brain/mind

[billydkid]

Let me see if I can say this so other people can understand what I mean. I am sort of a master of tortured writing and sometimes have great trouble expressing simple ideas. I do a lot of technicalish writing for work and I basically suck at it. Nothing seems simple to me. Be that as it may.....

I get Discover magazine, but honestly, I almost never read it. I happened to glance at the letters to the editor in this last issue and some people wrote in about a previous article involving the mind/brain issue. I'm guessing the article essentially confirmed that the mind is an emergent property of the brain and its chemical activity. At least one letter - obviously not from a stupid person - expressed the typical discomfort at the idea that "we" and the self are just the result physiological functions and not some independent entity merely occupying our bodies.

I have never understood this position in two respects. First, I have never grasped the idea that because something is attributable to physical/chemical causes and effects is somehow diminishes its authenticity and remarkableness - that the self somehow has less integrity and significance because it isn't supernatural. But the main thing that bothers me with this whole idea that the self should or could be independent of the body and worldly processes is that it implies either that it is dependent on other processes not of this world (and what would incline anyone to suppose there are such processes?) or that it is not a function of processes at all.

Now this latter, to me, is impossible even to imagine and completely nonsensical. It seems to me absolutely implicit in existence that there must be process. A mind is not a mind if it is not thinking and thinking itself is a process. Awareness is a process and any process has to happen via mechanisms of some sort. This same sort of issue arises when considering the notion of the supernatural altogether. If things are to be supernatural it implies that they are happening via some alternate set of processes that are not of this world or they are somehow happening by no processes at all. In as much as "happening" is a process itself, it seems to me that this idea just makes no sense whatsoever. If you accept the idea that "supernatural" things happen via some set of other worldly processes, what is it thats give these processes, in some peoples minds, more significance and meaning than worldly processes?

I apologize if this all sounds stupid to you and I've wasted your time. I'm sure there is nothing original in this, but does anyone understand what I am trying to express? my best, bdk

 

[Wowbagger]

Absolutely! I feel the same way!

Read Consciousness Explained by Daniel C. Dennett. Although much of his ideas are admittedly not testable by hard science, yet, he has a good theory for how the mind works.
Summing it up with my own words (which do not match his): The mind is an emergent phenomenon of multiple things (he calls "drafts") going on in the brain at the same time, competing through Darwin-like selection processes, and kept persistent only as much as survival finds necessary.

Or, at least I think that's how to sum it all up. If anyone has better wording, you can offer it.


ETA: I had to read the book twice to really fully understand it. Most others might have to do the same.

 

[latent aaaack]

The part that stuck out the most to me in the book 'The User's Guide to the Brain' was a section about patients who have an operation that severs the connection between the two hemispheres of their brain, the corpus callosum, in order to stop severe epilepsy.

After that operation a patient would be asked to raise their left hand if their right hand was numb. Because the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right hand and vis versa and the corpus callosum is needed for both sides to communicate to eachother what each side knows, what happened was intruiging. The patient's left hemisphere knew that their right hand was not numb but that information could not be communicated to their right hemisphere so the right brain concluded that the right hand was numb and raised the left hand. The patient was shocked at this and would protest out loud (the mouth is controlled by the left hemisphere) that their right hand was not numb and that she didn't know why her hand was raising. As the link below shows, these observations have interested many outside the field of neuroscience, notably philosophers.

The questioning had to be stopped because the patients got increasingly upset and violent as they tried to control their left hand, even trying to physically restrain it. This was percieved as supporting the theory that consciousness is the product of the two hemispheres of the brain operating together and when the two sides are cut off from eachother both sides of the brain can be said to be conscious, whatever that even means in such a situation, which is so tortuous for the patient. Moreover, who is the 'patient' that you'd feel sorry for when reading about this? When you refer to post- operation patient, the object of your sympathy is now really only mysterious isolated sections of her brain because the procedure and the subsequent observations cut straight into our notions of 'the self' and consciousness.

Here's more info I found at this link http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-unity/ since I don't have the book any more to back up my memory of it:

4.1.1 Brain Bisection Operations
No medical procedure to do with consciousness has received as much philosophical attention in recent times as commissurotomies, more commonly known as brain bisection operations. Nagel (1971) was perhaps the first philosopher to write on them; his paper continues to be influential. Since then, Puccetti (1973, 1981), Marks (1981), Hirsch (1991), Lockwood (1989), Hurley (1998) and many, many other philosophers have written on these operations. Indeed, the strange results of these operations in certain controlled conditions were one of the things that brought the unity of consciousness back onto the research agenda.

In these operations, the corpus callosum is cut. The corpus callosum is a large strand of about 200,000,000 neurons running from one hemisphere to the other. When present, it is the chief channel of communication between the hemispheres. These operations, done mainly in the 1960s but recently reintroduced in a somewhat modified form, are a last-ditch effort to control certain kinds of severe epilepsy by stopping the spread of seizures from one lobe of the cerebral cortex to the other lobe. For details, see Sperry (1984), Bogen (1993), or Gazzaniga (2000).

In normal life, these patients show little effect of the operation. In particular, their consciousness of their world and themselves remains as unified as it was prior to the operation. How this can be has puzzled a lot of people (Hurley 1998). Even more interesting for our purposes, however, is that, under certain laboratory conditions, these patients behave as though two ‘centres of consciousness’ have been created in them. The original unity seems to be gone and two centres of unified consciousness seem to have replaced it, each associated with one of the two cerebral hemispheres.

Here are a couple of examples of the kinds of behaviour that prompt that assessment. The human retina is split vertically in such a way that the left half of each retina is primarily hooked up to the left hemisphere of the brain and the right half of each retina is primarily hooked up to the right hemisphere of the brain. Now suppose that we flash the word TAXABLE on a screen in front of a brain bisected patient in such a way that the letters TAX hit the left side of the retina, the letters ABLE the right side, and we put measures in place to ensure that the information hitting each half of the retina goes only to one lobe and is not fed to the other. If such a patient is asked what word is being shown, the mouth, controlled usually by the left hemisphere, will say TAX while the hand controlled by the hemisphere that does not control the mouth (usually the left hand and the right hemisphere) will write ABLE. Or, if the hemisphere that controls a hand (usually the left hand) but not speech is asked to do arithmetic in a way that does not penetrate to the hemisphere that controls speech and the hands are shielded from the eyes, the mouth will insist that it is not doing arithmetic, has not even thought of arithmetic today, and so on — while the appropriate hand is busily doing arithmetic!

Because brain bisection operations have attracted so much attention outside of psychiatry and neurology, we have included references to some important writings. For accounts of the rest of the phenomena we will sketch, consult any general textbook of psychiatry. Here we are interested in them only for the vicissitudes of unified consciousness that they display, or might be thought to display.

 

[drapier]

Moreover, who is the 'patient' that you'd feel sorry for when reading about this? When you refer to post- operation patient, the object of your sympathy is now really only mysterious isolated sections of her brain because the procedure and the subsequent observations cut straight into our notions of 'the self' and consciousness.

Are you suggesting that the patient did not perceive herself as a single self (however afflicted by the disorientation of having her corpus callosum severed)?

 

[Causality]

I apologize if this all sounds stupid to you and I've wasted your time. I'm sure there is nothing original in this, but does anyone understand what I am trying to express? my best, bdk

I agree with you. Most people, myself included earlier in life for some reason freak out when they consider that the mind is a process of the brain. It can probably be explained with evolutionary psychology where we need to think we're special and impermanent for us to fight to survive.

Also agree with Wowbagger that Daniel C. Dennett is the best philosopher of the mind today. I have several of his books, brilliant guy well worth reading.

 

[articulett]

I agree--We are our brains. I believe it is the language centers that contribute, in part, to the feeling that we are "ghosts in the machine"--but brain studies are really revealing some amazing information. So often I want to share it, but, like evolution, there is this wall people put up and their eyes glaze over. I suspect it's because they recognize a challenge to some long held and comforting beliefs.
We feel as if we have "free will" and "do things for reasons"--but we understand that if consciousness is a brain process, we are not quite as "in control" of what we think and do as we imagine.

If you've been indoctrinated since childhood that life is a test that determines the fate of your eternal soul (and told this by the people you trust the most)--then I guess it feeds the illusion--and comforts the part of the brain that understands that "I will die".

The mind as the organ which generates the brain makes such sense and gives such exciting avenues for exploration--but I find it hard to talk to regular folks about this. It's revolutionary in many ways--though for me, it's an idea that I took to easily...just like genetics--it made so much more sense than all that religious stuff which just brought more questions that I couldn't get the answers too. I just wanted to know what was TRUE. And I want other people to know too-- I think that huge numbers of people are manipulated by this notion that they are an eternal soul and that "person x" will make sure they don't suffer for that eternity. What could be more burdensome than an eternal feeling of anguish (though that always puzzled me, because I knew feelings occurred in the brain--but they weren't constant...they depended upon fluctuation or else there'd be no awareness of "feeling".) So an eternal soul that can suffer is a problem invented and then conveniently solved by religions, gurus, etc.

Humans have long invented consciousness in objects and forces and invisible beings to explain that which they didn't understand--to attempt to control it and/or others. But there has never been any evidence that consciousness of any sort can exist absent a brain--and I get frustrated at the endless pretense around the topic of gods and souls and things "must have happened for a reason" and "higher powers" etc. People will say goofy things like "science doesn't know everything"-- that is true, but religion doesn't know ANYTHING--no-one who claims to know anything about gods or souls can know anything about such things because there is no evidence that such things exist...and so much evidence that humans invent these type things all the time.

I feel like this forum is a breath of fresh rational air amongst a world filled with books entitled things like "Chicken Soup for the Soul"-- I've started venturing my opinion that "I don't believe in souls". If a guy without a hippocampus can't form a new memory what the hell is some invisible immeasurable entity without a brain supposed to experience?--And via what mechanism other than "magic". And once something is in the realm of magic--it's about as likely as all other things for which there are equal evidence. I think souls are as likely as ghosts or gods or demons or engrams or (insert invisible conscious entity).

There is a lot of information in the field of cognitive neuroscience that is so cool--and the same goes for evolution-- I think it's the coolest info. humans could ever know--and it's so smart that we figured it out-- and so sad that peoples "beliefs" keep them from sharing in this knowledge (who wants to bite from the tree of knowledge and risk eternal damnation?)

 

[Hokulele]

If you want a really interesting look into the mind, read about Capgras' Syndrome (or delusion). This nicely addresses the "I am me, or am I?" question. I read about this syndrome first in the book quoted in my sig (V.S. Ramachandran - Phantoms in the Brain), which is my favorite read on neuroscience.

 

[maatorc]

I agree--We are our brains. .....
The mind as the organ which generates the brain ....

Do you mean "The brain as the organ which generates the mind"?

 

[Dancing David]

The key is to always ask them, what evidence is there for a mind not associated with a brain?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

I agree--We are our brains. I believe it is the language centers that contribute, in part, to the feeling that we are "ghosts in the machine"--but brain studies are really revealing some amazing information. So often I want to share it, but, like evolution, there is this wall people put up and their eyes glaze over. I suspect it's because they recognize a challenge to some long held and comforting beliefs.
We feel as if we have "free will" and "do things for reasons"--but we understand that if consciousness is a brain process, we are not quite as "in control" of what we think and do as we imagine.

If you've been indoctrinated since childhood that life is a test that determines the fate of your eternal soul (and told this by the people you trust the most)--then I guess it feeds the illusion--and comforts the part of the brain that understands that "I will die".

The mind as the organ which generates the brain makes such sense and gives such exciting avenues for exploration--but I find it hard to talk to regular folks about this. It's revolutionary in many ways--though for me, it's an idea that I took to easily...just like genetics--it made so much more sense than all that religious stuff which just brought more questions that I couldn't get the answers too. I just wanted to know what was TRUE. And I want other people to know too-- I think that huge numbers of people are manipulated by this notion that they are an eternal soul and that "person x" will make sure they don't suffer for that eternity. What could be more burdensome than an eternal feeling of anguish (though that always puzzled me, because I knew feelings occurred in the brain--but they weren't constant...they depended upon fluctuation or else there'd be no awareness of "feeling".) So an eternal soul that can suffer is a problem invented and then conveniently solved by religions, gurus, etc.

Humans have long invented consciousness in objects and forces and invisible beings to explain that which they didn't understand--to attempt to control it and/or others. But there has never been any evidence that consciousness of any sort can exist absent a brain--and I get frustrated at the endless pretense around the topic of gods and souls and things "must have happened for a reason" and "higher powers" etc. People will say goofy things like "science doesn't know everything"-- that is true, but religion doesn't know ANYTHING--no-one who claims to know anything about gods or souls can know anything about such things because there is no evidence that such things exist...and so much evidence that humans invent these type things all the time.

I feel like this forum is a breath of fresh rational air amongst a world filled with books entitled things like "Chicken Soup for the Soul"-- I've started venturing my opinion that "I don't believe in souls". If a guy without a hippocampus can't form a new memory what the hell is some invisible immeasurable entity without a brain supposed to experience?--And via what mechanism other than "magic". And once something is in the realm of magic--it's about as likely as all other things for which there are equal evidence. I think souls are as likely as ghosts or gods or demons or engrams or (insert invisible conscious entity).

There is a lot of information in the field of cognitive neuroscience that is so cool--and the same goes for evolution-- I think it's the coolest info. humans could ever know--and it's so smart that we figured it out-- and so sad that peoples "beliefs" keep them from sharing in this knowledge (who wants to bite from the tree of knowledge and risk eternal damnation?)

What I like about the idea that the mind is the product of the brain is that is connects everyone. In contrast, a soul is an isolated, untouchable entity. When you read what I write I affect your brain which implies I affect you and vice versa.

 

[baron]

The questioning had to be stopped because the patients got increasingly upset and violent as they tried to control their left hand, even trying to physically restrain it. This was percieved as supporting the theory that consciousness is the product of the two hemispheres of the brain operating together and when the two sides are cut off from eachother both sides of the brain can be said to be conscious, whatever that even means in such a situation, which is so tortuous for the patient.

I don't understand the logic of this. Consciousness is basically self-awareness. Just because one part of the brain processes verbal input and affects the body accordingly does not make it conscious. The patient's body only had a single instance of consciousness in this instance - the instance that became upset - so what's the difference?

 

[latent aaaack]

I don't understand the logic of this. Consciousness is basically self-awareness. Just because one part of the brain processes verbal input and affects the body accordingly does not make it conscious. The patient's body only had a single instance of consciousness in this instance - the instance that became upset - so what's the difference?

In some respects the person was functioning as if they were two people simultaneously doing things the other was unaware of, for instance arithmetic. If you define consciousness only as emotional reactions then whichever side of the brain that occurs in would be the conscious side and wouldn't be affected by severing the corpus callosum by your definition. I don't know which side of the brain emotion and personality is controlled by or what would happen if you could split whatever region of the brain accounts for someones' emotional self-perceiving self.

That's not the accepted definition of consciousness though as far as I know, and the types of functioning that were observed to be split off into another consciousness seemed major to me. The process of hearing the command 'lift your left hand if your right hand is numb' and responding to it is not some involuntary reaction like blinking when someone motions at your eyes. Hearing and processing that command takes awareness and the differing reactions of different parts of her body seemed to indicate that there were now two independent awarenesses in her brain. You couldn't respond to that command if you were asleep and it would even be difficult if you were drunk.

 

[AgingYoung]

Let me see if I can say this so other people can understand what I mean. I am sort of a master of tortured writing and sometimes have great trouble expressing simple ideas.

Billy,

I don't think you've become a master without un-relentless practice.

There have been different analogies drawn for mind/brain. An interesting one is the brain being a house and the mind being a person in that house. Imagine two different houses with wood burning stoves, some mahogany, a jacket and a kitchen knife. Of course their are other things in these two houses.

One person might burn the mahogany to keep warm while another might put on a jacket, take the kitchen knife and mahogany and sculpt a beautiful thing. Two different people given the same resource of a brain accomplish different things; other things being equal.

Recently a geeky tech sort (like your self) gave me a pet theory:

• The brain is what the mind does.

I don't think I agree with that. I need to walk it around the house a bit before I decide.

Gene

 

[maatorc]

What I like about the idea that the mind is the product of the brain is that is connects everyone.

In what way does mind as the product of the brain 'connect everyone'?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

In what way does mind as the product of the brain 'connect everyone'?

Don’t worry, I’m not talking about some psychic link I don’t believe the word ‘mind’ actually describes anything useful. I’ll also add using ‘everyone’ was incorrect. I should have more accurately said ‘…connects everyone within a social group and social groups that interact with them’.

My thinking goes like this:

1) Our brain is affected via our senses.
2) Activity that occurs in your brain is partially a result of current or previous information gathered by your senses.
3) Brain activity that results in overt behaviour affects other peoples brain’s because of (1).

Or more succinctly:

Behaviour = f(Current inputs, Previous inputs, Noise)

Where f() represents cognition.

 

[davidsmith73]

The key is to always ask them, what evidence is there for a mind not associated with a brain?

What makes you think that we need evidence to answer that question?

 

[baron]

That's not the accepted definition of consciousness though as far as I know, and the types of functioning that were observed to be split off into another consciousness seemed major to me. The process of hearing the command 'lift your left hand if your right hand is numb' and responding to it is not some involuntary reaction like blinking when someone motions at your eyes.

That's nothing to do with consciousness. Computers can process complex commands, it doesn't make them conscious.

 

[maatorc]

Don’t worry, I’m not talking about some psychic link I don’t believe the word ‘mind’ actually describes anything useful.

What, in your view, is mind?
If mind does not describe anything useful, what is it that enables you to hypothesise about the nature of mind?

 

[articulett]

If you want a really interesting look into the mind, read about Capgras' Syndrome (or delusion). This nicely addresses the "I am me, or am I?" question. I read about this syndrome first in the book quoted in my sig (V.S. Ramachandran - Phantoms in the Brain), which is my favorite read on neuroscience.

He's fantastic. He thinks up such interesting experiments. You can download is Emerging Mind series on the BBC--and His Beyond Belief presentation was fantastic.

Nature just released an article on moral decision making and a particular area of the brain. This actually comes at a good time, because I learned that my brother told my son that he feels sorry for me because I don't have a "moral compass" because I don't have a religion. Well, neither my dog nor I have a religion or soul, but we still manage to be loyal, love, feel guilty, and refrain from killing, pillaging, and the like. So whatever a "moral compass" is--I'm plenty moral without it or else I seemed to have acquired without threats of hell and promises of everlasting glory.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/09/010914074303.htm

The brain damage studies are really fascinating. When my son was 5, he seemed to have a temporary capgras type delusion. He had seen this movie called Stranger Danger where they told him someone could pretend to be your mom's friend, but really just want to kidnap you (so you shouldn't wear your name on your shirt and should have a secret safe word)-- Anyhow, he interpreted that to mean that people could be imposter versions of themselves...and if I teasingly said, "come here little boy..." he'd say, "what's my name??" Or if my friend (whom he knew) picked him up from school and she was wearing shoes he hadn't seen before, he wouldn't go with her--or he'd demand to another friend's driver's license. (I was a single mom and often exchanged rides and child care with other parents....so he not only knew these people, but their kids as well...) Anyhow, I thought about that when I saw the PBS special Secrets of the Mind and learned about Capgras delusion.

There is another neurolgist named Hirstein, I think, who studies confabulation, self deception, delusion, and syndromes involving delusions and the like. I think this information is sooo interesting--and I think the tests they come up with are really smart and help to hone the info.

Here's a great site too: http://mindhacks.com/

 

[Hokulele]

There is another neurolgist named Hirstein, I think, who studies confabulation, self deception, delusion, and syndromes involving delusions and the like. I think this information is sooo interesting--and I think the tests they come up with are really smart and help to hone the info.

Here's a great site too: http://mindhacks.com/

Cool, thanks. I hadn't heard of Hirstein or seen this site. I look forward to learning more about both.