Not sure why we'd give mind to jellies but withhold judgement for plants? Your idea of mind is starting to look like code for "neurons". Some plants not only seem to have an experience of self, but also of others - kin selection and predatory response through VOC being the two most prominent examples.

When you interchange the notions of "character" and "will," which I think is more appropriate anyway, the issue of free will is not so interesting. You are free to act in accordance with your character so long as some foreign extenuating circumstances are not compelling your decisions. This is why we show leniency to people who act out of sudden extreme passion as opposed to meticulous premeditation, or those who are suffering from a temporary fit of mental illness rather than a pattern of poor decision-making.

(May 29, 2015 at 12:48 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: Yes.  I am suggesting that the line between subjectivity and no subjectivity is blurred.  It's a vague property.  And your appealing to your belief that it is not a vague property cuts no ice; it's just an assumption.  And it's an assumption that appears undercut by the biology of basic organisms that, while they may not possess subjectivity, appear to possess mind in varying levels depending on the complexity of the organism's nervous system.  Mind and subjectivity are both vague properties.  Look at the psychological development of a baby.  Babies are born with subjectivity but without the full complement of mind features that an adult has.  They acquire new properties of mind, such as theory of mind and object persistence, over time.

I don't think mind, under the definition I've given, is vague, although determining what systems have it is wayyy beyond vague and bordering on impossible. But with the baby example, you are still talking about psychology rather than psychogony.

Quote:Repeating your assertion doesn't make it more true.  I bolded the right sentence.

It's not an assertion. HOWEVER you define mind, either it exists or it doesn't, under the definition I gave: that where there is even the vaguest subjective perspective, there is mind. If you want to argue that mind means something more complex, that's fine-- but since we're talking about evolution, I want to start with the simplest possible definition, and look at how it relates to the development of the nervous system and then the brain throughout our evolutionary history.

Quote:Do we really care about "ultimate causes"?  I think this is just a position you've taken to be contrary.  Newtonian physics doesn't describe ultimate causes, but it is sufficient for explaining why billiard balls behave as they do.  Are you interested in an understandable explication of the nature of mind, or are you just holding out for an unreachable perfection.  This is the nirvana fallacy in full bloom.  It's also an example of the fallacy of the beard if you are holding that there are unsatisfactory explanations, but no satisfactory explanations.  What are you really looking for here?  Some unimpeachable metaphysical truth, or a plausible and understandable explanation of the phenomena?

As I said, it's easy enough to point to a brain and claim it "makes" the mind-- but this is only in the same sense that magnets make magnetic fields. Both these answers answer the "why" question, but in ways that some, myself included, don't find sufficient. I think, philosophically, the question of mind is why there are minds rather than not, given that they pose no additional utility to any physical system, in terms of physical input and output.

I know, at this point, some are likely to say, "Well, that's just dumb. Mind IS brain function, so of course they come together." But now we are, as I mentioned in the post you first responded to, down to a statement of brute fact.

Bennyboy, do you have any trouble accepting that all life on earth evolved from a certain few or even single ancestor?

If you hypothesize, as I do, some sort of abiogenessis in the origins of life aren't you stuck with the emergence of subjective states from something simpler?

Quote:I think, philosophically, the question of mind is why there are minds rather than not, given that they pose no additional utility to any physical system, in terms of physical input and output.

b-mine

Then I think...philosophically, you should begin by scrutinizing your assumptions.  Lest you go down the rabbit hole from the very outset, as before. My mind appears to be granting me additional utility...yours doesn't?

(May 29, 2015 at 6:35 pm)whateverist Wrote: Bennyboy, do you have any trouble accepting that all life on earth evolved from a certain few or even single ancestor?

If you hypothesize, as I do, some sort of abiogenessis in the origins of life aren't you stuck with the emergence of subjective states from something simpler?

No, because the primeval mind, if I can call it that, co-emerged with whatever physical system/structure/process with which it is partnered, without any temporal lag, or we have to abandon a physicalist view of mind.

No Benny, we don't have to abandon anything - even if that were true-, but stands currently only as your assertion.   The subject of the first portion of the statement is -irrelevant- to the latter portion.

(May 29, 2015 at 6:38 pm)Rhythm Wrote:

Quote:I think, philosophically, the question of mind is why there are minds rather than not, given that they pose no additional utility to any physical system, in terms of physical input and output.

b-mine

No. You haven't even given me flowers!

Quote:Then I think...philosophically, you should begin by scrutinizing your assumptions.  Lest you go down the rabbit hole from the very outset, as before.  My mind appears to be granting me additional utility...yours doesn't?

Not in terms of physical input and output, no, unless you define mind in terms of data processing. But that would beg the question.

---

(May 29, 2015 at 7:03 pm)Rhythm Wrote: No Benny, we don't have to abandon anything - even if that were true-.  

If you think that mind and the structures/functions on which it supervenes have temporal lag, then they are not the same thing, and mind is now a separate entity, floating in space.  I don't think this accords well with a physicalist view of mind.

I'll make sure to think of you while I pick morning glories, sweetheart.   

Quote:Not in terms of physical input and output, no, unless you define mind in terms of data processing. But that would beg the question.

I'm not interested in defining my way around, you know this.  I have a mind ( if you'll agree...:wink: ), it seems to be providing me additional utility.  Are you denying my experience or the accuracy of my self assessment,....lol?

Quote:If you think that mind and the structures/functions on which it supervenes have temporal lag, then they are not the same thing, and mind is now a separate entity, floating in space.  I don't think this accords well with a physicalist view of mind.

I think you're doing it again..........

(May 29, 2015 at 7:11 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I'm not interested in defining my way around, you know this.  I have a mind ( if you'll agree...:wink: ), it seems to be providing me additional utility.  Are you denying my experience or the accuracy of my self assessment,....lol?

In a physicalist world view, then yes, I deny that there is any additional utility in your experience over brain function. Unless you do not equate the two?