Graham's post today is very clarifying. There's no need, he argues, to see any difference between what my chair does to the floor (which prevents me "from plummeting 30 meters to the cellar" as he puts it memorably), and what my mind does to the floor. That is to say, my chair relies on but also ignores the floor to a large extent, just as my mind does.
This is not to claim that chairs are mind-like, but the reverse. Ontologically a mind is like a chair sitting on the floor. The chair rough-hews a chunk of floorness for its distinct nefarious purposes, and so does a mind.
We might predict then that "mind" is not some special bonus prize for being highly developed. Which is not to say that what human minds do is exactly the same as what chairs do in every specific. I've been arguing this for several months now.
"Mind" is an emergent propserty of a brain, perhaps, but not all that amazingly different from emergent properties of chairs on floors.
(Continuing again my discussion of emergence as sensuality. More soon.)
3 comments:
I see it said a lot that the mind is an emergent property of brain activity, but I still don't see where the conclusive evidence is being drawn from. Would you have any links or citations?
I'm not convinced either. But if the mind IS an emergent property of neurons, we can draw some conclusions based on OOO.
You write: "'Mind' is an emergent property of a brain, perhaps, but not all that amazingly different from emergent properties of chairs on floors."
Exactly.
But "mind" is emergent not only from neurons, but from the collision of nervous systems and environments (semiotic as well as physical).
"Mind" is an emergent, extended, enacted and embodied capacity of the kinds of property-assemblages mammals are.
Yet, an understanding “mind” is a natural property in the world does not eliminate the need to understand exactly where and how prehension or primal irritability transitions (takes a qualitative leap!) into what is better understood as sentience…
Post a Comment