I guess they're saying that applying a known solution doesn't indicate intelligence. I was watching a YouTube of a bird using a piece of cracker as fish bait. It would drop the bit in the water and wait for a fish to come. If this is instinctual and all birds do it, it's not a sign of intelligence. But if the bird worked this out on it's own, learning, adapting, adopting new strategies, then it's intelligent. — frank

Why would instinctual behaviors not be intelligent behaviors? Instinctual behaviors are developed over time with the trial and error being performed by natural selection rather than the individual organism.

When learning a new task, like riding a bike, you eventually learn how to ride it effortlessly. That is to say, that you no longer have to focus on the movements of your feet and balancing on the seat. It is done instinctively once you master the task. Does that mean that intelligence is no longer involved in riding the bike?

As The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold, more people have learnt about the nature of friendship and struggle from the Lord of the Rings than the relatively small number of people who read books on sociobiology and psychology. — RussellA

Probably because the former is a much easier read and provides some escapism. Are you not more capable of learning about friendship by having friends in reality?

Right, so Pat is making a statement about their uncertainty, not about the actual state of some oak tree.
— Harry Hindu

No, She is making a statement about her uncertainty about a fact. — RussellA

That's what I said. Pat is referring to their state of mind of being uncertain, not referring to the state of an oak tree.

Most of what we hear and read is about things we were never present, whether about Caesar or events in Alaska. — RussellA

Yes, but you are saying that thinking is expressing uncertainty. So why would I read about things that other people thought if they were uncertain? When reading books about Caesar and events in Alaska, the writer does not seem to be uncertain to me. You don't seem to be uncertain that thoughts express uncertainty. You seem to be certain about some thoughts but not others. Why? Is every thought uncertain?

Truth is about the relationship between language and the world, such that language in the absence of a world can be neither true nor false, and the world in the absence of language can be neither true nor false. — RussellA

Agreed.

We can think about the meaning of words such as "the oak tree is shedding its leaves", and we can think about what we see, such as the oak tree is shedding its leaves.

Language is useful in that most of language refers to things and events we could never be present for, such as Kant's thoughts, the moon landing or Caesar's march into Rome

There is no truth or falsity in my seeing an oak tree shedding its leaves. There is no truth or falsity in the sentence "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves".

There is only truth if the sentence is "the oak tree is shedding its leaves" and I see the oak tree shedding its leaves. — RussellA

This part is confusing. Are not your thoughts part of the world? As such, is not some language that points to your thoughts either true or false? If I were to say, "RussellA is thinking about skinny dipping at the lake", wouldn't that be either true or false? I need to understand why you think that thoughts are not part of the world when they are about the world like language is.

If you thinking something is exhibiting some form of uncertainty doesn't that mean that you have a sense that your thoughts might be false?

Language can only ever point at your thoughts and feelings and observations. The question is does your thoughts, feelings and observations ever point to states of the world that is external to them?

"The oak tree is shedding its leaves" is true IFF the oak tree is shedding its leaves.

"x" in language is true IFF x in the world

The problem is in knowing what exists in the world. — RussellA

That is the same conclusion I came to above, but you have now moved the goal posts to where the relationship between the world and truth exists as knowledge. The question now is, what form does knowledge take in your mind? Does everything you know take the form of scribbles and the sound of your voice making truth statements, or do you have other types of visual and auditory experiences that are not words, but the actual things themselves? For instance, when reading the Lord of the Rings and reading a description of the characters, does the visual of Frodo and Gandalf take the shape of more scribbles and sounds, or a visual of what these characters look like? When a movie was made, was the movie all in scribbles and a voice narrating the story, or was it moving pictures and sounds of swords clashing against armor and other sound effects?

Why I say that is an abstraction, is because all such facts are, at least, expressed in symbolic form (3>2, A=A, etc). So Frege is claiming such facts have a kind of mind-independent validity. But what has always seemed fairly clear to me, is that they can only be grasped by a mind. I mean, you're not going to find any 'metaphysical primitives' in the phenomenal world - they all rely on the ability of a rational observer to discern them. — Wayfarer

or a measurer to measure them? The observer effect?

I can see that "scribbles" is doing the work of a technical term for you, but I'm honestly not sure what you mean to be contrasting "scribbles" with. Possibly that's why I'm having trouble understanding your argument. — J

When you are thinking, "water is H2O", or "the oak tree is shedding its leaves", what is it like for you? What form do these thoughts take in your mind? How do you know you are thinking these things? What exactly is present in your mind, and that you are pointing at when telling me what you are thinking, when thinking these things?

Is it a visual of the scribbles, "water is H2O" in your head, or the sound of your voice saying , "water H2O", in your head, or is it the visual of the molecular structure of water, or something else?

Is it a visual of the scribbles, "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves", the sound of your voice saying those words in your head, or actual visual of an oak tree shedding leaves, or something else?

Of what use is it for Pat to say "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves" if she thinks that there is a possibility that it may not be the case that the oak tree is shedding its leaves. — RussellA

Right, so Pat is making a statement about their uncertainty, not about the actual state of some oak tree.

Even if the oak tree is not shedding its leaves, Pat is nevertheless still communicating a lot of worthwhile information — RussellA

It is only useful if I'm not there looking at the same tree Pat is, or if I'm interested in what Pat is thinking, not what the oak tree is doing.

Suppose all that existed was my mind. Would I still learn a language. Probably I would, as language enables me to have more complex thoughts than I could otherwise have without language. The ability to have more complex thoughts would be an end in itself.

Perhaps this is perhaps why people learn unusual languages such as Latin, even though they are not able to use it in everyday life. It is an personal intellectual exercise rather than being of practical use. — RussellA

But, as I have said numerous times, language is just scribbles and sounds. You need to have a mind that already is capable of categorizing and interpreting visual and auditory experiences to be able to learn a language in the first place - to learn how to use the scribbles in meaningful ways. Therefore, language is simply a way for the mind to do what it already does in a more efficient way - reflect on the world visually. You can only think in visuals and sounds, of which language is part of. Which thought bears more truth, a visual of an oak tree shedding its leaves, or scribbles of your own voice in your head saying, "I think the oak tree shedding its leaves."

If thinking something is equivalent to expressing some uncertainty, then why would I use your thoughts, or your statement to get at some state-of-affairs, instead of just looking at the oak tree for myself?

How do you determine if some string of scribbles bears truth?

The quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures," encapsulates the notion that fiction has the unique ability to uncover hidden truths that may be misunderstood or even obscured by reality. In a straightforward interpretation, this quote suggests that the stories we create in fiction offer a deeper understanding of human nature, societal dynamics, and the complexities of life. Fiction has the power to shine a light on truths often overshadowed or ignored in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It allows us to explore different perspectives, question assumptions, and delve into the depths of human experience. Through narrative and imagination, fiction becomes a vehicle through which reality's intricacies can be unraveled and its truths made visible.

It makes no sense to say that "fiction" is representative of some truth in reality. If it did, it wouldn't qualify as "fiction". Ralph seems to like to play games with words.

In what ways does some work of fiction shed light on reality that some work of non-fiction does not? What does the relationship between Frodo and Gandalf, and Frodo's struggles with the ring, shed light on that some book on sociobiology and psychology would not?

Well, this probably won't get anywhere -- you sound like your mind is made up -- but OK. — J

It sounds like your mind is already made up that anything Nagel says about views is true. My experience is that people say, "read <insert your favorite philosopher here>" as a means of hand-waving another's arguments off, as if because some famous philosopher wrote something, that disqualifies my argument.

When I think "Water is H2O," I am imagining myself speaking objectively. Water would be H2O regardless of whether I think it, and regardless of whether anyone else does. — J

Again, when thinking that water is H2O, are you thinking in scribbles or sounds, or a visual of the molecular structure of water? If the latter, what side of the molecule are you viewing? If not the latter, are you saying that the fact that water is H2O is a string of scribbles or sounds? If "water is H2O" is independent of any language use, then saying to yourself "water is H2O" is only representative of some state of affairs and not an actual view of water as H2O. So again, how does one go from simply invoking scribbles and sounds in the mind, "water is H2O", to a view of water as it really is, or a view from nowhere? You seem to be confusing the scribbles, "water is H2O" with some relationship between two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, which are not scribbles.

Don't take "view from nowhere" too literally. Any talk of "views" is metaphorical. All I mean, and all Nagel means, is that there appears to be an entire class of statements that remain true regardless of who says them, and in many casesregardless of whether anyone says them. But how can this be? We are, as you point out, individual knowers with limited consciousness. What could entitle us to claim a truth that is apart from point of view? — J

Integrating multiple views over time and space, which is more akin to trying to achieve a view from everywhere, not from nowhere.

How can a statement that is never made be true or false? It seems to me that a statement has to exist to then judge it as true or false. Only people can make statements. Reality does not make statements independent of some person. It simply exists in a certain way. Statements do not exist independent of some mind. But statements (strings of scribbles and sounds) are not what the statement is about (molecules and oak trees). They are representative of what they are about, so thinking about an oak tree is a separate thought than thinking in scribbles that refer to an oak tree. One is about an oak tree, and the other is about scribbles. One takes the form of a visual of an oak tree shedding its leaves, and the other takes the form of scribbles, or sounds in your head.

Indeed. If you're willing to regard that as an open, rather than rhetorical, question, then the Nagel book is for you. If you're already certain it's impossible, then not. — J

I don't need to read Nagel. Tell me what it is like for you to imagine a view from nowhere. How would you know when you are imagining a view from nowhere?

How would a view from nowhere differ from a view from everywhere? I wonder if what Nagel actually meant is a view from everywhere rather than a view from nowhere as a view from nowhere is non-sensical.

That's certainly one way to "look" at it. (Pardon the "view" metaphor!) I think the desirability of articulating a "view from nowhere" lies in helping us sort out subjectivity and objectivity. It's possible, of course, to simply declare that objectivity cannot mean what most people take it to mean -- that is, a point of view that is made true not by virtue of who has it but of what is seen -- but I think that's hasty. We can learn a lot more by wrestling with it as a genuine problem, and trying to see what would have to change in some of our basic philosophical outlooks, if traditional "objectivity" is indeed chimerical -- which it may well be. But again, the Nagel book goes into all that -- if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. — J

A view is information structured in a way to inform an organism of the state of the environment relative to the state of its body. A view is always relative and the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity lies in trying to separate the body from the environment - an impossible feat. How does one imagine a view from nowhere using a view from somewhere?

Did Nagel ever address or mention the Observer effect in QM?

This, in a simple sentence, is the bone of contention. Our language, our choice of a metaphor like "view," certainly suggests that someone or ones must be doing the "viewing." But there is a correspondingly robust tradition that says differently. Nagel's The View from Nowhere gives the best account I know of what such a view would entail. Nagel's position is also discussed at some length in Rodl's Self-Consciousness and Objectivity. — J

A view from nowhere is an imaginary view that only exists within the mind, and a mind has a 1st person view.

what exactly is the structure of "I judge a is F" if it is not understood as predication? — J

Scribbles.

Now explain how scribbles become words.

Are scribbles necessary to make judgements, interpretations or understanding?

To my way of thinking these are very different things. #2 implies that the speaker is not certain. I.e., there is an implied "But I could be wrong" that follows #2.

[Edit] Now that I've thought about this some more, it seems to me that the sentences are even more different.
#1 is not expressing a thought, it is a proposition that is either true or false via the Correspondence Theory of Truth.
#2 is a speaker expressing a proposition which they have (at least some) confidence that it is true. — EricH

Again, words are just scribbles and sounds that we experience - no different than oak trees shedding and humans typing on a keyboard. Perceiving and understanding an oak tree and what it is doing based on prior observations of oak trees, not from some use of language, and understanding the use of some scribbles or sounds based on prior observations of how those scribbles and sounds are used isn't much of a difference.

You can only learn to use scribbles and sounds by observing its use and that requires a hefty degree of certainty that those scribbles exist independent of you thinking them, or why would you believe that the scribbles you typed on the screen would be here for me to read later?

Your thoughts are not made up of scribbles and sounds. They are made up of visuals and auditory experiences of which language is a part of.

Another difference, which gets close to the issues that concern Rödl, is that "1) The oak tree is standing there" is asserted from an implied or absent point of view, whereas "2) I think that the oak tree is standing there" is as much about what I think as it is about the oak tree; it is incorrigibly 1st-person. This can be readily seen by constructing denials of the two statements. — J

A view is inherently 1st person. To say that an oak tree is standing THERE is to say it is standing relative to some point of view.

The problem with the certainty vs uncertainty argument is that you would have to apply the same level of uncertainty to language itself which is made up of scribbles and sounds that you experience. How do you know that the scribbles, or sounds you hear in your head, "I think" refer to the act of thinking? How did you come to that conclusion?

Going from "The oak tree is shedding its leaves" to "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves" is going from thinking in the visual of an oak tree shedding its leaves to thinking in the auditory experience of hearing the words (you talking to yourself) "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves".
— Harry Hindu

It's also going from certainty to uncertainty — RussellA

So even if Pat is not aware that she is thinking the thought, the "I think" is nonetheless present. — J

If the only thing Pat can be certain of is that they have thoughts, then what use is communicating those thoughts if what she thinks she experiences might not be the case, which would be just as true for other human beings as it is for shedding oak trees? Pat could just as well say "I think J and RussellA are human beings that I met on a philosophy forum." Why learn language at all if all you have access to is your thoughts?

Isn't you learning a language and then using it to communicate with others exhibiting a degree of certainty that there are things that exist (like other human beings) independent of your thoughts?

Wolfgang Iser in The Reality of Fiction: A Functionalist Approach to Literature makes the point that fiction and reality are often very difficult to separate, as we can see in today's mainstream media.

If fiction and reality are to be linked, it must be in terms not of opposition but of communication, for the one is not the mere opposite of the other - fiction is a means of telling us something about reality. — RussellA

What does The Lord of the Rings tell us about reality? Do fictional stories mirror some aspects of reality? Of course, how else would a reader identify and understand aspects of the story if it didn't share some aspect of reality? The difference between reality and fiction is their relative locations. Fictions are located WITHIN reality. The form fictional stories take are made up entirely of scribbles on paper, or actors on sets playing out a role, or your dreams while asleep. How do you get from this reality to some fictional reality? What path do you take to get there?

Does that include the realities created by To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 1984 by Orwell, The Lord of the Rings by Tolkein, The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, etc. — RussellA

Calling them "realities" would be a misuse of words. They are fictional stories, and we do not normally use the words, "fiction" and "reality" in ways that are synonymous.

One could say that the use in reading a fictional story is to escape reality, at least temporarily. Is the goal of philosophy to escape reality?

Going from "The oak tree is shedding its leaves" to "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves" is going from thinking in the visual of an oak tree shedding its leaves to thinking in the auditory experience of hearing the words (you talking to yourself) "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves". They are two separate experiences - one visual the other auditory, unless you are thinking in the visual scribbles, "I think the oak tree is shedding its leaves", then you would be having two separate visual experiences that are mutually exclusive - one of scribbles and the other of an oak tree shedding its leaves.

I've been assuming that this thread is about the philosophical implications of "thought", rather than how "thought" is used in language, though it is true that ambiguities in language make the task of philosophy more difficult. — RussellA

The philosophical implications of the scribble, "thought", or actual thoughts? Seems to me that to understand some philosophical implication of something, that something needs to be defined, keeping in mind that using language to define something is not to point to more scribbles, but to the actual thing that isn't just more scribbles. We only need language to relay information, not to create reality. Only language that relays relevant information is useful, else it's the ramblings of a madman or philosophy gone wild.

Language use is not a requirement for thinking. One can think without saying that you are thinking. Words are just scribbles and sounds. To think in words is to think in scribbles and sounds. You must be able to think prior to learning a language, so being able to say to yourself, "I think..." is not a requirement to think, to learn or to know things.

1) I think that the oak tree is shedding its leaves
2) I am thinking the thought that the oak tree is shedding its leaves — RussellA

It seems to me that 1 is talking about (pointing to) the oak tree while 2 is talking about (pointing to) thoughts. What our present goal is determines what we try to point to with language. Why would I be interested in you thinking the oak tree is shedding its leaves when I can see the oak tree is shedding its leaves for myself? Even if I were not there with you, why would I want to know what you are thinking instead of what is happening independent of your thoughts - like the oak shedding its leaves? The basis of this thread seems to me a useless endeavor of trying to parse some use of language that is never used in normal circumstances, but only on a philosophy forum.

To me, logic seems completely detached and alien to practically every other philosophical discipline. — Dorrian

Try making an illogical argument in any other philosophical discipline and see how far it gets you.

Yes, but human perception is neither a lens nor a camera.
It is not designed for observation but for guided action. — Joshs

Then how do you know which action to perform if you haven't observed the current situation, or know that your action succeeded if you don't make an observation?

Isn't observing an action? Isn't your attention a guided observation?

It seems to me that you cannot separate observations from actions - they are part of the same feedback loop.

One might ask, "Which came first, the action or the observation?". I would say that natural selection acts on one's actions and observations (senses) (another type of action) evolved to guide one's other actions in more meaningful ways.

The play here is on the lack of a clear idea of what a thought is. — Banno

...and what an "I" is.

Think about when you are watching a really good movie or TV show, or reading a good book. You might be so engrossed in the story that you lose your sense of self. You become part of the story. It is only when someone calls your name while in the middle of that story does your awareness loop back upon itself creating that sense of self-awareness.

Say you're reading a good book and someone says, "Hey Banno, what do you want for lunch?" Your awareness changes from the story to yourself and your wants, in particular what you want for lunch. Are thoughts like, "I want..." or "I like..." the same as thinking, "I think..."?

What about other animals? Do they have a sense of "I think..." that accompanies their thoughts? If not, then what is required for self-awareness, and is self-awareness necessary for thinking?

I think you still haven't taken in the force of my point. Of course it's a view from somewhere, but that isn't what mainly characterizes it. Rather, it's the "someone" that is crucial. Can you imagine a "view" being from some particular place, but with no viewer? — J

No, and I never implied that you could with anything that I have said. This is why I made the distinction between a view from somewhere and a view from nowhere/everywhere. So I can say with certainty that we agree here on what "subjective" means, so we can move on.

This is a separate point. I'm not saying they're wrong, I'm saying they're not experts. I was replying to your notion that a computer scientist is somehow expert in the use of those words because he or she is a computer scientist. Such a person may be as correct or incorrect as anyone else, and yes, we'd need to get clear on what that would mean, but the point is that there is no built-in expertise, either way, neither mine nor theirs. If you like, I can take a shot at putting some content to mentalistic terms, but I wanted to get the "computer scientist as expert on the mental" thing out of the way first. — J

Again, you are putting words in my mouth that I did not say. I never said the computer scientists are experts in linguistics. They are experts in computer technology. As such, they will use words that define computer processes, and if those words work in giving you a better idea of how the computer works, then what is the issue? Based on what you have said, you could be wrong in your understanding of those terms and therefore have no ground to stand on when telling others how to use those words. You are pulling the rug out from under your own position. You have used the words, so you must know what they mean, right? If not, then what are you saying when you say those words? Where do we go if we want to know what words mean?

I don't think so, but we can let that one go. Possibly the only dualism you recognize is mind/body, or mental/physical, dualism; I was pointing to a much wider application. — J

Of course it is so. Go back and read my posts. I am a monist, so I don't see how you can say that I recognize aspects of dualism, when I have been saying that dualism is the cause of the HPoC?

The issue is that you think the brain exists how you see it - as a "solid", "physical" object, and then try to solve the problem of how a mind can be inside a brain as you experience it. The problem is solved by understanding that the brain as you experience it is just a representation of what is there, which is a mind. So the mind is not internal to the brain. It is the same thing as the brain but from a different perspective, just as the Earth appearing flat from your perspective while on its surface is the same round Earth you experience when out in space.

If the deductive information is a logically correct derivative of the input information about the world, then barring emergence and supervenience, we know from the transitive property that it is also pertinent to the world, since its source is pertinent to the world. — ucarr

Sounds like my explanation of how information is the relationship between cause and effect.

To the extent the dreaming experience is recognizable as waking experience, and thus can be conflated with it, the dreaming experience is not different from the waking experience. — ucarr

It is when you wake up. Go back to what I said about using multiple observations and logic. Sure, if you only made one observation and didn't have multiple observations to apply logic to, then it is obvious that you would misinterpret the dreaming experience as a waking experience while within the dream. The moment you wake up you make another observation and then use logic to explain the distinction between the two. If you only made one observation of a mirage and didn't try to move around and make other observations and apply logic, you would still think that the mirage is a pool of water. Pools of water do not move when you move closer to them.

To the extent that an effect is not a simulation of its cause, it's not a representation of its cause. For an example: a chair is not a simulation of the process that made it. We can propound this argument by claiming the oakwood chair that derives from an oak tree is not the oak tree, nor is it a simulation of it.

Causal relationships are about transformation, not simulation. — ucarr

I never used the word, "simulation", so this appears to be a straw-man argument. An effect is a representation of its causes, not a simulation of its causes. The existence of an oak tree is not the only cause that preceded the existence of the chair. A carpenter has to shape the wood from the tree into a chair. As I said, the chair is a representation/effect of all the process that went into creating it. I would even say that there is no such thing as one cause leading to one effect. An effect is the result of multiple causes interacting - a process. You cannot say that the effect of you seeing a chair is only caused by the chair. Light has to reflect off the chair for you to see it. You have to have your eyes open for the light to enter your eyes. You visual experience is an effect of that process - off all the causes working together to produce the effect of you seeing a chair.

Does what you say imply there exists within the world objective states of a system rooting representations thereof within facts? If so, can we designate these objective states of a system as radiant facts transmitted to our understanding via representations? If so, does this radiant transmission of objectivity evidence information as an energetic, mass-to-mass alteration of form across spacetime?

I'm asking if causality is a physico_material phenomenon. This question is important because it spotlights whether spacetime is an active agent of consciousness as a physical phenomenon. Going forward with the presumption it is, we can conjecture that consciousness, the boundary administrator, parses reality via a set of formatting functions that includes causal changes that assemble the timeline. So, time, like space and consciousness, is a physico_material phenomenon.

Consciousness, as the boundary administrator formatting and thereby constructing the timeline of events making up the history of the cosmos, makes a close approach to mind as the fundamental thing in existence. — ucarr

I would like for you to try to explain yourself without using terms like, "internal/external", "material/immaterial" and "objective/subjective". Each time you type a sentence with those terms, try removing them and see if it takes away anything from what you intend to say. If it does, then what is it that is taken away?

What I am saying is that effects carry information about their causes, whether the cause starts in the world or in the mind (the mind is part of the world, so I don't see why it makes sense to talk about the mind being a different thing (immaterial vs material) than the world). Effects are also causes of subsequent effects. You make an observation, your observation is an effect of an object, reflected light and your eyes. You can then act on your observations, as such your behavior is an effect of your mind with your mind now being a cause. This is how your scribbles get on the screen for me to read, because your mind caused them and by understanding what the scribbles represent, I can get at the cause - the thoughts in your mind. So no, I am not saying that causality is a physico_material phenomenon. It is just a process, or a relationship, like everything else, and that using terms like physico and material confuses the issue.

R.E.M. sleep is the stage of sleep where most dreams happen. This fact makes me resistant to the claim dreaming of a red stop sign is unambiguously distinct from wakefully seeing a stop sign. — ucarr

Seeing involves light. No light entered your closed eyes. The fact that we see mirages and bent sticks in water makes me resistant to the claim that we see red stop signs. We see light and we use the effect of reflected light off objects to get at the nature of the object itself. What color is the stop sign when there is no light? When the lights are out or you close your eyes, and you experience a red stop sign, what are you actually doing - seeing or imagining?

I think your underlined claims support rather than refute the correctness of the conclusion of my quoted question. That you think the mind is just another information system additionally reenforces the correctness of my conclusion. — ucarr

Well yes, information is the relationship between causes and their effects. The mind is both a cause and an effect, just like everything else. Your problem lies in you trying to explain how material and immaterial things interact, and how an immaterial mind can represent material things. Your assertions imply that the mind is special or separate from the world when we understand that it isn't. The solution isn't in doubling down on dualism. The solution is monism.

Let me make a beginning to my response by asking if dog_doghouse and mind_brain are two duos forming a true parallel. Dog_doghouse is a relationship between two things not connected. No one claims the dog was caused by the doghouse. Mind_brain is a relationship between two things connected. Because some say the mind is caused by the brain, and some say the mind is independent of the brain, there is an issue in debate about which claim is true. — ucarr

YOU are the one using the terms "internal/external". I'm asking you what YOU mean by those terms. If you are saying that the mind is caused by the brain, then that is not an internal/external relationship. It is a causal relationship. So what do YOU mean by saying that the mind is internal to the brain if you do not mean the same thing as the relationship between the dog and doghouse?

Additional thought – Whether or not the mind is inside of the brain might also be a sticking point in your contextualization of internal/external. If, as some claim, the mind is immaterial, then it is not inside of the brain, nor is it inside of any other material thing.

The lack of dimensional extension of immaterial things is one of the difficulties with connecting them to material things. Following from this, obviously, the claim an immaterial mind is connected to a material brain makes posits a very hard theory to prove. On the other hand, we know it’s true that “no brain, no mind.” On the surface of things, the theory claiming mind is either: a) identical to brain, or b) emergent from brain presents as much easier to argue.

If immaterial things exist dimensionless, then there’s the strong suggestion inside/outside, being dimensional properties, have no meaning for them. If this is the case, then we have to try to answer the difficult question: Where are they? Can an existing thing exist nowhere? — ucarr

Then you are agreeing with me that using terms like "internal" and "external" are not helpful here and actually make understanding the distinction more difficult. Now let me say the same thing about "immaterial" and "material". You keep making the same mistake by incorporating dualism into the conversation. What does it mean for something to be immaterial or material? How does one get at the material nature of the world via a dimensionless, immaterial GUI?

What does it mean to say that there is a lack of dimensional extension of immaterial things? If there is a lack of dimensional extension to the mind, then you seem to be saying that the mind is the world (ie solipsism). Realism is the idea that there is a dimensional extension to the mind as things happen in the world that are outside of the mind, in that they are not present in the mind but present in the world. Where does your long term memories exist when they are not present in your mind? You cannot access all of your long-term memories at once but you can recall them from somewhere. From where are they recalled if there is no dimension to the mind?

One could argue that the dimensional aspect of material things is a product of your GUI, in the way the information is structured in your GIU, not of the world.

From neuroscience we know that certain parts of the brain do things made use of by the mind. For example, the visual cortex, which is the part of the cerebral cortex that receives and processes sensory nerve impulses from the eyes, produces memorizable visual images essential to the mind's imaginative activity. — ucarr

This is only vision but I have four other senses that come together with vision in my mind. Where do they all come together in the information structure we call the mind, or the GUI? If you can't point to a specific structure in the brain where all the sensory information comes together, then maybe it is what the entire brain does, not what part of it does, that is the mind.

We know our communication depends upon representation that, in turn, gets manipulated by our computers. — ucarr

Exactly. The scribbles on my screen represent your ideas in your mind via causation. I can get at the thoughts in your head by correctly interpreting the causal relationship between the scribbles I see on the screen and the thoughts in your mind.

Your use of the preposition "between" evidences the fact we cannot make sense in thinking or writing about navigating and experiencing our material world without separations across spacetime and, conversely, connections across spacetime. Self and environment and living seem to entail necessary binaries. — ucarr

I'm not sure I am understanding what you are saying here. I would need you to rephrase. If you are saying what I think you are, then I would just say that self and environment are themselves relationships and processes. Try pointing to the boundaries of each and see if you can succeed. Everything is a relationship. Bodies are relationships between organs, organs are relationships between cells, cells are relationships between molecules, molecules are relationships between atoms, atoms are relationships between protons, neutrons and electrons and protons are relationships between quarks, and then we have quantum mechanics in which some interpretations imply that observations are a relationship between observer and world. Where is the material stuff you keep talking about if all we can ever point to are relationships?

Haven't you been arguing that "our actual observations of the world," like dreams and hallucinations, are just another type of information system, i.e., just another working representation no more a literal transcription from an objective reality than are dreams and hallucinations?

Haven't you, as evidenced via my paraphrasing of your language above, been implying Kant is correct in asserting there is a noumenal world of things-in-themselves, presumably objective, that's inaccessible to our necessarily representative translations thereof via the senses_the brain_the mind?

Haven't you been using this argument to support the argument denying an inside/outside duality?

Haven't you been implying that a network of information systems is our insuperable environment?

Haven't you, through the above stages of argumentation, been arguing generally that the "map is not the territory," an argument rooted within Kant's noumena? — ucarr

No, because you have to bring in what I said about information being a relationship between causes and their effects, and the way you get at the causes is by making more than one observation and using logic. Kant is the one with the problem of explaining how we don't get confused when experiencing a mirage. If what Kant said is the case then how do we ever come to understand that a mirage is not a pool of water, but an effect of the behavior of light and how it interacts with our eye-brain system? How do you come to realize your dream is not representative of the world if not by waking up into the world that you have always woken up to and where each dream is a different world, where we often forget what happened the night before in a dream, or even forget what happened in the world before you went to sleep?

What does it mean to be "subjective"? Does it not have to do with a view from somewhere as opposed to a view from nowhere / everywhere?
— Harry Hindu

I would say no. I believe "subjective" means "a view that someone, some viewing entity has from somewhere," so "to be subjective" means "to be an entity that has such a view." Leaving out the "someone" allows you speak about "a view," as if the view is kind of hanging around. But this is impossible -- a view requires a viewer. Hence subjectivity is crucially about the person who has the view. Or not to beg the question -- if it could be shown that a computer was an entity that could have a view, then it would be a candidate for subjectivity. — J

How did you come to the conclusion that I did not imply that a view from somewhere isn't a view from somewhere, as in where someone is standing? If it is a view from somewhere, how could you imply that I meant that it is just hanging around, and not hanging around somewhere? Your version is the same as my version, just redundant.

To anticipate a possible objection: All kinds of things can be viewed from a computer's point of view, but that's not what we're talking about. The viewer in such cases is me or you, seeing things from the computer's PoV. I'm arguing that the computer per se has no views at all -- it isn't the sort of thing that can have such an experience. — J

Add cameras for eyes, microphones for ears and tactile sensors to be aware of objects in direct contact, to the computer. The manner in which the information is structured in your mind, or the computer's working memory, would be representative of the world relative to an entity's location within it. It makes no sense to program a human or computer to navigate its environment with information about the world that is not related to its own position within it.

No, but I am saying that we have every right to criticize computer scientists' language when they begin to talk about other things besides computers and science -- such as "knowledge," "thinking," "understanding," et al. The analogy would be no different for a biologist: I wouldn't dream of telling them how DNA works, but if they began using expressions like "the organism knows" or "the cells are trying to . . . " and that sort of thing, I would certainly protest. This also comes up constantly in talk about evolution.

(And I'm not saying that we philosophers aren't guilty of this kind of loose talk too. We certainly are, but we ought to be better on our guard than most, since questions of language loom so large in our concept of what we do.) — J

Exactly. This is why I asked what you mean by the words, "understanding", "trying" and "knowing". You can only say that the computer scientist and biologist is wrong in their usage when you have clearly defined the words themselves. That has yet to be done here.

We seem to be getting a little muddled between two different questions. One is, "Is there a place for dualistic thinking in metaphysics?" The other is, "What do we mean when we use 'internal' to describe a feeling or a thought, or the mind itself?" To the first, I'm saying, "You yourself don't seem able to do without dualistic concepts when you talk about this, so perhaps this sort of dualism is important in talking about metaphysics." A statement like "I think this working model is somewhere in the brain" can have no meaning unless it's opposed to "I think this working model is not somewhere in the brain." So the dualism of "in/not in" (internal/external) seems important to what you want to say.

The second question is more complex, because there's likely not a single usage of "internal" when it comes to mentalistic terms -- it may be meant literally, metaphorically, or somewhere quite vague. Your riposte shows this nicely: In one sense, it seems absolutely true to me that mental paraphernalia are internal to the brain, by virtue of direct supervenience. But in another sense, we certainly can't take a scalpel to the brain and locate "the mind," or any single mental event. In that sense, "internal" isn't the right word. I think a good response here would be to say, "Fine, let's not get hung up on language choices which may not satisfy everyone. I'm happy to consider using your terminology -- what would it be? How would you prefer to distinguish the 'location' of a mind so that we can talk meaningfully about its supervenience on my brain and not on, say, the tree in my front yard?" — J

Go back and read what I have said. I have clearly steered away from using dualistic terms like "internal/external", "material/immaterial", "direct/indirect", "subjective/objective" precisely because they get things muddled. I have rarely, if ever, used those terms to describe my point of view. They may have been used by me in simply asking what you mean by your use of them, not mine. I asked you what you meant when you used the words, "internal/external". So what do you mean by saying that the mind is internal to the brain if not in the same way we use those terms for other things like birthday presents in boxes with bows?

What I am asserting is that your experience of a brain is a representation of what is there, not an object that we see as it is and that contains something that we cannot see. As such there is no internal/external relationship, only a cause and effect relationship.

Are you telling me it's generally true the mind and the world have no internal/external relationship? On the other hand, are you instead telling me the mind and the world have no internal/external relationship within the limited context of our two-person dialogue without generalizing further? — ucarr

What do you mean by your use of the words, "internal/external"? Are you using them in the same sense that the dog is internal to the dog house? If so, then why can we look in the dog house and see the dog but not look in the brain and see the mind? What if the mind is what the whole brain does, and not what some internal part of the brain does? How did the contents of my mind get on your computer screen for you to read? How did the contents of your mind get on my computer screen for me to read? Are the contents of your mind inside my computer?

Does working memory have a temporal_spatial location, or is that irrelevant? — ucarr

If it does, I'm not sure when-where it would be. The contents of working memory is about a specific temporal_spatial location, namely you and your immediate environment. It is a relationship between you and your environment. Does that mean the the relationship exists somewhere between you and the environment, or in some other dimension beyond the four we are aware of? Are the four dimensions just mental representations of the relations between objects, causes and their effects? I am humble enough to say that I just don't know the answer to these questions. All I do know is that dualistic thinking, and the terms that go along with them (internal/external, physical/non-physical), causes more problems than it solves.

If a dream is a working representation of the world, and likewise a waking hallucination is a working representation of the world, why are they in some sense incorrect? In the context of your post overall, I'm getting the impression that dreams, hallucinations and socially verified perceptions are distinct types of working representations. How is it that some of them can be incorrect? — ucarr

Because when we compare them to our actual observations of the world, we find that they are not the case. But what about predictions? Predictions are a working model of a future state of the world. They can be correct or incorrect in how one works to achieve them. Just as we can make our predictions come true, we can make our dreams come true.

Are you saying the red we experience is just our interaction with more information labeled as “working model”? If this is so, does it follow that there is no translation from observed physico_material objects (existing independently within an objective world) into information in a form compatible with our brain? — ucarr

I think about information as the relationship between cause and effect. Effects carry information about their causes. We are informed about the state of the world by the effect it has on our mind. We might misinterpret some percepts, but over time we can work those out by making more observations and making logical sense of these multiple observations as in the way we solve the mirage problem. We no longer interpret what we see as a pool of water thanks to multiple observations made over time and applying logic, yet we still see it as such. We now know that a mirage is really caused by the behavior of light and we can now predict when we will see one. So there is still some translation being done as we can only experience the effect and get at the causes by translating the effect (which means making multiple observations over time and using logic).

Are you saying there's no parallel between seeing a red stop sign while driving a car and seeing a red stop sign while dreaming? — ucarr

It comes down to the causal relationship and how we might interpret the effects to get at the causes. While dreaming, we interpret the experience of a red stop sign as seeing a red stop sign. When we wake up (and thereby make another observation), we interpret the experience as a dream, not as an actual experience of seeing. We can now predict that when we go to sleep we will experience the illusion of seeing a red stop sign.

So, you're saying we're always interacting with one or more types of information systems, and, speaking generally, this is what the world is like? — ucarr

Not what the world is like, but what the mind is like, and the mind is part of the world. This is why I don't like seeing someone confuse the mind with the world, as if the mind and the world are the same thing. They are not. The mind is part of the world and part of the causal chain that everything else is part of. Apples, chairs, trees, mountains, planets and stars are all information in that they are all effects of prior causes and causes of subsequent effects. Minds are not special in this regard.

When I talk of code, I'm accessing the GUI-constructed resultant of my neuronal activity? — ucarr

You're talking about how the information is structured and presented as your GUI. You can only talk neuronal activity as it is presented and structured as your GUI. You are confusing the GUI with what it represents when you use terms like "physical". The world is not physical. It is presented as physical by the way your GUI represents it. For you to think of anything, you have to create objects of thought and your objects of thought have boundaries that don't exactly line up with the "boundaries" in the world. This is why we have trouble with defining the boundaries of what it is to be a human or a planet, and find ourselves adjusting our definitions of objects

In my attempt to understand what you've written immediately above, here's my paraphrase:

The information in the computer is not the information it received through its input. What's in the computer can recall its stored information for further processing without accessing the world. This means the information within the computer works with its own memory instead of working with information received from an input. — ucarr

What I was attempting to do is to show how what a computer does is not much different from what we do. We, and the computer, can acquire new information by observation and by logic. We take in new information via our inputs and we can manipulate the information to come up with new information by applying deductive and indictive reasoning. If we allowed the computer to take in some input and then use that information as input to a deductive or inductive process, we end up with new information. The question then becomes, does the new information apply to the world (you might ask, "is the information correct or incorrect?")? If the new information is useful in the world, and it allows you to make predictions of new experiences then it is correct, if not, then it is incorrect.

Dreams are simply taking the information we have stored and that we acquired via our inputs, and creating a model of the world, not much different than making a prediction when awake. It's just that in the moment of the dream, we misinterpret what we are experiencing and confuse the prediction or imagining with the world, precisely because our access to the world is extremely limited and we are unable to ground ourselves to understand the difference. It is only when we are awake that we can make the distinction because we now have access to the world and it does not follow from what we experienced when we were dreaming. When we wake up, we wake up to the same world. When dreaming we find ourselves in a different "world" each time.

So, working representations cover a range of types including: the world, predictions of future worlds, imaginings and dreams? — ucarr

Yes. You could even say that an effect is a representation of its causes. A chair is representative of all the processes that went into making it. A crime scene is representative of the crime that was committed and the one that committed it. This is what I mean when I say that everything is a relationship, process or information. If you like, we can say that everything is a relational information process.

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What does it mean to be "subjective"? Does it not have to do with a view from somewhere as opposed to a view from nowhere / everywhere? In this sense does subjective really just mean how the information in your mind is presented, the form it takes? How else would you present information about the world relative to your position in space-time? If I were to write a story from my perspective the story would contain information about the world relative to my position within it. If the computer contained information about the world relative to it's position in space-time would the information in the computer be subjective? If the computer contained information about the world that did not include it's position in space-time would that be objective information in the computer? Is the contents of your mind subjective when I can read the contents of your mind on my computer screen? Are your feelings subjective if you can report them and if others that know you can talk about how you feel accurately? If they said you were sad and you did feel sad, what exactly is missing?

This is ingenious, but I see two problems. First, computer scientists are not authorities at all in the fields of linguistics or philosophy -- indeed, in my experience, they often have no interest in these fields. Their use of mentalistic terms about machines is as likely to be loose talk as anyone else's. Second, computation has if anything intensified the mystifying aspects of mentalistic terms. Hard enough to understand how to talk sensibly about human beliefs, desires, thoughts, and perceptions! but now we're also supposed to attribute physical or information-based versions of these states to a computer? Now that's mystifying. — J

Are you saying that philosophers should be telling the computer scientist how the computer works? Who do you call when your computer does not work - a linguist, philosopher or a computer tech?
Does this apply to all fields, where linguists and philosophers should be telling evolutionary psychologists, neurologists, quantum physicists, etc. how they should talk about their own fields?

From my experience philosophers are the ones that engage in lose talk. They use these terms without having defined them. What does it mean to know, believe, understand or to try? What does one mean by subjective and objective, direct and indirect, etc.? From my experience many philosophical problems are the result of a misuse of language.

With all respect, surely this is what "internal" is meant to refer to. Why deny that it's different from "external," i.e., not somewhere in the brain? — J

Then why can't you open the brain and point out where the mind is? I also said that it is possible that the mind is what the entire brain does, not just some internal part of it. What do you mean by "internal" and "external" in this respect? Do you mean the same thing as your birthday present being internal to the box with the wrapping paper and bow? If so, then why can't we open the brain to see the mind like we can open the box and see your present? It seems to me that using terms like "internal", "external", "subjective" and "objective" is evidence of your dualistic thinking making it more difficult to solve the problem.

This is reasonable, but if we succeed in doing this, what is the second step? What do you imagine could come next, scientifically? This is a serious question -- in fact, the question of the HPoC. We have to picture some way of explaining the mental with relation to the physical; finding the place in the brain that hosts or constructs the "model" merely sets the stage for this explanation by restating the problem. — J

This is why I said that we need to reconcile the contradictory aspects of quantum mechanics and classical physics. In doing so we would solve the observer and measurement problems and those solutions would pave the way to solving the HPoC.

I believe that part of the problem is continuing to look at this problem from a dualistic standpoint. It is dualism that creates the distinction between mind and world as being internal/external, non-physical/physical, etc. The very first step would be to abandon this mindset and the terms that stem from it. We also need to clearly define the words we are using.

One can act on his principles and experiences. I don’t kill flies because they are flies but because I am at eternal war with them. — NOS4A2

But the flies are not at war with you. They just do what they do instinctively, with no malicious intent on their part. In this way, they are innocent victims of your unwarranted war on them.

The abortion itself isn’t dehumanizing. Dehumanizing someone isn’t the act of killing, but of considering someone inhuman so as to make killing them easier. It’s a psychological and linguistic process. You strip away mentally as many human qualities as possible, question his humanity, so the homicide leaves a softer mark on the conscience. It’s why you cannot say what other species of life you are killing, despite questioning that he is human. — NOS4A2

What makes it easier to "dehumanize" a zygote vs an adult human if not a difference in the number of human qualities they have? I don't have to strip away any human qualities from a zygote. It's just a single-cell. If you want to point to the cause of the zygote being sexual intercourse between two humans then this is an arbitrary decision on your part as others would argue that killing an unwanted dolphin or chimpanzee is inhumane.

I’m completely against prohibition or forced births, and always was. But fairly recent advances in embryology and genetics makes it clear we’re ending an innocent human life. “Personhood” isn’t a coherent ground to stand on either, and the notion comes off as more superstitious than the transmigration of souls. So personally I cannot be dismissive of the victim and pretend abortion is some moral good to be celebrated. — NOS4A2

I never said it was a moral good to be celebrated. It's something that should be rare is not a situation most people want to be in to have to decide. As such, we should respect others predicament and let them choose what works best for them, because you are not them. It is dehumanizing to think that you can impose your arbitrary definitions on others when they are making a personal, private decision regarding something they did not want to happen in the first place.

I've been following this conversation with interest but I don't yet understand whether the computer-based terminology is meant to be a useful analogy or a literal description of the brain/mind/consciousness situation. Would any of you be able to help me out here? — J

Maybe a bit of both. When you, or computer scientists, talk about how a computer works we can't help but use the mentalistic terms to describe the behavior of the computer. We can't help but use terms like "know", "thinks", "understand", "trying", "learns", "communicate", etc. to describe what the computer is doing. Some might say that this is all loose talk and the machines aren't really understanding or trying anything, but computer scientists use these terms and aren't they authorities in this field? A better explanation is that computation has finally demystified mentalistic terms. Beliefs are information in memory, desires are goals, thinking is computation, perceptions are information triggered by sensors, trying is executing functions triggered by a goal. Instead of being hunks of metal, our brains are hunks of organic tissue, but still function like a computer in processing information for some goal.

Where does this working representation of the world occur? Is it discoverable by science? Which scientific discipline would we expect to discover and describe it? What would count as falsifying this theory? — J

I think this working model is somewhere in the brain, or maybe what the entire brain does rather than just part of it. A first step would be to isolate (if it's not something that the brain as a whole does), how or where sensory information from all senses come together (as the mind is amalgam of the information from all five senses at once) from which the model is constructed. I would think a combination of neurology and quantum physics would be applicable here, maybe some new field being a merging of the two. As for falsification, I think we would need to first determine how we can falsify the various interpretations in quantum mechanics to begin to think about how what I am proposing could be falsified.

I don't see any escape from the contradiction. In your original intention with your quote, you argued that the experience of seeing red can be interior to the mind. Through virtual seeing via the mind-supported imagination, we can lie in our bed at night and "experience" seeing red based on the neuronal memory circuits stored in our brain. Therein resides no literal red. In your later quote, you say, emphatically: — ucarr

This quote says (independent of your intended meaning) working memory is an internal representation of the world. You're describing a bifurcation of sensory experience and virtual seeing. Virtual seeing is constructed from code-bearing memory for "red."

As I understand you now, you're saying: cognitively speaking, the color red is visual information stored in memory as code, and stored code is working memory. — ucarr

First, I have deliberately tried to steer away from using terms like, "internal" and "external", as this just adds to the confusion by incorporating dualism. So whatever you interpreted from what I said, I never implied that the mind is internal and the world external. Instead of saying that working memory is an "internal" representation of the world, we say it is a working representation of the world. We could say the same thing about dreams. They are a working representation of the world, just an incorrect interpretation, no different than a waking hallucination is an incorrect working representation of the world. It is incorrect because we are incorrectly interpreting the red we experience as being a product of our senses' interaction with the world when they are actually another working model. We can have multiple working models going on at once. For instance, I could be seeing the world, but also modeling a future world (a prediction) at the same time. In fact, this is how we learn - by observing the world as it is now and then modeling a potential future and the path to take from how things are observed now to how you want things to be. Dreams are just a model of the second type without the world, which is why we end up confusing it with the real world.

Maybe we should talk in terms of experiences only and then assign seeing and imagining to types of experiences, so it is redundant to say things like "experience seeing". We don't experience seeing when asleep. We dream, which is a type of experience, and a different experience than seeing.

When you introduce the word "information," you rocket away from the external world into the interior of the mind. No, the color red itself is not the form of visual information stored in the mind. Instead, there is electro-chemical, neuron-mediated code within the brain.

The HPoC, as I understand it, derives from the question how (or if) the brain's code for our perceptions signifies the subjective experience of perceptions by an experiencing self. — ucarr

Again, I do not think that using terms like, "internal" and "external" is helpful here. The information in a computer is part of the "external" world, so I don't understand what you mean by rocketing "away from the external world into the interior of the mind".

You keep forgetting the first step and that is that any time you talk of electro-chemical, neuron-mediated code, you are only talking about how it all appears in your GUI. Neurologists describe the brain as "grey matter". Is the electro-chemical, neuron-mediated code within the brain grey?

A computer can process data from input (via its "senses" (keyboard, mouse, scanner, microphone, camera, etc), and in processing the data it can produce new information. This information can then be stored or used immediately for some output (action by displaying something on the screen, printing, producing sound from the speakers, etc.) The information in the computer is not the information that it received through it's input. It can even recall the processed information stored to process further without any access to the world, meaning that the information it is working with stored information instead of information received via some input. This isn't much different from how we can have a working model of the world and other kinds of working models going on in the form of predictions, imaginings and dreams.

I saw a tiger in my dream. I do vividly remember the image of the tiger, so that I can even draw it on a piece of paper how it looked. It is a visual experience, which is similar to the visual perception you have in your daily life.

It has nothing to do with making predictions or imagining something for the reasons I have put down on my previous post. Please read it again, if you haven't. — Corvus

You did not see a tiger. You dreamed a tiger. This is how you are misusing terms.

A prediction is an imagined future. You may predict you will see a tiger when you go to the zoo. The tiger you predicted is similar to, but not exactly like the tiger you now see when at the zoo and you can draw a picture of the tiger you imagined and the one you saw at the zoo so I don't see how your explanation shows that dreamed tigers are not like day-dreamed or predicted tigers when awake. Because you are awake, you have no problem distinguishing between imagining and the tiger at the zoo. When you are asleep you don't have the world imposing itself on your senses to be able to make that distinction.

Why do you think it is easier to visualize an imagining by closing your eyes as opposed to having them open? Because you don't have the world imposing itself on your eyes. You end up shutting off some of the input that allows you to focus on the details of the imagining.

Hegel and Kant have written about the images we see in our dreams as "inner impressions" which are different type of impressions coming from the external world.

I have not used any vague terms or fancy words in my posts, but just said seeing images in dreams are different type of images we see when we are awake in daily life.

You seem to be misusing the word "misuse" without knowing what the word "misuse" actually means. — Corvus

If Hegel and Kant used the term, "see" when talking about dreams they are misusing terms too. You seem to be making a plea to authority here, when it is just as likely that Hegel and Kant could be wrong, especially when they did not have access to the scientific knowledge we have now.

In your earlier quote immediately above, you argue that our working memory is not solely based on the immediate connection between self and world. In addition to this, you say our working memory can also be based upon imagination and dreams. — ucarr

What I am saying is imagination and dreams are a manifestation of the work being done in working memory. There is also the work of interpreting sensory data and one's memories, which includes imaginings and dreams, is used as a basis for interpreting sensory data.

Dreams are like a runaway loop in computer programming where one does not have the world imposing itself on their senses to break out of the loop. You break out of the loop when you are woken up. The mind is still working in trying to interpret the dream as real. In the dream you process the information as if it were about the world and even respond to the "stimuli". You might even talk in your sleep, or sleep walk.

If "the ontology of knowledge" can be construed as "the physics of consciousness," the central question of this conversation, then it seems that understanding the ontology of the world -- at least regarding physicalist physics -- has come first, and now consciousness lies under the microscope. — ucarr

You're forgetting that your understanding of the world is only via your GUI. Your understanding takes the form of the contents of your GUI. So it seems that you need to understand the nature of the GUI before you can even talk about the nature of the world. To say that you understand the world yet can't explain the nature of your mind when you can only know about the world via your mind is illogical. Science is based on observation and if one asserts that their observations are illusions, or cannot be explained, then that just pulls the rug out from all the scientific explanations we have about the world, including how the brain works.

My concern isn’t so much the taxonomy but the flesh-and-blood entity that you are justifying killing. I don’t require categories to tell me when it is or isn’t appropriate to take a life, and I don’t need to dehumanize someone. Simple justice and dignity suffices to inform how it is appropriate to treat another living being.

So if it isn’t human life what kind of life would you suggest it is? — NOS4A2

You can only ever act on your categories. It's why you don't have a problem killing a fly as a fly is not a human even though it has flesh and blood. As I said before, we will agree 99% of the time what a human is. A vast majority of these "flesh-and-blood" entities fall neatly into that category. It is only those entities that are on the fringes of the category that we might disagree. In fact, a zygote has no flesh or blood, so according to your own words, they would not qualify.

What I am focusing on is those grey areas in those boundaries where life starts and life ends. How is terminating a life that is in a coma and may never come out, or ending a life that is on life support and may never be able to come off of it, dehumanizing someone? People make those decisions frequently and we don't say that they are being de-humanizing, rather the opposite. Terminating a zygote or embryo when it wasn't wanted in the first place, or when tests show that there could be serious mental or physical problems, or is a threat to the mother's life, isn't any more dehumanizing than terminating those at the end of their lives to give them some semblance of dignity. You are free to have an abortion or not. You are not free to force others to have children when they don't want them and the pregnancy is still in an early stage. Thinking you can force a woman that was raped to have a child, or to have a child with severe mental or physical disabilities when you aren't the one that will have to worry about that child's well-being through it's life and after the mother dies, is dehumanizing.

Seeing images in your dreams and making predictions are totally different things happening in your mind. They are not the same activities. Seeing something is visual. Predicting something is imagining. There are two types of prediction. One by your hunch, and the other by inductive reasoning. Both activities involve your intention, will and inference.

Seeing visual images in your dreams is random events happening without any of above. Plus it is visual operation with no imagination, guessing or reasoning. — Corvus

Imagine imagining something when you don't have the world imposing itself on your senses and mind. The imagining would seem real, like your dream does. The dream would take the place of the world precisely because the world is absent when you are asleep.

You're not seeing anything when you dream. Seeing is the process of using your eyes to take in light. The existence of light is a necessary component of seeing. Can you see anything when the lights are out? You are simply misusing terms.

My issue is the identity of indiscernibles. She’s some other being one minute then a human being the next, while anyone watching this supposed change can see that one organism isn’t replaced by another.

Rather, it is a kind of being or animal or organism whose life begins at this time and ends that time, after which it decomposes. “Viability” is too squishy of a continuity principle for me. I want to be able to point at something and say “that’s a so-and-so” without having to check its vitals. There needs to be a taxonomical term for this being and “human” or “man” suffices.

But I’m still interested to read what other non-human being precedes us. — NOS4A2

But that's the thing. Categories are mental objects that can represent the world as it is only to a degree. Our categories tend to fall apart when we attempt to distinguish one thing from another with finer detail. Astronomers have the same problem in defining what it is to be a planet. This is why I am saying that there is a grey area. Your boundaries might not line up with others, and since there is no clear boundary, it is up to you, and you alone, to decide what you want to do with your boundaries. If you can't even clearly distinguish what it is to be a human in these grey areas, then your foundation for limiting what others can do in these grey areas is not as solid as you think.

I would say the brain is more like the actual computer with a CPU, working memory and long-term memory, not just a CPU. Each part is necessary and cannot function without the other parts.
— Harry Hindu

I understand you to be referring to R.A.M./R.O.M. with: "working memory and long-term memory." — ucarr

No. RAM is the working memory. ROM is Read Only Memory. Long term memory is more like your hard drive and can be "written" to as we store new experiences in long term memory that we can then access in the future. ROM would be more like our instincts. They cannot be changed, but they can be overridden by RAM, an example would be how we attempt to control our instinctual behavior in social situations.

I think consciousness, performing in its virtual imaging mode, as based on memory, greatly complicates and perplexes the discreteness and certainty of the location of the referent in relation to the viewer. The portability of memory in time and in space complicates our understanding of the original link between referent and viewer regarding their respective locations.

Furthermore, I think this loosening of the link between the two is one of the main causes of the HPoC. I can access my own subjective memory directly. I can only attempt to access another person's subjective memory indirectly, as via listening to a narrative recounted from memory by another person. — ucarr

I think that speaking in terms of some "I accessing memory directly" is what loosens the link you speak of. This creates the illusion that the "I" is separate from what it accesses "directly". If the "I" is accessing anything, it is the world via its senses. Working memory is just a working model of the immediate environment relative to the body.

I think it's possible to understand that even in the case of one's own subjective memory of being oneself, a separation exists between oneself as thing-in-itself (a kind of pure objectivity of a thing, extant, I believe, more as concept than experience) and a mental representation within subjectivity.

I guess I'm saying we are not exactly our thoughts. Evidence for this might be the fact that sometimes the motives for our behaviors are unconscious.

As to the question of the general form of working memory, firstly, I think memory has a circular structure. Going forward from there, I speculate subjectivity is a higher-order of mnemonic feedback looping. Going forward from there, our ability to know what it's like to be someone else depends upon our virtual viewing (in our imagination) of the GUI of the contents (code) of the other person's working memory. — ucarr

Sure, our mind is only part of what we are. We are our body. I can only control my limbs, not the limbs of others. I feel pain when my body is injured, not when someone else is injured. I don't like speaking in terms of "subjectivity" and "objectivity". Are we not trying to speak objectively about what minds are for everyone, not just you or me? Can we talk about the ontology of minds without epistemology getting in the way? Or do we have solve the problem of the ontology of knowledge before we can start talking about the ontology of the world?

If by central executive you mean CPU (central processing unit), then I say it's not an unreasonable stretch to construe "processing" as "views." In each case -- the CPU in one and the brain in the other -- a processor processes data in the act of constructing a world view. Furthermore, the brain also manipulates data that simply exists in memory. When you imagine or dream of the experience of seeing red, that's an example of your brain manipulating data that simply exists in memory. — ucarr

I would say the brain is more like the actual computer with a CPU, working memory and long-term memory, not just a CPU. Each part is necessary and cannot function without the other parts.

I would distinguish between "processing" and "views" as a view being a type of processing where the information being processed is about the world relative to the one processing the information. This is why the world appears and sounds to be located relative to your eyes and ears and that all of our sensory perceptions are about the world relative to our locating in space-time.

I guess you want to go from:

What form the data takes in memory is the ultimate question here.
— Harry Hindu

to:

So which form does working memory actually take? Which one is the real form working memory takes?
— Harry Hindu

I guess the passage is intended to be a narrative that elaborates two or more forms of "working memory."

Also, I guess you believe one form is real and the other not. — ucarr

I'm not asking which one is real. I'm simply asking what form does the contents in any type of working memory take. We seem to have a problem with how we experience other's working memory compared to how we experience our own working memory. If it is simply a matter of perspective - of BEING your working memory as opposed to representing the working memory of others because it would be impossible to BE others' working memory so your only option is to represent it, then that is ok.