Re: New here - strange symptoms

This post not CC'd by email
On 4 Jan 2006 12:00:27 GMT, Chris Malcolm <cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>Quentin Grady <quentin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> This post not CC'd by email
>> On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 10:34:18 -0800, Dan Abel <dabel@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> It may have been wrong but what the heck. Your intuition is sharp.
>> It is the first time in five years I've been asked that question and
>> it was a question that needed to be addressed. I simply hadn't thought
>> of addressing it since it hadn't occurred to me to ask the question.
>
>> May I make the comment that it is one of the greatest strengths we
>> have; collective intelligence. During the Xmas break I read a
>> provocative book which collected together the ideas that scientists
>> believed but could not as yet prove. One scientist believed, but
>> could not prove, that the human mind extended beyond the human brain.
>> In his view the human mind extended beyond the brain of a single
>> person. Our intellects were inextricably intertwined. I liked the
>> idea. To me it seems the easiest way to effectively double our
>> intelligence is to selectively communicate with people who challenge
>> us in a meaningful way.
>
>I'm surprised at the idea that this scientist "beleived but could not
>prove" that the human mind extended beyond the human brain. I've
>believed this for longer than I can remember, and many philosophers
>and scientists make such a claim from many different points of
>view. It's not so much a question of whether this is true, it's a
>question of how you would like to define mind. For example, it is well
>beyond the capability of any single human mind to design a rocket
>which could take a man to the moon. Only large organisations of people
>backed up by libraries and computers are capable of such enterprises.
>
>In other words, the knowledge of how to build a moon rocket is beyond
>the scope of the human mind defined individually, but within the scope
>of the human mind defined collectively.

LOL.

G'day G'day Chris M,

Couldn't help it. What came to mind is all those "individuals" who
say, "I ain't rocket science" as they proceed to enlighten the world
with the product of their very own thinking. You know the types, who
don't appear to share a commonality of mind with others.

In the space of a few seconds you have helped me acquire an
understanding of just what is rocket science.

>Science is a good example. The scientific method is a social
>invention. It depends crucially upon the review and repetition of one
>scientist's work by others, which in turn depends crucially upon the
>formal publication of methods and results. Science is a collective
>human endeavour which adds to a growing store of collective knowledge
>held outside the human mind in libraries, and which for at least a few
>hundred years has in sum been well beyond the capacity of any single
>human mind to understand.

Quite. Perhaps being a scientist the he thought it impossible to
prove a hypothesis ... only reject one.

>Our minds extend beyond our brains in two ways. One is the way which
>you mention, people throwing up and testing ideas in a co-operative
>process which can reach further than solitary thinking. The other is
>simply that we can choose to offload some the things we need to know
>and to work out to things which can help us to do it better. I no
>longer bother to do much mental arithmetic because in so many places a
>calculating device is to hand. I no longer bother to try to remember
>what I'm doing in the coming month because I write it down in a diary
>and forget it. I don't need to remember how to drive to London, just
>how to get to the first signposts saying "London".

Great examples.

>We can see this very clearly in old people whose brains are
>degenerating. Only the most frequently used pathways have been kept
>intact. They're still able to function well in their familiar
>surroundings because everything they do causes something to happen
>which reminds them of the next thing to do. But they can no longer
>learn how to operate in unfamiliar surroundings. They may even have
>difficulty recognising friends and relatives, but this doesn't matter,
>because their SO who is always with them reminds them who they're
>talking to.

There has been an article in New Scientist on Alzheimer's disease and
mental exercise. What it seems to suggest is that people who
regularly build new neural pathways eg chess players, manage to live
in the world, less impeded by Alzheimer's disease than those who do
not engage in such activities. I have in the past read a similar study
of a group of nuns who as part of religious practice were expected to
carry out some mental activity such as banging away on a computer
posting on some user group.

Oops ... sorry got a bit carried away there.
I think they read books and solved puzzles.

>So when some accident happens and they get moved into a hospital they
>get lost in the hospital toilets. They seem suddenly to have mentally
>degenerated a lot. But they haven't.

Agreed. I think are right on with that observation. Easy to see how
hospital staff could reach the wrong conclusion. Quite frightening
when you think about it.

>Their minds had simply become
>less and less internal and more and more external as their brains
>degenerated, until all that held their minds together was the web of
>interactive connections with their familiar surroundings and
>people. Take them somewhere new and they literally lose their minds in
>a physical sense.

I have observed that in my own mother. When she had a stroke I had to
re-educate her to the fact that she had a family. She beat me over
the head with her walking stick and shouted, "You rude young man,"
when I told her that I was her son. She had gone back to thinking she
was nineteen ... and never been kissed.

Put simply her time line, the structure that hold most events in order
had been looped back to a happy time. She had NO idea she had been
married. What restored her memory rapidly was creating an alternative
structure ... a family tree ... literally painted as a tree. We left
out a few branches eg a brother that had died at first but she so
expressed puzzlement that there was a missing branch. The trick was
to give her structure and a family tree is a power structure. As it
happened she returned to us with a delightful personality, one excited
about discoveries in science and an interest in world affairs. Put
simply she returned as the exciting and interesting person I had never
know that had existed before she had, had a family.

>I don't think the idea that mind extends beyond brain is something
>that needs to be proved. It's a point of view with obvious
>utility.

I like that. In fact, let me say that it is so refreshing to come
across someone who realises that utility is one of the most useful
reasons for accepting some belief or other.

>The only reason IMHO that some people will seriously disagree
>with it is because they have reasons of principle for rejecting it,
>reasons of principle which they consider to be beyond question, such
>as religious reasons.

IMHO they live a life of fear ... fear that their beliefs might not be
true. Personally I learn to accept that some of my beliefs need
upgrading almost daily. Reality moves on and so must we or be left
behind.

Best wishes and many thanks for a delightful conversation. Support is
many things to many people. For me the hardest support to find is
sometimes the sharing of like minds.


--
Quentin Grady ^ ^ /
New Zealand, >#,#< [
/ \ /\
"... and the blind dog was leading."

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The False Promises of Scientism
    ... held by actual scientists and not loons deal only in physical ... Yes they have changed the state of the mind but that doesn't refute the ... wouldn't make claims like "A causal connection between brain activity ... Explain life to me then. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: Learning C online?
    ... The limitations of the brain are obvious here. ... Because the human mind is like that: ... Thank you, Jacob, for your rapid reply. ... the human mind can indeed be error prone. ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: FOL/Intuitionistic logic versus NAFL. Part 1. Failure of non-contradiction
    ... the human mind could choose different theories for T* (i.e., ... How many different NAFL models of T might there be? ... T*'s generating the same NAFL model of T? ...
    (sci.logic)
  • Re: Symbol Grounding Problem (attn: Vend)
    ... "The notion that the operation of the mind can be explained ... simulation of an human mind can in principle interact with the world ... they can simulate the functioning of a rat brain. ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: ID targets neuroscience
    ... | Schwartz apparently argues that, as the mind can change the brain, ... religious scientists. ... allegedly in a post at a US university with a bona fide science faculty. ...
    (uk.philosophy.atheism)