Theos-Talk Archives (January 2006 Message tt00233)

Lenny
What about the foetus, how does it react, before the brain is formed?
Cass

leonmaurer@aol.com wrote: Thought it might be helpful to see how theosophical thinking and reasoning, 
along with a knowledge of its metaphysical science, can contend with skeptical 
existential materialists and reductive scientists...


In a message dated 1/9/06 6:12:58 AM, gevans613@aol.com writes:


> In a message dated 09/01/2006 06:17:26 GMT Standard Time, 
> leonmaurer@aol.com writes:
> �
> In a message dated 1/8/06 3:45:43 AM, glenswift@mindspring.com writes:
> �
> (snip)
> �
> 
> (snip)
 
> Glen:
> Every time someone talks about information or meaning being somewhere or 
> being transmitted somewhere or somehow, they are mistaken IMO. All that is 
> happening (that they're describing) is the presence or movement of matterand/or 
> energy.
> �
> Here's an example. Let's say I see words on a piece of paper. What am I 
> actually seeing? Dry ink on paper; that's what I'm seeing. It is only by virtue 
> of my recognizing and interpreting the shapes of the letters that _gives_ 
> meaning to what I see. I give meaning to what I see! The ink on the paperdoes 
> not contain either meaning or information.
> �
> Leon:
> Also be nice if you could explain exactly how you recognize and interpret 
> the meaning of the words and sentences that you see? It seems to me that the 
> information enabling you to do such things, is certainly encoded in those 
> words and sentences. Also, apparently, they would have to have some physical 
> means of getting from the paper to your individual center of perception and 
> discrimination. Where would that be, by the way? And, what would be the mechanism 
> of their transmission and transformation? 
> 
> Jud: The ability to recognise and extract the way in which the holism must 
> change the way that it exists [neuronally] is encoded in the brain meat -not 
> in the graphite particles on the page. In the same way it is the BRAIN which 
> contains the information that the tree it sees is a tree - not the tree.
> 
[LM] The brain contains the encoded "information" of the optically detected 
images of the written words or the optical image of the tree, transmitted to 
and through its neurological synapses from the retinas, solely as an 
electromagnetic field transformation or its modulations. The brain "sees"nothing -- 
since seeing or perceiving, as a capability of the mind and its zero-point 
center of consciousness, is a qualia that is experienced solely by that point of 
individual "I AM" consciousness (which includes awareness, discernment, 
discrimination, thought, understanding, will or intent, etc.)   

So far science cannot explain, by reference to the neurological meat or 
otherwise, what or where those properties or functions of consciousness are, how 
the individual self experiences them, or how the mind is bonded to the brain 
meat. But, since they are there -- pictured in the mind and encoded in the 
brain's em neurological field to be experienced and manipulated, changed, or 
ignored -- they must, therefore, exist as objectively informative, albeit encoded 
images, to be eventually demodulated or decoded, differentiated, integrated, 
and comprehended (as to their meaning) by the center of individual self 
consciousness (referring to its memory or stored knowledge) whatever and wherever that 
subjective experiential characteristic of the complex human organism is or 
may be located (i.e., transcendentally existent as an aspect and attribute of 
fundamental, or primal space that is beyond the metrics of our physical 
space-time continuum).   

The word "inform" by the way appears to be a compound of the words *in* and 
*form*. Therefore, the blueprint or encoded diagrams describing any 
structural form -- whether pictured in the mind or communicated as words orimages on 
screen or paper -- are necessarily "information" as and of itself.  
Understanding the application or meaning of such information, then, must beleft entirely 
to the consciously aware and willful thinker that discerns it ... NOT the 
brain or its resultant em field that carries the encoded informative images-- to 
be ultimately transformed to its associated hyperspace mind field and from 
there to its zero-point center -- where it is decoded, experienced as qualia, 
and thought about, or differentiated and integrated by the individual 
consciousness.

> Glen:
> People talk about information being carried by neurons, but that is 
> incorrect also. What do we find inside neurons? Chemicals, molecules, atoms perhaps, 
> and maybe even some free electrons. We give them names; we identify patterns 
> of organization and activity; and we ascribe meaning to those things and 
> patterns. It is not information that is transmitted along an axon or across a 
> synapse; just chemicals and electrons, and maybe what we perceive as 
> electromagnetic waves or fields. But it is our interpretation of those things which 
> leads people to say that information is transmitted by neurons.
> �
> I can explain this further if I've not made this sufficiently clear. Can 
> anyone find an error in my thinking?
> �
> Cheers, Glen
> �
> Jud:
> Excellent Glen! I have been saying this on this list for a long time.
> �
> Leon:
> The error lies in the inability of such materialistic thinking to consider 
> the actual nature of how those patterns of energy representing words on 
> paper, auditory information, etc., are interpreted by our apparently singular 
> center of consciousness, that is also, apparently, non local, as well as outside 
> the realm of physical science to explain.
> �
> Jud:
> It isn't done that way - no consciousness exists. A conscious human exists. 
> NOTHING is outside the realm of physics to explain [eventually] to those who 
> wish to hear the correct explanation. The /energy/ material simply arranges 
> itself in patterns that can be recalled, rearranged, and compared with the 
> new patterns prompted by new neuronal configurations. There is nothing 
> *mysterious* about it [although certain people would be happier if it remains 
> *mysterious.*
> 
[LM] That's no explanation at all of HOW the brain goes about its supposed 
functions of "recall", "rearrangement", and "comparison" with new patterns,etc. 
-- which, to make any scientific or philosophical sense, requires a full 
explanation of how the brain decodes those patterns, and "experiences" the real 
images they represent. Unfortunately, without such an explanation, the 
"mystery" still remains. :-) 

However, I'm certain that when the true explanation finally arrives, it will 
not be "mysterious" or supernatural at all... But will be based on perfectly 
logical, reasonable and natural coenergetic and sub quantal field phenomena-- 
as fully described in my ABC theory, and partially (with respect to ignoring 
the hard problem of consciousness) described in Superstring/M-brane and quantum 
field theories.   

It seems, however, that you are still stuck in your limited, materialistic 
definition of "existence," and thus can't see the trees for the forest. :-) 
> �
> In other words; How does the information get from the transmitter to ther
> eceiver (i. e., from the object of perception to the perceiver)?
> �
> �
> Jud:
> Ask any TV engineer. The codes are carried by radio carrier waves as a 
> series of signals, in a similar way that sound waves carry our voices in normal 
> conversation.
> 
[LM] I was not asking about the way the signals get from the camera to the 
picture tube, but how the holistic image on the retinas gets to the conscious 
self that decodes, directly perceives and experiences, discerns, discriminates, 
differentiates, integrates, interprets, compares with prior knowledge -- and, 
thereby, comprehends the "meaning" of it. Of course, the basic assumption 
behind such a question, is that there is no known or observable scientifically 
or technologically viable mechanisms in the brain that explains those 
characteristics of human consciousness -- which, in my view, apparently exist as the 
functions of a coadunate but not consubstantial field of human beness that is 
beyond (i.e., of a higher order or phase of frequency/energy) the observable or 
measurable physical and electrical fields of the brain, including the 
observability of our entire metric space-time continuum -- such as the "singularity" 
in the center of a black hole or within its surrounding event barrier.  

It's interesting that this reasonable explanation of the invisible, 
immeasurable, and otherwise unobservable coadunate but not consubstantial hyperspace 
fields of consciousness -- being subject to both electrical and gravitational 
forces -- also explains the missing mass of the universe that quantum 
cosmologists unknowingly call "dark matter," "strange attractors," or add to their 
inaccurate equations as "gravitational constants," etc. Perhaps, someday in the 
not to distant future, they will come to understand how far off the mark they 
were in describing the true nature of the universe and its fundamental dichotomy 
(separation in different aspects of fundamental space, yet mutual 
interdependence) between subjective consciousness (awareness, ideation, will) and 
objective matter (energy, substance, mass).   

This relational understanding, of course, completely undermines the basis of 
all skepticism directed at those who intuitively grasp (although, often 
mystically or supernaturally misinterpret) the true transcendental (in intimate 
conjunction with the immanent) nature of universal reality -- or, as David Bohm 
might put it, the separation and conjunction of the implicate and explicate 
orders as a holistic unity. Unfortunately, those blind believers, relying solely 
on their intuition or direct experience (which could be debunked as 
hallucinations), can't defend their ideas against the counter arguments of the skeptics.

In any event, how can you say that the sound waves that carry our voice 
modulations do not contain all the information delivered from one to another in our 
conversation -- subject to later (after 40 microsecond delay by the brain) 
interpretation by our mind (in conjunction with its memory and the 
awareness-will of its zero-point) as to meaning and understanding? Since when can we 
conflate explanatory "information" with meaning or interpretation? Isn't it 
apparent that information is intermediary between conceptual or ideational 
expression and comprehensible or tangible impression -- i.e., that which iscontained 
in the literal or figurative explanation or "blueprint," between the ideation 
of a structure and the structure itself? Apparently, information can be 
imparted to us... But, our understanding of its meaning, must be left to our 
conscious interpretation based on our individual intelligence, knowledge, and 
wisdom. All intangible, yet nevertheless, existent in our minds and memories. 

> What carries that information?
> �
> Jud:
> Radio waves carry the signals,but it is NOT *information* It only becomes 
> meaningful and informative to the informed recipient. In the same way the 
> reflected photons from a tree only become meaningful when the tree is seen by 
> human eyes
> 
[LM] Nevertheless, for anything expressed, either directly as reflected 
light, or indirectly as an analog such as a radio wave, brain wave, etc. --to 
become informative (i.e., understood), it must contain valid "information" that is 
transmitted between the informer and the informed -- through whatever means 
applied -- whether directly between the object of perception and the perceiver, 
or indirectly through modulation and demodulation between eye and brain, 
brain and mind, mind and awareness, etc. I can't imagine why a viewer of a 
television show or movie needs prior information to comprehend the meaning of what 
he sees and hears, other than a knowledge of language and a memory of prior 
experiences of seeing the pictured things and beings in real life. The 
information the picture and soundtrack contains either informs him or it doesn't, 
depending on his prior knowledge and ability to discern, discriminate, compare, 
etc. 
> �
> How do you explain the transmission and transformation or encoding of the 
> objective information (e.g., color, shape, form, size, distance, etc.) from 
> the image on the retina to the image in the mind? And, after that, how doyou 
> explain the interpretation of that image, as well as its relationship to 
> similar images, identically encoded in memory -- so as to determine its meaning or 
> gain an understanding of what it actually is or represents?
> �
> Jud:
> There is no *information* The eye is an exterior component of the brain - 
> it changes the configuration of the way it exists in the same way as the rest 
> of the brain as it extrapolates the incoming photons as they hit and 
> penetrate its surface. The way the eye changes is picked up by the neuronal 
> brain-meat which compares the way the eye is now existing which copies ofprevious 
> ways in which it existed and BINGO!
> 
[LM] I still question what is it that enables the brain-meat to "compare" the 
way the eyes previously existed with the way they respond to current 
information impressed on their retinas? How does the meat experience (feel, see, 
know) the difference? Where is the memory (which also must exist) of that 
previous existence of the eyes stored? How is it retrieved and subsequently 
interpreted by the brain, mind or consciousness? Where is that mind or 
consciousness located? How are they interconnected? There are so many unanswered 
questions that belie your simplistic explanation -- which is no informationat all 
-- that I could go on forever.:-) BTW, if the eye changes, then doesn't 
whatever causes that change exist in various degrees of (similarly existing) 
modulations of the particular information contained in the photons? Seemsto me 
that there are existence's within existence's, and that some of them are 
intangible or transcendental, yet still capable of determining phenomenal changes in 
tangible existence's.   
> �
> Could we not say, then -- when the electromagnetic radiation from a TV 
> antenna carries an FM signal (of a lecture for example) and transmits it from the 
> station to our receiver for further processing and transformation into the 
> moving picture and sound we directly (or indirectly from another POV) 
> experience -- that such transfer of imagery, on both audio and visual levels, is of 
> the same order as the electrochemical modulation of a sense "image" (sight or 
> sound) carried by a neuron chain and transmitted to the brain for further 
> processing, transformation, demodulation, detection, discernment, etc.?
> �
> Jud:
> At first glance I agree with you - Yes.
> �
> The same thing may apply when we consider words on paper that first haveto 
> be detected and electrochemically transformed on the retina, then 
> transmitted as symbols to the brain, so as to be further transformed intothe images 
> perceived by our consciousness or awareness, and further discriminated asto 
> their meaning, through reference to our knowledge stored in our memory.
> �
> If such is the actual case, then it seems obvious to me that the modulated 
> signal of the sense image.
> �
> Jud:
> There are no existing�*sense images* only the sensing sensor.
> 
[LM] No? Then, what is it that modulates the changes in the sensors (rods, 
cones, etc.) that enables them to transfer that portion of the "image" they 
sense to the brain's electrochemical neural network -- so as to be reassembled 
and transformed back to a composite virtual image replica of the original 
object that is perceived (experienced) by the singular center of conscious 
awareness? Where does that inner light we ultimately experience as a "sense image" 
come from? In your world of existential materialism, how can it exist if 
there are no photon transmitters or receptors in the brain's meat to receive and 
experience them as an assembled virtual image after their converted signals 
leave the retina? Or, are you caught in the trap of naive realism? 
> �
> �
> �... carried by the neuron chain must be the encoded basis of the final 
> information (if not the information itself) that is directly experienced and 
> interpreted into meaningful images by our individual consciousness -- with 
> direct reference to our short and long term memory banks.
> �
> �
> Jud:
> If you wish to call the newly changed configurational condition of the 
> brain's meaty-bits *information* you are free to do so.
> �
> In my view, then, it is also obvious that the consciousness (considered as 
> awareness, discrimination, will, etc.) is entirely separate from the neural 
> mechanisms that transmits and transforms the modulated image information 
> itself.
> �
> �
> Jud:
> There is no: *consciousness, awareness, discrimination, knowingness, 
> sentience, cognisance etc. There exists only he or she who is conscious, aware, 
> discriminatory, knowing, sentient, cognisive etc.
> 
[LM] Nit picking nonsense -- in the face of human capabilities of their 
consciousness that exists, at least for the purpose of serious (as well as farcical 
:-) discussion, as ideas in the field of their minds and thoughts. To 
paraphrase Descartes... I am conscious of my thoughts, therefore I exist, as does 
my thinking, knowing, cognition, sentience, awareness, discernment, 
discrimination, etc. 
> �
> If that is so, then the only practical way such information can be stored 
> and integrated with other memories, is as holographic wave interference 
> patterns on the surface of an electromagnetic field (or fields) that are of a 
> higher order than the intermediate electromagnetic field of the brain (where the 
> intermediate holographic imagery must first be modulated after being processed 
> by its neurology). This material stage, then, must be followed by further 
> transformation and processing on a transcendent level of intermediate (between 
> objective physical matter and subjective consciousness) hyperspace (*Astro 
> biological coenergetic*) fields consisting of higher orders of electromagnetic 
> energy.
> �
> Jud:
> No, no, no, no. That's utter fantasy I am afraid.
> 
[LM] I could just as well say that in reference to your unfounded denials of 
what I think actually exists in both physical and transcendental reality -- 
based on your mistaken belief that nothing exists other than tangible and 
measurable matter -- which mysteriously, without any logical or reasonable 
explanation, exhibits all the characteristics of consciousness and cognition.  
> �
> *-* http://www.tellworld.com/Astro.Biological.Coenergetics/
> �
> In addition, the meaning attributed to that information would depend on the 
> interpretation of a singular zero-point of consciousness that is capable of 
> projecting a coherent energy wave that reconstructs the holographic 
> information, and by reflection, detects and observes such an image and can attribute 
> meaning by direct reference to and comparison with its surrounding coadunate 
> but not consubstantial higher order memory fields -- similarly detected and 
> decoded.
> �
> This implies that there is a "third eye" and "third ear" located at the 
> zero-point center of the overall modulated brain field directly behind the eyes 
> and between the ears to receive, demodulate and discern the visual and 
> auditory "information" carried, transmitted and transformed as holographic 
> interference patterned imagery by the brains neural system.
> �
> Of course, to thoroughly understand the above aspect of my view of 
> "information theory" and the mechanisms of perception, discrimination, discernment, 
> understanding, intent, etc., you will have to acknowledge that consciousness 
> is the attribute of the zero-point of "absolute (or eternally empty) space" 
> that is at the origin of every universal field of matter-energy. And, that this 
> non-local and immeasurable point is outside of all metric time and 
> dimensional space. In addition, it should be understood that all "information" 

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