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Great, I'd like to ask you some questions, as most talk I've heard along these lines is beyond vague. I'd be great if you could clarify some questions I have ab

Great, I'd like to ask you some questions, as most talk I've heard along these lines is beyond vague. I'd be great if you could clarify some questions I have about the idea. My questions might be so off-base from your mental model of how things work they may seem ridiculous, but that would stem from me never hearing more than vague hand waves about "radio receiver" brains and such. #1: What is the division of labor between the physical mind (PM) and the non-physical mind (NPM)? Eg, is the NPM doing all the thinking, and the PM is just carrying out the instructions? Or does the PM do some share of the work and the NPM just nudges it when need be, like making free will decisions? #2: What is the NPM doing while the PM is sleeping? There is some metabolic reason for the mind to sleep 1/3 of the time, but presumably the NPM has no such need. Is it still thinking all that time, or does it sleep too? #3: When the PM is damaged in specific ways, perhaps catastrophically, what do you think the NPM is doing? Does it get frustrated that the PM can no longer receive the full message? For example, in the case of an Alzheimers patient. #4: By what mechanism does the NPM communicate its thoughts/wishes to the PM? Does it incur a violation of the physical laws in the PM? #5: Likewise to #4, how does the PM communicate to the NPM so the NPM knows what is going on? Because written communication is ambiguous, I'll explicitly state these are sincere questions.

maxfan8 5y ago
If you’re interested in learning about other metaphysical possibilities, George Berkeley’s works could be worth a read. One of his big statements is that “to be is to be perceived” — that is, anything that cannot be perceived doesn’t actually exist. Berkeley makes a pretty decent argument for this and his work is fairly influential in the realm of metaphysics (UC Berkeley is named after him). I interpreted the original comment to mean that the mind is necessary for reality (i.e. there is no meaningful reality outside the mind), which is very close to what Berkeley is gesturing at. Either way, the questions you’re asking (which all themselves presuppose a certain metaphysical interpretation of the world) have interesting implications (it seems like what you’re driving at is similar to the mind-body problem). Hope you found this interesting!
- mistermann 5y ago
  > One of his big statements is that “to be is to be perceived” — that is, anything that cannot be perceived doesn’t actually exist. Berkeley makes a pretty decent argument for this... Do you know of where a person could read a summary of his argument?
  - maxfan8 5y ago
    The original text is the best, I think (maybe look at Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy's treatment of the subject [1]). The way I like to think of Berkeley's position is like an equivalence argument. Suppose one is arguing that mind-independent objects exist (that is, there are things out there that cannot be perceived, but one claims to exist). Berkeley's conception of the world (in which such undetectable objects do not exist) is equivalent, at least from the perspective of any observer. Any mind/observer in the world, by construction, cannot perceive or detect (even indirectly) mind-independent objects. If they could, then those objects wouldn't be mind-independent. So a world in which mind-independent objects exist is indistinguishable from Berkeley's world. Does it really make sense when materialists argue that unobservable, undetectable, totally unperceivable and uninferrable things in this world actually exist? So, Berkeley argues that reality is actually contingent on our minds (and he tries to show that this isn't as big of a deal as it sounds). Berkeley's real argument goes a bit differently (as I understand it), but I think a claim of functional equivalence may be more convincing for people with a math/CS background. [1]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/#2.1 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/#2.1
    - mistermann 5y ago
      > The way I like to think of Berkeley's position is like an equivalence argument. Suppose one is arguing that mind-independent objects exist (that is, there are things out there that cannot be perceived, but one claims to exist). Berkeley's conception of the world (in which such undetectable objects do not exist) is equivalent, at least from the perspective of any observer. Any mind/observer in the world, by construction, cannot perceive or detect (even indirectly) mind-independent objects. If they could, then those objects wouldn't be mind-independent. So a world in which mind-independent objects exist is indistinguishable from Berkeley's world. This seems like not a sound argument to me....is it not tautological, or, simply an observation that perception of reality does not necessarily match actual reality? If one was to imprison a child in a room from day one, they would have no way to perceive what is outside the room, yet multiple outside observers would agree in very high detail that certain specific things outside the room do exist. Does this scenario not consist of some sort of a reasonable disproof of this theory? And if the counter-argument is that the perception of the outsiders is what causes those objects to exist, if we then killed all of those outside observers (say, just a few researchers who are aware of what is in the room surrounding the child's room), would the objects in that room then cease to exist (and if so, by what mechanism that we reasonably know exists)? From your link: >> Berkeley presents here the following argument (see Winkler 1989, 138): >> (1) We perceive ordinary objects (houses, mountains, etc.). >> (2) We perceive only ideas. >> Therefore, >> (3) Ordinary objects are ideas. To me, the obvious flaw here is that there seems to be an implicit "only" perceived within the conclusion: "Ordinary objects are [only] ideas [and nothing else]." This is an extremely common error that the human mind makes, but you'd think that a philosopher would catch it in review of an idea (or the reviewers, who say: "The argument is valid, and premise (1) looks hard to deny."), so I feel like I must be missing something in the argument. > Does it really make sense when materialists argue that unobservable, undetectable, totally unperceivable and uninferrable things in this world actually exist? It makes complete sense to me (and I typically disagree with materialists)! > So, Berkeley argues that reality is actually contingent on our minds (and he tries to show that this isn't as big of a deal as it sounds). I 100% believe that reality is contingent on our minds, but I disagree extremely with the idea that this isn't a big of a deal - I think it might be the biggest (unrecognized) deal out there.
smallmouth 5y ago
Great question! Yes, this line of reasoning is vague. New lines of inquiry can be quite vague until more is known. Here are my opinions to your questions: 1) The division of labor is straight forward. The brain collects the inputs and sends the information to the NPM; possibly instantaneously. 2) I think the need for sleep is by design for a multitude of reasons. I do not believe the NPM sleeps and may possibly be the most active PM <-> NPM state. 3) I believe the NPM carries on with the limited information that it is receiving. I don't think that it gets frustrated per se because perhaps it's existence is eternal in some way. 4) Some sort of "entanglement". I'm pretty confident that this mechanism violates the physical laws as we know them. 5) See #4
- solarmist 5y ago
  This is interesting. I hadn't heard this idea before. But it also describes another(if you ignore the wording and look at the ideas), simpler explanation, online and offline (plus garbage collection) training for the brain.
- jrhouston 5y ago
  This just sounds like a more sci-fi version of the Cartesian Theater.
rmah 5y ago
Wait what? I though smallmouth's comment was a joke. DO serious people actually think this?
- tasty_freeze 5y ago
  Yes, they do. All dualists have open themselves up to questions like this, though I suspect few have thought too hard about it. How many people believe in a soul that exists beyond the corporal body? Billions, probably. When asked, why is it when specific parts of the physical brain are damaged, specific (and often predictable) types of deficits occur, the answer given is something like this: if you damage a radio receiver, it is normal that it can't receive certain signals. That is why I asked about what smallmouth's model was for situations like this: if the physical mind is damaged, does the non-physical mind remain intact but simply gets frustrated that the physical mind isn't carrying out its wishes? I've also heard this kind of talk from some in the psychedelic community. They've had experiences that feel so real yet are incoherent with their understanding of the apparent "real world." Rather than concluding that these small molecules have simply interfered with our brain's ability to model reality and their drug-induced experience was an illusion, they instead think their mind lives in a larger reality and communicates with their earth-bound physical brain, and that a lot gets lost in the translation.
  - throwaw65536 5y ago
    > Rather than concluding that these small molecules have simply interfered with our brain's ability to model reality and their drug-induced experience was an illusion, they instead think their mind lives in a larger reality and communicates with their earth-bound physical brain, and that a lot gets lost in the translation. Oh boy, have I been there. Psychedelic experiences really test the foundations of your world view. I am definitely not a dualist, but I can still vividly remember experiencing existence outside of time. When the dust settled I arrives at a panpsychic explanation, in that I expect consciousness to be a property of the computation that occurs in the universe, whereas brains are a particularly sophisticated nested computer. It just doesn't seem right any more that consciousness would occur in the brain, but not outside of it. It's all space dust anyway - to believe that brain space dust is somehow special for some reason seems as unreasonable as the beliefs of a dualist. Not sure how crazy I am to be thinking this (doesn't everyone think their own worldview is the sane one?), but I can very easily imagine people coming up with all sorts of even crazier interpretations of their experience.

maxfan8 5y ago

If you’re interested in learning about other metaphysical possibilities, George Berkeley’s works could be worth a read. One of his big statements is that “to be is to be perceived” — that is, anything that cannot be perceived doesn’t actually exist. Berkeley makes a pretty decent argument for this and his work is fairly influential in the realm of metaphysics (UC Berkeley is named after him). I interpreted the original comment to mean that the mind is necessary for reality (i.e. there is no meaningful reality outside the mind), which is very close to what Berkeley is gesturing at. Either way, the questions you’re asking (which all themselves presuppose a certain metaphysical interpretation of the world) have interesting implications (it seems like what you’re driving at is similar to the mind-body problem). Hope you found this interesting!

mistermann 5y ago
> One of his big statements is that “to be is to be perceived” — that is, anything that cannot be perceived doesn’t actually exist. Berkeley makes a pretty decent argument for this... Do you know of where a person could read a summary of his argument?
- maxfan8 5y ago
  The original text is the best, I think (maybe look at Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy's treatment of the subject [1]). The way I like to think of Berkeley's position is like an equivalence argument. Suppose one is arguing that mind-independent objects exist (that is, there are things out there that cannot be perceived, but one claims to exist). Berkeley's conception of the world (in which such undetectable objects do not exist) is equivalent, at least from the perspective of any observer. Any mind/observer in the world, by construction, cannot perceive or detect (even indirectly) mind-independent objects. If they could, then those objects wouldn't be mind-independent. So a world in which mind-independent objects exist is indistinguishable from Berkeley's world. Does it really make sense when materialists argue that unobservable, undetectable, totally unperceivable and uninferrable things in this world actually exist? So, Berkeley argues that reality is actually contingent on our minds (and he tries to show that this isn't as big of a deal as it sounds). Berkeley's real argument goes a bit differently (as I understand it), but I think a claim of functional equivalence may be more convincing for people with a math/CS background. [1]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/#2.1 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/#2.1
  - mistermann 5y ago
    > The way I like to think of Berkeley's position is like an equivalence argument. Suppose one is arguing that mind-independent objects exist (that is, there are things out there that cannot be perceived, but one claims to exist). Berkeley's conception of the world (in which such undetectable objects do not exist) is equivalent, at least from the perspective of any observer. Any mind/observer in the world, by construction, cannot perceive or detect (even indirectly) mind-independent objects. If they could, then those objects wouldn't be mind-independent. So a world in which mind-independent objects exist is indistinguishable from Berkeley's world. This seems like not a sound argument to me....is it not tautological, or, simply an observation that perception of reality does not necessarily match actual reality? If one was to imprison a child in a room from day one, they would have no way to perceive what is outside the room, yet multiple outside observers would agree in very high detail that certain specific things outside the room do exist. Does this scenario not consist of some sort of a reasonable disproof of this theory? And if the counter-argument is that the perception of the outsiders is what causes those objects to exist, if we then killed all of those outside observers (say, just a few researchers who are aware of what is in the room surrounding the child's room), would the objects in that room then cease to exist (and if so, by what mechanism that we reasonably know exists)? From your link: >> Berkeley presents here the following argument (see Winkler 1989, 138): >> (1) We perceive ordinary objects (houses, mountains, etc.). >> (2) We perceive only ideas. >> Therefore, >> (3) Ordinary objects are ideas. To me, the obvious flaw here is that there seems to be an implicit "only" perceived within the conclusion: "Ordinary objects are [only] ideas [and nothing else]." This is an extremely common error that the human mind makes, but you'd think that a philosopher would catch it in review of an idea (or the reviewers, who say: "The argument is valid, and premise (1) looks hard to deny."), so I feel like I must be missing something in the argument. > Does it really make sense when materialists argue that unobservable, undetectable, totally unperceivable and uninferrable things in this world actually exist? It makes complete sense to me (and I typically disagree with materialists)! > So, Berkeley argues that reality is actually contingent on our minds (and he tries to show that this isn't as big of a deal as it sounds). I 100% believe that reality is contingent on our minds, but I disagree extremely with the idea that this isn't a big of a deal - I think it might be the biggest (unrecognized) deal out there.

smallmouth 5y ago

Great question! Yes, this line of reasoning is vague. New lines of inquiry can be quite vague until more is known. Here are my opinions to your questions: 1) The division of labor is straight forward. The brain collects the inputs and sends the information to the NPM; possibly instantaneously. 2) I think the need for sleep is by design for a multitude of reasons. I do not believe the NPM sleeps and may possibly be the most active PM <-> NPM state. 3) I believe the NPM carries on with the limited information that it is receiving. I don't think that it gets frustrated per se because perhaps it's existence is eternal in some way. 4) Some sort of "entanglement". I'm pretty confident that this mechanism violates the physical laws as we know them. 5) See #4

solarmist 5y ago
This is interesting. I hadn't heard this idea before. But it also describes another(if you ignore the wording and look at the ideas), simpler explanation, online and offline (plus garbage collection) training for the brain.
jrhouston 5y ago
This just sounds like a more sci-fi version of the Cartesian Theater.

rmah 5y ago

Wait what? I though smallmouth's comment was a joke. DO serious people actually think this?

tasty_freeze 5y ago
Yes, they do. All dualists have open themselves up to questions like this, though I suspect few have thought too hard about it. How many people believe in a soul that exists beyond the corporal body? Billions, probably. When asked, why is it when specific parts of the physical brain are damaged, specific (and often predictable) types of deficits occur, the answer given is something like this: if you damage a radio receiver, it is normal that it can't receive certain signals. That is why I asked about what smallmouth's model was for situations like this: if the physical mind is damaged, does the non-physical mind remain intact but simply gets frustrated that the physical mind isn't carrying out its wishes? I've also heard this kind of talk from some in the psychedelic community. They've had experiences that feel so real yet are incoherent with their understanding of the apparent "real world." Rather than concluding that these small molecules have simply interfered with our brain's ability to model reality and their drug-induced experience was an illusion, they instead think their mind lives in a larger reality and communicates with their earth-bound physical brain, and that a lot gets lost in the translation.
- throwaw65536 5y ago
  > Rather than concluding that these small molecules have simply interfered with our brain's ability to model reality and their drug-induced experience was an illusion, they instead think their mind lives in a larger reality and communicates with their earth-bound physical brain, and that a lot gets lost in the translation. Oh boy, have I been there. Psychedelic experiences really test the foundations of your world view. I am definitely not a dualist, but I can still vividly remember experiencing existence outside of time. When the dust settled I arrives at a panpsychic explanation, in that I expect consciousness to be a property of the computation that occurs in the universe, whereas brains are a particularly sophisticated nested computer. It just doesn't seem right any more that consciousness would occur in the brain, but not outside of it. It's all space dust anyway - to believe that brain space dust is somehow special for some reason seems as unreasonable as the beliefs of a dualist. Not sure how crazy I am to be thinking this (doesn't everyone think their own worldview is the sane one?), but I can very easily imagine people coming up with all sorts of even crazier interpretations of their experience.