The basic problem is one of definition.
Percy Bridgman, writing in a theoretical physics journal I believe, in
an article with a title something or other like "How to make our ideas
clear", suggested that physicists could know what they were debating if
they defined terms by describing the operations necessary to measure
whatever it was they were discussing. Perhaps includes operations to
produce the phenomena as well; I know of the article only indirectly,
being one of the psychologists generations later who encountered this
idea in their graduate training, under the rubric "operational
definition".
Most of the terms in your query below can be so defined (and indeed
most have been), but that key term "mind" has not been. I am not sure
anybody has a clear enough idea what is meant by this even to attempt
to define it OPERATIONALLY. (Indeed, I see many debates on
"mind/brain" problems that don't even offer an "intra-verbal"
definition...)
Sometimes "consciousness" or "awareness" is substituted, as if this
would help (it does not). If one restates this as "consciousness of"
or "awareness of", one can of course say something meaningful about
what neural functions are needed for awareness of (e.g.) a specific
visual stimulus--IF one accepts the measuring operation of observing
some reaction in the organism to complete the definition.
For example, I used the cardiac deceleration response to see if there
was any evidence that a comatose patient could discriminate between
spoken words, i.e. was "aware of" a difference between two words (I
described all this in a post LONG, LONG ago; see details in NY Academy
of Sciences Annals vol. 620, my chapter; check www.nyas.org).
It appeared that the two patients I tried this with could. However,
one may still ask if the were "aware" in the sense of having the
subjective experience most of us implicitly have "in mind" when we use
this term. In the case of computers showing this kind of "awareness"
many insist they are NOT aware, but without having the good grace to
define "awareness" in such a way as to make this provable or
disprovable.
Personally, I think this is a problem which is insoluble in principle,
i.e. not a meaningful question. However, within the limits of
operational definitions of "awareness of", there are MANY fascinating
findings, new ones almost daily...
Just to cite an old one (already old!): the patient with a corpus
callosum section who is "not aware" of something in his left visual
field and yet is somewhat influenced by it--using, of course, verbal
self-report as the measuring operation, and therby learning that the
left hemisphere of this person is not aware of what the right
hemisphere has seen...
For subtler examples, see my posting "Knowledge Systems in the Brain",
and/or (if in NYC) attend Dr. arrington's lecture at the Academy Nov.
30 (6:00pm))--no admission fee.
F. Frank LeFever, Ph.D.
New York Neuropsychology Group
In <uss62.4902$QO1.9403838 at newse2.tampabay.rr.com> "Rex Bennett"
<rbennet2 at tampabay.rr.com> writes:
>>Someone out there may be able to answer this for me.
>>I understand, in general terms, how the brain functions. (As a
layman.)
>I know that the brain is electro-chemical in function and that the
>firing of the synapses (millions of them) create the metafunction we
>tend to call "mind." This places the functions squarely in the world
of
>matter/energy. However, of this metafunction we call "mind," how
>does it come to be? What is its structure? Is the mind made up of
>"brain waves?" Is it made from specific firing sequences? Is it a
>form of electron plasma?
>>I know these questions may sound silly to some out there, but I
>would be appreciative if some knowledgeable soul could tell me
>the (matter/energy) physical nature of "mind" as opposed to
>the brain that creates it.
>>Thanks in advance, (rbennet2 at tampabay.rr.com)
>Rex
>>>
