Re: artificial intelligence

JGCASEY <jgkjcasey@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Dec 5, 5:53 am, c...@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) wrote:
"Alpha" <OmegaZero2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...

There is a good case to be made that it is a
combination of APs, *and the neurotransmitter milieu*
that is responsible for much of the properties of
mind states.


The state of the neurotransmitters and the rest of
the chemicals ARE the mind state. They are not the
CAUSE of the mind state.

Whereas I see the "mind" as a verb not a noun.

Yeah, that's how a lot of people look at it know. It's a common idea to
say that the mind is what the brain does. It's a simple way to fix the
implied errors in the language without changing how we use the language.

Technically however, it doesn't fix the language - it only covers up the
error. Mind (for the most part) is used as a noun, not a verb. To say it's
a verb while continuing to use it as a noun doesn't fix anything. It just
continues to propagate the confusion.

In all contexts where we use mind as a noun, we should be able to
substitute "brain" (the correct noun of reference) and have the sentence
mean the same thing. If every time you use the word mind, it works like
that, that is, you could have written "brain" and it would mean the EXACT
same thing to you, then you are in sync with what I believe is the truth
about the word and the ideas associated with it.

However, as we continue to use mind as a noun and believe it is not just
the brain we are talking about, it continues to add to the illusion that
there is a separation when there is none.

It is
a series of states. It is something the brain does not
something the brain is. A sleeping brain does not show
any "mind" behavior except perhaps when it is dreaming.

But there really is no significant difference between what a thing is and
what it does. What it is, is what it does. It's the same thing.

Verbs are simply words we use to label properties of change where as nouns
are used to label properties of consistency. They both end up labeling
properties of underlying fundamental sources of the properties. The fact
that we talk about the waving of a hand doesn't mean we are talking about
something other than a hand. The wave doesn't in any way identify a new
signal source which we are discussing. The hand is still the signal
source.

Likewise, when we talk about all the things a brain does, which we might
for historic language reasons associate with the noun "mind", we are still
talking about the brain, not something "else".

If you are the materialist you claim to be, the mind
does not exist as something separate from the brain.
As such, any time you use the word mind, you could
substitute the word brain and not change the meaning
of what you have written.

Certainly actions require something to be acting but
you can have the actor without the acting, you cannot
have the acting without an actor. I see the mind as
being abstract in that sense.

Yeah, but.

The ONLY reason we have the word mind, is because historically it was
believed that the mind was not the brain. Historically, it was believed
that the mind was the brain of the soul. It's a word that was created
because people believed that their thoughts were not physical and the mind
was the actor creating the thoughts - or the container which held the
thoughts.

We know now that was all just a misunderstanding just like beliefs in
various Gods were just misunderstandings. They were just place holders for
what we felt must be there. As you said, when we see waving, we expect
there to be a actor that is the cause of the waving. When we see it rain,
and thunder and when we see the wind blow, we feel there must be a cause -
so we give the cause a name even when we don't know what the cause is. So
we make up Gods to act as place holders for the cause of the things which
we don't understand but for which we feel must have a cause. (the ultimate
placeholer is the single God which so many still believe in today - they
need to know the name of the root cause of everything to make them feel
they have more control than they actually do).

The word mind was just another one of these words which was made up as a
placeholder for "the thing which is the cause of our thoughts".

But now we don't need it, just like we don't need most of those old Gods
anymore because we understand the real cause of our thoughts is the brain.
So everywhere we used "mind" in the past, we should be using "brain" now
(or at least, everywhere you use mind, you should see it as synonym for
brain).

But, above, you seem to be bending over backwards to find the right
definition of the word mind so it fits with how we use the word in our
every day language. You seem to be treating it as if it were a fundamental
aspect of nature, like light, and sound, and gravity, and you are trying to
find the right explanation to explain what it is.

"mind" is NOT a part of nature. It's a stupid word man made up to describe
something in nature he didn't understand - the brain. Our job today should
not be to justify the mistakes of our forefathers by finding a "workable"
definition of the word mind to go along with how we continue to mis-use the
word. Our job today is to throw out the old Gods and replace them with
ones that actually fit our improved understanding of reality - which fit
the objective experimental data.

Your improved understanding of reality should not leave you believing the
mind is something different from the brain which needs to be explained.
Your improved understanding of reality should leave you with the idea that
the mind is just the old name for the brain. It's not a special noun which
is used to describe the set of all possible actions the brain performs.


...

At best, we could use the word mind to mean the
limited subset of total brain behavior we are able
to sense and talk about. But this doesn't make
mind something other than brain, it just means it's
a subset of the total brain which we are able to
sense and report.

The content of "mind" behavior doesn't actually involve
any representation of the physical brain itself. You
cannot through subjective introspection know your brain
is made up of neurons for example.

True.

So you are not able
to sense any part of the brain,

100% completely wrong! Everything we sense happening in our "mind" is in
fact a direct sensation of the brain.

only some high level behavior of the brain.

That's just so completely wrong and it gets back to what I'm saying above.

You are trying to justify "mind" and "thought" as "brain behavior" instead
of being "brain". Yes it is brain behavior, but just because it's brain
behavior doesn't mean it's not the brain you are sensing - but yet that is
what you seem to be thinking and trying to argue.

Instead of creating a clear understanding of reality, you are allowing the
mistakes of our forefathers to confuse your reality. You are in effect
starting with the assumption that truth lies in the words, instead of
seeing that truth lies in the data. It as if you are saying, since we use
the word mind separate from the word brain, the mind must be real, and it
must be separate from the brain - if it were not, we wouldn't have two
different words. So you bend over backwards to try and justify this
language mistake as if it were not a mistake at all but instead, real
objective data from the universe you were trying to explain.

For the most part, different words are used to label different things. We
have the word tree, and the word rock, because trees are in fact different
from rocks.

As we are taught the language, we indirectly learn a lot about the universe
though the eyes of the people who created the language in the first place.
And for the most part, what they saw in the universe, is still there today,
so as we learn their words to describe what they saw, and what they know,
we are learning a great deal about our own universe at the same time. For
the most part.

But in the case of the words mind and brain, and in the case of the word
god (and all the other names for different gods and dog like concepts we
have given names to), our forefathers didn't understand the truth.

No one in their right mind thinks that when we talk about a hand waving,
that "waving" is something separate from the hand. It's not something
created by the hand, its just the hand in motion. The word "wave" is just
a label we have given to how a hand can change over time (as it moves in
the pattern we call waving).

Would you ever, in a million years, say that you had the power to sense a
hand waving, but not at the same time, be sensing the hand? Does it make
any sense at all to you to suggest that someone could sense a hand waving
and not be sensing the hand at the same time?

But yet, you thought it was perfectly valid to say you have the power to
sense your brain in motion (aka brain behavior) but yet, and I quote you:

> So you are not able
> to sense any part of the brain,

How can it be possible to sense that your brain is behaving, and at the
same time, not sense any part of the brain? ITS IMPOSSIBLE.

It's possible, only because you have allowed yourself to believe the mind
IS NOT the brain. And this is what what sets me off every time I see
people making this mistake simply because they think the mind must be
something different only because of the fact that's how we were all taught
to talk about it - by having two words (both nouns) (mind and brain) when
we should only have one word.

I'm beginning to wonder if we just need to change the damn language so
people stop getting themselves so confused like this.

When you sense that you are having thoughts, you are in fact, sensing parts
of the your own brain. Neurons are neuron activity sensors. They sense
when other neurons fire in the right temporal patterns - just like your
ears sense when your fingers snap. When you sense your fingers snap, you
are sensing your fingers. When you are sensing your own thoughts, you are
sensing your brain.

It's very true that we can not sense the entire brain though our thoughts.
We are only able to sense a limited part of the brain - just like you can't
sense your entire hand by looking at it - you can't see the inside parts.
and you can't see the microscopic features of the hand with a naked eye.
But when you look at the hand, you are sensing your hand, and when you
sense your thoughts, you are sensing your physical brain as much as you are
sensing your physical hand when you see it, or feel it, or hear it.

The idea that you are not able to sense "any part of the brain" (as you
said) is just dead wrong. It's just more of this never ending confusion I
try to battle in this group all the time to get people to drop their old
dualistic concepts that come to us though the language we were taught.

I'll refrain from calling you a dualist yet again just because you made yet
another dualistic mistake in your writing and I assume in your thinking.
The only way we can be aware of our own thoughts and not be sensing parts
of the brain is if we are dualists who believe our thoughts are separate
and different from the brain. But if you are not a dualist, then the only
logical result is that when we are aware we are having private thoughts, we
are in fact sensing, and are aware of, our own physical brain.

The reason is doesn't seem like "a brain" we are aware of, is because we
have never been able to correlate this awareness with more typical "brain
awareness" (being able to see or feel or touch our own brain). If we could
open a flap in our head, and poke an electrode in our brain and cause it to
activate neurons, we would then be aware of the correlation that it created
- all the normal physical events combined with the mental events we would
be able to detect at the same time. Lets say we stick the probe in, and
every time we hit the switch to activate it, we heard a crash behind us
that sounded like a window breaking. At first, we turned around to see
what the crash was. But quickly, we would learn that there was nothing
happening behind us, and that this "crash" was just the activation of the
neurons caused by the probe. After a bit of exposure to this, what do you
think would happen the next time you heard a real crash behind you of a
similar nature? Not only would memories of past windows breaking pop into
your mind, but the memory of that experiment with the probe would pop into
your mind and you would think of the "crash" not only as a window, but also
as set of neurons in a very specific spot of your brain activating.

After that experience of getting to stick probes into your own brain, you
would see the "sound of the window breaking" not only as a window breaking,
but as you sensing your own brain as well.

But because none of us has had such an experience to create these
correlations, these memories, none of us normally thinks of the sound of a
window breaking as brain activity. We don't think of it as the power to
sense our own brain. But if you had the chance to play with your own brain
like that, you would very naturally understand what I'm talking about.

All this confusion about dualism, and mind vs brain, and consciousness
would vanish over night if everyone had the power to directly play with
their own brains with their fingers and inject signals at different parts
of it in response to their own finger pushing a button. People would stop
thinking that "mind" was somehow different than "brain".

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@xxxxxxxx http://NewsReader.Com/
.