why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?

[Alan V]

I would like to add that my long book report was not just a series of assertions drawn out of thin air, but a series of conclusions or speculations based on careful scientific observations over many years.  Explaining what we actually observe, which is what scientists do slowly over time, is not the same kind of activity as some philosophers who tend to question even carefully collected observations until they are adequately explained.

Let me clarify.  I'm all about brain science, and very interested in the effects of drugs on the brain, in special-state experiences like the "zone," and so on.  So I don't want you to think I'm anti-science.

However, there's a real philosophical divide between the essence of subjectivism and objectivism that I think doesn't lend well to a monistic conflation-- i.e., just saying mind is brain function doesn't really satisfy someone who wants to know how a material system can experience, when the capacity for experience is almost never considered in making physical observations of material systems.

Since you have continued to respond to me (and since I peaked at your posts, just in case), I took you off ignore.  I'm sorry if I was rude, but I would be even more inconsiderate if I ignored your comments.

Your questions are among those addressed in the book, and I'm afraid I don't understand either biosemiotic systems or quantum mechanics well enough to translate what I read accurately.  There was even a point when I was writing my 10 pages of notes when I just wrote down "(GAP)".  Perhaps Belaqua will help me out when he has finished reading the book.

Further, the fact that modules abstract information automatically, without our consciousness seeing the processes involved, means we live in a simulated reality in our brains.  This is less a problem than if we thought we somehow perceived the external world directly.  Our consciousness is not illusory but rather simulated.

Okay, let's examine this.  We know for sure, under any model, that what we perceive is not as we perceive it.  We symbolize greatly-- for example, we see a collection of QM particles as a flat desk, when there's no real flatness in wave functions.

But given this, what would be the difference between say a materialistic monism and an idealistic monism?  How would you differentiate between them?  How would you determine exactly WHAT our consciousness is simulating?

How do we determine what consciousness is simulating?  Through science and logic.  If we could see external realities directly and understand them correctly, I assume there would be no additional use for either.  However, we know enough about human psychology to understand that we really see abstractions and interpretations.

As for your other question, "What would be the difference between say a materialistic monism and an idealistic monism?" --  I will have to give you my personal answer.

I experimented with lucid dreaming for many years, and discovered in the process of doing so that dream content responds to suggestions in a way similar to hypnosis.  In other words, if I wanted to find a specific object, say a refrigerator, I expected to find that object when I turned a corner, and was often pleased to find exactly the object I wanted.  And I wasn't doing such experimentation alone.  My now wife and our common friend Ruth were both doing similar experiments, suggesting new experiments to each other, and getting similar results.  My wife and I even wrote a book about what we found out through such experimentation, and what lucid dreaming implied for dream theory.

We also found certain aspects of dreaming which could not be changed, which are pertinent to answering your question.  Instability and inconsistency are intractable in dreaming.  You can use them to create suggested imagry (and other sensations), but such imagery doesn't last long.  This is why we theorized that while dreaming must employ the brain's abilities to reconstruct external realities, without those realities really being there, there was nothing to keep them consistent.  In other words, any one mind is inadequate to create either the stable details or the consistency of realities.  This, to me, is an answer to your question.  External realities most likely really exist, and are necessary to stabilize waking perceptions.