You are a lover of words, eh? I'd'v enjoyd seeing you in Timor, bereft of verbal facility! Readin your replies to amazinggoatgirl, i can see that definitions'll be important here, so before my p-consciousness gets overwhelmd with philosophic jargon, i'l jump right in with my own personal definitions of a few words.
My definition of "thought" is broader than most ppl's: my thoughts are any information processing done by me, mostly by my nervous system, but also by all of th other particles in my body, and certain other particles in my environment which aid me in this task. My brain is essentially a pattern matching organ, and when an association is made between any two patterns, i'd say that is th basic unit of "concept", tho most of the concepts we'r aware of consist of much larger, more complex groups of such associations.
My definition of "consciousness" is much narrower than most ppl's: it is th part of th brain which makes up a story about why th rest of th brain did what it just did. This is very important to us, as it allows us to connect past, present & future, to model time, and this ability has set humans apart, transferrd our evolution from a genetic to a memetic timescale. But i do believe consciousness has become vastly over-rated, by itself. It's come to believe it's in charge, and bullies th rest of th mind, or even to live in denial, and believe itself the entirety of our mind, while simultaneously fearing that dark majority it calls "subconscious", because, in fact, consciousness entirely dependant upon it. This schism is reflectd in our culture.
Now, contrary to th current fashion, i don't think of this blurry-edged eliminative process calld consciousness as identical to th sensation of awareness, being, experience, what have you. This i refer to as th "observer", and i believe it's a much more primal thing. Every quantum-level interaction, every collapse of th wave function, is an act of observation. Consciousness simply fabricates the illusion that th quadrillions of observations which make up our "self" are but a single thread.
Now, i don't expect you to switch to my definitions, of course, i'm just hoping to explore th concepts behind th words, to which end i'v attemptd to give greater depth to my representations, get closer to th territory being mapped. It's not a question of right or wrong, i'm just curious to know why you say "thought = words", when, in my experience, i do a great deal of thinking that does not involve words at all, like when i'm drawing, for example.
And you are a busy fellow, so please, take your time in replying - i'v always preferrd your thoughts to your words. ;P
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words both free and trap us (part 2)
Date: 2007-11-23 11:39 am (UTC)I'd'v enjoyd seeing you in Timor, bereft of verbal facility!
Readin your replies to amazinggoatgirl,
i can see that definitions'll be important here,
so before my p-consciousness gets overwhelmd with philosophic jargon,
i'l jump right in with my own personal definitions of a few words.
My definition of "thought" is broader than most ppl's:
my thoughts are any information processing done by me,
mostly by my nervous system,
but also by all of th other particles in my body,
and certain other particles in my environment which aid me in this task.
My brain is essentially a pattern matching organ,
and when an association is made between any two patterns,
i'd say that is th basic unit of "concept",
tho most of the concepts we'r aware of
consist of much larger, more complex groups of such associations.
My definition of "consciousness" is much narrower than most ppl's:
it is th part of th brain which makes up a story
about why th rest of th brain did what it just did.
This is very important to us,
as it allows us to connect past, present & future,
to model time,
and this ability has set humans apart,
transferrd our evolution from a genetic to a memetic timescale.
But i do believe consciousness has become vastly over-rated, by itself.
It's come to believe it's in charge, and bullies th rest of th mind,
or even to live in denial, and believe itself the entirety of our mind,
while simultaneously fearing that dark majority it calls "subconscious",
because, in fact, consciousness entirely dependant upon it.
This schism is reflectd in our culture.
Now, contrary to th current fashion,
i don't think of this blurry-edged eliminative process calld consciousness
as identical to th sensation of awareness, being, experience, what have you.
This i refer to as th "observer",
and i believe it's a much more primal thing.
Every quantum-level interaction, every collapse of th wave function,
is an act of observation.
Consciousness simply fabricates the illusion
that th quadrillions of observations which make up our "self"
are but a single thread.
Now, i don't expect you to switch to my definitions, of course,
i'm just hoping to explore th concepts behind th words,
to which end i'v attemptd to give greater depth to my representations,
get closer to th territory being mapped.
It's not a question of right or wrong,
i'm just curious to know why you say "thought = words",
when, in my experience, i do a great deal of thinking
that does not involve words at all,
like when i'm drawing, for example.
And you are a busy fellow,
so please, take your time in replying -
i'v always preferrd your thoughts to your words. ;P