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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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One aspect of scientific theories of mind/brain I've observed over the years is that they follow acadamic fads like every other theory. During the 1960's and a couple of decades after, all the interest and all the speculations were about the role of chemicals in the brain, how and where they were produced and their effects.
Right now everything is brain measurements in terms of blood flow, electrical energy, magnetic resonance. Hardly a mention of how this might relate to the chemistry of the brain, and how these two different ways of measuring its activity might interact. And then of course there's always the possibility of some other yet undiscovered system(s) that will have to be integrated.
So I think it's premature to talk about a scientific theory of mind, other than the observation that from a scientist's measurement oriented viewpoint, it seems to be concentrated in the brain.
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ruppell
climber
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Has anyone proposed mind can't be defined?
Occums razor can't define it.
Neitze can't define it.
Ryand can't define it.
The internet sure as shite can't define it.
Prove you exist......
Can't define it for our idea.
Prove you don't exist.
Only outlines it for a singular person.
IE Kill yourself than let the rest of us know.
Is your mind still there?
What was your mind anyway?
Until everyone posting in this thread figures out the answer. This thread has been deamed useless by the thread gods.
WTF is mind?
It's mine.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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The problem with defining mind is the subtlety of thought and self-awareness: mind being so subtle words and semantics serve only to confuse the disputants. In the end the strictest adherence to the definitions of terms that lead to a definition of mind must be the foundation of any conclusion. I’m not sure I see that happening here, yet.
I like what Jan says: it is one thing to talk of blood flow and chemical makeup and it is entirely another to talk of experience and in that is a strange dichotomy that seems to separate those that need certainty and those that relish the mystery.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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those that need certainty
Certainty?...... Please!
Like what, the certainty of gravity? The only certainty about gravity is that it's takes a million gallons of fuel and a million horsepower to get a man in orbit. But what's Gravity? What causes it? Is it physical? I don't see anything certain!
I think when we see the word "Theory" we should replace it with "Let's Pretend"!
Glad to see ya back Paul!
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Is human nature Nature?? That would smack of radical determinism,
You seem to be saying that because humans are a part of nature, that everything is pre-determined.
This is false. Most of nature is not pre-determined.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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NEW YORK—The field of psychology was brought to an immediate halt this week as disillusioned and weary practitioners of the discipline reportedly concluded that the mind could never possibly hope to study itself.
Abandoning more than a century of clinical research, theoretical developments, and observational studies, psychologists worldwide announced that their entire professional lives had been utterly worthless, as the human brain could never comprehend its own workings, let alone understand its own understanding.
“We’ve spent years trying to discern how the mind functions, but today I am forced to admit that this so-called research was nothing more than a fool’s errand—and that we people of learning were the greatest fools of all,” said American Psychological Association president Nadine Kaslow at a press conference Thursday, flanked by leading figures from all major psychology subfields. “Can the eye watch itself? Can a book read its own pages? No. It’s now clear to us that despite all the painstakingly conducted studies and all the data we have meticulously gathered since the late 19th century, we have, in essence, been nothing more than the snake that devours its own tail.”
“All that we thought we understood was merely a mirage crafted by the very unfathomable minds we once so stubbornly insisted we could know,” added Kaslow, before declaring the APA, with its 134,000 members and 54 academic divisions, forever disbanded.
In the wake of the development, sources confirmed that thousands of researchers at top academic institutions had resigned from their posts effective immediately and had been seen packing decades’ worth of academic journals—as well as seminal works such as Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation Of Dreams, Jean Piaget’s The Psychology Of Intelligence, and Alfred Adler’s Understanding Human Nature—into boxes that will be placed in storage indefinitely or disposed of at nearby landfills.
According to reports from one prominent university, visitors to the psychology department found the chair’s office locked, but with a note on the door that simply read, “It was all an illusion.”
Over the past few days, researchers across the psychology spectrum have reportedly discontinued their experiments and returned their funding to its original sources, stating that further investigations had been rendered irrelevant by the completely unreliable and fatally subjective nature of the human mind.
“If only we could step outside these imperfect intellects for but one moment and observe our mental functions as they truly are,” said clinical psychologist Deborah Yamada, who explained that the discipline was inherently and fatally corrupted by the inescapable reality that the examiner and the examined are one and the same. “And yet, when we honestly appraise the human condition, what can the mind truly know that is not a mere waking dream?”
“And even that dream, can it genuinely be said to exist? For is not the moment I grasp the limits of my consciousness the very moment it becomes unknowable?” Yamada continued. “More to the point: What is this ‘I’ that supposedly speaks in the first place? And why do I—whatever that may be—so childishly cling to it?”
Reached for comment, many from the now-dissolved psychology community told reporters that they hoped to redirect their efforts toward other sciences such as physics, chemistry, and geology, fields they hoped would be untainted by the “inescapable enigma” of consciousness.
“If I can no longer study myself, then so be it: I will pursue that which is concrete and measurable,” said Harvard University experimental psychologist Steven Pinker, holding up a quartz crystal before his eyes. “Look at it: Irrefutable. Solid. So unlike the elusive mind.”
“Only this I can truly know,” Pinker added. “That is, if I can know anything at all.”
From The Onion, 7/21/14 -- Funny because is shaves very close to truth.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2014 - 08:49am PT
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Spider Savage: That's some funny sh#t, except they would NEVER give the money back LOL. You must know how most of those grant rackets work.
Tvash said:
i've claimed no expertise in meditation.
I say: I only use meditation as a mataphor for sustained, empirical, self observation and looking at mind from the indside.
i dont care about the void. im not into crochet, either.
I say: You just said you claim no expertise on self observation, so what makes you think the "void" is the Golden Fleece, and what do you think it "is," having spent no time there? Contrasting the void with crochet? We could call that gratuitous - or just dork talk. You also act as though the non-thing part of this whole business will simply vanish because you focus on measrable stuff. That's the illusion you need to awaken from which Mike referred to.
neither is relevant to a theory of concsciousness
I say: Based on what? Based on your rote rehashing of a stadard materialist credo. But as we hae seen, there is no "scientific" explanation of consciousness. It is all inferred. There is no scieintific "broken code" we can start programming into a computer. Graciano insists that we will be able to download our consciousness into a machine and live much as we did when we had body - and ther eare poor rubes who actualy believe this hook, line and sinker. Get ths: There is no "thing" that is mind. You have just barfed up scientism, Tvash - and once more have heaped virture on it.
the void is just another mental state - profundity of same is a personal value judgement.
I say: Mike, PPSP and any other person who has actually worked at this will tell you that you are mistaken, but you'll again fell victim to that narcissistic distortion of believing that just because an idea is in your head, it performce must be so. In every esoteric school there is the saying, in one way or anther, that "mind" falls away at one point. Do you have any idea what that means? How would you. Are you thinking these people are doing science, but poorly. Of course you do. That they are doing something totally different than what you are "thinking" (guessing about) seems lost to you. Your value judgement is that all of this is bollocks - because we are not using instumentation, only awareness - and by your own admission, it is based on no practice at all. If I was going to make catagorical statements about something I did not know about and were not interested in, I'm not sure I could do so and actually believe my own self. What you'r doing is called "projection," projecting what you believe to be (a state) onto ground you have never traversed. Funny thing is, this is 5.0 ground, not 5.10 ground.
one manz journey is anotherz waste of time, and thats OK, personal control freak issues notwithstanding of course
I say: We're not talking about your journey - though more power to you on whatever journey you are on - but rather the nature of reality. It is true that your ego control of the content and the process must fall away in the process of self observation, as opposed to controling the parameters of an experiment during quantifying exercises, but this is part of the adventure and is to be welcomed. For many of us, the idea that sentience itself is observable in the brain is conflation at it's finest. Ergo a waste of time. But per investigating objective functioning, neuroscience is excellent indeed.
sentience= cosciousness
I say: Not quite. Consciousness involves all the data processing and so forth. Sentienc, itself, is best understood as consciousnss sans content - sans "qualia." This is something that will make no sense till you do some self observation, otherwise content and sentience, sentience and consciousnes will both be seen as the same things. That's an issue with most all folks beginning self observation modalities, but easily corrected should clarity be prized.
He said: compelling theories of consciousness have been presented that is all
I haven't heard an actual theory of consciousness here except what Graziano has said, and his zombie model, which has some excellent insights per various aspects, but IMO is full of loopholes and fumbles. What is YOUR theory of mind, above and beyond "mind is what the brain does?"
The simple fact is, even so called scientific investigations of mind are beholden to subjective self observation to know what they are looking for in order to study by way of brain function. The reason Sam Harris has gotten so much play is he actualy took the time to get a hold of mind from the inside. IMO, he didn't stick with it long enough to get past materialism and into a space that was not "God" or woo, but somethng altogether other. But he at least put some efort in to seeing what his interior process was about. And that is essential, because no matter how you shake it, consciousness, mind and sentience are all experiential realitis first and foremost, known to us only through our personal awareness, and declaring to the world that observing that awarenss is a "waste of time" and is "irrevelant" to a theory of consciousness is, quie obviously, the equal of stepping on the rope while wearing crampons.
JL
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MH2
climber
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No matter how much I insist that this has nothing to do with content (JL)
Take note, eeyonkee.
I much like your earlier reference to how a cat might think. Cats do seem able to learn and predict the behavior of their prey. This theme is made dramatic use of in the book, The Tiger, by John Vaillant. The people who live and hunt in the territory of the Siberian tiger feel they have an understanding of how it thinks, and that the big cat has some understanding of people, too. As you suggested, that kind of understanding might be extended in humans to getting some sense of what other people are thinking, feeling, and perhaps about to DO, and that sense of what motivates behavior could also develop for the "self."
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Coming up next, Largo will touch his left elbow with his left thumb.
It's experiential, yo.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Base: Most of nature is not pre-determined.
I think you've confused the issue. You don't need the "pre-". It's just "determined." That would be the question, if it's important.
"Why X?" is a question of causal implication, isn't it? Does one thing cause another? Post hoc ergo propter hoc? Another paradox or dilemma.
A close systematic examination should show you that you can't quite put you finger on cause and effect accurately. There are: (i) too many variables to control for (the models get way complicated--means low R-square), and (ii) the opportunity for choice of what to model (what is that which is caused; what it that which causes) is necessarily biased, distorted, selected. There is no real neutrality in any research study. Every researcher has an agenda, a purpose, an intention, and that perforce narrows every view.
(Good posts, Spider, Paul, and Jan.)
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Where ever there's a void, rest assured, JL will try to fill it.
Von Braun would call it projecting. I prefer the sunny side of the street, so I'll go with exuberance.
I'm a Curious George, but I have to say that after this discussion, I'm even less interested in the experiential arts than I was in the beginning - which wasn't much.
On the sunny side, however, I will credit John for being a catalyst for my tucking into the latest science on consciousness. That has been fun and fascinating. I've been pleasantly surprised at how much, rather than little, we know.
John's entire thesis seems to be "no scientist will ever know what I'm experiencing right now, so there". OK. Not exactly earthshaking. The rest appears to be painting in the minutiae of his personal inner journey - not exactly interesting to a general audience who is, after all, interested more in the nature of consciousness than what's on John's mind (or not, as it were).
Fast forward 50 or 100 years and John's thesis may crumble (Largo-as-RC toy? LargoVision?) but he clings to the notion that it must stand forever because...because...he's got decades of meditation under his belt...and you don't.
I get the argument - but it's a 2014 argument. It may have legs - or not. We'll see.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Base,
On the other side, what is it that is not caused or seemingly the result of causal forces?
This is the problem. You can't SAY what things really are, and although science focuses so much on explanation, one comes to find that even that can't really be said. Some Buddhists refer to this non-declaration as The Tetralema:
Not existence and non-existence.
Not existence or non-existence.
Neither not-existence nor not non-existence.
It's a joke, you know? Nothing can be found that has it's own inherent existence, it's own necessary existence, it's own independent existence. On the other hand, everything SEEMS to be the result of causes and conditions. But neither seem to fit. So what IS it really?
This is not philosophy. I'd say it's the opposite of philosophy.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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I will note that when some innernut jaggoff proclaims that another innernut jaggoff jaggoff # 1 has never met - and essentially knows nothing at all about - is in need of an 'awakening' - it doesn't exactly bolster their credibility.
But then, this isn't exactly an observation driven crowd.
After all, truth comes from within.
If you don't believe me, just ask me.
It's particularly funny when MikeL goes on about art. Um...I am an artist.
One thing artists necessarily develop is a nose for is cliche. Man, who farted?
And then there's the Pied Piper schtick. Newsflash - we don't buy new theories hook line and sinker - as you wooists buy your experientialism - we find those emerging theories interesting, cohesive, supported by evidence (to whatever degree that happens), and consistent with previously support theories, like evolution. Yes, we can think. Skeptically, even - which is why we don't buy your silly little playground debate tricks.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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The people who live and hunt in the territory of the Siberian tiger feel they have an understanding of how it thinks, and that the big cat has some understanding of people, too.
this is the sort of thing, this "theory of mind." that humans apply to everything... it is not at all clear what everything else "thinks" of humans... it is entirely possible that they don't.
by Largo's definition of "think," being the discursive narrative that circulates in our heads, it is highly unlikely that Siberian tigers or anything else, can "think" at all.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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The primary rift here seems to be scientism's (tongue firmly in cheek) view that any mental state (or no-state, if that makes you feel better), with or without qualia (irrelevant, really) is somehow separate from the neural/body processes (the 3D marquee) that produces it. What those afflicted with scientism are saying is that they are one in the same.
That paradoxical reality is something many can't get their mitts around.
The wooists rely on an assumption - one they cannot and do not know - that the scientismists do not have a substantially similar canvas of experiential knowledge at their disposal, but I would guess that this is actually not the case for people who've engaged in more extreme pursuits on planet earth's remote places - which most, if not all of us, have. I would guess that our experiential tapestries are far more similar than different - we've just come to different conclusions as to what's going on.
After all, there are infinitely many paths to awakening. Amiright?
Or is there just one path (yours)?
That doesn't seem to be a very enlightened viewpoint to me.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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For a man, measurement and truth do not good bedfellows make.
Seattle is under rare electrical bombardment right now.
America is touching it's Left Shoulder to it's Right Panhandle.
It's experiential, yo.
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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I say: We're not talking about your journey - though more power to you on whatever journey you are on - but rather the nature of reality (JL)
It remains an open question whether the nature of reality is dependent upon peculiar mental states. Our perception of it may be.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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When someone tells a person a gripping story (like climbing Ahab or what not), the person hearing the story will begin to tense their muscles and FEEL an experience. This is the basis for the growth of the idea of "embodied cognition."
MikeL
For me to be able to "Feel" your experience I must agree with your "facts", Truths, before I'll lend you my feelings!?
For me to be Happy with your Ahab experience, we first share the logistical Truths. What, when, where's, etc's. Once we've converged upon these facts, we can then proceed feeling good about our shared Truths and allow our selves to open up emotionally.
Secondly, we would share our sensations. How hard or easy the climb was for us on said day. About the physical and mental challenge. If it was hot, if it rained, if it got dark, etc, etc.
Lastly, we would state if we loved or hated the climb. If we felt heroic or pathetic.
These are atleast three different ways to "Feel" about a climb IMO and what I would call "embodied consciousness".
Consciousness = facts, sensations, emotions..
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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jgill said...
It remains an open question whether the nature of reality is dependent upon peculiar mental states. Our perception of it may be.
I'm no philosophy major, but I do know that this (whether nature has an independent reality outside of our perception of it) has been one of the biggest questions kicked around since the earliest philosophers. I would have to think that with all we've learned about science, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries, that this has been answered with certainty. There is, indeed, a world out there operating independently of our interaction with it. I mean, c'mon, of course there is. Science is built on the fact (but, oh yeah, we're trying to establish the truthiness of science or something in this thread). By the way, John Dewey, an American philosopher from the early 2oth century is a noted luminary who argued for a separate world out there. I've always felt that I am a Deweyan. I'm looking at one of his books right now, "Experience and Nature". I studied it in college.
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