My remark was directed at the paragraph about the Robocop analogy, where it seemed to be suggesting that the brain usurps the role of an actual agent. — Wayfarer
In The Mystery of the Mind (1975), Penfield wrote:
“The mind seems to act independently of the brain in a way that we do not yet understand. ... It is not possible to explain the mind on the basis of neuronal action within the brain" (ref}. — Wayfarer
I have to say that thinking is a process in which we work with old ideas and create new ones. Ideas are mental events that are experienced and created by the mind. Ideas are not reducible to something else. — MoK
both the conscious and subconscious mind are involved when it comes to writing about complex ideas that are normally long. — MoK
I would like to make a distinction between building and creating. For example, when we build a car, we put the parts together in a way that the whole, car, has specific function. If you put the part the other way, the whole loses its function. The same applies to a meaningful sentence. When we build a meaningful sentence, we arrange the parts such that the sentence has a meaning. A meaningful sentence refers to an idea, though. The conscious mind creates the idea once the last word in the sentence is read. Although you can break a sentence into its parts, you cannot break an idea since it does not have any parts. Once a new idea is created, we have have a common understanding of it, so we can talk about it, give a name to it and build new sentences using it that refer to other new ideas.Right, i agree that thinking is a process. If the process stops, thinking stops; if the process starts, thinking starts. Excellent.
Now, would you agree with this line of reasoning? If something can be created, then that same thing can be broken down into the parts that were used to create it, although the thing itself ceases to exist once it has been reduced or decomposed. Furthermore, if you take those same parts and reconstruct the original arrangement and relationships would that not result in the original irreducible thing once again?
To put it another way a car stops being a car when reduced to its parts, and becomes a car again when the parts are put together again. Would you agree? — punos
The missing parts are the conscious and subconscious minds.So, are you saying that the missing requirements for thinking, apart from the brain, are consciousness and subconsciousness? — punos
For example, when we build a car, we put the parts together in a way that the whole, car, has specific function. If you put the part the other way, the whole loses its function. The same applies to a meaningful sentence. When we build a meaningful sentence, we arrange the parts such that the sentence has a meaning. A meaningful sentence refers to an idea, though. The conscious mind creates the idea once the last word in the sentence is read. Although you can break a sentence into its parts, you cannot break an idea since it does not have any parts. — MoK
The missing parts are the conscious and subconscious minds. — MoK
Ideas are irreducible yet distinguishable. Only the mind can experience them since they are mental events.You’re right that when we hear a meaningful sentence, an idea is “created”. For most of us, ideas feel complete and indivisible. — punos
I think you are talking about thoughts here rather than ideas. Ideas are simple. Thoughts are complex. A fruitful chain of thought leads to a new idea that explains the thoughts, though.The mind creates a cohesive, emergent form from the assembled sentence. However, the apparent unity of an idea doesn’t mean it lacks parts. The complexity and quality of an idea is directly proportional to the number of parts and their relationships to each other that an individual recognizes. — punos
Ideas are irreducible, yet they can affect us differently. Ideas are mental events, and they are a subset of a larger set of mental events. All mental events affect us somehow.What do you think is responsible for the differences between different ideas? — punos
No.Why isn't every idea the same idea? — punos
To me, experience is the result of the mind perceiving the object. So, minimally, we are dealing with substance dualism. We need at least three sorts of substances; the last substance is matter, in the case of humans. I think there are at least two minds in a human being, too.Do you think an idea can exist on its own without some form of physical representation or scaffolding that holds it together? — punos
The conscious and subconscious minds belong to the category of the mind. They are the same in the sense that they are minds. They do different things, though.Okay, but are the conscious and subconscious minds separate from the brain, coming from outside the brain to interact with it, or do you think they are generated by the activity of a living brain? — punos
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