1On the language we use for the mind-body problem

First we must define some words such as "mind", "self", "consciousness". Then, we make a-priori inferences, by language only, based on those definitions. Then, only after we have agreed on those definitions, do we begin to seek a-posteriori knowledge by looking for such things in reality.

The way we use words implies relationships. Our language implies some mereological commitments.

Our usage of English suggests that minds contain thoughts and brains contain brain matter, because it feels wrong to substitute "What's in your mind?" with "What's in your brain?" Thoughts are a kind of mental content1. We think that a mind contains thoughts in the way a box contains things. It implies that a mind has a boundary.

The next question: Does the mind merely contain thoughts, or does it also generate them?

2On the meta-problem of the mind-body problem

The mind-body problem is so complex that we should begin by trying to answer the meta-question "What question should we ask in order to understand the relationship between mind and body?"

3On the relationship between mind and body

3.1On some independence

One who reasons sloppily may have a healthy brain but an unhealthy mind. One who suffers from epilepsy may have an unhealthy brain but a healthy mind.

I am not my brain. I am not my mind. My brain is a part of me. My mind is a part of me. I can pause my thoughts. I do the thinking, and my mind contains the thoughts. "I" is the word I use to refer to myself.

3.3On the intersection between mind and body

Not all parts of the brain affect consciousness.

Understanding Brain, Mind and Soul: Contributions from Neurology and Neurosurgery2

3.4On mind, dream, and hallucination

Where is this book? https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dreaming

https://aeon.co/philosophy/philosophy-of-mind

https://aeon.co/science/quantum-theory

We can dream.

We turn our attention into the dreams we can remember but not control. Are those hallucinations?

Hypothesis: Dreams are hallucinations (that happen while sleeping). I hypothesize that dreams and hallucinations are the same class of phenomenons.

What Is the Link Between Hallucinations, Dreams, and Hypnagogic–Hypnopompic Experiences? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4988750/

4On subjective experience

4.1TODO What has subjective experience?

4.2TODO What can have subjective experience?

4.3TODO How does subjective experience arise?

Does subjective experience arise from matter?

Why do I happen to be this particular subjective experience among other billions of possible subjective experiences?

A subjective experience is a point of view (from which a being perceives).

Consciousness is not subjective experience.

Being conscious doesn't mean having subjective experience.

Being conscious doesn't mean having a mind.

"Total synthesis" means what is described in the Wikipedia article of the same title. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_synthesis

"Molecular assembly"

Suppose that we total-synthesize a fertilized egg, and we place that egg in a womb. Then that egg will grow. The egg doesn't care about its history.

Suppose that John is an average 30-year-old man. We can snapshot his chemical configuration at a point in time. From that snapshot, we can recreate the chemical configuration that constitutes John at that point in time. We can total-synthesize a replica of John. But this replica would have different subjective experience. The original John also continues to exist.

Existence doesn't require subjective experience. The virtual people in the game "The Sims" doesn't have subjective experience. (Do they!?)

By now I would have concluded that brain controls mind, if I hadn't heard of Pim van Lommel's near-death experiments.

I want to believe that the brain control the mind, but there are Pim van Lommel's near-death experiments.

An outlandish explanation attempt: interfering parallel universes. There is a parallel universe where Pim told his patients. That universe interferes with our universe.

Scientists have assembled a bacterium.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2836213/#!po=0.263158

A newborn fails the self-awareness test.

A system is self-aware means that a system know its self or itself?

Does a newborn have subjective experience?

How does subjective existence arise?

Don't conflate "consciousness" and "subjective experience". Consciousness is the ability to know. Your subjective experience is your first-person view.

Does an imaginary person have a real subjective experience? (Does this question even make sense?)

Does a sim in the game "The Sims" have a subjective experience?

JTB theory: Is it possible to believe something true but for the wrong reason? So what?

https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/4sh4bz/man_missing_90_of_brain_poses_challenges_to/

4.4Tononi's IIT implies that we are not simulations

What is the problem with this argument?

If Tononi's IIT is true, then we are not simulations. (Does Tononi's IIT imply that consciousness cannot be simulated by a computer program?)

Modus tollens. If I am a simulation, then I don't have subjective experience. But I have subjective experience. Therefore I am not a simulation.

5On our inability to experience the subjective experience of others

5.1Why do we experience life from first-person view?

<2018-10-28> Current objectivist definition of life: "self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution"3

Why am I I? Why are you you? Why am I this particular person? What does "I" refer to? Does it refer to the body? Does it refer to the mind? Does "I" exist if I don't know languages? What am I? What are you? If I cut off my legs, am I I?

5.2Why is consciousness trapped in a body?

Why can't we swap the consciousness of two people?

5.3We can? Hogan sisters? Thalamic bridge?

6TODO Tidy up?

6.1Nonlocal mind? Nonlocal consciousness? Questionable?

"Nonlocal Mind: Best Updated Empirical and Theoretical Evidence" http://www.patriziotressoldi.it/cmssimpled/index.php?page=best-updated-empirical-and-theoretical-evidence

https://qz.com/866352/scientists-say-your-mind-isnt-confined-to-your-brain-or-even-your-body/

http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/crossing-the-threshold-nonlocal-consciousness-and-the-burden-of-proof-stephan-a-schwartz.pdf

"Consciousness is an Entity with Entangled States: Correlating the Measurement Problem with Non-Local Consciousness" https://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/article/view/1316

https://www.experiencer.org/the-brain-consciousness-and-science-hints-of-immortality-by-bob-davis-ph-d/

Google search Page 2 non local consciousness experiments evidence of non local consciousness

6.2TODO Tetanus, rabies, electrocution, epilepsy, uncontrollable spasms, and the mind

Tetanus, rabies, electrocution, and epilepsy cause muscle spasms that the suffering body's mind doesn't control.

6.3TODO questions

Soul is the cause of the changing wants?

6.4TODO Materialism, ship of Theseus, continuity of identity, what makes us us

Let T be a point in time.

Let original atoms mean all the atoms that make me at time T.

I'm always replacing the atoms that make me.

After some duration, I will have replaced most of the original atoms.

However, I don't feel a gap in my subjective experience. I still remember the same things. I still think I'm the same person.

What?

What? Linguistic (non?)solution to Ship of Theseus?

To tag is to put a name tag for later identification.

We can tag a dolphin. Can we tag an electron?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

https://aeon.co/ideas/if-i-teleport-from-mars-does-the-original-me-get-destroyed

6.5Mind, brain, soul

History, ramble https://philosophynow.org/issues/42/Why_You_Cant_Read_My_Mind

Split brain http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html

What Are the Top 10 Philosophical Ideas That Everyone Should Understand? https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-are-the-top-10-philo_b_2828845

6.6What is not mind?

6.6.1Autonomous nervous system is not part of mind

Consider my ANS (autonomic nervous system).

My brain controls my ANS. My mind does not control my ANS (I don't know how).

Thus, my ANS is a part of my brain's self, but my ANS is not a part of my mind's self.

However, both my mind and my brain are parts of my self.

My mind has only very small control over my brain. The involuntary processes are much bigger than the voluntary processes.

  1. <2018-11-06> We usually conflate someone and someone's mind.

    These questions usually mean the same thing:

    • What do you think?
    • What's in your mind?

    That equivalence implies that your mind is a part of you or belongs to you.

    However, when we insult, we say "Use your brain!", not "Use your mind!"

  2. TODO Drafts

    1. What does it mean to have the same thought?

      "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

    2. Casual English usage

      • "It has a mind of its own" means it has its own wants.

      1. Expressing objections

    3. Dictionary definitions of "mind"

      • <2018-11-05> https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mind
        • "The element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought."
        • "A person's ability to think and reason; the intellect."
          • "A person's memory."
          • "A particular way of thinking, influenced by a person's profession or environment."
          • "A person identified with their intellectual faculties."
        • "A person's attention."
          • "A person's will or determination to achieve something."
      • <2018-11-05> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mind#Noun
        • "The ability for rational thought."
        • "The ability to be aware of things."
        • "The ability to remember things."
        • "The ability to focus the thoughts."
        • "Somebody that embodies certain mental qualities."
        • "Judgment, opinion, or view."
        • "Desire, inclination, or intention."
        • "A healthy mental state."
        • "(philosophy) The non-material substance or set of processes in which consciousness, perception, affectivity, judgement, thinking, and will are based."

    4. <2018-11-06> Is the mind a sense?

      • A sense connects mind and reality?
      • The eye senses light.
      • The ear senses sound pressure variations.
      • The nose senses chemicals floating in the air.
      • The mind senses thought?

    5. <2018-11-04> A mind is an organ that thinks?

      • What is an organ?
      • Where is the mind? Does it exist in space?

    6. <2018-11-04> A brain houses a mind?

      • Hippocrates? Brain is seat of mind?

    7. What is the relationship between mind, sleep, and consciousness?

      Does my mind exist while I'm sleeping?

      My busy mind prevents me from sleeping?

      Can we know anything if we don't have any senses to interact physically?

      Which one sleeps: my mind, my brain, or me?

    8. First-person view? Subjective experience? Qualia?

    9. Why does subjective experience exist?

      We are made of the same kinds of atoms. Why do our consciousness differ?

      Every hydrogen atom has the same property (mass, charge, etc.).

      Why does subjective experience exist?

      • The same functional area of different brains are located at the same spot. We can predict the effect of damaging certain areas of the brain. Thus there is a common principle that determine how all brains work.
      • Everyone seizures when electrical-shocked. This implies that all muscles work the same way.

      Binding problem https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/8056/how-does-subjective-experience-arise-from-matter

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

      Search "brain without consciousness" and "consciousness without brain".

      Does this make sense?

      How are our brains different, and how are our brains the same?

      Compare these statements. Which ones make sense?

      • The self is everything that the brain can directly control.
      • The self is everything that the brain can consciously directly control with electrical signals.
      • The self is everything that the conscious mind can control.

      The simplest explanation to why we don't remember our past lives is that past lives don't exist. But human memory is unreliable. But there are stories of some people who can corroborate their past lives?

      1. Hypothesis: Adult dogs are more conscious than newborn human babies.

    10. TODO Fucking around with language: intending to intend, wanting to want, willing to will

      1. <2018-11-05> Volition is involuntary.

        • Life is involuntary. We have life without wanting it.
        • Volition is involuntary. We have volition without wanting it.
        • We did not intend to intend?

      2. Paywalled articles

6.7Brain

6.7.1What does the brain do?

6.7.2Learning, attention, synchronicity, correlation, causality

The brain learns by directing attention to unusual synchronicities, and suspecting causality in that synchronicity. The interestingness of an event is proportional to the amount of attention paid to that thing. The interestingness of an event is inverse to our belief of its likelihood.

We see that A happens soon after B, and we retry that experiment, and we see the same thing. Thus we suspect that A causes B.

We are bad at looking at long-term causality. We are bad at traversing chain of causes. We can only see immediate consequences.

Our tendency to create complex systems that exceed our ability to understand it will doom us.

6.8Psychosoma-electromagnetism analog?

We know that some changes in the brain cause some changes in the mind, and some changes in the mind cause some changes in the brain.

What if mind and brain are two aspects of the same phenomenon that is psychosoma, as electricity and magnetism are two aspects of the same phenomenon that is electromagnetism?

7Where do these questions lead us?

Will their answers give us insights? Should we bother answering them?

7.1On the implications of integrated information theory on systems with conscious components

What does integrated information theory imply about the consciousness of a system that consists of conscious components, such as a group of people, such as an organization?

We can think of an organization as behaving like an organism.

7.2Is there an atomic theory for abstract objects?

Is there an atomic theory for the objects that exist in the mind?

In formal logic, an atom is an irreducible proposition, usually represented by a Latin letter.

What does it mean to divide a thought into two? What is the smallest thought that we can think of?

7.3Can a mind control multiple bodies?

Does that question make sense? Can a mind even control a body? Wouldn't we call those bodies one body if they were controlled by one mind?

"How the mind controls the body" http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6305/1246.2

8Unrelated?

8.1On causal inference by machines?

We want a machine that can hypothesize causality (form a causal model) from the correlation in its input signals.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-build-truly-intelligent-machines-teach-them-cause-and-effect-20180515/

What? "First model for General Causality: Artificial Intelligence Breakthrough" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9sAERoMfC0

The brain is good at detecting correlation.

We create causal model from local correlation. By "local", we mean happening in almost the same space and at almost the same time.

  1. <2019-09-02> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind↩

  2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115284/↩

  3. "How to Spot an Alien, According to NASA!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbZ2MFAbGrk↩