

You Are Not Your Brain - colins_pride
http://www.salon.com/env/atoms_eden/2009/03/25/alva_noe/index.html

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varjag
Must be dense today, but I don't really see what the arguing was about. That
the environment conditions and affects consciousness? There's hardly a single
neuroscientist who would object to that.

The analogy with car was really horrible, not to mention the point of it is
unclear.

It is understandable however that many people would find the idea of
consciousness as product of neural interaction uncomfortable. It strips human
of certain degree of divinity. I haven't read the book, but from the article
this seems to be author's major concern.

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jimbokun
"That the environment conditions and affects consciousness?"

That the environment is an integral part of consciousness.

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varjag
This suggests two interpretations for me: one is that the environment directly
affects the flow, shape and composition of one's conscious experience (i.e.
what I said), the other that the conscious process happens to some degree
extra-corporal so to say. Maybe there's some third interpretation that I miss?

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jimbokun
"one is that the environment directly affects the flow, shape and composition
of one's conscious experience"

I think he is saying not just that the environment "affects" consciousness,
but is part of what we mean when we use the word "consciousness." In other
words, the idea that you can "see" consciousness in an MRI scan is
fundamentally in error. You need to also examine the environment and context
in which that scan was taken, in order to make any progress in understanding
what consciousness is.

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inklesspen
I think by "consciousness" he may mean a different thing than I was expecting.
My definition goes back to the classic Cartesian "I think, therefore I am",
though I reject his subsequent dualism.

I think a brain-in-a-jar could also realize that he exists; he thinks, after
all, if life support is there. Of course, the world may well be necessary for
consciousness; maybe a brain-in-a-jar would never realize that he exists. But
the world is not involved in the "being conscious", any more than the road is
involved in my driving on it.

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jimbokun
"any more than the road is involved in my driving on it."

The road is absolutely involved in you driving on it. If it was not there, you
certainly would not be driving on it.

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branden
The road does not actively participate in your driving; it is indifferent to
it. Were you not driving, the road would still be there.

s/road/world/

s/driving/thinking/

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branden
"But the view that the self and consciousness can be explained in terms of the
brain, that the real us is found inside our skulls, isn't just misleading and
wrong, it's ugly. <snip> I find this a very sad and ugly picture of our
circumstance. Now contrast that view with a sense of ourselves as engaged in
the flow, responsive to the things going on around us, part of the world. It's
a very different picture."

So...is he arguing that brain-as-self is wrong because it's untrue, or wrong
because it's depressing? I've always understood myself as a being within a
brain, using my body for I/O. I agree that on its face it's a somewhat
alienating concept, and I'd love to believe otherwise, but Noë did nothing to
convince me it's untrue. Another example:

"The dominant view in neuroscience today represents us as if we were strangers
in an alien environment. It says that we go about gathering information,
building up representations, performing calculations and making choices based
on that data. But in reality, when we get up in the morning we put our feet on
the floor and start to walk. We take the floor for granted and the world
supports us, houses us, facilitates us and enables us to carry on whatever our
tasks might be. That kind of fluency, that kind of flow, is, I think, a
fundamental feature of our lives. Our fitting into the world is not an
illusion created by our brains, it's a fundamental truth about our nature.
That's what I mean by home sweet home."

I don't understand how he can assert that the process he describes has no part
in the way we start our day. We may not consciously decide whether the floor
is something we should walk on every day, but that doesn't mean it's not a
subconscious or instinctual decision that takes place within the brain. It
seems to me all he's advocating is a change in perspective, suggesting that we
are comfortable beings in a familiar "home," but this does nothing to shed
light on the nature of consciousness. Of course consciousness is an emergent
process that rises out of mind, body, and environment, but if it doesn't take
place within the brain, then where is it?

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jimbokun
"Of course consciousness is an emergent process that rises out of mind, body,
and environment,"

This, I think, is his point.

"but if it doesn't take place within the brain, then where is it?"

My guess is he might say asking "where" consciousness takes place is a
meaningless question.

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branden
I take his point, but I think you can agree with it and still treat
consciousness as something that takes place within the brain. I guess the
disagreement is over whether body, brain, and environment are all literally
parts of consciousness, or whether environment interpreted through the body is
an input to a consciousness process that takes place within the brain. Noë
doesn't make much of a case for his position, he only says it's a more
comforting way to go about things. Well that's fine, but that doesn't say much
about whether it's true.

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Dilpil
He is doing what all second tier philosophers do: fiddling with semantics.

~~~
sown
Oh, burn!

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ilaksh
Alva Noe has simply demonstrated that he is uncomfortable with science and
incapable of logical thought with regards to the brain. Neuroscience probably
invalidates his career.

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rw
Since when is reductionism a bad thing?

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stavrianos
Reductionism is a bad thing when you reduct away useful or necessary
information.

~~~
rw
Then you are slitting your wrists with Occam's razor. Nobody ought to do that.

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mjgoins
I highly recommend reading "Concsciousness Explained" by Dan Dennett. After
reading that it will be very easy to see how one's self can be identical to
one's brain.

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sown
So what's his proof?

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geuis
I AM my brain. All of my experiences happen within the physical construct that
floats in the calcium construct of my skull. The physical processes of my
neurons happen within the same physics that allow everything from quarks to
quasars to function. There is a physical process, not yet fully described,
that will describe how experience is formed and perceived. We're still getting
the data, and are working on the answers.

~~~
bfinch
I've always liked the "brain is to self as guitar is to music" analogy.
Sensory input is the guitar player. The monkey represents sharing.

------
known
You are a product of your environment. --Clement Stone

