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STRUCTURES OF MIND
Foreword
At the first glance the reality of the outer world and of
things existing out there appears obvious and simple.
I see an apple out there in the garden. I perceive it as
a spectrum of sense impressions, as a green spheroid,
precisely situated within the garden. I touch it and find it
there where I see it, spherical and compact. I recall its
taste and if I bite into it, my mouth confirms it. I may
examine its fabric with a microscope, I may cut it, mash it,
make it to jam or to jelly.
One wonders why philosophers complicated during millennia
this simple obviousness, pretending that what I perceive is
not a real apple, but some sort of "ideal" appearance.
Not all, by the way. Several "realists" tried to snatch the
apples from the garden and to sell them in various dressings
and sauces.
Some, called "naive", gave up all dressing and presented
apples in their naked simplicity, "just as we see them".
A good example is the well known argument of G.E. Moore:
**Here is a hand, (Motions with hand). And here is another
(Motions with other hand). Therefore, Idealism is false.**
Such thinking with hands is indeed very simple. But if we
introduce the head, things get a bit more complex. Let's
consider some basic types of events, starting with
perception.
PERCEPTION
Focusing on the apple I perceive it steady and fixed in its
3D sphericity and other sense impressions, but when I center
on the garden behind, strange things happen. The compact
spheroid splits into two flat disks hazy and transparent,
letting the garden to be seen through with clarity. Is the
apple still there, or it decayed into two blurred shadows?
When I focus on one of them, the other jumps to join it and
there it is back again, the green, opaque, spherical apple,
mysteriously knocked together from two blurred shadows. But
what happened to the garden when I focused on the apple?
All trees and bushes behind the green, opaque spheroid split
into couples of blurred shadows, some closer-, some farther
apart, muddled up in confused, undistinguishable mess. So,
the garden, our world out there, would also consist of flat
blurs, every now and then covering one another and making
snapshots of opaque 3D objects, scrambling the rest to
chaotic mess?
Making a mountain out of a molehill - one might say - Simple
stereoscopy. Two slightly different views of the apple on
each retina fuse in the brain to the 3D object. Agreed, but
then the apple I perceive would be a construct of my brain,
not the apple out there. Projection, representation of it,
perhaps, but construct of my brain anyway.
But even that view - though compatible with superficial
ophthalmology - would not satisfy a neurologist, who would
say: - All I see in brain and retinas are EM waves, which
are deemed covariant, but certainly not identical with
certain sense impressions. And we clearly experience sense
impressions, not waves, so we necessarily need some sort of
support of their covariance with waves, which we shall call
"mind".
So, finally, the sense impressions I experience and the apple
they make up are constructs of my mind.
"Mind" defined as continuous background support of sensual
events is a synonym of "awareness" as defined in "TIME,
AWARENESS AND EVENTS", better fit for structuring and for
the currently vital "Mind-Brain" Problem (see "MIND AND BRAIN").
IMAGERY
Mind's faculty supporting perception will be called "Imagery"
to keep it compatible with another essential function -
Imagination. Elements of imagery will be called Images, of
which percepts are a subclass.
"Image" is a strict synonym of "Event" as defined in "TIME,
AWARENESS AND EVENTS". Due to common usages, it's easier to
talk about events in the most general context of ontology
and about images in the much more specific one, that of
mind and its structures.
SENSORIUM
Images are brought about amongst others by sensations. We
have seen that a tactile sensation induces fully fledged
green, spheroid, compact image of apple. Sensations' output
provides input of Imagery setting off perceptual images as
maps of a hypothetical territory assumed as input of
sensations, but unattainable and incognizable as such,
which we shall call "Transcendency".
On the other hand, I may chose to pick the apple and this
event of volition will output into kinesthetic sensations,
closing the perceptual-motor coupling.
Calling "Sensorium" the mind's faculty handling sensations,
we may consider Imagery as a map of a hypothetical,
unattainable, transcendental territory, projected by
Sensorium.
SYMBOLISM
We have seen in "TIME, AWARENESS AND EVENTS" that events
function as clocks integrating the fundamental continuity
of time/awareness into periods bounded by their ticks and
conserving in between the continuous fabric. It holds of
course for images, synonymous with events and due to the
universality of the CD dichotomy we naturally seek a
discrete counterpart of the intrinsic continuity of images.
We find it in Symbols. Images may be mapped to symbols
which act psychologically as mnemonic pointers and
physically as fixed point attractors.
We shall call "Symbolism" the mind's faculty handling
abstract symbols and consider it as the discrete complement
of continuous images.
Images are seldom reduced to single percepts, like the apple
of our example. Usually they represent compound patterns or
"situations" in the sense Sartre gave this term, which are
mapped to Symbolism as complex abstract structures e.g.
linguistic, logical and mathematical expressions.
We have seen that sensations provide perceptual input to
Imagery, which is intuited as "real". Concepts represent
another input source of "conceptual" images.
RECOLLECTION ET (RE)COGNITION
Images are memorized. Previously memorized ones may be
recalled to Awareness. A newly perceived Image may be
recognized as homomorphic with a recalled one, in which case
it will be considered as known.
Recognition underlies Cognition: an Image is known when it's
recognized.
REFLECTION AND MEANING
"Reflection" will denote the faculty of reciprocal transfers
between Imagery and Symbolism, involving:
1."Symbolizing" or Mapping Images into symbolic or abstract
structures.
2."Understanding", or regressing symbolic Structures to
Images, which embody their "Meaning".
ABSTRACTIONS POSTULATE
In the light of above defined reflection and meaning we may
specify the Abstractions Postulate (AP) which underlies
science and epistemology since the Second Scientific Revolution
of the Extended Relativity:
**
Abstract, symbolic constructs may be justified solely by
their capacity to coordinate events which represent their
unique meaning and justification, where coordination of
events implies considering them in their context, i.e.
upon their background of continuum.
**
TRANSCENDENCY AND IMMANENCY
Meaning by "reality" all what's experiential, it is entirely
mental and immanent, encompassed by sensations and percepts
of Imagery.
However, Sensorium acts as a mapper, mapping Imagery maps of
some hypothetical territory which we shall call
"Transcendency". As it's undeniable, that sensations map an
ordered immanent reality of Imagery, temptation arises to
regress it to its hypothetical territory posited as the
"real world out there" homomorphic with the constructs and
the order of Imagery. Yet, no matter how tenacious and
persistent this temptation may be, the assumed transcendental
reality of percepts is an illusory "transcendental reification".
(My) reality stays immanent and mental, that of (my)
Sensations and Images.
We say with Einstein: -(transcendental) reality is merely
an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.-
"Existence" being for us equivalent with "reality", all
above applies to it as well and, unless it's clear from the
context we shall similarly qualify it as "transcendental" or
"immanent".
It's undeniable, that sensations, though stemming arbitrarily
from incognizable transcendency, trigger ordered immanent
reality of images and, that, on the other hand, mind's faculty
of cognition guides us through their labyrinth allowing to
survive, to reproduce and to avoid oncoming buses.
To quote Einstein:
**... this fact is one which leaves us in awe, but which
we shall never understand. One may say "the eternal mystery
of the world is its comprehensibility."**
As our essay endeavors to define the ontology emerging from
the Second Scientific Revolution of Einstein's Relativity,
it seems interesting to note that our structure of mind is
a refinement and a generalization of Einstein's view
presented in his "PHYSICS AND REALITY" of 1936 and that both
views agree entirely in two essential points:
1.The apparent "reality" is immanent and mental.
2.Abstract concepts guide us through the labyrinth of
apparently "real" percepts.
Differences concern details: Einstein's view looks at the
first glance as ours, reduced to Sensorium and Symbolism
and lacking Imagery. However, Einstein says:
**I believe that the first step in the setting of a
"real external world" is the formation of the concept of
bodily objects** (bodily objects constructed by mind from
the sensory output).
We believe that our structure refines "PHYSICS AND REALITY"
by specifying explicitly three defined above faculties of
mind which the latter only implies:
1.Imagery handling these "bodily objects" and presenting
them to the awareness as images or patterns of sense
impressions.
2.Symbolism, handling abstract concepts and structures
associated with images of "bodily objects".
3.Reflection, the faculty of reciprocal transfers between
Imagery and Symbolism, supporting meaning and understanding.
We also believe that our Imagery generalized Einstein's
view, confined to physics, extending it over the
imaginary "world" of psyche, art, ethics and logic.
