in here?
out there?
in-between somewhere?
nota
(Disclaimer: this thread is not posed for mere, or idle, argumentation. I am trying to get somewhere with this thought.)
Your unique pattern of connected neurons collectively refers to 'your mind'
I have more than one question regarding that assertion, but, first, according to the topic title (please bear with me here):
Where is that *stuff*, connected neurons and such-like, located? Your reply implies that 'your/my mind' is substantial or has substance. (It also suggests that 'mind' is a manifestation of localized phenomena.)
nota
It's often described as an epiphenomenom, a strange by product of the hard wirin of brain tissue. Often compared to the software on a computer, or the pages on the net. However, I just enjoy it and play.
Ok then, 'epiphenomenon' is a good word. Does such a thing have an epicenter? If so, the pertinent question here, is
where?
[You have described a function, or even a by-product of 'the brain' and its tissue. OK. Dead people have intact brains, in many cases. So, it's hard to imagine that mind is a by-product of an organ/its material formation. So I am not willing to grant that the mind is equivalent to the brain.]
By way of definition let us say that the mind is what perceives.
Quote from: Pica Pica on June 13, 2007, 04:41:07 PM
Often compared to the software on a computer, or the pages on the net. However, I just enjoy it and play.
Now, is it a good comparison, this one to software (making hardware 'go')? Can your computer "just enjoy it and play"?
nota
Geez what a question ::).. A question that has no immediate answer really. First, what is the mind: Mind refers to where all thought processes occur which originate in the brain and then are manifested in some combination of thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, imagination, etc, etc, etc. :P
tink :icon_chick:
Quote from: Tink on June 13, 2007, 07:56:38 PM
Geez what a question ::)..
Yeah, well. Humor me :-*
Quote from: Tink on June 13, 2007, 07:56:38 PM
A question that has no immediate answer really.
I am so not looking for the immediate answer.
OK then, it's a good start.
Quote from: Tink on June 13, 2007, 07:56:38 PM
First, what is the mind: Mind refers to where all thought processes occur which originate in the brain and then are manifested in some combination of thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, imagination, etc, etc, etc. :P
*
ALL THOUGHT PROCESSES... Originate in the brain. The brain is in the body, correct?*
Let's start with perception as a function of mind. IE: the perceiving mind. By analogy: the eyes perceive (and you can trust your non-lying eyes, I am of course presuming).
Your mind, 'originating in the brain', which is
in your body... Are you clear about - can you perceive/see clearly - that which is
in your body? (EG: about that which moves along your nerves and the pulsing of your veins.)
Before you can perceive/see clearly the outside of your body, you should be able to do this, if the mind is in fact *in* your body.
Are you still prepared to make the case that your mind originates in the brain?
QuoteYou have described a function, or even a by-product of 'the brain' and its tissue. OK. Dead people have intact brains, in many cases. So, it's hard to imagine that mind is a by-product of an organ/its material formation. So I am not willing to grant that the mind is equivalent to the brain.
Huge fallicy.
Dead people may have brains (prior to decomposition), but
1. They have nothing to power them
2. There is no oxygen supply to them
3. There is massive cellular death
4. There are no salts to facilitate electrical neural transfer.
Your arguement is similiar to:
My car won't start, therefore I don't have a car.
You may not have a working car.
You may not have a car that provides you transportation.
But, You do have a car. Just not one that is functioning properly.
As You grow and learn, fibrous white matter begins growing and connecting different portions of the brain so that those portions can be accessed to either retain information or access information.
This growth and regrowth of these fibrous white strings is constantly changing.
An excerpt from an article from Duke University found here: http://www.dukemednews.duke.edu/news/article.php?id=9531
QuoteThe researchers said their findings provide new insight into how the brain adjusts its thinking processes as people age. Such studies also yield clues to the underlying causes of cognitive decline with aging, they said.
For their studies, the researchers used functional MRI (fMRI) to image the activation of gray matter during testing. And, a relatively new imaging technique called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) allowed them to gauge the structural integrity of the fibrous white matter. The gray matter of the brain is responsible for information processing, while the white matter enables information transmission among different areas of the brain.
Note the words "cognitive decline"
That means the decline in the ability to think, which is indicitive of 'the mind'
It is the combination of what is contained in your grey matter, and how it is accessed, and what groups of neurons are accessed, that determines your individual pattern of thought, aka your mind.
Based on what you think about, how often you think about certain things, and your thought patterns, new fibrous material forms accessing different portions of the grey matter of your brain.
QuoteYour mind, 'originating in the brain', which is in your body... Are you clear about - can you perceive/see clearly - that which is in your body? (EG: about that which moves along your nerves and the pulsing of your veins.)
Before you can perceive/see clearly the outside of your body, you should be able to do this, if the mind is in fact *in* your body.
No, Your brain does not have the required sensory organs to detect things within the body like that. Your brain is connected to numerous sensors. Your eyes, Your ears, Your taste buds, olfactory, and millions of nerves leading to different portions of the body.
A perfect example, when your stomach is empty your stomach fires a signal (via a nerve) to a portion of your brain responsible for the hunger sensation. There are a lot of sensors built into the brain that you don't think about other than the 'standard 5'.
But, there is no organic sensory 'eye' to 'see' inside of your body.
However, that does not prove the brain is not the mind, it just means that we don't have the organic sensory organ required.
I think a lot of your questions will be answered in a good sound course in basic biology.
Jessica
Quote from: Jessica on June 14, 2007, 02:53:41 PM
QuoteYou have described a function, or even a by-product of 'the brain' and its tissue. OK. Dead people have intact brains, in many cases. So, it's hard to imagine that mind is a by-product of an organ/its material formation. So I am not willing to grant that the mind is equivalent to the brain.
Huge fallicy.
Dead people may have brains (prior to decomposition), but
1. They have nothing to power them
2. There is no oxygen supply to them
3. There is massive cellular death
4. There are no salts to facilitate electrical neural transfer.
Your arguement is similiar to:
My car won't start, therefore I don't have a car.
You may not have a working car.
You may not have a car that provides you transportation.
But, You do have a car. Just not one that is functioning properly.
It may be 'similar' but is not my argument at all. (is a car, which does not think, an apt analogy to the brain, which might be shown to think, or, actually supports that which thinks? You can reduce the function of a car to its engine. I doubt you can as successfully reduce the function of a person thinking to the heart. It is rather absurd to make such an analogy.
My argument is supported by what you just pointed out, by inversion. You are talking about the byproduct that Pica mentioned as if it were the thing-in-itself. You have also implied that 'the mind' is 'the mind' by dint of its power supply, or because it is alive. That doesn't address the question, it appears to seek to avoid it.
Quote from: Jessica on June 14, 2007, 02:53:41 PM
The researchers said their findings provide new insight into how the brain adjusts its thinking processes as people age. Such studies also yield clues to the underlying causes of cognitive decline with aging, they said.
Note the words "cognitive decline"
Yes, this implies impermanence of perception doesn't it?
Quote from: Jessica on June 14, 2007, 02:53:41 PM
That means the decline in the ability to think, which is indicitive of 'the mind'
Indicative yes, but is this an indication a
thing-in-itself? I think not.
QuoteYour mind, 'originating in the brain', which is in your body... Are you clear about - can you perceive/see clearly - that which is in your body? (EG: about that which moves along your nerves and the pulsing of your veins.)
Before you can perceive/see clearly the outside of your body, you should be able to do this, if the mind is in fact *in* your body.
Quote from: Jessica on June 14, 2007, 02:53:41 PM
No, Your brain does not have sense to detect things within the body like that. Your brain is connected to numerous sensors. Your eyes, Your ears, Your taste buds, olfactory, and millions of nerves leading to different portions of the body.
But, there is no sensory 'eye' to 'see' inside of your body.
Then we have established that the brain, by extension, mind, might be something more than what it perceives? And that it is not aptly analogous to the eyes or any other perceiving organ?
Either I failed to communicate clearly or you missed my points.
Since I can't explain it very well, here is a good introduction:
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/brain_basics/know_your_brain.htm#geo
Now, scientists aren't sure about a lot of things for example, how information is encoded in the brain.
However, all the workings of 'the mind', at least sufficiently for me, are explained via biological mechanism's.
In other words, all of the collective pieces of the brain have been sufficiently explained for the majority of scientists to accept that the 'mind' is a function of the brain.
Jessica
Quote from: Jessica on June 14, 2007, 04:07:30 PM
Either I failed to communicate clearly or you missed my points
No, you communicated well enough, but the points are 'beside the point'.
You have made the effort to reduce 'the mind' to 'the brain'. That is your point, yes?
It is 'beside the point', and it may indicate that I have failed, or it may indicate that you don't wish to see my thinking, for whatever reason. I don't see that what I have said was refuted.
To wit: I understand that the thinking mind is that which thinks. Let me emphasize that this is a given in this topic. I also understand that the brain is that which allows, or supports, thinking.
THE QUESTION IS: where is this 'mind' located? IE: in the brain, which is in a body? Or outside the body?
If the mind is the brain, which is located inside the body, why does it not clearly perceive
all that is itself?
THE QUESTION IS: where is this 'mind' located? IE: in the brain, which is in a body? Or outside the body?
It is a byproduct of the functioning brain. It is not 'located' anywhere.
It's like saying, "Where is your heartbeat?'
It starts as an electrical impulse from your brain telling your heart to beat, travels through your body to your heart, and then triggers a series of electrical events that cause your heart muscles to contract in differing chambers of the heart.
If the mind is the brain, which is located inside the body, why does it not clearly perceive all that is itself?
Because, your brain is an information processor. It gathers information from certain points. These points are not infinite.
Examples?
Your eyes.
Your ears.
Your stomach.
Certain points within your skin.
You do not have the necessary organs to see within yourself and travel your blood vessels. It doesn't have anything to do with the capability of the brain, it has to do with the fact that there are no sensory organs that do that. If you created a little submarine that communicated wirelessly and travelled through your bloodstream. Then a receiver to pick up the signal and encode the information properly, and then tied that receiver into your optical nerve, you certainly could 'see' what was going on in your circulatory system.
I feel strongly that I've answered your question to the best of my ability and understanding.
With that, I'm out of the conversation.
Jessica
Quote from: Jessica on June 14, 2007, 04:34:02 PM
THE QUESTION IS: where is this 'mind' located? IE: in the brain, which is in a body? Or outside the body?
It is a byproduct of the functioning brain. It is not 'located' anywhere.
Thank you, that is
precisely my point.
[Please understand Jessica, that I do NOT intend this to be argumentative for its own sake, at all. I said that at the top of the thread. I am trying to create what is known as a
dialectic, and this is the first part of "the question". I regret that it might have caused any undue irritation. Thank you for your participation!]
QuoteThank you for your participation!
You're welcome :)
Jessica
Moving right along...
It might be difficult to locate this thing called mind. I still don't see that it's
strictly a byproduct of the organ that supports it, however.
We must proceed by analogy. What might be seen as analogous to the brain? The computer, perhaps.
A machine, hardware. Which needs something, an operating system, to 'run' it. Now, is this operating system a byproduct of the machine? Much less
strictly a byproduct (which Jessica may have implied).
Does this not follow?
Quote from: Jessica on June 14, 2007, 04:07:30 PM
...all the workings of 'the mind'... are explained via biological mechanism's.
In other words, all of the collective pieces of the brain have been sufficiently explained for the majority of scientists to accept that the 'mind' is a function of the brain.
Might it not be shown, by the self-same argument, that the brain is a function of the mind? Which tends to make the reduction: 'the mind is the brain' a circular argument. We are headed towards the ever-popular
reductio ad absurdum, but that's OK.
[To try and get 'outside' this circle, I pose the question: What else is a function of the mind? What else is the mind a function of?]
If the mind *
is* all the collective pieces of the brain, or is sufficiently explained/reduced accordingly, how is it that no enterprising scientist (in this planetary system anyway) has made one? Since they have the recipe down pat like that.
nota
It's ALL "mind." Everything. Every last bit of it.
~Kate~
the mind is the thinking faculty of humans and that's certainly located in the brain. sometimes the heart is described figuratively as the mind, this is not correct, but is centralized in the brain. our intuitive idea of the mind's location is that it is interfused with the whole body. in other words the brain constructs an illusory distribution of mental sensations over the body. capiche?
Quote from: Katia on June 14, 2007, 07:20:36 PM
the mind is the thinking faculty of humans and that's certainly located in the brain.
... our intuitive idea of the mind's location is that it is interfused with the whole body. in other words the brain constructs an illusory distribution of mental sensations over the body. capiche?
I'll go for the last statement 100%; now, invert 'mind' and 'brain'. Which is subject, which is object?
You follow?
The first statement (which is strictly conventional, is it not?) contains 'certainly', which I
tend to doubt.)
Quote from: Kate on June 14, 2007, 07:15:41 PM
It's ALL "mind." Everything. Every last bit of it.
Exactamundo. All phenomena emanates from mind and vice versa. Does anyone else follow?
nota
Recently I have no idea. I'm beginning to think that I lost *it* somewhere! :P
My brain hurts right now, I will give you a thorough answer in time. How are you home girl? ;) ;D
tink :icon_chick:
"Me brain hurts!" :icon_blah:
Hope it's not all my fault!
I originally thought this topic would be like pulling teeth, but look, we are still on pg 1, and getting the picture. Good crowd here at this joint.
I'm doing real good, for no real good reason...
no real good reason not to though, is the idea isn't it?
How you?
nota
Quote from: None of the Above on June 14, 2007, 08:58:51 PM
"Me brain hurts!" :icon_blah:
Hope it's not all my fault!
nota
Of course not, Miss Paranoia! :P ;D It's a fun topic indeed. I just need to be on the right mood to answer it, do you know what I mean?
tink :icon_chick:
Well what I meant is: I hope it's not this topic's fault.
Definitely bring your best mood or state of - urp! - mind to this party...
I have left a hole in here you could drive a truck through, and no one's gone for it.
I said "mind has no location", later I agreed with the statement "it's all mind, every last bit".
How can these two ideas be reconciled?
NOTA
i got idea, but am too fluey and drunk to bother with them.
well, the important thing is you bumped the topic to the top of the board... :laugh:
so did you.
The brain is physical, located in time and space. The mind is immaterial, not located in time and space but connected to the brain and able to interact with it..
Currently, however, there is the view that the mind is a consquence of the physical workings of the brain. It is a viewpoint addressed by some computer programmers who are attempting to generate a deus ex machina a computer that is self-aware. ;)
If the brain is material, but the mind is immaterial, how can the two actually be connected? Logically that would imply that a bridge would have to exist between the two that would be both material and immaterial so they could interact. And let's not even mention the pineal gland, shall we? I don't know what Descartes was smoking when he suggested that.
I personally don't understand why the mind needs to be located. I understand the mind to be something that is located out of space and time as it cannot be defined by either of those concepts as I understand them, and I personally consider that the brain, and therefore the body and the physical world as we percieve it, to be a mere by-product of the functioning of the mind.
Call me an idealist, I can live with it :).
Megan
Quote from: Fer on June 16, 2007, 07:48:20 AM
Currently, however, there is the view that the mind is a consquence of the physical workings of the brain. It is a viewpoint addressed by some computer programmers who are attempting to generate a deus ex machina a computer that is self-aware. ;)
And I would say: good luck with that. Might be as sentient as a chicken, who knows?
Quote from: MeganRose on June 16, 2007, 08:23:53 AM
If the brain is material, but the mind is immaterial, how can the two actually be connected? Logically that would imply that a bridge would have to exist between the two that would be both material and immaterial so they could interact. And let's not even mention the pineal gland, shall we? I don't know what Descartes was smoking when he suggested that.
I personally don't understand why the mind needs to be located. I understand the mind to be something that is located out of space and time as it cannot be defined by either of those concepts as I understand them, and I personally consider that the brain, and therefore the body and the physical world as we percieve it, to be a mere by-product of the functioning of the mind.
Megan
As suggested below/above, phenomenon & noumenon looping, mind emanating 'everything' and vice versa.
Same as it ever was/Not not was
aota/nota
As a computer programmer who is involved in artificial intelligence algorithm development and simulation, I have a whole lot to say on that topic, but it's not the same topic as "where 'the mind' is located", granted the topic is similiar, but I don't want to derail the thread.
I am looking forward to the new thread, but as impatient as I get when I am this caffeinated, I might want to incorporate the concept of programmed 'mind' into this one.
nota
I'm really not sure how to start it honestly.
Jessica
Never mind that, then ;)
This is only a question:
Since programming must use on/off switches to work:
Show us how '1' isn't usually '0', and how one might arrive at such an equivalence through a more or less correct procedure.
Please?
none
Quote from: None of the Above on June 19, 2007, 02:24:51 PM
Never mind that, then ;)
This is only a question:
Since programming must use on/off switches to work:
Show us how '1' isn't usually '0', and how one might arrive at such an equivalence through a more or less correct procedure.
Please?
none
Well, there is Goedel's Theorem, which states that any system sufficiently complex to express basic mathematical functions is inherently self-contradictory. So I suppose even a system of 1's and 0's can express itself in some interesting ways, albeit ways that most computer programmers do not want in their programs.
Dennis
Well that does seem problematic, 'inherently self-contradictory'. I may just be experiencing a failure of imagination, I don't know. (I do want to go look at Godel's Theorem, which I have only the most passing familiarity with, thank you Dennis.)
Pointing towards AI, which I guess -?- is supposed to be more than the sum of basic mathematical functions:
I am wondering whether or not a personality can be expressed (or 'express itself', according to Dennis's language) within the binary convention.
none
The theorem basically proves that such a system can express the following statement as true: "This statement is not true".
It's because you can create self-referential statements within a fairly simple system. Not sure what the implications are for AI though. I did my undergrad thesis on it. It's a nifty proof.
Dennis
QuoteSince programming must use on/off switches to work:
Show us how '1' isn't usually '0', and how one might arrive at such an equivalence through a more or less correct procedure.
It's actually two discreet values of electrical charge.
(generally for PC based systems it is .5 volts and 0 volts.)
.5 represents a 1
0 represents a 0
In digital systems it's either or.
Now, before you ask what happens when it's .25!
There is actually a threshold.
so it's more like
0 - .2 = 0
.21 - .22 = fuzziness and an error introduction, however, it is highly unlikely this will occur.
.23 - .75 = 1
.76+ = blown gate.
Basically, they are electrical values above and below a certain threshold.
You have a bunch of different gates that allow operations to be performed
So, it's all electrical voltages running through a bus (groups of wires) and the interaction of those voltages on that bus with gates. It's how everything is performed inside of a computer.
I hope that answered your question.
I'll try and give a more clear example without delving to far into digital logic
mov(ax, 7)
mov(bx, 3)
add(ax, bx)
ax refers to a register which is nothing more than a large group of gates
same with bx
the result of an add is always stored in cx, another register, or group of gates at a defined location
binary group 8421
7 = 0101
1 = 0001
So, in the ax register it places: .5 volts on the 1st line
0 ... 2nd
.5 ... 3rd
...
bx same procedure but for a '1', 1st .5, 2nd 0, 3rd 0 etc...
then ax and bx are routed through an adder, another more complicated series of gates.
the adder takes each of those series as inputs and produces an output which is then routed to register cx.
These are now the inputs to your adder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_propagation#Full_adder
This is really as general as I can make it.
Quote from: Jessica on June 20, 2007, 09:05:56 AM
I hope that answered your question.
You state it so elegantly even I get the picture. Thanks! (in the first part, the threshold's limits, reminds me a little bit of instrumental tuning, where you eventually say, "that's close enough for rock 'n roll" ;))