Outline of a new approach to the nature of mind

ITM = Intentional TM       AITM = AI TM

UTM = Use TM             Id.TM = Ideational TM

LTM = Linguistic TM BTM = Behavioural TM

In what follows I propose a theory of meaning that put the MBI hypothesis on an
empirical basis.¹² The assumption requires human meanings to be identified with
neural formations.¹³ Consequently, and most significantly, one has, first, to crack the
fundamental problem of delineating a class of meaningful neural formations. The
following two definitions provide conditions that do just this.

Definition-2: For an animal A, I call neural formation, N, a structure of interacting
sub-cellular components across nerve cells able to influence the survival or
reproduction of A.

A clear example of N is a synapse; any type of neuronal synapse. A second
example is the type of structure developed by the interaction among astrocytes, pre-
synaptic and post-synaptic terminals. I italicized ‘interacting’ to emphasize the fact
that processes are part and parcel of neural formations. As is well known such
interactions involve extremely complex reentrants. The reader will also have noticed
that I used the word ‘structure’ rather than system in the above definition. The reason
is that I wanted to avoid drawing any connotations of necessary completeness and, on
the contrary, I wanted to indicate the sense of potential fleeting existence. In other
words, neural formations may be either sort-term or long-term. Naturally in
accordance with standard biology, the cardinality, size, shape, composition and
interconnections of neural formations change over time. These characteristics are
aspects of what I mean by the term ‘complexity’ of a neural formation. The time
dependence of such neural complexity (i.e., its evolutionary development) gives rise,
through phylogenetic changes, to multiple types of, potentially qualitative,
complexity. Table 3 tentatively introduces some indicative levels of such neural
complexity.

Two more points should be noted. First, the proposed notion is heavily based on
Hebb’s (1949, 1980) notion of cell assemblies. Their key difference boils down to the
former being more inclusive allowing for instance the possibility of non-synaptic
plasticity (Kandel & Pittinger 1999; Bollmann & Engert 2009) and non-neuronal
correlates of mental abilities (e.g., Bennett 2007). Second, neural formations are not,
necessarily, mental representations (see definition-16). The next definition delineates
the class of meaningful neural formations and therefore extends the traditional sense
of meaning. As we shall see it is used to redefine the traditional senses of meaning
(definitions 5, 6 and relation (2)). It is thus a truly foundational notion (cf. the
memory-meaning postulate in 2.1.1.2).

Definition-3: For an animal with nerve tissue, A, a neural formation is meaningful
(symbol Nm), if and only if it is an N that influences the attention of that A.

Two remarks should be made here: (i) on the nature of attention; and (ii) on the
verifiability of Nm. My main justification for making attention the distinguishing
feature of the class Nm (the time-dependent totality of all Nm structures) is threefold:
its relation to working memory (e.g., Baddeley 2003; Postle 2006); James’ attribution
of the features of “degree of reactive spontaneity”, focalization, and interest, and
Freud’s attribution of special significance to the link of ‘attention’ to the unconscious.
The very considerable amount of subsequent psychological research has not

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