Glen,
I realize that you didn't start this thread, so you may be as perplexed as I
am, but, what exactly IS the mind-body problem?
Also, not that it's essential, but could you DISAMBIGUATE? I, of course,
instantly assumed you were referring to number eleven.
Flying Spaghetti Monster, the deity of Pastafarianism, a parody religion
FIFA Soccer Manager, a video game about football management
Fighting Spirit magazine, a professional wrestling periodical
Film Score Monthly, a record label and online magazine
Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a motion picture
Free Software Magazine, a computing periodical/website
Free software movement, a sociopolitical movement in computing
Fiji School of Medicine, the central medical school of the University of
the South Pacific
Fixed Survey Meter, an instrument used by the British Royal Observer
Corps during the Cold War to detect nuclear fallout
Folded spectrum method, a Solver for Eigenvalue problems
Free Speech Movement, at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1964
Finite-state machine, a model of computation
Field service management, optimization of the field operations of
technicians
Fatih Sultan Mehmet (as Mehmed II), 7th sultan of the Ottoman Empire
Fabryka Samochodów Małolitrażowych Polish car factory
Federated States of Micronesia, an Oceanic island nation
Fort Smith Regional Airport (IATA code: FSM) in Arkansas, United States
Mauritian Solidarity Front, in French Front Solidarité Mauricien (FSM)
THANKS,
Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of glen e. p. ropella
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2011 5:46 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: The Psychology Of Yogurt
glen e. p. ropella wrote circa 11-09-19 03:30 PM:
> Nicholas Thompson wrote circa 11-09-19 01:07 PM:
>> You are talking to a man with an insulin pump. I start to think VERY
>> BADLY if anything goes wrong with it.
>
> Yeah, I don't know either. But part of my fascination with this topic
> lies in the use of psychedelic drugs (not _my_ use of such, of course
> ... the FSM knows I would never touch such stuff). We (humans and
> some animals, it seems) purposefully make worse some specific body
> processes in order to "think badly".
>
> It seems to me that a little "bad thinking" now and again can be a
> Good Thing(TM).
Oh, I forgot to mention that I think this issue (mind-body problem) is
intimately related to the old adage "the dose is the poison". Whether an
alteration in a physiological process is "bad", "good", "better", or
"worse", depends a very great deal on just how altered the process is.
It seems reasonable that a little of the poisonous ethanol on a regular
basis is "good" and a debilitating inhibition of dopamine production is
"bad". But there is a large swatch of gray in between where "bad" and
"good" are too oversimplifying to be useful.
In any case, it's pretty easy for me to see a mind-body problem and to see
it as a fundamental, immediate, medical issue. I've experimented quite a
bit with my own mind-body dichotomy by switching hands on various tasks. I
recently switched _back_ to using my right hand to brush my teeth. When I
switched to my left (something like 10 years ago), I could barely finish the
job without tiring out my arm. None of the muscles worked in any way that
might be called efficient, even though I felt like I was telling my body to
behave the same way it did when I'd use my right hand. Well, I finally got
good at doing it with my left hand, although in a different way from what I
remember for my right hand. I used my wrist much more with my right hand,
and my elbow much more with my left hand. Well, when I switched just
recently, I seemed to be using my right arm like I learned to use my left
arm! I.e.
very little give in the wrist and most movement in the elbow. I'm now
trying to re-learn to use my wrist more with my right hand. If I do, then
I'll switch again and try to do the same with my left.
Although this sort of thing may not _seem_ like a mind-body problem, it most
definitely is. Despite our realization that the mind is embodied, there may
be some processes that can be swapped out, a perfect "impedance match", with
another process (like an artificial eyeball, limb, or insulin pump). And
yet, there may not be any such processes.
If every little mechanism in our body has a salient impact on our mind, then
the mind-body problem disappears. But if not, then the mind-body problem
becomes one of requirements analysis, scaling, and the autonomy of various
components.
--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
