Humans really don't know what they're doing?

[untermensche]

I know the difference between anatomy and physiology.

Is that what you're talking about?

 

[WAB]

Structure is only anatomy.



Like when a human suspends belief.

You see all the trouble you get in to when you haven't a frame for what you try to relate? Package your thinking within a coherent frame and may then we'll be able to discuss things.

What trouble? Looks to me that he's doing just fine. The trouble is in your imagination. And your all-too-easy and casual contempt for anyone who refuses to think inside a little box. And please do not imagine that your contemptuous barbs at me have gone unnoticed. You are so transparent, you are virtually invisible.

And, you are not worthy of shining the shoes of someone like Dylan Thomas. And your poetry kind of sucks.

 

[DBT]

No mention of magic.

Strongly implied in your comments and your overall position....no matter how much you deny it, it is there.

A decision making "entity" created by the brain makes a decision and informs the brain.

There is your implied autonomy. The brain makes decisions, there is no separate entity who makes decisions.

The mind orders the brain to carry out the work. The mind is a switch. It is a switch that can be lightly tapped or pressed hard.

There it is again, as if the mind has autonomy from the very mechanism generating mind. Hilarious. You can't be serious. You are milking this for all it's worth.

Of course not. But it does give the brain the order to move the arm.

No, it does not. You have been provided with evidence to the contrary. It is the brain that initiates both motor action and conscious awareness of intention and action. You ignore the evidence and just repeat your surface appearance idea regardless.

 

[untermensche]

There is your implied autonomy.

No implication.

I am saying it plainly.

The mind, some structure created by the brain, influences the brain.

It evolved to influence the brain.

That is what it does.

The mind has a passive and and an active aspect.

We have always called the active aspect the "will". I did not invent the concept. It is as old as humanity.

The passive aspect is that aspect of the mind which experiences.

 

[DBT]

There is your implied autonomy.

No implication.

I am saying it plainly.

The mind, some structure created by the brain, influences the brain.

It evolved to influence the brain.

Your so called ''saying it plainly'' doesn't happen to be related to evidence or what is understood about brain function.
Basically, that mind is whatever the brain does.

The mind has a passive and and an active aspect.

We have always called the active aspect the "will". I did not invent the concept. It is as old as humanity.

The passive aspect is that aspect of the mind which experiences.

Your remark still implies autonomy of mind, regardless of your protests. The mind is and the mind does whatever a brain is doing whilst generating mind....which of course involves various feedback loops. Feedback loops also being a form of brain activity. This is no autonomous agent acting within the brain, feedback is not autonomous, mind is not autonomous, input is not autonomous, but does act upon the brain.

You ignore research. You ignore experiments. You ignore evidence. You ignore analysis by experts in their field. You just assert and repeat your beliefs.

 

[fromderinside]

And, you are not worthy of shining the shoes of someone like Dylan Thomas.

Wouldn't think of it. It must be really hot down there with London Bridge and all.

 

[untermensche]

Your so called ''saying it plainly'' doesn't happen to be related to evidence or what is understood about brain function.
Basically, that mind is whatever the brain does.

You have no evidence of the mind and it's intentions.

You have endless empty claims based on nothing.

You have no understanding of the mind beyond your experience of your own mind.

And you for some reason have doubts about clear experiences.

Your remark still implies autonomy of mind, regardless of your protests.

No implications.

I am saying the mind is an evolved autonomous decision maker.

That is what it evolved to do.

The "will" exists.

And you have nothing but your empty claims to say otherwise.

 

[DBT]

I am saying the mind is an evolved autonomous decision maker.

That is what it evolved to do.

That is your claim. It is a claim that is not supported by evidence, reason or logic. As pointed out numerous times, you base your belief on surface appearances, ignoring the mechanisms and means of your experience.

The "will" exists.

Nobody has denied it. Will is a function of the brain, one of many functions related to behaviour.

And you have nothing but your empty claims to say otherwise.

That's still you and your asserted beliefs based on surface appearance.

Meanwhile;

A parietal-premotor network for movement intention and motor awareness
''It is commonly assumed that we are conscious of our movements mainly because we can sense ourselves moving as ongoing peripheral information coming from our muscles and retina reaches the brain. Recent evidence, however, suggests that, contrary to common beliefs, conscious intention to move is independent of movement execution per se. We propose that during movement execution it is our initial intentions that we are mainly aware of. Furthermore, the experience of moving as a conscious act is associated with increased activity in a specific brain region: the posterior parietal cortex. We speculate that movement intention and awareness are generated and monitored in this region. We put forward a general framework of the cognitive and neural processes involved in movement intention and motor awareness.''


Anatomy of movement
''Almost all of behavior involves motor function, from talking to gesturing to walking. But even a simple movement like reaching out to pick up a glass of water can be a complex motor task to study. Not only does your brain have to figure out which muscles to contract and in which order to steer your hand to the glass, it also has to estimate the force needed to pick up the glass. Other factors, like how much water is in the glass and what material the glass is made from, also influence the brains calculations. Not surprisingly, there are many anatomical regions which are involved in motor function.''

 

[WAB]

And, you are not worthy of shining the shoes of someone like Dylan Thomas.

Wouldn't think of it. It must be really hot down there with London Bridge and all.

I believe I wrote an apology for that barb to you somewhere. I often apologize, because I find it allows me to let go of any bad feeling. Like they say, if you cling to resentment for someone, for some slight, you are permitting them to assume power over you.

It took me a good long time to learn how to break a long ancestral chain of petty spite and vengeful subterfuge, and I'm a better man for it, plus I get the honor of being loved and honored by my strapping young sons, while my big ham-fisted brother's boys won't have a thing to do with him. I win, he loses.

I wish you no ill-will, like Shelley's poem in the poetry thread states. The good thing about poets is that they don't lie. His most famous quote is no doubt "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world", which closes his essay on the Defence of Poetry. It will also be illuminating to realize that Plato was originally a poet, but cast that dream aside when he began to be overpowered by a desire for philosophy, which, as you know, is inevitably tied to politics.

It's for this reason, or so I think, that Plato decided that there would be no poets in his Republic, which as you know was his version of Utopia: a world of philosopher despots. A politician is, almost by sheer necessity, a trained and polished liar. Hence the ultimate truth of Shelley's immortal claim.

You might find some of Shelley's prose writings illuminating. He was, as a young man, just as interested in metaphysics and science as he was in the arts. In fact, he was a spirited determinist, denied free will, and always made it clear that his dream of the emancipation of humanity from all forms of political and private oppression would be far more dependent upon scientific discovery and the application of Reason to the problems of the world than upon appreciation of the arts and humanities, though he ultimately gave his heart and pen to those by choice, wanting to be a great poet, a speaker of his version of the truth.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Percy_Bysshe_Shelley#Essays

Lastly, I really do not think that your poetry "kinda sucks". It has moments of fine clarity and warm feeling. I don't even get that from my own father. Even to this day he has no use whatsoever for anything that I write, and just assumes that it cannot possibly be of any merit. He told me, only last week, that "everybody knows that most poets and artists are fuckin' crazy." Just to give one more sweet, delicious turn of the screw.

 

[untermensche]

That is your claim. It is a claim that is not supported by evidence, reason or logic.

Only if we completely discount our experience and pretend it is not there before us as plain as day.

Only if we pretend we are insane madmen that doubt our clear and repeated experiences.

My mind formed these sentences. It could have formed other sentences. It could have accepted the crap that clogs your mind too.

But it chose not to.

As pointed out numerous times, you base your belief on surface appearances, ignoring the mechanisms and means of your experience.

Calling absolutely clear experience "surface appearance" is to say we are all insane. We absolutely believe things that are absolutely false.

Your model is the insane human model of consciousness.

Nobody has denied it. Will is a function of the brain, one of many functions related to behaviour.

All it takes is a recognition that one has a will then one can put it to use in many directions.

One has to see what is there first.

One cannot act like they are insane and not move the arm because they don't believe they can.

That's still you and your asserted beliefs based on surface appearance.

In none of those studies is the mind understood. In none of them is the will understood.

But you do not understand that.

 

[DBT]

Only if we completely discount our experience and pretend it is not there before us as plain as day.

Nobody is denying that we experience agency, that we feel in control, able to decide and act....but only if the brain is functional. If the brain becomes dysfunctional, the illusion of conscious agency is exposed.

It is exposed because your experience of conscious agency, feeling in control, feeling able to decide and act, was always the underlying work of the brain.

That is what you persistently ignore regardless of the abundant evidence provided for the contrary, that brain state and condition determines experience.

 

[untermensche]

Only if we completely discount our experience and pretend it is not there before us as plain as day.

Nobody is denying that we experience agency, that we feel in control, able to decide and act....but only if the brain is functional. If the brain becomes dysfunctional, the illusion of conscious agency is exposed.

It is exposed because your experience of conscious agency, feeling in control, feeling able to decide and act, was always the underlying work of the brain.

That is what you persistently ignore regardless of the abundant evidence provided for the contrary, that brain state and condition determines experience.

If you experience agency then there is no reason to doubt your experience.

You think consciousness is one massive delusion.

Without one shred of evidence it is.

 

[DBT]

Only if we completely discount our experience and pretend it is not there before us as plain as day.

Nobody is denying that we experience agency, that we feel in control, able to decide and act....but only if the brain is functional. If the brain becomes dysfunctional, the illusion of conscious agency is exposed.

It is exposed because your experience of conscious agency, feeling in control, feeling able to decide and act, was always the underlying work of the brain.

That is what you persistently ignore regardless of the abundant evidence provided for the contrary, that brain state and condition determines experience.

If you experience agency then there is no reason to doubt your experience.

You think consciousness is one massive delusion.

Without one shred of evidence it is.

I didn't say that consciousness is ''one massive delusion.'' That is your misinterpretation. I said that it is the brain that forms consciousness and that ultimately it is the brain that makes decisions and actions. The brain does this on several levels and consciousness is the mental representation, the related mental experience of thoughts and actions.

It is not consciousness that is an illusion, but the idea that it is consciousness that is the controller, the smart captain of the dumb mechanism, which is the illusion....as you happen to claim. What you claim to be true is the illusion.

 

[untermensche]

What you said was you experienced agency.

Yet you think this clear experience is just a delusion.

You think the human race is completely deluded.

That is your "explanation" of consciousness.

Brilliant!

 

[Speakpigeon]

This thread is now evidence enough that humans don't know what they're doing.

Some people have a condition where they're no longer able to make sense of the world, or, rather, where the world just stopped to make sense.

Subjectively, it's just that the world really doesn't make sense. It's a problem about the world, not about you.

I think that's how I feel reading this thread.

But it's not a problem about the world, it's about you.

Please, people, stop not making sense!
EB

 

[untermensche]

Any fool can say they do not understand, everything.

It takes some work to say what you do not understand and why.

 

[DBT]

What you said was you experienced agency.

Yet you think this clear experience is just a delusion.

You think the human race is completely deluded.

That is your "explanation" of consciousness.

Brilliant!

Even after I explained my specific reference to ultimate brain agency, you still persist with your own version, what you prefer I said because it suits your needs, but did not say.

Just shows that you have no interest in what is actually said, or what is provided as evidence. You have your own beliefs and anything that does not relate is distorted or rejected.

A typically poor effort at justification.

 

[untermensche]

What you said was you experienced agency.

Yet you think this clear experience is just a delusion.

You think the human race is completely deluded.

That is your "explanation" of consciousness.

Brilliant!

Even after I explained my specific reference to ultimate brain agency, you still persist with your own version

You never explain anything.

You have no clue what "brain agency" even means.

You do not know how the brain does anything.

All you know are some areas of the brain that have associations to subjective reports.

You know nothing else.

Humans actively searching for understanding of the brain is the agency of the mind on display.

Every sentence you write is the agency of your mind on display. Remember that.

 

[DBT]

Out comes the mantra.

 

[untermensche]

Out comes the mantra.

You mean I point out the same error you make over and over.

What is brain agency and how does it work?