Conversations on Mind & Body

John A. Mikes
  Ph.D., D.Sc., Madison NJ USA
email:      <ami_kes@juno.com>

19 Feb 1998  To: INTEGRITY@prodigy.net

Jamie,       I know you are absolutely buried in your conference preparations, why don't you put this aside until you are ready for a distraction? I don't dare to postpone sending it (just for the fun of it), because in no time at all my position may change as usual and then I wouldn't send it. Also, later, when you are mentally 'liberated': there were very intensive discussions on the Complexity list about 'an' entropy- production, I stored most of it, can mail them to you whenever you want to read different, but very explanatory discussions. J

[Fw'd text]   ------------------------------ (Self-explanatory, sent to the Bohm-Dialogue List today):

Subject: Mind-Body

Dear John Gianelli,
            I threatened you with a comment to this thread. My e-mail failed, so here is a belated re-sending, after a lot of dialogue on it): (I apologize to William for quoting his old (corrected) note). ****** (Sorry, but in spite of my objection to repeating notes the nth time (and time again), here are your Mind-Body (M-B) variations 1-5):

* "Alternative 1: Mind is a product of the brain - more exactly, a by-product of the survival functions the brain performs for the organism. As organisms become more complex ......At a given point in this development mind appears.......This is the classic position of the materialists"
* "Alternative 2: Mind is the ultimate reality; matter is but an illusion created by the human mind .. this states the time-honored position of the idealists"
* "Alternative 3: Mind and matter are both fundamental but entirely different; in humans they are associated through the brain. ... this is the position of the dualists."
* "Alternative 4: Matter and mind constitute a whole that cannot be taken apart, either in thought or in fact. The entire distinction (introduced in the Western thought by Descartes) between mind and matter is spurious: in the final analysis matter and mind form an integral whole.... This is a relatively recent position: it is that of the holists"
* "Alternative 5: Matter and mind are both real but they are not fundamental: they evolved together out of a still deeper level of reality. The roots of both matter and mind extend into a deeper layer of reality that in itself is neither mental or material."

* Bohm quite clearly takes alternative 5. To me, because I am a fan of his, this is the obvious choice!
****
And a 6th one from William: (Wm): >Sorry, I don't find myself on the list. In my view, these alternatives are all dualistic, including alternative 4 and 5. I don't think that matter and mind constitute a whole (4), and neither do I think that they both evolved together out of a deeper reality (5). All of these alternatives assume that there is such a thing as matter and mind, and they are all trying to find some kind of relationship between them. They also assume that there is an ultimate reality (2), something fundamental (3), a whole (4) or an deeper reality (5). We may assume these things but let's not forget that these are assumptions! - My favorite view of "matter and mind" is --> * (alternative 6) is to say that they [M & B] are different views that emerge from a particular "mode of perception". (Wm)
*
((Since then I read some agreement btw. 5 - 6 - Wm and you)) ****

John G., to your request: "I would appreciate it if you (and everyone) could let me know where you are 'coming from'",         Here is my part (although you didn't confess for yourself): I am a renegade from (the colloidal side of) polymers, (theoretical chemical research through industrial implementation to marketing). Indeed I am a piano-player and during the past decade worked my way from sci-fi writing through Bohm's implicate via consciousness into the systems science of complexity. I'm a fireside homespun philosopher (nominated so by a reputable referee for my submitted paper and I am proud of it: I still can advance to the 'armchair' degree.) Edited (in chief) a science mag, wrote some books. My blood pressure is - or is that not required?

Now let our minds return to our body.

William, you have my bow. I try to formulate differently, but your position is closest to mine (it still may be good! don't despair).

Starting position: Alt. #4 & #5, growing into #6. My physical view- (and I take the mind is physical - in the domain to be discovered and Barron, please, tell me, if I barge into your psychophysical) - comes from Bohm's implicate/explicate: I didn't stop at the 70s. A holistic nature in chaotic interconnectedness and a balance of growing (gravity) and splitting (entropy) hierarchically nested information-assemblies is more than our sensorial capabilities can handle: the implicate. Whatever we sense, absorb, represent of it is the explicate. The mind (see later) builds our (virtual) reality from the accessible: that's our world, as we know it. "WE" are a level of nested evolutionary information-assemblies, a complexity, interconnected with the environment and components - all complexities themselves in similar nested/connected situation.

Let's take a look at 'complexity' - I am still looking for a better word for the concept. The general view reads: "A complex system is a multi-component big conglomerate, with intertwined effects and a complicated design". - All these elements are present in 'my' term of complexity, plus one thing: the (complex, intrinsic?) assemblage carries an unexpected characteristics above the additivity of the known characteristics of the component parts. A primitive example: knowledge of H and O atoms does not lead to a prediction of their assemblage-quality: e.g. the surface tension of water. Or: the analytic knowledge of neurons will not explain memory. Now what is a 'complexity'? it is an interconnected bunch of other complexities (components), carrying certain characteristics (called: emergent qualia), by virtue of such intrinsic togetherness . It is the Aristotelian "whole": more than the sum of its components: with a bad pun: Aris-TOTAL = the assembly + the MORE, the emergent qualia.

All entities are composites from below quarks to above the universes interconnected and mutually influencing all others sideways (as in environmentally) and up/down (as in levels of a nested hierarchy). (At our developmental level WE 'observe', 'sense', 'react', 'etc.', as a "micro-holistic" unit: science visualizes 'man' (and every unit for that matter) per se as a separate entity with boundaries, properties. As a 'complexity' on its own. As 'man', for example as a whole. (I call 'micro-holistic' such per-se visualized component-complexities).

What do we observe? what does our mind represent from it? what is our (virtual) world? our explicate? Our 'emergent qualia' ('us') include the notion (Wm!) of matter/function/ideation as the micro-holistic unit (indeed within limitless interconnectedness, subdued to influences of the world, including upwards connections and nested component line). "WE" visualize ourselves and the rest of the world (at least to that part we have observational access to). The historically developed concepts (consciousness, emotions, mind itself etc.) were identified, phenomenologically studied by our learned savants as the individually perceived substrates, irrespective of their unity within "man" (which in turn is also only a level in the hierarchy). That is what I do understand as a 'deeper reality' of Alt.#5 of Bohm, also in Wm's Alt. #6 as a 'different view'. Indeed it is a formulation of Alt.#4: the holistic system in a 'deeper' exposition.

I condone the studies on such abstracted aspects as mind, body, consciousness, volition, emotion, etc. etc., as a phenomenological approach in our reductionist way of (mainly analytical) studies: the main tool of our mental activity, the brain-instrument, works this way in the West: we call it 'scientific', it gathers our knowledge, systematizes the observables, develops methods of investigation, facilitates the way to understanding. It certainly runs the risk of self-indulgence: to regard the 'micro-holistic' as the 'total'. Even the aspects as things and interfere with the wider development in scientific world view. On the balance it helped us to develop our high technology (power). Oriental thinking is different, more holistic, less detailed or even causal (or so I think?). We objectify the studies we run as volition, mind, etc. We take matter for granted, theorize a lot and get into paradoxical troubles. We still widen our mental horizon exponentially. The level of our evolutionary complexity is by far not at the top. We have room for development - or may encounter higher developed levels.

Conclusion: [M & B] are aspects of one micro-holistic (= the same) unit: qualia of the complexity "man". Mental or bodily are the aspects of our attention, scientifically identified as separate. The artificially defined sub-units consciousness, physiology, self, neuroscience, the physics of thinking, psychology etc. are study-targets, models of one entity which in its entirety is far too complex to be handled in toto by our presently existing capabilities.

To excuse my heresy in diverting from the choice of Bohm: I STARTED from Bohm's position (60s & early70s), tried to apply (add) some reasonable findings that emerged after his untimely departure: e.g. self-organization, chaos, the newer systems-view, adaptive/recursive open systems, etc. (not the quantum vacuum which I may call the resurrection of a mathematized ether: in a holistic theory Q-V is not needed - unless one wants to calculate chaos, a non-algorithmic mind or infinite probabilities with an unlimited amount of variables).

My views are constantly developing: I gladly consider counter arguments.          John Mikes

email: 

 

       THE INTEGRITY PAPERS  (LINKS TO CEPTUAL READINGS)

                         GENRE WORKS (OTHER WRITERS)
            POETICS
             MINDWAYS (LINKS TO GLOBAL THINKERS)
                           "NON-FRACTAL COMPLEXITY"  (order the Videotape)

| HOME |