mhc

DRFseven:
Your post is thought-provoking, and convincing. There are counter-examples, though, aren't there? When I have dreams of flying, I know just which weather conditions are conducive to it, just how to take off, steer, land, etc. I know there are specific ways it's done, because if I screw up, I crash. I have even known I was dreaming at such times, and attempted to dictate the laws of dream-world physics ( if you will) to avoid a crash, but I nonetheless remain subject to them. If we look at the different general notions which constitue the elements of any thought, no doubt we cannot but think that which we have some experience of--flight in general, bodily sensations in general--but when this comes together in the context of my dream and in my flight in particular, what experience or memory can I point to?

If your view is correct, how could we ever come up with new solutions? Rifling through memory elements and rearranging them? If so, what then is doing the rifling and arranging? It's way too orderly to be random.

Another point: It seems very dicey to speculate on the very processes which give rise to speculation. Or, to argue the processes which allow argument. It's too pat. Surely, as John Page suggested, a brain probe is called for. Simply saying htat every thought, dream, action, feeling, motivation, sensation, etc. is identical with some brain state is going beyond what science actually knows. I'm not suggesting we stop speculating (as if we could!), but I always feel the need to remind that the question hasn't been decided.

DRFseven

All of them! Every experience makes its ramifications all the way up the neural turnpike. Think of all the associations that are woven in with your existing database (memories) every time you experience something new. Most of these associations exist undetected by your conscious mind, but they get paged, just the same, because they've left their "numbers" with "directory assistance" neurons that wait around for this to occur so they can press the right buttons and let all appropriate parties in on the conference call. The more numbers paged, the more connections made, the more facts in the reportoire, the more chances of a fit, the more "aha!" experiences. In fact, this is how geniuses know so much; they are able to make more connections than average people can make.

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If your view is correct, how could we ever come up with new solutions? Rifling through memory elements and rearranging them? If so, what then is doing the rifling and arranging? It's way too orderly to be random.

The "rifling" occurs because certain chemical codes call forth cell groupings that correspond to that code. It's input automatically according to stimulation.

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Another point: It seems very dicey to speculate on the very processes which give rise to speculation.

As it was very dicey to speculate on the processes of genetic inheritance before genes were discovered? Only in this case, what was once speculation is now being watched through sophisticated brain scans while the subjects are involved in tasks such as decision-making, creating, problem-solving, etc.

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It's too pat. Surely, as John Page suggested, a brain probe is called for.

And probes are what we get, electrodes placed on neurons elicit thoughts seemingly spontaneous thoughts.

mhc

Ok, thanks for the reply. You appear very knowledgeable on the subject.
Now, are you 100% sold on it? Where does it break down, for you?
I'm suspicious of explanations which account for everything. In what ways do you question the explanations which give rise to the conclusion that brain is identical with mind?

John Page

mhc:

I know this was directed at drf, but I feel the need to chime in that I don't think the brain is identical with the mind or vice versa. I think the mind starts where sensory stimuli are processed, this is the commencement of the mind's abstraction process. The brain as the seat of consciousness - now that's a different matter....

Cheers, John

DRFseven

That's just it; it doesn't break down. Everything that is discovered about the thinking process fits into a mechanical model; in fact the more we find out the more unconscious and automatic the process seems to be.

There had to be a way of animal behavior evolving from basic reflexive behavior to behavior that responds according to learning. And, just as in everything else we have ever discovered, it seems to be a physical thing. Of course, we could some day find out, out of the blue, that thinking is spooky, but we don't have a reason to think so now, other than the sort of reasons people give for things they just don't understand (like illness being from spirits and not from physical causes, etc.). People learn facts (right or wrong) from information received from the environment, nobody disputes this. It turns out that this knowledge gets physically incorporated into the nervous system as patterns according to characteristics of that outside environment and how it has acted previously upon the structure of the individual's nervous system.

I don't think the brain is identical with the mind; I think of the mind as the mental artifacts generated as a result of the brain's function. I think of the mechanical process of cognition as either BEING or CAUSING the mental; I don't know which.

mhc

This is puzzling. What is a mental artifact? I assume "mental" means "of the mind". And "artifact" is a created thing?
So, you think brain creates mind?
I can't get what that means. I can see brain BEING mind, but what do you mean by creating? Do you mean mind as an abstract organizing priciple of the subjective experience of brain states?

DRFseven

I mean that the brain seems to create thought out of electro-chemical activity, like it creates pain or sight out of electro-chemical activity. Think about it; what's the difference between an impulse that will eventually create sight and one that will create pain or thought? You hear a loud boom in the distance, look around and see smoke. You think, "Something must have exploded, " and you become more alert. All of these sensations were a result of neurons firing within your nervous system, and served to direct your behavior in some slight or more significant way. In so doing, all the neurons involved in the seeing, hearing, and thinking were modified so that a similar firing pattern in future will elicit a different sensorimotor outcome than that produced by the original "boom/smoke" experience.

To me, the mind might be "created" by the workings of the brain in the sense that heat might be created by molecular movement. Or molecular movement might just BE heat. What do you think?

mhc

I think molecular movement IS heat. Heat is how we naturally percieve molecular movement.
That's the stumper.
How could brain "create" mind? We haven't identified any brain processes or organs we can attribute to "creating mind". I can understand brain being the matrix of mind, but it seems to me that either this particular configuration of neurons firing in this particular sequence IS this thought, or this thought is something else.
It seems unwarranted to say that this particular configuration of neurons firing in this way CREATES this thought, when we have no way to think about what such a creation would be entailed by.
That's the real problem in phil. of mind as I see it. It's in Descartes' discussion of the pineal gland, and in Nagel's "...Bat". THere's no way to think how the material can become mental. Either the mental is the same thing as the processes of brain, or it is something different. If it is that the brain creates mind, then the mutually exclusive qualities of the subjective and objective points of view may prevent us from ever knowing how that could be.
Does that make sense to you?

DRFseven

And I see it as the crux of the "identify" issue. Scientists would agree with you that molecular movement (or molecular kinetic energy) IS heat, just as they would agree that the process of iexternally-generated nformation being transmitted through sensory receivers through the nervous system and on to the visual cortex IS sight. Yet, where is the feeling of heat in the frenetic molecules? Where is the blue of the delphinium in the electrochemical action of the impulses? I don't know. Still, I don't dispute that those processes are responsible for the sensations of heat and sight, and if that is so, why would the neural mechanism of cognition not be regarded as the substrate of thinking? And if you say that molecular kinetic energy is heat, why don't you say that the neural mechanism for the transmission of information is thinking?



But we do! You might enjoy reading this article about computers "reading thoughts" of certain neurons and enabling brain-injured people to execute computer commands by thinking of what they want to do.

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That's the real problem in phil. of mind as I see it. It's in Descartes' discussion of the pineal gland, and in Nagel's "...Bat". THere's no way to think how the material can become mental. Either the mental is the same thing as the processes of brain, or it is something different.

Maybe there's no way, but maybe there is; I don't know, I can't find a way to think about it. But when you say that either they are identical or they are something different, what does the "something different" mean? Not that one is independent of the other, since clearly one DOES depend upon the other.

I suspect that it's not that you dispute the neurobiological research on cognitive process, it's that you are unaware of the details of much of it. Is that the case?

John Page