• GraveItty
    311
    Yep. And unlike the conventional notion of a computer – the representational understanding - meaning arises semiotically. What is significant is the brain's ability to eliminate that all that "information".

    To recognise is to whittle a near infinity of possibilities down to some useful act of identification. In a split second, any number of less well fitting states of interpretation are discarded.

    So computers place high value on storing information. Brains place high value on how much can instead be ignored.

    Recognition is something forced on our attention by our inability to otherwise look past some aspect of our environment.
    apokrisis

    I tend to consider this as poetry! In a positive way, I mean! Great.
  • Daemon
    591
    Google "Jennifer Aniston cells".

    And here's a related discussion:

    https://jeffbowers.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/blog/grandmother-cells/
  • theRiddler
    260
    All I can add is that I believe memories aren't stored in the brain, but the actual empirical world, and that the process of recollecting the past is every bit as psychic as it would be to recollect the future.
  • GraveItty
    311
    All I can add is that I believe memories aren't stored in the brain, but the actual empirical world, and that the process of recollecting the past is every bit as psychic as it would be to recollect the future.theRiddler

    That's a very nice view! It's indeed the face out there that's familiar!
  • Varde
    326
    Do you suggest I have a dimensional-tail?
  • theRiddler
    260
    Even tails are 3-Dimensional. In all honesty I don't know what the fuck any of this actually is. Doors open, windows close, what's outside no one knows.
  • bert1
    2k
    Where did I say that? Again, you put the words into my thread.GraveItty

    I think T Clark plausibly inferred that from what you did say.
  • bert1
    2k
    A first clarification would be that brains work not on stored memories but active anticipations. They are designed not to remember the past but predict the future. So the comparison is between what is expected to be the case, and what turns out to be the case.apokrisis

    I slag you off a lot Apo but I like this bit. Not that I'm qualified to judge, merely being an armchair philosopher. :) If the human brain is really supposed to remember stuff, it's fucking shit at it. It can do it a bit, but if a computer had my memory it wouldn't even boot.
  • GraveItty
    311
    I think T Clark plausibly inferred that from what you did say.bert1

    How else can it be? His conclusion was false though.
  • GraveItty
    311
    if a computer had my memory it wouldn't even boot.bert1

    :lol:
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    but that begs the question.GraveItty

    How?
  • GraveItty
    311
    but that begs the question.

    How?TheMadFool

    Can't remember I wrote that.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Can't remember I wrote that.GraveItty

    Then your point is moot. Right?
  • baker
    5.6k
    So what is a memory?GraveItty

    A natural function of the human body. There is a point from which on explaining the natural functions of the body becomes impossible or meaningless, and eventually tautological.

    Comparison does play a role, though: For example, if you notice that one day, a woman has a beauty mole on her face, and a few days later, she doesn't, that's a recognition of difference based on a comparison.
  • GraveItty
    311
    Comparison does play a role, though: For example, if you notice that one day, a woman has a beauty mole on her face, and a few days later, she doesn't, that's a recognition of difference based on a comparison.baker

    That's very true. Her face doesn't "click" completely in a kinda engraved path. The mole is not in the inscription yet. Next time you remember the mole. You recognize her but the mole is new. Though I'm not sure you compare here. You notice that the mole is new because the "falling into the trail" isn't complete. There is a mole now. You can of course remember how she was and you feel the new "clicking" is not complete, because (indeed!) your old image , her old engraved trail, becomes activated too, to state the matter in a somewhat impersonal way. So the new is indeed compared with the old! Thanks for a new insight! I'm not sure why I wanna know this. Consider it a result of my scientific upgrowing. It's always nice to know things. I used to dismantle wake-up alarms. But to dismantle my grandma would go to far! Just imagine...

    Not sure where a tautology comes in.
  • baker
    5.6k
    If a function of the body is impaired somehow, we can get some ideas about how it works or how it could work through the way we try to overcome the impairment. For example, ideas for what people with onset dementia can do in order to make up for their memory troubles.


    Not sure where a tautology comes in.GraveItty

    We can see because we have eyes. Our eyes are sensitive to light of different wavelengths. That's how we can see.
    Of course, we can go into a lot more detail about types of cells in the eye, visible wavelengths, etc. etc. but nothing is eventually gained by that in explaining how exactly it is that we see.

    Now how useful is that?
  • GraveItty
    311
    Now how useful is that?baker

    If you exclude the brain, it's not useful. When you include it, it can explain how we see. Now what we see though. I mean, it can't explain the conscious experience of light. Line that of sound. Sound and vision are not explicable. Their forms and patterns are, by pointing at the neuron correlate. But their experience not. Perceived patterned forms of blue, moving in a 3d space cannot be explained. The experience of them, that is. How can a description of them in a scientific way explain it?
  • Caldwell
    1.3k
    Both the program and the data are stored in the memory, although the have different functions. In the brain, there is no such structure. It's us who have the real memory. Our memory doesn't make use of comparison. If I see a face, I don't compare it to a stored memory and (consciously or unconsciously) to the memory of the face I have.GraveItty
    The (human) memory retrieves information, and also compares. The issue with your post is you right off claimed that it cannot store like a computer does -- which is true. The functionalities are different, but human memory stores, retrieves, and compares.

    Oh yeah, welcome to human awareness.
  • GraveItty
    311
    The (human) memory retrieves information, and also compares. The issue with your post is you right off claimed that it cannot store like a computer does -- which is true. The functionalities are different, but human memory stores, retrieves, and comparesCaldwell

    I claim indeed right of that it doesn't store like a computer does. It doesn't. In a computer, information is stored in static patterns of spikes ones and zeros, to be operated on by an equally spikes pattern of ones and zeros. On every tick of the computer clock the patterns are forced to change. In the brain nothing the like is going on. Information is stored not in the static form of one's and zeros. The modern conception of information. Connection strengths between neurons can contain virtually all information about the physical world potentially. A pattern of one's and zeros can too, but in contrast, you need an enormous amount of these one's and zeros, including huge amounts of programs to encode for their evolution. The brain contains the information of a huge number of engraved paths. Engraved by strengthening connectiviness between neurons. A memory is a reconstruction of such a connected pattern. Many of the patterns we experienced are projected onto the neuronal network. So indeed memory is stored and a comparison is not made between two different patterns but between a familiar pattern and a more or less different pattern existing as part of the very same pattern. Which makes us note differences on familiarities. We recognize and spot the difference. But I might be wrong or inarticulate. Hence the thread. To find the truth.
  • GraveItty
    311
    The issue with your post is you right off claimed that it cannot store like a computer does -- which is true.Caldwell

    If it's true, then why that's an issue?
  • Varde
    326
    This topic is intriguing, I ask the author if memory has any effect?

    I hit my head and forgot due to injury causing me to say 'yes' to a question, I originally intended to say 'no' to, but I remembered the words 'yes' and 'no'.

    Mental(brain memory) and physical(dimensional memory) may exist if the original topic is correct.
  • GraveItty
    311


    I only now saw your comment. You didn't link me. It,'s intriguing indeed!

    So:

    "Mental(brain memory) and physical(dimensional memory) may exist if the original topic is correct."


    Let's analyze. Why do you posit the existence of two memories? The dualistic approach.A physical one and a mental one. Can you explain the difference? Do you postit them for the same reason as I do?
  • Varde
    326
    Yes, for a similar reason.

    There is experience-rs and experience.

    I recognise the experience as an experience-r, and I am whelmed by visual data that reminds me of sensory data only attributed to me.

    Where-in the memory vault is the experience of the experience-r? Or are there two vaults?

    I suppose it's like RAM and Harddrive, one stores memory away from the computer shell, the other operates within it.

    I have first hand experience of this type of dualistic memory loss, which I outlined in my previous reply. I was forced to say yes to a question I originally intended to say no.

  • GraveItty
    311


    Thanks for the comment. For your information: you can notify me or any other by selecting stuff you wanna quote and press on the black quote sign.That way I get to know you addressed me. I didn't know you reacted but accidentally stumbled on your reaction.

    What is experience-rs?
    Where-in the memory vault is the experience of the experience-r? Or are there two vaults?Varde

    No, just one.
    I suppose it's like RAM and Harddrive, one stores memory away from the computer shell, the other operates within it.Varde

    No, it isn't. As I wrote, computers cannot be compared with the brain. Well, they can, but you will notice that they are different fundamentally.

    I have first hand experience of this type of dualistic memory loss, which I outlined in my previous reply. I was forced to say yes to a question I originally intended to say no.Varde


    Dualistic in what sense? Mental and physical? Both belong to the same underlying structure.
  • Varde
    326
    experience-rs are consciousness, probably, to your mind(I prefer spirit as the word for who is, or what is experiencing the human from its perspective).

    I don't agree with you, then.

    I propose there are two simultaneous memory vaults: one dimensional-type, regarding universal nature of simulation, and another organic-type regarding cyclic mind.

    Your argument falls apart when you say, "well, they can" refuting your point in the prior sentence. Brains are a lot like motherboards and common hardware you find in a computer.

    A mental-organic memory exists that allows us to forget or remember in the short term, such as 'do I want to go to the shop? Yes', 5 minutes later, I forget, but then stumble upon the second, longer term, physical-dimensional memory which reminds me to fulfil that original want.
  • GraveItty
    311
    experience-rs are consciousness, probably, to your mind(I prefer spirit as the word for who is, or what is experiencing the human from its perspective).Varde

    Ah! Experienes! And theyare consciousness. To my mind. They are spirits. The core of us, somehow? Experiencing human qualities. Does this mean you can be in an animal form?

    I propose there are two simultaneous memory vaults: one dimensional-type, regarding universal nature of simulation, and another organic-type regarding cyclic mind.Varde

    Not sure what you mean by cyclic mind. What is the universal principle of simulation? That a reality is simulated to be able to live in the objective correlate of the simulated world? And universal in the sensecthat the reality simulated applies to all realities avaiailable to mankind? Is the organic memory the one as existing in our brain, when looking at it from a materialistic POV? In a sense your view coincides with mine. We both pose two memories I say they are connected in a way that can't separate them. There is a big difference though. You consider the spirit as the I. I consider what I see in the mirror as the I.
  • Caldwell
    1.3k
    If it's true, then why that's an issue?GraveItty

    On the off chance that you were suggesting that the brain is inferior to computer memory. So, pre-emptively, I was 'warning' you not to. :chin:
  • GraveItty
    311
    On the off chance that you were suggesting that the brain is inferior to computer memory. So, pre-emptively, I was 'warning' you not to. :chin:Caldwell

    Ah! I get it! I think the brain is infinitely superior to a brain, luckily. But thanks for the concern. :smile:
  • Caldwell
    1.3k
    Ah! I get it! I think the brain is infinitely superior to a brain, luckily. But thanks for the concern. :smile:GraveItty

    The very last wonder of the universe!
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