Miscellaneous Philosophy

[Togo]

Thought definitely uses language, but it transcends language and doesn't need it.

Then why do I use it? I am pretty sure that the part of me listening needs the words to understand what another part of me is saying. I dont think I am unique in this matter... There are other ways of communicating in the mind/brain: forms/shapes, more or less vague "sounds" etc
But without language it would be hard to think about intellektual matters.

I think there are benefits to different kinds of thinking. Going over something verbally helps in some ways, hinders in others. Certainly you can tell people to think about problems in different ways, and then measure the difference in performance. What you're in effect doing is treating your own thought process as if it were an input - as if you were hearing it from someone else, and then judging it and refining it on that basis.

There has been the idea floated that the mind originated as a social simulator - a specialist system for simulating the actions of others in response to our own actions. That then leads to the ability to model our own actions, model what other people are likely think we're going to do, and thus self-awareness of ourselves as a social individual. This has the interesting side-effect of allowing us to model the physical world as well, leading to science, technology, and civilisation as we know it, albeit with a tendency to treat anything we don't understand as a person.

 

[untermensche]

Then why do I use it? I am pretty sure that the part of me listening needs the words to understand what another part of me is saying. I dont think I am unique in this matter... There are other ways of communicating in the mind/brain: forms/shapes, more or less vague "sounds" etc
But without language it would be hard to think about intellektual matters.

I think there are benefits to different kinds of thinking. Going over something verbally helps in some ways, hinders in others. Certainly you can tell people to think about problems in different ways, and then measure the difference in performance. What you're in effect doing is treating your own thought process as if it were an input - as if you were hearing it from someone else, and then judging it and refining it on that basis.

There has been the idea floated that the mind originated as a social simulator - a specialist system for simulating the actions of others in response to our own actions. That then leads to the ability to model our own actions, model what other people are likely think we're going to do, and thus self-awareness of ourselves as a social individual. This has the interesting side-effect of allowing us to model the physical world as well, leading to science, technology, and civilisation as we know it, albeit with a tendency to treat anything we don't understand as a person.

The question is, when did the mind originate?

IMO it most definitely did not originate with humans or something close to humans. You move from what could be called a "primitive" mind to a human mind the same way you move from a "primitive" leg to a human leg.

What originates with humans is the "language capacity" and it seem to originate very quickly probably as a minor variation to an already incredibly complex structure.

 

[Speakpigeon]

The question is, when did the mind originate?

IMO it most definitely did not originate with humans or something close to humans. You move from what could be called a "primitive" mind to a human mind the same way you move from a "primitive" leg to a human leg.

What originates with humans is the "language capacity" and it seem to originate very quickly probably as a minor variation to an already incredibly complex structure.

Thinking allows us to entertain conversations with others without the minor difficulty of being contradicted all the time with more outrageous nonsense. That's definitely a selective advantage.


More seriously, brains rather than minds evolve like legs do. Thinking of the mind as evolved seems a mistake to me. The function of an organ results from the opportunistic use of that organ in whatever the environment turns out to be rather than as an evolution from the function of the immediate ancestor's organ. In other words, the function can change dramatically, rather than evolve, just because it is possible given the interaction between the evolved organ and the actual environment. Using your legs, which evolved for walking, to swim is not an evolution but an opportunistic use of them.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

There has been the idea floated that the mind originated as a social simulator - a specialist system for simulating the actions of others in response to our own actions.

Much of the mind doesn't seem particularly oriented towards social relations. The social relation functions seem to be a specialisation of preexisting functions. Human face recognition is very effective but presumably it's not completely unrelated to our ability to recognise general shapes, patterns etc. in our environment, ability which presumably would have preexisted human face recognition. Obviously human face recognition would be a selective advantage and constitute a pressure for the brain to evolve in that direction given the social environment of early humans and probably of apes, monkeys and possibly even of our earliest mammal ancestors. Once we have a social environment, language can be used opportunistically to communicate ideas to others but maybe it was used before that, privately so to speak, in some rudimentary form to be sure, and perhaps not even initially for social purposes. So the origine maybe something else even if the development of language would have been driven by social pressure and this probably very early in the whole process.
EB

 

[untermensche]

....More seriously, brains rather than minds evolve like legs do. Thinking of the mind as evolved seems a mistake to me....

I would say a cat has a mind.

So on the "evolutionary tree of life" mind predates the point where human and cat ancestors diverged from a common species.

And they have evolved into different things. And this is because as you have said, the brain that creates the mind has evolved.

 

[Speakpigeon]

And they have evolved into different things. And this is because as you have said, the brain that creates the mind has evolved.

It might be possible to consider the collection of minds as part of the environment of human beings and as such as something that could generate an evolutionary pressure on the human brain. It would be a heuristic ploy to try and understand the reasons the brain evolved as it did. Well, I guess that may be what scientists really do already because there's not much else they can use as soft tissus like brains tend to disappear rather quickly.

Part of that "mental environment" would be culture, which causes minds to replicate ideological patterns which in turn has the effect of keeping the direction of the pressure more constant over the long term which in turn would have more effect on the evolution of the human brain.

However, I'm not convinced that this influence would overcome others. For example, the influence of the relative economic prosperity of the modern world (since the Antiquity) probably has been more powerful. More recently, the introduction of technologically advanced products or by-products in all aspects of our lives in the recent period, for example cell-phones, food supplements, pollution, medical drugs, medical assistance to sexual reproduction, perhaps television and computers etc. etc. etc.

But going back to the time of the first humans, or proto-humans, maybe this approach could be effective (or already is).
EB

 

[untermensche]

And they have evolved into different things. And this is because as you have said, the brain that creates the mind has evolved.

It might be possible to consider the collection of minds as part of the environment of human beings and as such as something that could generate an evolutionary pressure on the human brain. It would be a heuristic ploy to try and understand the reasons the brain evolved as it did. Well, I guess that may be what scientists really do already because there's not much else they can use as soft tissus like brains tend to disappear rather quickly.

Part of that "mental environment" would be culture, which causes minds to replicate ideological patterns which in turn has the effect of keeping the direction of the pressure more constant over the long term which in turn would have more effect on the evolution of the human brain.

However, I'm not convinced that this influence would overcome others. For example, the influence of the relative economic prosperity of the modern world (since the Antiquity) probably has been more powerful. More recently, the introduction of technologically advanced products or by-products in all aspects of our lives in the recent period, for example cell-phones, food supplements, pollution, medical drugs, medical assistance to sexual reproduction, perhaps television and computers etc. etc. etc.

But going back to the time of the first humans, or proto-humans, maybe this approach could be effective (or already is).
EB

In terms of minds, human language is a game changer.

But it is more than language.

One has to have the where-with-all to use language.

Human language probably has arisen very recently and very quickly. And the biological world really is split into pre-human language and post-human language.

It caused a quantum leap in the mind and the ability to understand and manipulate the world.

 

[rousseau]

Thinking about people's ability to conceptualize themselves. I don't believe our ability to think is unique to people, but I do believe our ability to finely understand ourselves and the world is, and that's what differentiates us from other animals. We can know enough about the world to act outside of our own biology.

What's interesting though is that we seem to be slaves to our instinct no matter what we think or know. People need to meet physiological needs, have social closeness, usually sexual intimacy, and on and on. And what's more is that understanding of the world and ourselves isn't intrinsic, it actually takes a lot of effort and often times outside intervention, so many, if not most, people are buried underneath a mountain of misconceptions and so don't actually have much freedom of choice.

 

[fromderinside]

Is it communication if it is rehearsal? Does it matter? My point has been that if it is within one that it doesn't matter unless it is externally measured.

Certainly asking subjects to mentally repeat things over and over again has a measureable effect on their task performance and learning speed. So we can know that something is actually going on in there, even if it isn't communicated.

But the observer is communicating. He's repeating to himself which are obviously from different times. Communication simply means message sent and message received. If one can communicates with oneself then make use of that capability. Its communication. We know the observer followed instructions because we can measure an improvement in his ability to execute whatever the experimenter instructed him to repeat to himself. If no such capability exists there should be no improvement in task execution. This idea is at the very base of Associationism.

 

[rousseau]

Thinking about the relationship between morality and religion, and the evolution of morality.

- when religions develop that are moral frameworks, is the underlying purpose morality, and the driver God/Salvation? Or is the purpose God/Salvation, and the driver morality, or a bit of both?
- if morality is one of the main purposes of religion, then 'religious morality' occurs in a subset of time in the evolution of morale doctrine amongst people
- probably an accurate descriptor of it

 

[bilby]

Thinking about the relationship between morality and religion, and the evolution of morality.

- when religions develop that are moral frameworks, is the underlying purpose morality, and the driver God/Salvation? Or is the purpose God/Salvation, and the driver morality, or a bit of both?
- if morality is one of the main purposes of religion, then 'religious morality' occurs in a subset of time in the evolution of morale doctrine amongst people
- probably an accurate descriptor of it

Religions are power structures; Rather than simply saying "These are our rules, obey them because we say so", they say "These are God's rules, so disobeying them is morally wrong"; The latter leads to higher levels of compliance.

Morals are developed as a mechanism for social self control; Religious rules are developed to control society by hijacking morality.

 

[fromderinside]

Morals are developed as a mechanism for social self control; Religious rules are developed to control society by hijacking morality.

Not quibbling with morals or religious rules. Am quibbling with intent expressed by your use of developed.

I'm pretty sure these came about through around the campfire, kitchen table, give and take. Kind of like us these attributes evolved through whither, circumstance, and impulse .... at least from my reading the  Book of Leviticus

 

[rousseau]

Morals are developed as a mechanism for social self control; Religious rules are developed to control society by hijacking morality.

Not quibbling with morals or religious rules. Am quibbling with intent expressed by your use of developed.

I'm pretty sure these came about through around the campfire, kitchen table, give and take. Kind of like us these attributes evolved through whither, circumstance, and impulse .... at least from my reading the  Book of Leviticus

Yes. To really understand religion you need to understand the people who lived in the times when it originated. These are people trying to understand their environment without any inkling of science, not necessarily people who are trying to 'hijack morality'.

If you take away the 'religion' charge from religious development in ancient times you're left with innumerable sects trying to understand their environment, and building moral/religious frameworks. The only reason I can see that morality would have been tied to God back then, is because there would have been few other powers to appeal to. So 'God' acted as something to uphold moral rules in place of better social structure and law.

Interestingly, a lot of the morals that came out of these old religions are very naturalistic: do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal. Rules that had real survival value for the group.

Yea you could get nit-picky and point out all of the bullshit involved in religion, but that's outside my original thought, which was that religious morality is a conduit between no real moral code, and an atheistic moral code.

 

[untermensche]

Yes. To really understand religion you need to understand the people who lived in the times when it originated. These are people trying to understand their environment without any inkling of science, not necessarily people who are trying to 'hijack morality'.....

I say initially religion originates to try to control things, or pretend to control things, like the weather and disease and death.

These were much harder to deal with up until very recently.

 

[rousseau]

Yes. To really understand religion you need to understand the people who lived in the times when it originated. These are people trying to understand their environment without any inkling of science, not necessarily people who are trying to 'hijack morality'.....

I say initially religion originates to try to control things, or pretend to control things, like the weather and disease and death.

These were much harder to deal with up until very recently.

The comodification of people's inner-most fears, including fear of death.

 

[untermensche]

I say initially religion originates to try to control things, or pretend to control things, like the weather and disease and death.

These were much harder to deal with up until very recently.

The comodification of people's inner-most fears, including fear of death.

I don't know if it is a commodification, but it is a leash many can be led with.

 

[rousseau]

Been thinking about a bit of an odd, reductionist concept lately:

"Motion implies purpose"

The idea that a person or animal making any type of movement implies a reason or intention for that movement, whether speech, change of physical proximity to something else, and so on.

It might sound obvious on the surface, but it would seem that most people don't think about this, the fact that animal behaviour might be produced by a series random events, but the reaction itself is usually derived with intent.

 

[rousseau]

The comodification of people's inner-most fears, including fear of death.

I don't know if it is a commodification, but it is a leash many can be led with.

Maybe not in every case, but in many cases religion is a power system, and I think it's a system that latches onto certain aspects of the human psyche and exploits them for profit, as do many other organizations.

 

[untermensche]

I don't know if it is a commodification, but it is a leash many can be led with.

Maybe not in every case, but in many cases religion is a power system, and I think it's a system that latches onto certain aspects of the human psyche and exploits them for profit, as do many other organizations.

Religion is a better form of slavery than forced slavery.

The religious slave, the slave of the mind, denies the chains that bind them and is blind to them.

 

[rousseau]

Maybe not in every case, but in many cases religion is a power system, and I think it's a system that latches onto certain aspects of the human psyche and exploits them for profit, as do many other organizations.

Religion is a better form of slavery than forced slavery.

The religious slave, the slave of the mind, denies the chains that bind them and is blind to them.

No doubt, was just adding on to my 'commodification' point. I'd say there is a set of human characteristics that can be used / exploited / whatever you want to call it, for profit. As you move outward from human biology those characteristics create more things that can be commodified. An organization that exists for the profit of it's organizers can usually be traced back to the commodification of a human need in some way. A religious organization exploits our spiritual need.