Introducing the brain: interpreting research (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, March 07, 2021, 15:44 (1145 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: In every moment, your brain uses all its available information (your memory, your situation, the state of your body) to take guesses about what will happen in the next moment.

dhw: I don’t understand this. I don’t see how my attempts to work out, for instance, how life might have originated, or how evolution works, or why I forgot to buy a stir fry yesterday when I went shopping, entail a guess about what will happen in the next moment.

DAVID: I'll use a simple explanation, seeing patterns in clouds, Mickey Mouse, England/Scotland Island is the brain trying to help you, based on stored memories of patterns.

dhw: You are talking about the process of perception, in which we form “Gestalten”. This has nothing whatsoever to do with her claim that “in every moment the brain takes guesses about what will happen in the next moment”.

DAVID: Yes it does. The brain does this in more than perception. Libet's results are another example.

Please tell me how my attempts to work out how evolution works, or why I forgot to buy my stir fry, entail “a guess about what will happen in the next moment”.

dhw: I’d have liked to know your own opinion on her view that EVERY mental experience has a physical cause, and whether you agree with my view of mental illness. Instead, you switched the subject to free will, which she doesn’t even touch on.

DAVID: I didn't need to reply as I agree with your thought. She is pure materialist.
And:
Her whole approach is instructive, no more; she is an unadulterated materialist.

Thank you. I found the second half of the article far from instructive, and indeed very confusing, not to say misleading (and in the context, I thought dualism and materialism were in fact irrelevant). Since currently you and I are the only contributors to the forum, and disagree on so many of our topics, it is doubly important for me to know your views – especially since in this case the author was dealing with medical matters on which you are our resident expert.