What is "Mind?"

(focus, attention, awareness, etc.)

And there's the rub. There is no consensus of definitions of these "building blocks" - awareness, consciousness, etc. Whenever I bring up distinctions it's off to the cosmos we go, babbling about "data", "number crunching", "humanities vs science", and so on. On this thread the Hard Problem is lining up the steeds in their starting gates, not participating in the race towards knowledge.

We may "know" consciousness when we see it, but in our intuitive enthusiasm we may see it where it isn't.

And that's why any certainty that the non living sentient will become sentient through the engineering of complexity seems an error lodged in vocabulary as well as assumption.

any certainty that the non living sentient will become sentient through the engineering of complexity seems an error lodged in vocabulary as well as assumption.

Ed: . . . your main argument is that someone cannot show you that it is true. But you have not shown that it is false.

Largo: . . . when you shut up and stop calculating (stop data processing), what is there about awareness that leads you to believe it is comparable to the functioning of a computer, and what function, in particular?

Jgill: There is no consensus of definitions of these "building blocks" - awareness, consciousness, etc.

DMT: Simple simple; "Never." There is no coming back from that stance. Frankly its idiotic and smacks of religious fervor.

So many research scientists without academic jobs. This may create forces within science that distorts pure research
endeavors.

https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200104/academic-jobs.cfmhttps://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200104/academic-jobs.cfm

The academic job market over the last two years is characterized by increases in the number of vacancies and retirements, with
corresponding increases in the number of new hires and recruitments, according to the 2000 Academic Workforce Report, released
recently by the American Institute of Physics (AIP). AIP's Division of Employment and Education Statistics has been tracking the academic
workforce every two years since 1986. "A sizeable percentage of PhD physicists work in academia, and hence this sector is a good
indicator of the health of the entire discipline," says Roman Czujko, who heads the AIP division and co-authored the 2000 report.
Among the report's most notable findings is that the turnover and retirement rates for physics faculty are on the rise; in fact, the retirement
rate is currently higher than 3% for the first time (it never rose above 2.6% throughout the 1990s), and is expected to continue to increase
slowly due to the increasing age of the physics faculty. Degree-granting physics departments in the US employed an estimated 8375 full-
time equivalent physicists during the spring of 2000, but even with the higher retirement rate, there are fewer than 250 physics positions
vacated due to retirement each year. Czujko speculates that part of the reason for this may be that faculty retirement "is often a multi-step
process, with many members reducing their status to part-time for several years before finally retiring completely."
Turnover rates were also higher among tenured and tenure-track faculty during the 1999 academic year than in previous years. The report
found that 388 faculty members left their tenure or tenure-track positions, for a total turnover rate of 7.3%. "To the extent that increases in
turnover rates are caused by aging faculty, we may continue to see increasing turnover rates for several years," says Czujko.

Jstan: I am curious as to what kinds of distortions Mike fears.

it is an assumption on your part based on your own "theory of mind" that posits that every human has a mind, and that includes a "subjective life."

DMT: A reconnection to the rest of humanity, an ever-widening gulf [for you] judging by you words.

The best work that gets done in any field is driven by intrinsic rewards: here, people who love research no matter what their pay or position.

It is most usually the case that extrinsic rewards drive out intrinsic rewards.

Much of the article talked about extrinsic rewards and also suggested that some young entrants don’t know what they are getting into in the scholarly research business. (Initially, I too was a person who was motivated by the lifestyle rather than the work.)

I see pay as part of the lifestyle. Anyone who is concerned about “the academic market” is not so very much into the intrinsic rewards / the work.

People who want a FTE academic positions with job security must publish . . . anything. Journal population has skyrocketed to answer a demand. As supply increases beyond “core demand,” price and quality tend to decline.

U.S. educational organizations have been responding to cost increases by hiring far more contractors (adjuncts, practitioners). Many of them want into the protected labor force.

They must publish.

Their foremost concern is about remuneration and lifestyle. (Perhaps most people do their work for pay or for lifestyle. I think few people really care about a calling.)

In terms of an organizational structural industry analysis, I suggest the following for the educational institutions themselves: (i) barriers to entry have declined, opening the door to less pristine educational institutions; (ii) suppliers to the industry has increased, and that means their value-added has declined; (iii) buyers are more knowledgeable and have more choices, so they have increased bargaining power; (iv) substitutes have arisen (distance learning, for-profit educational value chains); and (v) rivalry among competitors have greatly increased for all but the very top tier schools (higher breakevens, intermittent overcapacity, less concentration with balance; higher corporate stakes, less product differences, etc.). Overall, the industry has become price competitive with power going to the top-tier schools and to the buyers. It’s become a fragmented marketplace. That means the industry is under stress.

Firms in a stressed industry (meaning profits are harder to come by) often cut corners—ethically, in terms of costs, in terms of quality, and discipline (attempt to lose focus). Bad money chases fewer true opportunities, and poor decisions follow. Everyone in those organizations feel it. Outputs and organizational behaviors follow.

If one considers the way the higher education industry used to operate (with far less competition), now it is cost and price competitive. Scholarship is now much more of a business rather than the noble profession most people idealistically think of. Competition brings lower prices and more variety, but very often it is costly to societies and people.

Whadyathink?