John Page

I would agree that the calculation is not spatially divisible from the machinethat is performing it. However, a second machine performing the same calculation can be used to show that calculation is spatially divisible from another calculation (even though the numerical result is the same).

Cheers, John

spacer1

mtdew,

I do not disagree with any of your assumptions regarding the mind's relationship to the brain. I was just attacking the OP on its merit without trying to introduce any assumptions.
I also say that the subjective is what makes the mind. Actually, I would say that the brain makes the mind, and would equate the subjective with the mind. The mind is what you are using to say that you can't divide the mind. And, since you only have your mind to judge by (since other minds are only inferred), the claim that the mind can be spatially divisible seems unknowable. To use another stupid analogy, it's like trying to write on the pen you are writing with (which leads to infinite regress).

Luiseach

Ah...I think I agree: because concepts are physical phenomena, then like all physical phenomena, they must be spatially divisible.

Makes sense.

So sharing the meaning of a concept is tantamount to the concept being spatially divisible...

John Page

Very well put. Meaning itself is divisible because it points from the concept/symbol that represents something to the thing itself. An n:1 relationship is thus possible between everyone's idea of the object and the object itself. Example: Frenchmen and the Tour Eiffel.

Sacre Bleu! Jean

spacer1

John and Luiseach,

I disagree that meaning is divisible. I believe it to be replicable; it can be copied. However, like any copy, it is never an exact replica of the original. Memes and all that....

For meaning to be divisible suggests that there is one meaning to be shared amongst everyone, with each person only receiving some fraction of that whole, which excludes others from having your share.

John Page

but nothing is an exact copy otherwise we would be able to tell it apart from the original. I think it the very lack of correspondence in meaning that are the source of intersubjective misunderstandings - can't think of a good example right now (perhaps house made and housemaid?) to show that meanings are divisible - a necessary condition for the misunderstanding to occur.

Cheers, John

Luiseach

An interesting point to make.

I agree that meanings/concepts are replicable (although this doesn't guarantee that shared/copied concepts are identical to one another, as you rightly point out).

However, I think that the idea of a concept/meaning being spatially divisible is perhaps better understood if 'meaning' is considered within the parameters of the physical realities from which it arises, that is, the process of meaning/concept-production that occurs when external reality is processed by our brains/minds.

The concept of 'elephant' is as spatially divisible as is the reality of 'elephant.' We can break the concept of 'elephant' down...its apparent indivisibility masks the fact that it is actually a combination of component parts that have been organised into a seemingly unified whole to represent the factual elephant we perceive...what say you?

So concepts are both replicable and spatially divisible.

spacer1

John,

I already made the point that nothing is an exact copy. Did you mean to say "otherwise we wouldn't be able to tell it apart from the original."?
By "lack of correspondence in meaning," are you referring to the correspondence of our concepts with reality, or are you referring to the correspondence of our concepts amongst each person? I was speaking of the latter. For example, Newton's physics may be said to have correspondence with reality, whereas everybody who has learned (the concepts of) Newton's physics since, assuming this understanding is the same for each person, would allow for correspondence of our concepts among people. Newton's own concept in this case, would be the "original," rather than reality itself (which is what I think you thought I meant).

I would also comment that, assuming I am correct in that meaning is copied not divided, then the inexactness of a replica could just as easily be used to explain intersubjective misunderstandings.

spacer1

Luiseach,
The point has already been made on this thread that ideas/concepts/thoughts/mind do not have any physical extension in space, and so cannot be "spatially" divided. I was careful to omit this term from my last post. Therefore, I disagree that the concept "is as spatially divisible as the reality". You can cut an elephant in half in reality, and you can imagine an elephant being cut in half in your mind. The difference is that when you imagine an elephant being cut in half in your mind, your thought is still whole. You can think of an elephant, and now the same elephant as divided in half, but in both cases the thought giving rise to the elephant remains whole, even though the imagined elephant doesn't. Your mind isn't divided. The content of your mind is.

Luiseach

It is true that this point has been made...but I don't agree with it. Concepts/ideas/thoughts/mind are 'products' of the brain, and part of its function as brain, and so by virtue of being of the brain, are by definition physical phenomena.

The mind is the brain's concept of itself as a unified whole...if the content of the mind is divisible, hence the mind is divisible.

As for the elephant example, I wasn't thinking about the literal image of an elephant being divisible; I was thinking about spatial divisibility in terms of the component parts (sub-concepts?) - trunk, legs, colour, size, trumpeting, etc., etc. - that go into creating the concept of 'elephant.'