Leatherankh

First, long time no see. It's been a while since I've been to this forum, and it's good to see it still up and running.

Now, down to business. I am currently reading "A Brief History of Everything" by Ken Wilbur, an American philosopher/psychologist. The big theory that runs throught all of his books is what he calls the Four Quadrants of Evolution, each being, respectively, the development of the internal and external aspects of both individuals and collectives. One interesting point he makes along the way, which I thought I would throw out here just to see what you all thought of it, is that psychology delivers one of the best pieces of evidence against pure materialism. Here's how his reasoning works.

He breaks science up into two very broad catagories. One is Monological (pure empiricist), the other is Dialogical (psychology, sociology and such). He believes that the "hard", monological sciences, while they deliver vital and important information about existance, cannot deliver a complete world view because they can only cover actions, not implications. Also, there is evidence, namely in psychology, that the mind, the psyche of the individual, while it has no simple location that can be pinned down by empiricism, has a direct effect upon the brain, which can be examined empirically.

Basically, his question is this: how can the "talking cure", as Freud called it, have a direct, measureable effect on physiological well being if the mind is just a reflection of the phyisical brain? How can just discussing ones perceptions alter brain chemistry unless the "mind", this thing that has no simple location other than a complex soup of varying chemicals and hormones, is an equally valid aspect of human reality? How can something that has no simple location effect the simple location of something else unless there is more to existance than just the physical?

Food for thought

L

Laurentius

AVE
Hmmm. Ken Wilbur, you say? Well, just by reading your post, I like this guy already. He seems my kind of thinker; I'm going to write his work down.

Obviously, there's more to the mind than just the brain, although there would be no mind without the brain. I would be glad to hear Wilbur's arguments as well.
AVE

excreationist

I think that consciousness involves a few interacting systems like our motivational system and belief system. And I believe that what we are aware of at any given moment is contained in our short-term memory - but for the system to work at all, the other things are also required. I mean you can't just expect a little piece of short-term memory to have consciousness on its own.

That is an interesting question... well I think a similar thing is where young boys *learn* to associate disgust responses with things like "girl's germs" or "pink", etc. This response is initially meant for us spitting out bitter or sour foods.
Anyway, the brain uses a huge amount of energy (maybe 50% or 75% or something) compared to the rest of the body. When it is bothered by something it would use more energy. This could why the immune system suffers when you're worried by things. Placebos just involve you worrying about things less and being calmer. Not being calm involves the heart beat racing and energy would go to the muscles and brain rather than to the immune system. (Just a guess)

As I said, it can stop them from worrying. Fear (expectation of pain) causes our limbic system to generate a "fight or flight" response in our body and brain. And emotions are chemical signals in the brain. By changing their perceptions of the world, they generate different emotional responses - which are chemicals - so the brain chemistry changes.

"Complex soup of chemicals and hormones"! "Soup"!!! It is an organised computational machine with 100 billion neurons that are intricately wired up. The 100 or so chemicals and hormones are just used for communication - to send information around the brain.

Yes, there is a mind - it involves a *functioning* brain, in the same way that windows or computer games involve *functioning* computers. And spaceflight involves *functioning* spacecraft.

A computer game doesn't have a simple location either - it is partly on the hard-drive, and partly in the RAM, and partly in the 3D card, and partly in the CPU, etc.

DRFseven

Because the sensation of memory is caused by (or simply is) an electrochemical cellular change undergone in areas of the brain pertaining to that memory. Stimuli that arise exterior to the brain cause the cascade of cellular changes. Thus we "change our minds."

jpbrooks

I agree. This site is a rarity on the Web.

Wow! You certainly have a good grasp of Wilber's stance. The only thing that I was able to glean from his writings, if I'm not mistaken, was that the boundaries between "mind" and reality are all artificial.


I respect Wilber and find myself agreeing with much of what I think I understand about what he is saying. But he is not always clear about why he holds certain assumptions to be true. For example, he has, to my knowledge, never established that the "mind" even actually exists, much less that it can transcend the brain. He just appears to begin his writings already assuming the actual existence of the "mind".
(But perhaps I'm wrong about this. I haven't read all of his books.)

Is Wilber saying that the so called "Dialogical" sciences can themselves provide a complete view of reality? How can they do so when they exclude the "Monological" sciences?

Again, the materialist can ask why there has to be an actually existing entity that can be called a "mind" at all? Perhaps in psychology we are merely dealing with a network of neural "processes" that is complex enough to respond (bio/electro) chemically to its own "processed" information. There is no apparent need to appeal to an ethereal "mind" to explain how psychological processes can produce physiological ones.

[ March 02, 2002: Message edited by: jpbrooks ]</p>

Francois Tremblay

I'm not sure why the fact that we do not know exactly what the mind is (or isn't) apart from knowing that it is material, somehow refutes materialism. Sounds like an argument from incredulity to me, that goes against the evidence.

The first argument sounds more like an analytic/synthetic fallacy. In short, there is no difference between "actions" and "implications" : they are all part of reality. Likewise, the only gap between physics and psychology is that we've been going pretty effectively at the first for hundreds of years and not the second because the mind is a system of relatively high complexity. Likewise, we did not know about genetics, or any of the things which help a study of the humanities.

excreationist

Maybe the term "mind" could be replaced with "personality" or "identity" or something... (to make it sound less supernatural).

1sec

I agree. However, "personality", say, should not be assimilated to matter, although it is developed on a material canvas.

The inner cohesion and laws of personalityshould be different from those of both the computer and the programs running on it.

Actually, they are.

[ March 03, 2002: Message edited by: 1sec ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Originally posted by Leatherankh:
He breaks science up into two very broad catagories. One is Monological (pure empiricist), the other is Dialogical (psychology, sociology and such). He believes that the "hard", monological sciences, while they deliver vital and important information about existance, cannot deliver a complete world view because they can only cover actions, not implications. Also, there is evidence, namely in psychology, that the mind, the psyche of the individual, while it has no simple location that can be pinned down by empiricism, has a direct effect upon the brain, which can be examined empirically.

The location of the mind has been pinned down. It is in the brain. No "mind" activity is known from anywhere outside the brain.

Basically, his question is this: how can the "talking cure", as Freud called it, have a direct, measureable effect on physiological well being if the mind is just a reflection of the phyisical brain?

I agree. How can food and commands have a direct effect on my dog, causing him to sit? Strong evidence that my dog is connected to the Cosmic Oneness. Is there any argument on this issue that is NOT an argument from incredulity?

How can just discussing ones perceptions alter brain chemistry unless the "mind", this thing that has no simple location other than a complex soup of varying chemicals and hormones, is an equally valid aspect of human reality?

How can pressing the accelerator alter the speed of my vehicle, when acceleration has no simple location in my car?

Short answer: "mind," like "engine," is shorthand for a huge collection of processes that occur concurrently, and depend on each other and external processes for proper functioning. Your author is just snowing you with verbal games.

How can something that has no simple location effect the simple location of something else unless there is more to existance than just the physical?

Unless, of course, it has a complex location. Like in the brain, for example. As any neuroscientist will tell you, processing activity generally takes place in several locations at once. The brain's processing mechanisms seem to be distributed, parallel, and modular.

Instead of reading pop psychology writers, why don't you read Deacon's The Symbolic Species or Pinker's The Language Instinct, both excellent and different (indeed, somewhat opposed) introductions to some of the problems of mind-brain interactions. Those might be good starters on an interesting topic that is much deeper than the treatment your author gives.

Michael

jpbrooks

Hello again, folks.

Sorry for my late reply. (I do most of my reading on the weekends.)

But are the terms "personality" and "identity" really synonymous with the term "mind"? If "personality" and "identity" are held to be characteristics of individuals, it is difficult to see how they could be synonymous. For instance, the "mind" (unlike the "identity" or "personality" of an individual) is held to have thoughts and experiences.
If the terms in question are held to be synonymous with "individual", then the problem above is avoided. But then the "mind" could not be a distinct (nonphysical but natural) "entity".

So, the problem does seem to center on the definition of "mind".

[ March 03, 2002: Message edited by: jpbrooks ]</p>