Luc Turpin

Me, not worth much! A personal judgement. Also, an expression frequently used when we are unsatisfied with the turn of events. You got to admit that this could all be much better. With less pain and sorrow and grief and war and illness and death. Even the possibility of actualizing notions of a "Brave new world", would be sufficient for many of us, and make it easier to accept. Just living a peaceful existence with an expiry date, would be fine by me. Living for eternity is a very long time to live, unless time and space do not really exist elsewhere, if elsewhere exists. All of this talk and my ego is still in the way, so I may not know really much about the meaning of existence.

Great! We do whatever is necessary to extract as much as we can out of this life situation. We all idealize a world with more purpose, but it is what it is, not what it should be.

1- Got me again! But, learned or cared without knowing is still caring and learning, Do it not? 2- Thinking only about it without caring, does it make it purposeful? I guess not! 3- Absolutely.

1- You are correct, I took Merleau-Ponty's and mentally "pasted-on" basal cognition onto it. Indication of how mind sometime works. Merleau also made the step easy to take. 2- Need not necessarily be realizable to be considered a purpose of existence. Aspiration-idealization pushes us onward while all of it being futile or not. 3- Even cells learn; reptiles show a sense of caring. Ants sacrifice themselves for the better of the community. Some plant cells do the same. Matter of form and degree of love-learn.

We exist to love and learn; silly isn’t it, but it is. I am sure that I will get no post traffic out of this one! Lot’s more uplifting than Monty Python’s version of it. Think about it before discarding it as senseless. Thinkers are light on one and heavy on the other. Also, brain creates mind or mind uses brain and cells to express itself? One is a majority while the other a very minority view in the field of consciousness.

Those that aspire to this "Brave new world" have purpose and meaning in their lives. Also, mistics say that true meaning in life is only found when the ego is no longer standing in the way.

Missed a great opportunity of shutting up and not saying anything.

1- Hard thing to do to listen, properly and honesly to the answer; got a long ways before I get there 2- Wisdom coming from dirmreepr; I am still a student, not a teacher! 3- Again, long road ahead of me!

According to the hologramic theory of mind, memory dims, but does not disapear - one of many theories of mind And according to basal cognition, all cells communicate, but the bulk of the work sitll remains with neurons i Guess. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brains-are-not-required-when-it-comes-to-thinking-and-solving-problems-simple-cells-can-do-it/ I would venture a guess and say that emotions do affect our consciousness. 1- "Merleau-Ponty emphasized the body as the primary site of knowing the world, a corrective to the long philosophical tradition of placing consciousness as the source of knowledge" - where did I go wrong in my understanding? And your interpretation of it seems to me to be correct. 2- Yep! Genady, Geordief- INow - good start to a very long overdue discussion on consciousness. To infinity and beyond. Open rather than closed system. You will be eating for a long-long time.

+1 Body instead of consciousness as source of knowledge - interesting. Based on the interpretation of some newer evidence, I would rather say "body as a source of consciousness." Perceived body and perceived world could not be disentangled from each other - very interesting. Context, interelationship... all of this matters to fully understand. Guess you will have to eat the room as well as the elephant; and the building containing the room; and the world containing the building.

Got that! still working on building my foundation. The good part is that I am trying to come at it with an open perspective, allowing evidence to guide me. I am especially on the lookout for anomalies in data. Yes, yes and yes, I also have my own biases at play. You are right! Saying so, because one says so, does not make it necessarily so. However, one needs to constantly question the status quo as no one knows when the next period of revolutionary science will occur. Thomas "Kuhn challenged the then prevailing view of progress in science in which scientific progress was viewed as "development-by-accumulation" of accepted facts and theories. Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of conceptual continuity where there is cumulative progress, which Kuhn referred to as periods of "normal science", were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science. The discovery of "anomalies" during revolutions in science leads to new paradigms. New paradigms then ask new questions of old data, move beyond the mere "puzzle-solving"[1] of the previous paradigm, change the rules of the game and the "map" directing new research.[2]" From Wiki I figure that I have a one in a thousand chance of boasting that I told you so on mind.

1- Good one; got to think again. 2- Helpful, thanks. 3- Some neuroscientists and me!

Cute! Reading more Kafka, Camus, Dawkins and Freud proscribed; psilocybin prescribed!😇 Some newer data-observation points do not tightly align with it being solely about self-replicating DNA. So, what do we do about it? Ignore it? Let data help us understand life, not judgement calls. Without subjective introspection of any kind, science becomes merely a bean counting, stamp collection and material comfort endeavour. And not reflect the reality of this world, especially the subjective one.

It matters. We do. So, let's stop ignoring, circumventing, disparaging or comparing it to "pseudo science, quasi scientific speculations, free riding ideas with no basis on (observable) reality, or metaphysical fantasies". Some of it is, but not all of it. We are smart enough to know the difference without having to throw the baby with the bath water. And let's not collectively freak out when Deepak or God is mentioned, or if it might bring into question a pillar of science. Is it hard to study? Yes. Is it difficult to measure? Yes. Is it subjective? Yes, but not all of it. Is it a random occurrence? Yes, but is it still? Does it need God to work? Not necessarily. Do we need a lot of evidence before accepting some of it? Yes. The elephant is growing. Having difficulty following you, but got this one. Correction - So, let's stop ignoring, circumventing, disparaging or comparing it to "pseudo science, quasi scientific speculations, free riding ideas with no basis on (observable) reality, or metaphysical fantasies" everytime we study it.

Unsatisfactory Why do we exist - this could all have been unanimated without existence. Just molecules bumping by accident into each other. Sorry for the bother, but it is not! There’s that silly thing called existence which is strongly corelated with being conscious of existence. So, why is it there? Why can we ask the question “why”? Claiming “selection” is avoiding a discussion on the fundamental nature of existence. And where did it come from? On this, don't get me going by telling me that it is an emergent property of matter, because this is a big cop-out for, we don’t know! These questions are all valid for the asking, with or without God being summoned. or even bother existing - if it is all for nothing, why do you wake up in the morning and do what you do? The elephant is still standing.

No less trainable, but I do ask why? I am an eternal optimist still in seach of it, with the impression that I will be disapointed Not special nor spiritual, but mind does not work like we think.

What is the nature of existence? Ephemeral…. and therefore meaningless is the logical conclusion! So, why do we exist or even bother existing? Now, these questions are worth pondering! Circumventing meaning to discuss the nature of existence is avoidance. The elephant is still in the room.

Gravity is intrinsic to nature and the universe. Do we invoke a deity to explain gravity? Then, why is it an incontrovertible requirement of mind when it is entertained as intrinsic to nature? It's similar to your comment about trees not knowing why! I am still struggling with this one. If I give you a complex behaviour such as this one: Bumblebees successfully learned a two-step puzzle box task through social observation. This task was too complex for individual bees to learn on their own. Observing trained demonstrator bees performing the first unrewarded step was crucial for successful social learning. Bee-2-Bee influencing: Bees master complex tasks through social interaction | ScienceDaily I guess that you would say something in this line of thinking: "ants, simple algorithm; bumblebees, complex algorithm, but nonetheless same thing". So, I am still stuck on this one! Agreed; Does not prove nor dispel. This applies to everything in science and life. Too many involved for all of them to be lying. Aware or unaware bias, we all bring our baggage along with us. I had conversations with Paul Pietsch and he was an anatomist that...."was certain beyond a conscious doubt that the truth about life would reduce directly and explicitly to the architecture of the things that do the living. I had complete faith, too, that my science would one day write the most important scientific story of all: how a brain gives existence to a mind. But I was wrong". So, before his experimentation began, his bias was in favour of mind being explained by brain, not the opposite. Agree, agree, agree. I guess that we can grow with the help of knowledge and one day be able to see through the window, only to discover that the window is not a window, but a blank space leading to a dead end. Then, should-I have used "simple binary response" instead of action potential in relation to synaptic firing?

We will never know for sure, but we can get close to knowing. A while back, we thought that non-human animals could not feel pain or emotions. Now, we are almost certain that they do, without having acquired full disclosure. It is the same with consciousness. Every time I go down a rabbit hole, I come back up with more data that makes me less and less a believer that it is only about neuronal synapses. Knowing that we will never know if computers are truly conscious, does not stop us from trying to build one and understand it. Conversely, knowing that we will never know for sure about consciousness should not stop us from trying to get as close to an answer as we can. Who knows, maybe one day we can even reach full disclosure on the matter. Maybe using action potential in the wrong way; meant meeting a certain threshold before firing; not reaching threshold implies not firing at all. No middle ground. Note: Could not quote from your last post, so I took your first one and pasted onto it the text of your last one. Don't know why it was not working. I am not saying that our current understanding of the mind-brain connection is wrong, but incomplete. I bring philosophical baggage to the table, but may have more knowledge of this fact than most in the hard sciences. Aware that philosophy is hard on pseudo science, quasi scientific speculation, free riding ideas with no basis on (observable) reality, or metaphysical fantasies. What I am trying to do here is neither of what is indicated. Posted phenomenon (NDE's and terminal lucidity) because they exist and challenge the orthodox view of the mind-brain connection. Agree that all posted theories cannot all be correct. I have put them out there to show that consensus on the matter is far from being reached. Also, all theories presented provide observations or experimental results to back them up. It is telling that if you cut a flatworm in two that the tail part will re-grow a head that remembers a task that the former head learned. Where was memory stored? Cannot be in brain neuronal synapses as there were none at some point in time. And Shuffle Brain is decades of meticulous dissection experimentation before coming to the conclusion that "shuffling the brain does not compromise the mind". Removing any part of a salamander brain dims the memory, but never erases it. These are strong indicators that something beyond synapses may be going on. That mind may be (not "is") an intrinsic part of nature rather than an emergent property of matter is a big deal worth investigating. Thought that I had posted this, but not showing up, so here it is again. We will never know for sure, but we can get close to knowing. A while back, we thought that non-human animals could not feel pain or emotions. Now, we are almost certain that they do, without having acquired full disclosure. It is the same with consciousness. Every time I go down a rabbit hole, I come back up with more data that makes me less and less a believer that it is only about neuronal synapses. And knowing that we will never know if computers are truly conscious, does not stop us from trying to build one. Conversely, knowing that we will never know for sure should not stop us from getting as close to an answer as we can. Maybe using potential in the wrong way; meant meeting a certain threshold before firing; not reaching threshold implies not firing at all. No middle ground. Oups, showed up!

Chasing data rather than a rabbit down a hole Can't help myself! Here is another data hole - Shuffle Brain – The Quest for the Hologramic Mind by Paul Pietsch. Very rigorous experimentation on salamander larvae done in the 80’s, but completely ignored by the scientific community. "Shuffling the brain does not scramble the mind. How does the brain store memory? Many theories located memory in a specific area of the brain – until the development of the hologram……” “Holograms can be made to mimic many brain activities, suggesting that the brain ‘encodes” memory in a similar way. Memory thus may depend on wave-phase relationships rather than on specific parts of the brain. Punky, Julius and Cyclops (salamander larvae) have demonstrated that parts of a brain may be reshuffled without scrambling the meaning of the information it stores.” Again, another theory of mind. Apparently, it processes more that simple data and if it thinks as we understand it, we will never know as in the dog example. Good point. Got to think about that one! I am in general aggrement with statements made in paragraphs 1 and 2; In cells and proteins, it's a precursor to mind, maybe not mind itself. But, clumps of cells generating primitive cognition brings a lot more entities around the dinner table. And, you will disagree with this statement, makes mind or its precursor play a more prominent role in the game of life and evolution. As for paragraph 3, some articles that I consulted used action potential as a "go" or "not go" potential. Maybe I mixed things up! Meant "go" or "no go"; sorry!

Hope his five-star prison runs out of caviar and champagne; Don jr!, what a lightbulb!

I thought long and hard about thinking coming solely from synaptic action reaction and was getting to agree with your position until, by chance, I stumbled on the following article. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brains-are-not-required-when-it-comes-to-thinking-and-solving-problems-simple-cells-can-do-it/ What if all cells, not only neurons, can process information? Would they still do it by action potential, I am not sure! They talk about transistors, but not sure if it only applies to neurons. The article also reaffirms some of my assumptions that cognition is a bottom-up process and is everywhere in nature. It also has sections on robotics and AI that I did not quite understand, but seem to navigate towards your contention on this matter. A must read and here are some of the highlights: Brains not required when it comes to thinking and solving problems; Planarians (flatworms) that have learned a skill are cut in half; the tail end of a planarian re-grows a head that remembers the task; Regular cells have the ability to store information and act on it; Difference between cell clumps and brains as ones of degree, not kind; No brain required for intelligence; Intelligence is all over the life kingdom "The orthodox view of memory is that it is stored as a stable network of synaptic connections among neurons in a brain. “That view is clearly cracking,” Perhaps memory capability is bioelectric not biochemical (convincing experiments in the article - messed up frog face "Fused into a hive mind through bioelectricity, the cells achieved feats of bioengineering well beyond those of our best gene jockeys); "Indeed the very act of living is by default a cognitive state". "Every cell needs to be constantly evaluating its surroundings, making decisions about what to let in and what to keep out and planning next steps. "Cognition didn't arrive later in evolution; it's what made life possible." Taking in to account this and the two other articles that I posted in this thread, and knowing that there are other theories around mind, who can pretend that the issue of how mind work is settled?

A "new phase" such as passing a tipping point and entering uncharted territory in relation to significant consequences; things speeding up and getting much worse. Soon we will be nostalgic about the "good old" years. We will remember common things that are no longer available. Uplifting you are not, but realistic you are. One of my greatest worries is famine overtaking the world and the social unrest-chaos that it will engender. Think migration is a problem today. I believe that its too late and going to hurt. Yes, sensitive to initial conditions; had we done something then we would be in a much better situation today. We also missed other "off-ramps" in the early stages of this climate change situation that would have made a difference. We talked a lot and then did not walk the talk.

I will be offline for the weekend!

Yes it does........not so simple Apparently, all cells including neurons use multiple signals at the same time to communicate: · Secreted chemicals - action potential when occurring at the synapse · Launched sacs filled with genetic instructions - don't think its' action potential · Electric currents - electrical current not action potential (wiring), but neuron firing is action potential · Electromagnetic waves - field generation not action potential, but firing is · Physical contact by cells - guess not action potential · Biological nanotubes between cells - not sure; could not get the info There is also talk of overall brain electromagnetic waves being used for communication, which should not be action potential. The debate as I see it is whether or not neurons solely communicate by synaptic potential or are there other means. Recent evidence tends to favour the latter. And if all modes of communication use the action potential function. For a general outline of vescicle complexity here is a link https://jonlieffmd.com/blog/extra-cellular-vesicles-brain