Theos-Talk Archives (February 2000 Message tt00007)

In a message dated 2/2/0 7:03:36 PM, xbq83@dial.pipex.com (Roger Cook) writes:

>Leon Maurer's observation on Ray Scanlon's description of how the brain
>functions:
>
>> Could we be getting a bit off track and failing to consider the dynamic
>> observer-user-thinker-chooser who, blinded by this sort of materialistic
>> and presumptive thinking, is not seeing the world or the sky for the forest
>> and the trees?:-)
>
>This could be seen as characterising the meeting-point between free will
>('I' am in control) with its antithesis ('I' am just the outcome of neural
>processes)? If the latter proves to be correct, then the homunculus, what
>Leon calls the observer-user-thinker-chooser, is just an abstraction I have
>created to prop up my world. My personal view is that we may be entirely
>stimulus-driven. For example, the same glass of water may be viewed quite
>differently, depending on our metabolic state. If bright-eyed and
>bushy-tailed of a morning, then half-full - if liverish and constipated,
>then half-empty. The construction we put on things is in this case
>viscerally derived.

How can you, as if you were in total self control of your faculties, 
knowledge and wisdom, make these contradictory statements concluding that you 
might not be in such control?  Coming from such a direction, what kind of 
credibility could your opinions have?  Who's thinking and talking about this, 
you or your neurology?  If we are entirely stimulus driven, who makes the 
decision to use aspirin, Tylenol or Ibuprofen when you feel you have a 
headache?  
>
>I am suggesting that Libet's findings may have shown Willis Freeman to
>be correct when he says that consciousness is  "mopping up" afterwards...
>consciousness has a role, but it is not to initiate action. It is to
>prepare the self in the light of experience (p 722 JCS 5, No 5/6).   
>This raises the daunting possibility that all our thoughts and actions are
>the outcome of amazingly complex neural interactions - the idea of being
>in overall control may be just part of that process.  

Baloney.  I'm amazed at how glib people are who, using their self determined 
individuality, self acquired knowledge, and self accepted preconceptions, 
self choose to continue promoting the possibility (using the flimsiest 
analogies, and based on their ignorance of the fundamental nature of 
consciousness, or even the basic Laws of Nature) -- that they are nothing 
more than slaves of their neural correlates.  If, so, then who is the master 
and who is the slave who is mouthing such nonsense about himself?  If it's 
the neural correlates that make the conscious decisions, who programmed their 
algorithms?  

If such loose thinkers could explain the mechanisms and cause of qualia, 
awareness and will with any sort of scientific and/or logical deduction, 
induction, thesis or synthesis, they might comprehend who and what they 
actually are... But they can't even come close to such an understanding, 
since physical oriented reductive science cannot reach past the limitations 
of matter and form, or the words and symbols representing their properties.  
They refuse to believe or understand that image information throughout Nature 
can be modulated, carried and transmitted solely by and through the wave 
nature of energy fields.  Even a digital transformation of information is 
nothing but a linear series of analogous magnetic fields that ultimately 
define nonlinear wave patterns of holographic sensory pictures in the brain, 
mind and memory fields, accessible to our "inquiray" -- when willfully 
emanated from the zero-point center of conscious or unconscious awareness.  

When science can explain, in purely material terms, how a 3-D image is 
created in my mind and consciousness, and how, through what mechanisms, I can 
guide my hand to reproduce that image exactly on a piece of paper that is 
hidden from my view (which I could do prior to age 12), I might be prone to 
accept the view that consciousness (mind, memory), awareness and will are 
epiphenomena of the brain's neurology.

As it is, however, it's much more logical to believe that everything in the 
universe is connected holistically, and proceeds from the simplicity of 
absolute abstract energy in the form of fundamental non-polar spin -- that 
ultimately squirts this universe in a spiral vortex out of its static 
zero-point center of awareness, into the vast complexity of multidimensional 
fields, within fields, within fields -- that begins in the close-to-infinite, 
immaterial and immeasurable, vibrational frequency orders of prior causative 
consciousness energies (such as universal mind, memory, awareness, and the 
source of will) -- and ends in the course grained, condensed fields of 
particulate mass-energy that compose our brains, bodies, and the outer 
self-experienced, material world formed around us.  From this, we could 
easily assume that the brain and body are simply the 
optical-electrical-chemical-mechanical interface between our uniquitous 
zero-point originated transcendent awareness, will, memory and mind, and the 
outer world of food, water, air, shelter and other material amenities that 
surround us as more or less necessary aids to our survival and personal well 
being... But,  all originating from the same source of fundamentally 
conscious primal "spinergy".  

It's also amazing that the promoters of materialism cannot realize, from pure 
observation alone, that it is far easier for a creative mind to manipulate 
the forms of matter, than it is for matter to manipulate itself, let alone 
minds or consciousness.  So, which came first? The seer, or the seen? The 
image, or the construction?  The thought-created designs and blueprints, or 
the flying airplane? 

To paraphrase Einstein, Why would God (assuming there is such a conscious 
entity) play dice with evolution by leaving it all to chance?  Is the 
Universe and its inherent wisdom (based on it's past knowledge and experience 
stored as abstract patterns of energy flow lines in its initial spin, 
perhaps) less competent than we are (who have a long way to go to gain even a 
small part of such knowledge and wisdom)?  I think not.  And, I challenge all 
scientists to prove differently, or falsify the initial premises leading to 
such conclusions -- that brain, body and all other forms of matter are the 
product of consciousness, and ultimately, of universal Self awareness -- not 
the reverse.

Incidentally, to save burdening the moderator with another post;-) -- it is 
pointless to argue with Scanlon's views, since he admittedly isn't a 
scientist or philosopher interested in working on the problem of explaining 
consciousness and its interrelationships with matter, but is only interested, 
apparently, in the mechanics of the brain.  Therefore, he can take his narrow 
opposing space alongside all those who are interested only in the theology of 
their personal gods... Both believing that the real synthetic, 
multidisciplinary science of open minded searching for the meaning and 
explanation of ALL of Nature, its origins, its interactions, its forms, and 
its expressions -- without resort to either materialism or Gods -- be 
damned....  

But, that's what I thought this forum was all about.  

(I'm sure there are several brain science forums that Scanlon could better 
spend his time arguing his narrow, epiphenomenal views that the TRN [thalamic 
reticular nucleus] is the sole source of consciousness [mind, memory], 
awareness and will in the Universe.  If so, I wonder which one of us, having 
this marvelous organ in the first place, dreamed up, and planned the 
evolution of this intricately contrived Universe so as to give it to all of 
us.:-)

Leon Maurer
leonmaurer@aol.com
(not the moderator)
http://www.tellworld.com/Astro.Biological.Coenergetics/  

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