Even if neurobiology provided convincing arguments supporting the statement that mental events (perceptions, mental pictures, feelings, reasoning, volitions, awareness, etc) depend upon the brain in their very existence, does this imply that the subjectivity itself is to be thought as a product of the cerebral activity?
I mean that the subjectivity could be distinguished from the mental events, as a spectator is distinguished from the show that he watches.
When there is no consciousness, it is not that the subjectivity is non-existent, but it is that it is void. Subjectivity has to receive an external input to experience something. Hence the need of an organ.
I present all that as mere hypothesis, which, or course, may seem to be preposterous. I hope you will not be too bitter in your criticisms.
By the way, this view is in agreement with Sâmkhya philosophy (from India).
Why did you post on grammar…? - your english is fine…!
Anyway - I don’t think I totally understood your hypothesis - are you saying that subjectivity is an artifact of the brain’s chemistry and the way it deals with sensory data…? And when you say ‘subjectivity’ do you mean ‘mind’ - or something else…?
İmp: If there’s nothing between the body and the concious mind, then who/what has been doing the driving when you suddenly ‘wake-up’ from thinking about something else and realise you have no concious memory of driving the last few miles…? For that matter - did you just conciously tell your heart to beat while reading this post…? Your lungs to breathe…? If you’re pissed off or scared - do you tell your adrenal glands to secrete…?
There’s a huge great chunk of grey matter buffering body and mind and the autonomic system is only a small part of it. I’d call that a fairly physical barrier, if you still don’t think so - go stick your head in a bucket of water and see who wins eventually. Though of course if your mind wins - you won’t be able to post and tell me I’m wrong.
Subjectivity is like a knower who witness events and processes which are presented to it by the brain, where they originate. The brain also provides Subjectivity with the light that allows mental events to be seen (the light is awareness, and this light is missing during sleep, for instance).
I hold that what neurobiology related to the brain was not Subjectivity itself, but the mental events that Subjectivity witnesses as well as the light by which Subjectivity can witness these events.
I realize that this theory should seem esoteric, but it is interesting to notice that it strongly resembles one of the first philosophical systems in history: Sâmkhya philosophy (which also teaches the way out the hole, but it’s another matter) In Sâmkhya philosophy, there is a distinction made between mind as well as ego and consciousness and Soul, called Purusha, and which corresponds to my Subjectivity. For Sâmkhya philosophy, mind, ego and consciousness come from matter (called Prakriti), but not Soul.
I would like to emphasive that I disagree with Plato’s and Descartes’ dualism.
But I offer my view to your criticisms, which are welcome.
You know - I could have sworn blind you said barrier when I read it the first time. That’s why I replied as I did… If, however you’re saying that mind and body are one, or indeed the mind is a product of the body, then you have my total agreement.
I’m of the opinion that the mind is an artifact created when the Prefrontal Cortex (governing Problem Solving, Emotion, and Complex Thought) (further info jump to http://brain.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/124/2/247)
becomes complex enough to model itself in real-time* as an aid to problem solving, your self-aware ‘I’ spontaneously appears. Yani - your brain creates a virtual copy of the event/enviroment under consideration, puts a virtual model of itself into the picture to help predict outcomes of different courses of action:
Body is trying to predict outcome of actions to avoid damage : (This is pretty much all the time except as when Sâmkhya says - sleep)
Body (via Prefrontal Cortex + short-term memory) creates a virtual scenario - encompassing the theatre/players/scenery (this persists even during voluntary sensory deprivation - it can continue to walk down the street even if it closes it’s eyes - but lack of constant sensory update creates stress which eventually becomes intolerable [unless it has no choice ie. blindness])
Body models self and includes it in the scenario.
So now there is a physical body with a real-time* self-generated virtual body contained within. (A genie ‘homunculus’ in a bottle - our ‘mind’) The genie (or, if you like, the body through the genie) is constantly playing the ‘if’ game - if it does ‘this’ - ‘that’ will probably happen, and after ‘that’ - possibly ‘this as well’… As a by-product of this the body would have to develop an idea of ‘time’ - just to sequence events and the order in which the body guesses they will occur. Without this ability all attempts to build cause/effect chains would be an orderless jumble. The genie does not share the physical body’s shackles to the ‘now’ - it can predict itself forward into un-real# time to judge future outcomes of planned courses of action starting in the ‘now’. And of course it can see itself in the ‘past’ as it remembers how things turned out before in simular situations. Memory is key to problem solving, without it the genie would have to start from scratch each time it faced simular scenarios. Not good in life-threatening situations.
The body, when using abstract symbols to represent objects and the relationships between these objects in it’s modelling (‘words’ as well as pictures) to help it to make these models (ie ‘think’), comes up with the ‘I’ concept to help it think about itself.
Body senses something - is effected by external input -updates it’s genie- genie predicts the best course of action from newest update - body reacts - body recieves new sensory input - etc. etc.
In almost all species of life that problem solve the genie does not control the body, but it is as if it does, as 99% of the time, the body takes it’s advice.
But at some point in human evolution our physical body has surrendered complete control of it’s reactions to the enviroment to the the genie (At least I cannot think of reported situations in which animals commit suicide except for dolphins/whales beaching themselves and that may just be a failure of their ‘hardware’ rather than their ‘software’.)
Body generates mind and mind takes control of body.
(As an aside: Could it be that our problems with the concept of free-will are just artifacts of our problem-solving apparatus…? ie we can imagine many courses of action at any time - but find ourselves in reality confined to just a few as subconcious systems veto some options as having no value)
real-time - ie updated at the same/almost the same rate as sensory info is processed.
un-real time - ie fast-forwarding through cause/effect chains to guess at possible final outcomes in the ‘future’. Or looking at previous remembered scenarios.
Before closing: Imp wrote:
It’s all very well to come along and kick over a kid’s sandcastle, but the nice thing to do would be to help him build a better one afterwards.
Sâmkhya, lately i’ve been practicing non-dual thinking and the subject-object duality pops up a lot.
in this area i’m hesitant on two counts:
splitting mind and body is rather unproductive since your mind is of body and your body is moved by the mind.
secondly,
this seems to be the duality between the empirical (immanent) and the transcendent (god/soul/impenetrable perfect all emcompassing other).
i’m not really for this either. as if all things that are matter are opposed, absolutely that is, to non-matter. i feel this western habit solves little. even when its got western partners. this is where some hindu beliefs and christian (general theological) habits seem to parallel.
The speaking “I” speaks about objects. the speaker is a subject. the two are contingent. the “I” needs a world of objects. The world of objects needs the objects to be “self-willed” or…that is…to have a numerical identity. i used to argue a lot about wholes and parts (unities and things), but i’m trying to think around unities lately. its like having a team. a team only exists when its members due. but its not as if the individual members cease to exist once the team falls apart.
this may seem off topic. and this is long. i hope this helps.
thanks.
Hmm… ‘I’ changed my ‘mind’ - in saying there is basically only body/matter…
…Are we not in danger of saying the ‘medium and the message’ are the same thing…?
to make a technical analogy: (since we’re in [size=59]Natural[/size] Sciences)
Think of ourselves now as we converse in either real-time [chat-rooms] or at intervals [this forum for example] our communication is supported and maintained by the internet system, a huge sprawling bunch of cables(nerves - veins - arteries)/computers(ganglia)/hard-drives(memory)/electricity generators(mitochondria)/firewalls(antibodies)/web-cams(eyes)/microphones(ears) etc… Are we saying that we ourselves are inseparably part of this ‘body’…? No - of course not. We are separate entities.
You could directly apply this to the brain - our own personal internet. We have one main user (our ‘I’) and a host of other less frequent posters - if I remember my psychology right, our ‘Talents’ sub-persona governing special areas of skills and social situations. These are usually hidden (subsumed into the all-seeing ‘I’) and show themselves only in cases of multiple-personality syndrome. (Apparently a failure of the ‘I’ to shepherd it’s talents properly).
Very well - the body does indeed ‘boot-up’ the mind while we are still inside the womb, and supports it, but as this mind develops - does it not become, as Alexistentialism said “a ghost in the shell”, or as neuro-biology terms it:
I cannot think of many shared properties between a waveform and it’s support medium beyond basic dependence. Should we not class mind and body as two things - rather than one…?
Thoughts on a post-card please…
PS. İmp wrote:
Ahh… So the end does justify the means after all…!
[scratch head] now where have I heard that before…?
- in saying there is basically only body/matter…