The mind and UFOs
Copyright 2018, InterAmerica, Inc.
The April 2 issue of The New Yorker has a survey by Larissa MacFarquhar of Andy Clark, a philosopher and
cognitive scientist, and his theories about the mind and thought. [Page 62 ff.]
Andy Clark is well-known to academia and neuroscience,
advocating the idea that mind is not confined by the brain but extends into the
outer world by the use of tools; e.g., paper and pencils, computers, nails and
hammers (?), and other extensions employed by humans to do things.
The concept, for me, is iffy, gassy. But it does rank
heavily amongst those who think philosophically, neurologically, and
technologically.
And Andy Clark is an AI fanboy.
And Andy Clark is an AI fanboy.
I discuss the University of Edinburgh professor’s work elsewhere
but for my purposes here, I find a few things in Ms. MacFarquhar’s piece
pertinent to the UFO problem.
Clark’s concept of “predictive processing” says that the
mind reaches out to determine the world, what’s going on.
“ … the brain had ideas of its own about what the world was
like, and what made sense and what didn’t, and those ideas could override what
the eyes … were telling it … What you saw was not just a signal from the eye …
but a combination of that signal and the brain’s own ideas about what it
expected to see, and sometimes the brain’s expectations took over altogether.”
[Page 68]
“Perception … was not passive and objective but active and
subjective. It [is], in a way a brain generated hallucination; one influenced
by reality, but a hallucination nonetheless.
“Immanuel Kant suggested that the mind made sense of the
complicated sensory world by means of innate mental concepts.” {page 69]
“… Jacob Hohwy, who taught at Monash University in Melbourne
… emphasized … how very difficult it was for the brain to understand things
outside itself …
“The world hits us and we don’t know what to do with the
sensory input we get. We are constantly second-guessing ourselves, withdrawing,
and trying to figure out what happening …
“We forget what high per cent of us have some mental illness
… one per cent of us have schizophrenia, ten per cent depression, and then
there is autism.” [Page 71]
“Karl Friston, the most-cited neuroscientist in the world” –
abstruse to most – provided sustenance to Clark’s idea that the mind predicts
(projects) activity and perception.
That is, for purpose here, UFO witnesses brains project
(predict) what the witness will see and then does see.
This is Clark’s belief with the “extended mind.”
I am not comfortable with Clark’s rag-tag,
deterministic-like ideas of mind, nor Friston’s obtuse supplementary support,
even though a colleague of Friston, Christoph Mathys, a neuroscientist from
Zurich, finds a deep resemblance to some ideas of Freud about mind and the
“free-energy principle.”
Jung offers, in his book Flying Saucers, that the
image is likely a projection from the psyche of a witness. This allows Clark’s
hypothesis some relevance and validity, but that’s still off the mark, as I see
it.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that the UFO is alien or ET.
It just means that UFOs, seen by normal folk, under normal circumstances, have
a reality, despite my pal Zoam Chomsky’s avid protestation of a UFO reality.
Persons see things, that are tangible, to them, and thus a
reality for all practical purposes.
Even an hallucination
is “real” in some sense. Schizophrenics do see (hear) things that are there for
them and who are we to deny them their reality?
The mind (brains) may do some odd, fantastic things, but it
does not “predict” what one sees or feels. That isn’t science; it’s mysticism.
If you think you may like Andy Clark’s ideas, find the
article about him online. Otherwise, stick with the ideas of thought and mind
by persons less kooky.
RR
posted by RRRGroup at
Saturday, March 31, 2018
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