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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 14, 2016 - 10:25am PT
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Ed said; "...that mental activity is the result of brain activity. That is, mind is physical.
My take on this is that Ed is not saying that the mind and brain are selfsame, but rather he's saying some version of "mind is what the brain does" is being trotted out to "explain" what mind IS. This suggests that if you understand the physical aspects of an external object (brain, in this case), there is no more to know or to explain. Case closed.
The challenges of this belief are several. First, no examination of any external object has disclosed, in the neurons themselves, the merest trace of an internal reality like first person subjectivity. Machines do not have an internal or experiential life. They only have mechanical processing. My sense of it is that any method of investigating external objects that seeks a mind-independent "thing" will do just that, and that such a modality is bound to not-find what it is not looking for in the first place. It will find exactly what it IS looking for: the objective functioning of an external object, and it will claim that is all there is. There is only the physical.
Another challenge, and one around which physicalism revolves, is that in causal and deterministic terms, there is never more to any phenomenon than the sum of physical parts. And since internal reality cannot be found in the parts, we are left, by default, to claim that the subjectivity and the parts are selfsame, and that consciousness is a mechanism - and that tells the entire story. There is no more to be known because physically speaking, there is no more there.
Another tripping point is the belief that if mind isn't the same as the external object thought to produce it, then mind must be a separate 'thing,' some strange kind of object that is somehow not physical. The notion that mind is neither separate from and is not itself an object leaves people to say that subjectivity must be what the brain is doing, like a forest is what the trees are doing.
The riddle is that all this thinking and postulating and seeing and experiencing is what the MIND is doing, and there is no trace of mind in the brain, only objective functioning that when quantified, admits nothing more than itself. Ergo, no mind needed. It's all brain. It just must be.
In this sense, there indeed is no such "thing" as mind. And people stamp their feet and insist that if the case was otherwise, then provide proof there might be more, "more" in this case, referring to a quantifiable thing or external object.
The issue that an investigation of external objects is limited is never questioned in this regards, and the only alternatives that are ever suggested are silly wu modalities and magic. That there might be more than external objects, and magic, is verified by our internal lives, which neither magic or measurements can fully explain. That's the rub.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Jun 14, 2016 - 10:34am PT
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Sooo. I'm happy that we now have people talking about Buddhism. For reasons I've stated before, I like it from a distance. It doesn't suffer from faith or belief, it just is a way to live. Buddha was not a God. He was a man.
I don't understand the prayer wheels, though. Are the prayers TO someone, or are they different from the western concept of prayer? I mean, why pray if there are no gods?
As for being all over the place, MikeL, there was SO much to cover. I didn't post 5% of what I found when I started googling Mind. Right away you arrive at the Mind-Body problem, which is what Largo has been arguing since post #1. It is the simplest problem of all. And the most controversial. The religions believe in a soul which isn't physical. Largo's non physical view of mind is very similar.
I've been in the middle of creating a big work project over the last 10 days or so. That involved downloading 300,000 logs. It ties up my work software during a download, and I took that time to do a little reading. If anyone is even remotely interested in the differing schools of mind, well, it is all over the place. I started with Wiki and then branched out from there.
I was surprised at how intensely the mind-body problem has been studied. There must be 30 named schools of thought on the matter. I felt that it was important that the basics of that debate were shared here. I'm sorry that the posts are not an answer or a comment of a previous point, except for Jan's. I don't think that anyone had discussed it in this thread, which seemed odd. Every conceivable position has been staked out already.
I just don't have time to hang out here all day, and that is what it takes to keep up on things. So I'm going to leave you to your discussion, and I wish you all the best.
I don't really belong on this thread anyway. I'm a staunch physicalist, and all that will lead to is angry posts from a few others. I am positive that the Mind is one of the functions of that organ, the Brain. I don't even see it as contentious. Largo can go on and on about how we will never create intelligence, but all that he is going on is philosophy. He doesn't keep up with the science. I'm a geologist, and I follow neuroscience more than he does. A full cup. When it comes to possibility, he doesn't want to hear it.
Nobody here changes or learns very often. It is just back and forth, and a slice of the conversation 2 years ago looks just like a slice from today. Everyone has staked out their acre of ground and guards it.
So no learning, which is a shame. There is a lot of brain power on this thread. If people weren't so squared off against each other for only a month, you could learn a lot from each other.
I learned how subjective human experience is, and how subjective our perception is. To attain truth, you must exorcise this subjectivity. Don't dare call me an Objectivist, though. That is what Ayn Rand and her school calls itself. Objectivity is a goal when you study something, lest your own prejudice influence your final decision. I also have the luxury of never having to make a final decision. Knowledge grows every day. My position is always provisional, ready to accept new data, replace old theories with new ones, and grow along with "science."
Religions are fixed, to a great degree. There is a whole community out there that can't accept the fact that I see 350 million year old fossils all of the time. Hell, I have them on my desk. Fundamentalist Christians are totally intolerant of any variation of the Creation as described in Genesis. Werner is an example of this intolerance, but in some ways, Largo is as well. Largo largely rejects science, unless it is useful in taking swipes at Ed. Hell, read the original post.
Largo is the same way, with his insistence that sentience can never be created. NEVER? With our currently exploding technology? I wouldn't say never. Ever. The technology that we are all using would have been incomprehensible 50 years ago. But Largo is certain, and he continues to snipe at science, like science is a thing. It isn't. It is just a method. The best method we can imagine for knowing, objectively. The method is crucial, because of our innate subjectivity.
I'm sure that Largo is a great guy in person. We have mutual friends. They all like him. Even work with him.
That's about all that I have to say. Enjoy yourselves. I'll check in now and then, but if you don't follow this thread post to post, you just can't keep up. I don't have the time anymore.
Oh. Thanks to Jan for her real view of people. I'll be sending you a PM about Bhutan. I saw a special on it, and it looks amazing.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Jun 14, 2016 - 11:23am PT
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Quickly, when I was discussing Dualism, I was referring to the philosophical school of mind called Dualism.
Simply put, there is the Mind-Body problem when discussing mind. Dualists believe that mind and body are separate. Physicalists believe that they are the same thing.
There was some confusion a few pages back as to what I meant when I said "Shoddy Dualism." I was referring to "Dualism" as a philosophical school.
Go ahead. Read all about it, but first read about the mind-body problem. It is stated very well here:
Mind-Body Problem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_problem
Mind-Body Dualism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind)
If you would please spend 30 minutes or an hour reading those pages, you will understand the philosophical argument. Not the physical argument, though.
If you really get interested, you can waste a whole week reading about the mind-body problem. Again. I was amazed at how many of the opinions here fit into certain schools. There are many types of Dualism, but you can split hairs forever.
OK. Gotta go.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jun 14, 2016 - 01:56pm PT
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Jan, thanks for the list you posted. I still doubt that Buddhism has had much of an impact in the US. Although I am sure it has had a strong influence on those who practice it.
"In 2012, U-T San Diego estimated U.S. practitioners at 1.2 million people, of whom 40% are living in Southern California.[3] In terms of percentage, Hawaii has the most Buddhists at 8% of the population due to its large Asian American community.[4]" (wiki)
. . . certainly citations indicate what is fashionable in research at a given time . . . If you want to guarantee "group think" then reading the most highly cited papers . . . (Ed)
How true. If you wish to make your way in the competitive world of a research institution you are smart to follow the paths of inquiry that are popular at the time, unless you are very well established. On the other hand if you're not subject to publish-or-perish demands you are free to play around with whatever you find appealing. I taught in a minor institution where publishing was a plus, but not expected.
For example, in 1997 I gave a paper at an international math meeting in Trondheim, Norway, that generated a lot of conversation at the time, with numerous requests for preprints. I had come up with a natural way to continuize continued fractions, a new result. However, had I been under publishing pressure things might not have gone well, for I had described a terminal concept, an oddball effort that - apart from its novelty - would lead nowhere. The published paper had few if any citations, and that was it! Although I really enjoyed the exploration and discovery, it was kind of like finding a new climbing area and putting up the first and only route!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Jun 14, 2016 - 02:29pm PT
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I'm disappearing to Wyoming for a couple of days where internet service is problematic so this is my last post for awhile. Again, my point is not about how many officially identified Buddhist there are or practicing Buddhists, I'm talking about it's impact on the general culture. Frequently when we study it in class, I get comments like, "the buddha was teaching the same thing as Star Wars" etc. The origins of a lot of this change of attitude have been lost to all except those who know the original.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 14, 2016 - 02:29pm PT
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Largo can go on and on about how we will never create intelligence, but all that he is going on is philosophy. He doesn't keep up with the science. I'm a geologist, and I follow neuroscience more than he does. A full cup. When it comes to possibility, he doesn't want to hear it.
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You might be surprised, and what it is you think I don't want to hear? You make it sound like you have physical evidence of mind, and that soon as the recipe is wrangled, we only have to mix it up and viola. It's alive!
In fact the brain betrays not the slightest trace of subjectivity or any internal process save for the projections of sentient people who have them. As mentioned, the smartest, purely objective (no subjectivity) machine of 1,000,000 years hence could ever "find" an internal reality in the brain. And if it did find subjectivity, how would the machine know what it is, when all it is built to know is externals. Saying that external and internal are selfsame means what, exactly? If subjectivity is what the brain is doing, then the brain and what it is doing is not selfsame. One could say that red is what an apple does, but you have a red skin to point to. Where is this mind to point to, graspable by a method geared to exclude it? The approach is all screwy to begin with.
The fact that you limit 'knowing" to objectifying external objects does not mean knowing is an exclusive to measurements, or that any and all knowing is accomplished through some other means than by a first person subject. You're stuck with that one. We all are.
And the reports listed here about Buddhism have little to do with most western practice, which is and has been divorced from Eastern cultural trappings for many years. Most of the Zen folk I am around are not Buddhist and since there is no doctrine or God in the middle, any relation to religion is more of an idea then a truth.
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WBraun
climber
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Jun 14, 2016 - 02:50pm PT
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Largo can go on and on about how we will never create intelligence,
LOL the so called science men and their reason and logic trying to create. (rolls eyes)
You can't create intelligence period.
It's already there .......
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jun 14, 2016 - 03:02pm PT
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And the reports listed here about Buddhism have little to do with western practice, which is and has been divorced from Eastern cultural trappings for many years
That would have been my guess. Yes, it does seep into our western culture here and there - like Star Wars - but I don't see it reflected like Christianity in major aspects of our culture.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 14, 2016 - 03:17pm PT
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no examination of any external object has disclosed, in the neurons themselves, the merest trace of an internal reality like first person subjectivity
Have you looked in the neurons themselves?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jun 14, 2016 - 04:46pm PT
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Ed:
Is “fashionable” another way of saying “consensus?” I think it does, and isn’t that how research works? At the end of the day, doesn’t an informed consensus stipulate what things / reality is?
I hear the tsk, tsking of MikeL... "not a barn burner"
Geez, Ed. All I was saying is that among the author’s peers, the article had not attracted much attention since it was published, and that was 12 years ago. You or I or Healyje can make of that “fact” as you, Healyje, or I may. (I hope we’re not saying here that “facts”—such as citation counts—are not good fodder for better conversations, are we?)
We seem to want it both ways, don’t we? If we are empiricists, we are bound to bow to counts and constructs (like citations in GS); but, then we want to pick and choose among those “facts” to support our preferred viewpoints.
If we were among some Buddhists, we would lean to finding and choosing a middle ground: yes, there are facts, but one shouldn’t take them all that seriously. I mean they’re just facts, after all. (There is an excluded middle.)
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jun 14, 2016 - 04:53pm PT
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“What is Mind?”
Mind is not a “what.” Mind’s essence is simply the “here and now.”
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WBraun
climber
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Jun 14, 2016 - 04:56pm PT
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These guys are not here and now.
They're usually in the past or the future thoughts ......
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jun 14, 2016 - 05:06pm PT
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Here is an fairly good primer on non-duality for those unfamiliar. I posted a piece of it below. For the whole thing go to his web site. Since it is at the heart of Buddha's message and why many western's practice zen/viapassa/tibetan etc. I thought it may be informative.
http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/what-is-nonduality/
What is Non-Duality?
An interview with Jeff Foster
by Nic Higham of Nonduality Network
What does the word ‘non-duality’ point to?
The world created by thought, the world of words, language, and concepts, is the world of opposites. ‘Up and down’, ‘this or that’, ‘inside and outside’, ‘right and wrong’, ‘black and white’, ‘true and false’, ‘positive and negative’, ‘me and you’ and so on. The world of words, language, thoughts, concepts, is a dualistic world of apparent opposites. But, in reality, do opposites exist?
What we are really pointing to when we use the word ‘non-duality’ is something that goes beyond all of these mind-made opposites. But how can we talk about something that goes beyond opposites, when even our attempt to talk about non-duality is dualistic?
So, what the word non-duality actually means is really very difficult to describe or put into words. In fact, you could say it’s impossible. For we are not talking about non-duality as opposed to something called duality, we are not talking about pro-duality as opposed to anti-duality.In fact the non-duality we speak of is not the opposite of anything. This is impossible to understand logically or rationally. To see what is being spoken of, we must go beyond our ordinary way of thinking and seeing.
OM‘Non-duality’ is actually a translation of the Sanskrit word ‘Advaita’, which simply means ‘not two’ and points to the essential oneness (wholeness, completeness, unity) of life, a wholeness which exists here and now,prior to any apparent separation. It’s a word that points to an intimacy, a love beyond words, right at the heart of present moment experience. It’s a word that points us back Home. And despite the compelling appearance of separation and diversity there is only one universal essence, one reality. Oneness is all there is – and we are included.
What we are really trying to do when we say ‘non-duality’ is point to life as it is right now, before the appearance of concepts and labels; before thought creates a world of things: table, chair, hand, foot, fear, me, you, past, future. What is life before thought? Can we even talk about that? Is it possible to capture non-duality into words?
When we speak of non-duality it can sometimes seem like we mean ‘anti-duality’, that we are against duality or that it’s wrong or false or even dangerous. This can then lead to dogmatic thinking and religiosity and to the proclamation of rightness: “You are dualistic and I am non-dualistic! I am more non-dual than you!” That is the religion of non-duality. We are more interested in the truth of non-duality.
Is non-duality a religion or belief system?
Non-duality isn’t a new belief system, a religion or a ‘how to’ guide to living. It makes no promises about the future. Of course, it canbecome a belief system or religion, however, like anything can. You could start to believe that there is “no self, no ‘me’, no time or space and that everything is an illusion” – and non-duality could become your new belief system.
That’s what happened years ago in my own experience; non-duality had become my new belief system, although at the time I actually believed I was free from all belief systems! When someone subscribes to non-duality as a system of belief, there’s just someone there – a separate person – believing that they’re no longer a separate person! And then perhaps they go round telling everyone that they are not a separate person. Secretly they experience themselves as a separate individual but they have taken on a set of concepts, they are living with a new image of themselves as beyond all images.
You can believe you are not separate, but you can still feel separate, and experience yourself as separate. There’s a world of difference between simply believing that you are not separate, in other words, intellectually taking non-duality concepts on as a new belief system, and really seeing what those words are pointing to in a very deep way. Here, we are interested in the seeing of non-duality, not just talking and arguing about it. We can talk and argue about non-duality concepts until we are blue in the face, we can argue about who is right and who is wrong and who is more ‘nondualistic’, but we would really be missing the point of all this.
Is it possible to reach a non-dual state or become spiritually awakened?
HandsIsn’t it fascinating how automatically thought (or ‘the mind’) tries to turn what we are talking about into some kind of special state or experience. Thought hears about ‘non-duality’ and wants it. And it asks, ‘How do I get it? How do I reach it? How do I see it? Who can take me there? Who can transmit it to me? Who can teach me it or give it to me? Where will I find it?’ It starts looking for something called ‘non-duality’. It starts waiting for it. It lives in hope.
That will inevitably happen because the individual is always a seeker. A separate person is always looking for something. We might seek wealth, success, power, fame, or we might seek for ‘spiritual’ things instead – but really it’s all the same seeking. The spiritual seeker might seek awakening, enlightenment or a non-dual state instead of money and power and success – but deep down, it’s the same movement.
Time is always involved in seeking. What we search for is always in the future. We say, ‘One day I will find non-duality. I’ll get into the non-dual state or have an awakening experience or my person will drop away magically.’ So, stop right there! You’ve already turned non-duality into a future goal. Stop and look and see where this seeking begins.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Jun 14, 2016 - 06:07pm PT
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Buddhism discussed strictly as a cultural phenomenon in recent years I have considered to be somewhat of a relic of the 60s. Ditto for all the eastern philosophies, Hinduism, Hare Krishna, etc.. More recent generations such as GenXers and Millennials don't appear to be interested at all in embracing exotic philosophies from other lands. Their environmental and historical influences are very different. The times they grew up in were radically different.
Baby boomers , on the other hand, at one time much younger than today, were greatly influenced by eastern religions at the exact time they were taught to deeply question and reject their own inculcated cultural and religious values. A search for meaning ensued in all aspects of life. A somewhat desperate attempt to replace what had been ruthlessly excised from their collective and individual psyches brought a lot of this search for meaning to fruition.
However, very early on, by the mid-seventies the ardor for the exotic and mysterious began to subside for all but a very few. George Harrison, former Beatle, Krishna and meditation devotee, once spearheaded a lion's share of this discovery of all things Eastern in the late sixties. By the time of his infamous Dark Horse tour, in which he often spent considerable time lecturing and chiding his audiences ( who had really come to hear Beatle's songs) -- every indication appeared that the bloom had begun to fade off the Eastern water lily as a significant cultural phenomenon in the west. His young audience went home dissatisfied and somewhat chagrined by his "preaching" and insistence that they attempt to embrace what they had clearly developed no interest in. The tour was considered a bit of a disappointing flop for a whole host of other reasons and Harrison's career never regained nearly the same degree of influence of this sort.
Nevertheless, a hard core of folks once initially exposed to these philosophies and religions continue to persevere into contemporary times. We have a few on this thread. They are the last of a stalwart but vanishing breed, the last of a sort of transcultural Mohican in the western world. Most of the Buddhists in SoCal, probably the highest concentrations in the US ,are recent immigrants from Asia. I spotted one the other day resplendent in dazzling saffron robes, riding his bicycle.
Still meditation in general seems to have survived and grown among westerners. This could be evidence of a stress-relieving efficacy for its many casual practitioners-- a prized antidote to the madly crazed modern world.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 14, 2016 - 06:40pm PT
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Bye BASE:(
Hope to hear you again soon Jan:)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 14, 2016 - 07:24pm PT
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would a machine know whether or not it had a mind?
how about one of our recently referred to predators, how do they tell the difference among all the potential prey?
how do they recognize that their own kind are not prey? where do they get this awareness?
now you are thinking about lions, but imagine a dragon fly, with a very high probability of picking off all the flying insects that it is interested in eating, yet it doesn't pick off it's own kind... how does that happen? where does it come by its awareness?
what are its experiences, first "person" as it were?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 14, 2016 - 08:15pm PT
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'Let's get back to those suitcase-words (like intuition or consciousness) that all of us use to encapsulate our jumbled ideas about our minds. We use those words as suitcases in which to contain all sorts of mysteries that we can't yet explain. This in turn leads us to regard these as though they were "things" with no structures to analyze. I think this is what leads so many of us to the dogma of dualism-the idea that 'subjective' matters lie in a realm that experimental science can never reach. Many philosophers, even today, hold the strange idea that there could be a machine that works and behaves just like a brain, yet does not experience consciousness. If that were the case, then this would imply that subjective feelings do not result from the processes that occur inside brains. Therefore (so the argument goes) a feeling must be a nonphysical thing that has no causes or consequences. Surely, no such thing could ever be explained!
The first thing wrong with this "argument" is that it starts by assuming what it's trying to prove. Could there actually exist a machine that is physically just like a person, but has none of that person's feelings? "Surely so," some philosophers say. "Given that feelings cannot not be physically detected, then it is 'logically possible' that some people have none." I regret to say that almost every student confronted with this can find no good reason to dissent. "Yes," they agree. "Obviously that is logically possible. Although it seems implausible, there's no way that it could be disproved."
The next thing wrong is the unsupported assumption that this is even "logically possible." To be sure of that, you'd need to have proved that no sound materialistic theory could correctly explain how a brain could produce the processes that we call "subjective experience." But again, that's just what we were trying to prove. What do those philosophers say when confronted by this argument? They usually answer with statements like this: "I just can't imagine how any theory could do that." That fallacy deserves a name-something like "incompetentium".'
from
CONSCIOUSNESS IS A BIG SUITCASE
A Talk with Marvin Minsky
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jun 14, 2016 - 09:17pm PT
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http://www.kqed.org/radio/programs/index.jsp?pgmid=RD13
Ward buddhism's influence it is not nearly as fringe as you think. Here is a main stream radio program played tonight in SF regarding mindfulness with Jack Kornfield (one of the founder of insight meditation in the US) and ms Mcgonigle host ( sanford neuro scientist per HFCS). IMO it is good in clarifying what modern buddhist practice is in the US.
One thing often not mentioned is that Jack did years of intensive sitting practice in thailand before teaching.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jun 14, 2016 - 09:18pm PT
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Buddhism discussed strictly as a cultural phenomenon in recent years I have considered to be somewhat of a relic of the 60s. Ditto for all the eastern philosophies, Hinduism, Hare Krishna, etc.. (Ward)
Very well said, Ward. Your description is right on target. I can remember the flurry of interest in the Hare Krishnas and all the other Eastern religions. It got me interested in the early 1960s, but the bloom wore off fairly quickly.
Then came Carlos Castaneda . . . all well in the rear view mirror now.
edit: . . . main stream radio program played tonight in SF regarding mindfulness with Jack Kornfield . . .
There are still pockets of interest on both coasts and Boulder. Forget the midwest or south, except in some metro areas. San Francisco? Come on, get serious!
;>)
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jun 14, 2016 - 09:31pm PT
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Almost always, the most recent blurb or study has little to add to important conversations and dialogues (MikeL)
A publishable math PhD thesis may consist of extending a > to a ≥ in some important development. And that can place one in the mainstream.
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