From: ml (mbtlehn@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Wed Sep 15 2004 - 05:39:05 BST
Hello Scott,
<snip>
Scott said:
> Actually, I wouldn't say that a particle has a
point-of-view/consciousness,
> but that it is all that we can detect of a more complex, value- and
> intellect- laden situation -- the particle operating within laws of
nature,
> which are ideas.
mel: sure, it has a particular point of view....;-)
>
> > > > What is the origin of language?
<snip>
> > mel:
> > Abstraction is simply the mind modeling experience to try and
> > "test" the apprehension of functional meaning, mostly, sometimes
> > other meaning, attributes, or qualities is sought for...language is
simply
> > one technology developed to share the results, of this modeling.
> > Other techniques include "showing" "artistic expression"...
>
> [Scott:]There is no "simply" about it. "[T]he mind modeling" presupposes
> intellect, the movement between particulars and universals and so on. To
> "test" ditto. Or rather, the only way one can say these things are simple
> is if reality starts with them. (And, yes, there are many varieties of
> language, including art, nature, etc.)
mel:
Other way around...intellect arises as a more reflexive
or self-referetial degree of modeling to "physical" modeling.
Mammals and birds can model the physical, but I would
not put them at the level of intellect, just yet.
We also seem to vary on our assumtion of what language is,
although it seems we both see many types of technology
for information processing or the conveyence of meaning.
>
> >
> > mel: Whom? You and who knows what else participating...a god
> > wouldn't need intellect, assuming omniscence, because intellect
> > is for "figuring it out".
>
> [Scott:]That's one, perhaps less interesting aspect of intellect. It also
> includes imagination. Remember the Poincare business in ZAMM? That is also
> intellect.
>
> And I don't assume omniscience in divine realms.
mel: True, wives and mothers seem to possess it.
>
> > Scott> You can do the same thing with a lobotomy. Pure consciousness is
of
> > no use
> > > except for a bit of blissfulness. See Franklin Merrell-Wolff as an
> example
> > > of a mystic who went beyond it, and reports all of existence as being
> > > fundamentally noetic.
> >
> >
><snip>
> [Scott:]True, and I don't personally recommend it :-) But the whole reason
> for my going on about all this is that in my view, the
> religious/transformative/whatever practice that comes out of a philosophy
> is the reason for philosophizing in the first place. Pirsig thinks of Zen
> practice as a matter of putting the intellect to sleep. I see it as
> training the intellect to purify it, and so reconnect to Intellect.
>
mel:
Putting the intellect to sleep as a technique
to experience the "static free" perception, if
you will, is a sort of a description of HOW.
The appropriate use of mind in living is the
WHAT of the thing.
It's just that runaway intellection is a bit like
runaway cellphone use or conversational
chatter, it gets in the way of the movie.
Philosophy is one brand of cellphone.
> > mel: Sorry, "Nope!" is mind-brain not being equal.
> > The brackets simply express that for humans, as humans in
> > any meaningfully human way we need brains to be human.
> > A physical, high functioning brain is needed to model the
> > remembered experience, communicate symbolically, and
> > laugh, which is part of the processes giving rise to what we
> > perceive as mind.
>
> [Scott:]I disagree on what the function of the brain is.
mel: I believe it was the eminent Python brain trust that said:
"The human brain is like an enormous fish. It's
flat and slimy, and has gills through which it can see.",
so of course serious thinkers vary in opinion.
[Scott:]I think it is a
> multi-dimensional metronome, to keep all our senses, feelings, and
physical
> actions in spatio-temporal synch. Modelling, symbolic manipulation,
holding
> memories, etc. are not things that neurons can do, no matter how many
there
> are, or how well-connected. But I'm just speculating.
>
mel: I'm not sure the two notions are any more at odds than
two hairs on the same head. You've included also the house
keeping portions of the CNS, where I was concentrating on
the more consciuously mind oriented functions.
As to what the neurons can do...well a length of copper
and a piece of glass can't connect two people on either
side of the Anglo-American pond either...oh, wait, that's
what most of the internet is. Each enabling layer of learning,
of modeling, of ASSOCIATIONAL mapping, as wave front
variability and transforms (think Fourrier) with variable strength
and pattern give immense data spaces for the manipulation
of meaning. Billions of neurons multiplied in combined
factorial and other "leveraged series" create huge numbers
of differing and relatable patterns. All in the squishy bone
bowl of noodles. Yum! ...some fava beans and Chianti
thanks--mel
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