X-Message-Number: 25175
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 09:26:40 -0800 (PST)
From: Scott Badger <>
Subject: Re: Pattern/Process Souls vs. Materialism

For Richard:

So I guess you'll be riding the shuttle with Dr. McCoy
rather than using the transporter (I hope you got that
reference). Anyway, you wrote the following:

>>Processes have no properties at all,because they are
concepts and not factually existing things.>>

>>Therefore, software can never be considered alive or
conscious. Consciousness is a property of hardware---a
system has it or does not, and the type of
consciousness it has no doubt depends on the specifics
of the hardware.>>

Isn't installing a software program on my hard drive
simply a particular arranging or patterning of the
atoms that compose the hard drive? If so, then
software is simply patterned hardware. Much like in
the brain. 

I don't understand your statement that processes "are
concepts and not factually existing things". Well,
you're right that process is not a 'thing', but it's
certainly more than an abstract concept. A change in
state "is" process. It's not a thing, it's an action.

Experience is what happens when the brain system is
processing a sufficient amount of data. Consciousness
is action. You are a process. The mind is what the
brain does, not what the brain is. The rather unique
manner in which your system processes data is what I
believe you wish to preserve. But I'm doubtful that
there is a particular location in the brain whose
processes are responsible for the soul you refer to.

I'm personally not convinced that your objections to
competing theories are, as you say, "insurmountable".
The nature of consciousness and the strong sense of
self and conscious will that we feel are hotly debated
topics. I recommend to those interested Susan
Blackmore's article below for some further overview.

I've included some relevant snippets. Please note the
last paragraph which addresses the competing "ego" vs.
"bundle" theories of consciousness.

Libet's Experiment on Voluntary action and the sense
of free will

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Articles/psych01.htm

Hold your arm out in front of you and then, whenever
you feel like it - of your own free will - flex your
wrist. Do it several times and watch what happens in
your own mind. You may feel as though you first
consciously decided to move, and then moved. It feels
as though the conscious decision caused the action.
Trying it for yourself helps with thinking about
Libet s famous experiment on voluntary action (Libet
1985). Libet asked people to do just this, while he
systematically measured the timing of three things. 1.
The start of the action - using electrodes on the
wrist. 2. The start of the readiness potential in
motor cortex - using electrodes on the scalp. 3. The
decision to move - using a revolving spot on a clock
face (subjects had to say where the spot was when they
consciously decided to act). The last of these was the
most controversial but subsidiary experiments showed
that people are able accurately to time external
stimuli this way. The assumption is that they could do
the same with their own private decisions.

So - which came first? The decision to move, or
activity in motor cortex? The answer was more dramatic
than anyone expected. The brain activity began about
500 milliseconds, or half a second, before the person
was aware of deciding to act. It seems that the
conscious decision came far too late to be the cause
of the action; as though consciousness is a mere
afterthought. Odd though this might seem, it fits with
previous experiments on exposed brains, in which Libet
demonstrated that about half a second of continuous
activity in sensory cortex is needed for a person to
become aware of a sensory stimulus (Libet 1981). This
implies the odd conclusion that consciousness lags
behind the events of the world. But, Libet argued,
once events reach neuronal adequacy (i.e. half a
second of activity) they are subjectively referred
back to the time of the initial evoked potential. So
even though consciousness takes half a second to build
up, events still seem to happen in real time.

Wegner argues that free will is an illusion created in
three steps. First we are ignorant about how our
brains plan actions and carry them out. Second, we
become aware of the results of the planning and call
these intentions. Finally the action occurs after the
intention and so we leap - erroneously - to the
conclusion that  our  intention caused the action. Not
everyone agrees with this interpretation, and there is
currently vigorous debate about how neuroscience can
contribute to our understanding of free will (Libet,
Freeman and Sutherland 1999). Nevertheless, these
results should make us question any conclusions we
base on our undoubted feelings of conscious control.

Just how deep is this illusion then? Dennett (1991)
suggests that the fundamental error is to believe in
what he calls the  Cartesian Theatre . Theatre
metaphors are common in discussions of consciousness,
and arguably can be helpful (Baars 1997). It certainly
feels as though I am sitting inside my head and
experiencing the events in turn as though they were
some kind of show. But this is a big mistake, argues
Dennett. While almost everyone rejects outright
Cartesian dualism, most psychologists and
neuroscientists still believe in some kind of centre,
where everything comes together and  consciousness
happens ; some kind of magic finishing line beyond
which events  come into  consciousness, or a centre
from where  my  decisions are made and  my 
instructions sent out. But this cannot be, for the
reality of the brain is a massively parallel system
with no middle. So, as Dennett puts it  When you
discard Cartesian dualism, you really must discard the
show that would have gone on in the Cartesian Theater,
and the audience as well, for neither the show nor the
audience is to be found in the brain, and the brain is
the only real place there is to look for them. 
(Dennett 1991, p 134).

Is there really no persistent  me  who lives this
life; who is conscious and who has free will?
Consideration of the nature of self is deeply bound up
with questions about consciousness, as recent debates
reveal (Gallagher and Shear 1999). Philosopher Derek
Parfit (1987) divides theories of the self into two
types - ego and bundle theories. Ego theorists
(perhaps the natural way to think) believe in a
persistent self who is the subject of experiences and
whose existence explains the sense of unity and
continuity of experience. Bundle theorists (named
after Hume s (1739)  bundle of sensations ), deny
there is any such thing. The apparent unity is just a
collection of ever-changing experiences tied together
by such relationships as a physical body and memory.
While ego theories come easily to most of us,
intellectually some kind of bundle theory seems ever
more inescapable.

Cheers,

Scott

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