Yes, I agree about what an idea is made of. My bullet points are a general idea of what I think.

So you think to fall into the category of "idea" it must involve relationships and encounters. What we have in our head of a marble isn't properly called an idea. It is only an image.

Do all fall under the umbrella of thoughts?

I guess there are different types of ideas, and some are more complex than others. I think the complexity of the idea of justice is getting in the way of what I'm wondering about, and what I think the OP is about. Can we discuss a less complex idea? Any simple object. A marble. Right now you have the idea of a marble in your head. What is the nature of that idea? What is it, so to speak, made of?

And I wonder if there's a difference between ideas and thoughts. Are there any thoughts that are not ideas? Are there any ideas that are not thoughts?

I just posted this on another thread. It certainly fits here. Obviously, nobody is going to agree with me. :grin: But this might be my answer.

• The brain is a physical object.
  
• There is activity in the brain.
  
• Our consciousness of - that is, our subjective experience of - the brain's activity is the mind. At least some of its activity. Not, for example, the activity that keeps the heart beating. I'm talking about the activity that perceives, retrieves stored information, weighs multiple options and chooses one over the others, and other things that we think of as mental activity. All of these things are physical activity, involving ions, neurotransmitters, bioelectric impulses, etc. The mind is our subjective experience of that mechanical activity. Brain activity is photons hitting the retina, sending signals to the brain, etc. Our subjective awareness of that is red.
  
• I'm not sure there's a difference between mind and ideas. What mind exists when there are no ideas? Information about past events and thoughts are held in a storage system. At any moment they are being accessed, they are memories, which are part of the mind. What about when they are not being accessed? They are physical structures (I don't know the specifics of the storage mechanisms) just sitting there, not doing more than they would be doing if time was frozen. This idea isn't limited to memories. It applies to anything regarding our minds and thoughts.
  
  Or is there a difference between thoughts and ideas? Are there thoughts that aren't ideas?

You're right. But 's video is damn cool!

I’m aware that it’s controversial, but that wasn’t my main point. I was just trying to show that it is unreasonable to assume that language is necessarily required for thought. — T Clark

I agree.

The common usage of "mind" though is that it is a noun that adjectives apply to. — RogueAI

Which adjectives apply to the mind?

I'm really not sure what you're asking.
— Patterner

You think the mind if a process, right, an action not a thing. Well, are ideas processes to? — RogueAI

How does this sound?

• The brain is a physical object.
  
• There is activity in the brain.
  
• Our consciousness of - that is, our subjective experience of - the brain's activity is the mind. At least some of its activity. Not, for example, the activity that keeps the heart beating. I'm talking about the activity that perceives, retrieves stored information, weighs multiple options and chooses one over the others, and other things that we think of as mental activity. All of these things are physical activity, involving ions, neurotransmitters, bioelectric impulses, etc. The mind is our subjective experience of that mechanical activity. Brain activity is photons hitting the retina, sending signals to the brain, etc. Our subjective awareness of that is red.
  
• I'm not sure there's a difference between mind and ideas. What mind exists when there are no ideas? Information about past events and thoughts are held in a storage system. At any moment they are being accessed, they are memories, which are part of the mind. What about when they are not being accessed? They are physical structures (I don't know the specifics of the storage mechanisms) just sitting there, not doing more than they would be doing if time was frozen.
  
  Or is there a difference between thoughts and ideas? Are there thoughts that aren't ideas?

I was going to bring up A Man Without Words. Someone here brought him to my attention several months ago. Ildefonso was born totally deaf. Nobody ever tried to communicate with him until he was 27. He literally had no language. It was like Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker when he realized these things the woman was doing represented objects. But harder than Helen Keller, because she at least had the beginnings of language when she got sick at 19 months. Anyway, Susan Schaller says Ildefonso was obviously very intelligent. Though he was ignorant about most everything, it was clear that he was trying to figure things out.

After he could communicate with sign language, people asked him what it was like before he had language. He says he doesn't know. Language changed him so much that he can't remember.

What is/was the first step in the process that came to be what you call "thinking"?
— Patterner

Language. Not communication - birds and bees communicate - but language, representation of objects and relations in symbolic form. — Wayfarer

The first step in thinking is language? Nothing prior to language is considered a step in the developing of thinking?

No. I'm trying to think of it that way now, but not having any luck.
— Patterner

What about ideas in your mind? Do you think those are physical processes? Imagine a sunset. Isn't what you're imagining a thing? — RogueAI

I am imagining a visual scene. I don't suspect that scene has been recreated in my head. And, even though I don't have any personal experience with brain scans, from either side of the machinery, I'm pretty sure nothing indicates a tiny little sunset happens inside my head. When I look at a sunset, there's no weight or solidity to it. Do you think maybe it's there, but it just doesn't weigh anything? I'm really not sure what you're asking.

I can also imagine a baseball. It being solid and heavy, I'm quite certain a baseball has not been recreated in my head. Much less my imagining of the Rocky Mountains,

I think thinking is a process because it spans a period of time. The Empire State Building is the ESB every instant. If you froze time, it would still be the ESB, just sitting there. But if you freeze time, or my brain, there's no thinking. When I stop imagining a baseball, the imagined baseball no longer exists. Not even as an imagining. It's only when I'm actively imagining it that it exists in that way.

But isn't your intuition that your mind is also a thing that you can ascribe qualities to? — RogueAI

No. I'm trying to think of it that way now, but not having any luck.

Your mind is a physical system? What color is it? How much does it weigh? How big is it? — RogueAI

I believe the idea is that the mind is a physical process. It's a verb. As is a basketball game. What color is a basketball game? How much does it weigh? How big is it?

Different uses of terms, perhaps? What do you call the physical processes of the brain that receive signals from the retinas, compare them with stored information of previous signals received from the retinas, recognize a situation that previously lead to damage, etc.?

A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body. This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking, the defining activity of a mind.
— Patterner

That describes how organisms respond to their environment - which the vast majority do, quite successfully, without thought. — Wayfarer

What is/was the first step in the process that came to be what you call "thinking"? I suppose it depends on your definition. The authors have stated theirs.

What does it mean to 'think'? — Jack Cummins

In Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos, Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam write:

A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body. This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking, the defining activity of a mind.

I think that's pretty good. The very basic idea that, perhaps, anything else anyone calls "thinking" is built upon.

I think action is a key element. If you don't do, there's no way to learn. In Annaka Harris' audiobook Lights On, starting at 25:34 of Chapter 5 The Self (contributed), David Eagleman says:

I think conscious experience only arises from things that are useful to you. You obtain a conscious experience once signals makes sense. And making sense means it has correlations with other things. And, by the way, the most important correlation, I assert, is with our motor actions. Is what I do in the world. And that is what causes anything to have meaning. — David Eagleman

I disagree with Eagleman in ways, but I think he's right about meaning coming with doing.

That depends on what we mean by "communicate". I claim that this communication consists solely of provoking significant effects from one person to another. In other words, through signs we provoke something in the other person's understanding. But nothing is transmitted. What we provoke is meaning, or information. — JuanZu

Yes. That's how we communicate.

According to my theory, there is no information in that list, as if something passes from your mind to symbols on a screen. As I have tried to explain, the symbols on the screen have their own autonomy and cause effects in our learned language, generating meaning or information. In this sense, information never crosses anything but is constantly created. But we are under the illusion that something crossed from one mind to another, that we communicated something, when in reality what we have done is affect another person with the use of signs, causing meaning or information in that person. — JuanZu

We did communicate something. With the use of signs.

In other words, information is always provoked but is never something that crosses things like a ghost contained in signs. — JuanZu

Still, I had information in my mind, I wanted it in your mind, I took actions that I hoped would accomplish that goal, coding that information in the medium we are using to communicate, and that information is now in your mind. It's still the same information, but it changed form.

All the information in anybody's DNA can be written down in the book, or entered into a computer. Again, it's the same information, but in different form.

But you are right. There is no substance, not even ghost-like, that crosses over. I guess proof if that is when the receiver gets wrong information. Thinking I meant one thing when I meant another. That happens when you incorrectly interpret my signs. It wouldn't be possible if there was a substance going from my mind to yours. (A scenario that sounds like a fantasy/scifi story, and would lead to horrible manipulation.)

Most people who understand how to use the word 'consciousness' do not attribute it to matter in general. — bert1

I do. I think consciousness is one of the properties of matter. I do not think physical properties are the only kind of properties of matter.

I don't know if this is the case with you, but a problem is often that people think I am saying consciousness is things like thinking, sentience, and awareness, and that particles think, are sentient, and aware. I am saying neither of those things.

It needs some extra work to defend the causal efficacy of consciousness if all it is is the capacity to feel. — bert1

When the nature of the thing being experienced is that of a particle, there is certainly no causal efficacy. There is no thinking, sentience, or awareness. No desire, no wanting something that does not exist. Nor is there any ability, any mechanism, to do anything.

When the nature of the thing being experienced is that of a human, brain activity of such nature is experienced as thought, sentience, awareness. There is desire, and wanting things that do not exist. There is also the ability, the mechanisms, to do things.

↪Patterner Well, I’ll go back to saying it’s an attempt to rescue materialism by attributing consciousness to matter. — Wayfarer

I will continue to say the universe is not comprised only of physical.

That was you who defined consciousness as the property by which matter subjectively experiences! Now, you are saying this property, consciousness, has the ability to cause as well. You don't notice that a property cannot have ability. — MoK

Depends on your wording. Does mass have the ability to warp spacetime?

If you say so. Saying yes, however, does not make the claim true. — MoK

Do I even have to point out that saying no does not make the claim false? Your proclamations are as groundless as anyone's.

No! — MoK

Yes!

Consciousness is the property by which matter subjectively experiences
— Patterner

But only organic matter. Consciousness is what differentiates organic from non-organic matter. Agree or disagree — Wayfarer

Disagree. I mean, I'm the one saying particles subjectively experience, eh? :smile: I suspect you are talking about mental abilities. I think those are things humans are conscious of. We are not aware of anything non-organic that is anywhere near as complex as most forms of life, so nothing non-organic is experiencing what we experience. But no reason non-organic cannot be sufficiently complex.

Consciousness is the property by which matter subjectively experiences.
— Patterner
Correct. That is an acceptable definition of consciousness. Consciousness, given this definition, cannot be causally efficacious in the material world. — MoK

It can. It is. Here we are, after all.

Edit. Didn't mean to post yet.

A property cannot have any ability. — MoK

Consciousness is the property by which matter subjectively experiences. Just as mass is the property by which matter warps spacetime. (Not sure "by which" is the right phrase. Apparently the best I can do at the moment.)

I'm sure you recognized that English is not my native language. — Jack2848

Your command of English is leaps and bounds better than my command of any language other than English. Well done.

I think it's unlikely that there are other intelligent life forms near enough to us, for them to impact us. But we clearly have different perspectives. — Relativist

If there are any, they obviously aren't near enough to have any impact on us. We have seen no sign of them, after all. But, if there are others, as we all go farther from home, we will interact. All speculation, of course.

The mind is an irreducible substance with the ability to experience, freely decide, and cause. — MoK

My views are similar in ways, and different in others. I say consciousness is an irreducible property with the ability to experience and cause.

I think consciousness has the ability to decide free of the laws of physics. That is, we can make decisions for reasons other than succession of the arrangements of the particles in our brains. I don't know if it's entirely free, though.

Unless you are wrong, and mental events within the property dualism do have causal power.
— Patterner
Mental events are not substances, so they cannot have any physical properties to affect the brain. — MoK

Mental events are not substances, but the mind is?

Mental events within the property dualism do not have causal power, so the property dualism is not acceptable. — MoK

Unless you are wrong, and mental events within the property dualism do have causal power.

There is an interaction between two substances. The mind is a light substance, so it affects the matter slightly. So it is difficult to measure the contribution of the mind in the process in the brain. — MoK

Yes, that's how I see it. (Although I'm on the property dualism side instead of substance dualism.)

If I tell an AI that 2 + 2 = 3, it would say that's not accurate. If I tell it candidate X said something during the debate, the AI can review the video or transcription, and say whether or not it's accurate. If it's not a situation where it can be proven, the AI can say it is unable to verify the accuracy. Isn't that what we do to verify truth?

The deaf person that suddenly hears. Will learn something new about the song when it hears the music. — Jack2848

A person who is deaf from birth and suddenly gains the ability to hear would learn something new about the song that was never present in its written or coded forms. — Wayfarer

True. To add another dimension... Yes, that person would learn something right away. But they would not understand the song until they hear enough music to become familiar with the tonal system, and learn the spoken language. Until learning those things, those aspects of the song would by gibberish.

In any event, I very much like this thread. (And nice work, Wayfarer.)

Even if I grant that the experience can one day be explained, then we still have the problem of how the experience can affect physical substance. The second problem is a serious issue since the experience is a mental event only, and it lacks any physical property, so it cannot affect the physical. — MoK

Do you have a solution to that problem with substance dualism?

It's obvious that you have a different view of things than I do, but that does not constitute either an explanation or a justification for your views. — Janus

I have frequently said why I think what I think. Most recently, a few posts above, I explained why I think :
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1012079
But that was not to you, and I guess I can't expect you to read every post everyone makes. Anyway, all of that is why I don't think consciousness is physical. And if it's not physical, I have to wonder what it is, and how it all works.

Currently, my thinking is that consciousness is fundamental. A property that is in all things. Because there isn't anything special about the particles we are made of, so the same thing could happen anywhere in the universe.

I haven't said that what people are conscious of is what consciousness is — Janus

You said "Being conscious means being aware." I'm saying it doesn't. Awareness is just what we subjectively experience/are conscious of. Awareness is not consciousness. Some things that are conscious are not aware.

I've asked you what the difference is between consciousness and being conscious. To give some analogies sleeplessness just is being sleepless, restlessness just is being restless and sexlessness just is being sexless. Or, closer to home, unconsciousness just is being unconscious. — Janus

I don't think of "being conscious" the way I think you do. I don't think it's particular mental states, or complex brain activity. I don't know how you would word it.

I think consciousness is subjective experience. I think being conscious is subjectively experiencing. Pretty much the same thing?

You also say that you don't think being conscious means being aware, and yet you offer no explanation of what you think the difference is. — Janus

A couple people said they appreciated that I tried to be clear about what I think consciousness is here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/16075/consciousness-is-fundamental/p1

I don't understand why you talk about subjective experience of various functions of our brain, when I think it is obvious that we have no in vivo awareness of brain functions. Perhaps you meant to say that our subjective experience is a manifestation of certain brain functions. — Janus

No, I very much do not mean that. I mean there is activity in the brain. Ions crossing barriers, neurotransmitters jumping synapses, signals running along neurons. Etc. Etc. That is all just physical activity. More complex and intricate than pool balls banging around on the table, but physical just the same. Photons hit retina, setting off a chain reaction of physical events in the brain. Vibrations in the air enter through the ear, setting off a chain reaction of physical events in the brain. A molecules of NaCl touches the tongue, sitting off a chain reaction to physical events in the brain. We are able to distinguish various frequencies of protons and vibrations in the air, and distinguish between different molecules that hit our tongue.

Our subjective experience of all that is seeing red, hearing a C major chord, and tasting salt. We could put salt on our corn flakes in the morning. Physically, the activity in our brains would be able to distinguish that from putting sugar on them instead. But that's not the same as tasting corn flakes with salt on them.

I'm not being contrarian. I have a different view of things than you do. I do not think the things humans are conscious of are what consciousness is. You say "Being conscious means being aware." I disagree. I think awareness is our consciousness of - our subjective experience of - various functions of our brain. Entities without the same brain functions cannot have the same subjective experience.

I don't think that's perverse.

Our activities are concentrated around one out of the 10^23 stars in the observable universe, during a period of maybe 1 million years, in a universe 13.7 billion years old. Of course our activities are significant to ourselves, but I see no basis to consider them of cosmic significance. — Relativist

Sure, assuming we're the only ones in the universe. We certainly don't have evidence that there are others. But the same laws of physics are operating around those 10^23 stars, so it seems reasonable that there are.

Also assuming our activities never break free of that one star. Which is surely going to happen, if we manage to survive ourselves.

Mental activity can change the universe in ways that cannot be calculated or predicted. Who can say if it will? It's done a job on this planet. Maybe it will on the cosmos.

Why not? Incredulity again, or something actually valid? Is this the best you can do? — noAxioms

No doubt there is a perfectly functioning iPhone lying on a planet somewhere out there, the result of avalanches, volcanic activity, and meteorites. Amazing how such things happen. Metals naturally refine and fall into exact shapes, plastics form just so, tectonic activity bounces all the parts so they happen to land in exact configuration, the tiny screws even jiggling until tight. All I need to do is charge it. Ah, but I'm sure a tiny flicker from a distant lightning strike reached over and did that for me.

Needing to believe physicalism so badly that you are willing to embrace that degree of gullibility is surely as bad as incredulity.

Goodbye.

But this falsification is narrow: it applies exclusively to mind (mental activity). — Relativist

That seems very significant to me. Mental activity has done extraordinary things than would never happen without it. And how far will it go? Will there be Dyson Spheres scattered across the universe one day? Will we have FTL travel? Physicists could probably do a pretty good job off predicting what the universe would look like in 10B years if all life on Earth ended right now. But there is no possibility of predicting what the universe will look like in 10B years if we remain in it.

Nobody, not even your clone, will ever know it is a copy.
— Patterner
The OP says you know. It was a voluntary procedure. — noAxioms

Somehow, I missed the part that the clone saw what was going on. I was thinking he didn't know, so would live thinking he was the original. And there would be no reason anybody who ever met him would think otherwise.

But the original had been murdered.

So now I realized the clone knows he's not the original. That's bound to have an impact on him.

It is a conundrum. Hence 300 threads here debating it. :rofl:

You are dead. Your clone is alive. Your clone is indistinguishable from you. Nobody, not even your colone, will ever know it is a copy.

But what if! What if they fixed your body, and made a clone that had the problem you went in for? Then it would be you who thanked the doctor, and the clone who was murdered in the back.

There are those of us that say a human can only interact with things according to the laws of physics, despite your assertion of "It is not simple physics taking place.". No demonstration otherwise has ever been made. — noAxioms

Billions of human-made objects are a demonstration of things that did not come about due only to the laws of physics. The interactions of particles and collections of particles that were following nothing but the laws of physics - that were acting only as gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak forces dictated - are not how the cell phones I have used to post here came into being. Or particle colliders, Saturn V rockets, the Snow White movie, indoor plumbing, every book, every pen, and more thanks than we could ever make. Do laws of physics come up with the idea of something that did not exist, the desire to make it exist, a plan, and then do the work to make that future goal a reality? That's not a non-sequiter. That's a key point.

How does a mysterious/unknowable unphysical aspect of mind help us understand our nature or that of the universe?

Certainly, it opens up possibilities - but they are unanalyzable possibilities. — Relativist

They are unanalyzable by our physical sciences. But if enough people decide it's worth thinking about, some people might come up with some good ideas. It is not an established fact that the only way we can learn of anything is through our physical sciences.

How is any non-physical aspect of mind relevant to the advance of science? It's irrelevant to physics, so what aspects of science will be improved by acknowledging there's some unknown aspect of mind that is not consistent with the physical, and therefore beyond its own boundaries? It would be a mistake to assume where the boundary is; progress is best made by pushing forward from a physicalist/scientific perspective. To whatever extent something beyond science is involved, it will simply prove to be an unfruitful avenue. — Relativist

It might not help "science", if science can only be physical. But I would say coming to a better understanding of our nature, and possibly a better understanding of the nature of the universe, is relevant and fruitful. and if such understanding cannot be complete using science only, then it is even more relevant and fruitful.