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Author Topic:   Your eternal destination: you decide.
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 239 of 246 (365568)
11-23-2006 8:49 AM
Reply to: Message 238 by nator
11-23-2006 8:07 AM


Re: sense/feel
We can only EXACTLY know our own sensations and feelings.
Coincidentally I attended a lecture by Paul Churchland the other week where he somewhat disproved that notion.
He defends a position known as eliminative materialism where all feeling states are thought to be nothing but physical processes and so describable (and predictable) from that angle.
He had the audience help out with some experiments, showing that he could predict the exact color sensations we would claim to sense, including "impossible" colors (ones which are not available to human vision but are from neural processes) that he could generate. It was pretty wild.
Further he went on to show how he could predict what gender we would describe seeing, and that he could artificially induce us to "feel" a specific gender by tiring certain perceptual neurons. Specifically he could get the audience to flip our feeling for what gender a single face was.
It was almost like a magic act in that you knew just moments ago the face was certainly male, but now you could only see it as female... it didn't even look the same... with no change in the actual image or its surroundings.
If you truly like EvoPsych, then eventually it may be that your claim above is refuted. All of our feelings are the same because they are the same physically. That's exactly what these guys are driving at.
This isn't to debate the point, just thought it would be interesting.

holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 238 by nator, posted 11-23-2006 8:07 AM nator has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 240 by Heathen, posted 11-23-2006 9:52 AM Silent H has replied
 Message 241 by Wounded King, posted 11-23-2006 10:12 AM Silent H has replied
 Message 244 by nator, posted 11-23-2006 12:54 PM Silent H has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 242 of 246 (365587)
11-23-2006 11:16 AM
Reply to: Message 241 by Wounded King
11-23-2006 10:12 AM


Re: sense/feel
Well I almost did use the term qualia... should people not say inversion either? Heheh... But I didn't understand the Mary reference.

holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 241 by Wounded King, posted 11-23-2006 10:12 AM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 246 by Wounded King, posted 11-23-2006 4:29 PM Silent H has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 243 of 246 (365595)
11-23-2006 12:06 PM
Reply to: Message 240 by Heathen
11-23-2006 9:52 AM


Re: sense/feel
I had not heard of NLP nor Derren Brown. The former seems similar in some background assumptions as what I was discussing (though not at all in practical matters), while the latter has nothing to do with Churchland's work (but is interesting as illusionist type stuff goes).
This was actual science about how the mind works on the physical level to perceive, and not some movement suggesting treatment or simply to wow people.
In the case of colors, for example, the way eyes process color at the neuron level has been investigated. We are trichromatic (theor. possibility of tetrachromatic) which means we have three color "sets" which determine how we see any particular color. They work on a series of neuron impulses which activate or inhibit on each of the specific "sets". BTW I am simplifying this.
A neutral signal (so a balance of excitatory and inhibitory impulses) results in a grey perception. One can overwork a neuron which makes it shift toward grey (resting status).
That can be played with in predictable ways. A 3D table has been contructed based on all possible visual colors. Using the fact that neurons "burn out" with overexposure, and so shift toward grey (on that set), one can use the chart to predict what color you will see when your "burned out" neurons look at a different color. It should be shifted in a predictable way. In fact it does.
The exciting thing was that the brain's processing can theoretically process more colors (when looking at all excitatory/inhibitory combos) than are in the full range of visual color possibilities. The question was raised whether we could be forced to "see" these new colors which are not possible to be seen in reality (they don't have a real wavelength) but is theoretically predicted to be seen because our brain processes color using this trichromatic system.
So one burns out the neuron processing a certain color and then looks at black, the result would be that we see some wholly new color... it looks black as black can be but it is also blue for instance. An impossible color to exist, but our brains make it real. He called these things chimerical colors. A figment of how our brains work to process color for us, but as it is a system of impulses that can be fatigued it can be manipulated internally to produce novel (yet predictable) sensations.
The gender recognition thing was wilder and more intriguing since it wasn't simply a color neuron that was being overloaded. Clearly in this case we have recognition filter neurons (which would not be located directly in the retina) which could also be fatigued.

holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 240 by Heathen, posted 11-23-2006 9:52 AM Heathen has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 245 of 246 (365605)
11-23-2006 1:28 PM
Reply to: Message 244 by nator
11-23-2006 12:54 PM


Re: sense/feel
Whoaaaa was I way off. Sorry about that. I just popped in and saw your post then read back only one or two posts. Clearly I did not read far or well enough.

holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 244 by nator, posted 11-23-2006 12:54 PM nator has not replied

  
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