How do we think...

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IIN, to wonder how we think. it's an intellectual question. What powers us to decide. Our brain is the matter. What is the source of power. god? batteries? A NEW type of power undescovered by man. Could it revolutionise the way we are. Brain cars. It's something i've been perplexed about for years. I would pick up a can of beans, how am i picking up this can of beans. I drive, make decisions. How!

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Based on 45 votes (23 yes)
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Comments ( 17 )
  • YumInsanity
    12 years ago

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_dualism

    It's good that you stated that your question was intellectual, that way we know it's smart.

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  • TheGasManCometh
    13 years ago

    Fascinating, dappled - I want to disagree, and say that consciousness (which I think is the issue here) can't possibly be down to the brain randomly selecting from weighted options... But it sounds as if science may have already probed far enough to work out that this is so, albeit on some hideously complicated level.

    I'd like to know how higher thought processes (such as wondering if there's a god) are handled, though - and I'd REALLY like to know how the brain can choose anything at random. True random selection is incredibly hard to achieve, and may not be possible at all!

    I suggest that there is no random element, and that, given the same person in the exact same circumstances, they'll go for raw onion every time. Which is a bit deterministic - but is it better to think that our choices are down to some kind of quantum uncertainty?

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    • dappled
      13 years ago

      I come down on the side of determinism too. I just don't like admitting it to myself because it's a bit of a straitjacket.

      It's pretty much impossible to describe what I was trying to get across, because it's so complex, but random seemed as good a word as any as long as it was stressed that the choices are weighted.

      Quantum uncertainty is a nicer metaphor than the one I'm about to trot out. Quanta implies a single packet and neurons do very much fall into that model, but they seem to act together as opposing armies. The brain can simultaneously hold more than one opinion about the same thing (particularly in seperate lobes, which recalls quantum theory again). In retrospect, random was a terrible choice of word. What I was implying is that not always the biggest army of neurons that wins, just like real armies. There are always reasons why a smaller army wins; it's not random, but trying to understand the reasoning in this metaphor is beyond science yet.

      Have you ever had that feeling where you can't work out what to eat for dinner? It's between two choices and you keep flipping back and to before reluctantly agreeing on one. That's two finely balanced armies. Or rather two opinions holding roughly equal sway.

      I will stress again though that this is a metaphor and, not only that, it's not a common metaphor. It's just the impression I got when I worked with neuroimagers a couple of years back. I'd also say that the work was being done precisely because there's so much we don't understand. Like all research, much of it doesn't lead anywhere.

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      • TheGasManCometh
        13 years ago

        Ah yes - it is a lot more difficult to discover anything new these days. For example, I'm a musician, and would dearly love to come up with a 'new sound'. It seems impossible, given the number of people trying and failing, but the rewards are correspondingly greater - so we should never give up!

        I am, therefore I think. I'm also drinking absinthe, therefre I dont thik too ell righ tnow

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        • dappled
          13 years ago

          Do you think there ever really is a new sound, or is it all evolution? I can see what influenced the Beatles and I can now strongly hear who has been influenced by them. It's just things moving on. I know Prince famously said he doesn't listen to anyone's music but his own, but I don't believe him. I don't believe any musician who says he's never listened to people's music.

          What do you play, by the way? Keyboard here, but I only play for relaxation these days.

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          • TheGasManCometh
            12 years ago

            In case you're still checking (I quit IIN for a while) - I play guitar, and sing. But the music can get out any way, really - instruments are just that - tools.

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            • dappled
              12 years ago

              Wow, blast from the past. I loved your username (for obvious literary reasons). It's funny how time passes and people just ebb away.

              Much respect to you. Playing guitar and singing are two very big failings of mine. Lot of respect for people who can do either, let alone both.

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  • dappled
    13 years ago

    It's an incredibly difficult question because it takes in biology, chemistry, philosophy, and theology. I can only answer you from a science point of view.

    I assisted with a study two years ago that tried to map the difference between how rhesus monkeys think and how humans think, as an attempt to understand better the thought "process".

    Essentially, signals or impulses fire between different areas of the brain millions of times a second. If you think of the brain as a computer, it has its areas for working out inputs/senses (keyboard and mouse instead of hunger, touch, sight), and its areas for outputs (network and monitor instead of speech and gesture).

    But while a computer theoretically gives the same, exact answer to any situation, the brain is more of a fuzzy logic kind of thing. There are vast unmapped areas of the brain which means we don't even have an answer for something as simple as "why do we dream"?

    In short, though, your brain is listening to your body and regions of itself, formulating a million answers and picking one randomly from a weighted list. For instance, you're hungry. What do you eat? Your brain considers the options and comes back with the following:

    10,000,000,000 signals say beans
    5,000,000,000 signals say rice
    5,000,000,000 signals say cheese sandwich
    1 signal says raw onion

    The list would be way longer than the above and not so convenient statistically. But one time out of two you're going to choose beans, one time out of four rice, and the same for cheese sandwich. One time in twenty billion you feel like raw onion.

    The next time you're hungry, the odds will be different for an inexplicable number of reasons. So many things go up to making the decision that it's impossible to work out how the decision is made.

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    • [Old Memory]
      13 years ago

      I liked this but I would not say there are vast unmapped areas of the brain.

      More like dark corners filled with spiders.

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      • dappled
        13 years ago

        I wasn't as clear as I should have been. Biologically, we're pretty much there, but in terms of function, we know very little of the fine detail. For instance, we can build a machine that can just about tell the difference between someone thinking no and someone thinking yes. To have full understanding, we'd be able to transcribe all thoughts as words, to record dreams, to predict how people will act before they do so. We're nowhere near anything like that.

        And thankfully so, to be honest.

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        • [Old Memory]
          13 years ago

          It's so hot when you talk clinically...

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