false body mapping
on the face of it a curious notion
I understand what is being put here - that i.e. -
we can be in pain but not feel it we can have pain
but not feel it - yet in some sense know that we
have pain
the idea of false body mapping that Damasio puts is
designed to avoid the problem
and the problem is crucial - for his theory of the
feeling brain
it is this - if the brain maps - falsely - in some
circumstances - how can we know that it ever tells
the truth?
and of course the question -
how do we know what is the truth here?
clearly feelings are not the criterion - we know they
can be false
but how do we know this?
if feelings are all we have to go on - and I stress
'if ' here - then what we feel is true
and if so there is by implication - no false body mapping
and this just may be to say - the body tells the truth -
its truth - even when prior so called knowledge suggests
the opposite
putting it sharply - if there is no feeling of pain -
there is no pain
the 'pain-body map' is not operating - it has been
replaced - or was not operatintg in the firat place
another map operates
and so it's not a question of true or false here -
just obsolete and new - maps
perhaps Damasio might consider the idea that body
mapping is not a static business
that yes there is always a body map - but at no point
of space or time can it be the same as that which preceeded
it - or that of the next instant
perhaps Wittgenstein's idea of family resemblance is
to the point here
if so - and I think this does make sense - what sense is
then left of the notion of body map
is it strictly speaking never possible to obtain such
for as I have suggested there is no permanence here
we can take a snap shot of the brain or regions of it -
but immediately the map has changed
you can't freeze time and space
and you would need to have a sharp concept of map
the alternative is to recognize - that in the body /
brain mapping business
the stock is always obsolete
(it's the same problem for Wittgenstein's theory of
meaning -
OK - eliminate essentialist definition - recognize
that meaning is never dedicated - is never fixed -
good thinking - but whither meaning?
Wittgenstein - regarded such - philosophical discussion
as illness and his task to cure it
be careful what you wish for
his theory of meaning itself - on it's own argument -
has no meaning
which is just the view he started with against the
verificationists - and the author of the 'Tractatus'
verifiability as a result died as a criterion of meaning
but the cost was to kill off - the criterion of meaning -
any criterion of meaning
so you could ask - hey what was it all for?
Dashiell Hammett when ask in later life - why he froze
insects for a hobby said 'one way of filling in time is
as good as another'
very subversive
Spinoza would have smiled
it is reported that one of Spinoza's pleasures was to
watch spiders fighting
back to the issue at hand - if there is anything
left after that)
on the other hand
if we take the view that feeling doesn't amount to much
in terms of the science of the brain - that it is not
based on knowledge - that it is essentially ephemeral
we have to fall back on the hard slog of observation
and experiment
to find out how the brain functions
and this kind of work - how does it relate to how you feel?
well it's the old question
is there a correspondence between the physics of brain
activity -
and one's consciousness - in Damasio's terms 'feelings'?
all the imaging in the world only produces images of
what is seen
not what is felt
Spinoza takes the radical view - the physical reality
and the mental reality are depictions of the one reality
we know - ourselves in two ways
they do correspond
but you will not find matter in mind or mind in matter
however - what for Spinoza - you find in both is substance
substance is mind
substance is matter
so the correspondence is not one to one
as in mind is matter or matter is mind
it is rather - a three way relationship
mind and matter both reflect accurately substance
mind and matter are aspects of substance
so in the case of feeling pain
good science should be able to show this in physical terms
in the case of not feeling pain -
good - up to date science will show this too
it really doesn't make any sense to speak of false pain
