On Wed, 24 Feb 1999, Alison King wrote:
ak> Hello, sorry I didn't reply sooner, I have been thinking
ak> about the questions you replied with:
>
sh> Do you find it as easy to think of the mind as a machine as you do to
sh> think of the body as a machine? When you choose to do something, is it
sh> because you are mechanically compelled to do it? If not, what is the
sh> cause of your choice, and how is it related to the machinery?
>
ak> Yes, I think our brains are analogous to computers in that
ak> we reach logical conclusions from the information available
ak> (knowledge, past experience etc.).
Do computers reach logical conclusions because they choose to, or
because they are impelled to by their programmes? What about us?
Do computers know anything about what their information is "about"?
Isn't the information (data) just acting as input the same way the
doctor's hammer does, when he taps our knee reflex?
What about us? What, if anything, is the difference here?
ak> However, the 'circuits'
ak> in our brains are a lot less organised so there are many
ak> more different pathways arising from the same input.
Is the only difference, or the main one, that we have more pathways? If
I gave a computer more pathways, would that give it a mind? How many
pathways do I have to lose to lose my mind?
ak> I think of this in a similar way to the mutations produced
ak> with genetic replication.
Actually, there is a modern theory of brain function (Gerald Edelman's
"neural darwinism" <http://williamcalvin.com/1980s/1988Science.htm>)
according to which learning and memory are similar to the mechanisms of
genetic evolution and even like disease immunity mechanisms. (So far
it's just an analogy, though; no one has shown whether and how such a
mechanism could do what we can do yet.)
ak> I can always give a reason for my
ak> actions even if it is not a good reason from someone else's
ak> point of view.
But is the reason, whether good or bad, really the CAUSE of your
actions? How can you tell whether it is? how can you tell you are not
just rationalizing, the way a child does when it is caught in the wrong?
(The child often believes its rationalizations: "I didn't drop it: my
little sister pushed me...")
Do you have a reason you pull your hand away when you touch something
burning hot? (It happens before you feel the pain, and often before you
even know you've touched something hot.) There it's obvious the reasons
come after the causes. Is it any different with anything else?
How do you find a reason? Do you decide to find it? And how do you
understand a reason? Is it like understanding a proof in maths? Why
do you sometimes listen to your reasons and sometimes not: is there a
reason for that too? (etc.)
sh> In other words, besides the fact that (for some unknown reason, and in
sh> some unknown way), some (why just some? which? why not all? or none?)
sh> brain activity FEELS like something when it happens, it also has a
sh> "purpose" (but why? and whose purpose?).
>
ak> The ultimate purpose is to survive, everything must learn,
ak> adopt and react in order to do this.
Agreed. But what has FEELING got to do with it? Evolution designed you
to avoid fires (etc.) so you could survive and reproduce. (Actually,
those genes got passed on that coded, by chance at first, for traits,
like avoiding fire, that increased their chances of being passed on:
that's all there is to evolution.)
In other words, evolution explains why your BODY survives and
reproduces, and DOES what it DOES, but what explains your MIND?
ak> Could the level of
ak> feeling differ? Like pain is an continuation of sensory
ak> systems. If there is not a lot of stimulus we do not have
ak> much feeling.
Yes, pain is basically just another sensation, and so is every other
feeling: dark, red, heavy, loud, painful, frightening, depressing --
they're all just feelings.
But having said that, you haven't answered my question: The body DOES,
the mind FEELS. Evolution, survival, reproduction, genes, etc. can
explain what the body does, and even "why" (in an evolutionary sense).
But how does it explain the mind, and how/why we FEEL at all, rather
than just DOING?
Tell me the evolutionary advantage of feeling while you do what needs to
be done, rather than just doing what needs to be done? That is the same
as the Subject of this discussion thread: The evolutionary advantage of
"thinking" (in the sense of internal information processing, in
preparation for doing, for the sake of surviving and reproducing) is
obvious. But what is the evolutionary advantage of CONSCIOUS thinking?
Why should it FEEL like anything to think? Why should anything feel like
anything? Why AREN'T we just like computers?
That is the mind/body problem...
Stevan Harnad
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