Tuesday, July 5, 3008
"Welcome!", or, "God...Why another blog?"
Welcome to my blog. While not admitting to actually be making a step to join the whole blogoshpere craze, dispatching my mostly irrelevant views and rants -- to the whole world, in theory, and to a maximum of perhaps two bored readers, in actuality -- I have decided to attempt to crystallize in written word my Most High and True opinions and views on everything for my own written record. Perhaps I will one day reveal it to someone; perhaps use it as a "here is who I am, take it or leave it" curriculum vitae for a potential Beau. Maybe one day, if my continually leaking memory runs dry, I will read these as a reminder of how I once felt about everything, and perhaps still do feel, if I could only goddamn remember; And perhaps once mental decline lends its hand, I will read all this anew and say "Damn, this guy is so right on, I wish it was him!" In any case, for anyone other than myself admiring my seamless logic and amazingly dead-on analyses of existence, or rather laughing their heads off at my lacks thereof, without further ado, is me on everything.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
"Don't move next to a BIG river! Duh!" or "Americans must just be...dumb"
It seems recently, that we are bombarded on an almost daily basis with flooding story after flooding story. "The has overflowed, due to torrential rainfall...The levees have failed in three places...state declaring emergency..." Now, you would think people would eventually get it into their heads...DON'T BUILD YOUR HOUSE IN THE VALLEY NEXT DOOR TO THE MISSISSIPPI!! Apparently this has not sunk in for some, and the promise of shiny new trailers and whatever else passes for cheap luxury in the midwest overpowers people's common sense. For goodness sake, look where you live. Check your local town records. See if there is a history of flooding. Don't move in near any really large river, especially one that overflows regularly. If the Army Corps of Engineers has your town on speed dial...for goodness sake, move somewhere else!! Don't expect the rest of us taxpayers to come to the rescue with swooping helicopters and replacement homes. Do your homework first. Learn to read a topographic map.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
"What's going on in my brain?" or "Neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and the 'Soul' "
On my mind (no pun intended) of late, and of early, is the true nature of the "mind." Personally, this has major implications on my beliefs in a higher power(s); It may be the last bastion of hope in formulating an argument for a supernatural element in the universe.
For many, science has all but relegated God to "the gaps;" I do not claim myself to be immune. Science has convincingly and logically come to explain much in our lives, most of what we in years past ascribed to miracle and divine intervention. For sure, there is much to be discovered, and more gathered data yet to be parsed and fully integrated, but I don't think it inaccurate to state that in the last several hundred years, the last hundred in particular, we have made tremendous strides in coming to explain "all of it", that is, the physical world around us.
While we have not answered everything, and we dare not state that "we have discovered all there is to know", (in the vein of some very poor prognosticators of the recent past), we have a pretty good idea of what there is out there to discover, and if not, at very least a rough conception of just what may surprise us in years to come, if not exactly how. We are aware that we are not at any given time the masters of all knowledge, but, thanks to the technological innovations of recent decades and, perhaps more importantly, the expansion of our scientific purview, the blossoming of the scientific spirit, and good theories as to just what may be, what can be known, and how generally we can possibly go about knowing it, we have broken a near 100,000 year period of blind guesswork, bad "science" and nonsensical conjecture, and are well on the way to a solid theory of everything.
The same goes for the human body. At present, we understand how every major organ system works, how every tissue does it's job. We have a catalog of practically every chemical reaction that takes place in the human body, and are making great strides in decoding the encoding and function of the human genome. Despite all this, there is one frontier where, at the end of the day, scientists and biologists throw their hands up in desperation and proclaim "we just don't know (yet)". That is the subject of human consciousness.
For certain, many a researcher will swear that, through the use of all manner of advanced computerized brain scans, we have located with preciseness the loci of human memories, emotions, and can almost predict what a person is thinking based on what is lighting up on the scope. Truly, we can, in the operating room setting, make people feel the experiences of someone standing behind them, an oasis appearing, and the like. And obviously, people with brain damage of various origin display all manner of consciousness issues, such as the loss of morality, with everything else remaining normal. All the available evidence points to consciousness as being a very physical manifestation of the brain, or, as I tend to bend, correlating to said brain.
The problem I have with all this is this: There is simply nothing about the structure of the brain, more so, the structure of anything physical, animate or inanimate, that results in this thing we call consciousness.
We can fully discourse what the nature of consciousness is, as has been done over the millennia by many a philosopher and scientist, but suffice it to say consciousness seems to be "something totally, completely other" than anything physical that is known to be. It is a subjective experience, a thing of some sort that we cannot really put into words, rather we know it when we experience it. It may manifest as the ability to plan for the future, the tendency to contemplate our existence, our quest to figure out who, what, and most importantly why we are; It can be called self-awareness. It is something that, as far as we can tell, only we homo sapiens posses. Animals my go through the motions of life, much as we do, eating, moving, reproducing, even sitting around and staring out a window, as anyone with a cat or dog can verify; but at no point do any of them question any of it, or appear to make any recognizable effort to investigate their existence. One could play devils advocate and argue that they DO ponder such things, and have either found the answer or simply do not care to or know how to share it with us; but I cannot imagine a being with self-awareness would not think to share and discuss this with another; wondering what your fellow knows, third-person projection of feelings, in my view are part and parcel of consciousness. This is an unprecedented, uniquely human pursuit.
The neurons, or nerve cells, are simple flesh, conglomerations of molecules, much like heart muscle, cabbage, or a computer network. Nerve cells function much as other cells, save their special ability to transmit electrochemical impulses, thanks to completely understood chemical reactions (ion transport resulting in cascading potential differences across the neural membrane, to be exact). Yet no amassing of any other type of cell, or any type of known substance, has resulted in that tissue or object getting up and saying "why am I here? Where am I going? And why do I ask these questions?"
Some would counter that just as the function of heart cells are to contract (among other things), the function of brain cells are to manifest consciousness. But to me, this is not really saying anything beyond "brain matter creates consciousness", and the question of how still stands unanswered. Furthermore, I believe that that question cannot be answered by simply stating that consciousness is a brain function...I posit that consciousness it is simply NOT what happens when you put a whole bunch of neurons together. Why does it not happen when you clump liver tissue or pancreas tissue together? Why does it not happen when millions of computers are joined together over large networks, or when massive supercomputers (with processing speeds and capabilities far in excess of our brains, in many respects) are tasked to simulate artificial intelligence? Why do all these objects never reach the point of staring back and saying, "wait, who am I?"
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, not in the structure of the cells, not in the very fabric of molecules themselves, that can give rise to this thing we call consciousness. This may be just my opinion, but to me it seems painfully obvious. Consciousness is not something that can be quantized, measured (beyond a verification of it's presence), drawn, or put down on paper, unlike every single other physical process known to man. There are no equations that can describe it, it can't be frozen or put into a jar. There seems to be no critical threshold of neurons at which a creature suddenly jumps up and says "here I am!" It is, in essence, metaphysical...in that there is no physical process known to man that can describe it, and, in my humble opinion, there never will be any physical process that can describe it. If there were, if we were able to reduce consciousness to a set of chemical reactions, a set of equations, should we not be able to map out every thought that man may ever have? Determine what his every decision will be? One of the hallmarks of consciousness is free choice. Now, I know, much (millions of pages o philosophical treatise and thousands of years of discussion) has been said on free will, but I believe the general consensus is that we humans have it, and exercise it to it's fullest extent, while no other species seems to do so (as far as I know, no species has ever chosen to commit suicide just to prove a point, or starved to death while contemplating the true meaning of existence in a secluded cave).
Of note, we are aware of the quantum electrodynamical puzzlement known as the "Heisenberg uncertainty principle". Now let me preface by saying that I am only an beginning student of quantum electrodynamics, and I may in fact be in error both at the principles and at the neuroscientific consequences they are theorized to have, so please call me out on any of this. But the following is as I understand it thus far. In short, this principle, which has been verified experimentally, posits that certain subatomic particles that seem to turn up at difficult-to-predict locations and velocities, in fact have no definite position or velocity until they are observed. They not only appear to exist in what are called probability distribution, but really do exist in a state of uncertainty, in multiple places at the same time...and it's not because we don't know how to properly look at them. Furthermore, in another quantum oddity, particles have been found to exist in two places at once, as the uncertainty principle would imply. Both of these strange facts, and others, have led theorists to wonder if our free will, our indeterminacy, can be a result of these quantum effects, rather than a higher faculty, a soul perhaps, at the controls. I would counter that, yes, these principles are true; in some cases it may be impossible to predict what choice someone will make, perhaps on account of impossibility of knowing where a particular particle will be when it is observed, and the neurobiological corollaries of that. But that still does not answer how or why the decision will be made; it simply posits tat more than one decision can be made, i.e. that we have free will and are not deterministic. The how and why questions are relegated, again, to a higher realm, that of consciousness.
Ultimately, what am I advocating? I don't know exactly. Perhaps The Force, perhaps a soul. Probably the soul. It seems glaringly obvious to me that consciousness cannot arise from or simply e the sum of plain-old physical cells. There is just nothing i the mechanics of cells, yae, nothing in the nature of any substance or physical process we know, that results in abstract self-reflection, a self floating around somewhere in the confines of you mind but seemingly not the direct result of any of it. Our brains can process information, take in and construct visual images, hear sounds, but who is sitting inside actually hearing and seeing these images? I am reluctant to say that there must be a little man sitting in there, for of necessity that little man must have a little man in his own head, but there seems of necessity to be a whole other substance or being who experiences and reflects on that which the brain processes. Just as a computer is useless without us sitting in front of it to operate it, so is the brain necessary bu insufficient were it not for the me that views it. The brain is the interface, just as the video card in a computer is the interface to the monitor, but cannot display anything by itself. When the interface is damaged, the experience is damaged, and it is unfortunately the minority of humanity that truly experiences full self-awareness in it's most potent form, due to previous damage, or, simplicity of mind that seems to run through much of humanity, especially us Americans.
Everything in nature seems to run along smoothly, seamlessly. Animals run, eat, plants grow, the heavenly bodies shine. Day turns to night and night turns to day. Everything proceeds, more or less, according to plan or rule, with no deviation. No thought is required, even with the animals. They are pretty predictable in their migrations, feeding habits, social interaction. There is but one glaring inconsistency: The human brain. Suddenly, a species questions itself, questions life, puts a halt to the flow of nature. It says, "STOP! What is going on?" It has the power to take itself out of the equation on a whim. It is...unpredictable. This is unprecedented anywhere else in nature, and even in the human body itself. I simply cannot see this radical, indeterminable deviation, the human mind, as simply a part or result of nature. It is...something else.
For many, science has all but relegated God to "the gaps;" I do not claim myself to be immune. Science has convincingly and logically come to explain much in our lives, most of what we in years past ascribed to miracle and divine intervention. For sure, there is much to be discovered, and more gathered data yet to be parsed and fully integrated, but I don't think it inaccurate to state that in the last several hundred years, the last hundred in particular, we have made tremendous strides in coming to explain "all of it", that is, the physical world around us.
While we have not answered everything, and we dare not state that "we have discovered all there is to know", (in the vein of some very poor prognosticators of the recent past), we have a pretty good idea of what there is out there to discover, and if not, at very least a rough conception of just what may surprise us in years to come, if not exactly how. We are aware that we are not at any given time the masters of all knowledge, but, thanks to the technological innovations of recent decades and, perhaps more importantly, the expansion of our scientific purview, the blossoming of the scientific spirit, and good theories as to just what may be, what can be known, and how generally we can possibly go about knowing it, we have broken a near 100,000 year period of blind guesswork, bad "science" and nonsensical conjecture, and are well on the way to a solid theory of everything.
The same goes for the human body. At present, we understand how every major organ system works, how every tissue does it's job. We have a catalog of practically every chemical reaction that takes place in the human body, and are making great strides in decoding the encoding and function of the human genome. Despite all this, there is one frontier where, at the end of the day, scientists and biologists throw their hands up in desperation and proclaim "we just don't know (yet)". That is the subject of human consciousness.
For certain, many a researcher will swear that, through the use of all manner of advanced computerized brain scans, we have located with preciseness the loci of human memories, emotions, and can almost predict what a person is thinking based on what is lighting up on the scope. Truly, we can, in the operating room setting, make people feel the experiences of someone standing behind them, an oasis appearing, and the like. And obviously, people with brain damage of various origin display all manner of consciousness issues, such as the loss of morality, with everything else remaining normal. All the available evidence points to consciousness as being a very physical manifestation of the brain, or, as I tend to bend, correlating to said brain.
The problem I have with all this is this: There is simply nothing about the structure of the brain, more so, the structure of anything physical, animate or inanimate, that results in this thing we call consciousness.
We can fully discourse what the nature of consciousness is, as has been done over the millennia by many a philosopher and scientist, but suffice it to say consciousness seems to be "something totally, completely other" than anything physical that is known to be. It is a subjective experience, a thing of some sort that we cannot really put into words, rather we know it when we experience it. It may manifest as the ability to plan for the future, the tendency to contemplate our existence, our quest to figure out who, what, and most importantly why we are; It can be called self-awareness. It is something that, as far as we can tell, only we homo sapiens posses. Animals my go through the motions of life, much as we do, eating, moving, reproducing, even sitting around and staring out a window, as anyone with a cat or dog can verify; but at no point do any of them question any of it, or appear to make any recognizable effort to investigate their existence. One could play devils advocate and argue that they DO ponder such things, and have either found the answer or simply do not care to or know how to share it with us; but I cannot imagine a being with self-awareness would not think to share and discuss this with another; wondering what your fellow knows, third-person projection of feelings, in my view are part and parcel of consciousness. This is an unprecedented, uniquely human pursuit.
The neurons, or nerve cells, are simple flesh, conglomerations of molecules, much like heart muscle, cabbage, or a computer network. Nerve cells function much as other cells, save their special ability to transmit electrochemical impulses, thanks to completely understood chemical reactions (ion transport resulting in cascading potential differences across the neural membrane, to be exact). Yet no amassing of any other type of cell, or any type of known substance, has resulted in that tissue or object getting up and saying "why am I here? Where am I going? And why do I ask these questions?"
Some would counter that just as the function of heart cells are to contract (among other things), the function of brain cells are to manifest consciousness. But to me, this is not really saying anything beyond "brain matter creates consciousness", and the question of how still stands unanswered. Furthermore, I believe that that question cannot be answered by simply stating that consciousness is a brain function...I posit that consciousness it is simply NOT what happens when you put a whole bunch of neurons together. Why does it not happen when you clump liver tissue or pancreas tissue together? Why does it not happen when millions of computers are joined together over large networks, or when massive supercomputers (with processing speeds and capabilities far in excess of our brains, in many respects) are tasked to simulate artificial intelligence? Why do all these objects never reach the point of staring back and saying, "wait, who am I?"
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, not in the structure of the cells, not in the very fabric of molecules themselves, that can give rise to this thing we call consciousness. This may be just my opinion, but to me it seems painfully obvious. Consciousness is not something that can be quantized, measured (beyond a verification of it's presence), drawn, or put down on paper, unlike every single other physical process known to man. There are no equations that can describe it, it can't be frozen or put into a jar. There seems to be no critical threshold of neurons at which a creature suddenly jumps up and says "here I am!" It is, in essence, metaphysical...in that there is no physical process known to man that can describe it, and, in my humble opinion, there never will be any physical process that can describe it. If there were, if we were able to reduce consciousness to a set of chemical reactions, a set of equations, should we not be able to map out every thought that man may ever have? Determine what his every decision will be? One of the hallmarks of consciousness is free choice. Now, I know, much (millions of pages o philosophical treatise and thousands of years of discussion) has been said on free will, but I believe the general consensus is that we humans have it, and exercise it to it's fullest extent, while no other species seems to do so (as far as I know, no species has ever chosen to commit suicide just to prove a point, or starved to death while contemplating the true meaning of existence in a secluded cave).
Of note, we are aware of the quantum electrodynamical puzzlement known as the "Heisenberg uncertainty principle". Now let me preface by saying that I am only an beginning student of quantum electrodynamics, and I may in fact be in error both at the principles and at the neuroscientific consequences they are theorized to have, so please call me out on any of this. But the following is as I understand it thus far. In short, this principle, which has been verified experimentally, posits that certain subatomic particles that seem to turn up at difficult-to-predict locations and velocities, in fact have no definite position or velocity until they are observed. They not only appear to exist in what are called probability distribution, but really do exist in a state of uncertainty, in multiple places at the same time...and it's not because we don't know how to properly look at them. Furthermore, in another quantum oddity, particles have been found to exist in two places at once, as the uncertainty principle would imply. Both of these strange facts, and others, have led theorists to wonder if our free will, our indeterminacy, can be a result of these quantum effects, rather than a higher faculty, a soul perhaps, at the controls. I would counter that, yes, these principles are true; in some cases it may be impossible to predict what choice someone will make, perhaps on account of impossibility of knowing where a particular particle will be when it is observed, and the neurobiological corollaries of that. But that still does not answer how or why the decision will be made; it simply posits tat more than one decision can be made, i.e. that we have free will and are not deterministic. The how and why questions are relegated, again, to a higher realm, that of consciousness.
Ultimately, what am I advocating? I don't know exactly. Perhaps The Force, perhaps a soul. Probably the soul. It seems glaringly obvious to me that consciousness cannot arise from or simply e the sum of plain-old physical cells. There is just nothing i the mechanics of cells, yae, nothing in the nature of any substance or physical process we know, that results in abstract self-reflection, a self floating around somewhere in the confines of you mind but seemingly not the direct result of any of it. Our brains can process information, take in and construct visual images, hear sounds, but who is sitting inside actually hearing and seeing these images? I am reluctant to say that there must be a little man sitting in there, for of necessity that little man must have a little man in his own head, but there seems of necessity to be a whole other substance or being who experiences and reflects on that which the brain processes. Just as a computer is useless without us sitting in front of it to operate it, so is the brain necessary bu insufficient were it not for the me that views it. The brain is the interface, just as the video card in a computer is the interface to the monitor, but cannot display anything by itself. When the interface is damaged, the experience is damaged, and it is unfortunately the minority of humanity that truly experiences full self-awareness in it's most potent form, due to previous damage, or, simplicity of mind that seems to run through much of humanity, especially us Americans.
Everything in nature seems to run along smoothly, seamlessly. Animals run, eat, plants grow, the heavenly bodies shine. Day turns to night and night turns to day. Everything proceeds, more or less, according to plan or rule, with no deviation. No thought is required, even with the animals. They are pretty predictable in their migrations, feeding habits, social interaction. There is but one glaring inconsistency: The human brain. Suddenly, a species questions itself, questions life, puts a halt to the flow of nature. It says, "STOP! What is going on?" It has the power to take itself out of the equation on a whim. It is...unpredictable. This is unprecedented anywhere else in nature, and even in the human body itself. I simply cannot see this radical, indeterminable deviation, the human mind, as simply a part or result of nature. It is...something else.
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