Evidence of Memory Formation

[davidsmith73]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

And since all science can ever do is discover correlations, there is not need for anyone to worry that their immaterial viewpoint will be challenged.

I agree completely. The mind/body problem is a philosophical problem. I can't see a way for science to address it without first making the same assumptions that are up for argument. The 'immaterial' point of view (to use you term) can be challenged by philosophical argument though

However, the more we discover correlations, the less we need an immaterial viewpoint.

Why? If there is a philosophical argument stating that physical explanation does not entail a description of conscious experience, then it doesn't matter how many correlations are pointed out by the 'opposition'. The same philosophical objections apply to every single correlation. That's just plain logic.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

And this is evidence that the prediction was correct.


And since all science can ever do is discover correlations,

No, they aren't just correlations between the hands of a clock moving and its internal mechanism. We can actually understand that the movement of the hands is the end result of a causal chain. If the movement of the hands was accompanied by conscious awareness by the clock then we could say that the consciousness is quite likely a product of the clocks internal workings, but we couldn't reduce it to the internal mechanism.

Such inability to understand by reduction probably only occurs with consciousness.

[davidsmith73]

Originally Posted by hoggworks

Well, then, that makes me wonder why so many folks here so loudly (and proudly) proclaim that there's no evidence at all that memories are physically stored in the brain.

I suspect that is because they are refering to memories within conscious awareness. Current theories of memory fractionate it into many different types. One broad distinction is between memories that are consciously reportable and those that are not.

So when the question is asked 'are memories stored in the brain?' the word 'memory' can refer to very different philosophical concepts. One is consciouness (eg, declarative memory), the other is physical relationships(eg, procedural memory like learning to ride a bike). Hence the relevance to the mind/body problem mentioned earlier.

The article you mentioned ealier refers to observations about long term changes to the physical structure of the brain that are accompanied by changes in the behaviour of the organism. That's not really comparable to human declarative memory anyway, but most scientists studying declarative memory work under the assumption that the conscious experiences associated with a particular memory are stored in the brain. Many philosophers would disagree!

How do you figure? Couldn't you imagine a consciousness that simply refers to memories written down somewhere?

You could, but in doing so you are redefining memory as a physical substrate while allowing consciousness to be independent of the brain (perhaps not, but if not then you need to give an account of how consciousness = brain function and we're back to the mind/body problem). In other words you are not explaining declarative memory because declarative memory refers to conscoius experience.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by hoggworks

Is the author of this paper unaware of computers? Computers recall data that is stored on a physical medium. Precise information about the data is recorded, and recalled.

Ummm . . but a computers "memory" is entirely a different thing from normal memory. Memory is not information.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by hoggworks

Is the author of this paper unaware of computers? Computers recall data that is stored on a physical medium. Precise information about the data is recorded, and recalled. All you need to do this is a mechanism to store the data, and a mechanism to recover them. Why would the brain be different in that regard? Computers do what the author says the brain can't do physically. Interesting.

Now, you could easily reply with a difference between the two types of data, or at least the retrieval method: there is indeed a difference between remembering your friend's face and requesting a known file to open in Excel. But when you see a person's face, presumably a search is run to see if this matches anyone you know, just in the way that you might, say, run a search for a file you're looking for but which name you don't recall.

To take the comparison even further, consider facial recognition software; computers can recognize human faces, and record rafts of people to recognize for a future date. Information about faces is stored, and could be safely stored for as long as the storage medium is viable. When the detection software is running, it is continually searching its visual fields for faces (using a camera or video camera). Initially it searches for the roughest shapes it can identify as faces, and once it finds a face, narrows the search down based on criteria. This would be akin to tagging, where the software -- and the brain -- would see face, then white skin, then beard, then hair of a length, then something then something, and make a connection.

You seem to be saying that our memories are akin to a computers memory -- in other words memory is information. But a computer can't remember a felt experience. How could information -- a string of 0's and 1's -- stand for the taste and texture of vanilla ice cream for example?

Why can't the brain simply allow access to our past experiences rather than create them? In other words why can't we just simply directly apprehend what we have experienced in the past?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Mike

An article about the concept of memory traces that might be of interest to some here:

I read the article last night; parts of it twice.

In the tennis ball/photo analogy, he appears to believe that I need a perfect, unambiguous trace of the guests at party. Why? Also, he talks as if the tennis ball is supposed to trigger my memory of the guests, but the tennis ball is my memory.

The whole paragraph about past experiences makes no sense to me. Why is trace theory limited to past experiences?

It seems as if Braude has never heard of pattern matching. "But this means that the trace is not a recording." Why not? And why can't it be a recording plus other information? Doesn't Braude have a cell phone with a music matching app on it?

Also, hasn't he considered the possibility that a trace is not a representation of a memory, but actually some sort of program that executes to relive the event?

Perhaps I don't understand what he's trying to say. If anyone wants to discuss specific details, I'm all ears.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by davidsmith

I agree completely. The mind/body problem is a philosophical problem. I can't see a way for science to address it without first making the same assumptions that are up for argument.

I think science can address it just fine. What I was saying is that some people will never be satisfied.

Why? If there is a philosophical argument stating that physical explanation does not entail a description of conscious experience, then it doesn't matter how many correlations are pointed out by the 'opposition'. The same philosophical objections apply to every single correlation. That's just plain logic.

A philosophical argument isn't sufficient. We need a philosophical logical proof. You have to prove that there is more to "conscious experience" than any future science can possibly provide. Until you have the proof, the subject remains empirical and science is all you have.

My guess is that such a proof is impossible because the proof could not point at anything real but beyond the reach of science.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

No, they aren't just correlations between the hands of a clock moving and its internal mechanism. We can actually understand that the movement of the hands is the end result of a causal chain.

Except that down deep the steps of the causal chain are known only by correlation. For example, how does gravity make the pendulum swing? We can describe it with math, but we don't really know how.

Of course, I'm willing to say that some things must be assumed and that, yes, we really have the complete causal chain down to a level of simple assumptions. Are you willing to say that? If so, then why aren't you willing to consider the possibility that we will get there with consciousness?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

Ummm . . but a computers "memory" is entirely a different thing from normal memory. Memory is not information.

What on Earth do you mean by this?

You seem to be saying that our memories are akin to a computers memory -- in other words memory is information. But a computer can't remember a felt experience. How could information -- a string of 0's and 1's -- stand for the taste and texture of vanilla ice cream for example?

It doesn't have to "stand for" it. It could trigger an internal reliving of eating ice cream.

Why can't the brain simply allow access to our past experiences rather than create them? In other words why can't we just simply directly apprehend what we have experienced in the past?

If a memory triggers a reliving, we sort of are. However, it's clear that we are not apprehending exactly the same experience, because the memory is not just like the original experience.

~~ Paul

[Open Mind]

Sheldrake has offered a physicalist and interactionist (dualist) description of morphic resonance ... perhaps Braude is shooting at the physicalist interpretation of Sheldrake's theory, I'd need to read Braude's earlier paper, not enough detail here.

Originally Posted by hoggworks

Also, any paper that cites Sheldrake's morphic resonance theories loses SIGNIFICANT points.

Hoggy, I cannot let you off the hook with this since you accused me earlier of not reading the paper .. ... this means you didn't read Braude's paper properly, Braude mentions in 3 places he doesn't agree with Sheldrake's theory ...

But forgive yourself, none of us have time or energy to read everything.

Is the author of this paper unaware of computers? Computers recall data that is stored on a physical medium. Precise information about the data is recorded, and recalled. All you need to do this is a mechanism to store the data, and a mechanism to recover them. Why would the brain be different in that regard? Computers do what the author says the brain can't do physically. Interesting.

Listen to the audio link posted by Craven - the brain doesn't work like a computer hard disk.

To take the comparison even further, consider facial recognition software; computers can recognize human faces, and record rafts of people to recognize for a future date. Information about faces is stored, and could be safely stored for as long as the storage medium is viable. When the detection software is running, it is continually searching its visual fields for faces (using a camera or video camera).

Materialism = local matter only evolves mind ....what you are describing is human consciousness/mind evolving a dualistic hardware/sofware .... what materialists have to demonstrate is a hardware system that writes it's own software without any human goal setting via random material processes surviving better. Otherwise materialist are arguing a type of creationism

A key aspect of consciousness is goal setting, making conscious choices (not unconscious automations) ... the problem is that materialists clinging to a local classical mechanical theory are forced to view consciousness/choice as illusion of non-conscious material automations. However quantum mechanical equations dealing with the physical world do not determine what is going to happen only potentialities so arguably nature is evolving consciousness, choices ....perhaps nature found evolutionary advantage in some mental processes surviving brain death long before humans attempt similar in the future.