Mind Puzzles

Mind Puzzles is back on the track

2006-05-03T07:41:00.000+02:00

Ok, I'm back again after slightly too long break.

I was thinking in the meanwhile of changing a bit the main theme of this blog (i.e. searching of a method being capable to explain if not all then most of mind puzzles, that is e.g. consciousness). But my concern wasn't necessary. This can be done parallell to others topics. So I stick with methodology but it won't be as important as it has been. Lately, I spent some of my preciuos time on repesentation theory which I find it very promissing. But this is for next post.

Searching for basics: CogSci Methodology

2005-12-14T10:49:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I took a part in a discussion about physicalism. It wasn't related to mind or cognitive science, at all but it had inspired me to ask a question whether physicalism could be helpful in solving some mind puzzles. Certainly, this question isn't original. However, we should ask it again. Maybe there something has been missed? So, let's step back to the idea of physicalism.

Physicalism, in traditional view, is nothing more than a sort of reduction to physics. So, all scientific terms can explicitly be given in physical terms.

So far, so good. This idea seems to make sense, since we live in physical world every object should also be physical. Even our brains are made of physical elements, namely atoms. Going further we can say that neurons are physical, too, and so on. Eventually we will come up to the point at which we may doubt whether it has physical features. Surely, one may say it's physical but we just aren't able to notice its physical properties. It's true that some physical forces in the past were taken as magical, etc.

What can physicalism contribute to cognitive science and mind? It seems very little. There are too many issues. For example what about consciousness? How consciousness or even qualia can have physical properties? What about concepts? Concepts reside in brain (strictly, in mind) but aren't physical.

"... physicalism is intended as a very general claim about the nature of the world. Nevertheless, by far the most discussion of physicalism in the literature has been in the philosophy of mind. The reason for this is that it is in philosophy of mind that we find the most plausible and compelling arguments that physicalism is false. Indeed, as we will see later on, arguments about qualia and consciousness are usually formulated as arguments for the conclusion that physicalism is false." SEP

Some others most popular arguments against physicalism are:

Meaning
Intentionality
some methodological issues

There are philosophers of mind who accept physicalism. There's nothing wrong with that unless they are to assumes all is completely physical. About some objects we don't really know what their nature is. Thence we can't just it's physical or not.

Let's take a stock. Physicalism can be a good starting point: it shows cognitive science, philosophy of mind should take an explanatory method directly from science. None of abstract speculation is suitable for consideration about mind or brain, in general. But, though, we don't realize of some forces it can't affect our entire method of consideration. Perhaps, there's no one good method, there're couple, or even many methods.
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To find out more about physicalism in philosophy of mind point your browser to SEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). It's good starting point.

Multi-Agent Interaction of J. van Benthem

2005-12-13T10:05:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I attended at the lecture of Prof. Johan van Benthem. Some of his proposals I've known, but some of them stroke me as quiet new.
Prof. Benthem's lecture was about Reductionism in Multi-Agent Interaction. Ok, perhaps one may find this not suitable in this place. But the entire bunch of lecture is about Reductionism, so van Benthem had to fit into subject of reductionism. However, he spoke very little about this matter and gave an impression of how dynamic-epistemic can helps in describing/explaining of information flow, instead.
What was worth of consideration in van Benthem's talk is formal approach to knowledge acquisition. I'll post more detailed notes on van Benthem's lecture before too long.
For anyone who lives in or nearby Munich there's a chain of lectures on Reductionism but they also may attract people with interests in cognitive science. Next talks are about cognition, psychology, etc. Check here for more details: Reductionism in Philosophy and Science at LMU Munich.

Mind Puzzles Launch

2005-12-12T14:28:00.000+01:00

The most fascinating organ in human being is, no doubt, the brain. But what does it make so exceptional? Answers can vary and probably all can be true. But for me the most fascinating function of human brain is mind. There has been said a lot about mind. So, why should one run a blog about it? Do we need that? Yes and no. No, since there are theories, sometimes good theories about mind. Yes, since there are plethora of theories and sometimes they are good. But are they good enough? There still has been said few.
In this blog I'd like to engage in some considerations (perhaps discussion) about mind. Perhaps it seems to be too broad. What can we say about ourselves? A lot. Some scientists and philosophers say the language is the key to mind. Perhaps it is true. Others have taken different position by a disputation table.
The subject of this blog narrows the mind considerations. I'm going to explore just that areas which have been stuck in darkness - Mind Puzzles, i.e. the role of language, qualia, consciousness, representations, etc. That's it? Yepp, this should engage all my vital energy for rest of my life ;)
But still the main accent will be on language. Perhaps the name shouldn't be Mind Puzzles but Language and its Place in Nature (paraphrasing Kornblith). But anyway the mind is in the middle of discussion.
I hope you'll enjoy the reading.