Food for thought

Every once in a while I will run into something worth while on the internet. It doesn't happen often, mind you, but here is an article that I highly suggest for those of you interested in the current scientific research and philosophy of the mind:

http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-out_mind_0930sep30,0,4908398.story?page=1


It's interesting because the very aspect which gives birth to our consciousness is a complete mystery to scientists everywhere. Philosophers and mystics seem to come up with good answers, despite their being unable to ground them in practicality.

I tend to agree with the final part of the article, which says that our mind is a combination of multiple composite parts. You could compare it to a projected image being shot onto a white backdrop by a old reel-video projector that you see in museums these days. The image, say of Charlie Chaplin dancing around in silence, is not something that you can touch, grab, or put into your pocket for future viewing (though this is quite possible with those fancy new iphones, but that is another story altogether). The image can be compared to our conscious minds, whereby it only exists because of the reel which contains the images, the projector that displays them, the backdrop which houses them, the electricity which powers everything, etc. Without all those factors, the image could never come up on screen, it simply would not exist.

In this sense, our minds are the final product of the many separate functions that our bodies (primarily our brain) take on. The varying senses, the analytical capacities of our brain's composite parts, and the physical reality which provides us with a stage and with energy to get the system going... without them, the mind would not exist.

So what does this tell us? Not much, to be honest. It is quite obvious that the mind more complex that a series of moving frames which imitate real life. Our minds produce our 'selves', and though we don't know exactly what causes 'us', we know damn well that 'we' exist.

If anyone ever reads this the whole way through, I'd be interested in hearing what others might think of this phenomena we call the mind.
nk