Meditation Two: The Creation of Minds

Five Meditations on The Nature of Mind

Meditation Two: The Creation of Minds

By E. Hoffmann

Before moving to the topic of this part of the essay, it is useful to review what was discussed in the first part.

Agents are driven by appetites to recognize images in nature that they use as triggers for activity that shall satisfy the needs or appetite of the agent. The term image is chosen for it’s one dimensionality, not because of it’s connection with visual data. The example of an image would be the shift to a colder temperature that causes a tree to shed its leaves. In the case of plants, this is called instinct, and out of instinct grows intellect. The difference between instinct and intellect is the adaptability and acceleration that is achieved in animals. What may take plants generations to adapt as a trigger for activity can be done in days or minutes in an animal; depending on how developed the intellect of the animal is. The reason for this difference is that animals are mobile and cannot take nutrients directly from a non organic environment as plants do from sunlight and air; thus animals must have greater flexibility and adaptability to survive. In humans, another step is taken in the continuum of consciousness to imagination. The power of the imagination is the ability to sublate the image into an abstract idea. When the image becomes an abstract idea, the trigger has been separated from the action; the action is only imagined instead of acted out and the image trigger stands for the activity. The advantage of abstract ideas is they can be communicated or posited with other abstract ideas to form a constellation, and with constellations we come to the origin of minds. One more thing must be said about abstract ideas: the activity they represent is processed as future activity. On the most basic level , an agent is always trying to look into the future. This ... is the power of imagination.

The ability to posit constellations of abstract ideas leads to the creation of minds. In other words, the ability to put abstract ideas together in groups to serve a purpose creates minds. In what follows, we shall observe three types of mind: the individual mind, the private mind and the standard mind. It must be remembered that all three types of minds form a continuum thus bleeding into each other.

The individual mind is the mind of a single individual. The purpose of this mind is so the individual can realize her existence. Much like a turtle needs a shell and a panther needs is strength and speed. The mind of an individual is centered around a mysterious abstraction known as the “I”. We shall begin with a mystery, it being the location of the “I”. Most modern people would locate their “I” somewhere in the center center of their head; though this has not always been the case. No less a thinker than Aristotle located the “I” in the heart region of the chest, and there are many primitive people who would agree. It is not only some classical Greeks and primitive people who have other locations for the “I”; the psychologist Julian Jaynes tells of a patient suffering from severe head trauma who located his “I” outside his body during the time of his recovery. Why different peoples at different times have located the “I” where they did is a mystery for the future to solve.

What can be said about the “I” is that it is an abstraction of the continuous delusion (fooling) of being alive. The “I” is also a necessary component the imagination needs to work. The imagination needs an “I” to be subject of the imagined activity; this is usually termed as self-reflection. And this brings us to the classical problem associated with self-reflection. The problem is a term of the infinite regress argument: to observe an “I” involved in a contemplated activity there must be an “I” that does the observing and so on to infinity. The thinker J.G. Fichte tried to solve this problem by making self-reflection part of the structure of the “I”, but this leads to an “I” with infinite tiers. The solution is suggested  by G.W.F. Hegel in the context of a different problem. The imagination has the quality of infinity; this needs to be explained: when we think of infinity, we generally think of it in a mathematical context, as an infinite series of digits. An example would be Pi, which can be carried out infinitely. Hagel would call this infinite series a spurious idea of infinity. Instead it is an equation or ratio that is capable of generating the infinite series that has the quality of infinity. Thus we have our solution! The imagination has the capability of producing a theoretical infinite number of I’s. In the above problem of infinite regress we only observed theoretical infinity in a vertical manner; latter in the essay we shall observe the more practically important horizontal manner. Now we can come to grips with the individual mind.

   The individual mind is concerned with how potential activity impacts the imagining agent. This means the consequences an activity shall produce in the agent's life. Back in childhood all of us were told, to think before you act. Thus, we are in the the subjective realm; where everything is judged in relation to the I. This is also the realm where value and character have their orgins. We shall observe value first, because much of a person's character is determined by value. Value is originally created by relating potential activity to the I; if the activity leads to satisfing the aims of the agent, the activity is judged as having a high value. It would be tedious to go through the history os the economic life of humankind, so we shall move to character.

  It has been said many times that character is systematized habit. We observed in the first part of this essay how images can trigger activity. Character is the image-triggers  that are learned in early childhood. These image-triggers are held deeply primaly that they cannot be called ideas,because they are not sublated. These core image-triggers is what we call character. Much of modern psychology is concerned with sublating these images into abstract ideas, the imagination can examine the activity the image triggers. The alert reader should not have any trouble working out how our theory applies to sports training and other specialized training an indivedual wants to acquire. Of course, with the individual mind we are always in the subjective realm, because everything is evaluated in relation of how it affects the I. The alert reader is may be reminded of how Kant made causality a catagory of perception. Questions concerning causation and freedom shall be dealt with in another medation. Now it is time to move to the private mind.

   The private mind is the transitional mode from the subjective view to the objective view,as it contains elements of both the the subjective and objective view. As we shall observe the subjective is always prior to the objective. The objective view is always created out of the subjective view. The objective elements are those that are shared by more than one agent. The subjective elements are expressed by being concerned with the aims or purposes of a group of agents. These purposes may conflict with the aims of other groups. The private mind finds its most common expression in family life or religous life. The private mind is where intersubjectivty has its orgin. As was said before the imagination is capable of producing a theoretical infinity of I's. We observed the vertical form of this process which leads to higher and higher orders of observation. The vertical mode of thes process is mostly the interest of people interested in theory. Now, we shall encounter the horozontal mode of the process of projecting I's; which is of interest to everyone. An example should help to illustrate what is being said: in primitive religion there are sun-gods,sea-gods,tree-spirits,etc. What is happening is that the imagination of agent or group of agentsis projecting an I into natural objects and processes. An I that the agent assumes has the same emotions and responses as the agent. This very soon leads to a pantheon of gods as in classical Greece and Rome. When this process of projecting I's on other humans happens the results are more satisfactory, since humans are similar in structure mental as well as physical. Through this reciprocity groups of humans learn to cooperate. Thus we have the orgins religion and society. In religion and small social groups, people have the same motives and values. When a group holds the same objects and or ideas in veneration and despises the objects and or ideas; we have a private mind.This is the mind of family and riligion. The private mind is where humankind has shown itself capable of both great and terrible actions, for it is the realm of loyalty and strong emotions. As we know humans are not a solitary species; but a social species. The abilty of humans to communicate abstract ideas led to the creation of the private mind.

   In the private mind the same words are triggers for the group, for imagining or doing an activity. And of course, in the dynamics of agroup some activities have more emotional contint than others. When the group agrees on the value of an activity; we have a group motive. As was said before this leads to strong emotions, by being reinforced by the whole group. This can lead to both great and terrible deeds. Lit us turn our gaze back again to the classical paginism of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Classical paganism was for the most part a very tolerent religion. The reason for this is that it was opened ended. There was no rapture or utopia awaiting its followers. Gods and spirits came and went, their popularity fluctuating with the times. Most families are the same way, roles change, family members come and go; there is no end point. A private mind becomes dangerous when it is close ended. When the agents of a private mind their goal threatened they become intolerent and dangerous. Of course, great twentith century example is Marxism and communism. Almost all the genocide in the twentith century was commited by agents trying to realize their communist utopia; even if it meant killing everyone who stood in their way.

   To summerize the private mind: it is the mind shared by a group of agents who have the same or similar motives. This leads the group to have a strong emotional bond; which is beneficial when opened ended, but can become dangerous when close ended. Now we move to the objective realm with standard minds.

    To create the objective view the imagination must use its power to create a theoretical infinity of I's. This infinity of I's must be a horizontal infinity. For in the objective view the ratios and relations must be the same for everyone. Therefore the imagination must take into account every possible view.

      Standard minds are the true universe of philosophy. As we have already observed minds built up from images that are sublated into abstract ideas. Abstract ideas are imagined activity. The imagined activity is always processed on the primal level as future activity, it takes considerable sophistication to start writing history. History in literature shall be dealt with  in a later mediation. What standard minds are: is constellation of abstract ideas that posit a paradigm of the stable activity, which form the basis for objective judgement. The best explanation of standard minds occurs in "Space, Time, and Diety" by Samuel Alexander. Samuel Alexander spoke of tertiarty qualties. Tertiary qualities are judgements that involve three elements: the empirical object or action to be judged, the intentions of the agents , and the paradigm that is used as a standard.

       The best example is the practice of law. The object or action is the alleged action or property under dispiute. The agent is the defendent, and the standard paradigm is the body of the law.

   Like law, standard minds must be able to  be understoond by anyone who takes the time to study them. Everyone should be able to follow the ratios and relations involved in the inferences and judgments if taken the time to study the paradigm, this is what makes them objective. All sciences and academic disciplines work on the standard mind as the alert reader has already realized the minds are all concerned with judgments; the individual agent, the private mind with intersubjective judgments, and the standard mind with objective judgments. The next meditation shall take up the questions of coherence and mind.                                       

      End of meditation II.