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From Mental Construction
New See two modes of thought work together after a near fatal accident in the Asteroid Zone, Brain on the Half Shell.
Contents |
Welcome to Mental Construction
How do you decide and plan to accomplish your goals? Investigating those two higher level functions of the mind is the purpose of this site.
One assumption is that the purpose of the brain is to make it possible for us to survive in the present.
If you are more visual than word-oriented, you might prefer to start with the images on the wiki.
Quintessential Question
We all know a quintessential quality of the human mind is to think logically. Is it the only way we think?
The brain is physically a neural network, which has very simple operations as its forte. Neural networks are understood to use pattern-matching as their fundamental method. How does the brain use pattern-matching to achieve logical deductions? Also, how is pattern matching evident in brain functioning?- We have two modes of thinking.
- Pattern-Matching - originating with handling sensory data
- Logic - originating with planning how to satisfy our bodily needs
- Results of both modes are shared and can become used by the other mode
Ideas to Investigate
To elaborate on these ideas, I will cover many ideas that have life in the current intellectual environment.
- Why is our internal reality stable when the external reality is always changing?
- What directs our thoughts?
- Is all thinking in words?
- What is creativity? What is intuition?
- If I’m logical and you’re logical, how can we come to such different conclusions?
- What role do emotions play in thinking?
- Does the right-brain/left-brain split have any explanatory power?
- The brain is physically a neural network. What does imply about thinking?
- Is the brain like a digital computer with a master program that controls all thoughts?
- Do we remember everything we see?
You probably have your own questions. Maybe you are most interested in the mind-body problem. Perhaps you believe as the Greeks - a genie inspires our thoughts. Freud’s ideas of primitive forces that both powered our thoughts and perversely could keep us from understanding them are widespread in our society. Do you believe them?
No matter where you stand on these perspectives now, let’s consider the implications of discoveries in brain science and the operation of neural networks.
First, the brain has been minutely examined. We know that it is a huge neural network with internal structures, regularities, and localization of function.
Emotions
What is the role of emotions in thinking? They are crucial in controlling attention. Their impact in coloring our perceptions and in setting our basic conceptions will also be explored.
Notes
Note: Mental Construction strives for casual, thought-provoking exploration of how the mind works. To that end, I will not obscure the main lines of reasoning by cautious qualifiers covering all side issues. E.g. in a bullet point above, “Do we remember everything we see?”, the easy logical extension is “Do we remember everything we see and experience through our senses?” That raises philosophical questions that I’m assuming away in what is essentially a pragmatic investigation. Others investigate those questions.
Reference Information
Definitions - alphabetical list; an index with links to Mental Construction pages
Links- references with additional aspects of the underlying theories
Images - diagrams linked to essays
© Copyright Robert Hamill 2009
