A thought experiment

[Mushy-pea]

Hi. If you gained the ability to look inside every other mind that exists, do you think you would lose the ability to hold any particular point of view, given that you were now aware of how everyone has reached their individual view.

Steven.

[GrimJack]

This really depends on what mind is, what memory is, how our brain/body/mind really work. We do not know what the basic building block of the mind is - when you play a computer game what you perceive is different from what you perceive when you look at the code for the game (when you see the game environment can you predict the code vice versa when you look at the code can you predict the game environment).

The Brain/Body/Mind interface is a soup of hormones, memories, experiences, and stuff we have no concept of yet. The brain floats in spinal fluid, protected by the 'blood/brain' barrier; connected to the world by a bundle of nerves called the spinal cord. The inputs include the basic 5 (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell) and a plethora of others like pressure, hot, cold, and so on. Keep in mind (pun intended) that the brain is split into 2 hemispheres connected by the corpus callosum and all input is routed to both sides (the 8th cranial nerve crosses to the opposing brain hemisphere under the jaw approximately where the front of the tongue attaches).

But I digress

I think that I am trying to say that if you had the ability to read other peoples minds - their thoughts would not make any sense to you (at least below the level of the super ego). There fore you could see the conclusions but never how they got there, but you could probably see the effects of your arguing and might be able to change their minds by 'playing the system'.

[vmanes]

I think you'd probably go mad once you see what a bunch of mush most minds are, especially those of politicians. :twisted: