Laurentius

language
Baseball has few fans in Europe (if any )
I have no idea what baseball is about. Let's say I watch a game and describe it as accurately as I can for about 15 minutes (the first ones). Well, I'm sure that not many people who are in the same position of mine would really understand much of the game. Is it merely a language problem. No. Well, the way I would express myself is clumsy, but not because of it itself, but because of me not knowing the rules, strategies, and the other elements that make a baseball game. Take a little American kid, and ask him to describe the same 15 minutes; his language is not the one of a professional commentator but he manages to meaningfully give an account of what is happening due to the fact that he knows.

There is no mind without thinking, and there is no thinking without language. So many aspects of reality go hand in hand and though, it would make such a confusing description to say that everything taking place in our consciousness is just language. Moreover, languages have their habits, obscurities, ambiguities, incoherences which the Mind manages to notice and control - as a proof that the Mind cannot be reduced to it.

There are numerous specilized languages and terminologies that can explain what matter does. I don't mind what jargon anyone uses, let them do it. They can attempt to describe the physical activity on the chess board as long as they want - ANY jargon, for EVER. For ever they will fail to justify why the knight's moves should be L-shaped, or a certain move looks surprising, or why one game is more interesting than another, and so on. These are all mental processes caused by a reality that is created by the Mind independently from the physical laws that govern the functioning of the Brain.

cohabitation
It is not a physical cohabitation, but a phylosophical one, which I keep postponing talking about so that I can make real sense. Since I'm one of the fiercest materialist one can come across with (sorry for the apparently futile A3's efforts), I know that physically there's only that incredibely sophisticated structure down there: the Brain. This extremely fortunate material configuration sustains the Mind (okay, a process if you wish), but the Mind then, absolutely independently from any deterministic cause, but still limited in its scope by material conditions, can create a realm that can be made meaningful only through the rules that the psyche grounds on or the ones that the Mind establishes for itself.
AVE

[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: Laurentius ]</p>

Laurentius

to everyone
I am so more expedient than my decency would allow it. Appologies to those that feel I do not cope with my host duties as I should but I did not imagine it would be so demanding. I'll post this and in about 5 hours I'll probably be available again. I hope.

Christopher Lord
As I am a materialist, like you, there is a point infinitezimaly far on the phylosophical horizon where we both meet, so I will always be likely to disappoint you in one way or another, which I'm sorry to have already done, since I cannot be so prompt - there is a permanent struggle between hurrying to post answers and trying not to be as superficial as I have already been.
(I'm working on it.}

Thanx and AVE

Ierrellus

Translation from physical to mental activity, including both laws of physics and logic, has already been proved in transmission of empirical data via machines from the depths of space to the man on the street. It has also been proved by physical media in transmitting empirical data to radio, t.v. and computer. The data received in all cases easily translates to mental content. That it does this suggests an explanation of mentally-receptive data as an identification of itself in physical environments.

The mind is of the brain, not in the brain. It receives data from every cell in an organism with a brain. As such, it may be holographic, as Dr. Pribram suggests. As such, it has reference to data from an evolutionary history. This history, as well as the history of thought, may coincide with the rapid development of the human cortex.

What the human cortexial mind seems to reveal, in its present state of development,is its experience in the translations of genetic evolution. Within this data are all precursors of physics, philosophy and religion. And there is room for much more!

"Consciousness" is an obsolete word in that its constituency is constantly being diminished by findings in neoroscience. A sea slug has a memory! Apes can communicate by sign language! Your cat can show disdain or affection without knowing human beliefs!

For those who see reduction of their dreams and ambitions to some sterile, mechanical process, there is room in physical data to include your love of Bach, your preference for Blake or your belief or disbelief in the existence of God. See: Carl Sagan-THE DRAGONS of EDEN, Julian Jaynes--THE ORIGINS of CONSCIOUSNESS in the BICAMERAL MIND, Gilbert Ryle, Piaget, Paul MacClean, etc.

Thanks for the forum and my time in it,

Ierrellus

P.S. AI does not approximate human understanding in the matter of complexity. The former has no genetic inheritance!

Synaesthesia

Does a tower of blocks supercede the blocks and their interrelationships? Does 5 miles per hour supercede my changing spatial relationship with the earth?

I think the biggest issue here is Laurentius’ mixing of levels. This perhaps the most common misunderstanding of reductionism. Reductionism doesn’t involve merely a study of PARTS, it demands the study of their interrelationships. A very clear example of his confusion is his post on chess:

Laurentius said,
You must understand that we all agree that the physical instantiation of the chess board isn’t what makes chess, chess. There is only one important issue here: The rules. (I will assume that the structure of the playing field is defined in the rules) Whether it is wooden or metal, galaxy sized or simulated on a computer is irrelevant. The one and only thing that we are interested in when it comes to chess are the rules and the rules can be instantiated in a purely physical Von Neumann machine, a computer. No additional laws are added, this is the same old newtonian interaction that we all know so well. This is in no way degrading to the complexity of chess, it goes to show the power of reductionist explanation.

It seems that I am being rather verbose for such a simple issue, but this is really the crux of it all: Computers are “mere” matter. They are an archtype of simple, classical causation. Nothing “hidden up their sleeves” as Dennett likes to put it. The strategic “tensions” exerted by each piece has nothing to do with whether the computer is made of water valves, dominos or neural pathways. They are a consequence of the rules of the game, rules which need be no more than physical stuff obeying nothing other than physical rules. We need no law of nature to explain chess anymore than we need separate laws of nature to explain clouds and galaxies.

Every aspect of our consciousness, from color to motion to emotion, requires the appropriate sub-agency within the brain to function. If various aspects of these agencies are altered or damaged, we see a change in the mind that corresponds to the functional processes in the brain.

The brain is indeed the headquarters of all activities. It is demonstrably made of the same matter that composes non-living things, but configured in a most interesting way. The question is whether there is anything other than the materials of the brain and their organization. This onus lies upon you and this onus has to be met with more than more assertions.

This is simply mistaken. There is no physical (as in physics) difference between non-living matter and living matter. They are totally and utterly identical. Both fall prey to the second law of thermodynamics, indeed one might argue that life is a manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics, a differential tendency for self-reinforcing systems to anneal out of changing energy gradients. Living things take in energy from their surroundings to build themselves, the net entropy still increases inexorably.

This appears to be a formulation of the “computers only do what we tell them to” argument. Certainly, humans provide the prerequisite structure with which computers can operate, but upon reflection, that is the same thing that our genes provide us. Without a doubt we are an extension of our genetic heritage but our genes certainly do not control us or understand us.


Christopher,
The ability of programs to supercede human beings in microdomains has proven to be somewhat deceptive. Due to the vast computational power of computers, we can substitute architecture (the very essence of what makes us human) with brute force methods and superficial heuristics. While in small domains we may have some success, such systems are incapable of dealing with the massive combinatorial explosions involved with the simplest of everyday tasks.

For that, we require intricate systems of self-modification and the ability to quickly integrate knowledge. It’s a wonder that evolution could designoid such a thing in a mere 3.8 billion years.

Regards,
Synaesthesia

Christopher Lord

Synaesthesia,
These 'micro-domains' of AI are similar to 'sub-agents' of a full brain. Evolution no doubt made units of functionality which are 'mere heuristics', but once tied together with other such units and an executive you get a powerful device capable of mindful thought. These units can be thought of as a single unit, and thus become an abstraction for lower-level functionality, increasing the distance from the physical.

And of course computers will need generality, but this is actually a fairly simple problem once you have the pieces.

Adrian Selby

"but what I want to know is how in the world do you think physical laws have determined how each piece should move, kill another, what strategy should be followed etc. What is that particular law that tells us that stale mate should exist? And so on. I think these all make up an order that has relevance only to the Mind and can only be understood, explained and controled by it."

Once some human physical organism decides that, in creating a game known as chess, this piece moves this way, and that piece moves that way, and plays it, and others play it etc. well, the laws that decided it are the laws that decide how ultra complex neural nets work with goal orientation, self reflexively etc. Once the creator(s) of chess define these rules, arbitrarily of course, they don't exist in any cosmic sense, then stalemates, and good and bad games of chess occur.

So no particular law tells us anything, but as long as people choose to move the pieces in certain ways, in order to conform to a set of rules, then they're playing chess, and I haven't invoked a mind yet.

The relevance of all this is to the brain, the mind doesn't exist in my opinion. The brain processes these things, it finds value in it, so it directs its goals towards it, for whatever reasons there are to do with the environment, memory etc.

Adrian

WJ

L, or anyone!

Does anyone happen to know what comprises the will to live? Does 'it' the 'will' reside in the lymbic system where human sentience is provided to other parts of the brain?

And, which part holds primacy; raw sentience from the lymbic brain or the rational/intellectual part of the brain? Or both? Or unknown?

Sorry for the 'chicken or egg', but thought someone here would know.

Thanks,
Walrus

Laurentius

AVE
ground zero
For the materialist, matter is the only stuff the entire universe is made of. There is no anima dwelling in living things, nor is there any soul succeeding the human body after its death. The animists’ and spiritualists’ accounts for the existence and its course appear unsound to the materialist, who sees no reason why a supranaturalist principle should be appealed for when all entities can be virtually described in terms of matter/energy and natural laws. The physical activity of the Brain seems to accurately reflect how people perceive, feel, memorize, recall, dream, think, and so on, so there is no need to presuppose that there should be an immaterial “force” to perform all these, as it is equally superfluous to make use of the same spiritual “engine” populating organisms so that they can carry out merely physical activities such as respiration, digestion, etc. No matter how complex, organisms can be satisfactorily explained as “systems of systems” consisting of organs, tissues, cells, RNA, proteins, molecules, atoms, electrons, photons, waves, twitches.

For the regular materialist, the world is reducible to matter; for me, matter itself is the twitch of the void. Materiality is nothing but a rippling nothingness (a function of ground zero: the vacuum). The more deeply one goes down to the basic units of matter, the vaster the material wastelands one will find between particles within which further abysses stretch in all directions. One day, pondering over the fact that from the largest galaxy to the smallest neutrino, physical entities derive their solidness from force vectors, rapports, tensions and equilibriums, it occurred to me that matter is the state vacuum can inexorably end up into. Blind, random forces had taken their time to lead to the fortunate configuration that was my mind now. If I think that consciousness represents “matter’s highest level of organization, when it gets to reflect itself”, I still make some sense – but if I go further and say that my mind is an instance of the supreme form of organization, when the vacuum/nothingness comes to reflect itself, what sense do I make?

matter
What was matter after all? I ran to the dictionary to make sure: A substance that can stretch, divide, weigh and take form. And it was science that was meant to discover whether or not the nature of matter was the hollowness I had envisioned. If I was to think philosophically, then I should be pondering over the spirit. The Brain and the Mind made the two distinct facets of the same reality, the former being governed by sheer forces, the latter showing infinite freedom in its scope and actions.

And yet I was a materialist. Ontologically, there was only matter. My very idea emerging in the psyche about my own mind was nothing but a physical/chemical reaction in my brain. But if I could reduce the Mind to the Brain, why wasn’t I allowed to reduce matter to nothingness? Because of reasonable doubt? Frail scientific evidence? Everyone has studied this: the atom is divisible, and the particles that make it up are barely visible, wave-like, fluctuant, indeterminable, diffusing, fading. If the Mind was second to the Brain, then Matter was second to Nothingness as well.

Philosophically speaking, there can’t be only one principle: matter. If I were to conceive that studying Man is just an extension of studying Nature, then I would go against Humanism, for, you see, I am a Humanist as much as I am a Materialist. And pure Materialism seems to deny any comprehensive approach of human and spiritual realities.

See you in a few hours for more specific answers.

AVE

[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: Laurentius ]</p>

Synaesthesia

--------------
(The Post was Edited thus
I re-read Laurentius’ post and realized that my original post (which remains unedited below) manifested a misunderstanding of a misunderstanding. I see now that the most important sentence was :

Laurentius,
Here again is the peculiar mixing of levels which characterizes many debates over holism vs. reductionism. When a mind is understanding itself, are atoms understanding themselves? Do the bricks in the Empire State building soar into the heavens or is it that tower as a whole that soars, although it is only constituted of bricks?

Whatever the essence of mind, be it pattern as materialists think or a soul as dualists think, it’s quite clear that our minds do not, indeed cannot, fully understand themselves. Our understanding makes generous use of approximations and analogies in understanding.

It’s impossible for me to understand what’s going on in a race if I am given the changing locations of all the particles in the racetrack. I only want to hear about what’s happening with the cars, the repair crews and so on. Nothing in the racetrack is MORE than atoms and electrons, but the only way I can derive useable information is to chunk groups of matter into functional units with which I can model in my mind what’s going on.
(Thus was edited the Post)
-----------

Nothingness, in the extentional sense, cannot exist by it’s very definition. What could motivate you to even suggest anyone would want to try to “reduce” (and I suspect we are talking past each other with regards to this word) matter and energy to the absence of matter and energy? Matter quite obviously exists. Frail though some of our empirical knowledge may be, I think there can be little informed doubt about this fact.

Your argument is a non-sequiturs. What’s more, materialism does not deny that there is any single approach to all human realities. The workings of our mind being what they are, it appears that there is no such approach and as a matter of fact, it is not desirable to waste our time chasing such clouds. (Desirable, that is, if you want to understand the world) Human understanding is by it’s nature multipartite, not monolithic.

Regards,
Synaesthesia

[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: Synaesthesia ]</p>

Laurentius

Owleye
When I say that the Mind cannot be reduced to the Brain I mean that the Brain is a mere organ, a material structure, whose functioning is carried out according to natural laws and parametres. As a result its functioning can be thus anticipated, since its physical manifestations are limited by the physical order to which it belongs.

The Mind is generated by the Brain, obviously, but the order that rules in its realm fails to observe basic physical laws, such as causality and conservation. There is nothing to lead (in a deterministic manner) to the belief in God, to the idea of God, or to the idea of only one God. Physical and social circumstances serve as a reservoir of motifs, themes and patterns that influence the act of creation taking place in the Mind - however, it is up to the Mind wheter or not one (of the many) source of inspiration is going to be employed, and in what manner. The infinite scope of the Mind's creativity is a guarantee that, at least in this respect (which is defining for human beings) the Mind supersedes the Brain.

The analogy with the solar wind in connection with the earth's magnetic field, the fact that create or produce auroras, may bear a unique suggestivity. The Mind is perhaps the sublimation of complex matter at work. Auroras are not reducible to the same essence the solar wind and magnetic fields consist of (=matter), but they should also make a special medium where new structures would be possible, new in the sense that they should not represent replicas of some physical events, but their emanations, in which the new patterns might evolve on their own.

social systems
Social systems are cultural products. The creation of cultural products defines Man, and they are his response to the physical surroundings. As a result of his being endowed with a Mind, it is typical of Man to generate signs (taken over from the physical world) to which he will asign meanings, to group them and build symbolic realms that only incidentally interesct the natural one.

Ants live in colonies. Wolves form packs. Unicellular living things are said to have led, through long cohabitation, to multicellular ones. Living things, even populations consisting of different species tend to gather and live together in more or less rigid structure if this ensures the most advantageous conditions for their self-preservation and replication.

People spontaneously form communities - in fact, Man must have emerged within the group, and he is defined by it. Man's symbolic propensity has basically an organizing purpose: through symbolic systems physical surroundings make sense and social relationships are regulated - both the physical and social orders thus become predictable and instrumental. As if God really had created it all, everything in the Creation that Man comes in contact with is likely to end up one of his many tools.

The termites' colony and the human social, legal and political organization difer in that the former is entirely instinctive (the termites may almost be said to form one large invariable organism), while the latter comprises many elements of voluntary decision - human communities vary impresively, allow change brought about by either individual or common decision, and - most importantly in relation with the discussion here - their evolutions do not trace physical processes, although their existence is indeed physically recordable.

Still owing answers,
AVE