What is "Mind?"

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High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Apr 19, 2017 - 10:57am PT

For starters, this is in bad form (and argumentative), on two counts at least...

"In every case it seems that they are working off the first assumption that the fundamental here is material, considered from a kind of classical Newtonian vantage - the very thing field theory seems to have junked."

You apparently cannot see how so.

Here, hints...
"In every case it seems that they are working off the first assumption that the fundamental here is material, considered [1] from a kind of classical Newtonian vantage - the very thing field theory seems [2] to have junked."

...

Despite his affability, Dennett sometimes expresses a weary frustration with the immovable intuitions of the people he is trying to convince. “You shouldn’t trust your intuitions,” he told the philosophers...

re: from agnosticism to calm conviction

“I have devoted half a century, my entire academic life, to the project, in a dozen books and hundreds of articles tackling various pieces of the puzzle, without managing to move all that many readers from wary agnosticism to calm conviction...” -Dennett,

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Apr 19, 2017 - 12:43pm PT

the model I follow is that brain generates content, and awareness "sees" it and the medley of the two gives rise to consciousness as we experience it

Are you saying brain does not produce awareness, John? I agree that in some way awareness precedes consciousness. For instance, I recently had oral surgery under anesthesia, wherein I went to sleep and awoke after all was done. But during the procedure the surgeon asked me to do several things, like "open wider" and I complied - but there is no memory of that. So, I was aware but not conscious. Thus awareness is the ability to react to certain stimuli and may precede consciousness.

You seem to assert that awareness is somehow axiomatic in the scheme of evolving consciousness, and may not be wholly dependent upon brain function. Is this your view? If it is, then where do you think it resides? Does it pop into the brain prior to consciousness, or does it infiltrate the brain like a magnetic field?

Many years ago physicists postulated the aether as a conductive medium. Are you now positing awareness in a similar fashion?

There is no "Hard Problem" IME. What appears to be a hard problem is nothing more than how the brain processes information to the culminating point of reflection.

......

Mike, Thank you for your sympathetic comments, but my mother died peacefully in her sleep while I was visiting her in Alabama in February of 1998.

......

Reading that article I was tempted to think of Dennett as an old codger, before seeing he is six years my junior! Sprightly youngster, isn't he?

Francis Sanzaro

climber

Rock and Ice Magazine

Apr 19, 2017 - 12:53pm PT

My god...I've been mulling over some things for a few days, related to algorithms, data and automation, and here we are onto the aether of awareness. I can't keep up!

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Apr 19, 2017 - 01:36pm PT

I'm not asking for a critique of my reasoning, Fruity, nor yet arguing. From my vantage you are not even presenting an argument but rather seem dug into what certainly feels like an outdated behaviorialist point of view that is not even addressing the questions asked.

I sketched out the fatal flaw in Dennet's main thesis. And incidentally I like much of what Dennett says, but the implications he goes onto make are not logically tenable.

First, as mentioned, he is fixated on output, and in the case of consciousness, that can only translate to behavior and content - the STUFF that we are aware of. He has called that illusory. That there is nothing there. That qualia is just some imagined concept.

What gets lost on the old fart is that the mere appearance of an illusion postulates being aware of SOMETHING. And no one in their right mind would ever say: You only think you are aware. Such a statement is logical hogwash, and begs two questions that Dennett buffs, and you, never answer:

A) What is the difference between thinking that you are aware, and actually being aware? And B), what criteria must be met for you to consider consciousness "real," as opposed to illusory?

Basically, Fruity, what you have said all along is that if people only understood the nuances of engineering, and perhaps a few other like disciplines, the nature of consciousness would be crystal clear.

How ever you define it, this philosophical belief is draw on the how engineering is usually conceived: the use of science and math to come up with practical solutions to problems. Basically reckoning how physical things work and finding practical uses (and definitions) for discoveries.
That's a straight up textbook definition provided me by my daughter, a petro-engineer.

Quite naturally, you will start with the physical structure of the brain and work forward. examining the mechanical, physical processes involved and trying to link those processes to consciousness.

The problem is that in virtually all other instances of applied engineering, a study of the mechanical processes and forces provides you an out put, and that output is either a run down of physical forces, stresses, and so forth, or, say, a bridge or an oil platform, if you're trying to output a structure. Nowhere in the history of engineering has the study of how physical structures and forces work either encountered, explained, nor yet predicted anything but external forces and structures, or theories about same. To the Type A engineer, only structures and physical forces are real.

So how does that leave you when it comes time to describe consciousness? You are left with thinking strictly in terms of physical structures or outputs, determined by causal factors, all of which are physical. And so any talk about qualia and all the rest would, by engineering logic, be nothing but woo.

Knowing how slippery you are, I can imagine you even arguing this - and I challenge you to provide a specific logical argument about how any or all of the above is wrong.

Now Dennett is basically a behavioralist, and behavioralism is simply looing at human behavior in engineering terms. So consciousness itself, since we cannot measure it directly, is illusory to the old dude.

His fatal error, however, was in positing his view of consciousness on output, or content - the WHAT that we are mistaken about being aware of. His entire claim that consciousness is an illusion is based on us being mistaken about WHAT we perceive.

My point is that this is not the core of the argument, nor even what is being questioned - namely, that we are AWARE of anything whatsoever. And though it was not his attention, Dennett is fast to confirm that we are most definitely believe and experience the illusions we call consciousness,
and the mere existence of illusions postulates awareness. Awareness is the one aspect that even Dennet cannot explain away, because itself vouchsafes the awareness of an argument to try and disqualify as an illusion.

Fact is, Fruity, I am right with you with most of what you say per bioengineering factors being the primary generators of consciousness. But you have never given even the slightest evidence or argument for awareness being an output, or how something that was NOT engineered (the brain) somehow sources awareness. What does that actually mean? How is that even logically coherent?

And this is where it gets tricky and, imo, where most people get lost.

Even you won't be so daft as to deny you have an experience of reading this thread. So we take it as axiomatic that you are not denying the fact that you are aware, regardless of WHAT you are aware of.

So Dennett claims consciousness is an illusion - and I'm assuming you feel the same. This is precisely where Dennett starts to get muddled. He has waffled over the years, but in mind circles, it is generally held that what Dennett means, is that what is actually illusory about consciousness is the belief that consciousness is something other than, or more than, basic brain function. That is, the brain does NOT create some real phenomenon that we mistakenly call consciousness, though we experientially BELIEVE it does through a kind of cerebral parlor trick which Dennet plays out with his amateur magic show during his talks. But as mentioned, this slight of hand that the brain does concerns WHAT we believe is there. At no time during his talk does Dennett ever say, "You only imagine I am up here on the stage talking to you."

You get the idea.

Now I explained this before here goes again.

If consciousness IS brain function, or if consciousness is simply "what the brain is doing," then it is logically incoherent to talk about the brain causing or sourcing consciousnees, which opens the door to talking about something OTHER than the brain. If you rejoin - No. I'm not saying consciousness is OTHER than the brain at all. Consciousness does not have an independent existence FROM the brain.

The only way this can be logically stated is to say that the brain itself IS conscious. And there is no logically way to maintain this line of reasoning than to say that as Dennett describes it, awareness has to be a fundamental property of the brain.

For a short review of Dennett, consider the following:

I. Dennett's Philosophical Program

A. Substituting Cranes for Skyhooks

1. A skyhook is an imaginary device that is attached to the sky for the purpose of lifting or suspending objects—an imaginary device because it is impossible; a crane, on the other hand, is an actual device that, with adequate design, is useful for lifting or suspending objects.

2. According to Dennett, many philosophers and others mistakenly depend upon, and even desire, skyhooks as a fundamental means of explanation.

a. The skyhooks might include God, the Mind, the soul, a special state of consciousness, or a simply autonomous self.
b. As a need, philosophers may view skyhooks as fundamentally necessary for explanation—for example, Locke's insistence on Mind (or God--RY) as necessary for the explanation of design in nature.
c. As a desire, philosophers may seek skyhooks as protection against a reductionistic scientific materialism or against the subjugation of the humanities to an indifferent science.

3. Dennett is a skyhook slayer—intent on showing that skyhooks are neither necessary for explanations nor especially desirable for satisfaction of humane goals.

a. Dennett does not say that skyhooks have never served a useful function; he just views them as outdated and he sees the advancement of knowledge as better served through the search for "cranes."
b. In Darwin's Dangerous Idea, he is concerned with finding cranes that explain the design of the evolutionary process.
c. He also stresses that evolution depends upon lots of little cranes, not just big ones and that little cranes are capable though of producing big ones.

Dennett will hear nothing about emergence, since this implies something happening between inputs and outputs. In a word, emergence makes possible recognition of mind, or consciousness, as an added dimension of reality that is linked to physical and organic processes, but is not entirely reducible to them. Dennett will hear no such thing.

Fact is, the direct awareness of consciousness is a sufficiently universal experience to warrant a strong claim as a dimension of reality. Likewise, the perceived (conceived) relevance of explanation of human actions in terms of consciousness (through reactions, intentions, motivations, decisions) is strong enough to require especially strong contrary evidence to dispel the perception.

If you have any, give it up.

jogill

climber

Colorado

Apr 19, 2017 - 01:57pm PT

How true. Once you place awareness somehow outside of brain function, it becomes the Aether of Awareness.

BASE104

Social climber

An Oil Field

Apr 19, 2017 - 02:01pm PT

There is no getting around the fact that the mind resides in the brain. It is part of what the brain does.

I've had a few friends who have had strokes or who have suffered severe brain injury from soloing falls or a falling rock. I also know people who have or have had serious brain diseases, which killed them.

It changes who they are in many cases. Not so much in others. You can look at a PET scan of a stroke victim and see which part of the brain was damaged. That is one of the ways we understand the functions of areas in the brain.

I have one friend who had a stroke. Now he can barely speak, and has lost much of the use on the right side of his body. Inside, he is still there, or so it seems. He can still comment on conversations, but you have to learn to understand him. It is just awful. We tend to think in words, and Aphasia leaves you with an inability to find words. How that affects cognition is something I don't know. Another friend who had a stroke also has Aphasia. He has full motor function, but the language center in his brain was destroyed. Over the years, he has gotten better, but he can't write correctly, nor speak fluently. Not even close. How that affects his thoughts is beyond my understanding.

I have another friend who fell soling the 3rd pitch of a route and hit the ground. He lost both of his feet and barely survived. His memory is totally gone, or rather I should say that he can't make new memories.

I know a friend of my parents who is going through dementia. Her memory is almost gone. She is still a wonderful lady, and is now quiet and a little frightened of people. She understands what is happening. She still remembers what the doctor told her.

I have another friend who had early onset Parkinson's with Lewy bodies. She had a doctorate in meteorology. She knew that the dementia was coming.

Her version of the disease damages the brain until you are basically a vegetable, and then you die. I never saw her in the last years of her life. Her husband was very protective. It was horrible, I suspect. In your last year you can't control your body, and you need the care of a baby.

Anyone ever see someone with Alzheimer's? Like the Lewy bodies in Parkinson's, you can actually see the damage occurring in the brain through imaging, and certainly upon autopsy.

All of these people lost their MINDS to some degree. The latter completely, until it killed them.

How you guys can realize this and still say that the mind is separate from the brain boggles me. How do you explain these causes and effects?

It WOULD be great if we all had an everlasting soul, but the only evidence for the soul lies in religious texts, which we already know are horrible places to go to understand nature. If souls exist, then it is a part of nature. God's creation, if you like.

Fear of death is tremendous in our societies throughout history. Can't you guys admit that the idea of an everlasting soul is a result of that fear, and whole mythologies surround it?

BASE104

Social climber

An Oil Field

Apr 19, 2017 - 02:13pm PT

Largo said:

That's usually called type physicalism, aka, reductive materialism, type identity theory, mind–brain identity theory and identity theory of mind. Read up on it if you want.

These are philosophical categories. Philosophy has proved to be of some use, but a lot of it is just baloney. Categories like those above are just a way of packaging something so that you do not need to understand it yourself.

You can attack Physics using technique like that. The thing is, it isn't very useful. Physics is always useful. Philosophy is limited. These days, it is rarely even relevant.

Dennet's Skyhook idea is a good. I have to agree. Thanks for that.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Apr 19, 2017 - 04:13pm PT

There is not an iota of evidence that something called awareness sets the stage for consciousness, but is not a product of the brain.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Apr 19, 2017 - 04:21pm PT

"Awareness" instantly takes you back to subconscious processes and the dominant evolutionary role predator/prey relationships had on the development of consciousness.

WBraun

climber

Apr 19, 2017 - 04:53pm PT

Consciousness does not have an independent existence FROM the brain.

The source of consciousness is the living entity itself the spiritual soul (atma).

Consciousness works thru the mind, (subtle material), the brain (gross physical material), and pervades the entire gross material body.

The source of consciousness is NOT from the brain itself ever ......

(This post is not approved by the gross materialists ever)

Jan

Mountain climber

Colorado & Nepal

Apr 19, 2017 - 05:19pm PT

Once again, I agree. The key to solving many mysteries of human thought and behavior lie in the subconscious or unconscious. I also believe that there are senses connected to the unconscious that have atrophied in most people but not in all, that help to explain what we would normally term spiritual or psychic phenomena. I think it is possible that many people have them but just aren't aware of them. I also remember discussing this possibility with jstan in the old What is Mind post.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Apr 19, 2017 - 05:20pm PT

at the very least, Paul, the paradox raised by the idea that the Earth is a living entity is solved by removing the distinction between "biotic" and "abiotic," which is to say, life is not fundamentally different from any other physical process that takes place in the universe.

there is no paradox then, I believe...

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Apr 19, 2017 - 06:11pm PT

Actually, BASE, that's not how philosophical designations work at all. For each extant term, there are literally hundreds of thousands of pages of usually well-reasoned arguments and lines of thought that back up all designations. A label simply allows students of a given field to quickly make the relevant associations of this guy or that line of thought. Packaging, then, is a very deliberate and logically drawn assignation that aids understanding. I suppose somebody could toss around philosophical terms and not have a clue what they mean or how they were arrived at, when or by whom, but the belief that they were coined to avoid "understanding it yourself" is weak beer, amigo.

For example, you said that "mind" is "part of what the brain does."

The value of categories is that your statement describe Identity Theory, or Identity Materialism, which states that brain states and subjective states are selfsame.

Literally thousands of very bright people have argued the pros and cons of this belief for better than 50 years, and some of the associated thoughts for a couple thousand years. If you know the title, you can go straight to resources and ready various iterations of your argument presented with scholastic rigor and a hell of a lot of acuity and brainpower.

What's most obvious for many on this thread is their first assumptions: That a physical mechanism causes or sources consciousness. The Hard Problem asks all who believe this to illustrate how this is so. A more nuanced approach would ask what you actually mean in saying that first person functions create 1st person experience. Other than, "It just does," the usual answers are, "We don't know yet," and to "know" means finding the causal mechanism - most every time.

However when you look at the explanations, most you only find magic, denial (there IS no hard problem), or doubletalk. And when you hear talk that people "have consciousness cornered," it in all cases turns out to be objective functioning they have cornered, leaving the jump to awareness the width of your mind.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Apr 19, 2017 - 06:18pm PT

The Axis of Creativity deep in the unconscious, where ideas coalesce, surrounded by chaotic flux.

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Apr 19, 2017 - 06:18pm PT

My quote above, about the impossibility of being wrong about awareness, concerns YOU being aware. Not some external object.

To me, YOU are an external object. So YOU can be wrong about awareness, unless you can show me otherwise.

edit:

And by definition your subconscious mind is external to your conscious mind, so YOUR conscious mind could be wrong about awareness.

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Apr 19, 2017 - 06:20pm PT

I have repeatedly said that 1st person consciousness is private

Only until you open your mouth, type a response, or raise an eyebrow.

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Apr 19, 2017 - 06:24pm PT

the direct awareness of consciousness is a sufficiently universal experience to warrant a strong claim as a dimension of reality.

Universal?

Are rocks included?

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Apr 19, 2017 - 06:31pm PT

Consider awareness itself, pure awareness. I will grant you awareness. You can see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or be aware of whatever is happening in the moment. However, you have no memory and you can make no associations among the modalities of your awareness. The taste of madeleine is only the taste of madeleine.

You have no language or any other capacity which humans and other organisms learn as they experience the world.

Are you any different than the space probe which flew past Pluto?

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Apr 19, 2017 - 07:18pm PT

My quote above, about the impossibility of being wrong about awareness, concerns YOU being aware. Not some external object.

To me, YOU are an external object. So YOU can be wrong about awareness, unless you can show me otherwise.

edit:

And by definition your subconscious mind is external to your conscious mind, so YOUR conscious mind could be wrong about awareness.
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns

Apr 19, 2017 - 06:20pm PT
I have repeatedly said that 1st person consciousness is private

Only until you open your mouth, type a response, or raise an eyebrow.

Can you guys honestly tell yourselves that you are tryng to understand anything?

Take this whopper from MH:

My quote above, about the impossibility of being wrong about awareness, concerns YOU being aware. Not some external object.

To me, YOU are an external object. So YOU can be wrong about awareness, unless you can show me otherwise.

MH, I can feel you struggling. Or worse, believing you're not.

Put simply, a subject cannot be mistaken about their OWN awareness. And if a third person, looking at said subject, says, "You can might be mistaken about being aware," in what possible sense is this logically coherent?

And no part of a unified consciousness is "external" to the whole. What could that possibly mean? Where would the externalized bit reside? In a cloud? Some data bank? In God's lap?

What I believe you mean is that many aspects of mechanical brain function operate beneath awareness. But by what line of reasoning are following to conclude that because you are not aware of acids breaking down your food in you GI track, for example, that you might be mistaken about being aware. NOT about WHAT you are aware of, rather simply being aware, however much or little that includes at a given moment.

What's more, if you said to Joe, You are mistaken that you are aware, what criteria would convince you that Joe was, in fact, aware? What's more, since awareness is an internal experience, what would "proof" consist of for Joe to know he is aware?

And this: You have no language or any other capacity which humans and other organisms learn as they experience the world.

Are you any different than the space probe which flew past Pluto?

MH my friend, you are back to considering awareness solely in terms of WHAT you are aware of. Try this: When you let your mind settle, and the articles of awareness drop away, what is left? That's the difference. If you're looking for a quantifiable external object, you're not understanding your own awareness, and what it is.