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Greywolf
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:nono: Bob needs to brush up on his biology. The brain doen't need to come designed to "decode" the "symbolic gibberish" that is sent to it by the eyes. As one grows, the brain learns to recognize different patterns of electrochemical signals as being different objects. No "symbolic logic function" needs to be inherent in the laws of physics for this system to work.
Greywolf
New member
Originally posted by jhodgeiii
:help:
Sure. Before I start though, I'd like to point out that what I am going to show you is not the entirety of how this works. It's really more of an analogy than a scientific explanation, but here goes.
When a baby firsts starts looking around, lets say that it sees a box. The pattern of light that its eyes recieve looks something like this:
000000000000
011111111110
011111111110
011111111110
000000000000
The baby doesn't know what this is; to the baby it is just a pattern made of regions of different colors and varying intensities of light. However, as the baby grows and learns, it will learn to recognize that particular pattern of varying colors and light intensities as being a box.
You may find this site helpful:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/eye.htm
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What a cool site! Thanks.
Anyway, read the following excerpt from the site you just kindly referenced for me:
Bob's indirect question would be How did the brain evolve the innate ability to decode (interpret) these kinds of electochemical signals into an optical image?
You're not discussing the same function.
Anyway, read the following excerpt from the site you just kindly referenced for me:
Bob's indirect question would be How did the brain evolve the innate ability to decode (interpret) these kinds of electochemical signals into an optical image?
You're not discussing the same function.
Greywolf
New member
Gladly.
Take a look at this site:
http://www.cis.rit.edu/people/faculty/montag/vandplite/pages/chap_9/ch9p1.html
(It is a little technical, but has some good pictures that should help illustrate my point.)
What the other site says is correct, but there is a "grid" (the best word that I can think of to describe it) of cones and rods in the eyes, which is where that chemical is located. The brain doesn't just recieve information about a single point of light, it recieves a "grid" (kind of like the one I "drew" in my last post). The brain learns to recognize different "grids" as being different objects. There is no decoding involved.
I hope that I addressed what you were talking about. If I missed, please feel free to set me straight.
Being that the optic nerve is actually a bunch of nerves, I understand that the processing is parallel and not serial, hence the brain likely receives data from the eyes as a "grid." However the processing, whether "pixel" by "pixel" or "grid," decoding (interpreting) MUST take place in the brain. Electrochemical signals per se do not represent any image, nor any part of an image. They first MUST be converted into useful information.
I will now quote from the new source you referenced. This comes from the table headed, "Properties of Rod and Cone Systems:"
Comparisons? What might I ask is doing the comparisons? It sure sounds like the brain is indeed doing some processing (decoding, interpreting). Take a look at this site, which says that cones can be divided into those sensitive to red, blue, and green. Apparently, an object that appears cyan to us is due to the processing of blue-sensitive cones and green-sensitive cones.
Obviously, color is a major component of the images every person without defective eyes sees. Thus I pose the question again: how did the brain evolve the innate ability to decode (interpret) these kinds of electochemical signals into an optical image?
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Spirits and brains
Spirits and brains
From jhodgeiii:
Although many religions have a belief in human consciousness actually being a property of some ethereal and eternal spirit, that is a belief that is not supported by science. The incredible complexity of the electrochemical signals in the brain is the essence of what vision and thought and emotions and personality are. There have been medical cases where the corpus callosum- the massive bundle of nerves that connect the two hemispheres of the brain – was severed. Both halves of the brain continued to function almost normally, except there was no longer any direct information exchange between them. The left hand literally did not know what the right hand was doing, unless the information was input by the eye on one side watching the opposing hand. If there was a spirit involved, it seemed to be totally ineffectual in carrying information between the two halves of the brain. Was the spirit in this case doing the thinking and feeling the emotions in the right side of the brain, or the left?
As to electrochemical signals representing an image, years ago I had a medical procedure done (called an angiogram) in which a chemical was rapidly injected into my Caritid artery (the massive artery carrying blood from the heart to the head). Even though my eyes were closed, as the chemical was carried by the blood into my head, when it reached the optic nerves and brain, I saw a light show that would shame any 4th of July display. As far as my brain was concerned, and my memory of the event, the images accompany those artifical electrochemical signals were as real as any that my eyes have given when they were open.
Processing, decoding, interpreting – in the brain these are all just customizations of the electrochemical interactions of the cells in the brain. That is why doctors can interfere with the processing and interpreting in the brain by simply giving slight shocks or chemicals to parts of the brain - and artificially induce what to the patient seems to be very real fear or joy or hatred or mood swings.
Spirits and brains
From jhodgeiii:
Greywolf said:
To which jhodgeiii replied:
From a medical viewpoint, you are letting all the trees around you keep you from seeing the forest.
Although many religions have a belief in human consciousness actually being a property of some ethereal and eternal spirit, that is a belief that is not supported by science. The incredible complexity of the electrochemical signals in the brain is the essence of what vision and thought and emotions and personality are. There have been medical cases where the corpus callosum- the massive bundle of nerves that connect the two hemispheres of the brain – was severed. Both halves of the brain continued to function almost normally, except there was no longer any direct information exchange between them. The left hand literally did not know what the right hand was doing, unless the information was input by the eye on one side watching the opposing hand. If there was a spirit involved, it seemed to be totally ineffectual in carrying information between the two halves of the brain. Was the spirit in this case doing the thinking and feeling the emotions in the right side of the brain, or the left?
As to electrochemical signals representing an image, years ago I had a medical procedure done (called an angiogram) in which a chemical was rapidly injected into my Caritid artery (the massive artery carrying blood from the heart to the head). Even though my eyes were closed, as the chemical was carried by the blood into my head, when it reached the optic nerves and brain, I saw a light show that would shame any 4th of July display. As far as my brain was concerned, and my memory of the event, the images accompany those artifical electrochemical signals were as real as any that my eyes have given when they were open.
Processing, decoding, interpreting – in the brain these are all just customizations of the electrochemical interactions of the cells in the brain. That is why doctors can interfere with the processing and interpreting in the brain by simply giving slight shocks or chemicals to parts of the brain - and artificially induce what to the patient seems to be very real fear or joy or hatred or mood swings.
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Re: Spirits and brains
Re: Spirits and brains
This doesn't surprise me the slightest bit. It goes along with what I have been saying. No matter how the electrochemical signals get passed to your brain, the brain will interpret it. Not because it wants to, but because that's the way it was designed to work. It just turns out that your brain got sent gibberish due to the effect of the drugs, hence you were treated to a light show due to random electrochemical signals making their way to the applicable part(s) of the brain.
One can easily say the same thing about CPU processors and the way its silicate material performs its logic given certain stimuli, but it doesn't explain how it came into being, how the specialized parts got there, and why these parts decided to work together within certain specifications. Phy, you're really missing the point, which is one really based on design vs. randomness creating the system that we commonly call sight.
Re: Spirits and brains
This doesn't surprise me the slightest bit. It goes along with what I have been saying. No matter how the electrochemical signals get passed to your brain, the brain will interpret it. Not because it wants to, but because that's the way it was designed to work. It just turns out that your brain got sent gibberish due to the effect of the drugs, hence you were treated to a light show due to random electrochemical signals making their way to the applicable part(s) of the brain.
One can easily say the same thing about CPU processors and the way its silicate material performs its logic given certain stimuli, but it doesn't explain how it came into being, how the specialized parts got there, and why these parts decided to work together within certain specifications. Phy, you're really missing the point, which is one really based on design vs. randomness creating the system that we commonly call sight.
Greywolf... with all due respect I feel you are being intentionally obtuse regarding this subject.
I think you understand the difficulty raised by the argument Bob is making but you are trying to deflect that difficulty by altering the argument to something else which no one seems to be arguing.
No one (that I can tell) is arguing that a baby needs to learn what things are as he or she develops. That would only be stating the obvious.
The real interesting thing about this subject is that the brain can take the raw data that the eye gives to it and can then decode that data into an image within the brain that represents the actual image that eye is viewing (even if the viewer does not know what the object is).
Get the point?
In other words....
When a baby sees a red rubber ball, the baby sees the same red rubber ball that I see. The only difference is that I know that the image is a red rubber ball and the baby may not know what the image is..... and I of course don't wont to shove the ball in my mouth and start choking on it.
The bottom line is...
My brian and the babies brain successfully decoded the raw data given to it by the eyes into an accurate image of what the object actually is.
I think you understand the difficulty raised by the argument Bob is making but you are trying to deflect that difficulty by altering the argument to something else which no one seems to be arguing.
No one (that I can tell) is arguing that a baby needs to learn what things are as he or she develops. That would only be stating the obvious.
The real interesting thing about this subject is that the brain can take the raw data that the eye gives to it and can then decode that data into an image within the brain that represents the actual image that eye is viewing (even if the viewer does not know what the object is).
Get the point?
In other words....
When a baby sees a red rubber ball, the baby sees the same red rubber ball that I see. The only difference is that I know that the image is a red rubber ball and the baby may not know what the image is..... and I of course don't wont to shove the ball in my mouth and start choking on it.
The bottom line is...
My brian and the babies brain successfully decoded the raw data given to it by the eyes into an accurate image of what the object actually is.
Zakath
Resident Atheist
Originally posted by Knight
The real interesting thing about this subject is that the brain can take the raw data that the eye gives to it and can then decode that data into an image within the brain that represents the actual image that eye is viewing (even if the viewer does not know what the object is).
In other words....
When a baby sees a red rubber ball, the baby sees the same red rubber ball that I see. The only difference is that I know that the image is a red rubber ball and the baby may not know what the image is..... and I of course don't wont to shove the ball in my mouth and start choking on it.
The bottom line is...
My brian and the babies brain successfully decoded the raw data given to it by the eyes into an accurate image of what the object actually is.
More correctly, your brain produces a model of an "image" perceived by your eye in the occipital lobe. Color identification appears to occur there as well. Identifying what the image is involves a form of cognitive processing that occurs elsehwere in the brain.
Human brains seem to be able to even take input from light sensors (properly formatted of course) and translate it into recognizable patterns representing "reality"... (Article on Artificial Vision)
Greywolf
New member
The pattern of electrochemical signals do represent an image, similar to how binary code can represent an image.
From Bob's show:
What Bob is missing is that there is no need to "decode" anything. The brain learns to associate that particular variety of "gibberish" with an image.
http://www.hhmi.org/senses/b140.html
There is no need to interperet anything.
Greywolf
New member
I can assure you that that is not my intent at all, nor will it ever be my intent.
Originally posted by Knight
No one (that I can tell) is arguing that a baby needs to learn what things are as he or she develops. That would only be stating the obvious.
The real interesting thing about this subject is that the brain can take the raw data that the eye gives to it and can then decode that data into an image within the brain that represents the actual image that eye is viewing (even if the viewer does not know what the object is).
Get the point?
In other words....
When a baby sees a red rubber ball, the baby sees the same red rubber ball that I see. The only difference is that I know that the image is a red rubber ball and the baby may not know what the image is..... and I of course don't wont to shove the ball in my mouth and start choking on it.
The bottom line is...
My brian and the babies brain successfully decoded the raw data given to it by the eyes into an accurate image of what the object actually is.
The point I'm trying to make is that there is no "decoding" involved in the process, just association.
Association with what?
Your answer leads me to believe you may still be missing the point.
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