Is the mind a machine?

[drkitten]

Evolution driving us toward greater complexity has been postulated by Stuart Kauffman (sp?) as the 4th law of thermodynamics. It can be traced throughout evolution - single celled creatures to multicellular creatures to chordates, etc. Even trilobyte fossils show increased complexity by virtue of the appearance of "eyes" which are not found in earlier fossils.

As a "law" of thermodynamics, this is preposterous. As the IDers might say, "if evolution drives everything to greater complexity, why are there still single-celled creatures around?"

 

[JAK]

As a "law" of thermodynamics, this is preposterous. As the IDers might say, "if evolution drives everything to greater complexity, why are there still single-celled creatures around?"

As a new law, it may very well be preposterous, but that is what Kauffman is suggesting.

Regarding single-celled creatures, the universe is looked upon as a field of potential from the simple to the complex. The "simple" part of the field was evolved first and remains today. From the foundation of simple life, more complex forms have evolved. Single-celled creatures fulfill a niche and will never go away. However, the field of "complexity" remains large, and evolution will tend to grow in that direction.

Or so the theory goes ...

 

[Dancing David]

Hmm... perhaps I'm mistaken, but hasn't our cranial capacity increased since Cro Magnon days?

Not really, cro mangnon has the cranial vault which is one of the hallmarks of homo sapiens sapiens, archaic homo sapiens arises somewhre in north africa 60,000 BP.


The evolution of the capacity for abstract thought could be totaly unrelated to it's arising. There is a majpr split between those who think that walking is the big deal and that lead to talking, there are those who think talking is the big deal.

 

[Dancing David]

As a new law, it may very well be preposterous, but that is what Kauffman is suggesting.

Regarding single-celled creatures, the universe is looked upon as a field of potential from the simple to the complex. The "simple" part of the field was evolved first and remains today. From the foundation of simple life, more complex forms have evolved. Single-celled creatures fulfill a niche and will never go away. However, the field of "complexity" remains large, and evolution will tend to grow in that direction.

Or so the theory goes ...

The problem for the theory is simple,

They isolate the creature from it's enviroment. We eat creatures that generate entropy and create entropy, we eat creatures that degenrate entorpy and we create entropy. Even something elegant like a phone system creates huge amounts of entropy, despite it's 'complexity', a single computer chip requires huge amounts of entropy to create an odrered complexity.

The theory is flawed in that the second law of thermodynamic applies to the whole system that an object finds itself in, therefore the argument is totaly wrong.

 

[davidsmith73]

"The mind" can be defined in different ways. Cognitive processes such as intelligence can in one sense be regarded as part of "the mind", but they can also be defined by behavior. Intelligence can be defined by observing the behavior of the system that is displaying intelligence. However, a very important distinction is made between these aspects of "the mind" and the aspects that cannot be defined by observational relationships. These are such things as the redness of red, the feeling of pain etc. These aspects of the mind can only be defined ostensively, eg. by pointing to red things and saying "look that is red" and therefore I would regard them as fundamentally different to physical things. I regard the definition of a physical thing as a set of observations that have logical relationships between them. If you introspect on things like fear, pain or redness, they cannot possess such relationships within themselves. That is what the non-physical aspect of the mind means to me, and it is what cannot be defined or explained in terms of the physical.

 

[jmercer]

Would we also consider "personality" to be a part of the mind?

Also - bearing in mind the original focus of the thread - if the mind can be classified as a machine, then it should be possible to establish a mathematical model that describes it's operation. True?

If so, then perhaps that's a reasonable litmus test for the original question.

 

[JAK]

The problem for the theory is simple,

They isolate the creature from it's enviroment. We eat creatures that generate entropy and create entropy, we eat creatures that degenrate entorpy and we create entropy. Even something elegant like a phone system creates huge amounts of entropy, despite it's 'complexity', a single computer chip requires huge amounts of entropy to create an odrered complexity.

The theory is flawed in that the second law of thermodynamic applies to the whole system that an object finds itself in, therefore the argument is totaly wrong.

Perhaps it may help if I quote Schrödinger:

“Life seems to be orderly and lawful behaviour of matter, not based exclusively on its tendency to go over from order to disorder, but based partly on existing order that is kept up. ... An isolated system or a system in a uniform environment ... increases its entropy and more or less rapidly approaches the inert state of maximum entropy. We now recognize this fundamental law of physics to be just the natural tendency of things to approach the chaotic state ... unless we obviate it. ...entropy, taken with a negative sign, is itself a measure of order. Thus the device by which an organism maintains itself stationary at a fairly high level of orderliness ( = fairly low level of entropy) really consists in continually sucking orderliness from its environment.” - Erwin Schrödinger, What Is Life?, chapter 6

This does not violate the belief that the universe is heading toward “heat death.”

Let me continue with Kauffman. Kauffman refers to living organisms as “autonomous agents:”

“... an Autonomous Agent implies that there is no agent at equilibrium ... In order to be an Autonomous Agent, a system must carry out work cycles by virtue of which it maintains and amplifies itself. ... At exact equilibrium, no work cycles can be carried out. Hence, no agency exists. ... Further, the fact that Autonomous Agents do perform work cycles means that they can ‘ratchet’ themselves further from equilibrium, thereby storing energy and also having the capacity to carry out processes ...” – Stuart Kauffman, Lecture 3 www.santafe.edu/sfi/People/kauffman/Lecture-3.html

Ratcheting away from equilibrium is ratcheting away from maximum entropy as well as ratcheting (or climbing) toward negative entropy.

Okay, let’s go with Rothman for a minute:

“In a closed system, there is a tendency for organization to change into disorganization, or for the same amount of information available about the system to become smaller as time goes on.” – Milton A. Rothman, The Laws of Physics

This can readily be shown with the burning of a log. Before burning, tree rings can be used to determine the age of the log when it was cut as well as the date the tree began and when it was cut down. After burning, all of this information is lost.

If increased "organization" and "information" is deemed greater complexity, then less organization and information must be greater simplicity. If increasing entropy creates disorganization - less organization, then ratcheting toward negative entropy should be climbing toward greater organization, greater information, and greater complexity.

A quick look at the fossil record and brain structure should readily confirm this. The first fossils were microbes. More complex creatures came later. Some of the most primative nerve structures are in jellyfish. The earliest brain structures are known as the reptilian brain. With the added limbic system, the mammalian brain structure evolved (greater complexity).

 

[Batman Jr.]

Re: Re: Is the mind a machine?

"The mind" can be defined in different ways. Cognitive processes such as intelligence can in one sense be regarded as part of "the mind", but they can also be defined by behavior. Intelligence can be defined by observing the behavior of the system that is displaying intelligence. However, a very important distinction is made between these aspects of "the mind" and the aspects that cannot be defined by observational relationships. These are such things as the redness of red, the feeling of pain etc. These aspects of the mind can only be defined ostensively, eg. by pointing to red things and saying "look that is red" and therefore I would regard them as fundamentally different to physical things. I regard the definition of a physical thing as a set of observations that have logical relationships between them. If you introspect on things like fear, pain or redness, they cannot possess such relationships within themselves. That is what the non-physical aspect of the mind means to me, and it is what cannot be defined or explained in terms of the physical.

My philosophy tends to concur mostly with this. However, I will not go so far as to proclaim anything to be non-physical to a certainty. The brain is definitely computer and a definite relationship between its inner workings and human behavior can be established. The experiential, on the other hand, can only be observed in the self. Everyone else may be p-zombies for all I know. There's no possible means of inquiry to determine meaningfully a relationship between perception and the brain. The whole conundrum being expected to be solved is like only having access to a speed-dial button that calls 911 and then being presumed to have enough information from that to say there is something inherent in a pushbutton that when you press it causes it to dial 911. There may simply be unknowable inner circuitry reacting to the button push, and who's to say that the circuitry is even non-physical?

 

[voidx]

Posted by jmercer
Don't get me wrong - I'm very happy we have complex minds. But from an evolutionary perspective, why do we? Once we did fire, club, spear and chipped rock knife - which made us highly successful, survival-wise - why did we continue?

Because no one told us too stop .

I think a fundamental thing to keep in mind is how we identify what is part of "us" and what is external. Even simple organisms have this ability otherwise they would not be able to react to stimuli. I think this is much more complex and basic to our makeup than it first appears. Obviously there is the macro version of it which would include our consciousness, but it also seems to happen at the microscopic/biological level as well in how our bodies react to external germs. We know where we end, and the external world begins, most of the time. I think that's a fascinating concept.

I think there are different ways of thinking of evolution. I think experience shapes the default wiring of your brains to a certain extent and this could be passed on in some basic sense. To steal an example from Dennett, and probably poorly , here's an idea. There is a wiring in the brain that relates to a Good Trick (whatever that might be, starting better fires, making better spears). Say its AABBAA. A person with that wiring in their brain is most likely to stumble upon the Good Trick. Others do not have that specific wiring, but wiring can be changed. For example someone who was wired BABBAA would be closer and therefore more likely to discover the Good Trick, than someone wired BBAABB. So within any given community there are numerous individuals with the potential to discover the Good Trick, just with varying likelihoods of success. Over time, more of the people wired AABBAA would likely survive, if the Good Trick worked well than of any other wiring and so it would become more prevalent. It would not necessarily elminate other wirings, but its possible. I think too many people look at it as, here's a community wired AAAAAA, individual wired BBBBBB comes along with an awesome survival mechanism and thus creates ABABAB. While this might happen, it'd also be exceedingly rare I'd think.

So in that vain, its possible that the default makeup of any childs brain might contain more of the wirings that through experience could lead them to a wide array of Good Tricks, even if its not guaranteed. Good Tricks can be all sorts of things, concepts...who knows. They also don't all have to be positive Tricks, we could pass on negative ones as well. But it might give an interesting phenomena when you do experience them. It would seem correct because there are likely many others within your community that could relate to the experience (as they are also hard/wet-wired to likely stumble across them), but it would still feel personal and specific to you because the experience that triggered it is unique to you.

I also think language greatly increased this above process. Language helps a lot with abstract thought because it gives us a greater capacity for internal dialogue. It gives us a more complex way of prompting and posing scenario's to ourselves than any other animal. We also have a much more complex and thus superior ability to predict. To build scenario's and plan and have forethought about what reactions will occur from our actions. We can build scenario's predicting events in the next 10 mins, or an hour, a month, years, toward infinity even. I'd argue no other animal has this sense of internal prediction building on the scale that we do. And I think language plays quite a large part in that.

The redness of red may also fit in here somehow. On one hand red is just a label, and there are different labels and associations for colours across different cultures. While obviously colour results from what is reflected and absorbed by a particular matierial as it pertains to light, its how a particular person's senses interprete that information that ultimately dictates what is experienced by that brains resulting consciousness. Because our brains and senses are on some basic level all similiar its suggestive that what I see as Red is the same thing you see as Red and as your French cousin see's as rouge, despite never being able to directly compare experiences. However, problems with those senses or the makeup of a particular brain can obviously throw this off. Colour blindness, partial blindness, full blindness, and several other vision abnormalities can affect what is perceived by that brain's consciousness. Sometimes what is perceived is varied from the norm, sometimes its absent. I also think there are various ways it can be absent. The senses themselves can be faulty and not actually operate, or in some cases they can work fine in and of themselves, but getting that information worked into the experience of the resulting consciousness gets lost in the mix.

I think that redness is a subjective summation of a more complex association to objective experience. Some of those summations could be passed down through cultural or evolutionary means, but most would be direct experience. I think the feeling of pain, the redness of red seem so abstract to us because our consciousness really isn't privy to the complex processes of the brain. The brain I'd assume would have difficulty representing the entire process of pain to its resultingly produced consciousness, and at the end of the day it just perhaps isn't necessary. So we get subjective summations of these processes instead. Perhaps that's why these types of things are so intuitively hard to grasp when we really try and drill down into them.