You've helped me clarify the theory I'm presenting, or at least the presentation of it. Thanks. I appreciate your philosophical background, particularly your philosophy of science.
Ted
You wrote:
>I have profound disagreements with the Cartesian idea of minds
>existing separately from bodies.
Same here.
>This is at the root of a lot of my
>problems with both the hopes and aspirations of artificial
>intelligence and the tenets of certain linguists and philosophers
>(Roger Penrose comes to mind, Searle is another) who oppose the entire
>programme of artificial intelligence and cognitive science.
I really like Searle. What do you make of his "Chinese Room" argument?
>> You're saying there are two things--
>> mind and brain-- and the mind is "in" the brain. You cannot escape
>> the Cartesian trap merely by leaving open the possibility that minds
>> don't exist at all.
>> If the mind does not exist, then it's a hallucination. But
hallucinations
>> are a mental property. According to your materialist Cartesianism, this
>> hallucination would presumably be located in the brain.
>
>I'm not entirely sure what a mind is, but I firmly believe that human
>cognition - thinking, feeling, and planning - all take place within
>the confines of the human body.
Does the mind not exist? If it does not, then who's hallucinating it? If it does, then why not assume it has properties, namely mental properties like "thinking, feeling, and planning." (You evaded my argument.)
>A lot of people in the cognitive
>sciences see the mind as some kind of program running on the brain's
>hardware. I am inclined to disagree - I don't think the brain is
>sufficiently abstract in structure to make that work.
How could the brain be abstract in its structure? Isn't its structure material?
>Humans evolved
>to certain bodies and certain environments. Our mental functioning is
>a part of our physical functioning, completely dependent on that
>environment and evolved to meet the needs of survival within it.
No. At 250 KYA (thousand years ago), when a core grammar was in place, consciousness was still exclusively a *social* phenomenon, as it had been since its origins in higher primate evolution. Our toolkit, which was fully established by 1.4 MYA, did not alter during the period that our vocal anatomy and group size began to reflect the presence of language. Consciousness and its offspring had not, in this period, been integrated with day-to-day functions of living, such as toolmaking and exploitation of nature. We don't see any appreciable changes in lifestyle (besides meaningless drift over the millennia) until about 100 KYA, when our ancestors demonstrated improved knowledge of animals, plants, seasons, and geography. Not until 60 KYA is there any sign of improvement in toolmaking, such as specializing weapons and scrapers for particular animals or using bone to make tools or giving them components, etc. The reason such things could finally come into being is that the specialized programs of problem-solving for social, natural, and technical tasks had always been separate. By circa 50 KYA all these domains were integrated into general, abstract intelligence. Language itself had become a domain (out of which mathematics later evolved), and was also integrated into general intelligence under the roof of consciousness. Homo sapiens-- defined by consciousness and language-- evolved into being according to the demands of social interaction, not bodily survival in particular environments. Mental functioning began from social, not survival, pressure. In other words, it's about ego survival, not body survival. But that's just how it orginated. Mental functioning has continued to evolve.
>I don't think people can be separated from their bodies by some sort of
>futuristic brain scanner any more than I think they have some sort of
>existence on a separate plane
>
I'm glad you're not crazy.
>> This is not evidence to support the notion that the mind exists in the
>> brain. Let's take an analogy: If a radio receiver is damaged, then the
>> sound that comes out of the radio will be altered or even eliminated.
>> Does this prove that the signal arises from within the radio itself?
>
>Now comes the "making light" part. Let's take this as a scientific
>hypothesis for a moment. Having already announced an affinity for
>falsificationism, I'm going to throw your hypothesis before Revolutionary
Tribunal of Popperite Scientific Justice and we'll see
>if we have to send it to the firing squad. :^)
>
>Is this hypothesis falsifiable? I would have to answer no.
If you can prove that *any* mental functions exist in the brain, (cognition, will, memory, affect, behavioral habits, etc.) then the hypothesis I'm proposing is false. End of discussion.
>No matter
>what functions we can physically locate in the brain, it is always
>possible to answer that something else is located externally to the
>brain.
>
I am not proposing that mental traits are located external to the brain.
Time is not external to space. If space is *ex*tended, then time is
*in*tended. It's the brain that's external to the mind, for the mind has no
space.
>Is this hypothesis productive (by Popper's definition)? Again, I have
>to answer no.
This doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is falsification.
>Materialist cognition, however, has had a great deal of success in
>increasing our knowledge.
Assuming that the crude notion of "matter" is the whole of mentality has not
helped us discover anything.
>
>Let's take the example of depression. In some cases, perhaps in most,
>we can modify or even eliminate a state of depression through the use
>of certain drugs, which must have a physical impact on a person's
>body, since they are physical in nature.
In my case (Major Depressive Disorder, Recurrent) I was told I would have to take Prozac every day for the rest of my life. I did it for about three weeks. Horrible! For the for first time ever, I couldn't think of anything to say to my therapist or anybody for that matter. It was like I had been soul-exterminated. So I dropped it. Later that month I started exploring things like hypochondria and systemic candidiasis. What finally worked was a diet free of sugar, wheat, and dairy. I'd say "90%" reduction in symptoms.
>It is therefor quite a
>reasonable hyothesis that depression is a physical state. Since
>something as important to human behaviour and thinking as a state of
>depression can be located in our bodies, why should we think that
>other cognitive activities should be outside the brain?
Back to our *analogy*: Change the tuner, get a new station-- yet station not in tuner. Therefore *in all cases* it does not follow from "change matter, change property" that property arises within matter. You must *prove* that mind is in brain.
>Without a reason to think minds exist outside of the body, this is just
>multiplication of entities.
>
No. Nothing is being multiplied. ANALOGY ALERT: Whether or not you
distinguish heads from tails, you still have one coin.
>With radios, we can pick up the transmissions on different receivers
>and measure electro-magnetic variations that accompany certain
>behaviours of the radio. If we have minds that exist outside of the
>physical plane, they must interact with the brain in some way. Yet,
>by definition, this cannot be a purely physical process. It is not
>possible for us to study this activity. On the other hand, if human
>thinking and behaviour is a purely physical process, we can make
>hypotheses about it that are, at least in principle, measurable and
>subject to experimental falsification.
>
Mind is not measurable, no matter where you "locate" it (as if mind could
possess the property of location). Your proposal that the mind is in the
brain is not falsifiable. No matter how long we wait while neuroscientists
try to "find" the mind, you can always say they're just about to set foot on
abstract soil. Like the Second Coming, it's always right around the corner.
>So, I think we need to call in the firing squad on the whole
>mind/brain problem and go back to studying the physical processes of
>cognition.
>
As Chomsky says, there is no problem, because there are no definable terms.
It's not that we understand mind according to matter. It's that we
understand neither.
>> Do we even understand anything at all about time? Do we have any
knowledge
>> of time outside of our experience?
>
>Acutally, we do know a bit about time. We know the arrow of entropy
>only points one way, and that we can, within limits, trade time for
>space. We also know some really freaky things about it through
>quantum mechanics.
>
Do tell!
You're right about the arrow of entropy. We do know exactly one thing about time-- it moves forward. Though entropy is not itself time, it does measure it, and its direction is one-way.
>> The amount of time an event takes is all in our minds. Why should a
>> second last a second?
>
>Well, if several different people can measure the time something
>takes, and get the same results, I'm inclined to think that the
>passage of time is a real thing.
>
What are they measuring? Are they measuring how long a second is? A
minute? An hour? Or do they just measure how many seconds or minutes or
hours are taken by a sequence of events to unfold? Time is subjective. If
you think it's not, then tell me how long a second is. Try to impart this
to me. Give up yet?
>> What exactly is a clock measuring? Looks like space to me.
>(Digital clocks
>> don't measure anything. They just count.)
>
>According to Einstein, space and time form a single continuum,
>however, that hasn't any bearing on this.
Correct. Einstein thought Bergson was attacking his theory of spacetime. Bergson responded that Einstein's theory was about an *abstraction* of time-- a human-invented measurement-- not time itself, and therefore Bergson's work had no bearing on it (and vice versa). Time is not a fourth dimension of space. There is a theory that proposes more than three dimensions-- Superstring Theory-- and there's nothing temporal about dimension 4. There's no equation that demonstrates that space has four dimensions, and that the fourth one is moving (forward). It's just that what happens in space is measured against our abstraction of time. So, as a shorthand we say there's a "continuum." It is meaningless. They cannot be contiguous, since time is absolute and given, and space is relative and contingent (on the expansion of the universe).
Take a look at a barometer.
>What does it measure?
I don't know. What does it measure? (Barometric pressure?) Whatever it is, it's not time.
>> In the objective world, what we
>> have is not time, but sequence. Why not compress all the events of a
>> sequence into an instant? Or why not stretch them all into an eternity?
>> Why does time exist, and why does it exist in the amounts that we find it
>> in? Instead of asking why mentality persists through time, why not ask
why
>> matter *fails* to persist through time.
>
>Order fails to persist in time due to the laws of thermodynamics.
>Matter more or less persists, althogh that's a question of some
>controversy in physics.
>
Aha! This is where you helped me clear up my presentation. Let's look at
my example, the March 20 issue of The Nation. Obviously this is not simply
matter. What I should have said is "material form." Material *form* has no
past or future. It exists only in the present. We can know about its past
only according to material traces it retains in the present. What
disappears when The Nation goes up in flames is not matter but its form.
Lacking memory of its past, it leaves no memory of its present for the
future. This is not the case with mental form. Mental form, such as
language and philosophy and science and music and emotion and imagination,
etc., exist *over* time. They are *nothing* in the present except what
they've carried over from the past. Scott Martens does not exist except
according to what he has thought and experienced over the duration of his
life. Our past is not simply recorded somewhere. *It's what we are.*
Biology is the study of natural memory. The present of the living thing is
always shaped by its past. Despite containing no blueprint of its
operations, (as far as anyone knows) the brain functions correctly (in most
instances). It bases its functions on what it has done before. That is,
it has memory. That is, it has a mind. That is, it *is* a mind, only in
space, while the mind is the brain, only in time. The brain is the current
moment of the mind, and the mind is the brain's ability to shape itself
based on its past activities.
>I am able to impose infomation on a floppy disk. How does this
>process differ from matter having memory?
>
Memory is not a property of matter.
>Actually, I don't think people think that way computers do. However,
>the more important question is why assume a magical process of
>thinking when an algorithmic one will do?
>
Why assume an abstract process instead of a real one? Just because the mind
contains imagination doesn't mean it's imaginary. Just because abstraction
is a product of the intellect doesn't mean the intellect itself is abstract.
It is not abstract. It is actual mental form. Just like actual material
form, only stretched out in time instead of space.
>> Beware of a theory that "doesn't even make sense." It might not make
sense,
>> or then again it might be the harbinger of a paradigm shift.
>
>Now, I'm going to explain why I don't think anything good has come of
>Kuhn. Every idea that's too weird to explain, that makes no
>predicitons and is either unlikely or impossible to falsify dismisses
>it's oppentents by claiming "paradigm shift." Scientists don't work
>this way. To his credit, Kuhn knew that. Things that don't make
>sense still don't make sense, no matter what paradigm you're using.
Exactly. It doesn't make sense to conjoin matter and ideal. Newton's synthesis, which brought us the mechanstic paradigm, is not coherent and has always been wrong.
>Relativity could have been explained to Isaac Newton and he would have
>understood it. Quantum mechanics was devised by people trained in the
>same old Newtonian paradigm. Ideas may be radical and different and
>may draw on new insights, but they still have to be coherent.
>
The paradigm shift means that scientists change their method of
investigation. It used to be strictly a search for the mechanisms
underlying things. Ironically, the unraveling of mechanism began with
Newton himself. He dismissed the aether through contact mechanics occurs
across space, and declared that gravity works at a distance. Mechanism took
another major hit in the early 20th century with quantum "mechanics" and
later with cosmology, which proposes an organic rather than mechanical
origin and development (evolution) of the universe. Next came chaos theory.
Most recently, we have Rupert Sheldrake's natural memory. The pressure for
a paradigm-quake has been building up for three hundred years, so it ought
to be a good one. (Run for you lives.)
>> As a former student of physics, you should be aware of just how "strange"
>> matter has become. It has so many special rules now that maybe the whole
>> thing should be chucked.
>
>And replace it with what? As someone else here said (and I'm going to
>agree with in my next post) We don't just chuck ideas out without
>finding replacements. Actually, I don't see that matter or mentality
>are questionable constructs. They are stranger than one might image,
>but they do still exist.
Of course. But do *they* exist? Still on with that Cartesianism?
>> Body and mind are the same thing (and are therefore irreducible to
>> each other).
>The first part I agree with, after a fashion. I don't think people
>are big meat robots being driven by software running in their brains.
Are you sure your viewpoint doesn't imply that by necessity? What's your alternative?
>The second, however, doesn't follow from the first, or doesn't mean
>much depending on how you look at it. Bodies and minds are both >reducible
to physical phenomena, or rather I think that they are and I
>see little to be gained in thinking otherwise.
>
Physics has no bearing on time. It has no bearing on mental forms, i.e.
self-existent mental properties. And it has no bearing on abstractions,
such as "physics," which exist only in the mind of the beholder.
Furthermore, since bodies don't have to be reduced to physical phenomena,
you're still reducing mind to body.
>I have never heard
>of anyone recovering a memory from the brain of a dead man.
Has anyone recovered a memory from a live one? I'd certainly like to know.
>as a student, I was once required to write a
>neural network program to do optical character recognition. This is a
>surprisingly easy program to write. It had about 100 intermediate
>nodes in total and was trained using a bunch of pictures of numbers.
>It quickly learned how to recognise those numbers. In what sense is
>what this program did different from the brain remembering how to
>recognise numbers on paper?
You're assuming that the brain does those things. That's faith, not science.
>>Isn't an equation ideal and atemporal?
>yes, but the physical phenomena it models may not be ideal or >atemporal;
Are you saying physical phenomena *can* be ideal or atemporal?
Ted Dace