The self, sleep and infancy

[Otter]

No one as of yet has defined what an immaterial mind is or how it differs from the physical brain. Why, if the physical brain needs a mind to interpret information, does not the immaterial mind also need a mind to interpret information? What is the difference?

There is some VERY embryonic evidence that the brain works in a way that is exceptional to laws of traditional physics. These particles of evidence aren't nearly well enough understood to justify even the form of your question, really: it's not clear to me that the mind "interprets" information. But the idea of a self, of mind, is very much in flux right now as scientists try to understand the brain on several levels.

Putting it another way, if you're asking for answers and not speculation, you'll have to wait a bit. Hopefully not more than a couple of generations....

[JimL]

There is some VERY embryonic evidence that the brain works in a way that is exceptional to laws of traditional physics. These particles of evidence aren't nearly well enough understood to justify even the form of your question, really: it's not clear to me that the mind "interprets" information. But the idea of a self, of mind, is very much in flux right now as scientists try to understand the brain on several levels.

Putting it another way, if you're asking for answers and not speculation, you'll have to wait a bit. Hopefully not more than a couple of generations....

All well and good, but unless one can explain how this mind, this self, this spirit or whatever one wants to call it, how superadding it to the equation solves anything, then there is no sense in positing it in the first place. When I look out of my window at the trees in my yard the images of those trees don't exist inside my head, the image goes no further than the surface of my eye from which point it becomes information in the form of electrochemical activity. Seer's point is that these images and ideas are somehow reproduced again inside the brain and presented as if on a movie screen to another brain, which he calls a mind, but he doesn't give any explanation as to why this second brain/mind can do what he claims the first one can not do. He doesn't explain how this mind is any different from the physical brain, except for the fact that it isn't physical, he merely moves the problem back one step and calls the problem solved.

[seer]

But I don't think that your assertion of knowledge is justified. We do not know that thoughts or mental images have any real existence apart from the electro-chemical activity going on inside our brains that represent them. When you look at a tree, the image of that tree exists on the surface of your eye, but it has no reality of its own, no more so than does your own image when you look in the mirror, they are merely reflections of things that do exist, and they have no real existence inside your head, they don't go any further than the surface of your eye, they don't as images travel through the nervous system and project themselves on a screen somewhere in your brain to be viewed, they don't need to be, they have already been viewed, and the electrochemical activity of the brain is the way in which reality is transformed into information.

Let's camp here for a second. When I imagine a tree (say with my eyes closed), the beginning of your process is longer applies. And and far as I know James the electro-chemical process only represents the electro-chemical process - how could it represent anything else? Like I said, it is just meat, your heart and liver have similar electro-chemical processes. Now those images in my mind, like dreams for instance, do exist. And they have shape, form, depth and color - without the need for actual light or screens, etc... So Jim, those images do in fact exist in my mind, yet they are not public - they can not be seen by others. Open my head - do you see a image of my dear mother? No - but I do.

[seer]

No one as of yet has defined what an immaterial mind is or how it differs from the physical brain. Why, if the physical brain needs a mind to interpret information, does not the immaterial mind also need a mind to interpret information? What is the difference?

Why? The brain could function as the hardware (the 1s and 0s) and the mind would be the software - to translate the 1s and 0s.

[Otter]

All well and good, but unless one can explain how this mind, this self, this spirit or whatever one wants to call it, how superadding it to the equation solves anything, then there is no sense in positing it in the first place. When I look out of my window at the trees in my yard the images of those trees don't exist inside my head, the image goes no further than the surface of my eye from which point it becomes information in the form of electrochemical activity. Seer's point is that these images and ideas are somehow reproduced again inside the brain and presented as if on a movie screen to another brain, which he calls a mind, but he doesn't give any explanation as to why this second brain/mind can do what he claims the first one can not do. He doesn't explain how this mind is any different from the physical brain, except for the fact that it isn't physical, he merely moves the problem back one step and calls the problem solved.

I know: I'm just suggesting that the traditional (?) differentiation between mind / soul and brain is under some scrutiny in science, that the traditionally mysterious (and therefore in my opinion not entirely useful) distinction between the two might actually bear some weight.

Put it this way: Platonic dualism ruled the day until very recently, when it was utterly rejected. Some form of it, stressing the integration between the mind and brain, might possibly emerge again, but we're in a peculiar time. We haven't got grounds for the kind of confidence with which a scientist might have dismissed "mind" a few years ago; there is enough weirdness between the ears that neuroscience is not justified in the dismissal. We might call it something else: emergent properties, quantum properties of the brain, something, anything else. Doesn't matter to me. But what the traditionalist calls "mind" might not be so absurd as all that, just a useful term for something we might eventually describe in more detail.

[JimL]

Let's camp here for a second. When I imagine a tree (say with my eyes closed), the beginning of your process is longer applies.

True, which is why the mental image that you imagine to exist inside your head is not as sharp and clear as the real reflected one that rests upon the surface of your eye.

And and far as I know James the electro-chemical process only represents the electro-chemical process - how could it represent anything else?

Well if the electro-chemical processes are not representative of the images and thoughts in your mind, if they do not bring them about, then in what way are you relating the two?

Like I said, it is just meat, your heart and liver have similar electro-chemical processes.

Surely you understand that you cannot equate the heart and liver with the brain, they each serve a different purpose, only the latter evolved to think.

Now those images in my mind, like dreams for instance, do exist. And they have shape, form, depth and color - without the need for actual light or screens, etc... So Jim, those images do in fact exist in my mind, yet they are not public - they can not be seen by others. Open my head - do you see a image of my dear mother? No - but I do.

Or, perhaps the reason that nobody can open up your head and see the same images that you imagine to exist, perhaps the reason that all we would see is a fuctioning brain, just perhaps, the reason for that, is because they do not exist.

[seer]

Well if the electro-chemical processes are not representative of the images and thoughts in your mind, if they do not bring them about, then in what way are you relating the two?

Well like I said, perhaps like a computer the electrical brain charges are similar to ones and zeros and the mind is the software that translates those electrical charges into something meaningful.

Or, perhaps the reason that nobody can open up your head and see the same images that you imagine to exist, perhaps the reason that all we would see is a functioning brain, just perhaps, the reason for that, is because they do not exist.

Ok, so something we both experience (images and thoughts) really don't exist? Perhaps nothing really exists then. After all EVERYTHING you know and experience is only know by via these mental processes.

[pancreasman]

Well like I said, perhaps like a computer the electrical brain charges are similar to ones and zeros and the mind is the software that translates those electrical charges into something meaningful.



Ok, so something we both experience (images and thoughts) really don't exist? Perhaps nothing really exists then. After all EVERYTHING you know and experience is only know by via these mental processes.

I smell a misuse of Descartes coming again ...

[seer]

I smell a misuse of Descartes coming again ...

I never misuse Mr.D, I only expand. And it was Jim that suggested that mental thoughts and images don't exist. I'm the one here who does believe that they exist.

[pancreasman]

I never misuse Mr.D, I only expand. And it was Jim that suggested that mental thoughts and images don't exist. I'm the one here who does believe that they exist.

I hate to sound Clintonesque but what does 'exist' mean? When I say an apple exists, I can point to properties that it shares with other things that exist. In what way does your subjective experience of mental images show that the images themselves exist in any meaningful sense of the word?

[JimL]

Well like I said, perhaps like a computer the electrical brain charges are similar to ones and zeros and the mind is the software that translates those electrical charges into something meaningful.

Then you agree with me that the electrochemical activity is representative of ideas, of thoughts, and of the things that are seen, so why would the physical brain that does this representation need a distinct mind to translate what it has already translated?

Ok, so something we both experience (images and thoughts) really don't exist?

They exist insofar as they are representations. A thought has no actual existence, there is no immaterial tree floating around in your head and neither does your argument require one to exist there since it is your view that an immaterial mind is interpreting the mentalize, the electrochemical activity, the ones and zeros that represents the idea of a tree, not seeing an actual tree.

Perhaps nothing really exists then. After all EVERYTHING you know and experience is only know by via these mental processes.

Yes but we can also distinguish between inside our head and outside of our head, between imagination and reality. The imagination is not as vivid as our experience of external reality.

[pancreasman]

I wonder if our whole problem here with mental images 'existing' is based on our natural biased view of the sense of sight? Things we 'see' must exist, right? Seeing is believing, right?

Let's choose another sense and look at its subjective experience and see if that leads us to think something immaterial exists. If I eat an apple, I taste it. The taste of an apple is various molecules firing various receptor cells linked to the brain. I subjectively experience this as the taste of an apple. Does this mean that somewhere there is an immaterial apple taste? I don't think so. It's simply not necessary.

[seer]

Then you agree with me that the electrochemical activity is representative of ideas, of thoughts, and of the things that are seen, so why would the physical brain that does this representation need a distinct mind to translate what it has already translated?

That would not follow Jim. The ones and zeros, the electrical charges (on/offs) in the micro processor, represent nothing meanigful. They must be translated - 110 is just two high electrical charges (5VDC each and one low/off charge 0VDC). Software must translate these charges into the number 6. We do find similar electrical charges in the physical brain - what we don't find is the sofware that turns said electrical charges into something meaningful.

They exist insofar as they are representations. A thought has no actual existence, there is no immaterial tree floating around in your head and neither does your argument require one to exist there since it is your view that an immaterial mind is interpreting the mentalize, the electrochemical activity, the ones and zeros that represents the idea of a tree, not seeing an actual tree.

Well Jim they either exist or they don't. You either have real thoughts and images or you don't.

Yes but we can also distinguish between inside our head and outside of our head, between imagination and reality. The imagination is not as vivid as our experience of external reality.

I won't go here, it's enought to say that there are a number of unprovable assumptions in this statement.

[JimL]

That would not follow Jim. The ones and zeros, the electrical charges (on/offs) in the micro processor, represent nothing meanigful. They must be translated - 110 is just two high electrical charges (5VDC each and one low/off charge 0VDC). Software must translate these charges into the number 6. We do find similar electrical charges in the physical brain - what we don't find is the sofware that turns said electrical charges into something meaningful.

The electrical charges can't be translated into something meaningful unless there is meaning in them to be translated, and it is the brain itself that produces that meaning. So why would the brain need another brain to translate or interpret what it itself has processed? Does the mind also have a processing center of its own by which it processes the information, the electro chemical information, that it recieves from the physical brain?

Well Jim they either exist or they don't. You either have real thoughts and images or you don't.

Right, and my opinion is that you don't, what you have is electrochemical representations, thoughts and images, qualia, have no actual existence of their own.

I won't go here, it's enought to say that there are a number of unprovable assumptions in this statement.

such as?

[seer]

The electrical charges can't be translated into something meaningful unless there is meaning in them to be translated, and it is the brain itself that produces that meaning. So why would the brain need another brain to translate or interpret what it itself has processed? Does the mind also have a processing center of its own by which it processes the information, the electro chemical information, that it recieves from the physical brain?

Jim, you can make that claim but as Otter mentioned no one knows how that would be possible. How does the brain alone translate electrical charges into an image of a tree for instance. What is doing the translation? It can't be the electrical charges for they are the very things that need to be processed into something else - a thought or an image.

Right, and my opinion is that you don't, what you have is electrochemical representations, thoughts and images, qualia, have no actual existence of their own.

Ok, so how to electrical charges represent anything but electrical charges? Some how electrical charges now magically represent the image of a tree. How does that work?.

such as?

Such as you can not prove that claim logically i.e. deductively. You take it on faith that it is so. EVERYTHING you know you only know by what is on the inside. A mirage looks like reality to the person who experiences it.