"Traveler" <traveler at nospam.com> wrote in message ...
>>Yet this notion is absolutely correct in the sense that any conscious
>>experience - from thoughts and emotions to objects seen around you in the
>>world "out there" including stars and galaxies - are all brain process -
>>out of convenience called mind - and occuring within your own skull.
>> I thought that your own skull was also "out there." IOW, if nothing
> exists but what's in your mind, does your mind also exist within your
> mind? This is the sort of self-referential problems associated with
> extreme solipsism.
I look at it a bit differently. When I look at the moon that orbits earth,
the moon I *see* is indeed (visual) brainprocess in my skull that is an
experiential interface 'superimposing' the image of the moon on the
experience-independent moon out there. When I don't look at the moon, that
experience-independent moon is still there - this is the assumption science
works with and to which I subscribe as well.
Similarly, my brain as I can *see* is a mental image 'superimposed' on the
brain that is also there independent of anyone, myself or a brainsurgeon
looking at it.
I think this is the most accurate way of understanding "the problem" and it
actually resolves solipsism, without denying the obvious truth that whatever
you possibly experience "in your mind" are experiential brainprocesses or
states (as opposed to un- or preconscious brainprocesses) that occur
entirely in your own skull.
Science, scientists do not escape the experiential interface, but it rightly
works with the assumption that independent of our experiential interface
there really is a world out there that can be studied. As you can really
move around in the world in a high-tec tank with only cameras and computers
screens inside. We are just cybernatic organisms with high-tec self-aware
auto-pilot functions, i.e. without needing a pilot/homunculus sitting in the
box.
Cheers
>> As an aside, this is the same sort of illogical self-referential
> nonsense that Godel used to come up with his incompleteness theorem.
> Which really is not a theorem since it is obviously hogwash. That a
> raving lunatic like Godel (a time travel believer) was elevated to the
> status of a god and worshipped by so many "bright" folks is a sad
> commentary on the sorry state of modern scientific philosophy and of
> science in general. Underneath, it's just a house of cards.
>> Louis Savain
>> Artificial Intelligence From the Bible:
>http://users.adelphia.net/~lilavois/Seven/bible.html>> The Silver Bullet or How to Solve the Software Crisis:
>http://users.adelphia.net/~lilavois/Cosas/Reliability.htm
