Reply #53: Eh?

[cyborg_jim]

Maybe we're using old tools.

What?

This is the first time that ego has been mentioned in the discussion. Can we go back to mentality and consciousness?

We're not going back anywhere - this is the discussion.

You say that there is no "who". Then how? How is a decision made to send the signals to the brain to trigger the action? Are you saying that no consciousness of the situation is involved? That no assessment of the details is involved? That no memory of previous learning experience is called upon? That no thought is involved? Are you suggesting that everything is preprogrammed, but we just don't realize it?

No, I am not saying everything is 'pre' programmed - I have no idea how you got that. I am saying that the experience of a central decision making ego doesn't map to what we know of how the brain actually works. I'm saying that consciousness is a secondary and not a primary artefact. None of what you suggest follows from what I've said.

I didn't. I just gave you my view.

Why? Seriously.

You could have a view that the ocean's are made of treacle - why should I care that that is your view? It's pretty damn obvious. The point is that you are wrong - your view is irrelevant. It does not jive with reality.

Physics seems fascinating, but I know nothing about it. If what is known so far in physics proves something, fine. If it doesn't, maybe it will someday.

Ignorance is not a place to hide fantasy. One cannot argue knowledge from ignorance. You cannot demand that I entertain fantasy on the grounds that our collective ignorance may leave it a place to hide.

So when you propose ludicrous things that cannot happen I don't really care if you think they're 'possible'. I'm just telling you as plainly as possible why they sure as hell aren't going to get any more possible any time soon barring something monumentally upsetting to physics being discovered.

So no, the Earth's magnetic field doesn't contain a database. There are just so many ways in which that is wrong - only a universe of magic could allow it.

It demonstrates that they are interactive. It doesn't prove that consciousness is a product of brain function, IMHV.

Silly. Now you want to tell me there's a material-immaterial interaction based on...? Nothing suggests anything other than purely material.

Well that begs the question, "What is objective spirituality?"

Well that would be essentially what the 'spiritual' actually is. Personally I don't see it being anything more than what people want it to be making it non-existent.

All we have about the mind is people's opinion of it, yours included.

Wrong. So basically wrong it's not even funny.

We know plenty about the brain on a physical level, and we have the conjecture of psychiatrists on the workings of the mind. That's about it.

Again I must sigh.

You really don't know how much we do know. I really wish you'd stop revelling in ignorance. We have observational data for all sorts of aspects of the workings of the brain and how they affect us. All this data points towards the conclusion I've outlined. Why you like your own view so much that you want to pretend this isn't the case is beyond me.

No, I don't. No one does.

And again. We DO have an idea. I just outlined it! Why do you keep on insisting we don't know anything if you don't know what we know?

You mean you can't see it. Music definitely does have related color frequencies.

No, it really doesn't. One can map the perception of musical frequencies to the frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum but this doesn't mean music has a colour any more than because colour affects our moods colour HAS those moods. A -> B doesn't mean B -> A.

Their brains are interpreting sound as sound and color. Paranormal in the sense that it isn't normal for most people.

It's not paranormal - the word doesn't mean what you seem to think it does. Paranormal refers to psychic abilities and the like. This is clearly not normal but it is certainly not much of an ability either - it's just another case of the weird things that happen when the brain is wired up differently.

In all fairness, my few sentences are not a fair summary of her story. She's a pianist and former opera singer, who discovered as a child that she could hear a piece once and play it back note for note. She has a photographic memory for sound, an acute sensitivity to it. She hears nuances in it that most of us miss.

I still don't doubt that there are exaggerated claims even if she has good ears. That is not uncommon either.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. ---Bertrand Russell

I see. I am stupid.

Well you try to teach people something about reality and they just don't like it.