How to Well Define "Mind"?

[Patrick Roberts]

It's very useful to imagine every act, including philosophy, as the work of a mind, but how best can you define mind? What precisely should distinguish an intelligent thing from a mindless one?

I'm fond of a distinction lifted from cybernetics: negative feedback loop with amplification. A thermostat is a simple example. I think this is a fundamental distinction, between a thing that's passive and a thing that preserves another thing, possibly itself.

I don't think we should reserve the word 'mind' for only human-like minds when artifacts little more complex than a thermostat can show ample intelligence and be immensely useful.

What do you think? Am I abusing the word? Too broad? Are there better terms for this distinction?


I go on at length about this, including a taxonomy of mind, in a book I'm writing. The whole text of it is in Flash and PDF at
Mind Making
Comments on any part of the book are welcome.

[mindbender]

A mind (to my mind) is a Pandora's Box; a cornucopia of elements made up from an individual's instinct, experiences, personality, aspirations and outside influences, operating both independently of, and at the same time completely dependant on, it's physical host. A mind is the physical manifestation of what some would call the 'soul', each being unique and also somewhat the same. It could also be said that a 'mind' is the engine that drives the evolutionary train, in that the mind is the first to face any need for evolutionary adaptation and to formulate the way forward through instinctual reaction to, and the physical reaction required to cope with such changes, as decided by 'the mind'.

[paulhanke]

... are you familiar with second-order cybernetics? (Second-order cybernetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) ... it seems to be somewhat more "mind"-ful than a simple thermostat ...

[xris]

If it was possible to create a mind that could consider its own existence, it would still not be as questioning as ourselves. It would know its origin and only look on bemused at our futile attempts of making sense of our existence.

[jgweed]

One might say, though, that a single definition of "mind" may not be possible or even desirable, and that how it is defined may vary to the point where "mind" ceases to be, strickly speaking, a simple object at all, but ends up a series of meanings dependent on the kind of question asked.

[Patrick Roberts]

Thanks to everyone who replied. I'll try to synthesize your ideas so far.

mindbender offered a list of experiences, which any theory of mind should explain using combinations of simpler and fewer ideas. I'll try to define them in terms of my pet model of sense->goal->means.

instinct: These seem to be goals given to our mind by our biology.
experiences: A mind's beliefs. Ex: temperature.
personality: What might this mean? Maybe part of a person's personality is that they're funny. Could this mean that they discovered that causing others to laugh is a means to their goals just as turning on the furnace is a means to raising the temperature?
aspirations: Conscious goals.
outside influences: A thermostat's certainly influenced by outside. You might a mean more lasting influence, which could easily be the case in a fancy thermostat or governor.

Does this seem to work? Or am I cheating somewhere?

paulhanke seemed to consider a thing capable of 2nd order cybernetic thinking to be more worthy of the word. I don't know anything about 2nd order cybernetics beyond the article you linked and what the name itself suggests. 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.

jgweed observed the usual challenges of language. Certainly the meaning of the sign 'mind' is contextual just as the meaning of anything depends on other things, at least in all but the most trivial minds. Still, it's nice to have well defined ideas, and then to attach them to an existing word that's semi-conscious associations fit it. I hope 'mind' fits my idea. Here, in the context of a philosophy forum, I'm going for the ultimate, most abstract, eternally useful sense of mind.

xris, can you, or anyone else, give a specific example of a question that human minds ask about their own existence but that a non-human couldn't? Ideally, a question that's answer would be useful.

[xris]

A non human entity, if invented by man, would or could be informed of its means and the purpose of its creation. It might ponder like us on our purpose and muse about our creator but its interest would not be personal . We have no such luxury, we appear to be here for no other reason than to experience consciousness and ponder on its purpose.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by xris

we appear to be here for no other reason than to experience consciousness and ponder on its purpose.

Hmmmm. That means I am doing lots of things that have nothing to do with my purpose in being here. Like eating and sleeping. Can it be that my purpose for existing is to ponder on my purpose for existing? Since we have the answer, why ponder?

[Patrick Roberts]

Originally Posted by xris

A non human entity, if invented by man, would or could be informed of its means and the purpose of its creation. It might ponder like us on our purpose and muse about our creator but its interest would not be personal . We have no such luxury, we appear to be here for no other reason than to experience consciousness and ponder on its purpose.

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?

[xris]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

Hmmmm. That means I am doing lots of things that have nothing to do with my purpose in being here. Like eating and sleeping. Can it be that my purpose for existing is to ponder on my purpose for existing? Since we have the answer, why ponder?

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