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

https://hrcak.srce.hr/147677

Publication date:

31.10.2015.

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