why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?

[bennyboy]

I'd answer that yes, it definitely does tell us useful things.  I'm of the camp that thinks quick scanners will eventually be able to track ideas in real-time.  With large enough statistical samples and clever enough algorithms, we might have a better understanding of how people respond to poetry than individuals can express, precisely because feelings can't be expressed well with words.

That being said-- I cannot fathom how the mind/matter bridge will ever be bridged.  I suppose cybernetics might be the key-- brain implants that augment experience could give us the ability to subjectively experience information in new ways, for example.

How do you attribute causality with non-brain events?  For example, Hume postulated that all we see is conjunction, not cause and effect.  Say a billiard ball strikes another billiard ball, stopping itself, and resulting in the other billiard ball being put into motion.  It would seem that you have a problem similar to associating qualia with brain states in that all you have is a correlation between one ball coming into contact with the other ball and the other ball moving.  If all you have is correlation, and your argument against identifying correlation with causation is that it is an insurmountable barrier, then it would seem necessary for you to deny all causation.  If you can't attribute causation to anything, then how would you explain anything?  So, how do you overcome the philosophical hurdle of attributing causation to correlation in physical events?

I'm not confident there could be said to be a cause for mind, any more than you could identify one for matter.  They are brute facts, perhaps.

If we view mind as a property which (somehow) supervenes on the brain, then would you say in general that supervenient properties are caused by the systems upon which they depend?

Let's take a simple example of casuality/supervenience-- a water wave.  The wave cannot exist without the water.  One might be tempted to say that wind, in acting upon water, causes waves.  But actually, we're talking about an infinite propagation of energy from form to form, and from vehicle to vehicle; it is our love of key frames as opposed to continuum that makes us slice time in the way that we do.  The capacity for the existence of waves is a byproduct, in a sense, of the framework in which they exist-- gravity, electrochemical properties and so on.  The idea of causality is more a byproduct of our innate understanding of the universe as a world-of-things, which in my opinion isn't really represented in reality.  In reality, you have gazillions of unresolved particle functions kind of potentiating space.  I'm not bickering here-- but if there's nobody there to define this or that cloud of QM particles, then is there any thing-ness at all?  I'd say maybe not, which would render causality as an illusory concept.

Let's move back to the brain.  If you take a snapshot at a moment of time, then it looks like the brain is the physical system which most directly allows for the existence of mind.  Without the brain, there would (presumably) be no mind, at least not as we think of it.  However, all remembered states are states of something,  which means that in a sense the brain is the medium for the propagation of external states over time.  Even instinct is a representation of all those organic states throughout our evolutionary history. 

You could say that an instinctive behavior is a result of brain function, the brain is a result of DNA, the DNA is a result of moments of genetic fitness.  OR you could say that all those moments are propagating through time and manifesting themselves in this moment.

Let's move back to the billiard balls.  Yes, from our perspective, and it's admittedly very difficult to see past this, there are two discrete objects crashing into each other.  But the physical reality is infinitely more complex than that-- for example, if you view strength of gravity as a relational property between particles, then you end up much with that tapestry woven of a single thread-- when you pull it in one spot, the rest of it all adjusts and you end up with a completely new appearance but without anything having really changed at all.