Secrets of the Mind

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by nghia_dtvt5, Jul 8, 2014.

  1. nghia_dtvt5 Registered Member

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    A blind man can see. Another feels pain in his missing arm. One believes he's God. A son thinks his parents are imposters. Are their thoughts real or just "in their heads"? In this remarkable NOVA, pioneering brain detective V.S. Ramachandran, hailed as "the Sherlock Holmes of neuroscience," tackles four mysterious cases and delivers mind-boggling conclusions.
    Secrets of the Mind
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb6s4WcGf_c
     
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  3. fieldsofrapture Registered Member

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    Thanks. It's interesting how the mind works. If the mind is the only thing that is real, then the hard part is trying to figure out how the mind creates this entire illusion we consider to be physical reality. Even me watching a doctor on the screen. Hallucinating everything including the fact that I'm in a body in a room watching a screen with a scientist and patients talking about the mind. When everything the doctor is seeing and trying to find conclusions for were all dreamed up my him in the first place. And the doctor discussing all these things were dreamed up by me watching it. And that guy who had the religious experience. Maybe the religious experience is the only thing real, and the mind creates all these other things in order to explain it.
     
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  5. nghia_dtvt5 Registered Member

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    I'm very happy when you like it,hope it is useful for you
     
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  7. fieldsofrapture Registered Member

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    Ya it's very useful. I been actively seeking trying to figure out how reality works since I was little. Reading and studying up everything I could. The mind has alot to do with it.
     
  8. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    From Post #2 by :FieldsOfRapture:[/b]
    From Post #4 by FieldsOfRapture:
    Accept that the reality constructed by our brain is a good approximation to an existing external reality. With this POV, the questions raised by above are not suggestive of problems.

    The only viable alternative to the above POV is that I am the only thinking entity in existence & that the apparent external reality is merely due to my creating the illusion of it.

    If I do not consider myself to be some deity-like special entity, it seems reasonable to believe/assume that other thinking persons experience essentially the same external reality from a different vantage points in space-time.

    Why assume or believe that other people are some constructs of my mind rather than entities similar to me?

    Believing that an external reality exists & is also preceived by others does away with any problem relating to the images of the reality constructed by my brain/mind.
     
  9. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    But "real" wasn't derived from abstract objects and affairs -- such as "mind" in general, or a template which lacks a particular functioning instantiation in a substrate (brain, computer, ET organ, etc). If it's instead a concrete / empirical object that's not limited to your perceptions and interactions alone, and it defies your wishes (is part of a governance that far outruns your personal will), then that is what real is applicable to (as originally utilized). Though granted, for at least 2,500+ years there have been various metaphysical movements vying to flip "real" on its head -- to switch the "true world" from pertaining to the everyday environment exhibited in extrospection to an invisible or non-manifested provenance.

    As far its role in this specific area, "mind" does produce a "type of world" to the extent of receiving influences and converting them into manifested phenomena understood as something. Experiences like the cracking of a mini- sonic boom and lashing pain across one's back get interpreted or identified as a bullwhip. What a particular instantiation of mind (as brain) provided was the "shown evidence" of and reasoned thoughts about a dynamic object. But it did not invent the influences it received beforehand -- whether you want to call the latter stimulations of specialized body tissues, inputted information, absorption of environmental energies, etc (or we traditionally assume it to be crazy to regard those influences as invented). The "unshown" was inputted, and a "shown" and identified part of a cosmos was outputted that can be intersubjectively verified. The absence of everything after death would be the source of those influences finally gobbling us up into its near-ubiquitous lack of shown evidence and intellectual activity (in the context of materialism, anti-panpyschism, etc).

    Find yourself stuck in a dreaming coma for several decades right up until old-age kidney failure, which features an unusually interconsistent, well-regulated, and long-lived dream reality? As long as you can't control its circumstances (as in a lucid dream) and other people report seeing and interacting with the same objects and being part of the same events, then you treat it as real for moral reasons and because THAT is the external environment now confronting you reliably on a minute-by-minute basis (it won't go away). If you die before waking-up or being roused from the coma, then you're never going to be enlightened otherwise about its nature, anyway. Go with the internal story of a world unless otherwise becomes firmly warranted, just as we're essentially doing with this one.
     
  10. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    The human mind is grounded on personality firmware which characterizes humans as a species. The firmware is genetically based and defines our human nature. Because it defines human nature, these firmware have an impact on how we perceive and react to reality as a species. It is called firmware instead of software or hardware because the firmware progresses over time through a combination of genetic expression and data input; pliable.

    A good analogy is the growth of a seed. A seed is small with a basic form that the trained eye can associate the its plant. Genetic potentials in the seed cause the seed to grow toward its characteristic plant, which will produce flowers and fruit. The growth of the seed is not only genetically dependent, but it is also dependent on environmental factors, such as sun, light level and amount, temperature, amount of water, elevation, nutrients, minerals, soil texture, competition among weeds, moss, soil bacteria, pollution, virus, worms, etc. The firmware will grow towards its genetic based features of our human nature, while being influenced by the external data input. Because of the environmental leg that molds the firmware, if one has a green thumb or black thumb, the results can vary with the same pack of seeds.

    Our perception of reality is connected to the most evolved branch of the human personality firmware. The questions of existence and reality became more evident at the start of civilization implying this branch of the firmware is quite modern and may have induced the change that led to civilization. Our perception is part genetic based and part connected to conditioning by social, natural, and internal imaginary environments. We all basically agree there is a reality, because human nature is common to our species. But we have differences in explanations, due to different input environments; creation to evolution.

    The study of the personality firmware is one of the last frontiers of science. Conceptually, self observation of the firmware output will add a new variable in terms of the development of the firmware; via the imagination. In other words, if the firmware is analogous to a plant, the plant, has certain parameters which optimize its development. Feedback from the plant/firmware, if it was more conscious, can help determine which external input is optimizing development from which we perceive reality. If we don't use that feedback, because it is unconscious, then the debate goes on.

    As an analogy say we all grow a tomato plant from the same pack of seeds. Using a feedback loop, is similar to looking at the plant as it grows, and noting how various external parameters influence its growth. We then adjust accordingly until both are in balance and harmony. Without the unconscious firmware feedback, we put the plant in a bag and just play with the variables. Whatever looks fancier, outside the bag, becomes the collective way. This perception will make use of older firmware connected to social relationships within human hierarchy. Human nature will often assume the leader knows best therefore might, money or prestige will make it true since the leader knows best. It is not about the internal firmware feedback at the level of meaning.

    I often mention how science does not require calibration of the mind. The herd will follow the leader due to middle level firmware. Or I often speak of natural and unnatural human instinct, because the external environment can alter the genetics seeds into anomalies of natural. Once science reaches the last frontier most of these subjective addendum will be removed and reality will become clear.

    The ancients, who started civilization, appear to have made use of the firmware feedback. They would perceive this as a higher power from which reality would stem. They would make adjustment accordingly leading to civilization; quantum jump.
     
  11. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    In general terms, the personality firmware is composed of three basic layers. The lowest layer is connected to natural human instinct. Since the instinctive firmware begins as seeds, that grow within the external environments of culture and civilization, these tend to be become modified by culture, to where it becomes difficult for science to agree on the nature of natural human instinct. I will return to these later, since the middle level is easier to see and will provide a platform for perception of natural instinct.

    The middle level firmware are associated with relationship. Relationship firmware, although beginning with basic human relationship (mother and child) will go beyond human relationships. These firmware will extrapolate and will also include the object and procedural relationships. For example, a holiday specific to a culture, has a specific organization of objects and actions which relate to each other in a certain way. During Christmas, the tree and decorations, gifts and feelings of goodwill get intertwined. There may not be any logic for this, other than as a traditions. It is not fully rational, however, once social relationships of culture are defined; new fads, people will have an inclination to follow due to this firmware. Human herd instinct and the elaborate rituals that groups use, which may be different from others, stem from the middle level firmware perception. It makes it feel right.

    If you learn a new job or a song by heart, there is a relationship between the steps. It is not about thinking, why, but simply knowing the proper way things relate to each other in terms of assembly.

    The concept of prestige comes from middle level firmware perception. Prestiges helps to define relationship in the social hierarchy, based on a subjectivity attracted to people. For example, when a celebrity speaks up about an issue (global warming) it does not matter if they are an expert by education in that field. They can be a drama major. Middle level firmware perception, in their herd, will associate their prestige in the hierarchy, due to celebrity and money, as meaning they have a voice in the discussion, even if irrational. It is about a feeling of social relationship, not logic and common sense.

    Even things like prejudice is connected to firmware of relationship. The other person, does not fit into the relationship hierarchy to others in that group, but rather gets pegged to fit into another defined relationship, maybe as an enemy. It is not about thinking this through, but allowing the firmware to decide for you. This has the use of organizing large numbers of humans. If we go back to instinct briefly, if we superimpose middle level perception onto a discussion of instinct, any new fad may satisfy the relationship need and be mistaken for natural instinct, since they actions appears to help people relate. Discussion can be difficult if the answers cause dissociation in the feeling of a relationship. It may come down to emotional appeal and politics which are process at this level.

    The highest and most modern aspects of the firmware are connected to firmware of meaning. The natural perception from this firmware is not about traditions or established relationships of a given culture, which change culture to culture, but a more universal standard. Once you add politics to science, one will attempt to superimpose middle level group relationship induction onto rational meaning, creating a hybrid. This makes it more difficult to create truth since it also becomes about making people feel good so the group feels close; tell them what they want to hear to enhance prestige.

    The middle level firmware are the most commonly used by modern humans. As new meaning is unraveled, there are those who can translate this into the needs the social hierarchy by creating new relationships within that context; salesmen and celebrity spokesmen. It is not so much creating a meeting of the minds, as it is gaining social acceptability so people can relate.
     
  12. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Shouldn't this title be 'inane rambling of the mind'...
     
  13. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    The personality firmware is analogous to natural dynamic filters for the mind, with the various levels of firmware, each impacting how we perceive certain aspects/layers of reality. Each level will specialize with respect to a range of situations. The middle level firmware causes us to perceive in terms of relationships between things. This is grounded on family relationships, common to even animals; firmware seeds. The human firmware continues to develop using data from the larger family of human and object relationships that are found within culture. This firmware's evolution and extrapolation beyond the family group, would have been needed to organize humans into larger numbers, so civilization could form.

    The prestige of the king/queen builds upon the family unit. They become the cultural father or mother, who will now command love or respect from the cultural family. The firmware can go even further into abstractions such as motherland, or as abstraction symbolism within religions; heavenly father or mother nature, who like a parent, molds and protects their children. The top end religion abstractions of the firmware osmosis are significant in that they suggest that if tangible people, are used as data to fill in the abstraction upper end of the firmware, the firmware will endow those people with a collective mythological mystique; celebrity. For example, President Obama already won the Nobel Peace prize even before doing anything due to the perception stemming from the abstraction end of the middle level firmware.

    Each culture has its own unique set of relationships/traditions with respect to language, food, dance, dress, song, festivals, stories, etc. Each of these subsets have a certain fixed relationship/procedure with respect to their classic execution; polka. The middle level firmware, like all firmware, begin as seeds. As these grow, first the immediate family and then the cultural family provides the external environment that influence the developing firmware of relationship. Since the genetic aspects of the firmware is collective human, there is a template that forms which is the same for all humans. The final firmware (mature plant) differs from culture to culture based on their unique external cultural environment.

    A child can adapt to a new culture quite easily, since their firmware is still growing and collecting data by osmosis. The little sponges will absorb. But as one gets older they often tend to get set in their ways with respect to their cultural identity, since the firmware has done it main data collection, although some changes will continue throughout life, but less heart felt. What is interesting, are the teen years are often the time when the main music relationships of a generation is absorbed by the firmware. As one gets older their teen years music, engrained within the foundation of the firmware, will often become their favorite music for life The mature firmware foundation is impacting their perception of music via the engrained emotional relationship. It creates a dynamic filter from which we perceive this aspect of cultural reality among many options.

    I am focusing on the middle level firmware because this tends to be the preferred mode of perception for most people. Culture defines how one needs to relate for success and acceptance,m which can include laws. If you blindly follow, things are less complicated. If one decided to question their cultural upbringing, it does not break down in any logical universal way, even if it feels right. This could alienate you, since you will be less related. This POV would also take the next level of firmware, connected to meaning. This highest level firmware is the most modern and may not have evolved until about the time of civilization. It is less about maintaining relationships; traditions, but in breaking things down so meaning can develop.

    I am often detached and even cold as ice, because I don't use the middle level firmware as much as most people. I understand how collective minds works and I could play along, but the middle level firmware does not feel right for me. This has to do with my past research and having ended up with lower and higher level firmware, but with the middle level sort of turned off or out of phase. I don't related, normally, as reflected by my constantly changing theoretical relationships. But this makes it easier to be objective since I can see things without my perception being enveloped by the middle level firmware; where group acceptance can make you blind to meaning.
     
  14. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Before getting into the higher and lower level firmware, I would like to discuss the personality firmware, in general, from a functional angle. We have two sides of the brain, with the left side of the brain more differential. This side of the brain is logical and processes language. The right side of the brain is more integral, spatial and imaginative and has a connection to emotions and intuitions. The left brain allows us to see logic and details, while the right brain creates a spatial context for the same input data. For example, the right brain would notice oriental facial features as a commonality; spatial context. The left brain will superimpose onto that and see details that make this person unique. Both will occur at the same time with the left/right brain performing both differentiation and integration of the data; context for the details.

    The personality firmware is spatial or 3-D, but with a time element; 4th dimension. The firmware stems from the core regions of the brain, and will make dynamic use of the right brain's spatial memory organization. With the two sides of the brain connected, the impact of the firmware is transferred to the left brain, but within the context of the spatial features of the right brain. With the middle level firmware, the 3-D integration give us the impulse to organize culture, in general. When this general urge is transferred to the left brain, the details of a unique culture are filled in. We have a sense of 3-D (spatially integrated) superimposed unto one of many, making one feel this unique path is the right way. This is two things, but feels like one.

    Let me give an example of firmware dynamics, based on the lowest level firmware, connected to human instinct. Male sexual desire is a personality dynamics with a cyclic expression that will renew day to day. This is triggered with sensory input and/or by blood and brain chemicals, with the release and absorption of these chemicals defining the time element of the related firmware.

    With men, desire is often very generic; spatial, with a wide number of random females able to satisfy the needs of the firmware. The firmware is spatial, with a time element, and places females within a general dynamic context. Other factors, such as opportunity and cultural rules will funnel the left brain expression. When this firmware is active, it can place blinders on males, since their world is seen in the context of their desire; party mode. Their mates can feel slighted because it less about her, than his own inner male drive who may not see her in the figurative sense. The firmware perception, is often describe as thinking with the lower brain. The firmware of desire impacts perception within the context of desire.

    With respect to male and female interaction, the young male will often be driven by the lower level firmware of male instinctive desire, while the female will be making more use of the middle level firmware of personal, social and cultural relationships. The net result are the seeds of the male desire firmware, are nurtured within the context of various social and cultural relationships important to his mate. This gradually changes the male desire so it becomes expressed more within the context of the left brain data stemming from the next higher level firmware. Under ideal conditions, different levels of firmware will be cross programming each other allowing higher level firmware to evolve the lower levels. This has an impact on natural instinct and stress will occur if the social relationships that are left brain imposed are not optimized for the purpose.
     

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