Hi Alberta,

Yes, I am working on the “classic mind/body problem,” but let me offer a qualification. There are a number of facets of the classic mind/body problem. As I note in this blog, one of the facets is the “hard ontological problem” which refers to the fact that scientists do not really know what is it, exactly, about the activity of the brain that gives rise to the first person experience of being. To the extent that this emerges as a function of brain activity at some level, it is called the neuro-engineering or binding problem. Here is the best book I know on that, but there are lots and exciting developments are now happening and I am not fully up to speed there. Here is a video on it that is worth watching. Although my work has lots of implications for this problem, I am not working on this aspect of the “classic problem” directly.

 

  Rather I am working on the philosophical aspect of definitions and concepts. One way to spell that out would be to say that I am working on the “self/consciousness/cognition/mind/brain/body/matter/behavior” problem. In other words, to solve the problem, we need to get our language system correct, which involves specifying the proper coherent relationships between these terms.  This blog provides an overview of the “10 problems of consciousness”. I identify problem 1 as the language game problem and that really is the best way to describe what I am sorting out. And I am doing so in a way that makes the science of psychology a coherent scientific enterprise at its conceptual foundations, something that it is currently lacking.

 

Best,

Gregg

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Alberta E Pos
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2020 2:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: How does this diagram strike you?

 

Hi Gregg

When you say the consciousness-behavior dichotomy do you mean the classic mind/body problem?

Alberta

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Waldemar Schmidt
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2020 1:15 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: How does this diagram strike you?

 

Gregg:

 

Thanks for sharing.

Very crisp and pertinent illustration.

 

Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD
(Perseveret et Percipiunt)
503.631.8044

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. (A Einstein)

 

On Apr 8, 2020, at 4:43 AM, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 

Hi TOK List,

 

  So I continue to be obsessed with deconstructing the problem of psychology and crafting the proper solution. I have just finished reviewing Watson’s 1913 Behavioral Manifesto. I am using it to show why psychology had a crisis with its subject matter. The answer is that Watson creates and ‘either or split’ between consciousness and behavior. To this day, this remains at the core of the problem of psychology. That is, we can’t get a commensurate map of the concepts of behavior, consciousness, and science. This failure stems from what I call the Enlightenment Gap and its failure to produce an adequate synthetic philosophy that includes the proper relations between matter and mind and social and scientific justification systems.

  I am thinking of including the figure below. It tries to capture both the problem and the solution I offer. Consistent with my “metamodern sensibility”, it is a ‘sincere ironic’ representation. So, you get the top half, which communicates the problem is that consciousness can’t equal behavior or be commensurate with it. Then you get my solution, whereby the unequal sign becomes the three layers of Mind (i.e., neurocognitive functionalism, subjective phenomenology, and self-conscious justification.

 

Per usual, I welcome thoughts.  

 

 

<image001.png>

 

Best,
Gregg

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