Part 1 - The Open Questions In Neuroscience

Mental phenomena are nothing but phenomena of the physical brain, says Patricia Churchland. It's "an illusion of the brain" to think that we have a "nonphysical soul that does our feeling." But how the brain creates constructs of itself and things in the world remains a major puzzle. For instance, how does a brain "habitually represent goals, plans and projects -- things that don't yet exist?" And what about the huge amount of spontaneous activity in the brain that occurs while we're resting? We don't understand how the "organization of a motor response is achieved," nor how these responses are integrated across sensory systems together with memory. Churchland anticipates a fundamental shift in looking at the brain that will merge philosophical and neurobiological issues.

From the MIT "Expand Your Mind: Getting a Grasp on Consciousness" conference.

This is Part 1 of 3.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Neuroscience
• Philosophy
• Neurophilosophy
• Eliminativism
• Consciousness

[Rampenknecht]

Yeah, the problem of the qualia is really messing up the nice, orderly, geeky computational-paradigm. Interesting, though, that there are so many women active in neuroscience nowadays. The feminization of thinking about the mind? *mild, patronizing chuckle*

[LennyBound]

Word.

Qualia is a bitch. :-)

[4Dmetricology]

what it "feels like".

how can we know Turing machine is or isnt sentient, etc.



[4Dmetricology]

@nspeert

I am familiar with the old arguments

[4Dmetricology]

with a moniker like 4Dmetricology, how could I be a troll?...

Indeed, the release of oxytocin within ones endocrine system/crainium is entirely private to that "subject". Just as the experience of that subject is private. Of course I am over simplifying with my exactly equal statement, but you let it pass in the interest of dialog. Appreciated.

I must bring up the fact that oxytocin also hightens empathy, or the ability to intersubjectively verify experience.

[nspeert]

@4Dmetricology You misunderstand what I mean by private, oxytocin isn't private because it can be extracted from the body and be viewed by people other than the person who it was taken from. What I mean by private is like how you can't even know trully what it is like to be me and vice versa. I can explain to you my experience, but for all you know, what I call green might look like what you call red for example.

[nspeert]

@4Dmetricology assuming you're not trolling me, there is more to the qualia of parental love than oxytocin for the following reason. There is a feature of love that *isn't* intersubjectively verifiable (that is, there is something about it that is private to the subject). Oxytocin though *is* something that is intersubjectively verifiable. Therefore oxytocin can't be identical with the qualia of love.

[4Dmetricology]

@nspeert

oxytocin entirely = having the qualia of motherly(fatherly) love.

Explained.

Next?

[Trailer1220]

I found the last few points she made particularly interesting!