Philosophy of Mind

[BSM1]

Having had this curiosity for a long time now, I decided now to make a thread about it because the thought had arisen again. In a sort of way, it relates to the thread called What Lies Behind Thought.

Sorry for the long post:

What is 'you'? This question has been asked so often, and there are many answers to this, but only two of which I found that would make logical sense: (1) A soul, or some sort of observer of your thoughts, activities, etc. and the controller of all you do, literally is you beyond your meatsuit, responsible for your ego. (2) There simply is no you.

I've been finding myself agreeing with the second one, mainly because I can't fit the soul into any of the questions I've asked myself alongside the "What am I?" These following questions are questions that I've asked myself: (1) If my meatsuit had another set of genes or was in some way different, especially if my parents had never met and my mother met another man, would the next 3rd born child be this perception, this consciousness? My answer to it is no, it is an entirely different brain, an entirely different life, an entirely different set of memories. But still, what of my perception?

(2) If there is no soul, why am I not of the brain of the 1st or 2nd born child in my family? Why am I the third born? Why am I not of another species? Why am I of this specific family? Basically: Why am I in this meat suit?

My answer to that has always been: There's nothing that I'm really in, there's nothing really in this flesh, the flesh is all there is, there is no 'I' other than what I call myself, and in fact, 'I' is the only universal name if you think about it, all of us are 'I', that's who I is. But other than that, there really is nothing inside of this body, I does not exist in one body, but the I presides in all bodies, in each individual flesh. It is a name that we all agree to identify ourselves with, and that's all it is, a name, nothing more.

"But I am conscious, obviously" and "I think, therefore I am". Well, just because you think, only means that your thoughts exist, it doesn't mean that you exist.

Most physicalists agree that thoughts and the mind are creations of the brain, just as dreams are, and I very much agree with that idea. And what are thoughts? What is mind? I suppose that we'll start with in order to make it make sense, according to my concept of mind:

Consciousness, or the perceiver: Literally is our senses, our physical senses. We often identify our consciousness or "the perceiver" with our head, popularly believed that this is because our brain is in our head, and the brain is the main source of our consciousness. No, the brain merely works as a receiver, contrary to popular belief that it works as a transmitter, for our senses. Our senses come from our sense organs, eyes, ears, etc. The reason why our head is identified with the perceiver is because the majority of our sense organs are consistent with it: The nose, the ears, the eyes, and the tongue persuade on there. All together, when you are seeing, feeling, smelling, and hearing something all at once (possibly tasting to be included, possibly not, tasting is not as used compared to the other four), it might seem that this is more than just sensing, that this is experiencing, that this is consciousness itself. While it is experiencing, and we simply don't pay attention that "all of these individual senses are working at once", we define it as experiencing and forget what is doing the experiencing: we might think the ego is experiencing, or soul, the I. But really, all that is doing the experiencing is the senses, and just because all of them or most of them are working together, does not mean that this creates an I.

(by the way, while there are more than five senses, I'm only identifying with the common five in here, for many reasons: it's hard to keep track of all five, no need to do more explaining than I have to, and because the main five are just that: main.)

Memories: Memories are reminders of senses of the past, a bundle of senses, or an experience, being re-sensed.

Thoughts: Thoughts are different memories bundled together to make something new, sort of like photoshop, you can cut the head off someone in one picture and delete the rest of the picture, paste some more cut-outs from a picture to create an entire picture full of cut-outs. Thoughts are never new or original, the only thing that can be imagined is something that you have once saw in the past. You may claim thoughts of things that don't exist are creative but, while you can imagine a unicorn, but you have the image of 'horse' and a horn in your head, you simply paste them together and that is a thought.

Self-Awareness: This, if not the consciousness, is probably the next thing mistaken as the I. Self-awareness is the awareness of these thoughts, this consciousness, of an 'I' concept. The self awareness is simply thoughts, there is no recognition, all it is is thoughts of your thoughts, thoughts of your memories, thoughts of your knowledge, etc. But then again, I am still thinking about the self-awareness, this is not my official stance on it, I just haven't thought much about it yet.

So that's my theory (note: not the scientific term for theory). There is no I, there is no perceiver. I'm to answer any questions. If this thread does get any respondents, I might think about the self-awareness more tomorrow and edit this.

Along the same line would reality, as you know it, even exist if the 3rd child of your parents had never tried on that meatsuit?

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Along the same line would reality, as you know it, even exist if the 3rd child of your parents had never tried on that meatsuit?

There would be no construction or existence of the 3rd child of my parents, there would be no I. I would be the built up experience I have in this life, the thoughts and senses bundled into one (and therefore memories and self awareness). If my past were slightly different, I would be an entirely different I.

 

[Ablaze]

Some great points.

What some people in opposition to this point of view get caught up with is a mistaken conflation of physicalism with materialism, particularly eliminative materialism.

While Buddhism rejects the existence of an eternal soul or permanent selfhood, at the same time, it does not deny the conventional operation of a residual sense-of-self. Indeed, the Buddha recognized the qualitative difference between the mental and the physical. Nonetheless, this position is not to be confused with substance dualism, as both consciousness and its dependent base are of the same substance (through emergence). In describing the "All", the Buddha equally taught that "everything" is not derived from "manyness" (dualism) and likewise, that everything is not derived from "oneness" (monism), as illustrated in the following discourse:

Staying at Savatthi. Then a brahman cosmologist [1] went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there, he said to the Blessed One, "Now, then, Master Gotama, does everything [2] exist?"

"'Everything exists' is the senior form of cosmology, brahman."

"Then, Master Gotama, does everything not exist?"

"'Everything does not exist' is the second form of cosmology, brahman."

"Then is everything a Oneness?"

"'Everything is a Oneness' is the third form of cosmology, brahman."

"Then is everything a Manyness?"

"'Everything is a Manyness' is the fourth form of cosmology, brahman. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle:”

Lokayatika Sutta: The Cosmologist (SN 12.48)

These extremes in cosmological conjecture and metaphysical speculation are irrelevant to the path to enlightenment. Rather than expound on the irrelevant, the Buddha teaches dependent origination as the middle path.

Not only is consciousness a link in dependent co-arising, it also arises in dependence upon interaction with the phenomenal world. This relationship is of a decidedly empirical nature, as the following illustrates:

Dependent on eye & forms, eye-consciousness arises.
Dependent on ear & sounds, ear-consciousness arises...
Dependent on nose & aromas, nose-consciousness arises...
Dependent on tongue & flavors, tongue-consciousness arises...
Dependent on body & tactile sensations, body-consciousness arises...
Dependent on intellect & mind-objects, intellect-consciousness arises.

Chachakka Sutta (MN 148)

These types of sense-based consciousness suggest an empiricist bent underlying early Buddhist thought. Since consciousness arises dependent on the sense organ and sense object, the Buddhist philosophy of mind is empiricist in that sense experience is our primary means by which to cognize the world around us.

In the Buddha's teachings, the issue of qualia is addressed by the sixfold sense experiences. A being's unique experience of the phenomenal world depends upon interaction (contact: phassa) of the sense organ with the sense objective, mediated by sense consciousness.

Perhaps of interest, on various instances, these six types of sense consciousness are described as “the origination of the world,” the totality of existence, implying that there can be no consciousness apart from them:

The Blessed One said: "And what is the origination of the world? Dependent on the eye & forms there arises eye-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact. [...]

"Dependent on the ear & sounds there arises ear-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact... Dependent on the nose & aromas there arises nose-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact... Dependent on the tongue & flavors there arises tongue-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact... Dependent on the body & tactile sensations there arises body-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact... Dependent on the intellect & mental qualities there arises intellect-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact."

Loka Sutta (SN 12.44)

Consciousness is thus of a sensory quality, and sensory consciousness depends on the sense organ and sense object for its existence. Vision, audition, olfaction, gustation, somatosensation, and even cognition are dependently arisen experiences, which strengthens the argument that the sensing being is not an independent ego-self, but rather a being connected to others via its interactions with the external world. To further reiterate the empiricist claim, the Buddha described the senses as the totality of our within-range experience:

The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."

Sabba Sutta (SN 35.23)

The empiricist method serves to illuminate the dependent nature of consciousness and the emergent sense of self arising from the illusion of a sense-bearer behind the union of sensory consciousness with sense object and sense faculty. In understanding that consciousness and the sense of self are dependently arisen experiences, one can live a morally enriching life guided by the realization of interdependence between the internal and external worlds.

 

[idea]

I am saying that the thought experiment fails to distinguish people from machines. There is a distinction, but it is much more abstract.

The difference lies in the creation process - Machines do what they were created to do, all their actions can be traced back to the creator....

Our spirit is eternal, and uncreated - therefore our actions cannot be traced back to how we were created, we are self-existing, and therefore have true free will.

 

[Ablaze]

These following questions are questions that I've asked myself: (1) If my meatsuit had another set of genes or was in some way different, especially if my parents had never met and my mother met another man, would the next 3rd born child be this perception, this consciousness? My answer to it is no, it is an entirely different brain, an entirely different life, an entirely different set of memories. But still, what of my perception?

(2) If there is no soul, why am I not of the brain of the 1st or 2nd born child in my family? Why am I the third born? Why am I not of another species? Why am I of this specific family? Basically: Why am I in this meat suit?

These are points I find particularly worthy of discussion, since they tend to arise with great frequency in response to the Buddhist notion of anatta which denies an enduring self.

If these questions are examined (not in an analytical sense, but in an observatory sense) in meditation, the meditator notices the impersonal nature of phenomena. For instance, feelings may be examined with attention to their arising and eventual cessation. The experiences of pleasure and pain can be traced to contact with certain objects, which depends first on consciousness:

"Dependent on the eye & forms there arises consciousness at the eye. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as a requisite condition, there arises what is felt either as pleasure, pain or neither pleasure nor pain.

If, when touched by a feeling of pleasure, one relishes it, welcomes it or remains fastened to it, then one's underlying tendency to passion gets obsessed.

If, when touched by a feeling of pain, one sorrows, grieves & laments, beats one's breast, becomes distraught, then one's underlying tendency to aversion gets obsessed.

If, when touched by a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain, one does not discern, as it actually is present, the origination, passing away, allure, drawback, or escape from that feeling, then one's underlying tendency to ignorance gets obsessed.

Chachakka Sutta (MN 148)

Therefore, consciousness is conditioned by the union of the sensory organ and sense objects and is responsible for conditioning various sensations. In Buddhist practice, the meditator comes to view the sensation not subjectively as “my feeling”, but objectively as “a feeling.” The practical value of this philosophy should be evident due to the "mind-altering" and potentially life-enhancing effects of meditation as a means of coping with existential stress and the reality of our mortality as illusive selves emerging from impermanent aggregates. The reality of not-self, which is made evident through meditation, supports the cultivation of compassion for others through the dissolution of the ego and the realization of the impersonal nature of suffering. Thus the theory and practice mutually reinforce each other.

Occasionally, this is misunderstood as a type of materialism, since if there is no feeler behind the physical sensation, then all must be matter and not mind. Materialism traditionally asserts that upon the destruction of matter, there is nothing. This is the wrong view of annihilationism (ucchedavada). However, physicalism is distinct from materialism in its recourse to the laws of thermodynamics, in which energy conversation is a must. Energy is physical but non-material. Matter is energy that has congealed into particulate form. Eliminative materialism, a form of reductive physicalism, is wholly insufficient as a response to the problem of consciousness. By reducing the mind to the brain, it fails to account for the uniqueness of subjective experience. By neglecting qualia, it eliminates the notion of any type of mind whatsoever.
The problem with this perspective lies in the “eliminative” and “reductionist” aspects, not in the materialist and physicalist aspects in-and-of themselves. To be fully reducible, the constituents must possess all the properties of that to which they give rise. In other words, qualia, a property of the mind, must be inherent to matter, which it is not. Hence the need for eliminativism, whereby the difficulties of accounting for qualia are merely dismissed on account of qualia’s non-existence. This, however, doesn't explain subjective experience.

Emergentism is an altogether different strand of philosophy of mind. It proposes that mental states arise from physical states. Yet as a non-reductive form of physicalism, it does not exactly equate mental states with physical states. The properties of mind, namely qualia, are not inherent in matter. Rather, they emerge from the arrangement and configuration of matter in unique ways. Without the interaction between the parts, there can be no whole. The psychological and physiological are qualitatively different, even though they are quantitatively the same in their origins. Due to its acknowledgment of qualitative distinctions between mind and matter, the existence of qualia is preserved by emergentism.

It should be straightforwardly apparent that mental states arise, or emerge, from physical states. A change in the underlying physical state will impact the mental state arising from it. For instance, as far as the peripheral nervous system is concerned, alterations in the physical sense organ (eye) can lead to differences in one's subjective sensory experience (eye-consciousness). For instance, take the case of color blindness, which results from deficiencies in the color-sensing cones of the eye. Even among normal-sighted people, "my" red may not be the same as "your" red. Furthermore, in the case of the central nervous system (CNS) alterations in the physical integration organ (brain) can lead to differences in one's subjective sensory experience (eye-consciousness). Damage to the occipital lobe can do just that. The examples abound. But I digress...

 

[bobhikes]

As Bertrand Russell once said, he was talking to a woman that claimed to be a solipsist and she wondered why there were not more people holding her position.

Not exactly solipsist

There is a shared reality and others exist in their own reality, but You(ego) can never know others reality and the shared reality is flawed. You(ego) assume you are flawed and the shared reality is right. You(ego) are what is correct.

 

[nilsz]

The difference lies in the creation process - Machines do what they were created to do, all their actions can be traced back to the creator....

Our spirit is eternal, and uncreated - therefore our actions cannot be traced back to how we were created, we are self-existing, and therefore have true free will.

Would you regard a human, whose initial cells were artificially manufactured, a soulless machine?

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Thanks for the great replies, Ablaze!

 

[idea]

Would you regard a human, whose initial cells were artificially manufactured, a soulless machine?

Life is created with both matter and spirit - if it is alive, there is a spirit.

 

[nilsz]

How does one instill spirit?

 

[Willamena]

What is 'you'?

Thought.

Why am I in this meat suit?

Because there is no reasonable distinction to be made between this meat suit and thought, just as there is no reasonable distinction to be made between all that is known and knowing.

Of, if someone comes up with one, you raise your finger and say, "That's an interesting thought!"

It's not that there's no "I," per se, it's just that people mistake the I for other things. Other thoughts, other than "I." That's because the I is invisible, so all you can see is everything else. "I am present," "I am thinking," "I am hungry," "I am going."