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From: stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
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Date: Thu, 19 Jan 95 05:53:39 GMT
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In <3fcogb$2ab@ixnews3.ix.netcom.com> prem@ix.netcom.com (Prem Sobel) writes:
>In <3fbepm$f70@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> mtbc100@cus.cam.ac.uk (Mark Carroll) 
>writes: 

>>Something that works exactly like a human would obviously be able to
>>work just like a human; it's a tautology. You mean to dispute that such
>>a thing could be created?

>Obviously. Even physics is now against the wall where it cannot
>make real procgress without finding the place of consciuousness.

Really?  What area of physics is this?  Could you tell me what problems
they are against a wall with?  Could you cite some papers where physicists
claim this?

Why do you think consciousness has a "place"?  To me it seems like a 
process, and processes often don't have a "place."  Where is the "place"
of the process of breathing?  Where is the "place" of aging?

>>|> ...While consciousness is part of
>>|> the internal state (or memory) it also goes beyond it. Consciousness
>>|> has a potential which goes beyond (probably infinietly beyond) the 
>>|> memory of its past.

>>Ummm.... just how does it do this? Could you explain please? I've 
>>certainly never noticed it.

>Science did not notice the very fast (near light speed) not the very 
>small (sub atomic) until they knew or had the means to do so. Ignorance
>of soemthing does not mean it does not exist. There are three doors
>to explore non physical realities (ignoring drugs which is unnsafe
>and damaging). These doors ar sleep (usually not in one's control),
>death (one way as foar as the present life is concerned) and
>meditation. To study consciousness one must use a means appropriate
>just as to study elecricity a thermometer is preetty useless.

First of all, if you are talking about exploring the nature of subjective
experience, I'll agree that meditation does in fact do this.  I'm not
sure I'd agree whether death does this, as one theory of death states that
consciousness ceases at that point, and I personally have not had the
experiences to prove or disprove that thesis.  Sleep is perfectly
adequate, and in fact people control it from time to time -- see the
literature on "lucid dreams."

(as an aside, I don't see why drugs are out of the question, because they
are unsafe and damaging only under certain circumstances, and certainly is
no more damaging than death; many people I know have discovered a great
deal about their own minds and experiences via drugs -- they have not
discovered anything about "objective reality," only about experience,
but about experience they can make claims to discovery).

However, what I think has been addressed here is the relationship between
subjective conscious experience and the material universe.  It has been
shown that there ARE some correlations, as shown by the effect on
subjective perception of certain kinds of brain damage.  Thus, all this
talk about neuroscience, computational modelling, etc., is an attempt
not so much to come to conlcusions about the nature of experince itself,
for which meditation may be a more appropriate tool, but the correlations
between physical activities and subjective experience.  Many think being
informed about these correlations will also better inform us as to 
interpretation of our subjective experience.

>Once onne has made the effort to learn how to meditate and has begun
>to master one's mind and to open the doors of consciousness, the
>bounndaries receed into a vastness which will delight science when
>she is ready to walk through that door.

But this approach is not totally disparate from some more physiological
approaches to cognitive science.  Have you noticed the great overlap 
between many Buddhist koans and ideas and the views of cognitive enactivists
and autopoiesis theorists?  Varela, Thompson and Rosch's book, _The_
_Embodied_Mind_ addresses some of these.  I can post some if you like.

> ...If there is no free will then that
>would justify all and any action: murder, genocide, rapine, war,
>and all of man's other sicknesses.

Well, I disagree about the "justification" part.  After all, if there is
not free will, you might say you are "justified" in murdering, and I will
say I am "justified" in calling you a sicko and locking you up.  It's not 
that these things BECOME "justified" but rather that the term "justification"
loses meaning.

>>Ummm... I don't see why neural networks should be incapable of empathy,
>>etc.; love would then be just a label you give to the phenomenon. Just
>>because a brain's made out of neural networks, that doesn't imply that
>>it has to behave in a manner that humans would call rational. It just
>>follows its course deterministically, however irrational the course of
>>action may seem. One learns nothing from love and empathy that could 
>>not be deduced from memory and sense data.

>EIther you do not and have not ever truly loved or you decieve yourself
>beyond in a way which is scary. Besides love, with the study of
>consciousness one can verify, for example, that anger can be mastered.

Here again there is an arguing at cross-purposes.  No one is claiming that
when they feel the subjective sensation of "love" the nature of their
subjective experience is one of neurons firing.  Of course not. What instead
they are arguing is that an there is an underlying physiological correlate
to all aspects of consciousness, *including* love.  I can at once be
overwhelmed enough with the feeling of love to sit for an hour just
contemplating my lover, to give up a day's work because my lover is
very sick in bed, and so on, and STILL believe that there is an underlying 
neurological correlate in my brain structuring all of my behaviors as
a result of internal states and sensory input.  

Greg Stevens

stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu

