Tags / 70 quotes from 21 sources
#mind
A Practical Guide to Mindfulness (Tessa Watt)
The breath as an anchor
When you bring awareness to your breath, it is this breath, in this moment – not last year’s breath or tomorrow’s breath. The breath is closely connected to the body, and also to the mind; it is a link or bridge between the two. When you tune in to your breathing, your body and…
Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart)
Thinking about thinking, human or machine
What I hope is novel is the synthesis of these areas in a particular way that might generate some further thinking about thinking9—whether that thinking is done by humans, machines, or some kind of freakish hybrid.
The computational stance
create artificial minds. However, despite assuming that the brain is a computational system—what philosopher Riccardo Manzotti calls “the computational stance”—neuroscience is still discovering that…
No direct link to the external world
idea that there is no direct relationship between the external world and…
Strong AI versus weak AI
Building an intelligent machine that can match the cognitive capabilities of humans has been the dream of artificial intelligence researchers since the middle of the last century, when Claude Shannon, Alan Turing, and John von Neumann built the theoretical foundation upon which…
Mind, consciousness and hallucination are linked
One of the goals of current AI research is to create “machines with minds in the full and literal sense,” according to Google’s Peter Norvig. Authors like Kurzweil, Rothblatt, and Bostrom think that machines with minds are inevitable, even if the problem of consciousness might…
Penrose the mathematical Platonist
For all intents and purposes, Penrose is a Platonist when it comes to mathematical truth. This might seem at odds with his view that Gödel’s theorem shows that the mind in noncomputable. Penrose accepts the implications of Gödel’s theorem, which implies that human mathematical…
Computationalism as a form of dualism
Hardly any cognitive scientists are dualists in the Cartesian sense. While the Cartesians believed that the mind represented the world, they also believed it was separate from the brain and made of nonmaterial substance. However, the idea that human thought is computational is…
Logic might be the greatest hallucination
believe this logical bias might be the source of the “computational stance.” We are biased toward explaining the world with logic and computations because this is the only way that the brain can make sense of reality. Logic itself might be the greatest hallucination. Perlovsky…
Reality became a problem after LSD
Hofmann says: “Reality became for me a problem after my experience with LSD. Before, I had believed there was only one reality, the reality of everyday life. Just one true reality and the rest was imagination and was not real. But under the influence of LSD, I entered into…
Brain Rules for Baby (John Medina)
Intelligence is a stew, not a number
Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, who published his latest theory of multiple intelligences in 1993, put it this way: Strong evidence exists “that the mind is a multifaceted, multicomponent instrument, which cannot in any legitimate way be captured in a single…
Theory of Mind in six words
What is Theory of Mind? A literary example may help explain it. Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write an entire novel in only six words, and what he wrote is a perfect illustration of Theory of Mind. That’s because when you read it, it will activate yours. For sale…
Erik Davis - On Psychedelics
Ketamine and the new neuro-reductionism
Rarely has the new neuro-reductionism been so naked in its repackaging of human experience. Nowhere in the research or the journalism does anyone suggest that heavily depressed people feel better because ketamine sends them on a first-person voyage through profound, sometimes…
From Encyclopedia To Ontology: Toward Dynamic Representation Of The Discipline Of Philosophy
Inpho empirical advantages over traditional methods
Viewed against these challenges, our semi-automated approach may be thought to possess significant empirical advantages over this traditional method. Granted, our reliance on expert conceptualizations for the InPhO’s basic framework renders us vulnerable to some of these…
Improving The Human Factors Aspect Of Database Interactions.
Problems with database query languages
Two problems come to mind with this yardstick in evaluating the human factors aspect of a language: (1) Many queries that can be written with a relationally complete language are extremely difficult to compose or comprehend. Few people claim to have a thorough understanding of…
Information - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Information does not require a conscious mind to perceive, much less appreciate, the pattern
Information is any type of pattern that influences the formation or transformation of other patterns. In this sense, there is no need for a conscious mind to perceive, much less appreciate, the pattern. Consider, for example, DNA. The sequence of nucleotides is a pattern that…
Introducing Artificial Intelligence (Henry Brighton and Howard Selina)
Searle does not deny strong AI
It is important to note that Searle is not denying the possibility of Strong Al. Indeed, Searle believes that we are nothing more than complex machines, and therefore we can build machines that think and understand. Searle’s objection is with the notion that machine…
Strong AI as a closet dualism
For Searle, to argue anything else means you must believe in a form of dualism, the position that the mental realm has no causal connection with the physical realm. According to Searle, this is precisely the position many AI researchers take. They believe that their models have…
Penrose: conventional computers cannot be conscious
Like Searle, Penrose argues that conventional computing machinery cannot support consciousness. A conscious mind requires very specific physical characteristics.
Penrose's Gödelian argument against computable thought
To support his argument, Penrose appeals to a fundamental theorem in mathematical logic – Gödel’s Theorem – which states that certain mathematical truths cannot be proved by using a computational procedure. Because human mathematicians evidently can arrive at these truths…
Fodor: the mind as task-specific modules
Fortunately, cognitive brain functions are not part of a complex mush that cannot be decomposed. Many have argued that our brain is structured rather like an interconnected set of sub-computers. Some of these sub-computers seem to work independently, which is good news for Al…
Perception works independently of knowledge
“module” must be working independently of this knowledge.
Connectionism models the mind on the brain
Connectionism gained popularity in the 1980s and is often depicted as a radical departure from the classical, symbolic approach to AI. Rather than viewing the processes of the mind as a computer program, connectionism draws a parallel between the processes of the mind and the…
Bateson: what thinks is a total circuit
“We used to argue whether a machine could think. The answer is, ‘No’. What thinks is a total circuit, including perhaps a computer, a man, and an environment. Similarly, we may ask whether a brain can think, and again the answer will be, ‘No’. What thinks is a brain inside a…
La Formica Zen (italian Edition) ( )
Non saper smettere di pensare
Non essere capaci di smettere di pensare è una afflizione terribile,ma non ce ne rendiamo conto perchè quasi tutti ne soffrono, per cui è considerato normale. Eckhart Tolle
Coltivare il silenzio interiore
Il primissimo esercizio spirituale che bisogna adottare è il coltivare il silenzio interiore che mette fine al dialogo continuo con la mente. Fate che questa riposi per un po', non usatela per progettare dettagli irrilevanti né inquinatela con i fumi dell'invidia e…
Tu non sei colui che pensa
L’inizio della libertà è la realizzazione che tu non sei”colui che pensa”. Il momento in cui cominci ad osservare colui che pensa, si attiva un livello di coscienza più alto. Incominci a renderti ◊◊◊◊◊◊ conto che esiste un vasto regno di una intelligenza al di là del pensiero,e…
I veri miracoli avvengono nella mente
I veri miracoli sono i cambiamenti della mente in modo positivo. Lama Gangchen
Liberarsi della convinzione di non poter avere
Puoi avere ciò che vuoi semplicemente se sei disposto a liberarti della convinzione che tu non puoi averlo. * (Robert Anthony)
Life, The Multiverse And Everything: An Introduction To The Ideas Of Humberto Maturana Interpreting Maturana
The ontology of the observer; languaging is the central problem
For Einstein, scientific theories were seen as the free creations of the human mind which we used to explain the world - but for Maturana, what needs explaining is precisely this "free creation of the human mind", i.e. the way in which the observer brings forth his world. Thus…
Lo Spirito del Giappone (Leonardo Vittorio Arena)
Il buddhismo come scienza del mentale
Il buddhismo è una scienza del mentale di antica derivazione, sorta in India intorno al VI secolo a.C. grazie alla predicazione di Gautama Siddhartha, il Buddha storico. Assunse aspetti cultuali già in India, per poi diffondersi in una vasta area dell’Asia; tra l’altro, in Cina…
Vegliare sulla propria solitudine
Occorre tranquillizzare la mente. Raggiunto quest’obiettivo, spesso indicato nelle storie Zen pur non essendo prerogativa del buddhismo, il resto viene da sé. La serenità di una persona si deduce dalle azioni, anziché dai discorsi. Si può capire se qualcuno è in pace con se…
Wabi: la bellezza del disadorno
La monocromia delle tazze e l’ambiente soffuso della sala da tè riaccennano al wabi: indicano la semplicità della vita, il distacco dalle tonalità accese, impregnate dal disordine mondano. Nel cha no yu è come se si conferisse la bellezza a ogni elemento dell’insieme…
La mente che non è legata a nulla
Del viandante si può affermare questo, attraverso le parole di Nishitani: «La mente di chi abita nel nulla è una mente che non è legata a nulla. Ciò non significa altro che questo: la mente torna alla sua fonte originaria».31 Lo stesso Basho sostiene che la composizione di un…
Shin, cuore e mente (definizione)
Shin. Designa il cuore/mente, le facoltà psichiche ed emotive dell’uomo, mai disgiunte. In certe scuole buddhiste acquista il senso di «coscienza percettiva». Nella psicologia cognitiva contemporanea si può rendere con «coscienza».
Medieval Semiotics (meier-oeser, Stephan)
Changing the perspective of Augustine
Whereas according to Augustine the sign, being an external entity by definition, was precluded from the sphere of the mind, it is now the mental sign, i.e., the mental concept or mental term (terminus mentalis), that is seen as the primary and most principal sign (signum…
Stoics vs augustine
according to the most refined theory of Stoic logicians, a sign in the proper technical sense (semeion) was seen as the abstract propositional content of a sentence insofar it is functioning as the antecedent in a true implication by means of which a hitherto unknown truth is…
Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle)
We lack a neutral vocabulary for the mental
Now what exactly are these assumptions and why are they false? I cannot tell you that just yet. They do not admit of a quick summary without some preliminary work. The first half of this book is in large part about exposing and overcoming those assumptions. It is hard to…
The mental versus the physical
Now this simple contrast between our experiences and the world that exists independently of our experiences invites a characterization, and in our traditional vocabulary the most natural characterization is to say is that there is a distinction between the mental, on the one…
The invention of cognitive science
invention of “cognitive science,” a new discipline that attempts to go deeper into the nature of the mind than was customary in traditional empirical psychology. Cognitive science…
What philosophers mean by intentionality
“Intentionality” is a technical term used by philosophers to refer to that capacity of the mind by which mental states refer to, or are about, or are of objects and states of affairs in the world other than themselves. So, for example, if I have a belief, it must be a belief…
Idealism and materialism as two kinds of monism
The dualists said that there are two kinds of things or properties in the universe, and with the failure of dualism, it is natural to suppose that maybe there is only one kind of thing in the universe. Not surprisingly, this view is called “monism” and it comes in two flavors…
The mental qua mental is physical qua physical
This is one of the most important messages of this book. Once you revise the traditional categories to fit the facts, there is no problem in recognizing that the mental qua mental is physical qua physical. You have to revise the traditional Cartesian definitions of both…
Internalism versus externalism
The view that I have been tacitly assuming throughout this book is a form of internalism. According to internalism, so construed, our intentional contents are entirely a matter of what is inside our heads. Of course they refer to objects and states of affairs in the world. That…
Quotes About Introspection (133 Quotes)
Solitude
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.” ― Aldous Huxley
Shantaram (gregory David Roberts)
Withdrawal, madness and crime
The assault of anxiety on the unprotected mind, the brain without natural endorphins, makes men and women mad. Every junkie going through turkey is mad. The madness is so fierce and cruel that some die of it. And in the temporary insanity of that skinned, excruciated world, we…
Fate shows us what we shouldn't become
Sooner or later, fate puts us together with all the people, one by one, who show us what we could, and shouldn’t, let ourselves become. Sooner or later we meet the drunkard, the waster, the betrayer, the ruthless mind, and the hate-filled heart. But fate loads the dice, of…
The jinx of "It's gonna be okay"
The horse was making me look good. It’s gonna be okay, I whispered to myself, knowing, as the words trotted through the thick fog of vain hope in my mind, that I’d uttered the certain jinx formula.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen R. Covey)
Johnson on the fountain of content
Samuel Johnson observed: “The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to…
Brain dominance theory
A great deal of research has been conducted for decades on what has come to be called brain dominance theory. The findings basically indicate that each hemisphere of the brain—left and right—tends to specialize in and preside over different functions, process different kinds of…
The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
No spooks needed: brains and the cosmos
We have not had to drag in any such spooks as mind, soul, or spirit. We have simply been talking of an interaction between physical vibrations and the brain with its various organs of sense, saying only that creatures with brains are an integral feature of the pattern which…
Metaphysics is fascination with the whole thing
Chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy are special fascinations with the details of our environment, but metaphysics is fascination with the whole thing. I find it almost impossible to imagine a sensitive human being bereft of metaphysical wonder, a person who does not have…
Of what use is the universe?
Of what use is the universe? What is the practical application of a million galaxies? Yet just because it has no use, it has a use—which may sound like a paradox, but is not. What, for instance, is the use of playing music? If you play to make money, to outdo some other artist…
The Ego Trick (baggini, Julian)
Western and East Asian minds aren't so far apart
then we are talking about real and significant differences between the western and East Asian mind, including how westerners and easterners see themselves and others. Nevertheless, Nisbett is right not to make too much of this. It’s not as though the two cultures are so far…
The homunculus and the infinite regress
it is tempting to think that light shines on the retina and then the brain creates from this a single, three-dimensional image. But who sees this image? The temptation is to think (or perhaps more usually assume) that there is a kind of mind’s eye which inspects the image in…
A self flexible enough for constant renovation
This means that very few, if any, parts are critical to its existence, and so it can adapt to sometimes massive losses. However, self does still depend on that functioning brain, and the wrong kind of malfunction can dramatically change it or completely destroy it. To put it…
The computer that thought it was res cogitans
There was a wonderful cartoon that circulated around university departments when I was an undergraduate that dramatised this fallacy beautifully. A thought bubble emerges from a computer. ‘I think,’ it says. In the next frame, ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Cogito ergo sum, in…
Ryle's category mistake
But why is this apparently simple error so common? A convincing explanation was offered by Gilbert Ryle in his 1949 classic The Concept of Mind. Ryle accused dualists of making what he called a ‘category mistake’. They started from the correct idea that thoughts, feelings and…
Team spirit and the ghost in the machine
My favourite of Ryle’s many examples is the person who understands that playing cricket requires team-spirit, but thinks that contributing team-spirit is an activity additional to batting, bowling and fielding, rather than being tied up with the manner of doing all of them.3…
Swinburne: physicalism doesn't face the data
‘The trouble with physicalism,’ Swinburne told me, ‘is that it doesn’t face the data, and the data first of all is the mental life. We have thoughts and feelings and so on and the occurrence of these does not entail the occurrence of goings on in the brain or conversely.’ The…
Mind is embodied and socially situated
any respectable theory will completely agree that mind is what it is because of how it is embodied and socially situated. To say that the social self matters to self-image therefore doesn’t undermine the idea we keep coming back to: our identity is essentially rooted in a…
Origins of the bundle theory
Psychological connectedness and continuity is not the result of any core pearl of self that carries the continuity. Rather, this is sometimes called a ‘bundle theory’. The eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume was the first to use ‘bundle’ in this context, just once. His…
Non-reductive physicalism
This way of looking at things – sometimes called non-reductive physicalism – seems to be the only way to reconcile…
Eliminative materialists feign anaesthesia
The first is that thoughts, feelings, emotions and so on are real. There are some ‘eliminative materialists’ who claim that they aren’t, but in I.A. Richards’s famous phrase, such thinkers seem to ‘feign anaesthesia’,…
Descartes: not a sailor in a ship
a philosopher of Descartes’ undoubted genius is not going to completely miss the fact that this ego is very much embodied. In a passage often quoted by those seeking to defend Descartes against the charge of ignoring the body, he writes: ‘Nature also teaches me, by these…
Mind and body are not different orders
Descartes’ error was to think that mind and body are of different orders, not that mind exists.
Habitual tendencies and the mindstream
That which continues from one life to the next is not the contents of consciousness, such as memories or knowledge of people and places, but the mind’s ‘habitual tendencies’. So if, for example, you have practised mindfulness enough to have extreme mental clarity, then that…
The Psychology Behind Information Dashboards
Three psychological needs behind dashboard design
Any product that has an information dashboard as one of its key offerings should keep the psychological needs of its end users in mind. Users like being in control, they have a limited short-term memory, and they love things that are simple. These three factors should form the…
The Tao Of Topic Maps
A topic can be anything whatsoever
What then is a topic? A topic, in its most generic sense, can be any “thing” whatsoever — a person, an entity, a concept, really anything — regardless of whether it exists or has any other specific characteristics, about which anything whatsoever may be asserted by any means…
Theories of Childhood, Second Edition (Carol Garhart Mooney)
Mind in Society (reference)
Vygotsky, Lev. 1978. Mind in Society. Edited by Michael Cole et al. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.