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Structural and functional representations

From Aware Theory

When we look at the brain, what we see are not the objects of reality but their structural and functional representations of objects. When we look out at the world the brain processes light in complex patterns coming from the eyes. We do not see the actual objects in our reality, so there is no object that has to be in the brain as some thinkers have used to promote dualism. What we can see is the structural and functioning representations of objects that the brain generates. If the brain is manipulated to produce the structure and functioning that produced the consciousness of an object there would be no object in reality to have a correspondence to. Any time we see the brain producing one of many different structures and functioning, but yet of a specific grouping type, we can know that it is experiencing some specific object whether it is connected to reality through the senses or not. We clearly do not see all aspects of reality because our senses are not complex enough. We do not see neutrinos, though billions of them are passing through us at every second. We also do not see that most objects are made of atoms that that have very small nucleuses and essentially are empty space. we experience a small part of reality that helps to survive. Objects are food, danger, useful, mates, children etc. We do not see their full complexity of reality. If we viewed objects in reality by way of neutrinos, they would seem to disappear because the neutrinos would not bounce off of the objects but go right through them as if they were not there. If the same structure and functioning of matter through time produces the same experience would this not tie or map structure and functioning to experiences? It would not specifically tie an experience to a specific body.

The argument: "If A is a red stripe and nothing in the brain is a red stripe, then nothing in the brain is identical to A which has to be somewhere else! Dualism follows" has been used as a dualism argument. Two or more view point on the same thing




see also Structural and functional representations, Structural and functional representations of objects, Structural and functional representations of objects