What is "Mind?"

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climbski2

Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
Mar 23, 2015 - 09:44am PT

Yet you made a claim in regard to freedom of volition. (aka "free will") clearly a mind-brain mechanics (circuitry) subject... a claim you claim science supports... which it does not.

It does not support it except to say that it is perhaps plausible. Although no direct evidence of such a thing exists.

Uhhg I really have no interest in arguing with you or making a thesis paper here.. We are here haveing an enjoyable speculation regarding the mind
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Mar 23, 2015 - 09:45am PT
How would you recognize free will if you saw it operating?

I think you would need to take a person, give them a choice, and see what happened.

Then you would need to take the same person, put them in the same situation with all physical details exactly the same as in the first instance, and if they made a different choice, that could be free will operating. Or it could be noise. If the person kept making the same choice, that would not be proof that free will does not exist, but it would be a kind of evidence.

In practice I don't believe it is remotely possible to give a person exactly the same choice under exactly the same conditions.


But how would I know? I am still stuck on page 56. Thanks, cintune.
Tvash

climber
Seattle
Mar 23, 2015 - 09:46am PT
Has our neural system evolved robustly enough to take quantum effects into account and still maintain predictable function at the level of the neuron? Evolution would seem to favor a 'yes' answer, but then, evolution is also a 'good enough' kind of process.

I would find it hard to believe that 'free will' would hail solely from quantum mechanical errors, however.

That seems so...random.
climbski2

Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
Mar 23, 2015 - 09:46am PT
MH2

yep thats part of the problem in a nutshell...

TVASH and then we are back to the "ghost in the machine" question either way it seems to me.
Tvash

climber
Seattle
Mar 23, 2015 - 09:47am PT
It truly is a relativistic universe.
WBraun

climber
Mar 23, 2015 - 09:48am PT
I think you would need to take a person, give them a choice, and see what happened.

No

Study your own self ......
feralfae

Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
Mar 23, 2015 - 09:54am PT
I offer this for consideration:


Quantum mechanics explains efficiency of photosynthesis
phys.org › Physics › Quantum Physics
Phys.org
Rating: 4.8 - ‎51 votes
Jan 9, 2014 - Light-gathering macromolecules in plant cells transfer energy by taking advantage of molecular vibrations whose physical descriptions have no equivalents in classical physics, according to the first unambiguous theoretical evidence of quantum effects in photosynthesis published today in the journal Nature ..

feralfae
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Mar 23, 2015 - 09:55am PT
Werner, can't you pause for the cause?

Your posting on the thread is the equivalent of Oprah Winfrey ensconced in a sit harness at the end of a rope... stuck in something of a mangled rappel accident on the side of El Cap... yelling epithets.

Take a moment. Imagine that.

#outofonesdepth
#expertisematters
climbski2

Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
Mar 23, 2015 - 10:10am PT
It's been a while since I dug into this. I got away from a key thing regarding "free will". Clearly if everything in the universe is cause and effect then free will is moot. But even if there is randomness in physical systems that does not mean "free will" It just means randomness which is no more satisfying a conclusion. Although randomness does seem at first glance like an opening for something "more".

The real question is the "ghost in the machine" type question. The only thing that seems like evidence for that is personal experience. The fact that "I" am experiencing something. Feels like strong evidence but is it merely confusing the map for the terrain?

Such a frustrating subject to get anywhere with..uhhg
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Mar 23, 2015 - 10:20am PT
"Such a frustrating subject to get anywhere with..uhhg"

Seems to me you just got somewhere with it - did you not? - in this latest post of yours.

Which is exactly right.

That is the essence of where the science is right now. Under ever growing converging lines of evidence.

Now it's a matter of coming to terms with it. Or not. (Personal choice?) Which is an entirely different issue. It may be too difficult a subject for many at least at this stage (not unlike accepting evolution; we've all been witness to this; let alone in the Middle East under Arabic, imagine that; talk about ughh) - too difficult - leading to a backlash of sorts, or backlashes, incl an anti-science stance (maybe even unconsciously), etc, which we see all over the place even at home in American politics (R) these days and on these threads.

Envision a Ted Cruz or Mike Hucklebee... clearly they get great mileage out of their traditional bible stories and narrative for how the world works and how life works. No doubt, it's awfully appealing on many levels.

It'll be a long time coming before a Cruz or Huckleberry or one of their supporters envisions life in evolutionary physico-chemical cellular neuro terms - in other words mechanistic terms bound by rules, processes, causality. In fact, I think nigh impossible without years and years of hands-on science lab work or its equivalent where the processes and dynamics have a chance to sink into one's psyche or psychology (in this way not unlike pretty much every other subject or field, yes even climbing, that calls on expertise and the so-called 10,000 hrs of experience).

So where the hell does this leave us? Seems to me all over the place. Just as we see.

Coming to terms with out true nature, esp in the aftermath of a long standing institutionalized theology/theism that promised so much else (absolute morality by a Law Giver, eternal life in heaven; a ghost in the machine exempt from earthly constraints if not filth), not so easy.

Coming to terms. Perhaps the "crux of the biscuit" in turning any radically new chapter long term in human civilization?

.....

"All that’s left to do is find a wave that scares you, paddle out into the teeth of the beast, and absolutely soil yourself with fear. It’s like medicine!"

http://www.surfermag.com/features/fear-big-waves-good/#RjQO8xFX8lcepqQe.97
MikeL

Social climber
Seattle, WA
Mar 23, 2015 - 11:12am PT
Ed: First of all, science takes as a basic premise that physical affects have physical causes. That would eliminate a large realm of imaginative possibilities.

As you say, . . . it’s a premise. (HFCS, are you hearing Ed?)

"Randomness" exists, but the particular nature of quantum "randomness" is not at work in the brain, which operates at a very high temperature, meaning the entanglement of quantum states necessary for the "spookiness" to happen is destroyed long before it can happen, by the interaction of those states with the environment.

Yes, perhaps, Ed, the brain . . . but the mind?
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Mar 23, 2015 - 11:15am PT
HFCS, are you hearing Ed? -MikeL

This makes no sense.
Per usual.

Please, go read some science.
Somewhere. Figure it out. Some way.

Tips:

Start with the physics of a cam, camming action.
Start with Archimedes Principle. Start with rust as a chemical reaction.
Start with observing Amoeba or Paramecium in a drop of water under a microscope.

There's a million ways to start. Just do.


Over and out.
MikeL

Social climber
Seattle, WA
Mar 23, 2015 - 11:20am PT
^^^^^^

Do you understand "premise?"
MikeL

Social climber
Seattle, WA
Mar 23, 2015 - 11:31am PT
You’re either woefully ignorant of the premises of scientific investigation, obtuse, misdirecting, or stupid (sorry).

Beneath every formal field of study are all of those assumptions about what time, space, being, human being, things, matter are. Without those, you’re building sandcastles in the air—pure unadulterated imaginative storytelling. You shouldn’t make out that you have ground under your feet other than conventional consensus. I don’t care how smart my colleagues or you are, no one really has anything solid to stand on. Even empiricism is available only through experience.

And you berate religion or myth? Sheesh.
Ward Trotter

Trad climber
Mar 23, 2015 - 11:43am PT
It'll be a long time coming before a Cruz or Huckleberry envisions life in evolutionary physico-chemical cellular neuro terms - in other words mechanistic terms bound by rules, processes, causality. In fact, I think nigh impossible without years and years of hands-on science lab where the processes and dynamics have a chance to sink into one's psyche or psychology (in this way not unlike pretty much every other subject or field that calls on expertise and the so-called 10,000 hrs of experience).

We are talking about political candidates here,whether it be the individuals mentioned above, or Obama marching off to Reverend Wright's church with a bible in his hand. (There is an actual photo of Barack doing just that very thing-- sometime early in his first POTUS campaign-- and now mysteriously difficult to find on the internet)

From time to time it is essential to remind ourselves that science was never designed to be a guiding political philosophy, it is a methodological investigation of the natural world.Period.

Hitherto the only states we have clear evidence of deliberately putting science foremost in its political pretensions and formulations were the Marxist-oriented totalitarian communist states, which all eventually became organically driven personality cults surrounding narcissistic psychopaths.The ruling political gangs in these monolithic states,like their ideological founder Marx, were unabashed atheists, who therefore founded their ideological precepts on what they saw as a materialism based upon causal determinism (for example,historical determinism) inherent in a strictly scientific ordering of human society; and therefore a human society reflecting the natural order.







High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Mar 23, 2015 - 11:56am PT
OMG.

Reading the last couple posts, I'm inclined to want to move to Germany or China. OMG! my inner pramaticist screams....

Then I recall Elon Musk or Francis Crick or Paul Berg or Steve Wozniak or Dean Kamen, or further back, the Wright Brothers or Thomas Edison or Jonas Salk, and I feel good again.

:)


From time to time it is essential to remind ourselves that science was never designed to be a guiding political philosophy, it is a methodological investigation of the natural world

Yes, an investigation that has not only yielded (a) bodies and bodies of knowledge, useful practical knowledge; but (b) together, a modern story or modern narrative for how the world works. (cf: Abrahamic narrative, half of which is primitive, barbaric, or just plain wrong.) A modern narrative - which serves as an unbeatable organizing principle for modern times and its challenges. To which American politics (esp (R)) it seems hasn't a clue.

"Beneath every formal field of study are all of those assumptions..."

Yeah, and thank God they're holding up [i.e, your premises, assumptions, provisionals, whatever] for that airliner at 40k' zipping across the sky over my head right now. lol
Ward Trotter

Trad climber
Mar 23, 2015 - 12:14pm PT
A modern narrative - which works as an unbeatable organizing principle for modern times and its challenges.

Science is nothing of the sort.If it is magically transformed into a generalized "narrative" then someone has to do such organizing.There are no "principles" or precedent for this sort of project-- except those advanced by Marx and carried out by his adherents.Precisely my point.

We know Obama is not part of this scientific narrative because there are pictures of him marching off to Reverend Wright's church with his bible in his hand.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Mar 23, 2015 - 12:17pm PT
Science is nothing of the sort.

Maybe not for you. (If not, I am sorry for you.)

But for me, and for umpteen million others, The Scientific Story (aka The Evolutionary Epic), for instance as rendered by Sagan and Tyson in their Cosmos series, is empowering.

At bottom, it is a narrative of facts. It's got its creation stories, its history and end-time predictions (its eschatology). It's got tons and tons and tons of explanations for just about everything in our umwelt, even beyond. Really, how could the dots be any closer? The mystery here is why so many in the general pop fail to pick up on it - even in the absence of any college chemistry or biology courses.

Ward, how could you watch Cosmos by Sagan or Tyson and not get what I'm saying?

Even if, in the end, this narrative somehow is not for you, you should at least be able to see that there is a narrative there, one based in fact, and that Sagan and Tyson and millions of other including myself employ it, are employing it in their daily lives, without issue, as a basis for their inner operating system, or, in different terms, as basis for their getting on in the world.

Enough said I think.
Ward Trotter

Trad climber
Mar 23, 2015 - 12:25pm PT
which works as an unbeatable organizing principle for modern times and its challenges.

You're right, in that,for me, science does not work on the level implicit in the above.Instead it works as a collection of astounding discoveries and wonderful advances in our understanding of the universe.

I think that what you are saying is that science as an organizing principle for modern times is more of a personal psychological thing for you. Which is fine--up to a point.

At bottom, it is a narrative of facts.

What does the narrative say? For you personally it says something probably relatively benign. For Marx and Lenin it said something else.

(Sagan attended the tail end of a lecture in my astronomy class at the then state of the art planetarium at the college I attended. Unbeknownst to me he entered the dark planetarium and sat in the empty seats directly behind me. When the overhead lights came on and we all arose to leave it was then that I was astounded to behold none other than Carl Sagan seated directly behind me.Later on he gave his scheduled standing room only presentation in the main auditorium--to which we earned class points for attending.Thanks Mr.Sagan...we hardly knew ye)


Ward, how could you watch Cosmos by Sagan or Tyson and not get what I'm saying?

Because I watched those shows in the spirit of entertainment and education and not as an all-inclusive blueprint for life in its totality.





WBraun

climber
Mar 23, 2015 - 12:55pm PT
How modern materialistic science views the human species .....

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