fwh

John

In rereading my post it seems harsh; didn't mean it to be personal. Progress is a strange thing and we humans need to be open to new ways and processes. Several years back I read "Galileo's Daughter" and was impressed at how difficult it was for this new paradigm to be instituted-opposition of the scholastics and the church, etc.- and was struck by how hard it would be to achieve another such shift. In discussing this with others, I became aware that they were just as close-minded about new "habits" of investigation as the scholastics. Most, or all, feel no new shift is possible. Amazing! It seems we will never learn from history.

Now to your question.Where is heaven to be found? IMO it is to be found in the Mind.

John Page

fwh: Thanks, I didn't take it personally. I agree with you totally about dogma as the enemy of free thought but thought your quote was a non-seq.

OK, so you propose heavan is in the mind. Do you subscribe to the hypothesis that the mind is an abstract phenomenon of the body (most likely supported by brain/nervous system)?

I'm not trying to trick you into stating an absolute. I'm just interested in understanding other's concept of the mind and how we can put this together to explain how and why people can think what they do think.

Cheers, John

fwh

John

you said:
OK, so you propose heavan is in the mind. Do you subscribe to the hypothesis that the mind is an abstract phenomenon of the body (most likely supported by brain/nervous system)?

me:
I do not believe that mind is a product of matter. Rather, I submit our minds are a product of a cosmic intelligence; microcosm emerging from the macrocosm. The implication is that thinking is not personal, not as itself subjective, but a part of a larger extra-personal process. The brain/nervous is supportive of this process.

Let me give you an example of this extra-personal process. We could say that the scientific revolution occurred when it did because of the development of more efficient instruments of observation-Galileo's telescope,etc. Thus the phenomenon themselves were observed more minutely and a more viable alternative to scholastic physics developed. Remember, that Aristotelian dogma stated that all bodies come to rest, unless they are kept in motion by a "mover'.

However, stricter observation with better instruments would most certainly have validated that theory since on earth that is exactly what happens. But by using abstract and geometrizing reason the old theory was done away with. Inertia-bodies moving in a gravity free frictionless vacuum,etc-had never been observed but none-the-less was adopted. Why? You can try to save the appearances with better hypotheses than I just gave. However, I could say, just as well, that this significant revolutionary outlook came about because the concept "rushed upon" them.

owleye

excreationist...

"About the Moon - maybe my problem was that I thought "I can see the Moon" implies "I can see *all* of the Moon" rather than "I can see *some* of the Moon" (we don't see all of it - like the back of it and individual atoms, etc)."

The reason for my calling attention to the idea that we see the moon and not what it is composed of is to determine what it is that you consider to be real. If your position is that both the moon exists and what it is composed of exists, then I can go on to ask whether the moon we see is only an approximation of the moon that exists. Of course, if your point is that we see only part of the moon, and that this represents the approximation of the moon that you were talking about, then I think this is still questionable. If I understand what the word approximation means, I would have to understand that the part that I see of the moon is a sufficiently accurate model (though not exact) of the whole moon that I can use 'approximate' to characterize it. But surely this cannot always be the case. Indeed, as you indicate, I can never see the back side, and more interestingly, the interior is completely blocked off from my sight.

"This is just used to see that the experimental model of their motivational system (desires, etc) is working, e.g. the pain signal from a pin might be -100 and you could tell them to keep on going."

This needs to be clarified. If I have it right, some future theorist will develop a theory which from a given configuration of a person's brain will be able to represent, by a numeric value, a subjective condition. However, the above suggests that you are not developing a theory at all, but in fact merely establishing a correlation between some configuration in the brain and a first person report from the subject. This kind of thing already exists to a certain degree, by virtue of the field of anesthestics, and it may be useful if the subject is not able to report the condition he or she is in. However, it is not likely to be counted on if the subject is able to tell the story themselves. In any case, I don't expect this approach to yield any valuable information about the mind itself.


"It might go down to -50 and you might see that the pain is endured because a pleasure (conforming) outweighs it or a greater possible pain (embarrasment/rejection) outweighs it. It is much more complex than that of course. I think that basically pain is about the compulsion to avoid something."

Well, sure, but what needs explaning is how is it that pain motivates us. Obviously some neural configuration will trigger a neural response, that in turn will cause some action on our part. However, this is hardly different than how a robot acts in accordance with the information it receives. Robots might be able to mimic the pain response, if programmed to do so, but I would not go on to regard the robot as "in pain."

"No, it would involve first-hand experiments but when it is good at predicting things, it would show that the model works. (And you wouldn't need to rely on asking the person first-hand)"

Nothing of what you've "come up with" gives me this slightest reason to think you've taken the philosophical issues surrounding the mind very seriously. Quantifying the mind in the way you've suggested will probably not work because there is no provision for independently gauging subjective accounts. Economic theory and decision theory (following the work of Frank Ramsey) have captured the subjectivity of beliefs and desires quantitatively, through behavior in the face of choices offered, and not through first person accounts. I don't think your ideas stand much of a chance to achieve the same. Moreover, though Donald Davidson would incorporate these theories in his thesis about what is required for thought, there are other components of this theory that are essential to it (semantics and logic). Further, it might be possible to program these requirements into a computer model, but without the ability to perceive, it would fail to have a mind. Perception involves consciousness and it is this feature of the mind that you have not addressed in the least.

"Well we know for sure that the neurons connected to green colour receptors take in information about green, and neurons attached to hairs in the inner(?) ear have pitch information, etc. I think in the future they could work further and further into the brain... maybe not very far, but a bit further then the eyes and ears at least."

Of course our senses receive information and I gather something occurs neuronally whereby we perceive in a certain way what that information tells us. That is, green information is perceived to be green. Unfortunately, you've given no account of the perception of green.

"The Moon is the subatomic particles - we just can't see all of it."

If this is true, we can't see the moon at all. This is because we can't see subatomic particles. To say as you have that we see subatomic particles because our senses receive photons that carry information about the subatomic particles of the moon completely fails to represent what seeing is. it sounds like you want to suggest that our brain sees the sub-atomic particles. This would be a mistake. It may detect or sense the photons that carry information about sub-atomic particles, but it doesn't see them. Sight is somehow a product of what the brain does and, however it does it, what we see is the result of that processing.

I think your theory would make more sense if you denied that what appears to us by sight is real. I should think you would argue that what is real is hidden from us in some way that we cannot determine. On the other hand you may think that some of what we see is real -- i.e., the so-called primary properties -- such as its shape and its extension, and other spatial and temporal properties of what appears to us. However, if only sub-atomic particles exist, it is more difficult to detemine how such spatial and temporal properties manifest themselves.

owleye

John Page

I've met people before who either held or suggested that "mind" is one and not personal. I grant that this might be possible but is unsupported by any measurements of such activity.

I do believe from personal experience that there is communication between bodies/minds that is unexplained, but such instances do not require a unified mind to exist.
First an analogy. If you take two computers with identical hardware and software configurations they will provide you the same result (so long as they are allowed to operate as designed).

To respond to your point, no, I don't think its conincidence that a number of people come up with the same kinds of idea contemporaneously. First there is focus brought about by communication within the human race as to interesting facts/issues etc. Second there is the fact that our brains work in similar fashions so, given the same information it would seem probable that some of us are going to perform the same deduction/induction etc.

When we use the turn of phrase "we are of one mind", I don't think this literally true. I think it represents a situation where our states of mind are very similar and we therefore think/conclude the same things. The consensus, of course, doesn't necessarily make it right.

Cheers, John

owleye

John....

"Again, what does the counting and where is it located (in general)? IYO, is the brain the hardware that humans use to count? If not, what?"

Though I don't think the hardware/software relationship adequately represents the relationship between the mind and the body, I think an understanding of the relationship between hardware and software is very helpful in understanding this relationship. Thus, if my answer to your question about the brain being the hardware humans use to count is that it is, would you care to tackle the question about where software that is involved in counting is located and who or what is doing the counting?

"It seems that much has been learned by looking at the physiology of the brain separate from any issue of the mind. Why the mind first and how do you suggest we try and gain an understanding of it (in order that we may later relate it to the brian)?"

It seems to me that a study of the brain can be helpful for determining the physical, chemical and perhaps biological properties of humans, but I don't yet see in your theory how it can determine mental properties, without already having determined what those mental properties are from first person accounts.

"Then please enlighten me with what you think the mind is, if it is not the abstract notion of what goes on in our brain/body."

I don't know. I don't pretend to know. I have indicated that some have thought it consists of consciousness, intentionality, mental activity, and subjectivity. Consciousness is a mystery to me, though I recognize inner and outer consciousness. Intentionality is probably a manifestation of consciousness. Mental activity (thinking, feeling, desiring, etc.) may be the easiest to comprehend, if we are able to characterize how humans deal with concepts. Subjectivity is also an utter mystery, though I think there is undoubtedly an interesting relationship between phenomenal experience and what it is an experience of. That is, I anticipate that phenomenal experience informationally represents what its information is about, to the extent to which it matters to us.

"Only when you are unclear in stating what you saw, whether you verified it etc. Did this "snake" exist outside you mind?"

I gather I wasn't clear that I saw a snake. My apologies. I had hoped my seeing a coiled rope as a snake would be a common enough experience (or would be similar to another experience -- such as seeing a spider on the wall when in fact it was something that only looked like a spider) that I wouldn't have to spell it out. Verification was never an issue. I think the purpose of bringing it up was to be able to account for errors in perception. With respect to my seeing the snake, it must be clear that the snake was not real, but was a product of my mind, just as any perception is, whether of a real object or not. Though I don't fully understand your theory, I sense that neither the snake nor the coiled rope exists apart from the mind.

"You analogy is not useful, I simply made an existential claim and advanced no theory."

Let me make a different slant on it. Since I asked you what exists in your ontology, I could regard your response so that it is an example of what exists, much as I might expect from someone who doesn't have an explicit theory, but by giving an example would help to communicate the sort of thing he or she has in mind. Unfortunately your response: "ontology exists" reveals nothing about what it might be an example of.

"Furthermore, the fact that you are arguing about my ontology supports my existential claim. Do you claim my ontology does not exist? If so, how is your claim consistent with other ontologies that you claim do exist?"

I was inquiring about your ontology. I think you definitely have one, but I don't know that you have thought about it enough to be able to put it in a frame of reference that I would be able to understand -- e.g., would you be a materialist or an idealist. Would you be a dualist with respect to the mind and body? I was trying to learn more about your theory.

"Very few people can remember from before they were two years old, likely I should have refered to conscious recall (as opposed to subconscious recognition)."

So what. I can't remember what I did three weeks ago. This doesn't mean that I was not conscious three weeks ago.

"I was refering to objective and subjective viewpoints, "subject" and "object" are pretty much synonymous."

This lack of distinction will not be terribly helpful to you since it precludes one of the more important features of what our mind is about. Objects are observed by subjects. Of course you have your own peculiar definitions of everything so I won't try to persuade you othewise.

"No, I maintain there is a "common external reality" through which can relate to each other. Are you suggesting we perceive all things at all times?"

Not at all, I was speculating about your theory. But now that your theory has it that there is a "common external reality, what is it external to? I'd very much like to know this.

"I never said that. If you would refer back to the "reality" page on my web site I comment that underneath that the diagram does not accomodate the concept of time, and this would require another axis."

Again, I was speculating on your position. My comments should make sense in the light of the rather consistent statements you make that truth is subjective. (Of course, now I understand you to be saying that objective and subjective are synonymous. Unfortunately this is not consistent with there being degrees of subjectivity, unless you think that objectivity and subjectivity are directly related (rather than complementarily related, as most folks would hold).

"Am I right in assuming you say it is one's mind that does the "intending"? Again, please describe this notion of mind and how it would do such intending."

Can't say as I know the answer to this. All I know is that all (or almost all) of the mental activities of the mind are intentional (i.e., they are about something -- there are objects about which they are involved. For example, we cannot think without thinking of something. We cannot perceive without perceiving something. Physical things, qua their being physical, do have this property.

"Did I say I had a beef with Kant? I likely have not studied his works as rigorously as you but I believe he ends up concluding that we cannot manufacture (external) reality from reason."

You'll have to forgive me but I have no idea what the above means. One interpretation of this is that you think that Kant argued against God, endowed with the highest powers of reason, could not manufacture reality. If so, I have my doubts. Reason has great powers, though there are limits to it. What you may be thinking of is that Kant argued that there could be no ultimate scientific theory that would be a theory of everything. The existing Theory of Everything notwithstanding, it does not cover consciousness. Interestingly, though science seems to have advanced much farther than Kant would have thought possible, the philosophy of science is probably in a crisis, with major problems existing in all proposed positions about what science is able to accomplish and what it deals with and what makes it succeed, if it indeed it does (among many other questions).

owleye

fwh

John

I'd like to respond to your computer analogy a little later. I believe it is an issue worth pursuing.

you said:
To respond to your point, no, I don't think its conincidence that a number of people come up with the same kinds of idea contemporaneously. First there is focus brought about by communication within the human race as to interesting facts/issues etc. Second there is the fact that our brains work in similar fashions so, given the same information it would seem probable that some of us are going to perform the same deduction/induction etc

me:
It is often argued that the history of ideas is purely a dialectical process. Consensus and synthesis of ideas leading to hypotheses which bring about paradigm shifts. But is that the complete story as to how these "shifts" came about? I would prefer the concept of the "evolution of conciousness" as advocated by Owen Barfield, which requires a different slant; a comparatively slight readjustment in our ways of looking at things like the dialectical process.

It may be said that the historical process of thinking is not purely a dialectical one and that there ARE forces operating below the surface out of view of the literally-trained mind or consciousness of the modern era. Isn't it interesting to read how men are sometimes surprised with the ease and the FORCE with which ideas tending in a certain direction have come to them. It is not uncommon for them to speak(albeit with a certain bewilderment)of certain thoughts being "in the air". This is offered not as proof but rather as way to provoke a different way of seeing the facts as they are laid out for us.

excreationist

owleye:
The reason for my calling attention to the idea that we see the moon and not what it is composed of is to determine what it is that you consider to be real.
I'm saying we can "see" the moon and this is probably real (assuming that we aren't shizophrenic). We can detect the mass which we call the moon with our naked eyes - which we see in fairly low resolution. We detect the surface of this "moon" structure that is facing towards us. The particles that make up with moon structure are real. We don't detect them directly (through telepathy or something) - we detect them through the photons that are reflected by the atoms in the moon's structure. Only some of the photons that were reflected reach our eyes. The photons that hit our eyes are real (assuming this isn't a dream) and the neural firings in our visual cortex, etc, are real. The beliefs we have about the moon exist in our brain although the beliefs themselves may be incorrect. Though I'm saying that we could be hallucinating, I'll just assume that that is a very, very small possibility.

If your position is that both the moon exists and what it is composed of exists, then I can go on to ask whether the moon we see is only an approximation of the moon that exists.
My position is that there is a big group of atoms out in space and humans who have detected this large structure with their eyes have named it "the Moon" (or Luna or something). They haven't detected every particle in it in microscopic detail though, but we know that it is solid (not a gas - partly because we have landed on it) so those undetected atoms would have to be there.

This needs to be clarified. If I have it right, some future theorist will develop a theory which from a given configuration of a person's brain will be able to represent, by a numeric value, a subjective condition. However, the above suggests that you are not developing a theory at all, but in fact merely establishing a correlation between some configuration in the brain and a first person report from the subject...
Yes, this thing isn't a theory in itself... but it could be used to test a theory that the person will do what option has been evaluated to have the highest numerical value.

...However, it is not likely to be counted on if the subject is able to tell the story themselves. In any case, I don't expect this approach to yield any valuable information about the mind itself.
It could be used to test that idea I just mentioned. Also you could see if someone secretly loves or hates something (even if they are trying to hide their body language) - that could be useful for interogation. But anyway, this is really getting off topic I think.

Well, sure, but what needs explaning is how is it that pain motivates us. Obviously some neural configuration will trigger a neural response, that in turn will cause some action on our part. However, this is hardly different than how a robot acts in accordance with the information it receives. Robots might be able to mimic the pain response, if programmed to do so, but I would not go on to regard the robot as "in pain."
I'm saying that the pain signal basically is used by the motivational system to mean "avoid this" and the pleasure signal means "repeat this". This can be used in neural networks. In my applet, I made it learn patterns very fast and with equal intensity. During training I basically gave it the answers and made it get it right. But I could have used a different approach. I could have made it more interactive where if it gives an answer you don't like at all, you could strongly discourage it, and if it is a little wrong, you could encourage it a little and if it is right, you could encourage it a lot. This is kind of how the limbic system works I think. I think it is the main source of encouragement/discouragement for the brain. And also since neural networks are involved, the encouragement/discouragement doesn't have to be totally specific - neural networks can infer things. e.g. if you teach a toddler it is wrong to rip up their red book, and their yellow book, that would probably discourage them from ripping up other coloured books. Another thing about pain in my model is that strong emotions have a high priority within our working memory. They become our main focus. And the stronger the pain gets, the harder it is to inhibit our instinctual reflexes such as screaming and jerking or clenching our muscles. Robots don't have all of those things programmed in. We react to pain signals in a very rapid way - assuming that the signal is intense. This is necessary because it might mean the difference between life and death when we were hunters and gatherers. Robots are very slow at moving.

"No, it would involve first-hand experiments but when it is good at predicting things, it would show that the model works. (And you wouldn't need to rely on asking the person first-hand)"

Nothing of what you've "come up with" gives me this slightest reason to think you've taken the philosophical issues surrounding the mind very seriously.
I've thought this through for years. I put hardly any thought into those experiments I was talking about... I think I had written similar things once or twice before though. Note that I'm typing as I think of the words so maybe that shows sometimes.

Quantifying the mind in the way you've suggested will probably not work because there is no provision for independently gauging subjective accounts.
What do you mean by that? I think different people have different beliefs and experiences. Are you talking about checking to see if people are lying, etc?

Economic theory and decision theory (following the work of Frank Ramsey) have captured the subjectivity of beliefs and desires quantitatively, through behavior in the face of choices offered, and not through first person accounts.
So do you mean you don't like how this is focused on a first-person point of view? Well the ideas I've had on this have been about materialist explanations for consciousness so I've made it as first-person as possible.

Further, it might be possible to program these requirements into a computer model, but without the ability to perceive, it would fail to have a mind. Perception involves consciousness and it is this feature of the mind that you have not addressed in the least.
What about this:
Basically "consciousness" would involve learning enough about how the world works to be at the later stages of cognitive development.

...Unfortunately, you've given no account of the perception of green.
Basically there is an aware system involved (see previous definitions) and during its desire-seeking it processes some of the "green" patterns. From its point of view, it is processing a certain kind of data. In humans, we can associate this with words like "green" and images like grass and leaves and that hue that comes from our eyes whenever we look at certain objects - like frogs, etc. Usually animals just use that experience of green directly... we can call it "green" and retrieve that concept whenever we use that word.

excreationist

owleye:
"The Moon is the subatomic particles - we just can't see all of it."

If this is true, we can't see the moon at all. This is because we can't see subatomic particles.
That's what sight is about though - photons are used to detect things. And I think electron microscopes use electrons to detect things.

To say as you have that we see subatomic particles because our senses receive photons that carry information about the subatomic particles of the moon completely fails to represent what seeing is.
I'm talking about what's involved until the photons hit our retina. Do you think we see using telepathy or something? Anyway, after our retinas detect photons, signals travel through our brain. And then you'd probably wonder how we can "perceive" or be conscious of what is hitting our retinas...

it sounds like you want to suggest that our brain sees the sub-atomic particles. This would be a mistake. It may detect or sense the photons that carry information about sub-atomic particles, but it doesn't see them.
It detects the sub-atomic particles *indirectly*, and it could be said to "see" them.

Sight is somehow a product of what the brain does and, however it does it, what we see is the result of that processing.
Yeah, a brain is involved too. But it initially involves photons hitting our retinas.

I think your theory would make more sense if you denied that what appears to us by sight is real.
And does that mean that what we hear isn't real either? What do you mean by "what appears to us by sight" and "real"?

I should think you would argue that what is real is hidden from us in some way that we cannot determine.
That may be true, but I think it is pointless wasting too much time talking about that.

On the other hand you may think that some of what we see is real -- i.e., the so-called primary properties -- such as its shape and its extension,
Well neural networks can learn and recognize shapes (see that link to that digit learning applet). These patterns exist in the neural network but since I only believe in the physical world (for now), I don't think those patterns (shapes) exist anywhere else. What is "its extension"?

and other spatial and temporal properties of what appears to us. However, if only sub-atomic particles exist, it is more difficult to detemine how such spatial and temporal properties manifest themselves.
Well I believe that space and time exists as well so that would cover the spatial and temporal properties...(?)

John Page

IMO the hardware of the brain performs a process that quantifies the number of entities being perceived (i.e. counts).

I do not subscribe to a theory that the brain works in the same manner as a (conventional?) computer. It could be said that the "software" element of the brain has evolved but this is conjecture - just because there is a (brain)process that has an informational result (motor instructions) doesn't prove there is any software in the computer sense. Furthemore, I do not subscribe to the theory that "god was a software engineer", which would seem to be the consequence of saying software was designed into the brain.

However, the software analogy seems to have use. Clearly the human brain is organized and operates in a particular way. Perhaps like architects using blueprints to show the essential features of a building, we use the notion of software to help map the brain's processing of reality.
I don't pretend that my theory alone breaks the loop of subjective experience. Perhaps, when we can build a (reasonably complete) simulation of a brain and play with its subjective thoughts your objection will disappear. You can take this as pure speculation but I think there is empirical evidence in this direction through the alteration of brain chemistry and individal behavior/though patterns using drugs.

If you want actual proof, of course, that would require subsequent clinical trials on your brain....

...and of course I don't know either, I'm just trying to improve the coherence of my philosophy of mind by reconciling facts/concepts.
What I'm wishing to drive home is that it is the mind/brain that categorizes the sense data - the identification of a "snake" is one that occurs in the brain. Assuming that the snake in the example is perceived through sight then it is a representation of something that exists outside of the mind/brain.

I think part of the confusion here is your insistence on calling something real without making an accurate definition of what is "real". You can imagine things, this is a provable exitential statement and thus an instance of reality. Imaginary things thus participate in reality - what you call real in your response above I term as physical to avoid the confusion.
But you agree that an onotology can exist in your post below!!
If you want further details, please send me an email address so I can send you a file attachment describing it by return.
True - I concede my example was not a good one and my understanding of child psychology too weak to further justify it. Would you say that an object must be conscious in order to count?
I don't think my definition and usage of the words violate dictionary definitions. I'm trying to relate them to reality. What about subjects observing themselves? The reality is we're talking about two objects about which you, the observer, have a subjective view. If you remove yourself from this scenarion you have three objects and you the observer ad nauseum.
It's physical reality excluding the physical entities that comprise the mind.
I said that object and subject were essentially synonymous (see above), not objective and subjective viewpoints. The more information one has, the more objective ones view can be - this is entirely consistent with the reality diagram where the horizontal bar separates the known and unknown. If you attained a theoretical state of "absolute knowledge" you could be absolutely objective.

In summary, I think you're confusing viewpoints and information with entities.
This could seen as a consequence of Kant's thinking but depends on your definition of such Kantian god.

Cheers, John