Originally posted by Lifegazer
I read all my responses. But I've had too many to remember all individual posts. But at the time, I would not have ignored his comments. I consider everything people say to me. Just because I disagree does not mean that I 'ignore'.
I don’t doubt that you read it. In fact, you did respond to it, but you did so in such a way as to ignore all the points he made. I saved that post of his and will put it up in your "Discussion of the Brain" thread.
But the bottom-line Tom, is that nobody can fully-explain - using physical-processes as the basis of that explanation - how the brain, with attributes such as sensation; emotion; reasoning; imagination; will; desire; etc., is created from "slave processes".
That may be true today, but neither one of us has any clue as to whether that will always be true. All you are doing here is saying, “See, there are open questions in cognitive science. Therefore, cognitive science will never answer them.”
That is complete rubbish.
I.e., how such a brain can acquire attributes which don't exist within the matter itself. Where does the mind get its unique traits from? Where's the scientific reason to address this question? At what point does matter become aware? At what point can matter have sensation? At what point can matter start feeling emotions?
The scientific theory addressing this is the theory of
emergent properties. It’s fine to ask “How can these things emerge?”, but you should be seeking the answers, not taking advantage of the fact that we do not have the answers
right now. Insisting that such mental processes
cannot emerge is a simple argument from ignorance, which would not be accepted in any philosophy or science forum.
These questions are not addressed via mathematics Tom. For the question begs the acknowledgment that mind-ful experience is not the same as 'mathematics'. These questions require reasoned- linguistic-address.
You simply do not know what you are talking about. There is indeed a rigorous scientific discipline called
Mathematical Cognition. You should do some research before taking such a strong stance.
Then I was correct. I was infering that individuals with the same genes would have different beliefs.
My mistake, the error was in the “therefore, genes have nothing to do with it”.
You want to attribute the differences in an individual's beliefs to his upbringing alone. I'm not sure I can buy that. I have a strong feeling that I'd be believing what I now believe, wherever I was raised.
No, I stated emphatically that brain development is a function of two things: genes and environment.
At the end-of-the-day, we all understand 'language' and we all share the same physical-laws. We do sense the same things, fundamentally.
At a sports-event, for example, you'll have a unique opinion of that event. Your emotions will be present within your account of that event (not to mention your position in the stadium). But we'll have experienced that event in a mutually-consistent and universally-understood context. We see the same reality from a unique perspective.
This has nothing to do with the discussion. What you are talking about here is how we all can abstract similar information from the sensory data, which is something we can do only
after the brain develops.
The stimuli that I refer to are sensory data that give rise to a specific brain state (which I take to be a mental state), which not only can be seen as a thought, but also as a stage in development, since brain states physically affect brain development.
That is a finding that is significant, and worth repeating:
Learning makes your brain establish more connections.
But I completely understood everything you have just said. Which means that we share the same reality, but have a unique perspective.
It's obvious that we haven't experienced the exact same photons-of-light. But that's not the point.
You have not understood everything I said, otherwise you would realize the above really
is the point. Specific physical orientation of sensory organs and interactions with environment and with other people are unique to each one of us.
We all share the same reality, and we all share the same concepts and laws of that reality. This must be true, or no 2 beings would ever be able to converse about existence. That's what I mean when I say we experience the same stimulae.
Now that you have a more precise definition of
stimuli given above, hopefully you can see that this is wrong.
We do not experience the same stimuli.
. These systems are divergent. Humans are much the same, or so it seems.
