Alex,
You ended this email with the question:

I’m not sure what you mean by “a single dimension of complexification”? Each time qualitatively new emergent properties arise, new “dimensions” of complexity are created, no?

I am not sure how familiar you are with the Tree of Knowledge System. It provides the core natural science ontology for UTOK. Here is the standard ToK graphic.
[cid:image001.png@01D7A6E9.7AA7FF60]

I have written quite a bit about this. Here is the ToK System homepage<https://www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org/8-key-ideas/the-tree-of-knowledge>. Here is a blog on the Four Dimensions of Existence<https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201909/the-four-dimensions-existence-mapped-science>. Each of the colors represent a new dimension of complexification. The point is that the shifts within the Matter dimension (e.g., water molecules accumulating to produce fluidity or atoms being added to molecules to produce new properties) are one kind of emergence, whereas the shift between the dimensions are another.

A “single cone” would be, well, a single cone of complexification without any breaks. On page 169 of this chapter on the ToK<https://www.gregghenriques.com/uploads/2/4/3/6/24368778/the_tree_of_knowledge.pdf>, I draw a representation of E O Wilson’s consilience. It depicts his mapping of complexification.

Hope this clarifies.

Best,
Gregg

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Alex Ebert
Sent: Thursday, September 9, 2021 11:32 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Materialism without Reductionism -- and why "mind" is a troublesome concept...

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Hi Gregg,
Fun having that conversation, thanks for reminding me!

Back to this thread for a moment - I think I may have spotted a confusion between us:


And, yes, we needed AI to have this insight because we actually needed information theory and the information sciences before we can seen that there is a totally new kind of emergence that happens with Life, Mind, and Culture. Life, Mind and Culture are new planes of complex adaptive behavior that can be thought of as completely new fields or dimensions of existence.

I should clarify that when I (and, I believe, some others) talk of “emergence” I talk of it operationally.

So for one operation of emergence to be fundamentally differentiated as “novel” it would have to be differentiated operationally. That one emergence might yield a qualitatively novel field does not necessarily suggest that the operation of the emergence that yielded that novel field was itself novel.

The qualitatively new things that the operation of emergence yields is emergent properties.  (I wouldn’t mind we assign a new word for this).

My sense is that you are using “emergence” as “an emergence” (emergent property) while I am using it as “emergence” (operationally).
Thoughts?

That emergences of great magnitude yield qualitatively novel things does not describe a separate category of emergence IMO... just the same emergent operations operating at higher orders of magnitude.

The only form of emergence that I can think of that would be describable as fundamentally novel emergence would be an emergence that does not intervene upon its predecessors.

But that would be tantamount to an immaculate conception with no genealogy.

This law of intervening requires that we see Emergence (the operation) on a gradient of magnitude, rather than fundamentally distinct (while we can certainly see those emergent properties as fundamentally distinct).

 A difference of magnitude.

This is not to say that these emergences aren’t “totally new“, but to say that each emergence does intervene on its previous emergences.

If the world was simply a single dimension of complexification, then (a) the weak emergent physical reductionists like Sean Carroll would be right and (b) the ToK would be wrong and misleading. But, it turns out that the reverse is true.

I’m not sure what you mean by “a single dimension of complexification”? Each time qualitatively new emergent properties arise, new “dimensions” of complexity are created, no?

Cheers,
Alex

Sent from my iPhone


On Sep 8, 2021, at 4:40 AM, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

Welcome to the TOK list, Alex. Here is a lovely<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DSFE58i3mTjI-26t-3D2s&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=QDiEO_b80XE4-ESv6xipNZwSfEPuGoB1qBQ4-j6pOtk&s=5uIAfky1vKyHBUDVKqj-r36QYf81rkhUAwhJp8VvXPw&e=> conversation I had with him a couple of weeks ago. Here Alex is on the Colbert Show<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DvQQKvEaq1kI&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=QDiEO_b80XE4-ESv6xipNZwSfEPuGoB1qBQ4-j6pOtk&s=rS-SMQ-wXuUjSt7LNM3zmldIC2nZ2C1UDN6YPT72PfY&e=>.

In response:
RE EMERGENCE: You are technically right re Hegel, but, to be clear, I was making the exact OPPOSITE point. Given Hegel and others, I should have perhaps used a different set of terms. Let me explain. Basic/standard emergence is what you describe here, which can indeed be thought of as “quantitative” shift leading to new “qualitative” properties. This is what I call standard, weak emergence. And I used quantitative to describe this case because what gets added in weak emergence are either more parts or more stuff. So, you gave an example via chemistry of more parts. Likewise, add more cars on the highway and you get traffic as an emergent property. Given Hegel’s work, you can argue I was being confusing. However, since Hegel does not figure largely here (i.e., in the West, which I argue is stuck between Newton and Kant), I did not think it was a major concern. But I appreciate you raising it. It points to the language difficulty here, which I have found interesting and telling.

With that, let’s be clear about the Tree of Knowledge System. It is a novel theory of emergence. And one way to frame what it says is that there is a “qualitative” difference between the kinds of emergence described above (i.e., weak/quantitative that leads to new properties) and the emergence of the novel dimensions of behavioral complexification labeled Life, Mind and Culture. The cones themselves grow precisely because of within dimensional emergence as a function of shifting from parts to wholes to groups across scale. Thus at the Matter dimension, we see it emerging at Big Bang and then we see particles, atoms, and molecules across scales. Hence your example with chemistry and Mike M.’s example with water molecules. If the world was simply a single dimension of complexification, then (a) the weak emergent physical reductionists like Sean Carroll would be right and (b) the ToK would be wrong and misleading. But, it turns out that the reverse is true. And this is the novel insight regarding emergence that the ToK affords us. And, yes, we needed AI to have this insight because we actually needed information theory and the information sciences before we can seen that there is a totally new kind of emergence that happens with Life, Mind, and Culture. Life, Mind and Culture are new planes of complex adaptive behavior that can be thought of as completely new fields or dimensions of existence.

The Periodic Table of Behavior, which is an extension of the ToK System (see here for a professional publication<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__drive.google.com_file_d_1W6h2wsRx4EqYJ5WuPHxFUwphRJJwy0p1_view&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=QDiEO_b80XE4-ESv6xipNZwSfEPuGoB1qBQ4-j6pOtk&s=fxyscUI5GuEq4AbvGa3_yMIpKUYAyw3yg4wimpixJ5g&e=>) makes this crystal clear. The basic PTB is attached. It shows that we can divide emergence into TWO axes. One a more quantifiable kind that happens within the dimensions as a function of adding parts or stuff. This is what turns atomic physics into chemistry. However, there is the shift into new dimensions of complexification that give rise to new ontological kinds. Chemicals are still inanimate stuff. However, bacteria are living things. That difference can be called a qualitative shift, although I agree it might be confusing. Indeed, I am still working on the right language. I tried using weak emergence versus strong emergence (see here<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_202004_strong-2Demergence-2Dis-2Dvalid-2Dconcept&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=QDiEO_b80XE4-ESv6xipNZwSfEPuGoB1qBQ4-j6pOtk&s=SqWZw3G7u7rYD3Lal_R9e1htt5yrHi9yukraczT-ix4&e=>), but John V asked me not to use that because strong emergence carried too many “woo” elements. And the difficulty points to the key point. The kind of emergence that the ToK maps is fundamentally new. That is why, as this paper argues, it is best and properly thought of as a fundamentally new map of Big History<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__drive.google.com_file_d_1jitwSMNzeDY6R-2DDAAsOr1yplcf-2Du7nYN_view&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=QDiEO_b80XE4-ESv6xipNZwSfEPuGoB1qBQ4-j6pOtk&s=LD4dcwX9SBYAaQdhMisZDYpcu-hn0JI4hzfq79izAII&e=> and, as this blog notes, it is a fundamentally new scientific worldview/ontology.

TWO FORKS:
Yes, this is the way it has been framed. But to be honest, it is very clunky. The basic problem is that the metaphysics of mind and matter is all fucked up. And so people are trying to use inadequate conceptual and language systems to build frames. Mind (and matter) mean six thousand different things, so there is no good framing one way or another. There are some analogues to matter being in a position and having an experience and some completely bullshit analogies. And clearly mind emerges from nature, but what do you mean by mind? But the time we are strange loops of self-reflective causation, things are quite causally weird relative to the Newtonian mechanical model. But again, it is UTOK to the rescue. It maps both the continuity and discontinuity is elegant clarity.

Wonderful to “see” you hear, Alex. And, yes, I was weak on Hegel and am working to catch up, hence my following Bard’s work with much interest.

Best,
Gregg

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> On Behalf Of Alex Ebert
Sent: Tuesday, September 7, 2021 9:08 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Materialism without Reductionism -- and why "mind" is a troublesome concept...

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Hello all,

New to the list (thank you, Gregg) and just back from some time off-grid, I’ve been enjoying catching up on this thread.
Some assorted notes.

- That quantitative thresholds yield qualitative shift is indeed only novel if Hegel (science of logic) is novel.  Long before AI.  This relationship between quantitative thresholds and qualitative shifts is further enumerated best and earliest by Engels (Dialectics of Nature), as he describes the chemical series of methane to ethane to hexadecane, all with the simple addition of carbon and hydrogen molecules - with the prior being gases and the final yielding a solid.  He calls this relationship between quantitative thresholds and the qualitative shifts they produce  “Hegel’s Law”, hilariously.  Nevertheless, the quantitative / qualitative relationship is how emergence works, in my view, and a group such as this should not go too long on a subject like emergence without mentioning it.

- The concept of the quantitative threshold/qualitative shift of course also is thought to apply to the mind.  Whether this is a quantitative threshold fed initially by panprotopsychist substance or by “dumb“ substance is a curiosity, but may not be the philosophical fork one might suppose.

- There are two general paths to mind here discussed and both of them are emergent - and I’m not sure either are “hard”.
One is a (gasp!) panprotopsychism (an interiority “aspect” to all substance, per Alderman, yielding consciousness at higher orders of complexity) and the other is something like transcendent (gasp!) evolutionism (“dumb” substance yielding culture and mind at higher orders of complexity, per UTOK?, Mascolo, etc).

- I should point out that the average western guy may have a firmer grasp on the emergence of mind than any of us (perhaps we do prefer that the question be hard when it is not, lest we have nothing to do with our...minds):
 The avg guy tends to feel that a protein has no brain, and thus no mind.  And yet this fellow believes in an evolution that dragged all such substances up thru the muck and the grime of toad and slime of scale and thru the fur of apes and blood of chimps and into a humanity...that yielded mind.  Avg guy is thus a quantitative/qualitative believer of the transcendent evolution variety.  Naturally.

Meanwhile us more whimsical philosophers (I’m more of a panprotopsychist for a very specific reason to do with what catalyzes complexity to begin with - so count me “whimsical”), go on about the hard problem as if material complexity couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the emergence of interiority.  It absolutely could.  One look at wolfram’s hypergraphs (no matter what you think of them) and the idea no longer seems strange at all.

- side note : IMO the physicalist perspective (dumb materialism yielding mind) of emergent mind that works best is a mind that intervenes not on the brain - but on everything, which is how I translate the UTOK vision.
There are no truly discreet operations.

Cheers all,
Ebert (or Alex if there be not too many of me already here).


Sent from my iPhone



On Sep 6, 2021, at 9:22 PM, Bruce Alderman <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
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Hi, Michael, I am familiar with the H2O metaphor for the emergence of 'mind' or the psychological, but in my view it still is reductionistic -- and / or it doesn't do the work it is supposed to do.  All examples of emergence we have are of the same kind:  new organizations of matter, with new emergent behaviors.  But in my understanding, the 'hard problem' is deemed a hard problem, not because agent-like behaviors can emerge in complex systems -- that's all still third-person, objective description and focus; still a behavior-orientation.  The hard problem is a hard problem because there seems to be no objective explanation of how or why any of that would lead to first-person, qualitative feeling or experience.  There is a leap being made, where we assert that 'subjective feeling / experience is here,' but all we have accounted for is the emergence of new complex forms of the behavior of material forms.  Not the irruption of 1p experience into a world utterly devoid of such until then.

Best wishes,

Bruce

On Mon, Sep 6, 2021 at 4:23 PM Michael Mascolo <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
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Hi All:
In a recent post, I expressed agreement with the an article that asserted that that “the mind does not exist” – at least to the extent that “mind” and “mental” are defined in contrast with “physical” and “material”.  The mental/physical dichotomy is a nasty one, as it suggests that “mind” is something that is non-corporeal.  Robert Ryan — in a post that I am deeply grateful for — suggested that the ideas that I had advanced are reductionistic. Robert inspired me to try to be clearer in my thoughts about why “mind” and “mental” are unhelpful concepts, and how it is possible to be both a materialist and to be non-reductionist.  I believe that it is possible to have a non-reductionist materialist conception of consciousness and experience.  And I think that this position aligns quite closely indeed with Gregg’s system.
I want to assert a concept that I have called embodied emergence (Mascolo & Kallio, 2019) — the idea that psychological processes and states (consciousness, experience) are complexly-organized biological processes, albeit ones with novel emergent properties. (Please – stay with me – there is something new here as I hope will become clear below.)  Novel psychological properties – e.g., awareness meaning, experience, qualia – are emergent from biological processes in the sense that they are not found in their base biological elements.  However, these novel and emergent psychological processes do not contain (nor do they have to) properties that override or conflict with the properties of their base elements.
To make this argument, I want to show that qualitative transformations routinely occur in everyday physical systems without creating structures that override or conflict with the properties of their base elements.  This can be illustrated with the common example of how we get liquid – water – from the combination of two gasses – hydrogen and oxygen.  When we combine hydrogen and oxygen – two gasses – we don’t get more gas – we get a liquid – something with qualitatively different properties.  How is this possible?
This is not a mysterious process. This well-understood process is described in the graphic below.  The short story: A water molecule, of course, is formed with two molecules of hydrogen combine with one molecule of oxygen. When this happens, individual water molecules connect to each other through the formation of a hydrogen bond between the slightly negatively-charged oxygen molecule of one water molecule and the slightly positively-charged hydrogen molecule of another This bond, however, is very weak. As a result, movement breaks the bond quickly, allowing molecules to flow over each other – thus producing liquid.
The novel way of understanding this process is to be found in the concept of EQUIVALENCE (which, as I understand in mathematics, is different from equality).  Liquidity is an emergent property of H20 molecules aggregated together.   When we combine material gas of H and the material gas of O, we get the material liquid of H20.  When we say that liquid emerges from a combination of H2 and O, we do not say that the combination produces H20 and then also the liquid we call water.  H20 is the EQUIVALENT of the liquid we call water. The properties of water are fully explainable by the novel structure that arises from the relations between H2 and O.  We don’t need to add something in addition to the novel structure of H20 to explain its properties.  We simply have a novel structure with emergent properties.  The properties that emerge from the coordination of base elements are not to be found in those base elements. In this way, the novel properties cannot be reduced to their base elements.
I want to say that the same basic equivalence relation occurs between base biological processes and emergent psychological processes.  We have biological structures and processes – cells, neurons, synapses, etc.  Psychological states and processes emerge from the complex organization of biological structures and processes (in ways that we do not understand).  Now, here is the important philosophical point: When this happens, the higher-order biological organization has novel psychological properties – e.g., awareness, qualia, etc. – that are not found in the base elements themselves (e.g., individual cells).
What I want to say is that the relation between (a) base biological processes and (b) biological processes with emergent psychological properties is akin to the relation between (a’) the base physical elements of H and O (b’) and the physical water molecule -- H20 – with the emergent property of liquidity. That is:
The liquid we call “water” is the EQUIVALENT of H20.  There is not H20 and THEN ALSO something else – some emergent liquid we call “water”. Liquidity is the emergent property of H20 – a higher-order structture  We don’t have H20 plus something else called “water” or “liquid”.
States we call consciousness, awareness or qualia are the EQUIVALENT of complexly organized biological processes. There are not the complexly-organized biological structures and THEN ALSO some novel “mental” or “non-biological” something called “consciousness”.  We don’t have biological processes PLUS something else called “mind” or the “mental”. Psychological processes ARE complex biological processes with emergent properties (awareness).
But wait, you might say: The psychological person is an agent – the person has something akin to “free will” – the capacity to control his or her own behavior.  Physical systems don’t do this.  How do we get something like conscious agency from a physical system?  To explain psychological processes in a material system, don’t we have to explain how we are capable of conscious control?  Don’t our powers of conscious control mean that somehow “minds” emerge that control “physical” or “biological” bodies?
The answer is “no” – we do not have to postulate a “mental” entity to control behavior – because the capacity for hierarchical regulation is already built into the structure and processes of biological systems.
I believe that we tend to believe that “mind” is something that is separate from “body” not not because we can’t imagine how awareness can emerge from biological processes, but instead because we cannot imagine how human agency –  the capacity to consciously control behavior --  emerges from a physical or biological system.  We attribute a capacity for conscious control (sometimes called “free will”) to “mind”.  How else can “we” be in control?
But the point is this: We don’t need complex “mental” processes to explain the capacity for agency.  Agency – or at least hierarchical regulation is a basic property of biological systems. Even single celled organisms are self-regulating systems.  The complexity of self-regulation increases as we move up phylogenetic levels of complexity.  At some point, the capacity to represent one’s environs (and indeed, one’s own processes) comes to function as part of the biological self-regulating system itself.  If this is true, then we do not need to invoke mysterious conceptions of “I” or attribute mysterious properties of agency to consciousness to explain human behavior. Consciousness and other psychological processes serve functions other than agency in the human system.  Consciousness and other psychological processes transform the already existing capacities for agency and hierarchical control that already exist in biological systems.  Consciousness likely serves the function of coordinating or integrating information from endogenous and exogenous sources so that the organism can respond to increasingly complex systems of adaptive challenges.
And so, the assertion that psychological processes ARE complexly-organized biological processes is not a reductionistic statement (although it can be, in some formulations).  Glucose metabolism is a biological process but not a psychological process (although it can arguably be influenced by psychological processes). Consciousness is both a biological and a psychological process; it is a biological process with emergent properties that function in the service of the already adaptive self-organizing organismic system as a whole.
All My Best,

Michael F. Mascolo, Ph.D.
Academic Director, Compass Program
Professor, Department of Psychology
Merrimack College, North Andover, MA 01845
978.837.3503 (office)
978.979.8745 (cell)

Bridging Political Divides Website: Creating Common Ground<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.creatingcommonground.org&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=BiXTct126rn5ZsNOJ2THyGg7QkeTiFNc3sNcxpioSYs&s=dnaikad71T93VCsHiaWfPRCcRhnRziPJtxl4YvZAMxo&e=>
Blog: Values Matter<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_values-2Dmatter&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=BiXTct126rn5ZsNOJ2THyGg7QkeTiFNc3sNcxpioSYs&s=ig-BUTBtjh39H7resrXu6Tu-qsaO7_rLhP7-Bl3vMZQ&e=>
Journal: Pedagogy and the Human Sciences<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__scholarworks.merrimack.edu_phs_&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=BiXTct126rn5ZsNOJ2THyGg7QkeTiFNc3sNcxpioSYs&s=FzppyMwN986Lq13axaveLOYQ2M6IBG96yT0skmPQ_M0&e=>
Author and Coaching Website: www.michaelmascolo.com<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.michaelmascolo.com&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=BiXTct126rn5ZsNOJ2THyGg7QkeTiFNc3sNcxpioSYs&s=gcLC-6dvIK_0kUcEAhcLfpV6J3kqE1aJGeWoOxj74SA&e=>
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On Aug 31, 2021, at 4:18 PM, ryanrc111 <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

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Dr. Mascolo,

That is a reductionist reasoning that i cannot agree with.

When systems are qualitatively different, they deserve qualitative labels that are different.
 "everything is just ____________" never has worked in the history of science, and I don't think it will start working now.
Biological systems are not merely just physical. Social systems are not merely just biological.
They do have different features, different epistemic concerns, and indeed differing levels of action.
The universe is digital -quantum particles do not continuously effect large scale systems.
 There are clear breaks at different scales, where hardly any activity on scale 1 affects systems on scale 2.
the math of differential equations and complexity supports a digital world of level-based actions and level-based systems.

You might be interested to read the work of Sandra Mitchell , a top philosopher of science, whom I took coursework from at U Pittsburgh. "
IN fact, Sandra is the department chair of the #1 rated philosophy of science dept. in the world, and I learned from her there!
She has presented full theories about the qualitative difference between the "sciences". and they are close to Henriques.

Sandra Mitchell - Wikipedia<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Sandra-5FMitchell&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=a4GpWt5qlsEqQs-EqHtfR3r3f3Htlu2QNX7L0XB9WSA&s=S4VqQYAPqYN8zdUcJWtT-iY3bYuy__DjE1-CRUeealQ&e=>

There is no possibility of reducing social to biological , and so forth.
Just because there are causal linkages through the material world, does not mean these systems are qualitatively identical in character.
Emergence is very well established, but I do realize there are people who hate it as a concept.
 However, Its far easier to defend the qualitative thesis because it doesn't require a magic bullet theory.
I have yet see a magic bullet theory that accurately reduces one "science" to another. They have all failed.
thus, knowledge still stands as qualitatively different for different systems.

Thanks

Robert Conan Ryan


On Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 4:03 PM Michael Mascolo <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
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Greetings All:

Thanks for pointing us to this article Gregg.

I must admit, I agree deeply with Gough’s thesis in this paper.  I think that terms like “mind” and “mental” should be discarded — except metaphorical terms to use in everyday discourse.

Like any term, the meanings of “mind” and “mental” gain their meaning dialectical through a contrast to what they are not.   Different meanings of a term can be illuminated by understanding the different ways in which they can be contrasted with what they are not.

A central meaning of the terms “mind” and “mental” arise from their contrast with terms like “physical”, “bodily” and “corporeal”.  This contrast identifies “mind” and “mental” in contradistinction to that which is material.  It is this meaning that is problematic.  The moment we suggest that “mind” and “mentality” are in some way “not physical”, we become deeply entrenched in the intractable mind-body problem: How can something non-physical “cause” changes in something “physical”, and so forth.  This problem is intractable.

In my view, terms like consciousness, experience, meaning, representation, awareness all refer to psychological processes. The difference is that these terms do not carry any necessary connotations of non-corporality.  This is why, in my view, it is preferable to use these terms rather than “mind” or “mental”.

From this point of view, psychological processes ARE physical and material processes — biological processes that function at a higher (yes higher) level or organization.  There is no mind/body problem because what people call mind — consciousness, experience, agency — is not non-physical.  Thus, it makes sense to ask, How does consciousness emerge in a bio-physical system — where consciousness is NOT assumed to be non-physical.  In contrast, the question, How does “the mind” emerge from bio-physical systems suggests that there is something called “mind” that is “nonphysical”.

My Best,

M.






Michael F. Mascolo, Ph.D.
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On Aug 31, 2021, at 1:55 PM, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

Hi List,

Although we hardly need more evidence for the Enlightenment Gap’s claim that there is profound confusion regarding the relationship between matter and mind in modern systems of understanding, here is yet another article that makes the point, with the assertion that we should discard the concepts of mental and the mind all together:
https://aeon.co/essays/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-the-mind-and-nothing-is-mental<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aeon.co_essays_why-2Dtheres-2Dno-2Dsuch-2Dthing-2Das-2Dthe-2Dmind-2Dand-2Dnothing-2Dis-2Dmental&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=yR78h67WTt--sRzIZIN2948JxfpkaVqtp2CKS4l3p6g&s=Dfn6DlF75Im2bhzy3L3-GEbx5Z5o-fxg-rve0zrNRF0&e=>

Since there are several new people on the UTOK list, I will take this opportunity state what many here already know, which is that the central feature of UTOK is that it affords us a new, different and much richer metaphysical vocabulary for the domain of the mental. Indeed, my current book is on how the UTOK solves the problem of psychology by affording us clarity about the ontology of the mental. (summarized here<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__medium.com_unified-2Dtheory-2Dof-2Dknowledge_a-2Dnew-2Dapproach-2Dto-2Dthe-2Dscience-2Dof-2Dpsychology-2D66f2042e8c32&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=yR78h67WTt--sRzIZIN2948JxfpkaVqtp2CKS4l3p6g&s=RHhx_9mTU72UuJ8sUvEHUjOQsb-X_FZj-E_bUj5mNy4&e=>).

Because I want practice streamlining this, here is the basic summary: First, via the ToK System’s divisions of complexification, it gives us the category capital “M” Mind, which is a tier of complex adaptive behaviors in nature. Specifically, it is the adaptive behaviors exhibited by complex animals with brains that produce a functional effect on the animal-environment relationship. These are the set of mental behaviors.

Second, via the Map of Mind, we divide these mental behaviors first into the neurocognitive processes within the nervous system (Mind1a) that can be tracked by things like fMRIs, and the overt activities of animals that can be observed (Mind1b).

Mind2 is used to denote the interior epistemological space that is subjective conscious experience that can only be accessed from the inside and cannot be accessed directly from the outside. This divide is called the epistemological gap. No camera or any other device we can consider allows us to directly experience the Mind2 of another. The most interesting possible exception to this I have seen is the Logan Twins who are conjoined at the head, and share some brain domains. Even here, however, they experience the world via their own epistemological portal and the way they describe sharing thoughts is akin to talking.

Speaking of talking, this is the domain of Mind3. Talking flows through the interior and exterior without losing its form. It is a shared intersubjective space. Mind3a is when it is private speech, Mind3b is when it is translated across the barrier of the skin in some other medium.

Finally, regarding UTOK’s solution to this world knot, it should also be noted that science is anchored into the language game of behavior and the exterior epistemological position. The ToK represents a behavioral systemic map of nature. Our subjective idiographic point of view is different. It is represented by the iQuad Coin.

Thus, my reply to the article is to agree that it makes an important point, but it is laughable that (a) we can just stop using the terms and (b) that words like cognitive, psychiatric and psychological are fine even though mind and mental are hopeless. What is needed is a proper descriptive metaphysical system that is in accordance with natural science ontology that affords us clarity about the various domains of the mental and the ways they emerged and interface.

This essay is mental in the sense that it is an example of Mind3b behavior that operates at the Cultural Person plane of existence, and functions to network propositions together to legitimize a version of is and ought.

Best,
Gregg

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