Missing in action: Where is the mind?

Is there a particular reason why you keep double-posting? You should stop doing it.

You can't have it both ways. Your body is a reference point. It is not who 'you' are.

Look up 'mind' in the dictionary and look up all of the words used to define 'mind'.

The dictionary defines Mind as:
“the element, part, substance or process that reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges, etc.; i.e., the processes of the human mind”

So, in other words, it is the "the processes of the human mind” that defines 'mind'. So, the mind creates it's own existence? Mind defines mind? What the hell?

As part of our agreements with each other, we require “proof of existence” before we accept that entities exist. 'Proof of existence' is determined by 2 criteria, measurability (length, width, depth, locality, mass) and definability. Both measurability and definability have to be present before 'proof of existence' can be accepted. Mind (and just about every other concept) has plenty of definability and absolutely no measurability. Why is it that humanity (yeh, you) demands that we use measurability and definability as the criteria for 'proof of existence' only to give a pass to Mind (and just about every other concept) when it comes to measurability? Don't you find that to be a little curious?

The existence of Mind can't be proven. Since Mind doesn't exist what do we do with the words 'Mental' and 'Understanding' which are defined by Mind?

Mind has turned out to be a nefarious concoction of individual characteristics. When you put them all together to represent the whole, they only produce confusion and doubt as to who you are. Unless you are incredibly stubborn, it must be obvious by now that the Mind as we know it doesn't exist.

You aren't your mind either.

The 'external world' is defined by you're agreeing or disagreeing with what we call 'world'. Since 'you' are the one agreeing or disagreeing, the 'world' is made by you in your vision. If the world is a reflection of your vision, then there is no 'external world'. There is only 'you' Be-ing.

In summary, the last half of your sentence is accurate.

locations , directions , duplicated sounds , reflections of light and shadow ,mirrors are invented by human beings thoughts . you cannot tell or find this place because places are not existing . the only thing that exist is the light energy . read "cave of Plato "

some people just don't understand do they ..

the mind is the culmination , the coordination of all the faculties of the brain

Reality is the product of the mind? The mind is the product of reality? How big is a thought? How big is a light moment? How does an image of photons fill the universe around it? Reality tells a story, it has a beginning and an end. Space/time illusion, a mind of confusion, in which we are all a part. Who is right, if everybody is wrong?

wandeljw asked:
Quote:

Can the processes of thinking and reasoning be explained by purely physical phenomena?


and you responded:
Quote:

The short answer is "no" because both "explanation" and "physical phenomena" appear to be products of what we call "the mind".

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Bruce Lipton has shown that the 'brain' in the physical sense radiates electromagnetic frequencies into the atmosphere, and these electromagnetic waves change states relative to the individual's 'cognitive state', being the amalgamation of all brain-processes taking place. This observation could be the incipient stage of a veritable suture point for the mind/brain issue.
Maybe the mind is more a property of the environment surrounding the brain and not the brain itself.
Consider a chicken or the egg question, the mind first conceived of the 'brain' in the physical sense. Egyptians believed 'thoughts' took place in the heart.
Or another suggestion, if our 'minds' hadnt conceived of the concept of 'memory', would the hippocampus still play the role it does in biological psychology?
Or the fact that the 'mind' refers to itself as an object, from a meta, almost 'omniscient' standpoint.
'I' know what 'I' want.
'Cognito Ergo Sum'.....'Know Thyself'.
We think of ourselves as an 'I' when we reflect on memories, and imagining ourselves as an 'I' is a gregarious must for socialization, and in human systems, survivability.
It seems the concept of 'mind' is an a priori dilemma to the conscious mind.
How can we, as a social entity, qualify something that qualified us as a social identity in the first place, not to mention biological details of where the mind resides?

Correct me if I'm wrong... this is all speculation
Oh, another point.
If neurons are in the brain, and the brain is the seat of the mind, are neurons not also in the spine? In the nervous system? In the senses? Throughout the body? The mind may be the entirety of physiological processes that take place in our organic vessels.
And is our organic vessel (waxing eloquent here... I mean our body) not a microcosmic map of the immediate activities along its boundary?

Damcha

(NB "The response " quoted above was mine)

Your thoughts on extension of "consciousness" and "mind" beyond the brain or even a single individual's body are well discussed here.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/embodied-cognition/

Beware statements delimiting mind to particular classes of processes like "physiological" because class boundaries are themselves products of mind.

The mind is a moral form, like the virtues or the vices, God, or existence... It is a meaning without a being as opposed to the brain, which has both being and meaning...

I very much dislike the term "moral form". I also dislike the idea that something "has being". Such ideas are naive-realistic.

No one is right and everyone is wrong and being right is not the object... All moral forms are slippery subjects that people feel the need to talk about as though they were objects in fact, and they are not... The problem is that once you have a moral form like mind, you can divide that form into sub forms like Ego, Super Ego, and Id, etc. which do not reflect knowledge, but do add to the vocabulary, and false definitions, and confusion... One tries to cure mental illness with talk and fails and another tries to cure unhappiness with drugs and fails... The mechanistic deterministic model of the brain fails as badly as the metaphysical model to explain humanity, and what we can become as individuals... The one good thing is that we do not admit failure and so keep on keeping on... Every definition is a theory, and every explanation an allegory and all the while we are getting exactly nowhere with them we are getting every where together, which is to say: we are not killing each other out of certainty as once we did with religion...

/applause! Hoorah!

Naive realism wouldnt even exist as a philosophical consideration there wasnt some significance to its foundation. It is extreme, yes, but not to be discredited.
Meaning is an inherent property of the universe; cultures, religions, Starbucks, attitudes, the idea of 'justice' all create institutions in the name of meaning. We are networking on this very site, sharing what COULD be referred to as 'naive realisitic' opinions (but are in actuality communally conditioned to a degree), in the service of meaning. We are having this discussion because it is meaningful to us, theorists, philosophers, inquirers, pedants alike.

Damcha

I disagree. Meaning is an inherent property of human perception. The inability to distinguish between what is perceived and the conditions set by the function of perception is the very root of naive realism.

Naive-realism exists because once upon a time it didn't occur to people to doubt or question the validity of their senses. If something appeared a certain way to us, then that was how it was to anyone or anything capable of making the observation, and even if there were no one to make an observation, the thing would still be there. Modern science has revealed that this just isn't true.

I think you have misinterpreted my statement. I am not arguing for naive realism, I am merely saying that it is evidence of the prevalence of a 'being' or 'essence' quality to the universe not evident through empiricism or reductionist science alone. I argue that naive realism has foot room, is an important question to consider, but has been impinged upon and proved to be extreme by science. However the 'science' antagonist is not impeccable.

Reductionist science, has led us to the quantum theory contradiction. There has been serious ferment in novel fields of science such as 'epigenetics', 'systems theory' and the illustrious 'multiverse' theory.
Evidenced by multiverse thereoy, science is asserting as a collective voice that 'there exists something outside our ability to quantify, physical laws completely different than our own in different universes outside our own'. Does this not sound somewhat naive-realistic?

We cannot understand a 'thing' by simply defining properties within restricted lab conditions to reduce it down to its parts. This is simply not the way our world works, which is ultimately the goal of science to elucidate in order to abash the stagnant effects of naive-realistim correct?

If we assign meaning to the universe, and human perception is an attribute of the universe, then I'd still assert meaning is endemic to the universe.

I would argue that 'meaning' is the natural relationship of humans to their environment:
instinctually/biologically, to our bodies
and intellectually, to our curiosity

as there would be no 'perception' at all without 'meaning'. 'Meaning' is a necessary condition for 'perception' to occur.

I do not refute science or naive realism, but consider neither ultimate. They may catalyze each other in cycles of paradigm shifts.

industrialism-romanticism
modernism-postmodernism

Oh, sorry. Maybe I was a little quick on the draw. I'll have to read your post later though, and then make a new reply. A little short on time at the moment.

Yes! Ill use Fido's post to adduce my recent post

But is that really what they are saying? I do not think so. The "outside of our ability to quantify" may be a misconception. It is not outside our ability. Our ability presents us with what we see, and what we see may be mere fragments of a larger pattern, only, we have made a complete image of the fragments and assume that that is it. Or, to state it a little differently, they are saying that "our understanding of what is real may be somewhat naive".



I think you got that backwards; there would be no meaning without perception. Perception is a necessary condition for meaning to occur.

What I meant by the comment about "moral forms" being naive-realistic was that the very idea of a moral form implies some kind of absolute, some transcendental frame by which we can categorize the the metaphysical. To my mind, such philosophy has less to do with understanding and more to do with satisfying the ego's thirst for a sense of accomplishment.

Cryacuz, you know that I'm opposed to at least four (heuristic) delusions: absolutism, dualism, ego-centrism, and naive realism. By dualism I refer to the tendency to evaluate/categorize the world in terms of "black versus white" schema. Absolutism implies the naive realism that assumes the world to exist as we experience it but independent of our experience. Ego-centrism is what I oppose (as I believe you do) from a "mytical perspective."
But I also feel--and this is the point of this post-- that it is not likely that we (I don't know if this includes our entire species or just our cultural version) can function very well without naive realism, absolutism, dualism and the assumption of an ego-agent behind our actions and perceptions. It's just that in our philosophical modes we know that we must transcend them when in pursuit of the world as it truly is. But frankly I know of no-one, including anti-foundationalist-relativistic philosophers and practitioners of everyday mysticism, who does not swim "most of the time" in the same pool of delusions.

...honestly J, tell me, all that is true or just a figure of speech in your opinion ?
...you so hardly defend that idea that one of us might get distracted and end up believing you are referring to such matters has an absolute truth...

As a perspective.