one attraction of the mind-brain identity thesis
is that it quite specifically locates mind
- in the brain - and is clear about its ontological
status - brain process
perhaps we can ask - why the brain - and not elsewhere -
the argument here is supposedly - scientific?
if true - this view puts pay to pan-psychism -
mind as a physical process - not an entity -
or substance
with only the small problem - how you could ever know -
on the basis of observation - that any of this is true
as a conception - an idea of mind - about mind -
a reflection - yes -
on this level as valid as any other
it strikes me that this question cannot be settled
empirically
and that it may be a mistake - to in anyway speak -
or think of the mind - empirically
the point being - that if mind - as I put it earlier
is the inside of the world - it is not accessible to
empirical review -
for it is only the outside - the surface - that can
be so accessed
the nature of the mind is not an empirical issue
I like this - but it raises the question - how then
do we deal with - speak about - understand the mind?
my stab here will be to say - in its own terms -
ideally
and what can we expect from such?
because we tend naturally to think of knowledge in
empirical terms - our natural model for knowledge
is science
and inductively - the gradual build up of detail
to generality
knowledge of the mind - if such is possible -
will not be like this
how does the mind work?
we can begin I think with reflection
I argue this is the basic operation of the mind
in fact it is mind for all intents and purposes
the outside - the observable physical world -
does not reflect
it presents
mind reflects
(so - at least this - the connection is tight)
and reflection -
is?
the capacity to generate thought -
the activity of mind - what it does -
(which is not to say much)
perhaps art - as an analogy - helps here
I have said before that the language of mind
is poetry
that the business of mind is metaphor
that the mind creates - generates - metaphor -
and metaphor for metaphor
I don't think the deductive model is the model
clearly the mind can work in such a way
and does for very real purposes
but this model is only - one - metaphor - for?
for what -
for the way the world is
to cut directly to the chase - the world presents -
it is naked - and silent
the mind reflects - it clothes and gives voice
what I was getting to - is that the reflective
nature of the mind - in my view does not follow
any single model - i.e. deductive - inductive -
true these are models - metaphors used
but the mind can reflect - chaotically as it were -
without rhyme or reason
this is really the essence of creative power
- the fact that the activity of the mind is
essentially anarchistic
