Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child

This certainly isn’t my area of expertise, but it has always struck me it is the mind itself which emerges from the human neurological system. — T Clark

What is the mind to you? The mind, to me, is a substance with the ability to experience and cause. The mind cannot be certainly an emergent thing, given my definition of it.

Lack of a physical explanation isn't evidence that it isn't a physical effect. There's plenty of things not explained, which is why the scientists still have a job. But science presuming supernatural explanations held progress to a crawl, resulting what's been since named the dark ages. Changing their methodology to presume otherwise resulted in the renaissance and all the progress since. — noAxioms

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.

Jason Becker - Altitudes - Tina S Cover



Jason Becker - Altitudes

All I am saying is that experience is a mental event, so we cannot perceive it. What we perceive is a substance, so-called object, with the appropriate information. We say that we experience once we perceive the object. I am a perceiver, so we need another substance too, so-called the mind.

The only mental event that comes to mind that is an example of strong emergence is the idea that is created by the conscious mind. The ideas are irreducible yet distinguishable. An AI is a mindless thing, so it does not have access to ideas. The thought process is defined as working on ideas with the aim of creating new ideas. So, an AI cannot think, given the definition of thinking and considering the fact that it is mindless. Therefore, an AI cannot create a new idea. What an AI can do is to produce meaningful sentences only given its database and infrastructure. The sentence refers to an idea, but only in the mind of a human interacting with an AI. The sentence does not even have a meaning for an AI since a meaning is the content of an idea!

What difference would it make if I had not existed? To me, nothing; to others, a lot.

The mental event/experience has no physical properties, so it cannot be detected nor affect reality. We, however, observe a fascinating relationship between mental events and the part of reality that we form them in; for example, I can type my thoughts. You cannot possibly explain this within physicalism or any form of monism, since you need two substances at least, the experiencer and the object of experience, to explain the experience.

Faith Hill - This Kiss



Faith Hill - This Kiss

I think it is the problem of the model, namely, physicalism, which is a monist model. You have this strange phenomenon, so-called the experience, that you cannot explain its existence. You also cannot explain how the experience can be causally efficacious, as well, given the fact that the experience is a mental event and the physical substances are causally closed.

Just WOW. This song is so Dense! I cannot get enough of it.

The Weeknd - Die For You



The Weeknd - Die For You

The physical substance cannot even cause a change in itself. I have a thread on this topic here. Therefore, the Mind sustains the physical substance (I have a thread on what the Mind is here).

By the way, I am wondering how such a thing as a physical substance that has no control over its movement at all, given the first argument in the first thread above, could be the cause of something that is intelligent, something that can freely decide, etc. what you call the mind. This is a bad model to work on since it has tons of problems and anomalies on the first side. Just accept the substance dualism at least, and you can describe how the physical substance moves.

By content, I mean all there is in a mental event. By form, I mean how the mental event appears to us.

Where does the thought come from? — Philosophim

That is a very good question, and it requires a separate thread, but I briefly explain how we create thoughts. There are at least two minds involved in the creation of thoughts, namely, the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. These minds are connected in a complex way by the third substance, the so-called brain. The mind differs from the conscious mind or the subconscious mind. The mind is an irreducible substance with the ability to experience, freely decide, and create. The mind is simple, so it can be conscious of one thing at any given time. Therefore, the mind cannot generate thoughts. The conscious and subconscious mind, however, have memory, which in the case of the conscious mind, is very limited, so-called working memory, and it is huge, basically, most of what you experience in the past, in the case of the subconscious mind. Most of the thoughts that we are aware of are generated by the conscious mind. Learning something is different from creating something. But let's focus on learning first because we cannot possibly create something new if we haven't learn enough material which are necessary. Let's also start from a very simple instance of learning. When I say "cup", you, your conscious mind, can simply understand what we are talking about. You can even understand this with the mind since "cup" represents a single word. However, the mind cannot understand when I say "The cup is on the table" since we are talking about several words here. The conscious mind, however, has limited memory, so it can hold several items in its memory. You need to pay minimal attention when you read the sentence. Each word that you read then is registered in the conscious mind's memory. You understand what the sentence is about shortly after you complete reading the sentence. It is the ability of the conscious mind to generate what the sentence is about since the words are registered in its memory. The subconscious mind becomes important when we are trying to understand a long sentence or a paragraph, a book, etc.. Creating a new thought is, however different task, but it is done through a collaboration between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The new thought is simply created once there is enough material to generate it. It is similar to the process of learning in a sense, with the difference that in learning, the person (by person I mean both the conscious and subconscious minds) is passive, whereas in creating the thought, the person is active.

Not necessarily. — RussellA

No. See below.

Unless each mental event "is" its content. The content "is" the form. — RussellA

A mental event is the subjective experience we are all familiar with. If the content of a mental event is different, then we have a different experience, so the content of a mental event determines which kind of experience one has.

The Universe is built on fundamental particles which have no parts, yet things still happen. — RussellA

That is not accurate. According to string theory, each particle is a string that has an extension over space. The different modes of vibration of the string determine which kind of particle we are dealing with.

That seems like just a made up view to justify your current line of thought. — flannel jesus

I didn't make up anything. String theory is not my theory. I don't know what is wrong with considering all sorts of physical particles as physical substance. All I am saying is that horizontal causation is not possible, so you cannot have a change in physical substance at all if you the horizontal causation is the only option available.

You think you need multiple substances to interact. — flannel jesus

I am saying that you at least need two different sorts of substances, one physical and another, which is the Mind.

Obviously that doesn't mean there aren't any non physical substances at play, it just means you haven't proven it with your logic here. — flannel jesus

This is off-topic, but I argue it: The vertical causation is the only available option once the horizontal one is ruled out. In this thread, I argue that horizontal causation is not possible when it comes to mental events. I think that the same type of argument applies to physical substance as well. I have another thread on "Physical cannot be cause of its own change" as well. So?

Wouldn't B exist potentially before it is actual? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I have no idea what that means. B either exists or does not. I must say that, within Aristotle's notion of causality, a thing that exists has potentiality. B does not exist before it is caused, so it cannot have any potentiality if it does not exist.

I must say that I disagree with Aristotle's notion of causality for the same reason. If A has the potential to become actual, namely B, and then B becomes actual, namely C, etc., then where does the information about a chain of causality reside? It cannot reside in A.

So A doesn't need to contain B, it just must contain what brings B from potentially into actuality. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Then where does the information about B reside?

We might say that A contains B virtually. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What does virtually mean here?

I consider all physical particles as the physical substance. Different particles are manifestations of different vibration modes of a single string at the end.

No. I just consider linear causality here. Do you think they are relevant?

But the emergence of Consciousness in a material world is more challenging to empirical scientists because Sentient Awareness*2 is not an empirical Property, but a philosophical Quality, that includes the power to generate mental images & ideas. We can't trace a lineage of cause & effect leading up to an entity that not only senses its environment (like a plant), but knows that it knows. That self-knowledge is limited to "higher" animals. And, as far as we know, only homo sapiens is able to both imagine abstract ideas, and to communicate them in language. — Gnomon

Consciousness, to me, is the ability of the mind, namely, the ability to experience, and it cannot be an emergent thing. The quality of the experience, however, whether it is a simple perception or complex thought processes, is an emergent thing, and for that, you need an organism with a complex brain and a mind. There are two reasons why I consider the mind as an extra component: 1) The hard problem of consciousness, and 2) The efficacy of mental events. I am sure you have heard about (1) but not (2). So, we are dealing with (2) as a serious problem in physicalism, even if the hard problem of consciousness could possibly be resolved. But why (2) is a serious problem? The problem is that mental events have no physical property, so they cannot be causally efficacious in the physical world. So, we are dealing with an anomaly that physicalism cannot resolve.

Moreover, Strong Emergence implies that some unpredictable novel property is manifested, not just in localized group behavior, but in the specialized talent of a single species for abstracting ideas (imaginary information) from concrete reality. Emergence of novelty from complexity seems to be inherent in the evolutionary process. But modern science has only recently developed mathematical techniques & computer programs for analyzing & understanding non-linear systems, that defy traditional reductionist methods. — Gnomon

You cannot get consciousness from complexity. You can, however, get complex behavior when the system under investigation is complex enough.

Some say that Consciousness is not produced mechanically, but magically. I suspect that Mind only seems like Magic, due to our inability to comprehend functions & effects that arise from the most complex structure in the universe : the human brain. — Gnomon

The mind, to me, is an irreducible substance with the ability to experience, freely decide, and cause. The mind is not by byproduct of physical processes in the brain.

Do you think we can take your same argument and use it to show that physical to physical causation is not possible if physical events are related? — Leontiskos

That is a very good question! I have a thread on "Physical cannot be the cause of its own change" that you can find here. I, however, think that the same type of argument that is presented here applies to physical events as well. This means that horizontal causation is not possible if the events, whether physical or mental, are related. Therefore, we are left with vertical causation, which requires at least two substances, namely the Mind and matter.

Oh, thanks for letting me know. I changed the OP slightly to consider your correction.

He is correct if any form of life is possible, shortly after the Third World War.

Led Zeppelin - Kashmir



Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven

Humans do evil things, such as murder other humans and other organisms. If human nature is good, why do they do evil things? — Truth Seeker

Human nature is not perfectly good. You can find evil people as well, such as sadists, rapists, etc.

People absolutely have to provoke one another to see if nuclear warheads will show up. They can't just sit there and act like they have some sense. — frank

Einstein said that there is no end to human stupidity! I hope he is wrong.

I agree, excluding the occasional nuclear war.

It seems quite possible to me that China will eclipse the USA as the dominant world hegemon in the near future but that gives me no joy. — Wayfarer

I have the same feeling. China may eventually produce more GDP than the USA since it has a larger population. China, however, suffers from problems such as corruption, no freedom of speech, etc., so it will produce less GDP per capita.

This argument works from the perspective of Physics. But, in Aristotle's Meta-Physics, he introduces the non-physical notions of Potentiality & Actuality*1, Form & Matter, Essence & Substance. Hence, the Function of a System is non-physical, even though the parts are material items. It's a mathematical input/output relationship that you can't see, but can infer as purpose or meaning. — Gnomon

Mental phenomena, to me, are divided into strong and weak emergence as well. The example of weak emergence is perception, and the example of strong emergence is creating an idea.

Mental to mental causation is not possible, granting that mental phenomena are coherent, even if we accept that one mental event, let's call it A, can create another mental event, let's call it B. Each mental event has a certain mental content (MC), let's call MCA and MCB, respectively, as the MC of A and the MC of B. The information about what B should be in the future is extra content, and it is necessary at the moment when A creates B. This information, however, changes the content of A, which is not acceptable. Therefore, mental to mental causation is not possible if mental phenomena are coherent.

Spin Twice - Gravity

How do you define good and evil? — Truth Seeker

I already defined good in my post. Evil is the opposite.

What is right depends on your alignment, good or evil. Humans have evolved socially and physiologically over the Ages. Human nature is good; by good, I mean humans prefer pleasure over pain. The social laws that everybody is talking about are the result of the social and physiological evolution, which is, of course, biased by human nature.

A theory is valid just within the precision of data. Given that the precision in data is limited, anything that one can imagine can happen beyond the limit of the data's precision, referred to as spiritual reality.

I want to thank everyone who responded to this thread. It lasted 8 years, and this is my last post. Thanks again. — Sam26

It is very sad to see that you leave your thread. I have to say that you are a very patient philosopher and scientist. Oh, man, this thread is so long! Thanks for your contribution.

For The Love Of God - Steve Vai - Cover by Tina S



Steve Vai - For the Love of God

OPUS - Live Is Life

Because non-physical entities do not have spatial locations... — Srap Tasmaner

Where did you take that from?

I love that analysis. Keep it up!

That does not seem possible. The subconscious is not thought to be accessible. The pre-conscious, however, is. If that's all you meant, then I agree, but the chances that you can access anything you've not, at some stage, consciously come into contact with, is next to zero. I'm open, but no one's ever been able to show that they've gained information they couldn't have had previously on psychedelics. Despite claims of such. — AmadeusD

When it comes to the conscious mind, preconsciousness is a term that refers to the accumulation of data in the conscious mind. If the data is proper, then a chain of thought is generated by the conscious mind. The conscious mind has an important duty: processing the delivered data very fast. The conscious mind has a very limited memory; this memory is registered for important topics only. But if you read what I wrote once more carefully, you will then realize that the conscious mind cannot do its job without a perfect intervention of the subconscious mind. You work on a topic given the limited related data, finish the job by creating a new idea, and then the conscious mind is done and stays silent. That is what you are, the conscious mind. Like it or not, without the subconscious mind, you can do very limiting things. There would be no long stream of thoughts, no long stream of words, no communication, etc. The subconscious mind is huge. It has access to all the ideas generated by the conscious mind. It also knows what kind of data might be relevant when it comes to processing the data, which might lead to the creation of a new idea. I think you at least face the subconscious mind when you are on the drug! What do you expect to find? Wonder!