[Wittrs] Re: Is the brain a hammer?
- From: "BruceD" <blroadies@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 05 May 2010 01:52:00 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
and I respond...it is not about what word you use to connect brain and
mind. It is about the logic of the connection put forth
> What do brains "cause"?
It follows, from what I wrote above, I don't know out of context. The
next sentence provides one
> The state of being a subject (having a mind)...
Now connect the dots, the brain working the emergence of the subject.
Just exactly how and where do these connect?
> Or caused a panoply of things
memories, etc. Connect the brain tissue and the memory.
> The point is that the model I have been advocating here,
> for explaining mind, sees mind as a function of a
> highly complex system running on the physical platform of a brain.
It strikes me now that I can adopt that model too. A highly complex
brain system which I use for various purposes, often out of awareness.
My advantage: I posit no causal link: Consequences...
1. The question of how brain produces mind is irrelevant. I start with
the person and say how he uses his brain.
2. The question of how a causally described machine can yield an intent
is inappropriate. I start with an intention being who uses a causally
described machine the same way I use my car.
> AI researcher's research into what it is physical platforms
> like brains need to do in order to produce a mind.
Are based on what brain activity correlates with people's mental
activity. The A! folks start with a concept of a person and attempt to
replicate it.
> We know that it feels like we have choice to us.
If that is simply caused by the brain, then "choice" is ilsuory.
> Nevertheless, unless we realize that an account of thinking things
> must originate in an account of unthinking things
> we end up with a need for a homunculus in our explanation of how mind
I was thinking this morning that this was what you were thinking. Two
points, quickly.
1. Even if we originate our account in terms of unthinking things, it is
still an account of and by a thinking thing. So there is no alternative
but starting with a person thinking. Physics is written as if it were
the "view from nowhere." Psychology can't tolerate it. This needs
elaboration.
2. The person, where we start, is not an homunculus, a detached spirit.
It is not a thing of any substance. It's materialism, which can't get
past substance, that attributes the homunculus that begins with the
person.
more later...
bruce
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