why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?

[bennyboy]

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.

Well, I think in evolutionary terms the idea is we need to take the information which is potentially available, but almost infinite, and symbolize it into something we can act on. You and I would agree on that, I think?

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 brain 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.

Well, I think that's a pretty fair line of inferences you've made there. Stability during waking and instability during sleeping definitely shows that there are some similarities and differences, and your idea about what that means is a fair shot at objectivism.

That being said, having been into lucid dreaming, I think you'll agree that the seems-so-is sense we have can by hyper-triggered in dreaming sometimes. I've had dreaming experiences which were orders of magnitude more vivid, and more seemingly significant, than anything I've ever experienced in waking life-- absolute game-changing, over-the-top stunners. That's partly why I declare as agnostic, and why I'm suspicious of attempts to disambiguate reality with simple world views.

Drug use, meditation, religion, and so on can all be like this-- there are some experiences which are so self-evident in certain states that one suspects the mechanism behind them doesn't matter-- you can "get" things that are so transcendent of waking life that you'd (in my opinion) to be a little bit insane to take anything at face value, no matter how it seems.

[Alan V]

Well, I think in evolutionary terms the idea is we need to take the information which is potentially available, but almost infinite, and symbolize it into something we can act on.  You and I would agree on that, I think?

Yes, we agree that waking perceptions are highly selective and often self-serving. In fact, they are selective to be self-serving.

That being said, having been into lucid dreaming, I think you'll agree that the seems-so-is sense we have can by hyper-triggered in dreaming sometimes.  I've had dreaming experiences which were orders of magnitude more vivid, and more seemingly significant, than anything I've ever experienced in waking life-- absolute game-changing, over-the-top stunners.  That's partly why I declare as agnostic, and why I'm suspicious of attempts to disambiguate reality with simple world views.

Drug use, meditation, religion, and so on can all be like this-- there are some experiences which are so self-evident in certain states that one suspects the mechanism behind them doesn't matter-- you can "get" things that are so transcendent of waking life that you'd (in my opinion) to be a little bit insane to take anything at face value, no matter how it seems.

In ordinary dreaming, since the critical part of our brains are turned off, we typically think what is happening to us is real, however fantastic or bizarre. If we carry over our waking assumptions, dream events can be quite impressive and beautiful.

And yes, one of the primary lessons from examining our dreams closely is that we should not trust waking perceptions at face-value.

How about that -- two for two.

[bennyboy]

So here's the question-- are experiences "simulated" by the brain under normal circumstances more representative of reality than those deep experiences which occur under religious, drug, philosophical, or meditative states?

In a special state, you might have the experience of one-ness with the Universe. This is a metaphoric truth, but one that probably accords better with a scientific understanding than our normal mode of experience-- i.e. that we are actually not distinct entities within a room called Universe, but we are regions of QM functions linked by a complex web with everything else in it in a mutual dance of interactivity. The experience makes it crystal clear-- ego is not truth. And if you think in evolutionary terms, ego is a very specific kind of illusion which has the property of sustaining itself through reproductive fitness (i.e. by magnifying the importance of one's own survival relative to someone else's), but survival and truth aren't necessarily the same thing.

[Alan V]

So here's the question-- are experiences "simulated" by the brain under normal circumstances more representative of reality than those deep experiences which occur under religious, drug, philosophical, or meditative states?

In a special state, you might have the experience of one-ness with the Universe.  This is a metaphoric truth, but one that probably accords better with a scientific understanding than our normal mode of experience-- i.e. that we are actually not distinct entities within a room called Universe, but we are regions of QM functions linked by a complex web with everything else in it in a mutual dance of interactivity.  The experience makes it crystal clear-- ego is not truth.  And if you think in evolutionary terms, ego is a very specific kind of illusion which has the property of sustaining itself through reproductive fitness (i.e. by magnifying the importance of one's own survival relative to someone else's), but survival and truth aren't necessarily the same thing.

You ask difficult questions, but I will offer my own perspectives.

First, so-called deep experiences are usually novel experiences, which is to say they are not typical of the kinds of experiences we usually have.  They are highly prized for their novelty, and many people assume they are more representative of reality for having happened at all, since they are thought of as cracks in the facade.  Personally, I trust repeated experiences as more likely representative of realities.  Again, my experiences with dreams were sometimes striking and beautiful, but they proved that human brains can manufacture information.  The question is whether any insights gained can actually be applied beyond the idea that our perceptions are simulations.

Second, I don't really agree that reductionistic interpretations are "more real" than emergent ones.  You offered the example of the flatness of a table.  Yes, at the quantum level there is no such thing, but other interpretations have real significance at their own levels too.  They are not just illusions.  So while we may be "one with the universe" in a certain sense, that universe still will not hesitate to kill us if we let our guard down.  Our selves are realities too.  Simulations are not the same as illusions, because simulations are of something else which exists.

I like to think of all truths as relative to specific contexts.

[Angrboda]

But I think we could express the question in different ways. "Is it possible to study non-scientific fields with scientific means?" "Does brain science tell us anything useful about aesthetic questions?" Things like that. 

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?

[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.

[Angrboda]

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.

I didn't see an actual answer to the question in any of that. Do you have an answer or not?

[Alan V]

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?

You are correct that causation must include the mind.

The brain/mind is one thing, even though the brain has other functions as well. So the mind is also a physical system, albeit one for symbolic processing. In other words, if the brain is causal, so is the mind.

If you press the button which says "STOP," some process will likely stop, even if it didn't stop because the label said "STOP."

[bennyboy]

I didn't see an actual answer to the question in any of that.  Do you have an answer or not?

Yes, my answer is that in a system without any subjective observer, the idea of causation is probably meaningless. Causation requires the discrete separation of QM particles into things, and probably some mechanism which is capable of tracking changes of state over time.

I do not know whether time is a dimension, or how the Universe carries state information from one moment to the other.

I'd say that our explanations about causation always take a narrative form. We think of ourselves, and the objects which we perceive, as being part of a story.

In other words, I'd say before I answer your question, I'd want to look at whether, philosophically speaking, it's the right one.

[bennyboy]

I like to think of all truths as relative to specific contexts.

Well, then we can be friends again:

I've coined a term which I often use, Truth-in-Context. Given a context, it's perfectly fine to refer to truths that don't also apply to the system upon which they supervene. For example, I can demonstrate that my desk is flat by running my hand over it or using some kind of leveling device. In the context of every day human existence, it's as true that my desk is flat as anything else might be said to be true.

But when you're talking about supervenient properties, it's hard to choose which type or level of context to use-- and, in fact, many of the disagreements come from the fairly arbitrary task of setting that context. Does mind supervene on the brain as a whole, or is it intrinsic in some kind of unknown way to self-referential information over time, or is it that every interchange of energy in the Universe is also an essential atomic nano-conscious event? QM goofiness kind of makes me believe that there's infinitely more "mind" in this Universe than we can understand, because it's not in a form that we can relate to.

In looking at drugs, then we are definitely looking at the electrochemical level-- inhibition of neurotransmitter uptake, for example, and we can say that a drug has a causal relationship to behavior. Trying to look at drug effects without reference to brain function and the effects on our experience would be silly.

But I'm not sure that psychogony-- the existence of mind at all rather than the lack of it at all, isn't better explained in terms of QM. I might even say that just as QM particles are really only defined in statistical terms, mind might only be defined in idealistic or metaphorical terms-- there may be nothing there except the awareness itself, as paradoxical as that seems when we know something about brain function.

__

I'd like to introduce an idea for discussion-- transcendence of supervenient properties, especially information. It seems to me that an .mp3 file, for example, while it is dependent on SOME medium or mechanism, has a life of its own. You could run Windows 10 on silicon based systems, or in a collection of abacuses manipulated by clever monkeys, and so long as your drivers crash for no reason and it insists on updating even though you keep telling it not to, it's still just Windows-- I'd say that Windows is transcendent of whatever mechanism it supervenes on.