So my big idea is that the mind and the body of the individual work similarly to ideas and their symbolic representation in a physical world.
Pretty wordy huh? Well here's it in a bit more detail.
the mind and the body have been thought of as existing in two seperate realms. It's nearly impossible to explain how something nonphysical can react to something physical or cause a physical action. Although I'm not going to be dealing with this issue let me explain. It's really hard to understand how it happens as compared to seeing something physical cause something else physical to happen. A bowling ball an hit some pins, for example, and you can really obviously see how one thing can cause something else to react. but how does thinking about moving your arm cause it to move some times, and other times we can think about our arm moving and it does not. (There's a difference in this type of thought, which has to do with the mind's ability to conceptualize but I'm not going to deal with that either). This kinda leads to a huge debate that people have argued about for centuries.
However, the interesting thing that I've been thinking about has been more or less that the mind body problem is very similar to the whole symbolic problem that ideas do not exist outside of having a symbolic representation.
Think of it this way, I'm talking to you right now, and you are hearing (or at least reading) the words that i'm saying (or typing) and understanduing the ideas that I'm communicating to you.
I'm not just giving you ideas and you recieving them, but i'm using symbols, in this case, words which have physical representation in either sounds or letters, to formulate my ideas, give them boundaries, and then giving you those words, to then have you see them or hear them and get the ideas from them.
the letter a for example is nothng physically more than a series of different colored markings on a page or a screen in a particular pattern. It has a symbolic meaning of the sound which it makes. composed with other symbols it uses patterns of symbols in order to form more complex composite symbols to represent even more. if iwrite the word "mouse" you think of a furry cheese eating rodent. you may nothave the same picture in your head as me, but it's the general idea of what a mouse is. oddly enough even these pictured thoughts of different "mouse" -s are nothing more than symbolic versions of the more broad idea of "mouse".
Symbols are very, very simple in their most basic level but compiled and composed, they can be incredibly complex.
It's incredibly fascinating, yet no matter what level of complexity a symbol requires for a physical representation, a symbol still cannot exist without those borders to limit their meaning and give them form. They cannot exist as free floating ideas which merge with each other with abandon giving rise to a general mish mash and confusion (some of this was dealt with in the terms of mind and body in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, First Gig in a conversation amongst the Tachikomas).
Secondly, a symbol is not a symbol without an idea or a meaning behind it. the meaning is what makes an "a" an "a" and not some sort of random lines in the sand.
The meaning well, for lack of better words, gives meaning to the representation.
Also, if you change the representation, you give rise to a change in meaning. If iwere to change a single letter in "mouse"to "moose" the meaning for example changes entirely. Up to now it's been a very simple thing to see how the human being as an individual and humanity as a whole are similar to symbols. A person is only a person with a mind. the mind is composed of various thought patterns, information, and mental capabilities which as a sum whole cause them to be who and what they are. a group of humans form a general behavioral or mental grouping which can be treated as a whole and all human beings form a general "humanity".
Now a person may not be an entirely different person witha change in their physical body, but a man with an amputated arm or leg is a changed man. similarly a man with a defective brain is a different man than the he was before or theoretically could be without that defect or change in mental chemistry. At the very least it woul change a wayin one thinks in behaves due to this lacking an the need to compensate. Also if a man were toincorporate something in his body to counteract those defects, say either perscription drugs or a prosthetic limb, he may regain some ability yet even if he were to have a perfect prosthetic, for example Ed in Full Metal Alchemist has a really excellent automail prosthetic, it still would be different and have different properties to the original. (In some cases there are advantages, such as ed's ability to use alchemy on his arm, or some disadvantages such as Alphonse's "prostheitc" body often falling apart and being rendered useless forthe time being).
The mind is different yet the mind is still the same mind. Also the "prosthetic" becomes part of the whole due to the mind and incorporated into the self over time, no longer making it a foreign part or "tool" used by the individual. This is really interesting because when a "tool is removed from use by the individual the individual does not suffer much of its loss, but when that item has become integrated into the individual its loss is similar to the original loss suffered that it was incorporated to counteract.
Symbols are similar. Two languages may have different symbolic representations in the construction of their words, and also differences in nuance and cultural importance, despite the same core meaning. Visual puns and rhyme that might have meaning in Japan for example, have little meaning and cause a little bit of confusion to us in the US, thus demonstating a change in smaller degrees to the changes in meaning that can take place with a change in representation.
It's all just so very interesting and I just want to see what others think of this.
So, like i said, not for the lighthearted, but if ya read this, and get what I'm talking about, please tell me your thoughts on this.
Pretty wordy huh? Well here's it in a bit more detail.
the mind and the body have been thought of as existing in two seperate realms. It's nearly impossible to explain how something nonphysical can react to something physical or cause a physical action. Although I'm not going to be dealing with this issue let me explain. It's really hard to understand how it happens as compared to seeing something physical cause something else physical to happen. A bowling ball an hit some pins, for example, and you can really obviously see how one thing can cause something else to react. but how does thinking about moving your arm cause it to move some times, and other times we can think about our arm moving and it does not. (There's a difference in this type of thought, which has to do with the mind's ability to conceptualize but I'm not going to deal with that either). This kinda leads to a huge debate that people have argued about for centuries.
However, the interesting thing that I've been thinking about has been more or less that the mind body problem is very similar to the whole symbolic problem that ideas do not exist outside of having a symbolic representation.
Think of it this way, I'm talking to you right now, and you are hearing (or at least reading) the words that i'm saying (or typing) and understanduing the ideas that I'm communicating to you.
I'm not just giving you ideas and you recieving them, but i'm using symbols, in this case, words which have physical representation in either sounds or letters, to formulate my ideas, give them boundaries, and then giving you those words, to then have you see them or hear them and get the ideas from them.
the letter a for example is nothng physically more than a series of different colored markings on a page or a screen in a particular pattern. It has a symbolic meaning of the sound which it makes. composed with other symbols it uses patterns of symbols in order to form more complex composite symbols to represent even more. if iwrite the word "mouse" you think of a furry cheese eating rodent. you may nothave the same picture in your head as me, but it's the general idea of what a mouse is. oddly enough even these pictured thoughts of different "mouse" -s are nothing more than symbolic versions of the more broad idea of "mouse".
Symbols are very, very simple in their most basic level but compiled and composed, they can be incredibly complex.
It's incredibly fascinating, yet no matter what level of complexity a symbol requires for a physical representation, a symbol still cannot exist without those borders to limit their meaning and give them form. They cannot exist as free floating ideas which merge with each other with abandon giving rise to a general mish mash and confusion (some of this was dealt with in the terms of mind and body in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, First Gig in a conversation amongst the Tachikomas).
Secondly, a symbol is not a symbol without an idea or a meaning behind it. the meaning is what makes an "a" an "a" and not some sort of random lines in the sand.
The meaning well, for lack of better words, gives meaning to the representation.
Also, if you change the representation, you give rise to a change in meaning. If iwere to change a single letter in "mouse"to "moose" the meaning for example changes entirely. Up to now it's been a very simple thing to see how the human being as an individual and humanity as a whole are similar to symbols. A person is only a person with a mind. the mind is composed of various thought patterns, information, and mental capabilities which as a sum whole cause them to be who and what they are. a group of humans form a general behavioral or mental grouping which can be treated as a whole and all human beings form a general "humanity".
Now a person may not be an entirely different person witha change in their physical body, but a man with an amputated arm or leg is a changed man. similarly a man with a defective brain is a different man than the he was before or theoretically could be without that defect or change in mental chemistry. At the very least it woul change a wayin one thinks in behaves due to this lacking an the need to compensate. Also if a man were toincorporate something in his body to counteract those defects, say either perscription drugs or a prosthetic limb, he may regain some ability yet even if he were to have a perfect prosthetic, for example Ed in Full Metal Alchemist has a really excellent automail prosthetic, it still would be different and have different properties to the original. (In some cases there are advantages, such as ed's ability to use alchemy on his arm, or some disadvantages such as Alphonse's "prostheitc" body often falling apart and being rendered useless forthe time being).
The mind is different yet the mind is still the same mind. Also the "prosthetic" becomes part of the whole due to the mind and incorporated into the self over time, no longer making it a foreign part or "tool" used by the individual. This is really interesting because when a "tool is removed from use by the individual the individual does not suffer much of its loss, but when that item has become integrated into the individual its loss is similar to the original loss suffered that it was incorporated to counteract.
Symbols are similar. Two languages may have different symbolic representations in the construction of their words, and also differences in nuance and cultural importance, despite the same core meaning. Visual puns and rhyme that might have meaning in Japan for example, have little meaning and cause a little bit of confusion to us in the US, thus demonstating a change in smaller degrees to the changes in meaning that can take place with a change in representation.
It's all just so very interesting and I just want to see what others think of this.
So, like i said, not for the lighthearted, but if ya read this, and get what I'm talking about, please tell me your thoughts on this.