If the mind is something we all have, and it exists in it's entirety prior to our awareness of it, then in principle it can be studied... if we know what we're looking for and at. — creativesoul
How are you defining studied? — Andrew4Handel
I reflect on my mental states but so far I don't know what they are.
Maybe we can explore the language we use to define them? — Andrew4Handel
How do you know this?I only have direct access to my own mental states ... — Andrew4Handel
Maybe via BMI-mediated CNS-to-CNS connection with sufficiently high (& fast) bandwidth ...... and I can't think of a way that I can have the same access to anyone else's
Very debatable. Maybe, just maybe if you gave some ground for understanding at least what you mean by mind and mental states, it might be possible to move forward in say.I only have direct access to my own mental states — Andrew4Handel
I think we gradually come to have mental state concepts through experience but also through literature or stories and other peoples testimony.
For example I don't remember the word consciousness being used or discussed throughout my whole childhood. Studying philosophy of mind exposed me to new concepts but all of them linguistic or conceptual as opposed to referring directly to transparent mental states. — Andrew4Handel
I only have direct access to my own mental states and I can't think of a way that I can have the same access to anyone else's. — Andrew4Handel
I think that our own access to our mental states is not very helpful either. — Andrew4Handel
I only have direct access to my own mental states and I can't think of a way that I can have the same access to anyone else's. I believe science in all its current methodologies has no direct access to private subjective mental states.
An analogy is if I gave a cook eggs, flour and sugar and told them go make me a fruit salad.
However, at the same time I think that our own access to our mental states is not very helpful either. — Andrew4Handel
I reflect on my mental states but so far I don't know what they are. — Andrew4Handel
Notice that there are other ways of measuring things than just by directly observing them. For example, we do not directly observe forces, but we can measure them by indirect observations. Similarly, we cannot directly observe "the mind", but we can understand it by indirectly observing people's reactions. — Nagase
Incidentally, I think this is congenial to a point John McDowell repeats over and over again. We tend to think of minds as organs, as if they were "located" in some sort of para-space, which we cannot access and hence must somewhat guess its contents. McDowell urges us to drop this talk and instead recognize that to talk about minds is to talk subjects of a mental life, i.e. to talk about people. So in some sense we can in a sense see the person's mental states because they show us (unwittingly, in some cases, such as the infant's) their mental states. — Nagase
I think the question begging accusation is a bit backwards. A reasonable a priori answer to this question is "possibly", or, "perhaps; let's find out". The answer, "no, because minds are private" is the dubious one; that is the answer that begs the question (assumes its conclusion).I think that, in a way, this is begging the question. Can we study the mind by observing people from the outside? — Echarmion
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