For the longest time, I took it for granted that thoughts corresponded to the firing of a single neuron. But lately I’ve been changing my mind along the following lines (taken from my blog at mm-theory.blogspot.com):
What do you think? Am I right?
There is an odd circularity here, thoughts that are trying to think about themselves, that are trying to imagine how they are designed and how they work and appear. But thoughts that imagine themselves are just inventing themselves, are just like quantum mechanics in that the observer is influencing the object being observed. What delimits a thought, what is composed of what ? reductionism cannot apply, or maybe you can invent any answer, but most of all what intentionality is implied by the form the answer has ? what intentionality in the sense of how is the result or design intended to be used ? by manipulating brains ?
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Intentionality means how something will be used, but even more so, what are the ways that are chosen, what activities and events are chosen, what designs and pretty pictures are preferred from any others. So we have reductionism, we discover how things “are made up of” other things, how to manipulate them in a certain way to obtain a certain result, or activity, or even better a certain RITUAL, as all human activity is essentially a ritual, a dance, a religion, a denotation, a set of symbols that interact with pain/pleasure, with meaning, with how the ritual and party is beheld in other peoples “minds” and their power to influence, and power to interact. But are those “other minds” real ? do they really exist ? isn’t this FAITH, as faith in the existence of god ? everthing is a religion ultimately.
The activities of science and technology are simply another art form, another reilgion, another ritual, another denotation of symbols and meanings and emotional states, especially of how other people react, if other people approve, if the anthropology of our civilization and the set of minds approves or disapproves of the activities we execute. All are simpy quirk events, signals, matter interacting with other matter. Who would believe that discovering atoms, breaking things down into smaller pieces made any sense at all ? how could such an insane activity have had any value ? reductionism is a big LIE, a false religion…
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viewtopic.php?f=4&t=164006&p=2008261
"Distinction and symbols, monolithic and divided, particles and composed of particles. Everything is based on how reality is subdivided in its constituent parts, but being that the choice of where and according to what you divide it with is arbitrary, reality is undefined until you force it to have a definition.
Two electrons interact, but are they really two or just one item having two parts ? And just how far down can its individual constituents be divided ? An electron is made up of how many virtual particles ? As we measure are we actually inventing or forcing them to exist ? Are we only chasing ghosts in our mind ? Or are a million electrons just one item, or the whole universe just one item ? Is interaction also a form of constituency in the sense that electron A is made up of electron B since B influences A ? And they are both influenced by who ? And why distinguish ? According to what goals or what intentional manipulations, what language, what system of definitions and references, since everything is defined according to everything else, but ultimately nothing is defined according to anything ?
Would we really know an electron only if we were exactly an electron (or an atom or molecule), since looking at one from the outside is not looking at all or just a pretty painting of something we decide must have a function and definition in an arbitrary language and system of definitions and interactions that is totally invented ?"
This is all very interesting, but do you think thoughts correspond to single neurons or a whole pattern of them?.. or are you saying it’s neither?
I am unaware of anyone, even the most ardent reductionist, claiming that thoughts can be reduced to single neurons anymore than traffic can be reduced to a single vehicle.
A single neuron is made up of billions of particles. An electron is made up of billions of virtual particles. A virtual particle is made up of billions of plank level perturbations. And it goes on forever. The universe is made up of billions of particles. The concept of reducing things into simpler things is false. We never reduce into simpler we just translate one language into another, we just exchange the designs of the items, from one design into another. We never really reduce with reductionism, we are always at the same level, no matter how many times we reduce, and then why should item A made up of 100 items B make B more important than A ? Why should the number of items have any meaning and relationship ? Because of intentionality of use …
Xunzian,
Thanks for answering the question directly. Though I agree with you, I do think to a novis, there is a certain appeal to associating single thoughts to single neurons. It’s kinda convenient to think of it that way: one thought leads to the next in what we call the “stream of consciousness”, just as one neuron firing leads to an adjacent one firing in the “electrical stream” in the brain; a single thought feels very much like a “unit of information”, just as one neuron firing can be seen as a “unit of information”. But of course, there’s problems with this view, and as my OP points out, the “pattern” view of thought (where a thought corresponds to a whole pattern of neural firings), though more complicated, is probably the better explanation.
nameta9,
Although you’re not answering my question directly, I tend to agree with you about the misguided direction in which reductionism leads us (depending, of course, on where you want to go). Reductionism only gives us smaller things - the parts to the whole - but I don’t think it brings us any closer to a “basis” for the whole.
What will teach you more about Nietzsche, reading ILP, or reading the binary 1s and 0s that the board’s software is written in?
This is why I’m skeptical of all the hype surrounding neuroscience.
well, I’m not a functionalism or a materialist, so I appreciate where you’re coming from, but I must say your comparison is ill applied to the OP.
Think about this: the reason that reading ILP posts on Nietzsche is a much more effective way to understand the man than reading the 1s and 0s ultimately constituting ILP is because these two activities result in drastically different mental and neurological processes in your brain. The former results in such processes that correspond to a genuine understanding of Nietzsche whereas the latter doesn’t - rather, it results in an understanding of what specific patterns of 1s and 0s ILP is composed of. Although if you worked diligently hard at interpreting the 1s and 0s into something meaningful in the context of ordinary human language (i.e. comments on Nietzsche by ILP members), you’d have to work at it for years and years, maybe even dying of old age before the job is done. Even then, what you’re working on - that is, what specific algorithm your brain is employing accomplishes - is a translation of 1s and 0s into ordinary human concepts - whereas in the former case, what you’re working on - that is, what other specific algorithm your brain is empoying accomplishes - is an understanding of those same ordinary human concepts - and quite directly.
In either case, the two algorithms your brain employs are not the same, and don’t correspond to the same conscious experience. Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean there isn’t such a correspondence - either between those algorithms and your experience or between the 1s and 0s constituting ILP and the views expressed by ILP members in plain English. I think it’s obvious that there must be a correspondence - whether that entails an identity or a duality or any other kind of mind/brain relation is another matter.