On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 5:13 PM, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]>wrote:
> I think there could be differences in how vision is perceived if all > of the visual cortex lacked DNA, even if the neurons of the cortex > exhibited superficial evidence of normal connectivity. A person could > be dissociated from the images they see, feeling them to be > meaningless or unreal, seen as if in third person or from malicious > phantom/alien eyeballs. Maybe it would be more subtle...a sensation of > otherhanded sight, or sight seeming to originate from a place behind > the ears rather than above the nose. The non-DNA vision could be > completely inaccessible to the conscious mind, a psychosomatic/ > hysterical blindness, or perhaps the qualia would be different, > unburdened by DNA, colors could seem lighter, more saturated like a > dream. The possibilities are endless. The only way to find out is to > do experiments. > So would the person dissociated from these images, or feeling them meaningless or unlreal, etc., ever report these different feelings? Remember, nerves control movement of the vocal cords, if the neural network was unaffected and its operation remained the same all outwardly visible behavior would also be the same. The person could not report any differences with their sense of vision, nor would other parts of their brain (such as those of thought, or introspection, etc.) have any indication that the nerves in the visual cortex has been modified (so long as they continued to send the right signals at the right times). > > DNA may not play a direct role in neuronal to neuronal interaction, > but the same could be said of perception itself. We have nothing to > show that perception is the necessary result of neuronal interaction. > All inputs to the brain are the result of neuronal interaction, as are all outputs. Neurons are affected by other neurons. Now if I present an apple to a person, and I ask "What is this?" and the person reports "An apple." that is an example of perception. In theory, one could trace the nerve signals from the optic and auditory nerves all the way to the nerves controlling the vocal cords. For perception to not be the result of neuronal interaction, you would need to find some point between the auditory and visual inputs and the verbal outputs where something besides other nerves are controlling or affecting the behavior of nerves. Do you have any proposal for what this thing might be? > The same interactions could exist in a simulation without any kind of > perceived universe being created somewhere. Just because the behavior > of neurons correlates with perception doesn't mean that their behavior > alone causes perception. Materials matter. A TV set made out of > hamburger won't work. > Humans can make TV sets using cathode ray tubes, liquid crystal displays, projection screens, plasma display panels, and so on. Obviously material does not matter for making a TV set, what is important is the functions and behaviors of the components. So long as the components allow emission of light at certain frequencies at specific locations on a grid it could be used to construct a television set. > > What I'm trying to say is that the sensorimotive experience of matter > is not limited to the physical interior of each component of a cell or > molecule, but rather it is a completely other, synergistic topology > which is as diffuse and experiential as the component side is discrete > and observable. There is a functional correlation, but that's just > where the two topologies intersect. Many minor physical changes to the > brain can occur without any noticeable differences in perception - > sometimes major changes, injuries, etc. Major changes in the psyche > can occur without any physical precipitate - reading a book may > unleash a flood of neurotransmitters but the cause is semantic, not > biochemical. > The idea that two functionally equivalent minds made out of different material could determine a difference is contrary to the near universally accepted Church-Turing thesis. A result of the thesis is that it is not possible for a process to determine its ultimate implementation. This is the technology that allows one to play old atari or nintendo games on modern PCs, despite the completely different hardware and architecture. From the perspective of the old Nintendo game, it is running on a Nintendo console, it has no way to determine it is running on a Dell laptop running Windows. Similarly, if the mind is a process, it in principle, has no way of know whether it is implemented by a wet brain, or a cluster of super computers. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
