[Wittrs] Is Homeostasis the Answer? (Re: Variations in the Idea of Consciousness)
- From: "BruceD" <blroadies@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:14:16 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
> My issue...was not to wonder how there could be minds in the world at
all...
which assumes that there are minds in the world. I recall you said that
they were in our heads. What is the evidence for that? Not every noun
which we use to describe our world refers to literally to some thing in
the world, e.g., truth.
> but to wonder how minds happen in the world
which could mean the conditions under which we attribute a mind to a
physical entity. This is an interesting question. Recent research using
brain scans and a signaling procedure has demonstrated that some folks
thought to be in a vegetative state where actually there able to respond
rationally to questions put.
> given the evident physical and, therefore, apparently inanimate,
nature of this world in which minds occur?
This use of "physical" as referring to that which is "absent the mental"
sets up the problem. It gives the impression that matter makes mind, the
way a candle wick makes a flame, and what we seek is the catalyst. But
where do we look? The brain scan is a sign of mental activity. No
question. But where do we look at the scan to find the making of mind?
The question is very odd.
Alternatively, we could think of "physical" as not "absent the mental"
but that which needs to be made relevant the mental. If so, we'd not be
inclined to ask "how and where the physical makes the mental." Rather
we'd ask "what do we have to see and hear that persuades that a person
is here?"
I read the researchers mentioned above taking this view. When the
patient is seen as "brain dead", it is treated as a living non-cognitive
thing. But when communication is achieved, the patient is seen as a
person. The brain scans are a sign, a criterion for attributing a mind.
The brain scan, itself, is not the presence of mind.
bruce
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