
Where is my mind? - robg
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n03/fodo01_.html
======
Allocator2008
I think the author is right, but in the wrong way.

He posits that mind vs. world dualism is mistaken because I can for example
map addresses on my iPhone, thereby allowing me to store memories of different
locations in my iPhone instead of my brain, therefore the iPhone is part of my
"mind", therefore separating mind from external world is mistaken.

I think there is truth here, but I would go further - that just as in a LAN
many terminals can access the same file, and therefore the separation between
terminals is fuzzy, so too "mind" is a fuzzy concept much as "terminal" is a
fuzzy concept in a LAN. Where does one terminal end and the next begin? Where
does one "mind" begin and the next end?

Maybe instead of attacking mind vs. external world dualism we need to re-
evaluate mind. To me it is perfectly valid to say the brain can "out source"
certain tasks, like storing locations in an iPhone, and therefore the line
between "outside world" and "inside world" gets blurred. But instead of saying
my iPhone is part of my "mind", let's say the iPhone gets read and written to
by the threads of my brain. Let's look at the iPhone not as "part of mind" but
as an external hard drive written to and read from by the threads of my brain.
At the end, there is no "mind" as an irreducible entity. There is only a
multi-threaded neural network application in the wetware of a naked ape lately
out of Africa.

The real dualism to attack is not "mind" vs. "outside world" but "brain" vs.
"mind". There is no "mind" per ce in my opinion. What we call "mind" are the
threads running in the brain, nothing more or less.

