On 2/22/2013 3:06 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Friday, February 22, 2013 4:54:05 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 8:25 AM, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]
<javascript:>>
wrote:
>> What to you think with, your elbow?
> my point was that you have a double standard about which brain
activities
represent nothing but evolutionary driven illusions
Illusions? Evolutionary drive is what made you the man you are today. And
interpreting a 1D signal from the eye as 3D space is as valid a
interpretation as
any other, and apparently Evolution has determined that particular
interpretation
gets the most genes into the next generation. Thus you are good at 3D
visualization
because your ancestors were good at it too. You come from a long line of
winners,
most animals never manage to reproduce but every single one of your
ancestors did.
A successful evolutionary outcome doesn't have anything to do with the veracity of the
content of a signal. If someone has a delusion that their ancestors are sacred turnip
people and it causes them to plant turnips and survive a famine, that doesn't mean that
their belief is not a delusion. There seems to be this theme with your positions which
fanatically exaggerates the importance of winning, and how winning justifies whatever
distortions of the truth are required
On the contrary, John is saying that evolution must align perception at least roughly with
reality because misalignment is likely to go badly - like when the turnip people keep
planting turnips because their ancestor said so even though the turnip beetle keeps
decimating their crops.
...but then when it comes to science and math, there seems to be a different
standard.
> and which ones represent an independent and absolute truth.
Huh? 2+2=4 is as close to a absolute truth as I can think of, what double
standard
are you talking about?
What's 2+2=4 other than an electrical reaction in your brain?
It's an abstraction from pairs of things and the operation of putting them
together.
Evolution is like history, it could have been different, a very small
change in the
distant past could cause gargantuan changes in the present, is that what
you mean?
No, I don't know why you're going over evolution101 with me.
> A signal is a sign.
I can't argue with that.
> A sign means that it has to be interpreted by someone or some thing.
Yes and in this case the brain is doing the interpretation, and electronic
cochlear
implants can create a sequence of impulses that the brain interprets as
sound, and
we're well on the way of doing the same thing with 3D vision.
We don't really know that the brain is doing an interpretation, so much as a complex
notification.
Notification to what...your immortal soul?
The interpretation may not be local to the brain, but to the lifetime of the personal
experience associated with the brain.
How does a lifetime of experience exist in the present, and how does it read
notes?
Why would one part of the brain receive and encode information from the outside world
only for another part of the brain to decode the same information for some artificial
inner world?
Because by seeing what happens in the inner world one my anticipate what will happen in
the real world.
If the brain can interpret the outside world as code, surely it would remain as code -
invisible, intangible, precisely transmitted information states.
Sure, at least up until it needs to coded into bodily reactions: motion,
hormone release,...
> Our experience of 3D images is not useful to the brain in any way.
The 3D visualization of space would be very useful indeed if it's the most
efficient
way to figure out how to jump out of the way when a saber toothed tiger
lunges at
you on the African savanna.
But it could not be any more efficient than no presentation at all. Absolutely, clearly,
and unarguably: not possible.
But there would have to be an inner presentation in order to plan for avoiding or killing
a saber tooth tiger. And while there is generally no conscious presentation in reactions
to sudden threats the brain still knows which way to jump in three dimensions.
> The electronic sequences need not be interpreted at all because they
are
already neurological signals.
That statement is nuts. To a animal without genes for interpretation a
neurological
signal is just a neurological signal and there would be no reason to move
when a
predator starts to run at it
The reason would be the that they received a neurological to move - just like a computer
does. IF TIGER = 1 THEN RUN. You really are not seeing that your legs are cut off here.
Do you not see you are simply assuming what you are required to argue - that intelligent
action can exist without consciousness.
Brent
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