The Mind/Brain Problem: Introduction & Summary
My Mind/Brain schema mind was put together bearing the following constraints in mind:
● That certain aspects of dualism are unavoidable, though nothing like the full Cartesian paradigm is necessary or desirable.
O An efficacious Agency
O The Second Modality of Consciousness coming with it
O Some degree of true Gödelian novelty
● That an epistemology of Naive Realism must be replaced by its representational counterpart. In terms of the accompanying figure, this means moving from the upper left to the bottom right image. This requires in turn that a hidden structure -a pons innominatus- must be supplied, to furnish a duplex connection between the phenomenal scene and the physical cortex hidden from it.
● A systematic analysis -centered within probability theory- makes it clear that an extension to the inorganic lex naturalis be made, to account for the demonstrated performance that the Mind/Brain ensemble is able to deliver.
The first two images in the figure below display the kind of fields that I postulate these extensions to support. As described in the pages which follow, these are grounded upon an exotic extension of the classically given aromatic and conjugational delocalizations. The same analysis makes it clear that that the physical cortex cannot be any kind of computer -whether conceived it Von Neumann terms -with which we are all familiar in our own computers, nor in something more distributed -as some kind of cellular automaton. I have postulated that it serves as a distributed amplifier driven by the same exotic fields impressed upon it. One may think of the sequence of such fields -as embodies in the stream of consciousness in terms of the Jacquard loom -that extraordinary invention that cast a long shadow into the world of Hollerith punched cards. See the right hand image below. The analogy is not exact, and should be treated with caution.
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The contemporary mainstream Mind/Brain paradigm is in urgent need of replacement; its persistence is a major factor blocking the introduction of the long-overdue 'New Paradigm' weltanschauung. Here, in summary, are its defects:
● The persistence of a Sensory/Praxial Epistemology of Naive Realism.
● A continuing support of what I take to be a fallacy in Modal or Categorical Logic, that an appropriately weaved-up configuration of a non-conscious physical substratum can cause the emergence -out of its own resources- of the second category of consciousness.
● That the cortex is a computer of some sort, sufficiently resourceful to underwrite the totality of performance that the Mind/Brain ensemble can deliver.
● That what purports to be an efficacious Agency that has rather than is the world-view it oversees is, in fact, 'nothing but' the phenomenal presence viewed from a top-down perspective.
● A blind eye continues to be turned upon those Gödelian manifestations needed to account for self-organization, creativity and true learning.
The present nadir is the inevitable consequence of their weltanschhauung of secular Positivism and physicalism. It is to be largely accounted for, historically, as a backlash from the abandonment of theism in general and Christianity in particular. There is no place in their materialist world view for mind, agency -and even consciousness All point to the mystery of personhood; they are suspect because bringing to mind notions of the supreme Person as the creator of personhood. The sotto voce acceptance of naive realism is partly to be accounted for by the outward-turning and particularistic Western tradition and mindset. This doctrine not only misleads concerning what it says about the relation of the microcosmic image of mind to the
external macrocosm to which it points. It also underplays the dominance of mind. The figure alongside hints at the vast difference between what is currently being offered and what I have proposed. Notice how it cuts across matters of secularism versus transcendence; what's inside and what's outside; the differences -in both nature and degree- of what one might speak as the isolation of mind and its agent is striking
Gödelian questions aside, it is very important not to lose sight of the common ground that we share. I have no quarrel with their claim that the mind is a machine, and further -again with Gödelian manifestations aside- questions of just how it delivers its astonishing performance are separable from the co-presence of conscious awareness. In accounting for the brain's astonishing performance, we can assign consciousness as no more than an epiphenomenon -a glow emanating from the machine -though once more, we're talking about the conservative performance of established skills, disregarding such matters of intervening acts of free choice and of truly creative learning. This being said, we have left ourselves with is a purely scientific one uncluttered by philosophical 'white noise'.
How is it, then, that we can solve -in the twinkling of an eye- problems that are beyond reach of our most powerful computers set to work for days? Both of us are driven to postulate the need for exotic extensions to the resources that are currently granted; evidently the armamentarium of the lex naturalis is in need of enhancement. But the scope and depth of what Mainstream speculation is prepared to grant are niggardly to the point to the point of impotence. What they have actually done is to take refuge within crevices of principles we already have, rather than to take the needed bold step forward. Here are some of the things with which they are attempting to fill the bill:
● Hidden polynomial short cuts to exponential dependences upon problem size
● An appeal to the unpredictable nonlinearities of 'Chaos' in large recursive systems
● hoped-for reduction to Fractal 'polynomials'
● A switch form the Von Neumann to the Cellular Automaton computational paradigm.
● Their current limitations to date aside, it is 'Neural Networks' that our delivering the goods
In what, surely, must become the definitive declaration of this New Paradigm of the ‘third culture’ is Stephen’ Wolfram’s very substantial tome ‘A New Kind of Science’ [it is substantial literally as well as metaphorically my hard copy weighs five pounds !!] In an opening chapter he offers this list of contributing disciplines that are claimed, conjointly, to fill the bill: Artificial Intelligence; Explorations into Artificial Life [e.g. at the Santa Fe institution]; Catastrophe Theory; Chaos Theory; Cybernetics; Complexity Theory; Dynamics System Theory; Evolution Theory; Experimental Mathematics; Fractal Geometry; Nanotechnology; Nonlinear Dynamics; Scientific Computing; Self-organization; and Statistical Mechanics. However, even a cursory examination makes it clear that all for these fall far short of the mark. What finally so disturbs is the lengths to which they have gone to conceal this inadequacy; e.g.
● Stealing the 'middle ground; invoking the Micawberish notion that Promises are self-fulfilling
● Indefinite s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g of faint hints
● Appeals to a quid hoc ergo propter hoc; the fact that the brain is delivering the goods is taken to
be proof that it does so with the resources that we are prepared to grant
● A retreat into the catch-all of 'emergence'
Evidently, that truly exotic extensions -specifically in support of Mind may be needed is not an option; Why so? Once more, surely, is the threat that this would pose to the autonomy of customary physics, and once more, o raise the spectre of God getting back in.