Australian Politics Forum - Can quantum physics explain the perception of self

Soren

Gold Member

Offline

Posts: 25654
Gender: male

Re: Can quantum physics explain the perception of self
Reply #90 - Nov 22^nd, 2012 at 10:35am

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2012 at 7:53am:

Another interesting example of what is clearly a more definite boundary of the 'I' is the phenomenon of 'blind-sight' ('movement sensitivity'). In humans this is almost unobservable until a patient with a brain trauma is rendered blind (due not to damage in his eyes, but with damage to the visual cortex). In some cases these patients can detect movement but have no awareness at all of how they can do it. The reason? The optic nerves send signals to at least 2 parts of the brain - the visual cortex (the result of which we are certainly aware of) and also to a more primitive part of the brain which detects movement but which does not interact with the cerebral cortex. This area of the brain is more developed in reptiles and much less so in humans. The result being is that, in patients with this peculiar and specific damage, they have no sense that the 'I' is doing the detecting of movement and yet they can still respond appropriately.

So? It is still the blind 'I' that is detecting the movement, not his optometrist. I don't see how this example illustrates the arbitrariness of personhood or its boundaries.

Back to top

IP Logged

NorthOfNorth

Gold Member

Offline

OzPolitic

Posts: 17258
Gender: male

Re: Can quantum physics explain the perception of self
Reply #91 - Nov 22^nd, 2012 at 7:59pm

Soren wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2012 at 10:33am:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2012 at 7:53am:

Soren wrote on Nov 21^st, 2012 at 5:20pm:

This is a big overstatement spun from a misunderstanding.

Just because things that we cannot prevent happen to us does not mean that we cannot prevent anything and certainly doesn't mean that we cannot act with foresight and make things happen.
We might not all be able to stop our hearts like some yogi but we can certainly 'calm ourselves'. Or stopping at the red lights is not just a arbitrary confusion about where the ego ends.

As for the will - raise your arm. What caused that? Your will.

If you as you is arbitrary, you will raise your arms only sometimes when you want to and at other times, inexplicably, it simply wouldn't rise. But the world is not arbitrary like that.

Stopping at red lights is a very good example of where we often act entirely subconsciously and often without any memory at all that we stopped at a red light. We simply often assume, after the fact, that we stopped at red lights. How many people can recall all the red lights they stopped at on any given day while driving to work? The 'I', it seems, can be completely disengaged from the actions of driving and yet the 'non-I' still operates the vehicle entirely safely and within the law.

Start running red lights and see if your theory holds.

But, of course, running a red light is a conscious decision (being an unusual act) the consequences for which the 'I' will, in the first instance, be held accountable... Unless my advocate can convince the judge or jury that the mysterious 'non-I' was responsible.

Back to top

Conviction is the art of being certain

IP Logged

NorthOfNorth

Gold Member

Offline

OzPolitic

Posts: 17258
Gender: male

Re: Can quantum physics explain the perception of self
Reply #92 - Nov 22^nd, 2012 at 8:00pm

Soren wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2012 at 10:35am:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2012 at 7:53am:

Another interesting example of what is clearly a more definite boundary of the 'I' is the phenomenon of 'blind-sight' ('movement sensitivity'). In humans this is almost unobservable until a patient with a brain trauma is rendered blind (due not to damage in his eyes, but with damage to the visual cortex). In some cases these patients can detect movement but have no awareness at all of how they can do it. The reason? The optic nerves send signals to at least 2 parts of the brain - the visual cortex (the result of which we are certainly aware of) and also to a more primitive part of the brain which detects movement but which does not interact with the cerebral cortex. This area of the brain is more developed in reptiles and much less so in humans. The result being is that, in patients with this peculiar and specific damage, they have no sense that the 'I' is doing the detecting of movement and yet they can still respond appropriately.

So? It is still the blind 'I' that is detecting the movement, not his optometrist. I don't see how this example illustrates the arbitrariness of personhood or its boundaries.

And what is the blind 'I', if not the 'other'?

Back to top

Conviction is the art of being certain

IP Logged

Soren

Gold Member

Offline

Posts: 25654
Gender: male

Re: Can quantum physics explain the perception of self
Reply #93 - Nov 23^rd, 2012 at 9:03pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2012 at 8:00pm:

Soren wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2012 at 10:35am:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2012 at 7:53am:

Another interesting example of what is clearly a more definite boundary of the 'I' is the phenomenon of 'blind-sight' ('movement sensitivity'). In humans this is almost unobservable until a patient with a brain trauma is rendered blind (due not to damage in his eyes, but with damage to the visual cortex). In some cases these patients can detect movement but have no awareness at all of how they can do it. The reason? The optic nerves send signals to at least 2 parts of the brain - the visual cortex (the result of which we are certainly aware of) and also to a more primitive part of the brain which detects movement but which does not interact with the cerebral cortex. This area of the brain is more developed in reptiles and much less so in humans. The result being is that, in patients with this peculiar and specific damage, they have no sense that the 'I' is doing the detecting of movement and yet they can still respond appropriately.

So? It is still the blind 'I' that is detecting the movement, not his optometrist. I don't see how this example illustrates the arbitrariness of personhood or its boundaries.

And what is the blind 'I', if not the 'other'?

I don't follow.

I am not you and you re not me - o you must men some other sense of 'other'.
I dare say, some wholly unmoored sense. A sense unrecognised in murder trials, for example. There they know and pronounce on who killed the other.

Back to top

IP Logged

muso

Gold Member

Offline

Posts: 13151
Gladstone, Queensland
Gender: male

Re: Can quantum physics explain the perception of self
Reply #94 - Nov 23^rd, 2012 at 10:17pm

Soren wrote on Nov 19^th, 2012 at 8:56pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 14^th, 2012 at 9:50pm:

Soren wrote on Nov 14^th, 2012 at 9:17pm:

We say 'my heart is beating'.

Yes, that was my point...

The beating heart is something we imagine is happening to us (as if the beating heart was of 'the other') and not instigated by us.

I am not making my heart beat - but it is still my heart that beats.

If my heart didn't beat I could not say that "The beating heart is something we imagine is happening to us (as if the beating heart was of 'the other') and not instigated by us."

You are, but you are not aware of it. There is a section of your brain that regulates your heart beat. It's a section that is potentially under your control. Meditation can totally rewire the brain so that some people can switch off pain and can regulate their heart rate and other functions that we assume to be involuntary functions.

It's a bit like driving. If you thought about every single thing you did while driving, then you'd find it very difficult, because as another poster pointed out, it's done primarily using the subconscious. The conscious mind only intervenes when something is dangerous, interesting, pleasurable or important ( a hey! moment).

Back to top

1523 people like this. The remaining 7,134,765,234 do not

IP Logged