Material traces

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PJ

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Mar 28, 2013, 5:40:32 PM3/28/13
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Chapter 7 - 'Are Memories Stored as Material Traces' [in the brain] of
Sheldrake's latest book states the following:

"In order for a memory trace to be consulted or reactivated, there has
to be a retrieval system, and this system needs to identify the stored
memory it is looking for. To do so it must recognize it, which means
the retrieval system must itself have a memory. There is therefor a
viscious regress: if the retrieval system is endowed with a memory
store, this in turn requires a retrieval system with memory, and so on
ad infinitum."

I found this fascinating. Is there any way around this problem that
you can see, or how might a materialist philosopher of mind speculate
on such a matter? Perhaps a thinker such as Dennett would make
analogies with the operations of a computer.

Bernardo, I'm thinking you're especially equipped to address this
issue...

Take it easy! :0)

Bernardo

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Mar 29, 2013, 4:41:59 AM3/29/13
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Exactly, Dennett would simply say: It works in a computer, doesn't it? And he'd be right. Sheldrake's argument here is a fallacious infinite-regress. In a computer, both the 'code' and the 'data' are stored in memory. Access to data is made through addressing code. The 'retrieval system' doesn't need to 'recognize' the stored information, but just be able to address it, in the same way that you can find a postal box by its number, without knowing what is stored in it. The addresses are themselves stored in memory, and the code keeps track of them merely by the logical sequence of the computations. In the case of the brain, if the 'traces' could be found, the entire problem would be resolved for the same reason that a computer doesn't have any problem dealing with addressing memory or running its code. Sheldrake's argument makes no sense to any computer engineer and, in fact, the very existence of computers defeats the argument.

To me, the key question is: Can the traces be found? So far, they haven't.

To me, we're looking at the problem in the wrong way. I see the brain as the image of a self-localization process in the fabric of mind, like a whirlpool is a self-localization of water in a stream. If our consciousnesses weren't localized, it would make no sense to speak about 'memory retrieval': All reality, past, present, and future, would be a simultaneous experience. There would be nothing to recall because whatever could be recalled would already be in the present experience. So the active process here is the localization -- the forgetting -- not the recalling. People with 'good memory' are simply people who can relax the localization process more or less at will, allowing back in what is already fundamentally available to awareness anyway, beyond space-time constraints. There is no need to 'store' anything anywhere because everything is already at hand. Recall is more akin to removing blinders than reaching out for a drawer.

Cheers, B.

mr.m...@gmail.com

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Mar 30, 2013, 5:59:07 AM3/30/13
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What about John von Neumann's brain? He was able to instantaneously perform complex operations in his head and quote verbatim books that he had read years before without hesitation; for example when someone asked him how Dickens' The Tale of Two Cities started, he began to recite the first chapter and continued until he was asked to stop after about ten or fifteen minutes. Obviously he remembered the whole book.

Bernardo

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Mar 30, 2013, 6:21:16 AM3/30/13
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Well, as I mentioned above, I think everyone is fundamentally able to 'remember' anything if only the constraints of localization are relaxed. That, I believe, is why certain types of brain damage are linked to extraordinary feats of memory. See: Treffert, D. (2009). The Savant Syndrome: An Extraordinary Condition. A Synopsis: Past, Present, Future. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 364(1522), p. 1353.

mr.m...@gmail.com

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Mar 30, 2013, 7:15:40 AM3/30/13
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If the constraints of localization are relaxed, what could happen to the body? St Joseph of Cupertino was remarkably unclever, but perhaps that made him able to levitate.

The Scottish medium D.D.Home often levitated pianos in trance and even himself out the window. The Brazilian medium Carlos Mirabelli once vanished in the railroad station of Da Luz and reappeared two minutes later in Sao Vincenti (a 90 kilometres distance) and levitated in the street two metres high for three minutes. Does this make any sense?


torstai, 28. maaliskuuta 2013 23.40.32 UTC+2 PJ kirjoitti:

Bernardo

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Mar 31, 2013, 7:49:18 AM3/31/13
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Without arguing about the specific cases you bring up, I don't think the rationale about relaxing the filter constraints had to do with the abilities of the body. The body is an image of the localization process, so yes, it is expectable that relaxing the constraints has a correlate in the physical body, and that is reduction of brain activity. But to go from here to saying that bodies can, thus, levitate, is way too large a step for me, personally...
Gr, B.

David Bailey

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Apr 1, 2013, 5:26:57 PM4/1/13
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I think Sheldrake's argument has a lot of force. I think his idea is something like this.

Suppose I remember something I did in school - such as one particular (real) incident when I made the same mistake as the most stupid boy in the class - drawing a line with a ruler, and forgetting my thumb was in the way - I still remember the embarrassment! The point is that unlike the computer, I can access that memory from an almost infinite number of directions. For example, I might be reminded of it by a story with a similar sort of moral to it, or I might be reminded by seeing a ruler, or maybe by seeing one of the little classroom chairs we used. It is as though you already have to have accessed the memory in order to know its relevance so that you can load it.

I don't think this is analogous to the computer case because in the computer, there are a finite number of ways to address the memory item - known when the memory is laid down. Human memories arguably do not behave like computer memories at all.

Indeed, I rather feel that computer analogies to mental activity can be quite misleading in many ways.

David

Stewart Lynch

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Apr 2, 2013, 5:54:18 AM4/2/13
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Being a computer scientist I don’t usually like the analogy to of consciousness to computers, but in this case I think it can illuminate something about memory. If our memory is like a computer’s memory, and consciousness is the software, then just as software is a pattern in memory, consciousness is a pattern in memory. Memory then becomes elevated to the medium of consciousness, maybe this even fits in with your membrane model Bernardo? Everything is patterns/vibrations in this medium. Sheldrake’s infinite cycle of memory and consciousness only arises if one thinks of consciousness and memory as two separate things. I think he is totally correct to point this out. If one accepts that they are two properties of something higher the cycle vanishes.

 

Stewart.

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Bernardo

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Apr 2, 2013, 10:53:06 AM4/2/13
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I will beg to disagree here. Associative neural networks can do precisely what you describe below, and they are run as programs in regular computers. Depending on the application, a memory address can be calculated in an infinitude of different ways -- exploring different data correlations -- so to access the same information. I don't really see a problem.
Gr, B.

Bernardo

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Apr 2, 2013, 10:56:24 AM4/2/13
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Well, if Sheldrake's argument depends on one accepting Dualism as a premise, then it begs the question; it assumes that which he indirectly wants to prove. Regarding the rest of your comment, I agree.
Gr, B.
PS: Don't get me wrong: I agree that we won't find memory as material traces in the brain. And I like Sheldrake's book quite a bit. But accepting a correct conclusion based on the wrong argument is not helpful. This particular argument of Sheldrake is, in my view, simply wrong, and he would have better not added this unnecessary piece.

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David Bailey

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Apr 2, 2013, 12:43:44 PM4/2/13
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On Tuesday, April 2, 2013 3:53:06 PM UTC+1, Bernardo wrote:
I will beg to disagree here. Associative neural networks can do precisely what you describe below, and they are run as programs in regular computers. Depending on the application, a memory address can be calculated in an infinitude of different ways -- exploring different data correlations -- so to access the same information. I don't really see a problem.
Gr, B.


I must admit to doubting this. ANN's seem best for unconscious processing  of data such as visual inputs etc. The problem from a theoretical point of view, is that the properties and ultimate limits of ANN's are a bit vague - certainly they haven't resulted in real AI as yet - even in a limited domain. Are you really willing to pursue this idea to its limits - accepting that a computer might act as a 'zombie' - respond exactly like a human brain without actually experiencing anything? I'd have thought that the problems explaining human minds is the main reason to propose an expanded paradigm such as idealism!

David

Bernardo

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Apr 2, 2013, 12:50:11 PM4/2/13
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You are taking the question way beyond its original context. Let's bring it back: Sheldrake's argument is that there is necessarily infinite regress in addressing memory. I contend that there isn't. I am not going into strong AI in my argument. All I am saying is that there is no infinite regress in addressing memory content in an algorithmic fashion. Computers are proof of it. ANNs have been shown to correlate variaties of data to arrive at the proper addresses to access information, which, if I understood your original argument correctly, was precisely what you were sceptical about.

Again, I agree with Sheldrake's conclusion, but not with this particular argument of his.

Gr, B.

David Bailey

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Apr 3, 2013, 5:39:39 PM4/3/13
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On Tuesday, April 2, 2013 5:50:11 PM UTC+1, Bernardo wrote:
You are taking the question way beyond its original context. Let's bring it back: Sheldrake's argument is that there is necessarily infinite regress in addressing memory. I contend that there isn't. I am not going into strong AI in my argument. All I am saying is that there is no infinite regress in addressing memory content in an algorithmic fashion. Computers are proof of it. ANNs have been shown to correlate variaties of data to arrive at the proper addresses to access information, which, if I understood your original argument correctly, was precisely what you were sceptical about.

I think that to implement human like memory, you would practically need strong AI. Take my example memory - I might access it in all sorts of forms - perhaps in some sort of vague analogy - say if I saw two people make the mistake of getting on an ice rink still with their skate guards on - one a novice, and the other a much better skater. It might remind me of my childhood memory, but as Sheldrake says, that means that you need to have already accessed the memory in order to know you want to access it. I agree it is hard to be dogmatic - because the ultimate capabilities of ANN's are somewhat vague, and I suppose it might be possible to run every NN corresponding to every memory whenever anything happens - but that seems a bit too much!

David
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PJ

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Apr 3, 2013, 11:47:22 PM4/3/13
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Thank you for the reply, Bernardo. Very elucidating as usual.

What you've stated has got me thinking about Vallee's TEDx presentation, specifically synchronicities, which by his explanation are created by 'double causality'?? The examples he states don't seem to have any cause/effect relationship, retroactive or otherwise. I don't even understand it enough to know how to frame a coherent question.
Also, would you agree to the related idea that consciousness creates the illusion of time and space "by traversing through associations in the world of information?"

Best, pj

pj

Bernardo

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Apr 4, 2013, 2:34:17 AM4/4/13
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Vallee's statement is intriguing, but I don't feel comfortable agreeing or disagreeing with, because it's not clear to me exactly how traversing associations can create time; after all, traversing is itself a process in time. Yet, I intuitively sense what Vallee is saying, and I feel that there is something to it. I just can't pin it down.

On the synchronicity question, an interesting approach is to really think about what causality is. As Alan Watts said, if you saw a cat through the slit of a fence as the cat walked along on the other side, you would see a cat's head and then a cat's tail. Every time the cat went along you would see a head followed by a tail. You could then be tempted to say that the head causes the tail while, in fact, head and tail are simply parts of a whole pattern; namely, a cat. The temptation to create the concept of causality here arises only because of our inability to see the whole pattern, for we are limited to the slit.

If you extrapolate that to all reality, it is conceivable that causality is human-created concept simply reflecting our inability to see the whole universal pattern. Synchronicities would, in that case, simply be regularities of that pattern that escape our current, precarious modeling of causality.

Cheers, B.

Noah Vickstein

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Apr 4, 2013, 4:32:54 AM4/4/13
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Yeah, I just want to say causality is exceedingly difficult to parse -- more so than I had ever thought.  There are a host of logical fallacies associated with it (post hoc ergo propter hoc is when we assume that the head causes the tail in Bernardo's example, for instance, because the tail comes after the head).  In statistics there is a famous phrase: Correlation does not imply causation.  This is important because of possible joint effects, otherwise known as the 'third variable problem' -- which is the idea that a potential third variable could be a hidden causal factor.

Causal determination is fraught with ambiguity, but one would never know it the way people ordinarily speak, which is with the authority afforded by certitude.

I could be wrong, but I thought synchronicity describes an a-causal phenomenon, meaning it's correlative but it would be erroneous to speak of it in terms of causality.  Obviously I'd have to watch the talk in question, but maybe "double causality" is an allusion to both effects seemingly causing each other?

I had a (admittedly realist) insight some months ago that the subjective account of time seems intrinsically tied to metabolism.  Hence, fasting being utilized to achieve timeless states, or the relationship between binge eating and depression.  I don't think I could offer a guess as to what causes what, though.  Perhaps that's what Vallee means by "double causation."

Bernardo

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Apr 4, 2013, 5:03:08 AM4/4/13
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Noah,
Yes, Jung and Pauli defined synchronicity as an 'acausal connecting principle,' suggesting that it reflects a pattern that unifies inner psychic states with outer empirical states. But in defining synchronicity as 'acausal,' they were assuming causality as we ordinarily understand it; they didn't want to fight a battle of that front. My point is that, if you question causality as we ordinarily understand it, it could be that the hidden pattern Jung and Pauli alluded to is one and the same with the pattern behind ordinary 'causality.'
Cheers, Bernardo.

Noah Vickstein

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Apr 4, 2013, 1:08:29 PM4/4/13
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Hey Bernardo,

Thanks for the reply, but I'm not sure I 'get' this just yet.  I can get on board with the entanglement between 'inner' and 'outer' states.  I guess I'm just not clear on what is meant by 'ordinary' causality -- or, for that matter, what the 'hidden pattern' alludes to.  Sorry for being so dense on this particular issue!

Bernardo

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Apr 4, 2013, 2:09:27 PM4/4/13
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Well, there might not have been much to see in what I said... :-) It was just vague speculation on my part. My point was that there may be no such a thing as causality in the way we ordinarily conceive of it. It may all be just a limited view of the unfolding of a much broader universal pattern. The parts of this unfolding that we can make sense of, we call causality. The parts we cannot make sense of, because of violation of locality constraints, may be 'synchronicity.'
Cheers, B.

Noah Vickstein

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Apr 4, 2013, 3:06:58 PM4/4/13
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Gotcha.  I think.  I resonate with the idea that our conception of the causal arc being pushed from the past may be in error.  So, synchronicity is like a kind of magical causality?  I'd like to find out more about what constitutes it, if I can.  It seems kind of an obscure category, like déjà vu.

Bernardo

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Apr 4, 2013, 3:13:47 PM4/4/13
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Time itself may be part of the limiting 'slit in the fence', like Vallee suggested (quoted by someone either here or in another thread), which would indeed put the notion of a 'causal push from the past' in question.

And yes, synchonicity is not an explicitly-elaborated concept, so it leaves lots of things open (especially if you try to think of it in terms of ordinary causality). Jung wrote a book about it: 'Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle.' There is a Routledge reprint available, more or less recent.

Gr, B.

mr.m...@gmail.com

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Apr 4, 2013, 3:22:11 PM4/4/13
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Life emerged when dark energy overcame gravity about 7 billion years ago. It has been suggested by some Australian scientists that the emergence of life and dark energy are closely related (actually I got the same idea all by myself). Dark energy could be an information matrix, a permanent source code beneath the physical world. Dark energy could be a scalar field that interacts with brain neurons but so weakly that it cannot yet be detected. Dark energy was discovered in 1998, quite simultaneously with breakthrough of a physical information matrix that we call the web. Comment please.



torstai, 28. maaliskuuta 2013 23.40.32 UTC+2 PJ kirjoitti:

Bernardo

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Apr 4, 2013, 3:47:16 PM4/4/13
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The Earth is ~4.5 billion years old, so the 7 billion years figure cannot be right.
I am not sure I understand what it means for dark energy to have 'overcome' gravity. The universe has always been expanding, and accelerating at that, despite gravity. What is the moment of discontinuity, or transition, or reversal, that could be described as dark energy 'overcoming' gravity? 'Overcoming' in what sense?
I would be curious to see the what the Australian scientists said. Do you have a reference?
Cheers, B.

mr.m...@gmail.com

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Apr 5, 2013, 2:01:46 AM4/5/13
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http://news.discovery.com/space/what-does-et-and-dark-energy-have-in-common-110907.htm

Dark energy makes galaxies move away from us at an accelerating rate. If there were no dark energy, they would move away from us at an decelerating rate. Dark energy doesn't dilute away as the universe expands, but matter does. The moment of reversal occurred a few billion years ago, I am not sure about the exact figure.


torstai, 28. maaliskuuta 2013 23.40.32 UTC+2 PJ kirjoitti:

Bernardo

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Apr 5, 2013, 3:00:11 AM4/5/13
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I will share my opinion on this. The actual paper is here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0703429v1.pdf. The press summary on discovery news is, in my opinion, not good. It makes a lot of hoopla about something remarkably unremarkable.

-- The 7-billion-years figure is the age of the universe at the time Earth-like planets could have began forming and, therefore, supporting life. The universe is about 13.7 billion years old. The Earth s only about 4.5 billion years old, which means that it formed about 9.2 billion years after the Big Bang;

-- What the authors are saying is that, for Earth-like planets to be able to form at all, certain conditions need to be in place. They calculated that such conditions would be in place roughly at a time when the density of matter in space would be roughly similar to the vacuum energy. Vacuum energy is one of the interpretations of what dark energy might be. So there is nothing spooky or mysterious here (this being the main argument of the authors).

-- The popular press article you linked talks about dark energy 'overcoming' matter. I find this characterization misleading. Vacuum energy is supposedly constant in space; it has a uniform density distribution across space. Gravity, on the other hand, is not uniformly distributed: It depends on the amount of matter present. Therefore, as the universe expands in space, and given that the amount of matter remains constant, you get less density of gravity. The density of vacuum energy, on the other hand, remains constant. Over time, therefore, vacuum energy plays a _relatively_ larger role than matter. The authors say that, for there to be observers capable of measuring these densities, a certain amount of time should have elapsed since the Big Bang, otherwise we wouldn't have enough time to 'evolve' into the intelligent creatures we are. As it turns out, the time required for that makes it highly likely that any intelligent observer would only be around to measure these densities at a moment when they are roughly the same. So there is no really mysterious coincidence here, according to the authors.

Overall, I don't read much into this. I find the universe extraordinarily mysterious, exciting, and probably incomprehensibly larger and more complex than we could ever imagine. But not because of this particular point.

Anyway, just my 2-cents...

Cheers, B.

Sciborg2 Sciborg2

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May 10, 2014, 5:07:43 AM5/10/14
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Is the computer actually remembering anything? As a Turing machine implemented on a particular & arbitrary substrate, isn't it just doing a lot of symbol manipulation based on human coders?

Basically, it seems to me that *we* remember things, and that is why the actions of the computer make sense. After all, if aliens implemented their computers via genetically engineered mollusks the patterns would not seem like computer memory to us.

Bernardo

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May 10, 2014, 5:15:26 AM5/10/14
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Yeah, if you define memory as experience recall, I think computers remember nothing insofar as they don't have subjective experience of the symbol manipulations they recirculate...
I talked a bit about it in Rationalist Spirituality.

Sciborg2 Sciborg2

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May 10, 2014, 6:11:27 AM5/10/14
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But doesn't that leave Sheldrake's argument of infinite regress intact? (Braude makes the same argument in Memory Without a Trace)

Computers, as the humanities scholar Calasso notes, are "prostheses for minds" but aren't minds themselves. They have a finite number of traces  to access memory because our consciousness does the heavy lifting of actually remembering what the symbols pushed around by computers mean. We basically chose the particular binary encodings information would be represented as, but that encoding is - it seems to me - arbitrary.

So it seems to me the question of how we remember symbols is still a problem?

Stewart Lynch

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May 10, 2014, 6:22:56 AM5/10/14
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Memory in a computer is simply a pattern. Could our memories be patterns in consciousness? Because consciousness is such a different medium from computer hardware it doesn’t necessarily have the same restrictions. In fact, everything could be described as a pattern in consciousness under idealism.

 

Maybe state is a better word than pattern, memory is a ‘state of consciousness’. Just like physical reality is a state of consciousness. I think memory is very closely related to imagination, which could be considered another state of consciousness.

 

I think we have to allow consciousness to be able to create, and this is very closely related to free will that we were talking about yesterday. If consciousness can create patterns in consciousness then a memory could be described as a temporary, or local pattern to an individual. Something that we create for ourselves, a copy of what we have experienced. It is of the same nature as the reality that we have collectively dreamed up, but it’s local to us, and somewhat temporary.

 

Stewart.

 

 

From: metaphysical...@googlegroups.com [mailto:metaphysical...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Sciborg2 Sciborg2
Sent: 10 May 2014 11:11
To: metaphysical...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Metaphysical Speculations] Re: Material traces

 

But doesn't that leave Sheldrake's argument of infinite regress intact? (Braude makes the same argument in Memory Without a Trace)

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Simm Hogue

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May 10, 2014, 6:37:47 AM5/10/14
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Eric Kandel won the 2000 Nobel for describing how short and long term memories are formed in brain.

Bernardo

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May 10, 2014, 6:40:55 AM5/10/14
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Well, the Braude/Sheldrake argument is independent of whether computers (or brains) actually have experience or, instead, simply manipulate information blindly. What they argue is that information cannot be accessed without a 'key' that must itself already contain the information to be accessed, which leads to infinite regress. So it's not a question of experiential recall, but data access.
I still do not think the argument is valid. We know that the brain does store a certain type of information physically, in the relative strength of each synapse. In artificial intelligence, particularly neuronal networks, we call those 'weight vectors.' These weights change measurably through learning and, thus, store information. Granted, this is not the type of information needed for storing e.g. the smell of a flower or an image of grandma, but it is the type of information useful for addressing and accessing data, which is what Sheldrake/Braude claim to be impossible. There was that recent experiment with rats in which they claimed they could 'implant memories.' Well, they didn't implant any memories, as I wrote in my blog, but the experiment does illustrate the point I am making here: synaptic weighting vectors are enough to address and access memory, like 'keys' or 'address codes.' And synaptic weighting vectors are known to be physically stored in the brain.
Cheers, Bernardo.

Bernardo

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May 10, 2014, 6:51:41 AM5/10/14
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Interestingly, Sheldrake quotes precisely Eric Kandel to make his point in The Presence of the Past:

Stewart Lynch

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May 10, 2014, 6:55:53 AM5/10/14
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Surely the key must be in consciousness, not in the brain. The key is the thing that gives the memory meaning and meaning can’t come from the physical reality.

 

Also, is there any evidence that any sort of memory is stored in the brain? Maybe the receiver is just re-structuring itself to better pick up certain types of signals. Why do people with brain damage have difficulty accessing stuff, surely they wouldn’t even know it was there is the key was erased from the brain. But with effort they can remember (because the key is actually perfectly safe in consciousness) the brain just has to learn how to re-structure itself to express that key.

 

Regards,

 

Stewart.

 

 

From: metaphysical...@googlegroups.com [mailto:metaphysical...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bernardo
Sent: 10 May 2014 11:41
To: metaphysical...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Metaphysical Speculations] Re: Material traces

 

Well, the Braude/Sheldrake argument is independent of whether computers (or brains) actually have experience or, instead, simply manipulate information blindly. What they argue is that information cannot be accessed without a 'key' that must itself already contain the information to be accessed, which leads to infinite regress. So it's not a question of experiential recall, but data access.

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Bernardo

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May 10, 2014, 7:02:35 AM5/10/14
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Just to clarify: I also believe that memories aren't stored as physical traces, as I mentioned in my first post in this thread. So I agree with the ultimate conclusion of Sheldrake. But I disagree that his specific argument of infinite regress proves anything. Moreover, his argument is one of contradiction: it assumes that memories are material traces and then proceeds to try to show a contradiction under that assumption. My attempt to debunk the argument is based on the same initial assumption that memories are material traces, and I then proceed to show that no infinite regress is entailed in that case, since computers can also recognize patterns and access the corresponding data. That doesn't mean, of course, that memories are indeed material traces.
Gr, B.
PS: I agree with you: it's all in consciousness.
PS2: I think it's not right to defend a certain point-of-view at all costs. We need to defend it correctly and rigorously, which means conceding when a particular argument in favor of our own point-of-view turns out to be false.

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Stewart Lynch

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May 10, 2014, 7:18:02 AM5/10/14
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I’m not familiar with Sheldrake’s argument. Is the infinite regress searching for what gives memories meaning? A memory is simply a pattern without meaning (in the brain or consciousness or whatever), and something more is needed to give that pattern meaning. If we assume memories are purely physical, then each memory would need another memory to give it meaning, but that memory itself would need another memory to give it meaning etc. thus proving that memories can’t be physical. Is that the gist of it? Seems reasonable to me.

 

All searches for consciousness or meaning end up in infinite regress when one looks for answers in the physical. It’s very similar to the Buddhist ‘first cause’ argument. Which also ties into the deterministic discussion we had. What is the cause of consciousness etc. The only way to get out of a cyclic thought chain is to go one level higher. If you can’t find a cause in your current world view, you must expand your world view and look at it from a higher level. Things are only cyclic if you limit your world view.

 

PS. I know you know this, I’m just trying to clarify and help to put into words, don’t know if I’m succeeding.

PS2 I also realise I’m taking a somewhat dualistic approach, this is simply because of the limitations of our language.

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Bernardo

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May 10, 2014, 7:32:24 AM5/10/14
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No, that's not the gist of it. Have a look at the very first post of this thread. Gr, B.

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Stewart Lynch

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May 10, 2014, 7:48:01 AM5/10/14
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From Sheldrake’s site

http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/papers/morphic/morphic1_paper.html

 

 However, for a retrieval system to retrieve anything, it has to know what it wants to retrieve; a memory retrieval system has to know what memory it is looking for. It thus must be able to recognize the memory that it is trying to retrieve. In order to recognize it, the retrieval system itself must have some kind of memory. Therefore, the retrieval system must have a sub-retrieval system to retrieve its memories from its store. This leads to an infinite regress. “

 

That’s what I was trying to say, so I think I’ve understood it. I just used the word meaning instead of retrieval system. To me it’s essentially the same thing. I don’t see the problem with this argument?

 

 

From: metaphysical...@googlegroups.com [mailto:metaphysical...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bernardo
Sent: 10 May 2014 12:32
To: metaphysical...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Metaphysical Speculations] Re: Material traces

 

No, that's not the gist of it. Have a look at the very first post of this thread. Gr, B.

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Bernardo

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May 10, 2014, 9:44:50 AM5/10/14
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Meaning is a problem, but Sheldrake is not talking about meaning; he's talking about pattern recognition and memory retrieval. A retrieval system doesn't imply meaning, since even a mechanical apparatus can be a retrieval system. Sheldrake is assuming the materialist premise that a brain is a kind of computer storing memory as material traces, and trying to show that it leads to contradiction. The problem is that any computer today is perfectly capable to know which memory segment to address in order to access the information it needs at each moment in time. You don't need to know the information you want to access in order to access it, you only need to know where it is stored (i.e. its address). To know where it is stored, simple pattern recognition -- of the type computers are perfectly capable of doing when they, e.g. recognize faces in photos -- is sufficient. A computer can automatically recognize your face and then automatically retrieve your personal information from a data-base. There is no problem there. Similarly, there is no problem in imagining that the brain could do the same, especially when we know -- as we do -- that artificial neural networks can do pattern recognition and storage addressing.
Cheers, B.

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Stewart Lynch

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May 10, 2014, 10:50:38 AM5/10/14
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Ok, thanks for explaining, I see now. I agree what you’re written below about retrieval. If Sheldrake’s argument really is as simple as you say then it’s obviously false.

 

I suspect he’s trying to get at something more subtle though. His statements are already loaded with hidden assumptions about meaning…”it has to _know”’ etc. I suspect he’s talking about ‘first cause’. What is the cause of the retrieval, what is the hidden “I” that decides to remember something. But yes, I agree that it isn’t a well formulated argument.

 

I’ve heard Sheldrake talk about this infinite regress before but wasn’t sure about it – thanks for clarifying.

 

Stewart.

 

 

From: metaphysical...@googlegroups.com [mailto:metaphysical...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bernardo
Sent: 10 May 2014 14:45
To: metaphysical...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Metaphysical Speculations] Re: Material traces

 

Meaning is a problem, but Sheldrake is not talking about meaning; he's talking about pattern recognition and memory retrieval. A retrieval system doesn't imply meaning, since even a mechanical apparatus can be a retrieval system. Sheldrake is assuming the materialist premise that a brain is a kind of computer storing memory as material traces, and trying to show that it leads to contradiction. The problem is that any computer today is perfectly capable to know which memory segment to address in order to access the information it needs at each moment in time. You don't need to know the information you want to access in order to access it, you only need to know where it is stored (i.e. its address). To know where it is stored, simple pattern recognition -- of the type computers are perfectly capable of doing when they, e.g. recognize faces in photos -- is sufficient. A computer can automatically recognize your face and then automatically retrieve your personal information from a data-base. There is no problem there. Similarly, there is no problem in imagining that the brain could do the same, especially when we know -- as we do -- that artificial neural networks can do pattern recognition and storage addressing.

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Sciborg2 Sciborg2

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May 10, 2014, 1:16:18 PM5/10/14
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I guess if the memory is merely encoding information about what happened, like a video camera, I don't think there's a problem. But we do recall our subjective state during past events, so I still - perhaps incorrectly - feel the problem remains...

The SEP notes the same issue, but I'm assuming that as I read there'll be a solution -

"How does the postulated trace come to play a part in the present act of recognition or recall? Trace theorists must resist the idea that it is interpreted or read by some internal homunculus who can match a stored trace with a current input, or know just which trace to seek out for a given current purpose. Such an intelligent inner executive explains nothing (Gibson 1979, p. 256; Draaisma 2000, pp.212–29), or gives rise to a vicious regress in which further internal mechanisms operate in some “corporeal studio” (Ryle 1949/1963, p. 36; Malcolm 1970, p. 64).

But then the trace theorist is left with a dilemma. If we avoid the homunculus by allowing that the remembering subject can just choose the right trace, then our trace theory is circular, for the abilities which the memory trace was meant to explain are now being invoked to explain the workings of the trace (Bursen 1978, pp. 52–60; Wilcox and Katz 1981, pp. 229–232; Sanders 1985, pp. 508–10). Or if, finally, we deny that the subject has this circular independent access to the past, and agree that the activation of traces cannot be checked against some other veridical memories, then (critics argue) solipsism or scepticism results. There is then no guarantee that any act of remembering does provide access to the past at all: representationist trace theories thus cut the subject off from the past behind a murky veil of traces (Wilcox and Katz 1981, p. 231; Ben-Zeev 1986, p. 296).

We'll see below (section 3.3) that this dilemma recurs empirically, in the difference between supervised and unsupervised learning rules in connectionist cognitive-scientific models of memory. There, as in this general context, the natural response is to take the second prong of the dilemma, and accept the threat of solipsism or scepticism. The trace theorist must show how in practice the past can play roles in the causation of present remembering. The past is not uniquely specified by present input, and there is no general guarantee of accuracy: but the demand for incorrigible access to the past can be resisted."



Stewart Lynch

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May 10, 2014, 1:21:35 PM5/10/14
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I think the problem isn’t so much to do with memory, as consciousness itself? We come back to the age old problem that consciousness can’t be explained in terms of the physical, and any attempt to do so results in circular reasoning.

 

If one accepts that consciousness is a fundamental the problem of memory goes away doesn’t it? Or at least it’s no different from the problem of how consciousness does anything.

 

I’m happy to accept consciousness as a fundamental, and then to accept memories as something else that consciousness creates, but maybe I’m missing the problem that you see?

 

From: metaphysical...@googlegroups.com [mailto:metaphysical...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Sciborg2 Sciborg2
Sent: 10 May 2014 18:16
To: metaphysical...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Metaphysical Speculations] Re: Material traces

 

I guess if the memory is merely encoding information about what happened, like a video camera, I don't think there's a problem. But we do recall our subjective state during past events, so I still - perhaps incorrectly - feel the problem remains...

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Sciborg2 Sciborg2

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May 10, 2014, 1:29:45 PM5/10/14
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Oh I agree Bernardo's Idealist solution removes a lot of problems materialists commit without reflection.

For now I'm going to remain neutral on the memory question, and perhaps reading up on some philosophy will convince me that Braude is wrong.

I do think the question of representation via any "pattern" ends up having issues because nothing is isomorphic to only one representation. Though in consciousness made up of infinite folds, as Bernardo discusses, seems to remove the problem?

Bernardo

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May 11, 2014, 11:35:52 AM5/11/14
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Yes, the difficulties Sheldrake and Braude seem to see are, in my view, unrelated to retrieval and much more associated to issues of meaning and subjective experience. Retrieval can be done with mechanical pattern-matching that requires neither meaning nor consciousness. The problem is that Sheldrake and Braude try to frame their argument as purely a matter of mechanical retrieval, and there it falls apart. If, for the sake of argument, you take on the premise that the brain is just a computer -- as Sheldrake and Braude seem to -- then retrieval is not problem; the computer I am using to write this post is proof of that. I think any computer engineer would get confused about the fuss around the argument; to us, there is no problem at all. What the intuitions of Sheldrake and Braude seem to be resting on is the question of meaning and experience, but then their argument cannot be formulated as retrieval.
Memory retrieval is not problem for materialism. That's not how one is going to refute it.
Cheers, B.

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Bernardo

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May 11, 2014, 11:38:01 AM5/11/14
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True, yet the case they are arguing is retrieval, not consciousness or subjective experience. There clearly are unsurmountable problems regarding how material traces could magically become experience, but that's not their argument.

Bernardo

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May 11, 2014, 11:41:58 AM5/11/14
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In my view, the problem to be resolved is why we DON'T remember everything. That's where consciousness localization comes in. So, in my worldview, the actual issue is being reversed when we talk about 'storage' of memory. Nothing needs to be 'stored.'

Regarding the uniqueness of pattern matching in a computer, matching is done often heuristically. Pattern-marching is mechanical but not exact. Sometimes its outputs are even spurious. Naturally, this plays right into the hands of materialists, since recall is based on a kind of inexact pattern-matching that often produces spurious results.

Stewart Lynch

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May 11, 2014, 11:50:23 AM5/11/14
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Yes, exactly. Totally agree with you here. That’s what confused me, I assumed they must be talking about meaning rather than retrieval, because as you say, retrieval is a trivial problem.

 

As so often happens meaning creeps in behind the words, so that they don’t even realise they have already implied meaning in their arguments, when that is what they are searching for. Round we go again… J

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Stewart Lynch

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May 11, 2014, 11:57:56 AM5/11/14
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Yes, idealism does rather turn all of the questions on their head.

 

I wonder whether it’s a mistake to look at memory as a passive storage. I think it probably has much closer links to creativity and imagination.

 

If my consciousness is a sum of everything that it creates, to remember something I need to create it in my consciousness, or maybe to expand my consciousness to contain the thing I want to remember. The things I pay no attention to are not part of my conscious world, so I don’t remember them. I guess the ‘why don’t we remember everything’ question is the same as the ‘why do I consider myself a separate entity’ question.

 

Stewart.

 

From: metaphysical...@googlegroups.com [mailto:metaphysical...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bernardo
Sent: 11 May 2014 16:42
To: metaphysical...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Metaphysical Speculations] Re: Material traces

 

In my view, the problem to be resolved is why we DON'T remember everything. That's where consciousness localization comes in. So, in my worldview, the actual issue is being reversed when we talk about 'storage' of memory. Nothing needs to be 'stored.'

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Bernardo

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May 11, 2014, 2:15:08 PM5/11/14
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>> to expand my consciousness to contain the thing I want to remember. <<

Oh yes, my point exactly.

>> I guess the ‘why don’t we remember everything’ question is the same as the ‘why do I consider myself a separate entity’ question. <<

Yes, they are highly related.

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PJ

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May 11, 2014, 2:38:13 PM5/11/14
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This goes along perfectly with why consciously trying to remember something often interferes with the retrieval. We're trying to locate something that has no location and is already "there" we could say?
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Bernardo

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May 12, 2014, 10:29:08 AM5/12/14
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I think you are on to something. Indeed, idealism -- at least as I formulate it -- entails that remembrance is facilitated by de-clenching, relaxing consciousness, instead of focusing it. It more a matter of 'allowing it' in than 'forcing it back.' The same applies to creativity and I talked about it at the end of this presentation:
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Sciborg2 Sciborg2

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Oct 6, 2014, 4:37:26 PM10/6/14
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I think the problems of meaning & retrieval are intertwined as any memory device - including computer memory - only has the derived intentionality we impart to it. Someone who used a different kind of representation scheme from us would not find anything in a computer's data storage to be memory retrieval.

Interestingly enough, the neuroscientist-philosopher Raymond Tallis also argues memories can't be stored in the brain:

"...Neurophilosophers will not be impressed by my objection. The difference between the shock-chastened sea snail and my feeling sad over a meeting that passed so quickly, is simply the difference between 20,000 neurons or a hundred billion; or, more importantly, between the modest number of connexions within Aplysia’s nervous system, and the unimaginably large number of connexions in your brain (said to be of the order of a 100 trillion). Well, I don’t believe that the difference between Kandel’s ‘memory in a dish’ and my actual memory is just a matter of the size of the nervous system or the number or complexity of the neurons in it. Clarifying this difference will enable us to see what is truly mysterious in memory...

...Making present something that is past as something past, that is to say, absent, hardly looks like a job that a piece of matter could perform, even a complex electrochemical process in a piece of matter such as a brain. But we need to specify more clearly why not. Material objects are what they are, not what they have been, any more than they are what they will be. Thus a changed synaptic connexion is its present state; it is not also the causes of its present state. Nor is the connection ‘about’ that which caused its changed state or its increased propensity to fire in response to cues. Even less is it about those causes located at a temporal distance from its present state. A paper published in Science last year by Itzhak Fried claiming to solve the problem of memory actually underlines this point. The author found that the same neurons were active in the same way when an individual remembered a scene (actually from The Simpsons) as when they watched it.

So how did people ever imagine that a ‘cerebral deposit’ (to use Henri Bergson’s sardonic phrase) could be about that which caused its altered state? Isn’t it because they smuggled consciousness into their idea of the relationship between the altered synapse and that which caused the alteration, so that they could then imagine that the one could be ‘about’ the other? Once you allow that, then the present state of anything can be a sign of the past events that brought about its present state, and the past can be present. For example, a broken cup can signify to me (a conscious being when I last checked) the unfortunate event that resulted in its unhappy state.

Of course, smuggling in consciousness like this is inadmissible, because the synapses are supposed to supply the consciousness that reaches back in time to the causes of the synapses’ present states. And there is another, more profound reason why the cerebral deposit does not deliver what some neurophysiologists want it to, which goes right to the heart of the nature of the material world and the physicist’s account of its reality – something that this article has been circling round. I am referring to the mystery of tensed time; the mystery of an explicit past, future and present..."

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tjssailor

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Oct 6, 2014, 10:59:29 PM10/6/14
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Not sure why you're shying away from the levitation thing.  If everything is in Mind then Mind should be able to manifest anything laws of nature not withstanding.  In your book "Meaning in Absurdity" you accept an alien ship landing outside a mid-west farmers door and making him pancakes!  Levitation doesn't seem any more absurd then that and these cases had more witnesses then the farmers experience.  There are no "engineering details " to either of those situations.  Many of us have had personal experiences beyond the laws of nature so I'm not sure where when can draw the line about making judgements about what's possible.


On Sunday, March 31, 2013 7:49:18 AM UTC-4, Bernardo wrote:
Without arguing about the specific cases you bring up, I don't think the rationale about relaxing the filter constraints had to do with the abilities of the body. The body is an image of the localization process, so yes, it is expectable that relaxing the constraints has a correlate in the physical body, and that is reduction of brain activity. But to go from here to saying that bodies can, thus, levitate, is way too large a step for me, personally...
Gr, B.


On Saturday, March 30, 2013 12:15:40 PM UTC+1, mr.m...@gmail.com wrote:
If the constraints of localization are relaxed, what could happen to the body? St Joseph of Cupertino was remarkably unclever, but perhaps that made him able to levitate.

The Scottish medium D.D.Home often levitated pianos in trance and even himself out the window. The Brazilian medium Carlos Mirabelli once vanished in the railroad station of Da Luz and reappeared two minutes later in Sao Vincenti (a 90 kilometres distance) and levitated in the street two metres high for three minutes. Does this make any sense?

George

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Oct 7, 2014, 3:38:39 AM10/7/14
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Sheldrake's formulation isn't very good, but he is implying a "doer" that is involved I think, and that's what leads to his idea?
Like Bernardo's "localisation" and memory is very good.

Sciborg2 Sciborg2

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Oct 7, 2014, 12:09:02 PM10/7/14
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Yeah, in Idealism wouldn't the "laws of nature" have to be determined by mind, and thus they are more habits/regularities. Someone tapping into the truth of things should possibly be able to levitate then?

Don Salmon

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Oct 7, 2014, 3:57:23 PM10/7/14
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See William Tiller on psychokinesis.
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