Where is the Mind?

[harvey1]

In another thread QED and I were discussing IGUSes (information gathering & utilizing systems: a term that physicist James Hartle articulated), and there's one issue I'd like to hear back from materialists of the mind. Where is the mind? By that I mean let's suppose that humans can only "see" atoms and sub-atomic particles (e.g., electrons). That's all that we can see. Now, using this illustration, please tell me in conceptual terms where the mind is. For example, if we look at a computer, we can see the operating system as atoms in energized states on what we normally see as a disk drive. We see how atoms are energized, how electrons flow, etc., upon the booting up of that computer, and we see why the computer works at an atomic level. However what we don't see--can never see--is anything but atoms and sub-atomic particles being shifted about inside the machine. So, I think we can quite naturally conclude that the computer has no internal state that is "non-atomic" in nature. That is, the computer has no awareness of itself, and no feelings, etc. (i.e., qualia).

So, being that we humans have this subjective inner state, I'd like to hear how materialists and identity theorists of mind (i.e., mind=brain) can conceptually account for the mind solely in terms of atomic and sub-atomic particles. Where is it among the stew of particles?

[skepticFromTX]

One of the most immaterial things we can concieve of (intentions) ...caused by something very recognizably material (little bits of electrified protein)? Seems to me something's missing.

Hmmm. Yes. but do we go off hunting down immaterial mental realms or say hang on - is that a fools errand?

Immaterial realms... you mean like The Immortal Soul, or THE ABSOLUTE, or CONSCIOUSNESS... or Seth?

Nah. I'd hope we could do better than that. But at this moment, I don't know exactly what that is.

[skepticFromTX]

And evolution may not have had to solve the problem of consciousness anyway. Because we can, using just the conceptual set that we have, pretty much account for the physical world, including the complexity of our central nervous systems. And that complexity is incredible and awesome (as has been pointed out already in this thread).

Yet people will still say that just invoking complexity won't get you out of jail. I say it would if the quality of "awareness" could be present in microscopic amounts. This seems to offend almost everyone because they automatically think it implies "sentient atoms" or something equally silly. But I think this comes of not attempting to divide down their own highly developed sense of awareness into any conceivable sub-units. I do hope, however, that if someone can explain any problem with this view that they will do so because it's clearly a tricky area to be pondering.

I'd say that sentience is a spectrum with a lower threshold. Humans and apes, dogs and cats, in. Fish and insects, who knows. But bacteria and below... I doubt it.

Roger Penrose thinks that sentience has to do with the tiny structures in cells called microtubules (The Emperor's New Mind). My own fanciful idea is that it's the wake our brains leave as we move thru spacetime at the speed of light.
Not that I can think of a way to test that idea experimentally. (I'll bet Roger hasn't come up with a way to test his microtubule idea either.)

The hour gets late.

[Bugmaster]

Roger Penrose thinks that sentience has to do with the tiny structures in cells called microtubules (The Emperor's New Mind). My own fanciful idea is that it's the wake our brains leave as we move thru spacetime at the speed of light.

Geez, what's with all the microtubules and light-speed wakes ? What's wrong with good old neurons ? They are not mysterious enough anymore, so we need to find some new mysterious thing to stuff our hypothetical immaterial consciousness into ?

[QED]

Roger Penrose thinks that sentience has to do with the tiny structures in cells called microtubules (The Emperor's New Mind). My own fanciful idea is that it's the wake our brains leave as we move thru spacetime at the speed of light.

Geez, what's with all the microtubules and light-speed wakes ? What's wrong with good old neurons ? They are not mysterious enough anymore, so we need to find some new mysterious thing to stuff our hypothetical immaterial consciousness into ?

I think the motivation is that Penrose seeks to answer a mystery with another by looking for sites that can support Quantum Coherent states. Somewhere I was discussing this with FB; Neurons are too macroscopic a structure to maintain Coherency so Penrose went looking for somewhere more "private". I think he's still barking up the wrong tree.

We surely do get mesmerised by our intense experience of the thing we're trying to untangle here. As soon as we start mentioning Mozart I think we're signalling that we've lost sight of the strand we're trying to follow. Penrose (I think it was) pointed out how we might infer something metaphysical from our appreciation of Art, his example was famous paintings of Landscapes. Quite rightly, I think he was pointing out that we appreciate these things because of the values we associate with the scenes in an evolutionary sense. We don't, for contrast, have as many favourites scenes of desolation representing environments where we would not thrive. It's often a sin to take such a reductionist view, but I think it holds up to scrutiny and provides us with another essential tool for unpicking the knots.

[skepticFromTX]

Bugmaster: "Geez, what's with all the microtubules and light-speed wakes ? What's wrong with good old neurons ? They are not mysterious enough anymore, so we need to find some new mysterious thing to stuff our hypothetical immaterial consciousness into ?"

Neurons are neither mysterious nor inadequate, but that's not the point. Mystery isn't the point. Coming up with something really crazy, and then proving it out experimentally, that's the point.

Niels Bohr supposedly once told a young physicist: "Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true."

BTW, "fanciful" still does mean "not to be taken seriously", doesn't it?

[skepticFromTX]

Bugmaster: "I simply don't see any evidence to believe that there's anything immaterial, or spiritual, going on inside our heads."

Me neither. Nothing but physical events are going on inside our heads. And yet, we're sentient. THATS what needs explaining. And without resorting to religious or new age accounts. Or just denying that anything quite remarkable is going on that we don't understand.

[QED]

Bugmaster: "I simply don't see any evidence to believe that there's anything immaterial, or spiritual, going on inside our heads."

Me neither. Nothing but physical events are going on inside our heads. And yet, we're sentient. THATS what needs explaining. And without resorting to religious or new age accounts. Or just denying that anything quite remarkable is going on that we don't understand.

Yes but how is it that we're so sure that sentience needs explaining? It's not so clear to me as it seems to be to many other people. How do we know that this thing you're talking about isn't "what it feels like" (for want of a better way of putting it) for any equivalent mechanism (for want of a better way of putting it) going about its business?

It seems to me as though people build a mental picture of a robot with video cameras and other sensors feeding a complex data processing system and then declaring, right that's mechanically equivalent but it's just a pile of stuff we bought form RS Components Ltd. so we can put it out with the trash now we're done with it.

[skepticFromTX]

QED: "... but how is it that we're so sure that sentience needs explaining? "

You're right, it comes down to a matter of belief, and I believe that one NOR gate, whose operation I (think) I understand quite well contains not a whit of sentience. Nuthin. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis. Neither do two NOR gates connected together. Nor ten, nor a trillion because I believe that a trillion times nothing equals nothing. (And let's not get into the debate about "emergent properties" just now. I gotta go to work.) I believe that sentience needs explaining because it's a hole in our conceptual matrix. We can talk about it, we can come up with analogies about it (some quite eloquent), but we haven't yet explained it within our current concept set.

Cheers and ciao.
Y'all.

[charles51]

Bugmaster: "I simply don't see any evidence to believe that there's anything immaterial, or spiritual, going on inside our heads."

In your case, probably not. If you insist there is no abstract reality in your head, that’s fine with me. Nothing in my philosophy requires the conscious reality that undeniably exists in my head also exist in yours.

[CJK]

"I simply don't see any evidence to believe that there's anything immaterial, or spiritual, going on inside our heads."

What is spiritual does not neccesarily imply supernatural. For example, it is widely held among mystics that matter is essentially energy, and this speculation is easily supported by Quantum Electrodynamics. This energy is infinitely open to interpretation in light of the subatomic world, and may very well be in some respect responsible for consciousness through an electromagnetic process (The neural network of the brain does operate electrically).

Take for example the fact that the light that we perceive is only a fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. The spectrum in it's entirety could very well be an integral part of a larger system undiscovered by modern scientific inquiry.

Electromagnetic radiation could be responsible for that 'feeling' of someone watching you, or the fabled 'auras' that have been a part of human history for thousands of years....