On 9/5/2012 10:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:25:02 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com <javascript:>> wrote: >> But you couldn't realise you felt different if the part of your brain >> responsible for realising were receiving exactly the same inputs from >> the rest of the brain. So you could feel different, or feel nothing, >> but maintain the delusional belief that nothing had changed. >> >> > > That's begging the question. You are assuming that the brain is a machine > which produces consciousness. I think that the brain is the three > dimensional shadow of many levels of experience and it produces nothing but > neurochemistry and alterations in our ability to access an individual set of > human experiences. The brain does not produce consciousness, it defines the > form of many conscious relations. But you believe that the neurochemicals do things contrary to what chemists would predict, for example an ion channel opening or closing without any cause such as a change in transmembrane potential or ligand concentration.No, I only say that a thought can be generated from the top down, and that event is manifested in the brain as whatever changes in transmembrane potentials, ligand concentrations or ion channel status are appropriate. I can notice that I am breathing, or I can take a deep breath. Either way, there are similar neural pathways and mechanisms involved. Without knowing about free will, we could never tell the difference between the neurology of the voluntary act and the involuntary or semi-voluntary act. They would all appear not to contradict what chemists would predict, because their predictions don't specify when or where spontaneous brain activity will occur.We've talked about this before and it just isn't consistent with any scientific evidence.Your existence isn't consistent with any scientific evidence either. Science looks at objects. Consciousness is a subject. As long as science defines itself in that way, it is not possible for it to explain consciousness in any meaningful way.You interpret the existence "spontaneous neural activity" as meaning that something magical like this happens, but it doesn't mean that at all.Spontaneous is just that, spontaneous. It isn't magical. It is quite ordinary. I could do the usual things I do, or I could spontaneously decide to invent something new to do or think about. This is what living organisms do but computers don't.
Your theory is like the denial of evolution because those genetic variations might have been spontaneous (intentional) instead of random. But the point is that there is no need to hypothesize non-random, non-caused events in the brain. The randomness of thermodynamics, quantum radioactive decay, and external influences are plenty to account for the unpredictability you call spontaneous. There is no need hypothesize any extra 'magic'.
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