[Bmi] Is the mind what the brain does?

Mon Feb 18 10:48:55 EST 2013

Dear John,

Thanks for your prompt and elaborate response. Let's wait and see whether/how (some of) the recipients of our emails respond. I hope Sir Roger Penrose will read your suggestion with a smile.    

Your definition of mind ('A mind is what its corresponding brain does') intrigues me. Is what the brain does an event or an action? On the difference between the two, see:

Samuel Guttenplan, Mind's Landscape, Blackwell, 2000;

Bruno Gnassounou, Philosophie de l'action, Vrin, 2007; 

Timothy O'Connor & Constantine Sandis (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Action, Blackwell, 2010;

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/action; 

https://sites.google.com/site/pacherie/home.

Hans
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Juyang Weng 
  To: hans kuijper 
  Sent: Monday, February 18, 2013 1:59 AM
  Subject: Re: computational terms as a sign of maturity

  Dear Hans,

  Thank you very much for your points.  

  I have a basic disagreement with Roger Penrose.   I am now giving him a CC so that he can join our discussion.  Prof. Penrose, please let me know if you like to be dropped from this discussion.   

  I suggest that Prof. Roger Penrose should learn neuroscience first and then re-examine his positions.

  In particular, the Godel's incompleteness theory that he cited has a fundamental problem.  Kurt Godel proved his incompleteness theory in 1931. I guess that his idea was inspired from a paradox that Bertrand Russell discovered in 1901, now called Russell's paradox:

  Put in an intuitive way, Russell defined a set so that a particular logic question cannot be answered as simply yes or no.  Kurt Godel did a similarly thing.

  Think about a simpler version of the paradox:  I define the set of my sisters based on the condition that the person is NOT my sister.  Then, "is the person my sister?" cannot be answered. 

  There are many ways to object to Roger Penrose's position.  My first objection could be: "In the Brain's self-organization principles: there is no absolutely right or wrong" as I argued in 
  The 2nd Open Letter to the US President Obama: Why US Should Be Friendly with Every Government?    
  In other words, there is no absolute yes or no answer for a brain. For any natural-world question, two brains can come up with two different answers: one answers yes and the other no.   Therefore, mathematical logic seems too simple and too rigid as a tool for studying brain-mind. 

  Your questions are great ones.  I am afraid that not all my answers below are correct or agreeably by many experts on this email list.  Just for the purpose of discussion, I try to give my response.   Let me know if I am wrong.  You all are welcome to BMI this summer so that we can further our interesting discussion. 

  1) Can the mind be modelled directly or only indirectly (via the brain)? If the latter, why? 

  Weng: Yes.  Any model of the nature is an approximation, including more basic phenomena described by Newtonian physics.  I gave a simplified model about the rise of a mind from a grounded emerging brain in Natural and Artificial Intelligence

  2) Can the mind (as distinct from the brain) be modelled wholly or only partly? If the latter, why?

  Weng: Only partially, since we humans can never say that we have a complete understanding about the nature.  Newtonian physics is an example.   An interesting point is then whether we can model to a large degree so that the difference from the nature is not very obvious to us. 

  3) In the ongoing mind-body debate, to which camp do you belong?

  Weng: I think that mind is impossible without the corresponding body.  This does not mean that a robot body has to be developed (a designed body seems to be more practical for robots at the current stage of technology). I also belong to an optimistic camp, since the basic principles to give rise to probably the first-order mind seem to be relatively simple.   Do not laugh at me at this point.  Come to the BMI to convince yourself. 

  4) Do you think we are (very complicated) robots? If so, what makes these robots acting and behaving?

  Weng: Yes, we are "meat robots" in a sense.  Five factors made us: (1) environment, (2) sensors, (3) effectors, (4) developmental mechanisms such as those of a cell
  (I called it developmental program), and (5) how we are taught.  Although those cellular mechanisms in (4) are relatively simple, many cells work together to give rise to amazing minds. 

  5) If we are robots, physically determined, where does our sense of liberty, justice or compassion come from?

  Weng: Largely from the above 5 factors, but experience played a critical role.   We thought that we have independent minds.  But in fact, we do not really.   Each individual mind is heavily shaped by the environment, including mother, father, brothers and sisters, and peers.   When one says "I want ...", what he wants is largely determined by the environment from which he is raised and the current environmental context.  

  6) In the sentence 'the mind models the mind' subject equals object, right? How can?

  Weng: Great question!  That is why understanding one's own mind using one's own mind seems to be one of the last scientific problems facing humanity.   Fortunately, humans have spent so much money and resource in studying the nature including human nature.  Now, we seem to be very close to solving this mystery "in the first order sense" but in precise computational terms.  Yes, brain-mind phenomena can also be simulated and demonstrated by developmental robots (not traditional non-developmental robots).  But this demonstration needs resource and time.   We need to "raise" our robots like the way we "raise" our children in our human environments. 

  7) If mind and culture are somehow related (I think they are pretty much the same), what could be the relationship between nature (brain) and culture? And would it be (theoretically) possible to formalise this relationship?

  Weng: a mind is what its corresponding brain does.   Culture seems to be the common knwoledge and common behaviors among many brains in a society.  The physical brains enable the rise of culture after many generations of brains interact with the environment in this world (including other brains and bodies).   Like culture, traditions, languages, politics, sense of right or wrong, all emerge from such interactions.   Yes, it seems possible to rigorously formalise this relationship theoretically in mathematical terminology.  We all can work together along this line.   I hope that Prof. Roger Penrose can be convinced one day. 

  Just my 2 cents of worth.

  -John

  On 2/17/13 6:07 PM, hans kuijper wrote:

    Dear John,

    I think your point (a science, or discipline, is immature until its phenomena can be explained in computational terms) is debatable. In 'On understanding understanding' (International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 11:1 [1997], 7-20), Roger Penrose argues, by use of specific examples, that 'mathematical understanding is something which cannot be modelled in terms of entirely computational procedures'. See also his book The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Physical World, BCA, 2004, pp. 7-24, 374-378,1027-1045; and his foreword to Hector Zenil (ed.), A Computable Universe: Understanding and Exploring Nature as Computation, World Scientific, 2013. 

    Talking about scientific/computational modelling, I would like to raise the following questions:

    1) Can the mind be modelled directly or only indirectly (via the brain)? If the latter, why?   

    2) Can the mind (as distinct from the brain) be modelled wholly or only partly? If the latter, why?

    3) In the ongoing mind-body debate, to which camp do you belong?  

    4) Do you think we are (very complicated) robots? If so, what makes these robots acting and behaving?

    5) If we are robots, physically determined, where does our sense of liberty, justice or compassion come from?

    6) In the sentence 'the mind models the mind' subject equals object, right? How can?

    7) If mind and culture are somehow related (I think they are pretty much the same), what could be the relationship between nature (brain) and culture? And would it be (theoretically) possible to formalise this relationship?

    It seems to me that an unequivocal answer to these vexed questions is a prerequisite for having a sensible discussion about mind's embodiedness (link with brain) and embeddedness (link with society/Mitwelt).   

    Kind regards, 
    Hans Kuijper 
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