Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id HAA01639 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 4 Dec 2001 07:24:44 GMT Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 23:19:50 -0800 Message-Id: <200112040719.fB47Jok22671@mail5.bigmailbox.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary X-Mailer: MIME-tools 4.104 (Entity 4.116) X-Originating-Ip: [216.76.255.22] From: "Joe Dees" <joedees@addall.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: A Question for Wade Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is)
> "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Re: A Question for WadeDate: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 19:10:42 -0800
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>
>From: Joe Dees
>
>> > "Dace"
>
>> >> >The big problem for a neurologically irreducible mind is the apparent
>> >> >uselesslness of mentality in the functioning of the nervous system.
>If
>> >> >the rest of your body has no need for a mind, why would the brain
>> >> >require one?
>> >> >
>> >> So that that body could maximize its survival chances in the
>environment
>> >by remembering previously learned environmental lessons, faithfully
>> >representing the present environment and its threats and opportunities,
>and
>> >extrapolating them into further likelihoods between which one might be
>able
>> >to choose most favored alternatives by means of present action. In other
>> >words, better choices. This also points to conscious self-awareness, for
>it
>> >is upon the basis of the welfare of the self that such choices would be
>> >made.
>> >>>>
>> >
>> >But why does the brain require a mind to do those things? If the brain
>can
>> >represent, remember, and extrapolate, the mind is superfluous.
>> >
>> But it requires the existence of self-reference, as a premise, to be able
>to choose between competing future scenarios, for they are chosen between on
>the basis of their perceived benefit to that very self, and the effort of
>volition is engaged in such intentional self-service.
>>>>
>
>All organisms possess self-reference. Life is self-generative,
>self-regulating, and self-perpetuating. Consciousness, to one degree or
>another, is universal to life. Every bacterium must feel its way across.
>Each organism is dedicated to its survival. It senses, learns, and
>develops. Out of this comes evolution. Whether species or individual, life
>is self-referential. What's unique about humans is that we can develop as
>individuals with the same degree of freedom ordinarily reserved for species.
>We've achieved this, not through self-referentiality per se, but through
>*mental* self-referentiality. Being unaware of mentality, (pre-ape) animals
>perceive themselves as bodily creatures in a physical environment. Yes,
>their minds operate just like ours-- with the same cold logic, as a matter
>of fact-- but they're not aware that they're engaged in these mental
>processes. They're just "in the moment," in their bodies in a place, and
>that's it. With our mental self-perception, humans are capable of examining
>the way we think and behave, thus amplifying almost infinitely the field of
>free activity.
>
Consciousness of some sort may indeed have a floor; can we truly speak of aware flu viruses? There is a blind chemically based stimulus-response program running there. likewise, lower animals are aware, but they are not aware that they are aware; that is, they are aware of their environments, but not of a themselves engaged in perceiving their environments (check the mirror test of self-recognition) that recursivity is reserved for the more complex and larger-brained species, such as great apes, us, and possibly some cetaceans.
>
>> Sorry; brains are not like other organs (even though the brain does
>regulate them), and therefore metaphors equating them are bound to be
>fundamentally flawed.
>>>>
>
>Organs are almost entirely self-regulating. The effects of the brain on
>organs are incredibly minute relative to the degree to which they
>self-manage. Every organ has to interact with its environment. Each one
>has to sense in some way what's going on around it. The fundamental sense
>of life is touch. In fact, all successive senses are in some way based in
>touch, as in ochular drumbeats and photon splashdowns in the retinal sea.
>The brain feels its way through, and the heart feels its way through.
>There's no fundamental difference. If hearts don't need "minds," then
>neither do brains.
>
All our senses ARE modifications of taction, true, but your other point is empirically false; without the cortical regulators the brain possesses and their nervous connections with our hearts and lungs, they would stop their pumping and breathing.
>
>> >> >The only way to salvage a notion of mentality (and self-nature)
>> >> >is to universalize it. Life is mind. Mind is life. What makes a
>> >> >thing alive is that it can't be understood except in the context
>> >> >of its own living past. Life is memory. It's not just the brain
>> >> >that's influenced by mentality (relfexive or not) but every organic
>> >> >structure.
>> >> >
>> >> This sounds like the panvitalistic panpsychism that was propounded by
>> >Erwin Schrodinger in his books WHAT IS LIFE?, MIND AND MATTER, and MY
>VIEW
>> >OF THE WORLD. It's kinda a pseudophilosophical Hinduism, believing all
>> >life, mind and soul to be the expression of a single force, as Hinduism
>> >proper unites the world-soul with the self-soul in their famous
>> >pronouncements Brahmatman (Brahmin is Atman) anf Tvat Am Asi (That Thou
>> >Art). It is irreduceably a mystical and religious, not an empirical or
>> >philosophical, perspective.
>> >>>>
>> >
>> >I do agree that everything reduces to a single force. In my view, that
>> >force is time. I interpret Brahman accordingly. Brahman is
>traditionally
>> >divided between shakti (potency) and maya (illusion). For me, shakti is
>the
>> >absolute presence of time, which we know through our minds, while maya is
>> >merely moment-to-moment materialization, which we know through our
>senses.
>> >Since whatever we perceive around us has in fact already occurred, the
>> >material "present" is actually past. In that sense, the realm of the
>senses
>> >is illusory.
>> >
>> >As to panpsychism, mind is indeed universal insofar as it's an expression
>of
>> >time, and time is universal. Life is anima, and time is animation.
>> >
>> Your position is then most definitely Vedantist, as such, it is a
>mystico-religious position, and not a scientific one, as it assumes those
>very things for which science demands proof. Robin Faichney has been known
>to try to push the same thing from the Buddhist perspective that you are
>trying to do from the Vedantist one; in either case, such religious
>pseudoexplanations are slavishy in thrall to the very mysticoreligious memes
>which comprise a part (not a whole) of the field of memes that they purport
>to understand and explain, and thus must ultimately fail in their attempt to
>analyze what they have already assumed, and to reveal the structural memetic
>relation in its entirety.
>>>>
>
>Since when was time mystico-religious? Is it not right before you at every
>moment of your existence? What could be more down-to-earth?
>
Perceptual spatiotemporality; we actually perceive matter/energy in the very manifold that Einstein's equations so eloquently describe; in our macro case (neither micro not cosmo), it quite closely adheres to the special case of Newtonian descriptions.
>
>> It would be interesting, from a point of view of the understanding of
>memopathology, to watch from the sidelines the memetic exercise of your two
>religious ideologies using you two as mouthpiece memebots to argue the
>issue, however.
>>>>
>
>Now, now.
>
>> >
>> >
>> >Ted
>> >
>> >
>> >
>
>
>
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>This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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