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Ethics & The Future of Brain Research



 
 
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  #51  
Old March 4th 13, 12:47 AM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
Mahipal
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Posts: 42
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Mar 2, 10:11*pm, alien8er wrote:
On Feb 23, 8:06*am, Immortalist wrote:


[trim, for now, will return later]

When a cat hears a dog bark some think it has visual memories of dogs.
The association areas of the brain are mainly between the areas where
sensory inputs are mapped and these areas connect the senses together.


* Yes, humans (and other chordates) are wired to think associatively.

* I agree with my pal Mahipal- "me" always changes.


All known objects are processes. Consciousness is as much an object as
other processes that re-present a present moment through changing
stuff, everything is constantly changing and opposite things are
identical, so that everything is and is not at the same time. In other
words, Universal Flux and the Identity of Opposites may entail a
denial of the Law of Non-Contradiction, since all things go and
nothing stays, and comparing existents to the flow of a river which
you cannot step twice into. On those stepping into rivers staying the
same other and other waters flow. There is an antithesis between
'same' and 'other,' different waters flow in rivers staying the same,
though the waters are always changing, the rivers stay the same.


* No, they don't, any more than does Theseus' boat. Rivers come into
existence, merge, meander, split, and dry up over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile#The_Eonile


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrFYK3mQ0vg

Youtube is good only for performance arts...
give a damn transcript with your cat dances... I say.

Nadiya Chale Chale Re Dhara - Safar (1970)

River flows, flows its stream - Journey (1970)

"oh... naav toh kya baha jaaye kinaara
badee hee tej samay kee hai dhaara
tujhko chalna hoga, tujhko chalna hoga - (2)"

Simplistically, with less thought than it deserves, translated...

What?... Not just the boat, the river's edge does flow...
Even the stream of time is too fast...
You will have to move on, You will have to change - (2)

I swear no one knows this song, poem!
Yet it is deeper than the highest mountain... ykwim...

-- Mahipal
  #52  
Old March 4th 13, 05:45 AM posted to rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion,alt.philosophy
Will Janoschka
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Posts: 12
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Sun, 3 Mar 2013 23:47:17, Mahipal wrote:

On Mar 2, 10:11˙pm, alien8er wrote:
On Feb 23, 8:06˙am, Immortalist wrote:


[trim, for now, will return later]

When a cat hears a dog bark some think it has visual memories of dogs.
The association areas of the brain are mainly between the areas where
sensory inputs are mapped and these areas connect the senses together.


˙ Yes, humans (and other chordates) are wired to think associatively.

˙ I agree with my pal Mahipal- "me" always changes.


All known objects are processes. Consciousness is as much an object as
other processes that re-present a present moment through changing
stuff, everything is constantly changing and opposite things are
identical, so that everything is and is not at the same time. In other
words, Universal Flux and the Identity of Opposites may entail a
denial of the Law of Non-Contradiction, since all things go and
nothing stays, and comparing existents to the flow of a river which
you cannot step twice into. On those stepping into rivers staying the
same other and other waters flow. There is an antithesis between
'same' and 'other,' different waters flow in rivers staying the same,
though the waters are always changing, the rivers stay the same.


˙ No, they don't, any more than does Theseus' boat. Rivers come into
existence, merge, meander, split, and dry up over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile#The_Eonile


http://www.youtube.com/watch?vxrFYK3mQ0vg

Youtube is good only for performance arts...
give a damn transcript with your cat dances... I say.

Nadiya Chale Chale Re Dhara - Safar (1970)

River flows, flows its stream - Journey (1970)

"oh... naav toh kya baha jaaye kinaara
badee hee tej samay kee hai dhaara
tujhko chalna hoga, tujhko chalna hoga - (2)"

Simplistically, with less thought than it deserves, translated...

What?... Not just the boat, the river's edge does flow...
Even the stream of time is too fast...
You will have to move on, You will have to change - (2)

I swear no one knows this song, poem!
Yet it is deeper than the highest mountain... ykwim...

-- Mahipal


I think I get it, Then, aw ****, everything moved
Now what!. Have you any advice on how
to handle ridiculelisness?
  #53  
Old March 5th 13, 03:48 PM posted to rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion,alt.philosophy
Mahipal
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 42
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Mar 3, 11:45*pm, (Will Janoschka) wrote:
On Sun, 3 Mar 2013 23:47:17, Mahipal wrote:
On Mar 2, 10:11˙pm, alien8er wrote:
On Feb 23, 8:06˙am, Immortalist wrote:


[trim, for now, will return later]


When a cat hears a dog bark some think it has visual memories of dogs.
The association areas of the brain are mainly between the areas where
sensory inputs are mapped and these areas connect the senses together.


˙ Yes, humans (and other chordates) are wired to think associatively.


˙ I agree with my pal Mahipal- "me" always changes.


All known objects are processes. Consciousness is as much an object as
other processes that re-present a present moment through changing
stuff, everything is constantly changing and opposite things are
identical, so that everything is and is not at the same time. In other
words, Universal Flux and the Identity of Opposites may entail a
denial of the Law of Non-Contradiction, since all things go and
nothing stays, and comparing existents to the flow of a river which
you cannot step twice into. On those stepping into rivers staying the
same other and other waters flow. There is an antithesis between
'same' and 'other,' different waters flow in rivers staying the same,
though the waters are always changing, the rivers stay the same.


˙ No, they don't, any more than does Theseus' boat. Rivers come into
existence, merge, meander, split, and dry up over time.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile#The_Eonile


http://www.youtube.com/watch?vxrFYK3mQ0vg


Youtube is good only for performance arts...
give a damn transcript with your cat dances... I say.


Nadiya Chale Chale Re Dhara - Safar (1970)


River flows, flows its stream - Journey (1970)


"oh... naav toh kya baha jaaye kinaara
badee hee tej samay kee hai dhaara
tujhko chalna hoga, tujhko chalna hoga - (2)"


Simplistically, with less thought than it deserves, translated...


What?... Not just the boat, the river's edge does flow...
Even the stream of time is too fast...
You will have to move on, You will have to change - (2)


I swear no one knows this song, poem!
Yet it is deeper than the highest mountain... ykwim...


-- Mahipal


I think I get it, Then, aw ****, everything moved
Now what!. *Have you any advice on how
to handle ridiculelisness?


I am under this misbegotten assumption that literature, art, ...,
music are noble aspirations. I've been wrong before, and I brainwash
easy.

If everything moves, or changes, then what drives it me us? Not having
the what well identified, or merely defined, is weird. Without it, the
why questions are likely way off target.

On http://www.iep.utm.edu/heraclit/
"Heraclitus lived in Ephesus, an important city on the Ionian coast of
Asia Minor, not far from Miletus, the birthplace of philosophy."

Isn't that special! Philosophy has one and only one birthplace,
Miletus.

Perhaps you were looking for numerical answers. I like GR=1.618...

Enjo(y)... Cheers!
--
Mahipal, pronounced "My Pal" or "Maple"... Maple Loops, Syrup, Wood.

http://mahipal7638.wordpress.com/meforce/
"If the line between science fiction and science fact
doesn't drive you crazy, then you're just not tr(y)ing!"
  #54  
Old March 8th 13, 12:59 AM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 148
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Feb 23, 8:51*pm, Mahipal wrote:
On Feb 22, 5:29*pm, " wrote:

On Feb 22, 8:57*am, Immortalist wrote:


On Feb 22, 7:00 am, Dare wrote:


On 2/21/2013 7:36 PM, Immortalist wrote:


On Feb 21, 4:29 pm, Howard Brazee wrote:
On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:45:13 -0800 (PST), casey


wrote:
Something that would be good for science to answer.


If you found yourself in heaven with a heavenly body
how would you know if it was you who lived that
physical life on Earth or if you simply had the
memories of that now dead human?


If you assume that the 5 year old version of you was "you", despite
you being very, very different now - we need to determine what "you"
means.


If the self is a series of clones throughout life, then there may be
no "version" of your self but instead just a "range" of neural
activities that are a sense of your self.


* I concur on the (implied potential) range of activities meme. The
series of clones thing I disagree with- it implies that all cells (as
mentioned elsethread) in a tissue (and by implication the whole body)
get "turned over" every so many years *all at the same time* which is
unreasonable.


* We are about process, not state. A so-called state of mind is not a
photograph, it's a three-panel cartoon. Perception, "filter",
reaction. "filter" = particular set of "neural activities" in that
range.


Once those activities go
outside the range of your -selfing- you are not cloned during those
successions of neural events.


* Well, a clone is (loosely speaking) an exact replica, but me right
now is not an exact replica of me ten, twenty etc. years ago. What
continues as "I"? I think it's just a particular constellation of
"things I'm good at" and "things I'm bad at" due to brain structure/
disposition(s) from genetics modulo diet, environment, socialization,
yada yada.


* I agree with my pal Mahipal- "me" always changes.


I will cherish that sentence construct until like forever.

You are too kind Mark! Still, you turn me on... do you want to be
poet?


A poet writes poetry. Who writes doggerel?

"You see it really doesn't matter
When you're buried in disguise
By the dark glass on your eyes
Though your flesh has crystallised
Still...you turn me on"

Ergo I Mahipal am me on... me_on... meon, rhymes with neon.
If you can't laugh, then you can't grasp... so I have learned.


I ain't no poet but I knows it when I sees it.

This here is some damnfine poetry:

"Aye an' a bit of Mackeral settler rack and ruin
ran it doon by the haim, 'ma place
well I slapped me and I slapped it doon in the side
and I cried, cried, cried.

"The fear a fallen down taken never back the raize and then Craig
Marion,
get out wi' ye Claymore out mi pocket a' ran doon, doon the middin
stain
picking the fiery horde that was fallen around ma feet.
Never he cried, never shall it ye get me alive
ye rotten hound of the burnie crew. Well I snatched fer the blade O my
Claymore cut and thrust and I fell doon before him round his feet.

"Aye! A roar he cried frae the bottom of his heart that I would nay
fall
but as dead, dead as 'a can be by his feet; de ya ken?

....and the wind cried Mary."

Also, note that Umma rhymes with Gumma.

* As for "activities outside the range of [one's] -selfing-, I refer
you to Lovecraft's _At The Mountains Of Madness_.


BTW _Call Of Cthulhu_ is a better example of extra-self activities,
what with M. C. Escher the likeliest suspect for master architect of
R'lyeh.

from A Treatise of Human Nature Book I, Part 4, Section 6


SECTION VI: OF PERSONAL IDENTITY


There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately
conscious of what we call our self; that we feel its existence and its
continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a
demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. The
strongest sensation, the most violent passion, say they, instead of
distracting us from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and
make us consider their influence on self either by their pain or
pleasure. To attempt a further proof of this were to weaken its
evidence; since no proof can be derived from any fact of which we are
so intimately conscious; nor is there any thing of which we can be
certain if we doubt of this.


Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very
experience which is pleaded for them; nor have we any idea of self,
after the manner it is here explained. For, from what impression could
this idea be derived? This question it is impossible to answer without
a manifest contradiction and absurdity; and yet it is a question which
must necessarily be answered, if we would have the idea of self pass
for clear and intelligible. It must be some one impression that gives
rise to every real idea. But self or person is not any one impression,
but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to
have a reference. If any impression gives rise to the idea of self,
that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole
course of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that
manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and
pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other,
and never all exist at the same time. It cannot therefore be from any
of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is
derived; and consequently there is no such idea.


* Well yeah, self-examination on the fly is difficult.


* That's why we study other people.


Without other people, we -- especially me, myself, or I -- are
nothing.


Hm. In my experience sociability is not stereotypical all-or-
nothing- there's a continuum from Drama Queen to Rugged Individualist.

From----
http://www.wutsamada.com/alma/modern/humepid.htm


Is a feeling of identity or self related to experiencing Time?
What happens to "self" if there is no time...


* Zen adepts claim that self vanishes without time-bound experience.


The second part of your question addresses issues relating to
consciousness and continuity. Can the activities of the brain that are
the self, if stopped be started again? Would it be only a clone that
believes it is you or have we always just been a bunch of clones that
produce this feeling of being one me? But to this continuity dilemma
you raise; there are too many things and processes happening to give
some simple answer. Why would we believe that consciousness can or
cannot be stopped and then started in the first place? If the heart
stops tissues die but when we sleep consciousness seems to stop, so
simple comparisons will probably fail us. Religion and philosophy seem
to be the culprits that make us invent such ideas.


* In sleep consciousness is altered; it does not stop. Look up lucid
dreaming and sleep learning for starters.


What if consciousness is full of stops and starts? Again time seems to
be necessary if consciousness is the same thing as activities in a
brain.


* Consciousness seems to me to be more like a conversation between
different specialized wetware modules of the brain. It can be a
roaring rock party babble or a low indistinct mutter. If nobody has
anything to say to each other at a party there's a lull, but not
really a stop. Same with our "selves".


......In a sparse distributed network - memory is a type of
perception.....The act of remembering and the act of perceiving both
detect a pattern in a vary large choice of possible patterns....When
we remember we recreate the act of the original perception - that is
we relocate the pattern by a process similar to the one we used to
perceive the pattern originally.


* The stored patterns change over time as the physical substrate
they're "written" on (cerebral neurons and their interconnections)
change over time.


Could all parts of our experience and reasoning abilities be very
similar to a type of perception? If the act of remembering and the act
of perceiving both detect a pattern in a vary large choice of possible
patterns and when we remember we recreate the act of the original
perception - that is we relocate the pattern by a process similar to
the one we used to perceive the pattern originally, and trigger areas
of the brain which our senses would, in essence bypassing the senses,
then it seems possible that most of our experience works in a similar
way.


* Yes, of course. Some modules perceive sensory input, some only
perceive the output of other modules.


Benjamin Libet famously suggested it takes about half a second for the
brain to get through all the processing steps needed to settle our
view of the moment just past. But this immediately raises the question
of why don't we notice a lag? How does anyone ever manage to hit a
tennis ball or drive a car? The answer is that we anticipate. We also
have a level of preconscious habit which "intercepts" stuff before it
reaches a conscious level of awareness. And yet it really does take
something like half a second to develop a fully conscious experience
of life. You can read about the cycle of processing story and its
controversies in the following....


* The implication is that the whole brain "get(s) through all the
processing steps" at the same time. That's unreasonable since
different parts of the brain process information at different rates;
there's no computer-analogous "system clock" for organic brains.


If there is one thing that seems certain about consciousness it is
that it is immediate. We are aware of life's passing parade of
sensations — and of our own thoughts, feelings and impulses — at the
instant they happen. Yet as soon as it is accepted that the mind is
the product of processes taking place within the brain, we introduce
the possibility of delay. It must take time for nerve traffic to
travel from the sense organs to the mapping areas of the brain.


* It also takes different amounts of time for each module to process
its allotment of data.


* Worse, some data goes through more than one module, in series and or
parallel, introducing more delays.


Life and mind really cannot be about its mechanics, down deep.


You seem to think I'm claiming souls don't exist. I have never said
that, because I have no incontrovertible evidence of it. I also have
no evidence supporting them either, but absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence. I prefer to table the question until some
evidence becomes available.

See, in my version of the scientific method, no wild-assed idea is a
priori excluded unless it defies thermo 3 or conservation of momentum
or something. There is undeniably a physical layer to consciousness-
an "unphysical" layer is IMO impossible. For a thing to interact with
matter the way souls allegedly do there must be a set of rules. That's
physics, dammit. If somebody reduced prayers to partial differential
equations, would you cry "meta-heresy!" or would you celebrate?

It must then take more time for thoughts and feelings about these
messages to propagate through the brain's maze of circuitry. If the
processing is complex — as it certainly must be in humans — then these
delays ought to measurable, and even noticeable with careful
introspection.


* It's worse- the delays can be negative. There's experimental
evidence that we start to perform physical responses based on sensory
inputs *before* the parts of the brain allegedly responsible for
mediating decisions do their thing. Clearly all our attempts at
modeling the mind are flawed.


* Mark L. Fergerson


I really am still reading Immortalist's response. Wish he would IRL
name himself.


I wouldn't poke too hard; it may be a pen name he uses to avoid
losing his day job.

Per your mention elsethread of birthplacing philosophy:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...638797542.html


Mark L. Fergerson
  #55  
Old March 8th 13, 01:36 AM posted to rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion,alt.philosophy
Immortalist
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 83
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Mar 5, 6:48*am, Mahipal wrote:
On Mar 3, 11:45*pm, (Will Janoschka) wrote:

On Sun, 3 Mar 2013 23:47:17, Mahipal wrote:
On Mar 2, 10:11˙pm, alien8er wrote:
On Feb 23, 8:06˙am, Immortalist wrote:


[trim, for now, will return later]


When a cat hears a dog bark some think it has visual memories of dogs.
The association areas of the brain are mainly between the areas where
sensory inputs are mapped and these areas connect the senses together.


˙ Yes, humans (and other chordates) are wired to think associatively.


˙ I agree with my pal Mahipal- "me" always changes.


All known objects are processes. Consciousness is as much an object as
other processes that re-present a present moment through changing
stuff, everything is constantly changing and opposite things are
identical, so that everything is and is not at the same time. In other
words, Universal Flux and the Identity of Opposites may entail a
denial of the Law of Non-Contradiction, since all things go and
nothing stays, and comparing existents to the flow of a river which
you cannot step twice into. On those stepping into rivers staying the
same other and other waters flow. There is an antithesis between
'same' and 'other,' different waters flow in rivers staying the same,
though the waters are always changing, the rivers stay the same.


˙ No, they don't, any more than does Theseus' boat. Rivers come into
existence, merge, meander, split, and dry up over time.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile#The_Eonile


http://www.youtube.com/watch?vxrFYK3mQ0vg


Youtube is good only for performance arts...
give a damn transcript with your cat dances... I say.


Nadiya Chale Chale Re Dhara - Safar (1970)


River flows, flows its stream - Journey (1970)


"oh... naav toh kya baha jaaye kinaara
badee hee tej samay kee hai dhaara
tujhko chalna hoga, tujhko chalna hoga - (2)"


Simplistically, with less thought than it deserves, translated...


What?... Not just the boat, the river's edge does flow...
Even the stream of time is too fast...
You will have to move on, You will have to change - (2)


I swear no one knows this song, poem!
Yet it is deeper than the highest mountain... ykwim...


-- Mahipal


I think I get it, Then, aw ****, everything moved
Now what!. *Have you any advice on how
to handle ridiculelisness?


I am under this misbegotten assumption that literature, art, ...,
music are noble aspirations. I've been wrong before, and I brainwash
easy.

If everything moves, or changes, then what drives it me us? Not having
the what well identified, or merely defined, is weird. Without it, the
why questions are likely way off target.


Homeostasis is the property of an open system, especially living
organisms, to regulate its internal environment to maintain a stable,
constant condition, by means of multiple dynamic equilibrium
adjustments, controlled by interrelated regulation mechanisms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeostasis

Heraclitus thought that the contents of things change, but their form
remains the same. He wondered under what conditions do objects persist
through time as one and the same object. In ancient times, this
problem came to be associated with the Ship of Theseus;

The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty
oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of
Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they
decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch
that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for
the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the
ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the
same. --Plutarch (c. 46- 127).

The original puzzle is this: over the years, the Athenians replaced
each plank in the original ship of Theseus as it decayed, thereby
keeping it in good repair. Eventually, there was not a single plank
left of the original ship. So, did the Athenians still have one and
the same ship that used to belong to Theseus?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Theseus is famous in Greek mythology as the slayer of the Minotaur, a
half-man, half-bull monster who lived in the Labyrinth in the island
of Crete. According to Plutarch, the ship in which Theseus sailed back
to Athens was preserved for many generations, its old planks being
replaced by new ones as they decayed.

Now suppose that a few hundred years later,
all the original parts of the ship had been
replaced, one by one, so that none of
the original ship remained.

Is the preserved ship still Theseus' ship?
Or is it a copy? And if the latter, then at what point did it cease
to be Theseus' ship?

It seems that if just one plank were replaced, it would still be
Theseus' ship. And if it was still his ship, and another plank were
replaced, then it should still be Theseus' ship. By this reasoning
(which is the same as in the sorites paradox), it would be Theseus'
ship even after all planks are replaced.

------------------

This problem is not merely another version of the sorites, however. It
involves the notion of identity, of what we mean by something being
the "same" object.

Suppose that we regard the final
ship as Theseus' ship.

What if all the old planks, nails,
etc., had_been_stored in a warehouse
and someone put them back together
again. Would there then be
two Theseus' ships?

Similar paradoxes of identity arise in certain science fiction
scenarios and in connection with the philosophy of mind. Suppose you
are teleported by having your body disintegrated in one place and
reassembled in another from new materials. Are you still "you"? Your
body is made of different atoms, but it is still you as far as your
mind is concerned, right? But what if instead of having your original
body disintegrated you merely have a copy made? Then is the copy still
you?

http://members.aol.com/kiekeben/para.html

Theseus was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aegeus (or of Poseidon)
and of Aethra. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus or
Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were identified
with an archaic religious and social order. As Heracles was the Dorian
hero, Theseus was the Ionian founding hero, considered by Athenians as
their own great reformer. His name comes from the same root as ?esµo?
("thesmos"), Greek for institution. In The Frogs Aristophanes credited
him with inventing many everyday Athenian traditions. He may have
originated in, or been based upon, a historical person or persons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theseus
http://images.google.com/images?q=Theseus

All known objects are processes. Consciousness is as much an object as
other processes that re-present a present moment through changing
stuff, everything is constantly changing and opposite things are
identical, so that everything is and is not at the same time. In other
words, Universal Flux and the Identity of Opposites may entail a
denial of the Law of Non-Contradiction, since all things go and
nothing stays, and comparing existents to the flow of a river which
you cannot step twice into. On those stepping into rivers staying the
same other and other waters flow. There is an antithesis between
'same' and 'other,' different waters flow in rivers staying the same,
though the waters are always changing, the rivers stay the same.
Indeed, it must be precisely because the waters are always changing
that there are rivers at all, rather than lakes or ponds. The message
is that rivers can stay the same over time even though, or indeed
because, the waters change. The point, then, is not that everything is
changing, but that the fact that some things change makes possible the
continued existence of other things. Perhaps more generally, the
change in elements or constituents supports the constancy of higher-
level structures.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/heraclit/

COMPONENT THEORY OF IDENTITY (CTI)

On one interpretation, the Component Theory of Identity (CTI), the
identity of an object depends on the identity of its component parts.
This view asserts that sameness of parts is a necessary condition of
identity.

If we want to allow that an object can persist through time in spite
of a change in some of its components, we must deny CTI. An object x,
existing at time t1, can be numerically identical to an object y,
existing at time t2, even though x and y are not composed of exactly
the same parts. This seems reasonable, but once you deny CTI, where do
you draw the line? Denying CTI leaves us vulnerable to puzzle cases.

Imagine a new version of the problem, in which the replacing of the
planks takes place while the ship is at sea: Theseus sails away, and
then systematically replaces each plank on board with a new one. (He
carries a complete supply of new parts on board as his cargo.) Now we
can consider these two possibilities:

a. Version One: Theseus completely rebuilds his ship, replaces all the
parts, throws the old ones overboard. Does he arrive on the same ship
as the one he left on? Of course it has changed. But is it it?

Let A = the ship Theseus started his voyage on.

Let B = the ship Theseus finished his voyage on.

Our question then is: Does A = B? If not, why not? Suppose he had left
one original part in. Is that enough to make A identical to B? If not,
suppose he had left two, etc. Where do you draw the line?

b. Version Two: Like the first version, except that following Theseus
in another boat is the Scavenger, who picks up the pieces Theseus
throws overboard, and uses them to rebuild his boat. The Scavenger
arrives in port in a ship composed of precisely the parts that
composed the ship Theseus started out in. He parks his ship right next
to one that Theseus parked.

Now C = the ship the Scavenger finished his voyage on.

Our new question is, is A=C?

Our problem is to sort out the identity (and non-identity) relations
among A, B, and C. The only "obvious" fact is that B is not= C (after
all, they are berthed side by side in the harbor, so they can hardly
be one and the same ship!). Beyond that, there are two

a. CTI tells us that A = C. The ship on which Theseus started his
voyage, namely A, is identical to the ship on which the Scavenger
finished his voyage, C. So we have two ships: (A) sailed out by
Theseus and (C) sailed in by the Scavenger, and (B) created (out of
new parts) during the voyage and sailed into port by Theseus.

b. The alternative is to abandon CTI and hold that A = B. On this
account, we still have two ships, but their identity and non-identity
relations are different: one ship (A) was sailed out by Theseus and
(B) sailed in by Theseus, and another one (C) was created (out of used
parts) during the voyage and was sailed into port by the Scavenger.

Unfortunately, both alternatives lead to counterintuitive
consequences.

a. The problem with (a) is that it requires Theseus to have changed
ships during the voyage. He was on just one ship during the whole
process, but alternative (a) seems to require that he was on (at
least!) two different ships.

b. The problem with (b) is that in holding that A = B and admitting
that B is not=C , it must also hold that A is not=C. Yet every part of
A is a part of C, and every part of C is a part of A! So A and C are
two different ships even though their parts are the same; and A and B,
though they have no parts in common, are the same ship.

These results seem almost as paradoxical as the view that there are no
persisting objects.

THEORY OF SPATIO-TEMPORAL CONTINUITY (STC)

CTI seems too strong. It denies identity to objects that we think of
as persisting through time. But that leaves us with some problems:

a. What do we replace it with? Spatio-temporal continuity, the
intuition behind our (b), is the most promising suggestion. A
persisting object must trace a continuous path through space-time. And
tracing a continuous path is compatible with a change of parts, so
long as the change is gradual and the form or shape of the object is
preserved through the changes of its component materials. So it
appears that we can replace CTI with the theory of spatio-temporal
continuity (STC).

b. But STC is also problematic. For it is easy to imagine cases in
which our intuitions tell us that we have numerical identity without
spatio-temporal continuity. Consider that an object can be
disassembled and then reassembled. (E.g. a bicycle is taken apart. The
parts are then placed in a number of separate boxes, which are then
shipped, separately, across country. The boxes are then unpacked and
the bicycle is reassembled.) How do we account for its identity? STC
breaks down in this case, for there is no continuously existing
bicycle-shaped object tracing a smooth path through space-time. But
CTI gives us the right result: the reassembled bicycle is made of
exactly the same parts as the one that was taken apart, and so is
numerically the same bicycle.

We are still struggling with Heraclitus's puzzle.

http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/theseus.html
http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/heracli.htm

Onhttp://www.iep.utm.edu/heraclit/
"Heraclitus lived in Ephesus, an important city on the Ionian coast of
Asia Minor, not far from Miletus, the birthplace of philosophy."

Isn't that special! Philosophy has one and only one birthplace,
Miletus.

Perhaps you were looking for numerical answers. I like GR=1.618...

Enjo(y)... Cheers!
--
Mahipal, pronounced "My Pal" or "Maple"... Maple Loops, Syrup, Wood.

http://mahipal7638.wordpress.com/meforce/
"If the line between science fiction and science fact
doesn't drive you crazy, then you're just not tr(y)ing!"


  #56  
Old March 8th 13, 12:36 PM posted to rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion,alt.philosophy
casey
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 17
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Mar 8, 11:36*am, Immortalist wrote:
[...]
We are still struggling with Heraclitus's puzzle.

http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/theseus.htmlhttp://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/heracli.htm Onhttp://www.iep.utm.edu/heraclit/


The human body is more like a whirlpool in a river where a *pattern*
remains constant although it can move about and change shape
while the water molecules that compose it are forever changing
and those water molecules may go on to make up other whirlpools.

So it seems to me that personal identity is a continuation of a
dynamic pattern when we talk about the personal identity of
a human being.

So although ship C may be made out of the same parts that
once made ship A it is not the same ship anymore than if the
atoms that made one person are then used to build another
person would make the other person the same while the first
person is now made up of a completely new set of atoms.

  #57  
Old March 8th 13, 04:35 PM posted to rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion,alt.philosophy
Immortalist
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 83
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Mar 8, 3:36 am, casey wrote:
On Mar 8, 11:36 am, Immortalist wrote:

[...]
We are still struggling with Heraclitus's puzzle.


http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/theseus.htmlhttp://faculty.... Onhttp://www.iep.utm.edu/heraclit/


The human body is more like a whirlpool in a river where a *pattern*
remains constant although it can move about and change shape
while the water molecules that compose it are forever changing
and those water molecules may go on to make up other whirlpools.


Time bound phenomenon.

Range of patternicity.

So it seems to me that personal identity is a continuation of a
dynamic pattern when we talk about the personal identity of
a human being.


Functionalism.

So although ship C may be made out of the same parts that
once made ship A it is not the same ship anymore than if the
atoms that made one person are then used to build another
person would make the other person the same while the first
person is now made up of a completely new set of atoms.


This is where I think of some science fiction scenarios.

Condition 1 two identical clones begin apart from each other and each
performs unique behavior more or less going their own way.

Condition 2 two identical clones begin and their brains do the
identical things for a short period of time.

In condition 2 they would experience the world for that period in an
identical manner. They would be the exact same person during that
experimental period, thinking e exact same thoughts and have the same
feelings.

So is it he particular run of the pattern in the whirlpool or the
possible runs that could happen in that whirlpool that would continue
to constitute the identity of that particular pattern?

We are way to far back here in time to be considering how nature does
this yet.

This leads to other insane sounding propositions. Are we the
particular runs that necessarily must fit inside the possible runs
that that whirlpool could host or are we any run that fits withing
that whirlpools possibility space of possible runs?

Are we portable in that a clone of the whirlpool allows the genuine
pattern, you, to happen?

I have went way further than this but **** starts to sound insane...
Like this page I made in the mid 90s

http://www.reocities.com/researchtri...ontents_2.html
  #58  
Old March 8th 13, 06:21 PM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
Mahipal
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 42
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Mar 7, 6:59*pm, " wrote:
On Feb 23, 8:51*pm, Mahipal wrote:

On Feb 22, 5:29*pm, " wrote:


On Feb 22, 8:57*am, Immortalist wrote:


On Feb 22, 7:00 am, Dare wrote:


On 2/21/2013 7:36 PM, Immortalist wrote:


On Feb 21, 4:29 pm, Howard Brazee wrote:
On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:45:13 -0800 (PST), casey


wrote:
Something that would be good for science to answer.


If you found yourself in heaven with a heavenly body
how would you know if it was you who lived that
physical life on Earth or if you simply had the
memories of that now dead human?


If you assume that the 5 year old version of you was "you", despite
you being very, very different now - we need to determine what "you"
means.


If the self is a series of clones throughout life, then there may be
no "version" of your self but instead just a "range" of neural
activities that are a sense of your self.


* I concur on the (implied potential) range of activities meme. The
series of clones thing I disagree with- it implies that all cells (as
mentioned elsethread) in a tissue (and by implication the whole body)
get "turned over" every so many years *all at the same time* which is
unreasonable.


* We are about process, not state. A so-called state of mind is not a
photograph, it's a three-panel cartoon. Perception, "filter",
reaction. "filter" = particular set of "neural activities" in that
range.


Once those activities go
outside the range of your -selfing- you are not cloned during those
successions of neural events.


* Well, a clone is (loosely speaking) an exact replica, but me right
now is not an exact replica of me ten, twenty etc. years ago. What
continues as "I"? I think it's just a particular constellation of
"things I'm good at" and "things I'm bad at" due to brain structure/
disposition(s) from genetics modulo diet, environment, socialization,
yada yada.


* I agree with my pal Mahipal- "me" always changes.


I will cherish that sentence construct until like forever.


You are too kind Mark! Still, you turn me on... do you want to be
poet?


* A poet writes poetry. Who writes doggerel?


As physicists study cysts? Just humor. Comics write doggerel.

"You see it really doesn't matter
When you're buried in disguise
By the dark glass on your eyes
Though your flesh has crystallised
Still...you turn me on"


Ergo I Mahipal am me on... me_on... meon, rhymes with neon.
If you can't laugh, then you can't grasp... so I have learned.


* I ain't no poet but I knows it when I sees it.


Too many claim to be writing poetry, just as every drink is somehow
named a martini.

* This here is some damnfine poetry:

* "Aye an' a bit of Mackeral settler rack and ruin
ran it doon by the haim, 'ma place
well I slapped me and I slapped it doon in the side
and I cried, cried, cried.

* "The fear a fallen down taken never back the raize and then Craig
Marion,
get out wi' ye Claymore out mi pocket a' ran doon, doon the middin
stain
picking the fiery horde that was fallen around ma feet.
Never he cried, never shall it ye get me alive
ye rotten hound of the burnie crew. Well I snatched fer the blade O my
Claymore cut and thrust and I fell doon before him round his feet.

* "Aye! A roar he cried frae the bottom of his heart that I would nay
fall
but as dead, dead as 'a can be by his feet; de ya ken?

...and the wind cried Mary."

* Also, note that Umma rhymes with Gumma.


Pink Flyod are amazing! Their "Astronomy Domine"... heaven.

I found this today http://www.rdio.com/artist/Pink_Floyd/albums/

* As for "activities outside the range of [one's] -selfing-, I refer
you to Lovecraft's _At The Mountains Of Madness_.


* BTW _Call Of Cthulhu_ is a better example of extra-self activities,
what with M. C. Escher the likeliest suspect for master architect of
R'lyeh.


I am not familiar with Lovecraft's works. Horror scares me, so I shy
away.

from A Treatise of Human Nature Book I, Part 4, Section 6


SECTION VI: OF PERSONAL IDENTITY


There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately
conscious of what we call our self; that we feel its existence and its
continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a
demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. The
strongest sensation, the most violent passion, say they, instead of
distracting us from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and
make us consider their influence on self either by their pain or
pleasure. To attempt a further proof of this were to weaken its
evidence; since no proof can be derived from any fact of which we are
so intimately conscious; nor is there any thing of which we can be
certain if we doubt of this.


Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very
experience which is pleaded for them; nor have we any idea of self,
after the manner it is here explained. For, from what impression could
this idea be derived? This question it is impossible to answer without
a manifest contradiction and absurdity; and yet it is a question which
must necessarily be answered, if we would have the idea of self pass
for clear and intelligible. It must be some one impression that gives
rise to every real idea. But self or person is not any one impression,
but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to
have a reference. If any impression gives rise to the idea of self,
that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole
course of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that
manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and
pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other,
and never all exist at the same time. It cannot therefore be from any
of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is
derived; and consequently there is no such idea.


* Well yeah, self-examination on the fly is difficult.


* That's why we study other people.


Without other people, we -- especially me, myself, or I -- are
nothing.


* Hm. In my experience sociability is not stereotypical all-or-
nothing- there's a continuum from Drama Queen to Rugged Individualist.


We also behave differently depending on those who surround us. Yet
They all are quick to judge you in a nanoflash. It is by these
judgements I know what my age is, else I'd be forever young. O darn...
there... Rod Stewart... I said it. Still friends? Must wash hands now.

[trim]
If there is one thing that seems certain about consciousness it is
that it is immediate. We are aware of life's passing parade of
sensations — and of our own thoughts, feelings and impulses — at the
instant they happen. Yet as soon as it is accepted that the mind is
the product of processes taking place within the brain, we introduce
the possibility of delay. It must take time for nerve traffic to
travel from the sense organs to the mapping areas of the brain.


* It also takes different amounts of time for each module to process
its allotment of data.


* Worse, some data goes through more than one module, in series and or
parallel, introducing more delays.


Life and mind really cannot be about its mechanics, down deep.


* You seem to think I'm claiming souls don't exist. I have never said
that, because I have no incontrovertible evidence of it. I also have
no evidence supporting them either, but absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence. I prefer to table the question until some
evidence becomes available.


I try not presume what others think. Hell, I'm not so sure of what I
think I think.

Soul is consciousness? These two are considered as forbidden topics in
the physics community. That kind of explains why they've neither soul
nor the infamous "C"-word.

* See, in my version of the scientific method, no wild-assed idea is a
priori excluded unless it defies thermo 3 or conservation of momentum
or something. There is undeniably a physical layer to consciousness-
an "unphysical" layer is IMO impossible. For a thing to interact with
matter the way souls allegedly do there must be a set of rules. That's
physics, dammit. If somebody reduced prayers to partial differential
equations, would you cry "meta-heresy!" or would you celebrate?


http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...limate-science

This scientificamerican article is a rather scary twisted reality of
meanings beings ascribed to the scientific method. Consensus is the
same peer review, for instance.

PDEs as prayers, that's funny! Should be rather easy to get them to
rhyme.

Often one reads, if you can't observe or measure it, then it isn't
science. Or of the limitations of scientific method way. So when
atoms, or quarks, were not measured by experiment then does that mean
they did not exist?! Or, before gravity was formulated, no apples fell
to Earth?! A lot of absurdity and confusion inevitably follows.

It must then take more time for thoughts and feelings about these
messages to propagate through the brain's maze of circuitry. If the
processing is complex — as it certainly must be in humans — then these
delays ought to measurable, and even noticeable with careful
introspection.


* It's worse- the delays can be negative. There's experimental
evidence that we start to perform physical responses based on sensory
inputs *before* the parts of the brain allegedly responsible for
mediating decisions do their thing. Clearly all our attempts at
modeling the mind are flawed.


* Mark L. Fergerson


I really am still reading Immortalist's response. Wish he would IRL
name himself.


* I wouldn't poke too hard; it may be a pen name he uses to avoid
losing his day job.


I asked twice or 4 times! I do make fun of Immortalist, like when he
thinks someone's posts are too long and they should quickly cut to the
chase. What kind of time limits do Immortals have to yawn about!?
What's their rush?

When one writes on one's own time, from one's own hardware, never uses
a corporate CPU, one should be allowed to be him or herself. What kind
of society holds us hostage to our free thoughts by threatening us
with loss of wages?! O yeah, US of America and the rest of the ****ed
up world. Explains why I may not be cashing in on my recent background
checks! O well, I've been myself on www since forever, I mean 1994. No
changing that I write to communicate with like minded people. Fire me!
O wait... I am already free for now...

Hard to accept one can actually hide behind an alias in these
technocratic times.

* Per your mention elsethread of birthplacing philosophy:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...14142638797542....


Excellent article though I am tired of the ethnohuman ... ethnophysics
bent. Seems the article also has been updated after months old
comments already posted. Only things static in the written realm
appear to be poems.

* Mark L. Fergerson


-- Mahipal
  #59  
Old March 9th 13, 12:32 AM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 148
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Mar 8, 9:21*am, Mahipal wrote:
On Mar 7, 6:59*pm, " wrote:

On Feb 23, 8:51*pm, Mahipal wrote:


On Feb 22, 5:29*pm, " wrote:


On Feb 22, 8:57*am, Immortalist wrote:


On Feb 22, 7:00 am, Dare wrote:


On 2/21/2013 7:36 PM, Immortalist wrote:


On Feb 21, 4:29 pm, Howard Brazee wrote:
On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:45:13 -0800 (PST), casey


wrote:
Something that would be good for science to answer.


If you found yourself in heaven with a heavenly body
how would you know if it was you who lived that
physical life on Earth or if you simply had the
memories of that now dead human?


If you assume that the 5 year old version of you was "you", despite
you being very, very different now - we need to determine what "you"
means.


If the self is a series of clones throughout life, then there may be
no "version" of your self but instead just a "range" of neural
activities that are a sense of your self.


* I concur on the (implied potential) range of activities meme. The
series of clones thing I disagree with- it implies that all cells (as
mentioned elsethread) in a tissue (and by implication the whole body)
get "turned over" every so many years *all at the same time* which is
unreasonable.


* We are about process, not state. A so-called state of mind is not a
photograph, it's a three-panel cartoon. Perception, "filter",
reaction. "filter" = particular set of "neural activities" in that
range.


Once those activities go
outside the range of your -selfing- you are not cloned during those
successions of neural events.


* Well, a clone is (loosely speaking) an exact replica, but me right
now is not an exact replica of me ten, twenty etc. years ago. What
continues as "I"? I think it's just a particular constellation of
"things I'm good at" and "things I'm bad at" due to brain structure/
disposition(s) from genetics modulo diet, environment, socialization,
yada yada.


* I agree with my pal Mahipal- "me" always changes.


I will cherish that sentence construct until like forever.


You are too kind Mark! Still, you turn me on... do you want to be
poet?


* A poet writes poetry. Who writes doggerel?


As physicists study cysts? Just humor. Comics write doggerel.

"You see it really doesn't matter
When you're buried in disguise
By the dark glass on your eyes
Though your flesh has crystallised
Still...you turn me on"


Ergo I Mahipal am me on... me_on... meon, rhymes with neon.
If you can't laugh, then you can't grasp... so I have learned.


* I ain't no poet but I knows it when I sees it.


Too many claim to be writing poetry, just as every drink is somehow
named a martini.


That's stirring but paradoxically I am shaken...

* This here is some damnfine poetry:


* "Aye an' a bit of Mackeral settler rack and ruin
ran it doon by the haim, 'ma place
well I slapped me and I slapped it doon in the side
and I cried, cried, cried.


* "The fear a fallen down taken never back the raize and then Craig
Marion,
get out wi' ye Claymore out mi pocket a' ran doon, doon the middin
stain
picking the fiery horde that was fallen around ma feet.
Never he cried, never shall it ye get me alive
ye rotten hound of the burnie crew. Well I snatched fer the blade O my
Claymore cut and thrust and I fell doon before him round his feet.


* "Aye! A roar he cried frae the bottom of his heart that I would nay
fall
but as dead, dead as 'a can be by his feet; de ya ken?


...and the wind cried Mary."


* Also, note that Umma rhymes with Gumma.


Pink Flyod are amazing! Their "Astronomy Domine"... heaven.

I found this todayhttp://www.rdio.com/artist/Pink_Floyd/albums/


Oh. Wow. Thank you.

Um, how do you feel about Jimi Hendrix?

* As for "activities outside the range of [one's] -selfing-, I refer
you to Lovecraft's _At The Mountains Of Madness_.


* BTW _Call Of Cthulhu_ is a better example of extra-self activities,
what with M. C. Escher the likeliest suspect for master architect of
R'lyeh.


I am not familiar with Lovecraft's works. Horror scares me, so I shy
away.


I mentioned him because his theme was that what scares us most is
not adrenaline-rush terrifying 3D SFX-heavy Texas Power Tool Massacre
*events*, but when we notice that the presumed bases of normality
either ain't what we thought they were or don't exist at`all
*conditions*.

He builds from a sniff of something slightly off to whole-body DREAD
of something that just won't fit inside our consciousness, something
that you can't quite remember afterward (if you survive it), because
as Immortalist put it

"Once those activities go outside the range of your -selfing- you
are not cloned during those successions of neural events."

I think I've mentioned before that I used to think I was a psycopath
because I didn't respond emotionally to many stimuli the way "normal"
people did. I eventually came to grok my borderline Asperger state
about the time I figured out that "normal" was defined by marketers.

Horror movies don't scare me mostly because of the pandemic of Idiot
Plot Syndrome among them (if the major characters didn't behave like
idiots there'd be no plot). Monster movies? Mummies are flammable, my
three-year-old granddaughter could outrun Frankenstein's Monster, yada
yada.

Lovecraft's description of the very geometry of 3D objects (and/or
the spacetime containing them) being "optional" intrigued me greatly.

from A Treatise of Human Nature Book I, Part 4, Section 6


SECTION VI: OF PERSONAL IDENTITY


There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately
conscious of what we call our self; that we feel its existence and its
continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a
demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. The
strongest sensation, the most violent passion, say they, instead of
distracting us from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and
make us consider their influence on self either by their pain or
pleasure. To attempt a further proof of this were to weaken its
evidence; since no proof can be derived from any fact of which we are
so intimately conscious; nor is there any thing of which we can be
certain if we doubt of this.


Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very
experience which is pleaded for them; nor have we any idea of self,
after the manner it is here explained. For, from what impression could
this idea be derived? This question it is impossible to answer without
a manifest contradiction and absurdity; and yet it is a question which
must necessarily be answered, if we would have the idea of self pass
for clear and intelligible. It must be some one impression that gives
rise to every real idea. But self or person is not any one impression,
but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to
have a reference. If any impression gives rise to the idea of self,
that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole
course of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that
manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and
pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other,
and never all exist at the same time. It cannot therefore be from any
of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is
derived; and consequently there is no such idea.


* Well yeah, self-examination on the fly is difficult.


* That's why we study other people.


Without other people, we -- especially me, myself, or I -- are
nothing.


* Hm. In my experience sociability is not stereotypical all-or-
nothing- there's a continuum from Drama Queen to Rugged Individualist.


We also behave differently depending on those who surround us. Yet
They all are quick to judge you in a nanoflash. It is by these
judgements I know what my age is, else I'd be forever young. O darn...
there... Rod Stewart... I said it. Still friends? Must wash hands now.


Early Stewart was passable, but after he was "processed" by the
marketing team (the hair, the whisky-cocaine voice)... I suspect they
told him "welcome... to the machine".

[trim]

If there is one thing that seems certain about consciousness it is
that it is immediate. We are aware of life's passing parade of
sensations — and of our own thoughts, feelings and impulses — at the
instant they happen. Yet as soon as it is accepted that the mind is
the product of processes taking place within the brain, we introduce
the possibility of delay. It must take time for nerve traffic to
travel from the sense organs to the mapping areas of the brain.


* It also takes different amounts of time for each module to process
its allotment of data.


* Worse, some data goes through more than one module, in series and or
parallel, introducing more delays.


Life and mind really cannot be about its mechanics, down deep.


* You seem to think I'm claiming souls don't exist. I have never said
that, because I have no incontrovertible evidence of it. I also have
no evidence supporting them either, but absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence. I prefer to table the question until some
evidence becomes available.


I try not presume what others think. Hell, I'm not so sure of what I
think I think.

Soul is consciousness? These two are considered as forbidden topics in
the physics community. That kind of explains why they've neither soul
nor the infamous "C"-word.


I've often marveled at the blatant hedging in the use of the term
"observer" in Quantum Mechanics. In the usual interpretation of the
Schrodinger's possibly unfortunate gedankencat, *the* observer is a
conscious human.

Well, what defines a consciousness in context- what are its
necessary *and* sufficient parameters? Is the cat an observer? Why
not- with every breath it "opens the box" containing the radioactive
"timer" and detector/trigger/poison mechanism. How about the detector/
trigger? It "opens the box" containing the "timer". Must not the
radioactive "timer" be self-aware of its own undecayed/decayed status
in order to communicate the transition to the outside universe? If so,
it's Wigner's friends all the way up from there.

* See, in my version of the scientific method, no wild-assed idea is a
priori excluded unless it defies thermo 3 or conservation of momentum
or something. There is undeniably a physical layer to consciousness-
an "unphysical" layer is IMO impossible. For a thing to interact with
matter the way souls allegedly do there must be a set of rules. That's
physics, dammit. If somebody reduced prayers to partial differential
equations, would you cry "meta-heresy!" or would you celebrate?


http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...the-controvers....

This scientificamerican article is a rather scary twisted reality of
meanings beings ascribed to the scientific method. Consensus is the
same peer review, for instance.


What ****ES ME OFF about crap like that is the presumption of two-
party polarization. There is only "us, us, us, and them, them, them";
that there might be some other tenable position not confined solely to
that coordinate axis is UNTHINKABLE. That allegedly educated,
thoughtful people so easily descend to "if ye ain't fur us yer agin
us" is depressing.

PDEs as prayers, that's funny! Should be rather easy to get them to
rhyme.

Often one reads, if you can't observe or measure it, then it isn't
science. Or of the limitations of scientific method way. So when
atoms, or quarks, were not measured by experiment then does that mean
they did not exist?! Or, before gravity was formulated, no apples fell
to Earth?! A lot of absurdity and confusion inevitably follows.


Naw, even superstitions assume rules to their "spooky actions at a
distance"- proposing rule sets from observations, then looking for
confirmations/exceptions to those rules is the core of the scientific
method. I think that sort of behavior is wetwired into us- it's common
to pretty much any lifeform with three or more neurons, isn't it?

It must then take more time for thoughts and feelings about these
messages to propagate through the brain's maze of circuitry. If the
processing is complex — as it certainly must be in humans — then these
delays ought to measurable, and even noticeable with careful
introspection.


* It's worse- the delays can be negative. There's experimental
evidence that we start to perform physical responses based on sensory
inputs *before* the parts of the brain allegedly responsible for
mediating decisions do their thing. Clearly all our attempts at
modeling the mind are flawed.


* Mark L. Fergerson


I really am still reading Immortalist's response. Wish he would IRL
name himself.


* I wouldn't poke too hard; it may be a pen name he uses to avoid
losing his day job.


I asked twice or 4 times! I do make fun of Immortalist, like when he
thinks someone's posts are too long and they should quickly cut to the
chase. What kind of time limits do Immortals have to yawn about!?
What's their rush?


Or, it's just him trying to avoid what he considers thread drift (he
did start the thread).

When one writes on one's own time, from one's own hardware, never uses
a corporate CPU, one should be allowed to be him or herself. What kind
of society holds us hostage to our free thoughts by threatening us
with loss of wages?! O yeah, US of America and the rest of the ****ed
up world. Explains why I may not be cashing in on my recent background
checks! O well, I've been myself on www since forever, I mean 1994. No
changing that I write to communicate with like minded people. Fire me!
O wait... I am already free for now...

Hard to accept one can actually hide behind an alias in these
technocratic times.


We also market ourselves voluntarily you know; Immortalist presents
his public face the same way we all choose wardrobe, hairstyle, and so
on.

We're all "stylized" to some extent we pick and choose from elements
of the culture we're immersed in, patchwork them together as we see
fit with our personal spins, and then pretend we're "being ourselves".

* Per your mention elsethread of birthplacing philosophy:


http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...14142638797542....


Excellent article though I am tired of the ethnohuman ... ethnophysics


Ethnophysics! I wonder how Warhol feels about Iran's claim to have
put a monkey into space.

bent. Seems the article also has been updated after months old
comments already posted.


I stand by my comment therein. Scinetific ability, spiritualism,
clannishness, brutality- none of these are "race"-specific. Race is
about politics, not biology.

Only things static in the written realm appear to be poems.


I wish Arnold Schwarzenegger had done _Gilgamesh_ instead of
_Conan_.

You know, movies and TV shows are often "rebooted/reimagined" these
days. Why can't poetry, music or song lyrics similarly be updated? I
don't mean "repurposing" like the day I first officially Felt Old,
when I heard a Musak-ized string rendition of "Nights In White Satin"
in an elevator, more like PDQ Bach or ELP's "Pictures At An
Exhibition"...

Ooh, music appropriate to read Lovecraft by:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYN4OI4fTdE

though my crappy little laptop headset is no match for the
kilowatt's-worth of Klipschorns I originally experienced it through,
entraining my heartbeat and other biorhythms, it's an hour well spent.


* Mark L. Fergerson
  #60  
Old March 22nd 13, 05:25 PM posted to alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written,sci.space.history,sci.physics,alt.religion
Mahipal
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 42
Default Ethics & The Future of Brain Research

On Mar 11, 12:23*pm, Mahipal wrote:
On Mar 8, 6:32*pm, " wrote:


[trim]

Ergo I Mahipal am me on... me_on... meon, rhymes with neon.
If you can't laugh, then you can't grasp... so I have learned.


* I ain't no poet but I knows it when I sees it.


Too many claim to be writing poetry, just as every drink is somehow
named a martini.


* That's stirring but paradoxically I am shaken...


A martini shaken is art, stirred is lazy. Make mine a vodka, please.

Current Daniel Craig James Bond not giving a ****, shaken or stirred,
is rather annoying. Order a neat single malt then, 007. Be true to the
original art! Would Sean Connery even drink or market a beer? I think
Heineken, good beer though that, not. Corporations manipulate us. But
you did not hear me write that... no No NO. Some evil thoughts
autocorrect stalking me always SW keeps altering my real words. Said
SW never lets me write what I mean. I hates it It IT.


Has anyone else seen the latest commercial for Casino Royale (2006) to
be aired tonight at 11PM on usanetwork? I ask simply to gauge the
reach of Usenet. So, have you seen how it the commercial focuses on
this above martini discussion? Is it mere coincidence? Or do some
actual wtf-ers scan contents here... again, inquiring minds, not
on ... you know ... want to know.

Fwiw, Heineken using Hindi music by composer R.D. Burman is simply
awesome!

Thanks Mark for the link where it is writ: The results of the membrane
paradigm are generally considered to be "safe".

That's some damn good scientific writing...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_paradigm

Enjo(y)... Cheers...
--
Mahipal, pronounced "My Pal" or "Maple"... as in Loops, Syrup, Wood.

http://mahipal7638.wordpress.com/meforce/
"If the line between science fiction and science fact
doesn't drive you crazy, then you're just not tr(y)ing!"
 




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