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Welcome, Tandi

voidx said:
Honestly though, its just a bad analogy as has been pointed out to you in many ways previously. To you the TV is just a dumb terminal spitting out a fiction or program received from some TV station in the ether. And so you think humans are the same.
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And as I keep telling people on here, none of you appear to understand what the word analogy means. It is only a bad analogy if most people fail to understand what on earth I'm talking about. In my experience it is only sKeptics who claim this. I'll say what I said before.

You remind me of a guy I knew at 6th form college (for 16 and 17 year olds). One day, in an English language class, we each in turn had to stand up and talk about a topic for 10 minutes that we were personally interested in. I decided to talk about Cosmology. I was trying to explain about the "Big Bang" and the expansion of the Universe. I explained that it was incorrect to think of it as a normal explosion with Galaxies rushing through space and away from a common centre. In order to try to facilitate the understanding to my fellow pupils, I employed the analogy of a balloon get blown up. On the surface of the balloon are painted little black dots. I asked them them to imagine that the little black dot represented galaxies and the actual surface of the balloon represented the 3 dimensional space-time continuum. Now as the balloon expands the black dots (galaxies) move away from each other, but they are carried along by the fabric (space-time continuum) of the balloon (Universe). Moreover, it can be understood that no one black dot (Galaxy) is at the centre of the balloons surface (centre of the Universe).

One person asks what happens when the Universe pops. I basically said "huh". he said 'if the Universe is like a balloon then it must pop eventually after its expanded so much. I said 'no it won't'. He said then it's not like a balloon then, and he dismissed my entire metaphor.

One rather major difference though is that TV's do not have inputs with which to construct new fictions, something human's have.
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And balloons are absolutely nothing like the Universe. But that's completely irrelevent. Refer back to my post. I said "I believe that the mind/brain relationship is analogically akin to a TV set in this particular narrow sense regarding origin". They are both examples of Y sometimes/always following X, yet Y not having its origin in X. Ossai couldn't understand this point, so I brought up the example of the TV set. Quite frankly I'm sick to death of using this example all the time. Lets use mobile video phones instead should we??
 
Interesting Ian said:
I said "I believe that the mind/brain relationship is analogically akin to a TV set in this particular narrow sense regarding origin".
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Where does the signal originate?
 
Darat said:
Without the concept of a signal your TV analogy makes no sense.
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That's like saying that without the concept of the Universe popping, the balloon analogy of the Universe does not make sense.

Whether it makes sense or not, the pertinent question is whether it facilitates the understanding. I believe the TV analogy does . .at least for none-sKeptics.
 
Interesting Ian said:
That's like saying that without the concept of the Universe popping, the balloon analogy of the Universe does not make sense.

...snip...
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No it isn't, as I'm sure anyone of intelligence can understand.



;)
 
Interesting Ian said:
That's like saying that without the concept of the Universe popping, the balloon analogy of the Universe does not make sense.

Whether it makes sense or not, the pertinent question is whether it facilitates the understanding. I believe the TV analogy does . .at least for none-sKeptics.
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So, are you saying that the brain is effectively a receiver for a signal, or not? If not, the TV analogy makes no sense. If it is, what signal is it receiving? What causes the "signal?"
 
Interesting Ian said:
I'd rather be a self absorbed prat than a thick prat.
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That's right - because, as we all know, only the really clever people resort to personal insults when they cannot get their message across.

Being called a thick prat by someone such as yourself isn't really much of an insult - it's quite humorous really.
 
Mojo said:
So, are you saying that the brain is effectively a receiver for a signal, or not? If not, the TV analogy makes no sense. If it is, what signal is it receiving? What causes the "signal?"
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The self is not a signal is it? It just is constrained by the brain. To paste in what I said before.

However, if the brain only modifies consciousness or minds, rather than being the progenitor of the mind, the question then arises as to why we need brains at all.

The first thing to recognise here is that processes within the brain are akin to any information processing system. As with any such information processing system there are architectural constraints and these serve to limit the mind so we only have access to those perceptions that follow the familiar and regular patterns that we associate with the physical world. This then allows us to function proficiently whilst we subsist in this empirical reality.

Now when the mind operates in detachment from the brain, when it is temporarily or permanently disembodied, then its processing is released from the constraining influence of the arrays of primitive processing units (essentially the brain). It will then have access to all other perceptions apart from our everyday perceptions. Those other perceptions will be driven by some other "engine", and the person may seem to be passing through other worlds. This would be broadly consistent with the anecdotal experiences of some out-of-body experiences, especially near-death experiences - and indeed with reportedly channeled descriptions from the dead, as well as with traditional accounts such as those found in the "Tibetan Book of the Dead.
 
Interesting Ian said:
The first thing to recognise here is that processes within the brain are akin to any information processing system. As with any such information processing system there are architectural constraints and these serve to limit the mind so we only have access to those perceptions that follow the familiar and regular patterns that we associate with the physical world. This then allows us to function proficiently whilst we subsist in this empirical reality.
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What would be the point of that?

What would be the function of limiting the perception of the conscious if it is capable of understanding and perceiving so much more?

If the mind is required to limit the imput to the conscious then the consciousness must have its own limitations. If it already has these limitations, why do we need the mind?

Why could the consciousness not function perfectly well in this empirical reality without being filtered?
 
Ashles said:
What would be the point of that?

What would be the function of limiting the perception of the conscious if it is capable of understanding and perceiving so much more?

If the mind is required to limit the imput to the conscious then the consciousness must have its own limitations. If it already has these limitations, why do we need the mind?

Why could the consciousness not function perfectly well in this empirical reality without being filtered?
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If we were aware of all other realities, could perceive all spirits that have ever died, were aware and understood the ultimate secrets of the Universe, could immediately apprehend everything about other people (nothing would be a secret and we would telepathically understand everything about them), then we wouldn't be able to function proficiently in this reality!
 
Interesting Ian said:
If we were aware of all other realities, could perceive all spirits that have ever died, were aware and understood the ultimate secrets of the Universe, could immediately apprehend everything about other people (nothing would be a secret and we would telepathically understand everything about them), then we wouldn't be able to function proficiently in this reality!
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Why not?
 
Interesting Ian said:
Now when the mind operates in detachment from the brain, when it is temporarily or permanently disembodied, then its processing is released from the constraining influence of the arrays of primitive processing units (essentially the brain). It will then have access to all other perceptions apart from our everyday perceptions. Those other perceptions will be driven by some other "engine", and the person may seem to be passing through other worlds. This would be broadly consistent with the anecdotal experiences of some out-of-body experiences, especially near-death experiences - and indeed with reportedly channeled descriptions from the dead, as well as with traditional accounts such as those found in the "Tibetan Book of the Dead.
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In other words, when hallucinating, people see things that they wouldn't normally see.
 
Interesting Ian said:
Huh? Why do we need to function proficiently in this reality? :eek:
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No, that's not what I'm asking.

What I am actually asking is:
Why would you think that our unbounded consciousnesses would be unable to function properly in this reality?

What leads you to think that?
 
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