....but do comment here or there. It's on the distinction between mind and brain or mind and matter. He does not believe that wondering is a wonder of the world. So he is picking up on a detail, like those who jot and tittle you to death typically do. They do, in some lack of sense, do it to death.
Begin the dissection!
To be fair, I will put a side note in the comment here that he's referring to with a link to his blog. So that people can know about another cold toad and one of their dissections.
I like these cold toads that look at you with their beady eyes after one of their dissections and crooak, "I, the cold toad, render my verdict upon thy ignorant head! .....and, all the other toadies agree!"
And so on. For they are each other's little toadies, always pointing their lil' feet at a crowd of cold toads and then croaking that you ought to believe them.
They hop, hop around. But there's still always a little trail of excrement behind them.
Later.
12 comments:
yeah.....I got pretty bored reading that blog. But I made myself read it anyway and figure it out. My brain didn't tell me to do that cuz it's lazy...my 'mind' made my brain do it! Goodness...why can't they see that the mind controls the brain? Otherwise we'd just be a bunch of computers or something. And he wouldn't even be aware that he was writing the crap that he's writing. Just the fact that we are aware of what we're thinking, and are able to control what we do next, is a huge clue that can't be ignored. What do you think is their motive for believing that our brain...controls our brain? What the heck, that REALLY doesn't make sense. That's just a circular argument. Something has to control something!
~Bertie
Bertie,
Hey, I can't be interesting to everybody all the time. Saying that "the brain controls the brain" is funny, sure, but I don't even say that. If you haven't read Daniel Wegener's "The Illusion of Conscious Will," you should--it's fascinating how our "minds" can be tricked into thinking they're in control of other people's limbs, for example, using cleverly-placed mirrors. I think of "mind" as a metaphor, but only useful so far.
As to you, Mr. Mynym, I suppose I've come off as a prig or an ass, since I linked to your post with the (innocent) title "if only I had no brain," and dared to disagree with an irascible satirist :) First, it wasn't meant as an insult; I think you're weird, but I appreciate your point of view and enjoy your sense of humor. Trust me, if you knew me, you'd know that although I'm dogmatic about certain things, I'm neither the bore nor the ass my uncontextualized words make me out to be. (I like the image of the toad. Very clever.)
I do find the universe "wonderful," but find that completely independent of the existence of a "mind." As a thought experiment, if materialism is entirely true and we're preprogrammed robots, what should our response be? Should we fret? Or should we say, "hey, that's cool, robots are neat?"
I could try to refine their own arguments for them. But they are the intellectual enemy, after all.
"What the heck, that REALLY doesn't make sense."
It makes no sense, nonsense instead. But, he is welcome to come on here and try to make sense. Or stay there to keep trying to make nonsense.
Here is the way what he said should have been refined and defined, on the small matter of his own assumption of the very thing he denies. He said that the brain is the seat of cognition.
As a thorough going philosophic naturalist what he should say is that the brain is recognition. If you really believe in philosophic naturalism then that is the type of thing that you should say, not that the brain is a seat to be sat upon by something, like a mind and cognition.
Instead, the brain is a processor in a constant state of recognition. Somehow Nature "created"/processed it and an awareness of Nature "emerges" from it. Well, even that does not actually make sense and can be refuted. It's a hard argument to make and I am uninterested in making it.
I will let the professors apparently intent on boring their students out of their minds try to make it. Then I will write a satire about how the small matter of the brain that they bring up is like a piece of excrement, which is another small piece of matter too.
"Just the fact that we are aware of what we're thinking...."
Yes, and how so? It is by words. Try thinking, without words....then a word comes and you can become aware of your own thoughts. There is civilization, beginning with language and writing, in the individual and in society and culture, as culture must be cultivated. At any rate, I often get the sense that I am only putting words to what people already think. Perhaps they are not aware of their very own secret thoughts that words bring to light.
It can be pretty funny to run circles around those who do not know their own thoughts.
Like that little fella there, but would you just look at the science of him! That's all he's really saying. He is scientific and you're not.
And that is always a compelling argument. Once you are bored right on out of your mind, that is.
"I suppose I've come off as a prig or an ass..."
That would make no difference as far as your views go. I've seen minds much more "Look at the science of me!" than your's is, that's certain.
Only if we say that the brain is all that is matter, then your status matters. Then, we'd have to look into the state of your being like an ass, the material.
The cold toad reference is Nietzschean, he used it against psychologists once. It is like assigning a symbol to a pattern of thinking. It can be convienent. I am taking something he said in passing and running with it. So I call most scientists cold toads, at least those who believe that all is matter in motion. There is a deadness to that, you see. It's nothing personal, almost literally nothing personal. For what is the person? The cold toads do not look for that which puts motion in matter. And they are toadies, and typically hop around in fairly groupie groups. They have their scientific communalizing community and the like that they like to tell one about.
As I said, I like being satirical instead of philosophical. It's not that you came across as especially uncivil, not at all. You're civil. Maybe too much so, so that people cannot see between the lines to see you there, behind your civility. As I said there, sometimes I like to look at what is inbetween the lines more than what can get boring.
I may respond to the rest of what you wrote later. Because this here has not really been on the topic and rather has been about different styles or modes of communication. In the end, the mind may be some of the mode.
I linked the further comments on through the original comment. That's for those who may read it in the future.
And I noted that at least we can all agree that it is a "striking" example of something, or other.
I don't mind the "If I only had no brain." at all.
If you're going to make a point, you may as well make it a pointy point.
Later.
"if materialism is entirely true and we're preprogrammed robots, what should our response be? Should we fret? Or should we say, 'hey, that's cool, robots are neat?'"
Well, I guess that all depends on how we are preprogrammed. I must be preprogrammed to fret, and you...why do you even care about this argument if you are preprogrammed? Maybe you are preprogrammed to care? Are we preprogrammed to be arguing about this right now? So I guess since you have been preprogrammed, you cannot really be sure if what you say actualy makes sense; after all, our thoughts do not belong to us and we cannot 'think' to see if what we are saying is true. We are preprogrammed, you see. ;) I am preprogrammed to think that I have a mind outside of the brain, and you are preprogrammed to think not. So it is not my fault that I think that! And it is fruitless for you to argue with me, because since I am preprogrammed to think that, you cannot convince me otherwise. (you'll have to talk to the programmer concerning that; maybe i'm just defective) ;)
~Bertie
Bertie,
But what if you're programmed to change your mind when it encounters the reasoning of my program?
Cheers, folks. Keep reading and commenting on my musings whenever you wish; though it may take years for anyone to notice, it's making me smarter.
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
This has nothing to do with the issue.
I was just thinking in passing about the MTVeee generation though, and boredom. I do not want to make that claim too much.
Here is their lil' slogan, something they remind me of too:
"Here we are now, entertain us."
No, there you are, so entertain yourselves.
It was just too good a card not to be played, the stodgy professor.
Yep, keep reading and go to his blog and comment, tell it like it is! Controversy is the best teacher.
"Well, I guess that all depends on how we are preprogrammed."
Guess what, Calvinists merge with the scientists, in some ways....
...and I agree with both in some ways. It's the disagreements that I like to focus on, though.
"But what if you're programmed to change your mind when it encounters the reasoning of my program?"
Well that's just nonsense. (so, guess I wasn't preprogrammed to believe nonsense as you are.;)
~Bertie
"Guess what, Calvinists merge with the scientists, in some ways...."
I know. Yes they believe that God is sovereign and nothing happens that is outide of His authority. Some people get scared away by this because it seems as though God is a manipulator and we are all his robots or something. However, this biblical view still leaves room for human creativity. It is obvious that God created us in His image, with a creative mind beyond our physical brains. Our physical brains are just the tools for our creativity and thought processes. I guess it is beyond some scientists.
~Bertie
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
Or, as one robot beeps at another, so one man programs another.
Why is "artificial" intelligence, artificial?
I have always used the discrimination between the metaphysical and the physical to decide between education and indoctrination. One who indoctrinates will do so by physical means through some type of emotional conditioning. They will use simple emotions, negative and positive, linked to various views or people. And there will be buzzwords that are meant to link up the emotions and invoke the conditioned response at the points of indoctrination.
This I look on as programming. Note that it is more physical.
Education, I look on as what Socrates did. Discourses using words, as words, refining and defining the words themselves as he goes. That is not really linking up or conditioning emotions with buzzwords but just having a dialogue. That is more metaphysical. I think this is telling, as far as what type of creature humans really are or can be.
Notice one other thing, this talk of "programming" implies a program or a programmer. If one is to say that there is a programmer (more like Calvinists) who has a program which is just processing out then you're really beginning to toy with dualism again. Because, then the programmer would be the one with the mind, writing on the physical like a book, a mind writing programs on it.
What Jim said also assumes Design, programming, etc. I do not disagree with this so much. It is not as if it necessarily goes against dualism. I wrote a parable based on it, somewhat.
The ProgrammerProgrammers are very pro-grammar, otherwise syntax errors and you'll find yourself scanning through a lot of your code. In other words, you must have immaculate Word....it really would be so much simpler. But there is an immaculate conception that breaks himself apart for the errors that he loves and wants to save and fix anyway.
As I said, I do not disagree with scientists and Calvinists so much, not necessarily.
It's those scientists who begin to say that all is matter in motion where I do begin to disagree more and more. That is the "material" of satire, more matter. And it's those Calvinists who begin to say that all is predestined in a similar way. It's almost the same thing again.
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