XXI.  HETEROSEXUAL INTERACTION: AN ANALOGICAL ADVENTURE

                                     "...your body's really you."
                                                        Leonard Cohen
                                                             Closing Time

                 "...the human mind is the idea of the human body"
                                      Antonio Damaio quoting Spinoza
                                                        Looking for Spinoza

A.    While a number of computer 'geeks' have assured this blogger that analog computers were/are merely primitive forms of digital computers, this is not at all the case.  A cursory 'google' search of "analog computer" will clarify the matter.

Although I am not a computer expert, I gather that digital computation involves converting all input data into (binary) numbers/digits, manipulating the latter and, finally, converting the resulting numbers/digits back into overt real-life data.  The same digital computer can accept any number of different programs and, hence, solve any number of problems/projects.

On the other hand, an analogue computer accepts data (eg., voltages) directly and manipulates such directly without conversion to numbers.   But a given analogue computers is able to perform only the computation that it is specifically constructed to carry out.

B.    There is no reason to believe that the interior of the skull/cranium is the only anatomical location  that cognition takes place - or the only place that memories are stored.  Surely a concert pianist remembers his/her performance in his/her fingers (and arms) as much as in his/her intracranial "brain".   And hormones no doubt also participate in this mental functioning.

C.    To this blogger's knowledge, although both Antonio Damasio (Descartes' Error and Looking for Spinoza) and Danial C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained) identify the soma (body and brain) as being the foundational substrate of mental functioning, neither addresses consequent implications associated with the fact that in the highly innervated genital areas (and hormonally), male and female are quite different from each other both anatomically and functionally.      [In the present era of 'political correctness' they may fear losing their university positions and funding if they dare to investigate possible male-female differences.]                                                

D.    The cortex of the brain is now widely regarded as a "neuronal net/network".  (see 'google' again).  But this cortical net/network has myriad neuronal connections (both afferent and efferent) to other parts of the brain, hormones and the whole body.

And, in turn, the neuronally-based sensory organs connect this net/network to the world/universe in general.

All of this without the intermediate necessity of converting data into numbers/digits.

E.   Thus, living organisms such as mammals like homo sapiens would seem to be analog computers made - under the direction of DNA - of 'meat' (ie, bones, muscles, nerves, etc.)

Insects (and plants), of course, would be analog computers constructed (again under the direction of DNA) as different non-'meat' fabric.

F.     And what tasks/problems/projects are these 'meat' analog computers constructed to carry out?

The male body-mind human organism/computer is built to:
(i) seek food, water and shelter;
(ii) learn about and use natural laws/resources to expedite the obtaining of food, water, and shelter;
(iii) (analogous to male genitalia) seek and keenly perceive opportunities to impregnate (ie, inform, effect, define cf. Post # V)  females and situations;
(iv) compose potent, interesting and constructive/positive genetic/'genetic' material (both physical and psychological) and secondarily assist to nourish and raise offspring (physical and/or psychosocial); and
(v) learn about, develop and use culture to compete successfully with other men and favourably impress females so as to impregnate the latter physically and/or psychologically.

The female body-mind human organism/computer is built to:
(i) seek food, water and shelter;
(ii) organize events/reality so that her family has enough food, water and shelter;
(iii) (analogous to her female genitalia) attract (ie, transform, affect, interpret - cf. Post # V) interesting, potent and positive/constructive male and/or institutional impregnatory input;
(iv) conceive, gestate and give birth to babies and futures/realities and primarily nourish and raise her off-spring by/with the male (both physical and psychosocial/existential);
and
(v) learn about, develop and use her social and cultural organizing capacities to cooperate successfully with other females so as to nourish and raise her/their off-spring (physical and psychosocial).

 G.    Taking the ideas of Damasio, Dennett, Cohen and Spinoza a step further (or maybe not further, after all) this blogger submits that a life form such as the human animal thinks, and can only think, in ways analogous to how its body functions - because thinking is precisely a manifestation of somatic function.

Rephrasing and increasing the precision of Spinoza's concept: 'the human male mind is the idea of the human male body; and the human female mind is the idea of the human female body.'

Yet the language of homo sapiens expedites both (i) 'jerry-building'/reconfiguration of the basic procreational male-female interactive model and (ii) the development of culture.

H.    The intimacy of human physical sexual intercourse (involving direct contact between highly innervated elements of anatomy) suggest that one partner's actions and responses may become part of the other person's 'thinking' 'brain' (ie., the other person's mind).

Less intimate physical and psychological interactions constitute milder forms of one person's actions/word/emotions becoming part of another person's mind.

A person's 'thinking 'brain' (ie, mind) is not entirely localized within his/her body let alone within his/her skull.

I.  ADDENDUM:  a boy goes to school to learn about the world/environment wherein he lives;  a girl goes to school to learn about the world/environment that she is.