Discussion: When I'm touching you...

 

I am impressed with the presentation from O'Regan. I must admit that his theory is so amazing that I was seriously considering that I may be wrong to choose to research about perception rather than Law, yet I had the same dream as him about building a true Robot that can "think".

It is always amazing to think about "I". The sense of this simple notion, is difficult enough to take thousands of years to look into it. I considered an integration of perception and effector could be an acceptable answer, though it is not. As stated by O'Regan, it is not something you can find in the brain or somewhere else, since it is neither the property of our nerve system nor of any object outside. It is nothing, yet we can "feel" it, describe it and even predict it. I must admit that he may be right, that "red" has nothing to do with perception, and so do when I feel "touched" by something.

However, it is still not the whole story.

Any perception could be a fake, as shown by synchronised stimulation or hypnosis. On the contrary, they are also truth for those who feel them since the Bodiliness and Grabiness hold true, as shown by Synaesthesia and Lucid Dreams. The problem we encounter here, is that the notion "I" (cogito) is not constructed by "I" (ergo) alone, thus we would have different stories told by different "I" or a great story composed by all the "I"s. The "sensorimotor theory" would not be completed before it takes the "multiple I" problem into consideration. Even though personality related problems have been mention in the slides, I found no enough discussion about them.

For example, why did I feel "touched" by the words of a pretty girl, while she actually did not meant it at all?

And that is the time when "language" problem becomes significant and, as stated by O'Regan, "hard". As revealed by the theory of Mirror Neurons, communication with language may actually work in a sensorimotor way, and that is why it was related to social cognition, and what exactly I'm trying to confirm.

Anyway, the "sensorimotor theory" is amazing and impressive, and may serve as a good alternative rather than traditional theory-theory and simulation theory.

Memory in dreams: fake or truth?

At the first, I must admit that I'm specialised in neither dream nor memory. What I'm desribe below is just my experiences.

Question: can we access our whole memory while dreaming?

I have a dream recently which I won't cover details here. What interested me is a pouch I own in reality. When I was dreaming, I strongly believed that it is used as a wallet, and I actually used it like a wallet in my dream.

However, in reality, though it do contains some unused coins, it is primarily used to keep important documents such as passport and other ID cards. You can imagine the size of such a pouch. Obviously it can never be used as a wallet. So how did I make such a mistake in dream?

Certainly our reasoning ability is limited in dream, though this time the problem seems to be related with memory solely. There is saying (Fruedian?) goes that the memory in dream is actually distorted. But I concern, at least for my case, the memory in dream was fake instead of just distorted. That is, I can not access parts of my memory while I was dreaming.

Finally, no matter the memory is distorted or fake, the mechanism of the distortion or falsification needs to be studied, not just the concepts.

Or go further: how can we know our memory is right for certain, without any distortion or falsification?