Malerin, what difference? Immaterialism is Moot

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

When you're routinely using drugs to treat mental illness, dualism becomes overtly problematic.

You simply refuse to admit that some molecules come from the other half of the dual thingie.

~~ Paul

 

[Malerin]

That makes no sense, whatsoever. How would you know, anyway ?

For instance, I'm here to engage in skeptical debates. What does that have to do with idealism or materialism ?

Because they're debateable models of reality?

 

[Belz...]

Yes but they're not the REASON why I'm here.

 

[PixyMisa]

While I agree with you that, most current schools of psychology maintain materialism as a given they still very much view human psychology in terms of mental attributes (memories, personal opinions, motivations, etc.) as opposed to strictly in terms of basic neurophysiology and biochemistry.

No, no they don't. Listen (as I'm always advising people) to the MIT Introduction to Psychology lecture series and learn how closely modern psychology is tied to brain biology.

Not that it matters anyway, since it is already understood that mental states are physical states.

Science is still a ways away from of having a rigorous understanding of the mind (as either a process or entity), and thus devising effective 'cures' to mental pathologies. I think the approach of merely writing off the mind is extremely counter productive in a gaining a full scientific understanding of what the heck is going on in regard to humans and thought process.

No-one "writes off" the mind. The point is that it is a physical process.

I don't think that the approach of simply developing better chemical cocktails is going to bear much fruit in the long run in trying to deal with mental pathologies. Much of the philosophy behind it is, IMO, based on some flawed premises which I will elaborate on later.

Go ahead.

Well the thing is, I'm not satisfied with the rather pat conclusion of "everything is matter".

So, then. Show me something that isn't matter.

If matter is infact derivative then it stands to reason that there can be and probably are processes/entities that come from the same substrate but could not be considered matter in and of themselves.

Matter is defined not by what it is, but by what it does. Or to put it more concisely, it is what it does.

So to answer your point, no.

In much the same way that matter and energy are basically equivalent but distinguishable, I'm of the opinion that there are other aspects of reality that could be equivalent-yet-distinguishable in much the same way.

That makes no sense.

 

[PixyMisa]

Because they're debateable models of reality?

Except that they're not.

Everything in the Universe acts like it's made of matter. So for any given form of idealism, either it is isomorphic with materialism (i.e. indistinguishable), or false.

 

[AkuManiMani]

No, no they don't. Listen (as I'm always advising people) to the MIT Introduction to Psychology lecture series and learn how closely modern psychology is tied to brain biology.

Not that it matters anyway, since it is already understood that mental states are physical states.

I'm not denying the physical substrates of the process. My point is that the mind is a process most likely generated by the brain that can also, in turn, shape behavior and properties of the brain. I consider it a process that could be considered an entity in and of itself. I've gone into much lengthier detail on this before on another thread a while back but it seems I'm going to have to explain my reasoning behind this again.

No-one "writes off" the mind. The point is that it is a physical process.

I was referring to Dancing David's previous comments to the effect that "there is no such thing as mind". Though you may not personally share an identical stance to his, I've encountered other forum members whose positions quite similar to that of Dave's. So yes, there are those who 'write off' the mind.

I don't think that the approach of simply developing better chemical cocktails is going to bear much fruit in the long run in trying to deal with mental pathologies. Much of the philosophy behind it is, IMO, based on some flawed premises which I will elaborate on later.

Go ahead.

I'll start with a statement I made to Dave back on post #78:

"What I'm saying is that this method of treatment is based on flawed assumptions of reductionist philosophy. The approach of thinking of mental illness strictly in terms of reducing it to neurological components will continue to yield the same superficial results you've been lamenting."

I suspect that there are two major philosophical flaws at the heart of whole "drug-as-cure" [DAC] approach in regards to psychology (though they are so interrelated its arguable that they are essentially one and the same):

What Daniel Dennett calls greedy reductionism and determinism.

(Since reductionism necessarily implies determinism, for convenience sake I'll just refer to them collectively as 'reductionism')

The inherent limitations of the reductionist perspective are evident not only in the fields of psychology, but in just about any situation where there is agency involved, namely biology in general. Organisms' ('conscious' or otherwise) are dynamic, coherent wholes; they're systems whose behavior as a whole is not strictly determined by their constituent parts.

In the context of psychological care, I would argue that the DAC approach is based on greedy reductionism because it sees mental disorders exclusively in terms of "malfunctioning" parts rather than as systemic problems.

I think the simplest way to state my position is that an organism is not its constituent parts. Matter and energy are continuously flowing into and out of an organism. Considering this fact, its quite apparent that what an organism essentially is is not, strictly speaking, the atoms and molecules comprising its structure at any given time. An organism is the coherent system that organizes and affects the behavior of said molecules. Its behaviors and properties are emergent and, in the case of sentient organisms like us, they are strongly emergent.

Theres a pretty workable grasp of a lot of the simpler chemical components in the nervous system, but understanding of the nature of the organizing system of the mind, in a rigorous sense, is very lacking. A major reason for this is that much of the field of psychology is almost myopically focusing on components to the neglect of the organizational pattern. The description of the properties and behaviors of an organism, and especially one with a mind, is not reducible simply to that of its chemical components. Psychology is not mere branch of biochemistry, but it seems a lot of psychiatric practitioners treat is as such.

Well the thing is, I'm not satisfied with the rather pat conclusion of "everything is matter".

So, then. Show me something that isn't matter.

Well the definition of matter that I' am going off of is

"anything that has both mass and volume (i.e. takes up space)"

With that in mind think of three very good examples 'what isn't matter':

-Space-time

-Energy

-information

Matter is defined not by what it is, but by what it does. Or to put it more concisely, it is what it does.

So to answer your point, no.

Matter is a category of entity, and being a catergory, is not a universal. My point is that matter is not the only ontologically salient 'stuff' of the universe.

In much the same way that matter and energy are basically equivalent but distinguishable, I'm of the opinion that there are other aspects of reality that could be equivalent-yet-distinguishable in much the same way.

That makes no sense.

Okay, lets look at it this way.

Matter and energy are fundamentally equivalent, yes? But its conceptually useful to categorize them separately because there are obviously distinguishing characteristics.

Right now physicists, consider electormagenetism, the weak, and the strong nuclear forces to be manifestations of the same field [its assumed that gravity is also included in this totality of fields but physicist haven't figured out how yet]. At the same time they are, for all practical intents and purposes, categorized as distinct.

There isn't a 'duality' between matter and energy, but there are distinctions. There isn't any real 'plurality' of forces tho there are different articulations of the same field.

Now one can say that everything is just matter, just energy, or just fields but such a conceptualization isn't very useful for understanding the nuances of reality.

With all that said, I'm arguing that the mind isn't just matter. It isn't very useful or insightful to think of it simply in terms of being a mere collection of matter.

Anyways I hope that, while you may not agree with me, that helped make what I'm trying to say a little more clear for you.

 

[Malerin]

For instance, I'm here to engage in skeptical debates. What does that have to do with idealism or materialism ?

Your skepticism seems to end where metaphysics begins.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Just a couple of things to comment on.

I'm not denying the physical substrates of the process. My point is that the mind is a process generated by the brain that can also, in turn, shape behavior and properties of the brain. I consider it a process that could be considered an entity in and of itself. I've gone into much lengthier detail on this before on another thread a while back but it seems I'm going to have to explain my reasoning behind this again.

We know that the 'mind' can affect body chemistry and vice versa. For example, thyroid conditions can trigger mood disorders such as depression, while a condition such as depression can adversely affect your metabolism or immune system. These are chemical changes, therefore it stands to reason that this is the most reasonable answer to the question of mind interaction. Are you referring to the mind as a subset of the processes of the brain, or as something that acts separately or independently? Are you saying the mind is fundamentally equivalent yet categorically distinct?

Well the definition of matter that I' am going off of is

"anything that has both mass and volume (i.e. takes up space)"

With that in mind think of three very good examples 'what isn't matter':

-Space-time

-Energy

-information

I think you're taking PixyMisa's question too literally. The way I interpreted it was as a request for examples of anything immaterial, not anything that's literally "not matter." Spacetime, energy, and information are measurable, quantifiable, and therefore materialistic. The analogy that comes to mind is languages, which represent patterns in people's brains that are used for communication. I wouldn't say they're immaterial.

 

[calebprime]

...
With all that said, I'm arguing that the mind isn't just matter. It isn't very useful or insightful to think of it simply in terms of being a mere collection of matter.

Anyways I hope that, while you may not agree with me, that helped make what I'm trying to say a little more clear for you.

-maybe if you simply replace "mind" with "behavior", I would agree.

-If you say that mind is what brain does, including reacting badly to stress and adversity, and being able to modify itself and be modified by world events, you don't have to posit a Mind that effects the brain.

-Then, you can still discuss a person's past, their motivation and projects, without talking about what their Mind is doing.

-If drug x isn't effective at curing mental disorder y (which manifests as behavior--which includes perception) it's not because of defective ontology, it's because magic bullets tend not to exist, and the brain isn't some see-saw with simple imbalances--it's hugely complicated, and engaged with the past, and the world.

caleb runs away and hides.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Just a couple of things to comment on.

We know that the 'mind' can affect body chemistry and vice versa. For example, thyroid conditions can trigger mood disorders such as depression, while a condition such as depression can adversely affect your metabolism or immune system. These are chemical changes, therefore it stands to reason that this is the most reasonable answer to the question of mind interaction. Are you referring to the mind as a subset of the processes of the brain, or as something that acts separately or independently? Are you saying the mind is fundamentally equivalent yet categorically distinct?

I think the underlined part is roughly what I mean.

I think its analogous to superconductivity not being deducible from what is known about the components. The mind itself [i.e. the collection of thoughts, perceptions, emotions, memories, beliefs, etc.] is not deducible from the basic rules the govern the components. A mind is one of probably an infinite multitude of possibilities that can emerge from biochemistry, chemistry, and ultimately subatomic physics. It appears that one observes new layers of complexity there are characteristics that emerge that aren't strictly deducible from the previous layers.

If one were just thinking of the mind in terms of describing what the individual atoms are doing it wont fully explain or help understand the choices that entity will make. It seems in the case of the whole mind/brain issue there is some circular feedback going on between the two levels of organization.

I think you're taking PixyMisa's question too literally. The way I interpreted it was as a request for examples of anything immaterial, not anything that's literally "not matter." Spacetime, energy, and information are measurable, quantifiable, and therefore materialistic. The analogy that comes to mind is languages, which represent patterns in people's brains that are used for communication. I wouldn't say they're immaterial.

So then basically, PixyMisa is using the world 'material' to be interchangeable with 'real'. When I say 'material' I mean it inna more specific sense. In my view material means something substantive; the 'immaterial' is something that has some form of objective reality but lacks the characteristic of having tactile substance. IMO, this way of looking at it allows a considerably more coherent and nuanced view of reality.


.............


At the risk of going onna wild tangent think its appropriate to give you an idea of where I'm coming from and the background from which I'm basing a lot of these ideas. I've been thinking on this subject and related topics for about a decade or so (atleast since middle school) and I'm still puzzling over it. As a kid I had what seems to be the general consensus view on this forum; that there is a direct correspondence between whats going on "down there" with regard to fundamental particles and how things behave "up here" in the macroscopic world. It seemed pretty commonsense that the reductionist approach (I didn't know what it was called at the time) pretty much adequately (or potentially) explained everything we observe. Needless to say, as I read more and more and gave it some deeper thought it seemed clear to me that that wasn't the whole picture; something seemed seriously overlooked.

[And for those of you who may ask, no -- I'm not appealing to anything 'supernatural']

It seems in just about every area of science I've been reading on has run into the emergence problem in some form or another. Even in the realm of what we think of as the basic 'laws' of physics seem to be contingent -- that what we think of as 'constants' and physical law emerge from some deeper 'rules'.

I've been reading some material on string-theory that implies that the "laws" that govern the observed cosmos are just one of a set of atleast 10^500 possible solutions (or ways a 'verse could evolve). A similar message comes thru in this interview with Leonard Susskind discussing this view of reality and the general uneasy reception from those in the theoretical physics community.

[Please excuse me if I come off as rambling. I sometimes have a hard time expressing some areas of my thinking in words]

The general impression I've been getting from all this is that one can think of reality as a kind of nested hierarchy of emergent patterns and processes. For example, in my mode of thought, an atom isn't just a collection of sub atomic particles; its a contingent subset of pattern configuration that they can conform to. The atom is a conglomeration of fluctuating 'parts' but it behaves as a one coherent system with its own set of emergent properties that the parts alone do not have. Now continue this thinking 'down' the rungs of organization (to subatomic particles and strings) or 'upward' (to chemical compounds, cells, multicelluars, etc). The key feature here is that each level 'up' there are more degrees of freedom with potentially more kinds of interactions and the possibility of more strongly emergent behaviors and states. Basically, each level has the possibly of spontaneously developing contingent 'rules' which can influence or supervene on the behavior of the components.


So, I pretty much consider minds entities in their own right in much the same way that I do atoms.

edit: Okay, just stumbled across a wiki article discussing something similar do the nested hierarchy thingie I've been thinking about. They're called holons, apprently. I love the internets

 

[AkuManiMani]

caleb runs away and hides.

Aw, don't run away; critiques are welcome.

They help highlight details in my thinking I might have missed. I don't think I can juggle all this crap in my head alone

 

[Dancing David]

I'm not sure if you deliberately reinterpret what I say to mean what you want it to say or if I'm just not communicating clearly.

At what point did I say or imply that 'spirits' and 'demons' should be introduced into the field of psychology?? I'll try my best to be as concise and clear as I can but, in the mean time, could you atleast make the effort to bother trying to understand what I'm saying before disputing?

I am , what utility does the 'mind' have? It is the same as a spirit or a demon. It is the same as the 'id', "ego' and 'superego'.

It has no ability to make approximations on the behavior of reality. So it is not testable or falsifiable.

I know it makes people uncomfortable to say 'the mind is a fiction', but that is what is it seems to be.

How would you describe or define the mind?

Maybe then we would have something to debate.

What is it, what does it look like?

Of course I believe that mental disorders are real phenomenon. I'm just saying that we don't fully understand them because we don't have a rigorous understanding of the mind. Further, attempting to rationalize away the subject in question (in this case the mind) is extremely counter productive, to say the least, and downright ludicrous.

No more ludicrous than asserting something so vaguely defined has meaning. Thoughts exist, memories exist, emotions in some way exist (depending upon the definition). Mind does not.

How does it have meaning? Many terms are used that have no actual meaning and are just misleading.

I think the only unsupported belief here is that mental disorders exist but minds do not

i have seen plenty of ways that there is evidence for mental disorders, I have seen none for a mind.

First off, I never stated that neurotransmission is a philosophy. I stated that the assumption that simply medicating a person w/ a chemical cocktail is the answer to all mental ills is based upon a flawed philosophy.

that is another critter in deed and the science of psychology does not recommend that, so that is a red herring and a strawman in one.

there are many techniques that the science of psychology has suggested that are very effective in dealing with mild to moderate/transitory symptoms.

Where is the 'philosophy' of 'psychology' flawed?

As you mentioned yourself, the current attempts to treat mental illness with pills only manage symptoms.

And that is not true, the term that was in vogue during my tenure in mental health was the term, 'biopsychosocial', in that the issue of mental illness has a physical component which is effected by thoughts, emotions, behaviors and social interactions.

What I'm saying is that this method of treatment is based on flawed assumptions of reductionist philosophy. The approach of thinking of mental illness strictly in terms of reducing it to neurological components will continue to yield the same superficial results you've been lamenting.

Still an assertion, a projection and mistaken beliefs, psychology as opposed to strictly psychiatry emphasises the cognitive behavioral strategies.

As do most psychiatrists.

Perhaps if you stop being so knee-jerk in your reactions and actually take time to calmly and rationally assess what I'm saying you'd realize that that is not what I'm arguing at all.

You assert that the mind exists, define it.
You stated that he 'philosophy' of reductionism is somehow misapplied in psychology, which was a straw man. The idea of treating whole systems is rather prevalent is psychology.

Mental disorders are biological, yes, but they are not strictly and always chemically caused and cannot be effectively cured chemically. I'll give an example.

there is that strawman again, you asserted something that is not true in psychology or psychiatry.

A person can suffer from severe, lifelong depression after witnessing the death of their family. They may even harbor some feelings of guilt and feel responsible for not preventing their deaths. This >mental< trauma may even cause them to develop suicidal tendencies. Its very clear in this instance that the nature of the illness is mental. This mental state is very real and causes an equally real physical change in the individual's biochemistry. One can monkey around with this person's biochemistry with some pills but at the end of the day the person is still traumatized. IMO, its equivalent to simply treating a gunshot victim with pain killers. Sure, the symptom of hideous screaming pain is managed but the actual source of the problem is not treated or addressed.

And again you are making false statements about the nature of treatment and the science of psychology.

Everyone I worked with for ten years in case management and almost two years in crisis intervention held the belief that medication could help, but that lifestyle choices and behaviors had to change.

And you are wrong, if a person has breavement lasting for such a long time as 'severe, lifelong', then they are not just in breavement. they have not recovered from the trauma and it is no longer just the trauma which is determining the effects of their symptoms. they are a whole, they have a body which is 'depressed', they have thoughts and emotions which are impacted by the 'depression' and effect the depression as well, they are making choices which impact their body, thoughts and emotions.
To effect an increase in health would require a number of interventions (if that is what the person agrees to), sound practice would be for them to receive medication (if they have physical symptoms), counseling and life style choices.

So where is the flawed philosophy?

Okay then, Dave, what is an idea? What is a symbol?

If we assume that there is a difference between materialism and idealism,

materialism :symbol is a referent with an idiomatic component, based upon communication between two material organisms. Considerable error occurs do to the need for organisms to reference the idiom.

idealism: (I have a harder time with this) symbol is a reference between two sets of experience which communicate with each other by reference to experience. idiomatic referencing occurs and errors still occurs

No symbols exists absent the organisms or experiences of them. the marks may exist on paper or wherever, but the 'symbol' comes about through communication. Take some language which has a written form but no reference to existing or know languages. Without the ability to reference the symbols and derive the idiomatic relation to referents or experience, there is no symbol, there are marks which once has meaning but no longer do.

Never said they were.

 

[Dancing David]

I'm not denying the physical substrates of the process. My point is that the mind is a process most likely generated by the brain that can also, in turn, shape behavior and properties of the brain. I consider it a process that could be considered an entity in and of itself. I've gone into much lengthier detail on this before on another thread a while back but it seems I'm going to have to explain my reasoning behind this again.




I was referring to Dancing David's previous comments to the effect that "there is no such thing as mind". Though you may not personally share an identical stance to his, I've encountered other forum members whose positions quite similar to that of Dave's. So yes, there are those who 'write off' the mind.



I'll start with a statement I made to Dave back on post #78:

"What I'm saying is that this method of treatment is based on flawed assumptions of reductionist philosophy. The approach of thinking of mental illness strictly in terms of reducing it to neurological components will continue to yield the same superficial results you've been lamenting."

I suspect that there are two major philosophical flaws at the heart of whole "drug-as-cure" [DAC] approach in regards to psychology (though they are so interrelated its arguable that they are essentially one and the same):

What Daniel Dennett calls greedy reductionism and determinism.

(Since reductionism necessarily implies determinism, for convenience sake I'll just refer to them collectively as 'reductionism')

The inherent limitations of the reductionist perspective are evident not only in the fields of psychology, but in just about any situation where there is agency involved, namely biology in general. Organisms' ('conscious' or otherwise) are dynamic, coherent wholes; they're systems whose behavior as a whole is not strictly determined by their constituent parts.

In the context of psychological care, I would argue that the DAC approach is based on greedy reductionism because it sees mental disorders exclusively in terms of "malfunctioning" parts rather than as systemic problems.

I think the simplest way to state my position is that an organism is not its constituent parts. Matter and energy are continuously flowing into and out of an organism. Considering this fact, its quite apparent that what an organism essentially is is not, strictly speaking, the atoms and molecules comprising its structure at any given time. An organism is the coherent system that organizes and affects the behavior of said molecules. Its behaviors and properties are emergent and, in the case of sentient organisms like us, they are strongly emergent.

Theres a pretty workable grasp of a lot of the simpler chemical components in the nervous system, but understanding of the nature of the organizing system of the mind, in a rigorous sense, is very lacking. A major reason for this is that much of the field of psychology is almost myopically focusing on components to the neglect of the organizational pattern. The description of the properties and behaviors of an organism, and especially one with a mind, is not reducible simply to that of its chemical components. Psychology is not mere branch of biochemistry, but it seems a lot of psychiatric practitioners treat is as such.



Well the definition of matter that I' am going off of is

"anything that has both mass and volume (i.e. takes up space)"

With that in mind think of three very good examples 'what isn't matter':

-Space-time

-Energy

-information



Matter is a category of entity, and being a catergory, is not a universal. My point is that matter is not the only ontologically salient 'stuff' of the universe.




Okay, lets look at it this way.

Matter and energy are fundamentally equivalent, yes? But its conceptually useful to categorize them separately because there are obviously distinguishing characteristics.

Right now physicists, consider electormagenetism, the weak, and the strong nuclear forces to be manifestations of the same field [its assumed that gravity is also included in this totality of fields but physicist haven't figured out how yet]. At the same time they are, for all practical intents and purposes, categorized as distinct.

There isn't a 'duality' between matter and energy, but there are distinctions. There isn't any real 'plurality' of forces tho there are different articulations of the same field.

Now one can say that everything is just matter, just energy, or just fields but such a conceptualization isn't very useful for understanding the nuances of reality.

With all that said, I'm arguing that the mind isn't just matter. It isn't very useful or insightful to think of it simply in terms of being a mere collection of matter.

Anyways I hope that, while you may not agree with me, that helped make what I'm trying to say a little more clear for you.

I will give this full response later, less I belabor the points I made.

Mental processes exists, there are already labels like 'verbal cognition' that exist.

The science of psychology states that verbal cognitions can influence emotions, emotional states and behaviors.

The mind is not really very useful, in the 'chaining' technique of exploring thoughts, memories and feelings the person examines their thoughts (commonly labeled as self-talk), they identify a trigger for the examination :

"I hate my life" (verbal cognition or self talk) (a memory of emotion may be a triggers as well)

they then draw a spider map of a chain map, to the best of their ability they try to recall the series of internal and external events that led to the trigger statement.

They are not identifying 'mind' they are labeling verbal cognitions, emotions, memories and associations.

that is why i say the mind does not exist.

More later.

 

[AkuManiMani]

I am , what utility does the 'mind' have? It is the same as a spirit or a demon. It is the same as the 'id', "ego' and 'superego'.

It has no ability to make approximations on the behavior of reality. So it is not testable or falsifiable.

I know it makes people uncomfortable to say 'the mind is a fiction', but that is what is it seems to be.

How would you describe or define the mind?

Maybe then we would have something to debate.

This is funny because I was preparing to again define what I mean by "mind" but saw that you'd pretty much defined a large part of it below

Even tho I've already put in my own words how I define "mind" I'll pull up some references anyway as to what the definition is:

Mind collectively refers to the aspects of intellect and consciousness manifested as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination; mind is the stream of consciousness. It includes all of the brain's conscious processes. This denotation sometimes includes, in certain contexts, the working of the human unconscious or the conscious thoughts of animals. "Mind" is often used to refer especially to the thought processes of reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind

...what does it look like?

Good question. Unfortunately it has about as much meaning as these questions:

What does a subatomic particle look like? What does an idea look like. What does up look like? What does a bit of information look like? What color are they? Whats their shape?

No more ludicrous than asserting something so vaguely defined has meaning. Thoughts exist, memories exist, emotions in some way exist (depending upon the definition). Mind does not.

Thats like saying:

Quarks exist, photons exist, electrons exist, virtual particles in some way exist (depending on the definition). Atoms and molecules do not.

i have seen plenty of ways that there is evidence for mental disorders, I have seen none for a mind.

"I have seen plenty of evidence for material properties, I have seen none for matter"

First off, I never stated that neurotransmission is a philosophy. I stated that the assumption that simply medicating a person w/ a chemical cocktail is the answer to all mental ills is based upon a flawed philosophy.

that is another critter in deed and the science of psychology does not recommend that, so that is a red herring and a strawman in one.

there are many techniques that the science of psychology has suggested that are very effective in dealing with mild to moderate/transitory symptoms.

Where is the 'philosophy' of 'psychology' flawed?

In the weird cognitive dissonance that allows you to claim that mental attributes are salient and real but minds are not

And that is not true, the term that was in vogue during my tenure in mental health was the term, 'biopsychosocial', in that the issue of mental illness has a physical component which is effected by thoughts, emotions, behaviors and social interactions.

Still an assertion, a projection and mistaken beliefs, psychology as opposed to strictly psychiatry emphasises the cognitive behavioral strategies.

As do most psychiatrists.

You assert that the mind exists, define it.
You stated that he 'philosophy' of reductionism is somehow misapplied in psychology, which was a straw man. The idea of treating whole systems is rather prevalent in psychology.

*Knock-Knock!*

Dave, you're missing the elephant sitting in the living room. Those systems you mentioned are what the mind is. Not simply the biochemical soup, individual atoms, the neurons, or what have you -- but the whole system than acts upon them and shapes them.

I'm a bit perplexed, as you keep talking right passed what I'm saying and the realization doesn't seem to be clicking. At this point you're just being mindlessly contrary for contray's sake. Lemme try and sum it up for you again:

The mind is the system of thoughts, emotions, ideas, memories, opinions thoughts, imagination, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc...

The basic biochemistry of an individual brain/body is continually flowing into and out of an individual in much the same way that an electron and virtual particles are in flux in and around an atom. Its that system -- that pattern -- that coheres it all, that is what I'm speaking of.

Do you get it??? >_<

 

[PixyMisa]

I'm not denying the physical substrates of the process. My point is that the mind is a process most likely generated by the brain that can also, in turn, shape behavior and properties of the brain. I consider it a process that could be considered an entity in and of itself.

It's not "most likely" generated by the brain. It is indisputably generated by the brain.

And the discovery that a physical process can have physical effects is underwhelming.

I was referring to Dancing David's previous comments to the effect that "there is no such thing as mind". Though you may not personally share an identical stance to his, I've encountered other forum members whose positions quite similar to that of Dave's. So yes, there are those who 'write off' the mind.

Mind is a process, not an object. That's what they're saying.

I'll start with a statement I made to Dave back on post #78:

"What I'm saying is that this method of treatment is based on flawed assumptions of reductionist philosophy. The approach of thinking of mental illness strictly in terms of reducing it to neurological components will continue to yield the same superficial results you've been lamenting."

I suspect that there are two major philosophical flaws at the heart of whole "drug-as-cure" [DAC] approach in regards to psychology (though they are so interorelated its arguable that they are essentially one and the same):

What Daniel Dennett calls greedy reductionism and determinism.

(Since reductionism necessarily implies determinism, for convenience sake I'll just refer to them collectively as 'reductionism')

The inherent limitations of the reductionist perspective are evident not only in the fields of psychology, but in just about any situation where there is agency involved, namely biology in general. Organisms' ('conscious' or otherwise) are dynamic, coherent wholes; they're systems whose behavior as a whole is not strictly determined by their constituent parts.

That's a strawman attack on reductionism. Reductionism doesn't equate a steam engine with a lump of iron and carbon. A system is the sum of its parts and their organisation. The behaviour of a system depends on its parts, their organization, and their interaction with the rest of the world.

In the context of psychological care, I would argue that the DAC approach is based on greedy reductionism because it sees mental disorders exclusively in terms of "malfunctioning" parts rather than as systemic problems.

No. It just happens to work, when nothing else we currently have does.

I think the simplest way to state my position is that an organism is not its constituent parts. Matter and energy are continuously flowing into and out of an organism. Considering this fact, its quite apparent that what an organism essentially is is not, strictly speaking, the atoms and molecules comprising its structure at any given time. An organism is the coherent system that organizes and affects the behavior of said molecules. Its behaviors and properties are emergent and, in the case of sentient organisms like us, they are strongly emergent.

You mean, life is a process, not an object?

Well, how about that.

THis is still purely materialist - and reductionist.

Theres a pretty workable grasp of a lot of the simpler chemical components in the nervous system, but understanding of the nature of the organizing system of the mind, in a rigorous sense, is very lacking. A major reason for this is that much of the field of psychology is almost myopically focusing on components to the neglect of the organizational pattern.

Listen to the lectures I linked to earlier. You're attacking a strawman.

The description of the properties and behaviors of an organism, and especially one with a mind, is not reducible simply to that of its chemical components. Psychology is not mere branch of biochemistry, but it seems a lot of psychiatric practitioners treat is as such.

You can probably find some, but that's just an issue of necessity, and not a philosophical issue at all. Psychology is fundamentally rooted in brain biology, and it has to be, because mind is brain function.

Well the definition of matter that I' am going off of is

"anything that has both mass and volume (i.e. takes up space)"

Is an electron matter, then?

With that in mind think of three very good examples 'what isn't matter':

-Space-time

Certainly has volume.

-Energy

Has mass equivalence.

-information

Is material. Look it up. Information is a material thing.

Matter is a category of entity, and being a catergory, is not a universal.

Non-sequitur.

My point is that matter is not the only ontologically salient 'stuff' of the universe.

As has been said already, you're parsing it too finely, and with a limited understanding of what matter is. Energy and matter are absolutely the same stuff. So is information. Space-time is the substrate in which energy and matter exist.

Okay, lets look at it this way.

Matter and energy are fundamentally equivalent, yes?

Yes.

But its conceptually useful to categorize them separately because there are obviously distinguishing characteristics.

We categorize them separately when it is useful, and together when that is useful.

Right now physicists, consider electormagenetism, the weak, and the strong nuclear forces to be manifestations of the same field [its assumed that gravity is also included in this totality of fields but physicist haven't figured out how yet]. At the same time they are, for all practical intents and purposes, categorized as distinct.

For some purposes, yes. For others, no.

There isn't a 'duality' between matter and energy, but there are distinctions. There isn't any real 'plurality' of forces tho there are different articulations of the same field.

And they are all the same stuff.

Now one can say that everything is just matter, just energy, or just fields but such a conceptualization isn't very useful for understanding the nuances of reality.

It's still true, though.

With all that said, I'm arguing that the mind isn't just matter. It isn't very useful or insightful to think of it simply in terms of being a mere collection of matter.

It is a mere collection of matter. It remains true whether you consider it useful and insightful or not.

Anyways I hope that, while you may not agree with me, that helped make what I'm trying to say a little more clear for you.

Yes, you did make it more clear. You're mostly wrong, though.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Thats like saying:

Quarks exist, photons exist, electrons exist, virtual particles in some way exist (depending on the definition). Atoms and molecules do not.

If people would define mind in terms of brain function as crisply as atoms/molecules are defined in terms of fundamental particles, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Maybe someday it will be defined that crisply, just as sunrise is now defined in terms of geophysical processes. It's an anachronism, but a well-defined one.

~~ Paul

 

[AkuManiMani]

[Okay, PixyMisa, it seems we pretty much agree on most of the details but not the interpretation. Pardon me if it seems like I'm nitpicking.]

Mind is a process, not an object. That's what they're saying.

And what I've been saying is that all "objects" are processes. As I mentioned above, the logic of Dave claiming that there are no minds can be extended to claim that there are no atoms or molecules.

That's a strawman attack on reductionism. Reductionism doesn't equate a steam engine with a lump of iron and carbon. A system is the sum of its parts and their organisation. The behaviour of a system depends on its parts, their organization, and their interaction with the rest of the world.

Frist off, I would like to say that reductionism isn't wrong, per se, its just incomplete. Secondly, the definition of reductionism you gave is incorrect:

Reductionism can either mean (a) an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or (b) a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents.[1] This can be said of objects, phenomena, explanations, theories, and meanings.

As you can see, reductionism isn't stating that things are "the sum of their parts and ...." It simply views a system just in terms of the sum of parts.

No. [Reductionism] just happens to work, when nothing else we currently have does.

It works best when used in conjunction with holism; they are two complementary perspectives. What I'm saying is that not considering the mind as an entity is as handicapping as not considering molecules and atoms as entities.

Is an electron matter, then?

Hmm...

Under one definition, yes; electrons and nucleons are considered 'matter' by virtue of comprising atoms. But since these subatomic particles are considered such, merely by virtue of being part of an atom, I think it's better to define matter as atomic elements and compounds. Another reason why I prefer this categorization is because the macroscopic properties associated w/ the term 'physical' (such as solid, liquid, gas, etc.) only manifest at the atomic level up.

So, keep in mind that when ever I used the terms "matter" or "material" I'm referring to the latter rather than the former definition.

[Again, sorry if I'm coming off as to nitpicky] >_<

1)[Space-time] Certainly has volume.

2) [Energy] Has mass equivalence.


3) [Information] Is material. Look it up. Information is a material thing.

1) Space-time is volume. It does not have volume. The fundamental unit of space-time is a Planck unit, right? I've read somewhere that smaller than that space and time as we know it has no meaning.

2) Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't mass a property believed to be derived from the Higgs field?

3) Based on what I've read I'd say that is the other way around: matter is informational.

Okay, I guess the best way to visualize how I'm thinking is that I've mentally organized these categories into directories. The basic ontology is still monist, but I'm viewing it taxonomically.

[Information]This would be the "root" directory

Followed by...

[Space-time]

Then...

[Energy]

A subset of which would be...

[Matter]

As has been said already, you're parsing it too finely, and with a limited understanding of what matter is. Energy and matter are absolutely the same stuff. So is information. Space-time is the substrate in which energy and matter exist.

Oh, I understand it just fine. I guess youthful arrogance makes me feel that my parsing is better...

Don't hurt me

Yes, you did make it more clear. You're mostly wrong, though.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. Btw, thanks very much for the lecture links. I'll definitely be looking into them summore

 

[AkuManiMani]

If people would define mind in terms of brain function as crisply as atoms/molecules are defined in terms of fundamental particles, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Maybe someday it will be defined that crisply, just as sunrise is now defined in terms of geophysical processes.

Agreed. It would be really cool if we got to see that happen in our lifetimes

 

[PixyMisa]

[Okay, PixyMisa, it seems we pretty much agree on most of the details but not the interpretation. Pardon me if it seems like I'm nitpicking.]

And what I've been saying is that all "objects" are processes.

That is indeed a valid way of looking at things. As I often say, it is what it does - we describe things by their behaviour, not by there essence (because we can't know what that essence is).

As I mentioned above, the logic of Dave claiming that there are no minds can be extended to claim that there are no atoms or molecules.

Which is why I don't say that there's no mind.

Frist off, I would like to say that reductionism isn't wrong, per se, its just incomplete. Secondly, the definition of reductionism you gave is incorrect:

No it isn't. You're still making strawmen. No-one believes, or ever has believed, that a cathedral and a pile of bricks and timber are the same thing.

And see that first definition anyway, which explicitly mentions the interactions of the parts.

As you can see, reductionism isn't stating that things are "the sum of their parts and ...." It simply views system a just in terms of the sum of parts.

No. Wrong.

Another way to look at it is that the sum includes the relationships of the parts to one another, and not the parts themselves.

If you refuse to recognise this, then you're not addressing reductionism, you're attacking a strawman.

It works best when use in conjunction with holism.

No. Holism is nonsense.

They are two complementary perspectives.

Complementary in the way that "true" and "false" are complementary.

What I'm saying is that not considering the mind as an entity is as handicapping as not considering molecules and atoms as entities as well

But no-one does this. It's another strawman. (If by "entity" you mean "process", and I believe you do.)

Hmm...

Under one definition, yes; electrons and nucleons are considered 'matter' by virtue of comprising atoms. But since these subatomic particles are considered such, merely by virtue of being part of an atom, I think it's better to define matter as atomic elements and compounds.

Except that then you'll miss about 95% of the Universe. Not to mention all the other problems.

Another reason why I prefer this categorization is because the macroscopic properties associated w/ the term 'physical' (such as solid, liquid, gas, etc.) only manifest at the atomic level up.

Those so-called properties are purely statistical in nature. In a sense, they don't exist.

So, keep in mind that when ever I used the terms "matter" or "material" I'm referring to the latter rather than the former definition.

Then you're attacking a strawman version of materialism as well. Nice going.

[Again, sorry if I'm coming off as to nitpicky] >_<

Not so much nitpicky as wrong.

2) Space-time is volume. It does not have volume. The fundamental unit of space-time is a Planck unit, right?

No.

2) Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't mass a property derived from the Higgs field?

Possibly. But particles still have or don't have mass.

3) Based on what I've read I'd say that is the other way around: matter is informational.

That's fine too. If followed strictly, it's one of those isomorphic idealisms I mentioned.

But the point remains that matter and information are the same stuff. Information is physical.

Okay, I guess the best way to visuallize how I'm thinking is that is organized by directories. The basic ontology is still monist, but I'm viewing it taxnomically

Why?

[Information]This would be the "root" directory

Followed by...

[Space-time]

Then...

[Energy]

A subset of which would be...

[Matter]

Energy and matter are not subsets of space-time, if that's what you mean. And matter is not a subset of energy; they're the same thing. And information is physical.

So your categorization is all wrong.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. Btw, thanks very much for the lecture links. I'll definitely be looking into them summore

The lectures are wonderful. Informative, of course, but also very entertaining.

 

[Malerin]

Energy and matter are not subsets of space-time, if that's what you mean. And matter is not a subset of energy; they're the same thing.

But they're not the same thing. One can be turned into the other, but that is like saying ice and steam are the same thing, or a lump of coal is the same thing as a diamond. If they were the same thing, we wouldn't have bothered labelling them with different words.