ruveyn wrote:
Flair wrote:
For starters thought is not physical.
Nonsense. Have yourself hooked up to an MRI machine (as I have) and you can see yourself think. Thought is the discharge of neurons, an electrochemical process. You have a great deal to learn about neurophysiology.
The quickest cure for ignorance is learning what you don't know.
ruveyn
Nonsense. The "discharge of neurons" is a physical manifestation of the underlying process of consciousness. The electrochemical process follows the thought. It is a result, not a cause. What is a real shame is that there is no way to detect the thought prior to the physical process. If there were, I'm certain that you'd find that here was a latency, however slight, between the time you think a thought and the time it registers on some monitoring equipment.
As a pianist/synthesist, I think of it largely the way my setup works. I have 3 different MIDI input devices--a digital stage piano, an EWI (wind instrument), and a foot controller--and an electric guitar. Each of these things, think of them as nerves responding to stimuli, are routed in some way to a MIDI or audio interface or, in the case of the EWI, directly to a USB port. The computer (brain) is set to respond in specific ways, by sending MIDI instructions to other devices that are also routed to the MIDI output in a sort of daisy-chain configuration: a Frequency Modulation synth, a digitally-controlled analog synth, and a sampler. These sound generating devices are really another kind of brain because they don't actually generate sound, just electrical signals that have to be processed in another kind of way. What happens next is the analog electrical signal generated by these devices is routed back into the computer, which has pre-set ways of handling them. Once the computer has processed or transformed the analog electrical signal (by converting it to a digital signal), it has to send it back to the audio interface in which a DAC changes it BACK to an analog electrical signal--from there it flows throw a wire to an amplifier that drives a monitor, by which the electrical signal is converted into a pressure wave that is suitable for human hearing.
A fun fact about MIDI is it is a SERIAL signal flow. That means only one piece of data can be processed at a time. It happens so fast that to the average listener it might as well be instantaneous. So there is a slight delay (latency) between the time a key is struck to the time it reaches the computer. It takes the same amount of time after the computer recognizes it and routes it to whatever device for that device to respond. From there is a slight delay for the analog signal to reach the computer, another slight delay to process the sound, and yet another delay to send the signal to a final output-stage device that translates the signal into something meaningful.
The problem of MIDI and audio latency is troublesome for musicians. If the system is overly complex or computer resources are limited, timing problems can be longer than half a second.
The brain and the rest of the sensory system is MUCH more complex than a MIDI system, but isn't unlike it in principle. We are aware of our thoughts because our thoughts themselves are instantaneous. Without an idea of what note or chord to play, my setup is silent. The stimulus of pressing a key, touching a plate/blowing air, picking a string, stepping on a pedal is a means through which the computer gains insight into what I want it to do: I have given it a thought. But once that thought has been expressed, there is still that momentary lapse in time before the results are experienced.
Without the thought, there is no voluntary brain activity, only what is required for physical life (why we still breathe while we're asleep). Thoughts trigger whatever part of the brain is required for specific action--motor coordination while walking, for example. But the impulses do not happen for their own sake. They happen in response to the thought. They don't answer the question "Why walk at all?" That could happen for a number of reasons--I'm hungry, I'm going to the kitchen for food. But I could just as easily decide that I'm hungry, but I'd rather just stay in bed or something. There HAS to be a tiny amount of latency between thinking the thought, the physical manifestation of a biochemical response, and follow-through (if any) with psycho-motor response.
Those reactions in the brain are NOT thoughts themselves. They are merely physical manifestations of the human will, or spirit (or soul).
02 Jun 2010, 9:58 pm
