Chapter 8     Part B 

The human mind is therefore left, in the first place, with a cheerful pragmatism. Like the cartoon centipede, I cannot say which foot comes first. I simply move. I have to. And the human mode of survival is called "intelligent" because the human brain contains sense-data-processing systems which enable us to categorize and manipulate sense-data memories and categories of memories (concepts), then devise action plans that, when they are put into practice, get us good results. Our thinking systems enable us to plan and execute survival-oriented behaviors at least two levels more prescient than those seen in any other species, even though these systems of memory manipulation are all arbitrary and tentative.

They are arbitrary in the sense that they do not, as Plato would say, "cut nature at the joints".(1.) They do not divide reality at the places where it naturally falls into categories of things. Under a modern scientific view of reality, nature has no joints. There are no universals. There aren’t even any terms that reliably name entities. Even "I" am not the "I" I was ten years ago. Not even ten minutes ago.

However, the human styles of evolving new concepts and new behavior patterns by constant mental and cultural re-programming are very much not arbitrary in a deeper sense. We cannot function without some kinds of concepts by which to organize our sense-data and respond to them. If a vital program is to be retired, it can only be retired when a replacement is ready to be put in. Hazards and predators are everywhere. We are slow and weak. Yet we dominate our planet to a degree unparalleled by any other species in the history of Earth. Using our minds filled with concepts, we have devised practical skills, technologies, production teams, communities, and cultures, and we flourish. This is how I conceive of, and explain, my concepts about concepts.

In the second place, the mind is left with a picture of itself that amounts to a kind of realistic humility. If reality is that slippery and hard to grasp, then I have to accept that, in it, I can never get smug. I have to have a coherent set of concepts to base my thinking on so that I can perceive and act in this reality that requires me to act. But I can't ever get smug about my way of thinking. It may prove inadequate at any time, no matter how carefully I have worked it out, and no matter how vigilant I am. I may have to learn and revise at any time. An honest, modern thinker has to gamble on gambling as being the best gamble. I may be very tough, smart, versatile, and educated, but I will still have to grow and change in this world until the end of my days. I know and accept that. It is a way of conceiving of myself and my existence that makes life look frightening and unnerving ...and challenging and exciting. 

Bayesianism can talk in a coherent way about what minds do, if first we accept that such things as minds exist. The Bayesian mind is a system of programs capable of data processing, storage, and manipulation, running on a constantly active, probability-calculating platform system, deciding second by second which applications to use and which files to open, always aimed at prime objectives of self and species perpetuation. It manifests itself in the material world, namely in the chemistry of my brain, whenever I physically see, hear, feel, smell, or taste a bunch of sense data and then spot a, usually familiar, pattern in them. Sometimes, in events around me, I even see a new pattern, what is usually called a "causal connection". This brain chemistry pattern change is experienced subjectively as an "Aha!" moment. It is a trait of life, and most especially, human life. No computer program, so far, can do it. 

However, Bayesianism does not pretend to say in any more precise detail what a human mind is.

The mind ultimately is its own greatest mystery. Or rather, as nearly as minds can make out, the mind is one of the most successful manifestations of that greater mystery, life itself. In other words, it is an entity whose precursors are built into the human genome. Once the basic neurological structure is built, once the baby is born, the structure is stocked with culture-programming by the older members of that human's society. The being that results is then driven by its very nature to seek a healthy direction, from the molecular level on up to cells, organs, the individual, her family, her society, and her (or his) species. To learn and grow. Why? We don't know. Life’s love of itself is an unanalyzable given.

      A miracle by definition is an event which seems incorrigibly to defy all rational and empirical explanation. For us today, old style miracles likely are over. But the most amazing phenomenon that a modern human mind will ever encounter, but never "know", is itself. You are your own greatest wonder.

For our goal of constructing a moral code that is founded on our best understanding of reality, these last three chapters have served only one purpose. They have left us with a model of the mind - and what it does as it “thinks” and “knows” - called "Bayesianism". A mind is an odds-weighing program that has as its prime directive the preservation of all material conditions necessary for transmitting the program itself forward through time. I think in order to better design and implement my actions in ways that will raise the odds that I, my kids, my tribe, and my species will keep on being able to think.

The only really paralyzing confusions in my mind about how this prime directive may be best achieved occur when I am trying to decide between the preservation of myself and that of some others outside myself. Our most interesting literature dramatizes such situations because we find them intimidating, challenging, and fascinating. What we are looking for in such literature is models which could be used to guide us through possible future situations in which we may have to choose between saving ourselves and saving our kids, our nation, or our species. 

"Hamlet" still holds the stage for exactly this reason. He can’t see any point or purpose in this life of treachery in which the bad succeed by being bad. But in the end, he realizes that, at a minimum, he is willing to die for the restoration of order in his and his father’s beloved country, Denmark. The rest he will leave for God to sort out.

There are, of course, no neat, simple answers to such questions, no unfailingly reliable guides. Reality is uncertain, subtle, complex, and frightening. No sets of programs that we can devise will ever enable us to live in reality without running into anxious challenges and rude surprises. Still, in the final analysis, reality is where we must live. Therefore, in our universe, it is sad but true that a moderate, but constant, anxiety is the natural human condition. Anxiety is the downside for us of the stochastic nature of the real world; the upside is freedom. If we are brave enough, we learn to relish life as challenge. 

Notes 

1.http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?  
  doc=plat.+phaedrus+265e