Timeless

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I don't think this follows at all.

Could you explain why it doesn't follow?

[David Bailey]

Regarding neural nets - and this is to the best of my knowledge only - a neural net is created by a statistical process. It takes inputs of various sorts and strengthens the connections between neurons if they both fire at the same time. With the right parameters, this builds up associations - say beer&pleasure. However, the details of the representation are essentially random, so they should not port from person to person.

It is worth reading a bit about transplants carrying memories - there was also a TV program on this subject some time ago. Some of the evidence sounded pretty convincing, but of course it was all anecdotal (now where have I heard that before ).

I started a thread on this subject some time ago, but I did not get much interest. Here is another link

The Book Of THoTH - ESP & PSI - Transplant Memory?

David

[Mike]

Paul,

What I get from your post is that you are arguing that two people are inherently different enough in the way they perceive things that the physical neural patterns or structures that are in each person the memory of the white dog would be highly different. If that is the case though, I would still think that if we could somehow duplicate in another person's brain the exact same pattern or structure that is the memory of the dog, that person would acquire the same memory of the white dog that the "donor" brain has.

[David Bailey]

Mike,

I think the point is that the memory of the dog would relate to other memories like hair and dog-smell, etc. and according to NN theory each of those would be encoded differently.

David

[Mike]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Regarding neural nets - and this is to the best of my knowledge only - a neural net is created by a statistical process. It takes inputs of various sorts and strengthens the connections between neurons if they both fire at the same time. With the right parameters, this builds up associations - say beer&pleasure. However, the details of the representation are essentially random, so they should not port from person to person.

David,

Your use of the word "representation" here would seem to imply that the neural net pattern is something different from the actual memory, although intimately associated with it.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Hearts contain quite a bit of nervous tissue, I believe, but the really interesting aspect of this is that memories are supposed to be stored in neural nets, in which concepts are represented by patterns of networks that are unique each time they are formed (correct me if I am wrong) - so even a transplant of brain tissues aught not to transfer memories or ideas.

David,

If neural net theory does not allow memories to be transfered via transplant of neural tissues, how do you feel that memory transfer in heart transplant cases take place (assuming it actually happens)?

[David Bailey]

Mike,

I lean heavily towards the idea of dualism - in other words, I don't believe orthodox science is even close to understanding consciousness in general or memory in particular. I am pointing out that the 'orthodox' idea that memories are stored in neural nets doesn't seem to correspond with these observations, if they are true.

David

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

Could you explain why it doesn't follow?

Because of what I said in the second half of my post:

What if I'm color blind and you're not? What if I'm scared of dogs and you're not? What if I have a beloved white dog and you don't? What if I tend to represent memories as strings of words and you represent them as visual images? What if ...

People's brains aren't identical machines whose only difference is the particular memories stored in them.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Mike

What I get from your post is that you are arguing that two people are inherently different enough in the way they perceive things that the physical neural patterns or structures that are in each person the memory of the white dog would be highly different. If that is the case though, I would still think that if we could somehow duplicate in another person's brain the exact same pattern or structure that is the memory of the dog, that person would acquire the same memory of the white dog that the "donor" brain has.

Assuming you could isolate that structure from the rest of the brain, yet still allow it to be recalled on the same stimuli. However, if you think about, that is undoubtedly impossible. I think the second person would have some sort of white dog-ish memories, but they would not be the same.

This is why telepathy is probably impossible. How can I decode and make sense of the signals that I get from your brain?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by David

I lean heavily towards the idea of dualism - in other words, I don't believe orthodox science is even close to understanding consciousness in general or memory in particular. I am pointing out that the 'orthodox' idea that memories are stored in neural nets doesn't seem to correspond with these observations, if they are true.

But dualism corresponds better to the idea of transferring memories via the heart? That would make sense if my memories, stored out there in some akashic record sort of repository, were related to my body via some kind of tagging mechanism. Then if part of my body is moved to another person, the akashic record retrieval system gets confused and hands some of my memories to the new person. A kidney transplant should do the trick just as well as a heart transplant.

I think it's a case of confirmation bias.

~~ Paul