My states of mind, my thoughts and sensations, are phosphorescently present for me, infinitely intimate. I can no more be wrong about what I mean by a word or how I see a patch of color than 2 + 2 can equal 5. And so on. — Pie

I hope this is relevant.

I once started a thread called "You don't need to read philosophy to be a philosopher." Turns out I was at least partly wrong. You may not need to read books, but you at least need to watch videos.

Philosopher Fredrick Copleston was interviewed by Brian Magee on Schopenhauer's philosophy. He said that Schopenhauer carried on Kant's examination of the unknowable thing-in-itself, nomena. Schopenhauer wrote that there is no way we can directly experience noumena. He qualified that somewhat by saying that the only place we can approach such an experience, though partially and imperfectly, is through our personal experience of ourselves - each of our "phosphorescently present," "infinitely intimate" personal experience of ourselves.

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A preacher once said that gays are mentally ill and God will punish them forever in hell. — Art48

Perhaps some preacher somewhere said that, but I doubt it is the position of any conservative church. For them, I think homosexuality is a sin, not a mental disease.

It amazed me when I read she didn’t realize herself until she was in her sixties! — javi2541997

I guess if you've never had it, you never know you don't. I'll ask her.

This is simply the way that ‘rational’ has been used when it comes to framing the debate between innatism and behaviorism. — Joshs

Yes then, Pinker is a "rationalist" in the sense you are describing. He believes "knowledge is part innate and part experience." You don't believe that? You don't believe that there are innate mechanisms that make acquisition of language possible? Doesn't the fact that there is only a limited time in childhood during which people can learn language, indicate there is probably an innate mechanism for learning it?

What is the source of the quote you provided?

Does she see mental images of the things in front of her? — bongo fury

Yes, she sees fine, but her memory and imagination do not include visual images.

Yes, I live in the heart of Mordor so I know it's all true. — Jamal

I think our late friend Streetlight would disagree with you about where that is located.

It understands the language of pictures, in which black pictures refer to unlit events and colourful ones to lit events. Whereas a zombie, however it deals with what it sees, is like the Chinese room in failing to appreciate the reference of symbols (here pictorial) to actual things. — bongo fury

This is a bit of a non-sequitur, so feel free not to respond.

I have a friend who has no minds eye. She does not see visual mental images. She didn't even realize this herself until she was in her 60s. Next time I talk to her, I ask about what that experience is like.

I find it hard to understand what the nuances of difference are between 'innate capacities for complex cognition' and an 'innate , and therefore universal , computational module'. Sounds like different language for a similar phenomenon. — Tom Storm

I had a similar response, especially because the sources I referenced focused on mental processes with a limited range, not a full explication of human cognition.

An innate language module of the Chomskian sort specifies a particular way of organizing grammar prior to and completely independent of social interaction. Lakoff’s innate capacities for cognition do not dictate any particular syntactic or semantic patterns of language. Those are completely determined by interaction. — Joshs

As I wrote in a previous post, Pinker has specific, referenced responses to those criticisms. I don't know the counter-arguments so I have a hard time judging.

While the concept of instinct is so general as to mean almost anything, — Joshs

That doesn't seem true to me from what he wrote in "The Language Instinct." He quoted William James' "What is an Instinct." James defines instinct as stereotyped behavior which is triggered by specific environmental stimuli, is genetically transmitted, and generally is active only during a limited period of time, after which behavior is influenced by experience. I had never thought much about it before and I found that really helpful. He also quoted Darwin as writing "Human language is an instinctive tendency to acquire an art."

In other words , there is a ‘rational’ logic of grammar , and this rationality is the product of an innate structure syntactically organizing words into sentences . In this way, Pinker and Chomsky are heirs of Enlightenment Rationalism. Chomsky has said as much himself. — Joshs

I saw very little in "The Language Instinct" that dealt with language as a rational process. I don't see that the fact the grammar is structured is the same as saying it is rational. There was little discussion about the mechanism that generated similar grammars in all human languages. One thing that struck me as unconvincing about Pinker's argument is that he claimed that the underpinning of language is an unconscious language he called "mentalese." I don't see why there needs to be another system of symbols beneath the languages themselves. Certainly my opinion is based on very little except introspection, which is suspect in this situation.

My quote from Lakoff was intended to show that embodied approaches to language tend to reject Pinker’s claim that innate grammar structures exist. They say there is no language instinct , but rather innate capacities for complex cognition , out of which language emerged in different ways in different cultures. — Joshs

Pinker gives specific explanations and references specific studies to support his positions that made sense to me. I don't know the arguments on the other side in order to be able to judge.

There are a ton of books I could recommend. Some are even quite fun like Tor Nørretranders 1991 book The User Illusion. — apokrisis

Thanks. I'll take a look.

When was it written? — apokrisis

To start, I want to make it clear you are doing exactly what I asked for in the OP. As I wrote:

I’d like to discuss what the proper approach to thinking about the mind is. — T Clark

That's what you're doing and I appreciate it.

"The Language Instinct" was written in 1994, but was republished in 2008. I guess I assume it wouldn't be reprinted if Pinker didn't still stand behind it.

I've learned a lot from you over the years. For example, more and more often I find myself thinking about constraints from above as being as important as synthesis from below in all sorts of situations where there is a hierarchy of effects. I never would have been able to grasp that, even as much as I do, if I hadn't worked first to try to understand the bottom up way of seeing things.

Ditto with what we're talking about here. As I noted, I have a hard time buying the semiosis argument. It sounds and feels too much like the whole mathematical universe schtick - mistaking a metaphysical metaphor for science. Maybe I'll come around eventually.

Obviously you know more about this than I do. I don't think you're wrong, but I don't understand about 80% of what you're talking about. I won't be able to figure it out by just listening to you and ignoring what other people say. You pissing on Pinker and others like him doesn't make your arguments more convincing.

Let me try again in even simpler terms using the concepts of computational processes. — apokrisis

Well, I've read your post three times and still don't know what to make of it. It's not all that unusual when I'm dealing with you. The main problem is that I don't know how to incorporate what you've written into what I've said previously or vise versa. I probably need to do some more reading before I'll be able to do that.

the Romantic and Enlightened conception of humans as Cartesian creatures. Half angel, half beast. A social drama of the self that you can't take your eyes off for a second. — apokrisis

That doesn't sound like anything I read in Pinker's book.

I dont think Pinker’s approach is strictly compatible with Damasio. — Joshs

I don't think there was any conflict, or even much overlap, between the ideas of Pinker and Damasio that I wrote about. Pinker didn't really talk about reason at all in "The Language Instinct," just language. I didn't see anything I would characterize as "Enlightenment rationalism." I haven't read his other books. I focused close in on one subject in Damasio, the proto-self, because I specifically wanted to avoid talking about consciousness. So I didn't address his thoughts about reason. Even if there were conflict, I was never trying to provide a comprehensive, consistent view of mind. I tried to make that clear in the OP.

I appreciate you providing Lakoff's comments, although not much of what he has written seems to have much to do with language. As I noted, there is little discussion about reason in "The Language Instinct," and what there was wasn't included in the part I wrote about.

Alright, if you want to blow off experts who are trying to clarify and bs instead that's not gonna be my problem. Proceed with your stuff. — Enrique

Thank you.

@fdrake @Baden

See the last few posts. I have asked @Enrique several times to stop posting his unsupported theories that are inconsistent with the subject of this thread as expressed in the OP and he refuses to stop.

I would appreciate your help.

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The OPs of my The Physics of Consciousness thread which I might as well link to again are part of my rough draft for a scientific paper I'm publishing in September. It's a specific scientific source, and you get a sneak preview! — Enrique

As far as I could see, you do not provide any specific scientific references for the information you provided in the posts you linked. I am highly skeptical of your hypotheses and I don't see how they apply to the subject of this discussion. Also, as I expressed strongly in the OP, this is not a discussion about consciousness.

Please don't continue discussion of your theories here.

So that is one certain and one speculative instance where rate variations appear to correlate with mind. — Enrique

As I wrote in the OP:

I would like to look at specific scientific sources for the ideas we discuss. — T Clark

The genes encode the model of the body. The neurons encode the model of the body's world. Then words encode the social model of the individual mind. And finally numbers have come to encode the world of the human-engineered machine. — apokrisis

This is Apokrisis' whole quote. I think I have some idea what he's talking about, but I didn't dig in to it in my response to him.

Following the structure of the quoted sentence, we could say that the rates at which neurons perform their functions and their change (of the rates) in time encode the model of the self. I know it is a pretty bold statement, but my main objective here is to steer your thought/thinking towards the rates of change of physiological processes concerning brain cells (neurons and supportive cells). If the number and organization of brain cells within the brain encode the model of the body's world, changes in their organization, number, and physiology might encode something else, and we gotta keep in mind that these changes are maintained within certain ranges (homeostasis) so that there is some constancy, as seen in the mind. We could say that the change in the model of the body's world encoded by neurons encodes the mind or affects it to some degree. So, in addition to the spatial distribution, number of cells, and the change in these two factors, there are also physiological processes taking place in these cells which are also changing in time (they are not constant), and this change is kept within certain ranges. Is there a relationship between rates of change of physiological processes and the mind/self? — Daniel

I have to admit I'm not sure what you're trying to say here or how it ties in with what Apokrisis wrote.

I found this essay by Steven R. Palmquist on a comparison between aspects of Kant and Tao. — Tom Storm

A couple of years ago I made a similar search for a connection between Taoism and Kant. I found a, not very good, paper called "Kant's Thing in itself, or the Tao of Konigsberg." So we're not the first ones to make the connection.

Neanderthals were physically capable of speech but we don't know whether they possessed spoken language like that of Homo sapiens. — Bitter Crank

Pinker says something similar about Neanderthals. Apparently their larynx and related organs were not as well developed for speech as modern homo sapiens, but it wouldn't have stopped them from being able to speak at all. Pinker points out that speech evolved sometime after the last common ancestor between humans and chimpanzees about 5 million years ago. Since all other intermediary species are extinct, including our common ancestor with Neandertals, there is no way to know for sure which of them might have had language.

Essentially, I view Mind as more closely related to causal Energy than to malleable Matter. Maybe the atom of Mind is an Erg (unit of work). But, I have coined my own philosophical terms, to describe Mind's relationship to Information, and the power to Enform (to cause change). However, I will follow your thread to see where it leads. — Gnomon

If you have specific, credible, referenced, scientific information that describes or explains mental processes, please post it. That's what this thread is about.

it seems to be fuzzy & acausal. Hence, more amenable to philosophical methods. — Gnomon

No.

I've avoided Castaneda because I've read that the books were largely shown to be fictitious. — Noble Dust

I read them when I was an impressionable youth. I think they probably had an effect on my current understanding of the nature of reality. So, true or false, they have influenced me and I remembering enjoying them.

I apologize, if my link to Enrique's posts has deflected your thread off-course. — Gnomon

It was completely my fault, not Enrique's or yours.

Oh, I see! You are interested in Neurobiology instead of Psychology -- neural nets & nodes instead of meanings & feelings. Apparently, you have a novel philosophical angle on that topic -- using plumbing metaphors -- that has not already been covered by Neuroscientists, who normally use flow charts & wiring diagrams. Unfortunately, by referring to "Mind" instead of "Brain", you opened the door to metaphysical philosophical concepts, instead of physical engineering diagrams. — Gnomon

I was clear. This is a discussion about mind from a scientific point of view, so there is no door open to "metaphysical philosophical concepts" unless they have specific, direct scientific consequences.

But even though language doesn't necessarily determine what an organism thinks, the verbal stream can be involuntary enough that some thoughts can't be had without it, especially if language was involved in acquiring the informational content of that thought to begin with. — Enrique

It would be silly for me to claim that language doesn't have anything to do with thought. I don't know if you read what Apokrisis wrote in an earlier post.

So - contra Pinker - language may not create "thought", but it does transform it quite radically. It allows the animal mind to become structured by sociocultural habit. Humans are "self consciously aware" as social programming exists to make us include a model of the self as part of the world we are functionally engaged with. A higher level viewpoint is created where we can see ourselves as social actors. Animals just act, their selfhood being an implicit, rather than explicit, aspect of their world model. — apokrisis

I just realized I hadn't responded to this.

While you are at it, I would add that the scientifically grounded approach would be being able to say why some "this" is a more specified version of "that" more general kind of thing. So if the mind is the specific example in question, to what more fundamental generality are you expecting to assimilate it to.

So if you are saying the mind is some kind of assembly of component processes, then what is the most general theory of such a "thingness". I would say rather clearly, it is a machine. You are appealing to engineering. — apokrisis

Well, I am an engineer, which may have something to do with the differences between your and my ways of looking at this. I certainly don't see the mind as a machine in general, but it doesn't bother me to think about mental processes as actual processes, which end up seeming a bit mechanistic.

And I am arguing that mind is a particularised example of the more general thing that is an organism. Or indeed, if we keep digging down, of a dissipative structure. And ultimately, a semiotic relation.

So clarity about ontology is critical to seeing you have chosen an approach, and yet other approaches exist. — apokrisis

You and I are in agreement on this. I think I've put my attention at a level that is of particular interest to me, but I think it's also relevant to how things fit together at other levels. In the end, most of my information about mind comes from my interactions with other people on a social level where I see it in action as a unified whole.

Cutting to the chase, we both perhaps agree that the mind isn't simply some variety of substance – even an exotic quantum substance or informational substance. But then do you think biology and neurobiology are literally machinery? Aren't they really organismic in the knowing, striving, intentional and functional sense?

In simple language, an organism exists as a functioning model of its reality. And it all depends on the mechanism of a semiotic code.

The genes encode the model of the body. The neurons encode the model of the body's world. Then words encode the social model of the individual mind. And finally numbers have come to encode the world of the human-engineered machine.

So it is the same functional trick repeated at ever higher levels of organismic organisation and abstraction.

Organismic selfhood arises to the degree there is a model that is functionally organising the world in play. — apokrisis

Do I think biology and neurobiology are literally machinery? I'm not sure anything is literally anything, but I have no problem applying a mechanical model to biology when it makes sense. But then even machinery isn't really machinery. It is subject to constraints from above from it's operator, other factory processes, and ultimately the economy as a whole.

Anyway, the point is that we want to know what is the "right stuff" for constructing minds. It ain't exotic substances. It ain't mechanical engineering. But what holds for all levels of life and mind is semiosis - the encoding of self~world models that sustain the existence of organismic organisation. — apokrisis

I remain a skeptic about biosemiosis. Not so much about the processes included or the level of observation, but rather about the implication of meaning to biological processes. For me, meaning is something humans overlay onto reality, not something built into reality itself.

Highly substantive OP and followup comments. — Bitter Crank

Thank you.

Some brain scientist (if only I remembered correctly) noted that the primary function/purpose of the brain is "maintaining bodily processes" which needs to be understood broadly. Small clusters of cells in the brain stem are responsible for such essentials as heart beat, respiration, and waking up from sleep. — Bitter Crank

I think this is what Damasio meant when he was talking about the proto-self.

But most of the brain considerable resources are applied in making sure the body gets fed, watered, sheltered, mated, and so on. We have seen what happens to people whose brains don't tend to business. — Bitter Crank

I guess this part is more about what Apokrisis was writing about - the greater purpose of our minds.

From what I gather, the model of the mind as offered for critique and/or endorsement seems (too) machine-like for my taste. True that our brain probably is the mind and neuroscience has proven to some extent that our brains are basically (bio)electrochemical devices; nonetheless, the model is, in my humble opinion, too simplistic. — Agent Smith

I think that feeling you have is a common one and it's probably a big reason it's so hard to get people to agree on this issue. For what it's worth, I don't think the information I included presented any kind of unified model of how the mind works. As I noted, I picked out particular aspects of the mind that interest me and for which I had information I consider credible.

I don't have time to explore this in any depth and forgive my awkward phrasing - but a continuing question I have (which may be of relevance to mental processes) is the idea that the world has no intrinsic properties and that humans see reality in terms of neutrally generated matrix of gestalts. These generate what we know as reality. An example would be an understanding that space and time are a product of generalized neurocognitive system that allows us to understand the world. Or perhaps 'a' world - the one we have access too.

Maybe this is too Kantian and feel free piss it off if you find it superfluous. My understanding of Kant in the Critique is that he viewed space as a preconscious organizing feature of the human mind - a critic, (I forget who) compared this to a kind of scaffolding upon which we're able to understand the physical world. I suspect joshs would say that we don't understand it as such; we construct the semblance of an intelligible world based on shared values. Or something similar. — Tom Storm

Funny you should mention Kant, whom I have never liked and sometimes disparaged. I recently watched an interview on Kant between Brian Magee and Geoffrey Warnock. Magee does great interviews. Warnock said something that surprised and struck me. He said Kant was the first philosopher to recognize the reality we perceive, what he calls appearances or phenomena, comes from the interaction between our limited bodies and minds and a deeper reality made up of noumena, things that exist independent of our perception and are thus unknowable. That's something very similar to what Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching.

The nature of the interaction between our reality and the unknowable one, noumena or the Tao, is something I've struggled with. The fact that Kant was fully aware of the implications of the consequences of that relationship was what surprised me most. Warnock specifically identified time and space as human overlays on reality that Kant identified. In a sense, this discussion is my attempt to work back to an understanding of that interaction from the other direction, i.e. looking at the mechanisms of how humans divide the indivisible world.

I think that means you and I are somewhere on the same page, or at least the same chapter. As I mentioned in the OP, another book I'm reading may have more to say about that. “Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking” by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanual Sander has a lot to say about how the human mind classifies phenomena and creates categories using analogy. If I have time maybe I'll try to fit some of that in here too.

do you have anything of your own to add? — Philosophim

I just wanted to paint a picture for myself so I could see what it looks like. I don't necessarily think this has any philosophical consequences or broader implications.

A way to sharpen your approach would be to look at the issue through the eyes of function rather than merely just process.

You have started at the reductionist end of the spectrum by conceiving of the mind as a collection of faculties. If you can break the mind into a collection of component processes, then of course you will be able to see how they then all "hang together" in a ... Swiss army knife fashion..

Instead, think about the question in terms of the holism of a function. Why does the body need a nervous system all all? What purpose or goal does it fulfil? What was evolution selecting for that it might build such a metabolically expensive network of tissue?

...A functional approach leads instead to "whole brain" theories, like the Bayesian Brain, where the neurobiology is described in holistic architecture terms. — apokrisis

A Baysian brain is one set up to deal with uncertainty in a way consistent with Baysian statistics. So - the brain's function is as an optimally effective predictor of future events. I guess the question then is "but why?" What is the overriding function of the brain. One source said the minimization of free energy, whatever that means. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about.

As is usual for you and me, I'm coming from a different direction. I like to deal with concrete, pragmatic ideas. In my experience, I can't really figure out how the big picture works until I get a feel for how the parts do. I see the world as bottom up rather than top down. That doesn't mean I don't recognize the disadvantages of looking too closely at the trees.

You are appealing to a metaphysics of localised process. I am saying go one step further and employ a metaphysics of global function. — apokrisis

As I said, I think I understand the value of your approach, but I always find myself most interested in looking up close. Obviously, the answer is to do both.

While you are at it, I would add that the scientifically grounded approach would be being able to say why some "this" is a more specified version of "that" more general kind of thing. So if the mind is the specific example in question, to what more fundamental generality are you expecting to assimilate it to.

So if you are saying the mind is some kind of assembly of component processes, then what is the most general theory of such a "thingness". I would say rather clearly, it is a machine. You are appealing to engineering. — apokrisis

I need to think more about this before I respond further. Your mountain-top view is fine, but is it the one I'm interested in. This is just like that discussion we had about the hierarchical nature of knowledge. Maybe I want to talk about cells and not semiotics.

Scientists have been using such methods for centuries, but still have not found the the basic building block of Mind (ideas ; knowledge ; awareness). — Gnomon

But this is exactly what the people I have referenced are doing successfully. They are using standard scientific methods to study the "basic building block of Mind." @apokrisis has suggested looking at mind from point of view of function rather than of process. I think that's similar to what you are proposing - a more holistic understanding. I'm still working on my response to him.

can you describe in more detail what exactly Pinker means by "mentalese"? This seems key to his concept of the thought/language interface. — Enrique

Pinker writes:

The idea that thought is the same thing as language is an example of what can be called a conventional absurdity: a statement that goes against all common sense but that everyone believes because they dimly recall having heard it somewhere and because it is so pregnant with implications.

Here are his arguments:

• We know many animals without language who clearly think. Most obvious example, young children. Studies have shown that even infants can recognize concepts of number, time, and space. They can even make simple moral judgements. Also, there are deaf people who were never taught any language. If they are taught after a certain age, they will never have a sound language foundation. Even so, they clearly think, communicate in simple ways, plan, make decisions, and act. He also discusses chimpanzees who clearly can think at some level without language.
• There are people who have lost their language or had it disrupted by trauma or disease who remain as intelligent and aware as they were before the disruption happened. They can still often communicate with gestures or by drawing pictures.
• Pinker spends quite a bit of time debunking the Whorf hypothesis, the idea that language controls the kinds of thoughts people can have. No, Eskimos do not have 100 names for snow. Yes, Apaches are able to express ideas about time. So can Mandarin speakers, even though their language doesn't include any tenses. Pinker writes "there is no scientific evidence that languages dramatically shape their thinkers ways of thinking."
• It is common people have a hard time putting their thoughts into words. Sometimes they can't think of the word they are looking for. How can anyone say "oh, no, that's not what I meant to say" if your words are the same as your thoughts.
• Many people claim that they do not think in words but rather in geometric, auditory, or sensory images. That is certainly true of me sometimes. Even more often I seem to do my thinking without any awareness at all. After pouring information into my head, if I go do something else for a while, I find that my mind has organized and analyzed the data so that when I sit down to write, the words just come out without reflection.

@Enrique, @apokrisis, @Gnomon

I made a mistake. I stuck my nose into the quantum effects on thinking trap when I didn't have to. I should have kept my mouth shut. That's not what this thread is about. It's about scientifically supported ways of thinking about mental processes not including consciousness.

I hope it's not too late to stop this wagon rolling down the hill. I have nobody to blame but myself.

The Magus of Strovolos by Kyriacos C. Markides — Noble Dust

I took a look. From the Amazon blurb is sounds a bit like Carlos Castenada's books, e.g. "The Teachings of Don Juan." I was heavy into them in my youth in the 1970s. Have you read any?

↪Enrique , in The Physics of Consciousness thread*1 is also pursuing a physical explanation for how the mind works, without assuming any non-physical contributions. His theory is based on a technical concept of "Cohesion", which could be imagined as a novel physical force, but that I interpret in terms of "Holism" or "Systems Theory". However, both of those alternative approaches to Reductionism are more rational than empirical, hence more philosophical than scientific. — Gnomon

As I've noted many times, Enrique's posts on scientific subjects are pseudo-science - incomprehensible mashups of buzzwords and jargon that don't really mean anything.

I don't see the ideas I've described as reductionist at all. If they seem that way, it's probably because I cut off chunks to highlight the aspects I find particularly interesting.

Anyway, it seems that excluding the non-physical aspect of mental processes runs into a blank wall on the Quantum level. There, "business-as-usual-biology" becomes logically fuzzy, mathematically uncertain, and physically unpredictable, as we approach the foundations of reality. Ironically, there is no there there. — Gnomon

Generally, quantum effects are found at the level of atoms, i.e. about 10 picometers or 1/10,000 of a micrometer, while biological processes are found at the level of cells, i.e. about one micrometer. As far as I know, there is no evidence to show or reason to believe that quantum effects affect mental phenomena directly. Just because quantum particles and mental processes are in some sense mysterious to some people, that doesn't mean there is any connection.

This thread is about scientific approaches to mental processes. If you have actual scientific evidence to describe or clarify your ideas about non-physical aspects, reductionist or holistic, please provide it. I don't necessarily criticize your ideas about non-physical processes, but this is probably not the right thread to discuss them.

Sorry. I was feeling frivolous after reading the sandwich vs hotdog thread. — jgill