“Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos
By Ogi Ogas
And Sai Gaddam
Two neuroscientists reveal why consciousness exists and how it works by examining eighteen increasingly intelligent minds, from microbes to humankind—and beyond.”
I copied the above blurb from goodreads. I read this about 6 months ago and really enjoyed it. It talks about the evolution of modules in the brain….such as the “what” module or the “ why” module…I would like to read it again. Anyone else read it, think it is good, bad, et cetera? I think there are so many ways to look at the human experience of existence but I loved how this looked back at earlier life forms and if I recall they did get into AI towards the end. I believe they also talked about a form of math that is very high level and if anyone here knows about it would like to hear more about that. I asked my friend who is/was a math major and she confirmed it is a field of study.
I’ve followed this topic for years and have never heard this book or the authors referenced. The title says they have an answer, which is unlikely. I like checking the one star reviews and I’m thinking this is one is probably accurate,
I read this book Because the author appeared boastful and conceited Scientist who looked down on mere philosophers. And as it turns out the author/scientist is conceited and condescending (to the reader) often stating theory as fact and preaching these as simple things to be resolved soon. And using stupid metaphor as if we’re children like cutesy names for species which the author appears to know How they think. And the author’s a poet too and wants to become famous for creating concepts like Superminds (when will science stop using Super as a prefix). OMG, it’s all too meaningless as the author wanders between topics as diverse as George Floyd Black Lives Matter and the start in life of Frederick Douglas to Chat-GPT thinking itself aware. What a popular book you have here Ogi… and therefore USELESS
I cite it because it has to do with the brain and consciousness, though reading through it again reminds me it was as bad as the first time I read it.
Though every time I see a headline about scientists knowing how consciousness works I have to raise an eyebrow. I mean…we don’t even know if there is anything special about brains that would lead to consciousness.
Even this one just seems to say the same thing we already know, that our perception of reality is a best guess:
In I of the Vortex, Rodolfo Llinas, a founding father of modern brain science, presents an original view of the evolution and nature of mind. According to Llinas, the “mindness state” evolved to allow predictive interactions between mobile creatures and their environment. He illustrates the early evolution of mind through a primitive animal called the “sea squirt.” The mobile larval form has a brainlike ganglion that receives sensory information about the surrounding environment. As an adult, the sea squirt attaches itself to a stationary object and then digests most of its own brain. This suggests that the nervous system evolved to allow active movement in animals. To move through the environment safely, a creature must anticipate the outcome of each movement on the basis of incoming sensory data. Thus the capacity to predict is most likely the ultimate brain function. One could even say that Self is the centralization of prediction.
At the heart of Llinas’s theory is the concept of oscillation. Many neurons possess electrical activity, manifested as oscillating variations in the minute voltages across the cell membrane. On the crests of these oscillations occur larger electrical events that are the basis for neuron-to-neuron communication. Like cicadas chirping in unison, a group of neurons oscillating in phase can resonate with a distant group of neurons. This simultaneity of neuronal activity is the neurobiological root of cognition. Although the internal state that we call the mind is guided by the senses, it is also generated by the oscillations within the brain. Thus, in a certain sense, one could say that reality is not all “out there,” but is a kind of virtual reality.
Materialism is the belief that consciousness is not independent of the material world . It is the product of material and motion. Idealism is in the camp of the world only existing in our minds.
Consciousness only arises at a certain stage of matter organisation. There isn’t any vital force. the products of consciousness themselves are immaterial, but their origins are material.
The defenders of idealism fail to grasp the fact that ideas can assume an independent character due to their immaterial nature. Dialectical materialism accepts both inductive and deductive methods as key to acquiring knowledge. There is a reason why practice is the testing ground for ideas; it’s because the sensual experiences gathered may be explained in infinitely different ways by the mind. Hence, the existence of certain products of consciousness which are divorced from reality doesn’t presuppose a mystical force at hand. .
As the synthesis of organic compounds from inorganic ones proves, there is no vital force at work. Consciousness is a function of matter at a certain stage of advanced organisation. This notion of a vital, mystical force has long been debunked, yet many are clinging to it with their lives in their bid to save idealism. In fact, it was the idealist, religious scientists who intentionally and surreptitiously crept in the notion of a vital, mysterious force when the notion had been debunked in the 19th century long ago.
This is unknown at the moment and there is apparently evidence for idealism since materialism breaks down in quantum physics (allegedly).
The vital force is not a feature of idealism, nor has the idea been debunked. It’s just not testable. The hard problem still remains.
Materialism is actually in a rockier position since nothing is “solid” in the ultimate sense. There is also the problem that knowledge of materialism is due to sensory experience and you end up with the same problem Kant poses.
practice is not the testing ground for ideas, see why the scientific method cannot be verified scientifically. At some level you have to take a leap of faith because you cannot test things further.
so in short you just highlighted the shortcomings of materialism, ironically enough. You assert things that are either false or unknown.
This is getting semantic. I’m not sure I follow the Marxist guy, he goes through the history of humans in a short time and I would have to look into his examples to see if they really support his overall theme. But, I find him much more interesting than inthedarkness. IDK sticks to “you can’t prove it” and claims that proves something. There is no leap of faith required to use the scientific methods, it’s part of the method to not do that.
It’s semantic because the method has premises, one of which is that everything can be found to have a material explanation. Maybe a better way to phrase it is, you should start looking for a material explanation first. After hundreds of years of using them, the methods have shown themselves to be reliable, that is, inductive reasoning has shown it’s true with a high degree of probability.
Science is not a pathway to truth, that’s the first mistake being made about what science is and does.
Well there is, namely in that it’s rooted in assumptions that cannot be tested like our senses give us insight into an objective reality. The scientific method itself is also not falsifiable.
Also my “you can’t prove it” isn’t proof of anything, it’s more against the hasty answers and assertions he gives. We don’t have a material explanation for consciousness, and even idealism is starting to gain ground as materialism appears to have shortfalls.
Namely that we cannot really demonstrate the existence of “material” things since at the ground level it’s not solid. Maybe that’s why idealism is growing in the QM field.
Well, we finally got there. All these months of you saying you just can’t shake these feelings and you you are only asking questions. Once you go down the rabbit hole of ideas like Deepak Chopra’s, there’s not much point in discussing reality.
You realize that doesn’t negate idealism right, the only difference between the two is that they disagree on the fundamental level of what reality is. Everything else works fine.
I didn’t say Deepak Chopra, what a straw man. If you knew anything about Quantum Physics you’d see why Idealism is considered since materialism begins to fall short at that point. I’ve even talked to some people in the field who think that like Bernardo Kastrup.
It’s also no coincidence that a lot of founders of QM were idealists. Personally I don’t know enough about it to argue this or that but I’m at least open to it and not as sold on materialism after spending some time on the Physics stack exchange and Philosophy one as well.
