The Ponderosa

[neonspectraltoast]

There is a limit to how far the physical brain can expand, but no physical limit to how far the mind can expand. Information seems to be limitless. How is that possible?

[neonspectraltoast]

Atoms do process information. They remember like dents in a car, although I wouldn't call their transformations negative in any way. All matter is effected by its experiences. It's easy to see this on a macro scale, when a ball deflates or lightning strikes a tree. But the same applies on an atomic scale. When we get to a quantum scale we begin to slip below the waves, which are really the ocean.

All of our experiences and memories are a state of matter, and matter is indelibly imprinted with them all. It's all just information, which is really just intriguing aspects of the wavelength, which is really pure energy/reality. Our personalities are intriguing aspects of reality.

Just ponderin on the Ponderosa...ponder on in!

[neonspectraltoast]

There is no such thing as empty space. It's full of energy. And just because we are like ghosts to it does not mean it isn't there. It means we actually do live in a moderately phantom world.

There is no space whatsoever. There is only time and the illusions it creates. Space should be thrown out as a concept, unless if by "space" you mean time. We are moving only through time.

It has the illusion of depth and death, because it stretches out before us, synonymous with energy itself. Where there is no energy, there is no time. But there is always energy and there is always time.

So just call energy "time" too. The whole point of energy is that it has time. Whether this is an aspect of energy or an environment in which energy exists is the question.

[tumbling.dice]

According to Einstein there is neither time nor space, but space-time that we exist within. I won't argue with him. I like Hawking's definition of time though: it's the dimension in which disorder always increases. Nice and succinct.

[neonspectraltoast]

I like to imagine there is component and aspect. That time is mind. And when time met energy, in some other dimension, the universe expanded.

[neonspectraltoast]

Everything in the universe speaks to who we are. That is one of the fundamental things science explores. So isn't it so interesting what by, for the fact of existing, enters the collective awareness and shapes our psyches.

How does the knowledge that light can escape a black hole alter that? How do monolithic structures like the pyramids alter that. I don't know if the Egyptians got eternity, but they certainly achieved longevity.

Things we can't even fathom, yet describe the world that birthed us, and baffles us. Forcefully imposing themselves upon us, altering human nature.

[Jessica]

i like all of this talk.

i once read a meditation of close your eyes and "feel the inside" of your little toe.. like the space it inhabits, the inside of the parameters of the toe, then do it for all the toes, foot, leg.. working to the whole body. i really enjoy the sensation. then one day i had the idea of "feeling the inside of the mind" rather than the head, and it felt exactly like that, like there was this infinite space. no edges to feel. it made me feel a bit giddy.

[Audiogen]

If mind is an abstraction, testing the physical limit doesn't make sense. If it's not an abstraction, I'm curious as by what means we would go about testing it and how we could assert there is no physical limit.

[Jessica]

If mind is an abstraction, testing the physical limit doesn't make sense. If it's not an abstraction, I'm curious as by what means we would go about testing it and how we could assert there is no physical limit.

well no, it doesn't make much sense. what i took from it is "oh yeah, it's an abstraction, there ARE no physical limits" ..but it was a tangible experiencing of that fact rather than just thinking it.

[neonspectraltoast]

Good thought audiogen. I'm not sure there is a way you really could test it. Who knows what the capacity of the current human brain really is. It's amazing that we evolved this enormous capacity for consuming information though. It seems so superfluous. We can imbibe information at a capacity, at least, we could never dream we'd need. It's curious to me why evolution built such a seemingly unlimited system for a being that, typically, utilizes so little.

[Audiogen]

I think it's possible that in the mind = brain paradigm there are some crucially important aspects to the brain's evolutionary development, after all, there are many of the same structures in mammalian and even reptilian brains. As brains developed along the hominin evolutionary branch, structures developed in place for more intricate abilities to promote critical thinking and abstraction (slightly different context then I used before), or the ability to construct an idea and then manipulate the environment to conform to that idea, which I've heard one philosopher, whose name escapes me at the moment, claim is the ability of ours which truly separates us from every other species on the planet.

It's misguided to personify evolution as an optimally efficient force, not suggesting that you were implying that neon, but for every flying bird which exhibits some awe-inspiring evolutionary traits there are male nipples or aspects of evolution which are wasteful. This leads me to my next thought...


As hominin brains grew larger and became more neuronally complex and intricate, perhaps some of the brain "modules" that developed were more epiphenomenal and in this wake we got more imaginative aspects of mind. I'm rusty on these topics but the neuroplasticity the brain exhibits, where particular regions of brain are dynamic and adaptable enough to assume the functionality of another region, upon say a brain injury to said region, leads me to suspect that there are both aspects of the brain which are not strictly tied to sensory perceptions and there are aspects of brain which are tied to base structures that pass the feedback information from the defunct brain region to the new brain region(s).

[neonspectraltoast]

My problem is we believe we're using the brain to deduce how it functions. Doesn't this strike anyone else as an absurd exercise of futility?

It seems to require the assumption that the brain perceives accurately.

I'm not saying we shouldn't explore, but that any discovery should be taken with a grain of salt. All we have are our senses, but what is truly there, we can't possibly know.

All we have to go on is how a brain seems to a brain. I don't think we're going to find a "100% Certified by God to be Accurate" sticker in there.

[neonspectraltoast]

Doesn't all philosophy seem like a futile attempt to explain to the individual what "it's really like?"

[Audiogen]

Doesn't all philosophy seem like a futile attempt to explain to the individual what "it's really like?"

It sounds like a question the existentialist might pose and the nihilist might say is meaningless.

[neonspectraltoast]

Nihilists are our gods.

I am just a man. I rule nothing but which way I turn my eyes. Anyone who chases my eyes chases nothing, which can't be the change of anything.

But is philosophy futile, including the philosophies of scientists (who call themselves Science?)

In other words, what can you really tell me about what it's like to be me? What am I experiencing to you? What impact can any philosophy have upon the fact that we all really are...different!

[Audiogen]

Here's a TED talk that highlights many of the limitations of current Brain Research . As the video suggests, we quite literally haven't even begun to scratch the surface.