Is "mind" autopoietic?

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Holiday20310401 wrote:

Paul, what do you suppose consciousness is made of to be able to do all this "stuff"?

All this "stuff" is being done by the brain. Why not?

... my best guess is that consciousness is an emergent process that appears due to the complex web of interactions of lower-level emergent processes in the brain, which in turn appear due to the complex web of interactions of even lower-level emergent processes - an emergent chain which you can trace all the way down to an emergent process that appears due to a complex web of chemical interactions: life ... and just like the emergent process of life, there is an element of feedback ("downward causation", if you will) where these emergent processes constrain the interactions of the lower-level entities from which they appear in a self-sustaining cycle ... for the emergent process of life, we call this self-sustaining downward causation "autopoiesis"; and if consciousness is indeed an emergent process, do we call this self-sustaining downward causation "conscious will"? Wink

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@paulhanke,

paulhanke, Smile

Excellent Paulhanke, I did not know anyone around here was into general systems theory, if you feel up to it, please consider starting a thread on said system theory, I for one would most appreciate it. You have outlined a delightful perspective. "Do we call this self-sustaining downward causation "conscious will"? Wink

[/quote] Perhaps a war of provinces!!

Autopoiesis literally means "auto (self)-creation" (from the Greek: auto - αυτό for self- and poiesis - ποίησις for creation or production), and expresses a fundamental dialectic between structure and function. The term was originally introduced by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in 1973:

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@boagie,

What is being said here? That the micro and the macro are sending waves to eachother; positive and negative feedback loops and all that stuff?

But what is the difference between the micro and the macro that isn't mind-oriented?

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@Holiday20310401,

Hi Hoilday!! Smile

This is considering the development I think of complexity through evolutionary development, it would makes sense I think that the varying levels of increasing complexity would devolop some form of rapport between the layers, just playing it by ear here, take it with a gain of salt. Perhaps Paulhanke could enlighten us a bit more on this.

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@boagie,

boagie wrote:

paulhanke,

Excellent Paulhanke, I did not know anyone around here was into general systems theory, if you feel up to it, please consider starting a thread on said system theory, I for one would most appreciate it. You have outlined a delightful perspective. "Do we call this self-sustaining downward causation "conscious will"? Perhaps a war of provinces!!

... I doubt that I'm qualified to start such a thread - especially considering the fact that I had to Google "general systems theory"! Wink

... it seems that I have stumbled upon a selection of ideas that fall under that umbrella, but I cannot say that I know what the entire subject entails ...

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@boagie,

boagie wrote:

Hi Hoilday!!

This is considering the development I think of complexity through evolutionary development, it would makes sense I think that the varying levels of increasing complexity would devolop some form of rapport between the layers, just playing it by ear here, take it with a gain of salt. Perhaps Paulhanke could enlighten us a bit more on this.

... I'll try ... in cellular biology, an engine of chemical reactions construct cell components (proteins, sugars, etc.) as well as a protective membrane that lets raw materials in (food), lets used-up materials out (waste), and keeps toxins out ... what the membrane lets in constrains the chemical reactions that can occur in the cell's interior while at the same time the chemical reactions in the cell's interior are busy sustaining the cell membrane ... the emergent here is the entire process of lower-level chemical interactions that generate the material structures of the cell which in-turn constrain the chemical interactions that created them within a self-sustaining cycle ... and because of this emergent process, something has appeared that never existed before in the universe - a cell ... and with the appearance of this new thing, the universe has been extended with a whole new raft of adjacent (i.e., immediately realizable) possibilities - before the appearance of the cell, only raw chemicals could participate in complex webs of interaction from which new processes could emerge; now that the cell has arrived on the scene, cells can participate in complex webs of interaction from which even higher-level processes can emerge ... if this perspective is correct, then emergent processes are the engine of the universe's never-ending self-creation ...

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@paulhanke,

paulhanke wrote:

... my best guess is that consciousness is an emergent process that appears due to the complex web of interactions of lower-level emergent processes in the brain, which in turn appear due to the complex web of interactions of even lower-level emergent processes - an emergent chain which you can trace all the way down to an emergent process that appears due to a complex web of chemical interactions: life ... and just like the emergent process of life, there is an element of feedback ("downward causation", if you will) where these emergent processes constrain the interactions of the lower-level entities from which they appear in a self-sustaining cycle ... for the emergent process of life, we call this self-sustaining downward causation "autopoiesis"; and if consciousness is indeed an emergent process, do we call this self-sustaining downward causation "conscious will"?

Sup paul:)

Emergence and Complexity is quite the interesting field if you ask me. I cant wait to see some progress within this new field of research. Hopefully Ill see it sooner than later. But your idea is extremely coherent in that consciousness could be just an emergent phenomenon of billions of neurons interacting with one another. But the tricky part is actually modeling and making formulas to support such a mysterious enigma. I have no idea how one would go about modeling and formulating such complexity... but it would be amazing if captured. As for the whole 'downward causation' scenario I cannot give an adequate answer. Mainly because I havent done alot of reading on the subject so as to make a rational opinion on the matter. But if anyone is looking for a brief introduction to emergence here is a short vid:NOVA | scienceNOW | Emergence | PBS

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@paulhanke,

paulhanke, Smile

While you may not have been formerly into general systems theory, this sure is the stuff!! Great posts paulhanke. General system theory really is the remedy to reductionism, it does not necessarily replace traditional science but takes us further and compliments the older science based on reductionism, another word for it might be, wholistic thinking.

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@Kielicious,

Kielicious wrote:

Sup paul:)

But if anyone is looking for a brief introduction to emergence here is a short vid:NOVA | scienceNOW | Emergence | PBS

... Sup Kiel:) ... thanks for the link!

Kielicious wrote:

But the tricky part is actually modeling and making formulas to support such a mysterious enigma.

... yeah, that's where the rubber meets the road ... my thoughts to-date on this are probably best classified as metaphysics - a way of looking at things that could potentially bear fruit under further scrutiny ...

boagie wrote:

General system theory really is the remedy to reductionism, it does not necessarily replace traditional science but takes us further and compliments the older science based on reductionism, another word for it might be, wholistic thinking.

... I think you might enjoy this quote then Wink

:

"So the triumph of the reductionism of the Greeks is a pyrrhic victory: We have succeeded in reducing all of ordinary physical behavior to a simple, correct Theory of Everything only to discover that it has revealed exactly nothing about many things of great importance." (Robert Laughlin [1998 Nobel Prize in physics] and David Pines, in an essay entitled "The Theory of Everything" from the collection of essays Emergence: Contemporary Readings in Philosophy and Science)

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Is "mind" autopoietic?

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