Mind processes

Human mind (that is the process of thinking and producing expressions) is involved in a continuous dance with four kinds of movements: the reception of impressions; the production of thoughts; the expressions of thoughts, where the expressions are more like incomplete interpretations of the thoughts; and interpretations, the process of contemplating over the expressions and even the previous impressions.

The limits of thinking are in language; and the limits of language are in thinking; and the reception of impressions is limited by thinking; and interpretations are limited by all the other elements.

Consciousness

Thinking and the whole dance is only partially (and do not ask how much) a conscious process - most of the interactions are unconscious.

In philosophy we shall only be concerned with understanding that there is this problem with consciousness vs. unconsciousness. It is totally futile and foreign to philosophical investigations to try to establish the biological nature of consciousness or to try to invent various sorts of consciousness (as Searle does).

Dreaming is a state where the unconscious has almost fully taken over. This is why dreams are so much like art. In dreams we are producing an artistic interpretation of our feelings, where the conscious control is totally removed.

Nothing serves better than �intentionality� (as Searle puts it �the astonishment that we can think about Bush, although he is far away in Washington�) to demonstrate the philosophical problems caused by asking the wrong questions. Searle connects the discussion of �intentionality� with �mental states� � and we can see that both relate to the same trouble of imagining that mental states are thingly entities having an existence or a being (like thinking that the face we see in the mirror would exist). � Searle kind of proceeds from the idea that �the thoughts� are something physical and that they �are� located inside a place called mind. The mental state is not the actor, but the appearance of the acting. Mental states are not things � they (the mental states) do not act; they do not refer to anything; people think and refer; particular individual people refer (and there are no collective brains doing the referring either). - Now the solution to this �problem� is to understand that what they call intentionality is just one way (a misconceived one) to define (or talk about) �thinking�. - So therefore instead of bemusing over �intentionality� we should bring the idea back to ordinary life and talk about thinking, and now instead of asking �why is there intentionality� the question should be �How is it that we can think?� � And that is subject for a biological or religious inquiry � and not a philosophical question!

The dichotomy physical phenomena and mental phenomena is wrong to start with. Physical phenomena must be about how things interact, and therefore by analogy they take �mental phenomena� i.e. the interaction of expressions and interpretations to function similarly. But this very analogy is wrong, there is nothing to compare � there are no mental phenomena; there is the physical world and mental interpretations.

Searle promotes a so-called philosophy of mind, and claims that in this activity they will find the answer to the question: �What does it mean to be human?� � Although this is the supposed advantage of �philosophy of mind�, no reply followed! � (We ask if this thing �philosophy of mind� is broken or why does it not spit out the answer?).

Searle regards philosophy of mind as more fundamental than philosophy of language (p.7), this because �our use of language is an expression of our more fundamental mental capacities, and we will not fully understand the functioning of language until we see how it is grounded in our mental abilities.� The latter part of the statement is true, but again that is a biological question � there is no room for philosophical bewilderment there. - Searle had correctly identified �The psychological� as �just the neurobiological described at a higher level� (Searle, p. 159). But this leads to the problem we could state as �asserting that an article in a newspaper, or a book, is just the computer technology described at a higher level�, i.e. we are here dealing with the fundamental misconceptions of philosophy and science. Neurobiology may well give an insight to some of the aspects of how the organism functions; through this study we receive knowledge about the human as well as the animal organisms. And the insight is that we are dealing with interpretations of feelings; that we have feelings and that they are expressed in manifold of ways; and that these can be seen as having a purpose for the overall functioning of the body. � But that is it! This is as far as they can take us with biology. It is at this point that the connection between biology and philosophy is interrupted.

We are clear with the body/mind dilemma, but now we have the thing/expression dilemma Being �part of nature� does not mean that all in nature are �things� � it is wrong to characterize mental phenomena as being part of nature � because it does not tell anything about what mental phenomena are all about, but wrongfully convenes the idea that they are things-in-themselves.