If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it,

Tfindlay wrote

I don't see any reason to speak of mind as separate or distinguishable from the physical cosmos.

Here are a few:

You look out of your window and what you see of the world outside is not the perspective the person in the street outside sees of the physical world, although the physical world exists, many of us presume, as an orderly system.The perspectives are mind things: the street is a physical thing(what Descartes called 'extended' matter.

It was the distinction between "mind things" and "physical thing" you made here that led me to believe you thought of minds as independent of matter. Perhaps I am misunderstanding your use of the word "mind". Many people use the term "mind" with the assumption that it is some sort of non-physical part of themselves responsible for directing their lives.

I don't think of minds as supernatural, but I'd call minds non-physical. In an ontological discussion like this I always find Descartes's term 'substance' to be unambiguous.Descartes's idea of what mind is is like saying that mind is a supernatural substance. But Spinoza's idea about mind is that it is one aspect of natural world, the other aspect being the physical aspect.
Each aspect of existence is natural. As Spinoza said, the mind is the idea of the body.I'd like to add, to try to make this clearer, that we cannot perceive anything without sensory apparatuses of one sort or another. What we perceive is both ideas(mind) and the things perceived(physical/material)Neither is truer than the other:both are aspects of the same substance which Spinoza called 'Deus'.

So while the ontology of Descartes includes supernatural substance(mind, and God), the ontology of Spinoza includes one substance only which is entirely natural. Spinoza thinks of the one substance as God, and this is not supernatural in any way because there is one, natural, substance of which we see only two aspects.There are probably more than the two aspects of Deus but we have access to only the two aspects of existence.We atheists can call the one natural substance 'existence itself' and more religious pantheists can call the one substance 'God'.


I would rather out this into a diagram. Descartes: three separate substances,God, mind and body.

Spinoza, one substance under which are subsumed mind and physical body.

It's pretty obvious why the RCC disapproved of Spinoza for whom God or Deus does not transcend the natural world.

I find personally that I flicker between mind and body, I don't know how else to express this paradoxical feeling. But the tree falling in the forest paradox is an example of how in a paradoxical situation, each aspect is true and neither cancels out the other, it depends upon your perspective.

What we perceive is both ideas(mind) and the things perceived(physical/material)

Thanks for the clarification. I would argue that we do not perceive ideas (at least not in the same way as we perceive material objects). Rather, I would contend that ideas are produced by brain processes that have been triggered by sensory and/or internal input. I think ideas are the products of brain computations; they are interpretations made by the brain.

Sensory Input -> Brain Processing -> Ideas (This is oversimplified because ideas themselves can be input to brain processing as can chemical signals sent to the nervous system by the body)

In this model ideas are produced by physical processes in the brain and exist as physical patterns of neuronal populations. What you identify as "mind" is absent from this model.

In this model ideas are produced by physical processes in the brain and exist as physical patterns of neuronal populations. What you identify as "mind" is absent from this model.

Exactly. But we relate to mind in identification with its ideas. Even this model has its visual references/memory so is only a representation of the things it describes. Yet we identify with the thing it describes not the physical happenings.

I would rather out this into a diagram. Descartes: three separate substances, God, mind and body.
Spinoza, one substance under which are subsumed mind and physical body.

If you draw these diagrams, you make physical the representation, which in turn more strongly influences your physical mind. You burn the mind memory deeper and form an opinion. This is all absolutely fine, my writing this is little different, but you must know this is the process so you can build in disidentification and remain flexible with your ideas. While the idea’s representations are stored in physical mind, the idea itself as object is illusion. It is neither physical nor non-physical, but an illusion stored.
Descartes and Spinoza didn’t have our privileged modern scientific and neuroscientific knowledge. Spinoza nailed the (classical) physical cosmos but Descartes’ mind is illusion.
The tree question wants our illusion physicalized when all that is posited as happening is physical, observed or not.

Tfindlay wrote

Thanks for the clarification. I would argue that we do not perceive ideas (at least not in the same way as we perceive material objects). Rather, I would contend that ideas are produced by brain processes that have been triggered by sensory and/or internal input. I think ideas are the products of brain computations; they are interpretations made by the brain.

I dont hesitate to agree with this.I do wonder though if in saying this you intend to imply that brain is the cause of mind, or that the physical world causes one's mental world.If this is the case, if I may say so, you are a physicalist and for you mind may be no more necessary than an epiphenomenon.

Rajaroux writes what I think which is in effect that without mind I would have no concept of brain or anything else. Or as Spinoza implied you cannot have one without the other.

Rajaroux wrote

While the idea’s representations are stored in physical mind, the idea itself as object is illusion. It is neither physical nor non-physical, but an illusion stored.

If I understand you this is a problem that I have not sorted out with my reading of Spinoza. I think you are saying that Spinoza had not the advantage of modern neuroscience which is largely on the side of consciousness as creator of the 'physical thing or event'. True.

However I have been told that Spinoza's idea of truth , which is a corollary of the rest of what he wrote in 'Ethics' is that truth is a matter of coherence.If truth is matter of coherence then truth is socially created.Spinoza did say that the mind is the idea of the body and therefore the body must exist in some form of energy for the mind to be the idea of it.I would like to tie Spinoza in with Tao and Taoist ontology but do not know how to do so.

I dont hesitate to agree with this.I do wonder though if in saying this you intend to imply that brain is the cause of mind, or that the physical world causes one's mental world.If this is the case, if I may say so, you are a physicalist and for you mind may be no more necessary than an epiphenomenon.

Yes, for me the concept of mind is unnecessary since all that is going on is neural activity. Introducing the concept of mind makes it seem as though there is something separate from this activity that has effects in the world.

Spinoza did say that the mind is the idea of the body and therefore the body must exist in some form of energy for the mind to be the idea of it.

What does it mean to say the mind is the idea of the body? Does it mean that the concept of mind is produced by bodily (brain) processes? If so, I would agree. I think that mind is a concept created by neural activity but that that is all it is, a concept, without any actual basis in reality.

I would like to tie Spinoza in with Tao and Taoist ontology but do not know how to do so.

As I understand Taoism, mind (as distinct from physical processes) is incompatible with Taoism because Taoism (The Way or flow) is what we would call today a systems based (process based) world view.

Tfindlay wrote

What does it mean to say the mind is the idea of the body? Does it mean that the concept of mind is produced by bodily (brain) processes? If so, I would agree. I think that mind is a concept created by neural activity but that that is all it is, a concept, without any actual basis in reality

No it does not mean that. It means that the mind and the body are each dependent upon the other. The body does not causally precede the mind, and the mind does not causally precede the body.

We will have to differ then. I am a substance monist like Tfindlay but neither a physicalist nor an immaterialist/idealist.

No it does not mean that. It means that the mind and the body are each dependent upon the other. The body does not causally precede the mind, and the mind does not causally precede the body. .

I am trying to understand what this means. What I don't get is what this mind is for, what the point of it is.

What the mind is for seems to me to presume a materialist explanation. This would go along the same lines as you have already admirably expressed so I won't repeat it.
However one could as well say 'I cannot be sure what the material world (including my own body) is for.'

Subjective minds can invent any number of things and indeed can invent what seems on the face of it to be the coherent world system, together with your excellent materialist's explanations.This is not necessarily solipsistic for the naturalistic philosopher because he can say that the subjective human mind is a social thing, not as social as the minds of ants, bees etc, but still socially constructed, still socially evolved.

In short, it's a matter of faith whether I choose to believ in the reality of the material world, the reality of the mental world, or (as I myself do) the
reality-of-both-together.

In short, it's a matter of faith whether I choose to believe in the reality of the material world, the reality of the mental world, or (as I myself do) the
reality-of-both-together.

I agree that having faith in the reality of the material world and having faith in a mental world (mind as distinct from the material brain) are both beliefs. However, IMO, they are quite different kinds of belief. On the one hand a belief in the material world is based on evidence gathered through observation and experimentation. On the other hand belief in a mind that does nothing and has no purpose cannot be based on evidence (because it has no effects). I am puzzled as to why one would subscribe to a belief in such an ineffectual idea.

A belief in a soul makes some sense to me since the for the believer the soul is for something, it has a purpose and faith in it has an effect on the believer. So, if the mind is not for anything, if it doesn't do anything or have any effect in the world I would be interested in what it is about believing in mind that appeals to you subjectively.

Tfindlay, for instance, human corpses are bodies and not minds, but you and I are obviously not corpses as there is evidence via the Internet that you and I are dynamic consciousnesses i.e. minds.I think that processes, events and things all really exist. Mind is process, not thing.

While not every creature has insight into subjectively realised processes, there is probably a relativity scale of consciousness among living creatures, with the very basic feedback mechanisms of amoebae at the lower end of the scale, and I don't think anybody seriously says of amoebae that they are minds as well as bodies.

Bodies are not discrete entities either. There is a species of tree in North America in which the same root system is shared by all the 'trees'.Couch grass is like this too, in that all the blades of grass together are the same body.The blades of grass, and the trees, are processes, or if you widen the ecological view, the same process trees and grass. Without mind/consciousnesses and arguably language there would be no way for humans to separate process into discrete entities.Mind is that which conceptualises. If this is the case then mind is the creator of things and processes because the concepts are the ideas of the bodies.However, NB there has to be some extended matter for mind to conceptualise.

As Berkeley said, to be perceived is to exist.I doubt if you could find a more rigorous empiricist than Berkeley.

B was an immaterialist/idealist. But then, B supposed that God made the pre-established harmony between apparent bodies and minds. As an atheist I don't believe that God makes this apparent harmony, I think that humans make it, and that it, the harmony, evolves perception by perception.

Tfindlay, for instance, human corpses are bodies and not minds, but you and I are obviously not corpses as there is evidence via the Internet that you and I are dynamic consciousnesses i.e. minds.I think that processes, events and things all really exist. Mind is process, not thing.

I think you are saying that what you call mind is brain processes, neurons in action. If so, I agree. My dislike of the term mind is that I feel it confuses the issue. It makes it seem like there is something in existence which is not a physical process in the brain, something that has an independent existence of its own. But as you say, what is really going on is electro-chemical activity in a physical brain.

I think that processes, events and things all really exist.

I agree except that in my view things and events are processes too. This is why I prefer to use the term "phenomena" rather than "things" as it helps to get away from the common assumption of separately existing independent things.

I think you are saying that what you call mind is brain processes, neurons in action.

I am indeed saying so, Tfindlay.

My dislike of the term mind is that I feel it confuses the issue. It makes it seem like there is something in existence which is not a physical process in the brain, something that has an independent existence of its own.

I agree that this happens. I think that European languages and for all I know all Sanskrit based languages have this fault that they tend to make the noun into a concrete entity.I understand that there is at least one native American language(?is it Pueblo?) that has the verb as the subject in a proposition.This would e.g. leave us with 'braining' or 'thinking' or 'minding' instead of 'mind', and would be more in tune with modernphilosophical ontology. I hope that I am saying this properly as I am not that well up in linguistics.The theory is part of what is called called linguistic determinism I think.

Your criticism of the term 'mind ' also applies to Cartesian dualism. I guess that it would be impossible for any native speaker of that Native American language to which I referred to be a Cartesian dualist unless she had learned philosophy to the extent that she could conceptualise what is utterly foreign to that native American world view.

I think that processes, events and things all really exist.

I agree except that in my view things and events are processes too. This is why I prefer to use the term "phenomena" rather than "things" as it helps to get away from the common assumption of separately existing independent things.

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Yes I understand and agree that things and events are processes too. But don't we say 'subjective phenomena' when we are being more precise? Despite what I wrote about that native American language I guess that it is impossible to escape entirely from the general human trait of objectifying processes.Because we have to work with what we have, I maintain that the subjective should remain of a status equal to the objective brain/neurons etc. except when one is working with a scientist's hat on.

Making processes into things by way of language (i.e. objectifying) is probably an evolutionary advantage because to do this helps the human living in society, as humans invariably do, to make the subjective experience public and objective and thus easier to deal with the sabre-toothed tiger , or the food source, as a social group.For instance it may be easier to give coordinates for the tree trunk with honey in it if you use objectified thinking.To get back to those bees, they have such exceedingly limited interests that they can manage without specifying 'honey' they only need to express the coordinates.But the human hunters and gatherers would want to specify whether the object of the hunting or gathering is honey or a newly killed deer carcase, food or skins, wild wheat or wild roots etc.

Wowbagger wrote #10 in the 'Why we view the self----' discussion

I agree with the OP. Dennett calls it the "center of narrative gravity", which IMO perfectly captures it.

which I submit as an example of objectification which is crystalised in language.

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds - and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way - an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees. (Whorf 1940, pp. 213-14; his emphasis)

This would e.g. leave us with 'braining' or 'thinking' or 'minding' instead of 'mind', and would be more in tune with modern philosophical ontology.

Interesting. The late physicist, David Bohm, proposed that we adopt just such an approach. I have always thought it would be a good idea. Bohm also promoted the idea of what he called the "holomovement". By this he meant that there is really only one thing going on. As humans we focus on portions (because we can't see it all) of the holomovement and as a result we see things in cause and effect relationships when, really, it's all happening at once.

Making processes into things by way of language (i.e. objectifying) is probably an evolutionary advantage because to do this helps the human living in society, as humans invariably do, to make the subjective experience public and objective and thus easier to deal with the sabre-toothed tiger , or the food source, as a social group.

You are probably right about the evolutionary advantage of thinking of processes as things. This is probably why our brains tend to automatically abstract "things" out of the whole. This abstraction is essential to survival. I suspect it is this hard wired abstraction property of the brain that is the reason why languages are thing oriented. Unfortunately, the consequence of all of this leads to a carving up of the essentially indivisible whole and we have come to assume that this sliced-up pie is the true nature of reality. Mistaking processes for things has had some very unfortunate repercussions for us and our world.

sorry just..

If your girlfriend cheats on you with me and you didn't see/hear that, and she becomes a mother exactly after 9 months and 1 day after the day she cheated on you, whoz da father? Does the baby exist?