Putting mind into the universal form I mentioned yesterday seems to work as a theory of mind. That looks like this:

Physical brain; (mind)

A fairly simple concept.
Again using the same relation it means that mind is supported by physical brain state.

All the things that fit this form are one thing...what the brain supports...but the word mind is a more all encompassing word.

Now instead of mind being off limits we have an understanding of its physical basis and since we have direct access to mind and not to biology we can make some progress.

I don't think dualism is an issue as long as the relation is understood. But subject matter appears to drive the physical world both by our experience and observation.

You can say everything is brain biology, brain state and brain process.

My perspective is you can develope theory of mind a little more. A lot of what we discuss here can fit a universal form like this:

Physical brain; (abstractions)
Physical brain; (concepts)
Physical brain; (sensing physical environment)
Physical brain; (muscle control)
Physical brain; (thinking)
Physical brain; (ideas)
Physical brain; (knowledge)
Physical brain; (information)
Physical brain; (consciousness)
Physical brain; (language)
Physical brain; (mathematics)
Physical brain; (science)
Physical brain; (philosophy)
Physical brain; (non-physicals)
Physical brain; (time perseption)
Physical brain; (visualizing)
Physical brain; (manipulating physical matter)
Physical brain; (manipulating non-physicals)
Physical brain; (how to communicate)
Physical brain; (how to encode and decode physical matter)

On and on

The notation semicolon parentheses means such that the subject in the parentheses is supported by physical brain state.

Given in this form I think it's easier to understand the debate of monism or dualism.

Also things like the word information in language isn't something that can exist outside this brain supported form.

I referenced a University of Minnesota psychiatric intervention program in another thread. I'll give the reference again here.

YouTube...search UMN psychiatric intervention.

From what I know it's typical of the programs in that school. Heavily financed by pharma. It's an example of neurology that leans heavily toward physicalism and because of financing, alternatives are discouraged.

A lot of their studies get discredited. Twins study for example.

Oops....try YouTube. Search for UMN Interventional Psychiatry.

I'm still agreeing with most of what you are saying. Everything is physically based.

My issue is abstractions have specific parameters and recurrent neural networks must conform to the subject matter. And once the abstraction is in place (physically instantiated) the abstraction can drive mental process.

I actually agree with you in how brains do time perseption but there is more to it. In dealing with the past or future, brains are picking up on something non-physical, retaining it, and using it as input for further mental processing. It's like the brain deals in these non-physical things.

As you say, recurrent neural networks, but there seems to be an ability to 'go off the page' of what is possible with physical matter and do things in a non-physical environment. Seems like math for example is an exercise in manipulating non-physicals

Can a brain existing in the physical present have time perseption of past or future? And what wound that mechanism be? Maybe some theory of mind is in order to explain how brains deal with non-physicals. The alternative is to explain it physically using present physical matter but I don't think it can be done.

The subject of neuroscience has come up here a few times in the last week or so and it seems relevant to physicalism so I was looking at the current University of Minnesota neuroscience programs.
At the research level there currently is a lot of cross disciplinary collaboration going on. Something new that I noticed was something called interventional psychiatry. I don't really know how to link it but if you search YouTube for UMN Interventional Psychiatry you should get a short video on that.

Minnesota has some big medical device makers in the state so this might be something we hear about more than most.

Deleted. How do I erase this?

Descartes idea of efficient causation is worth taking a look at. Mental circumstance can be traced to brain state but any change in mental circumstance will change brain state. So mental circumstance is driving brain state. It's a difficult idea to explain. Anyone, please take a try at it if you can do better or explain if you think it's something else.

Another related issue is holding true or false ideas.
My view is that it's very possible to hold false ideas without it being the fault of brain biology.
Some could wrongly take the position that false ideas can be traced to failed brain biology.
In practice failing brain biology.and holding false ideas have very different characteristics.

I might be drifting away from physicalism but if you take physicalism as the basis for what exists then these side issues follow.

Here are some highlights on Wayfarer's book reference that I liked:

From Descartes...explanation at the neurophysiological level will be in terms of efficient causation.

Once the Cartesian paradigm took hold, it fell to neuroscientists to work out its implications at the experimental level.

The book is Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, Bennett, Hacker, 2003

The review looked good.

I'm someone who avoids the word metaphysical.
Maybe I don't use it enough to be comfortable with it. It seems more of a word for academics and like you say might be a negative to some.

Also, I focus on just certain areas of philosophy and try to have a general background.

I always thought Shannon Information was a poor choice of a word. It's a technical specialty that's made a huge impact but isn't good science or philosophy just because of that.

I might sometimes look like I'm defending physicalism or be some how attached to it but I'm not. It just gets us to the point where we do what we do with our brains which really is the interesting part. And not just in philosophy.

Since our brains/minds seem to be capable of believing anything, true or false, having some grounding in the physical basis might keep us from getting off track.

Your number 5 reference (just above here) is interesting. Information, the word, seems to have morphed and diverged a huge amount since it's origin.

Common usage now seems to be an abstraction that has no physical basis so I think the original meaning is more true to physicalism. And the ancient philosophers wouldn't have had the word or the current ideas of what information is. I just think its current usages (the word information) conflict and cause confusion

Thanks for bringing that up. For me, it is relevant to physicalism.

When two clocks tick at different rates due to STR it doesn't mean the accumulating difference is moving one or the other outside the physical present. From their relative positions they always are in the present. How is presentism lost in any way? Are you mistaking STR with time travel?

There is a lot to this....

In the physical world we should use presentism

The physical world is the basis for our mental worlds.

In our mental worlds we should use eternalism. (Or growing block if needed).

Philosophy isn't always clear or you have to look closely to see what applies and context.

Okay I did a little deeper look into what you are saying. A Google search says STR and presentism are incompatible. So you have company.

What I'm seeing is a complete ignorance of the past and future existing as physically present brain state. They just haven't developed their philosophy enough. Past and future existing as brain state in the physical present is compatible with presentism. So I'm sticking with what I wrote earlier.

Are you saying STR and growing block theory are compatible? No they are not. Whoever was arguing that was wrong. Seems like you left out a lot of context just to give a quote.

Presentism works for relativity as I understand it.
What am I denying?

The only thing I can think of is different rates of time passage measured by two clocks. It's still a physical present anywhere.

Arguments for physicalism you mentioned....

What works for me is setting things into a universal form like this:

Physical brain; (mental content)
Physical brain; (time perception)
Physical brain; (thought)
Physical brain; (knowledge)
Physical brain; (mathematics)

On and on.
It recurs often enough that we should expect it to be a universal form of our mental worlds.

It's also useful to understand information physically exists in this form

So information is physical brain; (mental content)

That's my view of how physicalism deals with information being physically based.

I should correct your grammar.
Yesterday the mountains were as physical as they are today.
Isn't that the correct grammar?
Interesting that you used are instead of were.

Okay, that's basically what I think.
Could I say a property of physical matter is its physical presence? I'm just getting lost in the words.

I'd say your/our/my perception of historical fact is valid. The nature of physical matter is its physical presence. We rely too much on a mental picture of time that isn't a physical reality

We can imagine time lines in our brains but we can't physically get out of the present. Two things are at play, the mental and the physical.

We have direct access to the present.

It would be the easiest to defend.

How do you prove past or future matter exist.

And their origin is in your brain not a physical observation.

Okay.
Presentism,
Growing block,
And eternalism.

Are those the choices?
Presentism works.

I don't think our best physics even addresses the other two. Is it in the math or something?

Can anyone show something that is not based on physical matter?

I could give time perception, past and future that don't exist in physical matter but that resolves itself as mental content (brain based and physical) that only exists in the physical present.

There is no good argument for Budweiser. Unless we want to say that reality is one and that everything has both a Michelob and a Budweiser aspect to that. The primacy of Budweiser is possible but still inferior to the primacy of Michelob.

Did that make sense to you?

You got me thinking about what time is.
For our brains we might have a special case because we perceive events and construct time lines. Past, present and future with the present being physical. That's my generalization of how we perceive time. It might not be the case physically. Matter doesn't flash in or out of existence based on clock time. Look at anything of matter and it has a stability and presence that doesn't come from a timeline or follow a clock. So look out as far as you can and as closely as you can and that might give you the best understanding of what physical matter is.

Of course for us we remember things in story form, events, calendar and clock time. If you think of a time line you have the past to the left, the physical present in the middle (an instant) and the future to the right. I think most people view past and future as physically non-existent but maybe that is my bias.

I think, for myself, I use different models of time based on the context and even can consider time as not a real thing....more a view that it is forever the physical present.

Just what the physics profession thinks is the state of physical matter. I think quantum physics says matter exists in a somewhat fuzzy present 'moment'.

You are missing the fundamentals. Or I think you are. Not going to argue with you.

Well I didn't sign up either. It has its uses though.

I'm lost. How does the past physically exist?
Just a word problem?
Past tense sort of existence?

By a moment of time do you mean a duration of time?
To me a moment could be an instant or a duration. An instant can physically exist but a duration is more of a mental construct.

Also from a physicalist perspective the past and future don't physically exist. I use past and future as known non-physicals. I think it's an argument that supports physicalism because brain state existing in the physical present can support the ideas of past and future .

I'm still working on understanding your argument. Not saying you are wrong.

A duration of time physically would be a sequence of physical instants. Not off limits or anything.

I liked the video.
My perspective is that computers use something like the definition of Shannon information and our brains use a type of information connected with our consciousness. So that was why I commented.

Haha....the term hand waving will come up but what is the alternative? Another kind of hand waving probably.

You mentioned causal tendencies. I don't have any idea how it's done but we can do a black box sort of observation and say a physical brain can do it. So I don't think it's an exception to physicalism.
Some might quivel.

... causal correlates, abilities, tendencies...

Good point. I've noticed that. We shouldn't assume everyone has the same abilities. Like some people don't know left or right or compass directions ever.

I can give a simple mental example of something brains can do in a different way than computers do.

Imagine a sphere in front of you (tennis ball size) at arms length. Now bisect it vertically and examine the two halves.

Can you do that? Easy right. The way your brain does it is nothing like a computer operates.

Maybe we are thinking about the same thing.

I'm a ways back on your dominoes video and am wondering if it could be misleading on how computation is done. I agree dominoes can do it like computers. Possibly based on the Turing machine principal (but I have forgotten all the details of that). But I don't think human brains are doing the same thing. Brains actually use consciousness to do math that isn't present in computers. My sense is that brains really do contain and manipulate 'non-physicals' but computers do it mechanically and have no awareness. Two very different processes.

Now I remember...Turing machine is a punch tape that goes back and forth reading and writing but the principal is that one type of mechanical computer can mimic another type.

And humans don't have a fixed method of doing the math and first tries are trial and error.

I'm just really curious if anyone else thinks there is some discrepancy. Or is it just that brains are so advanced the consciousness developed at high levels of complexity.