Now you did it too.
Dance around that fundamental reality that our “consciousness” our “mind” - what it is and how it forms from the brain’s bio-mechanical functions
remains a “blackbox,” a mystery, we keep getting a little closer, yet, yet, the experts are still scratching their heads. It’s like nothing else.
Or?
What else within fundamental material world is of the quality or character of the nebulous of thoughts and feelings around our brains?
That is the crux of this mind experiment, all the rest is window dressing. I wonder what Einstein would have thought, he did have his Gedankenwelt.
@timb I will say that I did want to provide input that would highlight that any of our cognitive or other covert behaviors, ARE part of PHYSICAL REALITY.
Heck for starters in your “thoughts” (mindscape) you can imagine the most incredible things, stuff that’s totally impossible, non-existing often both.
In the real world try that shit and you can’t get away with it. Just go to YouTube and look up ‘Darwin Award Winners’ 
Heck for starters in your “thoughts” (mindscape) you can imagine the most incredible things, stuff that’s totally impossible, non-existing often both.This is another whole tangent idea, but it has, at times occurred to me that some of our cognitive behaviors, having much less limitations as contrasted with our overt behaviors, are a medium for a kind of virtual free will.
What else within fundamental material world is of the quality or character of the nebulous of thoughts and feelings around our brains?Words.
We can hear and/or see words, so we know they exist in the “fundamental material world”. Yet they have a nebulous quality. (If someone were to read and understand Skinner’s “Verbal Behavior”, they would realize that words develop functionally in social interaction with a listener. This occurs within the natural process of behavioral principles.) It is not a black box. There is no box. There is functional interactions in given environments, as is the case in any learned behaviors. But in the case of verbal behaviors, reinforcers are typically mediated by a listener, or a verbal community of some kind.
Tim, we’re straying again, “words” ?? What of it, more window dressing.
Words are ultimately the result of a cascade of electro-biochemical impulses coordinating between brain and body.
But then we wind up right back to ‘first causes’ namely, that place where your mind decided to utter those words, which set off the bio-chemical-mechanical cascade resulting in speech.
Right back down own our Sisyphian hill to the question of our individual and collective Mindscape ~ mind, memory, consciousness, those voices in your head, etc. Where is the physical stuff of that? And if you can’t demonstrate that, what have you?
The thing inside of your head and behind those eyes and fingers tickling the ivories on that 'puter, those voices and impulses talking to, and at, you nonstop, always relaying its flow of observations and thoughts, that you are left to sort through as you get on with your day to day survival. Where do those words get formulated and edited?
Hmmm, Tim perhaps I need to modify the metaphor,
Mindscape is the stage upon which the voices in our head perform.
But why I dropped by was because I was thinking about your perspective and the reluctance …
and I just realized something I never pointed out before. Please notice I say
"Physical Reality and Mindscape".It isn’t “Reality” v. Mindscape.
This isn’t about changing anything about how science (or religion for that matter) seen or done, or any of the rest of it.
It’s about us petty humans learning to breakthrough a new threshold of understanding. It’s about a more realistic perspective, about better recognizing one’s own place in the universe (and this short dance we’ve been afforded by evolution and providence). Leading to a better appreciation of ourselves and our place in this world. I also strongly believe this sort of appreciate would go a long way to defuse some of the hubris people fall into so easily.
Yuval Noah Harari wrote a fascinating book “Sapiens” which really gets one to think, well about thinking - what it means, where it came from.
Got it a few years back listened, one of those books that grabs one by the ears and made me pay attention. Had to listen a couple times + and I imagine it played a role in formulated my original NOMA essay a couple years back.
Sapiens: A Brief History of HumankindYuval Noah Harari
Homo sapiens rules the world because it is the only animal that can believe in things that exist purely in its own imagination, such as gods, states, money and human rights.
Starting from this provocative idea, Sapiens goes on to retell the history of our species from a completely fresh perspective. It explains that money is the most pluralistic system of mutual trust ever devised; that capitalism is the most successful religion ever invented; that the treatment of animals in modern agriculture is probably the worst crime in history; and that even though we are far more powerful than our ancient ancestors, we aren’t much happier.
By combining profound insights with a remarkably vivid language,
Sapiens acquired cult status amongdiverse audiences, captivating teenagers as well as university professors, animal rights activists alongside government ministers. By 2018, over 10 million copies have been sold, and the book has been translated into nearly 50 languages. …
Words are ultimately the result of a cascade of electro-biochemical impulses coordinating between brain and body.A spoken word or written word, is a product of verbal behavior. Sure, they require a physical manifestation of "electro-biochemical impulses coordinating between brain and body." But they are a product of more.
They also would not be possible without the complex interplay of an individual’s environmental contingencies. (I could describe the particular kinds of environmental stimuli that are required in an individual’s history.)
The totality of that interaction is explicative, without the need for conceptualizing a “black box”. The only mystery left, lies within the virtually infinite complexity of the universe of potentially involved stimuli and resulting behaviors.
The thing inside of your head and behind those eyes and fingers tickling the ivories on that ‘puter, those voices and impulses talking to, and at, you nonstop, always relaying its flow of observations and thoughts, that you are left to sort through as you get on with your day to day survival. Where do those words get formulated and edited?They are formulated within one's personal history of reinforcement within one's verbal communities The words that you think are edited by your past and current verbal communities, (including yourself as a "listener").
So past external stimuli relevant to the development and use of those word, plus current relevant stimuli produce those words. Plus your own internal behavior and stimuli can impact the formation and editing of those words.
Consider the case of a certain type of verbal behavior, called “intraverbals”. I can type a few words, right now, that can most probably elicit a specific word to form in your mind.
Do you not think so?
“Mary had a little …”
I bet the word “lamb” popped into your thoughts.
Homo sapiens rules the world because it is the only animal that can believe in things that exist purely in its own imagination, such as gods, states, money and human rights.Yuval seems to be on to something.
They are formulated within one’s personal history of reinforcement within one’s verbal communities. The words that you think are edited by your past and current verbal communities, (including yourself as a “listener”).What's that all about? Do I need to repaste the part of my essay about the development of the humanmind from an evolutionary perspective - or the intimate interaction with environment?
We’re right back down own our Sisyphian hill to the fundamental question of our individual and collective Mindscape ~ mind, memory, consciousness, introspection, those voices in your head, etc. Where is the physical stuff of that? You still haven’t demonstrate that.
You can show me the physical stuff in all the rest of it, but that . . . Or?
Oh, and it’s not me calling the mind/consciousness a “black box” - that comes from scientists and researchers who’ve spent decades studying it. 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3188594/
Oh, and it’s not me calling the mind/consciousness a “black box” – that comes from scientists and researchers who’ve spent decades studying it. ?All the more reason for calling out that erroneous nonfunctional perspective.
... mind, memory, consciousness, introspection, those voices in your head, etc. Where is the physical stuff of that?The physical stuff in that, is, as we have stated repeatedly, the cascades of neurological and related biological impulses that comprise each. Those culminating in the body of someone who has had the complex social personal history that produced the necessary complex verbal behaviors.
If I wave my hand, you don’t freak out, demanding to know where is the black box of hand waving.
If I have the thought, “ya know, I really like that CC guy”. That thought does not come from a black box. It is a product of many many stimulus interactions.
And that cognition is only one kind of covert behaviors that we do. “Remembering” is a behavior (done anew each time we remember something). Being focused and aware is a behavior. Visualizing myself is a behavior. ALL of the things we refer to as “mind” are behaviors that occur inside our skins. And all of those, potentially, impinge as stimuli on all the others.
That thought does not come from a black box. --timbNot sure you get the "black box" analogy. It's a box with things in it that are known things, known mechanisms, you might even know who built them, you might understand how some of the parts function. The important aspect that makes it a black box is you can't see how they are assembled or what they are doing. You can see the input and the output. If the box is simple, you'll be able make some educated guesses on how the parts inside are working. But put some input into a mind, you'll get different results on different days.
Okay, I’ll give you that, and admit that my ‘black box’ analogy has been strongly influenced by someone’s mysterious cat.
Black Box: "Device, process, or system, whose inputs and outputs (and the relationships between them) are known, but whose internal structure or working is (1) not well, or at all, understood, (2) not necessary to be understood for the job or purpose at hand, or (3) not supposed to be known because of its confidential nature."Read more: businessdictionary _ com/definition/black-box _ html
All the more reason for calling out that erroneous nonfunctional perspective.
erroneous nonfunctional perspective
Okay, so please do. Precisely what is being called out?
The erroneous, nonfunctional perspective that appeals to a useless and unnecessary (IMO) concept of a “black box” that holds something (unknowable) and that holds what is supposedly really what our thoughts are, but it’s supposedly a “mystery”.
Well, it’s not a mystery. It’s behaviors.
If, like Lausten, you want the “black box” to be just a metaphor for known mechanisms, inside of us, then, okay. But we still don’t need that metaphor. The known mechanisms that occur inside of us are formed according to the rules of behavior and which are manifested by neuro-physical processes which (in the case of our “minds”) also, sometimes provides us with an awareness of our thoughts. Get rid of the superfluous “black box” metaphor that will never go anywhere that provides straightforward understanding.
Okay, thank you for that.
Yeah, it’s sort of a blind alley, and I might mention, something that you don’t find in my essays, it came up during Q’n A and my obviously very poor answer to a question.
Okay for me, time to chew on it a little.
Although are you familiar withHarari’s book. I think it would make a good backdrop when it’s time to revisit all this.
https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens-2/
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari
Homo sapiens rules the world because it is the only animal that can believe in things that exist purely in its own imagination, such as gods, states, money and human rights.
Starting from this provocative idea, Sapiens goes on to retell the history of our species from a completely fresh perspective. It explains that money is the most pluralistic system of mutual trust ever devised; that capitalism is the most successful religion ever invented; that the treatment of animals in modern agriculture is probably the worst crime in history; and that even though we are far more powerful than our ancient ancestors, we aren’t much happier.
By combining profound insights with a remarkably vivid language, Sapiens acquired cult status among diverse audiences, captivating teenagers as well as university professors, animal rights activists alongside government ministers. By 2018, over 10 million copies have been sold, and the book has been translated into nearly 50 languages. …
July 29, 2020 at 11:17 pm @timb - “Mind” is just a convenient umbrella term for all of the covert mental activities aka cognitive behaviors that we have, that have been shown to each have a neurological correlate.Beyond that, the description of each of the individual cognitive behaviors that comprise “the mind” are difficult to observe directly and objectively, but we all can describe, to some degree, (from subjective self-observation of our thoughts), certain cognitive behaviors that we have.
So what is left to describe about what the term “mind” refers to?
CC - A more descriptive term, might I suggest Mindscape
I understand why I fell into it since it’s all based on what I’ve learned through scientific writings, reports and such, along with my own unique relationship with the physical Earth I inhabit, but it screws me when it comes to conveying the notion to others. Though, I have always made a big deal that in the end, this is about recognizing boundaries, about perspectives and how we look at things. I shouldn’t have let that get lost.
Mindscape - (the movie Big Fish just flashed into my mind - watch it, if you’ve never seen it. It’s wonderful vision of one man’s mindscape v. the real world.)
Mindscape is about the singular unique universe each of us inhabits, that world within our little heads, the “reality” that our thoughts construct for ourselves and that we are always dreaming away within, … as (all the while) our body engages (yet another region of our mindscape) in their daily interactions with the world, as “our” day to days play out.* Follow what I’m saying there? Does it make any sense?
It’s all those ego driven impulses, memories and all the rest that resides within our minds, opposed to the Physical World that follows certain rules regardless of human desires and expectations.
*(of course it also includes the collective homo sapiens Mindscape, the collective result of all those individuals and generations and all that, but we can skip that for now.)
It’s all those ego driven impulses, memories and all the rest that resides within our minds, opposed to the Physical World that follows certain rules regardless of human desires and expectations.This is where you lose me. When you suggest that things like "ego driven impulses, memories and all the rest that resides within our minds" is not part of the physical world. AND then you add "regardless of human desires and expectations". Well, to me, desires and expectations ARE also behaviors that also do follow the rules of behavior.
“Mindscape” I think, may eventually be a helpful term if it is defined correctly and without being imbued with a false explanatory power of a homunculus.
Tim, if you’re sticking to the “it’s behaviors” definitions, I don’t think we can disagree with that. Behaviors are observable and quantifiable. I have a little trouble with them being predictable, and that would be a requirement for me if you are saying we know what the mind is.
When you suggest that things like “ego driven impulses, memories and all the rest that resides within our minds” is not part of the physical world.That's not what I'm saying. Please read my entire comment again.
Not too clear to me either Tim. I see “opposed to” and take it as something separate from, something “not”. I agree there is a lot we don’t know, and you could say that is conceptual or theoretical, or I would say that, but anyway, but I don’t really draw a line at “human desires”. Human desires arise from the physical, so there is no separation. It’s almost like CC thinks you are making a case that human thoughts cause things to occur in the physical world. I think you would say that but only in the most circular way, that is, thoughts are created by physical particles interacting, and physical particles act on each other.
Or am I getting too far out there?
(first, Lausten thanks for the tip, Dr Ara Norenzayan is interesting to listen to. I’m struck my his humility and simplicity in explaining the top - so much nice than a Peterson, who from the first breath sounds like he’s all about self promotion, then his topic. I’ve taken a little break to check in on this thread.}
Mindscape is about the singular unique universe each of us inhabits, that world within our little heads, the “reality” that our thoughts construct for ourselves and that we are always dreaming away within, … as (all the while) our body engages (yet another region of our mindscape) in their daily interactions with the world, as “our” day to days play out.* Follow what I’m saying there? Does it make any sense?It’s all those ego driven impulses, memories and all the rest that resides within our minds, opposed to the Physical World that follows certain rules regardless of human desires and expectations.
Forget about the organism of our brain and our little gray cells and all the marvelous things they do that (together with the environment it’s dealing with) produces the mind, thought, consciousness, sentience, memory, mindscape. First step,
It’s about me and the way I look at the world. There’s my body and then there’s that “sense of self” that is constantly thinking and talking ‘me’ – where does it reside? All my learning happens through it, heck seems like all I am radiates out from there. And all the world must enter through my senses and get translated into something my “sense of self” can do something with.
My “sense of self” (mindscape) reinhabits my body when I wake in the morning. I then through my body proceed to deal with all the environmental requirements of my day to days. Where do I get my sense of self from? First I think of my sight that takes in the world and my other senses smell, taste, sound, touch filtering the world that arrives in my consciousness.
I’m told all is determinist, yet every moment is a dance of survival, every action has consequences and every moment demands that decisions be made – I make decisions, I proceed and live with their cascading consequences, (including a job well done and pay check earned and all the rest, consequences good, bad, indifferent, and the entire rainbow in between.) - On one level each moment is determined, but moments can be weighted I imagine, I have will but it only goes so far.
So that is me, myself and I. Seems to me, I’m like everyone else who has a “sense of self” out there. The mindscape isn’t about anything in the brain, it’s about our sense of self, the world we exist within and the filters through which everyone of us views the world around us. The personality, the id, the arch-types and all that fancy jazz others have written about.
Physical Reality is the world we exist within, that we are embedded within, yes “Mindscape” exists within that world of Physical Reality and it’s certainly not a metaphysical space. If anything, it’s a reflection.
How’s this sound:
“Mindscape" is our psychological reflection of reality against the retina of our brains.The profundity is recognizing that our individual sense of self, is something totally unique, and, and, and, not while separate from reality, still . . . . . . .
On the outside looking in.
The human brain/body is incapable of perceiving “physical reality” directly, all get’s filtered through who we are and how we sense and think about the world – the world that’s constantly changing.
For me the Mindscape is simply the sum total of all my awarenesses. Everyone else that I know has their own world view, with their own history of information absorption depending on the opportunities (environment~organism) life provided them. Their own Mindscape.
Human history has been a history of recording the deeds of others, remembering, utilizing information to build bigger and better. That intellectual heritage I would refer to our collective mindscape.
Is any of that making any sense?