[Wittrs] Re: merelogical
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 19:41:55 -0700
On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 7:14 PM, Sean Wilson<whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> ... I haven't been watching that discussion. But if someone said to me "my
> mind is caused by my brain," I would want to know how this expression
> conjugates. We would never want the expression to mean something like "I am
> prisoner" or "my identity isn't my own." As if to say, "my brain is holding
> me back." If your brain is "making you" in the sense that you are not now in
> control of what you otherwise should be, the grammar is problematic.
>
Feel we're just seeing one side maybe? Because you changed the front
door? Oh wait, I see you're talking to Bruce, sorry.
I liked my discussion regarding how language is an industrial tool
evolved over the centuries by many people working in collaboration
(not necessarily explicitly of course) being inventive.
So look at Windows or Linux, both operating systems: a computer will
run these, has the hardware to do so (by virtue of being designed with
this task in mind) but in no way do individual motherboards get credit
for the many circus tricks said OS is able to perform.
This motherboard produces Linux only in the sense that it is
controlled by the software. I'd say minds run on brains or maybe
brains host minds, but then minds are institutional and common to many
(the idea of minor variations, personality types, is one of the
features, discovered to be useful through generations of fine tuning).
Likewise, if by "consciousness" we mean some literate cognitive
process full of trivia, facts and figures, fragments of stories,
images of world events, then of course that's not something any
individual brain should get credit for. That's like giving a
turntable credit for The Beatles, just because its needle is vibrating
and feeding an amplifier (some "big mouth").
> But notice that one could attribute to brains governance over selves where
> the matter only really said, "this is the way I am constituted." Such as: my
> brain is not good with math. This might indeed have a solid neurological
> basis. It would be the same as saying, "my personality is not gregarious."
> All you are doing in these sentences is speaking of "you" at a different
> level of analysis (speaking analytically of something constitutive).
>
I've noticed that the teams I'm able to join will change my level of
consciousness i.e. the stuff I'm able to think through, and the speed
I'm able to do it, has a lot to do with whether I'm able to work
collaboratively with others. "Working solo is stupid" might be the
motto or "hermits are hermits for a reason".
This sounds like some kind of gregarious extrovert ideology, but it's
more just a commitment to keep my team level skills polished, as I've
noted certain aspects of "IQ" or "EQ" or whatever stupid tokens, are
boosted by such a commitment, especially when I'm able to carry
through (just having the requisite level of commitment, though
honorable, may not be enough, e.g. you may have no peers able to
leverage the skills you bring to the table -- congratulations, you get
a private language, a fun nonsense boat (doesn't mean you're
dysfunctional, just remote, others might find you so keep alert)).
> At the same time, note that we wouldn't want "brain causing" to go in the
> opposite direction. Compare: "my mind is independent of my brain." Or, "I am
> free of my body." All that this can really say (and be meaningful) is
> something like, "I have a sense of joy or an inner fortitude." Once again,
> one can only keep it meaningful by not dividing identities.
>
I can give it a stronger sense, something more like "Windows is not
dependent on any particular computer". Translated: this meme complex
wherein some first person controls / manages a body by means of a
brain, or as a brain, or however we talk, is itself not the product of
any one brain in seclusion. We're each running an open source
product, our language of every day thinking (some will say "every day
computation" if striving to ally themselves with certain other
schools).
> Imagine three items: brain, mind, person. I don't think one can have these 3
> terms ever mean more than two "things" to make sense. Imagine: "My brain
> holds back my mind, but I am fine." Or, "My mind is free of my brain, but I
> feel trapped by it." And so what I want to say is this: this is a game of
> trying to find the "I" in the grammar. If brains cause minds, and mind = I,
> the idea can only mean something like, "I arise out of my physicality" --
> which is meaningful no matter if it is true.
If we let mindsets be more like ideologies with a life of their own,
we might get somewhere.
At an AFSC corporation meeting one time years ago, I stood in the big
hall and said we should look at bodies as innocents, as civilians,
whereas what brings these bodies to maim and hurt one another are
ideologies, which run in bodies, animate them (a paraphrase). I was
trying to give a sense of the innocence of the animal creatures (why
are you killing those??) in contrast to the meme complexes which
infect and control them, information vectors which can't be "killed"
by outward violence.
It helps to know that AFSC is a Quaker organization and people already
know about George Fox saying he didn't believe in using outward
weapons, like guns, because demons don't fall to silly firearms. It's
also a lingo patterned after the St. Francis practice of calling his
body "brother ass". You could call it "extreme dualism" except the
meme-plexes come across as kinda viral, kinda machine-like, so in that
sense there's not the usual romantic style dualism. It's just the
usual hardware vs. software distinction (which I'm all for
investigating -- lots of misconceptions nesting in that supposed
difference).
>
> Things constitutive of "I" can be said of or about it; but things
> separating or denying "I" cannot be said.
>
I liked what Mario Livio said about Descartes: "really cool guy,
unbelievable!" I thought that was clever, given the cogito and all
that (a fun language game, easy to play).
Kirby
> Regards.
>
>
> Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
>
> Assistant Professor
>
> Wright State University
>
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