4 ms·

It seems rather intuitive to me. Our brain is composed of neurons. Different subsets seem to have more or less specialised functions. Any subset can be seen a

by sago 8y ago

It seems rather intuitive to me. Our brain is composed of neurons. Different subsets seem to have more or less specialised functions. Any subset can be seen as it own 'thinker'. We think of them as larger units based mostly on the amount of communication / how independently they can function. Sometimes it is helpful to think of our mind as been made of many smaller 'thinkers'. Though there is no crisp boundary, every neuron is its own individual, at one extreme. And I think it is sensible to speak of groupthink as a mind, with thinkers contributed by lots of people. So at the other extreme all is one super mind. I think it can be useful to think of 'god' that way (as in the will of god, the desires of god, the thoughts of god), as much as a corporation, a culture, a nation. Though I admit you have to take care not to get carried away with the implications and end up mired in sloppy reasoning. It is also not surprising that, because axon connections are many orders of magnitude more efficient than language, the most useful grouping is at the level of an individual.

Simon_says 8y ago
> I think it can be useful to think of 'god' that way (as in the will of god, the desires of god, the thoughts of god), as much as a corporation, a culture, a nation. That does not sound useful in the slightest.
- sago 8y ago
  Do you mean 'god' as a synonym of theistic-religion groupthink? The idea of religious groupthink? Or the idea of groupthink in any context?
  - goodmachine 8y ago
    Bold move to mention 'god' on HN. I think the analogy is striking (therefore at least rhetorically useful) in the sense that it challenges the idea of ourselves merely ending where our bodies do. Socialisation and attendant technologies suggest otherwise: there's plenty of 'me' which is opaque to me, of me that precedes me, of me that derived from other minds. 'I' may even reside briefly in other minds, such as (trivially) in the form of this comment. The more we look at how individuals are structured from somatic to social levels, the less convincing the notion of individuality becomes.
    - sago 8y ago
      Probably also a dumb move, since it was incidental to my point, and probably skips a crucial argument step. Oh well. I definitely agree with your last sentence. And this can be as simple as the idea, often observed, that someone 'lives on' in the minds of their loved ones after death. For me that is entirely non supernatural or mystical. As you say (and nicely phrased) our identity is a function of everything from the somatic to the social level.
ZeroFries 8y ago
This works to some extent, but does not account for consciousness. A mind, at the very least a moment of experience, is a coherent whole. Your left and right visual fields are bound together. Thinking of neurons as entirely discrete units makes the binding problem insoluble.
- sago 8y ago
  > This works to some extent, but does not account for consciousness. True, although consciousness itself is rather poorly defined. There are also other related issues like qualia. But I'm not sure it needs to 'account' for those things. To observe that there are certain mental phenomena that are evident at different scales. > A mind, at the very least a moment of experience, is a coherent whole. That rather assumes your conclusion. In the example of a divided brain, a stimuli may be presented to only half the brain. How would one know whether one's experience of 'coherent whole'ness was accurate? > Thinking of neurons as entirely discrete units makes the binding problem insoluble. No more than thinking of base pairs in your DNA as discrete units makes higher order phylogenesis insoluble. To recognise that discrete units are simple does not mean that large aggregates of them cannot display fundamentally different dynamics.
- theWheez 8y ago
  This question is considered in Sam Harris' Waking Up. Although I don't know how well Sam Harris is received here on HN, I finished it last night and thought it very thought provoking, especially when considering this relationship between the physical brain and our resulting subjective conscious experience.

by sago 8y ago

Simon_says 8y ago

> I think it can be useful to think of 'god' that way (as in the will of god, the desires of god, the thoughts of god), as much as a corporation, a culture, a nation. That does not sound useful in the slightest.

sago 8y ago
Do you mean 'god' as a synonym of theistic-religion groupthink? The idea of religious groupthink? Or the idea of groupthink in any context?
- goodmachine 8y ago
  Bold move to mention 'god' on HN. I think the analogy is striking (therefore at least rhetorically useful) in the sense that it challenges the idea of ourselves merely ending where our bodies do. Socialisation and attendant technologies suggest otherwise: there's plenty of 'me' which is opaque to me, of me that precedes me, of me that derived from other minds. 'I' may even reside briefly in other minds, such as (trivially) in the form of this comment. The more we look at how individuals are structured from somatic to social levels, the less convincing the notion of individuality becomes.
  - sago 8y ago
    Probably also a dumb move, since it was incidental to my point, and probably skips a crucial argument step. Oh well. I definitely agree with your last sentence. And this can be as simple as the idea, often observed, that someone 'lives on' in the minds of their loved ones after death. For me that is entirely non supernatural or mystical. As you say (and nicely phrased) our identity is a function of everything from the somatic to the social level.

ZeroFries 8y ago

This works to some extent, but does not account for consciousness. A mind, at the very least a moment of experience, is a coherent whole. Your left and right visual fields are bound together. Thinking of neurons as entirely discrete units makes the binding problem insoluble.

sago 8y ago
> This works to some extent, but does not account for consciousness. True, although consciousness itself is rather poorly defined. There are also other related issues like qualia. But I'm not sure it needs to 'account' for those things. To observe that there are certain mental phenomena that are evident at different scales. > A mind, at the very least a moment of experience, is a coherent whole. That rather assumes your conclusion. In the example of a divided brain, a stimuli may be presented to only half the brain. How would one know whether one's experience of 'coherent whole'ness was accurate? > Thinking of neurons as entirely discrete units makes the binding problem insoluble. No more than thinking of base pairs in your DNA as discrete units makes higher order phylogenesis insoluble. To recognise that discrete units are simple does not mean that large aggregates of them cannot display fundamentally different dynamics.
theWheez 8y ago
This question is considered in Sam Harris' Waking Up. Although I don't know how well Sam Harris is received here on HN, I finished it last night and thought it very thought provoking, especially when considering this relationship between the physical brain and our resulting subjective conscious experience.