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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
 Posted - 06/30/2004 : 03:51:03
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Mind
I am always looking for an interesting topic to study. Some time ago I decided that the brain--how it functions, what we do when we think, what is the difference between the activity of the intellect and the activity of emotions, etc.--would be a great subject to attempt to understand.
I discovered there is no science of the brain yet. There is no paradigm, like Darwin's, directing an understanding of the brain (mind?). In fact, I don't think there is general agreement as to a name for any prospective science. What is it, science of mind or science of the brain? What is mind?
There are several disciplines attempting to develop such a science. Neurology, psychology and linguistics are a few of such disciplines hoping to establish a foundation for the study of “mind”. I have spent some time studying linguistics, as propounded by Chomsky, and think that this discipline offers some significant possibilities.
I decided that I am pretty well left to my own devices. I have to decide for my self, through reflection, what this situation is.
One conclusion I have come to is that if the “intellect” is given no task by the “will” the intellect just wonders around, constantly busy, just picking at random some activity. Often I suspect the activity “it” chooses is to worry. Our faculties of the brain play the same worry tape over and over in the head.
My point is that if the will does not assign a task to the intellect then the massive potential of the intellect is wasted. We waste our intellect because we have not prepared our mental functions to choose worth while tasks for the intellect.
We waste our most precious gift, the gift of intellect, on nonsense. We have been given, at birth, the greatest “machine” in the world—with an ability that is “ faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound etc. etc.”—a “machine” of vast potential that wonders about unused because we lack the necessary consciousness to recognize its unparalleled dimensions and how to put that potential to work on useful tasks.
I am convinced that if the intellect is given tasks “it” will solve those assignments when we are about our mundane tasks of the day. While I am digging up a tree stump my intellect is developing this essay. All I have to do is go to the computer and start typing. All of this you see herein is what my intellect has created while I was sleeping and going about my daily routines. What a terrible waste, this intellect left to wonder undirected.
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9696 Posts |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2004 : 10:56:43 [Permalink]
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| Neuroscience? |
-Chaloobi
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2004 : 12:43:29 [Permalink]
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Chaloobi
Did I spell that wrong. Maybe I am mistaken but I was reading about this matter and that was my notes in the matter. I do not have at hand the book but perhaps I misspoke. |
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2004 : 12:45:49 [Permalink]
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Dr Mabuse
Thanks for the reference I shall examine them and maybe I shall have to retract my statement. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2004 : 23:31:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
My point is that if the will does not assign a task to the intellect then the massive potential of the intellect is wasted. We waste our intellect because we have not prepared our mental functions to choose worth while tasks for the intellect.
People are just f-ing lazy. (unsupported assertion because I just can't find the motivation to research it) |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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satans_mom
Skeptic Friend
USA
148 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2004 : 00:12:20 [Permalink]
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Yes but there is so much of the brain that cannot be used while the human is conscious. Imagine having the alpha waves of sleep and the beta waves of consciousness ongoing simutaneously. Some say that humans use a small percentage of the brain at one time, but because there are so many different tasks the brain must perform, it would be certain death to use more of it than we need.
It's nice to have vast intellect and to frequently exercise the brain, but even the most geniuous of all still uses what some would regard, for lack of better understanding, a pitiful amount. That's probably because that's how the brain is meant to work. |
Yo mama's so fat, she's on both sides of the family.
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2004 : 07:07:37 [Permalink]
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Mom
I think that Dude is correct and that we are just too lazy and ignorant of the potential that lives in our skull. I also blame our school system and those who control the dominant ideology of the culture. This may only apply to the US , which is the only country that I feel well enough informed to make such an assertion. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26031 Posts |
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2004 : 08:56:33 [Permalink]
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| I think it is not percentage of brain used but it is the amount of time that it is used on matters that might be properly considered as matters that a sophisticated intellect would engage in. |
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