Monday, November 07, 2011

The brain and us ...

... Bryan Appleyard - Blog Archive - Scanning My Self. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Just like Bryan to note that not only does my suggestion not restate the "hard problem," it actually, if taken a bit further, eliminates it. Sir Russell Brain, in Mind, Perception and Science, noted that "when we're aware of an object, the sensations by means of which we perceive it can't be part of the physical object, for their physical basis in the brain is the sole necessary condition of their occurrence, and this is physically unlike, and occurs later in time than, the physical events in the object which make me aware of it." I suppose the same is true even of our own bodies.  Somewhere else in that book, Brain also says something to the effect that we perceive the world in terms of temporal, spatial and causal symbols created by nervous system to meet the needs of the organism. But among those symbols would be our bodies - along with their nervous systems - in the world. Perhaps matter is an epiphenomenon of mind, rather than mind an effect of matter. Being may be mind "mattering," as it were.

1 comment:

  1. 'Being may be mind "mattering," as it were.'

    No idea if it's true, but it's a grand sentence - one to add to add my list of steal 'em, somehow.

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