| Physicalising the Mind |
The Need for a New Nomenclature for Neurological
and Computer Terminology.
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Suggested replacements
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| Matergy - Matter-Energy |
| Matergicware - Hardware |
| Datergy - Electronic Data |
| Datergicware - Software |
| Sensergy - Sense signals |
Experience/experiencing and action/activity simply do not exist. Experience is not a
brain activity it is THE BRAIN. Whilst we
can do our best with some success to describe
our experiences (such as tasting salt or
sugar) we cannot identify what experience
IS because from a physicalist POV -
what does not exist cannot be described.
There is no duality involved. What exists
is a meaty stimulated and responsive calculator,
which reacts to the internal and external
stimuli in a manner of which the precise
method is not yet totally understood. The
crude notions of there being *a mind in there somewhere* is acting as an obstacle and financial burden
to serious research, and millions of dollars
are being squandered in a fruitless search
for something which represents the ancient
beliefs of primitive man
All organisms respond to stimuli. Excited
by the light/warmth a leaf turns towards
the sun. When a plant turns towards a light
source it is known as phototropism. But that does not automatically instantiate
*phototropism* as an existing dualistic accompaniment of
the phototropic vegetable material. Touch
certain plants and they automatically withdraw
or curl up. That does not mean that some
primitive spook called *a curler* or *curling* or *a withdrawer* or *withdrawing* can be found in the plant. (like Heidegger
looked at a leaf searching for the *is* of
its *greenness.*)
For the same reason when neurosurgeons (or
some slack-jawed transcendentalist peering
over their shoulder) look inside the exposed
brain looking for *a soul* or *a mind* or *consciousness* or other primitive stupidities like *qualia,* etc. they will never find anything NEVER
EVER!
Such sun-seeking traits have evolved in plants
over thousands of years. Growing towards
a light source that beneficially changes
the photosynthesising matergic entity, improves
the survival rate of the plant. The human
brain has developed in a similar way. Whilst
the greatly improved sensorial and calculative
abilities have changed the character of the
meaty material and the specialised brain
cells - the actual software or to quote the current in term - the wetware does NOT EXIST as such.
Software and wetware exists as a series of
electrons arranged in a certain way, just
as the metal hard disc is electronically
arranged in a different way (as a connected
series of metal discs.) To a computer programmer
or a specialist there is nothing complicated
about the fact that a computer can provide
*a condition report* whenever the operator requires one.
I have such an datergicware object of systematised matter on my PC which
alerts me if the computational material,
( i. e. the computer) is overheating. That
does not mean that either the *information* exists nor the *condition* exists - it just means that the computer exists
in that physical manner at the moment it
was instructed by me to give the systems
report (an arrangement of datergy on my screen) and that I modify the way
I exist by becoming informed as to the temperature
of the computer.
Thus when a human body provides *a systems alert* (referred to by the Platonist philosopher
as *qualia* (Latin for *what sort* or *what kind,*) or report in the form of electro-chemical
signals from the eardrum or he damaged toe
- it is the tintinnabulating eardrum and
the stubbed toe that exists not some primitive
dualism called *tintinnabulation* or *pain.*
The human brain does not provide its feed
back in the form of a readable script on
a monitor screen, because developmentally
and ergonomically a meaty monitor screen
attached to the human head would have provided
a clumsy encumbrance - specially when walking
about in low-ceilinged caves. The painful
toe alerts the CNS electronically via nerve
fibres, and the *read out* is managed by the regrouping and re-chunking
of the synaptic openings and closures within
the network (the rapid colour changes of
a squid provides a useful analogy) which
provides patterned cellular configurations
that symbolise the ringing ears or the damaged
toe.
Nature is very simple. But for people who
believe in spirits, ghosts, disembodied *minds* and
airy-fairy *consciousness* and the rest of the compendium of foolishness,
it is in their interest to make the processing
human brain appear as mysterious as they
possible can. A general realization
amongst the public that these dualisms
are merely the result of ignorance would
throw immediate suspicion on the claims of
religion and its souls and spirits and the rest of the mumbo jumbo.
An understanding of human object-action reification will one day clear away all the present transcendentalist
detritus into the dustbin of history (sorry
about the cliche ) where it belongs.
The ontologically confusing and misleading
terms *Hardware* and *Software* are defunct, useless, out of date terms which
give completely erroneous impressions of
what constitutes a computer or a human brain.
When a computer programmer introduces a datergic programme or the human brain receives some
internal or external sensergy that interacts with the physical existing
matergic CD-disc or the brain meat - the
*datergy/sensergy* is converted into datergic electrical pulses (the bit stream) by reflections
of the matergic laser beam from a photoelectric
cell via the systematised (suitably arranged)
matergic material we call *the datergic operating system.* What he installs is merely another form
of electronic datergicware (mistakenly called *software.*)
In other words the whole computational operation
is a physical one using combinations of purely
material components - there is nothing metaphysical involved at all.
The so-called *software* is usually provided in the form of a physical CD, or datergy-stick or (or now less usually) a floppy disc, and
is composed of micro matergic objects we call electrons, (force fields if you prefer) which cause the matergicware
and the datergicware to interact and
cause the physical computer to exist differently.
But that does not mean that either the *action* of the original hardware or the causal
action of the *datergicware* exists - it simply means that the metal pieces
of the hardware and the electronic pieces
of the application datergicware includes
programs that do real work for users. For
example, word processors, spreadsheets, and
database management systems fall under the
category of application datergicware.
But it is the physical personal processor
and , the physical processing brain and the
physical *datergy* which is processed that
can be found in the world - NOT THE PROCESSING!
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