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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 29, 2016 - 09:53am PT
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Will I be able to record my brain like I can record a programme on television?
Who asked that one?
Will I be able to sell ads to your brain recording?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 29, 2016 - 10:16am PT
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Good stuff and interesting web sites.
I think a key distinction(s) to be made is between objective functioning - basically the brains ability to process information - and being conscious of that information. Also, consciousness itself imparts a qualitative sense that is not drawn from external or internal signals or info. Chalmers called it, the sense of BEING Ed. Not Mr. Ed, the equine article, but our own Dr. Ed. A common proposition is that a Turing machine would be missing this sense, plus a bunch of other primary stuff.
I reckon another key distinction is hinted at by Plank's contention that "we cannot get behind consciousness" to see or measure or contemplate any thing "out there." Using instruments designed by minds and interpreting data using our minds does not actually give us an third-person view of a "mind-independent" reality. Some argue - but all use their minds to do so. Or they say, "my brain is being conscious." Problem is, that tells us nothing about consciousness itself, any more than "explaining" objective functioning will address the question (indeed it largely if not entirely DOES tell the whole story when mind is not present). Computational and informational angles simply refer back to tasking and data and functioning. That we are AWARE of reality is the exploration zone per mind, IMO, not WHAT we are aware of. Neuroscience does that well.
This is often misinterpreted as meaning the mind creates all that it sees and measures and experiences, which, IMO, is a gross overstatement. But more than anything, the confusion is fueled by the misuse of the verb, "creates."
To me, the most fascinating notion here comes from the thought experiment concerning a noumena (reality NOT drawn from sense data), as opposed to phenomena, which is reality as posited and experienced FROM sense data (basically science). A mind-independent reality would be nomena by definition. What nomena IS, and formulating some opinion on that, is what Kant and others struggled with to the ends of the earth.
Worth noting here is that when Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - one of the great western minds of all time - got hold of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (dry as the Gobi in August), he had to quit reading after 20 pages, "fearing insanity."
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Jun 29, 2016 - 01:16pm PT
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Will I be able to record my brain like I can record a programme on television?Here
Asked by Lionel shriver, Novelist.
I would like to be able to re-experience something significant in my life, such as falling in love. (Think how much safer it would be to take a hallucinogen once and then just replay it when you were in the mood.) I would especially like to be able to record my dreams – and I do not mean the sad little journal jottings of what I barely remember. I want to see those images again, rewind, and contemplate where I got those amazing stories from. I would never run dry on fiction ideas again.
Assuming that other people could also play your tapes in their brains, the technology would be rife with problems, providing the ultimate in invasion of privacy. Secrets of any sort could become impossible. Worst of all, other people could get their hands on how tawdry and dreary most of your thought processes really are. On the other hand, it would also make it possible to truly experience what it is like to be someone else – though that might put fiction writers out of business.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 29, 2016 - 03:30pm PT
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Believe it or not, I actually agree with MH2 that most of the material on that site about actual consciousness - as opposed to objective functioning - is fluff. Or some rather clumsy dancing around the Hard problem. Like this:
"And it is not only neurobiologists who take exception to the view of David Chalmers that consciousness is such a hard problem that it is beyond the reach of neuroscience to solve. Some philosophers too, of whom the most representative are probably Paul and Patricia Churchland, find it counterproductive to treat human consciousness as a special case, distinct from all the other problems involved in understanding the human mind.
For the Churchlands, and for other philosophers and researchers who are identified as eliminative materialists, all questions about consciousness can be reduced to what Chalmers calls the “easy problems” and eventually be solved."
The so-called Hard Problem is so misunderstood that even otherwise smart folk completely miss what is being discussed, which is NOT an argument about WHAT is perceived, rather a qualitative look at perception itself regardless of whether a given perception is an illusion, a fact, a dream, a feeling etc. In other words, the Hard Problem is not an issue about external objects or phenomenon IN consciousness, nor is it a bit to trot out a Cartesian Theater, with a thing called a "subject" who is viewing the content. This is all folk science, IMO. Conversely, the work being done on objective functioning is remarkable.
For those interested in reviewing the belief that neuroscience has eliminated Chalmer's Hard Problem, these papers are fun reads (I've referenced them before):
http://www.atiner.gr/journals/humanities/2014-1-2-4-Thompson.pdf
http://www.imprint.co.uk/rudd/wittgens.htm
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jun 29, 2016 - 04:31pm PT
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Prime number patterns are cosmology? Guess I'd never thought of it that way.
I would say the same thing when it comes to the understanding what a few thousand years of mediation and spiritual practices have provided. People who disregard that “body of work” out-of-hand without reading or direct experience also strike me as ignorant and stupid. . . . I certainly like to think for myself, but from an informed basis as a 30-year practitioner in contemplative traditions, as a student of cognitive science with a terminal degree . . . (MikeL)
I don't think any of us here have disregarded meditation experiences. In my case I would only be skeptical of statements about those experiences that drift into the paranormal or explanations of outer physical reality. I engaged in meditative practices for a couple of years sixty years ago but I never even completed my BS.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 29, 2016 - 06:00pm PT
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Asked by Lionel shriver, Novelist.
Ah, thank you. I thought it would be someone with a good comedic sense and your excerpt makes it clear that she has that.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 29, 2016 - 08:57pm PT
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John asks an interesting question: What is the relationship between a quiet, detached awareness and external reality. What are the reasons we might consider what one encounters internally and externally as being of a different nature, and since awareness is the principal instrument in both science AND quiet mind work, what is the rub? Few people I know would say they are getting quiet to do science with no instruments, and few people I know who measure and calculate say they are looking at experience, but in both cases we are talking about content, not consciousness, at least in my view.
Because content is notoriously dodgy is the reason that in the Renzai tradition they say forget it, let it just come and go it's all impermanent anyhow. What isn't? That's the question...
At some point looking at the whole idea of a mind-independent external reality has to be hauled up for a close look. That one is the most slippery of them all I reckon. Or nearly so.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Jun 30, 2016 - 07:14am PT
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Prime number patterns are cosmology? Guess I'd never thought of it that way.
Why not given the mathematical nature of the universe?
The point of the exercise I think anyway was to provoke people to think with new paradigms.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jun 30, 2016 - 07:35am PT
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Jgill: I engaged in meditative practices for a couple of years sixty years ago but I never even completed my BS.
:-)
I shouldn't have made reference to educational degrees. What appears to be useful is to do a little bit of systematic reading and thinking for oneself. (You know, . . . being a little skeptical--which is what you are, John.)
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jun 30, 2016 - 07:52am PT
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Went to Kitt Peak last night with a group of people. The place up there wants you up there before sunset, but visitors must leave at the same time (around 10:30 pm) in order to minimize light pollution for the 22-odd telescopes located on the peak. So the Kitt Peak presentation staff has to fill-in the 5-6 hours with presentations or tasks (and eating and shopping in the gift shop). One of the things is an on-running video presentation of the accelerating global problem of “light pollution.” The presentation goes on for over well over an hour. I found myself thinking: “this is only a problem for astrophysicists, isn’t it?” “The light pollution problem” seemed elevated to the same level as cancer, war, poverty, etc.
This all reminded me how big we make “our problems” through projection, selective attention, socialization, and institutionalization. (Did you know that breast cancer has been associated with artificial light {see, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2627884/}, as well as other societal malaises. “We must see the stars!”)
So much of our lives seem to be functions of what our minds make of them.
Figuring out “what’s real” seems an impossibility—maybe even irrelevant.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jun 30, 2016 - 09:47am PT
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Just been reading Don DeLillo's "Zero K." Highly recommended to this group. The man can write!
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Jun 30, 2016 - 04:14pm PT
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“The light pollution problem” seemed elevated to the same level as cancer, war, poverty, etc.
"Light pollution" is a quaint term, a bit old fashiony but it'll have to do for some folks. The reason why all that light talk at the observatory ignited a flicker of recognition deep within you is probably because your old buddy Ward back on the mind thread has been talking about it for quite some time.
If you yourself have been struggling with health issues such as cancer or T2D it's probably been due to 3 things: lack of sun on the skin and eyes ,exposure to blue light after the sun goes down, and a life of general circadian incorrectness. "Human health is a light story."
Repeat that sentence everyday, after you say "life is a light story"
The folks over there at Kitts Peak are cutting edge. Someone's been doing their research.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 30, 2016 - 04:46pm PT
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I signed on to teach writing seminars for a month (good to flee the office here and there) and this morning I left LA at 8 heading for Miami. Two hours in a passenger went into diabetic coma and we made an emergency stop in New Mexico. Had so much gas on board that the plane landed "hot" (hard!) and blew a tire - those big planes get wobbly with no rubber. Came to find out they have no tires at this dinky airport, at least the ones we need, and they don't have the gear to unload the luggage so they flew another plane in from Dallas with new rubber and tools to change out the other one, plus a crew to do the changing. But the hydraulic jack wouldn't work. So they flew in another one from Colorado. It worked but the tire wouldn't go on the bent rim. Now we're waiting on a rim. Have downed so much coffee I could nearly fly to Miami myself. My "mind" was gone hours ago...
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 30, 2016 - 05:43pm PT
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It's nice to see what a good story teller tells and what they leave to the readers' imagination.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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As for the wrong kind of light, I just discovered that I am very Vitamin D deficient which happens as you grow older and start taking care of your skin with sunscreen etc. I'm taking 2,000 mg a day now and feel 20 years younger. One of the easiest fixes around.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Well, Ward, buddy, I admit I have not paid enough attention to your posts about light, which is a little weird when I think about it. It might expose an attitude that I have about you and some of your posts (which you might have about me and mine).
Spiritual light is something that’s referred to often (and folks can be very specific about what that is). They aren’t referring to sunlight. (See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96sel_(yoga)).
And there are also some interesting ideas about “dark retreats,” which purportedly trigger natural DMT experiences (if one is interested in such experiences). (See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_retreat.)
I can say that meditating in complete darkness regularly just for 30 minutes has shown me such brightness that I automatically closed my eyes. (Ha!)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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This all reminded me how big we make “our problems” through projection, selective attention, socialization, and institutionalization.
I remember as a child (yes, that long ago) that our amateur astronomy club protested the opening of a Value Fair supermarket near our then expanding housing development in Claremont CA, on North Towne Ave. and Foothill Blvd. (looks like a fitness business has taken over the premises)...
the protest was over the light pollution from the large wattage signage, "Value Glare" was a vindictive we hurled at the corporate behemoth invading our observing space, in what was once orange orchards totally bereft of the byproduct of civilization, its wasted light...
when you think about lighting the night, it is largely for the benefit of assuaging our ancient fear of the night, humans aren't very adept at night, relatively poor at seeing, and hearing, and smelling certainly put us at a great disadvantage against dark adapted predators
so when cheap energy and cheap lighting became available, we lit it up... now what we needed was to light that was "in front of us" but our zeal produced lighting pointing in all directions. Utilized for advertisement, our metropolitan lifestyles did not recognize the long tradition of the end of day: the setting Sun, but extended that to an arbitrary choice, shutting off the light.
technology for creating bright light and continued cheap electrical energy lead to a tremendous waste of light, and the energy required to produce it... escaping into space and eventually becoming the icon of civilization, the ever growing regions of light in the darkness of night... perhaps the definition of civilization.
and as the demand for lighting increased, the demand for energy increased, and the energy increases pushing up the temperatures, and particulates, and causing more light scattering, and less observable night skies, the astronomical skies.
as a metaphor, our behavior was leading us to a profound narcissistic introspection, the more we demanded the trappings of our own definitions of civilization, the less we were aware of our very small place in the universe... a universe growing larger and larger by observation, but the incidental universe veiled behind the atmospheric pollution, including the light pollution, we so associate with our "advancement."
observing in any metropolitan area, observing the night sky, is less and less possible, and observing the night sky something we leave to professionals who have access to the facilities that make observing possible...
we are divorced from a traditional, and very powerful inspiration of human thought, the night sky, and the sense we once had of our place in the universe is replaced by that attenuated vision.
laying on my back in a chilled dark evening high in the mountains, even my old eyes can sense the wonder of that boy who was so outraged at what was being taken away from him those many years ago, in the name of convenience without any consideration at all for what might be lost.
a personal perspective, no doubt, but certainly outward looking...
maybe I should stop worrying and just meditate, succumb to the easy way of looking inward to obtain peace and libration from my suffering...
after all, as MikeL says, my narratives of what the night sky could be are just narratives...
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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we are divorced from a traditional, and very powerful inspiration of human thought, the night sky, and the sense we once had of our place in the universe is replaced by that attenuated vision.
Interesting. And it may be that all religious thought has its source in the simple observation of the regular certainty of the heavens as seen with the naked eye and the contrasting chaos of what presents itself as life here on this earth. Monuments from Mesopotamian ziggurats to the stonehenge and even the Lord's prayer (on earth as it is in heaven) attest to such an awareness.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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I have long been impressed by the temerity of the first person who looked up at the sky and asked for help. Considering the likely response.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Well why not? Whatever is up there appears to punish us and try to get our attention from time to time with meteors like the Kaaba stone thrown to earth and the brilliant meteor showers that occur occasionally. Not to mention the more frightening lunar and solar eclipses. If the power up there can make bad and awesome things happen, why not ask for good things too? What did we have to lose?
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