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> We know a ton about the brain but so little about the mind itself. We still don't have definitive answers to what consciousness is, why it's here, what's usef
by nzp 13y ago
> We know a ton about the brain but so little about the mind itself. We still don't have definitive answers to what consciousness is, why it's here, what's useful for, etc. Some people debate whether the mind exists at all. Also, there's still very little understanding of the difference between the conscious and unconscious mind.
One of the really, really bad consequences of the Cold War was the scientific divide between East and West. By that I mean serious lack of scientific data exchange between the blocks. The consequences are still felt and this area (the problem of consciousness) is the one that suffered. The problem of "consciousness" was basically solved, at least at a conceptual level, by Soviet psychology and neuropsychology. Here I refer, of course, to the work of Vygotsky and Luria. What is consciousness? Almost nothing at all by itself. Consciousness as found in humans is a consequence of our cognitive development and the advanced symbolic capabilities of humans. The subjective perception we have of the thing we call consciousness is "simply" (it's not really simple when you get into details) a product of humans acquiring language skills (I'm simplifying).
This is not to say the subject is trivial, it takes volumes to describe what is happening, but the thing we informally call "consciousness" is really nothing at all in and of itself, and the perception we have of it is just a result of the very complicated process of cognitive development. Thin air, like Lisp's cons.
If you want to read on it I can recommend Vygotsky's Language and Thought (actually, it's his only book) and Luria's Language and Consciousness (I'm not sure it was ever translated into English, it's a collection of his lecture notes from a university course he did on the subject) or possibly The Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundations.
Why this line of thinking is mostly ignored in the West I have no idea. Why do we still cling to metaphysical (even religious I would say) phantasies about "consciousness" is an interesting topic itself. Is it because it's romantic to think there's something special, transcendent, about our minds? Are we really that sentimental? I have some hypotheses, but it's a different topic.
- code4life 13y agoWell, there are other ideas. As science leads you to believe that your consciousness is nothing at all (according to your description), bible based christianity tells you that your conscious is part of your soul, which is the part of you that lives forever. It is independent of your body, which will eventually be replaced with a perfect body.
- mamcx 13y agoNope. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_in_the_Bible http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_in_the_Bible
- debt 13y agoI think that's another possible narrative for the mind but it's certainly not hard science. There's no concrete data showing where the mind is in our bodies or what part of the brain creates it. Psycology can't answer questions like where does the mind come from or what is experience. It's an interesting narrative though and I'll check out those books.
- nzp 13y ago> Psycology can't answer questions like where does the mind come from or what is experience. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. Of course it can, that's the whole purpose of psychology (and, more fashionably, neuroscience of course). To me that sounds like saying science can't answer these questions. Do note that when I say "psychology" I mean strictly the scientific areas of whatever comes in the bag labelled "psychology". Due to historical accidents the term acquired a lot of BS pseudo-scientific baggage, and it's really a shame those things can detract from a wealth of valuable hard results honest scientific psychology uncovered. The answer that developmental cognitive psychology, at least the theory I'm referring to, gives is that "the mind" comes from the only place it can come from: neural processes and the way they hook into environmental interactions of the organism (social and physical). The key to understanding what gives rise to "consciousness" is in understanding the role of language acquisition in broader cognitive development. The point where a child utters it's first words is neither the beginning nor the end of this extremely nuanced process. In my first post I took it for granted it's understood that this is not just armchair speculation, it's based on empirical data. As any good scientific theory it's far from complete, maybe in some details is inaccurate but it's certainly infinitely better that an endless philosophical debate (with strong religious, or in the best case idealist, undertones) on what the mind is and where it comes from.
- haberman 13y ago> it's based on empirical data What empirical data can say anything about, for example, the philosophical zombie problem? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
- araes 13y agoCompared to Russia, and most of the former soviet block, the US is a fairly religious place. In most of the "importance of religion" surveys we rank in the ~50% "yes" category whereas Russia is consistently ranked as one of the least religious places on Earth. (See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_cou...). It seems only natural that the US would have a lot of metaphysical threads woven thru its work on conciousness. <caveat, writing from a town w a 10 block long street that's pure churches, so...bias>