Feather

Jesse:

I think we're talking past each other here.

So let's get the semantics out of the way before I confuse any more of your arguments, and vice versa.

Please define what you mean by the following terms:

mind
body
self
first-person (usual definition: internal to self)
third-person (usual definition: external to self)
qualia
natural world
truth

This will be a good start. Also, please consider my reasoning on this topic as follows:

I define these terms as follows:

truth: the set of all elements that are "true"
universe: the set of all events (in the physics sense of the term event--i.e. the set of n numbers in an n-dimensional manifold describes an event or is the "address" of an event).
reality: The set of all things.

By definition, "truth" and "universe" are both subsets of "reality." It may be that "reality" is completely described by the union of "truth" and "universe" less the intersection of "truth" and "universe."

Also, these definitions lead to three possibilities:

(i) "truth" is a subset of "universe"
(ii) "universe" is a subset of "truth"
(iii) "universe" and "truth" have no common element.

Now, the statement "2+2=4" is an element in "truth." However, "2+2=4" does not describe any event in the n-dimensional manifold that is the universe (indeed, by definition "2+2=4" has no physical meaning), therefore it cannot possibly be true that "truth" is a subset of "universe."

However, the statement "masses gravitate" is conditionally* an element in "truth" BUT ALSO describes several (infinitely many) events in our n-dimensional manifold. Therefore "universe" is conditionally a subset of "truth" (i.e. accurately describing an element in "universe" is conditionally equivalent to describing an elment in "truth").

If I were to frame your proposed "mind/body" problem in these (my) terms, I would say that "mind" has some elements in "universe" and some in "truth" that are not common (i.e. "mind" is a subset of neither category, but has elements of each).

*By conditionally I mean that the statement is true based on observation--future observation may require alteration of the statement; however, the "new" statement will still be an element of "universe" and "truth." The only way to discount a given element of "universe" as being not in "truth" is to assume that observation is irrelevent or illusory--itself a claim that has not been (and I would say cannot be) proven. But you might formulate a different set of axioms that has observation = illusion as one of said axioms. If this is the case, we can go no further, because I believe such a definition is absurd.

Now, no element completely external to "universe" can ever be observed in "universe" by definition. Hence the "truth only" aspects of "mind" that you purport to "exist" are unknowable (this is in the same sense that "2+2=4" is "unknowable" except as an abstraction; a conception that is physically meaningless and not necessarily necessary to describe any given element in "universe"). Therefore the problem, as you put it, is meaningless.

By the way, a solipsist is somebody who doubts that any "external to self" is knowable--and this I do believe fits you perfectly. Descarte attempted a proof of God's existence using the same kind of solipsistic argumentation I think you are going about here.

DISCLAIMER: I have next to zero formal training in logic of any sort; I am a grad. student in physics. The above post probably makes this apparent to elements of both sets, since it is likely to contain a number of errors in both categories. Feel free to pick it apart on your whim.

Corey Hammer

Nope. No one in science doubts that the "mind" arises from the body, specifically the brain, adn that everything we "experience" is actually the firing of brain cells.

How what we call "mind" arises from the organization of neurons in our brain is a big question though. Psychology is trying to create theories about what consciousness does for us. Evolutionary psychology looks at why we have consciousness in the first place. Cognitive neuroanatomists look for the structures that create consciousness. Communication between the three is rare and sometimes antagonistic, especially between radical cognitive neuroanatomists and psychologists.

Corey Hammer

I had to wait until today to post because I was too angry last night.

You are the only person who has said that. You have no evidence that your statement is correct. In addition, you are trying to prove a negative. Therefore, your statement is wrong. You cannot know that science will not settle it. You are the one making an argument and I am refuting it.

If you cannot examine something scientifically, then you cannot use it to examine how the natural world functions. Science attempts to explain why and how the natural world functions, that includes self-awareness/consciousness. Qualia are irrelevant insomuch as they cannot be explained scientifically. You can talk all you want about them but it won't matter one whit because they have no scientific value.

Your whole argument that qualia and "first-person" experience (as vaguely defined by you) is not testable is because you have said that you cannot think of a way to test it. That is an appeal to incredulity.

The mind-body problem exists only in the heads of armchair scientists (based on what you've posted, I would call them psuedoscientists) who don't bother to read anything on the subject in the published scientific literature or do experiments.

My objection to your statements is that they are full of fallacies and are unsupported, not to mention outright refuted by scientific research.

John Galt, Jr.

All,

The mind-body problem, according to one of the many ‘intro’ philosophy texts that I have is described in the following way:

(from DOING PHILOSOPHY: An Introduction to Philosophy through Thought Experiments, by Theodore Schick, Jr. and Lewis Vaughn)

Corey Hammer says that the problem has been resolved (in his first post to this thread). This sounds like the espousal of a mind-brain identity thesis, which is, indeed, one of the kinds of efforts that have been proposed to resolve the problem of how the two phenomena mind and brain can interact (on this view there aren’t two phenomena). The problem is that there is no succesful non-question begging case to be made for this ‘identity thesis’. Moreover, none of the points that Corey mentions here and there in this thread go any way toward showing that the thesis is true.

As I recall, Descartes himself allowed that there was interaction between mind and body, both bodily causes of mental phenomena, and mental causes of bodily phenomena; (It has been a while since I have looked at the ‘Meditations’ but as I recall the sorts of ‘brain injuries-mind impacts’ that Corey refers to were, at least, implicitly acknolwedged by Descartes in Med 6-- my memory may be off here, so if I get a chance I’ll check). The problem is to explain how this can be so, given the (pre-theoretical) radical differences between mental phenomena and brain phenomena) One can say that my beliefs are merely states of my brain, or brain processes, or whatever other physical phenomenon one favors, but this merely rides roughshod over the differences in the properties that are, pre-theoretically, rather obviously different in ways that seem to clearly obstruct any mind-brain identity thesis (this was Descartes observation in the Meditations) . For example, speaking of other mental phenomena, my anxiety can be mild or acute, but physical processes cannot be; my depression can be low-level or deep, but brain states are neither. My worry is not locatable (apart from the loose sense in which it is wherever I am) in space, but physical processes are. And so on...

So, perhaps Corey could explain more clearly the (case for the) solution of the mind-body problem. I might say, that it would be helpful to have the explanation presented here, rather than be told to take an ‘intro’ to psychology course. In fact, I have taken a number of psychology courses. I have several ‘Intro’ psych texts (for example, a recent edition of Psychology by Gleitman, Fridlund, and Reisberg). My spouse is a psychology Professor and has been for twenty years. Through my spouse, I know and have talked to many other Psychology professors at Universities in the Philadelphia area. Neither the texts that I have looked at, nor any of these professors share your view that the ‘mind-body’ problem has been resolved by psychology. Moreover, Hammer’s statement, ‘Mind is a colloqiual (sic) term that had no real meaning in any of the cognitive sciences. It's a shorthand that still used because of its convenience. A more proper term is covert behavior’, is not the view of major figures in psychology/cognitive science at MIT, Yale, Penn, Rutgers, and a in number of other top-rated Ph.D. Psychology programs in the Northeast United States.

But, rather than simply saying that it has or has not been resolved, rather than merely mentioning so-and-so who says that such-and-such, and rather than beating one another over the head with this ‘psych’ text or that one, lets present and evaluate the cases.

Once again, nothing that Hammer has said does anything to show that ‘the mind and body are one’.

John Galt, Jr.

Feather

Well, the author(s) of the book either misunderstand science or are not using the term "material" the same way a scientist would.

It seems to me the latter is the case. He makes the mistake of thinking in terms of particle objects only. I imagine the author might say that an electron is a "material" object while the electric field associated with it is not (which is untrue--electric fields carry energy and momentum, so by his very definition of "material" it is a "material" object). He might also say that a hydrogen atom is a "material" object, but its quantum properties are not (untrue for the same reasons--for example, the reason macroscopic objects are solid is due in part to "degeneracy pressure," which is a measure of a force exerted but is merely the result of a quantum property of fermions).

"Mild" and "acute" merely describe relative valuations of the condition. One might say a jet airliner in transit has an acute case of velocity as compared with a car on the ground below, that only has a mild case of velocity, for example.

Say you locate the specific neurotransmitters responsible for a given case of anxiety. When you say the case is "mild" what you mean is that the neurotransmitters are not as active as they are when you say the case is "acute" (or that whatever the neurotransmitters interact with are interacting more or less actively, or possibly both).
How do you know "worry" isn't locatable? Worry is a state of anxiety. It's caused by neurotransmitters firing somewhere--just like every other observed "thing" the brain "does."

Hardly surprising, since only physiological psychology is a "hard" science.

But let that pass. The mind/body problem is one where people presuppose that mind is somehow separate from body. That is the extraordinary claim. The claim that they are "one" is most ordinary and quite in keeping with every single other scientific observation.

So, while it is not true that:

...it is true that no person on this thread has proposed one piece of evidence that suggests "mind" is somehow separate from body.

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: Feather ]</p>

Corey Hammer

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

John, no offense meant, but you make me want to smack my head against the wall.

You are, in fact, correct. Descartes allows for communcation between the conarium and body to be impaired when the body (i.e., brain) is damaged.

Similarly, the universe was created last Tuesday and made to look very, very old. Let me introduce you to the idea of testability. There is no way to tell a difference between a universe that really is old and one specifically created to look old. Therefore, we make the assumption that what you see is what you get: the universe is old. Apply that to Descartes conarium.

I just did. Brain damage ~= impairments in functioning, therefore the brain creates what we experience as the mind. Assuming a non-material mind that interacts with the brain and is unable to communicate with a damaged brain is an untestable assumption because the total process is still what we would expect if the brain and only the brain creates what we experience as the mind.

So? Please give an operational definition of mind? Tough, isn't it. The best one I've ever heard was covert behavior. Mind is not a proper scientific term; it is merely convenient. Unfortunately, psychology still has a large component of folk science in it. I'm as guilty as everyone else in the field of doing it when I talk.

BTW, what field of psychology does your wife work in?

galiel

Dualists seem to have a problem with, or ignore, insights from general systems theory. Specifically two principles. First, the concept of "emergent properties"--that is, properties of complex systems that are not predictable either by previous, less complex states of that system, nor by analysis of its constituent parts. There are many examples of complex systems that manifest sophisticated behavior that is not inherent in the physical characteristics of its constituents. In fact, there are very few, if any, complex systems that do *not* exhibit some higher level synergetic behavior.

Doug Hofstadtler uses an ant-hill as a brain analogy to great effect. Flocks of birds or traffic are other well-known examples. However, one need not restrict oneself to "purposeful" or even organic systems in order to find examples of complex emergent behavior. A star or even a group of stars do not predict a galaxy--but, despite the unique beauty and complexity of galaxies, their behavior is not inherently "star-ish"--quite similar structures can be created from similarly complex systems with completely different constituent parts.

Nothing in the study of an individual water molecule can lead one to predict a snowflake. Yet the crystaline symmetry exhibited by a snowflake is not inherently "waterish" nor limited only to a combination of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, any more than intelligence need be limited to the particular set of physical components which have evolutionarily developed into the human brain.

A grain of sand, or a bunch of sand grains, do not "contain" "sand-dune-ishness". Nor do they "contain" "avalanche-ness". Nonetheless, if you precipitate a cascade collapse of their structure, you may find yourself neck deep in emergent behavior.

Which brings us to another, relatively newer but no less important concept in systems theory, that of "self-organized criticality". That is, a particular instance of emergent behavior whereby complex systems manifest a boundary behavior, or critical state, that is inherent in its internal dynamics, independent of external control parameters. For example, the slope of a sand pile beyond which an avalanche occurs is dependent on the internal dynamics of the sand dune, independent of the rate at which sand is added to the pile.

Put together, we can arrive at a rational model by which, beyond a certain complexity threshhold along with a particular mapping of internal structure and connectivity, awareness, intelligence and the appearance of "mind" may emerge.

The critical distinction here is that the emergent behavior emerges from the system, not from its infrastructure; that is, from the complexity and nature of the connections between the physical components, not from the physical components themselves.

At least, that is the best I can explain it, as an inquisitive, autodidact layperson without formal training in any of these disciplines. Perhaps someone here can help to put this argument in more concise and precise terms. Or, tear it aparton its merits--but, please, without appeal to authority. I can't compete with anyone here on framed certificates from fancy schools.

Postscript: Reading Erwin Lazlo's "The System's View of the World" in 1972 was one of the events that solidifed my metaphysical naturalist outlook. IMO, *anyone* seeking to understand how life, the universe and everything (including intelligence) can happen without resorting to a supernatural designer or mysterious forces should understand general systems theory.

Corey Hammer

Interesting, but human consciousness is most likely not an emergent property of the brain's complexity. I can dig up a couple of older articles in my files, but basically, they argue that humans canget along fine without consciousness. That raises the question of why there is consciousness if it is only an emergent property. Far more likely, it serves some adaptive purpose. The question is exactly what that purpose is.

galiel

The two are not necessarily incompatible. Hovering at a threshhold, with consciousness emerging in some humans but not others, it might serve the same purpose as a fortuitous mutation; natural selection would take care of the rest. It seems to me that many arguments can be made for significant evolutionary advantages of consciousness. Not necessity, perhaps, but highly favorable to survivability.

abe smith

responding Corey's 10 oct post &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; "that humans can get along fine without consciousness". I consider this assertion (Did you MEAN it?) to be nutty! It links to my night-before -last bathtub thought: that the indisputable real existence of humanbeings whom we label "mentally-(and functionally-) retarded persons" certainly does prove (to my satisfaction) that "mind" is *material/ bodily*. = This disposes of anysort of brain/mind dualism.