Re: type writers and tooth aches II


"Curt Welch" <curt@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:20050719130541.191$Rd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
....
>> > Do you not believe that there is something outside your head
>> > causing
>> > the
>> > experience happening inside your head?
>>
>> Of course I do.
>
> Then the stuff outside your head is not physical?

If you call the stuff inside your head physical, then you better call
the stuff out side your head also physical. If you prefer calling it
non-physical, plastic-like, quantum foam, information processing or
just-magic.. idem dito.

> When we talk about physical stuff, we make reference to our subjective
> understanding (our experience) of the stuff outside our head.

But we also make reference to our subjective understanding of the
physical stuff *inside* our head, like brain tissue.

> In other
> words, we make reference to both at the same time - both the stuff
> that
> causes our experenince and our experience of it. I doubt that idea is
> in
> conflict with how Skinner thought about these things and when he
> talked
> about the typewriter being as physical as a tooth ache, I would assume
> he
> was making reference to both the phsyical stuff that caused the
> experience
> and to the physcial experience it created in our head.

But if that is what Skinner meant, he just stept into the same trap that
many scientists step into - leaving our conscious experiences floating
in the air as some magic and emergent result of physical interactions.

:
>
> To talk as if the experience is all there is would be to deny half of
> the
> equation.

To most solipsism is not an alternative.

>
>> > I've always believed in both. That is, our ability to understand
>> > physical
>> > reality is limited to what happens inside our head - and our entire
>> > understanding of our reality is limited to what can happen inside
>> > our
>> > head.
>> > My reality is a virtual reality created inside my head.
>>
>> Why a virtual reality? In what respect is it virtual and compared to
>> what real reality is it virtual?
>
> Virtual in the sense of a simulated copy of the real thing. Our brain
> is
> locked inside our skull and is only able to interact with the world
> through
> its video-like sensory feeds and joystick-like controls of the arms
> and
> legs.

I don't think it is a simulated copy. It is just brain activity. That
brain activity is quite something different than say a house made of
bricks or a river flowing water. The actual brain activity that *is*
your experiencing, is not even the brain or brain activity that you see
when you observe your own brain. (hint)

>
> Because when we "sense" a visual "edge", we are not sensing the edge,
> but
> in fact, we are sensing the output of neuron(s) which is simulating
> the
> "edge" - it's acting a virtual stand-in for the real thing.

I don't think "we are sensing the output of neurons" at all. Nor is
there any virtual stand-in for anything.

> When I see a
> grandmother what I'm really sensing is the activty of a lot of neurons
> which are simulating the existence of the person inside my head.

Those neurons and not simulating anything at all. The reason that you
think they are/must be simulating a grand mother in your head is that
you don't seem to understand that the neurons you observe are not the
neurons involved in the act of observing. In reality there is no need
for any simulations.

>
> It's no different than flying a UAV from inside a trailer 100 miles
> away
> from the plane by looking at a video screen. Except of course, the
> UAV
> example is a double virutal world because it's the brain, controling
> the
> body, controling the UAV. If the UAV control system shows me a
> GPS-like
> map display of the area with a small symbol of the UAV, that map, and
> that
> symbol of the UAV is a virtual simulation of the real world. If the
> UAV
> control systems shows me a TV screen view of the world from the UAV
> camara,
> the glowing phosphers on the TV screen is a virutal simulation of the
> light
> that exists out in the real world in front of the real UAV.

Yes that analogy is very good - but only helps for a moment. We get
stuck for we have to put a pilote / homunculus in there. Maybe we
decided correctly that we dont directly see our environment, but nothing
is solved when we continue in fact with the same recipe: now we "
observe/sense neuronal firings that simulate a target".

At least we can consider an alternative to those endless regressions:
what happens inside our brains are no simulations, emulations of
anything, nor is there a little camerman or pilot operating some magic
joy stick. If you go from here maybe things become really interesting.

For the sake of the argument consider the two worlds 1) the physical,
and 2) the mental. Each consists of two complimantary halves, "a)the in
side and b) the out side". That gives 4 sections in total, of which
three are known and secured, but the forth 2b) is still an open
question..

1) "physical" - observables, food for all science
1a) inside - a brain / coconut
1b) outside - rest of body and environment

1a) and 1b) nicely fit together. Brains fit in skulls that fit in the
environment - they mix nicely without paradox. All observables available
to science.

However nice they fit.. the observed brain in 1a) is NOT the brain that
is the brain activity of 2a). That is because it is proven,
scientifically, that it takes around 400 millisecs before you for
instance see the object that you are observing. this means that the
brain you observe in 1a) is a brain that died 400 millsecs ago. If you
choose the word representation, simulation or just "an internal picture
of", it means in other words that you are seeing a picture of yourself
of the past. If the picture is one day old, that "you" died yesterday.
And it is only a picture of course. In any case whatever the
terminology - that 400 or so millisecond stands, scientifically. What
you observe in 1a) represents a past reality of around half a second
ago. It is dead. For the present reality of "where the brain is now",
you go to 2a).

2) "mental" - sentience-experience
2a) inside - all experience (brain activity..still)
2b) outside - ???

The present experiential activity of the brain is 2a). More real than
2a) you wont get it! It is the reversed and wrong perception that
somehow 1a) is more real than 2a), which renders in your case 2a) a
"virtual reality" while IN FACT it is the other way round!

But we can learn something from the 1a) and 1b) world..although they are
"old hat" and burried. We notice that there is no conflict between 1a)
and 1b).. they smoothly fit, like a history told without gaps and of
undivided meaning. That's why science feels so at home there.. and why
we feel so secure in science. But it remains the study of history..
science being the art of *predicting the past*!

2a) and 2b) however.. are about the present. The real thing (to you a
virtual thing). 2a) and 2b) that somehow, like the worlds 1a) and 1b)
most probably smoothly fit together in one undivided story that unfolds
the moment we speak, the moment we hear, the in-here and out-there all
of the same "stuff" and it is alive, its Life.

So if 2a) is the way it is..then what is 2b) like? I think it will will
be something *totally* different from the images of the past collected
from 1a) or 1b).

>
> We can't get any more "real" than we are, so we call our experience
> "real"
> even though it's still one level removed from true-real.


>
> The reason consciousness seems so disconnected from the body is
> because
> it's a virtual creation by the computational powers of the brain.
> It's why
> our ability to sense the working of the brain (our thoughts) don't
> seem
> like we are sensing the activity of neurons - just like when we look
> at a
> virutal world created by a video game it doesn't feel like we are
> looking
> at the activity of transistors, and it doesn't feel like we are just
> looking at a lot of flashing lights. Instead, we see bad guys trying
> to
> kill us in the video game.
>
> --
> Curt Welch
> http://CurtWelch.Com/
> curt@xxxxxxxx
> http://NewsReader.Com/


.

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