[lit-ideas] Re: BBC NEWS | Health | Brain scan 'can read your mind'

  • From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 12:28:41 -0600

Tell Matt to relax. I've believed that cognition is only the echo of unconscious theorems, desires, decisions for behavior ever since I first realized that I had no idea what the next word I would say would be, no idea what my next thought would be, no idea what my next feeling would be, nor even any idea when this sentence will end. It's all told to me, and sometimes by unreliable sources. Consciousness, which is the "me" of me, is just an attention getting device.-- and this is a proven fact, I never speculate. Consciousness is like a dope slap from our unconscious: "Should have paid attention, dumbass!" But it's all a joke. Realization is always past tense. Strict determinism doesn't bother me because the determining factors border on the infinite. Que sera, I surmise, is determinately que sera, but oh so much more entertaining, given the universe of possibilities, than the notion of determinism would suggest. I'm just glad I get to watch the movie of me. So far, I'm the hero.


Mike Geary
Memphis



----- Original Message ----- From: "Ursula Stange" <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 11:41 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: BBC NEWS | Health | Brain scan 'can read your mind'


A student in my first year phil class wrote the following in response to the brain scan story...
-----------------------------------

I love the metaphysical implications of this sort of thing! If fMRI's are really able to show that action preceeds thought (Matti has brought this up in Systems and Theories in Psychology this year)then the logical result is that thought, as we perceive it, is really a byproduct of behavior. Put another way, thought (the (meta) conscious variety)is merely a reflex that we are able to perceive after the fact. Yikes! Could the hard determinists and the behaviorists be right!

My groundless theorizing has led me to wonder if in fact we have 2 simultaneously functioning levels of thought. The one we're aware of and to borrow fREUD'S TERM, AN UNCONSCIOUS LEVEL THAT IS IN FACT IN CHARGE. (damn caps lock button...) This whole meta cognitive delusion we experience may be no more real than any of our other perceptions.

AAAAAKKKK my worldview!  It hurts!!!

Matt



John McCreery wrote:


The notion that conscious thought is preceded by and only partially
captures pre-conscious processes is, of course, implicit in Freud. The
earliest instance that I can cite ,however, is Leibniz's _New Essays
on Human Understanding_, where Leibniz observes that anyone awakened
by the ringing of a bell must have heard the bell before becoming
consciously aware of it.

Cheers,

John


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