There are many theories of mind. At
the moment, I am not going to be attempting a review of them. For
reasons which may become clear as you read this, I haven't actually even
read them all. This may seem like quite a confession to be making
as an academic, but my own theory of mind suggests to me that reading
other people's works too early in the process of building a mental model
of the way something works will jeopardise your chances of being able to
produce your own uncompromised theory.
How are we to define mind?
Do we need to differentiate between the
subconsious and conscious mind? Or can we treat them together?
It is often said that thinking, an act of cognition, is a
function of the conscious mind. I am much less than satisfied with
this type of assertion. From a subjective point of view, I am aware
that much of my problem
solving, for instance, occurs without my active conscious
participation. I consciously think through the problem, certainly,
but then I assign it to the 'back burner' where the actual problem
solving occurs whilst I
get on with something more productive. Thinking, for me, occurs
largely in the subconscious mind. Of course, my awareness of
thinking occurs in my conscious mind, because I am only able to be
consciously aware of things there!
There is a good argument that our
conscious awareness is, in effect, an illusion (eg Enchanted Looms,
Cotterill, R, 1998 Cambridge University Press), and I would describe it
as being an emergent property of the subconscious mind. So, whilst
it can be worth distinguishing between conscious and subconscious for a
particular point, in general I think it is worth referring to them
collectively.
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Brains
Many of us suppose that the work of the
conscious mind takes place in the brain. I have a lot of sympathy
with this view, but note the 'conscious' qualifier there. Whilst I
do think the 'higher cognitive functions' are brain based, this is not
the only place which the work of the mind occurs, and indeed, the
conscious mind requires the presence of the nervous system to be able to
interact with its environment. Cognition, of course, is defined as
more than just thought, and is defined in many different contexts.
In artificial intellignce terms, it is a cycle of perceive, represent,
model, reason, act. This is generally accepted as meaning that a
cognitive system must be embodied.
Some people believe that the conscious
mind is in a soul. This is not in
vogue amongst the science based cognescenti,
Some think that the mind is in the body as
a whole
There have been suggestions that the mind
is closely tied in with the environment outside of the body.
I am not sure if this has been explored by
others (it probably has) but if the mind being embodied in the
Environment is a real possibility, then there is an argument for
exploring whether it exists in conjunction with others.
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Emergent minds
I think that the simplest
model which supports the idea of consciousness is one in which the agent
recognises others like it, and attempts to model the agents with which it
has contact (of all species). It makes sense to model things - it
allows for adaptive control of one's own body, and for the maximal degree
of flexibility in learning how to adapt to ones environment, both physical
and social.
It seems likely that if the
natural function of the brain is to analyse the things it perceives and
model them in order to be able to predict what they are going to do next,
then the lowest cost solution to introspection is to model others which
appear to be the same as us as having the same on-board mechanisms as
us. Or rather, to model ourselves as having the same mechanisms as
them.
Why this way round?
Because we have little need to understand ourselves just to be able to
survive as far as breeding age. But once we start to reach that
stage, social connections become more important, and if we have the
resources to allow us time to consider such things, it makes some sense
that we should expend some of them contemplating, quite literally, our
navals.
The problem is, we can
never know what stimuli are bombarding the senses of someone we
observe. So we actually cannot know what they are experiencing, or
what they will do next. But we can, generally, get a pretty good idea,
because we have a general idea of what they can see/hear/smell etc.
But how do we account for the differences between expected and actual
behaviours? If we assume, for the moment, that we are all entirely
stimulus/response 'machines', I will still argue that the most sensible
model is that the 'other' has some form of free will. And if I can
model the 'other' that way, allowing me to skip aberrant behaviours, then
if I am like the other, it makes sense for me to model myself the same way.
And the illusion of consiousness and free will becomes, in my opinion,
the most likely evolutionary step.
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