Do minds exist?

[Juma]

I'd think the main differentiator between humans and other animals, is that refined language gives us the ability to 'know' infinitely more properties, properties that give us a greater ability to manipulate the world.

It takes a certain level of "intelligence" to be able to work with a language. You can't have a complicated language, like human language, without having that level of "intelligence" first.

One of the key elements of language is the ability to conceptualize.

Words don't relate directly to things in the world, they relate to "mental concepts".

So we can use the word "tree" to refer to all kinds of things that look very differently from one another because they are all included in our "mental concept" of "tree".

A concept is the result of what we expect from intention. A chair is something we can see as intended to be a chair.

Language is the mirror of intention.

 

[untermensche]

It takes a certain level of "intelligence" to be able to work with a language. You can't have a complicated language, like human language, without having that level of "intelligence" first.

One of the key elements of language is the ability to conceptualize.

Words don't relate directly to things in the world, they relate to "mental concepts".

So we can use the word "tree" to refer to all kinds of things that look very differently from one another because they are all included in our "mental concept" of "tree".

A concept is the result of what we expect from intention. A chair is something we can see as intended to be a chair.

Language is the mirror of intention.

It is not understood with nearly this precision. This is nothing but a guess.

All we know is that words do not relate to things in the world.

How and why words arise is a mystery.

 

[Juma]

A concept is the result of what we expect from intention. A chair is something we can see as intended to be a chair.

Language is the mirror of intention.

It is not understood with nearly this precision. This is nothing but a guess.

All we know is that words do not relate to things in the world.

How and why words arise is a mystery.

I dont think its a mystery. An object is a chair if we can imagine someone having the intention of it to be a chair.

A line in the sand is a sign only if we can imagine it being intentionally created.

Meaning is inferred intention.

 

[untermensche]

It is not understood with nearly this precision. This is nothing but a guess.

All we know is that words do not relate to things in the world.

How and why words arise is a mystery.

I dont think its a mystery. An object is a chair if we can imagine someone having the intention of it to be a chair.

A line in the sand is a sign only if we can imagine it being intentionally created.

Meaning is inferred intention.

What is the intention of a table?

 

[untermensche]

Directly experiencing something IS directly experiencing something.

It is impossible to experience things that don't exist.

You do know that most of us aren't very well wired and many of us aren't really experiencing something. It is a problem something metaphysical becoming embodied.

Have you ever "experienced" pain?

It can't be seen. You can't look at the nervous system and say, aha there is pain.

It is an experience.

To have this experience requires a mind to experience it.

 

[none]

No it requires a nervous system, watch the beat

 

[untermensche]

No it requires a nervous system, watch the beat

There is no experience of pain without a mind.

 

[none]

No it requires a nervous system, watch the beat

There is no experience of pain without a mind.

You have no understanding of the nervous system, I can help you

 

[untermensche]

There is no experience of pain without a mind.

You have no understanding of the nervous system, I can help you

You don't seem to be able to address the point.

The "experience" of pain is what the mind experiences.

Any underlying neural activity is not experienced. Pain is experienced.

And it is experienced by a mind.

 

[Juma]

I dont think its a mystery. An object is a chair if we can imagine someone having the intention of it to be a chair.

A line in the sand is a sign only if we can imagine it being intentionally created.

Meaning is inferred intention.

What is the intention of a table?

To put stuff on so they are readily accessible when you sit on a chair beside it.

To be a good looking part of the normal set of furnitures.
Etc.

 

[Juma]

You have no understanding of the nervous system, I can help you

You don't seem to be able to address the point.

The "experience" of pain is what the mind experiences.

Any underlying neural activity is not experienced. Pain is experienced.

And it is experienced by a mind.

No. It is experienced by a nervous system.
"The mind" is what the nervous system does.

 

[untermensche]

You don't seem to be able to address the point.

The "experience" of pain is what the mind experiences.

Any underlying neural activity is not experienced. Pain is experienced.

And it is experienced by a mind.

No. It is experienced by a nervous system.
"The mind" is what the nervous system does.

The nervous system is a bunch of cells being excited by "transmitters" and releasing "transmitters"

And it doesn't "experience" this activity in the sense I can "experience" a sunset.

What has the ability to experience is this product of some of this activity, the mind.

- - - Updated - - -

What is the intention of a table?

To put stuff on so they are readily accessible when you sit on a chair beside it.

To be a good looking part of the normal set of furnitures.
Etc.

Yes it has no specific intention.

There is no way to read intention from looking at one.

 

[none]

You have no understanding of the nervous system, I can help you

You don't seem to be able to address the point.

The "experience" of pain is what the mind experiences.

Any underlying neural activity is not experienced. Pain is experienced.

And it is experienced by a mind.

what is your experience of a mind?
describe the experience!

 

[untermensche]

You don't seem to be able to address the point.

The "experience" of pain is what the mind experiences.

Any underlying neural activity is not experienced. Pain is experienced.

And it is experienced by a mind.

what is your experience of a mind?
describe the experience!

What does your mind specifically want to know about mine?

 

[George S]

I dont think its a mystery. An object is a chair if we can imagine someone having the intention of it to be a chair.

A line in the sand is a sign only if we can imagine it being intentionally created.

Meaning is inferred intention.

What is the intention of a table?

Meaning is just a word. A human invention, words. For the human purpose of human communication. As we ourselves give meaning to our lives, we give meaning to words.

What is a chair? It is a manufactured item designed as (or a naturally occurring configuration used as) a place where a single human being can assume a certain posture and have a place to lean back upon. Many objects qualify as chairs, objects accepting the same posture but backless are usually called stool, not chair.

A table is a designed object (or a naturally occurring configuration put to the same use as a manufactured table) with a horizontal top upon which humans place things. The canonical version has 4 supports for the top, many have just 1, 2, 3 or 6 or more.

Meanings are human meaning in a human brain/mind/body doing the dance called being human.

To have a mind is a human way of conceptualizing the feeling of thinking. A mind is, in Nagel's words: There is a mind if there is something like it to be that body. Is there something like it to be a bat? is a title on a short treatise. Is there something like it to be a tree? When there is a first-person point of view there is something "like it" to have experiences of being the sole possessor of a physical extent -- something I call me. The mind the I doing the "calling" in the last sentence. (After  The Mind's I -- Dennett et al.)

 

[untermensche]

What is the intention of a table?

Meaning is just a word. A human invention, words. For the human purpose of human communication. As we ourselves give meaning to our lives, we give meaning to words.

What is a chair? It is a manufactured item designed as (or a naturally occurring configuration used as) a place where a human being can assume a certain posture and have a place to lean back upon. Many objects qualify as chairs, objects accepting the same posture but backless are usually called stool, not chair.

A table is a designed object (or a naturally occurring configuration put to the same use as a manufactured table) with a horizontal top upon which humans place things. The canonical version has 4 supports for the top, many have just 1, 2, 3 or 6 or more.

Meanings are human meaning in a human brain/mind/body doing the dance called being human.

To have a mind is a human way of conceptualizing the feeling of thinking. A mind is, in Nagel's words: There is a mind if there is something like it to be that body. Is there something like it to be a bat? is a title on a short treatise. Is there something like it to be a tree? When there is a first-person point of view there is something "like it" to have experiences of being the sole possessor of a physical extent -- something I call me. The mind the I doing the "calling" in the last sentence. (After  The Mind's I -- Dennett et al.)

The salient point, at least to me, is that words, however they arise, refer to mental constructs, not to objects in the world.

In other words, a mind is necessary to use human language the way a human does.

Some machine may mimic human behavior but that machine tells us nothing about the human mind.

 

[Juma]

Meaning is just a word. A human invention, words. For the human purpose of human communication. As we ourselves give meaning to our lives, we give meaning to words.

What is a chair? It is a manufactured item designed as (or a naturally occurring configuration used as) a place where a human being can assume a certain posture and have a place to lean back upon. Many objects qualify as chairs, objects accepting the same posture but backless are usually called stool, not chair.

A table is a designed object (or a naturally occurring configuration put to the same use as a manufactured table) with a horizontal top upon which humans place things. The canonical version has 4 supports for the top, many have just 1, 2, 3 or 6 or more.

Meanings are human meaning in a human brain/mind/body doing the dance called being human.

To have a mind is a human way of conceptualizing the feeling of thinking. A mind is, in Nagel's words: There is a mind if there is something like it to be that body. Is there something like it to be a bat? is a title on a short treatise. Is there something like it to be a tree? When there is a first-person point of view there is something "like it" to have experiences of being the sole possessor of a physical extent -- something I call me. The mind the I doing the "calling" in the last sentence. (After  The Mind's I -- Dennett et al.)

The salient point, at least to me, is that words, however they arise, refer to mental constructs, not to objects in the world.

In other words, a mind is necessary to use human language the way a human does.

Some machine may mimic human behavior but that machine tells us nothing about the human mind.

No. Awareness is not needed to use language.

 

[untermensche]

The salient point, at least to me, is that words, however they arise, refer to mental constructs, not to objects in the world.

In other words, a mind is necessary to use human language the way a human does.

Some machine may mimic human behavior but that machine tells us nothing about the human mind.

No. Awareness is not needed to use language.

It is to use language the way a human does.

 

[Juma]

No. Awareness is not needed to use language.

It is to use language the way a human does.

But that is ridiculous. It is like saying that a computer cant compute as a human...

 

[untermensche]

It is to use language the way a human does.

But that is ridiculous. It is like saying that a computer cant compute as a human...

Humans don't "compute". They don't work anything like a computer.

It is like building some wooden wings and expecting to fly like a bird.