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Waving Goodbye
Do Ideas Exist Outside of the Human Brain?
Jud Evans Waving Goodbye.
My philosophical and ontological agenda is
to identify and distinguish: *that which
exists* from that which some people erroneously
believe to exist - but which in fact cannot
be found in the world. In that sense I am
not so much interested in the MEANING of
what is said regarding the surrounding descriptional
complexity or situational padding, but whether
what is referred to actually exists (is a
true denotatum) or not. That is what ontology
is all about as far as I am concerned.
I claim that whilst the ideating embrained
human exists, his *ideas* do not exist at
all - no more than the *movement* of a waver's
hand exists. *Movement* and *ideation* are
for me existential modalities of the moving
ideator. Hence only the ideating hand-waving
human exists, and his actions are ways, modes,
states of THE WAY he is existing at the moment
he ideates and waves. But for the quayside
or shipboard ideating waver - the only *product*
of their ideation that is communicable is
the *Goodbye* signified by the farewell wave
- ALL EXTRANEOUS memorised feelings and ideations
are incommunicable out of earshot, though
there is indubitably empathetic guesswork
too, following from the mutual antecedal
experience of the emotional feelings of each
partner as hitherto revealed during the course
of their historical relationship.
To say that signs as breathed sounds [words]
are objects that are created by humans is
false. For the objects of the production
of sounds ALREADY exist - the brain, the
tongue, the pallet, the air molecules and
the human ear drum. All that the production
of a sound does is to produce varying modalities
or changes in the activity of these objects,
which have an effect on the tymphanic detector
located in the hearer's ear, from whence
the signals are transferred electrically
to the hearer's brain as meaning. [understanding]
gleaned from antecedally memorised experience.
There is no argument that the physical elements
which ALLOW and FACILITATE the transmission
of communicable representations of feelings
from one human to another exist - but it
is an entirely different ontological story
to claim that the information carried by
this media exists too.
It is the responsibility of those who believe
that ideas exist outside the human brain
to prove to us that these ideas or statements
exist exterior to the human holism, in what
form they exist, and where they are to be
found in order that we may examine them and
confirm their physical presence.
The fMRI or Petscan or Brain imaging device
simply registers the parts of the active,
cogitating, processing brain as it
performs various cognitive operations. The
equipment does not "record" or
*interpret the the content of a human *idea*
but only measures the electrical intensity
in certain areas of the neuronal network
whilst the ideating brain
exits in varying modalities.
So the idea does NOT "exist" as
sound waves - in fact the *idea* doesn't
"exist" at all - what exists is -
the thinking meat - the acting,
existential, encoding, thinking brain of
the holistic ideator
When the ideator becomes an addressor, as
in the case during communication with another
person, then what entitically exists at that
time are the addressee - the sound-waves (vibrating oxygen gas)
and the existential, decoding, thinking bodybrain
of the holistic receptee.
Brain scans allow us to see which parts of
the brain are involved in different types
of mental activity such as language, visual
imagery or mental arithmetic.
By studying areas of the active
brain (only the active thingking flesh exists
- the action does not exist in itself) we
can infer that the incoming codification
is of language type signs consisting of differential
impulses upon the eardrum. After transmission
to the brain these signals are decoded and
transacted into an existential modality of
understanding on the part of the existing
holism. Whilst the differential soundwaves
exist as molecular/waveform activity, it
is purely as molecular activity that they
exist, and not as an "idea." It
is the human ideator/addressor and the ideating
addressee that exist in a modality of understanding
which corresponds to what humans call an
idea "HAVING AN IDEA," but in fact
is an ideational existential modality of
the speaker and the listener who are existing
in thinking states.
Maya Pines of The Howard Hughes Medical Institute
writes:
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"Now several imaging techniques such
as PET (positron emission tomography) and
the newer fMRI (functional magnetic resonance
imaging) make it possible to observe human
brains at work. The PET scan on the above
shows two areas of the brain (red and yellow)
that become particularly active when volunteers
read words on a video screen: the primary
visual cortex and an additional part of the
visual system, both in the back of the left
hemisphere. Other brain regions become especially
active when subjects hear words through ear-phones,
as seen in the PET scan on the right. To
create these images, researchers gave volunteers
injections of radioactive water and then
placed them, head first, into a doughnut-shaped
PET scanner. Since brain activity involves
an increase in blood flow, more blood-and
radioactive water-streamed into the areas
of the volunteers' brains that were most
active while they saw or heard words. The
radiation counts on the PET scanner went
up accordingly.
This enabled the scientists to build electronic
images of brain activity along any desired
"slice" of the subjects' brains.
The images above were produced by averaging
the results of tests on nine different volunteers.
Much excitement surrounds a newer technique,
\fMRI, that needs no radioactive materials
and produces images at a higher resolution
than \PET. In this system, a giant magnet
surrounds the subject's head. Changes in
the direction of the magnetic field induce
hydrogen atoms in the brain to emit radio
signals. These signals increase when the
level of blood oxygen goes up, indicating
which parts of the brain are most active.
Since the method is non-invasive, researchers
can do hundreds of scans on the same person
and obtain very detailed information about
a particular brain's activity, as well as
its structure. They no longer need to average
the results from tests on different subjects,
whose brains are as individual as fingerprints"
- Maya Pines The Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
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All that we can infer then is that the subject
has received [existing] incoming sound-waves
which have been converted into electrical
nerve impulses which are the subject of cognition
by the addressee in his/her modality of decodification
has processed, moderated and come to an understanding
of what they signify - But what they intend
i. e., - THE IDEATION - corresponds with
the existential ideational behaviour of the
human signaller who sent the oral significations
to the subject, and the person who received
the message via the perturbations of his/her
ear-drum and changed it back into the original
representation of the ideational modality
of the sender which is being communicated.
The Farewell Wave.
"Goodbye Rose! "Goodbye Fred!
Let me employ a simple example. But first
let us look again at the types of communication
that are available for use in the production,
transmission and communication of a representation
of our ideational states to other brains
that upon the reception of them they may
ideate and understand them.
(1) Oral messages - the production of sound
waves which impinge upon the ear-drum of
the addressee.
(2) Bodily movements [the waving of a hand
which means "Go back!" or "Come
here!" etc.
(3) Facial expressions conveying existential
states of pleasure, anger, surprise etc.
(4) Written signs and significations - an
arrow pointing "left" marks on
paper or a monitor communication
(5) Other methods not mentioned here.
In what way are they all similar? Answer
- they are all ideated and agreed upon IN
ADVANCE.
Now let me take the most simple example of
a communicative sign, and after reading what
I have to say, let us see if you still believe
that ideas *exist* independently of the human
ideator.
You go down to the docks. There is a ship
ready to sail. On the deck you see the figure
of a friend. As the vessel pulls away from
the quay, the friend raises her hand and
waves it up and down. You understand that
she is using this hand movement to signal
her present mode of existential ideation
- which is *Goodbye Fred.*
Now do you think that the hand and its movement
*exist* as an *idea,* or do you like me believe
that the waving hand exists as part of the
human holism, and what exists is the ideating
brain of the departing friend and your own
ideating bodybrain [or holism] as you stand
on the quay ideating the existential understanding
that she is existing in a state of ideating
the idea of *goodbye?*
The addressor communicates aspects of the
way in which he/she exists in his/her present
existential modality of thinking *that which
is to be communicated,* and also during the
period whilst the oral activity of the conveyance
of that information takes place.
Once the verbal significations have been
received by the addressee as a feature of
his/her existential manner of thinking, the
information as it is cognised and transacted
upon, becomes an existential aspect of the
modality of the subjectivised, listening
and thinking recipient.
I believe that it is the communicating, symbolising
human communicator, the addressee and the
legitimate [objectival] nominata that is
referred to in a symbolic exchange that exists
- not the abstraction. It is by communicating
by way of symbolising that the human utterer
is expressing himself/herself as he/she speaks.
It is by waving one's arm that people signal
*Goodbye!*
I am suggesting that the waving-arm conveys
a meaning that *only exists for the waver
and the waved at/to (and others who are aware
of such symbolisation,) and is something
that does not exist in itself externally
to them. Not many people think that the meaning
of *Goodbye* flies over the sea from the
arm of the waving waver on the seashore to
the waved at person on the deck of the departing
ship. You must be aware that the waving-arm
triggers a previously learned symbolic meaning
in the brain of the recipient of such a visual
signal? All agreed symbolisation works this
way.
For me it is sufficient that the meaning
conveyed by the sight of such a signaling
arm is understood antecedally by both involved
and the code *is cracked* by referencing
the agreed *codes* of meaning internalised
socially and *stored* as a neurological template..
For the quayside or shipboard ideating waver
- the only 'product' of their ideation that
is communicable is the 'Goodbye' signified
by the farewell wave - ALL EXTRANEOUS memorised
feelings and ideations are incommunicable
at such a distance out of earshot, other
than by adopting a signalling system used
by bookies on race tracks, though there is
indubitably empathetic guesswork going on
following from the mutual antecedal experience
of the shared emotional feelings of each
partner as hitherto revealed during the course
of their historical relationship.
Therefore to stop communicating when it is
the natural part of being human seems to
me a bit silly. It is like saying - if you
do not believe that Pegasus exists - you
should never utter the word, or because the
Union Jack is symbolic of Britain you should
turn your head away from it and not look
at it. Could you please explain why you think
that because language is an existential mode
of a symbolising human that I should stop
using it? If you disagree, and insist that
leaned signs or learned language code IS
MORE than an existential mode of a symbolising
human being and has an existence all of its
own. Could you tell me where it can be found
when it is not being used?
Thus all the libraries of the world contain
written representations of human significations
which without a human reader's brain activated
in an existential modality of reading and
de-coding the content, remain totally meaningless
and render the bizarre modern notion of "memes"
utterly ridiculous.
Such would be the situation of a radio in
an abandoned spaceship on Mars as an earth
based newsreader reads the World News to
a dead alien world.
The significations [phoneme strings] exist
as sound waves, which without a listener
to receive and decode them as to their significance
are meaningless and immediately cease to
exist. An idea can only be thought about
whilst the thinker is thinking about the
way he exists in relation to the thought.
In normal discourse the addressor may be
in a modality of retrieval-readiness in anticipation
of some response from the addressee, which
might necessitate a further comment or additional
information. If on the other hand the addressor
was [say] an office boss] who delivered some
brief instruction to a worker, it is possible
that he would immediately revert to another
neurological mode as he hands out some other
instruction to another person, after dispensing
the first "idea" into "memory."
So the human *idea* does NOT "exist"
as sound waves - the idea doesn't "exist"
at all - not even *inside* the human brain
- what exists is the existential, cyphering,
thinking brain of the holistic addressor
and the sound-waves, plus the existential,
decyphering, thinking brain of the holistic
addressee.
The thinker simple changes the existential
mode of ideating [neural activity] from one
mode to another. People say "A person
"has" an "idea," but
they do not understand that what is REALLY
going on, which is that a person exists in
an ideational state of thinking and transmitting
a representation of the "way it feels"
to exist in that state of thinking and communicating,
and the other person [the listener] exists
in an ideational state of thinking and receiving
and making sense of a representation of the
"way it feels" for the other person
[the speaker] to be in that state, and to
access the content of which his/her conversational
partner is attempting to communicate.
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 Richard Sansom writes:
"We are trained from the outset that
there is always a correspondence between
the signified and the signifier, and in doing
so we inculcate very early on a neural mapping
that is good enough for starting out in the
world of human communication. However, we
soon discover that this is not always the
case. Language and signification in general
has become so rich that not only can the
same thing be said, or inferred in many ways
it is often easy to get lost in the complexity
of interpretations. While the bedrock of
the signified/signifier correspondence remains
built-in in our brain, with large agreement
space, that correspondence is frequently
blurred. It is easy to agree on simple things,
but quite another thing to agree on complex
ones. In particular, abstractions, philosophy
and the legal system for example. While one
might argue that every signifier has a meaning,
it is impossible to accept that meaning as
absolute. This being the case, I suggest
that meaning itself is one of those abstractions
that has little chance of ever having a solid
footing in our discourse. (And if meaning
has no solid footing, where are we?) The
recent squabbles in our political system
proves the point: words are so frequently
open to a variety of interpretations that
sometimes the meaning can be severely twisted.
What's interesting to me is the way in which
this communicative process becomes instantiated
in the very young."
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Logic indicates that there is NO MORE information
carried by the hand-wave. The observer can
*read something into* the movement, but the
actual movement of the hand is a signal that
bespeaks "goodbye," and nothing
more, any concomitant feelings of loss and
compassion are NOT part of the information
signalled by the movement of the hand. Those
feelings may or may not be present as part
of the emotional existential state of the
girl by the rail as she waves goodbye, or
of the man on the dockside.
She may in fact be in an existential state
of being glad to see the back of him, or
he of her. Alternatively, at the same time
the person on the jetty may associate warm
feelings of loving attachment to the departing
female, which are evoked as part of the existential
experience of witnessing the departure and
the wave of her hand, but these feelings
are an existential modality of THE MAN ON
THE QUAYSIDE, and do not EXIST "hovering
Platonically somewhere over the waves"
in between him and her, as part of the some
fantasy characterisation of the independent
communicative IDEA of love and loss.
An IDEA that doesn't exist at all independently
of/or outside of the brains of the ideating
modalities of the two separating protagonists.
Someone might say:
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"The gesture, like a sound-word or painting,
is also a carrier signal of images and feelings
- not as eliciting but sent within the intended-interpreted
interpersonal history of the individuals
involved. There is no difference between
my acknowledgement of her in this state and
one of the dock workers! Your analysis lacks
intrasubjectivity."
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Going along with the assumption that there
IS some romantic or emotional congruity between
the two principles in this imagined scene,
I am not denying that emotional feelings
are being felt by both of them at the same
time, and that indeed those feelings may
roughly correspond - feelings of sadness
at the moments of parting, a kind of emptiness
felt deep in the body at the thought of the
loss of his or her loving ways and physical
tenderness, etc. But the actual wave of the
hand itself [unless that is it is made with
a flourish indicating flippancy] is the only
signal that is involved - all supplementary
feelings are generated by the neurophysical
networks of the two people based upon interpersonal;
facts gleaned from the association which
indicate HOW SHE IS PROBABLY FEELING right
now and how she thinks that I AM PROBABLY
FEELING RIGHT NOW.
THINKING IS WHAT BRAINS DO THINKING IS ONE
OF THE WAYS THAT YOU EXIST WHAT YOUR BRAIN
IS DOING NOW IS WHAT YOU ARE DOING NOW.
*THOUGHT* AND *IDEAS* DON'T EXIST - ONLY
THE IDEATING, THOUGHTFUL YOU EXISTS
*CONSCIOUSNESS* AND *SPIRIT* DOESN'T EXIST
EITHER - WHAT EXISTS IS THE SPIRITUAL,
CONSCIOUS THINKING YOU
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