Wittgenstein on "Mental Processes"

306. Why should I deny that there is a mental process? But "There has just taken place in me the mental process of remembering . . . ." means nothing more than: "I have just remembered . . . . " To deny the mental process would mean to deny the remembering; to deny that anyone ever remembers anything.

307. "Are you not really a behaviourist in disguise? Aren't you at bottom really saying that everything except human behaviour is a fiction?"—If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction.

308. How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and about behaviourism arise?——The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states and leave their nature undecided. Sometime perhaps we shall know more about them—we think. But that is just what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. For we have a definite concept of what it means to learn to know a process better. (The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one that we thought quite innocent.)—And now the analogy which was to make us understand our thoughts falls to pieces. So we have to deny the yet uncomprehended process in the yet unexplored medium. And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don't want to deny them.

(Philosophical Investigations, I)

Monads Look Inward

Image via Wikipedia

Philosophers during the modern era wrestled with various philosophical problems. Some of these were cast as new problems, although many had been vexing philosophers since the start of the profession. One of these is the problem of the external world: how do I know that my perceptions match what is real? Another is the mind-body problem: how does the mind interact causally with the body? Leibniz attempted to address these problems (and more) with his monads.

For Leibniz, monads are the fundamental entities that make up the world. They are immaterial and, although they have qualities, they have no parts. There are supposed to be an infinite number of these entities and, apparently, they all perceive. On most interpretations, each monad is a mind. However, the monads do vary in their degree of mental capabilities and they range from the most minimally perceiving monad to the supreme monad (not to be confused with the supreme Dalek or a nacho supreme) which is, of course, God. The higher sorts of monads are conscious and aware while the lower sorts presumably are not. As such, while your soap perceives (think about that the next time you lather up) it is not conscious (which is probably best for both of you).

While all these myriad monads perceive, this perception is not (as Leibniz sees it) a perception caused by external objects. As Leibniz famously claimed, the monads do not have windows and (in addition to making it hard to enjoy warm spring days) nothing enters or departs from them. However, each monad is supposed to mirror all of reality. While I usually use the analogy of a bowl full of polished ball bearings as an analogy to illustrate that bit, the analogy rather obviously fails badly. But, I do think it is a nice image.

While this windowlessness might seem rather odd, it does enable Leibniz to solve two problems with one nad, monad, that is. First, the mind body problem is elegantly solved: reality is fundamentally mental (which I am sure you have long suspected) and hence there are not two distinct metaphysical types to have relationship problems. There is but one type and, perhaps even better, there are no causal relations between these monads (well, aside from God's act of creation, but God is always mucking up things). Thus, these problems are solved. Well, sort of anyway. Second, the problem of the external world is also solved. Monads do not perceive what is outside of them, for there are no windows via which they interact with an external world. The split between experience and reality that allows the problem of the external world to gain traction simply is not there, hence its wheels spin futilely. Or would, if problems had wheels.

Assuming that you buy this, there are still some obvious problems remaining. One is the matter of addressing the intuitively plausible view that we are perceiving the same reality and that we seem to interact. For example, as I type the blog my husky (a husky monad) is watching. I believe that she is perceiving me doing this and I believe that I am perceiving her perceiving me and that she is no doubt wishing that I was handing her some treats rather than typing. So, how does this work with monads?

For Leibniz the answer is very straightforward. In the beginning, God created all the monads and placed "in" each one all its experiences (sort of like downloading a whole movie before starting to play it). Being really amazing, God makes sure that all the monads are in sync (no, not in the boy band). So, back to the husky example, when I have the experience of seeing my husky and she has the experience of seeing me, we are not "really" seeing each other. Rather Isis (my husky) is having an experience in her mind as if she were seeing me and likewise for me. While I do suspect that husky hair could actually get into a monad, there is no actual causal interaction between us. However, the experiences are in a state of pre-established harmony and hence it all works out. Really.

Not surprisingly, this has caused some people to wonder why this does not just collapse into solipsism. After all, if all my experiences are pre-loaded, then I should have them whether there are any other monads or not. By Occam's Razor, one might argue, it would seem simplest to hold that I and I alone exist. Or, at best it is just me and the creator-which sticks us (or rather just me) into the problem raised by Descartes. Perhaps even worse, if the God monad perceives everything perfectly, then it would seem to entail that everything is just a quality of God's mind. This is, of course, pantheism and something the sane generally endeavor to avoid whenever possible. As such, let us quietly close that door and sneak away.

Now that all those problems have been successfully ignored, there is the obvious problem of space. If we are just immaterial monads, then the space we perceive would thus clearly not be space in the usual sense of a box in which God keeps his stuff. Also, what we take to be extended (three dimensional) objects cannot actually be three dimensional in the usual sense.

Leibniz solves the first problem by taking space to be a system of relationships between what a monad experiences. To use a contemporary example, think about "moving" around in 3D video game like Halo or World of Warcraft. It seems like you are moving through space because of the relationship between the elements of your experience, yet there really are not three dimensions in the usual sense. Space is merely a matter of perception and relative to the experiences.

In regards to objects appearing to be extended, this is also a matter of perception. While Leibniz uses the analogy of a rainbow, the video game analogy works even better. In video games we experience what seem to be extended objects, even though they are not actually extended. Rather, the extension is something of an illusion. Likewise for the monad's experience of extension-it is all in their minds. The monads look inwards and see all that can be seen.

World Views of Monism, Dualism, Trialism, and Quadrialism

Contempory science and philosophy prefer a monistic world view which is always in some competion with a dualistic view. The "Evolutionary Theory of Visual Gestalt Perception" (ETVG), however, which is an elaborated theory of the structure of visual (phenomenal) space exhibits a trialistic world view, while its supertheory, the "Evolutionary Theory of Being" (ETB) is even based on a quadrialistic world view that encloses the trialistic one of the ETVG: cause enough for dealing with the differences between these views.
1
Contempory monists believe that the world we live in consists of only one stuff: "matter". But they have difficulties in explaining something that is usually called "consciousness", which does not at all look like matter. In particular, the monists cannot explain, for example, the strcture of visual sensations, i.e. of conscious visual perception, which is an important ability of humans and many animals.
Other scientists (and philosophers) favor a dualistic world view by saying: no, the world does not consist exclusively of matter, "consciousness" must be a second stuff besides matter. However, also the dualists cannot really explain the important conscious experiences like visual sensations and their structure in space and time.
Both world views differ in the "nature" of consciousness; the monists say: consciousness is nothing else than matter and can in a certain sense be understood as an "emanation" of matter, while the dualists say: consciousness is of quite another nature than matter.
2
Monists and dualists believe that there are both material things with consciousness and material things without consciousness. Thus in both world views consciousness is somewhat additional to matter, while the opposite is not true as one cannot really believe that matter would be somewhat additional to consciousness. Thus both world views conceive a kind of hierarchical order between matter and consciousness with the latter being on a higher level above matter.
The dualists have developed different theories on the relations between matter and consciousness but obviously failed to recognize the right and convincing relations between them although science possesses a lot of knowledge just on matters involved in visual perception. However, our knowledge of conscious experience stems more from everyday life. Only few research has ever been done on visual experience, for example, as the astonishing lack of images proves that have been sketched from vision experience in experiments and thus could be found (or not found) in the literature.
3
There are few authors who are contented neither with monism nor with dualism and thus favor a trialistic world view, with or without calling it a "trialistic" one. Most of the "trialists" accept the two dualistic entities "matter" and "consciousness" so that the third entity is added to them. However, with proposing a third entity the universe is thought to consist of, an author has to determine the locus of this third entity relative to the loci of the other two entities.
Let us consider the case in which the third entity (X) is thought to be added to the accepted entities matter (M) and consciousness (C) in their accepted hierarchical order in relation to the course of evolution from the bottom up. This means that three potential cases of relations have to be considered:
the relations between M and X, between C and X, and between M and C.
4
There is an accepted hierarchical order between M and C with C is lying above M, independently whether this fact has or has not been considered in the respective theory If we write the higher level entity on the right side of the lower level entity, we theoretically contain the following three cases:
(a) If the third entity has evolved after consciousness (case M-C-X), the relations between matter and consciousness remain the same as conceived in monism or dualism; i.e. there is no need to change them in a trialistic view.
(b) If the third entity has evolved before matter (case X-M-C), the relations between M and C remain unchanged as well.
(c) If, however, the third entity has evolved after matter but before consciousness (case M-X -C), then all relations between M and C that ever have been conceived in all the dualistic and monistic theories are wrong.
5
The "Empiristic Theory of Visual Gestalt Perception" (ETVG) (http://enane.de/cont.htm) is a trialistic theory of case M-X-C. As is shown in the diagram of the Evolutionary Theory of Being" (ETB) (http://enane.de/ETB1.htm) visual perception relates predominantly to the worlds PF and PC. But it relates anyhow also to the worlds below PF/PC as seeing with PF/PC is only possible for living Beings (that are already evolved up to the worlds VM and VF), and life is only possible when already certain atoms and molecules (in the worlds UCO / UCM) are available. Thus both entities are necessary for conscious visual perception: the entity matter (=material manner of Being") and the entity consciousness (=phenomenal manner of Being").
However, to be able to conscious visual perception (=visual experience PC including "phenomenal space"), a third entity X is needed, which is called the "functional manner of Being". In the ETB diagram is to see first, that the "functions" (F) lie between matter (M) and consciousness (C) and second, that these three entities realize the hierarchical order of case M-X(F)-C. This means: the trialistic ETVG exhibits a general structure according to which all usual monistic theories (M) and all usual dualistic theories (M-C) must be wrong because any direct relations between matter and consciousness as conceived in monistic and dualistic concepts are not existent.
6
When I developed the ETVG further (2001) I also conceived another theory, the "Eight-World-Model of Reality" or "Four-Manner-Four-Level-Model of Reality" (first published in 2001, Part 10), later called "Evolutionary Theory of Being" (ETB). While the ETVG is a trialistic theory as shown above, the ETB is a quadrialistic theory. The ETB is a supertheory in respect to the ETVG insofar as the ETB encloses the ETVG: The three manners of Being that have evolved up to the third level on which perception occurred are thus thought to be "embedded" in a fourth manner of Being, called "ordinal manner of Being". As seen in the ETB diagram, first, the phenomenal manner of Being develops a second world of Mental Consciousness (MC) above Psychical Consciousness (PC). The MCs, however, produce when "actualized" their Mental Orders (MOs). With occurrence of the world MC, the living (VM/VF) and already perceiving (PF/PC) Being evolves itself into a fourth evolutionary level. With the MOs as produced by the MCs, it reaches in that fourth (="ordinal") manner of Being.
As the other three manners of Being do, the ordinal manner of Being consists of two "worlds" as well. Here on the fourth evolutionary level, there is the world of "Mental Order" (MO) or "Individual Cosmic Order" (ICO). The other world of the ordinal manner of Being lies on the first evolutionary level and is called the "Universal Cosmic Order" (UCO). So all worlds of the material, functional and phenomenal manners of Being lie inside the ordinal manner of Being as the Being "begins" with UCO and "ends" with ICO.
7
Now we have to ask for the locus of the fourth ("ordinal") manner of Being relative to the other three manners. The answer is less simple: indeed, also the ordinal manner of Being consists - like the other three manners - of two worlds (here UCO and ICO), but these worlds are lying extremely far from another, so we have to ask a twofold question:
a) When has UCO evolved? Answer: before matter.
b) When has ICO evolved? Answer: after consciousness.
Thus the relations M-F-C remain unchanged if the two "halves" of the ordinal manner of Being (O) are introduced and a fourth case is formed: O-M-F-C-O.
8
In summery: the most important innovation introduced in science and philosophy are both the "Empiristic Theory of Visual Gestalt Perception" (ETVG) with the trialistic concept in exactly that form as described, and its supertheory, the quadrialistic ETB.
If the ETVG and the ETB are true, all monistic/dualistic theories are wrong as according to the monistic/dualistic theories consciousness is immediately caused by matter, while according to the new ETVG and ETB, there is not at all any immediate connection of consciousness ("phenomenal" manner of Being) with matter ("material" manner of Being). On the contrary, an entire group of entites (the "functional" manner of Being) even separates consciousness from matter. Moreover: it is only a certain kind of matters that immediately causes a certain kind of functions, while a higher level kind of functions causes a certain kind of consciousness. So the lack of any immediate connection of consciousness and matter is perfect.
9
Since every monistic/dualistic theory and the trialistic ETVG are mutually exclusive, no intermediate stages are possible. So every scientist (particularly every reader of this blog) has to decide which theory or world view, respectively, he will overtake as his own. None of them has to be favored per se because it is absolutely irrelevant wether two, three, four, eight, or 25 parts (areas, spheres, worlds, manners of Being, evolutionary levels) are distinguishable as parts of "all that is".
It is the efficiency of a theory that is relevant for its scientific acceptance. In this respect, the number of facts that are explainable with a theory and the consistency of the laws which have been applied to explain them are relevant. Not the theoretical background is decisive for the choice of a theory, rather it is the efficiency of a theory that is decisive for the choice of its theoretical background.
10
If you - may be as a very young student - decide yourself for the most possible vicinity to scientific truth, then you will accept the trialistic ETVG as this theory is able to explain such a large quantity of visual facts, particularly in the domain of visual (phenomenal) space, as no monistic / dualistic theory ever was able to do. You will, moreover, also accept the quadrialistic ETB as there is no other world view suitable to be the ETVG's theoretical background.
However, I warn you not to accept the ETVG and the ETB or at least not to tell somebody else that you have accept them. In particular: you never should expect from other scientists to do the same as you have done: to throw their monistic / dualistic world views (fervently loved since centuries) on the scrapheap of History, no learned scientist is able to do that. Consider also the reaction of the scientific community on this scandalous demand for a shift in its members' usual thinking!

Empiristic Theory of Visual Gestalt Perception (ETVG)

The general topic of this blog is the "Structure of Visual Space". In my "Empiristic Theory of Visual Gestalt Perception: Hierarchy and Interactions of Visual Functions" (ETVG) (2001, Koeln, Germany: Enane) I have already described and explained the structure of visual space. Many chapters are online: www.enane.de/cont.htm. With this posting I am giving the blog members the opportunity to get to know, discuss and even further develop this theory.

Here I am giving some information on the ETVG to prevent unnecessary misunderstanding:

(1) With "gestalt" perception is only meant perception as opposite of color perception. It contains figure-outfield, quantity, orientation, and form perception.

(2) In my first posting I described with the "Evolutionary Theory of Being" (ETB) a kind of supertheory in which perception is immediately realized on the 3rd , the "psychic", evolutionary level of Being, while the 2nd level contains living matters and functions, and the 1st level contains inorganic matter to which physic is related. At the 4th level, "mind" has been evolved.

(3) As shown in the ETB (see diagram), perception is realized as two kinds ("worlds"): (a) the psychic consciousnesses (PC) (including "phenomenal space" as called by John Smythies) and (b) psychic functions (PF) which, however, are absolutely unknown to vision science, and thus are also not considered in any theory that might be known to a blog member.

(4) Since a certain PF is "producing" a certain PC, the PCs are immediately and convincingly explainable only by referring to these their producers. This means: the entities that have been evolved prior to PF are the less responsible for the structure of a certain PC the farther away from PF they are located, according to the ETB. So visual theories that relate visual experience (PC) to physics or chemistry (UCO/UCM) are less useful for explaining visual sensations (PC) than theories that relate it to "neuronal [VM] mechanisms [VF]". And these neurological theories can account for sensations and other visual experiences less well than PFs do as only PFs are immediately connecting PCs because they "produce" them. However, despite these restrictions, the ETVG shows a certain correspondence between the general properties of the function carriers "neuron" and "gestalt factor". And it shows a certain correspondence between the functions of six ETVG-levels and the functions of six neurobiologically defined levels.

(5) Only after the trialistic view of vision has been described in the ETVG, a "Quadrialistic Theory of Man" has been introduced (www.enane.de/ETB1.htm): the "Four-Manner-Four-Level-Model of Reality" (later called "Evolutionary Theory of Being" = ETB), with its terms "psychic function" (PF) and "psychic consciousness" (PC). In the ETVG it is "functional/ functionology" that refers to PF, and it is "phenomenal/ phenomenology" that refers to PC.

(6) Since the structure of phenomenal visual perception (PC) (e.g. phenomenal space) can be explained convincingly only by referring to PF, and PF is unknown to science, vision science practically avoids in their theories of vision to depict the visual experiences (PC) they are claiming but are not able to explain. In contrast to it, in the ETVG a lot of relevant illustrations of visual experiences (PC) are shown and explained by their producers (PF).

(7) While the PCs are entities dependent on the PFs, the PF hierarchy itself evolves independently as the result of an unconscious learning process in early infancy. The hierarchically ordered gestalt factors are fixed as memory contents and must be "actualized" step by step in order to produce their corresponding gestalt qualities.

(8) The most important relations between sensory stimulus and visual experience consist of the fact that different visual experiences can follow one and the same sensory stimulus. This happens, for example, when attention directed on the stimulus increases or decreases. Or when the same optical pattern impinges the eye for different but very short times (as shown in tachistoscopic experiments), or when instead of time the light intensity changes (you can see the same material things in darkness less accurately than in full illumination). There is not any theory of visual percption except the Empiristic Theory of Visual Gestalt Perception that is able to explain which visual experiences are theoretically expected under different conditions of stimulation. The ETVG describes both a ten-level hierarchy of 25 "gestalt factors" (in the world PF) and its product, the corresponding ten-level hierarchy of 25 "gestalt qualities" (in the world PC). When the conditions of stimulation smoothly increase, the PF hierarchy of gestalt factors will be "actualized" step by step from the bottom up, so that the corresponding gestalt qualities will appear step by step as well and thus enrich the visual experience and make it more and more complex.This process is called the "actualgenesis" of the percept. The opposite process, the "actual lysis", consists in the "de-actualization" of the PF hierarchy from the top down which leads to the "de-differentiation" of the percept or even to its total disappearance. The ETVG deals predominantly with those 17 of the 25 gestalt factors that constitute the static two-dimensional visual perception.

(9) Since many gestalt factors interact one with another, a lot of "gestalt laws" are to be found, and thus the ETVG can already account for a number of wellknown visual facts. These laws refer not only to visual space but also to visual time.

As I wrote at the beginning, with this posting I am giving the members of the "structure of visual space group" a chance to get to know, discuss and even further develop this "theory of the structure of visual space". I will see how they seize this chance. This Empiristic Theory of Visual Gestalt Perception (ETVG) is all that I have to say on visual perception since 2001. It is now the job of others to think about it.

My own job is to further develop that theory which goes - among others - beyond visual perception described in the ETVG (and thus enclosing visual perception): the double-quadrialistic "Evolutionary Theory of Being" (ETB) (see my first posting) which describes "all that is" as a system of four "evolutionary levels" interlocking with four "manners of Being" and thus forming eight "worlds".

Visual Experience/Structure in Near Death Experiences

by
Thomas Droulez

Judging by what people who had NDEs with clear visual aspects frequently report (including congenitally blind people, which is very disturbing and interesting, since it might tell us a lot about the functional role of the eyes and the impossibility to equate the visual field –or visual screen, to use the words used by John Smythies in his analogical functional description- and the retinal surfaces in the eyeballs –the optic lens, in his description-…. About the topic of congenitally blind people able to accurately retrieve visual information during NDEs, cf: Ring and Cooper’s excellent study… but that may be too long to develop here and now), they were able to “see through” objects (as weird as it may sounds!) and they had no limitations in their visual field (for example: no ocular rivalry any more, and no blurring!)

About the curvature of their visual field during NDEs, I do not know if we can say that it is really curved in itself, or if it phenomenologically appears as being curved, or if speaking of a “bubble” or a “spherical” form was only the verbal rendering of the experience that was the closest to what they actually experienced (they also speak of a total “omnidirectional” visual perception). If I remember well, in my description I used the terms “as if” (or something of that kind) in my first comment about visual perception during NDEs, when I was describing the subjects’ visual impressions during their anomalous near-death experiences. Some of these subjects describe it (verbally) in retrospect (perhaps because they have to use commonly shared usual frames of reference and commonly intelligible words to describe their anomalous near-death perceptual experience) as being a situation in which they (as observers) suddenly seem to be not “within” but on or rather into the surface of a spherical unit, but with no hidden parts.

It is as if they were now the surface of that sphere itself that is able to expand and contain the “external” environment. Judging by the reports, and especially those studied by Jean-Pierre, the subjects who experienced anomalous but veridical visual perceptions (for example: being able to reach distant or previously unknown places and see events happen that were later reported to have truly happened, or being able to see “through” walls or various obstacles hidden or forlorn objects the existence and aspect of which was later confirmed by people belonging to the hospital medical staff, etc) during an NDE cannot be described as static observers within a dynamically expanding/retracting spherical envelope: it would be more apt to say that it was as if they were that envelope/surface itself, because they did not have any more to revolve around an object to be able to get an overview of all its profiles at various angles, but this visual overview was presented as a unified and simultaneous view of all these profiles (I readily admit that I cannot imagine what it looks like, but maybe we can reach some understanding of that and an approximated representation of it by imagining that it would be the (higher-dimensional?) equivalent of the passage from a succession of 2D visual profiles of an object to a 3D visual presentation of that object.

The people who were able to sufficiently focus their attention on their visual experience and who later thought about the best verbal means to convey the essence of that peculiar perceptual experience, reported that, during their NDE, they were able to see the objects “entirely” as a synchronistical “multi-angle” perspective (and not as our classic/usual diachronically constructed succession of isolated visual profiles of the object with a final amodal completion of its successively hidden profiles).

We must be cautious. I think that, in a way, some of them spoke about a “spherical” or “bubble” impression mainly because of three inter-individually recurring aspects of the experience : 1/ they were able to have a 160° visual field and in some cases there are reports of a 360° visual panorama (I cannot spontaneously remember of any specific observation about the curvature, but I will check in the literature); 2/ they had a peculiar new ability of “projection” or “zooming” (both competing –motor and visual- interpretations of this ability exist) at multi-angle perspectives (as if they were the surface itself of a volume containing a lower space) to see distant places or microscopic details of their spatial environment; 3/they sometimes had peculiar “weightless” (bodily?) sensations (that’s why there are sometimes expressions in their reports like –these are not quotes, only typical samples- “I felt like a floating soap bubble” or “it was as if I was hovering above the room and I was a round cloud”: sometimes, when they think they have an “aerial body” (one of Jean-Pierre’s subjects used that expression), then they become suddenly able to locate their limbs in a kind of new reconstructed body image, but when they stop thinking that they have a body (to be more accurate: when they stop being convinced that since they are not “nothing” and they still exist as “observers” they must logically have a kind of embodiment similar to what we are used to), then they begin to feel either like a medium-sized “spherical” cloud or (less frequently reported) like a mere shrunken “point”. I am not sure to know if it tells us something about the structure of their visual “zooming” and “spreading” ability or rather about their possible new kind of embodiment…

Maybe Bill Rosar's suggestion (stated in "On Looking vs. Being Curved") about the curvature being due to the structure of the eyeballs is interesting and relevant: couldn’t it be compatible with John’s model in which (in the camera comparison) the eyes are described as being only the lenses of our optical system (so maybe: if you change the detecting device, the lenses in our analogical comparison, without modifying the screen itself, then the latter will not appear any more as a curved surface). Maybe that is what happens in NDEs: the eyes are now out of order (or never were functional, like in the cases of congenitally blind people!) and there is a whole new structure doing their job of detection and transmission…and that’s why the new “medium” induces drastic modifications of the visual field (the “screen” part of our device)?

Looking Curved vs. Being Curved

It seems best to start a new thread to continue the discussion that Bob French and I have been having lately on "Neurobabble in High Places" regarding how one relates our obvious ability to see things as curved (or straight) in the visual world, yet the postulated curvature of visual space is apparently not experienced as a curved visual world. My "diagnosis" is that in order to explain this apparent paradox we need to retrace the epistemological development of the idea of curved space, which does *not* appear to have been derived from visual experience (I believe Gauss is now credited with first advancing the notion of non-Euclidean geometries that would violate Euclid's postulate about parallel lines never converging).

In works I have read on the philosophy of space and time (Mach, Poincare, Nicod, Reichenbach, Grünbaum, and Nerlich) it has never been quite clear to me how a curved space would be perceived, particularly, how curved physical space would be perceived, except for the claim that it is locally Euclidean and therefore is perceived as being flat (ergo, "locally" Euclidean). But in the case of visual space, we perceive its entirety, not just a local region of it, so logically, we should be able to perceive its curvature. Yet most of the arguments for visual space being curved, as I have previously noted, seem not to be based on the perception of curvature, but upon discrepancies between perceived straightness (or parallelness) and third person observations of the test display stimuli employed to make those judgments (the so-called "alley experiments" originated by Blumenthal).

As geometrodynamics points out, physical space(-time) is curved because of a physical force: gravitiy. Why is visual space curved, moreover, of variable curvature as has been claimed by Bob, Indow, Koenderink et al? Is it attributable to the sphericity of the eyes themselves which, to some extent might introduce variable curvature as the eyes are deformed as they are turned?

In this regard, I was particularly interested in the NDE reports which Thomas Droulez shared from the research of Jean-Pierre Jourdan. I was particularly struck that patients reported something like an expanding bubble--this pointing to some sort of sphericality of visual space--and that the visual world as (apparently) seen from outside (from the vantage point of a "5th dimension") itself seemed to involve a kind of spherical construction as well. Perhaps Thomas or Jean-Pierre could supply more details of this apparent structure?

Neurobabble in high places and other topics.

Here are some comments, that seem appropriate for this blog, on the new book by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow “The Grand Design” (New York, Bantam, 2010). (My comments in square brackets)
Key words to be queried starred in text.

They say:

“Recent experiments in neuroscience support the view that it is our physical brain, following the known laws of science, that determines our actions, and not some agency that exists outside these laws.” (p. 32)

[This represents a total misreading of these "recent experiments" in which NCCs are illegitimately identified with phenomenal events. Also we determine our consciously motivated actions—not our brains]

“…we human beings…are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles of nature…” (p. 181)

[ How does he know that?]

“…the raw data sent to the brain are like a badly pixilated picture with a a hole in it [the blind spot]. Fortunately the human brain *processes* that data, combining the input from both eyes, filling in gaps on the *assumption* that the visual properties of neighboring locations are similar and interpolating. Moreover, it reads a two-dimensional array of data from the retina and creates from it the *impression* of a three-dimensional space. The brain, in other words, builds a *mental picture* or model.” (pp. 46-47).

“…our brains *interpret* the input from our sensory organs by making a *model* of the outside world. We form *mental concepts* of our home, trees, other people, the lectricity that flows from wall sockets, atoms, molecules, and other universes. These *mental concept*s are the only reality we can know [no mental percepts?]. There is no model-independent test of reality.”

[These "mental" pictures and "mental" concepts suddenly appear from nowhere!!]

And—
“Feynman realized that…a particle [going from A to B] takes every possible path connecting these points, and take them all simultaneously.” (p. 75). In two slit experiments this is“…how the particle acquires the *information* about which slits are open.” (p. 76)

[Particles acquiring information??]

[I should like to see Bill’s and Ray’s opinion on all this!]


——————————————————————————

Problems about higher dimensions

“…if a theory called the holographic principle is correct, we and our four-dimensional world may be shadows on the boundary of a larger five-dimensional space-time.” (p. 44)

[Nowhere does Hawking mention this idea again.]

“Similarly, we know our universe exhibits three large space dimensions” although “… the number of large space dimensions is not fixed by any law of physics.” (p.141)

[That's useful to know]

“There seems to be a vast landscape of possible universes.” (p. 144)

{Hawking assumes a priori that all higher-dimensional space-times must contain matter like ours]

“Although Einstein’s general theory of relativity unified space and time as space-time and involved a certain mixing of space and time, time was still different from space…In the early universe there were effectively four dimensions of space and none of time.” (p. 134)

Needs further explication—mixing?