Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[SteveKlinko]

The Mind is more worthy because it is, after all, what you are.

Incomplete. "You" are an embodied mind.

Implied in the statement is that the Mind is what you are in the Long Run.

We are Connected Minds, not Embodied Minds.

[Belindi]

SteveKlinko wrote:

The Mind is more worthy because it is, after all, what you are.

But that is not what I am. I am a body-mind. My mind is experience of my body. As body-mind I experience an environment.

[Belindi]

The Mind is more worthy because it is, after all, what you are.

Incomplete. "You" are an embodied mind.

Implied in the statement is that the Mind is what you are in the Long Run.

We are Connected Minds, not Embodied Minds.

How may disembodied minds be connected when minds can't experience each others' qualia?

[Sculptor1]

The Mind is more worthy because it is, after all, what you are.

Incomplete. "You" are an embodied mind.

Implied in the statement is that the Mind is what you are in the Long Run.

We are Connected Minds, not Embodied Minds.

Are we?
That's easy to say, but you have nothing to back it up.

[Pattern-chaser]

The Mind is more worthy because it is, after all, what you are.

Incomplete. "You" are an embodied mind.

Implied in the statement is that the Mind is what you are in the Long Run.

We are Connected Minds, not Embodied Minds.

I don't think so. Our minds and our bodies are not distinct; not divisible. IMO, of course. ... But we might be "Connected", depending on what you mean by that?

[Sy Borg]

Isn't this an orthodox view? That each of us is essentially a mind/body as opposed to being a body with a controlling mind (as though a homunculus was driving was driving us around)?

The connections between minds are pretty variable, though, and there's clearly much more integration ahead. Minds are far more broadly (if not deeply) connected than in the past, as though controlling societal brains were in the process of emerging. With the rise of authoritarianism, individuals are ever more forced to obey increasingly powerful, distant, deified - and reviled - VIPs. To maintain control, VIPs take many times more resources than regular people, just as neurons take far more resources than other cells.

While I think emergence theory is true, it tends to be overstated. That is, the emergent qualities aren't as distant to the pre-emerged forms as can be suggested, cases in point being the "hard divisions" between biology and geology, consciousness and passivity. In truth, the story of evolution starts long before abiogenesis, with geochemical evolution giving rise to conditions that made abiogenesis possible, eg. evolution of RNA from complex sugars via the Krebs cycle.

Consciousness, too, is not quite so special. It's just the synergistic aggregation of many, many reflexes. (And reflexes are just synergistic aggregations of reactions). Each reflex is a sensation to some extent, and those sensations build up, like notes build a symphony. The mind is like an orchestrated symphony of senses and reflexes.

[Consul]

You won't change Mr Consul's mind in this. I tried for years and he's pretty convinced by the global workspace model.

I'm not inseparably wedded to it. What I'm convinced of is materialist substance monism with regard to the substrate of mind and consciousness.

I think the GW model is one of the most likely possibilities myself, but it has some issues IMO, not least that this has been the assumption for decades yet extensive research (far better funded than other models) can only find "on/off switches" in the brain and correlates between brain states and stated thoughts. Despite the intense focus and resources put towards GW, no sign of a generative mechanism has been found that bridges the gulf that spans from the dynamic patterns of electric charges between neurons to a sense of experience.

There seems to be an ontological "gulf", but I think that's a deceptive appearance fueled by thousands of years of dualistic thinking. I think certain "dynamic patterns of electric charges between neurons" are (identical with) experiences; so the stream of experience is a stream of neuroelectric energy.

[Sy Borg]

You won't change Mr Consul's mind in this. I tried for years and he's pretty convinced by the global workspace model.

I'm not inseparably wedded to it. What I'm convinced of is materialist substance monism with regard to the substrate of mind and consciousness.

I think the GW model is one of the most likely possibilities myself, but it has some issues IMO, not least that this has been the assumption for decades yet extensive research (far better funded than other models) can only find "on/off switches" in the brain and correlates between brain states and stated thoughts. Despite the intense focus and resources put towards GW, no sign of a generative mechanism has been found that bridges the gulf that spans from the dynamic patterns of electric charges between neurons to a sense of experience.

There seems to be an ontological "gulf", but I think that's a deceptive appearance fueled by thousands of years of dualistic thinking. I think certain "dynamic patterns of electric charges between neurons" are (identical with) experiences; so the stream of experience is a stream of neuroelectric energy.

I've noticed you moving to a Dennettesque denial that the hard problem exists. If decades of research focused on the global workspace model has yielded no answer, one might throw up one's hands and decide that the problem was bogus in the first place. On the other hand, one may consider the possibility that the global workspace model is not getting to the nub of the hard problem.

[Belindi]

Isn't this an orthodox view? That each of us is essentially a mind/body as opposed to being a body with a controlling mind (as though a homunculus was driving was driving us around)?

The connections between minds are pretty variable, though, and there's clearly much more integration ahead. Minds are far more broadly (if not deeply) connected than in the past, as though controlling societal brains were in the process of emerging. With the rise of authoritarianism, individuals are ever more forced to obey increasingly powerful, distant, deified - and reviled - VIPs. To maintain control, VIPs take many times more resources than regular people, just as neurons take far more resources than other cells.

While I think emergence theory is true, it tends to be overstated. That is, the emergent qualities aren't as distant to the pre-emerged forms as can be suggested, cases in point being the "hard divisions" between biology and geology, consciousness and passivity. In truth, the story of evolution starts long before abiogenesis, with geochemical evolution giving rise to conditions that made abiogenesis possible, eg. evolution of RNA from complex sugars via the Krebs cycle.

Consciousness, too, is not quite so special. It's just the synergistic aggregation of many, many reflexes. (And reflexes are just synergistic aggregations of reactions). Each reflex is a sensation to some extent, and those sensations build up, like notes build a symphony. The mind is like an orchestrated symphony of senses and reflexes.

I guess mind-body is the orthodox view of a man, especially since the decline of religions, and the rise of individualism ( European Renaissance and religious Reformation) . Modern authoritarian regimes are clever and cruel in their abilities to control thinking and make men less individual, more submissive. Trump is particularly adept in cynical use of the Romantic urge to rebel so as to pretend he is all for individual freedom whereas Trump is like the farmer's wife feeding the turkeys to make them fat for eating.

There is no hard division in what the natural sciences deal with, but there is a psychological division between creatures such as men who plan ahead, and quiescent creatures such as bits of stone , or metal artifacts, that are no more than their simple pasts and don't feel that freedom to purpose--- to look to the future. Political dictators aim to reduce the freedoms of others so that they gain more freedom for their own purposes.

[SteveKlinko]

SteveKlinko wrote:

The Mind is more worthy because it is, after all, what you are.

But that is not what I am. I am a body-mind. My mind is experience of my body. As body-mind I experience an environment.

Could be. But I don't see it.

[SteveKlinko]

The Mind is more worthy because it is, after all, what you are.

Incomplete. "You" are an embodied mind.

Implied in the statement is that the Mind is what you are in the Long Run.

We are Connected Minds, not Embodied Minds.

How may disembodied minds be connected when minds can't experience each others' qualia?

Minds are insulated from each other in Conscious Space. They seem to need to connect to Physical Space to Communicate. But there is probably direct Mind to Mind Communication possible when the Physical Mind (Brain) is quieted, or when two Minds are disconnected from their Physical Minds.

[SteveKlinko]

The Mind is more worthy because it is, after all, what you are.

Incomplete. "You" are an embodied mind.

Implied in the statement is that the Mind is what you are in the Long Run.

We are Connected Minds, not Embodied Minds.

Are we?
That's easy to say, but you have nothing to back it up.

My speculation is as good as the Physicalist/Materialist speculation. There is Zero Explanation how the Material Produces the Conscious Experience.

[SteveKlinko]

The Mind is more worthy because it is, after all, what you are.

Incomplete. "You" are an embodied mind.

Implied in the statement is that the Mind is what you are in the Long Run.

We are Connected Minds, not Embodied Minds.

I don't think so. Our minds and our bodies are not distinct; not divisible. IMO, of course. ... But we might be "Connected", depending on what you mean by that?

Every speculation is a contender for ultimate proof someday.

[Belindi]

Incomplete. "You" are an embodied mind.

Implied in the statement is that the Mind is what you are in the Long Run.

We are Connected Minds, not Embodied Minds.

How may disembodied minds be connected when minds can't experience each others' qualia?

Minds are insulated from each other in Conscious Space. They seem to need to connect to Physical Space to Communicate. But there is probably direct Mind to Mind Communication possible when the Physical Mind (Brain) is quieted, or when two Minds are disconnected from their Physical Minds.

But in that case there would no incoming information from the senses, and the disconnected mind would be reduced to facing the future from memorised information.

Although qualia can be remembered absolute mind is not absolute at all unless experiences of physical space and the feeling of purpose towards the future are included.

[Consul]

I've noticed you moving to a Dennettesque denial that the hard problem exists.

I do not deny that there is a real explanatory problem; and, as opposed to Dennett, I am an unequivocal realist about experiential qualia.