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Invisibledorkus
don't look back
Registered: 04/12/04
Posts: 1,511
Where is my mind?
    #5671112 - 05/25/06 12:38 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

"Just how deep is this illusion then? Dennett (1991) suggests that the fundamental error is to believe in what he calls the ‘Cartesian Theatre’. Theatre metaphors are common in discussions of consciousness, and arguably can be helpful (Baars 1997). It certainly feels as though I am sitting inside my head and experiencing the events in turn as though they were some kind of show. But this is a big mistake, argues Dennett. While almost everyone rejects outright Cartesian dualism, most psychologists and neuroscientists still believe in some kind of centre, where everything comes together and ‘consciousness happens’; some kind of magic finishing line beyond which events ‘come into’ consciousness, or a centre from where ‘my’ decisions are made and ‘my’ instructions sent out. But this cannot be, for the reality of the brain is a massively parallel system with no middle. So, as Dennett puts it “When you discard Cartesian dualism, you really must discard the show that would have gone on in the Cartesian Theater, and the audience as well, for neither the show nor the audience is to be found in the brain, and the brain is the only real place there is to look for them.” (Dennett 1991, p 134).

The Self
No audience? Is there really no persistent ‘me’ who lives this life; who is conscious and who has free will? Consideration of the nature of self is deeply bound up with questions about consciousness, as recent debates reveal (Gallagher and Shear 1999). Philosopher Derek Parfit (1987) divides theories of the self into two types - ego and bundle theories. Ego theorists (perhaps the natural way to think) believe in a persistent self who is the subject of experiences and whose existence explains the sense of unity and continuity of experience. Bundle theorists (named after Hume’s (1739) ‘bundle of sensations’), deny there is any such thing. The apparent unity is just a collection of ever-changing experiences tied together by such relationships as a physical body and memory. While ego theories come easily to most of us, intellectually some kind of bundle theory seems ever more inescapable.

What will this mean? Unlike most areas of psychology this argument cannot remain entirely intellectual. When we start to question the very nature of our selves we inevitably start to change ourselves. When we play with theories of consciousness, consciousness itself starts to alter. Methods such as meditation and mindfulness have long been said to break down the false idea of a persistent self, and now some psychologists are beginning to bridge the gap between spiritual practice and academic psychology (Austin 1998; Blackmore 1999; Claxton 1996). Mystics and sages for millennia have described experience without self, the transcendence of self, or have taught the view that the ordinary self is an illusion - and the ultimate cause of suffering. Perhaps our research is leading to the same daunting conclusion."


http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Articles/psych01.htm


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OfflineDeviate
newbie
Registered: 04/20/03
Posts: 4,497
Last seen: 8 years, 4 months
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: dorkus]
    #5671296 - 05/25/06 01:51 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

I read Dennett's book Conciousness Explained several years ago. Unfortunately, the title is rather misleading, as nowhere in the book was conciousness explained.


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Invisibleredgreenvines
irregular verb
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Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,532
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: Deviate]
    #5671514 - 05/25/06 03:47 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

she binds the loose straws to a bundle, but it is not linked together with inspiration or insight, still the investigations deserve thought & the direction is good.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:


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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Male

Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: dorkus]
    #5672049 - 05/25/06 09:34 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

" I think. Therefore I am. I think?

Of course you are my bright little star. There's miles and miles of files, pretty files of your forefathers fruit. And now to suit our great computer. You're magnetic ink.

I'm more than that! I know I am. At least, I think I must be?

There ya go man. Stay as cool as you can. Face piles and piles of trials with smiles. It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave; and keep on thinking free."


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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Invisibledorkus
don't look back
Registered: 04/12/04
Posts: 1,511
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: Icelander]
    #5672100 - 05/25/06 10:01 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

dev; Did you like the book? Will they ever be able to exlain it, you think?

red; What do you mean by not linked together by inspiration or insight? She is a longtime meditator and an experienced psychonaut if I'm not mistaken.

ice; I really like that. Where is it from?


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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Male

Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: dorkus]
    #5672118 - 05/25/06 10:06 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Moody Blues, On the Threshold of a Dream. :heart:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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Invisibledorkus
don't look back
Registered: 04/12/04
Posts: 1,511
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: Icelander]
    #5672128 - 05/25/06 10:07 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Awww, I should have known. Have a couple of albums by those loving wizards. :heart:


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Invisibleredgreenvines
irregular verb
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Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,532
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: dorkus]
    #5672139 - 05/25/06 10:13 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

yes, that would explain why the appeal for bundle and gestalt type moment to moment consciousness.

from what I read there, she does not get much into how any particular moment (bundle) hangs together in the mind or brain:

1. as a discrete experience from others
2. as a discrete recallable memory - (or much af a discussion of associative memory at all.)
3. as an overlay to another moment for
___a. sequence orientation in a stream of consciouness
___b. creativity and synthesis
___c. forming a fabric of consciousness stream that can be intensified through meditation, emotion, pathology, or drugs.

maybe she gets into these thing later; expanding on these points may bind the bundles nicely especially if physiological correlates are integrated.

I think she is struggling towards a working model for consciousness and so the title is a bit misleading, but attractive.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:


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Offlinenotleaf
beast
Male

Registered: 05/23/06
Posts: 30
Loc: Tennessee
Last seen: 16 years, 4 months
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #5672227 - 05/25/06 10:42 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

neat. i'd like to address the title of the post opposed to the article. it seems mind is located where goodness is. mind is where we have our awareness honed in th epresent moment. it seems as if mind is able to lose itself due to certain outside factors but most of these come from within. these are those basic skills i've been talkin about again. or something. :laugh: my mind tends to yearn to become its environment and not located inside some sort of disgusting abstract human creation outside of the play.


--------------------
"Woo haw!"


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OfflineSyle
Kenai Sigh
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Registered: 10/16/05
Posts: 6,678
Loc: WA
Last seen: 10 months, 26 days
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: Icelander]
    #5672541 - 05/25/06 11:47 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
Moody Blues, On the Threshold of a Dream. :heart:




I knew it!! What is the name of that song?


--------------------
https://kenaisigh.bandcamp.com/ <- Just completed the 2021 RPM challenge for February - An EP in one month (5 songs or 20 minutes). Check it out!


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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Male

Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: Syle]
    #5672634 - 05/25/06 12:08 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

Syle said:
Quote:

Icelander said:
Moody Blues, On the Threshold of a Dream. :heart:




I knew it!! What is the name of that song?




I honestly don't remember. I was so impressed with it in my early trippin days of the 70s that I memorized it and it's still in there:grin: It's the intro to the first song. Lunar Eclispe should remember it or Hue.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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OfflineSyle
Kenai Sigh
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Registered: 10/16/05
Posts: 6,678
Loc: WA
Last seen: 10 months, 26 days
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: Icelander]
    #5672811 - 05/25/06 12:38 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

i love this album, i need to listen to this the next time i trip, might make for a journey to be remembered!


--------------------
https://kenaisigh.bandcamp.com/ <- Just completed the 2021 RPM challenge for February - An EP in one month (5 songs or 20 minutes). Check it out!


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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Male

Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: Syle]
    #5673063 - 05/25/06 01:31 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

It's one of my favorites. Slightly less spiritual and slightly more dreamy.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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OfflineDeviate
newbie
Registered: 04/20/03
Posts: 4,497
Last seen: 8 years, 4 months
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: Icelander]
    #5675913 - 05/26/06 03:52 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:


dev; Did you like the book? Will they ever be able to exlain it, you think?




i did not like the book, although at the time i was intriqued by the the idea that a person is made up of many small homunculi working together rather than a concrete self. the the book is incredibly long and full of needless philosophocal analogies and thought experiments and never goes beyond this initial idea. it never even attempts to explain consciousness at all in fact, it simply assumes materialism. read the reviews on amazon, they do a pretty good job of surmizing how i feel about it.

as for whether consciousness will ever be explained, i believe that better theories of consciousness will be developed and the problem will be much better understood but i don't know if its something that can be fully explained.


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Offlinefireworks_godS
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Registered: 03/12/02
Posts: 24,855
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Last seen: 1 year, 12 days
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: dorkus]
    #5676126 - 05/26/06 07:08 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

dr_mandelbrot said:
But this is a big mistake, argues Dennett. While almost everyone rejects outright Cartesian dualism, most psychologists and neuroscientists still believe in some kind of centre, where everything comes together and ‘consciousness happens’; some kind of magic finishing line beyond which events ‘come into’ consciousness, or a centre from where ‘my’ decisions are made and ‘my’ instructions sent out. But this cannot be, for the reality of the brain is a massively parallel system with no middle. So, as Dennett puts it “When you discard Cartesian dualism, you really must discard the show that would have gone on in the Cartesian Theater, and the audience as well, for neither the show nor the audience is to be found in the brain, and the brain is the only real place there is to look for them.” (Dennett 1991, p 134).




Awareness itself is the center. Certainly, there is no concrete "self", no identity or form from which all thoughts are chosen and decisions are made. Yet, surely, awareness itself is a state that serves as the formless backdrop agansit which all mental phenomenon occurs, without which, there would be nothing.

:earth: :sun: :headbang: :satansmoking:
Peace. :mushroom2:


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you

:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:


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InvisibleLakefingers

Registered: 08/26/05
Posts: 6,440
Loc: mumuland
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: fireworks_god]
    #5676982 - 05/26/06 12:26 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Tersely:

Blackmore you usually bore me:

There is no conclusion for, or in, the Western intellectual tradition except itself as a whole in that it ended when it started. This "conclusion" was made when epistemology and metaphysics were born. That is when, passive-aggressively, the objective "conclusion" was proclaimed by those in the spirit of Blackmore: "incorporate the Other into our there-leading-research, so it can eventually reach the level of progression of this Other (when in "fact" our progress is highest -- look only at our research tradition to see this!)".


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InvisibleLakefingers

Registered: 08/26/05
Posts: 6,440
Loc: mumuland
Re: Where is my mind? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #5676993 - 05/26/06 12:29 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:

I think she is struggling towards a working model for consciousness and so the title is a bit misleading, but attractive.




That's her "biggest mistake". Kant and transcendent systems have been destroyed, the norm is imploded, the simulacrum is stolen by philosophical pirates (of wisdom) and sailing the infinite seas of knowledge.


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