* and two heads are better than one (4/19/2005)

We know some about the brain and some about the mind.  It appears to
me that the mind is non-local.  As I'm trying to write a terse
summary, I will skip the details.

There are more than these possibilities:

  I) The mind is the result of chemical, physical, and perhaps other
known interactions between bits of matter and energy in the vicinity
of the brain (and therefore local).

 II) The mind is distinct from the brain.  The brain, at most, channels
the mind in the same way our lungs and vocal tract channel words (a
local channel for a non-local entity).

III) The mind emerges from the brain, in perhaps the same way a liver
and a fingernail emerge from DNA/RNA expressions (locally sourced, but
perhaps essentially non-local).

We don't understand the fine print under any of these theories enough
to even draw experimentally testable hypotheses.  Yet these things
exist and appear to be the sorts of things we can usually account for
under more general principles.

The number five exists "in" our mind. If I hold up my hand, does the
number five exist "in" my fingers?  The concept of "in" is what does
not work here -- "five" is fine, "fingers" are fine.  A number cannot
exist in a location, only a numeral or representation of number.
Similarly, I would argue, our mind is not local.

There are single brains with multiple personalities, memory systems,
cognitive systems, and so forth.  I would guess that all our brains
are this way, only the granularity is usually finer than in the folks
we see in movies about multiple personalitied serial killers and so
forth.  Not only is a mind non-local, but it is organized.  By
"organized" I mean "composed of organs each with a fitness for a
somewhat distinct purpose".  I even go further and guess that the mind
is

quality 1) composed of organs or parts, which are composed of
           sub-parts, and so on,

(( quality 1a (minsky's conjecture)) eventually the sub-parts are
              small enough to be expressed as physical components of
              the brain )) <-- I reject Minsky's conjecture.

quality 2) that the parts are in communication with one another,

quality 3) that some part-systems can reorganize other part-systems,

quality 4) that some parts, present perhaps because of the essential
           nature of our human mind/brains, or once set during
           childhood development, cannot be reorganized.

quality 5) not local

Much of my sound art from 1999-2003 centered around qualities 1-3
above.  Quality 4 didn't enter into the system until after 1-3 had
been explored.  Quality 5 was something that I had read about and
agreed with for quite some time, but not considered as in the same
class of qualities as the others until this essay.  The words "music"
and "art" were abandoned fairly early in the work.  The self-given
mandate was to create a system that allowed for the production of
great sonic variety, but could be operated without special training or
conscious intervention.  Once constructed, the performer would enter a
trance, and the system would be "performed", to give mental parts that
might normally be incapable of communication a forum.  Several notable
results followed.

result 1) not every part is suitable for "integration" or unrestricted
          communicative binding with other parts. c.f. PTSD.

result 2) what you hear is just as important as what you say

result 3) proof of the hypothesis that the communication between two
          people is indistinguishable from the communication between
          two parts of one "persons" mind.

Now I'm after the integration of quality 4. My best entry points so
far seem to be:

A) investigation of language as a facility that is a quality 4 part
   (indeed, must be a quality 4 part, if it is a mechanism to be used
   by other parts to communicate)

B) is "music" (i.e. harmony, melody, rhythm, consonance/dissonance,
   etc.) a language? is "film" (jump cut, fade, close-up, camera
   motion, light position, etc.) a language?

C) investigation of constructed languages as a generalization of the
   mechanisms used to allow quality 3 parts to talk.

D) can quality 4 parts be emulated sufficiently by quality 3 parts?
   better? Why do many of the most successful television, radio, and
   film voice actors have speech impediments that they have spent long
   years to train away from?

E) is the establishment of a mood through sound the manipulation of a
   quality 4 system?

F) mythological narrative, perhaps as experienced in especially lucid
   dreams, as a quality 4 system?

The implications of quality 5 remain completely elusive, although it
has strongly influenced my political views regarding copyright, free
appropriation, and in general the ownership of numbers.