What is "Mind?"

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MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Sep 8, 2018 - 06:08pm PT
Conversely, Nagel's question, "What is it like to BE a bat" refers to the bat's own experience.


Why did he use a bat for his question? Why not ask, "What is it like to be a person who isn't me?" Would that change the point of the question?
BASE104

Social climber
An Oil Field
Sep 8, 2018 - 07:43pm PT
The Monarch Butterfly has a multi generational migration northward, so the numbers that return to the same small groups of trees in Mexico never even saw the very specific places, all with a brain the size of a pin. I find that fascinating. Perhaps it explains our own species’ intense tribalism.

I was flying in Mexico last December and visited one of the newly located refuges. It was amazing. We road horses for a while and hiked the last 1500 feet.

There were huge masses of them in a half dozen pine trees.

Still flying. Just got my P3 rating and have been flying Utah and Idaho for a month. You guys should try it. Even fat, old guys can do it, and when you thermal super high, it is very peaceful.
eeyonkee

Trad climber
Golden, CO
Sep 9, 2018 - 12:24pm PT
The Monarch Butterfly has a multi generational migration northward, so the numbers that return to the same small groups of trees in Mexico never even saw the very specific places, all with a brain the size of a pin. I find that fascinating. Perhaps it explains our own species’ intense tribalism.
I love animal stories. The rationalist crowd doesn't seem to get them (being all wrapped-up in their subjective experience). Seems to me that what the multi-generational group of butterfly's shared were specific algorithms that preserved the memories of their ancestors. I mean, what else could it be?
Jan

Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
Sep 9, 2018 - 02:32pm PT
Along those lines, one answer for people who seem to remember past lives could be that humans carry some of their ancestor's memories in their brains, and can sometimes access them. Inherited algorhithms could also explain the collective unconscious. On the other hand there are a number of children who remember past lives of people they are not related to.
Trump

climber
Sep 9, 2018 - 03:35pm PT
Seriously, no-one has seen Finding Nemo?! Jesus people, just do some research and you can hear from an animal what an animals’ first hand experience is!

Or make YOUR first hand experience be assuming that you know what an animals first hand experience is. Either way, don’t forget to admire yourself for it - that’s not tiresome at all in other people’s first hand experience.
jogill

climber
Colorado
Sep 9, 2018 - 04:27pm PT


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


I don't know if there has ever been a truly verified instance of past-life regression. There are lots of web sites purporting the phenomenon, but scientific evidence seems sparse. Prove me wrong!
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2018 - 04:33pm PT
Why did he use a bat for his question? Why not ask, "What is it like to be a person who isn't me?" Would that change the point of the question?



This is probably the most common misunderstanding of what Nagel was driving at, derived from thinking his point pertained to the "what" said bat was experiencing. That is the content of the bat's experience. In fact a bat was a totally arbitrary choice. Nagel could have designated a rat, a dairy cow, a honey beaver, or a toad and his point would have remained the same.

That is, any concept, all knowing about experience - be it our own or of a bat - is derived from experience and only experience. The example given by McGinn (in the video link) concerns visual sight. For a person blind from birth, any concept he has about visual sight is derived from his other experiences with touch and sound and so forth, and whatever that is, it will not be what sighted people experience.

A second point is that experience - whatever the content - is only presented to a 1st person perspective. Put differently, a 1st person perspective is required to HAVE experience. It doesn't exist in any other form.

McGinn makes it clear that 3rd person phenomenon and 1st person phenomenon - the phenomenological (consciousness and the elements of direct experience) - are distinctly different phenomenon. The "hard problem" in this case is in resolving those differences. But no matter what 3rd person descriptors or "explanations" are used, they will pertain to 3rd person objects and phenomenon, not to experience itself. The take away is that no matter what new 3rd person data we might learn from future experiments, that data will be about something other than experience itself.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle is that spoken and written language, and scientific notation like math, are designed to describe 3rd person phenomenon. Any crossover to 1st person phenomenon is meaningfully made only by other subjects who have phenonenological experience to draw from. For example, we might say to a Turing Machine, I am hungry. The machine would have no more idea what that experientially meant than the blind person would have about a rainbow.

There's a lot more to it as well, but these are a few of the basics.
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Sep 9, 2018 - 05:42pm PT
The "hard problem" in this case is in resolving those differences. But no matter what 3rd person descriptors or "explanations" are used, they will pertain to 3rd person objects and phenomenon, not to experience itself.


I would say that the hard problem is resolving the fact that experience itself can affect third person descriptions such as we produce in our posts, and that physical events can affect 1st person experience, if they are so different from each other.
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2018 - 06:47pm PT
Again, MH2, you're missing his point with your comment about "effects." This is underscored by Nagel's point that the issue of subjectivity is NOT a causal (cause and effects) matter. You certainly have the right to disagree with him - that's what functionalism/materialism tries to do. But when you look at the implications re what Nagel said, you realize that when functionalism (and the other physical models) speaks about mind, they are actually speaking about the brain. Nagel has just made a pitch that the diferences are real, and so long as they are not acknowledged as such, no real progress can be made per mind (but plenty on brain).

Perhaps look at the link by McGinn. He's a professional with this material and if nothing else he's clear as water.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Sep 9, 2018 - 07:01pm PT
On the other hand there are a number of children who remember past lives of people they are not related to.

You do this regularly.

I could be wrong but, imo, it points straight away to your mindset.

Compare...

"On the other hand [it's claimed, it's alleged, it's reported] there are a number of children who remember past lives of people they are not related to."

...

If anyone wants a good evening dose of religious fiction (cf: science fiction), I recommend Doctor Strange (of the Marvel Studios Universe). Fun stuff and you get a heaping of astral forms, astral dimension, etc etc etc to keep your very open "open mind" busy all night long. Now showing on netflix!!
Bushman

climber
The state of quantum flux
Sep 10, 2018 - 07:31am PT
Eternal Now-ness

Escaped off to Shroomland
a time or a two
with skittle de bop
and a lady I knew

Departed to La La
on queue with my stasis
to a barrel of suds
in a drunken oasis

Absconded to Bongland
with bundles of rope
baked up some brownies
and slept while I toked

Launched off to orbit
the moon and it’s Dark Side
with Lucy and her diamonds
so high in the sky

Rescued by Now-ness
transpiring and how
through death and rebirth here
eternally now

-bushman
09/10/2018
Don Paul

Social climber
Washington DC
Sep 10, 2018 - 10:14am PT



jogill

climber
Colorado
Sep 10, 2018 - 11:27am PT
JL: " This is underscored by Nagel's point that the issue of subjectivity is NOT a causal (cause and effects) matter."


I think John makes some very good points, but apart from endless philosophical ramblings we seem to get nowhere. Experiencing no-thingness appears to go nowhere as well. Science seems the only path forward.
Don Paul

Social climber
Washington DC
Sep 10, 2018 - 11:39am PT
What's it like to be a bat was a famous paper, the bat sees in the dark by sending out squeaks that echo off the cave walls and the bat brain can decode it. So the bat experiences a sonar world.

Getting back on topic (climbing) I had a bat like experience once going through a railroad tunnel in Eldo without a flashlight. It's a long way and totally dark but you can tell how far away from the tunnel walls you are by the echoes of your footsteps.
cintune

climber
Sep 10, 2018 - 12:00pm PT
Artificial synaptic device simulating the function of human brain:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180907110514.htm

What is it like to be a tantalum oxide layer? Just from a "third machine" perspective, of course.
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 10, 2018 - 12:31pm PT
I think John makes some very good points, but apart from endless philosophical ramblings we seem to get nowhere. Experiencing no-thingness appears to go nowhere as well. Science seems the only path forward.


I'd really encourage you to look at a few of McGinn's videos. Philosophy makes progress but it's slow because the questions are so onerous. McGinnn gives a great perspective on this issue in several videos.

My contention is that by "progress," most people mean a linear/causal "explanation." In fact most of the questions per mind are posited so only a mechanistic (however you describe it) answer will do.

There has been great progress made in the investigation of mind (as distinguished from brain), especially in terms of what most intelligent and informed people accept as true, probable or most logically coherent.
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Sep 10, 2018 - 12:34pm PT
This is underscored by Nagel's point that the issue of subjectivity is NOT a causal (cause and effects) matter

If Nagel is right why does 1st person consciousness conk out under general anesthesia or a knock to the brain-case?

Subjectivity is subject to physical influences.

Physics and biology go beyond the cause-and-effect of classical physics. JL keeps missing this point.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Sep 10, 2018 - 12:45pm PT

Does Largo know Erasmus Montanus?
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Sep 10, 2018 - 01:05pm PT
The brain is a cauldron of tricks - mental faculties, aka mind, among them - evolved over tens of millions of years to serve the body genome and its needs. What a great job it does. Look how it fools so many of us!
jogill

climber
Colorado
Sep 10, 2018 - 01:41pm PT
Mind is a wily coyote. Harnessed by discipline it is a magnificent rational tool. But allowed to slip into alternate states it can take you on thrilling rides of fancy!


"Does Largo know Erasmus Montanus?"


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