Re: The Identity Theory of Mind

From: Paul Bramscher (brams006_nospam_at_tc.umn.edu)
Date: 09/24/04 

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 09:50:43 -0500

JPL Verhey wrote:

> First you mention that processes are usually understood and described in
> terms of repeatable methodes "between input and output". I think you
> mean that a system with an initial state S1 goes through a process
> leading up to a state S2 of the system. So the process is a sequence of
> tranformations that changes the system from S1 to S2. We can know of
> such a process, identify it, only because it can be repeated. We can
> start with a raw egg (S1), boil it (the process) and after 10 minutes
> you have a hard boiled egg (S2). We can repeat this procedure, the same
> process, and boil sequentially 10 eggs. Thusly we have identified a
> process and name it "boiling an egg".

Your analogy of boiling an egg is an excellent example of a process, but
maps poorly to what neuroscience seems to be pointing toward with regard
to neural networks. The granularity (biochemical, electrical, hormonal,
the whole chemical/physical/physiological mix) is sufficiently granular
that we might question whether or not the state we describe as
experience/thought/consciousness X is ever repeatable as X. When it
"comes around" again the next time, it may be more like a spiral than a
circle. That is, it comes around to general proximity, but it's "off"
somewhat, it misses itself, never reconnects or maps precisely to a
previous state and bears no resemblence to the expected input/output
result last time they were examined with one another in similar
circumstances.

Viewing this as a process is still possible, probably, but probably only
valid if one fudges or blurs the spiral (roughly repeatable) into a
circle (perfectly so, as in gears which never break down and enjoy a
perfect lubricant). This process is accomplished semantically by
loosening the scope of what constitutes experience X, rejecting a degree
of granularity, and avoiding the endpoints (birth, death, dreamless
sleep, coma, etc.) in terms of explaining consciousness.

Process, system, and state are mechanistic metaphors, and they carry
along with them baggage of repeatability, solidness, discreteness, and
finite aspects to states that seem to poorly describe analog and
dynamically-changing NN situations.

> Buddhism considers conscious experience as an "emptyness of form" so
> there is nothing to repeat. But is it [the form] dependent on the
> process nevertheless? Does the shape of the form depend on the type of
> process? Doesn't the form change with the process that 'goes with it'?
> What is an empty form to begin with?

It depends on who you read, but Thich Nhat Hanh's "Heart of the Buddha's
Teaching" is an amazingly accessible book to Buddhist psychology, with
some diagrams to help.

He likes to use a water/wave metaphor (used as a pedagogical device, and
not to imply duality). People view their conscious ego as a wave,
whereas the true identity is the underlying and everpresent water. So
probably neither form nor process are recognized, but rather a single
underyling sublime from which dualism (which they reject) and other
things emerge as an empty artifact of ego. They can be spoken of,
perhaps, only as abstractions -- but enjoy no independent existence of
their own.

>>Our of curiosity, do you view yourself as an identity theorist? Why
>>the great defense of it?
>
>
> Yes I can consider myself an "identity theorist", but Identity Theory is
> only half of the story - the first half in my thinking. The second half
> is the most interesting part: how to "reconcile" the monism of Identity
> Theory with the so powerful experience of mind-matter dualism. This
> sense of duality exists already since human beings are able to report

Ah... This is where we break down. I hate to wrap an ism around myself,
but I'd describe myself as a constructive materialist. When I read of
the theory "eliminative materialist" I thought that it was written by a
dualist. That it, automatically, implied that there was something to
eliminate in the first place, or should be viewed as something against
which it rejects.

I subscribe to no form of dualism, since it's plain to me that the
harder you draw a line in the sand, the more difficult it becomes to
reconcile the sides.

Rather, I reject anything without a physical basis. However, I believe
the physical world to be sufficiently complex to accomodate for all of
the things we take to be physical, capable of being experienced, or at
least represented symbolically (abstractions, mathematics, paradox,
religion, consciousness itself). These are represented symbolically in
physical NN terms, but enjoy no independent existence. All things are
represented symbolically in NN terms, it just turns out that some of
them actually do point toward physical objects (a desk, a chair,
"sampled input"), whereas others do not (imaginery numbers), and others
point toward one another (associations, semantics). The sum total we
call consciousness.

> experiences to themselves and each other. From soul in body, to
> ghost-in-machine, to empty form, to epiphenomenon, to an illusion or
> delusion, to non-existent..to "only the physical, brains are real", to
> "only the mind is real and the physical an illusion", to "the universe
> is a dream of a cosmic consciousness", "mind and matter are dual aspects
> of the same substance".. etc.
>
> My interest in all this became the question - can this mental-mess be
> understood, what causes it? Not the question of David Chalmers "how to
> solve the hard problem" - which is IMO just a rephrasing of the same old
> conundrum - but what *causes* us to *have* a hard problem with
> mind-and-matter to begin with? Why doesn't nature have any "hard
> problems" with "matter" nor with "mind"?

I dismiss the mind-body problem as an artifact of Western classical and
religious thinking for two millenia. The only way out is to dismiss,
from the beginning, dualism as an abstract problem without a real (or
even abstract) exit, if 2-3 millenia offer any hint.

We're a fragmented culture because we've adopted an illusory
fragmentation as real. I say the best way to overcome the mind-body
problem is to reject dualism, start with consciousness or materialism --
it doesn't matter, and build it to accomodate the other.

Note that I'm being careful here not to "eliminate" consciousness or
mental, rather I'm eliminating dualism -- the split -- between the two,
and suggesting immediately that (whether or not they exist as two
subjects), they are sufficiently intertwined and dependendent on one
another, perhaps one is a subset of the other, that to speak of them as
opposing pairs of opposites or camps is a ghost in reasoning -- moreso
than a ghost in a machine.

Think very carefully about the trappings of dualism, I believe it offers
absolutely no solace until it's approached as a faulty algorithm of
reasoning and rejected immediately.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Identity Theory of Mind
    ... The granularity (biochemical, electrical, ... So is classical physics. ... >>underyling sublime from which dualism and other ... >>mathematics, paradox, religion, consciousness itself). ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: How does a hand move?
    ... "consciousness" is chemical reactions. ... No doubt that people find dualism intuitive; ... call the masochistic zombie argument. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: How does a hand move?
    ... "consciousness" is chemical reactions. ... No doubt that people find dualism intuitive; ... it lead to systematic wrong predictions in a world that was getting ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: A reply to Marvin Minsky.
    ... I have varying degrees of consciousness. ... how much is going on in the brain. ... We can hear voices in our head which no one else standing around ... The reason machines don't look "conscious" to us, is because our dualism ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: Debunking simplistic physicalism
    ... thinking about abstractions involves brain activity. ... When reason leads to a contraction, ... (I am there referring to Cartesian dualism, ... Your stringent version of physicalism is obviously wrong, ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)