Core psychology 2

File 12:56 pm Friday, November 1 2002

A pin prick to the finger has meaning it can be looked at as a signal from a nerve in the finger. This view point is a more complex understanding than the mere pin prick to develop this more complex meaning it takes a different processing of the brain you have to have the concept of a finger the concept of a nerve the concept of a body the concept of traveling of a nerve impulse etc.

The body takes in all sort of information from external sources ears eyes the body etc. It then has to process this information to create behavior that is appropriate to its survival. The more complex the brain the more complex the behavior that it can produce. What is attention it appears that the brain has to sort out information for importance, when some thing is important then the brain concentrates its attention on this area. When we are in the world there can be many things that can cause injury or death our mind has to know when to concentrate on the important issues. For instance a snake in front of us, or a cliff, dangerous big animals, a person with a weapon that want to hurt us. With attention it can focus all its attention of creating the best possible behavior under this circumstance. Then there is the situation of finding food. Caring for children Complex behavior for many different situations. Why are we conscious? Is the pin prick different that the more complex concept of a hand. The concept of a hand can be generated by many different combinations of neurons firing patterns. Each different pattern will have different relative meanings to the rest of the brain this allowing a different behavior. The concept of a house for functioning purposes can be generated with out know it to on the other extreme to being the center of attentions, In this first situation is the neural functioning really a house? There seems to be a blocking of the neurons by other neurons so that if we have a pin prick it may not be felt consciously butt there may be signs that the pin pick the hand to more as if responding to the pain.

What do we think we know

1. There are different ways of representing a concept. It may be that the brain can sort these different arrangements into concepts or names. So for all these different functioning arrangements the brain finally get around to calling it a house. In the dark we may not notice a house until we have more information. In fact we may have to logically deduce that it is a house even when it does not look like a house. 2. Attention concentrates brain functioning on a certain problem producing a behavior. 3 Attention changes consciousness 4. Attentions gets the brain to use the neurons to create different patterns of functioning 5.This would imply that the environment can get the brain o produce very different patterns of functionings leaving lasting impressions on the way the brain will later function (structure). 6. The brain is a very flexible structure able to modify itself to fit new situations in the process producing many different consciousnesses and having the potential to produce many more. 7. Can we produce a consciousness producing device that is less flexible in the consciousness that is produces or on the converse more flexible in the extent of the consciousness it produces? There can be wide range in the consciousness produced over time compared to a small range of consciousness over time given the same sensepath or environmental path. It would seem so.

How will regions, number of levels of neurons in a regions, number of connections between neurons in a region, types of connections between regions, types of impulses, type and shape of neurons and kind and amounts of interconnections between regions effect consciousness and it s ability to produce variety in consciousness? How will these different areas be able to compensate for each other in producing a specific consciousness or behavior?

By studying how the brain produces consciousness we should learn how it does it but if replication of functioning and structure does not recreate a specific consciousness we have major problem in explaining consciousness because if one structure and functioning produces one consciousness the same will not for the physicalists because if it is not continuous it will not produce the same consciousness so the simple aspect of not having continuity destroys our ability to predict consciousness. A very high price to pay for continuity, psychological or physical.

We have the situation of an infinite long continuous person the functioning at each point will produce a specific consciousness but the same situation if there was a t some time a discontinuity in the functioning of psychology but every thing else were the same the physicalists will say there will be a different consciousness produced. If they admit that there will be identical consciousness produced but there is a difference is some other factor that make the consciousness not the original persons thy have to define this concept as being an actual physical property not a soul property they have to be the one that prove it directly not e by saying there must be this property or we have the result that we are trying to avoid (the identireplica theory) the physicalist have to add an extra property to their theory continuousness of matter and core psychology. The end result is in comprehensibility of consciousness unless the concept of continuity can explain why it is necessary and why the same functioning and structure produce different consciousness.

They can say different people same consciousness or same core consciousness. The identireplica theory says that there will be different people but different people can have identical consciousness or consciousness that are so close to that of the originals consciousness it is the original actually experiencing it.

God does not play dice with the universe is a statement by Einstein. To make continuity an issue is another god would never do this to conscious beings including himself issue. If continuity is an issue or necessary for survival we loose our ability to predict what will be produced consciously who is who, another person is all that we know with the two identical infinitely long physipaths if they do not produce the same consciousness and ixperiencit ever, which is the physicalists and many other philosophers belief, we have

We can also break up the infinite long sections with out continuity into shorter and shorter sections each will have the identical consciousness

The physicalists can say that the pre functioning can determine the later consciousness produced but his can not happen because any discontinuity will still produce another consciousness.

We could have an infinite amount of different people with the same functioning and structure at once and through out time. The physicalists will say they all have a different consciousness and especially a different core psychology or ixperiencit. What consciousness do they have what make them have a different consciousness the matter the place time? What in the mater place or time is there that produces a different consciousness or ixperiencit? We can always have two of the three same matter and time different place. same matter and place different time.

We can consider the infinitely long physically and psychologically continuous person. The physicalists will say that if there is an interruption in this sequence where the matter is thrown away and a cidentireplica of the person is made at a point in the future where there is a period as long as necessary where there was no consciousness produced. This will be a new person If were to ask the original what he had experienced he will can give use a description of what has happened in this period. This new person will give the exact same description of what happened even though this did not happened to him. In producing the cidentireplica we do not need to know what happened to the original to have the cidentireplica know what happened in this period all the makers need to know is what structure to produce and how to make it functioning over time. The cidentireplica could even be produced by accident and then information about his consciousness and experiences can be determined by asking questions about it. The physicalists will say that this new person is a different person than the original because of lack of continuity physical and psychological What is the psychology of the new person? He will tell you that it is exactly like that of the original in fact he will believe that he is the original. We can make as many gaps and supposed new people as we wish but each time he will think that he is continuous with the past the gaps in the experience he will remember when you tell him that he did not exist at this period he will not believe you. His behavior personality every aspect of the original will be lets say that we do not make an exact cidentireplica of the original but apply any sort of combination of situations to this individual if we allow for every possible situation like in the original and observe the behavior and the way the body functions they will be identical. Eventually the replica will come by way of a functioning of the infinite long original.

The scientists original could map how his brain functioned in a period of time he can record what thoughts he had. He could make a copy of that brain and repeat that physipath and see what consciousness the cidentireplica reported having. This process could happen over and over if necessary. Of course if it is a cidentireplica it will always give the same answer as the consciousness experienced. The scientist could actually see the brain functioning as he looked at it recording his thoughts seeing how the brain functions with each change in its functioning the point of this is we can learn what functionings and structures produce what consciousnesses.