The question of mind and consciousness...

DadaKopf

Here's a few questions for everyone to discuss:


1) What is the mind?
2) Is it physical or non-physical?
3) How does it therefore relate to the physical world?
4) How are we conscious?

Let's discuss this one sensibly, folks.

El Marco

The mind easily is a series of electrical impulses banding together to great thought and emotions and everything that makes up the human mind

I dont go for that spiritual crap :rolleyes:

nesf

Why do questions like this always arise at 3AM?

The asking of the question, what is, infers that there is a function with ourselves that is capable of comprehending external stimuli and expressing it via cognitive thought. The existence of the mind precludes the question, "What is the mind", since the mind is that which allows us to answer and ask this question.

Physically one can say that the mind is merely neurons and brain tissue, that is if you agree that the mind resides in the brain. Is the mind necessarily physical in nature? Or is it a meduim through which physical stimulus can be translated into abstract thought? The question is what is the basest form of this awareness and what is infered by this awareness. Imo awareness and life are complimentary. Observe that awareness is not necessarily cognitive awareness, merely the ability to respond and or adapt to physical needs and stimuli. That is waht differentiates a stone from a tree, the ability to react.

This brings us to another question. Is the ability to react phyical or mental? I'm taking the ability to react as an example of the mind interacting with the physical world. Let us now take the mind as only the medium through which thought passes. Can we directly link stimulus, thought and reaction through the mind? The problem arises when we encounter the levels of reaction, thought and stimuli. Is instict merely a backup system that allows the mind to cause a reaction without the need for thought? Does the existence of instinctual reaction present us with the difference between animal and plant? Plants seem to posses no ability for thought yet still exhibit awareness to physical conditions. Could we state that for the existence of more complex animals, with more complex physical needs and stimuli that the thought area of the mind struture must be introduced?

Conciousness precludes the questioning of consiousness. The ability to queston and consider external questions is an example to cognitive consiousness. That questioning is fundamentally dependant on the consiousness of the questioner, can there be any real definite answer to this question?


None of the above is finished logically, and pls don't bother to point out logical gaps, I'm jsut far too tired to enter into a complex explanation of my thoughts. Maybe later tho

DadaKopf

The asking of the question, what is, infers that there is a function with ourselves that is capable of comprehending external stimuli and expressing it via cognitive thought

Is the mind purely dependent on external stimuli? Can a thought not arise from within? Most likely not: it's generally regarded that the 'mind' (whatever/wherever it is) is dependent on a constant stream of information entering the mind from without. The principle of 'intentionality' asserts, convincingly, that every mental function is 'about something' (and I mean this in an abstract sense in the first part). The problem to be resolved in this regard is the relationship between mental functions and the external 'world'.

awareness is not necessarily cognitive awareness, merely the ability to respond and or adapt to physical needs and stimuli

Are you establishing a link between mind and body/matter? What do you mean by 'awareness' (presumably a physiological, neurological reference) as related to physical needs and stimuli? Mind as physical? Mind as separate to the physical?

Plants seem to posses no ability for thought yet still exhibit awareness to physical conditions.

So is mind a matter of biological complicatedness? Or something else?

That is waht differentiates a stone from a tree, the ability to react.

What about a person in a deep coma? They don't react to physical stimuli yet their bodily functions continue and we assume that their mind is still functioning. Perhaps this illustrates the problem of knowing other people's minds, hence their existence perhaps. We can only know other people through language and physical gestures, writing - through externalising states of mind.

nesf

Originally posted by DadaKopf

Is the mind purely dependent on external stimuli? Can a thought not arise from within? Most likely not: it's generally regarded that the 'mind' (whatever/wherever it is) is dependent on a constant stream of information entering the mind from without. The principle of 'intentionality' asserts, convincingly, that every mental function is 'about something' (and I mean this in an abstract sense in the first part). The problem to be resolved in this regard is the relationship between mental functions and the external 'world'.

I was refering to the interpretation of external stimuli as a facet of the existence of the mind. I wasn't inferring that it was the only example of it's existence.

Are you establishing a link between mind and body/matter? What do you mean by 'awareness' (presumably a physiological, neurological reference) as related to physical needs and stimuli? Mind as physical? Mind as separate to the physical?

I'm continuing from my previous statement. Taking that the mind exists since we can react to external stimuli, I took an example of such and tried to discuss it I'm not distinguishing mind as physical or non-physical, I'm proposing that thought is non-physical, and that the mind acts as a buffer/translator to the physical world for it and vica versa.

What about a person in a deep coma? They don't react to physical stimuli yet their bodily functions continue and we assume that their mind is still functioning. Perhaps this illustrates the problem of knowing other people's minds, hence their existence perhaps. We can only know other people through language and physical gestures, writing - through externalising states of mind.

A person in a coma is still reacting to the presence of a physical world, i.e.their heart still pumps. That they suffer from a flora like state, can be likened to the loss of the ability for congnitive thought.

Externalised states of mind are not necessarily the only method of confirming existence of others. Would not our own reactions (emotional), confirm this for us? That we treat differently the live from the dead, or inanimate?

swiss

M'kay

The mind, and all it's related processes i.e thought, control of biological functions etc. boil down to a series of electrical impulses that define our very being. While this seems somewhat glib, especially given the complexity of our thought processes it must be pointed out that the trillions of axons etc in our brain (and I'm not a brain surgeon, I know) dictates that thought processes of tremendous complexity can exist. How then, do we completely and thoroughly analyse ourselves? It is accepted that a diagnostic machine is usually more complex than the machine whose function is thus regulated. If this is true, then in order to rationally analyse ourselves we would require a 'being' (using the word 'machine' is uncomfortably appropriate) of comparitively greater complexity.

Since we have breached the void between mere existence and consciousness (i.e. we have asked questions of our own existence, thus proving that we have transcended what is strictly necessary to exist - in the vein of 'I think, therefore I am') our thought processes inexorably lead to the question - how can we think? For many, this is the basis of religion, since no rational explanation within our intellectual capacity to grasp could satisfactorarily explain this question, and belief that our being is a gift from a higher power was, and still is to many, the only rational explanation. For others, this sentience is believed to be a product of evolution, millions of years of a 'trial by error' approach that culminated in the evolution of a species that was aware of it's own being, with all the related 'baggage' such as our own oftentimes torturous periods of reflection on our existence.

As for the distinction that was made between the thought processes of, say comatose patients and 'normal' people, I don't necessarily think that there is such a huge difference. The control of physical processes is thought to be largely sub-conscious, and some of our reactions, impulse reactions - such as the knee-jerk reaction bypass the brain altogether, we have no control whatsoever over these reactions. The same can be said of plants, whose reactions are based on tropisms such as geotropism, hydrotropism etc. These are arbitrary reactions to physical factors, and hence do not require any great level of complexity. Similarly the thought processes behind our biological processes are a by-product of evolution, and quite distinct from the evolution that allowed us to acheive a sentience.

nesf - I think you've hit on something when you said that this thread came up at 3 am. It seems that for the most part, the necessity of carrying on our daily lives dwarfs such considerations. It seems to require situations where there is a blurring between concrete reality and a more surreal picture of our existence for such thoughts to come to a fore - such as when we are on the verge of sleep, or when we're using 'mind - altering' substances such as alcohol or drugs.

Another interesting doctrine is that of solipsism - that only the self can be know or verified. We can conclusively verify that we ourselves exist (we think, therefore we are) or that the very fact that we have thought processes (we know we have, otherwise we wouldn't debate whether or not we have ) means that we must exist or 'be' in some form. However, since we do not know what reality is - we only know reality as we perceive it to be, it may be a ficticious version of reality. Therefore, we cannot know if all that we perceive - including people - is in fact real or not.

DadaKopf

Swiss: so you're basically saying that mind is nothing more than the sum of the body's parts and its processes? And you're going down the line of "Better Design Theory" of the Darwinists and even Thomas Hobbes: we're more intellingent to the extent that we're more compex.

I'm not so sure that 'I think therefore I am' is necessarily a good starting point. Logically, Descartes made a good attempt at building up a theory of mind-body from a mathematical tack but certainly, breaking out of the Cartesian circle has been impossible for most - hence Solipsism. In fact, some philosophers like Gilbert Ryle in his book The Concept of Mind completely denied 'Descartes' Myth' as an error in categories. Now, I think you're coming from a totally materialistic point of view here so I'm not entirely sure that 'I think therefore I am' is a compatible standpoint at the outset. Surely it's possible to be before we think?

In response to the example of the comatose patient versus the conscious, let's say, doctor. I was trying to illustrate the solipsist condition - right or wrong. For a comatose patient, who doesn't respond to external stimuli and cannot communicate without the outer world, it's very difficult to know in a transcendental sense that they have a mind. It's similar to the empiricist standpoint of Hume - our mind is composed in a certain way which takes for granted previous experience so that we know that when we walk through a door, close it, leave then come back the next day that that door and the room will be there. The fact is we can never know another's mind unless they reveal them to us through language or other signs (writing, painting, gestures etc.). Even then the question of the uncertainty of our interpretation of all these signs can lead to a furthering of this solipsist condition. All we can do is imagine or let our so called 'intuition' assume that the comatose patient has a mind or anyone else for that matter.

I think nowadays, science has limited the realm of metaphysics and theory of mind to language since science has been able to explain so much yet many modern philosophers and scientists will still maintain that all of these cells, neurons and chemical reactions in the body and the brain are merely indications of processes - it's nice to find correlations of mental activity but it still leaves the question: how is the mind?

One person once said to a philosopher: "Solopsism is great. I'm a solipsist, I just can't see why everyone else isn't". Funny, funny, funny.

[This is a pretty poor response]

swiss

Originally posted by DadaKopf:
Swiss: so you're basically saying that mind is nothing more than the sum of the body's parts and its processes?

Essentially, yes. I believe that what defines us, and our minds is the physical reality in which we live. Integral to that is the state of our minds. It's quite similar (though immeasurably more complex) than the workings of a computer system. Indeed computer systems are largely modelled on the workings on the human brain. The development of a cognitive artificial intelligence is still years away, yet we can see that even basic logic circuits are mirrored in our basic thinking - responding to desires etc.

I believe that you are correct when you say that it is possible to be before one thinks. The point (IMO) is that since we are aware that we think, we can use that as the basis on which we found the assertion that we are, in a somwhat roundabout way. However, using this same basis on which we base our reality, we cannot conclusively say that we exist as we perceive ourselves (or others) to exist. It is, however an axiom that the world exists as we perceive it to exist. I'm not prepared to argue with 6 billion or so people about that

I honestly don't know much about Descartes or Hobbes (though perhaps Hobbes (the mod) might fill me in ). Our ability to self analyse is perhaps one of our most defining traits as a species, as well as one of the most puzzling. There is still a great deal which we have yet to know about ourselves, and it is perhaps this that persuade us to believe that the mind is somehow more than a mere collection of neurons, as this would seem to indicate that humans are no better than complex machines, or animals, if you will. The human race, therefore has great, though not unlimited potential, both in it's quest for self discovery and a deeper search for 'the meaning of life'. (It's a Monty Python film, if I remember correctly)

Originally posted by DadaKopf:
Solopsism is great. I'm a solipsist, I just can't see why everyone else isn't