• plaque flag
    2.7k
    If images are just brain activity, and brain activity is strings... ?
  • plaque flag
    2.7k

    I'm not seeing how you get around dualism exactly.
  • Michael
    15.5k
    If images are just brain activity, and brain activity is strings... ?plaque flag

    Then everything is strings, which is what string theory argues. I don't understand what you're getting at.
  • plaque flag
    2.7k
    Then everything is strings, which is what string theory argues. I don't understand what you're getting at.Michael

    So pain is strings ?
  • Michael
    15.5k
    I'm not seeing how you get around dualism exactly.plaque flag

    By not arguing that some non-physical substance exists?
  • Michael
    15.5k
    So pain is strings ?plaque flag

    If string theory is correct, yes.
  • plaque flag
    2.7k
    Is consciousness strings ? (If string theory is correct?)
  • Michael
    15.5k
    Is consciousness strings ? (If string theory is correct?)plaque flag

    Yes.
  • Michael
    15.5k
    Is color strings ?plaque flag

    Yes.
  • plaque flag
    2.7k
    So what was so wacky about me saying that roses are red ?
  • plaque flag
    2.7k
    Is the idea of strings also strings ?
  • plaque flag
    2.7k
    I see Geist as nature doing a particular kind of dance with part of itself.

    So maybe our views aren't so far off.
  • Michael
    15.5k
    So what was so wacky about me saying that roses are red ?plaque flag

    It's not wacky, it's just wrong. It's like saying that fire is wet. A red colour occurs when the appropriate areas of the occipital lobe are activated. Roses don't have occipital lobes.
  • plaque flag
    2.7k
    A red colour occurs when the appropriate areas of the occipital lobe are activated. Roses don't have occipital lobes.Michael

    Presumably the concept of a string occurs when the brain is tickled just right.
  • Michael
    15.5k
    Presumably the concept of a sting occurs when the brain is tickled just right.plaque flag

    Yes.
  • plaque flag
    2.7k

    You are willing to project strings on all of reality but not color. Yet both are just the brain being tickled.
  • creativesoul
    11.9k
    A red colour occurs when the appropriate areas of the occipital lobe are activated.Michael

    Does it require having seen red before?
  • Michael
    15.5k
    You are willing to project strings on all of reality but not color.plaque flag

    I literally just said above that colour is composed of strings.
  • Michael
    15.5k
    Does it require having seen red before?creativesoul

    No, otherwise nobody could have ever seen red in the first place. At some point in my life I saw red for the first time.
  • plaque flag
    2.7k
    Does it require having seen red before?creativesoul

    And really it can only be reports of having seen red, I'd think, which is the application of a concept requiring language.
  • creativesoul
    11.9k


    So, the very first time someone sees red, it does not require anything not in the head?
  • creativesoul
    11.9k
    Seems to me that the activation is better called reactivation...
  • plaque flag
    2.7k
    I literally just said above that colour is composed of strings.Michael

    Something is fishy here. According to you, I'm guessing your last post was strings, but I shouldn't be able to see such tiny things. You are basically pretending that meaning doesn't exist. While one might say that the normative realm of meaning depends on strings (or atoms) and maybe even reducible to complex motions thereof, it has to be accounted for in any serious theory.

    It seems to me that your view has collapsed into a monism of strings. The representative image is strings and yet represents still more strings. The meaning of your theory is...strings ! Logic must be strings too.

    This is like when it became clear yesterday that scientific realism doesn't exist according to scientific realism.
  • Michael
    15.5k
    So, the very first time someone sees red, it does not require anything not in the head?creativesoul

    It requires the appropriate areas of the occipital lobe to be activated which does not in principle require anything outside the head (notwithstanding the fact that the brain isn't an isolated system and energy has to come from somwhere).

    In fact on this point you might want to look into the notion of Boltzmann brains.
  • creativesoul
    11.9k
    Does it require having seen red before?
    — creativesoul

    And really it can only be reports of having seen red, I'd think, which is the application of a concept requiring language.
    plaque flag

    Well, I do not think that seeing red requires language. Our discussion of it does. I'm just baffled by the claim that seeing colours and shapes does not require anything outside the head. That makes no sense. Or better yet, it leads to saying that everything is inside the head.
  • Michael
    15.5k
    I'm just baffled by the claim that seeing colours and shapes does not require anything outside the head.creativesoul

    Does feeling pain require something outside the head?
  • creativesoul
    11.9k
    I'm just baffled by the claim that seeing colours and shapes does not require anything outside the head.
    — creativesoul

    Does feeling pain require something outside the head?
    Michael

    Of course it does. Phantom limb pain requires once having had a limb. The limb is outside the head. As is any prior object that caused injury to the limb.
  • creativesoul
    11.9k


    The position you're arguing for seems to completely neglect all the events that lead up to the ability to reactivate the biological machinery.
  • Michael
    15.5k
    The position you're arguing for seems to completely neglect all the events that lead up to the ability to reactivate the biological machinery.creativesoul

    No it doesn't. I accept that we (usually) see red in response to electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of 700nm stimulating the rods and cones in our eyes, which then send signals which are processed by the occipital lobe. I just reject the claim that the red we see is a property of apples. Like the pain we feel, the red we see is "in the head". It's (usually) a response to things outside us, nothing more.
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