Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Dec 29, 2015 - 06:33pm PT
|
Ed, I liked everything you just wrote. Nice. Cheers. Happy New Year, too.
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
|
Dec 29, 2015 - 06:56pm PT
|
But WE are a part of nature, Paul. Why "ought"? Because WE care. It's in our makeup. It's in our being. It's in our nature. And because WE have a say.
It's hard to believe you could object to ANY of the points Pinker made in response to Daniel. Did you give it its due?
And if you don't object, what's the beef?
My objection is that saying "we care" or it's "in our makeup" doesn't explain what "it" is. There are other things in our makeup that are quite negative. The question is which do we choose? Science offers nothing to facilitate that choice... mythology, religion do.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Dec 29, 2015 - 08:42pm PT
|
The mind will never be equipoised without God.
The mind will always remain unstable without God.
Modern science says there is no need for God.
And just see the results of their unstable minds and unstable world they've created .....
|
|
rmuir
Social climber
From the Time Before the Rocks Cooled.
|
|
|
Dec 30, 2015 - 06:36am PT
|
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Dec 30, 2015 - 09:50am PT
|
^^^^^^^
Well, the one for Aristotle might be a fair understanding, but the rest, I doubt.
Don’t know Lil Jon.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Dec 31, 2015 - 04:04pm PT
|
Largo has yet to provide anything but a Hollywood script concept for the question title of this thread...
One can read more details, and even see what threads he's tied up in knots about here:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/
But a thought occurred to me while reading that piece that I think is pertinent and ties many observations provided by others, and my own ideas which are admittedly "physicalist."
The thought was: "I'm reading this article and learning about dualism in the philosophy of mind, but when I was 6 years old I had no notion of it, I can recall events from that time, but I am not sure I can recall what I thought about 'mind,' yet I was probably aware then that I had one. Before that I cannot recall anything coherent, and I am not aware that I had a 'mind.' What was it that caused me to find it?"
I was learning about the topic reading the article, which is an attribute we relate to mind, though learning is something more general among animals, and the ability to learn varies in complexity.
Is it not true that I was taught what 'mind' is, and even what 'consciousness' is? That these traits are learned behaviors and not, ultimately, some special property independent of the physical world. This would explain a number of issues and paradoxes, and even explain our "uniqueness" of experience. Ultimately, our very experiences are interpreted in the context of what we are taught about them. What we learn about "mind" is also culture dependent, so it is possible that there are a number of quite different ideas, and not only that, as we learn about those other ideas our understanding of "mind" changes our own mind.
The physical foundation of this would be the ability to learn, which includes all of the issues with memory, sensory perception, etc... the physical parts, and are interpreted by learned behaviors. The complexity of the brain, where much of this learning takes place, enables these set of behaviors to be executed. We sense a certain condition and we respond to that from our learning... training is something we all know about, it is a powerful technique for becoming accomplished at various tasks, why wouldn't it be more general than just physical training... we already know it is as we also train our modes of thought.
And even training in such a way as to be able to learn is not a foreign concept.
So bootstrapping "mind" as something we learn makes a lot of sense, both to explain the developmental aspect of "mind" (we don't have one when we are born), the cultural variations of it, and the physiological affects on it.
The interesting aspect of the article is the complete absence of any non-western perspective, so the entire topic was following the western history of dualism from Aristotle. One wonders what sort of mind Aristotle had... given the differences of western culture from Hellenic Greek culture, but maybe not so different.
One can imagine very different "minds" being trained.
Not only that, but a learning paradigm opens up "mind" to all organisms complex enough to possess trainable behavior. And also, to things that are trainable, but not biological organisms.
|
|
PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
|
|
|
Dec 31, 2015 - 05:02pm PT
|
Thanks Ed.
The trained mind is the constructed mind . The mind can be deconstructed . The deconstructed view is void of likes and dislikes and "I"; it's quite fascinating. It takes a lot of effort to let go of the constructions to become unattached.
Descartes said " I think therefore I am" Zen Master Seung Sahn said "I don't think therefore what?
The constructed view is absolutely necessary for daily tasks but the deconstructed view is necessary to have a complete perspective of your relationship with the moment.
I am only familiar with Asian dualism explanations and will need more time to read the above philosophy article.
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
|
Dec 31, 2015 - 05:08pm PT
|
Is it not true that I was taught what 'mind' is, and even what 'consciousness' is? That these traits are learned behaviors and not, ultimately, some special property independent of the physical world. This would explain a number of issues and paradoxes, and even explain our "uniqueness" of experience. Ultimately, our very experiences are interpreted in the context of what we are taught about them. What we learn about "mind" is also culture dependent, so it is possible that there are a number of quite different ideas, and not only that, as we learn about those other ideas our understanding of "mind" changes our own mind.
No, it's not true. Mind is a product of the brain but the mystery of its separateness is something worthy of much more effort with regard to coming to some sort of understanding. Better luck in the new year with these considerations.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Dec 31, 2015 - 05:57pm PT
|
what was you mind like when you were 2 years old, Paul?
when you were 1 year old?
when you were 10 weeks old?
how did you find your mind?
(queue the Pixies)
The trained mind is the constructed mind .
all mind is constructed
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
|
Dec 31, 2015 - 06:11pm PT
|
all mind is constructed
Really? And what constructs it if not mind? You're running in circles.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Dec 31, 2015 - 06:22pm PT
|
no it's not running in circles,
if you look at something like science, it increases the body of knowledge by an adaptive learning process we usually call "the scientific method," rooted in empiricism but also requiring analysis.
observe your domestic cat mother teach her kittens how to hunt (presuming she knows how to hunt), how did she learn that behavior, both the hunting and the teaching?
these behaviors are obviously adaptive, and are a part of our biological inheritance... more complex brains allow for more complex behaviors...
my argument here is that "mind" is a complex behavior which is learned... part of the lesson is cultural, part of it is "built in"... read "nurture" and "nature."
I don't see it running in circles at all.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Dec 31, 2015 - 07:34pm PT
|
my argument here is that "mind" is a complex behavior which is learned...
Well then you would be adding to what my perspective of what mind is..
So if mind is a behavior then shouldn't you also give credence elsewhere for the ability to choose?
Example; the cat could, or might not know how to hunt..
Maybe the cat decided not to learn how to hunt, or go to physics class.
Or maybe your defaulting to "there is no choice"?
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
I’m posting these comments in this thread instead of the other. Seems more appropriate here.
Moose: Duda and PIS won the elections.
Elections?
You’re complaining about an outcome, not an injustice.
We all have our beliefs about what we think is right and wrong, good and bad, correct and incorrect, appropriate and inappropriate.
Those make you crazy.
Duck: The illusionary energies keep the the modern space men very busy,
Doing nothing .....
An ironic statement. There’s hardly anything that really needs doing. Everything (even a personality as a function) takes care of itself. IT (reality) does you.
I can’t say enough how impactful it is to be in a place (mind, locale) where there is nothing to do, no where to go, and no body to be.
People popularly selling “mindfulness” these days are telling us that we need to be totally engaged, completely committed to what we are doing, really focused on the activity to be here and now. (By the way, if you can, then you can be so much more PRODUCTIVE in your life!) The notion is so ignorant. Sure, the beginning of that kind of experience certainly is oriented to content, to the experience of doing X or Y or Z, but true mindfulness is to let go of the mind, be just a function, see simple and pure awareness where there is no intention, no being, no “I” or “me” involved. There is only awareness, like seeing 250 TVs all on. “Objects” lose substantiality (ala, “emptiness”), and every thing is like a texture or a feeling. An unelaborated awareness of consciousness, as it were, just being without the “me” in the control room.
Instead, our projections claw and hook us, and they divert our attention to “things” that we think are important, right and wrong, etc. Dramas arise.
Happy New Year.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
Ed: Is it not true that I was taught what 'mind' is, and even what 'consciousness' is? That these traits are learned behaviors . . . ?
You propose a conundrum, I think, Ed.
Is there an entity that could learn to learn from nothing? I think that’s called bootstrapping, and it has always presented an impossibility to me. The idea is that one reaches beyond one’s grasp. How does one do that ever?
You could argue, I guess, that it occurs incrementally. Small bits of information accrete and further flesh out a theory or knowledge, but how could that explain reversals, contradictions, discontinuities in understanding? Hegel tried to explain it by positing transcending antitheses, and Ken Wilber said that what gets integrated finally gets transcended . . . but no one that I’m aware of ever explained how either of those show up for us cognitively—other than something magical that arises out of the unconscious (which I see in my own experience behaviorally) or from what Shutt has called, “direct apprehension” (that is, people “just get it.”)
Cognitive scientists argue against the idea that we can learn how to learn broadly without respect to domain (due to the research in expertise). If you care not for keen knowledge (e.g., expertise), then that would tend to force one into an idea of approximate heuristics—which are arguably not real knowledge. Then everything we think we know is just a kludge. (Ha-ha . . . welcome to my world!)
Learning is the biggest bugga boo in cognitive science. Much work was focused on how children learn how to read and use language. In the end, Chomsky said it was an inherent capability of our species, and left it at that. (Viola!)
(BTW, see Michael Polyani about knowledge that one has access to that one don’t know that he or she has access to.)
For a spiritualist such as myself, I’d say that to investigate how learning occurs in a mind, one would have to first find a mind. You and others believe that you have them, but if they are not the brain alone, then what are they . . . and while you’re at it, can you show me one empirically?
Be well,
.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
I don't think it is learning to learn from nothing, rather the organism has a set of traits, which are biological, that provide the possibility of learning something new, as well as incorporating "wired" responses. The architecture of the brain is certainly setup to do this... (I referred to such upthread in a link to a paper or two).
Additionally, there are the ideas coming from various inferencing algorithms implementing Bayes' theorem where the priors are updated as "experience" which seem very similar to the bootstrapping I alluded to...
...but these are speculations based on some algorithmic theory which may or may not be a correct analog. They are offered to demonstrate that "bootstrapping" isn't "impossible," I'm sure that the philosophical musings on the topic are all over the map. The development of "inferencing algorithms" is a major focus of machine learning and has obvious benefits (and obvious pitfalls) for various applications.
So given that, if you take a natural history approach (an empirical approach) you see the long learning period for humans from birth to roughly 5 or 6 years old as an interesting guide. By that time a more than rudimentary knowledge of language develops. Not only that, but a repetition of experiences, which are lessons on a wide variety of important survival factors, occur. Because of the importance of social organization in humans, much of what is learned is interpreting the behavior of other humans. Not only that, but the essential dualism (the separation of "me" from "others") takes place. This dualism doesn't arise from philosophical fundamentals so much as from the fact that my "intention" only directly affects my "acts" and indirectly affects the acts of others. I "intend" to lift my arm and it lifts, if I "intend" to lift the arm of my mother's it does not necessarily lift.
Certainly part of this is how the brain is constituted, but it is also about how we are taught the meaning of our "experiences" by others. It would be strange to assume that the experience of "mind" is any different.
My basic challenge is about the emergence of mind in your own experience... there is a significant period of your life which you may have no coherent "memory" of, and certainly a point when you can definitely say you had an awareness of "mind." That is my experience. How did that happen?
|
|
cintune
climber
Bruce Berry's Econoline Van
|
|
Snowball effect.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
People have no memory of the previous lives either.
They see their past lives as their Karma unfolding.
But modern sciences says "There's no need for the Truth" ....
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
Ed: I don't think it is learning to learn from nothing, rather the organism has a set of traits, which are biological, that provide the possibility of learning something new, . . . .
Er, . . . I think you just pulled a rabbit out of your hat.
According to your writing, a thing has traits, those traits are biological, and they provide a possibility for learning? This sounds a bit like Chomsky: How do we learn language? “Why, we have a special capability.” Viola! It’s a black box.
The problem with all “natural history approaches” that you refer to is that they find a pattern and then fit an explanation to it. 1) It’s always after-the-fact, and 2) events examined have been parsed and bracketed from everything else.
There are innumerable explanations to any pattern, Ed. Even if one predicts the same pattern will hold again as a means to verify the interpretation, that does not mean the interpretation is correct. It simply “fits” better than others.
Secondly, the “thing” that gets parsed and bracketed in reality is a artificial cognitive construction, according to some of us. Without the rest of reality, there would be no such “thing.”
|
|
cintune
climber
Bruce Berry's Econoline Van
|
|
Neural development leads to cognitive development. I guess it's just fun to pretend that there's something intractably mysterious about it all.
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
There are innumerable explanations to any pattern, Ed. Even if one predicts the same pattern will hold again as a means to verify the interpretation, that does not mean the interpretation is correct. It simply “fits” better than others.
You are welcome to use epicycles to compute the trajectory for getting New Horizons to Pluto, Mike.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!