Thread: Re: Girlfriend Post

Well I think we can all agree (can we?) that we can look at different parts of nature and see neurological processes becoming more and more simple. Eg:

Single cell creatures - completely basic response to environment, no instinct even - relies on environment being perfect.
Parasites + worms + cocroaches etc - basic survival instincts - poke it and it'll run.
Mice, possums - Survival instincts + can learn from mistakes well.
Dogs + Horses - Problem solving - comes across a fence, looks for ways to get past it.
Humans - Able to wonder about stuff like this!

See what I mean? There doesn't necesarily have to be some kind of "soul" or "spirit" behind us, each step of evolution is just the basic elements of life, just aranged in more complex and BIGGER ways, not necesarily hiding some greater thing than a mushy brain. :P

-out-
PsychoBrat

Oh and if you really want something to blow your mind, think about this:

Nothing makes sense at all.
What? I'm crazy did you say? Ok fine i'll prove it.

Ok, its generally excepted that there is something in existance, beacuse otherwise I wouldn't be thinking right now.

But... how can anything exist? Everything has to have come from somewhere, ok lets say there's some god. Where did he/she/it come from? Has it just been floating around in nothingness for eternity? I find this hard to believe. So he/she/it must have been created by something which in turn must have been created by something else and so on and so forth. But that's impossible! It can't just go on forever, there has to be something at the top, which brings you back to the start of this paragraph.

Thus nothing can exist... but wait a second, didn't I just prove up the top that it does?

See!? Something exists, but nothing can exist.

THUS NOTHING MAKES SENSE! :P

Dont you just love being confused? If not, you've gonna have to get used to it soon ;-)

-out-
PsychoBrat

<<But... how can anything exist . . .I find this hard to believe

great I'm glad you would find that hard to believe, especially since were dealing with truths, your beliefs are meaningless.

nothing can exist because you say something couldn't exist in the first place, but oh wait here i am sittinf in my chair existing as I type this.

people listen, we are in a finite world, the universe is not expanding(despite Dr. E's theory of reletivity), we a re in a reality, as percieved by many individuals. we see this universe in alimited spectrum, we jusdge this universe from this limited soectrum and we say something cannot exist because we cannot accept anything that we have not seen heard or comprehended from our limited spectrum.

[/vent] man that was tireing,

>>you forgot the soul & the heart.

Not forgotten. Nonexistant and irrelevant respectivly. (The heart pumps blood, people. Why is there this hangup about it being an emotional center?)

I see exactly where you're coming from Clyde, but the whole concept is based around the definition of "I". If I decide that "me" is my complete structure then there really is no problems (or at least, they're farther away, i'll discuss in a moment). "My" () brain is the 'command center' for everything that this structure is able to do. It recieves data, it sorts data, it sends data. It is, in essence, me.

Now on the subject of the existance of self. It doesnt take much thought to conclude that there really is no such thing. Should this hypothetical situation occure in which my brain was instantly removed and a perfect silica recreation put in place without damage, I would be the exact same person. Obviously I would have the same memories, the same thoughts, and react in the same fashion. I would develop in exactly the same manner as if my origional brain had never been removed. This proves that "self" is only a collection of current and past sensory data that has been sorted in such a manner as to be optimally useful.

I have no problems accepting this concept. Apparently my sensory data is well arranged.

Now on the subject of the existance of self. It doesnt take much thought to conclude that there really is no such thing.

Is it so obvious? Some of the most profound minds in the history of civilization would disagree...

Should this hypothetical situation occure in which my brain was instantly removed and a perfect silica recreation put in place without damage, I would be the exact same person. Obviously I would have the same memories, the same thoughts, and react in the same fashion. I would develop in exactly the same manner as if my origional brain had never been removed. This proves that "self" is only a collection of current and past sensory data that has been sorted in such a manner as to be optimally useful.

I think that perhaps you are guilty of fallacy here? In attempting to prove that there is no soul, you say that you "would be the exact same person" after the replacement. Implicit in that statement is the assumption that there is nothing outside your brain's structure/makeup that determines your thoughts, memories, etc-basically who "you" are, ie, that there is no soul. It seems as if the conclusion is present in the argument, maybe.

>>you use "I" in a somewhat altered sense.

I'm forced to use 'I' in an altered sense. I could think of no other word to suit the purpose... ? I was using my previous definition: "that "me" is my complete structure"... It could get horribly confusing talking about myself this way...

>>Ok, I can see that, though you still don't have "free will".

Agreed. But it would be interesting to find some agreement on the definition of free will. Nothing is "forcing" the brain to draw the conclusions that it does. The end result may be computable but that doesnt make it completly forced. If the variables (enviroment, etc) are changed, the results will change also. The brain merely comes up with the most reasonable conclusion to any given argument, based on previously recieved information. It follows the same principles as the fact that there is no such thing as randomness. The things we call random are merely the results of an action that involve too many external (and generally miniscule) forces for us to calculate or record.

Of course despite knowing that, I am just as judgemental as anyone else, I still "blame" people if they are jerks, I still feel gratitude towards people if they are nice, I still behave as if people did have an inner "self" that was ultimately responsible for their actions.

That, and the fact that the blame is part of the social conditioning that will affect the persons "computations" in future. So in a sense, the purpose of blame may very well be to condition the recipient in such a manner that they would no longer "behave" in the same fashion (hopefully in a fashion more acceptable to the blamer, would be the reasoning).


>>1 of 4 places, completely randomly. Of course we could go waaay off on a tangent discussing how and why this effect is caused

That we could. My hunch however is that it would be discovered that there is really nothing random about it. Why would the results of two identical actions be different? What kind of force would randomness be? What kind of govorning law could represent a random factor?

>>Yes, but it's gone beyond that. People are making "suggestions" that they know will never be heard by the recipient.

Interesting point. The possible reasons are almost endless. Facts are hard to come by on this particular subject. Human reasoning, in and of itself, is not well understood. One could theorize for instance, that the brain generates the suggestion, in an attempt to modify behaviour, whenever it 'sees' behaviour that it deems unacceptable (for whatever reason). The decision to voice the suggestion at a TV screen is something else entirely. It would be the same reason that people will talk to themselves (or ask their computer questions ).

>>you could argue that the two acts are not exactly identical at all, the reason for the appearance of randomness
>>being slight differences that are inherantly unmeasureable in the angle/energy of the photon

That would pretty much sum up my argument, yes. My reasoning for coming to that conclusion is a simple one; No other phenomenom (as Sorenson puts it quite nicely) has such a random factor. The ability to measure photons is, as you mentioned, rather limited. It stands to reason that with limited instruments we are not able to achieve infinite precision. Without infinite precision, we are not able to determine if the random factor is actually that.

>> Not necessarily. If it is acting , as you suggest, within pre-defined behaviour. Acting under stimulii from either the TV screen, or infact itself, could surely create the same behaviour if it was interpreted in the same way.

True, true. The only probelm is: We dont know. Obviously the brain knows the difference between TV and someone standing in front of them. What is it that causes the brain to disregard these filters in many circumstances? Obviously the filters are oftentimes engaged, as I do not sit swearing violently at my TV every time I see behavior that is bothersome. (Not all the time anyhow .)

So this is the more difficult question: Why does the same action ellicite different reponses on different occasions? Easy answer: Different emotional states, current train of thought, etc. The only problem is, why would the brain chose to ignore the filters that would commonly stop you from talking to the TV in some circumstances, yet keep at least the appearance of sanity at some other point? Surely the difference in mental state should not change the patterns in which the brain operates? That kind of so called wiring, is generally considered to be more or less permanent and only changeable slowly over a period of time.