Weekend Fisher Replies

Weekend Fisher continues the argument for "natural" mind:

The purpose and goal of the mind

And I respond here.

WF says,

”I'd say that the mind is the natural function of the brain (and associated nervous system e.g. input from the eyes), and that the mind uses natural processes for operation.

From this and the previous statement originally made, I am beginning to understand that the statement does not say that the mind is a physical entity, recoverable for physical examination. This statement merely says that the purpose of the brain is to be host to the mind. The mind uses the brain.

Or does it really mean that?

The terminology, “natural function” is easily equivocated on the one hand and easily misdirected on the other. This is because if something exists, then it can be said to be natural. For example, as I’ll repeat below, if God exists, then God is natural even though God is not physical.

But that leaves the status of the mind itself somewhat in limbo. This is particularly the case if one attributes to the mind (and not to the brain) functions such as qualia, comprehension (in the sense of full understanding and realization of the reasons a concept is correct), in-the-moment awareness (full consciousness), conscience (which activates in grey areas of moral issues), ability to hypothesize deductively from inductive data, assess the self-evidence and necessity of First Principles and grounding, etc., etc.

So first we must assume a meaning: that the term “natural” actually means “to exist physically”. The hypothesis is then that both the brain AND the mind are purely physical, given that understanding of “natural”.

Next, the progression is made starting with fundamental awareness. Sensors are said to be aware of the parameter which is being sensed. So a thermostat is aware of temperature, when awareness is used in this manner. A 3D wide angle camera might be said to be fully aware of its immediate environment immediately in front of it. This seems to push the boundaries of the intent of the word, aware. But let’s move on.

The next step in the progression is to the creation of a world model based on sensory input, and presumably memory of consistency and non-consistency in occurrences. This is said to get us closer to the human mind, but not there yet.

The final step to the human mind includes the drive to complete, extend or enhance the world model.

It is not clear at this point how the progression leads to the concept that mind is purely physical, other than to invoke evolution, a subject we should address elsewhere and in full as necessary. The invocation of evolution as proof of a physical mind will not meet with success, because evolution is purely extrapolated inference: i.e., opinion which is given Appeal to Expert Opinion as its sole authority.

Now we get to this:

”Here are some ways we humans have come up with to empirically analyze our own comprehension, thoughts, and concepts, and we have come up with a good variety of ways.”

And the list of processes contains just these attempts to “see” a thought (the first seven are just tests for the contents of a thought):

1. “Tools like Rorshach tests”, et. al. These tools are tests not for the physical capture of a thought, but for analyzing the contents of thoughts. This applies to the first six items listed as well.

2. Brain scans. These scans do not show thoughts or mind; they show increased blood flow. The increased blood flow to actively functioning parts of the brain does not show thoughts. It shows additional nutrients being shuttled to actively functioning parts of the brain, and nothing more. What the neurons are doing is entirely and completely unknown, even though they are reacting to a question or issue. And how that neuronic activity translates into a mind is a layer beyond the neuronal unknown, and which is completely untouched by any scan of any blood flow OR even of bioelectric discharge monitoring.

3. Taking visual signals being transmitted to the brain and reconstituting them outside the skull into visual images is not the observation of a brain function, and is not a mental image. It is more akin to stealing cable signal from your neighbor, not stealing his actual pixels. Visual imaging signals are not thoughts.

Whether this technique actually is extensible to the monitoring of thoughts is a moot issue in the question of whether the mind that has the thought also comprehended the thought, forced the thought onto the brain, used the brain to coordinate motion in the hand for writing a thought, or used the brain to create music previously unheard. In other words, it would monitor the thought, not the mind which drives the brain to have the thought.

It should be obvious that the source of the thought is not addressed by monitoring the thought. Only if the thought is first presupposed to be caused by the brain could it ever be said to be caused by the brain (circular). That is false logic and false scientific process. And that still has no bearing on the existence of qualia, creativity, agency, etc. which are in the mind, not in the thought.

The author says this:

”I'm a professional coder with an interest in AI) that I haven't yet heard someone propose a mental function that I couldn't imagine a way of coding into a computer.”

While I’m sure you could code curiosity into a deterministic serial machine, can you code in creativity followed by realization? Do you really think that you can code in every human relationship, desire, lust, passion, intellectual neediness, intellectual fallacy due to improper axioms acquired by voluntary ideological bias, or need for belonging, or fear of rejection? Is there nothing about your own job which an algorithm cannot perform just as well?

You have to presume mental behaviors to be either (a) algorithmic or (b) huge full featured non-algorithmic programs with nearly infinite branching or (c) self-modifying on the fly, all the while not self-destructing (too often, anyway). Or maybe there is some sort of parallel programming you know about that I don’t. If so, please explain.

”There are perfectly natural ways to code awareness, evaluative framework, even the ability for a computer to add new abilities into its own design/framework and exceed its original instruction base.”

Please give an example of the ability to create new processor instructions. Unless that means that the new instruction for the processor is actually a combination of instructions the processor is already designed to handle at the level from machine code to internal electron flow, I am skeptical. I can see that a machine could be induced to create new subroutines or macros out of combinations of existing instructions, but to create new machine code instructions for which the processor has no designed ability to handle as valid input needs explanation.

Which is very interesting so please explain. But this in no manner leads with necessity or sufficiency to the conclusion that a mind/thought is a physical entity.

At this point I’m still not sure what you’re trying to say: is a mind/thought a completely physical thing, with the universal attributes of mass/energy existing in space/time?

Or are you saying that the mind/thought merely uses the brain as a physical platform for operating in the physical realm?

Those are two different interpretations of your statements. But they are not the same thing, at all. Saying that the mind is “natural” is indefinite in meaning. Either it is physical or it is not physical, but either of those might be termed natural. For example, if God exists, then God is natural although not physical. For that reason I don’t refer to Philosophical Naturalism, I refer to Philosophical Materialism, which is a purely physicalist view of existence (only mass/energy and space/time exist and nothing else).

Fighting off Philosophical Materialism, if that’s your intent, and I’m not sure that it is, is simple: it is internally non-coherent, because it makes a fundamental truth claim about existence which it cannot prove using its fundamental truth claim. It is also a Category Error.

I’ll leave it at that, and wait for your next response.

This is an interesting and engaging subject.