Henry David Thoreau said, “Money is not required to buy necessity of soul.” Yes, it is true. Even though I am successful in not having any money to realize the essence of above thought, not a single day passes without my grave disappointment due to the failure of the self in knowing the depth of the mind. Is mind a caricature of human imagination or it is extension of human brain and body connection. Does mind exists beyond brain and body? Is there any place for the concepts like soul, spirit and likewise when we describe the mind? Why I am continuously being driven by the vices and virtues of the ordinary life? Why I am immortal by my grief and mortal by my pleasure? Sometimes I find mind to be very subtle, even hard to catch in the wavelengths of electron microscope and suddenly when I write a poem, it transforms itself in the sky wearing the dress of rainbow.
What if I could not discover the micro layers of the brain full of billions of neurons, cells which continue to die and born for the destruction and creation of memory, the biochemical reactions and somatic developments going on the tiny brain ? What if I do not know parallel world of consciousness and unconsciousness which simultaneously determines the fate of our actions; many times we do not know the reasons behind those actions. And if we are not aware what we do not know, then it does not matter whether we are acquiring some knowledge out of our perception, observation, continuous thinking, introspection, synthesis of arguments and convergence of theoretical hypothesis and practical verification. So we should ask our mind, what we know and what we do not know.
We have always loved our mind. We always say, “Follow the mind (heart), not the brain.” If that is so, what is dramatic difference between the brain and the mind? Can it be demonstrated? If we think rationally, mind is a subset of bigger organ of human brain. Or can we say that mind is metaphoric architecture of the aesthetic and subjective frame of reference situated in our brain. Every language has its own grammar. Our mind has also some kind of grammar. This is codified in the way of habits, standards of behavior, degrees of intuition, benchmarks of perception, scopes of worldview, depths of customs, ranges of traditions and vastness of experiences. Have you noticed, we always say, “Mind your language?” Child learns language by its own, being in the realm of the environment. We need not teach it the rules of the grammar. How then that it is possible? Same goes with the mind. As language does the tasks of ‘description’ and ‘explanation’, mind also does the work of ‘expression’ and ‘amplification’ of the senses of the brain.
If the mind is not something having metaphysical existence, then it should be purely of biological, psychological existence. We always do some voluntary actions, many times we are bound by certain rules and numerous times we are compelled to follow actions due to threat and extreme emergency conditions. How our mind reacts in these situations? Does it have separate expression of desire or is it bound by previously and simultaneously happening dynamic events? Does mind have “Free Will”? If it is having a independent free will, then how it is possible that the world in which we live being so much deterministic and interdependent, allows that mind to be having a free will so as to try to fulfill own wishes? Have you not heard the famous ‘White Light’ poem? “Lady called bright-white started her journey tomorrow and reached her destination yesterday.” So, relative and subjective position and momentum of the observer clearly decides and defines the nature of language of description, explanation and further expression and amplification of mental sensory reaction towards that event.
Following are the philosophical problems to which ongoing developments in cognitive science are highly relevant.
ü Innateness: To what extent is knowledge innate or acquired by experience? Is human behavior shaped primarily by nature or nurture?
ü Language of thought: Does the human brain operate with a language-like code or with more general connectionist architecture? What is the relation between symbolic cognitive models using rules and concepts and sub-symbolic models using neural networks?
ü Mental imagery: Do human minds think with visual and other kinds of
imagery, or only with language-like representations?
ü Folk psychology: Does a person's everyday understanding of other people consist of having a theory of mind, or of merely being able to simulate them?
ü Meaning: How do mental representations acquire meaning or mental content? What is the relationship between representation to the world, and a community of thinkers?
ü Mind-brain identity: Are mental states brain states? What is the relation between psychology and neuroscience? Is materialism true?
ü Free will: Is human action free or merely caused by brain events?
ü Moral psychology: How do minds/brains make ethical judgments?
ü The meaning of life: How can minds construed naturalistically as brains find
value and meaning?
ü Emotions: What are emotions, and what role do they play in thinking?
ü Mental illness: What are mental illnesses, and how are psychological and neural processes relevant to their explanation and treatment?
ü Appearance and reality: How do minds/brains form and evaluate representations of the external world?
ü Social science: How do explanations of the operations of minds interact with explanations of the operations of groups and societies? [1]
The self is indeed something that arises from brain activity of a certain kind and in certain brain areas, and that this activity is also closely tied to functions related to “qualia”. In contrast to the idea that qualia are private, subjective, and unsharable properties belonging exclusively to a private self Qualia are the ‘raw feels’ of conscious experience: the painfulness of pain, the redness of red. Beliefs are also associated with ‘partial qualia’ and conscious awareness, once they are made explicit in ‘working memory’. The distinction between qualia associated with percepts and those associated with explicit (or occurrent) beliefs may be quantitative rather than qualitative. Tacit beliefs, on the other hand, are completely qualia-free. [2]
V.S. Ramchandran further elaborates about eight distinctive characteristics due to which a special type of qualia is able to generate the mind of artist, novelist, poet, painter or anyone who is distinct. Example: A piece of modern contemporary art, a painting!
a) One, the peak shift principle; not only along the form dimension, but also along more abstract dimensions, such as feminine/masculine posture, color (e.g. skin tones) etc. There may be classes of stimuli that optimally excite neurons that encode form primitives in the brain, even though it may not be immediately obvious to us what these primitives are.
b) Two, isolating a single cue helps the organism allocate attention to the output of a single module thereby allowing it to more effectively ‘enjoy’ the peak shift along the dimensions represented in that module.
c) Three, perceptual grouping to delineate figure and ground may be enjoyable in its own right, since it allows the organism to discover objects in noisy environments. Principles such as figure–ground delineation, closure and grouping by similarity may lead to a direct aesthetic response because the modules may send their output to the limbic system even before the relevant objects has been completely identified.
d) Four, just as grouping or binding is directly reinforcing (even before the complete object is recognized), the extraction of contrast is also reinforcing, since regions of contrast are usually information-rich regions that deserve allocation of attention. Camouflage, in nature, relies partly on this principle.
e) Five, perceptual ‘problem solving’ is also reinforcing. Hence a puzzle picture (or one in which meaning is implied rather than explicit) may paradoxically be more alluring than one in which the message is obvious. There appears to be an element of ‘peekaboo’ in some types of art — thereby ensuring that the visual system ‘struggles’ for a solution and does not give up too easily. For the same reason, a model whose hips and breasts are about to be revealed is more provocative than one who is completely naked.
f) Six, an abhorrence of unique vantage points.
g) Seven, perhaps most enigmatic is the use of visual ‘puns’ or metaphors in art. Such visual metaphors are probably effective because discovering hidden similarities between superficially dissimilar entities is an essential part of all visual pattern recognition and it would thus make sense that each time such a link is made, a signal is sent to the limbic system.
h) Eight, symmetry — whose relevance to detecting prey, predator or healthy mates is obvious. (Indeed, evolutionary biologists have recently argued that detecting violations of symmetry may help animals detect unhealthy animals that have parasites. [3]
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| Neurons |
So, eventually I am scripting a semi colon in long quest of the Mind by highlighting the ‘processes’ of the qualia. This poem is written (23rd April 2010) well before I saw today “Agony and Ecstasy” a biographical film on Michael Angelo. In many scenes, when Angelo is painting day and night the ceilings of Sistine Chapel, Pope asks him when his work of painting will end. To that, Angelo replies, “When I am finished, your holiness.” In this spirit, please take a glance at following.
Craziest Moment
Imagine, I discovered unique element
Or invented novel chemical;
What makes me crazy is process and
Not the end which ends my craziness!
Imagine, I loved someone
Or someone loved me;
What makes me crazy is process and
Not the end which ends my craziness!
Imagine, I am writing a fiction,
Or I am reading a beautiful face;
What makes me crazy is process and
Not the end which ends my craziness!
Imagine, I am starved to death
Or I am recalled even after last breath;
What makes me crazy is process and
Not the end which ends my craziness!
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[1] Thagard, Paul, "Cognitive Science", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/cognitive-science/>.
[2] V. S. Ramachandran and William Hirstein, Three Laws of Qualia What Neurology Tells Us about the Biological Functions of Consciousness, Qualia and the Self, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 4, No. 5-6, 1997, pp. 429–58
[3] V.S. Ramchandran, BBC Reith Lecture Series 2003
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