Re: The problem of intelligence.


"Curt Welch" <curt@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:20060121162210.555$dV@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "JPL" <park avenue> wrote:
>> "Curt Welch" <curt@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:20060108213941.091$gR@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> > Risujin <risujin@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> Curt Welch wrote:
>> ...
>> > The mind and the brain are one and the same. There are not two things
>> > here, it's only one.
>>
>> Agreed, in the sense that mind is brain activity. But why do they appear
>> as "two" ?
>
> I don't understand why you would ask that as if I didn't already give you
> my answer. The 200 line message you are replying to was written entirely
> for the purpose of explaining why they appear as two. It's because we
> can't normally hear, see, small, taste, or touch the brain activity
> assocated with our "thoughts" so that brain activity appears separate in
> nature from all the other brain activity which we call "the physical
> world".
>
>> Although I agree that language can play a lot of tricks on us,
>> I believe that the idea that language is the only "culprit" that bugged
>> us into mind-body dualism is naive.
>
> I've never claimed it was _only_ a language problem. The langauge problem
> is what blocks people from believing the truth with it's shown to them.
> The problem started simple because we can't see, hear, taste, smell, or
> touch, the brain activity which is connected with our private thoughts.

Yes, that is because all the sensations and thoughts ARE the brain activity we
talk about here. (you say the same thing elsewhere I believe). It's impossible
to kick the ball after you already kicked it.

> All the brain activity is very physical, but we don't know it's there
> because without the help of other equipment, we can't see, hear, touch, or
> smell all this physical acitivty happening in our head. If we can't sense
> it as being part of the physical world, we assume (incorrectly) that it's
> not part of the physical world.

(just also thinking out loud here-> we agree on many things it appears) In
fact this brain activity (ie that part which is our conscious experiencing,
thinking etc. In fact "observer and observed", "thinker and thought", feeler
and what is felt" or in more general terms "consciousness and content"..are
all part of that same and mentioned (loopinggg) brain activity, ie
experiencing ) is a major function of the brainCNS: .. the ability to perceive
and know what's out-there plus the state of the in-here/organism, and behave
'accordingly'.

I like the analogy of the *** pit, as in cybernetics. In the *** pit, via
myriad sensor systems all video displays in the *** pit are coupled and
create some sort of a global imaging of the state and position of the air
plane, from which signals are fed back to the air plane's motor and stearing
system. Like there is *** pit activity, there is brain activity. But what
happens if sensors and internal display systems are directed at the brain or
*** pit itself? In the *** pit, ie BEING the *** pit, you can see an
internal representation on the display of the *** pit and what "happens"
there. You "see yourself sitting in the *** pit looking at yourself in the
*** pit etc.." As if you look in the mirror where you see yourself looking at
your self in the mirror. This, IMO, creates the "mirage of dualism".

Now everything we see in the mirror, or on the video display, is what is
usually referred to as "the physical", or "material". We may see a stone on
the ground, the body of our neighbor, the brain in your own skull, the moon in
the sky.. THIS is what is is in fact science works with, ie "the physical".
The point (and tragedy in many cases), is that most people are not aware of
this fact, despite, as you say, 100 years of science on "brain and mind" - the
fact that "the physical" is experiential brain activity. Hence, "the physical
brain as observed" is in fact "mind stuff", ie mere brain activity. The
nature of that brain activity is very clear: it is experiential. But when one
naively believes that the observed "physical brain" is "the real thing" that
produces experienes, one is simply not aware of the errenuos causal reversal
of what actually takes place. It is as idiotic as thinking that "the brain in
the mirror" somehow is/must be able to produce the experience of seeing
yourself in the mirror.

For now,
JPL (flu-ish)


>
>> In my view, the sense of mind-body
>> (mind-matter) dualism is a natural consequence of how the brain is wired
>> to it's environment via the (myriad) senses.
>>
>> I think the core reason that we have a sense of mind-brain duality is
>> simply organic - and actually quite easy to understand and explain. Just
>> as, analogously, cross eyed vision makes people see two objects whereas
>> in fact there is only one. Language only comes in later where the
>> cross-eyed person can identify two identical objects verbally.
>
> Yes, I agree the core reason this myth got started and continues to be
> believed is simply physiology. It's because the brain activity is
> physical, but yet we can't sense it with out normal external senses, so we
> think it must be caused by something non-physical.
>
> But if we can't sense our private thoughts, how do we know it's happening?
> The fact is, we can sense it because it wouldn't exist if we couldn't sense
> it. We can sense our thoughts just as easilly as we can sense light and
> sound. But once again, our langauge is all messed up so we don't normally
> use the word "sense" to talk about out ability to sense our own thoughts.
> We "sense" light, but we "have" thoughts. Why isn't it the other way
> around, why don't we "have" light, and "sense" thoughts?
>
> It's just more errors in the design of our language which makes it that
> much harder to correctly understand what's happening in our head. It's
> hard for me to correctly describe what's happening because the langauge I
> use is a mess of errors.
>
> We need to change the normal meaning of the word sense to make it correctly
> describe what is happening. We sense light and we sense brain activity.
> Every neuron in our head is in fact a sensor which is sensing the activity
> of other neurons. We don't have 5 senses, we have 100 billion senses.
>
> When I see a cat, the fact that I know it's a cat I'm looking at happens
> becuase by "cat" sensor has been activated (along with thousands of other
> sensors all working in parallel telling me it's a grey young house cat
> etc).
>
> When I hear a cat, the fact that I know it's the same cat I'm looking at is
> because some of those same cat sensing neurons have been activated.
>
> But when I think about a cat at times when I don't hear or see a cat, how
> does the brain know that I'm thinking about a cat and not thinking about a
> dog? It's because some of those same cat sensing neurons have once again
> been activated. Once again, the brain is just sensing "cat".
>
> But what is the cause of those thoughts about a cat? The brain can't sense
> the cause of the cat thoughts. They just happen for reasons which we can't
> sense.
>
> When we see a cat, we understand that the cause of the cat thoughts was
> that our eyes turned in the direction that allowed them to pick up a visual
> signal of a cat. When the cat walks out of the room, we understand that we
> cna no longer see the cat because it's no longer in view. So it's the view
> of the cat that is causing the cat thoughts we have when we see the cat.
> And all the things the brain can identify as the "cause" of these cat
> thoughts, exist in the domain we no of as the physical world.
>
> But when we have private thoughts about cats, we can't sense the cause of
> those private thoughts. So we just make up a name for it and we call that
> cause "our soul". Or just "self". Well, the real cause of the thoughts is
> the physical activity our brain just like the cause of the cat vision was
> the cat. But because we can't see hear taste or smell that physical brain
> activity, we don't know that it's happening in the same domain as the cat
> which walks around our room exists in.
>
> But we do know enough about the brain now to know that it is the cause of
> our our thoughts, and we do know that it exists in the same domain as the
> cat does. And we have know this for close to 100 years now.
>
> So why is the mind brain body still such a mystery to so many people? It's
> because they have been brainwashed by our langauge to believe that the mind
> and the brain are different. The very fact that we have two words for the
> brain (mind and brain) when there is only one thing here is the root cause
> of why so many people have a problem understanding the mind brain split
> problem even though the answer was uncovered 100 years ago. The answer is
> that there is no split - the language is just wrong. We don't have two
> things, we only have one thing. You can call it a mind or a brain, but
> it's one and the same thing either way.
>
> And of course, brain and mind are not the only words in error. There are
> thousands of words that all support the same fundamential error - the error
> that activity in the mind is not physical.
>
> To help break your mind of this error, just understand that every thought
> we have is in fact, just the activty of your neurons buzzing in our heads.
> Our "thoughts" are nothing more than us sensing the buzzing of the neurons
> in our head. When we think about "cats" it's just the buzzing of nurons
> like a million little gears turning in our head. When we look around the
> room and see all sorts of stuff, it's not the "stuff" we are seeing. It's
> the buzzing our our neurons that is happening in response to the light
> falling on our eyes. So the stuff we see in the room, really isn't in the
> room at all. It's just the activity of neurons in our head. The stuff in
> the room triggered all this activity in our head, but it's not the stuff we
> are really "seeing". All we are "seeing" is the physical activity of the
> neurons in our head.
>
> So, as we look around and see all this information around us, there are
> multiple neurons firing in our head for every fact we know about the room
> around us. We can't know anything, without a nueron firing in our head.
> And everything we knonw, or sense, or understand, is the result of brain
> activty. I say what I see my hand, but in fact, I just see a ton a neural
> activity which representes the idea of my hand.
>
> The more we learn to think like that, the easier it becomes to undestand
> that we don't have both a mind and a brain, we have only one device, and
> it's a physical device which is the location of all the physical stuff we
> call mental activity.
>
> One confusion in the mind brain debate is that people see the materialistic
> argument as a denial of the obvious dualism that exists. As I argue above,
> we don't have both a mind and a brain, it's just one. There is no split.
> The problem however is that dualism is real. That is, everything
> "external" like cats do exist, and yet we can also have private thoughts
> about cats. So what exactly is the nature of this dual sensory existence?
> What happens when I see a cat which is different from thinking about cats?
>
> The answer is that qualia are real. When I see a cat, both the cat exists,
> and my mential activity which represents the cat is real. But the mental
> activity which happens is nothing more than the physical activity happening
> in my brain, in resposne to being exposed to the vision of a cat.
>
> However, the confusing part here is that the "real cat" only exists to each
> of us, as our own brain activtiy. Everything we know, and can sense, about
> cats, is nothing but brain activity happening in our own head. So
> everything I understand about the universe, exists only in my head. Part
> of my brain is used to deal with what I know about cats, and another part
> of my brain is used to deal with what I know about brains. Part of my
> brain is used to deal with direct sensory signals coming from cats and part
> of my brain is used to deal with the abstract idea of cat from any sense.
>
> So the real dualism exists in a few different ways that people keep
> confusiong with each other. First, there is the brain, vs the universe.
> An obvious and real split that creates the observer, and the observed. But
> of course, the brain is able to observer itself since it is part of the
> universe it is observering.
>
> Then there is the physical mental split. But in reality, that split exists
> as different parts of the physical brain. When we sense a cat, either a
> phyiscal cat or a thought about a cat, some of the same parts of the brain
> are being activated. But there are different parts of the brain which are
> activated when we see a cat, or hear a cat, or think about cat. And yet
> another part of the brain which is activated when we start to talk about
> the active of seeing a cat. So much of what people want to label as
> dualism, is in fact, just different parts of the physical brain at work.
> The dualism is real, because we use different parts of the brain for
> thinking these different types of thoughts. But those forms of dualism are
> nothing more than a physical division of the brain.
>
> In all cases, what people choose to talk about as dualism, ends up being a
> physical partitoning of the universe. It's either outside vs indside the
> head, or just different parts of the brain they are talking about when they
> talk about the dual nature of things.
>
> --
> Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
> curt@xxxxxxxx http://NewsReader.Com/


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