The Illusion of Self

[DBT]

That's a no? In other words, you don't know?

There is only one way to know about the mind.

To be a mind.

If you say the only way to know about mind is to be a mind, and you are a mind, you shouldn't have any trouble explaining what the mind is, how it comes about, how it works and its relationship to the brain?

 

[untermensche]

That's a no? In other words, you don't know?

There is only one way to know about the mind.

To be a mind.

If you say the only way to know about mind is to be a mind, and you are a mind, you shouldn't have any trouble explaining what the mind is, how it comes about, how it works and its relationship to the brain?

The only way to know what happiness is is to experience it.

The only way to know what hope is is to experience it.

We can talk to one another about these things only because we have experienced them personally.

It is not possible to use words to explain experience. You can talk about some of the things you experience. But that is a pale abstraction.

Experience is something a person must have to understand.

I can't use words to make someone understand what it is to experience blue if they have never experienced it.

 

[fromderinside]

So you know what mind is and how it works?

I know I am a singular one.

I experience all that is experienced by me.

I am not here with anything else.

A ONE.

How many are you?

You seem to only have one set of opinions. One point of view.

I am a physical being, mammal, genus Homo Sapiens.

Note the punctuation.

 

[DBT]

I note that mr untermesche has avoided the point again.

 

[untermensche]

So you know what mind is and how it works?

I know I am a singular one.

I experience all that is experienced by me.

I am not here with anything else.

A ONE.

How many are you?

You seem to only have one set of opinions. One point of view.

I am a physical being, mammal, genus Homo Sapiens.

Note the punctuation.

That is what you are to others.

But to you you are that which experiences and thinks and plans.

You are that thing that has opinions. That one thing.

 

[fromderinside]

Yes I am the being. I did not give the power of creation to my conscious nor my experience. After all they are just constructs we are using here to describe at a conversational level our abilities.

At a more concise level I cause experience it causes nothing.

At an even more formal level I am a being which is self aware as the result of much successful evolution and adaptation. We do know that arousal and self awareness originates from processes where sense, effector, and pathways to cortex are co-located take place. They rake place in the reticular activating system in the pons.

 

[none]

 

[untermensche]

Yes I am the being. I did not give the power of creation to my conscious nor my experience. After all they are just constructs we are using here to describe at a conversational level our abilities.

At a more concise level I cause experience it causes nothing.

At an even more formal level I am a being which is self aware as the result of much successful evolution and adaptation. We do know that arousal and self awareness originates from processes where sense, effector, and pathways to cortex are co-located take place. They rake place in the reticular activating system in the pons.

You brain creates the experience of blue for you from energy that has nothing to do with blue.

 

[fromderinside]

Your brain processes blue because doing so informs you that something out there is available of use to you that can fit into a visible light spectrum of useful things. "Oh, look it's a clear day."; "The water looks dangerous"; "Blue doesn't look good on her."

 

[untermensche]

Your brain processes blue because doing so informs you that something out there is available of use to you that can fit into a visible light spectrum of useful things. "Oh, look it's a clear day."; "The water looks dangerous"; "Blue doesn't look good on her."

The brain does not process blue.

That is a silly notion.

Blue is a final product that arises after processioning of information about differential stimulation of the retina by colorless energy occurs.

Is there information about color in every frequency of the EM spectrum?

Or just by magic only that part of the spectrum that excites human retinal cells?

As if energy was miraculously waiting for human eyes.

Your ideas are mystical hogwash.

Energy does not have any information in anticipating of the evolution of eyes.

Cells were stimulated and evolving brains created something from that stimulation.

The brain created something that has nothing to do with the stimulation, like the experience of pain has nothing to do with a cut in the skin. It is something totally different.

 

[Treedbear]

...
The brain created something that has nothing to do with the stimulation, like the experience of pain has nothing to do with a cut in the skin. It is something totally different.

Of course it has to do with actual stimulation. The perception of the color blue brings together neural connections between memories of events that similarly stimulated the particular receptors in the eye and of the flesh that respond to, respectively, the wavelength of blue or damage to some tissue. That's why you can remember these events and re-experience them absent the actual stimulation. It's just that they are usually less vivid and immediate due to its absence. But as with all experiences they are nothing in and of themselves. They only have meaning because they have a correlation with other experiences. How else to explain it when experience doesn't agree with reality? A prisoner in solitary confinement without light or sound will hallucinate complete experiences of reality based solely on past experience, which are nothing more than correlated neural patterns. You see the sky and so you see blue. We say "the sky is blue", because to see the sky is to experience blue. We express their relationship as if they were the same thing because that's the manner in which we perceive blue. You can analyze it further and say no, the sky has the color blue. But as you know blue doesn't really exist "out there". It only exists within experience and blue cannot be experienced without reference to other experiences of blue.

 

[untermensche]

...
The brain created something that has nothing to do with the stimulation, like the experience of pain has nothing to do with a cut in the skin. It is something totally different.

Of course it has to do with actual stimulation. The perception of the color blue brings together neural connections between memories of events that similarly stimulated the particular receptors in the eye and of the flesh that respond to, respectively, the wavelength of blue or damage to some tissue.

We experience blue. And we can perceive our experience of blue. We know our experience is there and we know what we are experiencing. We can examine our visual experiences mentally since they persist as long as we maintain our gaze.

There is the perception of our experience of blue.

There is no perception of blue. It is not a thing that exists in the world.

Our memory is always available to us as limited as it is.

Even as we perceive our experience of blue.

A prisoner in solitary confinement without light or sound will hallucinate complete experiences of reality based solely on past experience, which are nothing more than correlated neural patterns.

Once we experience blue enough we can create the experience mentally. Blue becomes part of long term memory.

I can create the face of Santa Clause mentally too.

What does that prove besides I have experienced the face before?

 

[Treedbear]

We experience blue. And we can perceive our experience of blue. We know our experience is there and we know what we are experiencing. We can examine our visual experiences mentally since they persist as long as we maintain our gaze.

There is the perception of our experience of blue.

There is no perception of blue. It is not a thing that exists in the world.

Our memory is always available to us as limited as it is.

Even as we perceive our experience of blue.

A prisoner in solitary confinement without light or sound will hallucinate complete experiences of reality based solely on past experience, which are nothing more than correlated neural patterns.

Once we experience blue enough we can create the experience mentally. Blue becomes part of long term memory.

I can create the face of Santa Clause mentally too.

What does that prove besides I have experienced the face before?

Whatever you imagine when your mind creates the face of Santa Claus is a composite of many experiences. Santa doesn't actually exist in reality or in your mind. It's a combination of impressions and references. Even when you're simply looking at a picture of Santa Claus (take your pick) it's not some kind of image or entity in your mind. It's the result of inputs from experiences of beards and skin tones and references to various other faces as well as emotional states.

I'm not offering proof. Neither do you. But you did say it has nothing to do with stimulation:

...
The brain created something that has nothing to do with the stimulation, like the experience of pain has nothing to do with a cut in the skin. It is something totally different.

What I'm proposing is that what we call experience, even basic experiences of color, is the direct result of past experiences plus a reference to that original combination of sensory stimulation. Absent that stimulation it's just a memory.

 

[untermensche]

Whatever you imagine when your mind creates the face of Santa Claus is a composite of many experiences. Santa doesn't actually exist in reality or in your mind.

The experience of a singular composite of Santa Clause exists there. An imagined Santa Clause exists there. That's how I can experience it.

Even when you're simply looking at a picture of Santa Claus (take your pick) it's not some kind of image or entity in your mind.

Imagining Santa is nothing like looking at a picture of Santa.

The imagining is done with the will.

The experience of a picture is a reflex.

I'm not offering proof. Neither do you.

Proof of what?

That energy cannot by some miracle cause an evolving brain to create a specific experience from it?

What I'm proposing is that what we call experience, even basic experiences of color, is the direct result of past experiences plus a reference to that original combination of sensory stimulation. Absent that stimulation it's just a memory.

For every person there was a time when they had no memory of any color.

So how does a brain know what experience to construct if there is no memory of it?

I don't think memory has anything to do with the production of the experience of color. I think it is an evolved reflex.

But early stimulation is essential for the reflex to arise.

Cover the eyes of a cat early in life and you can make it permanently blind.

If the visual reflex is not activated at crucial periods of development it will not develop.

 

[Treedbear]

The experience of a singular composite of Santa Clause exists there. An imagined Santa Clause exists there. That's how I can experience it.

You are describing how you experience yourself experiencing it. Otherwise there would be nothing to describe. The Self is itself a composite of current stimuli and past experience. With some theory thrown in. Just like that image of Santa, only having more complexity and immediacy.

Imagining Santa is nothing like looking at a picture of Santa.

It only lacks the vividness provided by the sensory input.

The imagining is done with the will.

The experience of a picture is a reflex.

I trust you'll define and explain how the terms "will" and "reflex" operate to produce experience.

I'm not offering proof. Neither do you.

Proof of what?

You provide the what. You asked how I was offering proof and I denied that I was.

That energy cannot by some miracle cause an evolving brain to create a specific experience from it?

Energy and matter.

How is it we have anything at all? Everything that is anything is only what it is by virtue of how it interacts with other things.

What I'm proposing is that what we call experience, even basic experiences of color, is the direct result of past experiences plus a reference to that original combination of sensory stimulation. Absent that stimulation it's just a memory.

For every person there was a time when they had no memory of any color.

So how does a brain know what experience to construct if there is no memory of it?

You're on the right track. We have no memories of the first moments after birth. Likely it was a blizzard of bewildering sensory stimulations that the brain had to, and was naturally structured to make sense of. That's just what brains do. Tabula rasa. Have you ever looked at the eyes of a week old baby and seen the joy and wonder taking place? The simplest basic black and white patterns produce a look of discovery and excitement. So it's entirely possible that even basic sensory impressions such as those that produce the color blue have absolutely no meaning until they can be connected with the formation of the images of various objects in the environment. Even the notion of the Self is only a nascent object that will become gradually more distinct as the child differentiates between the immediacy of it's own body and emotions and the other animate objects "out there".

I don't think memory has anything to do with the production of the experience of color. I think it is an evolved reflex.

But early stimulation is essential for the reflex to arise.

Yes. Why is that?

Cover the eyes of a cat early in life and you can make it permanently blind.

If the visual reflex is not activated at crucial periods of development it will not develop.

Yes, of course. The visual cortex will be taken over by other processes. Restoring the sight of someone who was completely blind from birth after the brain has become mostly hardwired won't provide the required malleability that is needed for the performance of simple tasks like facial recognition and probably even basic perceptual abilities such as color differentiation.

 

[untermensche]

You are describing how you experience yourself experiencing it. Otherwise there would be nothing to describe. The Self is itself a composite of current stimuli and past experience. With some theory thrown in. Just like that image of Santa, only having more complexity and immediacy.

The self is the thing with the capacity to experience things.

It experiences things like sights and sounds and touch and temperature and pain. Brain creations.

It only lacks the vividness provided by the sensory input.

Nope.

Two totally different processes.

Vision is a reflex that occurs when the retina is stimulated. You cannot stop it. It involves the optic nerves as well as the brain.

Imagining something is connected to the will. You desire to imagine it then somehow you do.

These processes have nothing to do with one another.

The memory is involved in imagining things but has nothing to do with neural reflexes. The patellar reflex has nothing to do with memory. The visual reflex does not either.

So how does a brain know what experience to construct if there is no memory of it?

You're on the right track. We have no memories of the first moments after birth. Likely it was a blizzard of bewildering sensory stimulations that the brain had to, and was naturally structured to make sense of. That's just what brains do. Tabula rasa. Have you ever looked at the eyes of a week old baby and seen the joy and wonder taking place? The simplest basic black and white patterns produce a look of discovery and excitement. So it's entirely possible that even basic sensory impressions such as those that produce the color blue have absolutely no meaning until they can be connected with the formation of the images of various objects in the environment. Even the notion of the Self is only a nascent object that will become gradually more distinct as the child differentiates between the immediacy of it's own body and emotions and the other animate objects "out there".

The child has a developing nervous system.

The eyes are being stimulated and neural reflexes are happening as a result.

These reflexes become the experience of vision based on genetic information the brain contains at birth.

I agree. The intellectual capacity (the ability to know things) develops and the visual reflex goes through a refinement period in early development after birth.

I don't think memory has anything to do with the production of the experience of color. I think it is an evolved reflex.

But early stimulation is essential for the reflex to arise.

Yes. Why is that?

The reason memory has nothing to do with the production of the visual experience is because it is a reflex.

The experiencer (the mind) has memory. Not the experience.

 

[fromderinside]

Untermensche explain will and reflex. Enquiring posters want to know.

 

[untermensche]

Untermensche explain will and reflex. Enquiring posters want to know.

I want you to imagine a large dragon spewing fire and flying over Paris.

If you are imagining it then of course you willed it to happen.

I cannot force anybody to imagine anything.

And if your imagining had a preordained goal it was not an accident. You were not in any way forced to do it. It was willed. Those are the only rational choices.

And reflex is like the patellar reflex.

Stretch receptors in the tendon are activated and that reflexively causes a reaction (motor activity). It is a spinal reflex as oppose to a brain reflex. That is all.

Retinal cells in the eye are activated and the brain reflexively (without any choice in the matter) creates the experience of vision.

You can't stop the brain from doing it.

All you can do is will your eyes to close and stop the stimulation.

Vision is a complicated reflex.

 

[fromderinside]

The brain isn't a being. There is only the being. Seems you're building an elaborate ruse, excuse, for making a bed for your pet creation, 'experience'.

Geese do I need to point out that you almost explained causal behavior when you blurted "And if your imagining had a preordained goal it was not an accident."

 

[untermensche]

The brain isn't a being.

That is my whole point.

It is not a being. It an organic "machine" that evolved and creates a being and creates experience for that being.