"The brain is just how the soul expresses itself"

[s2a]

SuperUniverse said:

The elements of personality? Sigh... come on, think. At least try and figure something out for yourself for once. You argue just for the sake of arguing and never make the slightest attempt to learn a thing.

The act of "learning" necessarily incorporates the inseparable traits/qualities of reason and rational discernment. I may not have "learned" anything of value or merit from you...but that's not attributed to my failing of personal character, nor within my tried capacities of comprehension. Claims are not "instruction". Beliefs are not fact. Argument absent any provided/relevant substantiation is not debate. Saying..."I know", as singularly vapid validation of any spurious claim...is not "instruction", nor lent objective "information"...it's insistent testimonial aggrandizement. Anyone (and I mean, anyone) imparted with the most minimal capacities of critical thinking would expend little effort in exposing/excoriating your puerile "rebuttals" and impotent characterizations of a fellow member's nature or person (namely...me).

I have not characterized you (not once, not yet) as being inhuman, soulless, arrogant, or stupid. You, in your own pleasing fashion, have employed such characterizations towards myself. Praise god!

I *have" "figured you out"...though I regret to admit in concession that you have lent no elements of instruction or enlightenment of any value that I might hope to profit from, or "hope" to share amongst others...

Do I have a list of other things the universe wants? It's around here somewhere.

I'll wait...please post that list when you "find" it. It may be deserving of some peer review...

When directionally off course the soul gives options to the personality, this, or that. The personality then decides. Think of it as the tiny angel on one shoulder and the little devil on the other.

Oh...like the penetrating metaphor presented in Animal House?

"F*ck Her!"

I sided with the little devil...

What controls the brain? Assuming you were not asking about basic life sustaining functions, personality controls behavior.

I nominate this submission for "Most painfully obvious RF observation of the Year".

Your competition for this dubious award is stiff, but I retain the "hope" that you will fairly receive your own earned rewards.

As for trying to determine the validity of a person's beliefs, not all people need valid evidence. Look up the word "hope". No one retains any burden of proving anything they believe.

Indeed. Which is why "unbelief" is just as valid...and more so...

You don't have to prove to me that you are a self absorbed cold hearted reptile cloaked in human form who tries to impress strangers with his intellectual word prowess to prove he is something more than a bottom feeder, yet I still believe it to be so.

Ouch. Again, you wither me to my very core. How can I ever "hope" to recover in the light of such insightful and personalized invectives? Whither shall I slither? As a carp, or a lizard, in my newly embodied search for soulful sustenance? Perhaps I shall thank god that beliefs alone do not effect any physical manifestations within the objectively observable cosmos.

You worry too much about what others think of you.

Riighht.

I worry what you might think of me. Am I really that transparent? Does this mean that our standing date is a "no go"?

Try to be brave. Feel strong inside when you are standing up talking with a group of men instead of being consumed by fear and responding with anger at their differences.

I will lend your earnest counsel the due deference it deserves, I promise.

In the meantime, I'll share your insightful observations with the homeless combat veterans I have the privilege to converse with (and respectfully serve in my own minimal fashion) on a weekly basis. No doubt...they will appreciate your sincere advice and lent instruction tendered for my own benefit and growth. Perhaps I may share your public email addy with them...so that they might offer you their own independent measure of my attributes and qualities whilst "standing up talking with a group of men"? I'll readily defer to their fair estimations of my character and person...any day. You, of course, may testify to your own "manliness", and courage, and self-assuredness...as the invited challenges/instances/examples present themselves. May you come to appreciate humility and sacrifice as much (or more) than you feign wisdom and insight. I have "hope"...in that...

[My one caveat is that any such correspondence that is sent to you would be also CC'd to me, in full acceptance and release (by you) that any and all emails could be posted, unexpurgated/unedited here, within RF. Shall we go there? I'm game. You wanna allege "fear and anger" (being character traits) as my motivations/rationales in rebuttal to your posts? Fine with me. Accept my invitation, or apologize and retract your allegation upon my personal character. You may choose, for your god has "gifted" you with "free will". Choose as best suits your perspectives and interests.]

 

[YmirGF]

Some great discussions here, to be sure, heck there is even a comic sideshow.

I have great faith in neuroscience and I am personally holding out the slim hope that they may eventually validate or perhaps reasonably explain experiences that I enjoy to this day.

I think the first time I left my body in an Out of Body experience; it was very perplexing to a young man who until that moment was pretty scornful of the whole idea of Out of body experience. There is just some so utterly stunning about sitting calmly and quite literally beside yourself while being aware of two simultaneous viewpoints. This is a fairly nifty thing in its own right, but when you add perspective after simultaneous perspective to the mix it becomes clear that the old rules of physical reality simply don't seem to apply. It is the oddest unity of inter-relating interdependent conscious aspects that gets the individual's attention. Another oddity is that it all seems strangely familiar, as if you have remembered something that was formerly on the tip of your tongue that was being illusive.

The difference with me, I suppose, is that I can offer tips to unlock the individual’s own inner reality. It may well sound like quackery, but if you don't think what you may well discover is "soul" I wouldn't mind a bit. "Soul" is a pretty dismal description for such an amazing aspect of our "larger" reality as the term is now mangled by religious connotations and New Age puffery.

Part of the conundrum of my suggested forms of research, via various meditation "tricks", advanced dreaming techniques and one or two other tidbits is that they break what I imagine to be the rule of science. The scientist is not supposed to become a subjective part of the experiment. Unfortunately, this is an area where Dr. Jekyll must tap into Mr. Hyde, as it were to perform the experiment itself. I suppose scientists could study a person going through the metamorphosis, but there wouldn't be all that much to discern from the outside looking in.

It is my suspicion that our machines are not yet sensitive enough to pick up the infinitesimal variations of electromagnetic energy that are perhaps physically observable during out of body experiences. In theory, scientists would be able to track the displaced energy, if but for a short while. It would add considerable meaning to the old idea of "ghosts in the machine".

Oh well, I you can’t expect much from a happy fool.

 

[Super Universe]

SuperUniverse said:

The act of "learning" necessarily incorporates the inseparable traits/qualities of reason and rational discernment. I may not have "learned" anything of value or merit from you...but that's not attributed to my failing of personal character, nor within my tried capacities of comprehension. Claims are not "instruction". Beliefs are not fact. Argument absent any provided/relevant substantiation is not debate. Saying..."I know", as singularly vapid validation of any spurious claim...is not "instruction", nor lent objective "information"...it's insistent testimonial aggrandizement. Anyone (and I mean, anyone) imparted with the most minimal capacities of critical thinking would expend little effort in exposing/excoriating your puerile "rebuttals" and impotent characterizations of a fellow member's nature or person (namely...me).

I have not characterized you (not once, not yet) as being inhuman, soulless, arrogant, or stupid. You, in your own pleasing fashion, have employed such characterizations towards myself. Praise god!

I *have" "figured you out"...though I regret to admit in concession that you have lent no elements of instruction or enlightenment of any value that I might hope to profit from, or "hope" to share amongst others...

I'll wait...please post that list when you "find" it. It may be deserving of some peer review...

Oh...like the penetrating metaphor presented in Animal House?

"F*ck Her!"

I sided with the little devil...

I nominate this submission for "Most painfully obvious RF observation of the Year".

Your competition for this dubious award is stiff, but I retain the "hope" that you will fairly receive your own earned rewards.

Indeed. Which is why "unbelief" is just as valid...and more so...

Ouch. Again, you wither me to my very core. How can I ever "hope" to recover in the light of such insightful and personalized invectives? Whither shall I slither? As a carp, or a lizard, in my newly embodied search for soulful sustenance? Perhaps I shall thank god that beliefs alone do not effect any physical manifestations within the objectively observable cosmos.

Riighht.

I worry what you might think of me. Am I really that transparent? Does this mean that our standing date is a "no go"?

I will lend your earnest counsel the due deference it deserves, I promise.

In the meantime, I'll share your insightful observations with the homeless combat veterans I have the privilege to converse with (and respectfully serve in my own minimal fashion) on a weekly basis. No doubt...they will appreciate your sincere advice and lent instruction tendered for my own benefit and growth. Perhaps I may share your public email addy with them...so that they might offer you their own independent measure of my attributes and qualities whilst "standing up talking with a group of men"? I'll readily defer to their fair estimations of my character and person...any day. You, of course, may testify to your own "manliness", and courage, and self-assuredness...as the invited challenges/instances/examples present themselves. May you come to appreciate humility and sacrifice as much (or more) than you feign wisdom and insight. I have "hope"...in that...

[My one caveat is that any such correspondence that is sent to you would be also CC'd to me, in full acceptance and release (by you) that any and all emails could be posted, unexpurgated/unedited here, within RF. Shall we go there? I'm game. You wanna allege "fear and anger" (being character traits) as my motivations/rationales in rebuttal to your posts? Fine with me. Accept my invitation, or apologize and retract your allegation upon my personal character. You may choose, for your god has "gifted" you with "free will". Choose as best suits your perspectives and interests.]

Ahhh, you didn't even try to come up with any personality traits, hehe... It's okay, I know that one was too hard for you. But next time can you just reply with "I'd rather not" instead of a paragraph of bull?

You've never insulted me? Riiiiight, who are you trying to kid? You are the king of Ad Hominem.

Give you my E-mail? Hehe, I already have enough spam. Maybe you could post a photocopy of the check you mailed to Ryan's Wells so we can all see proof of your charity?

You work with homeless veterans? How do you offer them "hope" when it's simply a concept without a scientifically testable/visually apparent, or "defined" by other apparatus, known or accepted/proposed by oh great Darwin himself avoiding violation of precepts/assumed/decided by those before who invented/imagined such ideas?

 

[Sunstone]

**MOD POST**

Please refrain from attacking each other. Critique each other's ideas all you want, but do not personally attack each other.
​

 

[Nick Soapdish]

I agree with Rocketman.(Warning to all God-of-the-gap accusers)

Consciousness is the piece that science has failed to describe. And I would contend that it is incapable of describing it. Therefore there is a missing "part" to the mind that is not part of the observable brain.

Conscious experience is not independently verifiable. We can see a pattern of neuron activity, but we cannot know how a person "feels" and really whether they are conscious at all!

Furthermore, conscious experience is not quantifiable. You can quantify the "color blue" as a wavelength of light, and as a pattern of neural activity in the brain, but not the sensation we feel. Blue is not a number.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

I agree with Rocketman.(Warning to all God-of-the-gap accusers)

Consciousness is the piece that science has failed to describe. And I would contend that it is incapable of describing it. Therefore there is a missing "part" to the mind that is not part of the observable brain.

Conscious experience is not independently verifiable. We can see a pattern of neuron activity, but we cannot know how a person "feels" and really whether they are conscious at all!

Furthermore, conscious experience is not quantifiable. You can quantify the "color blue" as a wavelength of light, and as a pattern of neural activity in the brain, but not the sensation we feel. Blue is not a number.

As I pointed out to rocketman, we do not need to understand the precise physical mechanisms which give rise to our experience in order to conclude that, somehow, physical mechanisms do indeed give rise to our experience.

Furthermore, if it were NOT true that physical causes give rise to our experience, it would be possible to show this experimentally: you could hold up a sign in an ER and see if anyone with an 'out of body' experience was able to read it. Despite decades of eager research into 'parapsychology' and 'spiritual healing', all of the methodologically sound studies have found a negative result. Yet every time a person's mysterious consciousness is flipped off like a switch by an anaesthesiologist, by giving the person a chemical that blocks gaba receptors in their brain, it becomes clearer and clearer that, at bottom, somehow, our consciousness has physical roots.

 

[rocketman]

Just in case anyone misunderstood what I was saying:

As I pointed out to rocketman, we do not need to understand the precise physical mechanisms which give rise to our experience in order to conclude that, somehow, physical mechanisms do indeed give rise to our experience.
... somehow, our consciousness has physical roots.

Yes, but what about our higher level decision making, and our awareness of our consciousness? Or our awareness of the awareness of our consciousness? As I also said :

"Who cares if the body has to be functional before a claim about having a soul can be made? As if it could be any other way even if there really is a soul."

I totally agree with Mr S. that physical consciousness is activated and deactivated physically. This doesn't alter the fact however that we tend to percieve that we are 'looking into' this world when the 'portal' is active, so to speak. Just as a working computer allows the world wide web to be experienced, but only a working computer can do it. The question for me is what is receiving the experience?

I can imagine that a primitive person might think a telephone had a soul because it 'speaks'. But then the primitive person realises that the phone must be plugged in to work, so he declares it's just a machine of some sort. He would still not have answered where the voice was coming from however. Back in our world, we can follow the sound from a telephone all the way back to it's source. Unfortunately we cannot yet follow decisions all the way back to their source in the brain. I think we are at that primitive stage where we think we have a good idea even though we don't have all of the facts yet.

Maybe these questions will be answered by science, but definitely not at the moment. It's still possible that 'nothing' will be found to account for these phenomena. The fact that there is a belief (which can only be expressed by working brains) which feels that there is a 'self' experiencing all of this should not be discounted until proven otherwise, (if we are wise), or we fall into the difficult situation of having to question all of our perceptions, including the ones that allow us to measure our perceptions.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Just in case anyone misunderstood what I was saying:

Yes, but what about our higher level decision making, and our awareness of our consciousness? Or our awareness of the awareness of our consciousness?

We have a lot to learn about human cognition, yes.

We have a lot to learn about shark cognition. We have a lot to learn about Earth's magnetic fields.

Therefore....? :help:

As I also said :

"Who cares if the body has to be functional before a claim about having a soul can be made? As if it could be any other way even if there really is a soul."

I totally agree with Mr S. that physical consciousness is activated and deactivated physically. This doesn't alter the fact however that we tend to percieve that we are 'looking into' this world when the 'portal' is active, so to speak.

That's the thing, it isn't a matter of 'activated' or 'deactivated'. Everything about it can be changed by altering the physical conditions. Under various physical conditions, a person can feel like they are outside themselves, or that they are inhabiting multiple perspectives at once, or no perspective at all. That's what happens when the parietal lobe is stimulated or certain neurotransmitters are ingested. A single person (or animal) with an unbroken conscious experience can even become two truly distinct people, if the tissue joining the two hemispheres of the brain is severed (as seen in so-called 'split brain' patients). If "conscious experience" is any indicator of a soul, we now have two seperate souls where formerly there was one, simply by cutting some tissue.

How do you reconcile your conception of "soul" with this data?

Just as a working computer allows the world wide web to be experienced, but only a working computer can do it. The question for me is what is receiving the experience?

You can't reasonably ask 'what is receiving the experience' until you've established that something non-physical is, in fact, 'receiving' the experience, which is the issue at hand.

I can imagine that a primitive person might think a telephone had a soul because it 'speaks'. But then the primitive person realises that the phone must be plugged in to work, so he declares it's just a machine of some sort. He would still not have answered where the voice was coming from however. Back in our world, we can follow the sound from a telephone all the way back to it's source. Unfortunately we cannot yet follow decisions all the way back to their source in the brain. I think we are at that primitive stage where we think we have a good idea even though we don't have all of the facts yet.

Imagine, however, that by tinkering with the phone, you could change the voice, its personality, its memory, the way it thinks and learns, its perceptions, its emotions. The voice loses its ability to plan ahead if you mess with this circuit, and it is more or less intelligent and aware, depending on what type of battery you put in.

Imagine, further still, that the voice had no non-physical counterpart, apart from the phone, i.e. if you turn off the phone for 4 hours and turn it back on, it doesn't say "boy, it was boring during those 4 hours thinking to myself and not being able to talk".

Now that would be a far more accurate analogy to the mammalian brain.

Maybe these questions will be answered by science, but definitely not at the moment. It's still possible that 'nothing' will be found to account for these phenomena.

Therefore....?

The fact that there is a belief (which can only be expressed by working brains) which feels that there is a 'self' experiencing all of this should not be discounted until proven otherwise, (if we are wise), or we fall into the difficult situation of having to question all of our perceptions, including the ones that allow us to measure our perceptions.

VERY good observation.

I think we certainly should question all of our perceptions. In fact, empirical science has been forcing humanity to do this since its inception. To whit:

• We perceive the Earth to be the stationary center of the universe
• We perceive time to be linear and absolute
• We perceive space to be fixed
• We perceive that objects are solid
• We perceive that the constellations and other phenomena in nature are manifestations of disembodied minds with personalities, like us

...none of which are born out empirically.

I could go on and on. One could never exhaust all the superstitions, hallucinations, and delusions that normal people perceive. Did you know that studies have shown that depressed people have a more realistic view than normal people of their own knowledge and abilities? Did you know that something like 75% of college students think they are 'above average' with respect to their peers?

This is not to mention all the indescribable **** mentally abnormal people perceive. This, in turn, is not to mention all the things that we fail to perceive but that other animals can perceive.

And remember, we are an evolved species. Much of our brain is essentially the same as that of an alligator. There is certainly no absolute barrier that seperates us from our mammalian cousins, or from our fellow humans, even the psychopaths or the mentally retarded or insane. To paraphrase my biological psychology professor: We do not perceive the world as it truly is, we perceive it in the way that best enabled our ancestors to survive.

Who knows? There may well be aliens out there with brains that are so sophisticated compared to ours, that they regard us as not fully "conscious" the way we might think chimps or 'lower' mammals are not fully conscious.

 

[s2a]

Ahhh, you didn't even try to come up with any personality traits, hehe... It's okay, I know that one was too hard for you. But next time can you just reply with "I'd rather not" instead of a paragraph of bull?

Perhaps you are right. You're not worth the minimal effort.

You've never insulted me? Riiiiight, who are you trying to kid? You are the king of Ad Hominem.

I've made sardonic sport of some of the things you have said here. I take no shame in that claim. However, you are invited to directly reference (by verbatim quote clickable link) ANY commentary/post by myself (for your consideration) that you feel supports your allegation.

Give you my E-mail? Hehe, I already have enough spam.

Just thought I'd pass it along to others that might "spam" you with their estimations of my character. No doubt, you'd rather enjoy those "male enhancement" offers instead. Consider my offer retracted.

Maybe you could post a photocopy of the check you mailed to Ryan's Wells so we can all see proof of your charity?

Not my immediate charity/interest of choice, though it seems well-deserving enough in it's own right.
[Here's a link to that charity, for those RF members that are fiscally well-suited and morally so inclined].

You work with homeless veterans?

Well, I wouldn't call it "work"...

How do you offer them "hope" when it's simply a concept without a scientifically testable/visually apparent, or "defined" by other apparatus, known or accepted/proposed by oh great Darwin himself avoiding violation of precepts/assumed/decided by those before who invented/imagined such ideas?

I don't "offer" these veterans anything but my spare time and infrequent attentions. Each individual retains their own hopes and aspirations. They're just ordinary folk, seeking the most ordinary and human things...like opportunity, dignity, justice, and compassion. I don't pretend or presume that my limited efforts serve to offset their sacrifice of service and duty.

And...I don't expect you to understand...or even bother to...

Maybe if your god would just get off his non-existent butt and DO something, I could go fishin' instead...

 

[rocketman]

How do you reconcile your conception of "soul" with this data?

Thanks for bringing up brain altering methods, Mr Spinkles. It's one of my favourite subjects. I have been fascinated for years by the work done on severing the corpus callosum and the other fun things you mention. What I find most fascinating of all is not that we can change what information gets fed to the decision making seat, or what kind of information or commands can be allowed out from the same, but that it appears to exist at all, despite no hard evidence that the actual higher order decisions originate in the tissues.

Perhaps you are missing that my conception of soul is not dependant so much on the variables at this end.

You can't reasonably ask 'what is receiving the experience' until you've established that something non-physical is, in fact, 'receiving' the experience, which is the issue at hand.

Of-course I can. It's one of the more interesting questions of cognitive science, and does not require a belief in anything supernatural. I'm also pointing out that we have yet to determine if something physical is receiving.

Imagine, further still, that the voice had no non-physical counterpart, apart from the phone, i.e. if you turn off the phone for 4 hours and turn it back on, it doesn't say "boy, it was boring during those 4 hours thinking to myself and not being able to talk".

You misunderstand me my friend. I don't believe the soul can 'think' as a brain does. That's what brains are for. But we do not yet know if brains have all that they need to provide a sense of self-aware-self-awareness or high level decision making and so forth.

Therefore....?

Well, as I've indicated earlier in this thread, if 'nothing' seems to be causing these things then all bets are still on. For those of us who prefer logic this may be a distasteful observation but true one nevertheless.

I think we certainly should question all of our perceptions.

I said "until proven otherwise".

This, in turn, is not to mention all the things that we fail to perceive but that other animals can perceive.

Or that some people can percieve and others cannot. We are however yet to disprove that a sense of soul is more than a standard sensory concept vs a 'platonic' perception (such as mathematics can indeed be, as some argue). It may take a working brain to process and transfer this message to others in this world, but that still does not alone and of itself fully account for the origin of the messenger. My phone analogy was to show that we could be mistaking the messenger for the message. I see no proof that we need to do that just yet with people. I do not perceive of others as just being tissue. Perhaps the sum of their tissues creates something of a higher order, perhaps that higher order is derived from elsewhere, nevertheless, nobody acts as if it isn't there, except perhaps for cold-blooded murderers.

Who knows? There may well be aliens out there with brains that are so sophisticated compared to ours, that they regard us as not fully "conscious" the way we might think chimps or 'lower' mammals are not fully conscious.

I cannot rule that out, but it would be a lot more believeable if the aliens were here telling us that they can percieve of their 'sense of self' going on indefinitely. I am wary of discounting people's perceptions simply because they don't match what my ruler or my compass or my microscope can only suggest at this stage. I maintain it's far too early to be making an absolute call about what we 'are', which, as I hope you understand by now, is, in my view not necessarily the same thing as what our body must be.

 

[Nick Soapdish]

As I pointed out to rocketman, we do not need to understand the precise physical mechanisms which give rise to our experience in order to conclude that, somehow, physical mechanisms do indeed give rise to our experience.

Of course there is a dependency consciousness has on our physical brain. There is no arguing that. A car cannot function without a working engine, but that doesn't mean it doesn't require a driver to operate it. In other words, our brain (car engine) needs to be functional for us to drive, but the driver (soul) is also required... we just can see or measure it.

This to me seems to be the most reasonable solution, since the physical brain cannot account for our entire "mind" experience. Something else is missing besides what we can measure.

Furthermore, if it were NOT true that physical causes give rise to our experience, it would be possible to show this experimentally: you could hold up a sign in an ER and see if anyone with an 'out of body' experience was able to read it. Despite decades of eager research into 'parapsychology' and 'spiritual healing', all of the methodologically sound studies have found a negative result. Yet every time a person's mysterious consciousness is flipped off like a switch by an anaesthesiologist, by giving the person a chemical that blocks gaba receptors in their brain, it becomes clearer and clearer that, at bottom, somehow, our consciousness has physical roots.

I actually experimented with OBEs before I committed myself to Christianity and I have to agree that they are bunk. In my opinion, OBEs are just unusual, waken, dream-states.

 

[Sunstone]

This to me seems to be the most reasonable solution, since the physical brain cannot account for our entire "mind" experience. Something else is missing besides what we can measure.

What part of the "mind experience" cannot be accounted for by the brain and central nervous system?

 

[Nick Soapdish]

What part of the "mind experience" cannot be accounted for by the brain and central nervous system?

The sensation I get when I peer at a Arizona sunset. You can measure the neural activity, but never in a way that captures the experience. It simply could never be communicated in a sensual way to a person living underground their entire life--they would never get it.

This is a problem considering science is based on quantification and the communication of information. The conclusion is that there is a portion of our cognitive experience that cannot be measured/quantified.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

I actually experimented with OBEs before I committed myself to Christianity and I have to agree that they are bunk. In my opinion, OBEs are just unusual, waken, dream-states.

Well, if all our reality is built on mental schemata, then OBEs could simply be the brain adding additional sensory information into what is normally perceived. It is said that much of the sensory information we receive is just stored away and never consciously experienced. What if during OBEs, that mechanism that filters it out all that is shut down. We don't normally perceive our bodies in the third person, but we could, couldn't we? We have all the necessary sensory info.

Sorry if this is off-topic. It's been on my mind lately.

 

[Nick Soapdish]

Well, if all our reality is built on mental schemata, then OBEs could simply be the brain adding additional sensory information into what is normally perceived. It is said that much of the sensory information we receive is just stored away and never consciously experienced. What if during OBEs, that mechanism that filters it out all that is shut down. We don't normally perceive our bodies in the third person, but we could, couldn't we? We have all the necessary sensory info.

Sorry if this is off-topic. It's been on my mind lately.

Do you mean our brain constructs (or guesses) what we would look like in the 3rd person, or is there some sensory mechanism we are tapping into that can view ourselves in the 3rd person?

 

[Guitar's Cry]

What part of the "mind experience" cannot be accounted for by the brain and central nervous system?

The homunculus has always been a problem from what I've read...

The problem is how the expressions of the brain are observed. We can say that our brain creates symbols that are interpreted, or observed, or experienced. But how is it experiencing them? This is basically the mind/body problem. Our brain is a seething brew of electrons and neural impulses and such, but how does that equate to consciousness?

This is not suggesting there is no connection or basis for the mind in the brain. But is just asking who am I that is observing the symbols in this brain?

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Do you mean our brain constructs (or guesses) what we would look like in the 3rd person, or is there some sensory mechanism we are tapping into that can view ourselves in the 3rd person?

I would say constructs. After all, it is the same way that we decide what anything looks like.

 

[Sunstone]

The homunculus has always been a problem from what I've read...

The homunculus doesn't exist.

 

[Sunstone]

The sensation I get when I peer at a Arizona sunset. You can measure the neural activity, but never in a way that captures the experience. It simply could never be communicated in a sensual way to a person living underground their entire life--they would never get it.

That is a speculation on your part.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

The homunculus doesn't exist.

Of course not, but it has still been a major problem for psychologists attempting to explain experience.

The difficulty, I suspect, comes from attempting to describe experience from an experiential point-of-view. We attempt to define something that is purely subjective objectively, which is an entirely difficult feat because we experience them subjectively.

Sorry, this is one of those puzzles that I have a fascination but a great difficulty with.