What is "Mind?"

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jogill

climber

Colorado

Dec 6, 2011 - 12:00am PT

Kepler 22b is more than twice as large as Earth

But is it conscious?

MikeL

climber

SANTA CLARA, CA

Dec 6, 2011 - 12:09am PT

(Grading, grading, grading.)

I popped my head out from under my students' papers to stumble across this article on neuroscience, mind, and art at the New York Times.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/art-and-the-limits-of-neuroscience/?src=me&ref=general

Here is the teaser paragraph toward the beginning of the article.

"What is striking about neuroaesthetics is not so much the fact that it has failed to produce interesting or surprising results about art, but rather the fact that no one — not the scientists, and not the artists and art historians — seem to have minded, or even noticed. What stands in the way of success in this new field is, first, the fact that neuroscience has yet to frame anything like an adequate biological or “naturalistic” account of human experience — of thought, perception, or consciousness."

EDIT: At the very end of the article, the author writes, "human experience in general is something we enact together." YES.

flyingkiwi1

Trad climber

Seattle WA

Dec 6, 2011 - 01:13am PT

Yall might be interested in Charlie Rose tonight - it's another in his series of brain-related episodes, this one called "consciousness." Sometimes his shows are well worth the time.

http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/210

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Dec 6, 2011 - 04:26am PT

Dreams are an excellent way to understand the many levels of intelligence and consciousness that our brains possess. Everyone dreams though many in the modern age think they don't because they don't sleep long enough to dream very much.

If a person records dreams over a period of several months however, they will come to see that we have very nearly universal species wide symbolism in our minds, culturally specific symbolism, and uniquely personal symbols as well. The personal symbols are often very subtle, very clever, and often humorous ways of trying to convey emotions and ideas without words.

There are dreams that result from too much rich food, dreams that express our hopes and fears, dreams that help us relive something we need to deal with emotionally, dreams in which we learn new things we didn't know before - sometimes quite practical, dreams that are warnings of events that may happen that we need to pay attention to, and then there are dreams that are so vivid they seem to be messages from another dimension.

Once again the question is, do our minds connect with each other and a greater "over mind" or do we have depths to our unconscious and intuitive minds vastly deeper than we assume?

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Dec 6, 2011 - 06:09am PT

I thought I'd take a break and not even read the thread for a couple of weeks and see if anything had changed. I can see that it has not. Largo still dismisses out of hand any possibility of understanding the mind yet has no problem proffering conjecture which projects 'the mind' into all manner of idealistic and universal realms. That, and subjective experience is still presented as an impenetrable 'event horizon' guarding the mind from all prying lines inquiry but the idealistic and ontological.

And rather than scientists / materialists being the ones projecting belief, I'd say it's just the opposite - the religious and new age are the ones embracing belief after belief. Scientists observe rather than project, and while we may never detail exactly what lies beyond the 'event horizon', we accept that inability without grasping for metaphysical straws.

MH2

climber

Dec 6, 2011 - 10:46am PT

"It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature…"

Niels Bohr

So asking "What is Mind?" is similar to asking "What is Earth?" Non-specific enough to escape any resolution. Very effective at drawing out differing views that reflect people's personalities.

"We depend on our words....Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others."

"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."

additional quotes from Niels Bohr

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 6, 2011 - 12:02pm PT

Healyj rote .. . . I thought I'd take a break and not even read the thread for a couple of weeks and see if anything had changed. I can see that it has not. Largo still dismisses out of hand any possibility of understanding the mind yet has no problem proffering conjecture which projects 'the mind' into all manner of idealistic and universal realms. That, and subjective experience is still presented as an impenetrable 'event horizon' guarding the mind from all prying lines inquiry but the idealistic and ontological.¨

Bullsh#t. I simply have said that subjective experience is not the same thing as objective functioning, and that quantifying is not the right tool for exploring the essence of the former. Note that here, as elsewhere, when quantifying is not given favored nation status, people tend to meltdown, certain that if you can´t measure it, the only other options are wild conjecture, priestcraft, floating clouds, and specious philosophical arguments. What is missing, of course, is any insight into the nature of the subject itself, that is, 1st person subjective experience, the default position being to go right back to objective functioning and digitial processing models.

Also note that there has been and will likely never be an admission from the physicalist camp on the shortcomings of quantifying to explain reality, including our principal human reality, 1st person subjective experience.

JL

MikeL

climber

SANTA CLARA, CA

Dec 6, 2011 - 12:23pm PT

Healyje:

Please present anything here that you believe has no ontological, metaphysical, or idealistic underpinning.

jstan

climber

Dec 6, 2011 - 12:28pm PT

Kepler 22b is more than twice as large as Earth

But is it conscious?

They think it may be another gas ball like Jupiter.

MH2

climber

Dec 6, 2011 - 02:23pm PT

note that there has [not] been and will likely never be an admission from the physicalist camp on the shortcomings of quantifying to explain reality

I don't admit to being in the physicalist camp nor do I intend to consign anyone else to it, but from previous posts to this thread:

Myself

There are many questions outside the scope of science.

Ed H

I think the issues that Largo brings up related to mind are serious, and interesting, and unlikely to be answered by a physical theory of mind.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Dec 6, 2011 - 03:45pm PT

JL: ...on the shortcomings of quantifying to explain reality, including our principal human reality, 1st person subjective experience.

James T. Kirk: "Scotty, it's the damn [qualian] event horizon - more power!!!"

Scotty: "I'm giving her all she's got, Captain!"

James T. Kirk: "All she's got isn't good enough!"

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Dec 6, 2011 - 03:52pm PT

Personally, I suspect "mind" has a lot in common with this, except with recursive Matryoshka doll "mind" fragments at every vertex and radius.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Dec 6, 2011 - 03:58pm PT

Please present anything here that you believe has no ontological, metaphysical, or idealistic underpinning.

Underpinnings are a lot like underwear in that you can go commando or be as wildly creative as you like. Making ontological, metaphysical, or idealistic conjecture is one thing, believing in it is another 'matter' entirely.

MikeL

climber

SANTA CLARA, CA

Dec 7, 2011 - 01:31am PT

I wrote: Please present anything here that you believe has no ontological, metaphysical, or idealistic underpinning.

Healyje responded: "Underpinnings are a lot like underwear in that you can go commando or be as wildly creative as you like. Making ontological, metaphysical, or idealistic conjecture is one thing, believing in it is another 'matter' entirely."

Just what the heck are you saying?

Can you or can't you present anything that has no ontological, metaphysical, or idealistic underpinning?

It might have seemed like a clever thing to say initially, but I don't think you really have anything to say.

Let me suggest something that doesn't have a metaphysical, ontological, or idealistic underpinning: subjectivity.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Dec 7, 2011 - 01:43am PT

metaphysics is a branch of philosophy, ontology is a sub-branch...

science survives quite well in the absence of metaphysics, we can't answer the metaphysicist's questions, but so what?

as for idealism, not sure where you're going with this, one can certainly posit that a thing is real only because it is thought... the physical description of the universe is consistent with the hypothesis that "thought" is not necessary precondition for the universe...

...and pursing that line of reasoning would require, at some point, a definition of "thought" which has not been forthcoming from those that hold "thought" independent from physical phenomena.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Dec 7, 2011 - 02:08am PT

MikeL - to each his own, but the belief subjectivity is forever locked behind an impenetrable qualian event horizon is not one I'm ever going to ascribe to.

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 7, 2011 - 10:38am PT

MikeL - to each his own, but the belief subjectivity is forever locked behind an impenetrable qualian event horizon is not one I'm ever going to ascribe to.

What I think you mean by this mouthful is that someday you or others will be able to quantify mind by normal means. What you don´t seem to get is the super basic idea that mind as we have been yakking about in all these incarnations, is not the very same object as matter, any more than heat is the same as the stove. Indivisible, almost certainly, but unlike heat, mind is not a physical thing, unless you say the brain IS mind, and you´re back to calling heat the stove and your uncle your aunt . . . sort of.

So it´s not a matter of being locked behind anything. In fact it´s just the opposite. We are so enmeshed in qualia that we can´t escape it entirely to look at our our own subjective experience entirely in the 3rd person objective, and it is only as individuals that we have direct access to subjective experience at all.

I can study your subjective experience only indirectly. This is different than a scientist directly measuring material or properties or postulating on same. The plain fact that you cannot do this with 1st person subjective experience is no fault of measuring, or that subjective experience is hiding in some way. This false belief comes from the conviction that subjective reality is not actually experiential, but rather in and of itself is fundamentally material, we just haven´t gotten the calipers on it quit yet. But when we do . . . watch out.

But that day will never come because you cannot kiss your own lips.

JL

cintune

climber

Midvale School for the Gifted

Dec 7, 2011 - 12:08pm PT

del cross:

Cintune, I don't have a subscription to SciAm so I was only able to read those first five paragraphs that are free before making my not too serious post.
Would you be kind enough to email me the entire article?
Thanks.

I only got the first part too, but it seemed to present the important bits, at least in that this is a field of rapidly advancing study, with much yet to be found that will push us past the current crux.

Came across this just now, another piece of the puzzle that hasn't been addressed yet:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/09/01/ten-things-everyone-should-know-about-time/

6. Consciousness depends on manipulating time. Many cognitive abilities are important for consciousness, and we don’t yet have a complete picture. But it’s clear that the ability to manipulate time and possibility is a crucial feature. In contrast to aquatic life, land-based animals, whose vision-based sensory field extends for hundreds of meters, have time to contemplate a variety of actions and pick the best one. The origin of grammar allowed us to talk about such hypothetical futures with each other. Consciousness wouldn’t be possible without the ability to imagine other times.

MH2

climber

Dec 7, 2011 - 12:17pm PT

that day will never come because you cannot kiss your own lips.

Crushed in the iron grip of logic.

Unless...didn't we hear from jogill and Tom Cochrane about out-of-body experiences in which they might have kissed their own lips?

They say to never say never.

There is an interesting discussion of ontology in connection to physics found via the link which ∇ x provided. It has to do with whether the wave function only represents our knowledge of a system (the epistemic point of view) or is itself a "real object" (the ontological point of view).

"The question is whether a scientific realist can interpret the quantum state as an epistemic state (state of knowledge) or whether it must be an ontic state (state of reality)."

Matt Leifer commenting on a recent preprint

http://mattleifer.info/2011/11/20/can-the-quantum-state-be-interpreted-statistically/

In the context of the wave function the different camps have been called psi-epistemicist and psi-ontologist.

However, neither physics or brain science are brought to a halt by philosophical issues.