See also, The Bird of Paradise, by RD Laing. (Not seemingly available online for free). — unenlightened

Nice summary!

http://libgen.rs/search.php?req=r+d+laing+the+bird+of+paradise&open=0&res=25&view=simple&phrase=1&column=def

is the brain a virtual reality machine? — Moliere

To proffer what I think is a less loaded locution: I'd say the body is a reality-generator.

I continued to look at the flowers, and in their living light I seemed to detect the qualitative equivalent of breathing -but of a breathing without returns to a starting point, with no recurrent ebbs but only a repeated flow from beauty to heightened beauty, from deeper to ever deeper meaning. Words like "grace" and "transfiguration" came to my mind, and this, of course, was what, among other things, they stood for. My eyes traveled from the rose to the carnation, and from that feathery incandescence to the smooth scrolls of sentient amethyst which were the iris. The Beatific Vision, Sat Chit Ananda, Being-Awareness-Bliss-for the first time I understood, not on the verbal level, not by inchoate hints or at a distance, but precisely and completely what those prodigious syllables referred to.


Contrast this from Sartre:

The chestnut tree pressed itself against my eyes. Green blight covered it halfway up; the bark, black and swollen, looked like boiled leather. The sound of the water in the Masqueret Fountain trickled in my ears, made a nest there, filled them with sighs; my nostrils overflowed with a green, putrid odor. All things, gently, tenderly, were letting themselves exist like weary women giving way to laughter, saying, "It's good to laugh," in a damp voice; they were sprawling in front of each other, abjectly confessing their existence. I realized there was no mean between non-existence and this swooning abundance. If you existed, you had to exist to excess, to the point of moldiness, bloatedness, obscenity. — Nausea — Banno

Simple: good trip vs bad trip.

So i don't see it helping with the mind-body problem or the hard problem, except perhaps to show how what we deal with is always already filtered through our neural networks, even when they are behaving unconventionally. — Banno

Just another interpretation...

You OK there, Un? — Banno

That entirely depends on your neural network.

I'm having trouble with the metaphor. See, the brain's first and foremost a wet-ware robot control system. Part of that includes a process we call consciousness, but I'm not sure I could say that consciousness *is* virtual reality. I'm not knowledgable enough about the brain, but as I understand it consciousness is to a small part sensory input and to a large part pre-existing sturcutre. Except in dreams, where the stimulus for experience is not snesory input. And sensory deprivation can lead to hallucinations, too.

So whether or not the contents of consciousness are "real" or "not real" is down to the functioning of the wet-ware robot in daily life. But it's still all a brain process, no? So the real life VR that serves as reference to the metaphorical VR are on different levels: Real world VR is computer generated sensory input for biological perception systems (sensory organs, nerves, brains...). The metaphorical VR is neither input nor output it's just... a flow? It's this disjunction that makes the question hard to answer.

I certainly don't think that brain provides VR as output for a disembodied consciouness. Or at least, I wouldn't know how to make sense of it. This is why I'm with Chalmers: I have no idea how to connect that "experiential flow" with the physical processes. The only reason I know what we're talking about is that I have that sort of flow myself. So, yeah, there's this brain process, "consciousness", and it's part of the total functioning of the wet-ware robot; and there's this first-person experience on top of it.

So to the extent that we can call that VR, it doesn't make sense to differentiate between illusions and reality for the VR status; it's *all* generated. We'd be talking about types of input, rather than the process. But types of input matter, too. Does it travel along the nervous system? Is it generated somewhere else in the brain? People with more insight into the brain might be better fit to talk about this (say, Isaac). But the process itself shouldn't be all that different.

Does Sartre make perfect sense, too? Both are interpretations, albeit in opposing directions. What is to be avoided is the mistake of thinking that an experience brings one somehow closer to reality "in the flesh"; using mescaline or existentialism or phenomenology remains an interpretation, just different to our more common or functional interpretations.
. — Banno

Sartre also makes perfect sense there -- I'd say Sartre and Huxley are expressing themselves in a similar modality(philosophical methodology? similar linguistic-function, but employed by different people?), but feel different things (at least in these contrasting expressions). In a way we might say they are like the parable of the blind men touching an elephant -- they are attending to their experience, interpreting it, and expressing that interpretation. But that's too many metaphors at once to keep things clear. (is "reality" like an object we cannot see perfectly? At this level of abstraction "elephant" seems too concrete to count as a good metaphor... and invoking "imperfect senses" already assumes a lot of mental-goings-on...)

So i don't see it helping with the mind-body problem or the hard problem, except perhaps to show how what we deal with is always already filtered through our neural networks, even when they are behaving unconventionally

I think that's a win :). Though it could go down some rabbit holes.

At the very least, I'd hope that with such a realization that we might be tempted to at least listen to the great multiplicity of people expressing their interpretations of experience, unless we believe there's some other path -- and I believe I've been arguing against those pretentions of phenomenology, at least. I very much doubt anyone can, through introspection alone, come across a linguistic incantation that will summon some sort of universal experience or whatever which makes everything "click" into place (but it can still be beautiful)

From there, if everything one deals with (and not just everything, an important distinction I think) is interpreted, then that already shifts the mind-body problem to what is and how to distinguish between better or worse interpretations. At least, philosophically, given its preference for using words to express itself -- in activity it's usually not as hard to distinguish between body/mind, because it's always relative to what we're trying to do together, and usually we're not trying to distinguish the verbal relationship between the body and the mind.

Truth still emphasized as an element that's important for philosophy, even with this multiplicity, we throw out false interpretations, first, but then see there's more to it all than an obvious falsity or truth. Such as Sartre and Huxley's emotionally opposite interpretations of reality.

But even so, given they're interpretations (rather than universal statements about experience), they both make sense, upon imagining our own emotional state in different ways. I've felt both, at different times -- also interesting to note how the passages explicit reference to objects isn't even what's important to what the author is expressing, but were just the objects around them at the time. The feelings are far more important.

Though, perhaps this line of thinking just muddles the original question. More straightforward -- would we predict Sartre and Huxley's brain to be in a similar relationship to their respective experiences, or not? Does the human nervous system have anything to do with how Sartre or Huxley are expressing themselves, or even more generally, with their experience? Or, would we say that "experience" here is not related to brains as much as it's related to the environment, and the brain is just putting an emotional "twist" on what we call "experience", which itself is just a catch-all word for "the real, as I see it" as opposed to an epiphenomenal film of the brain's creation?

To proffer what I think is a less loaded locution: I'd say the body is a reality-generator. — Janus

I'm good with that. Basically brain-in-a-vat where the vat is actually a meaty, mucousy, bio-breathing thing developed by the mad scientist, natural selection.

So whether or not the contents of consciousness are "real" or "not real" is down to the functioning of the wet-ware robot in daily life. But it's still all a brain process, no? So the real life VR that serves as reference to the metaphorical VR are on different levels: Real world VR is computer generated sensory input for biological perception systems (sensory organs, nerves, brains...). The metaphorical VR is neither input nor output it's just... a flow? It's this disjunction that makes the question hard to answer. — Dawnstorm

Makes perfect sense to me.

Maybe we try to reduce the metaphorical VR to inputs-outputs, and consider that an explanation, but that's exactly what's wrong -- the entire metaphor of a virtual reality, since there are no input-outputs (like real world VR, where the programmer creates an input for our wet-ware, which we're trying to talk about through this metaphor), is wrong since what we experience is more of a flow.

The VR is meant to replicate this feeling of a flow while creating something virtual. (and, actually, in relation to dreams, it's interesting to note how dreams really feel very different from both the real world VR and this experience of "flow" which the real world VR is trying to emulate, but with an imagined reality instead)

So whether or not the contents of consciousness are "real" or "not real" is down to the functioning of the wet-ware robot in daily life. But it's still all a brain process, no? — Dawnstorm

That's the question I'm trying to parse :). The brain is clearly involved, because as the brain undergoes physical changes so does the sense of flow change. But is that sense of flow a result of brain processes?

I certainly don't think that brain provides VR as output for a disembodied consciouness. Or at least, I wouldn't know how to make sense of it. This is why I'm with Chalmers: I have no idea how to connect that "experiential flow" with the physical processes. — Dawnstorm

Me either. Or, even more so, I wonder if that "experiential flow" is being related to the correct physical processes? Suppose we learn most of our mental habits from our social environment. Then, it'd make sense, in various experiments, to not just measure the electronic structures of a person undergoing some test, but also to measure the electronic structures of the scientists performing the test, and also you'd want to ensure that people underwent similar experiences prior to measuring everyone because the associations we make depends upon what had happened to us, what we are attached to before the experiment begins.

The only reason I know what we're talking about is that I have that sort of flow myself. So, yeah, there's this brain process, "consciousness", and it's part of the total functioning of the wet-ware robot; and there's this first-person experience on top of it.

Cool. We're in a similar wheel-house for puzzling, then. Because I think these two things make sense, too.

So to the extent that we can call that VR, it doesn't make sense to differentiate between illusions and reality for the VR status; it's *all* generated. We'd be talking about types of input, rather than the process. But types of input matter, too. Does it travel along the nervous system? Is it generated somewhere else in the brain? People with more insight into the brain might be better fit to talk about this (say, Isaac). But the process itself shouldn't be all that different.

Right! And I think you've tripped across a good distinction between the real world VR, where inputs from a digital machine are programmed such that our wet-ware gets a sense of reality within an imagined world, and the actual flow which VR is built around to emulate.

The VR machine is mimicking how we sense things in the world to be able to create a fantasy that seems real. So "virtual reality" isn't quite the right metaphor.

Poor old Sartre clearly had a bad trip, which usually arises from a resistance to the dissolution of self. Shame he had to make a philosophy out of it and impose it on us, though. — unenlightened

So this is interesting to me, because in conjunction with the notion that the mind is what limits, as opposed to what generates, my mind makes the connection to the sense of self counting as part of this filter. In this interpretation then, paths to decrease one's sense of self, one's identity, are paths which lead a person -- as opposed to their identity -- to let go of filters.

I wonder about this notion of "filters" too -- is it filtered, or is it created in interaction between a body-envatted brain representing itself and its representation of the "outside" world? Which as we lose a sense of self we naturally lose the distinction between "inside" and "outside", that being a direct result of the various ways we predicate and enact our identity.

I'd just like to point out that if the brain can have dreams that are often mistaken as reality, then it doesn't seem farfetched that the brain is a virtual reality generator.

Who needs drugs, when you can have fantastical dreams about anything you desire. Make a wish for a happy dream tonight.

Have you noted how while I disagree with with everyone, you pretty much agree them?

Between us we might ahve the mix about right.

:D I have!

Naturally that means I have to agree here ;) -- and I do. But especially with the mix that you say -- our blend of disagreement with and agreement with seems to bring out things that I wouldn't have thought of on my own, and it's always a pleasure.

Crowley and Aziraphale. Stop being so bloody nice to everyone. They really don't deserve it.

...the body is a reality-generator. — Janus

Self-deception. The flowers and the root are real - not hallucinations. The interpretation is what the body does. If anything the body is a reaction-generator.

So whether or not the contents of consciousness are "real" or "not real" is down to the functioning of the wet-ware robot in daily life. — Dawnstorm

Your wetware can't walk through walls. It's the reality of walls that counts, not the reality of "the contents of consciousness", whatever they might be.


By way of pointing out that you are first embedded in the world. You are not sitting in your mind looking out.

Crowley and Aziraphale. Stop being so bloody nice to everyone. They really don't deserve it. — Banno

*shrugs* I'm a nihilist. Deserts are for the moralists :D

Thumper's mom knew what she was talking about -- and not just morally speaking. Rabbits being a social species too.

(EDIT: Realized that was a very American reference after the fact, and linked to the quote I had in mind "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all")

Thumper's mum would have voted for Socrates' execution?

Heh. Fair enough. There are times when it's not the right time.

Self-deception. The flowers and the root are real - not hallucinations. The interpretation is what the body does. If anything the body is a reaction-generator. — Banno

They wouldn't be real without the perceiving body; at least not in the same way. No reality to speak of without bodies, and no speaking either. A different way of looking at things, but, hey, I forgot you don't like different ways; it's safer in the bottle, even when all the other flies have flown.

They wouldn't be real without the perceiving body — Janus

Yeah, they would. "The tree is a chestnut" and The flower is a rose" are true even when no one perceives it.

Yeah, they would. "The tree is a chestnut" and The flower is a rose" are true even when no one perceives it. — Banno

If there were no humans those sentences would not exist, let alone be true. If there were no bodies there would be no tree, no chestnut, no flower, no rose, for they too are bodies.

If there were no humans those sentences would not exist, let alone be true. — Janus

So what. The tree would still be a chestnut, the rose still a rose.

If there were no bodies there would be no tree, no chestnut, no flower, no rose, for they too are bodies. — Janus

An obvious slide.

The tree would still be a chestnut, the rose still a rose. — Banno

How do you, how could you, know that? It's nothing more than your preferred way of talking.

An obvious slide. — Banno

From what to what?

They wouldn't be real without the perceiving body; at least not in the same way. No reality to speak of without bodies, and no speaking either. — Janus

They'd be ... whatever they are... without me.

Without our bodies the things which exist would not be real in the same way.

Yup!

But would they be real at all?

I think so.

I think about the world I'm in and how it seems bounded by whatever happened before me, how I wasn't there, and it's not even hard to realize that the real is modified by forces outside of my body. Without all of us this wouldn't be real in the same way.

Without all of us this wouldn't be real in the same way. — Moliere

Sure, we can say all of this would be real in some way without us, but we have no idea what that could mean, since the notion real has its genesis in perception. To say all of this would be real without us is to project our perceptually embodied based notion of reality onto an imagined "situation" where there is no perception or embodiment: I think that qualifies well as "language on holiday".

Sure, we can say all of this would be real in some way without us, but we have no idea what that could mean, since the notion real has its genesis in perception. To say all of this would be real without us is to project our perceptually embodied based notion of reality onto an imagined situation where there is no perception or embodiment: I think that qualifies well as "language on holiday". — Janus

No idea?

I don't think that's quite right, because we are born into a world which has already been formed. Our notions come from our elders, in various forms, rather than from our perception.

Perception comes after.

Our elders were not embodied perceivers?

It's nothing more than your preferred way of talking. — Janus

Obviously. I'm using a bi-conditional logic. What logic, if any, are you using, and why?

Without our bodies the things which exist would not be real in the same way. — Moliere

So how exactly would they be different?

They would not stand in certain relations to you, sure. Relate that to the word "real" - what will you say, that only what you perceive is real? But that's not right.

More like, from the perspective of an embodied brain, my notions came from whatever I was taught and grew up with. Given that's true, I'm sure they were -- but at the time, going along the route of describing experience -- I couldn't tell.

...and we're off on @Janus' preferred goose chase again. Around and around.

So how exactly would they be different? — Banno

Good question.

They would not stand in certain relations to you, sure. Relate that to the word "real" - what will you say, that only what you perceive is real? But that's not right.

Yup, that's not right. I think the first sentence gets close to what I'm thinking. As soon as we allow English, then it's always-already interpreted and there's no "origin" of all thought or justification or whatever.

And all distinction which allow an origin are always-already interpreted, being that they are distinctions.


Maybe we can't say how they'd be different just because of that.

We are born into a world already formed by the perceptions and judgements, evolved over eons in a community of embodied perceivers, and enacted within ever-changing culture and language.

Obviously. I'm using a bi-conditional logic. What logic, if any, are you using, and why? — Banno

You are committing the error of applying a dualistic, determinate body based logic beyond its ambit: as I said: "language on holiday".

...and we're off on Janus' preferred goose chase again. Around and around. — Banno

Nice: assertion, ad hominem and aspersion, but no argument. I'm not chasing anything because when it comes to questions about what would be real if there were no humans, there is nothing to chase. It is you imagining that there would be something there; chasing a phantasm of your own precious dualistic "logic".