{"id":10883,"date":"2020-08-13T20:01:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T03:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=10883"},"modified":"2020-09-08T20:10:22","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T03:10:22","slug":"mind-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2020\/08\/13\/mind-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind-time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

from aeon<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mathematics of mind-time<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The special trick of consciousness is being able to project action and time into a range of possible futures<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Karl Friston<\/a>
edited by Sally Davies<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Photo by Steve McCurry\/Magnum<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

have a confession. As a physicist and psychiatrist, I find it difficult to engage with conversations about consciousness. My biggest gripe is that the philosophers and cognitive scientists who tend to pose the questions often assume that the mind is a thing<\/em>, whose existence can be identified by the attributes it has or the purposes it fulfils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in physics, it\u2019s dangerous to assume that things \u2018exist\u2019 in any conventional sense. Instead, the deeper question is: what sorts of processes give rise to the notion (or illusion) that something exists? For example, Isaac Newton explained the physical world in terms of massive bodies that respond to forces. However, with the advent of quantum physics, the real question turned out to be the very nature and meaning of the measurements upon which the notions of mass and force depend \u2013 a question that\u2019s\u00a0still debated today<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a consequence, I\u2019m compelled to treat consciousness as a process to be understood, not as a thing to be defined. Simply put, my argument is that consciousness is nothing more and nothing less than a natural process such as evolution or the weather. My favourite trick to illustrate the notion of\u00a0consciousness as a process<\/em>\u00a0is to replace the word \u2018consciousness\u2019 with \u2018evolution\u2019 \u2013 and see if the question still makes sense. For example, the question\u00a0What is consciousness for?<\/em>\u00a0becomes\u00a0What is evolution for?<\/em>Scientifically speaking, of course, we know that evolution is not\u00a0for<\/em>\u00a0anything. It doesn\u2019t perform a function or have reasons for doing what it does \u2013 it\u2019s an unfolding process that can be understood only on its own terms. Since we are all the product of evolution, the same would seem to hold for consciousness and the self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[ click to continue reading at aeon<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from aeon The mathematics of mind-time The special trick of consciousness is being able to project action and time into a range of possible futures by Karl Fristonedited by Sally Davies have a confession. As a physicist and psychiatrist, I find it difficult to engage with conversations about consciousness. My biggest gripe is that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weirdness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}