Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The master brain

I think to myself, "Raise your right hand" and sure enough it rises. Who is ordering my brain to fire the neurons that order my nerves to send signals to my muscles to raise my right hand? If the mind is just the brain, then the brain is doing this all by itself. There is nobody, no mind, ordering it to raise my right hand. Im a slave to my brain. I do whatever it wants me to do--Im a robot. There is no "I". The I is an illusion. The I is the brain's invention to make me feel good about being a slave to it, to make me feel in control. I cannot want to raise my right hand without the brain making me want to raise my right hand first. There is no free will. There is only the brain that wants to make more brains and to make more brains it has to fool the robot into feeling good about itself because if it doesnt feel good, then it won't get laid, because really who would want to boink a dour, depressing, bloke? The brain, my master, wants me (the me who thinks it's in control but who doesnt really exist) to be happy and funny and hopeful about the future because that way I'll keep working and not be despairing about how meaningless it all is because that's the kind of slave that has more chances of boinking and making more brains.

2 comments:

Resty Odon said...

hmm, interesting question, this. brain vs mind. how come i haven't thought of this, when it's yet another proof of God?

Jego said...

Im not buying 'the mind is just the brain' hypothesis either, although I admit the reason is largely aesthetic, as there can be no empirical evidence for the mind. Only rational ones.

I find John Searle's thesis that the brain causes the mind interesting though.