The psychologists are the worst pseudo biologists as I have mentioned before -literally churning out thesis after thesis which use TDCS/TRNS/brain scans/zapping to validate the psychiatric categories without a thought as to what it means/its value.
Since you mentioned free will in your other post, it still doesn't seem to clear to me how your model invokes free will- kind of what I was trying to ask in my previous comment.
The modern arguments (or nonsense du jour if preferred) is that without being able to choose our thoughts (immaterial as they are) - free will is impossible. For example, if asked to think of a movie, the one which appears as a thought is just random, and if one then changes their mind by thinking of another film the choice is still not ones' own.
I would make the distinction that free will is actually the freedom to act on ones thoughts as distinct from freedom to choose those thoughts. For example, I can't choose to think about locking myself out of my house but I have the freedom to bring that situation to being if I, for example, post my keys through the letterbox whilst I am outside the door-random example but I think it makes the distinction clear.
The psychologists love going an about the Libet experiments as proof of no free will also which would be interesting to read your take on.
I cover free will in Chap 5, S.4 and in Chap 11, S.4 of Natural Dualism and mental disorder (2021). Definition of free will is: "Regardless of how I acted one minute ago, I could have acted differently." Determinism states: "All events in the universe were determined at the Big Bang by distribution of elementary particles and laws of physics." To determinists, we only think we have free will although I notice that they all line up for their Nobel prizes and knighthoods as though they had something to do with it. Compatibilism, that free will and determinism are compatible is, to my mind, incoherent.
Free will flows from the concept of a dualist universe, where the operative concept is not "two substances" but two sets of laws, each of which functions independently of the other. Given an emergent mind, I can visualise or recreate the past in my mental space. However, I can then use the same mental machinery to create alternative visions of the future, and to choose between them. I can choose to think about going to the pub or I can choose to think about staying home to week the garden. That satisfies all requirements and evades the issue of inconsistency with laws of thermodynamics.
I don't believe all events were ordained during the Big Bang or at birth etc. which is patently ridiculous, and agree with your model as set out with information (thoughts) being unlike the secretion of bile etc.
However, the problem I see is that, even with an informational space which is not affected by the laws of thermodynamics, if it is anyway dependent on something which is affected by those laws (the brain) then it seems to me it cannot be free.
Do thoughts not just arise in our minds? To say we had any involvement in the process of their coming into being is what is referred to as the illusion of free will. Hence why I suggested that true free will is the decision to act or not on those thoughts (which as you say, involves planning), whilst acknowledging that I cannot choose my thoughts (not the same as compatibilism as not all actions are predetermined).
What you mean by ‘brain’ is just your idea of ‘brain’ (or else you do not mean what you mean), and ideas are part of the mind, so it does not make sense to posit the mind (the totality of ideas) as ‘emerging from’ brain (an idea). X cannot contain itself plus something else, or it would not be itself.
Are you by any chance a Russellian? He was very good at such paradoxes. The biocognitive model posits mind as an informational space generated by the brain's computational capacity. Until the brain is developed and functioning, there is no mind. Once it starts cranking over, then an informational space emerges but the "space" is no more than the information itself. If there is no information, there is no mind. Information can be about anything, it is not constrained by laws of physical universe and this includes "information about the mechanism that generates the information itself." Thus we live in a dualist universe; dualism doesn't mean "two substances," it means "two sets of laws each owing nothing to the other." I set all this out in Natural Dualism and Mental Disorder, the first few chapters. thanks for your interest.
I am not a Russelian (or anyone’s adherent for that matter) but Russell’s paradox indeed applies in this case, insofar as it demonstrates contradiction entailed by regressive inclusion. The applicability of contradiction is a structural limit of sense/meaning/information; insofar as elements of information/meaning contradict one another, their synthesis is meaningless (makes no sense), or what we colloquially mean by ‘false’.
The way you describe ‘information space’ is possibly compatible with the presuppositions of what we mean by ‘mind’, even a synonym for mind, but to posit the brain (computational capacity) in addition to or beyond the information space, as its generator or container, is precisely what implies contradiction. It simultaneously commits to something being both included (as the idea/meaning of ‘brain’ that you posit, which is already information) and excluded from the information space (by the premise that the brain is a source/container/cause of that information space). One way to maintain logical consistency (avoid contradiction) is to include the brain in that information space (in the mind), but then you only have one kind of thing to deal with, and that thing is internally differentiated into instances and categories of sense/meaning, one of which is ‘brain’, which may be regarded as a lower order correlate or representation of some (not all) changes occurring in the mind. If the brain is inside the mind, this changes the conceptual paradigm from which solutions to problems of the mind are initiated, whereas the original paradigm implies contradiction and is thus doomed to fail in the therapeutic or order-restoring, or normative sense.
I am interested in this higher order solution, in changing the paradigm, because once I detect a contradiction I am rationally obligated to reject the model as presented (be it my own model or anyone else’s). I am also rationally obligated to communicate my reasons to those who may understand my objection.
The psychologists are the worst pseudo biologists as I have mentioned before -literally churning out thesis after thesis which use TDCS/TRNS/brain scans/zapping to validate the psychiatric categories without a thought as to what it means/its value.
Since you mentioned free will in your other post, it still doesn't seem to clear to me how your model invokes free will- kind of what I was trying to ask in my previous comment.
The modern arguments (or nonsense du jour if preferred) is that without being able to choose our thoughts (immaterial as they are) - free will is impossible. For example, if asked to think of a movie, the one which appears as a thought is just random, and if one then changes their mind by thinking of another film the choice is still not ones' own.
I would make the distinction that free will is actually the freedom to act on ones thoughts as distinct from freedom to choose those thoughts. For example, I can't choose to think about locking myself out of my house but I have the freedom to bring that situation to being if I, for example, post my keys through the letterbox whilst I am outside the door-random example but I think it makes the distinction clear.
The psychologists love going an about the Libet experiments as proof of no free will also which would be interesting to read your take on.
I cover free will in Chap 5, S.4 and in Chap 11, S.4 of Natural Dualism and mental disorder (2021). Definition of free will is: "Regardless of how I acted one minute ago, I could have acted differently." Determinism states: "All events in the universe were determined at the Big Bang by distribution of elementary particles and laws of physics." To determinists, we only think we have free will although I notice that they all line up for their Nobel prizes and knighthoods as though they had something to do with it. Compatibilism, that free will and determinism are compatible is, to my mind, incoherent.
Free will flows from the concept of a dualist universe, where the operative concept is not "two substances" but two sets of laws, each of which functions independently of the other. Given an emergent mind, I can visualise or recreate the past in my mental space. However, I can then use the same mental machinery to create alternative visions of the future, and to choose between them. I can choose to think about going to the pub or I can choose to think about staying home to week the garden. That satisfies all requirements and evades the issue of inconsistency with laws of thermodynamics.
I don't believe all events were ordained during the Big Bang or at birth etc. which is patently ridiculous, and agree with your model as set out with information (thoughts) being unlike the secretion of bile etc.
However, the problem I see is that, even with an informational space which is not affected by the laws of thermodynamics, if it is anyway dependent on something which is affected by those laws (the brain) then it seems to me it cannot be free.
Do thoughts not just arise in our minds? To say we had any involvement in the process of their coming into being is what is referred to as the illusion of free will. Hence why I suggested that true free will is the decision to act or not on those thoughts (which as you say, involves planning), whilst acknowledging that I cannot choose my thoughts (not the same as compatibilism as not all actions are predetermined).
The brain is a Dimensional Processor, constantly seeking Meaning beyond its own Dimensional existence.
Some brains fixate at the lower level of dimension eg 1-D, 2-D, 3-D, 4-D, resulting in all types of dimensional experiences and existence.
Stones, Plants, Animals, Humans...to be understood in terms of Dimensional existence (not the String Theory).
When Biology is reduced to Physics, we go from 5-D to 3-D with pseudo 4th D, generated by electricity.
What you mean by ‘brain’ is just your idea of ‘brain’ (or else you do not mean what you mean), and ideas are part of the mind, so it does not make sense to posit the mind (the totality of ideas) as ‘emerging from’ brain (an idea). X cannot contain itself plus something else, or it would not be itself.
Are you by any chance a Russellian? He was very good at such paradoxes. The biocognitive model posits mind as an informational space generated by the brain's computational capacity. Until the brain is developed and functioning, there is no mind. Once it starts cranking over, then an informational space emerges but the "space" is no more than the information itself. If there is no information, there is no mind. Information can be about anything, it is not constrained by laws of physical universe and this includes "information about the mechanism that generates the information itself." Thus we live in a dualist universe; dualism doesn't mean "two substances," it means "two sets of laws each owing nothing to the other." I set all this out in Natural Dualism and Mental Disorder, the first few chapters. thanks for your interest.
I am not a Russelian (or anyone’s adherent for that matter) but Russell’s paradox indeed applies in this case, insofar as it demonstrates contradiction entailed by regressive inclusion. The applicability of contradiction is a structural limit of sense/meaning/information; insofar as elements of information/meaning contradict one another, their synthesis is meaningless (makes no sense), or what we colloquially mean by ‘false’.
The way you describe ‘information space’ is possibly compatible with the presuppositions of what we mean by ‘mind’, even a synonym for mind, but to posit the brain (computational capacity) in addition to or beyond the information space, as its generator or container, is precisely what implies contradiction. It simultaneously commits to something being both included (as the idea/meaning of ‘brain’ that you posit, which is already information) and excluded from the information space (by the premise that the brain is a source/container/cause of that information space). One way to maintain logical consistency (avoid contradiction) is to include the brain in that information space (in the mind), but then you only have one kind of thing to deal with, and that thing is internally differentiated into instances and categories of sense/meaning, one of which is ‘brain’, which may be regarded as a lower order correlate or representation of some (not all) changes occurring in the mind. If the brain is inside the mind, this changes the conceptual paradigm from which solutions to problems of the mind are initiated, whereas the original paradigm implies contradiction and is thus doomed to fail in the therapeutic or order-restoring, or normative sense.
I am interested in this higher order solution, in changing the paradigm, because once I detect a contradiction I am rationally obligated to reject the model as presented (be it my own model or anyone else’s). I am also rationally obligated to communicate my reasons to those who may understand my objection.
EDIT: so I am trying to make inroads into theory of mind from that higher order perspective. https://substack.com/@michaelkowalik/note/c-136020216 https://substack.com/@michaelkowalik/note/c-139599946