John Page

Owleye:

Whatever the mechanism of mind turns out to be, it has to make coherent a changing reality that it increasingly learns about, which includes like changes occuring in the minds of others. Given this assumption, it is difficult to see how models of mind that employ "fixed" concepts could ever explain the dynamics of mind.

Here's an example of how a system employing fixed concepts would have a developmental barrier: Some database software does not allow you to add data elements without constructing a new schema and migrating the data - I think we need a model of mind that accomodates the inclusion of new concepts and updating of existing ones.

Let me try and make my thinking clearer by making some alterations to what you said, changes denoted in bold as follows:

"Thus, in one time frame of reality, an individual's concept of cats might strikeout-> be more abstract be at a greater level of abstraction in the individual's mind than their internal representation of the concept of mammals and at another time frame, it could be the reverse, or possibly that they don't have any particular relationship with each other in terms of levels of abstraction until the individual's mind process makes that 'mental' connection that the concepts are related.

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I think an individual's view of reality is subjective. Given this, I'm trying to propose a mechnism by which intersubjectivity can occur between instances of minds given the dynamic nature of minds and reality.

How can we be taught that lions are cats? See my database example at the beginning of this response.

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Yes, but how do we grasp a concept in the first place and how does it obtain identity? This is what my process of abstraction addresses.

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Experience. I knew about cats before I knew about mammals. I would lay a bet that humanking knew the concept cat before it developed the concept mammal (I don't think this proves anything but if you're an evolutionist...)

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A changeable one that "evolves" to reconcile with the world as experienced.
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The expression "axiomatic concept" is my attempt to clarify my intended meaning within the scope of abstraction theory, the word "concept" is somewhat vague and can be used to represent an idea (as process), a collection of ideas, an abstract of an idea, soemthing invented etc.
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Why? Would you prefer an incoherent theory of mind? Is not truth defined in logic consistently with the theory of logic and number in a way that is internally consistent with math?
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This came from my assertion that mathematical concepts and empirical concepts are concepts and, while they may represent different ways of understanding the world they are both approaches. I am saying that just because they are different approaches with different results doesn't mean they can be implemented under the same process of mind.
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We seem to have a different usage between concept and axiomatic concept. An axiomatic concept neither "organizes" nor "predicates" anything, it merely represents the (our internal, abstract) archetype of something. I don't claim to have any magic wand for "learning" but cannot see any difficulty in the mind synthesizing an axiomatic concept based on experiential data - all that is needed is a means of sensing that quality in question, multiple experiences so comparison can take place and a means of relating these experiences.

(When I suggested the mind "picks out" data, I did not intend that there was some puppet master behind ones mind, I meant that the processes inherent within the mind supported by the causal operation of the brain etc.)
</strong>
(This in relation to what a concept is)
What I'm proposing is an approach that embodies a process for "axiomatic concept" creation and refinement.
(This in context with our discussion about 1:n relationships)
Wait - I was just trying to establish a common understand of the concept 1:n! All that's happening with the genera-species relation is that our mind detects (or has brought to its notice by a teacher) a set of common characterstics to generate an intermediate concept.

All of these concepts and relations exist only in our minds. Let's suppose our mind recognizes instances of dogs, cats and plants. This recognition is done in reference to the concepts of dogs, cats and plants it has built up through experience. Upon reflection our mind might notice characteristics in the concept of dog and cat that are not in the concept of plant. This "noticing process" of mind, which I term comparison/detection could cause the concept "animal" to be generated - this having a 1:n relationship with the concepts of cat and dog. Now, when we experience an instance of cat it is a truism that all (instances of experiences matching the concept of) cats are (instances of etc.) animals.

Cheers!

[ April 13, 2002: Message edited by: John Page ]</p>

John Page

Yes, but how to explain that some are "freer" than others. Are you saying its because they're more random? (Wait, maybe that's true in California.) e.g. explain rocks have no free will but humans do and chimps more than worms.

DRFseven

How would randomness allow will?

[ April 13, 2002: Message edited by: DRFseven ]</p>

Wyrdsmyth

I disagree. I don't think free will and causation are necessarily incompatible concepts. When we talk about our freely made decisions, we often appeal to our 'reasons' -- I don't think we say the only freely made choices we made are the 'random' ones. For example, my choice to invest in a certain company is 'determined' by certain factors, yet it's still up to me. Likewise, If I choose to ask a girl out on a date, I'm doing so freely -- even though I realize the way I feel from my attraction to her is a completely biological, instinctual drive that is essentially 'programmed' into me. If our only genuinely free choices are those made without any reasons or causes behind them -- i.e. only those that are totally 'random' -- then we might as well flip a coin for every single decision we're going to make (like that Batman villain, Two-Face). To me, that's not free will, that's just total chaos -- it's insanity.

Once again, I'm not so sure it is causation that is opposed to free will, but rather what we could call constraint or coercion. I'm not so sure that indeterminism is somehow more compatible with free will than determinism is. If our decisions are fundamentally random, how are they any more 'up to us' in that context than if they are all fundamentally determined? One image is of dice while the other is of clockwork.

[ April 13, 2002: Message edited by: Wyrdsmyth ]</p>

owleye

John....

"Whatever the mechanism of mind turns out to be, it has to make coherent a changing reality that it increasingly learns about, which includes like changes occuring in the minds of others. Given this assumption, it is difficult to see how models of mind that employ "fixed" concepts could ever explain the dynamics of mind."

I had no intention suggesting fixed concepts. I'd been interested in how they are structured (i.e., organized) and the only thing I've heard from you is a theory of abstraction about which I cannot even relate to experience at all.

Let me suppose what I missing is this: What you are saying is that:

1. Concepts conform to reality.
2. Reality changes.
3. Therefore concepts change accordiingly.

Though I suppose this has some merit, I think it is largely wrong. It is rather the other way around. Reality generally conforms to our concepts of it. But I'm not here to offer my theory, only to indicate that there are assumptions that need to be fleshed out and, if possible, supported. As such, I think your theory needs work, particularly because it seems to represent a direct realist's position in which concepts are organized in the same way reality is organized -- somewhat akin to how Aristotle thought of it. Is this how you think of it?

[Snipped some clarifying remarks of yours that I couldn't make out because the editing interfered with what was supposed to be conveyed, but wasn't in my browser. Sorry.]

"I think an individual's view of reality is subjective. Given this, I'm trying to propose a mechnism by which intersubjectivity can occur between instances of minds given the dynamic nature of minds and reality."

This is admirable.

"How can we be taught that lions are cats? See my database example at the beginning of this response."

I'm not sure I saw this. Could you be a more precise.

"Yes, but how do we grasp a concept in the first place and how does it obtain identity? This is what my process of abstraction addresses."

Through a difficult process of analysis leading to definitions, about which I already mentioned: (determining the genus and differentia). This is what Kant says and i think he is right. So far I don't yet understand what your process does.

"Experience. I knew about cats before I knew about mammals. I would lay a bet that humanking knew the concept cat before it developed the concept mammal (I don't think this proves anything but if you're an evolutionist...)"

I agree that the concept of mammal is rather a layered one (using Husserl and Heidegger's terminology) brought to us late in human history through science. But the issue I was trying to raise is that the concept of cat itself
is not privileged by us in so far as limiting us from learning the concept of mammal prior to it. It is an accident of our history that this is how it occurred. For example, we learn the concept of bean prior to learning all the varieties of beans there are. In the same way we could have learned the concept of mammal prior to learning all the variety of mammals there are. Undoubtedly the names we would have attached to them would indicate their different origin, but this in itself would not have significantly changed the organizational structure that we arrange in our mind. In both cases, all cats are mammals, but not all mammals are cats.

"A changeable one that "evolves" to reconcile with the world as experienced."

Which tells me nothing of significance about your use of dependency.

"The expression "axiomatic concept" is my attempt to clarify my intended meaning within the scope of abstraction theory, the word "concept" is somewhat vague and can be used to represent an idea (as process), a collection of ideas, an abstract of an idea, soemthing invented etc."

Vagueness could be a virtue in some contexts, like goals and purposes are in an engineering task. But if you are actually going to derive a theory in which concepts play a role in it, you will need more precision than this. Kant for example identified concepts as rules, which are formal structures which take a certain logical form, some of which are regulative (modal or relational), others constitutive (quantitative or qualitative), the former being dynamic, the latter existential or mathematical.

"Why? Would you prefer an incoherent theory of mind? Is not truth defined in logic consistently with the theory of logic and number in a way that is internally consistent with math?"

I'm losing interest if the term
concept' is appropriated for your purpose such that I no longer am able to recognize it as a concept in my vocabulary. Since a concept is an extremely important word in my mental vocabulary, I fear you we will no longer be able to communicate. I agree that a scientific theory requires coherence and I think it is right for you to focus on it. But not to the exclusion of other needs of a theory, such as the need for precision in the terms being used and a corresponding ability to quantify them, as well as the ability to draw a correspondence between these terms and what they quantify through observation or measurement.

As to the relevance of logic to your point, call me dense but I don't get it.

"This came from my assertion that mathematical concepts and empirical concepts are concepts and, while they may represent different ways of understanding the world they are both approaches. I am saying that just because they are different approaches with different results doesn't mean they can be implemented under the same process of mind."

You are lumping. I am splitting. I suspect what you mean by the "same process" I would consider it two different processes. I split because I think it would be useful. Concepts are so vague in your mind that I would think you would welcome clarification.

"We seem to have a different usage between concept and axiomatic concept. An axiomatic concept neither "organizes" nor "predicates" anything, it merely represents the (our internal, abstract) archetype of something."

This suggests to me that a concept has no function. It is merely a representation of an archetype of something. Perhaps I should be focussing on the archetype. That would be closer to what I have in mind by a concept. Surely the archetype organizes and predicates properties and relations of 'something'. How would we be able to pick out objects in experience without these features?

"I don't claim to have any magic wand for "learning" but cannot see any difficulty in the mind synthesizing an axiomatic concept based on experiential data - all that is needed is a means of sensing that quality in question, multiple experiences so comparison can take place and a means of relating these experiences."

Good luck with this effort. I confess not holding out much hope that you will discover the right path with this approach.


"(When I suggested the mind "picks out" data, I did not intend that there was some puppet master behind ones mind, I meant that the processes inherent within the mind supported by the causal operation of the brain etc.)"

The metaphorical use of 'pick out' intends to reflect the active role of the mind, as opposed to one that is merely receptive. Your theory seems to depend rather heavily on the receptivity of the senses.

"What I'm proposing is an approach that embodies a process for "axiomatic concept" creation and refinement."

Good luck with this.

"Wait - I was just trying to establish a common understand of the concept 1:n! All that's happening with the genera-species relation is that our mind detects (or has brought to its notice by a teacher) a set of common characterstics to generate an intermediate concept."

Could you be more specific here. Note that you seem to agree that a concept is (or includes) a representation of a set of common characteristics (which I suggest are the set of predicates of individuals falling under that concept, thereby organizing our experience of such objects). However, this doesn't yet capture the genera-differentia aspect of concepts.

"All of these concepts and relations exist only in our minds. Let's suppose our mind recognizes instances of dogs, cats and plants. This recognition is done in reference to the concepts of dogs, cats and plants it has built up through experience."

Fair enough.

"Upon reflection our mind might notice characteristics in the concept of dog and cat that are not in the concept of plant."

I doubt that that reflection is necessary for this. I sense that having learned what a dog and cat are, they would already be differentiated from a plant.

"This "noticing process" of mind, which I term comparison/detection could cause the concept "animal" to be generated - this having a 1:n relationship with the concepts of cat and dog."

What you may be referring to is our limited ability to interrogate our own concepts, which I would regard as analysis of concepts -- a process that attempts to determine just what it is that defines what the concept refers to in experience. Such a definition represents a discursive representation of the underlying concept used in discrimination and ordinary language. We get at what we really mean by 'dog' for example. For empirical (as opposed to mathematical) concepts, this defining process never actually succeeds since there are always new experiences that can alter our established definitions. Mathematical concepts, however, are the foundation of it (not its goal), and as such we are in a position to prove or disprove propositions within this context. Reflection allows us to "lift" that concept out of its ordinary use to do the kind of comparing and contrasting you are suggesting above. We are now engaging in theory building. (We can also "copy" theories developed by others (take it on authority) through being taught them, and these can in turn can equally come to tailor all our future experience.)


"Now, when we experience an instance of cat it is a truism that all (instances of experiences matching the concept of) cats are (instances of etc.) animals."

Given this, what does it say about the organization of concepts?

owleye

owleye

First let me concur with those who maintain that randomness is a pre-requisite for freedom (and free will). However, randomness in this context, I think, is properly considered only as a reflection of variability, generally, and does not imply uncaused.

Despite this, there is an argument, put forward by Kant, not so much as a proof, but as a way of understanding how a fully deterministic natural world is compatible with a totally spontaneous (i.e., uncaused) will. He owes this to our ability to separate the theoretical use of reason and its practical use. That is, we can think ourselves free, through reason in its practical employment, and also think ourselves determined by natural forces through reason in its scientific (theoretical) employment. Kant goes further and privileges practical reason over science (as most folks would). Though Kant can admit no theoretical cognition of freedom (in contrast to how science would consider it today -- Kant lived in the clockwork world made famous by Newton), he regards the mere possibility that we can think ourselves free to be sufficient grounds to build an entire moral theory, one that remains as vital today as it did when he introduced the famous Groundwork in 1785.

owleye

NON-theist

I would agree that randomness does not show free will, although it may allow for the possibility of freewill. It certainly does not necessitate it however.

Somehow, I think the reason we think we have freewill is that we are only fully conscious of a few events, perceptions, experiences in our minds. Thus our decisions appear to be coming from "nowhere." During most of our day-to-day experience we are not aware, however, of the complex conditions underlying our choices (i.e. complex social influences, environmental stimuli, <a href="http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/t.quick/autopoiesis.html" target="_blank">autopoietic</a> feedbacks in the nervous system). Although these conditions are too complex to demonstrate the absense of free will in our choices, I see no evidence that they could not fully explain our decisions if we could construct an appropriate model. Thus there is no need to resort to free will.

Even the randomness theory fails: While freewill *could* exist in randomness, there is nothing to suggest that it necessarily does. While randomness certainly has an affect on our decisions, would it be enough to negate the non-randomness involved in our decisions? How much does randomness actually affect our choices in the end? The effect is somewhat limited, which would only allow a *limited* freewill, if it indeed exists. Also, randomness seems to negate freewill, since a will would probably have a pattern to it. Since randomness by definition constitutes a lack of patterns, how can you say that free will exists in it?

On a side note (and BEWARE this may be a little too mystical for some): The philosophy of Buddhism negates the idea of freewill in the traditional sense. Buddhists are directed toward meditation, which reveals that all mental processes are the product of causes and conditions and are not under the control of the individual by any means. Any beginning meditator (I've done it myself) will find that *clearing and focusing the mind* is actually rather difficult. While in meditation, your mind naturally drifts from one thing to the next, even if you consciously try to focus it on something like your breath. Try it yourself. Sit still for a half hour and focus your attention on the feeling of the flow of air our your nostrils. I can guarantee that, even if you set out to focus only on your breath, within a matter of minutes (even seconds!) you'll catch yourself thinking about something else (I usually find myself thinking, "I'm getting bored" or "Is it dinner time yet?") You cannot control your mind. Here's the question: If we really have free will, why can't I will myself to focus my mind only on my breath for just one half hour? It is a very simple task that would seem easy for a free will, but it is indeed very difficult to accomplish. Even those Buddhist "gurus" who can focus their minds for extended periods of time realize that this was only possible through years of training, and conditioning of the mind. Thus it wasn't the product of free will anyway, even for them.

[ April 18, 2002: Message edited by: NON-theist ]</p>

owleye

Non-theist...

"Somehow, I think the reason we think we have freewill is that we are only fully conscious of a few events, perceptions, experiences in our minds."

One difficulty with this statement is that it implies consciousness itself stands apart from the world and has no influence on it. It is (or potentially is) the veritable "impartial observer." It is precisely this feature that makes us think we are free. Indeed, if we were omniscient in this sense we would be even freer than we think we are. We are free because we stand apart.

But it is a mistake, I think, to treat consciousness entirely as having a subject-object relationship with some external world. As Heidegger, especially, has argued at length, we are already thrown into a world. A human being, unlike other things, is 'Being-in-the-world'. Dasien does not sit on the side-lines viewing some world. Heidegger says it is "world-involved" and later, "world-disclosing." By privileging the theoretical, you are missing out on the most important aspect of consciousness -- its pre-reflective mode of existence.

So, it is not that we are missing something that makes us free, it is that we can, at times escape from it, in reflection. Consciousness is, at times, "awakened from its dogmatic slumbers" and this is what allows us to believe that thoughts come from nowhere. Something may have gotten our attention, but this in no way causes the content of the stream of thoughts to issue forth. It is the very feature of reflection that places objects, which heretofore were ready-to-hand, now only present-at-hand. From a state in which we are in-the-world, to a state of having the world present-to-us, is a transition unlike any other. There is no straightforward linkage from cause to effect. Consciousness itself remains the ultimate mystery around which free-will exists.

On how randomness plays a role in free-will, I would correct, if I might, your thinking about this in the following way. Randomness, considered merely in its quality of variability, gives us a way to consider existence itself without having to think of it as a completely rigid and unchanging structure. All things exist, for as long as they exist, in a kind of structural equilibrium of competing forces. The full description of such a structure involves degrees of freedom of its component parts that are constrained by internal and external forces. Objects are free to move in some directions, while prohibited in others (subject to the parameters in which the structure is controlled by the stability of the state of equilibrium it is in).

All this is to say that living things to some extent control their own destiny through the purposeful behavior they exhibit toward their environment. They are not just limp rags blowing in the wind. As with all control systems that deal with random variables, there are limits to its ability to control things. Though this doesn't fully explain free will in humans, it does create a space for randomness and the controls involved in dealing with variability.

owleye