Mark: Created page with "file: summary Updated 10:19 pm August 6, 1994 3:23 pm June 8, 1993/ 1:03 pm May 16, 1992 11:34 am May 15, 1992 /2:12 pm Jan 19, 1992 1:27 pm Jan 17, 1989 /March 7, 1990 A summary in reality should not be written until the book is written. It (a summary) does help organize ideas. SUMMARY Topics to be covered: About the theory. About mentapaths, physipaths, awarepaths. Mentacepts, theocepts, awarecepts, physicepts. Reduction theory. Continuum hypothesis for mentapaths...."

2023-12-07T21:10:26Z

Created page with "file: summary Updated 10:19 pm August 6, 1994 3:23 pm June 8, 1993/ 1:03 pm May 16, 1992 11:34 am May 15, 1992 /2:12 pm Jan 19, 1992 1:27 pm Jan 17, 1989 /March 7, 1990 A summary in reality should not be written until the book is written. It (a summary) does help organize ideas. SUMMARY Topics to be covered: About the theory. About mentapaths, physipaths, awarepaths. Mentacepts, theocepts, awarecepts, physicepts. Reduction theory. Continuum hypothesis for mentapaths...."

New page

file: summary
Updated 10:19 pm August 6, 1994
3:23 pm June 8, 1993/ 1:03 pm May 16, 1992
11:34 am May 15, 1992 /2:12 pm Jan 19, 1992
1:27 pm Jan 17, 1989 /March 7, 1990

A summary in reality should not be written until the book is written. It (a summary) does help organize ideas.

SUMMARY
Topics to be covered:
About the theory.
About mentapaths, physipaths, awarepaths.
Mentacepts, theocepts, awarecepts, physicepts.
Reduction theory.
Continuum hypothesis for mentapaths.
About partial mentapaths. Simipaths
How these views can effect man?
Superpaths
Immortality of Itopaths
This theory puts man future in mans hands. Not some god belief system Gbs or Gobelistem

If we think that god will be responsible for us and take care of us and it turns out that in fact there is no god, or If he exists he does not or will not take care of us We are will be in for a big disappointment. However we could keep going for ever making the same mistake until we are destroyed or destroy ourselves. We really do not know if there is a god or not and if there is we don’t know his relation to us if any. Just believing that he does, does not mean that he does. It can be very detrimental to use in not pursuing science and the solutions to our problems. Religions foster and encourage dogmatisms. That are counter productive to the progress that we could make. The more that we know the more that we will know gods will or what he wants from us. We may thins that god has interfered with us in the past but coincidence could be just as responsible for what has happened to people. The ethical consequences of the identity theory can be just as rewarding to people as religious beliefs because it allows for man to work together to become better more consciousness and allows for immortality of many consciousness types. There exist non religious versions of everyone's awarepaths. The losing of religious belief can be supplemented by the understanding of religion and the memories and feelings that religions gives. A religion is basically a dogmatic belief system that is limited when we increase our consciousness and understanding we can be less dogmatic, And work toward a better world. If we hold on to our ancient religions we are domed to the past. We must learn from our religions and build from them into a better world where we are more consciousness, happier, more productive and with the ultimate goal the pursuit of knowledge.

CONTINUUM HYPOTHESIS FOR MENTAPATHS

It is possible that mentapaths can change continuously and uniformly from one mentapath to another. In fact, the change can be made arbitrarily small or as small as desired. Why is this concept important? How does this hypothesis effect awarepaths? It seems that it is an analog versus digital problem. Is the situation about grandma having blue rather than brown eyes a digital or analog concept as it concerns the mentapath. It certainly can be stored as an digital bit of information but eyes do not come in exactly the same shade of blue or brown. The whole concept of blue and brown eyes can be just as complex an information storage problem as we like. There are many complex subtleties that can be included.

The definition of what a person is, is not as important as the semi -- uniqueness of his mind. The qualities of the mind that defines one person as being different than another person are the qualities that are important. If two persons looked but had different minds they wold not be considered the same person.
The key points that have been made in this book are: current science points to the fact that a functioning brain produces the mind. The identical functioning of brains produce identical minds. It then would be possible to have the same mind in more than one person. Persons in different times and places could have identical minds. The materialist view of person is that once he is dead, he is dead forever. However, the identity theory of the brain concedes that the same mind could occur over and over again at different places and times.

Mental paths of persons or mentapaths can transcend both space and time. Mentapaths can be infinitely long unlike most physical paths of a person or physipaths. That is because most peoples bodies are mortal.

THE SUMMARY OF THE IDENTITY THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

OUTLINE

1.IDENTICAL PHYSICAL MODES PRODUCE AN IDENTICAL MENTAL MODES

2.AN UNCHANGING PHYSICAL MODE PRODUCES NO MENTAL MODE

3.THE MENTAL MODE IS PRODUCED BY CERTAIN FUNCTIONING PHYSICAL MODES

4.BETWEEN ANY TWO DIFFERENT PHYSICAL MODES THERE EXISTS AT LEAST ONE TRANSITION MODE (LIKE THE POINTS ON A REAL NUMBER LINE)

5.IF A FUNCTIONING PHYSICAL MODE CAN BE DUPLICATED THEN THE CORRESPONDING MENTAL MODE CAN BE DUPLICATED

The functioning of the physical body produce the awareness that we call the mind or soul. Death happens to a physical body. But, what happens to the mind or soul? Certain physical arrangements of matter and energy produce the mind others do not. A third type produce what might be considered transition stages.
When there are two identical physical functioning modes the mental modes that are produced are also identical. This means that two people that have the exact same physical functioning have the same consciousness, mind, or soul. This property is not limited by space or time.
What it means for two people to have the same mind or soul is that they feel the same emotions have the same memories, see, hear, taste, smell, and feel the same sensations. If the two consciousness could be overlaid then there would be no difference in any mental or physical characteristics.

The identity theory of the mind is a theory based on our scientific knowledge about the brain and what we call the mind. Its does not deal with other aspects of the philosophical theory of mind.
We have no clear evidence for the existence of a soul. We do however have overwhelming evidence for the fact that the brain and ivs functioning effect the mind. Stated in another way changes in the brain can cause changes in the mind. Also for any change in the mind there must be an change in the brain. Is it possible that a change in the mind might happen when there is no change in the brain? How would this be possible? Something must be different?
The identity theory states that if you have identically functioning brains you have identical minds. This is trivial because two brains that do not change have no minds produced, consequently the corresponding minds (lack of) must be equal. Then it goes on to postulate that if you have the identical functioning of two brains you will have the same minds over that period of time.
What we know of the brain is that if there is no change in it over time then there is no mind over that time. An example might be a brain frozen at absolute zero. While that brain is frozen no mind is created. No sense of time passing is created either.
Two identical brains only make an identical mind through the identical functioning of the brains. This is because a brain that does not change produces no mind.
A brain does not need a body to produce a mind. This is because the body's functioning and effect on the brain can be duplicated by other means. All that is required for the brain to produce a mind by the body is proper environmental conditions. What this means is that the brain needs a supply of food and other nutrients, proper temperature and protection from other environmentally damaging situations such as bacteria.
Like in the science fiction movies where the brain sets in a machine that supplies the brain with the proper environmental conditions, keeping the brain alive is the key to producing the mind. However, once the brains survival requirements are met there is one more thing that the body supplies to the brain that is required so that a brain will produce a specific mind. That is nerve impulses that connect the mind to the outside world. Without these nerve impulses the brain would not be able to change in the required ways to produce certain types of minds.
If you happen to be one of these minds that was cut off by all outside stimulus you could imagine it by being weightless in a noiseless, senseless, tasteless, feelingless black, void. However, the brain does sense itself and can even produce entertainment for itself in the form of dreams, visions, sensations, feelings, etc. Eventually this brain might even believe it were once again connected to a real world.
What is the mind? A short definition, for the purposes of this article is: it is the intuitive awareness of ourselves. The mind can only be viewed through itself at least as far as we know at present. It is what seems to makes us different from other objects and even our own bodies.
We give the mind many properties that are hard to understand by means other than through direct experience. The mind by some definitions would be synonymous with the soul which is independent of the body.
The identity theory of the mind does make the mind independent of the body in several ways. First, a particular mind is not limited to a particular body only to identical functioning of a body. The identical functioning of a body is not limited by space or time. This means that a mind could exist through space and time. In relating this to a personal mind it means that you can exit exactly as you are in the past or the future. And you can exist at different places as well.
Does this mean that you do exist at other times or at other places because your mind can have these properties? No.
Would a person know of the existence of this other person with the same mind? Probably not. This is because one would need some sort of proof of the existence of this person with the same mind which would also imply that this other person would know about you as well. However, one can imagine many scenarios where this could be possible. If a person understands the Identity theory then he can believe that there are other people some where some time that have his consciousness and may share large parts of his mentapath and awarepath. If the universe is large enough and complex enough then there is a possibility that replicas of people exist and a person can believe in them even if they have no direct proof. It is more likely that there are consciousness in other people that are like your consciousness but not exactly the same.
For two minds to continue to be the same through time they would need to have the same stimulus through time.
Imagine that in a mental experiment we made two people that were identical. According to the identity theory of the mind they would have the same mind at the instance of creation. However, they would be in a different spatial locations. Assuming that they were functioning in the same time frame and looking at each other, they would look at each other and say" hey you look like me" at the same time. Then they might say "what a coincidence" again in unison. Then being of the same mind they look to their right. However, since they are looking at each other, looking to their right is actually looking in opposite directions so at this time they are experiencing different things and though very close mentally are two different or diverging minds.
Only when we keep the functioning of the two brains the same are the minds the same. For what ever the reason if the brain starts functioning differently the mind is different even thought the difference may be extremely small.
From one moment to the next the brain is changing. There are many possible ways it could change from one instance to the next. When we define what a person is we need to define the exact functioning path that person takes through his life. Stated in another way a person could (if there were the scientific means) be defined as the exact way his body and brain changed through time. With this kind of definition there would be an infinite amount of possible people. It can also be looked at as the same person with many possible lives.
As a bodies functioning is changed what the mind experiences also changes. Only when the brain is functioning"in certain ways does the mind function or exist to itself or others at all. An example of a brain without a mind is the brain of a dead person.
We can imagine a gradual transformation of one type of body into another type of body. Such as a dog into a cat. We can imagine even better the transformation of a cell into an adult person because we have seen a transformation through pictures.

Is there a one to one relation between the mind and the brain? In other words when there is any change in the mind, no matter how small, is there a corresponding change in the brain? This depends for one thing on the definition of the mind. If the mind is created by the brain then any definition of the mind will be just as complicated as a definition of the brain. However, since our definition of the mind centers on the one thing about us individually that is of utmost importance -- our feelings, sensations, passions, unique knowledge of ourselves and our world

One thing seems apparent about self awareness, either created in a computer or in an animal, its takes more mental functioning to monitor a mental event than it does to simply perform it. The monitoring of mental events are what creates the self awareness that we call the mind.
If in one part of the brain a nerve changes its regular activity does or should the rest of the brain be aware of it?

The removal of a brain cell in a functioning brain is not apt to have a large effect on the mind if any. The brain is not even going to know that the cell is gone unless it has a way of monitoring the existence of that cell. The existence or non existence of a brain cell is more apt to effect the future functioning of the brain than its present state.
Research has shown that thousands of cells in the brain can die at a time with no apparent self awareness of the change. Of course these cells may have died because they were never used or needed. Or because they were about to die they could not be used and thus the death of many cells in the brain may not effect the consciousness because they were not apart of that consciousness at that time anyway. Eventually the individual becomes aware of a change in the ability to remember. There may be changes in other mental aspects of a person as well. Such as the ability to respond to certain types of stimuli etc. There are more subtle aspects of a person that probably also decline with the death or removal of brain cells which are not as easy for either an outside observer or the individual to recognize such as the intensity or diversity of the feelings involved in love.
Changes in the brain have different effects on changes in the mind. A change in the brain can be immediately recognized by the mind, gradually recognized, indirectly recognized, or not recognized at all.
It takes a lot of brain power to create mental awareness on the order of a person. "

ARE WE PHYSICALLY TIED TO OUR MENTAL PAST?

Are we physically tied to our mental past? No we are not physically tied to our mental past. This is because there may be other ways that we may have come to exist besides the way we think we did i.e., through birth and years of growth and experience. For instance, like advanced scientists that literally throw together atoms in the correct way to create a person. Though this may seem like science fiction, we do not know what the limits that science will impose on us in the future.
Given that the author of this text was made exactly like he is at the moment that he is writing this sentence by some advanced civilization on some distant planet, what would the author experience? Obviously the author would experience writing the rest of his paragraph, but what about this other person that the aliens created, what would he be experiencing? Given that this person was a functioning exact copy of the author he would observe a drastic change in his environment unless the aliens happened to create an environment that was the same as he had been aware of. This new person would think of himself as the author and have the same memories, feelings, and sensations, but would not have in reality have ever existed before.
A person can have memories of a past and not have a past. You, the person reading this book may also may not have had a past. You may have been created full grown with a brain structure that produces the feelings or mind that is you.

A SUMMARY OF THE IDENTITY THEORY

THE MENTAL SELF IS PRODUCED BY THE BRAINS' AND BODIES' STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONING

IDENTICAL STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONING OF THE BRAIN AND BODY PRODUCE MENTAL IDENTITY

THIS MENTAL IDENTITY IS NOT EFFECTED BY TIME, SPACE, MATTER OR ENERGY UNLESS EACH IS NOT UNIFORM THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE.

PARTS OF THE UNIVERSE WHERE THE TIME, SPACE, MATTER OR ENERGY IS NOT UNIFORM CAN STILL PRODUCE MENTAL IDENTITY THROUGH TRANSFORMATIONS

PARTIAL MENTAL IDENTITY CAN BE AND IS PRODUCED

A PERSON CAN BE DEFINED AS A PATH THROUGH THE POSSIBLE REALMS OF NEUROLOGICAL FUNCTIONING.

A MENTAL EVENT IS ANYTHING FROM A PART OF A SENSATION OR FEELING TO AN ENTIRE LIFE

AT LEAST THEORETICALLY ANY MENTAL EVENT IS REPRODUCIBLE AT ANY TIME AT ANY PLACE WITH ANY MATTER AND ENERGY OF THE RIGHT STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONING ABILITY.

A PERSON MENTAL I

The identity theory of consciousness is a theory about the nature of consciousness and the mind. The basis of the theory is the that the mind and consciousness is produced through the functioning of certain arrangements of matter and energy. There is no agreement as to what the mind is how it works and how it effects the environment that it exists in. Another problem is that the mind does not have to be honest to itself. In other words the mind is a fabricator of reality. It tries to piece together the sensual data into a coherent picture of reality. Without interpretation the sense data means nothing.

The identity theory makes many predictions some that can be verified and some that currently can not be verified. The theory starts out with a mental experiment (an experiment that can not be carried out currently with today's scientific technology). This experiment calls for the creation of an exact duplicate of a person and the exact same functioning and structure of matter and energy within the two people. The questions that we wish to answer is how does the consciousness of the duplicate differ from the original? Their behavior should be the same because they started the same and continue to functioning the same. Because their behavior is the same they say the same things at the same time, move the same etc. Every observable feature of the two is the same.
But what about the subjective feature -- the mind or consciousness? If the first one has a mind and consciousness does the second one have one? The identity theory makes it first prediction --- If the first person has a mind then the second person has a mind and consciousness and the mind and consciousness of the original will be exactly the same as the mind and consciousness of the duplicate.
This theory, based on a scientific and materialist view of the mind is immediately at odds with most religions because it denies the existence a unique and linear soul. Because it says that more that one person could have the same mind and consciousness which is considered to be the main characteristics of the soul.
It might be pointed out that it is impossible to make an exact copy of a person. This may be true in certain circumstances but we do not have enough knowledge to know that for certain. The universe may do it randomly on its own. This is because there is only a finite amount of ways to arrange the matter in a human because of his finite size. There may be a infinite amount of ways to arrange the matter and energy in a person but it appears that the nerve is the seat of awareness and exact duplication would not be necessary. If the universe randomly creates an infinite amount of people then there will be an infinite amount of duplicates.
On the other had if a god exists and has the powers that most religions give him he would have no problem creating exact functioning duplicates if he so choused.
What can be said is that an exact functioning duplicate of a person is a possibility. But how large of a possibility is not known.

old file complexity

One of mans fallacies towards life and the world is his belief that explanations and predictive theories that are simple are better than complex theories. However, the more we know the more complex things become. There is good reason for people to like simpler theories: They are easier to learn, use, verify or refute. This is one of the reasons that people tend toward religious theories -- religious theories are generally simple: easy to learn, understand, and use.
Complex theories have simple components. Without these man would have no chance to understand the world. It may be that no real simplicity exists in nature but the brain imposes this simplicity. What is a measure of complexity? It is"both a qualitative and numerical increase toward infinity. Of course there is qualitatively numerical increase. This is because there are types of numerical increase. Such as types of infinity.

To make, to map, to understand the brass the ability to make replicas.

This book introduces new words to name and describe complex and new ideas. It also introduces new sciences to study the new areas of knowledge that this theory introduces and outlines which I believe should and needs to be studied scientifically.
This book goes into morals and ethics and how these theories might effect our lives through governments, societies, and religions.
It also looks at different theories of the mind and brain and how the identity theory is the same and different from them.

This book also goes into the reduction theory, the continuum hypothesis, and how the mind works.

For ethical purposes this theory purposes that consciousness is the most important factor of a person. A person does not want to loose any part of his personess. which his
A person is concerned about his awarepath. He sees many possibilities for its future and does not want some and does want others.
A person is not necessarily going to be aware of the identity theory if it is true. This is because There is the possibility of many awarepaths that are not aware of their existence.

SUMMARY - Revision history