On Oct 3, 8:28 pm, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 9:30 AM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Sep 29, 11:14 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Craig, do the neurons violate the conservation of energy and > >> momentum? And if not, then how can they have any unexpected effects? > > > They don't have any unexpected effects, they just have unscheduled > > effects. I don't understand why it makes sense to think that a neuron > > can make another neuron fire but not the person whose brain is to > > cause a neuron to fire. Just think of the brain as a whole as a giant > > neuron making the other ones fire (and vice versa), and we are what > > the inside of that giant neuron is like. > > Whether a neuron fires or not depends on its internal state and its > environment, especially the activity of the neurons with which it > interfaces. Whether the door opens depends on the key used, the mass > of the door, the friction in the hinges and the force applied to it. > Maybe the door has the experience of wanting to open if it opens or of > not wanting to open if it doesn't open, in which case we could say > that the door did what it wanted to do. This is perfectly consistent > with our observation of doors since we cannot observe the door qualia. > But the qualia will never move the door contrary to physics. As with > the door, you can say the neuron fired because it wanted to fire and > this could be perfectly consistent with the neuron firing due to the > multiple physical factors. It is the moving that causes the wanting; > if it were the other way around we would see doors opening and neurons > firing magically. I have stated this multiple times in different ways > and you deny that it would be magic, but when an unobservable > influence causes an observable effect that is magic by definition. > Note that I'm not even saying such magic is impossible, just that no > scientist has ever seen it, which is difficult to explain if it > happens all the time as you claim.
We do see neurons firing in response to no other stimulation other than the subjects conscious attention and intention. It's not magic, it's how it actually works. It's how you are making sense of these words right now. You can have your neurons move a mouse around, either through your hand or directly through one of those scalp rigs. It's only magic if you arbitrarily deny the subjects observation of their own subjective behavior. 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.
