The Mind

This sort of thing does happen quite frequently. You have people who have conscious experience of seeing, but are blind. You also have people who don't believe that they can see, yet they can. The ability to distinguish between colors that the person cannot perceive I think would be similar to the latter.

I am a little uncertain about that interpretation of the double slit experiment. My reading on that was always not that it challenged the existence of photons (or broadening the experiment, matter in general), but rather showed that they have both wave like properties and matter like properties and that we can never measure both properties at the same time. I am not sure if that it too relevant though. If we start to question the existence of matter, it becomes pretty difficult to have these sorts of discussions. That would be more a matter for the metaphysician. Here, I think we could just assume photons and molecules simply exist and go from there.

I am not sure that the color wheel is a model that the scientific community endorses as an explanation of the existence of color. the visible spectrum is probably better. On the visible spectrum, purple does not lie between red and blue. It is nowhere to be found. (I had to double check to see if violet was the same as purple with respect to the spectrum. It is not. I used wikipedia so you can be sure it is correct.) There is no photon wavelength that denotes purple. The color wheel is more a model of our subjective experiences of color.

The line between subjective and physical reality can be tricky, because all we ever have access to is our subjective experiences of reality. We are at best experiencing the world second hand. Possibly third or fourth hand if you want to go that far. The whole of psychology depends on the assumption that there is a physical world that we all share and experience, and that world is the same for everyone. All that changes is our experiences of it. Whether or not this is a valid assumption can be brought into question, but it would simply be to deny there is a possible psychological explanation for life. The thing is though, psychology has a lot of explanatory power and if we stopped doing it until we figured out if there is a physical reality, then we would probably lose a lot of time.

 

What about pigment? Differing pigments absorb light of different frequencies which give us for example some skin protection from harmful light frequencies.

I understand that our perception of color is subjective but the reason it is so is because the mind is naturally abstract, not because it does not represent something specific. A red seeing cone is excited by light of a frequency range that overlaps that of blues and yellows and some people are more sensitive to color depending on experiences as we learn to interpret a range of color frequencies. The color scale is not essentially divided but continuous and chance is part of the nature of probability.

Perception is not of itself knowledge but can lead to it.

Neurotransmitters are chemicals and not the same as dendritic constructions or neurons.

 

i command yellow , and there is yellow . this is mind , and
of two aspects . there is the asker of yellow and the giver
of yellow . the giver , mysterious and wise , reveals a random
hue of yellow ... perhaps an amber ... and the choice can seem
meaningingful to the asker who views it . revelation will denote
meaningfulness even when its just the mind at play .

mind has its theatre .

amber + blue filters in stagelighting = daylight

 

I am not exactly sure what the question is. Skin pigmentation would just be a type of color. Photons bounce off of skin and depending upon which photons bounce off of that particular skin surface, the darker or lighter the perceived color.

Abstraction is a characteristic of representation. When we think about a map, the map can be more or less abstract in that in can contain more or less information. It can be a perfect 1:1 relationship, if we had a large enough piece of paper. Or it can contain only the major interstates and the towns with a population of over 10,000 people. There is some form of mental representation happening. The nature of that representation is up for grabs, but the brain is not directly experiencing blue. If you looked in on a brain experiencing a chair, the chair is being represented because the chair is not in the brain.

I think there is no disagreement here. True, experiences direct our subjective perceptions of things. Everybody's brain is different so this is no surprise.

I am not really sure what probability has to do with anything. I am also not clear how chance and probability are differentiated, which would make that last proposition a tautology. Can you elaborate on that a little more with respect to the the non-existence of color outside of mental representation.

Again, no argument here. Perception is not the only way. There can be a priori knowledge, but I am not really sure how that relates to the difference between primary and secondary qualities.

Fair enough, but the point still holds. The medium of the message may be the same, but the destinations and content of that message is going to be slightly different in different people. A message may be written on a piece of paper (the neurotransmitter) but who is sending it and where it is going is different (The dendritic connection). Also, the volume of that message could be different. Maybe I send it 100 copies. Maybe just one. The way it is sent can also differ. Maybe I use a carrier pigeon. Maybe I use the post. In all cases the medium is exactly the same, but these other differences do matter.

I feel like I am not really understanding what the main thrust of what you are explaining. I think we are agreeing on most of the things.

 

Based on the information provided in that article, the individual doesn't necessarily create colors outside the color spectrum rather his retina cannot process the full spectrum of colors as where his recognition with graphemes still can.

Very interesting, I feel as if it helps me understand some of my synesthetic experiences on Psychedelics slightly better.

 

It becomes confusing to me as well at this point. Whether or not photons bounce off of a particular surface has nothing to do with the perception of color in relation to skin pigmentation. Does the skin perceive color?

And that is what the mind does, represents or chooses a probable emergence.
Consciousness is for the purpose of finding direction.

As far as the statement "chance is part of the nature of probability."
There is always a likely hood that no matter the high statistical probability of something in particular emerging, there is a chance or slight probability that something novel might appear. The continuously moving is always only approximated because each moment is new not because it cannot be known. Being is funda-mental to appreciation.

Substantial matter itself is in a constant state of flux. That is blue itself emerges diversely, as a ray, numerous lines or degrees of hue and saturation emerging from a single point. I think that the mind dealing in abstraction accurately reflects this emergent and symbiotic nature of the things we see.

The point is made that the chair does not exist in the mind yet that is where the existence of the chair is initially conceived. Being is funda-mental to appreciation. I think that what I am trying to express is although our individual experiences seem subjective and somehow isolated tacitly from reality, we are nonetheless real and contribute materially to the emergence of things. Much of what we know of the world is based on collective agreement.

Further that individual differences do not express fundamental differences but the fecundity of probability, a single ray of diverse emergence. Our bodies are the common currency of the species. The I am I call myself is the same I am you call yourself although we enjoy different corridors of refraction due to individual focal length so to speak. We are an agglomerate organism.

As to primary and secondary qualities we are always the measure of our experiment regardless and no matter what we may comprehend it is always through the prism of the being of self. Although mind makes abstract representation or stimulus can be diversely interpreted it shares these connections to matter, absorptivity, reflectivity, and polarity, (quantum chromodynamics?)

Fuck if I know what I just said.

 

Perhaps the most poignant assertion I've read from you. :rofl:

 

In keeping with my genuinely approximate meaning, the level of poignancy of the assertion is yours. I think that is an important point as we are apt to dissociate ourselves from our contribution to perception even though the common denominator to every claim to something existing, at a distance, is ourselves.

 

Sometimes the vagueness represents the abstract nature of the subject. The path of a celestial object represents a principle which can be used to predict to a degree of certainty about it's future position but it is not the principle itself and it's future position is not guaranteed in any event.

tikoo for example I find extremely articulate of fundamental things but it is necessary to soften my degree of scrutiny in order to appreciate it, to become more broadly indefinite.

I don't think our limits of perception are so much physical in that we cannot apprehend things directly, as they are conceptual in not being able to wrap our minds around a thing so to speak.

 

I see. Skin doesn't have a mind supposedly. A surface need not perceive a color in order to have it absorbed or reflected.

I am not sure that the purpose of consciousness is for finding direction. I am not sure what exactly that means. Do you mean evolutionarily, functionally, etc.?

I am not sure what Being is fundamental to appreciation means.

Not sure about this either.

What?

That sharing is through the act of mental representation? We are representing something that is out there.

 

Evolution wise and functionally as well.

I think another way to say it is consciousness is consciousness of.

thedope;

tubahead;

Simply we call the color green and are taught to call it green.
Our economic model for instance is entirely cultivated yet it is difficult to imagine the world functioning on a different basis even though at any moment a new paradigm with enough energy could fundamentally replace it. A mass extinction event for example. So much of what we perceive exists simply for the fact that we insist that it does and a legitimate relinquishment of expectation can liberate novel solutions to seemingly intractable problems.

thedope;

tubahead;

We are a gathering of bodies a species, an organism consisting of organs which are themselves biological entities of specific albeit harmonious functions. In this world we live for and with each other. A liver looks nothing like an eyeball. I guess a more understandable term would be we are an accretionary organism.

What is the dividing line between out there and in here in regards to perception, when ideas are shared?

 

mind: the operating system and user interface of a physical organic brain.

 

You might receive some push-back from that particular claim. There is no real consensus on the purpose of consciousness. One can imagine robots that behave very much like us, but are not conscious. The seem to solve problems, interact with each other, and generally go about living a human life, but are not conscious at all. They have "direction" but with no consciousness at all. Also, it could just be what some evolutionary neuroscientists have called spandrels. It serves no real purpose. It just emerged due to the complexity of the brain.

That is a alot clearer. That is probably true. We cannot be conscious unless there is something to be conscious off. Isn't just being conscious of my own perceptions enough though. The external need not exist for me to have those perceptions.

That is true, but let's not think about things in terms of what we call them. The idea of the "concept" is usually better suited for these discussions. Whatever we call green, the concept of green remains the same. You may see red and call it green, and see green and call it red. Here, the words red and green just match up to different concepts.

So similar to the mitochondria in eukaryotic cell? I don't know that we can show this with respect to human organs. I don't think the organs somehow entered a symbiotic relationship with the body. Rather, the just evolved with it from the very beginning. I am also not exactly sure what that shows with respect to mental representation.

The idea would be that I have internal perceptions of things that are out there. That is the dividing line. There is a thing out there that I don't have access to, but I can represent it mental. I can't make my mental representations go out into the external world, nor can I make external objects enter into my mind. The mental representation just acts like an indicator (like the check engine light on a car) that certain data is being received.

 

Philosophically I would call the propensity for matter to organize, mind. Brain/mind is an extension of that principle or operating system.

Where does the user of a physical organic brain reside?

 

I think you are probably correct on that. I like the metaphor for an operating system. That probably works well. I am a little unclear on "the propensity for matter to organize." Do you mean something like spontaneous organization of atoms into molecules. Also I am not sure if there is a propensity for organization. Doesn't the law of entropy say the opposite is true?

 

I am not looking at consciousness in terms of the ability to have complex thought. Motion is managed in even the simplest life forms to find food, reproduce and avoid danger. Now in many ways organization is mechanical in that some parts can only fit together in a certain way and it is inevitable that complex life would emerge simply on that basis.
However there is a difference between the mechanical or physical sum of a bodies parts and a living being. A dynamism falls absent in dead tissue and there is no way to account for that ephemeral spark and I would question whether robotic behavior is an adequate comparison to the behavior of living things. I don't think any robot generally, specifically, or otherwise goes about living a human life! Machinery, biological or otherwise cannot account for inspiration/respiration.

What is not so clear is who is self conscious or conscious of self. The statement seems to imply there is yet an unobserved observer overseeing the equation.

I understand there is no reason for anything to have a particular name at the same time no concepts are communicated unless we come to common terms.
Our particular talent is to name the animals and that reflects a creative process that proceeds thought/experience, word and deed. Everyone has a body and everybody has a name. Our world view in many ways is bound by our narrative of it. Sometimes what we observe in the world is meaningless or confusing until we happen upon an appropriate word symbol or explanation that we can associate our experience with.

Regardless concept and idea are good words.

My observation is an extrapolation of chemical bonding to form new compounds. So in respect to mental representation, mental representation is an extension of the propensity for matter to organize. We can further see an example in sexual reproduction as nuclear material from different sources is combined to form new being with new potentials. I don't mean a liver formed independently and joined the body at some point but that the more complex as in multiplication, is simply quick addition. Many copies form a group. Many copies in turn mean many points of reference. Many points of reference produces variations.

It is the one statement, "I can't make my mental representations go out into the external world", that I question when I ask where is the dividing line between interior and exterior, when we share out thoughts.

I think interior and exterior is an in the box type of thinking about this. Our relationship mental to matter is choreographed by varying intensities of absorptivity, reflectivity, and polarity.

 

I never met the law of entropy so I wouldn't know what it said or implied. I think the engine of creation is redundant, as in rising and falling like a wave. Temperature is not an upper and lower limit but a cycle. Intimated by the recent experiment producing negative temperatures that become hotter on the low side of what we think of as absolute zero.

 

This would lead to some rather odd conclusions it seems. It would mean that something like a bacterium is just as conscious as us, for certainly, it is just as mobile. Can't one also imagine a species that can't move at all, like a rock, but is yet conscious. It can't do anything about it's consciousness, but it is still there.

We may not have one yet, but hypothetical, couldn't they exist. A robot might be able to create and inspire and appear completely human, but not be. Also, the delineation between living and non-living is not so clear. Sure my heart stops beating, my lungs don't inflate, but certain metabolic processes continue on for days. Am I still conscious then just because they continue?

I am not sure why there would need to be any unobserved observer from that statement. There need be nothing more than me, the one conscious mind. I would be aware of my thoughts. No need for some supreme consciousness from which I derive my consciousness like Berkley thought.

I still am pretty foggy on this.

It may be rather in the box, but that isn't necessarily a criticism. What do you mean by choreographed? That does seem to imply agency, so who is choreographing? I might be able to spread ideas, sure, but when I spread ideas, am I not simply inducing mental representations in others. My representation in my mind is not going out into the world, just sound waves. The sound waves hit the ear drum, but the sound waves are not the mental representation. The sound waves are interpreted and converted to the "Mentalese" language as Fodor called it.

 

my mental reps do go out , but i may not impose them . . as well , externals
do enter my mind yet must be freely given . there seems to be a natural ethos .

no , i cannot dictate mindful reality . to pretend to is only witchy weirdness .