Oh, of course I believe that complex arrangements of information have emergent properties -- but already by rephrasing it that way, that distinction between two different types of substance vs two different types of property has become rather more obvious, hasn't it?
I think the concept of a meme is a nice metaphor to explain some interesting and important aspects of the nature of ideas. And after that point, well, poetic is nice, but confusing the poetic metaphor for what is actually going on leads to all sorts of weird misunderstandings.
And yes, the interaction between the mind and the brain is somewhat unfathomed, but given we do know many things about it, and it is clearly taking place, the details are a matter for scientific investigation with, at this point, the big philosophical questions I should think pretty clearly settled. We know neurons fire, we know information is stored in synapse weightings, we know what most of the different parts do. Sure, there are mysteries, but its not as if we believe in vitalism just because we don't understand every aspect of cell biology.
Oh, of course I believe that complex arrangements of information have emergent properties -- but already by rephrasing it that way
(As opposed to calling it "memetic", you mean?)
that distinction between two different types of substance vs two different types of property has become rather more obvious, hasn't it?
Is information, pattern, meaning, really nothing more than a property of matter? I find that an almost necessarily impossible notion. Which leaves me at substance dualism, of a sort.
We know neurons fire, we know information is stored in synapse weightings, we know what most of the different parts do.
I'm sorry, but "[I]nformation [...] stored in synapse weightings" will never fully explain the concept of justice in the mind of Clarence Darrow during the last day of the Monkey Trial. The contents of the mind can't be properties of the brain if they only exist, in any meaningful sense, as patterns of interconnectedness to other mind-content-stuff outside of the brain.
A handful of stone will never fully explain the Taj Mahal. Nevertheless, the Taj Mahal is made of stone.
Being only fully understandable as part of a complex interconnected system is true, but that doesn't change the nature of the parts. It might be impossible to fully explain what, say, a piston head is without reference to the rest of the engine, which might then require references to roads and petrol refining etc, but that doesn't mean the part, or the engine, are made of special magical engine stuff. Mind is an emergent property of a particular 'design' that requires many parts. Some properties of mind are only fully explainable with reference to the whole. And aspects of what many minds do individually is only explicable in the context of a culture. Just as many physical behaviours of animals only make sense within an eco-system.
As I said, I'm (mostly) a predicate dualist -- I think many questions that we might reasonably ask about our minds cannot be reduced to a question about brain states in any useful or sensible way. But that doesn't mean that therefore our minds are not simply something our brains do.
A handful of stone will never fully explain the Taj Mahal. Nevertheless, the Taj Mahal is made of stone.
This is meaningless. The Taj Manal is, ultimately, made of quarks and leptons, and yet that description provides almost no information about the Taj Mahal. Everything important about the Taj Mahal is made of memes, including the associations of form and scale which provide its immediate visual impact. The Taj Mahal could be made of plastic, or of solid light, and it could still be, identically, the Taj Mahal. What is meaningful about the Taj Mahal has nothing to do with the physical material in which it is manifest.
Similarly (assuming I need to press the analogy here), telling me "the mind is made of (or by) the brain" is meaningless: it adds nothing to my understanding of what the mind is or does.
It might be impossible to fully explain what, say, a piston head is without reference to the rest of the engine, which might then require references to roads and petrol refining etc, but that doesn't mean the part, or the engine, are made of special magical engine stuff.
A piston head is a functional component: it does not gain its functionality from our understanding of it. On the other hand, the Taj Mahal, without its meaning, is just a large enclosed space. Similarly, the mind, outside of the context of culture and consciousness, is merely a pattern of electrical signals in a complex tangle of nerve cells.
Mind is an emergent property of a particular 'design' that requires many parts.
Sure, but the "parts" from which it makes any sense to say the mind is emergent are not the neurones but rather language, culture and meaning.
Some properties of mind are only fully explainable with reference to the whole.
Very few properties of mind are fully explainable with reference to just the whole (mind). Almost all properties of the mind require reference to things outside the mind.
I think many questions that we might reasonably ask about our minds cannot be reduced to a question about brain states in any useful or sensible way. But that doesn't mean that therefore our minds are not simply something our brains do.
Very few questions we might reasonably ask about the Taj Mahal can be answered in any useful or sensible way by reference to the material from which it is constructed; thus it's clear that the fact the Taj Mahal is composed of stone is one of the least relevant things we know about it. The Taj Mahal is not "simply something [stone does]", and neither is what the mind does "simply" a function of the fact that it's made of neural tissue-or indeed any form of physical matter.
Similarly (assuming I need to press the analogy here), telling me "the mind is made of (or by) the brain" is meaningless: it adds nothing to my understanding of what the mind is or does. I would say exactly the opposite - saying 'the mind is made of mind' is pointlessly tautological, whereas saying 'the mind is made of the brain' is the doorway to an enormous amount of understanding of the brain that we can gain from neuroscience.
A piston head is a functional component: it does not gain its functionality from our understanding of it. And a neuron is just a neuron, whether we understand it or not. if you are arguing that the ontological status of the mind is based on our understanding, you aren't going to get very far.
Sure, but the "parts" from which it makes any sense to say the mind is emergent are not the neurones but rather language, culture and meaning. I am fairly sure you have that causally backwards. Animals have proto-minds, without language or (much of) a culture.
Very few properties of mind are fully explainable with reference to just the whole (mind). Well, you have a bit of a odd definition of mind. You more or less define mind in an unusual way, claiming it consists only of linguistic functions - so, by your definition, of course the mind is largely linguistic, but only because you have excised a huge amount of what would be the part of the consensus definition of mind (memory, for example) from your personal definition. Its a circular argument - once we accept your odd definition of mind, other things may follow, but we don't. At least, I don't, and I don't think you'd find many other people that would agree that the unconscious and memory are not part of the mind.
Very few questions we might reasonably ask about the Taj Mahal can be answered in any useful or sensible way by reference to the material from which it is constructed; thus it's clear that the fact the Taj Mahal is composed of stone is one of the least relevant things we know about it.
I don't the latter follows at all. You seem to be in that stage of the argument where, in order to defend your ontological ideas about the mind, you are forced to redefine the ontological status of everything else. If you substitute 'The Grand Canyon' into my arguments, they all make just as much sense, so focussing on the human design factor is to miss the point, which is that form and function and history does not determine substance.
I think the concept of a meme is a nice metaphor to explain some interesting and important aspects of the nature of ideas. And after that point, well, poetic is nice, but confusing the poetic metaphor for what is actually going on leads to all sorts of weird misunderstandings.
And yes, the interaction between the mind and the brain is somewhat unfathomed, but given we do know many things about it, and it is clearly taking place, the details are a matter for scientific investigation with, at this point, the big philosophical questions I should think pretty clearly settled. We know neurons fire, we know information is stored in synapse weightings, we know what most of the different parts do. Sure, there are mysteries, but its not as if we believe in vitalism just because we don't understand every aspect of cell biology.
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(As opposed to calling it "memetic", you mean?)
that distinction between two different types of substance vs two different types of property has become rather more obvious, hasn't it?
Is information, pattern, meaning, really nothing more than a property of matter? I find that an almost necessarily impossible notion. Which leaves me at substance dualism, of a sort.
We know neurons fire, we know information is stored in synapse weightings, we know what most of the different parts do.
I'm sorry, but "[I]nformation [...] stored in synapse weightings" will never fully explain the concept of justice in the mind of Clarence Darrow during the last day of the Monkey Trial. The contents of the mind can't be properties of the brain if they only exist, in any meaningful sense, as patterns of interconnectedness to other mind-content-stuff outside of the brain.
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Being only fully understandable as part of a complex interconnected system is true, but that doesn't change the nature of the parts. It might be impossible to fully explain what, say, a piston head is without reference to the rest of the engine, which might then require references to roads and petrol refining etc, but that doesn't mean the part, or the engine, are made of special magical engine stuff. Mind is an emergent property of a particular 'design' that requires many parts. Some properties of mind are only fully explainable with reference to the whole. And aspects of what many minds do individually is only explicable in the context of a culture. Just as many physical behaviours of animals only make sense within an eco-system.
As I said, I'm (mostly) a predicate dualist -- I think many questions that we might reasonably ask about our minds cannot be reduced to a question about brain states in any useful or sensible way. But that doesn't mean that therefore our minds are not simply something our brains do.
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This is meaningless. The Taj Manal is, ultimately, made of quarks and leptons, and yet that description provides almost no information about the Taj Mahal. Everything important about the Taj Mahal is made of memes, including the associations of form and scale which provide its immediate visual impact. The Taj Mahal could be made of plastic, or of solid light, and it could still be, identically, the Taj Mahal. What is meaningful about the Taj Mahal has nothing to do with the physical material in which it is manifest.
Similarly (assuming I need to press the analogy here), telling me "the mind is made of (or by) the brain" is meaningless: it adds nothing to my understanding of what the mind is or does.
It might be impossible to fully explain what, say, a piston head is without reference to the rest of the engine, which might then require references to roads and petrol refining etc, but that doesn't mean the part, or the engine, are made of special magical engine stuff.
A piston head is a functional component: it does not gain its functionality from our understanding of it. On the other hand, the Taj Mahal, without its meaning, is just a large enclosed space. Similarly, the mind, outside of the context of culture and consciousness, is merely a pattern of electrical signals in a complex tangle of nerve cells.
Mind is an emergent property of a particular 'design' that requires many parts.
Sure, but the "parts" from which it makes any sense to say the mind is emergent are not the neurones but rather language, culture and meaning.
Some properties of mind are only fully explainable with reference to the whole.
Very few properties of mind are fully explainable with reference to just the whole (mind). Almost all properties of the mind require reference to things outside the mind.
I think many questions that we might reasonably ask about our minds cannot be reduced to a question about brain states in any useful or sensible way. But that doesn't mean that therefore our minds are not simply something our brains do.
Very few questions we might reasonably ask about the Taj Mahal can be answered in any useful or sensible way by reference to the material from which it is constructed; thus it's clear that the fact the Taj Mahal is composed of stone is one of the least relevant things we know about it. The Taj Mahal is not "simply something [stone does]", and neither is what the mind does "simply" a function of the fact that it's made of neural tissue-or indeed any form of physical matter.
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I would say exactly the opposite - saying 'the mind is made of mind' is pointlessly tautological, whereas saying 'the mind is made of the brain' is the doorway to an enormous amount of understanding of the brain that we can gain from neuroscience.
A piston head is a functional component: it does not gain its functionality from our understanding of it.
And a neuron is just a neuron, whether we understand it or not. if you are arguing that the ontological status of the mind is based on our understanding, you aren't going to get very far.
Sure, but the "parts" from which it makes any sense to say the mind is emergent are not the neurones but rather language, culture and meaning.
I am fairly sure you have that causally backwards. Animals have proto-minds, without language or (much of) a culture.
Very few properties of mind are fully explainable with reference to just the whole (mind).
Well, you have a bit of a odd definition of mind. You more or less define mind in an unusual way, claiming it consists only of linguistic functions - so, by your definition, of course the mind is largely linguistic, but only because you have excised a huge amount of what would be the part of the consensus definition of mind (memory, for example) from your personal definition. Its a circular argument - once we accept your odd definition of mind, other things may follow, but we don't. At least, I don't, and I don't think you'd find many other people that would agree that the unconscious and memory are not part of the mind.
Very few questions we might reasonably ask about the Taj Mahal can be answered in any useful or sensible way by reference to the material from which it is constructed; thus it's clear that the fact the Taj Mahal is composed of stone is one of the least relevant things we know about it.
I don't the latter follows at all. You seem to be in that stage of the argument where, in order to defend your ontological ideas about the mind, you are forced to redefine the ontological status of everything else. If you substitute 'The Grand Canyon' into my arguments, they all make just as much sense, so focussing on the human design factor is to miss the point, which is that form and function and history does not determine substance.
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