How the brain produces self awareness

Thanks. I try to be as funny as possible. "Wetness" is a quality and qualities don't exist. You might as well say that the number 2 exists. I don't see the number 2 walking down the road or lying about on the lawn anywhere. If you say the number 2 exists, you've constructed an allegory, like when "anger" fights with "peace" in a Medieval psychomachia.

I'm putting forth the argument that the self, if physical, does not exist.

It sounds like we are in agreement. I put forth the Buddha's argument that the self does not exist. That in my words, it's an artifact of syntax. In brief it's an illusion. Not sure what you might see as falling into the class of not physical though so we might have some point(s) of disagreement.lfen

robinrohanSo how does it follow that something,being physical,ceases to exist?

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So you just said but I think I put that myth to rest in my post. Wetness describes a very measurable phenomenon of fluids, so it does exist in that sense.

The next time you see an abstraction wandering about loose, let me know. I would like to see one.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-25-2006 05:48 PM

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We are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.--Matthew Arnold"It's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."Our Nada, who art in Nada, Nada be thy name. Hail, Nothing, full of Nothing, Nothing is with thee.--Hemingway"Headpiece filled with straw, Alas!"--T. S. Eliot

In order to have a self, you have to have certain attributes. A "physical self" does not have these attributes. A physical self is a thing. A "self" is defined as a being. A being has to have the ability to prefer one thing to another, for example. Something physical cannot prefer one thing to another, since it is not conscious.

I think what needs to be done is to not ask the question does self - reffering to self awareness exist , but rather , what is required in a brain to cause self awareness . How can we identify externally whether a creature posesses self awareness , and at what point of complexity of the brain does self awareness begin to be present .Atleast , thats where i would like to see this discussion headed , i think philosifising the word "self" is pretty fruitless to the end result that we obviously have self awareness , because we can consciously make decisions and think .This message has been edited by Darkmatic, 02-26-2006 05:42 AM

We also have a private experience of incorporeality but that is an illusion, as Sidelined has explained. It's because the brain has no feelers. If the self is physical, that means our thoughts are physically caused. If that is the case, then our thoughts are physical events. Physical events are automatic not willed. Consciousness would thus be an illusion. This would follow if consciousness evolved from something unconscious.So if I run through some logical process in my mind--say, a deductive process like a math problem--I'm not really "doing logic." My thoughts are caused physically, and so my conclusion is not arrived at by virtue of a logical process but rather by virtue of a physical cause. My conclusion, if true, just happens to be true accidentally and is not the result of reason. Reason is as much an illusion as this aura of incorporeality we have and this sense of self we have.We are automatons.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-26-2006 08:18 AM

Not sure what you mean by the brain having no feelers . I would agree that the self is physical as far as research so far is concerned , and would also agree that our thoughts are physical events also . I don't think consciousness is an illusion but rather our free will doesn't exist . I don't define consciousness as the ability to control your destiny but rather the awareness of ones self . But using that train of thought , yes i would suppose we are just spectators in our own lives , its all happening due to physical factors and not some magical spirit which governs our bodies which we call self .When You think about it , what really makes you yourself , if you have no ability to do anything different than what you were destined to do from the start . Maybe we are all parts of a broader consciousness , i think i understand that particular comment better now . This all makes me feel kinda Zen like . I can see where the whole Zen arguments coming from and in a way it makes sense .It kind of makes it easier then to enjoy the good moments of life , and not worry about the bad moments with this in mind .This message has been edited by Darkmatic, 02-26-2006 09:42 AM

I meant the same as this comment in the OP: One might take that approach. What we do or leave undone doesn't really matter. We're not responsible.

Ahh , i see , well its true the brain itself has no feeling but i dont think that has anything to do with consciousness . I cant see any evolutionary reason why a brain would evolve feeling so it doesnt really matter anyhow . But our consciousness atleast can be aware of though processes , they arent seperated from our consciousness we atleast know the thoughts even though they are being generated independantly from the "self" . In saying that i don't think this is a affirmation for people to not be accountable for their actions , your body can still decide whats good or not and thus you cant use it as an excuse to go doing insane things . Because your body will still be held responsible even if the "self" isnt , and your self is experiencing what the body does so it will only be painful for the "self" .

According to Sidelined, this lack of feelers causes the arua of incorporeality that we privately experience (which is the origin of religion, according to me).

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We are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.--Matthew Arnold"It's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."Our Nada, who art in Nada, Nada be thy name. Hail, Nothing, full of Nothing, Nothing is with thee.--Hemingway"Headpiece filled with straw, Alas!"--T. S. Eliot

I am inclined to disagree with that. Our experience is closely linked with our bodies. Oliver Sacks reported a case of a person who lost proprioception (feedback from the body), and how disconcerting this was. The report may have been in his book "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and other clinical tales." I think that, too, is wrong. The ordinary proprioceptive system does not provide feedback from the brain. However, there are enormous numbers of neurons that do feedback brain information to other parts of the brain. You might want to take a look at "Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: on the matter of the mind," the 1992 book by Gerald Edelman. Edelman uses the term "reentrant neurons" to refer to these feedback neurons, and he argues that they are important to consciousness. We are very different from the automatons that are usually described by mathematicians and computer scientists.

What is it you are disagreeing with?