Do Concepts Exist Apart from Physical Processes in the Brain?

[Rick O'Shez]

Beauty. Majesty. Awe.

Again I would see those as mental experiences arising from brain activity.

 

[Bunyip]

Again I would see those as mental experiences arising from brain activity.

Sure. I agree. I thought the topic was concepts - concepts are a product of mental experiences.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Do you have any other examples of physical processes producing trans-physical or metaphysical things?

I have no idea what the answer to that may be (so luckily it wasn't intended for me to answer), by I will use it to hijack the thread because I thought of a better metaphor.

Let us generalize the enormous variations amongst various cells of living systems to one dynamical system in such a way as to avoid loss of generality (i.e., whatever is said of this idealized cell applies to all o them). Most of the dynamics of a cell involves metabolism. By involve, I mean the dynamics of the constituents of the cell that interact in some sense with the metabolic process. This is most of the cell. The problem is that the same constituents "determine" the metabolic process are governed dynamically by the metabolic process. Put more simply, parts of the cell determine a process that itself determines the process of these parts.

Call it circular cauality, an [M,R] system, or Heffalumpian Hamiltonians, the result is the same: we get a process that is function, not physical. If we try to reduce it to the physical processes that produce it, we find that we are relying on the very things that give "metabolism" meaning in that metabolic processes determine the activity of the constituent parts we seek to reduce it to. It is completely the result of cellular processes, but is functionally emergent (it is a function of the cell that exists as the circular interactions among parts of the cell).

 

[Sunstone]

I have no idea what the answer to that may be (so luckily it wasn't intended for me to answer), by I will use it to hijack the thread because I thought of a better metaphor.

Let us generalize the enormous variations amongst various cells of living systems to one dynamical system in such a way as to avoid loss of generality (i.e., whatever is said of this idealized cell applies to all o them). Most of the dynamics of a cell involves metabolism. By involve, I mean the dynamics of the constituents of the cell that interact in some sense with the metabolic process. This is most of the cell. The problem is that the same constituents "determine" the metabolic process are governed dynamically by the metabolic process. Put more simply, parts of the cell determine a process that itself determines the process of these parts.

Call it circular cauality, an [M,R] system, or Heffalumpian Hamiltonians, the result is the same: we get a process that is function, not physical. If we try to reduce it to the physical processes that produce it, we find that we are relying on the very things that give "metabolism" meaning in that metabolic processes determine the activity of the constituent parts we seek to reduce it to. It is completely the result of cellular processes, but is functionally emergent (it is a function of the cell that exists as the circular interactions among parts of the cell).

So are you willing to say that concepts are an emergent property of, say, the central nervous system plus a few things (e.g. experience)?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

So are you willing to say that concepts are an emergent property of, say, the central nervous system plus a few things (e.g. experience)?

You're asking me to commit to a position? I would say that's against my religion, but that would be committing to a position. More seriously, my perspective is basically "yes".

 

[bobhikes]

Subjectively, from the standpoint of our conscious awareness of thinking, it is easy to see thoughts as disembodied concepts. That is, it is easy to see them as conceptual products of physical processes in the brain; conceptual products that are somehow and to some extent separate from those physical processes.

However, it seems to me that concepts do not exist apart from the physical processes that create them. If I have in my mind an image of a barn, it is because at the very moment I have that image, certain physical processes are creating it. It is not because certain physical processes created it a few moments ago and it is the lingering product of those processes. If the physical processes cease at any moment to function, my image of a barn comes to an abrupt end. The image does not linger as if it were the product of physical processes, for the image is entirely reducible to those processes. To posit that concepts exist to some extent separately or distinct from the processes that create them is to risk lending concepts a metaphysical or trans-physical status, although it might subjectively appear to us that they do exist separately.

Or, at least, that's how I see it.

Thoughts and comments?

I guess it would depend on how you answer this question. When you turn off your computer, unplug the cable. Why does it start again and have all your data, didn't the physical processes that allow you to use it stop.

The brain is similar in that it has a memory as well and even though that barn is not being accessed it is filed away for future access.

 

[Bunyip]

I have to say that I am a little amazed that this has not come up - but a concept is by definition an abstract idea, as opposed to a physical quanta.

Concept; An abstract idea. (google dictionary)

 

[Sunstone]

You're asking me to commit to a position? I would say that's against my religion, but that would be committing to a position. More seriously, my perspective is basically "yes".

On the face of it, I'd say that's a plausible qualification of the OP. However, I'm not yet at all convinced that concepts are separate or distinct from physical processes in a metaphysical or trans-physical sense. But maybe that's because I haven't had enough coffee yet.

 

[Bunyip]

Just as 'concept' is defined as an abstract, 'abstract' is defined as 'Existing in thought or as an idea, but not having a physical or concrete existence. (Just from my google dictionary).

Concepts do not exist as physical quanta.

 

[1137]

Materialists have become so fundamentalist that unless something is purely physical it does not even exist, even if caused by physical processes. This is just silly. For example, does love not exist just because it's "only" chemical processes?

If something can be shown to impact the objective world in scientific (observable, testable, measurable, repeatable, etc) way then it exists. That's the whole point of science. How it morphed into pure materialism I'm unsure.

 

[Bunyip]

Materialists have become so fundamentalist that unless something is purely physical it does not even exist, even if caused by physical processes. This is just silly. For example, does love not exist just because it's "only" chemical processes?

Clearly you have misunderstood - concepts do exist, but as abstracts. Concepts are abstract ideas - which by definition is not a physical quanta - it does not exist physically. They do exist - as concepts.

If something can be shown to impact the objective world in scientific (observable, testable, measurable, repeatable, etc) way then it exists. That's the whole point of science. How it morphed into pure materialism I'm unsure.

Concepts are by definition non physical abstracts.

 

[1137]

Clearly you have misunderstood - concepts do exist, but as abstracts. Concepts are abstract ideas - which by definition is not a physical quanta - it does not exist physically. They do exist - as concepts.

They are physical processes...

 

[Sunstone]

Materialists have become so fundamentalist that unless something is purely physical it does not even exist, even if caused by physical processes.

That would appear to be a straw man.

 

[1137]

That would appear to be a straw man.

How so?

 

[Bunyip]

They are physical processes...

No, they are by defintion the product of physical processes, as opposed to physical quanta.

They are non physical abstracts by definition. Abstract essentially means non physical

 

[1137]

No, they are by defintion the product of physical processes, as opposed to physical quanta.

So they DO exist without the mind? No, they ARE they physical processes.

 

[Bunyip]

So they DO exist without the mind? No, they ARE they physical processes.

No, they are non physical products of the mind - by definition not physical.

 

[Bunyip]

This seems to boil down to a simple misunderstanding about what 'concept' and 'abstract' actually mean.

 

[1137]

No, they are non physical products of the mind - by definition not physical.

So the non-physical exists independent of the physical?

 

[Sunstone]

How so?

So far as I know, no materialists deny the existence of non-physical things such as concepts. The question is rather in what way, sense, or manner they exist. For instance, I think on the face of it Legion made a pretty good case for the claim that concepts exist as emergent properties of a physical system involving, among other things, the brain, spinal cord, senses, etc.