From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Nov 15 2003 - 19:16:33 GMT
Scott:
My view is that the
brain serves as a multi-dimensional metronome: keeping all the senses in
temporal synch, and not much more.
I like this. You really should read my philosophical novel by the way.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott R" <jse885@spinn.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2003 4:31 AM
Subject: Re: MD life is an emergent property
> Nathan,
>
> > I am unclear. Do you not agree that the human brain gives meaning to
> > information?
>
> I do not agree with it, as I reject the mind/brain identity hypothesis.
>
> >
> > You look at the screen and see a white background with black markings.
> This
> > is information or data, is it not? The fact that you can interpret these
> > symbols means that you have a functioning brain. It is your brain that
> > allows you make sense out of the input from the world, no?
>
> Why do you assume the brain is responsible? It is a part of the process,
but
> it cannot be the whole of the process, since the ability to merge the dots
> into objects requires the transcendence of space and time, while the brain
> is a spatio-temporal mechanism. A somewhat more elaborate argument can be
> found below (something I posted here about a year ago). My view is that
the
> brain serves as a multi-dimensional metronome: keeping all the senses in
> temporal synch, and not much more.
>
> >
> > Where did you study cognitive science? This is a field that I am
> fascinated
> > by. Do you know that work of Ramachadran? And what do you think of
Steven
> > Pinker?
>
> At the University of Oregon, but I dropped out after realizing what I
> describe below. The field of cognitive science is ruled by materialist
> dogma, which is worse than religious dogma, since it thinks it isn't
> dogmatic. I don't know the work of Ramachadran. I haven't read Pinker, but
> what I've read about him sounds like he's just another materialist.
>
> - Scott
>
> [From an earlier post:]
>
> Consciousness, or even sentience, *cannot*
> evolve out of non-consciousness. To see the problem, take the normally
> accepted view of how visual perception works: light bounces off an object,
> stimulates the rods and cones in the eye, which stimulate nerve cells, and
> (much complexity later) we say "I see the tree". The materialist is forced
> to conclude that all that nerve cell agitation is the seeing of a tree.
But
> this is impossible, if one assumes that space and time are the context in
> which all that is necessary to explain perception occurs.
>
> To see this, ask how the excitation of one electron being hit by one
photon
> can have any *connection* to any other electron that is being, or has been
> hit by another photon. For this to happen a signal must pass from the
first
> to the second, but that signal cannot carry any additional information
than
> that of a single photon. So unless we assume an electron has memory, and
can
> distinguish between one photon and another, there can be no greater
> experience than that which an electron experiences on absorbing a photon
(or
> any other single interaction it can undergo, like being annihilated by a
> positron.).
>
> This argumentation applies at whatever level of granularity one tries to
> think it through. One nerve cell excites others. But unless the nerve cell
> itself has memory and is sentient, it cannot make distinctions or note
> similarity. But how can it if it has parts (separated in space). One or
more
> of these parts must be responsible for holding a piece of the memory, but
> then that piece has to be combined with others....
>
> There is one out, and that is depending on quantum non-locality. But note
> that doing so says that reality is fundamentally non-spatio-temporal, that
> *all* spatio-temporal experience arises out of eternity. So teleology just
> means causation in a different temporal direction, and Darwinism becomes
> irrelevant.
>
>
>
>
>
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