Philosophy Now Forum

A five-minute guide to the debate by Rick Lewis.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/48/A_R ... sciousness

Hi Rick

This is the grain of sand in the oyster for sure. So irritating not to know how the 'whole picture' is built up. In TV the electrons strike the phosphor or the LEDs light up according to principles laid down back in the Bell Laboratories in the old days - with checksums and redundancy.

So even though we know how sight is developed in up to 8 layers of components, we don't know how the 'image' of the whole is produced.

Thinking of an image of your child - eyes shut - you can gradually form your own child in your mind - even with a bit of colour if you concentrate - so where is that ghost forming. Not in the pineal gland for sure!

Some say that the image is global and that many parts of the brain including memory are responsible - but we still don't know why or how we see ' the child' as a whole.

When it comes to dreams, many parts of the brain are not even working - yet that wolf behind the rock has hair and teeth and it jumps out and makes you run screaming in your nightmare - so what is the screen projection location of the dreamscape?

Deep mystery.

Brain effects mind, as hardware effects software. Aware mind controls body as software controls hardware. Aware mind cannot control brain or change it, just as software cannot change the physical configuration of the cpu or memory. It can use it in different ways, but it cannot alter it's physical structure... If the brain goes down, so to the consciousness. It crashes and is unusable or unstable, as a computer. Software, without a computer is just an algorithm doing nothing. Consciousness without brain, just a fantasy.

limited self writing software...

-Imp