Concepts and their source.
Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2020 5:15 am
In my time away from this forum, i have considered what poeple believe here and their arguments. i will take a path through my analysis and not try to cover everything. Hopefully the path will take care of that implicitly.
firstly what is a concept in an objectively real world
i beleive that the world is real and that the brain is made of neurons that are physically there in existace. we must first note the role of causality within the brain. in the brain there are networks and subnetworks of neurons. There is a pattern of firing in the brain that is caused by sensory input. but this is not random. seeing a cat will cause a certain sequence of firings to occur in the brain. different cats cause similar sequences to occur with proportionality of the similarity of sequence and the similarity of the cats being maintained. What this imply is that there is oneness between reality and the firing of the neurons. The causal regularities in the world govern the regularities within the brain. The function of association within the mind derives completely from this correspondence.
it is as if the brain is a cog and reality is the wheel. The thoughts that reading this post are causing are a function of the association between the presence of the text within reality and the neurons it is causing o fire.
The typed word "the" will cause similar sequences of firing neurons to what it did at other times you have met it because causally within reality it is associated with the words (typed) that come before and after. to the extent that the words that precede nd follwo it differ is the extent that proportionately different subnetworks kick in, which is a good thing because that simply represents the differeing meaning between the two "the"s.
In short your thoughts follow the trajectory that reality dictates, and since reality is not random neither are your thoights.
i now need to justify how i can move from describing the brain and use the term thoughts which properly belong in the domain of the mind.
The question what is a concept? can best be answered by what is information and how is it represented. When you see a cat, the broader definition of the knowledge of cat or the concept of a cat is the particular sequence of neurons that seeing a cat causes. A particular cat will be identified with a particular sequence of neurons , while their generality is captured by the general pattern that cats cause. Within the brain , when you think of a cat, it is because a sequence of neurons firing within a subnetwork (perhaps the frontal cortex) has spilt over causaly and influenced the neurons that fire whenever a cat is seen ,to fire. this conditions them and represents the thought "cat".
What of our personal lives? if this process is happening , why cant it just be a physical process and not psychological.
the key to this is that the information contained in a physical system that functions like the brain is isomorphic to the information contained within a mind. information is probability theory and likelihoods of outcomes . a probability distribution contains a signature , which is the various likelihoods of events that consitute it posses. in that context, a mental model and a physical model contain the same information and can be used interchangeably. if you think a thought, you were caused physically to think it, by the physics of neurons and the caused nature, since this process has the same probabilty distribution of a mental model they become isomorphic and establish an equivalence.
The question then becomes what comes before the other , probability distributions or concepts. concepts change from person to person and context to context. What this means is that the events that causaly lead to each realisation of the "same" concept are different to the extent that the two instances differe. which would be expected since the difference explains the different needs for the different realisation.
also different people may share a similar concept only in terms of the probability distribution of the firing neurons and their isomorphism with each other. note that it is isomorphism more than exactness of copy that make the two brains think similar concepts. and the only reason there is an isormorphism is because both brains have a causal correspondence with the same reality.
The fate of a concept then takes on causal role. The cycle of neuronal firings in the brain exist for one purpose, either to presently cause a particular output (in terms of actiions) or to eventualy lead up to particular output r action. from an evolutionary perspective , that is all that is necessary to produce fit behaviour. if inputs always led to outputs directly the the exact same input would cause the exam same output. creating a diversion of the signal that would later on influence the output together with the input at that time, makes it possible for behviour to be modulated, but this is still fully caused. this diversion of the signal contains the same probability content of a mind that concives of the things that physical correlates of the signal conditioned by other subnetworks , that are not immediatly connected to the senses represent.
i hope that this is sound so far.
It can be seen that that is the reason knowlgde and concepts are grounded. The concept "the" may not be grounded directly within reality, but is associated with a certain neuronal sequence that has a probability distribution, and the probbility of that sequnece firing depends on the neurons that fired before and their connections all the way to the physical reality , either presently or sometime in the past.
firstly what is a concept in an objectively real world
i beleive that the world is real and that the brain is made of neurons that are physically there in existace. we must first note the role of causality within the brain. in the brain there are networks and subnetworks of neurons. There is a pattern of firing in the brain that is caused by sensory input. but this is not random. seeing a cat will cause a certain sequence of firings to occur in the brain. different cats cause similar sequences to occur with proportionality of the similarity of sequence and the similarity of the cats being maintained. What this imply is that there is oneness between reality and the firing of the neurons. The causal regularities in the world govern the regularities within the brain. The function of association within the mind derives completely from this correspondence.
it is as if the brain is a cog and reality is the wheel. The thoughts that reading this post are causing are a function of the association between the presence of the text within reality and the neurons it is causing o fire.
The typed word "the" will cause similar sequences of firing neurons to what it did at other times you have met it because causally within reality it is associated with the words (typed) that come before and after. to the extent that the words that precede nd follwo it differ is the extent that proportionately different subnetworks kick in, which is a good thing because that simply represents the differeing meaning between the two "the"s.
In short your thoughts follow the trajectory that reality dictates, and since reality is not random neither are your thoights.
i now need to justify how i can move from describing the brain and use the term thoughts which properly belong in the domain of the mind.
The question what is a concept? can best be answered by what is information and how is it represented. When you see a cat, the broader definition of the knowledge of cat or the concept of a cat is the particular sequence of neurons that seeing a cat causes. A particular cat will be identified with a particular sequence of neurons , while their generality is captured by the general pattern that cats cause. Within the brain , when you think of a cat, it is because a sequence of neurons firing within a subnetwork (perhaps the frontal cortex) has spilt over causaly and influenced the neurons that fire whenever a cat is seen ,to fire. this conditions them and represents the thought "cat".
What of our personal lives? if this process is happening , why cant it just be a physical process and not psychological.
the key to this is that the information contained in a physical system that functions like the brain is isomorphic to the information contained within a mind. information is probability theory and likelihoods of outcomes . a probability distribution contains a signature , which is the various likelihoods of events that consitute it posses. in that context, a mental model and a physical model contain the same information and can be used interchangeably. if you think a thought, you were caused physically to think it, by the physics of neurons and the caused nature, since this process has the same probabilty distribution of a mental model they become isomorphic and establish an equivalence.
The question then becomes what comes before the other , probability distributions or concepts. concepts change from person to person and context to context. What this means is that the events that causaly lead to each realisation of the "same" concept are different to the extent that the two instances differe. which would be expected since the difference explains the different needs for the different realisation.
also different people may share a similar concept only in terms of the probability distribution of the firing neurons and their isomorphism with each other. note that it is isomorphism more than exactness of copy that make the two brains think similar concepts. and the only reason there is an isormorphism is because both brains have a causal correspondence with the same reality.
The fate of a concept then takes on causal role. The cycle of neuronal firings in the brain exist for one purpose, either to presently cause a particular output (in terms of actiions) or to eventualy lead up to particular output r action. from an evolutionary perspective , that is all that is necessary to produce fit behaviour. if inputs always led to outputs directly the the exact same input would cause the exam same output. creating a diversion of the signal that would later on influence the output together with the input at that time, makes it possible for behviour to be modulated, but this is still fully caused. this diversion of the signal contains the same probability content of a mind that concives of the things that physical correlates of the signal conditioned by other subnetworks , that are not immediatly connected to the senses represent.
i hope that this is sound so far.
It can be seen that that is the reason knowlgde and concepts are grounded. The concept "the" may not be grounded directly within reality, but is associated with a certain neuronal sequence that has a probability distribution, and the probbility of that sequnece firing depends on the neurons that fired before and their connections all the way to the physical reality , either presently or sometime in the past.