knock, knock. Who's there?

imported_luckyme · #1 12-10-2005, 01:02 PM

carlo commented in A Question for Christians
[ QUOTE ]
If there is truly only the physical then one shouldn't say "I Think" but that "My Brain Thinks".

[/ QUOTE ]

The looser "I Think" captures it much better than "My Brain Thinks" which is conceptually lopsided. If people promise not to treat analogies as 'true' I'll use a couple as 'pointing devices'.

A simpler analogy. Hortense runs by us in the park. We say "George is running" We don't mean that in the sense that George = running. The activity can be seperated from the man in that we may say "running is good for george". We can even put nodes on george joints and feed the 'running' into a computer to help us get a better grasp of what 'running' is. Or we may say "running will get him there faster" which almost reverses our visualization of it, seeing the 'running' carrying george to the finish line.

The horrid computer analogy - the Pentium chip is not dealing those cards for you, it's the GameTown software that is doing the dealing. To say "my pentium chip deals me cards" just misses how that situation is.

(1) "MY brain thinks" is not the same statement as (2)"thinking is what the brain does". 2 hasn't finished the description yet, it would continue something like, "and that thinking is me". (1) has "My" as superfluous or at the least it's latched on to the wrong part of the duo. It could be phrased better as "My Thinking occurs on my brain" but that's still creating 3 entities being too equitibly treated. .. "Me" "Thinking" "Brain", when the "Me" and "thinking" are too intertwined to be as split off as neatly as we can with " My Thinking" and "Brain".

As usual, this claim will selfdestruct in 5 seconds. I'm hoping somebody that follows it will help me find a better way of expressing it, or even conceptualizing it.

luckyme,
if I thought I was wrong, I'd change my mind

#2 12-10-2005, 01:50 PM

If you say "my brain thinks" you are sepperating yourself from your brain. If that is the case who are you? I think it is fair to say that the thing doing the thinking is the brain, and the thing making the statment (since it must be thought)is the brain, so it is fair to say "I think." Because you cannot speak thoughts outside of what comes from your brain.

imported_luckyme · #3 12-10-2005, 02:08 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I think it is fair to say that the thing doing the thinking is the brain, and the thing making the statment (since it must be thought)is the brain, so it is fair to say "I think." Because you cannot speak thoughts outside of what comes from your brain.

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems you have much too big a role for the brain in that overall view, and it seems to latch "I" to the brain rather than the thinking. "I" is almost a nonentity the way I'm reading it. Please expand or clarify, thanks, luckyme

#4 12-11-2005, 04:48 AM

[ QUOTE ]

It seems you have much too big a role for the brain in that overall view, and it seems to latch "I" to the brain rather than the thinking.

[/ QUOTE ]

If the brain isn't doing the thinking what is? I latched the concept of "I" to the brain because the brain is the thing which is thinking and thus the thing that is making the statment. Can a person make a statment without using their brain?

Could you clairify your statment in the original post?

imported_luckyme · #5 12-11-2005, 01:18 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I think it is fair to say that the thing doing the thinking is the brain, and the thing making the statment (since it must be thought)is the brain, so it is fair to say "I think."

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems strange, at best, to start a statement with - "I" think - that goes on to claim " the thing doing the thinking is the brain"
If you want to remove "I" from the 3 entities involved then go fer it, but you can't bring a 3rd entity in to prove there are only two.

My claim is that there are 3 entities involed. A brain, thinking, Me. They are not on equal footing ( they can't claim "all entities are created equal") and the relationships are not equal. 'Me and thinking" is a different type of relationship than the one between "thinking and brain". There is no direct relationship between "Me and brain"... it's along the lines of ring species.
The action of bike-riding requires a bike for the action to occur. There's no need to credit the bike with anything but supplying the necessary underpinnings, the hardware for the action to occur on.

Being self-aware puts me in control of the thinking, it's a recursive, emergent property. The "me-ness" doesn't belong to the brain, it belongs to the action of thinking.

hope that helps, poke away at soft spots,
thanks, luckyme

J. Stew · #6 12-11-2005, 02:06 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Being self-aware puts me in control of the thinking

[/ QUOTE ]

Where is the me that is 'in control'. If the me that is 'in control' thinks that it is in control, then how is this me any different than thinking itself. So you say that by being self-aware or, 'of an awareness that can see the thinking', that you feel like you're more in control, but who feels more 'in control'? Can this 'person' who sees the thoughts be qualified really?

[ QUOTE ]
The "me-ness" doesn't belong to the brain, it belongs to the action of thinking.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is the action of thinking different then thinking itself? If not then there is thinking and that which is aware of thinking. Which one is the me-ness? If you say the thinking, then that is true because when you are thinking, that is what you are doing, but what about when you are aware of your thoughts? Then you see that thinking is not You, but comes from the emptiness of your awareness. So the thinking could be called you, because while you are doing it, you are thinking, but not you at the same time because the thinking arises from the emptiness of your awareness which could be the more basic You.

imported_luckyme · #7 12-11-2005, 03:24 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Where is the me that is 'in control'.

[/ QUOTE ]

Emergent properties don't occupy a place, they are a 'state'. It's like asking "where is honesty".
[ QUOTE ]
that is what you are doing, but what about when you are aware of your thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

Being aware of something lays no claim to it existing. If I'm aware of pink elephants or being persecuted does not add any weight to whether that is what is happening. The little man watching the little man think is just a vision we create, there is no need to believe that is the process that is occuring.

You're not working in a framework of emergent propertes, you're using layered sandwich view, which is too much of a physical view which won't work in emergent property situations. There isn't any 4th entity or even a separated 3rd entity that "is aware of thinking". The emergent 3rd entity "me,thinking" is quite capable of creating an impression of 4th, 5th, and 10th entities. Once you have a entity capable of recursion and creative conceptualizing there is no way to separate a 'visioned' 4th companion from an actual 4th companion.
So, occamized like I am, I keep it simple, luckyme

J. Stew · #8 12-11-2005, 09:00 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The little man watching the little man think is just a vision we create

[/ QUOTE ]

. . . that who creates? Who, what, where is the man that creates the vision. If it's just a thought that creates another thought, then who is it that sees all thoughts?

[ QUOTE ]
There isn't any 4th entity or even a separated 3rd entity that "is aware of thinking".

[/ QUOTE ]

What do you mean by 3rd, 4th, 10th entities?

[ QUOTE ]
Once you have a entity capable of recursion and creative conceptualizing there is no way to separate a 'visioned' 4th companion from an actual 4th companion.
So, occamized like I am, I keep it simple

[/ QUOTE ]

Care to expand? This doesn't sound simple to me [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

imported_luckyme · #9 12-11-2005, 11:21 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Who, what, where is the man that creates the vision. If it's just a thought that creates another thought, then who is it that sees all thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

The concept that there is a little man in our heads that is the 'overseer' is a nice Cartesian image but it started getting stomped out in the late 1800's by William James.

If you're not familiar with the concept of emergent properties then I can understand why you're looking at me so strangely. I won't belabor the point.

gluck, luckyme

( If you are interested in the some of the better works on consciousness, Dennett's "consciousness explained" is probably a must. There is a great collection "The Nature of Consciousness -philosophical debates" of a few dozen major names in the field that is super. )

J. Stew · #10 12-12-2005, 02:05 AM

What does Dennett think about stages of consciousness? Does he see consciousness in terms of progressive stages like ego-centric to ethno to world and on from there? If so, there are different ways to see reality in terms of what stage one is at in their consciousness i.e. a baby see the world in one way and then from age 2-4 they start to account for other people's awareness, to a degree, and then progresses, possibly, from there. My take is that consciousness evolves but it evolves to something that is already there and 'accessible' at any time. Thoughts?