On Aug 11, 8:37 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 8/11/2011 3:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > On Aug 11, 4:46 pm, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > > >> Right. As I said, perception is constructive, not passive. > > > True, but 'we' aren't the ones doing the constructively. Something > > like visual sense is presented to us so that we receive it passively, > > even though on the visual level images are being resolved actively and > > on the associative level it is being recognized actively. > > You write as if 'you' is just your conscious thoughts and so all the > other 99% of the stuff your eyes and brain do isn't you.
The scope of 'you' is really semantic. Your entire life could be considered 'you'. If we're talking about perception, there does seem to be a natural dialectic between perceiver and perceived during sober adult waking consciousness, but it seems to be a distinction which is dependent upon our attention to it. A dream, for instance, has more of a range of personal and impersonal subjectivity smeared within the psyche. > > The part of > > the psyche that is 'us', has a narrow band of meta-perceptual > > conflicts to resolve - ie, which streams of sensorimotive phenomena to > > pay attention to, which ones to try to alter, pursue, etc. > > > We may be no more special than any other subjective body within the > > psyche but we are in the executive position over the efferent nerves > > of the entire body, and therefore have political significance if > > nothing else, compared to a subordinate entity such as our visual > > processing or hormone secreting neighbors. > > So "you" is just a homunculus sitting in the Cartesian theater. I'd say we're more the owner of the theater. The homunculus is just an employee, like the projectionist. The brain is the entire shopping mall that the theater is in, and the body could be the surrounding town, but the selection of movies, actors, and directors does not necessarily originate locally. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
