Mind Over Matter?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Input and output alone insufficiently accounts for the distinguishing properties of mind.

-it may, but not based upon your comment, nor has anyone proposed that mind is input and output alone.  Your example would not be what I'd call computation - unless we're talking a digital camera ( a comp system)..then the input and output is "about" whatever format the camera is programmed for-to the camera (and further, this is "about" the states of a machine), and to us it's "about" a mountain.  Translation.

An abacus is a manually operated computation device. The beads have no meaning. They are just beads. A human must assign value to the beads.

[bennyboy]

Why isn't all data exchange computation?  It all involves input, processing and output.  What more is there to computation?

For the same reason that an IO port is not a computer...and particularly in that all data exchange -does not- involve processing.  That said, showing an exchange of data and processing is a good start, for me, to showing the potential for "mind".

Why doesn't all data exchange involve processing? What's the non-arbitrary cut-line between simple "data exchange" and mind-producing "processing"? It seems to me that you are in danger of producing a circle: i.e. processing is whatever a mind thinks represents a useful exchange of data, and non-processing is whatever a mind does not think represents a useful exchange of data.

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Why isn't all data exchange computation?  It all involves input, processing and output.  What more is there to computation?

An interpreter is needed to assign meaning to the output.

Yes, that's the point I'm getting at.  Saying that mind is computation, but requiring a mind to arbitrate between what kinds of data exchange do or do not represent computation, introduces the problem of mind back into the "solution."

[The Grand Nudger]

Why doesn't all data exchange involve processing? 

Relay doesn't require processing, just for starters.  Or, if you prefer http://lmgtfy.com/?q=processing+definition

 What's the non-arbitrary cut-line between simple "data exchange" and mind-producing "processing"? 

again, and from above...that there be processing, in a comp mind framework(I'm assuming you're asking from that POV). Even if we have processing.....we'll still be looking for more than a pocket calculator......it would seem.  

It seems to me that you are in danger of producing a circle: i.e. processing is whatever a mind thinks represents a useful exchange of data, and non-processing is whatever a mind does not think represents a useful exchange of data.

Processing remains what it always was (and needn't be useful), the question is whether or not mind is processing...comp, whether or not it uses the same principles...eh?  

Yes, that's the point I'm getting at.  Saying that mind is computation, but requiring a mind to arbitrate between what kinds of data exchange do or do not represent computation, introduces the problem of mind back into the "solution."

Any self monitoring circuit arbitrates precisely this all day long(amusingly...without any knowledge or awareness of that fact-so far as we can tell), regardless of whether or not a mind set it to check for any particular thing.  We can't establish that...without using our own minds to check and see what it's doing......but if you have some other way of figuring that out (or anything else), I'm all ears. Of course...theyre much better at it when we design them intentionally to be so...so there's always that. You both seem to think that a picture that you see as "about a mountain" cannot have another meaning...and that because you assigned "about a mountain" as the meaning...with your minds (ostensibly) all interpreters must be minds, all meaning must be your meanings. "Sally had the kids for dinner" can mean many things (or nothing, to a non english-speaker). Just between us...and just like us- to a comp system (like the server this post is housed on) it has meaning, it means "set these memory cells to these states". Just what -is- the problem?

Comp mind...and it crushes me that I've never put it this way before...simply proposes that mind behaves in a logical manner. That it is generated by logical processes. Is there anyone here who thinks that mind is generated by illogical processes or behaves in an illogical manner? It's a very, very general claim, a framework from which to answer...not -the- answer.

[bennyboy]

Relay doesn't require processing, just for starters.  Or, if you prefer http://lmgtfy.com/?q=processing+definition

No, I'd rather have your non-arbitrary definition. I know what the word processing means. I want to know what it means to YOU in the context of this particular debate.

again, and from above...that there be processing, in a comp mind framework(I'm assuming you're asking from that POV).   Even if we have processing.....we'll still be looking for more than a pocket calculator......it would seem.  

Why? I know what a brain does. What I don't know is the most elemental particle or particle function that represents a kind of "spark" of consciousness. I don't see why this elemental pyschum (if I can be permitted to coin the term for this thread) should do anything more than a simple transmission of data.

Processing remains what it always was (and needn't be useful), the question is whether or not mind is processing...comp, whether or not it uses the same principles...eh?  

I still don't understand the difference between processing and any other change of state which has an effect on causality in the universe. I really have to stop here and ask you for a precise definition of "processing."

[Mudhammam]

@Benny

Would we expect any function that approaches consciousness to be present at the particle level? I would think that beyond molecules we'd just be dealing with physics. But at the molecular level of say, neuron cells, we should expect there to be gradations of sensation (though I wonder if single-celled organisms have anything like a modicum of sensation or if they operate as more sophisticated machinations in the same way as inanimate objects do when forces are at play), and given increases in the complexity of arrangement and hence function, processes that unveil greater or lesser degrees of consciousness. By processes I mean input of data that outputs representations of vision, sounds, smells, etc., which is still more or less sensation, but in a system that involves an element of (abstract) differentiation between the system itself and external forces in the environment. This abstract element too should be reducible to computations in the sense that the phenomena of self, consciousness, mind, etc. appears dependent on biological processes at work. That said, the abstractions themselves may not be reducible in the same way that "principles of nature" are not reducible to nature itself, i.e. as strictly material objects (absent of principles that contain certain relationships such as cause and effect or logical necessity). So then, are abstract principles of mind in the same class of objects as principles of nature, e.g. the mathematical language used to construct an intelligible framework of gravitational force, the nuclear forces, the rules of biological development, etc.?

[bennyboy]

Nestor, I don't think I can answer what you're saying, but possibly to reword or reframe it for further discussion once I understand better what you mean.

Let me try again a discussion about physical structures, because I think the same philosophical questions will apply. So with a wave, the question is whether the QM particles in a wave "do" something that collectively forms a wave, or whether an interaction among underlying non-particular "ideas" (gravity, atomic forces, etc) pushes them into place? Or, in other words, is the mathematical function simply a description of physical positioning, or is the physical positioning the expression of underlying mathematical functions? I think the latter view is correct, because you can trace a wave through a large body of water even when the molecules at the source of a ripple have completely ceased undulating. Therefore, the wave principle, while it requires a medium to move through, is still the cause of that movement.

So let's look at computation. Is the word "mind" simply descriptive of observations of an arbitrary amount of data "processing" (I'm still not sure what that means exactly), or is the data processing the expression of underlying principles? One could see, for example, human evolution as a kind of ripple through time, with DNA being a form of communication between physical states at different times. The human mind, then, supervenes not only on the brain, but on relationships between those collective past states. In this case, the brain is seen as an expression of those past states, which themselves are not brain, and so while mind supervenes on something, it is not ultimately so much the specific functions of the brain, but on the fundamental capacity of events in the universe to interact with each other in a variety of ways through time.

In this view, I'd say that any process which brings into relation events or states at different times or places represents a kind of mental activity, and that includes the transmission of information about Galaxy A to Galaxy B via the emission and absorption of a photon over the course of a thousand years.

[Whateverist]

I don't disbelieve in the capactiy of a neural network to sustain consciousness.  I disbelieve that there is any function of human behavior that couldn't be replicated as well by a philosophical zombie as by an actually-sentient human being.  If the universe were purely a mechanical one, then there would be nothing but things doing stuff-- no consciousness required.  Therefore, I have to include that the possibility of sentience is intrinsically included in the makeup of the universe: i.e. that it's no less a part of reality than gravity.

I don't think I agree.  I don't think it makes any sense to talk about consciousness apart from embodied consciousness.  I don't think it is as inevitable as gravity.  Plenty of worlds could be devoid of life and therefore also of brains complex enough to exhibit consciousness.  An entire universe devoid of life is not unimaginable - even though the imagining itself implies the involvement of a brain which could only happen in a universe where life happens.  

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 What's the non-arbitrary cut-line between simple "data exchange" and mind-producing "processing"? 

again, and from above...that there be processing, in a comp mind framework(I'm assuming you're asking from that POV).   Even if we have processing.....we'll still be looking for more than a pocket calculator......it would seem.  

Sorry, but I'm not sure who the original quote comes from but the part I bolded struck me as odd.  Isn't it "minds" (or at least brains) which process?  The processing doesn't give rise to minds, it's the other way around. 
Perhaps you only meant that "processing" is a marker for the presence of minds?

[Mudhammam]

@Benny

I think you more or less described what I was aiming at but I'll re-word it a bit myself for further clarification in case others still find what I (or we) am attempting to convey.

Since Descartes, scientists have tended to view the Universe as a Great Machine consisting of material substances that contain properties as such that together they form interlocking relationships which remain absolute regardless of who is doing the measurement and when or where it is being done. This was the classical view, that underlying reality as it is perceived by us there are "objective" facts about the "external" world that we can know. Now, of course, much of this point of view was obliterated in the twentieth-century when the behavior of the "stuff" of matter began to appear, at its most basic level, completely dependent on its interaction with macroscopic objects, but I want to ignore QM for the moment as it's not necessary for my argument. My argument is basically this: When you say, in the one option, that mathematics is “simply a description of physical positioning,” I think I am in agreement with you that it indeed seems to be something more than that. The reason is that the description is not merely about movement, it’s about the rules to which movement must adhere. If it was about positioning and nothing more, there would be no reason to find absolute consistency in the behavior of matter (at least where classical objects are concerned). Now you can say that the rules are carved out by the properties of matter, for example, gravity is the result of the curvature of space, but there’s nothing in the matter (of space?) itself that suggests this something should have any necessary and universal consequences; the suggestion that there are innate properties of material substances basically affirms the coexistence of abstract “ideas” or “principles”, so that “this (matter) will always result in that (behavior).” What are non-physical properties if not abstract entities? (I don’t think E=MC^2, for example, can be called a physical property as there is nothing physical of which the description is about, i.e., the description is about how energy relates to matter/light/velocity, which are physical, but how these behave in conjunction with one another is not the same as the physical things themselves). QM, as I said, seems to cause bigger headaches in terms of what we can actually call objective or absolute in terms of our descriptions but even so it seems like there must be at least an abstract aspect to reality that is every bit, if not more, as real (though not concrete in a material sense) as material substances are.

Now, I’m not sure if I would go so far as to suggest disembodied consciousness, but if abstractions are “out there,” as fundamental properties of matter (e.g. in the necessity of their current and future positions) or something coexistence with matter, then I wonder if perhaps “mind” is not also itself an abstraction, as in a principle of physical structures like anything else (in the same way that E=MC^2 is a description about something essentially non-material, I mean, as in the relationship of physical objects at certain velocities), though in this case, particular structures, albeit due to their organization and/or chemical or organic components involved.

Hopefully I didn't make what I'm trying to convey more obscure. I should have probably just left it at what you already said. 

[Neo-Scholastic]

...If it [math] was about positioning and nothing more, there would be no reason to find absolute consistency in the behavior of matter ... Now you can say that the rules are carved out by the properties of matter...that suggests this something should have any necessary and universal consequences; the suggestion that there are innate properties of material substances basically affirms the coexistence of abstract “ideas” or “principles”, so that “this (matter) will always result in that (behavior)... What are non-physical properties if not abstract entities?  

You had me until the last sentence. The distinction between necessary and contingent facts seems increasingly important to me. The extent to which those things that govern physical operations are necessary facts versus contingent ones is a fascinating problem. I do believe that (hate to say it but) the Schoolmen took great care to differentiate between the process of abstraction and form isolated by that process. The E=mc^2 formula is most certainly a propositional description, but it would not qualify as either the formal or dispositional properties at play.

[JuliaL]

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@Benny

I think you more or less described what I was aiming at but I'll re-word it a bit myself for further clarification in case others still find what I (or we) am attempting to convey.

Since Descartes, scientists have tended to view the Universe as a Great Machine consisting of material substances that contain properties as such that together they form interlocking relationships which remain absolute regardless of who is doing the measurement and when or where it is being done. This was the classical view, that underlying reality as it is perceived by us there are "objective" facts about the "external" world that we can know. Now, of course, much of this point of view was obliterated in the twentieth-century when the behavior of the "stuff" of matter began to appear, at its most basic level, completely dependent on its interaction with macroscopic objects, but I want to ignore QM for the moment as it's not necessary for my argument. My argument is basically this: When you say, in the one option, that mathematics is “simply a description of physical positioning,” I think I am in agreement with you that it indeed seems to be something more than that. The reason is that the description is not merely about movement, it’s about the rules to which movement must adhere. If it was about positioning and nothing more, there would be no reason to find absolute consistency in the behavior of matter (at least where classical objects are concerned). Now you can say that the rules are carved out by the properties of matter, for example, gravity is the result of the curvature of space, but there’s nothing in the matter (of space?) itself that suggests this something should have any necessary and universal consequences; the suggestion that there are innate properties of material substances basically affirms the coexistence of abstract “ideas” or “principles”, so that “this (matter) will always result in that (behavior).”

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What are non-physical properties if not abstract entities?

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(I don’t think E=MC^2, for example, can be called a physical property as there is nothing physical of which the description is about, i.e., the description is about how energy relates to matter/light/velocity, which are physical, but how these behave in conjunction with one another is not the same as the physical things themselves). QM, as I said, seems to cause bigger headaches in terms of what we can actually call objective or absolute in terms of our descriptions but even so it seems like there must be at least an abstract aspect to reality that is every bit, if not more, as real (though not concrete in a material sense) as material substances are.

Now, I’m not sure if I would go so far as to suggest disembodied consciousness, but if abstractions are “out there,” as fundamental properties of matter (e.g. in the necessity of their current and future positions) or something coexistence with matter, then I wonder if perhaps “mind” is not also itself an abstraction, as in a principle of physical structures like anything else (in the same way that E=MC^2 is a description about something essentially non-material, I mean, as in the relationship of physical objects at certain velocities), though in this case, particular structures, albeit due to their organization and/or chemical or organic components involved.

Hopefully I didn't make what I'm trying to convey more obscure. I should have probably just left it at what you already said. 

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Perhaps they are commonalities in composition of the particles which you interpret as some abstracted connection. A connection which they don't have.
Example:
You observe a yellow truck in Paris and a yellow truck in London.  These items (by my hypothetical) have no association other than you have observed both to be yellow trucks.  The connection occurs only because of your observation.

While there could be an underlying mind stuff in the universe, I see no evidence of it while I do see evidence connecting the experience of consciousness to the physical organization and chemical operations in the brain.  Only systems of a minimum, apparently necessary, complexity in neuroanatomy exhibit behaviors characteristic of conscious individuals as experienced (me) or granted (to others by comparison with myself.)  We do not yet have bottom up understanding of the design and operation of the wetware involved.  I believe this will be obtained within a century and that once in hand, it will be replicated or simulated.   At that point the question, "Are you there?" will have meaning and the answer must be believed to the same extent that it is when asked of another person.
There arises an interesting situation if the system under observation answers, "No."