Mind is the brain?

[bennyboy]

[quote='bennyboy' pid='1250545' dateline='1460888115']
How is the aggregate flow of data isolated in a human machine?  

Chiefly, by connected neurons, and more generally by the membranes which hold the chemical constituents of the nueron's signalling mechanisms.  The first -could- account for representational states all by themselves.  The second allows for non-representational states (such as drunkeness, or any other chemical effect, impair the brain, impair the mind...and, as a proposition, impair the comp system).   These signal transmitters -are- isolated, even if they aren't doing comp, by virtue of their material composition and structural arrangement- chemistry and physics will tell you how far and through what impulse "a" or chemical "b" could carry a signal.   In the larger picture, they are located within a single skull, attached to an individual body.   Unfortunately, we don't seem to be able to shoot (or receive) mind -or- brain beams, or, if we can..they have too little effect to notice.

Neurons aren't really connected. The synaptic cleft, which is explicitly a separation between neurons, is important to the way they work.

As for your "larger picture," it is still an illusion: it is the interactivity of many parts which you see as a single unit-- but it is still the a conglomeration of billions of tiny parts. The fact is that we are explicitly connected through the computer, and that the internet performs all the functions you mention in regard to computing. Billions of people are connected via the internet in a way not functionally different than what you say about the box under my desk, or the mass of neurons in my skull. The distinction is still too arbitrary-- I think it represents your existing view of seeing things, not an effort to see things on a more meaningful level.

Links.  Need to read, am junkie.  They're not -mine-, but thy're good ideas.  Ultimately, the brain may function some other way, we don't know.  Comp Mind at least presents us the opportunity to explain it's operation by a known mechanism.  It would be greatly amusing to find that a city had become conscious.  One wonders what sort of psuedo-neurotic imperatives would play on a City-Mind.

I've tried posting bits in forums before, and it never leads anywhere. A couple people pat you on the head, a couple more use it as a platform to post their personal poetry collection or something. The relevant part of the book is maybe 300 pages-- I might post the first 20 or 30 and see if anyone takes an interest.

The first part of the book is pretty fun, too. It's about Christian love zombies who suck the life out of humanity by turning "love thy neighbor" into an absolute rule. A few miracles and many tragic deaths ensue.