MIND.20page
file mind.20.page Updated 12:11 pm May 22, 1994 10:19 am July 24, 1993 6:53 pm March 17, 1992 P7 L6/ 10:38 am October 28, 1991 10:42 February 3, 1991 also feb 4,19,21/8:35 February 22 1991
THE IDENTITY THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Topics to cover;
1. Consciousness is produced by the functioning of the body, specifically the nervous system.
2. Identical consciousness is produced by identical functioning
3. Consequences of #2 Where could we have identical functioning?
Identical functioning for more than one Identical functioning in different times Identical functioning in different universes Identical functioning before and after the big bang
4. Physipaths, Physipoints, Physifields.
5. Mentapaths, Mentapoints, Mentafields.
6. Awarepaths, Awarepoints, Awarefields.
7. Theocepts, Itopaths, Itocepts.
8. Senpaths, Externapaths, Internapaths.
9. Reduction theory
10. Continuum hypothesis
11. Itoimmortality,Time, Death, Reincarnation
12. Simipaths
13. Superpaths
14. Familpaths
15. Consequences of the identity theory for man his future and society.
Glossary
The identity theory of consciousness is a scientific theory about consciousness. Consciousness is what we are and the part of ourselves that we care about the most. We all have a subjective view of what we are consciously. We also have, through science, an objective view of consciousness. The identity theory is based on our current understanding of the cognitive sciences. Science has not found any soul connected to the body that produces or effects consciousness. It has however, found out that the body is an extremely complex structure made of matter and energy. When the body is functioning it produces many complex responses and behaviors. Some of the responses and behaviors we call consciousness. Science has found that injuries to the body produce varying degrees of changes to consciousness. For instance, when parts of the brain are killed or become disconnected to neurons from other parts of the brain, varying degrees of degradation to consciousness occur. Injuries to the nervous system can cause impairment or destruction of sight, sound, motion, reasoning ability, memory, and all others attributes of consciousness. If destruction of parts of the nervous system can cause a lowering of the level of consciousness then the reverse process of reconstruction should improve consciousness. This principle of reconstruction carried to its fullest would mean that a totally destroyed brain with no consciousness returned to its original functioning state would again have consciousness. And if the reconstruction produced an identically functioning copy of the nervous system of the original person then the consciousness created would be exactly the same as the original consciousness. We can take this thought experiment one step further and reconstruct the original with out having destroyed the original in the first place. When we do this we have come to on of the basic ideas of this theory. The founding premise of the identity theory of consciousness is that two identically functioning bodies will produce the same consciousness. This means that what one body thinks and feels the other body will think and feel also. This does not mean that they will be aware of each other, or have any kind of mental or mystic connection to each other. This identity of consciousness would exist through out space. As a result it would not matter whether the two identically functioning bodies were inches or galaxy apart they would still produce the same consciousness. If we can imagine two identically functioning bodies why not more. Three ,four, five, to an infinite amount. If they were identically functioning they would all have the same consciousness. None of them determine what the others think and feel, the functioning of the body itself does that. As space would not effect the identity of the consciousness produced, time would not either. This means that a body functioning identically in the future or the past would have the same consciousness. And as with space the amount of bodies with the same consciousness through time could be any number even infinite. What the identity theory says is that it is possible that there can be other people at the some time, or at different times anywhere in the universe where a person could exist that have the same consciousness as you or me. This however does not mean that it is probable that these people with these consciousnesses have, do, or will exist. We can not determine the probability of this happening because we do not know enough about the universe. If an identical replica of any material body is made including a human body it is called an identireplica. If the identireplica continues to be identical, and to function identically, for a period of time, during that period of time it is called a continuing identireplica or a cidentireplica.
There are three new terms that need to be introduced to make the identity theory of consciousness easier to understand. They are physipath, mentapath, and awarepath.
PHYSIPATH
The functioning of the human body over time is a very complex thing. The body is constantly changing. Through this change the body is trying to keep from changing in detrimental ways to itself. If we could imagine all these changes being plotted on an n - dimensional graph through time we would end up with a unique path through all the different possible functionings of all possible human bodies. I will define this as the physifield. A path of the body and its changes through time is what I call the physical path of the body's functioning or physipath for short. Physipath is a term with a very complex and important meaning. Each person produces a unique physipath through out their life. The physical matter/energy and the changes that make up a person through out their lives All bodies have a physipath whether they are dead or alive. This is because as long as there is any motion within the body there is change and as a consequence it produces a physipath. If a body is frozen at absolute zero where there is no motion or change within the body the body still produces a physipath, but this physipath does not change through time.
MENTAPATH
Where the physipath maps the physical aspects of a person the mentapath maps the mental aspects of a person. A body has a mentapath only if it is alive and the nervous system is functioning. As a consequence, not all physipaths produce mentapaths. Animals produce mentapaths. It can be argued that computers produce mentapaths also but at a much lower and different level than a person. Mentapaths are causal
AWAREPATH
The awarepath is the part of the mentapath that represents and maps the conscious part of the mentapath. If a person is conscious he will have an awarepath. The awarepath is the mental part of ourselves that we are aware of. It is not our subconscious. Although our subconscious does effect the awarepath. The awarepath has a tendency to jump around and not be continuous in thought. For instance, we may be thinking one thought and the next instance we are thinking about another thought"with no conscious transition in between. The physipath is a continuous mapping of the motion of the atoms in the body. It is not easy to define a awarepath because thoughts are different from matter and energy. It appears that some animals have awarepaths and some do not. The more complex the nervousness system of the animal the more likely that it will have c awarepath. At this time computers do not appear to have awarepaths.
The identity theory makes these predictions about physipaths, mentapaths, and awarepaths. First, some physipaths will produce mentapaths some will not. Physipaths with zero change such as a frozen body produces no mentapath. Some mentapaths will produce awarepaths some will not."And finally some physipaths will produce awarepaths most will not.
The reduction theory
The very complexity of the brain makes it unlikely that an identically functioning body will exist in a finite universe in a finite amount of time by random chance. On the other hand if there are an infinite amount of people in an infinite universe through an infinite amount of time there will be an infinite amount of identically functioning copies of a least one person and probably most.
The reduction theory says that two bodies that are not identical can produce the same consciousness. There are many factors in a body that do not or will not effect consciousness. The body is made of billions of cells any one of which if removed would not effect our consciousness unless its removal could effect the nervous system. Blood cells are a good example .
Many physipaths can produce the same mentapath. Many mentapaths can produce the same awarepath. Awarepaths can merge into other awarepaths in a continuum. What this means is that my awarepath could be so slightly different that it would not be considered by me as being different. Imagine an awarepath where everything is the same except that the first awarepath remembers his grandmothers eyes as being blue rather than green. Should this slightly different awarepath be considered a different awarepath or a slight variant of the other.
CONSEQUENCES OF THE IDENTITY THEORY
Immortality is a very important issue for humans It is one of the most important aspects of religion. One of the consequences of scientific materialism has been the rejection of an immortal soul. The consequence of this is the belief that a person is conscious as long as he is alive and after that there is no continuation of that person's consciousness. This quote by the philosopher Bertrand Russell tends to sum up the materialist view of the finality of human death: "that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life past the grave; ---, these things if not beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand."
However, materialism does not necessarily lead to the view that nothing can preserve an individual life beyond the grave.In this book, through a materialist theory of mind, I have come to a different conclusion about mans mortality which gives mankind more alternates and creative possibilities than any religious dogma. Three terms come to mind when we talk about immortality They are person, life, and consciousness, They correspond to the scientific concepts of physipath , mentapath, and awarepath, that have been introduced and defined previously.
Immortality deals with the life of an individual person. Without life a person is just a dead body. A person can be alive but not conscious. Society is beginning to believe that a person that is not conscious and will never be conscious again because of brain damage is not alive in the fullest human sense.
The universe that we live in may have allowed us the ability to control, modify, and change the most important aspects of being a person consciousness. The ability to tailer make consciousness to modify it to suit its (consciousnesses) purposes is a power that exceeds most purported powers of religious gods.
The identity theory makes definite predictions about consciousness. hopefully like any good scientific theory they can be adequately tested. No doubt as more knowledge is learned the theory will be modified to include our greater understanding of the world.
Physipath, mentapath, and awarepath are ideal epistemological terms.
Awareness of time
The awareness of time is dependent on the functioning of the body. If the body does not function then there is no awareness of time. Since a dead person body does not function it has no awareness of time or time passing. What is it like to be dead for any period of time? It seem quicker than the blink of the eye. Let assume that a person is killed instantaneously from an accident that the was not aware of, if one billion years latter a replica of that person, immediately before the accident, was made, the consciousness of this person would resume as if no time had past; within the blink of an eye a billion years had past for this person.
What it is like to be dead
When we are dead we experience nothing because the body is not functioning in a way that produces consciousness. It is not like anything to be dead. For us to experience death we have to be alive and consciousness. When we are alive we can experience many strange and different things.
The materialist theory that is based on science says that when a person is dead there is no mental functioning at all. Consequently a person does not experience any thing at all when he is dead. Since a person does not experience any thing at all when he is dead, he does not experience the passing of time when he is dead. The identity theory says that a close copy of a person could exist in the future. Imagine then a person that had died in an accident in the past being recreated at the point right before he had the accident.
Identity of mental parts
Realm of concern
The realm of concern are the mentapoints around the current point that a person is at a certain time. A person can not be aware of all of them because they are determined by the senpath, and the senpath has great variety. The realm of concern can span the entire mentapath. Certain events will be more important than others. We interpret the desired senpaths in term of what we are today and when they actually affect us the resultant mentapath may not be the one that we wished or worked for. We work toward the concepts that we gather together"in our minds but the reality of those concepts and the effect that it has on our mentapath we can only predict. The realm of concern of a mentapath is based on the concepts that we have developed over time. The way that the brain is determines what we wish for in terms of the senpath. The senpath over time changes the brain and the mind and consciousness so the desired senpath that we want also changes over time. We predict the senpath that we want. We can have it if we do certain things sometimes this senpath is not achievable with any type of concieable effort and the mentapath has to make exceptions to what they want. Suppose that a person want to go to mars as an astronaut, he develops a plan to achieve that goal. The plan may not be a good one but with more knowledge he keeps modifying it. Finally he finds that he is too old to do it or some one else has done it. The dream dies and that realm of concern dies with it. When that person actually finds out that goal is not possible his realm of concern changes. We have in our lives not one but many concerns. We can be concerned with ourselves as well as with other people but the relation that we have with other people is through our senpath. But there is still another way that we can feel that we have a relation with another person. That way is with dreams or day dreams. In these dreams we can fall in love with people that do not exist in our senpaths. These relationships somewhere could be real but they are not real in our dreams. But these dreams can be part of our realm of concern. Where our mentapath goes within the mentafield is what our realm of concern deals with. At each point in the mentafield there is a realm of concern that out lines the wants desires in our future mentapath or lives. At some points this concern is not well developed and in others it is well developed. For instance, some people do not have a conscious realm of concern at every point on their path but if asked what they are doing or trying to do they will give some king of answer. These answers do not have to correspond to reality because people do lie. And what's more some parts of the mind do not share the reality of wants and fears with other parts of the mind. So a person that thought he knew what he want will find that he really did not want that after all. so what is a straight forward way of determining a realm of concern when the person is not aware of all the possibilities and understand all the nuances of the minds want and fears? The understanding of the Identity theory is not part of many peoples consciousness so the concept of certain types futures for them they are not aware of. Why is the realm of concern an important concept? If a mentapath has some control over the production of mentapaths what would he choose and why? If a mentapath has control over his own mentapath what route will he choose and why? A mentapath at a particular point in time will favor certain options that are open to it and avoid others that are not in its view good paths. A mentapath has some control over the senpath that controls his life
Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1917), pp. 47-48.
The improbable is extremely probable. -- Aristotle
Glossary of terms