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Poll: Do you think that the mind is physical or not?

12 points by solipsist 16y ago

Although partially inspired by this survey (http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/what-is-consciousness/), I have been curious about this concept for a while. That is, what the mind and its consciousness really are. In a sense, there are only two views that you can have with regards to this mind-body problem: Physicalism - The mind (its mental functions, consciousness, sense of identity, etc.) are nothing more than physical properties. Dualism - The mind is composed of a different substance or property than physical matter is It'd be great to see your perspectives on this issue.

barkmadley 16y ago
The problem with Dualism, is that we have no way of determining the communication mechanism by which the non-physical part of the mind affects the physical part of the brain, so it is unlikely that one exists at all. If no communication gateway exists between a particular mind and a particular body, then it is almost impossible to say that Dualism can be correct.
- solipsist 16y ago
  I think that comprehending the non-physical part is just as hard as comprehending the communication gateway. In other words, if you can comprehend one, you can probably comprehend the other.
acidblue 16y ago
Unfortunately, I believe in Physicalism. I say unfortunately because it would be awesome if there was something beyond it but, it just is what it is.
noonespecial 16y ago
Is software physical? The computer certainly is, but what is the software? I'd have to say dualist with reservations. Certainly the mind can't exist without the brain, but the brain is a constantly refreshing and changing thing. Eventually every cell I'm made up of will be a different cell than before... Is a wave on the ocean water? It seems like a lot of interesting things in reality in that the closer you look, the harder it is to say anything with certainty.
- dazzawazza 16y ago
  Of course software is physical. It comes in two common forms: electrons stored on silicon wafer and magnetic particles stored on a platter. It also exists in light form (fibre optic transmission) and ink form (but only during the 1980s). If you think these representations are any different from humans or the mind then you've got a lot of explaining to do.
  - ldh 16y ago
    If you think these representations are any different from humans or the mind then you've got a lot of explaining to do. I want to emphasize that last bit. I think the last two poll options are equivalent. Either you believe that the mind emerges from demonstrable, physical, and ultimately testable properties, or you just don't know. That doesn't preclude there being "something else" on its own, but the burden is on you to demonstrate what it is that you actually believe. "I don't know, something else which I can't identify" is a position which is frustratingly common in current society but, in my opinion, completely indefensible.
    - JoeAltmaier 16y ago
      There isn't actually any burden on anybody to prove what they believe. Perhaps if the goal is to win an argument, yes. Probably indefensible to believe a non-physical basis, but then again you have to want to defend your belief, which is again not required. So, no, I have no explaining to do.
      - ldh 16y ago
        Ok, fair enough. If the idea is to just state what you believe without further discussion, go nuts. However, if we're discussing it (and the fact that comments exist for this poll leads me to believe that we are) I would ask if you care whether what you believe is actually true. If so, it's not rude of me to ask you to demonstrate that. If not, that's an indicator for me to run away.
        16y ago
endtime 16y ago
I voted for physicalism, but I don't really like this framing. I wouldn't say that, say, the Y combinator is a physical object. But I do think it's possible to implement it in hardware (or in software running on hardware). Likewise, our minds are implemented in hardware, but to say they are hardware feels slightly awkward. Of course, I don't mean to justify dualism, which is kind of a mysterious answer to a mysterious question [1]. 1: http://lesswrong.com/lw/iu/mysterious_answers_to_mysterious_questions/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/iu/mysterious_answers_to_mysterious_...
- parfe 16y ago
  I understand your reasoning, but I don't think you took it far enough. If something can be implemented in hardware, than it is hardware. If your mind could exist as a machine than I could print out schematics with every switch/gate/electron position set so your mind could be rebuilt elsewhere. YCombinator is physical because a mapping of the ram, physical storage, and CPU state would be enough to reproduce this site. Nothing about this website exists beyond our understanding of physics.
  - Mz 16y ago
    Nothing about this website exists beyond our understanding of physics. Reputation, membership, sense of community -- none of that could be automatically replicated by replicating the "site" and all of those things play a big role in making it what it is, giving it the value it has, causing it to function the way it does. I believe in reincarnation, so I believe our minds are separate from our bodies and go on after our bodies cease to function. I mean, what is "life" anyway? What causes a physical construct to be a living, breathing entity one second and dead the next? Life. Magic. Pretty much the same, I think.
    - barkmadley 16y ago
      I think the original mention of the Y Combinator was in reference to "The Y Combinator" [1] which is implementable in hardware. A community website cannot be implemented in hardware because it is not implemented in isolation of the people who use it. *1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_combinator#Y_combinator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_combinator#Y_combin...
DonCarlitos 16y ago
I have always viewed the mind, which extends through the CNS to fingers & toes, as a platform for cognition & memory. It is very likely that actual information is contained, processed and stored in the temporary geometric constructs created when multiple synapses fire. Think "fabric storage." So in that model, the "mind" is both.
solipsist 16y ago
Functionalism is very similar to physicalism. An interesting corollary to functionalism is that mental states are "said to be realized on multiple levels." In other words, computers and other systems could have the same sense sense of identity as humans. From Wikipedia's article on Functionalism: "Since mental states are identified by a functional role, they are said to be realized on multiple levels; in other words, they are able to be manifested in various systems, even perhaps computers, so long as the system performs the appropriate functions. While computers are physical devices with electronic substrate that perform computations on inputs to give outputs, so brains are physical devices with neural substrate that perform computations on inputs which produce behaviors." Just something interesting to think about...
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  All well and good to decribe the process of "identifying" mental states. But we all know, being inside of a brain and thinking as we read this, that something other than behavior is involved with consciousness.
  - ppod 16y ago
    "But we all know, being inside of a brain and thinking as we read this, that something other than behavior is involved with consciousness You shouldn't say "we all know". I definitely don't know that.
    - JoeAltmaier 16y ago
      So there is no ego inside your head, no awareness of yourself? Am I talking to a spam bot or something? But you're right, I should have said "I know" since I can't know what's in your head.
      - ppod 16y ago
        I think that 'ego' and 'awareness' are abstractions we have invented in order to communicate about how we experience our perceptions, memories, and actions subjectively. However all of these perceptions, memories, emotions, and actions are, fundamentally, behaviours implemented by neurons, as is the 'subjective' self-aware experiencing that we do. It is all 'behaviour'.
shasta 16y ago
You left out Solipsism - "I believe that the physical is all in my mind"
- solipsist 16y ago
  Irony at its greatest
  - shasta 16y ago
    Hah! I didn't notice.
- hrrld 16y ago
  And by you, you mean I.
shawndumas 16y ago
Gordon H. Clark: "If [...] a thought is a physical or chemical motion inside the brain, it can be illustrated by a pitched ball in Yankee Stadium. The stadium represents the brain or body; the pitched ball is the thought. Suppose the first pitch of the game is an inside curve. Now, since the pitch is a dated event, it cannot have happened previously to this game, nor can it be repeated in a later inning. Of course, a pitch in the third inning may also be an inside curve; but it cannot be identical to the first. The inside curve in the third inning comes fifteen minutes later; its speed is not precisely the same; and it breaks about a half-inch higher. That means that I can never have the same thought twice. If I think thought X at 2:21 P.M., I cannot have that thought again at 3:12 or ever after. Behaviorism makes memory impossible. The most obvious answer to this is that these two pitches resemble each other so closely that one cannot tell the difference between them. Hence, though we can never have the exact same thought, we can nonetheless have a similar thought. But this reply complicates the situation. The thought that the curve in the third inning is similar to the curve in the first inning has to be a newly pitched ball (e.g. the knuckle ball in the fourth inning). Similarity is itself a chemical motion inside the brain. It is as much a dated pitch as the other two. It came five or ten minutes after the pitch in the third inning. How then can a chemical motion ten minutes after the second curve connect two motions that no longer exist? Behaviorism therefore cannot discover that any two chemical motion are similar. There is a further complication. It is all the more obvious that none of these pitches, nor any other in the Yankee Stadium, can be the motion of a different ball in San Diego. The San Diego diamond is a different mind. Two minds can never have the same pitch. That is why no one else can have the least idea of what Skinner and Ryle mean. Nor can they themselves have any idea of what they wrote, now that the inning is over."
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  Goofy thinking. Just because two things are demonstrably different instances of something, doesn't mean they can't be in all meaningful ways congruent. The pitched-ball metaphor doesn't begin to touch memory, learning and association, which we use to compare ideas.
  - shawndumas 16y ago
aswanson 16y ago
How about, yes and no. Is information processing physical or a property of a physical mechanism performing a function. The question, in my opinion, is akin to asking "Is my web browser physical or not?" It runs on a physical medium and is a consequence of physical matter and laws...so again, yes and no.
aphyr 16y ago
The mind is a process loosely defined by functional behaviors such as communicating, reasoning, and feeling. It arises from and is nothing more than the state of a sufficiently complex physical system and as such can be said to be physical. However it is important to recognize that systems may not be "physical" in the sense that electrons are physical. :)
faitswulff 16y ago
You say "nothing more than physical" as if we've figured out physics. I shall abstain from voting, as physics remains mind blowing.
Figs 16y ago
Unless you happen to be religious, this would seem to be more of a problem of word usage than a question about reality. It's not entirely obvious how to classify things that exist only as representations imposed on a different medium. Others have already pointed out that you have the same problem with software. You could construct quite a number of such confusing cases -- for example, is a spoken word a physical thing? What about a football game? How about the stock market? The issue here with these sorts of things is that meaning is attached to the state of some physical matter, but the meaning is not an inherent part of the matter itself -- at least as we'd usually classify it. I think probably the best thing to do with something like this is just to acknowledge it as a semantics issue and move on; I don't think you'll get much more insight into the subject of interest (thought, software, language, football, stocks, or whatever...) by worrying too much about its classification status as "physical" or not -- unless you're actually studying it for the point of studying the meta-issue of "problems relating to the attachment of meaning to physical things".
dasil003 16y ago
Although the nuances of the debate are interesting, I'm always a little disappointed when hackers and scientists lean towards physicalism. If you are of an analytical mindset, it's tempting to be drawn to explainable phenomena and to reject pie-in-the-sky and intractable philosophical questions. I think that just displays a disappointing lack of imagination, a fear of the unknowable, or both. That's why I had to opt for the neglected third-option. I just don't feel like we have sufficiently solid axioms to even approach such a question with any reasonable degree of certainty. Physicalism vs Dualism, for instance, hinges on the definition of physical, which might be conveniently defined as phenomena within the current physical subsystems we are aware of. In that case, what is defined as Dualism today could become Physicalism tomorrow as physics evolves. Or indeed, there may be dimensions of reality that are incomprehensible by us consciously due to the very nature of our meat brains, but which nevertheless we have some connection and effect on our brains but which will never be comprehensible due to limitations of our reasoning which has evolved under the constraints of meatspace. The idea that predictable behavior implies determinism will never be credible in my mind because we will never be able to observe anywhere near enough of the universe and crunch all the numbers to be sure that there aren't unobservable inputs that we've missed. There is no microscope or telescope powerful enough. edit: I don't normally complain about downvotes, but a driveby downvote on something this carefully written is a truly cowardly act. Why not step up and actually justify your kneejerk reaction?
- Udo 16y ago
  That's odd, I'm always disappointed when hackers or scientists lean towards an esoteric view of consciousness, mainly because we should be supremely well suited to realize that the mind is not a concept that somehow requires supernatural augmentation to be feasible. Dealing with both information processing and the nature of reality every day, I feel there is really no excuse for hackers and scientists to evoke the metaphysical. I also think postulating a supernatural component to consciousness prevents an observer from really noticing the phenomenal beauty of the natural processes involved.
  - dasil003 16y ago
    > That's odd, I'm always disappointed when hackers or scientists lean towards an esoteric view of consciousness, mainly because we should be supremely well suited to realize that the mind is not a concept that somehow requires supernatural augmentation to be feasible See, that right there betrays a misunderstanding of my entire point. Why must we be only focused on what is required for something to exist? Why the obsession with cause and effect at all levels? I agree this stuff is fascinating, fun, and an epic quest unto itself. But if you try to invoke Occam's Razor after your girlfriend dumps you, you're going to be as clueless Eisenberg's fictional Zuckerberg was in that situation. To distill all the nuance, joy and sorrow of the human experience into that which can be analyzed, measured, quantified and recorded in a canonical model is a sad existence. It is as if you are content to never taste fresh fruit because frozen fruit contains all the same constituents.
prodigal_erik 16y ago
Take a sand castle. The sand clearly exists here and now, as do the bonds holding it together. But I see no reason to presume some (undetectable) layer of reality in which the castle would really exist in the same sense the sand does. The castle is just our rolled-up perception of how the bonded sand happens to behave until the tide returns.
hfinney 16y ago
The problem with functionalism is the difficulty of unambiguously determining whether a given system implements a given calculation. This is inconsistent with the need to say that a given system definitely either is or is not conscious.
jasonzemos 16y ago
Consider a synthesis of the two -- and then perhaps this is the wrong question to be asking. The mind may appear physical in the ways we can observe it, even if we were to record and analyze every single neuron and synapse and draw accurate conclusions on thought. This is the same as if you were to write a 3D game called 'medschool' and have doctors in training, who are also programs inside that program, dissect brains to see how they operate -- yet the code is running elsewhere. Is that mind, which is just a rendering, considered physical? The dualist argument appears akin to the Bergsonian Élan vital. It seems to imply there is a hypostasis where physical matter meets this otherness matter. Consider that, according to that theory, if the brain were to be fully observed in the manner stated above, there would be no conclusions able to be drawn from its actions. What a flaw in the universe! I do not believe this system which has been so elegantly designed would have such a gaping hole. Physicalism++
RuadhanMc 16y ago
I'll let you know in about 100 years.
marssaxman 16y ago
The question is poorly formed. What other kind of matter is there than "physical matter"?

Udo 16y ago
> Why must we be only focused on what is required for something to exist? I believe it's important to distinguish between a scientific world view and a spiritual one. In the world of science and curiosity, we always ask why something is the way it is. Looking at the requirements for a phenomenon can be a tool in this process, but it's not the only one. In this scientific world, separating and understanding cause and effect is extremely important, it's part of the mission. You call it obsession, and maybe that's a fair charge, but it's really one of the things necessary for constructing scientifically meaningful models. > But to distill all the nuance, joy and sorrow of the human experience into that which can be analyzed, measured, quantified and recorded in a canonical model is a sad existence. Please realize that not all of us think this way. For some of us, making stuff up because it somehow resonates with our hearts is the definition of a sad existence. Some of us want to analyze, measure and quantify the universe simply because it is vast and awesome, and revealing the underlying mechanisms of it is extremely rewarding. On a personal note, I believe that religious and supernatural world views cheapen much of the nuance, joy and sorrow of the human experience. And yes, we all feel those things, and they're not a religious experience. We're scientists, not robotic kitchen appliances.
- dasil003 16y ago
  > I believe it's important to distinguish between a scientific world view and a spiritual one. Why? > In the world of science and curiosity, we always ask why something is the way it is. So the spritual world is not curious? What about when you ask yourself why the universe exists? Do you then stick your fingers in your ears and chant lalala because it is a scientifically intractable question? > In this scientific world, separating and understanding cause and effect is extremely important, it's part of the mission. You call it obsession Yes, but let me state unequivocally that you do not need to define yourself by science in order to perform science with integrity. Such thinking is actually a form of faith: that science is the only source of meaning. > Please realize that not all of us think this way. Yes, I was just stating my opinion. It was clear that you do not think this way. However I believe you are a critical thinker and that I may at least get you to appreciate why I would see things that way. > For some of us, making stuff up because it somehow resonates with our hearts is the definition of a sad existence. You're using "making stuff up" in a subtly pejorative way here, but everyone makes stuff up. Making stuff up is also part and parcel of science. In fact it is the essence of sentience. Resonating with your heart is an orthogonal issue which applies equally well to science or philosophical endeavours; we can all be trapped or misled by it. But the material difference between philosophy and science is that science is only concerned with testable hypotheses. But are testable hypotheses the only important things in life? > Some of us want to analyze, measure and quantify the universe simply because it is vast and awesome, and revealing the underlying mechanisms of it is extremely rewarding. I agree, which I alluded to in my previous reply. > I believe that religious and supernatural world views cheapen much of the nuance, joy and sorrow of the human experience. Sure, but so too does pseudo-science cheapen science, or inferior ideas cheapen great ideas. Don't use religious nuts as a strawman to justify an atheistic hubris that nothing exists beyond what our physical instruments are capable of revealing. In closing, let me state that I don't hold onto any particular belief and use it as a shield against evidence and reason; as no doubt you have witnessed among a certain type of faithful individual and which has shaped your opinion of "the spiritual world". Instead I just take the nature of my own consciousness as evidence that there is something bigger going on here than we can be aware of from within our meatsacks. This is undeniably a form of faith, because of course there is no firm evidence for such a broad claim; but neither is there evidence against it, and it does not make me hostile to any form of observation and deduction that science can provide us. "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." —F. Scott Fitzgerald
  - Udo 16y ago
    > So the spritual world is not curious? No, it's not, by definition. Instead of finding out how stuff works, this particular philosophy prescribes just deciding how it should work and then believing this arbitrary decision to accurately reflect the nature of the universe. > What about when you ask yourself why the universe exists? Yes, I do, but I suspect that it's a different "why". Mine is causal, where I suspect yours is centered on some definition of cosmic meaning. The problem I have with this view is that it seems inappropriate to me. It's inappropriate to tag cosmic processes with a concept that should be reserved for intelligent life forms. > However I believe you are a critical thinker and that I may at least get you to appreciate why I would see things that way. I do, I'm sorry if I seemed overly aggressive. I'm just so used to religious people demanding scientific recognition of their views that I sometimes overshoot my target. However I have to admit that I sometimes feel deeply sad and disappointed. > Making stuff up is also part and parcel of science. In fact it is the essence of sentience. It's this fallacy which brought us a movement that explores "alternate theories" in biology class. Religion is not science. "Making stuff up" that is unsupportable by evidence is not science. I agree that making mental models is the essence of sentience, however it's not required that these models are unprovable and in contradiction of the laws of nature. > But are testable hypotheses the only important things in life? I believe when it comes to very important things, like the nature of reality for example, making testable hypotheses the basis of a person's mental models is the only important thing. Rejecting the whole stack of evidence and the hypotheses that came out of those observations in favor of something untestable and arbitrary does not seem like a viable strategy to understand the nature of the universe. In this context I need also to point out that there are important things in life that pertain to your personal life itself, not the universe. I'm just against mixing them up. > Don't use religious nuts as a strawman to justify an atheistic hubris that nothing exists beyond what our physical instruments are capable of revealing. It's not just about religious nuts, it's about a fundamental difference in perceiving the world. You call it atheistic hubris, I call it the growing impatience of rational people in the face of a world governed by fairy tales. When a fairy tale crosses the boundary from personal phantasy into a widespread public substitution for the provable truth, it becomes a lie designed to manipulate people. And I don't mean to imply that you hold this position, I merely want to explain why I feel so passionately about the issue. > I just take the nature of my own consciousness as evidence that there is something bigger going on here than we can be aware of from within our meatsacks. I know, this is where our fundamental disagreement comes from. I studied the sciences, I studied the human body, and I like to think that I thoroughly enjoy the very fact of our existence. I don't think our meatsacks are profane puppets in the service of an unseen force that floods the universe with artificial meaning. Instead I believe our "meatsacks" are marvelous, awesome machines and they gave rise to a form of consciousness that is unparalleled on this planet. Those meatsacks are the substrate, the hardware our consciousness runs on, and they're doing a pretty good job of it. > "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." For me, the supernatural is not a valid idea to begin with. I don't have to believe in any and every idea out there, I don't have to give them all equal weight. Nobody does that, even spiritual people don't do that.

dasil003 16y ago
> No, it's not, by definition. Instead of finding out how stuff works, this particular philosophy prescribes just deciding how it should work and then believing this arbitrary decision to accurately reflect the nature of the universe. Okay, this is actually just you projecting your beliefs onto what spirituality means. It is not by definition in any sense of the word. > It's inappropriate to tag cosmic processes with a concept that should be reserved for intelligent life forms. How do you know the universe is not an intelligent life form? > It's this fallacy which brought us a movement that explores "alternate theories" in biology class. Religion is not science. "Making stuff up" that is unsupportable by evidence is not science. Sigh When did I say it was? I explained clearly the difference between science and other forms of making stuff up, and you talked right past it. It is as if you believe human beings are incapable of thinking in both scientific and unscientific ways. > Rejecting the whole stack of evidence and the hypotheses that came out of those observations in favor of something untestable and arbitrary does not seem like a viable strategy to understand the nature of the universe. Who's rejecting anything? Science does not tell us whether there is a god or not. > You call it atheistic hubris, I call it the growing impatience of rational people in the face of a world governed by fairy tales. That's not what I call atheistic hubris. What I call atheistic hubris is that the lack of recognizable evidence of higher consciousness is evidence that there is no higher consciousness. The reason it is so hubristic is because we no idea what said evidence would look like. Declaring this one way or the other is not scientific, it is instead I believe, a psychological need to have a firm order in one's knowledge of the universe. I stand as evidence that this is not a pre-requisite for a true and healthy relationship with science. > I don't think our meatsacks are profane puppets in the service of an unseen force that floods the universe with artificial meaning. Instead I believe our "meatsacks" are marvelous, awesome machines and they gave rise to a form of consciousness that is unparalleled on this planet. Why do you say puppet? Trying to pigeonhole spiritual belief into some kind of biblical metaphor is exactly the attitude I'm fighting against. I'm not saying that your mind is not governed by chemical processes playing themselves out; I'm saying that even if that's 100% true (which is a very difficult truth to verify when you get down to the nuances), it doesn't mean there isn't something else going on on another level. Perhaps the universe is conscious and you are just one small part of that, or perhaps there are parallel dimensions that get the information from our universe in some read-only fashion. My point is not to arrive at the objective truth (how often do you arrive an objective unchanging truth in your interpersonal life?), but rather to leave myself open to bigger questions even if they remain unanswerable in any scientific capacity for the rest of time.