✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

Mind is About Information

incompleteideas.net · 742 words · saved by 1 readers

What is the mind? Of course, "mind" is just a word, and we can mean anything we want by it. But if we examine the way we use the word, and think about the kinds of things we consider more mindful than others, I would argue that the idea of choice is the most important. We consider things to be more or less mindful to the extent that they appear to be making choices. To make a choice means to distinguish, and to create a difference. In this basic sense the mind is about information. Its essential function is to process bits into other bits. This position has two elements: The idea that the mind's activities are best viewed as information processing, as computation, has become predominant in our sciences over the last 40 years. People do not doubt that minds have physical, material form, of course, either as brains or perhaps as computer hardware. But, as is particularly obvious in the latter case, the hardware is often unimportant. Is is how the information flows which matters. I like t

Mind is About Information Mind is About Information Rich Sutton 11/19/2001 What is the mind? Of course, "mind" is just a word, and we can mean anything we want by it. But if we examine the way we use the word, and think about the kinds of things we consider more mindful than others, I would argue that the idea of choice is the most important. We consider things to be more or less mindful to the extent that they appear to be making choices. To make a choice means to distinguish, and to create a difference. In this basic sense the mind is about information . Its essential function is to process

Explore this link on the map →

related reading