Re: The Identity Theory of Mind

From: JPL Verhey (matterDELminds_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 09/24/04 

Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 01:34:34 +0200

"Paul Bramscher" <brams006_nospam@tc.umn.edu> wrote in message
news:cj24vb$rd5$1@lenny.tc.umn.edu...
> JPL Verhey wrote:
>
>> "Paul Bramscher" <brams006_nospam@tc.umn.edu> wrote in message
...
>>>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.

Rereading this.. I don't get it. We agreed, I think, that nothing really
"repeats". Everything is always "off" somewhat. Each egg is different,
each instance of what we call "a process" is in effect (a bit, or
unnoticable) different. All outcomes are different. Things are just
called "the same" as long as it stays within the limits set by our
defintion of a certain process, outcome, or observation. Also our
experiences fit this picture. It also is always a bit "off". We change
all the time.

I think your initial critique to Identity Theory concerned the word
Identical, since once we established the reality of change, of a
fundamental inability to repeat in an absolute sense, "Identity" simply
cannot be. Did I get this right?

>>>
>>>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).
>>
>>
>> I don't think so. A process IS, indeed, 'spiraling', cycles just
>> being "similar enough" for us to call it a process. Untill it
>> "spiralled out of control" so to speak, and changes into a another
>> pattern, or dissolves into other patterns to a degree where the
>> similarity is lost for us to speak of the same process anymore. The
>> solar system is a good example. We can call it a process.. a pattern
>> that persists over time.. but it is un unstable pattern... changin
>> continuously and ultimately spiralling out of control.
>>
>>
>>>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.
>>
>>
>> But I think nobody is trying to do this.
>
> But you just used the term "similar enough" above -- which is what I
> call "rejecting a degree of granularity". So, indeed, people are
> doing this (yourself, for example).
>
> You might be able to do this in hindsight, or from a generalized
> scope. But rejection of granularity isn't something that the grains
> themselves can afford to do, if you take my meaning. And, hence,
> there's an explanatory gap you leave in your wake.

I'm afraid I misunderstood. You mean that the granularity of wholly
different processes, substances, structures, functions and locations in
the brain.. hardly allows for "conscious experience as process" because
'process' has no sufficient degree of granularity?

>
>>>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.

But I find it always reassuring to know that even a 25 kg rock is a very
complex structure with trillions of events per second happening inside
of it. That it doesn't look dynamic doesn't mean it isn't.

[..]
>>>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).
>>
>>
>> But do you consider the physical "being experienced", which sounds
>> like dualism, or "experience being a physical process"? ("physical"
>> and "process" with the connotations we mentioned)
>
> We just need to allow logical room for multiple things to exist which
> aren't pairs of opposites, opposed in some exclusive (and unbridgeable
> when abstract) ways.

Right.

We can speak of experiencing the mind like holding
> a mirror to a light source. The light "experiences" its own
> reflection, but it's a misnomer to speak of it as an independent
> source. There need be no non-scientific mystery in nature
> experiencing things. I view an individual mind as an imprint of
> nature in a similar way. Nature storing and processing a part of
> itself.

Yes its good to understand that the distinctions we make usually serve
analytical purpose only, and don't necessarly reflect the reality.

>
> Perhaps the greater mystery is why we don't experience more. Look at
> a clock. At precisely any moment in time, freeze your thoughts.
> Write down everything you were thinking about or aware of at that
> particular instant. I'm going to argue that it's not much at all (not
> because you're you, but for myself also). Of the billions of neurons
> and counteless NN states, we seem to enjoy very little at any given
> point in time. In fact, I'm rather disappointed with what we call
> consciousness. Its limits are what perplexes me more than its
> mysteries.

This could suggest that the brain is a noise-reduction machine. Maybe
that's how to end-up with music.

>
>>
>> Btw.. what I find always is missing is what "physical" is referred
>> to. Basically there are two. The first being the expriential one -
>> like a chair we see, a brain we observe etc.. and second the
>> experience-independent..the moon, that chair... that brain when we
>> don't observe them..or died. It makes a whoooole lot of difference
>> which one we use if we would want to understand consciousness in
>> "physical" terms.
>>
>>
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>>
>> Yes, conscious experience is quite a rich landscape. And ever
>> changing.
>
> To me, the big mystery is how you go from symbols (syntax) to
> semantics. We haven't figured this out with AI, but the mind has. Is
> it merely sufficient complexity, a maze of interrelations, constant
> feedback to external stimuli, and a rapid state of interprocess
> (internally via neurons and externally via re-enforcing stimuli)
> communication from which consciousness emerges?

I have no idea. It could be that we know so little of all the relevant
nuts and bolts that make it possible, that we are left with a mystery.
Or it could be that what we believe that is in need of explanation, in
this case "how you go from symbols (syntax) to semantics" is a
misinterpretation. It could be, that the distinction syntax/semantics is
only an analytical one that however has no real substance, as also the
mind-brain distinction hasn't.

[....]
>>>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.
>>
>>
>> We are in agreement here. But in addition my remarks about the sense
>> of dualism.. which really is not the sole experience of Westerners
>> who subsequently smoked very long and big philosophical pipes about
>> it for already 2-3 thousand years.., but *a natural, organic
>> consequence that can be understood why it is there*.. just as one can
>> understand cross-eyed vision. Imagine all people were always born
>> cross-eyed.. seeing things double. Yet other sense information,
>> and/or reasoning, and/or a strong compelling intuition telling them
>> there really is only one chair..why do we perceive of two all the
>> time? You have to explain it backwards so to speak.
>
> I believe there is a larger problem than the mind-body problem, and
> I'll call it the problem of composition. For example, I believe the
> mind (and body) will both be one day viewed as colonial organisms. I
> heard on NPR's Science Friday today a sketch about how cells may store
> memories. I was immediately struck with the image of sea coral or a
> Portuguese Man of War. These are not single individuals, but rather
> specialized and multiple individuals performing different tasks --
> sometimes independently which can be viewed as affecting the
> "composite organism" above, and sometimes results of the composite
> organism can affect individuals below it. And there is a level of
> complexity and dynamism proper to the individual, and one proper to
> the composite organism.

Yes, this is also how I envision it. I believe Minsky wrote about "the
society of mind"?

I'm even more extreme perhaps in this - I already consider sub-atomic
particles as little ants that form colonies i.e. atoms, that form
molecules etc. upwards. I even think of them as having "DNA", that they
harbour "coded information" (DNA is just one medium or form), have very
complex inner structures (the space between Planck's 10^-33 cm and the
smallest observed particles of 10^-17 cm allows for this inner
complexity), and also "possess" amount of "proto-intelligence" or
"proto-mind" which is at work in the complexity build-up of higher
organism, from very complex and large organic molecules, to cellular
life, ants colonies, mammals etc.

>
> So I don't see this as simple dualism, or pairs of opposites. But
> rather as how a subset dances with the larger set and vice-versa. I
> believe the consciousness and the mind to be a collective effort.

In this regard perhaps the concept of indivisibility applies. Is the
'substance' of reality ultimately indivisible? (some people use the word
"whole".. but I prefer "indivisible" because "whole" is so big.)

Maybe you have any thoughts about indivisibility? Is it fundamental? Do
we need it as a concept to allow for the sort of multi-directional
interconnectedness of a collective and to explain, or make sense of
conscious experience?

>
> For example, neuroscience might be telling us that ideas are stored in
> some fashion (physically) by neurons. When people communicate to each
> other, they are (physically) programming one another at minute levels.
> So it's interesting how neuron states replicate one another. Sort of
> like a modem (modulate-demodulate). Electrochemistry (speaker) ->
> sound waves (speech) -> electrochemistry (listener).
>
> None of this really requires an abstract duality.

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