On naturalism and consciousness

[bennyboy]

IF mind can be created by different mechanisms functioning differently, then it is transcendent-- "mind-ness," the capacity for mind,..

Within a naturalistic paradigm the term "multiple realizable" is used to describe mind supported by various platforms. The word transcendent has metaphysical/spiritual connotations that could be unintended.

I've spent a couple hours thinking about this, due to comments on my thread about transcendence. I don't mind the connotations you're talking about, because metaphysics means basically "the physics of physics," i.e. the underlying principles on which mechanical interactions rely. That some people use it to talk about ghosts, OBEs, etc. is irrelevant. This just means people had bad ideas about what the underlying principles were upon which physics depends.

So what are the underlying principles upon which mind supervenes? Not, I'd argue, the mechanics of the brain. Rather, I'd say that given the environment of Earth, the brain was the mechanism in which that underlying principle gradually manifested itself. Rhythm's idea is a good one in that it at least identifies an observable and easy-to-understand principle on which mind might depend: the ability of a mechanism to make logical comparisons.

This is partly perspective. For example, would you say that the particles of water in a lake, in transferring energy to and fro, "make" a wave, or would you say that the underlying forces act through the medium of water to make a wave? I prefer the latter view, since you could take out water, put in another substance, and still have the wave.