From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ckgp!thomas Fri Oct 30 15:18:18 EST 1992
Article 7445 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ckgp!thomas
>From: thomas@ckgp.UUCP (Mike Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: RE: Simulated Brains
Message-ID: <747@ckgp.UUCP>
Date: 30 Oct 92 00:50:04 GMT
Lines: 102

In article 7927 of comp.ai.philosophy on 27 Oct 92 18:28:33 GMT David P.
Chassin made some statements that I want to comment.

>I know someone who was hit by a car.  His frontal area was damaged. When
>he recovered (after about 6 months) he had become another person.  He sometimes
>even refers to his previous self in the third person (although I'm not sure he's
>not just being humorous).  This would seem to support the thesis that the
>mind (or soul) is structural and therefore a result of the current "wiring" of
>the brain. Change the wiring and you change to mind.

  I have seen several cases where this has happened, a persons frontal
lobe is damage or some tramua affects the frontal lobe and the person
is "different" after. These changes are more to a persons "personality"
The point I was raising was that the "I" or "self" that the person has
(that you and I have) does not change. I guess what I am saying is that
a person does not lose a perspective of self. Your brain has millions of
neurons which do not reproduce after about the age of 2 1/2 years of age.
so the point become, when your friend was hit by the car, areas of his
frontal cortex were distroyed forever. The wire-ing has not changed
regions of his brain are lost; these regions are for personality and not
for the mind (or soul). What I am talking about is this focus of thought
which we perceive as "self." When I say "I" I do not mean 100 trillion
neurons (even if that is all I am?) I am refering to that single thing
we call "I", or mind. 
  My arguement is that if we (as humans) require all of these 100 trillion
cells to produce this person we refer to as "I" then why when regions of
this brain lose hundreds of millions of cells (via stroke, accident, etc)
do we not lose our mind (so to speak) and become a void create which just
stares off into space? Many people would respond with the findings 
(what was his name?) that say that we only use 10% of our brain. really
what he did to discover this majic number was to distroy cortex's of a
rat's brain until the rat could not function any more. As the luck of the
draw would have it the last 10% that he did not distroy was the
pre-frontal cortex, where alot of planning is performed so the rats could
not walk or eat or breath, etc... really we do use all of our brain. So
what about your friend he still functions fine.. well we relearn functions
in new regions of the brain. I even know someone who had part of their
frontal cortex and pre-frontal cortex distroyed by a stroke, and they 
lost all of there planning skills and some organization skills. I guess
all in all what I am saying is that the "I" or perception of the guy
in his head watching this movie has not changed, but the person he was
or rather that persons personality, has changed.
 
>In my experience outside stimuli do affect me in my sleep and they do have
>a noticeable result on my dreams.  I can't attribute this to being a light
>sleeper because I am not.

  Very good, you are correct, but look at what you are saying, they do not
wake you up they are incorperated into your dream... many people have
had the experience where there alarm is turned into a church bell or a
fire alarm in their dream. What you must realize is that in this case your
MIND is controlling what you are seeing and hearing, in other words you
don't hear your alarm clock but a church bell. Remember what your ear
hears and what your mind hears are two different things. This is not
perception because perception is acknoledging the external sound, which
you are not really doing.
  Another point is that your mind and not the environment is causing what
the "I" or the guy in your head watching the movie sees and hears and
feels. When you are awake and for example read this message you see the
letters on the screen with your eye, the information is sent to your
visual cortex, which produces a model for your mind. I call this the
exteroceptive domain. A domain/model which is CONTROLLED by external
stimuli. When you are asleep, or recall something from memory and imagine
it in your mind, or manipulate something in the exteroceptive domain,
example imagine (with eyes open) your keyboard rising into the air. this
type of domain I call the virtual domain. It is a model produced by your
mind which is CONTROLLED by your mind. Think of your dreams, all of the
people, and everything they say, the way they act, the environment, is
all controlled by your mind. Now when you are awake the same thing happens
but only your mind can't control the people the objects the environment.
Now, I always argue that the dream state of the mind is the natural state
of the mind. This also would cause other things to occur, think back to
a time when people had all of these different god's the thunder god, the
rain god, the sun god... why? perhaps because there mind's had no way to
understand why when at night (dreaming) it could control everything but in
the day it could not control the weather and people, etc... so what can
control these things if you can not, a god. When you dream you can produce
anything you want -- anything. You can even be anyone you want. There is
one other domain which I must tell you about, the active domain. The
active domain is really the domain with which your mind controls the items
in the domain. The external world in the exteroceptive domain is really
just a model in your mind/brain. Your dreams take place in the active
domain. The virtual domains are more memories or you imagining say you
bedroom, a faint kind of image which fades with time since you do not have
the re-inforcing that the external stimuli offers in the exteroceptive
domain. Now remember in the active domain (as with a dream) your mind is
the environment, the object/people and you. This YOU in the active domain
of exterocpetive domain (which can overlap as with the keyboard example)
is the thing which I keep calling "I" or the "self" I classify it as the 
Item's object. you have the mind which is the whole domain (obj,env,you).
This YOU is always you weither or not the Item's object is the body/person
you know as "John Doe." This is what does not change, in your dream you
can be a dog, or a horse; but YOU are still YOU but just a dog. Do you
understand my point now?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                      | "When the Mind is evolving the abstractions which will
  Thank you,          |  lead to physical comprehension, all of us must cross 
  Michael Thomas      |  the line between ignorance and insight many times 
(..uunet!ckgp!thomas) |  before we truly understand."  
                      |                                 -- David Hawkins
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


