Dear Terry,

you wrote, in part:

>>>>>
I suggest, any ideas we have about how  we think and what
are minds are  illusions/delusions as a matter of course. An example of a
similar situation, if you do a calculation on a calculator, you can watch
yourself and attempt to infer what is going on in the calculator (equivalent
of watching yourself thinking). You can even get to the point that you can
believe your theory of how the calculator works (equivalent of theory of
mind) is right because it fits all the available evidence that you see in
how the calculator responds (equivalent of confirmation with self
-perception of a theory of thinking and mind). Almost certainly you are
wrong and  the calculator internally does not work anything like you have
deduced (e.g. it may be working using reverse polish  or...). There is
likely no elements of what happens are similar to your model of how the
calculator works (equivalent of theory of mind is a self-perceptual
illusion/fallacy). This seems to be a useful a general principle: the
subjective and objective worlds are incommensurable. 
 
>>> Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> 03/06/12 12:08 PM >>> 

I suggest that the calculator works exactly as I think it works. That is, based on my understanding of the expected outcome of my operating a calculator, I will, or will NOT, say "the calculator works".  For example, if I want it to add 2 and 2 and 2 and it gives the answer of 6, then I will say that it works. When, however, I ask it to give me the square root of 2 and then multiply the answer by itself and it gives me back 2 then I know, even more, that the calculator works. Why? Because it gives back false information based on a set of rules that only a person with a mind would bother inventing.

Of course I am giving a "mindful" definition to the word "work" but then the concept of "work" only makes sense to a mind. The sub-atomic operations of particles located in proximity to the calculator might be described as "works of god" or "works of nature", but again, such concepts only make sense to a mind. The fact that all relationships are a bridging of the incommensurable, including my current account of relationships, simply points to the infinite regress of all forms of realism ( there will always need to be another state/thing/event to attempt to deal with the next illusion or layer of the onion).

One might ask "what do atoms do" but then we are still faced with the realization that any general account is inadequate for any instance and any instance always exceeds itself and hence fails to be defined in particular.

Sure, there is no bucket in my head that amounts to a "mind" and one might better talk, as I do above, of "mindfulness" but I still await serious experiments that show what is happening when we are rehearsing, when we are reiterating, when we are practicing, when we are calling to mind knowledge as distinct to memories.

Cheers

keith