What is the Structure of the Mind?

[TruthSeeker]

What is the structure of the 'mind'? Can we define it in literal, physical terms or in terms best left to abstract language? I am not talking about the brain that holds the mind itself, but rather thoughts and memories. Are they just only electrical signals generated by chemical reactions within the body or something more that we have yet to discover?

[Алекс]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGXdXcpNsv4

[Kamandi]

Consciousness itself is notoriously difficult to define. Past that, any outline of a structure of mind will just be a model. Freud's tripartite construction is a bit dated but about as good as anything else, IMO.

[TruthSeeker]

Consciousness itself is notoriously difficult to define. Past that, any outline of a structure of mind will just be a model. Freud's tripartite construction is a bit dated but about as good as anything else, IMO.

Freud's tripartite model compartmentalizes the mind in terms that Freud and others could visualize and understand. The answer I was looking for is not how many sections or regions it has but rather what composes the mind itself.

[Zubenelgenubi]

Freud's tripartite model compartmentalizes the mind in terms that Freud and others could visualize and understand. The answer I was looking for is not how many sections or regions it has but rather what composes the mind itself.
Then you shouldn't ask what the structure of the mind is.

[TruthSeeker]

Then you shouldn't ask what the structure of the mind is.

I admit I was wrong in my usage. I should have said, what is the "material" of the mind. Is it electrical in nature?

[Roland]

I should have said, what is the "material" of the mind. Is it electrical in nature?

There are any number of answers, the most popular of which fall between the claim that the "mind" - as a modern concept used in everyday language - is either functionally equivalent to the electro-chemical firings in the brain, or an epiphenomena thereof. Most answers question the accuracy of the conceptual mind used in everyday language, arguing that properties we ascribe to "mind", such as consciousness or propositional attitudes, are in fact pseudo-properties, or fictional.

I'm not an expert on the subject. Helios Panoptes and other members may be able to give you a better answer. There are also, to my knowledge, substance dualists on this forum as well.

[Kamandi]

The correct answer is that no one really knows.

[CaliSkin]

The correct answer is that no one really knows.

I know. I just can't tell you. I have been sworn to secrecy by the mind gnomes... uh oh, I've said too much ...

[Thoth]

(meant to be under truthseeker's thread...damn again...)

Not to tweak or disdain the many sound and cogent points made above, but this thread question ("WHAT IS. the structure of mind?"
-- which looks, and is justified by grammar in being taken as addressable, with profound implications riding on the answer-- presupposes "DOES IT*.have structure?"

Notice the asterisk appended to the little pronoun "it", possibly the most pernicious two letter word ever devized. An all-pervasive Lacanian boormalean twister, throw one in wherever a hook is nibbled.

It doesn't take a Bill Clinton to point out it depends on what "mind" means whether mind has structure or not.

"WAIT!" the Wittgen cry. "According to common rules of use "the mind" is what DOES the "meaning", or intending characteristic of human mentality, most evident in coherent use of signs in communication. (What I mean "meaning") Structure, as illustrated by the blue-print of a building, say, is form in content. Content is not identical with the mental act of awareness of it, anymore than awareness of blue is blue (G.E. Moore). Can a hammer (the tool for striking objects that get struck) strike itself?"

So goes one well-worn criticism of talking about the mind
as possibly having "structure". Another can be taken directly from Descartes, if Mind=>Soul => essentially unextended thinking substance (assuming structure implies extension, as in the blueprint). A third, along Wittenteinian use, traces to Gilbert Ryle's criticism of The Ghost in the Machine. A fourth, proceeding from Skinneran behavioristic psychology, dismisses talk about "mind" the way physical scientists are obliged to dismiss "God" -- explaining nothing by purporting to explain everything at a stroke. You don't have to be a skeptic, merely a non-identified observer, to note that the same one's who are wont to use "God" for the totality of the universe are wont to use "Soul" for the totality of the person in the body (Plato explicitly does this in Timaeus), and to allege one reflects the other. One readily observes
that this, itself, is a "mentality", complete with philosophical name and elaboration: metaphysical dualism.

Note the logical* difference it makes to ask "WHAT IS THE MIND'S DYNAMICS?", instead of "structure"? This shifts use of the word "mind" from something having parts, like a house, to something flowing, like a process. Such a shift might be seen from substance-attribute to process metaphysics, Russell to Whitehead in the 20th century. It is compatible with the models of mind dividing it into conscious and unconscious spheres and functions -- even though such a rapproachment was not culminated in a unified language of science, which I constantly promote here as an ideal construct for all knowledge. If mind is taken from the outset as a process, with a dynamic grounded in the psychoneurotic causes of tokens exemplifying text in communication, the structure that unfolds under common self-observation (Heideggarian touch) can be read off as reflected in the sign uses. This is the premise of psychosemiotics.

One more note and I'm done. The reply to "Can a hammer strike itself?" objection to mind knowing mind is: 1. The mind isn't a hammer.
2. It* is reflected to it*self -- consciousness of (the) consciousness (in) sign-use -- in necessity through
communication.
3. In the final draft, after shifting from "what do we mean by 'mind'?" to "what do we mean by 'what do we mean by ' ---X ...'(+1!)?" there arises the conception of pure consciousness, as the continuity distinct from and underlying thought, perception, will and personal being.

taking advantage of the opportunity you offered to work this through a bit.

[Wodan]

It depends who's Mind it is.

[Geist]

Exceptionally difficult question that would probably require the most nuanced language in the world. I personally believe mind refers to an abstract idea which is understood by way of the though-processes themselves. That is there is no mind in essence, but merely an idea of mind that is created through the brain so that man may attempt to understand himself. Taking into account, of course, that man as potential mistake of evolutionary process may have no real way of understanding the mind in and of itself.

[Roland]

Thoth:
I found your post interesting, but I had trouble understanding your conclusion - don't laugh if I'm way off.

One more note and I'm done. The reply to "Can a hammer strike itself?" objection to mind knowing mind is: 1. The mind isn't a hammer.
2. It* is reflected to it*self -- consciousness of (the) consciousness (in) sign-use -- in necessity through
communication.

In other words, we become conscious of the mind through consciousness of the consciousness involved in sign-use? For instance, being conscious of the varied forms that consciousness of sign-use manifests depending on cultural/historical context?

Does this mean that we can have some sort of private language?

3. In the final draft, after shifting from "what do we mean by 'mind'?" to "what do we mean by 'what do we mean by ' ---X ...'(+1!)?" there arises the conception of pure consciousness, as the continuity distinct from and underlying thought, perception, will and personal being.

After reflecting on the meaning of "what do we mean by" - a conception arises of pure consciousness. Is this consciousness an underlying metaphysical "something"?

[Zubenelgenubi]

In other words, we become conscious of the mind through consciousness of the consciousness involved in sign-use? For instance, being conscious of the varied forms that consciousness of sign-use manifests depending on cultural/historical context?

Does this mean that we can have some sort of private language?


I think this is psychoanalysis related- we can be conscious of the ways in which our sign-use reflects our own consciousness, like an analysand discovering his own mind via seeing his own desires reflected in the analyst.

[Thoth]

Thoth:
I found your post interesting, but I had trouble understanding your conclusion - don't laugh if I'm way off.



In other words, we become conscious of the mind through consciousness of the consciousness involved in sign-use? For instance, being conscious of the varied forms that consciousness of sign-use manifests depending on cultural/historical context?

Does this mean that we can have some sort of private language?



After reflecting on the meaning of "what do we mean by" - a conception arises of pure consciousness. Is this consciousness an underlying metaphysical "something"?

I appreciate these questions, Roland. I'm gonna press the CPU limit.
1. "Something" - Yes. Objectively, a "Fourth", the result of having coated the unity of function of the first three processing centers* (mobile, emotional, intellectual). This is a specific content of experience.

2. Subjectively, that is, by self-observation, it* is what recognizes itself in the signs used to comunicate, as the most articulate, complex, uniquely self-contained singularity of all. Recall what it's like to come across an old term paper, for instance, and seeing* a younger version of oneself, remembering what it was like to be that way, etc.. Such a "shock" is also a unique content, explicable through the relation of "mirroring" -- seeing oneself in the S*-mirror.

3. Wittgenstein advanced the argument that there can be no purely private rules of use (as if anything were anything one called it and there was no checking accuracy in principle), therefore no such thing as a private langauge, but this holds only for the degenerate case of pure text. As if there were a grammar only I could comprehend. But with the distinction between text and token at hand, and shifting to intuited connections about "the sense and significance of where this is going", etc., because of repetitions, pauses, ever-emphases, inappropriate or flat affect and of course many, many more such cues in posting, which is one thing that makes the Phora addictive!, TEMPLATES kick in, from dream-space, AND YOU KNOW OTHERS ARE GETTING THE SAME UNCONSCIOUS IDEA AT SOME LEVEL. -- a wave-front going through the collective psyche whose sub-groups are divided and also bonded by communication. Each will break up in defense of its own ego-consciousness.

Finally: the "something" taken both objectively and ssubjectively has, besides content, and various functions, unique attributes: state, position, intensity and potency, elsewhere elaborated.

[Kim Jong Tha Illest]

If you could do one for me Thoth, I've been wondering about the distinction between text and token in your semiotic system.

intuited connections about "the sense and significance of where this is going", etc., because of repetitions, pauses, ever-emphases, inappropriate or flat affect and of course many, many more such cues in posting, which is one thing that makes the Phora addictive!, TEMPLATES kick in, from dream-space, AND YOU KNOW OTHERS ARE GETTING THE SAME UNCONSCIOUS IDEA AT SOME LEVEL.

What I'm picking up from this is that the text in its limited sense (the words on the screen) in addition to its formal presentation (the abovementioned rhetorical devices plus the series of meme-references alluded to by form and content alike) combine to arrange the information to be presented in such a way that BAM, some truth comes from outside (dreamspace?) to make a hole in the whole thing?

Is this close?

[Thoth]

If you could do one for me Thoth, I've been wondering about the distinction between text and token in your semiotic system.



What I'm picking up from this is that the text in its limited sense (the words on the screen) in addition to its formal presentation (the abovementioned rhetorical devices plus the series of meme-references alluded to by form and content alike) combine to arrange the information to be presented in such a way that BAM, some truth comes from outside (dreamspace?) to make a hole in the whole thing?

Is this close? Yes. I think.

(could just mean I Am, though)

ADDED: re-read and re-uptook the "hole in the whole"! seg to ahk ...
I should have learned better than to even try to keep up.

But remember to remember about that coating. Otherwise -- BAM - POOF

[New Scientist]

What is the structure of the 'mind'? Can we define it in literal, physical terms or in terms best left to abstract language? I am not talking about the brain that holds the mind itself, but rather thoughts and memories. Are they just only electrical signals generated by chemical reactions within the body or something more that we have yet to discover?

So far i used electromagnetic geometry to figure it is a******* embedded within a *****. I've written a 200 page research summary on it. Neuropsychologist is reviewing it this week.

Get back on that when i hear his opinion. If he can understand it. I tried to read it myself and figured it would be incomprehensible to anyone but the really interested.

Most of the memory areas have higher magnetite deposits. Short term memory seems to be more electrically active.