How to Well Define "Mind"?

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by xris

If you have found the answer then im happy for you.

But the answer was just given to us. The purpose of life is to ponder the purpose of life. Wasn't that it? I didn't find it. It was handed to me on a silver platter. I would never, in a million years, thought of it. I still find it hard to grasp. But that is only to be expected I suppose.

[xris]

Originally Posted by Patrick Roberts

I assume you're implying that the non-human entity doesn't qualify as a 'mind' because it doesn't have a personal interest in knowing its purpose, or that this is at least a big distinction in mind.

What is the meaning and use of a mind asking "What is my purpose?" The only useful paraphrase I can think of for this question is "What acts will lead to sensations of pleasure?"

A mind, in my sense, only a few steps above a thermostat, is constantly implicitly asking by its actions, experiments and learning of associations - "What acts under what conditions will lead to some sensation?" That sounds like it covers the pleasure question in the previous paragraph.

So this personal-purpose-asking threshold for mind doesn't seem very high. It's a bit higher than a thermostat, but it still boils down to the process of discovering what acts lead to sensations that satisfy goals. Or have I glossed over something?

If you think that a thermostat with the ability to ponder would be happy with his lot regulating your shower temperature , what can i say. Now if it could be just a bit evil and turn the heat up too high, like my bleeding shower, then that would be pleasurable and appear purposeful. What is this with your attention to a mechanical contraption.

---------- Post added 10-31-2009 at 03:18 PM ----------

Originally Posted by kennethamy

But the answer was just given to us. The purpose of life is to ponder the purpose of life. Wasn't that it? I didn't find it. It was handed to me on a silver platter. I would never, in a million years, thought of it. I still find it hard to grasp. But that is only to be expected I suppose.

Not exactly, we experience consciousness and ponder on our purpose, the purpose is not ponder but that is the result of not knowing our purpose.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by xris

If you think that a thermostat with the ability to ponder would be happy with his lot regulating your shower temperature , what can i say. Now if it could be just a bit evil and turn the heat up too high, like my bleeding shower, then that would be pleasurable and appear purposeful. What is this with your attention to a mechanical contraption.

---------- Post added 10-31-2009 at 03:18 PM ----------

Not exactly, we experience consciousness and ponder on our purpose, the purpose is not ponder but that is the result of not knowing our purpose.

Sorry. I was so excited at the prospect of finding out the purpose of life that I misread what you wrote. How do you know, though, that there is just one purpose? There may be a whole bunch of them. (And I might even ask how you know there are any at all).

[xris]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

Sorry. I was so excited at the prospect of finding out the purpose of life that I misread what you wrote. How do you know, though, that there is just one purpose? There may be a whole bunch of them. (And I might even ask how you know there are any at all).

I assumed you would assume the ultimate purpose. I feel in my private life i have found my purpose or an insignificant reason why my nose runs on purpose without my consent. If you dont then whats the point in philosophy?

[Patrick Roberts]

Since there's probably a "what is the purpose of life" thread elsewhere, or you could start one, I'll try to steer this thread back to mind...

Originally Posted by xris

What is this with your attention to a mechanical contraption.

If you're going to deny me my example of what mind essentially is, do you, or anyone here, have a better metaphor or analogy to replace it? You must be able to point to at least a few deep patterns in your mind's activity.

[xris]

Originally Posted by Patrick Roberts

Since there's probably a "what is the purpose of life" thread elsewhere, or you could start one, I'll try to steer this thread back to mind...



If you're going to deny me my example of what mind essentially is, do you, or anyone here, have a better metaphor or analogy to replace it? You must be able to point to at least a few deep patterns in your mind's activity.

Deep patterns, i dont think i have any patterns. I consider the mind to speculate on my brains activities and ask it why it nags me. I speculate on my animal urges that my brain signals me to carry out. I cant say it resembles anything like the pleasure of regulating my bath water. I think im missing something here, it must be me, sorry.

[paulhanke]

Originally Posted by Patrick Roberts

I guess it to mean a thing that doesn't merely model what you would consider to be outside its self, or its physical self, but its own thinking process - presumably like I'm doing with this post. I can understand wanting to limit 'mind' to that threshold, but to me, intuitively, it seems unfair to not use the word for a thing just shy of that standard, a thing that has beliefs, doubts them, has means, knows it has them, experiments with them, retries, communicates with other minds, has at least a coarse sense of itself and seeks to preserve that self, but just doesn't happen to be capable of 2nd order cybernetics-style reflection.

... if we take the cybernetics of thermal homeostasis as an aspect of being shared by both humans and thermostats, then the difference between the two is that the observer is part of the overall constitution of the system for the former ("I'm shivering - I'll catch my death! ...") whereas the observer is external to the system for the latter ("... I'd better turn the thermostat up!") ... assuming the observer is also a cybernetic system, then observer + being is a second-order cybernetic system ... the observer has beliefs ("I'll catch my death!"), means (the thermostat), and so on ... that the observer-as-cybernetic-system can turn and observe its own act of observing (self reflection) is a natural result of it being able to observe cybernetic systems ... not that any of this actually holds water, but it does provide more of a cybernetic theory of mind than that afforded by first-order cybernetics ...

[Patrick Roberts]

Originally Posted by xris

Deep patterns, i dont think i have any patterns. I consider the mind to speculate on my brains activities and ask it why it nags me. I speculate on my animal urges that my brain signals me to carry out. I cant say it resembles anything like the pleasure of regulating my bath water. I think im missing something here, it must be me, sorry.

I certainly admit that there's much more to explain about a human mind than my minimal thermostat mind shows. I just think that all other features of mind are well imagined as only complications of that thermostat.

For example, I don't consider pleasure to be merely analogous to reaching a goal. So a mere thermostat wouldn't have anything like pleasure or pain.

If you're concerned about qualia, unless you can shed some uncommon light on that problem, then I prefer to concentrate on function.

Precisely what differences between a human mind and this thermostat bother you most? I wouldn't want to overlook anything.

To me, turning on the air conditioner if I'm hot, seems to only differ from a thermostat's work in the sense that I happen to also have many other things to think about.

[xris]

Originally Posted by Patrick Roberts

I certainly admit that there's much more to explain about a human mind than my minimal thermostat mind shows. I just think that all other features of mind are well imagined as only complications of that thermostat.

For example, I don't consider pleasure to be merely analogous to reaching a goal. So a mere thermostat wouldn't have anything like pleasure or pain.

If you're concerned about qualia, unless you can shed some uncommon light on that problem, then I prefer to concentrate on function.

Precisely what differences between a human mind and this thermostat bother you most? I wouldn't want to overlook anything.

To me, turning on the air conditioner if I'm hot, seems to only differ from a thermostat's work in the sense that I happen to also have many other things to think about.

Well my thermostat needs no input its not a matter of deciding, it functions on its own, i sweat or shake. Its the reptilian brain that has that certain job.