What is "Mind?"

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jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Sep 21, 2016 - 09:19pm PT

Common sense tells us the moon is there whether or not we are looking at it. But when you remove all the sense data that consciousness overlays onto our perception of reality, no one can describe a moon at all. So what manner of moon are you talking about? And how would you know as much?

Does our perception of reality actually exist sans "all the sense data" overlaying it? How would it be possible to have a perception of reality without "all the sense data"? Maybe this is what you are saying. If so, no one could possibly care about describing a moon.

When I'm not looking at the moon I can still describe it and as a matter of faith I assume it has a continuous existence regardless of my stare. Set up a video camera aimed at the moon. Don't look at the moon. Now look at the recorded moon. See, it still existed. Don't be disappointed.

in no place in that discussion was there mention of consciousness existing separate from anything else

Yes, consciousness needs a physical brain and an object of awareness to exist. Minus either it fails to exist. Very simple, really. It is meaningless to talk about consciousness and not include the objects of consciousness. There is no way to isolate consciousness as a subject of inquiry. The "hard problem" doesn't exist. Leave it to the neuroscientists to explore consciousness.

So now one of the questions is, did that happen by chance or did your unconscious guide the math? Are the math, and your unconscious and the universe perhaps all one? Are you in the universal mind and just don't know it?

Oh, if only I had the power! But I lack the magic scepter of the Wizard.

“Emergence” in my areas has been said is a result of nonlinear systems, which are essentially unpredictable

There are many non-linear systems that are very predictable, but when they are not, in numerical analysis it is frequently advisable to try to reduce non-linear to linear locally, if not globally. Those woven contours in my image are linked to a pair of non-linear differential equations, and one strategy towards a solution and predictability that may work is to look at a small region about a fixed point and do a simple power series expansion there, dropping all the terms above the linear term, thus creating a very simple linear approximation locally. But this tells virtually nothing about global or general behavior.

But I get your point, and your discussion of appearances is germane.

Ward Trotter

Trad climber

Sep 22, 2016 - 09:15am PT

If a human being were adequately trained in the requisite science and yet had never laid eyes on the moon, that is, no direct "sense data" were involved , that person could then competently deduct from all the pertinent non-sensory data : how the moon would appear, how it operated, where and when it would rise on any given day. Moreover If such a person were a good enough painter they might even render an astonishingly accurate portrait of our nearest neighbor.

A critic of this situation might make the point that such an individual would simply be experiencing the moon, as it were, by proxy; by way of all the accumulated perceptions and measurements which has preceded him. But this would still not be his own first-hand sensory experience. The critic would then be forced into the unenviable position of retroactively proving that all of these prior documentations of the moon ,which has hitherto informed our moon speculator and allowed him to provide an accurate facsimile -- were each and every one consistently overlaying the same consciousness atop the same perceptions. In other words , a stream of identical subjective impressions.

Anywho. Happy Autumnal equinox , y'all .

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 22, 2016 - 10:36am PT

There is no way to isolate consciousness as a subject of inquiry. The "hard problem" doesn't exist. Leave it to the neuroscientists to explore consciousness.

-

One wonders if you read anything that was mentioned.

Objectless meditation is the go-to way to isolate consciousness as a subject of inquiry. It's been going on for a few centuries, John. Whatever illusions come up are let go of. What's left? Try it and find out for yourself.

Ward, I gotta go to Yosemite for two weeks to work but I hope to address your post soon. It is an interesting topic, and has to be looked at in a number of different ways to to get the low down, IMO.

JL

i-b-goB

Social climber

Wise Acres

Sep 22, 2016 - 10:47am PT

My higher mind tells me what the answer is to everything
It is my superior intellect
Too bad I don't know what that means...
-Bushman

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Sep 22, 2016 - 11:19am PT

jgill: There are many non-linear systems that are very predictable, . . . .

Yes, you are right. (I was thinking of the ones that are particularly problematic, and I should have given a nod to the broad categorization.)

Like Ward says, Happy First Day of Fall! It's a welcomed sign after the summer in some places like Arizona.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Sep 22, 2016 - 01:13pm PT

So what manner of moon are you talking about?

Seriously? It's the old 'if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it was there really a tree' schtick. Sigh.

As for emergence. Your subjective experience of language is itself emergent due to its dependencies on layers of unconscious sound and language pre-processing most humans are never aware of or experience.

My damaged hearing gives me insight into that pre-processing by virtue of it occasionally handing me a conscious subjective experience of language which cannot possibly be correct. I then have to consciously (i.e. manually) reverse-engineer from the wrong language experience to the probable raw sound and then [contextually] reprocess that sound into language to come up with possible alternatives which could potentially be correct for the current context. I then select from one of those possibilities - most times the correct language is obvious on reprocessing, but sometimes it's not.

Point being that at least some aspects of subjective experience are emergent from unconscious pre-processing. How does one classify such pre-processing? Is it a form of 'unconscious subjective experience'? Is it purely a 'mechanical function'? Or something in between?

However you classify it there is no doubt one's subjective experience is heavily dependent on layers upon layers of unconscious, progressive pre-processing which filters, sorts, prioritizes, associates and contextualizes sensory information. From my perspective that makes subjective experience, if not consciousness, an emergent property of underlying [unconscious] processes which are 'close to the bone' relative to physicality.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Sep 22, 2016 - 01:38pm PT

Objectless meditation is the go-to way to isolate consciousness as a subject of inquiry (JL)

Thank you, John. I was hoping you would say this. Some pages back I remarked that perhaps meditation was the only path to follow. Unfortunately, in this practice there is no way to separate consciousness from an object, for in the case of meditation consciousness is itself an object of consciousness. And this of course goes down the path of self-referential dilemmas ("This statement is false").

You are trapped in a meditative realm that only sheds light on itself. There is no way to escape and bring your epiphanies into the physical world. All the philosophy that can be endured will lead no closer to any sort of revelation with regard to consciousness.

I know the powerful feeling of discovery while in an altered mental state, for my adventures in the art of dreaming have an impact even today, forty years later. I "learned" the "essence" of one's "I", but that "knowledge" is of little or no consequence in the outer world.

I feel your pain . . .

i-b-goB

Social climber

Wise Acres

Sep 23, 2016 - 11:36am PT

Seems fitting today...

http://www.icr.org/article/9509
The Meaning of Man
“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:3-4)

This question has been posed as a rhetorical question by many generations of skeptics, especially in our present generation when the tremendous size of the universe is often used to argue that God, if He exists, could not possibly be interested in such a small speck of dust as our own planet.

But, essentially, the same argument was used against Job by one of his three “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2) over 3,500 years ago. “How then can man be justified with God? . . . that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?” (Job 25:4, 6).This dismal type of reasoning, however, is utterly fallacious. Significance is not a function of size, but of purposeful complexity, and the human brain is surely the most complex physical system in the entire universe, as acknowledged even by such an eminent atheistic scientist as Isaac Asimov. Rather than being insignificant nonentities, men and women have been created in the very image of God and are the objects of His redeeming love.

The most wonderful measure of man’s importance is the fact that God, Himself, became a man! “Christ Jesus . . . being in the form of God, . . . took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:5-7) to be able to take our death penalty upon Himself. Furthermore, God’s love for man is measured not only by His substitutionary death for our sins, but also by His eternal creative purpose for us. He has redeemed us so that “in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). HMM

...but what a speck of dust!

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Sep 23, 2016 - 02:59pm PT

the human brain is surely the most complex physical system in the entire universe . . .

I wonder about this speculative assertion. There must be complex physical systems we still haven't identified.

i-b-goB

Social climber

Wise Acres

Sep 23, 2016 - 04:20pm PT

Hey jgill, have your ever noticed that in aliens movies, this one from Independence Day, they make their giant space ships and advanced weapons and they don't look like they could open a jar of jelly!

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Sep 23, 2016 - 09:56pm PT

Not this baby . . . she's comin' warp speed from Alpha Centauri to do us in:

i-b-goB

Social climber

Wise Acres

Sep 23, 2016 - 10:02pm PT

That's awesome John, I really like this one, you should have an art show with all these!

BASE104

Social climber

An Oil Field

Sep 24, 2016 - 02:28pm PT

Largo said:

However the "something new" (consciousness) really IS new, and radically different in every conceivable way from the "simpler entity" (brain) believed to have sourced it.

John, we've covered this ground many times. Consciousness, as I've seen it defined, isn't the sole property of humans. Therefore, it is NOT something "new." Perhaps we are smarter than other species, but not more conscious. Self awareness, and the ability to make choices has been around for almost a hundred million years, if you cut the line at mammals. It has been around for 200,000 years, if you look at only humans. We are anatomically identical to human remains that date back that long. It took us a huge amount of time to arrive at many of our current abilities, but the anatomy was there. That is a blunt fact.

You need to look around you and check out other species. Consciousness isn't new. Saying that a whale isn't conscious is just species rooted chauvinism. You have a BAD case of that. You need to define HUMAN consciousness for us.

Finding the first example of consciousness is an interesting question.

Are birds conscious beings? Dogs? Whales and dolphins? Lower primates? Flatworms, with brains of only a few hundred neurons? Where do you draw the line? If self awareness is the main quality of consciousness, then it casts a wide net.

You really need to find something that is a uniquely human trait.

Homo Sapiens has been around, in its most modern form, for at least 170,000 years. For the majority of that time, we were pretty primitive. Then something happened, and we emerged as the most invasive species on the planet, at least in our ability to impact total ecosystems.

Anyway, you might want to reconsider how you use the word "consciousness." There is a fantastic Wiki page on the topic, that covers a lot of ground.

The topic of animal consciousness is really rather obvious. If we define consciousness as a state of self awareness, then whole clades of animals will fit the bill.

An interesting snippet from the wiki page on consciousness (which I suggest everyone read):

"Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals [...], including all mammals and birds, and other creatures, [...] have the necessary neural substrates of consciousness and the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors.

To entertain consciousness as a property solely human, you have to adopt Descartes view. It is a little outdated.

From a really fascinating entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

There is value in studying animal behavior, just as it is valuable to know comparative anatomy when looking at paleontological evidence. Psychologists have been playing games with rats and other animals for decades. They have behavior. They make choices. They are certainly self aware.

Yep. A rat. So you need to back up and find something that is absolutely uniquely human, or speak of consciousness in a more general way.

i-b-goB

Social climber

Wise Acres

Sep 24, 2016 - 06:01pm PT

[Click to View YouTube Video]
There is no "we" in "food!"

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Sep 24, 2016 - 06:56pm PT

Base: Consciousness, as I've seen it defined, . . . .

I’d say this—definition by another—is a problem (even it is it the Great Wiki, “knower of all things” that's collating definition).

It’s your consciousness, for crying out loud. Look for yourself.

i-b-goB

Social climber

Wise Acres

Sep 24, 2016 - 07:04pm PT

“It’s not what I do that counts. It’s who I am. Being always comes before doing.” Dr. H. Edwin Young

Ward Trotter

Trad climber

Sep 24, 2016 - 07:15pm PT

"southern Arizona"

The last time I checked you were living up north, MikeL

Arizona. Good choice. Lower latitude , more solar energy.
From a biological standpoint it represents a "greater quantum yield environment" relative to higher latitudes.

Stay circadianly correct.(up with the sun, down with the sun)
Avoid artificial lighting after sun goes down, including television, computer/phone screens.
Make bedroom as dark as possible.
Spend a little time daily in sun without glasses or sunscreen or sunglasses, preferably mornings.
Live at lowest possible altitude.

Stay connected to nature and away from large populations of your fellow apes.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Sep 24, 2016 - 07:38pm PT

And avoid advice from others.

Think for yourself, man!

jogill

climber

Colorado

Sep 25, 2016 - 12:50pm PT

It’s your consciousness, for crying out loud. Look for yourself

If you want to solve your own internal riddle about consciousness this is the way to proceed. As I mentioned to JL I do think you'll learn something about your mind and about who you are by meditation. It's unfortunate however that this "information" is not particularly relevant to the outer world. Unless, of course, one dabbles in metaphysics. Beyond that philosophy is a dead end, consisting of arguments based upon poorly-defined "objects" of contemplation and "axioms". But fun for faculty lounge chatter in philosophy departments.

The math I've done over the years is just as trivial.

;>)