RE: "Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain" by philosopher Patricia Churchland
June 26, 2013 at 2:22 am
(June 25, 2013 at 11:43 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I don't think this is right.
The self is a symbolic entity-- an idea. Yes, the brain is the organ which processes and holds ideas. However, information has a kind of independence on the specific system in which it resides. That's why you could transcode an mp3 to hologram, to memory chips, or to arranged black-and-white seashells on the beach if you wanted to, and that information would be the same.
To say the self is the brain is to say that Casablanca is a bunch of pigmented film. It's not. The film is just the medium of convenience for carrying the ideas that make Casablanca a meaningful experience.
Well yeah, in a different context that makes sense. But this is about how the organic supports consciousness and makes possible a sense of self. That isn't a substitute for anyone's sense of identity or what they find meaningful. How it all plays out in anyone's life will not be affected by understanding the physics, chemistry, biology or psychology of the mind. But if you find the particulars of those things and the diversity we find across individuals amazing, then how can you not be enthralled to understand how that has become possible? It isn't either/or.
