(January 26, 2016 at 11:27 am)Rhythm Wrote: Would you prefer to have this discussion before or -after- a few shots of whiskey?  Perhaps we could consume some hallucinogenic substances or beat our heads against a wall...and then, have this discussion.   It hardly matters whether you think brain accounts for mind, ultimately, since any context or space which does not include the situations described above is obviously -not- the context or space in which experience is had.   I think that we've done a little more than wave at the brain,  you're going to refer to at least -some- of that waving......invariably.  

I apologize. I'm a little frustrated, because I'm ready to drop the idealism for now, and to look at a physicalist explanation of mind. However, I've seen a lot of discussions that identify functions and none that identify mechanisms. Words like "information"-- how does the universe "know" when information is happening, such that a mind might be made to occur?

See, if I believe 100% that all of the human mind is in the human brain, what do I learn, really? I still do not know what about the brain it is that is experienced as conscious mind, or how multiple experiences are coordinated in a sense of self.

Quote:I've got to ask, why would it? You'd have to be -incredibly- specific.  

What do you mean by substantive coordination and visual signals (I don't think that anyone expects a sort of handoff of images), and what are we taking this to imply?  Comp mind would tell you that the visual cortex translates sensory inputs into actionable sets of variables.  Similar to how a digital camera turns the patterns of light hitting its aperture into a file.  There's an interesting division of labor apparent in that system, btw.  Such that damage to a portion causes a predictable range of decrease in function within that division while the others remain intact.  Color vision, as the easiest example...can be lost all on it's own.

In response to my idea of a kind of "screen" or virtual stage in which multiple percepts could be coordinated, you said the brain is that space. The brain is where it all comes together in a single sense of subjective self. You could pull systems offline one by one: vision, smell, sound, etc. or in parts: face recognition, parallel lines recognition, syntactic recognition, etc. but I think at the core there's the essential being-ness. But so far, I haven't heard enough specific details about how this is supposed to work in the brain.

(January 26, 2016 at 12:47 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I apologize.  I'm a little frustrated, because I'm ready to drop the idealism for now, and to look at a physicalist explanation of mind.  However, I've seen a lot of discussions that identify functions and none that identify mechanisms.  Words like "information"-- how does the universe "know" when information is happening, such that a mind might be made to occur?

See, if I believe 100% that all of the human mind is in the human brain, what do I learn, really?  I still do not know what about the brain it is that is experienced as conscious mind, or how multiple experiences are coordinated in a sense of self.

I don't think that the universe -does- know when information is happening.  I'm not really sure what that has to do with a mind occurring.  In any case, in a mechanistic explanation, the operations performed by the various portions of the brain -are- the things we are experiencing. You are experiencing, for example, the effect of alcohol on your brain...specifically the effect of ethanol molecules on receptors, when you are drunk.

Quote: In response to my idea of a kind of "screen" or virtual stage in which multiple percepts could be coordinated, you said the brain is that space.  The brain is where it all comes together in a single sense of subjective self.  You could pull systems offline one by one: vision, smell, sound, etc. or in parts: face recognition, parallel lines recognition, syntactic recognition, etc. but I think at the core there's the essential being-ness.  But so far, I haven't heard enough specific details about how this is supposed to work in the brain.

The "essential being-ness"......?  Maybe essential being-ness doesn't work? Perhaps it's just not there. No explanation at any level of interaction will -ever- overcome the objection that something underlies it. Pulling parts away from the brain is pulling away the space in which that experience arises. There's no "empty room" where sound used to be, there's simply no "where sound used to be".

(January 26, 2016 at 2:59 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(January 25, 2016 at 10:11 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: Or maybe that's just how [to recognize objects] our minds divide things up for reasons which have to do with the evolution of our brains.  Take it for granted?  Sure, because that's what our brains do.  I can no more step outside of that than I can fly.

This position straddles the line between the brutal and the absurd. EITHER evolutionary pressures are objectively intelligible, in which case the efficacy of reason doesn’t depend on how brains work, OR people cannot trust the artifice of reason, in which case no one can attribute its existence to objective evolutionary pressures.

I don't know what you mean by this. But what I can say is that our breaking things up into objects may have served an economy of perception and action similar to the robot car's perceptions and actions formed a feedback loop which furthered the project of remaining on the road. So the evolutionary pressures that resulted in us breaking things up into objects may be intelligible. However, it's also possible that breaking things up into objects was a consequence of a limitation of the architecture of the brain at the time. At this point, we simply don't know how it evolved.

(January 26, 2016 at 2:59 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: What one can say; however, is that when someone commits to an absurd reality he or she foregoes the ability engage productively with others over fundamental issues. Many people have an intuitive sense that philosophies based on doubting intelligibility undermine the shared understandings on which most societies build its consensus about values, responsibilities, identity and meaning.

Then let it be undermined. I have a feeling a full understanding of things like meaning and intentionality will do a lot more to undermine consensus meanings than any quibble about the intelligibility of reason. This is little more than an argument from tradition. Semantic incommensurability is the first step on the road to progress. For my part, I take a middle path in concluding that reason is probabilistically reliable, but not rationally intelligible; our reason doesn't follow strictly logical lines of behavior.

(January 26, 2016 at 2:03 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I don't think that the universe -does- know when information is happening.  I'm not really sure what that has to do with a mind occurring.  In any case, in a mechanistic explanation, the operations performed by the various portions of the brain -are- the things we are experiencing.  You are experiencing, for example, the effect of alcohol on your brain...specifically the effect of ethanol molecules on receptors, when you are drunk.  

I am a singular agent. Neurons and brani parts are plural. Unless there is some part of the brain which has the capacity to accept as input different kinds of processed information, then how do you believe this information gets coordinated? Do you deny that a singular agent is experiencing sight and sound at the same time? If there isn't one, then who's experiencing the illusion that there is one?

Quote:The "essential being-ness"......?  Maybe essential being-ness doesn't work?  Perhaps it's just not there.  No explanation at any level of interaction will -ever- overcome the objection that something underlies it.  Pulling parts away from the brain is pulling away the space in which that experience arises.  There's no "empty room" where sound used to be, there's simply no "where sound used to be".

Well, I have changing perceptions, but despite those changes, I still have what seems like a consistent, and persistent, sense of self and consciousness. There's something at the core, which is why metaphors like a movie screen or a theater stage get mentioned.

(January 26, 2016 at 2:59 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: My position is that properties do not ‘emerge’ (appear from nowhere by magic) so much as ‘manifest’ (actualize what already exists in potency).

I like this idea. Mind, in particular, seems like a pretty strange property to "just happen" when a bunch of dead matter happens to get into a state of organization. The existence of mind surely means that the universe has embedded into it the capacity for experience. The brain, then, is not the accidental creator of mind, but is an expression of the universe's tendency to evolve structures to express that capacity.