INDECS, Vol. 13 No. 4, 2015.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.7906/indecs.13.4.2
Some Reflections on the Possibility of Naturalizing the Mind
Andrej Ule
; Faculty of Arts – University of Ljubljana
Abstract
The article examines whether it is possible to provide a coherent naturalist account of the emergence of the mind (spirit), construed as a plethora of mental abilities that are present in living beings. I analyze Bateson’s information-system theory of mind, Peirce’s theory of semiotics, and some biosemiotic proposals. All of these conceptions fail to provide a plausible theoretical explanation of the emergence of the mind, particularly (i) the emergence of the interpreters of signs, and (ii) the emergence of the experiential perspective out of the non-living nature. I argue for a hypothesis based on the idea of the trans-objective perspectivity dimension, i.e. the real possibility of acquiring a more or less distinctive experiential perspective in the form of like-to-be-X for all sufficiently developed natural entities. Taking on an experiential perspective also entails a greater sensitivity to not only actual, but also potential events, e.g. a greater sensitivity to everything that can be “useful” or “harmful” to the system in question.
Keywords
mind (spirit); information system; semiosis; biosemantics; experiential perspective
Hrčak ID:
147677
URI
Publication date:
31.10.2015.
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