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brain
July 2009 
Does Mind belong to the Universe?
Posted on Jul 24th, 2009
by 
Anand
Anand
My mainstream friends and colleagues keep asking me why I am interested in the problem of consciousness. To some of them, showing an interest in this problem is symptomatic of a deeper psychological problem: for example, i) I could be a closet theist (heaven forbid) and am masking this by a philosophical masquerade, ii) I could be a vague new age/spiritual type (even worse) and trying to shore up some cred by feigning interest in philosophy or finally, iii) I am a mal-adjusted mathist/Platonist/transcendentalist who has failed to come to proper grips with the familiar tropes of neurobiology/evolution/emergence. In a nutshell: One is not supposed to begin thinking about consciousness until one solves the problem of the brain. In other words, we should all work on the brain and not on the mind for the next two hundred years or so or however long it takes to understand the brain as a complex, nonlinear chaotic dynamical system. And so much worse for society and culture at large where experiences, qualitative distinctions and choices obviously have value.
In response, I've decided to simplify my position a great deal. I came up with the following:
The resulting discussions have been very amusing to say the least since I uncompromisingly push the mental=physical angle following items i) - iv) above. Strangely, it is the neuroscience type who is most troubled by where this is headed. Let me explain why.
The typical neuroscientist usually (unconsciously) assumes that mental properties are created by brain processes. What this does is relegate consciousness to that of epiphenomena in isolated brains. (And then you don't have to worry about it anymore.) When I go from point iii) to point iv) above, what I'm trying to do is to take mental properties and push them out into the universe instead of confining them (or locking them up) in isolated brains. When I do this, it immediately creates a problem for the neuroscientist because mental properties are now directly coupled to physical properties and the brain can get bypassed in the process. This is troubling, nay, threatening.
The usual response is dull and boring. The universe since the big bang has been evolving. We are the end products of evolution and mental properties have emerged full blown in us while being latent in primates and mammals (like cats and dogs). So the slide from iii) to iv) is non threatening since it is now temporally unpacked (with no mind in the universe until mammals or higher animals or somesuch).
You have to wait patiently until this tedious tirade winds its way to its turgid ending. And then, you innocuously slip in the haymaker. If minds emerged so late in evolution, how can you possibly know that this story of a trajectory from the big bang to present day man (with mind) is actually true? That is, the big bang to emergence of mind story is an inference from physical facts and one that is heavily biased by the a priori assumption (driven by Cartesian intuition) that mental experience is supervenient on physical brains. (It is one thing to seek to prove this relationship and a completely different thing to tacitly assume it from the start.) Isn't it more likely (by the neuroscientist's own admission), that the true physical - whatever it is - may be beyond our reach exactly because of the neuroscientists' own theory that we are isolated minds in a physical universe. And if this is possible, couldn't the starting assumption that we are epiphenomenal isolated minds in a physical universe also be false?
The conversation breaks down at this point because from the neuroscientist's point of view, you are clearly a i) crackpot, ii) closet religious type, iii) postmodernist, iv) newage woolly headed type but thankfully not all of the above at least not at the same time :-)
We have to move beyond this kind of name calling if we are to make any progress whatsoever on the problem of accommodating experience in the natural order. The emergence trope has started regressing into a kind of religious belief (no doubt driven by the evolution versus intelligent design culture wars) with the people espousing it starting to close ranks of late.
In response, I've decided to simplify my position a great deal. I came up with the following:
- The universe is physical.
- I am a part of the universe.
- I have a mind.
- Therefore the universe has a mind or mental properties in general.
The resulting discussions have been very amusing to say the least since I uncompromisingly push the mental=physical angle following items i) - iv) above. Strangely, it is the neuroscience type who is most troubled by where this is headed. Let me explain why.
The typical neuroscientist usually (unconsciously) assumes that mental properties are created by brain processes. What this does is relegate consciousness to that of epiphenomena in isolated brains. (And then you don't have to worry about it anymore.) When I go from point iii) to point iv) above, what I'm trying to do is to take mental properties and push them out into the universe instead of confining them (or locking them up) in isolated brains. When I do this, it immediately creates a problem for the neuroscientist because mental properties are now directly coupled to physical properties and the brain can get bypassed in the process. This is troubling, nay, threatening.
The usual response is dull and boring. The universe since the big bang has been evolving. We are the end products of evolution and mental properties have emerged full blown in us while being latent in primates and mammals (like cats and dogs). So the slide from iii) to iv) is non threatening since it is now temporally unpacked (with no mind in the universe until mammals or higher animals or somesuch).
You have to wait patiently until this tedious tirade winds its way to its turgid ending. And then, you innocuously slip in the haymaker. If minds emerged so late in evolution, how can you possibly know that this story of a trajectory from the big bang to present day man (with mind) is actually true? That is, the big bang to emergence of mind story is an inference from physical facts and one that is heavily biased by the a priori assumption (driven by Cartesian intuition) that mental experience is supervenient on physical brains. (It is one thing to seek to prove this relationship and a completely different thing to tacitly assume it from the start.) Isn't it more likely (by the neuroscientist's own admission), that the true physical - whatever it is - may be beyond our reach exactly because of the neuroscientists' own theory that we are isolated minds in a physical universe. And if this is possible, couldn't the starting assumption that we are epiphenomenal isolated minds in a physical universe also be false?
The conversation breaks down at this point because from the neuroscientist's point of view, you are clearly a i) crackpot, ii) closet religious type, iii) postmodernist, iv) newage woolly headed type but thankfully not all of the above at least not at the same time :-)
We have to move beyond this kind of name calling if we are to make any progress whatsoever on the problem of accommodating experience in the natural order. The emergence trope has started regressing into a kind of religious belief (no doubt driven by the evolution versus intelligent design culture wars) with the people espousing it starting to close ranks of late.
Access: PublicTagged with: consciousness, mind, universe, physical, evolution, emergence, neuroscience, chaotic dynamical system, epiphenomena, brain
Hi Anand,
A few questions for you:
a) Assuming the postulates of Descartes' Discourse, which you seem to advocate, what do you think of its classical criticisms? In light of these criticism, don't you think the jump from pt 3 to pt 4 is a bit too facile ? As Charles Dodgson so wonderfully points out in his Achilles vs. the Tortoise essay - don't you think that your use of modus pones is a bit too easy ? Assuming no evolutionary baggage in the creation of the “mind” - which you seem to assume to be a pure (almost Cartesian) entity - how do you justify this step ? Does it follow from some hitherto accepted axioms of logic - or do you propose this as a new axiom of logic ?
a.1) Take for example, I construct a computer to do some kind of exotic computation - let's say - computing every decimal place of some exotic transcendental number that appears in no known physics equation. Now, one could trivially claim - that because the computer computes every digit of it, the universe computes every digit of it. But - apart from this trivial sense - does the universe contain this number ?
a.2) What I'm trying to ask you here, more specifically, is that you assume certain truths to be self-evident in this argument, but you never clarify why exactly they are self evident. Take for e.g., why exactly are you sentient ? Apart from your assertion of your own sentience, can you, in any “principled” fashion prove sentience beyond your self ?
But more interestingly, how do you prove - that your chain of logic is not just an evolutionary by-product but something deeper - something that surpasses the foundations of our existence and the universe we happen to find our selves in - but rather - some thing true of any universe and any life form ?
b.1) Now, getting more materialist, how “pure” or “absolute” do you think the human mind to be. In many AI, and more so, in neuroscientific circles, the human mind is considered to be a bag of tricks - of hacks - of local solutions to local problems. I'd even daresay - Zen believes this to be the case too. A set of phenomena - interactions - that seem to think themselves to be some kind of greater entity.
How would you counter this argument apart from saying that it is “self-evidently not the case”? How would you show some greater organization / structure to our minds ?
b.2) Would you say your mind is one monolithic entity ? How would you argue against much of psychological evidence to the contrary?
b.3) What do you think of Clarke Glymore's analysis of human rationality and our his “evolutionary” explanation of what he terms “our delusion of free-will”?
b.4) What about Daniel Denett's materialist situation of the workings of the human mind ?
c) About your proposition against “One is not supposed to begin thinking about consciousness until one solves the problem of the brain.” - do you think it is meaningful / fruitful to construct theories about something one does not even have a vocabulary to describe ? Would you say that when we talk about consciousness, qualia, et al. we have a precise notion of what we're talking about?
c.1) Can we come up with falisifiable theories of the mind ? Could you give an example of how such a non-spiritual non-religious but scientific theory of the mind would be framed ?
a) I don't advocate the postulates of Descartes' Discourse but I think that's what is being (unconsciously) advocated by your typical neuroscientist.
a.1) You can't compute every digit of a transcendental number. The transcendental number as a concept is certainly part of the universe.
a.2) I'm not sure where you get that I hold that “certain truths to be self-evident in this argument.” If you got that from what I wrote, I'm sorry, so please correct me and I'll try to be more clear. Instead, I hold that it is the neuroscientist (the imaginary opponent in the blog entry) who holds certain truths to be self evident.
b.1) Not sure what you mean by “pure” and “absolute” w.r.t. the human mind. Notions like bag of tricks won't fly when it comes to qualia which is what I was talking about - not cognition or representation or other issues related to intentionality. (And since Zen is connected to mysticism, it must be bracketed out.)
b.2) I don't understand the statement “your mind is one monolithic entity”, sorry.
b.3) Evolution assumes time as basic which I can't. Free will assumes the existence of individuals which “I” can't assume. Rationality is not being discussed by me, qualia are.
b.4) Dennet has not given an adequate response to Chalmers in the last 13 years. Consequently, I take it as given that in analytic philosophy, materialists have not been able to conclusively show that consciousness is supervenient on the brain.
c) We have plenty of vocabulary to talk about experience - we do it all the time using ordinary language. My contention is that because neuroscience refuses to include phenomenological descriptions is why we are where we are at the present time.
c.1) Before we do this, we may have to deconstruct the a priori notion that consciousness is a result of brain function (functionalism) since this is just a belief at this point. There's no reason why consciousness cannot be a physical property of the universe. So, I am a physicalist and not a materialist. If that can be a starting point, then I think progress can be made.
Hey, thanks for the long response. Really appreciated it.
Well - I'm not done as yet :)
a) From reading your descriptions (I admit that I'm not conversant with the myriad jargon, categorizations, sub-sub-sub-divisions, et al in philosophy) it appears that physicalists believe that “mind' is some kind of natural entity by itself and that it's embodiment in the brain is incidental. Which also goes to the topic of supervenience. Isn't this Cartesian dualism ?
Also, if you say embodiment is incidental - how can you justify that one of the greatest aspects of consciousness is the self vs. other distinction - and necessarily an embodied self ? And how would you explain neuro-pathologies that mess with this faculty ?
a.1) That why I said “exotic computation” - a finite program-length computer cannot enumerate the entire number, but given any digit N it can be enumerated upto N. This exotic computer would not need to be of finite and constant coding - maybe it changes its code as it computes the number ? But anyway - that's irrelevant.
But you raise a more interesting point - “The transcendental number as a concept is certainly part of the universe.” Isn't this begging the question ? The transcendental number is a construct of *human minds* - and therefore contained in (some) human minds ( I would hazard the statement “contained in the neural codings of…”). But the very point in contention here is whether the human mind is universal?
a.2) The above is an example of what i meant by saying a “self-evident” argument. Specifically, can you justify the syllogism: If A has property X, and A is contained in B, then B has property X in something more than the trivial sense of containment.
b.1) When i say “pure” and “absolute” - I mean that if Mind exists anywhere else in the universe it will necessarily exhibit characteristics similar to that of the human mind ? Its cognitive architecture will necessarily be the same. The intentionality will qualitatively be the same?
Where would qualia fit with this alien mind ? Would it respond in the same portion of the electromagnetic spectrum? Would it have the same type of phenomenology?
b.3) I agree that the premise of evolution lies in the existence of time beyond the human mind - but more importantly - given that it is a product of our cognitive system - it assumes the primacy of our cognitive systems - leading to a circularity of reasoning in using evolutionary arguments for cognition.
c) But if you provisionally accept evolution to be a natural truth (do you ?) - then wouldn't you agree that human intelligence could be explained as a set of strategies evolved to deal with the challenges of its environment. ( I say intelligence not mind - but I assume mind => intelligence). For e.g. wouldn't it stand to reason that we seek causation because it gives us a leg up ? We intuit Newtonian mechanics because our experiential universe is mainly newtonian ? We have a certain capacity of logic because these rules are adhered to by our immediate environment. But there is nothing necessarily universal about any of these rules ? And to claim that is a leap of faith ?
Also - wouldn't this explain our immense problem when it comes to understanding the mind with any level of precision ? We have not been evolutionarily equipped to do the meta=level introspection and analysis that much of this discussion requires.
And somehow I cannot see how phenomenology is not introspective - It requires you and me to share the same internal representations, when talking about either intentionality or qualia. And therefore, any discussion becomes so entangled up in subjective notions (and intuitions) of the concepts that I'd think separating out evolutionary baggage from a universal property becomes impossible.
I know you disagree on this point. But don't you think phenomenology requires another case of “self-evident truth” à la Descartes' “I think therefore I am” ?
Again, I think I am unable to understand precisely what your stance on this topic is - and it would make more sense to me if you could articulate an example of a scientific and falsifiable theory of mind that fits with your view ?
a) Actually I don't think there's a consensus among physicalists regarding consciousness and its embodiment. (Note the recent difficulties faced by people like Strawson in explaining his position - just google Strawson and panpsychism.) A short answer to your question here is that this is not Cartesian dualism since no absolute self is posited, and the embodiment question is a not really an issue since it's a functional property and we are talking about qualia. Consequently, all physicalists need is a cross product of theories one on functional embodiment \times lawlike relations for qualia. Embodiment may not be necessary for qualia. We don't know at this early stage.
a.1) Sorry I didn't understand this. All I meant was that any concept held in human minds is trivially part of the universe since the mental is in the physical.
b.1) We obviously don't know anything about alien minds. It suffices to say that we should probably pay more attention to animal qualia and try and decide if it winks out at some point.
c) A lot of what you say here is loaded with too many assumptions. For instance “We have not been evolutionarily equipped to do the meta=level introspection and analysis that much of this discussion requires.” This is just a belief not fact. It ignores the point that evolutionary descriptions are functionalist descriptions which cannot address qualia. It also overloads the notion of individuals when you say “We” since that's also based on belief. Let me try and be as clear as possible: The problem of qualia forces us to begin anew. We cannot begin with evolutionary biology since that's just a theory of functional fitness in a dynamic environment. Functional fitness cannot address qualia.
Before we can have a science (falsifiable theory), we'd have to agree on where to start. We are nowhere near a consensus on how to start facing up to the problem of consciousness.