[ファブリス]

I'm reading some Western philosophy and there is one subject that I keep bumping into and I can't find any answer.

Does philosophy address the distinction between what we commonly call "physical" senses, and the mind?

In Buddhism I think the mind is seen as another form of sense.

In my experience, thoughts and memories are presently experienced as a form of sense.

So how would I explain through words, and convince anyone, that physical senses pertain to the real world, and the "mind" perceptions pertain to the imaginary world, including concepts and ideas?

I know there's some philosophy on Language/Meaning and Thought/Referent. Blanshard, Wittgenstein perhaps? Can I find a workable explanation in there?

Thanks!

Hmm, interesting question.

In early modern western philosophy the influence of Christianity is obvious. So even if a philosopher uses the word 'mind,' the concept he is talking about is very similar to the Christian soul.

One of the first important early modern philosophers was Descartes, and he made the idea of dualism very popular. In philosophy of mind, dualism is the idea that the physical world and the mental world are completely different. So for him the physical and the mental world were very different things. Even the brain was part of the physical world, and was somehow able to connect with the mental world.

I think that, although there were many early modern philosophers that were not dualists, the debate after Descartes on the subject was always molded by the way Descartes talked about it.

The thoughts on the senses in modern philosophy often deal with the debate of empiricism vs rationalism. In the early modern period, empiricists claimed that our knowledge of the world came primarily though our senses. Rationalists believed we could gain a lot of knowledge though thought alone.

So, for most of modern western philosophy there was a big distinction between the mind and the physical world. And there was a big distinction made between what is learned from the senses and what is learned through thinking. Because of the importance of those distinctions, the mind and senses were seen in very different ways. So the idea in western philosophy was usually that they are completely different things--the opposite of how the mind is seen in Buddhism.

In classical philosophy, however, Plato believed that there was basically a world of forms or ideas, and that the objects we see on Earth are merely imperfect shadows of those forms. So he might say that the mind was dealing in the (very real) world of ideas, and the senses were dealing with the physical world. And he also might say that they were doing so in similar ways.

I would say that in modern philosophy the mind is usually seen as entirely physical. That is, the brain and the mind are actually the same thing. The senses are merely ways that the central nervous system sends information to the brain, and the brain processes it. The senses and ‘mind’ are more likely to be seen as both being physical parts of the central nervous system.

(I’ve read a bit of Wittgenstein, but I don’t recall him talking much about this anywhere that I’ve seen. I’ve not read Blanshard.)

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[s0apgun]

Tzadeck's post is pretty spot on... quantum physics will screw with modern philosophy's view of the mind body problem though

s0apgun Wrote:Tzadeck's post is pretty spot on... quantum physics will screw with modern philosophy's view of the mind body problem though

Why will quantum physics?

I don't have enough time to write anything substantial, but I'll make a few passing comments.

In addition to what Tzadeck mentioned, another well-known view of the mind is Immanuel Kant's. I won't get into the details, but basically Kant claims that our senses are connected to our concepts. So, for example, our perception of a soda bottle is mediated through concepts such as its purpose, cultural significance, hardness, material, color, and so forth. Therefore, for Kant, how we think about soda bottles modifies how we perceive them. So, theoretically, it is possible for someone with completely different concepts to perceive a soda bottle in an entirely different way, e.g. in contrast to our perception of a soda bottle as a popular, sugary beverage made of glass, an aboriginal tribe may perceive a soda bottle as a mysterious object that is made of an unknown material and possesses magical powers (as seen in the film, The Gods Must Be Crazy. As you can see, Kant's view of the mind is more interconnected with the senses than Descartes'.

At any rate, theories like Descartes' and Kant's are known as representational theories of the mind, i.e. the mind tries to represent the external world. You (Fabrice) seem like you'd be more interested in nonrepresentational theories, and so I suggest you read Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. While far from perfect, I think it's an accessible introduction to nonrepresentation. In the manuscript, Rorty frequently refers to both Wittgenstein and Heidegger, who are both nonrepresentationalists, and therefore the book also serves as a nice introduction to Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Anyhow, I need to jump in the bath, but I hope I was of help.

[ファブリス]

Thank you guys.

Tzadeck Wrote:So, for most of modern western philosophy there was a big distinction between the mind and the physical world. And there was a big distinction made between what is learned from the senses and what is learned through thinking. Because of the importance of those distinctions, the mind and senses were seen in very different ways. So the idea in western philosophy was usually that they are completely different things--the opposite of how the mind is seen in Buddhism.

My experience seems to agree that everything is deducted from the senses. And my mind does not truly know or understand anything. It seems the mind runs on an association "fuzzy matching" sort of algorithm which is sometimes very apparent (not to mention that's what we use in RTK ).

Still, there is still this strange distinction between what is real and what is not real.

I found a quote from a critique of Berkeley: "Berkeley notes that the ideas that constitute real things exhibit a steadiness, vivacity, and distinctness that chimerical ideas do not."

I think it safe to say that's how most of us feel about this?

That's my intuitive understanding.

Anyway I see now the crux of my doubt is to find out what's real.

Intuitively, what's real to me is what is immediately perceived; And its O.K. to perceive optical illusions. I don't mind about that. The mind can come and say "this is an illusion". Whew. I didn't fall run after a mirage or whatever. The mind can not know everything and so perfect decisions are not possible.

So I'm fine with physical senses as my reality.

Where I have doubts is, for example, a lot of self-help material is built on the idea that thoughts can express ideas that are false.

So then, you can make a distinction between the experience of thought which you could say is "real" (in the idealist sense). That experience you could say is a form of auditory memory. For example you hear words when you read. So then I can see a distinction between verbal thought and its meaning, which seems to be arrived through association.

But even so, there is still this idea that the physical senses are what's real.

vileru Wrote:As you can see, Kant's view of the mind is more interconnected with the senses than Descartes'.

Yes, thank you. I read that he still believed in "physical" objects that can't be known directly and thus will forever be unknown.

However I do like Berkeley's idealist description a lot better. Even if challenging

I will admit, I am interested in this purely through an interest in nondualism.

I started reading Berkeley after reading Greg Goode's article here:

http://nondualityamerica.wordpress.com/2...hilosophy/

Of course Berkeley talks about a God in order to support a non-solipsist view. I'm not too concerned with that. I see what parts work and which parts don't work. I've never thought of "god" as an individual entity either, so that's less of an issue than seems to be for many atheists who seem to be stuck with the idea of "god" as an individual/personal entity.

So speaking from that point of view I think the main issue philosophers have is that of accepting that there is an intelligence at work which we are not aware of.

For example, there seems to be scientific support recently for the absence of free will:

This could also support an understanding that happens before conscious thought.

Libet’s 1985 study on the illusion of free will is replicated with modern brain imaging
http://www.mindfields.org.uk/blog/?p=191


I am very puzzled myself and have been wondering for a long time just what part of understanding does verbal thinking play? Because we can see pretty clearly that babies understand things long before they learn to speak. It's almost as if... verbal thinking is just that, purely verbal. Purely for the purpose of communicating.

But anyway.. this was bound to snowball and get out of my initial topic, sorry

It's too hard to discuss "particulars" for me. :p

vileru Wrote:At any rate, theories like Descartes' and Kant's are known as representational theories of the mind, i.e. the mind tries to represent the external world. You (Fabrice) seem like you'd be more interested in nonrepresentational theories, and so I suggest you read Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. While far from perfect, I think it's an accessible introduction to nonrepresentation. In the manuscript, Rorty frequently refers to both Wittgenstein and Heidegger, who are both nonrepresentationalists, and therefore the book also serves as a nice introduction to Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Anyhow, I need to jump in the bath, but I hope I was of help.

Thanks! I see Greg Goode also recommends Rorty's "Objectivity, Relativism and Truth, Vol. 1".

Here's an excerpt in case you're interested:

Greg Goode Wrote:Appearance/Reality – Things seem so intransigently distant because we think that our thoughts are supposed to represent an independent reality that is not made of thoughts. One of the best philosophical antidotes to this dualism is W.T. Stace’s clear and engaging “Refutation of Realism” (Stace, 1934). Stace (1886-1967) was a mystic and a philosopher who combined Eastern with Western approaches. In his 1934 article he updates Berkeley by arguing that there is no such thing as an unexperienced object.

Then there are Richard Rorty's well-written essays in his Objectivity, Relativism and Truth, Vol. 1 (Rorty, 1991), especially the Introduction and “Inquiry as recontextualisation: An anti-dualist account of interpretation.” Rorty calls himself an “antirepresentationalist.” He argues against both realism (the external existence of the world) and antirealism (there exists only a web of beliefs). Both sides of the debate are based on the unsupportable claim that our ideas represent things that are not ideas. This representational claim can never be proven, so there is no basis upon which to make the distinction between realism and antirealism. Hence the distinction is unnecessary.

Sigh. Too much reading (~_~)

I think I'll go for Rorty after Berkeley.

[ファブリス]

PS:

I've always wondered, can anyone here read without hearing words in the mind?

I can't but still wonder if it's possible.

[s0apgun]

KanjiDevourer Wrote:

s0apgun Wrote:Tzadeck's post is pretty spot on... quantum physics will screw with modern philosophy's view of the mind body problem though

Why will quantum physics?

Ugh it's lengthy but modern view of the mind in science is that it is not separate from the body even though logical paradoxes exist when trying to explain the mind/body problem for example Brain in a Vat / Evil genius (descartes).

With recent quantum discoveries they have pretty much proved that consciousness exists locally and delocalized (a collective conscious if you will) which means your thoughts are not only connected to your body. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amit_Goswami and the documentary Quantum Activist if you're interested in that stuff. I wouldn't go as far as to say this is science fact yet but it has been observed in experiment, it seems the more they learn about quantum physics the fuzzier things become.

[ファブリス]

This might be a good read too:

Relativism and Reality: A Contemporary Introduction
http://www.amazon.com/Relativism-Reality...0415208173

Rorty looks like a must read. Thanks again

ファブリス Wrote:PS:

I've always wondered, can anyone here read without hearing words in the mind?

I can't but still wonder if it's possible.

I think it was a post on this very forum that claimed that the "voice in your head" is what limits most adults' reading speed. The key to being able to read really fast, is to find a way to wean yourself of that inner voice.

If you want to try it out, you could experiment a bit with the reading speeds on spreeder.

So, everyone else has already made lots of good references for you, so i won't talk too much about philosophy.

There are two historical trends you might be interested in, one is the rationalist (as exemplified by Descartes) / empiricist (as exemplified by Hume) debate that culminated in the synthesis by Kant in Critique of Pure Reason.

The other is the more continental trend that started with Husserl, and culminated in Heidegger's work "being and time".

So, I definately recommend both Kant and Heidegger. Western analytic, and western continental are two very different styles of philosophy and ways of approaching these questions, so both are probably worth looking into for you.

There is another approach that's well worth looking into though, and that's cognitive neuroscience. It helps to give you a totally different perspective on the problems of philosophy and view them in a different light.

i read this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cognitive-Neuros...188&sr=8-1
pretty much cover to cover, it's a really well written and interesting introduction!!!

ファブリス Wrote:Anyway I see now the crux of my doubt is to find out what's real.

Intuitively, what's real to me is what is immediately perceived; And its O.K. to perceive optical illusions. I don't mind about that. The mind can come and say "this is an illusion". Whew. I didn't fall run after a mirage or whatever. The mind can not know everything and so perfect decisions are not possible.

So I'm fine with physical senses as my reality.

Where I have doubts is, for example, a lot of self-help material is built on the idea that thoughts can express ideas that are false.

The question isn't whether or not it's "ok" to perceive an illusion, the question is more like, "what makes this illusion different to ordinary sensory perception?". "why do we class one of these things as 'real' and the other not?".

So it's actually very much connected with the problem you have with thoughts. Whether a thought can express ideas that are true or false depends on the nature of "truth", and what we take to be it's prerequisites. What are the rules of the game for calling something "true"? This is also a very difficult philosophical problem.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

You should really start with Kant's critique of pure reason, and writings on a priori judgements though, because he lays out the basis for what truth is for humans.

Honestly, i never thought a great deal of Berkeley. His explanations aren't really capable of explaining anything. Kant is much, much better, because he explains what the contraints on our thinking are, and gives a basis for understanding why humans perceive the way they do, without assuming anything about the external world.

About the language of thought stuff, again cognitive neuroscience will really help you view things differently here. But you can start here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/language-thought/
Russell and Wittgenstein are good if you become more interested in the philosophy of language

p.s. as far as i know, Goswami is... um, made up stuff that has nothing to do with any real knowledge of quantum physics. It's probably better to read actual physics books if you get into that.

Fabrice Wrote:I am very puzzled myself and have been wondering for a long time just what part of understanding does verbal thinking play? Because we can see pretty clearly that babies understand things long before they learn to speak. It's almost as if... verbal thinking is just that, purely verbal. Purely for the purpose of communicating.

I think that if you want to answer that question, you'll have to look more towards neuroscience rather than philosophy. I don't know that much about the brain, but there are different areas that perform different functions. Language is handled by a specific part of the brain (or many interconnected parts) and it's perfectly possible that you could understand some things even if the language part of your brain is damaged. For example, animals understand many things, but don't have any capacity for language, at least not in the human sense (though we're finding more and more evidence of language in animals).

Fabrice Wrote:Does philosophy address the distinction between what we commonly call "physical" senses, and the mind?

Keep in mind that western philosophy is not a coherent philosophy, but made up of hundreds of thinkers who disagree with each other.

If you're interested in a more materialist view of cognition, you should read some Daniel Dennett. http://edge.org/3rd_culture/dennett2/den...index.html

[s0apgun]

IceCream, I agree most of what he says is spiritual mumbo-jumbo loosely based on quantum physics. The whole delocalized consciousness thing was done at the Mexico City University which is separate of his work.

IceCream Wrote:You should really start with Kant's critique of pure reason, and writings on a priori judgements though, because he lays out the basis for what truth is for humans.

I would actually just read a fairly in-depth look at the Critique of Pure Reason rather than actually reading it yourself. It's long and boring and confusing. Kant was a great thinker but a poor writer.

IceCream Wrote:p.s. as far as i know, Goswami is... um, made up stuff that has nothing to do with any real knowledge of quantum physics. It's probably better to read actual physics books if you get into that.

Quoted for truth.

[ファブリス]

walruz Wrote:If you want to try it out, you could experiment a bit with the reading speeds on spreeder.

Thanks! I thought that had something to do with speed reading. According to that site one can read without "subvocalization".

[Zgarbas]

I can still read texts with that at 500wpm whilst still hearing the voice in my head though...

Reading without a voice in your head is no fun. Really kills the mood and a least for me it kills my retention rate. Some books tend to be so dully written that I can't get a good voice for them and I end up forgetting lines as soon as I've read them.

[ファブリス]

s0apgun Wrote:With recent quantum discoveries they have pretty much proved that consciousness exists locally and delocalized (a collective conscious if you will) which means your thoughts are not only connected to your body. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amit_Goswami and the documentary Quantum Activist if you're interested in that stuff. I wouldn't go as far as to say this is science fact yet but it has been observed in experiment, it seems the more they learn about quantum physics the fuzzier things become.

I found this a while ago, and search Amit out of curiosity.

A Course in Consciousness

It's put together by a (emeritus) professor of physics at the University of Virginia, which attempts "to present the teaching of nonduality in a scientifically sound and logically consistent, but still readable, document".

http://faculty.virginia.edu/consciousness/

And there is a chapter:

Chapter 7. Summary and critique of Amit Goswami's interpretation of quantum theory within monistic idealism
http://faculty.virginia.edu/consciousnes...age_11.htm

I think he sums up pretty much all experiments to date on consciousness and free will and other things, which is a nice summary in and of itself, even if you don't dig the rest.

[ファブリス]

@Zgarbas: I started wondering about the use of my voice, and whether it is "my" voice, when I tested reading with a robot voice, or even a female voice. Easy, and I can even think, and heck typing now and hearing the words in a different voice. So wtf?

[Zgarbas]

I have a large supply of voices for whatever I read? I rarely, if ever read in my own voice.

Each character in books, each person on the forums, etc has (usually) a unique voice. I tend to associate them with the...feel of certain posters I guess? I guess most of them are recollections from voices I've heard before, though I couldn't put my finger on whose voice is that, with very few exceptions. I also have a set of voices for certain types of books(all books written by Japanese authors have the exact same voice and feel for me). For everything else I have this same neutral male voice, never a robot.

The feel thing does sound kind of silly but as silly as it sounds it is usually right. I tend to give dislikeable voices to people I dislike, sometimes before I even realize I dislike them. But I guess you can say i tend to become biased against/for certain people because the voice in my head is dislikeable/likeable. I also associate any posters who make grammar/syntax mistakes with a heavily Eastern European accented speech, even if the mistakes are so light I wouldn't have noticed them in the first place (or if they're just a native talking funny...).

I also tend to not think in my voice quite often. Then again, sometimes I think in languages I don't know well and end up not understanding my own thoughts because of it. That's hilarious.

Hey F.
Phénoménologie de la perception (Merleau-Ponty) could be a good read if you have the time, regarding your OP.
Cheers.

[ファブリス]

@Zgarbas: haha, good point. +1 for relativism, or contextualism or whatever it's called these days. Even my own voice is not heard the same way by someone "outside" my head I think mostly in English, out of habit. I trip up all the time with French because I don't remember equivalent words. When I write, I use tend to use "frenglish" ("franglais"). C'est vraiment awesome!

I also have a question about philosophy!
We started talking about Nietzsche in German class and I get the impression this guy must have been quite a sociopathic tadpole for saying at least that there is no moral, life is incontrollable in terms of planning it rationally/being rational...... what do you think?

Tori-kun Wrote:I also have a question about philosophy!
We started talking about Nietzsche in German class and I get the impression this guy must have been quite a sociopathic tadpole for saying at least that there is no moral, life is incontrollable in terms of planning it rationally/being rational...... what do you think?

You should read Bertrand Russell's take on Nietzsche in his History of Western Philosophy. It's fun because Russell is pretty mean to him, haha.

Here's a particularly fun paragraph:
(The quote of Nietzsche's that Russell refers to is "Thou goest to woman? Do not forget thy whip.")

"Nevertheless there is a great deal in him (Nietzsche) that must be dismissed as merely megalomaniac. Speaking of Spinoza he says: 'How much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray!' Exactly the same may be said of him, with the less reluctance since he has not hesitated to say it of Spinoza. It is obvious that in his day-dreams he is a warrior, not a professor; all the men he admires were military. His opinion of women, like every man's, is an objectification of his own emotion towards them, which is obviously one of fear. "Forget not thy whip"--but nine women out of ten would get the whip away from him, and he knew it, so he kept away from women, and soothed his wounded vanity with unkind remarks."

Anywhere, he's a PDF of Russell's whole book:
http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Hi...osophy.pdf

Thanks, that's a very good quote.