A Scientific Theory Of Mind?

[MindOverMatter]

Is the attempts to turn mind into a scientific theory Legitimate? Members of the science community want to explain everything in terms of physical causes.

However; human beings are intelligent causes. But i thought that Science was the study of natural causes? Given this premise, isn’t it a bit presumptuous and even invalid to think that science can unlock all the secrets of the mind?

 

[liquidpele]

Is the attempts to turn mind into a scientific theory Legitimate? Members of the science community want to explain everything in terms of physical causes.

However; human beings are intelligent causes. But i thought that Science was the study of natural causes? Given this premise, isn’t it a bit presumptuous and even invalid to think that science can unlock all the secrets of the mind?

A lot of attempt to understand the mind are for legitimate healthcare reasons. While a lot of it is not understood at all, we are making progress. Besides that, I think it’s farily obvious that our minds are physical… we use alcohol and anti depressants currently to modify our moods for instance. If the mind is not physical, it certainly is extremely linked to the physical side of things.

Time for my typical link for this type of discussion, if someone hasn’t seen it yet. I just find this talk utterly fascinating…

ted.com/talks/lang/eng/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html

Also, would you like to see a rat brain control a robot?

wimp.com/ratrobot/

 

[Charlemagne_II]

liquidpele

If the mind is not physical, it certainly is extremely linked to the physical side of things.

The mind itself is not physical, but it is linked to our brain, which is.

It is not the brain (a lump of chemicals) that can imagine God, or other universes besides our own, or poetry, or music, or mathematics. All these things known by the mind are known by the fact that the abstract (universal) is commensurate with our mind, whereas the particular is only commensurate with our brain. When we write a poem, we use particular words in certain combinations. But it is not the brain that orders the correct combination to produce a thing of beauty. How would a clump of chemicals know what is beautiful and what is not? The mind does know: instinctively, intelligently, and emotionally. The mind orders the brain to perform certain functions that produce the desired good. If that good is not produced, the mind labors again to make the words do their ordained work, their desired good. What is the desired good? That to which the mind is drawn, even over the impediments or objections of the presumptuous brain.

Mind moves toward God naturally as the final desire and good toward which every soul consciously or unconsciously moves, even when the brain, that clump of chemicals, wants to hog the stage and blot out our vision of God.

 

[Just_Lurking]

Is the attempts to turn mind into a scientific theory Legitimate?

Are you saying that the metaphysical theory of mind makes absolutely no testable predictions whatsoever? Isn’t that akin to saying that metaphysics of mind is completely useless in the physical world?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Just curious. As a professional mathematician, how would you in the simplest terms possible define a “metaphysical theory of mind”?

 

[Just_Lurking]

Just curious. As a professional mathematician, how would you in the simplest terms possible define a “metaphysical theory of mind”?

Nothing in my mathematical training or practice has anything to do with theories of mind, metaphysical or otherwise.

From the OP, a “metaphysical theory of mind” has something to do with intelligent causes, and isn’t anything that is capable of being the subject of scientific study.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Just Lurking

Are the numbers or shapes computed in mathematics physical entities or metaphysical entities?

 

[Just_Lurking]

Just Lurking

Are the numbers or shapes computed in mathematics physical entities or metaphysical entities?

I would say they are ideas, so I guess I would classify them as metaphysical entities. Linguistically, they are nouns, because a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea.

 

[j1akey]

MindOverMatter:

However; human beings are intelligent causes. But i thought that Science was the study of natural causes? Given this premise, isn’t it a bit presumptuous and even invalid to think that science can unlock all the secrets of the mind?

You’re starting with an unproven premise. It first needs to be established that humans are intelligent causes before the rest of the argument can have any validity.

 

[Fran65]

My discipline - psychology - is one of those that is ‘guilty’ in part of trying to reduce mind to a scientific theory that is ultimately based in matter.

My own thinking on this is that we can, and should study human experiences (conscious, subjective) using scientific methods. This has led to many advances, in for example, our knowledge and understanding of memory. We can and should also study human behaviour and how this is influenced by conscious experience using scientific methods too.

However, we should be careful that we do not mistake understanding how an object (the brain) works and being able to describe conscious experience for understanding of human nature, destiny and the soul.

I’ve heard this kind of approach as being similar to taking apart a TV set, identifying how all the parts work and without knowing anything about generation, transmission and reception of electromagnetic signals believing that we know everything we can know about how a TV works.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Just Lurking

I would say they are ideas, so I guess I would classify them as metaphysical entities.

So when George LeMaitre, using mathematics, projected the origin of the universe to be the result of a Big Bang (not what he called it) was metaphysics useful in predicting the behavior of the physical universe?

 

[Just_Lurking]

Just Lurking

I would say they are ideas, so I guess I would classify them as metaphysical entities.

So when George LeMaitre, using mathematics, projected the origin of the universe to be the result of a Big Bang (not what he called it) was metaphysics useful in predicting the behavior of the physical universe?

Is this what you are saying:

1. Mathematics was useful in predicting the behavior of the physical universe.
2. Metaphysics studies mathematics.
3. Metaphysics was useful in predicting the behavior of the physical universe.

I think this argument goes wrong at step 3. The proper conclusion is that “metaphysics studies something that was useful in predicting the behavior of the physical universe”.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Just Lurking

Is this what you are saying:

What I meant to say, building on a major premise of yours, was this:

The language of mathematics is a metaphysical entity.
Predicting the behavior of the universe is shown by the language of mathematics.
Predicting the behavior of the universe is shown by a metaphysical entity.

Or what Einstein might have (did) call the mind of God?

 

[Just_Lurking]

Predicting the behavior of the universe is shown by a metaphysical entity.

I agree with this. Metaphysics studies important questions, and metaphysical entities are likewise important. It is the results (and thus the methods) of metaphysics that I have trouble believing.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Just Lurking

*It is the results (and thus the methods) of metaphysics that I have trouble believing. *

You’re not alone. Wasn’t it Einstein who imposed on his mathematics of relativity the notion of a steady-state universe? He even fudged the math to make it so. He should have stayed with the math, a better (more honest?) type of metaphysics than most.

 

[MindOverMatter]

You’re starting with an unproven premise. It first needs to be established that humans are intelligent causes before the rest of the argument can have any validity.

Doing science and metaphysics, and the assumption that we can aquire knowledge, presupposes inteligent activity; it pressuposes the intelect. I don’t need to prove it.

 

[tonyrey]

I agree with this. Metaphysics studies important questions, and metaphysical entities are likewise important. It is the results (and thus the methods) of metaphysics that I have trouble believing.

You seem to be blaming the results on the methods but surely it is the truth of the results that counts. It does not follow that a conclusion is necessarily false if the methods are faulty. Which particular results of metaphysical investigation do you have trouble believing? And why?

 

[Just_Lurking]

You seem to be blaming the results on the methods but surely it is the truth of the results that counts. It does not follow that a conclusion is necessarily false if the methods are faulty. Which particular results of metaphysical investigation do you have trouble believing? And why?

All the stuff on infinity, which seems to be based on ancient Greek misconceptions rather than on modern mathematical understanding.

The idea that we could know now whether advanced AI robots that won’t be built for centuries to come will have consciousness and/or free will. I don’t see how that determination can be made until we actually understand the technology that will be involved.

 

[tonyrey]

All the stuff on infinity, which seems to be based on ancient Greek misconceptions rather than on modern mathematical understanding.

I am sceptical of all attempts to prove anything about the nature of reality from mathematics. I believe mathematics is related to reality but the disputes between mathematicians illustrate how rash it is to draw any definite conclusions about its ontological significance.

The idea that we could know now whether advanced AI robots that won’t be built for centuries to come will have consciousness and/or free will. I don’t see how that determination can be made until we actually understand the technology that will be involved.

It seems more to the point to understand the nature of consciousness and free will. Consciousness implies insight and free will implies self-control. So it is necessary to explain how a machine can have an interior existence and a self. How can there be self-control without a self? How can a robot acquire a mind of its own? How can it become independent of its programming? How can it infringe the law of the conservation of energy? How can a silicon artefact become a purposeful entity which shapes its own destiny? In short how can a set of impersonal components become a person?

All these are formidable questions which require answers. Until they are answered there is no reason to suppose that technology can ever create a robot with consciousness and free will - attributes which for centuries human beings have attempted in vain to understand and explain. Why was the distinction between mind and body made in the first place? Why has humanity from the dawn of history believed persons and things to be essentially different?

The belief that advanced AI robots can have consciousness and free will is based on one simple assumption: that we are merely objects derived from inanimate matter. This assumption conflicts with so many facts we take for granted it needs justification. Every law court in the world proceeds on the basis that out of all the beings on this earth we alone are rational and responsible for our behaviour, that we are all equal before the law, that we are innocent until proved guilty and that each one of us has a right to life, liberty and security. Why?

We cannot know for certain that scientists will never build advanced AI robots with consciousness and free will but there is no evidence whatsoever that they can or will. We cannot know for certain that scientists will never build another world with different beings superior to the one we inhabit. Why should we believe they can or will? Our decisions have to be based on probability not fantasy…

…

 

[Just_Lurking]

Every law court in the world proceeds on the basis that out of all the beings on this earth we alone are rational and responsible for our behaviour, that we are all equal before the law, that we are innocent until proved guilty and that each one of us has a right to life, liberty and security. Why?

The law always lags behind technology. Movies highlight this, e.g., making the robot the “murder weapon” instead of the “murderer”.

We cannot know for certain that scientists will never build advanced AI robots with consciousness and free will but there is no evidence whatsoever that they can or will.

Okay, this is my position too, so I guess I’m in line with metaphysical reasoning. However, I do think it is likely that scientists will produce intelligent, non-human life forms via genetic engineering, kind of like super IVF.