TED Community » John Dunbar

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I'm passionate about

Understanding the way in which we experience reality

An idea worth spreading

At the most basic levels, the healthy brain and the damaged brain reach their conclusions the same way.

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• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Where do thoughts come from?

  Nov 27 2012: Swedenborg is an interesting man although I'm not the biggest of fan of Christianity( or any religion) I think that contrary to illusion there can be some truth found in these tales. Swedenborg searched for truth and believed he found it. Look to Freud and you also see three organs of mind playing complex roles, its strange how certain models despise each other yet mirror one another. Thanks for the link...

• A reply on Conversation: Where do thoughts come from?

  Nov 27 2012: Hey Mitch, man that must have been thrilling pushing those synapses into chaos and seeing them dance to life. I imagine the magpies will enjoy your company Mitch let me know when your systems sync. Im not sure if it matters if thoughts are separate from signal cycling also not sure what the implications would be. Mitch it most likely is an emergent property some adaptive measure that allows us to see what it is we need for some reason unknown to me. Maybe just the way we can understand reality as most things seem to exist in duality. Maybe because we have 2 brain hemispheres two arms, legs, eyes, ears etc...
  
  Evolutionary psychology is a very interesting field and there may be advantages associated with certain pathologies. I just grabbed my salt shaker and realized the pieces were all to small to be taken with the 4% claim. As we continuously search inward we simultaneously search outward and new structures enter our conscious world. If we look we see that 4% is a number based on having some ideas about what 100% is and ill need some water to digest the size of the salt rock needed to swallow that. I was just vaguely trying to connect our understanding of the universe with our understanding of the brain. Which roughly holds the same amount of neurons as stars in our galaxy. In the mean time i sit back and revel in the beauty of our universe. I do my best to feel the joy you speak of Mitch. That joy is one we feel as children that mustn't be lost. When we lose it a death drive ensues and our atoms wish to return to a singular state. If we stay as children, always looking for new answers sitting in awe of the complex chaos and peeling the endless layers of function, we live on in our greatest form.

• A comment on Conversation: Where do thoughts come from?

  Nov 27 2012: Which types of thoughts? are there different "types"? When i think it generally comes to me in language maybe accompanied by an image. Where do they come from? I couldn't tell you and I'm very skeptical of any answer given. It seems as though when i think some part of me finds the words i wish to express. However im not consciously aware of how this is happening. Im sure the neuroscientists will point to the structures of the brain in generating thought and use some very convincing evidence collected that when certain brain areas are stimulated certain thoughts emerge. But this really just passes the buck to subconscious selection of thoughts and i havnt the slightest idea how this works. Then we evoke evolution we have thoughts that are adaptive. What about mental illness? Some thoughts are then maladaptive? This train of thought I'm using eventually leads you to dualism or some strange form of it. I think modern science points to the fact we are not in control of our thoughts and I have no idea what this means. Is there some other part of me that selects the thoughts i employ? It seems as though thoughts, ideas, and images form from the firing of neurons but how does a chemical create an image in my mind? How does 1 milivolt and electrical activity in my brain create the complexity of thought? Its funny scientists say we only understand roughly 4 percent of the universe. The brain computes 4 billion bits of information a second and we are aware of only 2,000 of those. In my opinion there is a dark matter or energy that we don't understand which functions in the brain. Theres something we are missing which may be out of the reach of our biological structure. To summarize theres only so much one can understand through introspection if anything at all. Theres only so much we can understand by studying another if the two could ever converge maybe we get an answer.

• A comment on Conversation: Are we slaves to the forces that conspire to keep Republicans and Democrats in the United States in a 50/50 stand off?

  Nov 6 2012: You have to understand how much the media reinforces this tribal dynamic. Third party candidates have been extremely marginalized for years, from both the right and the left. Jill Stein Green party Candidate was in jail during one of the debates for protesting being unhallowed to debate. In 2008 Ron Paul wasn't invited to the Fox News debate the night before the new hampshire primary when he had very legitimate numbers of supporters not only in new hampshire but in the country. Whenever I watch these cheap manufactured debates all i can think is how bad either one of the candidates could be destroyed on certain issues by an outsider.
  
  
  
  I think the real way to analyze this is not to look where they separate it is to look at what both candidates support and only then do you get some picture as to why things are the way they are. They both support vast military expenditures and continuing this world campaign of spreading "democracy". They both have said nothing to each other about the growing destruction of civil liberties, and believe me NDAA should have been on the forefront of issues that need discussing. Why is it do you think Obama did not criticize Romney over being the wall street candidate? Well they both are, Obama received massive backing from financial institutions in 2008 and these guys bet wisely they got their bailout and almost no one was prosecuted for the financial collapse.
  
  The media plays to a narrative never forget who controls the news... very large corporations who's profits are maid by other large corporations wanting their product associated with their message. Also notice much of their news comes from press releases from the government. Republican Democrat insanity is ridiculous i don't even know what the terms mean anymore. What I do know is that they both support the things that matter to big business and the spreading of our American Government's genes around the world....
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glHd_5-9PVs

• A comment on Conversation: What is it like to die?

  Nov 6 2012: How do you know you have not already died(just playing devils advocate)?
  
  What if death just sits in entire opposition to life on earth? What I mean is what if everything was reversed, instead of fearing death one fears being born and spends a large amount of time allowing this to shape ones beliefs and actions. Freud theorized a life and death drive that was constantly at war within all of us, he tried to prove it biologically (he was a neurologist) but came up short. He believed that on the cellular level life simultaneously wishes to replicate itself and also wishes to return to its original state. When the brain dies it seems as though consciousness does and my experience tells me this is so, yet I also know that much of the functioning of the brain is a mystery.
  
  In "civilization and its discontents" Freud made an analogy he was talking about prior mental states and how it seems to be true that humans can revert to earlier stages in life (regression). He started talking about ancient Rome and its architecture how it has been built over prior greek architecture and other previous settlements. The point he was making is that the brain seems to be able to build over past states yet somehow these states remain intact and accessible. The brain seems to function differently than the material world yet is a part of the material world. Either that or the answers to questions about consciousness may not be accessible to our biological restraints.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

• A reply on Conversation: Why Basic Income should become a Human Right

  Nov 3 2012: there is almost to much in your post I want to respond to but I first must start here: "There's some bad old trauma lurking back 10,000 years .. possibly a harm that is still in the process of healing." I have thought of this often and one night i was watching a special on the history of dogs and an idea hit me. It came in the form of a creation myth but expresses your exact idea. I remember it as clear as day because of the feeling associated with it. I rarely speak of this but i try to interpret it as a vision of a creation myth. The accepted theory of the evolution of dogs come from wolves being attracted to trash piles made by humans and were selected by temperament to eventually live with man. We bred them so as to work for us and now we see the vast array of breeds. Whats interesting about dogs is that they have taken on some of our diseases as well as psychological traits. We in essence gave them a superego by integrating them into the modern family unit and living amongst other members of our clan, but most importantly we brought them out of the hunter gatherer state(Jared Diamonds theory of Leisure Time equating to intelligence). Well somehow this all materialized and I thought wow is there a chance we are just like dogs. Who enslaved us and powered our frontal lobes? Who taught us agriculture and brought us out of the hunter gatherer state which inevitably lead to the growth of our species and the evolved cortex we now endure. I asked were we once enslaved like dogs were? Somehow it all seemed to click at the time and part of me knew we have been passing on this trauma since the birth of civilization.
  
  Ive tried to put it into an intelligible theory but it does not really add up. So I view it as a myth with which i was allowed the pleasure to see. The myth expressed your exact idea and I think its probably true.

• A reply on Conversation: Why Basic Income should become a Human Right

  Nov 3 2012: " It's not so primative when it happens to every male human during puberty"
  
  This is true and now you have directed me down a differing rabbit hole. I must now attempt to define what I mean by "primitive". I guess I mean pre societal, mainly forces which humans have deemed to be destructive to civilization. Maybe its from reading to much Freud, but i sometimes place a bit of mysticism into the unconscious forces. After reading his books I find it difficult to not see the world the way he portrays it(in a very linear way). I notice a thread in much of your writing Mitch, you seem to be always looking in fractals and I cant say I blame you tis a beautiful lens to look through. Either way, you are right the male teenagers hormones rage and his frontal lobe has not reached full development, hence: a recipe for impulse control issues. But are these forces primitive? I guess they are only primitive in the sense that society has been trying to wrangle and control them for years. "Civilization began the first an angry person cast a word instead of a rock"- Freud
  
  I think you are right about debate and I have noticed this may have been the root cause of the breakup of my philosophy group which I formed. Sides were being taken and it eventually lost its muster and faded(although it has just recently reassembled with new and old members). When we had discussion and sharing of ideas we made real progress, far more progress than in any school setting.
  
  I think what you are getting at is that by integrating a world view or accepting a view consciously or unconsciously we can absorb its falsehoods and that the only real way to deviate from asymmetry in your model is to offer ideas that have been formed from your own experience? I think much training goes into alleviating what we already know. The idea you present is one i have been and maybe always will be fighting to keep, at least on some level.
  -Brian

• A comment on Conversation: What is the origin of the idea that a deity created the world?

  Nov 2 2012: Notice that mental hospitals commonly have multiple patients who claim divinity. It seems to be a level of consciousness in the brain. As far as I can tell schizophrenia as well as manic depression have been with us since the dawn of man, some theorists argue that it is a consequence of developing language(especially in schizophrenia).
  
  I think David Hume when he wrote An enquiry Concerning Understanding hinted that we infer a brilliant creator when we look at the universe for the same reason why when we look at a building we infer that this was created by man. I have never seen anyone build a skyscraper yet I infer that this happened due to experience. Our experience of cause and effect invariably leads us to reasoning that a superior intelligence created the universe.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Who do you think is the right choice for president and why?

  Nov 2 2012: Rocky Anderson or maybe Jill Stein I could vote for, Obama and Romney are representative of 2 slightly differing factions of the business party meant to create an illusion of opposing ideologies, these ideologies both support the current power structure.. Why is it that Romney has not criticized Obama for not closing Guantanamo? Why is it that Romney has not criticized Obamas war against whistleblowers as well as his expansion of the Patriot Act and NDAA etc...Why is it Romney has not criticized Obama for not prosecuting those who were responsible for the economic collapse? I could go on but I think it would be an exercise in futility. The answer is that they both support nanny state capitalism, they both support a foreign policy of murder and imperialism, they are both bought and paid for by the financial institutions, and they both play sycophant to the military industrial complex.
  
  Both candidates have high paid well sought after public relations handlers who train them what to say based on very trusted polling tools. They are meant to be symbols of the manufactured narrative of the republican and the democrat. If they actually listened to public opinion I wouldn't mind it, but how often have we elected presidents who kiss babies and make promises only to go on and continue the same destructive path we have been on?
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  A reply on Conversation: If the state is so bad at raising children, how come we allow the state to educate our children?

  Nov 2 2012: Tao, this entirely depends on what the populace has been educated about. One can educate a group and very easily use this education as a tool of enslavement. If you look at the trilateral commission formed under Ford they basically said there are two types of intellectuals one that praise the system and ones that are, lets say, more value oriented. They went on to say that the value oriented intellectuals must be shunned so as to inhibit "the crisis of democracy" while the former must be held up because of the extremely important role they play in the indoctrination of the young and maintenance of societal function.
  
  I concur with Johns statement it is far easier to control an educated populace when the education is mean to serve the master. Sometimes education can fool you into believing things you already know to be false....
  
  In the communist manifesto Marx claimed that state education was needed so as to protect the children from being molded into sycophants to the ruling class. I think this is true and what we now see with all the hype about the teachers unions is really just a ploy to get in there and teach the children "what they should be learning". This is not to say that government in and of itself cant become a ruling class it can and has. The point I am attempting to make is that "spreading worry" based in truism should be an obligation to anyone who cares about his fellow man.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateral_Commission
  http://www.chomsky.info/books/priorities01.htm