Re: type writers and tooth aches II


"Curt Welch" <curt@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:20050720160157.295$5R@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "JPL Verhey" <matterDELminds@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> "Curt Welch" <curt@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:20050718173925.944$rg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> > "JPL Verhey" <matterDELminds@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> It was debated whether tooth aches are as physical as type
>> >> writers.
>> >> According to Skinner they are. To my own surprise I found myself
>> >> in
>> >> sudden and utter agreement with Skinner. What he once said, is
>> >> indeed
>> >> entirely correct.
>> >>
>> >> What Skinner probably didn't realise when he said it though, is
>> >> that
>> >> his
>> >> type writer is as much an experiential phenomenon as is his tooth
>> >> ache.
>> >> What matters, is that all experiential phenomena are of the same
>> >> "stuff" - the brain activity in his own skull.
>> >
>> > So you think Skinner didn't understand that the brain activity in
>> > our
>> > skull
>> > is what creates our experience? What on earth do you think he
>> > belived
>> > created it?
>>
>> All I know is that he and his radical followers up to this date,
>> respond
>> in extreme allergic fashion to words like mind, conscious experience
>> etc. and for decades tried to render it irrelevant to science in
>> general
>> and to behavioral science in particular. They would not have done so
>> if
>> they understood the importance of all brain activity, ...
>
> Brain activity is behavior. That's what behaviorists study.

As I understand it behaviorists study observable and quantifiable
aspects of animal behavior. The study of brain activity I think is done
by neuro-scientists that do brain research.

> The problem with English is that it has two langauges - one for the
> physical world, and another for the mental world. The connection
> between
> these two lagnauges, as I've said many times, is still unknown.

You mentioned earlier (if I recall correctly) that you see the "gap"
between the mental and the physical as caused entirely by language. The
mere fact that we use those two languages - one for the mental and one
for the physical - creates in your view the gap.

I think however that those "two languages" are a consequence, or
"symptom" if you wish, of something much more basic which I called "the
sense-of-gap". That sense-of-gap is very easy to check what it is, and
how profound it is.

First: consider your experiencing.. the colors and shapes you see, the
sounds you hear, the sense of touch while you type, your thoughts having
a jam session in your head, your mood that no matter where you go is
with you like the changing weather..etc etc. That is you, the world you
know and reality.

Second: consider, or even observe after making a hole in your skull and
using some mirros to have a nice view, your own brain. All you see is
some grey pudding the size of a coconut. The coconut may turn out to be
a very complex and amazing coconut..but it remains just that - a complex
coconut.

Clearly, it is quite paradoxical and hard to fathom how or why your
experiential reality resides inside that coconut. Yet, this is exactly
what science uncovered: your experiential world is brain activity in
your coconut. But that only emphasises the sense-of-gap: you look into
your own brain and detect loads of brain activity and very complex
structures in there..but you don't see anything experiential there, let
alone the experience of "me looking into my brain and thinking about
it".

This sense of gap, ie the paradox between experience and coconut (the
ol' mind-body conundrum of course) created from premordial humanoid
times and on the conception of for instance the idea of migrating souls
living in bodies, or that objects can be inhabited by ghosts, and later
caused philosophers *up to this date* the biggest head ache of all
times! And, it also created your "two languages". But that is really
only normal, and even necessary.

What behaviorists (and you it appears) have done, is simply say that one
of these languages doesn't count, declare it illegitimate and that there
is no science possible there hoping that that excorsised the demon. What
no one (that I know of) has really asked, is if there maybe is some
simple *reason* for this sense of gap. On that we agreed - the solve the
gap is to understand what creates it. Your theory that it is just
language and culture that conditioned us the think/perceive that way..
is really absurd IMHO especially because it is so easy to just
check-the-gap and how real it is: your world of experience versus your
own observable coconut in which that experiential world occurs. They
just don't seem to mix...

So I started to think what creates this paradoxical situation? What
creates that rock-solid age-old sense-of-gap? Would it be not very weird
if there were *not* that sense of gap? Of course! Whether our brains, or
any stuff in general are termed "physical", "non-physical" is totally
irrelevant. Even if our brains, body and environment were all made of
plastic, or of any "material-X".. that sense-of-gap would still be there
as long as the activity of stuff that our brains are made of has this
experiential quality. And we would still be confronted with exactly the
same paradox.

So if not just language, what creates the paradox? ( I know the answer
already ;))



.

Relevant Pages