Posted on 11/11/2004 3:44:08 AM PST by Lindykim
The number of Days however reconciles quite nicely with relativity for this universe. Fifteen billion years (roughly) at our space/time coordinates in this four dimension block (3 spatial, 1 temporal) is equal to 6 equivalent solar "days" from the space/time coordinates of the inception of this universe.
If it was just the timeline, I would be right with you, however, the sequencing is way off as well. For instance, take a look at the evolution of flowering plants.
Look in a mirrior sometime - you do and you have.
Damage to the brain is more revealing that damage to extremities.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1277171/posts?page=318#318
I have posed a number of questions on this thread regarding the necessity of the brain for consciousness. None of these questions has elicited a direct response.
If the brain is just a radio reporting interactions with matter, why is the mind affected by damage to the brain?
The color-blind painter is a great example. Why should knowledge and memory of color be affected by brain damage if the brain isn't creating the consciousness of color? If my TV fails, I still remember programs I've seen.
This is not a trivial question. These phenomena have been studied for more than 150 years, and there are countless examples.
My point to js1138 is the the results of such clinical tests would look the same whether one views the mind as an epiphenomenon of the physical brain or whether the physical brain is the mechanism of mind (like a transmitter/receiver). In order to make a deduction in the scientific method, there must be several ways to falsify a theory.
I hope you will also post your remarks to the Standing In Awe research thread.
Moreover, it does not settle whether the mind is an epiphenomenon of the physical brain or whether the physical brain is the mechanism of mind (like a transmitter/receiver). I know of no clinical test which could falsify either worldview.
Well said, marron!
I agree, machines require "outside" operators -- be they programs or human operators -- in order to work. A Boeing 747 sitting on the runway, or a Porsche parked in your driveway, are not going to do anything at all to manifest what they are designed to do until a human being gets in them and makes them do something. Machines aren't self-actualizing systems. As you say, they do not possess will.
But human beings do possess will, and thus are self-actualizing systems. Ever since I was very young, I've been able to distinguish that "I" am not the same thing as my "robot," though "I" do inhabit it. I guess that makes "me" "the ghost in the machine."
Will, though, is something else. Will is an attribute of spirit. Will is the operator, the driver, the pilot. Will is you. At death, "will" disengages from the machinery by some means, and at that point your brain and body become cleverly designed meat.
Yes, I'd say we're on the same wavelength, marron. Thank you so much for the excellent post!
My confidence is based on personal experience when - in the case of both my mother and sister entering a deep coma before their physical bodies came to a halt - I felt them pass through me and communicate pleasure with their new existence. When my husband passed away, the expression was visual, a change in color at seventy feet of water.
Hi, js1138! I think the model of "radio receiver" may not be strictly suitable to what we're discussing here, because the brain is not just reporting interactions with matter, but also events taking place in the mind. As to your question, "why is the mind affected by damage to the brain?" -- do we know, in fact, that it is so affected?
Case in point: My late Aunt Ann developed ALS late in life, and the disease eventually affected her ability to speak. She became physically unable to articulate her thoughts -- and it was always obvious how frustrating this experience was for her: Her mind clearly was just as active as ever, but she had lost the physical capacity to communicate vocally because the disease manifestly had affected certain processing areas in the brain related to speech. But Ann could still write her thoughts out if she wanted to. But she found this frustrating: I often got the sense that ultimately she began to feel she was a "prisoner" in her own body because "her brain" could no longer facilitate verbal communication.
Don't know whether this anecdote helps anything. Thanks for writing, js.
Are you of the mind that, if scientists cannot explain life, then life cannot be explained at all? Possibly that may be a baseless assumption.
However, scientists are working on the problem -- though oddly enough it's the physicists and information theorists, not the biologists, who are doing it. I gather the reason the biologists eschew the subject is because the neo-Darwinist model does not provide a method by which the problem might be engaged. And thus the "dead-enders" apparently are content to assume that life is an epiphenomenon of matter, and just have done with it, just leave it at that. Personally, I find this evident lack of curiosity rather scandalous.
Excellent catch, A-G. I overlooked the problem of psychosomatic illness, though assuredly it does exist. Thank you so much for supplying important missing details!
RE js1138's statement: If memories have to be reconstructed everytime we think of them, I would think that this would make thinking an enormously inefficient process. Yet in general, Nature is "parsimonious" -- inefficiency is not rewarded and is often penalized.
I'd also like to point out that the way an experiment is designed -- especially regarding its basic assumptions which may not be explicitly clarified -- can have an effect on the conclusions that can be reached by means of that particular experiment. FWIW
Plus I visit the old "filing cabinet" all the time, whenever I need a piece of information useful to solving a problem I'm working on. I literally can execute a "file search" and get a timely response with the memories I need in order to reason and analyze current problems. Based on such experiences, I strongly doubt that the "filing cabinet model" is "mythical."
I agree, A-G, though I cannot say I know what kinds of experiences a disembodied soul can have. Moreoever, I also agree that the soul is immortal and eternal, and thus cannot be reduced to bodily existence, which is time-contingent. But this is not a "scientific concept," so I didn't mention it. What's the point? Our interlocuotrs here think the soul is but a "ghost," signifying "a fictional being." And they will not be contradicted on this point!
snip----Our body also has a human operator, who directs it, and that human is somehow separate from his machinery, although he clearly can't live on earth, in this dimension, unless his machinery operates properly.
Good anology. And it speaks to the flawed reasoning of Peter Singer & his abortionist cohorts whose argument in defense of infanticide is that the baby lacks 'personhood," a fuzzy way of getting around having to say 'spirit".
They don't seem to realize how their "lack of personhood" reasoning points to the very thing they ardently deny the existence of.......a spiritual realm. For where else would the "personhood" be if not already in the body?
I believe that professional experimentalists are very well aware that bias can affect the outcome of an experiment. In studying to be an experimentalist (there are courses geared precisely to that topic), these scientists not only learn how to screen out relevant external physical influeuces (temperature, humidity, radiation ... whatever), but they are trained to avoid the effect of personal bias. They have centuries of cumulative experience to learn from. If it creeps in, as sometimes happens, it's almost certain to be spotted by peer reviews, or by other labs that attempt to reproduce the results. However, some forms of bias are so deeply ingrained that it can take a long time to root them out (for example, the aether). Anyway, experimentalists aren't ignorant of the issue. Indeed, they're probably more aware of it than most folks.
I found that those of my friends who were admirers of Marx, Freud, and Adler, were impressed by a number of points common to these theories, and especially by their apparent explanatory power. These theories appear to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. The study of any of them seemed to have the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, open your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirmed instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refuse to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still "un-analyzed" and crying aloud for treatment.
The most characteristic element in this situation seemed to me the incessant stream of confirmations, of observations which "verified" the theories in question; and this point was constantly emphasize by their adherents. A Marxist could not open a newspaper without finding on every page confirming evidence for his interpretation of history; not only in the news, but also in its presentation — which revealed the class bias of the paper — and especially of course what the paper did not say. The Freudian analysts emphasized that their theories were constantly verified by their "clinical observations." …
These considerations led me in the winter of 1919-20 to conclusions which I may now reformulate as follows...
One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.