From: Jim Ledbury (jim.ledbury@dsl.pipex.com)
Date: Sun Oct 17 2004 - 14:00:17 BST
Hi all,
Mark Steven Heyman wrote:
<snip>
msh comments:
>I think a nuerobiologist would say that a human brain and nervous
>system is considerably more than a mass of "little things" out of
>spatial and temporal contact with one another, or with the outside
>world. Jim might want to correct me on this, but my impression is
>that science regards the brain as an incredibly complex system of
>billions of nuerons and synapses that have evolved over billions of
>years to work together to provide, so far, unmatched parallel
>processing power.
>
>
jl:
:-) I don't think I need to 'correct' you on that - it sounds just
right! The operation of the brain is indeed fascinating and there are
so many things to discover. But one thing that has been uncovered is
that there is a lot of sense data processing (abstraction) before we get
to what we can safely call consciousness. I think it safe to say that
'we' are not aware of anything directly in the outside world, just the
movie being played by our brains: if you don't accept this then I think
you have a hard time explaining things like synaesthesia and the poor
guy who could make an emotional connection his mother on the phone but
visually could make no connection so felt that she was a doppleganger
every time he met her (see Ramachandran's Reith Lectures 2003 to know
what I'm on about). This movie project apparatus has a lot of fine
tuning by evolution since the first sense feedback systems evolved
however many hundreds of millions of years ago. Before that it was the
cells doing it for themselves, which is essentially a lot of molecules
and feedback loops reacting to the actual physical stimulae (I call it
dynamic quality interpreted at the physical level - although I know many
here will disagree with this interpretation). Which is why I have no
problem with a materialist conception of consciousness. But then I
think that molecules and subatomic particles are actually making small
low-level perceptions as they explore their environment - call it a
non-materialist conception of matter if you will - as I've said
elsewhere, I think that the problem people have with a materialist
conception of consciousness is that we continually underestimate the
quality sense of matter itself. Precisely how it all links together to
produce what we perceive is still a mystery.
Regards,
Jim.
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