Human Mind and Its Carriers: Is It Possible to Transform Ourselves into Robots?

2021 ◽  
pp. 105-117
Author(s):  
Vadim V. Vasilyev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
John Searle ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Main Emphasis ◽  
Theories Of Mind ◽  
Continuous Stream ◽  
Previous State ◽  
The Brain

In this paper I discuss some aspects of the problem of carriers of human mind and person. The main emphasis is placed on the origin of our idea of the identi­cal self in the stream of perceptions, the need for a physical carrier of our self and person, and on possibility of replacing the biological carriers of self and per­son with artificial analogues. I argue that the idea of identical self is constructed by reflection on memories, that its truth is guaranteed by continuous stream of perceptions kept in memories, and that the stream of perceptions presupposes the presence of a normally functioning brain, which can be considered as a car­rier of our mind and person. Therefore, personal identity turns out to be depen­dent on the identity of the brain in time. An attempt to copy the structures of mind and person onto other possible carriers can thus only lead to creation of duplicates of the original person, but not to the continuation of its existence on another carrier. I argue that the gradual replacement of their components with artificial analogues is a more promising way of transforming the biological carri­ers of human person. To access the possible consequences of such a replacement I analyze arguments of John Searle and David Chalmers, designed to show, re­spectively, the disappearance of consciousness and person with such a replace­ment and, on the contrary, their preservation in a previous state. I explain why Searle’s arguments are unconvincing, and demonstrate that Chalmers’ arguments are based on a hidden premise, the confirmation of which is possible in the con­text of dubious theories of mind-body identity, epiphenomenalism or panpsy­chism only. I conclude that in the current situation it is impossible to predict which consequences for our person would follow such a replacement.

scholarly journals Karol Wojtyla’s Conception of Personhood from the Perspective of Cognitive Sciences

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Mariusz Wojewoda
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Individual Traits ◽  
Human Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Scholarly Attention

We use the term “person” when we want to point out that human existence is unrepeatable and unique. The assumption that man is a person constitutes a basis for the belief in the dignity, efficacy, and responsibility of the human individual. Karol Wojtyla built his conception of the person in the context of theological and philosophical discussions. Even though Wojtyła’s conception has been given a great deal of scholarly attention, it is worthwhile to juxtapose it with contemporary anthropological theories that derive from cognitive sciences. Cognitivists usually base their theories on biological and sociological premises. Some conclusions arrived at in the area of the cognitive sciences lead to mind-brain reductionism, a theory in which the human being is regarded as a body endowed with the function of the brain and as an entity whose individual traits are shaped by its social and cultural environment. This position undermines the ideas of free will and the substantial singularity of the human person. However, debates with this position have worked out a non-reductionist alternative, a theory known as emergentism. This theory treats the human mind as a distinct faculty, one which emerges as a phase in the brain’s development. Emergentists base their reasoning on the assumptions that the body is a unity and that the mind is not identical with it. It is my belief that emergentism can be fruitfully applied to the dynamic understanding of the person put forward by Wojtyła in the middle of the 20th century.

scholarly journals Perspectives from affective science on understanding the nature of emotion

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 239821281881262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Fox
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Affective Neuroscience ◽  
Fundamental Nature ◽  
Scientific Consensus ◽  
Affective Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Brain

Emotions are at the heart of how we understand the human mind and of our relationships within the social world. Yet, there is still no scientific consensus on the fundamental nature of emotion. A central quest within the discipline of affective science is to develop an in-depth understanding of emotions, moods, and feelings and how they are embodied within the brain (affective neuroscience). This article provides a brief overview of the scientific study of emotion with a particular emphasis on psychological and neuroscientific perspectives. Following a selective snapshot of past and present research in this field, some current challenges and controversies in affective science are highlighted.

scholarly journals Ecstasy from a physiological point of view

1982 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 74-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaj Björkqvist
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
Biological Study ◽  
Physiological Basis ◽  
Slowing Down ◽  
Psychosomatic Diseases ◽  
The Brain

The biological study of man is one of today's most rapidly advancing sciences. There is no reason for not utilizing these methodologies of research and the knowledge already gained when studying ecstasy and other similar religious phenomena. Drugs have been used in all parts of the world as an ecstasy technique. Since mental states and physiological correlates always accompany each other, it is obvious that the human mind can be affected by external means, for instance by drugs. But the opposite is also true; mental changes affect the body, as they do in the case of psychosomatic diseases. Ecstasy is often described as an extremely joyful experience; this pleasure must necessarily also have a physiological basis. It is of course too early to say anything for certain, but the discovery of pleasure centres in the brain might offer an explanation. It is not far-fetched to suggest that when a person experiences euphoric ecstasy, it might, in some way or other, be connected with a cerebral pleasure center. Can it be, for example, that religious ecstasy is attained only by some mechanism triggering off changes in the balance of the transmitter substances? Or is it reached only via a change in the hormonal balance, or only by a slowing down of the brain waves, or is a pleasure centre activated? When a person is using an ecstasy technique, he usually does so within a religious tradition. When he reaches an experience, a traditional interpretation of it already exists.

scholarly journals Distributed Cognition, Neuroprostheses and their Implications to Non-Physicalist Theories of Mind

1970 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-142
Author(s):  
Jean Gové
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Functioning ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Distributed Cognition ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Theories Of Mind ◽  
Organic Brain ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Brain

This paper investigates the notion of ‘distributed cognition’ – the idea that entities external to one’s organic brain participate in one’s overall cognitive functioning – and the challenges it poses. Related to this is also a consideration of the ever-increasing ways in which neuroprostheses replace and functionally replicate organic parts of the brain. However, the literature surrounding such issues has tended to take an almost exclusively physicalist approach. The common assumption is that, given that non- physicalist theories (dualism, hylomorphism) postulate some form of immaterial ‘soul’, then they are immune from the challenges that these advances in cognitive science pose. The first aim of this paper, therefore, is to argue that this is not the case. The second aim of this paper is to attempt to elucidate a route available for the non- physicalist that will allow them to accept the notion of distributed cognition. By appealing to an Aristotelian framework, I propose that the non-physicalist can accept the notion of distributed cognition by appeal to the notion of ‘unitary life’ which I introduce as well as Aristotle’s dichotomy between active and passive mind.

scholarly journals Situating allostasis and interoception at the core of human brain function

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuta Katsumi ◽  
Karen Quigley ◽  
Lisa Feldman Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Brain Function ◽  
Brain Evolution ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Biological Mechanisms ◽  
The Core ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Basic Functions ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
The Brain

It is now well known that brain evolution, development, and structure do not respect Western folk categories of mind – that is, the boundaries of those folk categories have never been identified in nature, despite decades of search. Categories for cognitions, emotions, perceptions, and so on, may be useful for describing the mental phenomena that constitute a human mind, but they make a poor starting point for understanding the interplay of mechanisms that create those mental events in the first place. In this paper, we integrate evolutionary, developmental, anatomical, and functional evidence and propose that predictive regulation of the body’s internal systems (allostasis) and modeling the sensory consequences of this regulation (interoception) may be basic functions of the brain that are embedded in coordinated structural and functional gradients. Our approach offers the basis for a coherent, neurobiologically-inspired research program that attempts to explain how a variety of psychological and physical phenomena may emerge from the same biological mechanisms, thus providing an opportunity to unify them under a common explanatory framework that can be used to develop shared vocabulary for theory building and knowledge accumulation.

Remembering the Evolutionary Freud

2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Young
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Psychotic Disorders ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
Evolutionary Origins ◽  
Point Of No Return ◽  
Evolutionary Narratives ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

ArgumentThroughout his career as a writer, Sigmund Freud maintained an interest in the evolutionary origins of the human mind and its neurotic and psychotic disorders. In common with many writers then and now, he believed that the evolutionary past is conserved in the mind and the brain. Today the “evolutionary Freud” is nearly forgotten. Even among Freudians, he is regarded to be a red herring, relevant only to the extent that he diverts attention from the enduring achievements of the authentic Freud. There are three ways to explain these attitudes. First, the evolutionary Freud's key work is the “Overview of the Transference Neurosis” (1915). But it was published at an inopportune moment, forty years after the author's death, during the so-called “Freud wars.” Second, Freud eventually lost interest in the “Overview” and the prospect of a comprehensive evolutionary theory of psychopathology. The publication of The Ego and the Id (1923), introducing Freud's structural theory of the psyche, marked the point of no return. Finally, Freud's evolutionary theory is simply not credible. It is based on just-so stories and a thoroughly discredited evolutionary mechanism, Lamarckian use-inheritance. Explanations one and two are probably correct but also uninteresting. Explanation number three assumes that there is a fundamental difference between Freud's evolutionary narratives (not credible) and the evolutionary accounts of psychopathology that currently circulate in psychiatry and mainstream journals (credible). The assumption is mistaken but worth investigating.

(Remix) True Holograms: A Different Kind of Screen; A Different Kind of Ghost

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenna Ng
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
3 Dimensional ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Two Dimensional Images

This chapter discusses true holograms as a “remix” discussion from Chapter 4 of ghosts out of the post-screen. Commonly confused with holographic projections, true holograms are two-dimensional images naturally viewed (i.e. without optical aids) as 3-dimensional objects. Leveraging theoretical sources such as Deleuze’s notion of “the brain is the screen” and Vilém Flusser’s ideas of point culture and linearity, the chapter argues for the post-screen through the true hologram whose ghosts are not of the spectral return of the dead, but digital apparitions via which the human mind ideates and projects realities. These digital ghosts thus return with a necromancy of their own on the terms of zerodimensionality and post-rationality, confronting us with new problems of reality and questions about ourselves.

Introduction

Mind Shift ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
John Parrington
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Past History ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Brain Evolution ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Human Uniqueness ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Brain

This introductory chapter begins by providing an overview of the power of the human brain, which is displayed in the wonders of modern civilization. Despite the human brain’s capacity for such intellectual and technological feats, we still know astonishingly little about how it achieves them. This deficit in understanding is a problem not only because it means we lack basic knowledge of the biological factors that underlie our human uniqueness, but also because, for all its amazing capabilities, the human mind seems particularly prone to dysfunction. Still, some would argue there is good reason to be optimistic about the prospect of developing new and better treatments for mental disorders in the not-so-distant future. Such optimism is based on the increasing potential to study how the brain works in various important new ways thanks to recent technological innovations. The chapter then considers two overly polarised views of the human mind. Ultimately, this book argues that society radically restructures the human brain within an individual person’s lifetime, and that it has also played a central role in the past history of our species, by shaping brain evolution.

scholarly journals Becoming Animal: Karma and the Animal Realm Envisioned through an Early Yogācāra Lens

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 363
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Stuart
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Animal Behavior ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Sanskrit Text ◽  
Middle Period ◽  
Theories Of Mind ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Buddha

In an early discourse from the Saṃyuttanikāya, the Buddha states: “I do not see any other order of living beings so diversified as those in the animal realm. Even those beings in the animal realm have been diversified by the mind, yet the mind is even more diverse than those beings in the animal realm.” This paper explores how this key early Buddhist idea gets elaborated in various layers of Buddhist discourse during a millennium of historical development. I focus in particular on a middle period Buddhist sūtra, the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra, which serves as a bridge between early Buddhist theories of mind and karma, and later more developed theories. This third-century South Asian Buddhist Sanskrit text on meditation practice, karma theory, and cosmology psychologizes animal behavior and places it on a spectrum with the behavior of humans and divine beings. It allows for an exploration of the conceptual interstices of Buddhist philosophy of mind and contemporary theories of embodied cognition. Exploring animal embodiments—and their karmic limitations—becomes a means to exploring all beings, an exploration that can’t be separated from the human mind among beings.

scholarly journals Superhuman Enhancements via Implants: Beyond the Human Mind

Philosophies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Kevin Warwick
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Way

In this article, a practical look is taken at some of the possible enhancements for humans through the use of implants, particularly into the brain or nervous system. Some cognitive enhancements may not turn out to be practically useful, whereas others may turn out to be mere steps on the way to the construction of superhumans. The emphasis here is the focus on enhancements that take such recipients beyond the human norm rather than any implantations employed merely for therapy. This is divided into what we know has already been tried and tested and what remains at this time as more speculative. Five examples from the author’s own experimentation are described. Each case is looked at in detail, from the inside, to give a unique personal experience. The premise is that humans are essentially their brains and that bodies serve as interfaces between brains and the environment. The possibility of building an Interplanetary Creature, having an intelligence and possibly a consciousness of its own, is also considered.

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