The Serpent&#39;s Wisdom

Actually I'm doing the opposite: I'm showing how our understanding of neuro-physiology reveals why the Neoplatonist (or Structuralist) view of the universe as an intelligently- or ideally-arranged "cosmos" is so attractive.

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silvergirl.livejournal.com

nietzsche makes a similar argument about perception in "on truth and lying in a non-moral sense"....unfortunately i can't find it online, but i think it's in the penguin portable nietzsche.

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Thank you... there are not enough hours in the day to read everything I really need to read. I guess that's why I have you folks around! :-D

One does not need evidence of neurology to see that human perception edits out that which doesn't correspond well to its understanding. It is possible, though very difficult, to deduce this otherwise. But it helps.

For example, there is a spot just off-center of vision in each eye that is blind; it does not receive visual data. Yet our brain "fills in the blank" prior to our sensory experience so that we do not perceive these blind spots.

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silvergirl.livejournal.com

and language doesn't make things any clearer, either, by imposing a subject/object relationship that may or may not be the reality of what is taking place. elsewhere, nietzsche writes that we will never be able to overcome our faith in (the christian, the dead) god until we overcome our faith in grammar...

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Have you read Leonard Shlain's The Alphabet and the Goddess? I don't agree with all of his observations but he makes some excellent points along these same lines.

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Henry the Eigth of England leared how to shift eye focus & relax his eyes, thus exposing his perceptions to the blind spot. When court was particularly boring, he would entertain himself by seeing how a various courtier looked when he aligned his blind spot with h-is/er head. Word got around that Henry liked to play this game. When a particularly boring speaker noticed the king looking at him in that certain way, he realized the king was contemplating his beheading -- and made himself far more interesting & invaluable to the realm beacuse of personal fear.

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I think that it is true that when we look out at the universe all we can ultimately see is ourselves, but then, we probably mainly should be concerned with ourselves as we are the only world we will ever know. To see outside of the neural censor is to still see through a different layer of the neural censor.

Even if it were somehow possible to contact raw, unfiltered reality it would have nothing whatsoever to do with us or our lives. It would be as relevant as the rules of sporting events from another galaxy.

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This is a good point -- the neural censor edits out that which is automatically deemed as irrelevant. Most often the neural censor is correct.

When it comes to metaphysics or philosophy though it may lead to critical errors such as the one which inspired this post.

The limbic system sends a signal of distress when something that is obviously important cannot be discerned in terms of its meaning to us. When we cannot figure out "what the big picture means," we are filled with dread at the prospect that life may be ultimately meaningless. See my thoughts on this here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sophiaserpentia/293183.html

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Hmm, re-reading that I see that I never answered

alobar's question:
Just what ever brought you to that conclusion [that humans are the first animals ever to contemplate the "big picture"]?

I'll concede that other animals have have contemplated this before humans, perhaps well before humans. It is not something which evolution has prepared us to contemplate, however. When it comes to contemplating the big picture, our brains are not, speaking from the perspective of evolution, particularly suited for this task.

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Again I feel a need to question you about that statement. What makes you believe evolution has not prepared us to contemplate the big picture? We have chemical receptors in out brain for various plant based entheogens which allow us access to states of awareness which are not useful on a day to day basis (they would interfere with hunting & avoiding being hunted) but which specifically trigger circuits for opening up to the big picture.

When I was a grower, I noted that racoons, possums, and deer all went out of their way to forage in my magick mushroom patch. And when the dear tripped they would hang out. And in that state, one could walk right up to the deer & touch noses with them. The tools to facilitate such triggering of internal circuits are evolutionarily built in to many different animals.

Like many advanced states of consciousness, the breain requires the proper nutrtition. Starve the brain of Omega 3 oils & IQ goes down. Starve the brain of psilocybe & there are other consequences. Starve the brain for many generations & we, as a race, forget what was once obvious to our better nourished ancestors.

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What I really mean is, our perceptive and conceptual abilities evolved so that most ability is focused on rapid conclusions and deductions about the immediate environment. We are naturally in the middle of the food chain and have to be able to perceive as both predator and prey.

This evolutionary paradigm gives I think the best explanation for why the majority of people seem to naturally fall into some kind of religious fundamentalism. Really, I am taking the word far afield of its historical meaning as a theological movement. But the way I use the word, I mean people who hold a few conclusions about the way the cosmos is arranged and are then unable to question those conclusions. Their brain selectively -- perhaps even pre-consciously -- edits information that challenges those conclusions.

Surely you can't deny that most people operate this way! I do not think people choose to be closed-minded. They are just operating as their brains have evolved.

People like you and I, and others on my friends list and out there in the world at large -- philosophers and theologians and magickians -- are on the evolutionary forefront. We are helping the human race to hone, via evolutionary and memetic mechanisms, the ability to scrutinize the big picture.

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Surely you can't deny that most people operate this way! I do not think people choose to be closed-minded. They are just operating as their brains have evolved.

I see things differently. Our brains have receptor sites for many different sorts of chemicals. If a brain is denied any or a range of those chemicals thru malnutrition, the brain functions in very limited ways. In severe cases, death results. In other cases, the human has limited ability to perceive or integrate what s/he perceives.

When a whole culture has a depleted diet, everyone in that culture exhibits that abnormality -- so much so that anyone who functions normally is labeled as sick or deranged. Look at how many creative people today are being labeled as having a problem simply because they are smart, creative, can multi-task, and are bored/frustrated with school/work because it is stupid & boring. Rather than explore why so many are unable to function at a high level, society prefers to stomp down on the ones who are actually healthy.

Religious fundamentalism is a disease which has caused many plant nutrients to become taboo because those who ingest those plants are not prone to believing the part line. The fundamentalists persecute those who break the taboos. Those cultures which embraced the religious fundamentalism meme diverted a whole lot of cultural energy into warfare & conquest -- thus making those cultures better able to take over much of the world.

The ability to tap into expanded consciousness is, I strongly believe, inherent within our brain chemistry & has been evolutionarily built in since before we had language skills. But the societal fundamentalism which has become so all-pervasive over the past 2 or so millenia is the root cause of most humans' inability to tap into the big picture.

What amazes me is that even with starvation over many generations we still carry the ability to utilize these chemicals when they are introduced into our brains.

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Well, either of us could be right here. I'll grant though that I have not been investigating this issue nearly as long as you have.

To be honest my experiences with chemicals have been mixed. I'm convinced that LSD improved my mathematical ability greatly; it could simply be though that immersing myself in that environment in school helped unused pathways develop more greatly. It's well known that mental abilities have to be flexed frequently or they are lost.

I know you are right about the affects of proper or improper nutrition on brain function; I'd question the extent to which that is a factor, but again I haven't been investigating the matter as deeply as you have.

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delascabezas.livejournal.com

For example, we have neural pathways that represent the cardinal numbers; a neuron for "one," an neuron for "two," a neuron for "three," and so on. We have neurons for recognizing circles, squares, triangles, etc. These things therefore seem "eternal" because they precede thought; they are central to our experience of the universe.

That is a bit of an exaggertaion - we have brain centers that fire neurons (in pathways) when certain stimuli are offered - this can be tracked in a myriad of ways. However, recording that activity, IMO, is not a de-facto "proof" that the concept of the idea triggering the activity resides in the physical pathway. In the endless debates on the mind/body issue - i proposed a concept of Platonic "ideas" which are an ethereal plastic mold for all the realities we pervieve. That brain activity might not be our brains wrapping itself around the idea, rather, it is an energy connection tapping the limitless potential of those ethereal plastic forms.

A little too thin for most seeped hard in science, but, until I see nails in the coffins of mind/body, then it is just as legit as assuming that the ideas themself reside within the physical brain.

I agree in the observations of your edit - but I believe human perception is an evolved sense, the way our sense of spemm has dulled, and our sense of touch has specialized (especially in the hand) - the way our brains process information has evolved to a state which is nearly disassociated with our reality, hence the proclivity on the part of our species to label, organize, name, and "know" everything.

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Thank you for clarifying the incomplete physiological information I conveyed.

However, recording that activity, IMO, is not a de-facto "proof" that the concept of the idea triggering the activity resides in the physical pathway.

Sure. But it is extremely suggestive, suggestive enough that in my opinion it "trumps" the alternate view -- that numbers, geometric shapes, and other Platonic "Ideals" affect the formation of our conceptual strategies.

Of course, I could be wrong. But until recently I was actually a Neoplatonist and a Structuralist. Learning about the strategies the brain uses to handle sensory input forced me to re-evaluate my beliefs.

A little too thin for most seeped hard in science, but, until I see nails in the coffins of mind/body, then it is just as legit as assuming that the ideas themself reside within the physical brain.

Certainly. I am actually rooting for the materialists to lose the debate, even while feeling forced to concede that they have the more compelling arguments.

hence the proclivity on the part of our species to label, organize, name, and "know" everything.

Yes, an acutely prudent observation on the part of the authors of Genesis...

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delascabezas.livejournal.com

just so i don't leave you hanging

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I have a problem with any strictly materialist read of the Universe. Just what is the evolutionary advantage of living things over non-living things? What is the specific reproductive enhancement conferred by the enjoyment of music, color, humor, or stories? Why don't cockroaches require such enjoyments? A person is more than a better cockroach and what makes it more is not collapsible into a collection of material forms, no matter how complex or detailed. The physical nervous system is impressive, as are the guts of a television or a computer, but a dream, an idea, or a poetic feeling is what makes the difference. I like some of Rupert Sheldrake's ideas (Morphic resonance, etc). Have you read Ken Wilber's 'Integrative Psychology'. It's fairly New Agey but does a decent job of correlating many of the major systems of thought.

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How do you know cockaroaches don't enjoy music & color & don't tell jokes?

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Could be...Didja hear the one about the guy who buys a roach motel as an investment property? That one's a real thorax-slapper.

Maybe the local dumpster is hosting the roacharmonic orchestra tryouts. I hear the acoustics are fabulous.

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I am a very reluctant materialist. I encourage you to read my responses to

caracarn above. It seems to me that at the moment the materialists have the more compelling arguments.

Experience does affect the way neural perceptual strategies develop. But it seems to me more reasonable to imagine that evolved perceptual strategies affect the Forms we see in the Universe than to suppose the other way around.

I could be wrong. Frankly, I'd *rather* be wrong.

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What is the specific reproductive enhancement conferred by the enjoyment of music, color, humor, or stories?

We have a natural kind of curiosity that seeks to understand the patterns behind things. This happens on conscious and unconscious levels. Particularly pleasing pieces of music stimulate our curiosity and actually encourage neural development. It was once believed that this only happened in early childhood but we now know that "neuroplasticity" exists over the whole lifespan.

There are also stories and music that excite the limbic system, that encourage theta response, etc.

Such things do not necessarily affect reproduction directly but do affect social well-being, length of life, etc., which in turn has an indirect affect on reproduction.

And, what is the fundamental problem with being a "different sort of cockroach" that happens to have a neocortex? I challenge humans to understand their place in the evolutionary scheme. One good thing that has come of exploring materialist arguments (which do not have to be reductionist, mind) is that it provides one solution to the problem of dualism.

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I don't have a problem being an elaborate cockroach, but I'm suggesting that there is no inherent material reason that mammals, primates, or humans should develop when cockroaches work well as they are. I'm just saying I find it ironic that every type of behavior is now subject to reduction to evolutionary purpose when evolution itself is not subject to the same requirement.

I have no problem with evolution or humans as part of the overall spectrum of organisms, I just see that the material components of human consciousness are not the significant components. Music and art for instance, like any kind of human experience, must have physical neurological manifestations, evidence of impact or integration, but that isn't the important bit. The experience is the thing. There are lots of ways to accomplish limbic excitation and increase selection for longevity without invoking beauty, love, etc. So I agree music might have a beneficial physiological effect (why wouldn't it?) but that alone is not reason enough to justify the richness of it's existence. Art doesn't exist because it's good for us, it's good for us because it exists. Personally I think that the entire cosmos is 'alive' in the sense that any pattern is an inseparable part of the singularity of all pattern that has always been. We are a complicated pattern, which uses it's physical structures to create and experience patterns that extend beyond the physical. The non-physical stuff is the good stuff, the better stuff. Matter is just lumps of atoms.

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beitlamed.livejournal.com

First off, this is only true if you assume first that our neurons are the REAL last truth. You sustitute god for neurons (or the other way around, whichever), nothing more, nothing less.

And secondly, the scientific method is an approximation at best, a good and practicable try, nothing more. It works, as it seems. That's all.

i have long asked myself, why should i not believe that unfalsifiable sentences are true? The only answer i could find is that you can theoretically produce an infinite number of unfalsifiable claims, so there can and will be unfalsifiable sentences contradictory to each other, so i am forced to decide (or live with a concept of truth which is... adventurous, to say the least).

And this is, i find, very unsatisfying. It's just not a good reason... somehow... (yeah i know, the word "somehow" is NOT supposed to appear in a philosophy community posting!)

Anyhow
bright blessings

bl

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I hope by now that you can see from my comments to others that I do not equate materialism, or the notion that mind is guided by brain, with reductionism, which is the denial of the "reality" of mind as something separate from brain.

Certainly, as others have pointed out, we are far from conclusive knowledge on these matters. But I think you will agree that it is a fair statement that humans can only perceive as their perceptual faculties allow them to perceive. We cannot see beyond the visual spectrum, or hear beyond the audible range, etc.

There is, I submit, a "conceptual range" outside of which it is possible, but very difficult, to conceive. This is not a concern when it comes to everyday life or survival in the wilderness. But when it comes to the big picture, I think humans are somewhat limited perceptually. I think it is difficult for humans to be aware just how limited they are.

These limitations need not be a philosophical prison sentence, however. Just something we should be aware of.

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anosognosia.livejournal.com

I don't think this is properly The Neoplatonist Fallacy because, though I think I understand and agree with your criticism, I don't think it's necessarily characteristic of the Neoplatonic school.

What we're dealing with here is a reified version of these concepts: where the Nous is literally comparable to the mind; the One to "one", and so on - as opposed to being rich allegories for subtle concepts which resist verbal description.

Now, there is a continuum between how concrete versus how abstract these concepts are understood. And I think that part of the problem is that the various Neoplatonists (let alone related groups) occupied a wide spectrum of this continuum; but would use similar language in spite of this fundamental difference. For instance, I believe there were some who saw things as concretely as you depict. There were others who did not, yet still clearly considered things like mathematical axioms as understood in the sensible world to exist comparably in the ideal world. And there were others still who were entirely abstract about it, yet still used the same language.

The Neoplatonists always had, inherited from Plato, a strong divide between the sensible and ideal worlds. And from Aristotle they inherited a soul/body unity with the corresponding division of the soul (mind) into a variety of faculties, some more sensible and some more ideal. So we can expect that even the most concrete-thinking of Neoplatonists would firstly be highly dubious of sensible impressions (contra ideal existence), and also be equipped to understand much of the mind as sensible (rather than ideal simply by nature of being mental).

This background prepares the Neoplatonists to agree completely with your criticism here. Though of course they may yet draw different conclusions; as I'm not sure what solution, entirely, you're proposing here.

One way the mind metaphor of the cosmos might be understood is in the premise that the activity and constitution of a mind are one and the same. We can experience this readily in our mundane lives. For instance, if we realize we are tired and decide to take a short rest from our work, our mind does not remain pristine - untouched by the activity of rest; rather it's constitution also becomes that rest. This creates mental inertia, where the deeper your rest, the deeper you want to rest, and the easier you "think" of rest and harder you consider anything else. Activity and constitution are united, there is no pristine constitution which executes activity.

This is a mental description of the thing described physically as one hypostasis/aeon's "reflection" of another (as well as in dramatic/mythic descriptions, eg. Narcissus); and underlies both Neoplatonic cosmology and theurgy/mysticism understood through the processes of procession/emanation and reversion/contemplation.

Perhaps this shows how a mental allegory of cosmos is powerful, and provides a description of a multiplicity which is arranged logically - but not by the logic we are familiar with. The activity of our mind is oriented in procession towards the sensible world, and so the constition of our mind is the same. The logic we know, then, is the logic of the sensible world and not the logic we speak of when we speak of the cosmic Nous, which we could only ever hope for by changing the activity/constitution of our mind towards reversion/contemplation.

A similar argument, I think, can be made for the structuralist school and linguistic metaphors. Although, especially with the poststructuralists, we do run into thinkers who take linguistic construction as such very seriously. We must use these people to understand the layer of mind to which such things apply, and not to the whole picture.

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Thank you for your input. You are clearly much more educated on the specifics of the Neoplatonists than I am. I come to them indirectly, having only encountered them through my research on the Gnostics.

What I have found in examining the Gnostic material matches your statements about the Neoplatonists. Some reified their dualistic mythology quite strongly while others -- particularly in the early stages of the Gnostic movement -- saw dualism on a much more metaphorical level.

If so then I have misnamed the fallacy and will have to search for a more accurate title. The "mentalist" fallacy, perhaps, named after those who consider mind to be more "real" than hyle.

I haven't really proposed a solution to the problem yet. At this point I find that the more I learn about the brain's cognitive and perceptual faculties, the more I am forced to concede can be explained by physiology. This need not however be "distressing" to those who want to avoid reductionism, because as I pointed out in a post earlier tonight, reductionism does not follow logically from materialism -- though there are those who claim it does.

I like your comments about the way activity and constitution relate more closely than people realize. A comment in my "credal summary" states that the stillness of the meditator's mind becomes the stillness which is the divine presence. I hadn't thought about that further, but I seem to be describing a particular manifestation of the phenomenon you are describing.

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qaexl.livejournal.com

There is a slight fallacy and I don't know if anyone else in the comments have written about it. Implicit in your explanation is equating the brain with the mind. It is very difficult to definitively distinguish between the two, not to mention demonstrate that they are one and the same.

Also, while that there are specific neurons for circles, triangles, the evidence for such come from being able to stimulate certain neurological structures and such a person would see those basic shapes. Structures for "one", "two", and any of the abstractions havn't been demonstrated. There is a minor, yet compelling (for me anyways) model that describes both the universe and the mind as holographic projections. As holograms, any little peice contains the structure of the whole, though it's intensitity is still porportional to it's size. A "Platonic ideal", then, under this model, is holographic ... rather than dialectic.

Namaste.

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