GatherNoMoss wrote:
No...that's not quite what I mean.
I'm saying that how the brain functions, solveing the questions as to
what the nature of intelligence is, will also tell us how the universe
works and why.
..
A UNIVERSE THAT HAS BUILT WITHIN ITS OWN LAWS OF FUNCTION THE TENDENCY
TO CREATE ENTITIES THAT CONTEMPLATES ITSELF (universe) SIMPLY BLOWS MY
MIND !
..
Forget space exploration......it's all in the mind.
..
Well, to understand the brain, we need to understand biology and
chemistry. So the sciences that understand the outside world have their
role.

Also, it's not clear that the Universe has laws in it which _directly_
bring about mind. It is enough that its laws permit life to arise.

Living creatures reproduce themselves. One way a living creature can
obtain an advantage over other forms of life is by becoming more
complex and versatile. We already know how this can happen, such as
through the symbiosis of different types of bacteria that created the
eukaryotic cell, or through the doubling-up of genes that is a
recurring theme of plant evolution.

There is much in the Universe to be understood. How stars work, or what
sub-components exist within the proton or neutron, are not matters that
can be answered solely by studying the brain.

Nor, for that matter, will a study of the brain be likely to supersede
much of mathematics: will it answer the question of the Riemann
hypothesis, or tell us about which answer to the continuum hypothesis
lets us extend axiomatic set theory to embrace what we normally think
of as sets? No; although mathematics is a fruit of the mind, it has to
be studied as itself, not as it is buried within the capabilities of
our brains.

John Savard