Do minds exist?

[none]

Wonderful, what is a mind?
Has it been downgraded from thing to activity?

 

[Juma]

Wonderful, what is a mind?
Has it been downgraded from thing to activity?

Why would that be a downgrade? Processes are extremely important.

 

[none]

Wonderful, what is a mind?
Has it been downgraded from thing to activity?

Why would that be a downgrade? Processes are extremely important.

So minds don't exist. Funny.

 

[Juma]

Why would that be a downgrade? Processes are extremely important.

So minds don't exist. Funny.

Processes exist.

Even matter is a process.

 

[untermensche]

If there were no mind you could stimulate a brain all day. There would be no reporting of memories.

Mind is what the brain does.

It is PART of what the brain does.

And it is also something experienced.

Without the experience you have no mind, even if the brain is active.

 

[fromderinside]

Nah, it's better to start with measureable data. There's no point launching into a big discussion about what mind could be just so you can then claim that the entire subject has no basis. No we'll start with the data, same as with everything else.

Mind crops up in a number of repeatable experiments. Let's start with subject reports.

Subjects reliably, repeatedly, and across cultures, report the existence of subjective internal experience. These are consistent within groups, consistent across groups, and consistent over time.
Subjects report using these internal experiences, and the imputation of their presence within others, to reliably predict the actions of others. These predictions are measurably more accurate than chance.
Subjects report using these internal experiences as part of directing attention to and away from certain observable phenomena. This effect creates extremely large and easily detectable differences in what data is then reportable by the subject. While there is some evidence that unattended channels are still actually picked up at some level, the difference it makes in terms of processing is vast.
Subjects report using these internal experiences as part of complex tasks performance. Again, by changing purely internal experiential conditions, large physically observably changes in task performance are repeatably established.
Subjects reports of internal subjective experience correlate extremely well with neurological activity around similar actual experience. For example, the activity that accompanies playing with a particular toy is repeated when searching for the same toy, even though the actual toy itself is not present to provide stimulation. Rats navigating a three dimensional maze can be observed to reproduce the same neural activation patterns when trying to reach a location as occurred when they were actually there. In short, the neurological evidence backs up the existence of the same logical patterns that subjects report experiencing.

So, these findings are generally grouped under a theory of mind - that there is an internal set of subjective experiences that is strongly connected to memory, decision making, and task performance. You seem to be keen to disavow this theory, in defiance of the existing scientific evidence.

Can you explain why?

... One of the reasons why theories of eliminative materialism are so unpopular at the moment is the criticism they've come under as to whether their insistence on eliminating subject experience does any work. It's not obvious that ignoring all mental events to the extent of denying them existence provides any benefit in terms of explanation or prediction. Given that it also leaves a huge number of scientific observations high and dry, it's not obvious why it should be adopted.

Mele has suggested that it is a phenomenon that originates from a handful of large US educational institutions that are seeking to rule out from consideration in the psychological sciences all questions relating to topics beyond neurophysiology. He notes that these same institutions share budgets between neurophysiological research and human behavioural studies. Statistically, the idea is far from established, but it feels like it's worth asking people who are seeking to restrict research in this way why they believe would be gained by doing so.

....

I've highlighted the essence of why I find Toto's argument unconvincing. He talks of subjective report as material evidence. It is not. It is an individual putting into words answers to questions asked by another. Indeed those are subjective, not objective, reports. that is the entire point here.

Togo's justification goes to changing horses argument and to political argument. Both of these are just rational tactics having little to do with empirical study beyond "that's nice to hear". Actually though these tactics are dishonest since they have nothing to do with the science.

To wit:

Togo justifies subjective experience reports by promoting them to mental events without demonstrating how verbal reports are actually mental events. No. The reports are just attempts by subject to express their feelings about questions asked by interviewers. One makes a great leap to suggest subjective report content is a mental event.

His second approach is just a grand appeal to authority without documentation to back it up other that referring to Mele.

Mele's reported 'arguments' are just just some rationalizations for those who would be left out in the cold if strict empirical and scientific policy were enforced.

At the end of these arguments are my opinion. Notice it has nothing to do with science, just like Togo's.

Now for something one can sink one's teeth into. Far from ignoring all mental events we have"

good correlations between brain oxygen uptake and and ongoing brain behavior. Such is still not direct since we really have little grasp - meaning we haven't gotten to this input results in that output - on transformations from sensory input to verbal output.

there's some interesting histology,
some interesting global neuro-electronic and neuro-chemical activity,
some group and individual cell recording study,
some interesting case study on brain degraded and damaged behaviors,
some developmental evidence,
some anthropological evidence,
some formative developmental study,
some interesting theories that seem to crash about every twenty years (I covered why long ago: has a lot to do with how many synapses between objective input and objective output),
some macro and micro genetic work
and, oh yeah, a lot more.

Subjective study remains with us. Generally it leads to not very far, quite often to backwards, sometimes to interesting, so we keep it up. But don't confuse tolerance for accepting it as science.

 

[untermensche]

To have consciousness you need two things.

That which is conscious.

And that which it is conscious of.

A split must exist between the objects of consciousness and the thing which is conscious of them.

Just as the brain creates both the sensation of warmth and the sensation of vision it also creates that which is conscious and the things it is conscious of.

That is mind. The splitting of that which is conscious from the things it is conscious of.

It is both a process and something experienced.

And we don't have the slightest clue how the brain does it.

 

[Juma]

It is both a process and something experienced..

"Something experienced" is also a timebased feature. It is something that happens, not a static thing.

 

[untermensche]

It is both a process and something experienced..

"Something experienced" is also a timebased feature. It is something that happens, not a static thing.

The experienced part is very complicated. Within it you find things like the "will" and memory.

And to experience is to experience in a specific way. The human experiences in a human way and a whale in a whale way.

 

[MJGraham]

Sorry for the long absence from this thread that I started. I've been extremely busy.

I read through all the posts in this thread and there was some I want to reply to.

Then what experiences, perceives, etc?

I would say that you do, but you are a who and not a what.

Ok.. Well let's start from the basics. The mental content that people you claim people don't have are reported with amazing consistency across the globe. By asking people to think or not think about certain things, you can manipulate the activation patterns in their brain, and their performance on certain tasks. How are these physical differences arising if there is no mental content?

I guess they arrive from thinking or not thinking about certain things. Why do you think mental content is needed?

Is there anything at all then?

What is it that you wouldn't be sceptical about that you wouldn't have any idea of save for your own mind?

Or is it that you don't have one? That may happen you know...

Also, when you say "we think", what's the "we" exactly that's doing all the hard thinking? Is that a subset of our neurons? The whole brain? Our bodies? The whole universe? Whichever, why any of these things should be said to exist at all as opposed to just one thing, say, reality, running smoothly as many processes as necessary to give us all this sweet illusion that there are a universe, galaxies, stars, people, your own body, and maybe your brain and a few neurons? If you can do away with the mind, surely you can do away with all the rest, except whatever exists which our hallucinatory minds could not conceivably start to fathom!!

Some minds do have very strange ideas...
EB

Well, I favour the idea that thinking is done by brain-body interaction.

I have to admit that I am not following your reasoning. Are you saying that if I do not believe in minds, I might as well believe in nothing? What so special about minds that skepticism towards them translates into skepticism about everything?

I think the term "mind" in the vernacular is referring mostly to the thoughts and impressions we "hear" in our own head, the feelings we experience, combined with the very strong sense of agency that we feel as the thinker of those thoughts. It's something that accessible only to us.

ETA: I believe my mind exists. The rest of you could be zombies for all I know, appearing to also have minds when you actually don't. The real world could be made up entirely by me too, although I doubt I have the ability to self-manufacture such detail. Also, I must secretly hate myself, because if I'm creating all this, I could have at least set myself up nearer the top so I could be relaxed and have more fun.

So yeah, I have to make a couple of assumptions, and honestly that's because I can't fathom the alternative. How would one function? So I make a couple assumptions about reality, realize this may be a riddle that is NEVER solved, and then go about trying to use logic and reason in this reality I appear to inhabit. The alternative is what? Presupposition apologetics? That's just stupid.

If a person thinks and feels and perceives, I would say they are not zombies. My skepticism about each mind being a “place” where thoughts and memories and all the rest reside, does not mean that I think people are zombies. So, I would happily say that you are not a zombie.

With what can a person conclude there is no mind?

I did it by thinking. Do you think I should have thought differently?

the brain does it, the brain sometimes makes good choices for the health of the brain.

Saying the brain uses the brain to make conclusions is like saying the arm uses the arm to make movements.

A product of the brain is making conclusions. A mind.

The way I see it, I no more use my brain to think, than I use my heart to pump blood around my body. I need to have a brain to think, just like I need my heart to circulate blood.

When you see a chair are you seeing something the brain created or are you seeing the brain?

Neither. You're seeing a chair. If you pointed a gun at me and made me choose one, I would say that your brain created the image. But when you were gone, I would go back to saying that perception is direct.

Personally I don't need to prove I have a mind because it just happens that I know my mind and I couldn't possibly do that if I had no mind. Well, at least it's how logic has it starting from the usual meaning of "know". You don't know my mind, and apparently nobody else does, and maybe you yourself have no mind, or in philosophical terminology, you are a zombie. Freaks me out somewhat but it's a bit like at the cinema, you know, I've secured a firm grip on my seat. I can't prove to a carrot I have a mind. I couldn't even prove to it I'm cooking it for my supper!
EB

I'm perfectly fine with saying that you know what you are thinking. But I don't see why you need a mind to know what you are thinking. You just need to know what you are thinking.

 

[untermensche]

With what can a person conclude there is no mind?

I did it by thinking. Do you think I should have thought differently?

To say; "I did this" or "I did that" is to say there is an "I". It is to say there is a subject. A mind.

The brain is the object but the subject is a mind.

When you see a chair are you seeing something the brain created or are you seeing the brain?

Neither. You're seeing a chair. If you pointed a gun at me and made me choose one, I would say that your brain created the image. But when you were gone, I would go back to saying that perception is direct.

I don't know what this means but it isn't hard to understand.

Any information that hits the eye from the chair is immediately changed into a completely different form of information to move down the optic nerve.

The brain has no access to the original information. The idea that perception could be direct defies anatomical truths.

 

[MJGraham]

I did it by thinking. Do you think I should have thought differently?

To say; "I did this" or "I did that" is to say there is an "I". It is to say there is a subject. A mind.

The brain is the object but the subject is a mind.

Well the I in "I think" is certainly a grammatical subject. But I don't think that is what you meant. So what exactly do you mean? Are you saying that your mind constructs you or that you are your mind?

When you see a chair are you seeing something the brain created or are you seeing the brain?

Neither. You're seeing a chair. If you pointed a gun at me and made me choose one, I would say that your brain created the image. But when you were gone, I would go back to saying that perception is direct.

I don't know what this means but it isn't hard to understand.

Any information that hits the eye from the chair is immediately changed into a completely different form of information to move down the optic nerve.

The brain has no access to the original information. The idea that perception could be direct defies anatomical truths.

In what way does it defy anatomical truths?

 

[untermensche]

To say; "I did this" or "I did that" is to say there is an "I". It is to say there is a subject. A mind.

The brain is the object but the subject is a mind.

Well the I in "I think" is certainly a grammatical subject. But I don't think that is what you meant. So what exactly do you mean? Are you saying that your mind constructs you or that you are your mind?

It is not a clean demarcation.

What it means to say "I am hungry" is not the same as saying "I prefer the color blue". One is a reflection of bodily needs and one is not.

I don't see how anything you say excludes the idea that the mind is a creation of the brain, just as the chair we experience when we say we see a chair is a creation of the brain. It is not a creation of the eye. The eye is just a tool to get information from the external world into the brain. But before the information gets to the brain it must be transformed into a completely different form of information, neural information. The brain has no access to information from the world. That is why it needs things like eyes to bring it in. It only has access to neural information coming to it from the senses and peripheral nerves.

So when somebody "sees" they are experiencing something the brain has created from neural information, not from information in the world. Information in the world was simply a stimulus for other completely different information.

Color is something the brain creates that doesn't exist in the world.

If one talks about color they are talking about something that can only be experienced.

That which experiences is the mind. And it experiences the things the brain creates for it to experience.

In what way does it defy anatomical truths?

The anatomical truth is that visual information travels down the optic nerve to the brain.

This information is transmitted from one cell to another, neural transmission.

The brain receives neural transmissions, not information from the world, i.e. light energy.

 

[MJGraham]

Well the I in "I think" is certainly a grammatical subject. But I don't think that is what you meant. So what exactly do you mean? Are you saying that your mind constructs you or that you are your mind?

It is not a clean demarcation.

What it means to say "I am hungry" is not the same as saying "I prefer the color blue". One is a reflection of bodily needs and one is not.

I don't see how anything you say excludes the idea that the mind is a creation of the brain, just as the chair we experience when we say we see a chair is a creation of the brain. It is not a creation of the eye. The eye is just a tool to get information from the external world into the brain. But before the information gets to the brain it must be transformed into a completely different form of information, neural information. The brain has no access to information from the world. That is why it needs things like eyes to bring it in. It only has access to neural information coming to it from the senses and peripheral nerves.

So when somebody "sees" they are experiencing something the brain has created from neural information, not from information in the world. Information in the world was simply a stimulus for other completely different information.

Color is something the brain creates that doesn't exist in the world.

If one talks about color they are talking about something that can only be experienced.

That which experiences is the mind. And it experiences the things the brain creates for it to experience.

In what way does it defy anatomical truths?

The anatomical truth is that visual information travels down the optic nerve to the brain.

This information is transmitted from one cell to another, neural transmission.

The brain receives neural transmissions, not information from the world, i.e. light energy.

I disagree. An object's blueness is in it reflecting light that is around 460 or so nm. Or to be more precise, it is in the light reflected off the surface of the object. Our ability to pick up this stimulus information is matter of us having perceptual systems that have evolved to be excited by that information. Seeing colour is remarkable, but you don't need a mind in the Cartesian sense to do it.* Birds, insects, reptiles, and amphibians see colours. In fact, their perceptual systems are sometimes excited by stimulus information which we blind are to (e.g. ultraviolet light). Consider the honey bee. It has a brain the size of a sesame seed, and yet it can see colour. Is the "internal" life of a bee brimming with thoughts such as "what is blue?" or "is red better than orange?" Probably not. But as Karl von Frisch discovered, they can certainly discriminate one colour from another and that their ability to discriminate colours can influence their behaviour. Bees don't have the kind of subjective experiences that could lead to them thinking things like "I prefer blue". But they can still see blue.


*I take that you have a Cartesian view of the mind. Let me know, if I am wrong about that.

 

[Juma]

It is not a clean demarcation.

What it means to say "I am hungry" is not the same as saying "I prefer the color blue". One is a reflection of bodily needs and one is not.

I don't see how anything you say excludes the idea that the mind is a creation of the brain, just as the chair we experience when we say we see a chair is a creation of the brain. It is not a creation of the eye. The eye is just a tool to get information from the external world into the brain. But before the information gets to the brain it must be transformed into a completely different form of information, neural information. The brain has no access to information from the world. That is why it needs things like eyes to bring it in. It only has access to neural information coming to it from the senses and peripheral nerves.

So when somebody "sees" they are experiencing something the brain has created from neural information, not from information in the world. Information in the world was simply a stimulus for other completely different information.

Color is something the brain creates that doesn't exist in the world.

If one talks about color they are talking about something that can only be experienced.

That which experiences is the mind. And it experiences the things the brain creates for it to experience.

In what way does it defy anatomical truths?

The anatomical truth is that visual information travels down the optic nerve to the brain.

This information is transmitted from one cell to another, neural transmission.

The brain receives neural transmissions, not information from the world, i.e. light energy.

I disagree. An object's blueness is in it reflecting light that is around 460 or so nm. Or to be more precise, it is in the light reflected off the surface of the object. Our ability to pick up this stimulus information is matter of us having perceptual systems that have evolved to be excited by that information. Seeing colour is remarkable, but you don't need a mind in the Cartesian sense to do it.* Birds, insects, reptiles, and amphibians see colours. In fact, their perceptual systems are sometimes excited by stimulus information which we blind are to (e.g. ultraviolet light). Consider the honey bee. It has a brain the size of a sesame seed, and yet it can see colour. Is the "internal" life of a bee brimming with thoughts such as "what is blue?" or "is red better than orange?" Probably not. But as Karl von Frisch discovered, they can certainly discriminate one colour from another and that their ability to discriminate colours can influence their behaviour. Bees don't have the kind of subjective experiences that could lead to them thinking things like "I prefer blue". But they can still see blue.


*I take that you have a Cartesian view of the mind. Let me know, if I am wrong about that.

I think that bees has subjective experiences. Wether how clear they can formulate thoughts is another matter.

 

[MJGraham]

I think that bees has subjective experiences. Wether how clear they can formulate thoughts is another matter.

I would say that two bees flying over the same field of cornflowers will see something somewhat different because they do not have the same flight paths or exactly the same perceptual systems (e.g. one might be colour blind).

If that is subjectivity, and I'm not sure that it is, but if it is, it's a subjectivity that does not need a mind.

 

[Juma]

I think that bees has subjective experiences. Wether how clear they can formulate thoughts is another matter.

I would say that two bees flying over the same field of cornflowers will see something somewhat different because they do not have the same flight paths or exactly the same perceptual systems (e.g. one might be colour blind).

If that is subjectivity, and I'm not sure that it is, but if it is, it's a subjectivity that does not need a mind.

Then what do you mean by "mind"?

 

[MJGraham]

Then what do you mean by "mind"?

I suppose mind is one of the following...

• a non-physical substance with the properties of thought, memory, belief, and desire.
• the entirety of a person's mental contents at any given time, i.e. all their thoughts, beliefs, memories and desires.

 

[Juma]

Then what do you mean by "mind"?

I suppose mind is one of the following...

• a non-physical substance with the properties of thought, memory, belief, and desire.
• the entirety of a person's mental contents at any given time, i.e. all their thoughts, beliefs, memories and desires.

A think a bee has thoughts, beliefs, memories and desires. Maybe not as advanced as ours but still.

 

[MJGraham]

A think a bee has thoughts, beliefs, memories and desires. Maybe not as advanced as ours but still.

For me it is not a case of whether our thoughts, beliefs, memories and desires are more advanced than those of bees, but whether we or they have those mental properties/content at all. I have no issue with saying bees can think and remember and desire. (I'm skeptical about them believing, but I don't think anything major hangs on that as it won't change my stance regarding the existence of minds). Where I have problem is in saying that bees and humans or any other living being have thoughts, beliefs, memories or desires which would be the properties or contents of a mind. Thinking, to take one example, is not the kind of thing that could be the property or content of any thing. It is something we do. It isn't something we possess.