Thread: Am I wrong? This bothers me...

Is it possible that no human what so ever is alike at the basic levels?

Every human brain seems to resemble the other, but what is it if it’s not that similar as we might think?
What if every individual sees completely different things then the other?
What if we hear completely different things?
What would I perceive if I could take your brain keep my memory and just having it wired like yours, would the sound and all other inputs feel hear or look the same?

Imagine this; a person grows up accustom to their hearing. His sound input to the brain “in reality” is reversed how would he perceive sound? That person would grow up with that hearing and never even notice anything, because it is the only reality they know, and no one else would ever notice or could ever prove it, because that person would turn right when he has an input to the left but he has learned that the sound comes from the right, and this will never be obvious to him in any way nor can it be proven because the person reacts to the sound as any other would.

What does this mean?
Another example is;
Do we feel the same feeling though we use the same words?
Do we feel the exact same thing?
Do we see the same colors?

In my opinion that statement would be the dumbest thing I have heard, why?
Because feelings are nothing but what the brain perceives, my feeling can in no way feel the same as yours, it’s just not possible because you can never tell nor explain it properly its nothing we can say through mere words, you can say “I feel sad” and everyone will understand what you mean, even if the feeling feels different from yours it’s the feeling I get when I am “sad” that I relate to, not the feel of it itself.


Another example would be;
The colors you perceive can never be the same as what I see, because we have two completely different brains. Colors don’t actually exist they are a tool we use to be able to distinguish different wavelengths, it helps us see well. Therefore mine and your colors have no need to be the same; they just have to be distinguishable from each other. That means you can see colors I can never imagine, and so can I. Green for example just has a wavelength that is different from red and therefore I can see the difference between red and green, and we would call it red even though the color is completely different than what I see. That means we see the same difference in colors, but we perceive them completely differently.

This then concludes that our brain is abstract, me and you are two of the same species and biologically we are quite similar, even though we do NEVER “see” or “feel” the same thing. Those are just words we use to describe them, even though they never in the basics are the same thing, their look, feel and taste differ from observer to observer.

How can I come to this conclusion?
Words are defined by the difference between the signals our brain receives;
Imagine you had a hundred people, isolate them together and raise them with calling the color we perceive as green to red. They will never ever, ever find out that the color they call green is really red, they are only words a compilation of sounds, and as I stated they will never call it differently as long as they aren’t influenced by someone else. Therefore how can I ever trust you that you see the same thing as I do?
This will then also mean that we are abstract beings defining our knowledge by what the difference between things are, it all depends on the observers brain & consciousness.

Why?
Have you heard the fraise; “it’s like describing colors to a blind born man”.
Why is it an impossible task?
It is because they have no memory to base the names on. They have never seen the difference between blue, red and green. They are words, and you actually never send information with your words, you trigger a complex process to trigger their memories and let them generate the information; they then develop and create the information within their brain.

I once saw this documentary about a man who had lost his sight when he was very young; recently the doctors gave him his sights back.
Does he see the same thing as me and you?
Yes and no, he saw what we called a shadow, but did not understand it, he knows nothing about seeing, he didn’t know the difference between 1or 100 meters. He could not understand compare or decide what was what; this goes to prove that we base everything on comparison between different things that lie within our memory, so we never learn we actually use the information we get to generate the information based on what we know, and then project it to understand and implement it. (You see light, but you put it together and process it in your brain, and your consciousness perceives a car).

And therefore my definition is:
It is completely possible, and scientifically correct of me to say; everything I perceive is a complete illusion created by my brain, you are nothing but my consciousness, though I can’t say that this world and you aren’t real, because the word would defy its meaning. For me you are a part of the only reality that I know of, I am not saying I created you, my brain did, but you are perceived by me and therefore a part of my consciousness.

Then the age old question pops up in everyone’s head:
What are we?
I perceive the world as a collection of individual consciousness’s all perceiving different things but calling them the same, we are the collection of beings that only commune through words and our senses, therefore we only communicate by whatever means trigger our memories this causes us to generate the reality of what our consciousness believes. Our eyes and ears never lie, our conciseness might.


All this text for nothing?
(is it not interesting?)
It also means that the brain is just fabulous, it proves that the input the brain gets right after you are born bears no meaning, because you will always adapt to whatever input you get. You basically start with a brain that is so simple and build upon it, to create the most powerful tool of them all.
Can anyone tell me I am wrong?
I am not bragging Im just thinking of it alot, I would love for somone to tell me I am wrong, because it feels wierd that there is such a gap between two people.

People can see things the same way other people sees things (both saw the same thing). eg: A person who listen to a story can have the same EEG pattern to the EEG pattern of the story-teller. Here's a news article showing 2 brain that are functioning exactly the same for this 2 duetting guitarist ( Duetting guitarists' brains fire to the same beat - life - 17 March 2009 - New Scientist ), but I think I've heard another story about a story-teller and a listener having same EEG pattern (can't find link).

So 2 (or more) person can see the world the same way.

if there's anything that i've learnt from 10 years of programming + looking at other people's code, it's that we're even more different from one another inside our head that we are on the outside

Originally Posted by msafwan

People can see things the same way other people sees things (both saw the same thing). eg: A person who listen to a story can have the same EEG pattern to the EEG pattern of the story-teller. Here's a news article showing 2 brain that are functioning exactly the same for this 2 duetting guitarist ( Duetting guitarists' brains fire to the same beat - life - 17 March 2009 - New Scientist ), but I think I've heard another story about a story-teller and a listener having same EEG pattern (can't find link).So 2 (or more) person can see the world the same way.

"When you say see, I think of sight, as in eyes" i will interprete that as percive/experience.Yes two people can "sync" to some degree, but that is not the topic, what I am tryimg to say is that the EEG can never ever be completely identical. Because most of my braincells are not "wierd" as yours. My brain differs from you and everyone else alike, that is why different pople have diffrent oppinions and make different choises. The brain grows as it adapts, its the only organ that we know of that adapts to whatever it is influensed by, whatever it percives it stores and reuses, before it concludes an action.

Top-down and bottom-up design - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I believe this article here nullifies parts of your argument, specifically how memory works.

Further more, you might be interested to hear about something known as the Iconic Memory.. Which would also disprove parts of your theory.

Iconic memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Try making some sense of this. It might help you see things more clearly (all of these similar topics are becoming repetitive.
http://www.thescienceforum.com/trash...ory-notes.html

Hi ardijanr,

Thanks for the philosophical post, I enjoyed reading it. I would add that whilst no two people are identical (not even 'identical' twins) due to crude differences or subtle nuances in our genomes, environments and life experiences - still humanity fundamentally shares emotions. The triggers that elicit any given response (e.g. feelings of sadness and crying) might vary from person to person however if you observe somebody similar to yourself in background you will often be able to anticipate their emtional response to any given stimulus. Moreover, it is even possible for us in some cases to empathise with people, even when our moral viewpoint differs. E.g. if you observe a person whom is emotionally distressed for reason X, even if reason X would not normally make you personally feel equally emotionally distressed, despite this you are sometimes able to empathise with the person suffering. I apologise for not supporting this view not with scientific evidence, which I probably ought to do given that this is a Science forum, but I wanted to share some first hand experiences or anecdotal evidence - if you will.

This universal emotional base that fundamentally unites all of humanity is, to me, profoundly beautiful and provides meaning to life.

Best wishes,

Tridimity

Originally Posted by ardijanr

The colors you perceive can never be the same as what I see, because we have two completely different brains. Colors don’t actually exist they are a tool we use to be able to distinguish different wavelengths, it helps us see well. Therefore mine and your colors have no need to be the same; they just have to be distinguishable from each other. That means you can see colors I can never imagine, and so can I. Green for example just has a wavelength that is different from red and therefore I can see the difference between red and green, and we would call it red even though the color is completely different than what I see. That means we see the same difference in colors, but we perceive them completely differently.

This is a deep and complex philosophical problem; you moight want to read about "qualia"; e.g. Qualia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Personally, like all "deep and complex philosophical problem" is seems a fairly pointless debate to me, empty of any useful content. (But I am happy to acknowledge that is my problem rather than philosophy's).

I once saw this documentary about a man who had lost his sight when he was very young; recently the doctors gave him his sights back.
Does he see the same thing as me and you?
Yes and no, he saw what we called a shadow, but did not understand it, he knows nothing about seeing, he didn’t know the difference between 1or 100 meters. He could not understand compare or decide what was what; this goes to prove that we base everything on comparison between different things that lie within our memory, so we never learn we actually use the information we get to generate the information based on what we know, and then project it to understand and implement it. (You see light, but you put it together and process it in your brain, and your consciousness perceives a car).

And therefore my definition is:
It is completely possible, and scientifically correct of me to say; everything I perceive is a complete illusion created by my brain

Whoa there!. Watch out for the logical gap, you might fall into it.

You have gone from "vision is partly a function of the brain, which has to be learned" to "nothing I see is real". That is like saying, "I don't know how every component in my computer works therefore all technology is fake".

Yes, most of what we think we see is "created" by the brain - but it is done using inputs from the eyes (which is a series of crude inputs like light/dark, a small area in focus which rapidly jumps about) and other senses. The brain has developed to extract information from this (there are specialised areas for detecting motion (in different directions), for recognizing objects (and a different area of the brain for detecting faces) and integrating all this so we think we continuously see everything around us in great detail.

It is a big jump from that to "everything is an illusion". So big as to make it a non sequitur.

The fact this "illusion" has allowed us (and other animals) to survive and prosper for so long shows that it is telling us something useful about the real world out there.

you are nothing but my consciousness

This is dangerously close to solipsism, which major philosophers (not just me) think is entirely empty and without content as an concept.

Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds*[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

Originally Posted by Lander_Greys

Try making some sense of this. It might help you see things more clearly (all of these similar topics are becoming repetitive.
http://www.thescienceforum.com/trash...ory-notes.html

That comes across (to me) as a random series of topic headings with no content. It might make sense to you, as shorthand, because you know what lies behind it. But I would be surprised if it made any sense to anyone else. But if anyone found it useful, please tell me I'm wrong

Fine, I converted a few of the sections... see if that helps.

Your text is too long for my limited attention span, i do agree with some of what you say, but think your extrapolation is going overboard. Sight is learned and an interpretation of what might be based on experiences. Our experirnces vary, but unless you are from planet Qualamor from the 8th dimension you also have some common experiences. Thats why virtually all people experience optical illusion because we all have similar experiences that do not match the specific situation presented. If you come and sleep over at my place you will hear sounds i am longer am aware of (ex coocoo clock) because my brain filters it out, but you point to the noise i will hear something similar not an elephant trumpet or a piano jazz melody.

Unless you have color blind like condition you have been exposed to the same yellow color as i have, you might call it differently in another language but i dont think you experience what i perceive as blue or bubblegum pink. You might like it more or less through association of different experiences but you probably perceive the same or extremely similar thing.

We may have different personal experiences and live in different cultural and climate environments but we also live in the same physical world. Theres a lot of differences and diversity in the details and sequence of our experiences but there are also common experiences, neither exactly the same nor exactly alike (it doesnt have to be either completely different or else its exactly the same accross the board).

Originally Posted by tridimity

humanity fundamentally shares emotions

Yup, and science has confirmed and illuminated this lately.

And then there's the sociopath, who lacks empathy but in a sort of high functioning autistic way calculates and even manipulates others' feelings. I think sociopaths best embody the OP's hypothetical alien brain.

No two brains are exactly alike. However, two human brains are obviously much more similar than, say, a human and cat brain or human and snake brain. Just like any two snakes have infrared vision and a great sense of smell (which is interpreted in specific areas of the brain) to navigate their environment, humans have evolved excellent vision in general and color vision in particular from our primate ancestors and have many corresponding visual areas in the brain. Of course the colorblind are a rare exception. As far as behavior goes, Psychologists and student of animal behavior can often predict what response will be elicited by what stimuli in animals due to decades of careful observation (similar to Trimidity's earlier statement). Although any two people may experience an event in a different way, the emotions and responses are most likely very similar to to a similar biochemical and anatomical makeup. Also, people are able to speak and can share their feelings and the sensations and actions they describe (stomach rumbling when hungry, sweaty palms, avoidance bahavior and rapid heartbeat when frightened, a feeling of pleasure when exciting things happen) correspond to one another.


All normal human brains work this way:

visual stimulus->optic nerve-> thalamus (relay station)->primary visual cortex (in occipital lobe)->secondary visual areas

The same chemicals are involved when neurons fire, just in differing amounts.

It only makes sense that, in general, we are all more alike than different.

There is also the Direct Perception Theory, speaking strictly in terms of Perception, there have been three psychological schools:

Bottom-Up
Top-Down
^ Both are constructivist approaches to perception, suggesting that percepts are an interpretation of stimuli.

Direct Perception
^ Disagrees with Constructivist, as it is suggested that Environment is so rich in information that processing is not as nearly as important as suspected. Some have received this idea well, some have disagreed. Some evidence has been shown to support this idea however:

A study was done where they took models, and dressed them in full body black suits (with masks). On these black suits the connected several lightbulbs at different locations: ex: one on each hand, knee, shin, elbow, etc.

When the models stood still, in a dark room, with the lights illuminated - not a single participant knew what the target was. However, when the models making movements: Walking, dancing, waving, etc... Participants immediately recognized the targets as humans, and could tell what actions they were performing with their movement. What's even more interesting is that not only could they consistently state what the target was doing - with some movements they could even consistently state whether the target was a male or female.

Studies like this suggest that even with such little information, participants had been able to correctly deduce what their targets were - the conclusion is that if this can be down with such limited information, surely the real environment must contain a great deal more information for us to pick up on.

This is what led to the notion of 'Schemata', which is plural term for Schema - Schema being a perceptual structure that has expectations, and influences the ways a perceiver interacts with an environment - due to an understanding of what the affordances of various stimuli are.

The idea of Schemata takes a middle ground between both constructivist and direct approaches to perception. Stating, in otherwords, that the environment is at least somewhat straight forward enough for us to not have to create a concept, or construct a percept relating to a stimulus.

Many of the genes responsible for how sensory organs are identical and many of them based on pretty basic physical concepts that would also be the same. So no, I think we share rather similar inputs.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Many of the genes responsible for how sensory organs are identical and many of them based on pretty basic physical concepts that would also be the same. So no, I think we share rather similar inputs.

That would help explain why our most primitive source of visual memory creates a duplicate image of what is on the Retina.

Originally Posted by ardijanr

"When you say see, I think of sight, as in eyes" i will interprete that as percive/experience.Yes two people can "sync" to some degree, but that is not the topic, what I am tryimg to say is that the EEG can never ever be completely identical. Because most of my braincells are not "wierd" as yours. My brain differs from you and everyone else alike, that is why different pople have diffrent oppinions and make different choises. The brain grows as it adapts, its the only organ that we know of that adapts to whatever it is influensed by, whatever it percives it stores and reuses, before it concludes an action.

ardijanr,

If 2 different brain produce the same output then only this output matters, either 1 of them is more efficient (based on its wiring) or less efficient is of different story. For example: If a computer can simulate your consciousness then it is basically "you" but it uses different substance than your brain does (but it is still "you" and only this thing matters). What really matters (IMO) is the idea that a person contain, and this idea can be traded between person, eg: a Genius can teach anyone his idea even if IQ is not exchangeable (eg: genius like Einstein's create Special Relativity, Newton's & Leibniz create Calculus, and Stephen Hawking's create Hawking Radiation which everyone can study about).

Similars to 'stander-j's idea: with respect to 'top-down' perspective we are basically the same (we think the same, our idea is exchangeable, and we can agree on things, or agree to disagree on things), but on the 'bottom-up' perspective is quite different because our brain is wired in different way. But it is up to "you" if you want to identify human based on his 'brain fingerprint' or based on his thought. I prefer the later because it make us 'who we really are' and allowed us to understand/to be on the same level with everyone else.