[extropy-chat] An imaginary anecdote

[Sean Diggins]

Hara Ra and an audio specilist from another list emailed me, and I thought
their two replies were worth putting on the same page.
While I appreciate Hara Ra's view (and understand it, having done plenty of
"seeming" in my youth, I'm more inclined to explore further the Pictorialist
vs Descriptionalists perspective espoused by John La Grou....

Normally I share Hara Ra's view. But these harmonies were perfect...and
great choices of notes. Other things like this have happened to me in the
past (for example, I've often dreamt I'm working on music with Tom Waits, to
the point where I have had a repeated dream of composing extended sea
shanties with him in the hull of an old wooden ship....
Anyway, I just wanted to share the dream and see if there are any
differences in the way the brain processes/creates auditory and vocal
metaphors when we are asleep, as opposed to when the sensory/motor items are
actually functional in the conscious world. 
I've often thought there is a censor between our conscious brains and
reality, otherwise we wouldnt be able to operate. For example, nothing
solid/inert is really solid/inert...Our conscious mind is/was only given
access to the areas we need to use to survive, and we have developed/evolved
this a bit, but not much.

There's that quote from Albert E that many people often quote:

"If our brains were so simple that we could understand them, we'd be so
simple, we couldn't..."

Thanks to both for responding.

Sean 


<begin Hara Ra quote>
Though it may be possible that you have suppressed talents and the like, my
suspicion is that you are experiencing what I call "seeming".

I have friends who partake of the herb, and sometimes make music, which at
the time sounds really great. A replay when sober reveals this just isn't
so. However, when they get stoned again, the recording sounds great again.

I suspect "seeming", in which a sensation or event is replaced by an
impression of same, is one of the brain's way of symbolizing or
presymbolizing things without using all the resources needed for a full
instance of same. While in dream or stoned space, I wouldn't be surprised if
the "This is a marker" signal tends to be lost and the default is to
experience the item as complete and real.

In my younger years I liked to eat a few magic cookies and listen to music
with headphones and eyeshades. It was often very visonary. I gradually
became aware that most of the richness was from "seemings", and that a very
close look at my experience revealed this aspect. Kind of the inverse of "If
it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, the it is a duck", ie,
"Tag:'duck' - implies presence of walk and quack"

If you want to repost this to the list, feel free.
<end quote>

-------------------------------------------------------

<begin John La Grou quote>
you seem to be asking about the "nature of mental imagery" -- a heady
subject tackled mostly by pure philosophers who are divided into two camps:
Pictoralists and Descriptionalists. Most of the discussion assumes pictoral
imagery, rather than aural, but the arguments are similar. Leading thinkers
here include Daniel Dennett, Zenon Pylyshyn, and Stephen Kosslyn. Do a
Google search -- it's an amazing topic which spans imagination, brain and
cognitive sciences, etc. Your dream-related experiences will probably come
under the general headings of "auditory imagery" and "haptic imagery."
Warning, there are no "real" answers here, and the more you dive into all
this the murkier it gets.
<end quote>