[MD] Intellect's Symposium

[David Thomas]

Hi Krimel

> [Dave]
> A brief comment, hopefully, on levels in general.
> Dawkins, who I happen to be reading now, introduced me to a concept that I
> hadn't heard before. The problem of the "discontinuous mind". As we divide
> things up to help in our understanding of complicated things like evolution
> or genetics or life we automatic introduce the this problem at all the
> division points. Because life, genetics, and evolution is all a continuous
> flow. No matter how we divided it into one tiny little event after another
> we still are wrong. But it is the best that we can do.
> 
> [Krimel]
> This problem of continuous and discontinuous is a major big deal. James
> handles it very well in "Some Problems of Philosophy" where he makes a
> distinction between perception which is continuous and conception which is
> discrete. The distinction is an important one and much confusion results
> when we don't acknowledge it. Which, by the way, many here don't and their
> confusion is plain to see.

And this is not the end of it we have at least two conceptions based on
basic self/other split of the brain and how they work both separately, in
parallel and at different speeds. We normal think of conception as
associated with the left/language/reason side of the brain. But long before
it has even kick in the other side has evaluated the perception and decided
what it needed to do.

I finished (not necessarily understood) "Zen and the Brain" last month and
the complexities of how the brain works make one wonder how it works at all.

Dave