Hi, David,
I am deeply moved that you spent so close a look at my questions - taking
them seriously enough to reply in length and kind. I will re-re-reread your
posts (more than just to me) and try to arrive at some readable response in
3 - 30 days<G> if I can.
I don't promise to oppose, maybe in the contrary.
For now:
as I get older I detect more and more to be confused about. I find a *
generalization* potential in terms used even today (I am weary of the great
thinkers of the past, who looked at things in a reasonably smaller cognitive
inventory and so could apply their extraordinary logic more freely (-
unbiased by many 'facts') we think about today.)
I think about *'information'* as *"sensed correlation of relations"* -
mixing in with 'consciousness', 'life', 'knowledge', even
- with 'observation', all these terms riding in similar carriages. Any
more specific term runs into inadequacies I cannot handle.
I appreciate your 'image' of a wave requiring 'stuff' that may undulate.
I think you disregarded my Q# >2. (what keeps it running?) and concentrated
only of birth and death. Maybe there is NO 'run' in between, indeed?
relations occur and disappear, in a preferred timeless view the 'process' or
'action' is our figment. Remember: I am fundamentally naive (by
conventional, i.e. reductionistic natural science studies). But I try....
Existence is a hard term, I accept it upon something YOU just think about:
it 'exists' in your mind (whatever we assign to that).
Self? (May I refer to the ONE and only Koan in Oriental Science I ever heard
about: the one handed clapping.) I made a second one? (just for the fun of
it): the *"SELF"* which is a relation of ONE to itself. I don'tgo for
"reflexive": that requires and observer and so we just have met Mr
Homunculus.
I hope to return to this post with smarter reflections some time.
John Mikes
On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 11:52 AM, David Nyman <david.nyman.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> 2009/7/28 John Mikes <jamikes.domain.name.hidden>:
>
> Hi John
>
> > I really do not expect from you to give adequate replies to all these
> > questions - it would make the grandkids of our grandkits scientifically
> > unemployed but you have unusual solutions and ideas and it may be
> > interesting to tape your mind..
>
> Whew! But you are right about my inadequacies. Indeed I see my basic
> task, as others before me, to witheringly expose the specific
> inadequacies of my replies to any and all questions. To know less and
> less with ever greater clarity is the journey and precisely-delineated
> ignorance is the ultimate goal. In that spirit......
>
> > "Mind is what brain does" (although I find it a pars pro toto)
> > I am questioning "does". Would we restrict it to our ongoing image of
> > physiology, meaning: the brain does physical 'energy' consuming
> electrical
> > changes by (physico/chemical) impact and by physiological changes (such
> as
> > diffeences in blood-stream performance, chemical syntheses and migration
> of
> > molecules) - or do we assign activities of some brain-image beyond
> today's
> > anatomical biology?
>
> I'm pretty convinced that we're going to be stymied in much of this
> until we find another schema in which to re-express a new set of
> 'ultimates' for the purpose. You've seen the various ways I've tried
> to pump people's intuitions about this, but it may be that how one
> feels about it is ultimately characterologically influenced rather
> than logically compulsive. However, I believe that we need a new
> picture and a different language before the
> physical-chemical-biological story you refer to above, and the
> experiential, intentional narrative that we ignore at the cost of our
> minds, can ever be reconciled satisfactorily. On this basis, my
> interest in COMP is not because I know it to be correct, but rather
> that it is the beginning of an attempt to recast the investigation in
> these terms, which is VERY hard to discover elsewhere. In this regard
> I should again note that Colin is working on his own approach on a
> different basis but very much in the same spirit.
>
> > 1. What instigates the 'function' (called mindwork) - ostentibly with
> > connection to our 'material-figment' BRAIN,
>
> In my various ramblings, I've tried to cut the whole Gordian knot of
> what can coherently be said to exist, and within this the whole debate
> on materialism, panpsychism, mind-body hard problems, causal closure
> of the physical, etc. by a simple expediency which then struck me as
> obviously true (how about that?). To re-state:
>
> 1) Is there some logically prior requirement for anything to be said
> to exist? Reflect: 'something existing' necessitates presence not
> absence.
> 2) What is the relation between presence and "I"' as I discover
> myself? Reflect: "I" discover myself to be present.
> 3) Conjunction of 1) and 2): There is presence and it is reflexive.
> This constitutes what can be said to exist, and discovers it to be
> personal (i.e. there is an "I" associated with it).
> 4) Is there some logically prior requirement to my 'knowing' anything?
> Reflect: this and that must be distinguishable. In terms of the
> foregoing, this necessitates reflexive encounter (i.e.
> self-differentiation) This necessarily unites the senses of
> 'perceive', 'intend' and 'act'.
> 5) Conjunction of 1) - 4) "I" discover myself to be present through
> reflexive encounter. I've called this 'getting-a-grip-on-Oneself.
> This move now collapses being, knowing, perceiving, intending and
> acting.
>
> That's it. But now we have all the prerequisites for not only
> mindwork, but also matter-energy work, by this (as it seems to me)
> simple recognition of a present and differentiable personal synthesis.
> More: this very recognition now seems (to me at least) to be the
> logically compelling prerequisite for any meaningful sense of
> existence whatsoever. From this simplicity, by differentiation we can
> achieve mental and material multiplicity without limit, sans any
> crazy-making ontological separation of mind and body. The hard part
> is the specifics of the correlation.
>
> > 2. What keeps it running (and please, save me from the marvel of
> physicists
> > the call 'energy' - but nobody knows what it is)
> > 3. Who tells the process to buzz off, it is done,
>
> Well, it will appear, disappear, and reappear as the manifestation of
> patterns of self-encounter. Fundamentally, these patterns are not to
> be distinguished into mind or matter, and this is crucial from the
> necessary though limited perspective of causation, because it makes an
> indivisible unity of perception, intention, and action central to the
> logic of the story. Nonetheless it will be a requirement of local
> narratives in the 'traditions' either of physiology or phenomenology
> to deploy the appropriate metaphors plausibly and to give intuitively
> graspable answers to your the questions.
>
> > 4. How does the 'product' incorporate into the rest of it?
> > (BTW these questions arise in 'functions','reactions',processes as well,
> if
> > we think beyond Physix Textbook 101).
>
> Ah, the product is of course yet another aspect of being/knowing.
> IOW, we exist as mini-mes within perspectival horizons that limit us
> to mindworlds that nonetheless continue seamlessly in relation beyond
> those horizons. The mindworld by the arguments presented above
> constitutes both our being and our knowledge. There is not (cannot
> logically be) any observer and hence (unfortunately for Copenhagen
> interpretations) no observation. Reflect on the neonate: no
> differentiation of self and other has yet occurred. But through a
> sort of inferred video game system of feedback, the "I" polarises to a
> complementary subjective pole, forcing the rest of the mindworld to
> the objective 'externalised' extreme, wherein characterisations of
> 'functions', 'reactions', 'processes' in terms of causality are
> distinctively 'active' rather than 'intentional'. Hence you may see
> how all reality and all delusion stem from this survival reaction.
>
> > 5. Is a "thought" a product of the mind-process? if so, where does it
> settle
> > to become consciously acknowledged for us... (for WHOM???)
>
> Well, I pursue my line of argument, and from this perspective thought
> is a distinguishable modality of our mindworld - IOW a distinguishable
> aspect at once of our being and our knowing. And for whom? Well,
> I've been badgering Bruno on this very topic more than somewhat, but
> again my line is that the 'whom' is the reflexively present global "I"
> derived above, limited to mini-mes by perspectival horizons and pushed
> to a subjective pole by the inexorable requirements of a
> biological/evolutionary narrative. You're entitled to claim on this
> basis, as mini-me at any rate, that you are merely the master of all
> you survey, but that couldn't be the case if in fact you weren't at
> the same time heir to the whole ball of wax.
>
> David
>
> > David,
> > this question of mine is not within the ongoing discussion-details, just
> > 'about' the ideas exposed in them.
> >
> > "Mind is what brain does" (although I find it a pars pro toto)
> > I am questioning "does". Would we restrict it to our ongoing image of
> > physiology, meaning: the brain does physical 'energy' consuming
> electrical
> > changes by (physico/chemical) impact and by physiological changes (such
> as
> > diffeences in blood-stream performance, chemical syntheses and migration
> of
> > molecules) - or do we assign activities of some brain-image beyond
> today's
> > anatomical biology?
> > In the first case 'mind' is physical, memory, thought, mentality is as of
> > yesterday and we can stop perspective research. Slowly return to faithful
> > creationism.
> > If we believe in further enrichment of our cognitive inventory, I
> question:
> > 1. What instigates the 'function' (called mindwork) - ostentibly with
> > connection to our 'material-figment' BRAIN,
> > 2. What keeps it running (and please, save me from the marvel of
> physicists
> > the call 'energy' - but nobody knows what it is)
> > 3. Who tells the process to buzz off, it is done, and
> > 4. How does the 'product' incorporate into the rest of it?
> > (BTW these questions arise in 'functions','reactions',processes as well,
> if
> > we think beyond Physix Textbook 101).
> > 5. Is a "thought" a product of the mind-process? if so, where does it
> settle
> > to become consciously acknowledged for us... (for WHOM???)
> >
> > I really do not expect from you to give adequate replies to all these
> > questions - it would make the grandkids of our grandkits scientifically
> > unemployed but you have unusual solutions and ideas and it may be
> > interesting to tape your mind...
> >
> > You mentioned below the 'mind-body' problem. Considering 'body' as part
> of
> > the figment of the 'physical world' and 'mind' something more than just
> > that, I see an old artifax of a problem, how to save obsolescence into
> > advancement.
> > I am not ready to go into that.
> >
> > John Mikes
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 7:34 PM, David Nyman <david.nyman.domain.name.hidden>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> 2009/7/27 Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
> >>
> >> > That's a bit of a straw man you're refuting. I've never heard anyone
> >> > claim that
> >> > the mind is the brain. The materialist claim is that the mind is
> what
> >> > the
> >> > brain does, i.e. the mind is a process. That's implicit in COMP, the
> >> > idea that
> >> > functionally identical units can substituted for parts of your brain
> >> > without any
> >> > untoward effects.
> >>
> >> Yes indeed. But what do we mean by a process in materialist ontology?
> >> To speak of what the brain 'does' is to refer to actual changes of
> >> state of physical elements - at whatever arbitrary level you care to
> >> define them - of the material object in question. So now you have two
> >> options: either the 'process' is just an added-on description of these
> >> material changes of state, and hence redundant or imaginary in any
> >> ontological sense, or else you are implicitly claiming a second -
> >> non-material - ontological status for the mind-process so invoked. As
> >> I said, it would be difficult to imagine two states of being more
> >> different than minds and brains (i.e. this is the classic mind-body
> >> dilemma).
> >>
> >> This is the insight in Bruno's requirement of the COMP reversal of
> >> physics and mind as described in step 08 of his SANE2004 paper. It's
> >> aim is to deal a knockdown blow to any facile intuition of the mind as
> >> the computation (i.e. process) of a material brain, and IMO the
> >> argument more than merits a direct riposte in that light.
> >> Furthermore, in a platonic COMP, the question of the level of
> >> substitution required to reproduce your mind is unprovable, and has to
> >> be an act of faith in any 'doctor' who claims to know.
> >>
> >> AFAICS, until these 'under-the-carpet' issues are squarely faced, the
> >> customary waving away of the brain-mind relation as a simplistic
> >> functional identity remains pure materialist prejudice, and on the
> >> basis of the above, flatly erroneous. To say the least, any such
> >> relation is moot, absent a radically deeper insight into the mind-body
> >> problem.
> >>
> >> David
> >>
> >> >
> >> > Bruno Marchal wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > On 26 Jul 2009, at 16:52, David Nyman wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > >> Thanks to everyone who responded to my initial sally on dreams and
> >> > >> machines. Naturally I have arrogated the right to plagiarise your
> >> > >> helpful comments in what follows, which is an aphoristic synthesis
> of
> >> > >> my understanding of the main points that have emerged thus far. I
> >> > >> hope this will be helpful for future discussion.
> >> > >>
> >> > >> THE APHORISMS
> >> > >>
> >> > >> We do not see the mind, we see *through* the mind.
> >> > >>
> >> > >> What we see through the mind - its contents - is mind-stuff:
> dreams.
> >> > >>
> >> > >> Hence dream content - i.e. whatever is capable of being present to
> us
> >> > >> - can't be our ontology - this would be circular (the eye can't see
> >> > >> itself).
> >> > >>
> >> > >> So the brain (i.e. what the eye can see) can't be the mind; but the
> >> > >> intuition remains that mind and brain might be correlated by some
> >> > >> inclusive conception that would constitute our ontology: Kant's
> great
> >> > >> insight stands.
> >> >
> >> > It's more than an intuition. There's lots of evidence the mind and
> >> > brain are
> >> > correlated: from getting drunk, concusions, neurosurgery, mrfi,...
> >> >
> >> > >>
> >> > >> It is similarly obvious that 'identity' theories and the like are
> >> > >> non-sense: it would indeed be hard to think of two descriptions
> less
> >> > >> 'identical' than brain-descriptions and mind-descriptions: hence
> >> > >> again, any such identification could only be via some singular
> >> > >> correlative synthesis.
> >> > >>
> >> > >> Hence any claim that the mind is literally identical with, or
> >> > >> 'inside', the brain can be shown to be false by the simple - if
> messy
> >> > >> - expedient of a scalpel; or else can be unmasked as implicitly
> >> > >> dualistic: i.e. the claim is really that 'inside' and 'outside' are
> >> > >> not merely different descriptions, but different ontologies.
> >> >
> >> > That's a bit of a straw man you're refuting. I've never heard anyone
> >> > claim that
> >> > the mind is the brain. The materialist claim is that the mind is
> what
> >> > the
> >> > brain does, i.e. the mind is a process. That's implicit in COMP, the
> >> > idea that
> >> > functionally identical units can substituted for parts of your brain
> >> > without any
> >> > untoward effects.
> >> >
> >> > Brent
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > >
> >> >>
> >
>
> >
>
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Received on Thu Jul 30 2009 - 11:39:40 PDT