[FRIAM] BRAINS - forked from: Self-Consciousness, experience and metaphysics

[Prof David West]

if this discussion goes further it should be forked from Nick's original thread and its focus.

Brains are not special.

Neither are they the sole embodiment of 'thinking', 'computing', 'reasoning', 'perceiving', interpreting sensations', etc. 

Some of the things humans do using their brains (primarily the left-brain and little else), can be emulated and surpassed by machines. Others, e.g., generating 'correct' outputs from incomplete, ambiguous, and contradictory inputs, have yet to be demonstrated. Still others, getting high or tripping, are not even seriously contemplated.

The error is equating a subset of a human being, its brain, as the totality.

davew

On Fri, Jul 26, 2024, at 11:56 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> We keep returning to it because some people think brains are special – like nonphysical and non-computable -- and in ways they can’t or won’t articulate.
>  
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Nicholas Thompson
> *Sent:* Friday, July 26, 2024 9:25 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>; Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Self-Consciousness, experience and metaphysics
>  
> Not at all clear to me why we keep returning to BRAINS in a discussion of EXPERIENCE or BEHAVIOR.  Experience and behavior remain the same and and their organization needs to be described, no matter how they are manufactured.   As Professor Joan Collins Famously Said:
>  
> *We've looked at brains from both sides now*
> *From in- and out- and still, some how,*
> *It's brains illusions we recall,*
> *We really don't know brains, at all.*
>  
>  In brain talk, there is a history of introjecting brain structure or process from behavioral or experiential regularities,and then coming back in the next sentence to explain those regularities as physiologically determined.  Why indulge in careful description of complex processes when a little circular reasoning is so satisfying. 
>  
> N
>  
>  
>  
> On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 12:56 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> David's last post so effectively blurs the lines between these two that I am going to give up, for the moment, on my attempt to keep them straight.
>>  
>> Intuition tells me that Dave's post falls on one side of the line, and Glen's on the other,  but I have to go shopping.   I am still hoping to hear examples of particular experiences with animals, computers, spouses, etc., that confirm your sense that they are not  only responding to the world around them, but also responding to their own responding to the world around them.
>>  
>> Back to this later when stocked up
>>  
>> In the meantime, Please, you-all, don't dick with this thread, don't fork it and do, if you are responding to a particular comment, speak to that person, don't just fling your wisdom out into the ether.
>>  
>> I never thought you guys would turn me into a thread-Nazi. 
>>  
>> Nick
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> Clark University
> 
> *Attachments:*
>  • smime.p7s
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