Just a question, and I am sure there is a ready answer; and then, I will be on my way, satisfied that the world is the world. Would someone please tell my why, when I greet my uncle Sidney, I am not "greeting" exclusively (!) systems of neuronal activity?
Troubled sleep over this. — Constance
Who's systems of neuronal activity exactly? Yours or his?
We are all systems if neural activity - impossible to untether from external environment through our senses.
A two way system of information exchange.
Ideas, thoughts, beliefs, imagery, sounds, smells, tastes, touches come into our neural system. We process it either storing it as memory or ignoring it/not paying much attention and it is soon forgotten.
And similarly we are also an active source of those things: thoughts, ideas, art, knowledge etc. That we put out into the environment through our verbal (speech) and non verbal (body language) as well as our behaviours and interactions.
We experience sensations and we are also "a sensation" - the sensation of what it is like to experience Constance for example, to interact with her, to observe, understanding, question etc. To build a knowledge of that person. — Benj96
Just a question, and I am sure there is a ready answer; and then, I will be on my way, satisfied that the world is the world. Would someone please tell my why, when I greet my uncle Sidney, I am not "greeting" exclusively (!) systems of neuronal activity?
Troubled sleep over this. — Constance
How does perception exit neural activity to observe a brain and conceive of neural activity? — Constance
Are you suspecting that there's more to your uncle than a system of neuronal activity? I guess it will be damn hard to provide any scientific proof of it, and without a scientific proof we are reduced to speculation. That's as much as I can say without having actually met your uncle. — enqramot
Not necessarily speculation. Without scientific proof we can also "trust" that uncle Sidney is more than just a neural network. We can go with common sense (cultural assumptions) that everyone has an "I" ness, a selfness, beyond simply being some mechanical binary machine calculating one's and twos (philosophical zombies) because we know we are, and assume similar things (other people) have similar qualities and behave in similar ways. — Benj96
I take your word for it that you are in essence similar to me and not a binary machine or a zombie. I follow my instinct and "trust" that this is the case. This trust, however, is far from certainty. This is a form of speculation. We have to make such operational assumptons or we would be paralysed in our decision making. But it's ok. Life is a game of limited information, just like poker. Going for perfect solution wouldn't be viable. I assume you are like me, in other words give you a benefit of the doubt, knowing perfectly well that it might be a wrong assumption, but will have to do for now. — enqramot
Just a question, and I am sure there is a ready answer; and then, I will be on my way, satisfied that the world is the world. Would someone please tell my why, when I greet my uncle Sidney, I am not "greeting" exclusively (!) systems of neuronal activity?
Troubled sleep over this. — Constance
Just a question, and I am sure there is a ready answer; and then, I will be on my way, satisfied that the world is the world. Would someone please tell my why, when I greet my uncle Sidney, I am not "greeting" exclusively (!) systems of neuronal activity?
Troubled sleep over this. — Constance
.. it made intimacy and connection very difficult. So he quit his job in the morgue and took up gardening. :wink: — Tom Storm
But that's the beauty if the human body. We are not only matter (substance) carrying out sterile, cold, dead operations. We are also electricity, warmth, energy - that which invests the matter with sense, with capacities beyond the solely objective, the purely physical. — Benj96
I had a colleague who used to work as a mortuary technician - preparing bodies for autopsy. — Tom Storm
Are you suspecting that there's more to your uncle than a system of neuronal activity? I guess it will be damn hard to provide any scientific proof of it, and without a scientific proof we are reduced to speculation. That's as much as I can say without having actually met your uncle. — enqramot
How absurd is it to say a barn door "knows" what the wind is that howls through its hinges? Why are brains and uncles different regarding this epistemic connection? — Constance
Would someone please tell my why, when I greet my uncle Sidney, I am not "greeting" exclusively (!) systems of neuronal activity? — Constance
Why are brains and uncles different regarding this epistemic connection? — Constance
But let's say you had met my uncle. The assumption in place is that it was my uncle, and that this was not something reducible to interior events inside a three and a half pound mass. My uncle is not IN your brain. He is exterior to this object. Why is it that this object can extend beyond itself and do something like affirm something that is not part of a brain at all? It really is a simple question. I mean, we all know what uncles are, and what brains are.
Why are brains and uncles different regarding this epistemic connection? — Constance
My uncle is not IN your brain. He is exterior to this object. — Constance
It may seem absurd in case of a barn door, but isn't so absurd in case of a computer. In a way, it does "know" certain things and acts upon them. It doesn't make a computer conscious, of course. Sensor-based input can be built into computer systems. This works very much like unconscious part of our brain, for example, when goose bumps appear as an automatic reaction to lowering the temperature. Fully automatic reaction, something in you "knows" how to react.How absurd is it to say a barn door "knows" what the wind is that howls through its hinges? — Constance
I don't see how this assumption could be proven or disproven. What if he IS reducible? How can you be sure? Have you seen Cast Away movie with Tom Hanks? His only companion on a desert island was a volleyball that (whom?) he called Wilson. He's reduced to tears when Wilson the volleyball floats away during a storm. Modern, much improved upon, version of Wilson would be lamda the word processor (chatbot), a machine that fooled a supposed senior software engineer doubling up as a priest to believe that it's sentient (maybe he wasn't really fooled, maybe he did it for money, I don't know - he lost his job anyway). So, as you can see, creative interpretation can go a long way. Maybe you add something to your uncle, something that isn't there.But let's say you had met my uncle. The assumption in place is that it was my uncle, and that this was not something reducible to interior events inside a three and a half pound mass. — Constance
Reminds me of a girl I dated for a few months decades ago who'd grewn up on a farm and who couldn't eat any meats, poultry or fish that still in anyway resembled the animals they once were. Including eggs! :smirk:I had a colleague who used to work as a mortuary technician - preparing bodies for autopsy. It got to be that he was unable to look at people or experience them in ways that was stable and orientated to the present. He could only 'see' what was underneath - organs, tissue, bones, blood... it made intimacy and connection very difficult. So he quit his job in the morgue and took up gardening. — Tom Storm
The whole brain cannot self reflect on the whole brain as there is no neural networks available to make computations while the others remain static and observed. It can only compartmentalise portions of itself but I suspect these portions can be quite large. Mathematically it doesn't take many neurons to exponentially increase their computational ability. Like factorials in maths. — Benj96
All this neuronal activity takes place in a unique container of specialized cells that are all busy replicating, dying, doing all kinds of work to process elements from the environment into materials to maintain the edifice which is "Sydney", the sum of all those cellular activities, interstitial fluids and structural elements and containing membranes in which it takes place, one of whose various designations is "uncle to Canstance".
Yeah, that seems pretty exclusive. But why is it a problem? — Vera Mont
I had a colleague who used to work as a mortuary technician - preparing bodies for autopsy. It got to be that he was unable to look at people or experience them in ways that was stable and orientated to the present. He could only 'see' what was underneath - organs, tissue, bones, blood... it made intimacy and connection very difficult. So he quit his job in the morgue and took up gardening. :wink: — Tom Storm
How is an uncle different from a barn door? Sounds like something the Mad Hatter might ask.
I'm more intrigues by why you'd want to go to Wonderland, if it disturbs you so? — Vera Mont
It's just one story among a multitude of other imaginable stories. At another level Uncle Sidmey is just electrons, protons and neutrons, doing what they habitually do. Or multitudes of twelve kinds of quarks. Or a perturbation in a quantum field. Or chemical elements interacting, combining and separating. Or tissues, muscles, tendons, ligaments and nerves. Or person; a member of your society who shares the same basic conditioning and set of presuppositions about human life that you and I do. Or he's your beloved (or not so beloved) uncle. And so on... — Janus
Then I will not attempt to defend it.It is a problem because your foundational explanatory setting is in no better position to be defended than my uncle. — Constance
You said it first!I'm sorry, neuronal activity did you say? — Constance
It's not different, just a little more holistic, as I attempted to reunify the uncle's electrical impulses with the brain and body in which it takes place, and which it appeared you had overlooked in describing him.But what is this, as I have problematized my Uncle, that is any different? — Constance
I'm sure that's true; you seem to know Henry and I don't.the very thoughts used to construct the rationalization of Henry's distance from neuronal events are themselves "distant". — Constance
That depends on how Sydney has offended you.Rorty put it nicely: How is it that my relation (my brain's) to my uncle any different from a dented car fender and the offending guard rail? — Constance
It seems there are 2 versions of your uncle. 1) The real uncle - some kind of entity producing impulses, sending various kinds of information etc 2) an instance of your uncle that your brain manufactures and then customizes, i. e. interpretes those impulses (or signals) and based on them creates a coherent set of rules that it tags/labels as "uncle Sidney". So, while not being "in your brain", your uncle can still sort of send a copy of himself to your brain for further processing, not unlike a computer virus replicating itself. Now, let's say, another person who knows your uncle created another copy of him in his brain. His customized copy will be different to yours. He might say "What an awful person, this Sidney. Full of himself, patronizing, unkind, not listening.", whereas your opinion might be quite different. Are we talking about the same person? Yes, the core is identical, it's the interpretation that makes the difference. Like god flavour vs devil flavour. Another comparison that springs to mind is a dream being influenced by sensory perception, e.g. sound of the alarm clock being interpreted in dream world as dog barking etc. So, again, the original impuls, and an interpreted copy. — enqramot
It may seem absurd in case of a barn door, but isn't so absurd in case of a computer. In a way, it does "know" certain things and acts upon them. It doesn't make a computer conscious, of course. Sensor-based input can be built into computer systems. This works very much like unconscious part of our brain, for example, when goose bumps appear as an automatic reaction to lowering the temperature. Fully automatic reaction, something in you "knows" how to react. — enqramot
I don't see how this assumption could be proven or disproven. What if he IS reducible? How can you be sure? Have you seen Cast Away movie with Tom Hanks? His only companion on a desert island was a volleyball that (whom?) he called Wilson. He's reduced to tears when Wilson the volleyball floats away during a storm. Modern, much improved upon, version of Wilson would be lamda the word processor (chatbot), a machine that fooled a supposed senior software engineer doubling up as a priest to believe that it's sentient (maybe he wasn't really fooled, maybe he did it for money, I don't know - he lost his job anyway). So, as you can see, creative interpretation can go a long way. Maybe you add something to your uncle, something that isn't there. — enqramot
It's not different, just a little more holistic, as I attempted to reunify the uncle's electrical impulses with the brain and body in which it takes place, and which it appeared you had overlooked in describing him. — Vera Mont
I'm sure that's true; you seem to know Henry and I don't. — Vera Mont
That depends on how Sydney has offended you. — Vera Mont
Given that the causal relationship is the relational characterization in both cases, the car fender vis a vis the guard rail, and my uncle vis a vis my brain events, then causality itself has to be explained as to its ability to "deliver" my uncle to me. — Constance
No, it evidently cannot be explained to you in any terms that you accept. The problem(s) of Sydney, Henry, the barn and the car are intractable and insoluble. — Vera Mont
No way out of this. Put simply, the physicalist model has to be discarded, or amended. How can this be done? — Constance
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