Do minds exist?

[Speakpigeon]

You write; "What we do can't be explained by the idea we know what we do."

I reply: We're evolved social beings. My position is being evolved there may some 'knowing' of the physical world built in to us.

Maybe you're right and there is a knowledge capability or even brute knowledge of facts somehow wired into our brains or learnt through experience of the world. The difficulty there is that, personally, I don't know that. I also believe that other people also don't know that, at least based on my interpretation of what they say and what they do. As I say elsewhere I don't have a concept of knowledge. Others says they do. So it's for them to show that it works and they have failed so far.

It is not written we need have mind in which resides consciousness determining purpose to know. Paraphrasing "I exist I know" might work.

Possibly and then you need to show how it works. But at least make sure you don't come to equate knowledge with some kind of belief.
EB

 

[untermensche]

so what is the experience?
really...

I suspect the experience is somewhat similar but mostly very different from one person to another.

People are similar in language (some people), but different in outlook.

But all we have access to is the experience of our own minds.

But again, it is impossible to experience something that does not exist. This cannot be refuted.

 

[Speakpigeon]

The trick comes in the articulating in sentences. Do we 'know' what we know because we say we do? Seems to me knowing is much more than that. So back to the necessity of mind and consciousness for 'knowing'. The cat seems to know how to catch a mouse. Of course it may be just learning and memory that actually provide that skill. If one observes them from kittens forward one sees behaviors emerging before identifying, catching, suggesting they are more or less wired to catch small rodents - mouse is just a place holder for that - begging the question whether it is what they know being imprinted into the mind and consciousness or is new behavior being learned. Cart, horse, maybe scenario, even paradigm, are potentially turned upside down when one looks at predisposition versus learning.

Since the cat can be tricked into believing it is catching a mouse when it isn't it's wrong to assume it knows it is catching a mouse even when it does. If the cat knew it wasn't a mouse it wouldn't waste its store of energy trying to catch it. Instead, cat try to catch anything that seems to moves like a mouse and looks like a mouse. The frog will try to catch anything that makes a black dot on its retina. No knowledge there, just blind mechanisms with sufficient probabilities of success. Why would that not be enough? Why this insistance that there is some knowledge involved?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

I don't know man. Do you have a specific brain in mind?

And I won't give you points for doing the smart ass!
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Why do you think something has to be explained to know it exists?

Why don't you try to prove that. Prove that we must fully explain something before we can know it exists.

Excellent point!
EB

 

[fromderinside]

.... The frog will try to catch anything that makes a black dot on its retina. No knowledge there, just blind mechanisms with sufficient probabilities of success. Why would that not be enough? Why this insistance that there is some knowledge involved?
EB

Without knowledge evolution would have produced things quite different from what they are now. For instant the dot the frog has on its retina must be moving else the frog will ignore it. Imagine the number of just so's that need be lined up to produce frogs selecting only moving targets. Evolution is a relatively simple paradigm. Anything that makes one better than another at reproducing eventually dominates. Since we are metabolic machines anything that produces more success in satisfying one's metabolic demands becomes a candidate for successful reproduction. The one that is best at that wins the metabolism supply race.

There are a lot of races competing for the honor of being most successful. We live in a material world. At present it appears the material world is governed by physical laws. A demonstrable trend exists in all evolved facilities toward optimum physical solutions. Inductive evidence for existence of knowledge in living things.

 

[Speakpigeon]

That is nonsense.

You don't see anything different either way.

You still see the sun setting when you know it is the earth turning.

Yes. I havent said anything against that. It is the interpretation of what you see that differ.

The concept of "mind" is an interpretation of what you experience and as any interpretation it can be mistaken.

You are talking about the concept of the objective mind, i.e. the kind of mind that can be studied by scientists. UM is talking about something else altogether which is the mind as what we experience subjectively. It's just a sorry fact that we came to use the same word for these two very different things. This is of course because we tend to believe that the two things are closely related and that maybe one is caused by the other or some such. Something we've failed to prove so far. Personally, I have no problem with the exitence of either. The only real problem is the realation that they may have and you could say that they obviously have. We can easily unroll explanations as to the objective mind, for example how it's a process of the brain and so on. We can't provide any explanation for the existence of the mind as what we subjectivey experience but UM is right, we don't need any explanation because we know it exists because we experience it. Maybe it will be explained but it isn't yet. All that UM can do is report his experience. You're free to not believe what he says but it's indeed childish to insist that he himself doesn't know what he is talking about. You don't know does not imply he doesn't.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

.... The frog will try to catch anything that makes a black dot on its retina. No knowledge there, just blind mechanisms with sufficient probabilities of success. Why would that not be enough? Why this insistance that there is some knowledge involved?
EB

Without knowledge evolution would have produced things quite different from what they are now. For instant the dot the frog has on its retina must be moving else the frog will ignore it. Imagine the number of just so's that need be lined up to produce frogs selecting only moving targets. Evolution is a relatively simple paradigm. Anything that makes one better than another at reproducing eventually dominates. Since we are metabolic machines anything that produces more success in satisfying one's metabolic demands becomes a candidate for successful reproduction. The one that is best at that wins the metabolism supply race.

There are a lot of races competing for the honor of being most successful. We live in a material world. At present it appears the material world is governed by physical laws. A demonstrable trend exists in all evolved facilities toward optimum physical solutions. Inductive evidence for existence of knowledge in living things.

I agree with all that except that the notion of knowledge you stick in here is just completely redundant (unless you wanted to say that bateria and viruses know what they are doing which makes the claim vacuous). I doubt very much that the theory of evolution requires the concept of knowledge. Belief associated to a mechanism with a sufficient success rate is good enough.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Yes. I havent said anything against that. It is the interpretation of what you see that differ.

The concept of "mind" is an interpretation of what you experience and as any interpretation it can be mistaken.

You are talking about the concept of the objective mind, i.e. the kind of mind that can be studied by scientists. UM is talking about something else altogether which is the mind as what we experience subjectively. It's just a sorry fact that we came to use the same word for these two very different things. This is of course because we tend to believe that the two things are closely related and that maybe one is caused by the other or some such. Something we've failed to prove so far. Personally, I have no problem with the exitence of either. The only real problem is the realation that they may have and you could say that they obviously have. We can easily unroll explanations as to the objective mind, for example how it's a process of the brain and so on. We can't provide any explanation for the existence of the mind as what we subjectivey experience but UM is right, we don't need any explanation because we know it exists because we experience it. Maybe it will be explained but it isn't yet. All that UM can do is report his experience. You're free to not believe what he says but it's indeed childish to insist that he himself doesn't know what he is talking about. You don't know does not imply he doesn't.
EB

Even the discussion of subjective mind is pointless. Anything that can universally be fooled into knowing a rod is passing through a window cannot be trusted for anything. If there is purpose and I believe there is none it cannot be proved. On the the other hand an objective mind built by a verification laden method has utility even in the moment. First such will warn you that the rod is not passing through the window so you need not fear the world will slip away in the next moment.

Really the debate is at an end. The subjective mind has already been shown to be working after the fact much further than would an objective mind. Even calling it a mind rather than an articulated recent memory is wasted breath.

Rather than dress something up in fancy reasoning which can't be falsified we should let ourselves act without reservation or reason. Save reason for tackling problems of meaning for living. Not fanciful things is there truth, rather concrete material things like is there a preferred action.

 

[untermensche]

...Even the discussion of subjective mind is pointless. Anything that can universally be fooled into knowing a rod is passing through a window cannot be trusted for anything....

Descartes dispelled this a long time ago.

Even if every thought, sensation, perception, experience is a lie.

The mind is still that thing being lied to.

 

[Juma]

...Even the discussion of subjective mind is pointless. Anything that can universally be fooled into knowing a rod is passing through a window cannot be trusted for anything....

Descartes dispelled this a long time ago.

Even if every thought, sensation, perception, experience is a lie.

The mind is still that thing being lied to.

Is it? Isnt the mind the thing that lies?

 

[George S]

Descartes dispelled this a long time ago.

Even if every thought, sensation, perception, experience is a lie.

The mind is still that thing being lied to.

Is it? Isnt the mind the thing that lies?

Sometimes it lies to itself. It is good at forgetting, too.

Self-reference is the essence here. If all experience is to be doubted, still the doubter is left. There is a self that is more than just mind for that mind to recognize as myself. There is something like it to be me in a way a movie of me is not. Nagel asks in his essay Is there something like it to be a bat? Given the (barring true mind reading) fact that experience -- all qualia -- is private to me the Cartesian doubter is left with the solipsistic "Ergo Sum."
Is there something like it to be Fred? or Jim? or President Obama? Is there something like it to be a dog named Jack? or Henry? or Spot? Is there something like it to be a mouse? a clam? a limpet? a newborn kangaroo? a mushroom?
Life does things dictated by genetic programming. Instinct to fear certain acts. We are startled by a lot of things and not by others. There are other instincts. Among them is this thinking thing. When operating normally we think -- go ahead and try to stop thinking for a bit. It is impossible to stop thoughts unbidden from arising in the mind. Thinking is done because of our genetic programming. And, being human, we can share others' experience vicariously. I don't give a damn if "your" red is "my" red. In fact I'm pretty sure it's not given that perceived shade depends on what that eye has seen recently. A pink container through a green glass appears to be the same shade of pink as seen through air. I know that can't be right if color is strictly about wavelength. It isn't, y'know. Context -- the presumed lighting color -- determines the color you experience. Many optical illusions are the brain correcting for the reality of common experience. Two squares on a Rubik's Cube of the same hue appear to be entirely different colors based on presumed shadow. We may not see the "same" red, but our brains -- our minds -- fall for the same error in the same way.
Experience is the lie. Experience has been filtered by our unconscious long before the conscious mind experiences. And, although the brain is quick and all, all data has been delayed by processing. Alway experiencing what just was, not what currently is. What time is the mind aware of? Just a few milliseconds or so behind reality for nearby objects to a few minutes ago on our sun to a few hours ago at Pluto.
Looking outward the mind sees the past flowing inward from all directions of space. And sees the future flowing outward in all directions in that same space. The mind is in the middle, having both a location and a moment -- here and now to call its own. The past may be poorly remembered and the future poorly planned, but here and now I am. There is something like it to have a here and now and know it.
A body with a brain is created through embryology. Mind is self-created. An idea (which may be, in whole or in part, an illusion or lie) of self to self.

 

[untermensche]

Descartes dispelled this a long time ago.

Even if every thought, sensation, perception, experience is a lie.

The mind is still that thing being lied to.

Is it? Isnt the mind the thing that lies?

The mind is the subject not the object.

 

[Juma]

Is it? Isnt the mind the thing that lies?

The mind is the subject not the object.

That that makes you experience is a medium/enabler, not an object.
(As in "the screen is not the film")

And it is this that is usually called "the mind".

Not the "self".

 

[untermensche]

The mind is the subject not the object.

That that makes you experience is a medium/enabler, not an object.
(As in "the screen is not the film")

And it is this that is usually called "the mind".

Not the "self".

There is that which creates the things that are experienced, and there is that which experiences.

That which experiences is the mind. It is the self.

I make no distinction between these two.

The screen and the film and the projector would fall under "that which creates the things that are experienced".

 

[Juma]

That that makes you experience is a medium/enabler, not an object.
(As in "the screen is not the film")

And it is this that is usually called "the mind".

Not the "self".

There is that which creates the things that are experienced, and there is that which experiences.

That which experiences is the mind. It is the self.

I make no distinction between these two.

The screen and the film and the projector would fall under "that which creates the things that are experienced".

Let me put it like this:
Assume that someone managed to create a aware robot Knurd from software.

If you wanted to know how Knurd worked, would you ask Knurd or check the software/aske the constructor?

 

[none]

so what is the experience?
really...

I suspect the experience is somewhat similar but mostly very different from one person to another.

People are similar in language (some people), but different in outlook.

But all we have access to is the experience of our own minds.

But again, it is impossible to experience something that does not exist. This cannot be refuted.

no doubt, .... what is the experience you are having with a mind?
plus your double speaking again, and dodging

 

[none]

and don't try and talk about what a mind is, you can't describe a mind, the mind, and minds and choose not to.
so just answer... what is the experience you are having with a mind?

 

[untermensche]

There is that which creates the things that are experienced, and there is that which experiences.

That which experiences is the mind. It is the self.

I make no distinction between these two.

The screen and the film and the projector would fall under "that which creates the things that are experienced".

Let me put it like this:
Assume that someone managed to create a aware robot Knurd from software.

If you wanted to know how Knurd worked, would you ask Knurd or check the software/aske the constructor?

This is going far afield. This thread is only about the existence of a mind, not how a mind is generated which is a huge technical puzzle.

If we had software that could create a mind then of course we would have a mind. A mind would exist.

But the fact that a mind exists has nothing to do with software.

A mind exists because it can be experienced. It is impossible to have the experience of things that don't exist. End of argument.

 

[untermensche]

I suspect the experience is somewhat similar but mostly very different from one person to another.

People are similar in language (some people), but different in outlook.

But all we have access to is the experience of our own minds.

But again, it is impossible to experience something that does not exist. This cannot be refuted.

no doubt, .... what is the experience you are having with a mind?
plus your double speaking again, and dodging

Try to deal with this part.

It is impossible to have the experience of something that does not exist. If one experiences a mind, it exists.

Try to refute that.