluffy.

Bilby wrote:If thought is non-physical, then it isn’t comprised of energy/matter at all. So what is it comprised of then, and how would a non-physical entity like a thought move a physical entity like an arm? How does a non-physical thought spur a physical action?

I wasn't trying to imply that thought is non-physical (although for all I know it actually is), what I was getting at is that thought has non-physical aspects. There is the energy/matter that you claim comprises thought (and presumably you would extend this to consciousness) and then there is the subjective phenomenological experience of consciousness itself. You might say that the experience is born of energy/matter, but the experience itself is neither. It is perhaps some sort of emergent property.

Bilby wrote:If thought isn’t energy/matter, then it’s nothing?

I find myself asking instead whether consciousness is cause or effect. Perhaps the balanced answer is that it is both. But we can examine the extremes. From what I understand of what you're saying, you take the extreme that consciousness is an effect: that it can be explained purely in terms of interactions in the material world. The other extreme - that consciousness is a cause - is the idea that consciousness is some sort of force (perhaps what you mean by complexly evolving free-will), that it is a third alternative to matter/energy, and that it produces the chemical and electrical patterns of thought in the brain rather than being produced by them. It's a harder position to maintain though because the question arises "if consciousness can act independently, then why do we require brains to house it?" So even this extreme would probably boil down to a middle ground where the conscious force (will-power if you like) requires some sort of structure by which it effects things, perhaps working at a quantum level.

Bilby wrote:Cells and enzymes display qualities like self-organisation and motivation. How much of this is purely mechanical?

I'm currently reading Richard Dawkins' book, The Blind Watchmaker, and he makes a compelling case that all of these things are indeed purely mechanical. I like the more romantic notion that you seem to be suggesting though and in some ways I'm open to it - for example I'm drawn to the idea of a teleological force that assists evolutionary progress.

Bilby wrote:Basically brain waves describe the machinery of the brain. The differing levels of electricity depend of the activity, whether sleeping, calculating etc. These can be located in different areas of the brain, the area of specialisation. But these don’t describe thought. You can’t see from these a picture of Fluffy.

But they have a correspondence with thought, right?

It's the (mental) "picture of Fluffy" that I'm referring to when I talk about the phenomenological aspect of thought that goes beyond matter/energy.

Anyway, welcome to the forum Bilby, it's nice to have you on board.

Thanks for the welcome, Laird. My library has the Blind Watchmaker, so I’ll get a copy. I thought I’d summarise how I see things and welcome any debate.

If I eat an apple today, I’ll remember this tomorrow. The apple-eating is an experience, and this physical experience leaves an “imprint”. If I was hooked up to an EEG machine tomorrow, and recalled this incident, certain areas of my brain would be firing up with electrical action. These brainwaves are physical phenomena, and are “traces” of the thought in action. They probably indicate roughly where the thought itself is situated. If I am asked to remember other things, then the same area of my brain lights up. But if asked to do some other task, like calculate the square root of one – then a different area of my brain would light up for a very brief instant before completely dying away. The fact that different areas of the brain are activated depending on the type of thought activity suggests that thought is very much physical. A thought could be similar to light. It has no rest mass either; you can’t pick up a thought in your hand. But like light, thought is made of particles – it’s probably pure energy. These particles may be smaller than protons and electrons, but they’re there – and they’re physical enough and strong enough to affect electron current.

Thought might only be pure energy, but it is still liable to physical laws, whatever they are at that level. So I can’t see how a thought can have non-physical aspects. It may well be subjective, but subjectivity is just implanting an image in your own brain. It might only relate to you personally, but it’s no less real for that.

It’s hard to conceptualise the memory of eating an apple to be no more than minute, atomic behaviour but maybe that’s all it is.

Bilby, I think that mostly we see things similarly, there are just a couple of things that I want to point out.

Bilby wrote:A thought could be similar to light. It has no rest mass either; you can’t pick up a thought in your hand. But like light, thought is made of particles – it’s probably pure energy. These particles may be smaller than protons and electrons, but they’re there – and they’re physical enough and strong enough to affect electron current.

Don't you think that if this were the case, science would by now have identified these "thought particles"? I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you - it's a possibility, but a remote one in my opinion given that we have identified so many other fundamental particles already.

Bilby wrote:So I can’t see how a thought can have non-physical aspects. It may well be subjective, but subjectivity is just implanting an image in your own brain. It might only relate to you personally, but it’s no less real for that.

I get the impression that you haven't understood what I mean. We can potentially analyse the mechanisms of thought scientifically and come up with a whole descriptive theory of how a thought occurs, but then there's a totally different question of what it feels like to have a thought - the subjective conscious experience of thought, and it is this subjective experience that is non-physical (an experience is not something that you can point to, it's something that happens to you).

Yes, that’s a good point about why science hasn’t discovered thought particles. I don’t know. Perhaps we can come back to that one.

I think a subjective experience is physical. Maybe what happens is something like this: When you eat an apple, you form a subjective view immediately from your senses: taste, touch, smell etc – there would be an almost infinite rush of sensations. Let’s just suppose that as you experience each of these individual sensations, for example the texture of apple, a certain chemical is released. Either this chemical, or a released particle from this, finds its way to a “screen” in your brain. Then the taste of the apple releases another chemical, the experience of chewing, another, your surroundings, the sounds and shapes, all of these individual sensations release some “identifier” that may be very small-scale, but when accumulated on a “screen”, form together in a recognisable reconstitution of that experience. So each time you eat an apple, your mind is receiving similar input which reinforces each time what eating an apple is like. There would probably be an astronomical number of individual “identifiers”, all coalescing to form this memory.

Most people would probably say that an emotion like “sadness” is different; it has an inexpressible quality that couldn’t possibly be conveyed by something as simple as chemicals or particles. But “sadness” could have something like a billion individual “identifiers” and so perhaps sadness isn’t a “feeling” after all, it’s a purely physical and physiological response with a multitude of chemicals at its heart.

Bilby wrote:I think a subjective experience is physical.

If you'll forgive me I'll suggest that what I think you're actually trying to say is that you think that a subjective experience can be explained by physical processes. But I don't see how you can honestly hold a belief that an experience itself is physical - I'm inclined to say that by definition it can't be. As I wrote earlier, an experience isn't something that you can point to, it's something that happens to you.

Bilby wrote:Maybe what happens is something like this ...

I haven't studied too much neuroscience so I can't comment on how accurate your description of chemical identifiers corresponding to experienced states is. My intuition tells me that you're at least in the ballpark. I'm not sure about the "screen" though - it seems a bit like a "center of consciousness" and I'm not sure how accurate that explanation is. You might be interested in the novel explanation that Daniel Dennet posits in his book, Consciousness Explained. He argues that consciousness is a multiple-revisions, decentralised affair. I read it a long time ago so I can't recall much about it except that I found it to be a stimulating read. Someone else recently posted a couple of essays that I haven't yet got around to reading although the introduction of the first one seemed promisingly lucid - the poster (I forget who it was) wrote that they go beyond Dennet's arguments. I'll relink to them in case you're interested:
Moving forward on the problem of consciousness
Facing up to the problem of consciousness

An experience of seeing the colour blue can be pointed to, if we understood it. Your eyes accept the photons, which in turn send certain messages to the brain. The wavelengths of blue probably release different chemicals to the wavelengths of red, for example. So the cone receptors in the eyes have relayed to the brain what colour we’re seeing. But then the brain has to relay this information to us. We would probably be overwhelmed if we were fully conscious of all stimuli received, every second of the day. Information processing probably uses a form of short-hand, so that we don’t suffer from information overload. We’re constantly bombarded by stimuli, but most of the time our brains are “on hold” to a certain extent – we’d go crazy otherwise. So our direct experience is an abstraction of the original stimulus. So maybe, whenever we visualise the colour blue, we are experiencing only a few chemicals, or particles, on our “screen” which signify the colour blue as opposed to other colours. It’s not a full approximation of the information received. Memory, as opposed to the original experience of seeing blue, would take this reductionist process even further. Because as I said earlier, the original experience (which is already an abstraction) has released even fewer particles to denote the memory of that experience. So both the experience, and the memory, are chemical or particle abstractions, but they're still "things". Both probably fall on some interior “screen” or seat of consciousness. Identify the screen, and the particles that form within it, and you can point to experience.

Bilby wrote:An experience of seeing the colour blue can be pointed to, if we understood it.

Let's agree to disagree on this one then. I can accept that we might be able to point to the process that causes the experience, but not that we can point to the experience itself.

Bilby wrote:But then the brain has to relay this information to us.

So you distinguish between the brain and "us". If I am not my brain, then where and what am I?

Bilby wrote:It’s not a full approximation of the information received.

I'm not totally comfortable with the term "approximation" there. What are we approximating? We have information and we have a reality that it corresponds to. So do you mean by approximation that the correspondence is diminished?

Bilby wrote:Because as I said earlier, the original experience (which is already an abstraction) has released even fewer particles to denote the memory of that experience.

Again, I don't know enough about neuroscience to know how accurate your portrayal is, but I believe that quite a bit about memory processes in the brain (although not the whole thing) is understood by science. I don't want to speculate too much given that scientific experts could no doubt put my ponderings to shame. I hope that that doesn't disappoint you, but really I'd just be groping in the dark where others have shone a flashlight.

Bilby wrote:So both the experience, and the memory, are chemical or particle abstractions, but they're still "things". Both probably fall on some interior “screen” or seat of consciousness. Identify the screen, and the particles that form within it, and you can point to experience.

So you believe that in dissecting and analysing the brain, we will come upon a structure that is the focus of it all, where consciousness "actually" occurs, and which the rest of the brain merely supports. We would then expect to find that this structure is highly connected to all other parts of the brain, so it shouldn't be too hard to identify it. Is this what we find when we actually dissect a brain? I'm no expert, but from what I've read: it is not.

People shouldn’t be intimidated by a lack of scientific knowledge. I barely got through Grade 10. It’s just fun, and if someone disagrees that makes it more fun. The point is to have a go. So don’t hold back because I doubt anyone here is an expert.

Yes, I’m saying the correspondence is diminished. When we see a vivid, blue dot on a page, our perception of that dot is maybe only 1% of the incoming stimulus. Nature usually takes the easiest way out. It’s important to be able to distinguish a poisonous red berry from an edible blue berry the same size, but anything more than that is superfluous.

If we had the right technology, we probably would have identified thought particles by now. Size is the problem. You’d need very elegant, quantum-scaled machinery to trace incoming impulses, track where these are going, detect whatever minute particles these are offloading, and follow these particles to wherever they go. All of this would be very difficult to do with a live brain, let alone a dead one.

When you first drove a car, maybe billions of chemicals were released and placed in a vignette on a screen. Every time someone mentions “driving a car” this original memory may hardly be recalled at all. But if someone asked you specifically to remember the first time you drove, you would be expending more energy in tracking down these chemical remnants. A bit like a computer searching for a file. The image would be a very weak abstraction of the original experience, but it is there in physical form, waiting to be invoked.

Bilby wrote:The point is to have a go. So don’t hold back because I doubt anyone here is an expert.

Thanks for the invitation - pressure's on to come up with a contribution! I really don't have much speculation on the low-level physical workings of the brain to contribute, but I'll share something else with you that you might like. My idea is that intelligent consciousness can be likened to biological evolution.

To start with, I'll define a "thought process" as "the following through in the mind of an associative chain of thought or the recalling of a memory". In this analogy then, a thought process can be likened to a species, and the particular occurrence in the mind over an interval of time of that thought process can be likened to a biological animal of that species with a lifespan. So a thought is "alive" in the brain and is competing with lots of other thoughts for survival - strength of survival being analogous to the primacy of the thought in consciousness as well as strength of its "fitness marker", which I'll describe shortly. Now we can consider that thought processes sometimes die an ugly death - the "predators" of opposing critical thoughts in our mind kill them, leaving a partial gravestone. If an animal of that species lives again, it will have to evolve in some way to avoid another death by criticism. This is where the role of randomness in the brain comes in - and it's why we often return to things that we've already decided are wrong - we're opening the possibility that some fluctuation in the mind evolves our thought process in a way that allows it to evade our critical thoughts. If not, then it will again be eaten up and the gravestone will be built up a little bit more.

On the other hand, if the thought is particularly free from criticism and meets some criteria of novelty, then we have an "aha" moment and rather than a gravestone being erected, a light bulb is illuminated. I'm using two different symbols here (gravestone and light bulb) but really I intend them to represent a single continuum of "fitness" (in the sense of natural selection) of the thought process. Here's where the analogy breaks down a little, because in biological evolution each animal's life doesn't affect some fitness marker as I'm suggesting that each individual thought's lifespan does.

The mind starts to become aware of the growing gravestones and lightbulbs, and is reluctant to give birth to an animal of that species if the gravestone is too solid: in other words, species of thought are given a chance to evolve, but if after several attempts they fail to evolve then that species goes extinct (of course in the mind there's no such thing as total extinction because we can always forcibly choose to follow a doomed line of thought anyway, just for the pure experience of it, but you get my point I hope). The reason that it avoids the chains of thought marked by gravestones is that critical death is painful, and the mind seeks to avoid suffering even though it recognises that a certain level is unavoidable if it is to continue thinking. Likewise it hankers after the pleasure of the aha moments and is eager to give birth to thought processes marked by light bulbs. Here we can return to the evolutionary analogy, because each time such a thought process is given birth to its predators are given a chance to mutate and evolve in parallel, so our successful thought species are constantly being challenged to evolve themselves.

So given all of that we can explain a bit about personalities. The person with low self esteem might be someone whose predators are currently overpowering the benign and creative species of thought, to the point that there are so many gravestones that the process of mental evolution is finding it hard to come up with any successful benign thought processes to base a mutation on, or to ignite pleasurable sensations. The very rational person might be one whose predators and prey are able to maintain a good balance. Some types of very creative people might be those whose random mutations are more severe than other people's and who have relatively weak predators.

Bilby wrote:Yes, I’m saying the correspondence is diminished. When we see a vivid, blue dot on a page, our perception of that dot is maybe only 1% of the incoming stimulus. Nature usually takes the easiest way out. It’s important to be able to distinguish a poisonous red berry from an edible blue berry the same size, but anything more than that is superfluous.

I'd be more comfortable writing that different aspects of consciousness make use of different aspects of sensory data. For example, if I glance at your blue berry, I might simply perceive a round, blue, edible object. If I observe it with the purpose of discerning its suitability as a snack, I might then perceive that there are small brown markings on it. Now, was the light data from my eye that indicated small brown markings "approximated" during my glance, or is it more appropriate to say that it was "ignored"? I prefer to think that it was ignored, but even this is not totally accurate, because it's sometimes possible to retrieve from memory information that I was initially ignorant of.

For example, if I'm having a conversation with someone and my mind drifts so that I'm not hearing what they're saying, and then I realise that I haven't been paying attention, I can often think to myself, "oh, now what have I just missed" and be able to recall maybe a sentence or two of the speaker's words that I hadn't originally been aware of.

Is this as possible with the berry example? I haven't really experimented as much and it probably varies between people, but I would suggest that even after a brief glance in which you weren't aware of the small brown markings, chances are that if you thought carefully about your memory in the right way, and had been particularly alert during the glance, you might become aware of them.

Bilby wrote:If we had the right technology, we probably would have identified thought particles by now. Size is the problem. You’d need very elegant, quantum-scaled machinery to trace incoming impulses, track where these are going, detect whatever minute particles these are offloading, and follow these particles to wherever they go. All of this would be very difficult to do with a live brain, let alone a dead one.

Right, so you seem to be contending that thought particles are entirely contained within the brain such that they never escape its bounds and would require in-brain technology to detect them. First off, how do you explain that such a particle would never escape the brain? Secondly, what feature of these particles makes them more suitable for describing the low-level processes of thought than any other particles, such as those contained in the chemicals that you already recognise as part of an experience? In other words: why do we need a new particle when science has already provided us with a lovely selection to build on?

Laird, I can relate to Bilby in almost all that he describes, and you have said very well on ‘thoughts’. I have for long now known that there is a mental evolution in action other than what we know as physical, in fact, I believe that the human kind is not the only “mental” evolution happening, for “mental” is but in reference to humans, but that is no more than the sum total of an individuals (be it a particles) tendencies and desires (Will) that drives it, hence it was never that Will was not at work.

Now… what we call “us”, “me”… “I”… is left open to question in Bilby’s post… which you justifiably question.

Bilby: But then the brain has to relay this information to us.

Laird: So you distinguish between the brain and "us". If I am not my brain, then where and what am I?

If I may…

We have been traditionally separating the “me” from the brain, which is understandable, but in my opinion the sense of “I” is no more than the neurological processes coupled with the continuity held in memory itself. It is merely the memory held within such a process itself that is the “I”.

I find it illogical when people say “my mind”. Who exactly is “me” when “I” say “my” mind? Is “me” the body in this instance? Or the brain? Or is it the mind itself? Of course it is the mind (neurological process) itself. I can understand one saying MY body, MY brain, MY…. whatever; but the mind (which is none other than “I”) saying MY MIND sounds absurd. “MY” mind and ‘me’ are one and the same thing… Saying MY mind or MY thoughts is a result of a mistaken identity, although grammatically correct. It is merely for the sake of communication that I will call “my” thought processes as mine because I experience a body or a brain from which it logically seems to originate.

Further more… we do not necessarily need language or human consciousness to have such a sense of “I”… none that one could consider to be the least conscious could operate or interact with its environment if it did not have this sense of “I” against “not-I”. This goes down to the tiniest of levels; and more complex the structure gets, more the capacity to hold memory, and greater the will (sum of an individuals or organisms, desires or tendencies) to exercise and make use of such a memory that can now (in humans) not only be affected by its environment, but as a complex enough unit can affect its environment in return, actively willful; for it is now capable of logical deduction… capable of actively interacting, questioning its environment, including its own self… queestioning who or what the heck am “I”?

“I” am no more than an interactively experiencing sensual process held long enough in and of a temporal thing that is complex enough to hold a sense of continuity through memory.

Regarding coincidences… yes, they may seem to be so, but only because we are not totally aware of all causes that lead to them; where even ‘we’ as individuals are responsible of certain causes that contribute to effects, and so on. Just saying that I understand the causal connectivity of all things is not enough… calling events coincidences shows the lack of such an understanding at its core… unless one believes that only empirical or physical causes accounted for are effectual, otherwise not, hence unrealted coincidences.

Further more… we do not necessarily need language or human consciousness to have such a sense of “I”… none that one could consider to be the least conscious could operate or interact with its environment if it did not have this sense of “I” against “not-I”. This goes down to the tiniest of levels; and more complex the structure gets, more the capacity to hold memory, and greater the will (sum of an individuals or organisms, desires or tendencies) to exercise and make use of such a memory that can now (in humans) not only be affected by its environment, but as a complex enough unit can affect its environment in return, actively willful; for it is now capable of logical deduction… capable of actively interacting, questioning its environment, including its own self… questioning who or what the heck am “I”?

Just commenting on the bolded bit.

I wonder if this means that all things have a degree of memory (except the thing we call space).

For something to physically exist, for it to be a thing, it must have at least one section where it is in balance. For memory to be “held” it must be held by at least two parts that each contain balanced centres, in which these two parts form a further additional balance (or my preferred term is “a synergy of causal action”) by having opposite natures in that portion of the each part that is not balanced, ie one part has an greater external expansionary power, and the other part has greater external contracting power, with the outcome being that a second level of balance is formed by one using up the causal power of the other. In this simple dualistic example, even the simplest form of physical memory - though perhaps I should call it Information as per the physics term, rather than memory - could only exist if the polarisation of each part was constantly alternating their external causal polarisation and parts external to these parts were not causing the dualistic balance to decay. The minutest portion of the memory of beings would of course be a massively complex causal flow that continuously loops.

Instant 1: Part A is 51% externally expansionary. Part B is 51% externally contractionary (or 49% expansionary if you like). The two parts Taken together as a combined balance equals 100% or a 1.

Instant 2: 0.9% of the excess expansionary force from Part A has expanded into the vacancy created by the 51% contractionary force of Part B. The combination of the two parts is an almost perfectly static thing (0.1% of it is still in the process of evening out). Relative to everything else time has slowed for this unit, internally though, as in the sub-parts within Part A and B are still doing the A to B or B or A flows.

Instant 3: Next door to the combined Parts A/B unit, Part C is 75% contractionary (picture Part C as encircling the A/B unit). One absolute truth we observe in the universe is that forces always take the path of least resistance, therefore Part C, which happens to be the most directly relative semi-balanced from of the void to the A/B unit, offers less resistance to the A/B unit, will cause some of this A/B units expansionary force to expand into the area of Part C, and the whole evening out process starts again for the A/B unit. In this particular instant however, Part C however is encircled by part D which is 53% expansionary, and in this case the A/B unit offers more resistance to Part C than Part D does, so A/B unit remains static.

This is why gravity exists, all the surrounding layers of a thing offer less causal resistance to the process of evening out, when compared to the internal layers, and therefore things will expand into this path of lesser resistance and as they do so, they will be taking in more and more of the contractionary force, which we call gravity.

If one wished to be a non-dualist in relation to what I refer to as the expansionary force and contractionary force, then one can conceive of time as The Force, where the expansionary force is faster time and the contracting force is slower time. Time is as much a force as any other, it is just we do not normally think of it in that fashion. If time exists in the fashion just stated then, there is no need for any other fundamental forces to exist.

The void would actually be that part of the Totality that did not allow the appearance of balance, regardless of the perspective one took. Note here though, that if we shrunk the perceiver to fit inside a part that they presently observe as in balance, the balance they were observing would disappear – there is never truly any such static balance. Every time one perceives The Totality as if they were inside a part of it, they will only ever see the balance held in lower level parts and not in the sub-universe level in which the perception is occurring, nor in the unobservable higher level universe.


:) There we go, the nature of the universe has been explained yet again for those with the imagination to hear it.

I’ll just concentrate on the consciousness aspect for now because it’s very original and interesting. Your views appear holistic, in that evolution isn’t just a feature of species, but also a feature of the mind itself.

You seem to be imbuing thought with its own unique level of consciousness. By drawing analogies with a biological entity, you are describing human characteristics as a force, with its own motivation, rather than just an effect. Have I read this correctly? So you’re saying that for a chronically depressed person, for example, the predatory forces are vying for dominance over the benign or “aha” forces. And so if someone with low self-esteem is constantly doing the wrong thing, it’s because the predators have evolved, or statistically outnumber the benign forces. Although here the “aha” moments seem to be describing creativity, and creativity is a separate issue to moralistic actions.

My problem with that is that I think behaviour is the response of our world-view. And our world-view is an effect, rather than a force. Say someone has been mistreated during their developing years. They would have a lower level of positive motivators (creators?) than say, an optimist. They may fall into crime, even though they know it’s wrong. It’s not that they don’t have some level of free-will, they do – but overcoming their negative motivators is a harder uphill climb for them than say, for the rest of us. If they are constantly remembering the bad things that happened to them, this will be very difficult to overcome. But I can’t view the motivators, as having an identity or consciousness all of their own. Although I do agree that our motivations “vie” for position, but not really in a conscious way. It’s really our own conscience trying to decide what to do, when our good and bad motivators are neck and neck sometimes.

Thoughts generally consolidate and complement one another, rather than compete. So it depends on whether you’re referring to our moral code or to perception in general. I don’t believe that wrong-doing is the result of randomness in the brain. I think the “predators” or negative motivators, are fixed patterns in the mind and always exist. So I can’t see how predators evolve or mutate. They are the remnants of things that actually happened, so how would they get the energy to change in any way? Am I right in assuming that you are linking goodness with creativity? You might need to clarify this, because I don’t understand this.

Troubled people can be very creative. So their problems, or negative motivators, are what prompt them to create in the first place, and this can be a form of escape. So a creative person can actually have an excess of predators, and they are trying to find an outlet for their destructive tendencies.

I believe our potential is limited according which of our motivations – good or bad – has the upper hand. Despite free will, it is statistically unlikely that we can rise much above a predominantly weighed negativity. It is hard for someone to aspire to a good, fulfilling life, when the skills for this are totally lacking in their memory.