What is "Mind?"

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the Fet

climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
Nov 9, 2018 - 06:52pm PT
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 13, 2018 - 04:20pm PT
"Those who make the Very Large Mistake (of thinking they know enough about the nature of the physical to know that consciousness can’t be physical) tend to split into two groups. Members of the first group remain unshaken in their belief that consciousness exists, and conclude that there must be some sort of nonphysical stuff: They tend to become “dualists.” Members of the second group, passionately committed to the idea that everything is physical, make the most extraordinary move that has ever been made in the history of human thought. They deny the existence of consciousness: They become 'eliminativists.'"

– Galen Strawson, The New York Times

“Consider a visual experience, E, as of a yellow flash. Associated with E in the cortex is a complex of neural structures and events, N, which does admit of spatial description. N occurs, say, an inch from the back of the head; it extends over some specific area of the cortex; it has some kind of configuration or contour; it is composed of spatial parts that aggregate into a structured whole; it exists in three spatial dimensions; it excludes other neural complexes from its spatial location. N is a regular denizen of space, as much as any other physical entity. But E seems not to have any of these spatial characteristics: it is not located at any specific place; it takes up no particular volume of space; it has no shape; it is not made up of spatially distributed parts; it has no spatial dimensionality; it is not solid. Even to ask for its spatial properties is to commit some sort of category mistake, analogous to asking for the spatial properties of numbers.”

– Colin McGuin, (Consciousness and Space)

“Matter is located in space; one can specify precisely where a given tree, let us say, resides. But if one asks where his perception of the tree is located he can expect difficulties. The difficulties increase if he asks how tall his perception of the tree is; not how tall is the tree he sees, but how tall is his seeing of it.”

– Huston Smith, (Forgotten Truth)

“We perceive, by our various sense organs, a variety of material objects laid out in space, taking up certain volumes and separated by certain distances. We thus conceive of these perceptual objects as spatial entities; perception informs us directly of their spatiality. But conscious subjects and their mental states are not in this way perceptual objects. We do not see or hear or smell or touch them, and a fortiori do not perceive them as spatially individuated.(2) This holds both for the first- and third-person perspectives. Since we do not observe our own states of consciousness, nor those of others, we do not apprehend these states as spatial.”

– Colin McGuin, (Consciousness and Space)
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Nov 13, 2018 - 06:57pm PT
The wriggling of a worm finding itself on a hook.
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Nov 13, 2018 - 07:05pm PT
because we do not have access to the subjective experience of perception doesn't mean that there isn't objective description, for instance:

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1593650&msg=3111882#msg3111882

once again, this is using a relatively difficult set of concepts which are far removed from what most of us speculate is the source of our visual perception, and awareness... yet these explanations provide a lot of intuition on how the physical brain creates a physical perception... and taking the architecture to many different scales could be an important clue, not only of consciousness and how it arises but also what a physical definition of life is (see the previously linked article and discussion on criticality in metabolic networks).

MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Nov 13, 2018 - 07:15pm PT
Yes. It isn't an easy matter. There is room for smoke and mirrors as in Largo's quotes.
Jim Clipper

climber
Nov 13, 2018 - 07:20pm PT
retrotake, cheers on your journey to define it.


[Click to View YouTube Video]

edit: couldn't help myself.
...consciousness and how it arises but also what a physical definition of life is...

Life? viruses, prions?

Something gets lost when brain consciousness and life aren't considered carefully when used together, or separately?
WBraun

climber
Nov 13, 2018 - 08:00pm PT
what a physical definition of life is.

There is no such thing ......
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 13, 2018 - 08:07pm PT
yet these explanations provide a lot of intuition on how the physical brain creates a physical perception...





The definition of perception is: the state of being or process of becoming aware of something through the senses.

In my mind, we are talking about two quite different but obviously closely related phenomenon here. The first is the "something" in the quote above. The second is being aware of the something.

The material Ed posted proposes that the objective functioning related to the "something" is in some way the linear/causal agent of the "aware of."

Pinker and many others insist there exists no material explanation of how the material brain can solely create or produce subjective consciousness (the “Hard Problem”)

“The Hard Problem is explaining how subjective experience arises from neural computation. The problem is hard because no one knows what a solution would look like or even if such a question is a genuine scientific problem in the first place. And not surprisingly everyone agrees that the hard problem (if it is a problem) is a mystery.”

– Steven Pinker, (The Mystery of Consciousness, Mind & Body Special Issue of Time Magazine, January 29, 2007)

I disagree with this somewhat because it assumes that a linear/causal (brain happens and mind mechanically arises) "explanation" is out there pending the right quantification, etc.

And there's also the illogical notion that experience itself is a physical event, which to me feels like trying to jam a square peg in a round hole.

As McGinn said, “We perceive, by our various sense organs, a variety of material objects laid out in space, taking up certain volumes and separated by certain distances. We thus conceive of these perceptual objects as spatial entities; perception informs us directly of their spatiality. But conscious subjects and their mental states are not in this way perceptual objects. We do not see or hear or smell or touch them, and a fortiori do not perceive them as spatially individuated."
WBraun

climber
Nov 13, 2018 - 08:11pm PT
the material brain can solely create or produce subjective consciousness

The brain can't do sh!t.

It's the living entity itself (soul) that works thru the brain (gross physical material) and mind (subtle material).
Jim Clipper

climber
Nov 13, 2018 - 08:11pm PT
I really do appreciate you werner. resolute, unchanging, some may say stuck in the past, with anachronistic views. Nah, principles?

Anyway, I don't know why I keep getting this ad on the side of the topo. I think Mouse pointed it out, but it makes me want to buy you a jacket.


Heinous? It may help keep people away. Best!
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Nov 13, 2018 - 08:20pm PT
it's always easy to respond without reading the links... and just haul out the well worn tropes.
Jim Clipper

climber
Nov 13, 2018 - 09:20pm PT
Can't say I'm agnostic. An atheist that sees the undeniable existence of god, gods, and godesses, maybe. At best, I'll sometimes consider my limited perspective.

To deny the function and consequences of non-western, or western religious world views, and only focus on scientific explanations grounds me, but also limits me.

More importantly, it shapes what I might see in others. Humans were human centuries before I was born. Also, humans that don't share the wealth and prosperity that I enjoy, are no less worthy. Unfortunately, western, and more technologically advanced societies haven't always approached development from this perspective.

Maybe, people knew this long before I possibly saw something similar. Some are still principled; still living simply only because of tradition? In my heart, I believe those traditions were founded in truths realized before western scientific systems were created.

tradition vs. trope vs. truth. I don't know. I don't believe I am the first to realize anything. I won't try to reinvent the wheel either. I think my life is richer for the examples, many based in very old cultural practices. Maybe most importantly those examples and traditions are perfect because of their faults. And we change.
Don Paul

Social climber
Washington DC
Nov 14, 2018 - 03:29pm PT
Jim Clipper

climber
Nov 14, 2018 - 05:37pm PT
my last input.

Many the gross materialist fails to see the manifestations of god around them.




Werner loves you anyway.
the Fet

climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
Nov 14, 2018 - 06:37pm PT
There are more than 86 billion neurons in the brain. There are many more neural pathways (these circuits in our brains are pathways built thu learning, not physical changes, so like routes on a wall they aren’t material, they are created in the mind). So it’s not surprising we are in the infancy of understanding the brain. Something like the space shuttle, one of the most complex things ever built, has 2.5 million parts and was designed by many people and it’s nothing compared to the brain. The complexity of the brain is astounding.

And again I’m not sure why conscious awareness has become such an important mysterious phenomenon. Love is a much more basic function of the mind/brain is present in lower animals (many mammals), and reflects the divine as much as awareness IMO, but we’ve seemed to jump right past it to examine awareness, which to me seems like it could more easily be replicated by AI.
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Nov 14, 2018 - 07:26pm PT
There are more than 86 billion neurons in the brain.


I find an estimate that the bee brain has 1 million neurons. Too few for love? How about the divine?

Not a reliable source, but relevant:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/animal-emotions/201304/the-birds-and-the-bees-and-their-brains-size-doesnt-matter

WBraun

climber
Nov 14, 2018 - 08:28pm PT
Again ....

Neurons can't do sh!t without the conscious living entity itself to process those neurons.

The neurons are still there in a person that left that material body (so-called death), but no processing is done because the conscious person within that material body has left.

Modern so-called scientists are always ultimately in poor fund of knowledge .....
WBraun

climber
Nov 14, 2018 - 08:50pm PT
Learn what life is to begin with BEFORE you ask questions.

You are not ever even in the ballpark yet .....
WBraun

climber
Nov 15, 2018 - 04:52pm PT
The difference between gross materialists and the intelligent class is ....

The intelligent class never ever dies.

The gross materialists are dead meat ......
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 15, 2018 - 06:16pm PT
Intriguing stuff from evolutionary psychologist (and other titles) Donald Hoffman.

https://www.ted.com/talks/donald_hoffman_do_we_see_reality_as_it_is/discussion?referrer=playlist-how_your_brain_constructs_real#t-203277
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