# Is thinking the motion of atoms in the brain? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 26, 2004, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267 "2004-06-26T01:58:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/61 "2004-06-30T05:08:22Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > Ehrm, **Aeschines** , I do not think that word means what you think it means. Enormous can just mean big, unless you are restricted to a definition many dictionaries label as archaic. OK, I was somewhat, sort-of wrong. Incorrect. Well, kind of. Pejorative, a little, but I was… yeah, in error. Sorry, Sentient. The “offal” thing got me worked up. Enormously. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/62 "2004-06-30T05:42:57Z")
Yeah, well, I’m not sure that word means what you think it means, either. Offal isn’t exactly complimentary, and it can mean any waste or rubbish, but its primary meaning is the unused portions of a butchered animal. So unless you have an abiding passion for headcheese or brains-n-eggs (and yes, some people do), I’d think brain _would_ be considered offal. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/63 "2004-06-30T08:27:50Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > Careful, **SentientMeat** , shave with Occam’s Razor and you might chop off your head, or at least your mind. Most people are unwilling and unable to believe that conciousness and free will are illusions, even if Occam’s Razor seems to insist that they are, and I count myself cautiously among their number. I am reasonably convinced that I do in fact exist as a concious, thinking self. I don’t know whether it’s true or not that “most people are unwilling and unable…”, but certainly not most people who are educated in the subject. Studying [split-brain](http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/UBNRP/Split_Brain/Split_Brain_Consciousness.html) patients has cast serious doubt on the former belief that we all exist as some sort of homogenous “self” of consciousness. There’s a good deal of evidence now that conciousness _is_ an illusion, an artificial synthesis of disparate impulses in the brain, concocted “after the fact”. Many people may indeed be unwilling to accept it, but I think that is more a reflection of their stubbornness. ---
**Author:** ![umop\_ap\_sdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/dbc845/32.png) [@umop\_ap\_sdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/umop_ap_sdn)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/64 "2004-06-30T08:29:20Z")
> [@matt](#): > > you can in theory follow the signals - _that_ neuron was tripped by _that_ one, _that_ one by _this_ one etc. until you get to the neuron[s] that were tripped by the “soul”, the non-physical entity. Poke around in the brain enough, you have to find the “tuner.” Not necessarily. The idea is that the entire brain acts as a 2-way interface between the supernatural. If there is a soul, then it is observing the firing of neurons in the sensory cortices (consciousness) and influencing the firing of neurons in the motor and language cortices (free will) along with the areas involved in thought. IOW, the whole thing is the tuner. The only theory I have seen that seems remotely plausible to explain this interface is the idea of “quantum consciousness” - that certain organelles of the neurons (microtubules, IIRC) can exist in quantum entangled states, and that the agent of consciousness (“soul”) collapses the entanglement by acting as an observer. > [@](#): > > And if a physical neuron or whatever can be affected by the non-physical “spirit” world, then we can build our own physical tuner and detect the “spirit” world, something that as far as I know hasn’t been achieved. If a machine is built that uses quantum entanglement, and the machine starts channeling dead people, then the tuner will have been duplicated. I, for one, am not holding my breath. > [@SentientMeat](#): > > As for the ?what Mary didn?t know? and ?what it is like to be a bat?, I don?t find these supposed paradoxes particularly challenging. Mary has never ?seen red?. I have never ?heard an ultrasonic echo?. All this means is that a certain signal (in these cases EM radiation of pure ~630_nm_ and an acoustic wave of \>22kHz, respectively) has not been received by a particular type of sensory apparatus attached to a brain. Agreed, in fact the idea of qualia itself doesn’t really hold up either. Qualia are an attempt to ask why sensory input is so vivid; why life is so immediately obvious. There is no reason why sensory input wouldn’t be so vivid. The brain doesn’t realize what a small piece of the universe it is. All it ever “knows” is encased in a skull, therefore the whole range of neurons firing is its universe and it has nothing to compare that to. > [@Chronos](#): > > The fundamental problem with dualism is that it introduces plenty of hypothesis, but it has no explanatory power whatsoever. What it seeks to explain is where all that sensory input goes. If it merely circulates through a closed system which produces output, then how is that system conscious of itself? If there is a supernatural component, then it is the part that receives experiences and imparts free will to behaviors. But we cannot know if we ourselves have such a component, since our own thought processes would lead to the same conclusion either way. ---
**Author:** ![umop\_ap\_sdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/dbc845/32.png) [@umop\_ap\_sdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/umop_ap_sdn)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/65 "2004-06-30T09:36:23Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > There’s a good deal of evidence now that conciousness _is_ an illusion To call consciousness an illusion merely begs the question “who is it fooling”. This does not eliminate the need for a “soul” in the minds of people who already believe in one. Consciousness is something real, in the sense that it actually exists or occurs. People are aware of themselves, and either that is caused by the brain’s cognitive centers contemplating their own existence, or by a supernatural component that knows of its own existence. Insist if you must that consciousness is purely physical in origin, but that doesn’t make it an illusion. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/66 "2004-06-30T09:48:16Z")
> [@](#): > > To call consciousness an illusion merely begs the question “who is it fooling”. The unique string of memories which creates the illusion of a “self”. (Incidentally, I agree that “illusion” is perhaps not the best possible word to use. A rainbow might similarly be said to be an “illusion” but one would not say that a rainbow does not _exist_, merely that it has a _physical explanation_.) > [@](#): > > The idea is that the entire brain acts as a 2-way interface between the supernatural. What entity or experience do you appeal to which shows that it is **necessary** (in an Ockham’s Razor sense) to appeal to the supernatural? Like I asked **lekatt** , would the difficulty in explaining all aspects of a _computer_ solely by _electronics_ cause you to posit that the computer was an “interface” with some _other_ domain (in the same way that you are positing that a _brain_ is in communication with another domain due to the difficulty of explaining it solely by _neurophysics_)? ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/67 "2004-06-30T09:56:49Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > There’s a good deal of evidence now that conciousness _is_ an illusion, an artificial synthesis of disparate impulses in the brain, concocted “after the fact”. Many people may indeed be unwilling to accept it, but I think that is more a reflection of their stubbornness. Yes, but which disparate impulse do you blame for the stubbornness? Actually, here’s the odd fact about split-brain patients that is rarely mentioned (though I have done my own research on this on the net): they don’t feel weird! Yes, you do get some anomalous things such as an ability to say what an object is when it’s in one hand other than the other, but, if anything, split brain patients would seem to provide evidence for a pattern (spirit, soul, whatever) that transcends the brain but is still limited by it. Call this impulse stubborn, if you will. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/68 "2004-06-30T10:04:10Z")
> [@cityboy916](#): > > Agreed, in fact the idea of qualia itself doesn’t really hold up either. Qualia are an attempt to ask why sensory input is so vivid; why life is so immediately obvious. There is no reason why sensory input wouldn’t be so vivid. The brain doesn’t realize what a small piece of the universe it is. All it ever “knows” is encased in a skull, therefore the whole range of neurons firing is its universe and it has nothing to compare that to. The irony being that your own brain right now feels that it can transcend all that and put it all in perspective. A paradox, ain’t it? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/69 "2004-06-30T14:40:45Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > Rorty’s contention was that since the Antipodeans’ language appears to be complete–that is, they can describe every exerience a human might have–but without reference to inner, subjective experiences, therefore these inner subjective experiences must be non-existent, and are actually an artifact of our language and our inability to properly identify brain states. That’s an interesting conclusion! Except I’m not very sure that we can speak of inner experiences at all, either. Unless that was his point, sheathed in irony… ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/70 "2004-06-30T14:57:04Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > (Incidentally, I agree that “illusion” is perhaps not the best possible word to use. A rainbow might similarly be said to be an “illusion” but one would not say that a rainbow does not _exist_, merely that it has a _physical explanation_.) My latest pet peeve is the number of things called “illusion” at the SDMB by various parties. 😃 Free will, self, consciousness, … with all this illusion it becomes more and more amazing that anyone even bothers trusting anything. Why, it’d almost be as if some, say, “demon” (or even “physical law”) has generated what only _appears_ like substance, but its existence is not unambiguously determined. Where have I heard this before? 🙂 > [@](#): > > What entity or experience do you appeal to which shows that it is **necessary** (in an Ockham’s Razor sense) to appeal to the supernatural? The problem here is what you are willing to consider as “supernatural”. Would you consider that the dualist’s “mind-substance” was supernatural? If what characterizes “the natural” is your ability to explain it, then surely we would all agree that everything we know is only natural. But that is not very interesting, is it really? For example, **SentientMeat** , would you consider that consciousness might be an emergent property of large systems that cannot be explained reductively? Do large systems sometimes have properties that cannot be explained only as a function of their parts? Or, if we were sufficiently knowledgeable, would all behavior be explained by an appear the behavior of its components? ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/71 "2004-06-30T15:57:16Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > Do large systems sometimes have properties that cannot be explained only as a function of their parts? Or, if we were sufficiently knowledgeable, would all behavior be explained by an appear the behavior of its components? Even the behavior and property of molecules can be radically diffferent than that if the constituent atoms. H[sub]2[/sub]O–and we’re talking 3 little atoms. But when it comes to a system like the brain, which is as vast in complexity as a galaxy, some are content to say, “Hyeah, it’s neurons firing. That’s _thought_.” Suuuuuure. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/72 "2004-06-30T16:19:02Z")
By the way, pardon my typo, that sentence should end with “an **appeal to** the behavior”. Hopefully my intent was clear. **Aeschines** , the reason I ask is that systems that can’t be explained by an appeal to their parts start to resemble dualist systems (_to me_, anyway, but that is good since I’m the one arguing about it). We start to have levels and contexts and so on, and this starts to resemble the claim that “the mind is not purely matter” [even though it is only made up of matter]. Emergent properties have always had the ring of an old friend in new clothes to me. ---
**Author:** ![Psilocybe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/51bf81/32.png) [@Psilocybe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Psilocybe)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/73 "2004-06-30T17:11:53Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > There’s a good deal of evidence now that conciousness _is_ an illusion, an artificial synthesis of disparate impulses in the brain, concocted “after the fact”. Many people may indeed be unwilling to accept it, but I think that is more a reflection of their stubbornness. When you say consciousness is an illusion, are you implying that we are slaves of our brain? For instance, every decision we make is not ‘us’ making it, but ultimately our brains? We have no freewill; our brain controls us…? Is that what you mean? ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/74 "2004-06-30T19:18:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Cityboy: > To call consciousness an illusion merely begs the question “who is it fooling”. This does not eliminate the need for a “soul” in the minds of people who already believe in one. Consciousness is something real, in the sense that it actually exists or occurs. People are aware of themselves, and either that is caused by the brain’s cognitive centers contemplating their own existence, or by a supernatural component that knows of its own existence. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. I don’t contend that the phenomemon of consciousness doesn’t exist, but rather that the idea of an integrated “self” would seem to be an illusion. The evidence seems to point to the theory that what we experience as consciousness is only a momentary focusing on one thing or another. As explained on the site I linked to earlier: > [@](#): > > For example, while watching t.v. a person might be aware of voices in the next room, the radiator clanking, and the smell of breakfast cooking. At some critical point the smell of the food burning is unconsciously given perceptual meaning and attention shifts bringing the food into the center of awareness, or consciousness. One of the roles of consciousness therefore seems to be to monitor the self and the environment, and control our thoughts and behavior. Much of the time our response to things in the environment and within ourselves is automatic, learn and do things without conscious awareness. It is when things go wrong and we are faced with important choices when consciousness becomes useful by devoting extra cognitive resources to information that may be especially significant. But experiments have shown that often, we act _first_ and form our perceptions _later_. It would seem that the integrated “self” that we believe ourselves to experience only exists as a body of memories. The brain, being an excellent pattern-recognition machine, synthesizes these memories into what seems to us to be a unified whole. But as we all know, memories frequently turn out to be either distorted or outright false. > [@](#): > > Insist if you must that consciousness is purely physical in origin, but that doesn’t make it an illusion. No, I didn’t mean to imply that there is no phenomenon of consciousness. However, those who argue that it _must_ have a supernatural origin are engaging in _argumentum ad ignorantiam_. > [@Aeschines](#): > > Yes, but which disparate impulse do you blame for the stubbornness? I think the idea that we are ultimately mortal and simply a physical “machine” [albeit a highly-complex one] is psychologically disturbing to many people. Therefore, they are highly motivated to believe otherwise, since believing otherwise is psychologically comforting to them. Therefore, they will tend to resist believing evidence against their concept of a divine “self”. Hence the stubbornness. It seems to be a pretty straightforward algorithm to me. The brain is “wired” in such a way that it tends to avoid that which causes unpleasant sensations. This propensity may or may not outweigh the propensity to believe that which is empirically demonstrable. > [@](#): > > Actually, here’s the odd fact about split-brain patients that is rarely mentioned (though I have done my own research on this on the net): they don’t feel weird! Yes, you do get some anomalous things such as an ability to say what an object is when it’s in one hand other than the other, but, if anything, split brain patients would seem to provide evidence for a pattern (spirit, soul, whatever) that transcends the brain but is still limited by it. > > Call this impulse stubborn, if you will. Actually, that was exactly my point, although you seem to have drawn the opposite conclusion from me. Split-brain patients, when studied, display _two unique personalities_, which can even be diametrically opposed to each other! Yet, as you point out, they do not seem to be aware of this. In fact, they will even concoct rationalizations to try to explain their contradictory behavior. I see this as strong evidence that the “self” is an illusion. The split-brain patient believes himself to exist as a unified consciousness, while the obvious evidence would indicate that he does not. The evidence would suggest that this “pattern” you refer to exists only as a collection of memories, after-the-fact. I see no need to ascribe any supernatural qualities to it. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/75 "2004-06-30T19:29:19Z")
> [@Psilocybe](#): > > When you say consciousness is an illusion, are you implying that we are slaves of our brain? For instance, every decision we make is not ‘us’ making it, but ultimately our brains? I don’t see the distinction you are making between “us” and “our brains”. We _are_ our bodies, and our brain is the organ that makes decisions. Why is it necessary to posit an additional entity other than our bodies? What evidence is there for this additional entity? > [@](#): > > We have no freewill; our brain controls us…? > > Is that what you mean? Whether you believe that the brain negates the concept of free will is another topic. It depends how you define “free will”. I tend to avoid “free will” discussions, since they invariably tend to be too abstract for my taste. I don’t think the question of whether or not we live in a deterministic, or “clockwork” universe has been settled. ---
**Author:** ![theR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@theR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theR)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/76 "2004-06-30T19:45:46Z")
> [@scotandrsn](#): > > Read a short article in Scientific American, years ago, that spoke of new research on smell, specifically what happens to an area of the brain called the olfactory bulb. > > The neurons there fire in a particular, complex pattern when you’re smelling, say, bananas. then if you go on to smell, say, wood, they begin firing in a completely different complex pattern. If you then go back to smelling bananas, the neurons fire again in in something very much like the banana pattern, but now influenced slightly by the wood pattern. > > Since that time, I have wondered if the entire brain doesn’t function in a similar way. the pattern of neuron firings is one way for one thought, another way for a different thought, etc. Sure, you would eventually be limited in the number of different things it would be possible to think about, but considering the vast number of neuron and the even vaster number of connections to provide possible patterns, I think the sun could wink out before we exhausted the possibilities. Though I sometimes have a hard time following discussions of this field, [this](http://neuron.nimh.nih.gov/richmond.html) seems to say similar things regarding the latency and intensity of neurons firing (see the section titled Neural Coding of Visual Stimuli). The [Laboratory of Neuropsychology](http://neuron.nimh.nih.gov/) homepage has other sections that seem to relate to this discussion, as well, though most of the papers may not be available online. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/77 "2004-06-30T20:06:46Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > But experiments have shown that often, we act _first_ and form our perceptions _later_. It would seem that the integrated “self” that we believe ourselves to experience only exists as a body of memories. I think this is a crucial discovery. My big problem with the Chinese Room problem is that there is an assumption that what is going on in the mind of the person running the room is different in principle from the room. A sufficiently advanced Chinese room should be able to pass a Turing test, right? One could argue that the Chinese room is not exhibiting real thought because we could look inside, and find the person following instructions to give the impression of consciousness before we see that expression on the outside. But that is exactly what we see in our brains also! I’m not sure calling consciousness an illusion is useful, but the fact that we can tell a decision has been made before we consciously make it gives some evidence that this is true. There seems to be a lot going on beyond consciousness, in any case. ---
**Author:** ![umop\_ap\_sdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/dbc845/32.png) [@umop\_ap\_sdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/umop_ap_sdn)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/78 "2004-06-30T20:16:08Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > What entity or experience do you appeal to which shows that it is **necessary** (in an Ockham’s Razor sense) to appeal to the supernatural? Me personally? None. However I used to be a pantheist who believed that every “soul” was part of the collective whole. Occam’s Razor would seem to remove the need for the supernatural, but explaining conscious awareness any other way is not easy. > [@](#): > > Like I asked **lekatt** , would the difficulty in explaining all aspects of a _computer_ solely by _electronics_ cause you to posit that the computer was an “interface” with some _other_ domain No, because I understand the computer and can explain its inner workings strictly in electronic and binary terms. The computer is completely self contained, with all its influences neatly accounted for. The human brain is more complex, not as well understood, and not all influences are accounted for (or are they) so it may or may not interface with another domain. > [@](#): > > (in the same way that you are positing that a _brain_ is in communication with another domain due to the difficulty of explaining it solely by _neurophysics_)? I have posited that in the past, but am no longer trying to advocate it as _the_ correct answer. > [@Aeschines](#): > > The irony being that your own brain right now feels that it can transcend all that and put it all in perspective. > > A paradox, ain’t it? That’s a good point. A paradox, maybe, but a navigable one. Say you wore amber filters over your eyes your whole life. You might know of the existence of shades of blue, but you wouldn’t notice that they are lacking from your day to day experience since reds and greens are all you would ever have known. The brain symbolizes itself within the universe, so in a sense it does put it into perspective; it just does so with an oversimplification. > [@Aeschines](#): > > Even the behavior and property of molecules can be radically diffferent than that if the constituent atoms. H[sub]2[/sub]O–and we’re talking 3 little atoms. This is different. The physical and chemical properties of water are due to its mass, its charge distribution, ionizability, etc. It is nothing more than a system of subatomic particles, more complex than individual atoms of hydrogen and oxygen. > [@blowero](#): > > I don’t think the question of whether or not we live in a deterministic, or “clockwork” universe has been settled. Exactly, and until it is settled the question of the presence or absence of a “spirit world” will not be settled either. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/79 "2004-06-30T20:34:29Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > My latest pet peeve is the number of things called “illusion” at the SDMB by various parties. 😃 Free will, self, consciousness, … with all this illusion it becomes more and more amazing that anyone even bothers trusting anything. Why, it’d almost be as if some, say, “demon” (or even “physical law”) has generated what only _appears_ like substance, but its existence is not unambiguously determined. You misunderstand. I’m not saying “self” is and illusion in the “life is but a dream” sense, but in an ordinary, everyday sense. There is no unchanging “self” that moves smoothly through time, seeing all that is around it in real time. Take this experiment, for example: A subject sits in a darkened room, and is shown two lights. The lights are seperated by a certain distance, and flash on and off, one after the other. But the subject does not report seeing this. The subject reports seeing a light _start_ from one side of the room and _travel_ to the other side of the room. Why? Because the subject’s brain has taken two individual events, both received as stimuli, and _synthesized_ them into a single _gestalt_. It doesn’t matter that the perception was incorrect, the subject _believes_ it to be correct. [That’s why we don’t see a movie as a series of still pictures]. There was no “self” that followed the light from one end of the room to the other, there was only a brain that received two seperate stimuli and synthesized them into the most likely pattern. The “self” that watched the light travel from one end of the room to the other only existed _after_ the second light flashed. It did not exist between the time of the first light flashing and the second light flashing. It was an illusion, in a commonplace, non-philosophical sense. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267/80 "2004-06-30T20:40:50Z")
> [@cityboy916](#): > > No, because I understand the computer and can explain its inner workings strictly in electronic and binary terms. The computer is completely self contained, with all its influences neatly accounted for. The human brain is more complex, not as well understood, and not all influences are accounted for (or are they) so it may or may not interface with another domain. Part of my job is figuring out why computers don’t work. External influences have a lot more impact than you think. Voltage and temperature variations speed up or slow down processing, and might cause incorrect results. Cosmic rays zap dense memories all the time, which can cause data to be corrupted. (This is checked for in highly available systems, but not all reasons your PC goes bonkers can be blamed on Microsoft.) Still, the brain gets input that is harder to characterize than the computer . You have to show how these don’t affect behavior before resorting to supernatural influences. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-thinking-the-motion-of-atoms-in-the-brain/252267.md?page=5)