RE: Sound and Nihilism
May 1, 2015 at 1:46 pm
(This post was last modified: May 1, 2015 at 2:38 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(April 30, 2015 at 11:31 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: This may be true, but like consciousness, until we have a model of how the brain creates meaning, it's pointless to say you're sure that it's in there. Maybe once we map out all the functional parts of the brain and we find it's not in there. What is your response then? You have faith that the physicalist model of mind explains it, but without an actual model of how it explains it, your assurances aren't worth much.
We see how meaning can be assigned by other physical objects, any given one of which is far less competent than a single neuron could/should/would be. That's not certainty....but it -is- a model............
.......and the requirements for assigning a value to a variable, or associating variables are laughably low. Your light switch can do this, a long trough with different sized holes will sort tomatoes not only by size...but also, by default, by age..and again..by default..by color - reliably. If you find a tomato under a particular hole...that -means- a whole hell of alot of somewhat obscure things about that particular tomato. Granted..the board can get it wrong sometimes, it can misassociate or misattribute...but I don;t think that -we- have any grounds to criticize the boards robustness on that particular count.
I'm fairly certain, whenever people talk about meaning as a mystery, or the mystery of how meaning is generated...they're talking about a whole range of associated concepts. Personally, I'm not so sure that we actually have to keep looking for meaning....by itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Models_of_n...omputation
-Some models for you, you can use these to list what sorts of meanings or associations comp (regardless of whether or not consciousness is comp...you don't need consciousness for meaning - though, granted, you may for appreciating it) could assign, how many, how fast, how often, and to what extent, if they were implemented /w biological architecture similar/identical to our own. The last one is fun, heres a direct link if you want to play with it.
http://neuron.duke.edu/
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