Requirements to know:
Causality warmup
In the universe and causality we talked about cause and effect. We talked that there is no randomness. We talked that nothing is contingent and everything is conditioned. As so far, we know the determined rules by nature, for example physics.
But in this post I shall write about:
- How cause and effect works in our mind internally and externally.
- What are the rules of mind and how it works.
- What free will means and how we don't have it.
- How ideas work and how our mind shaped.
What is mind and how it works?
Mind is a complex dynamic system of network causality kind as a unified entity.
In Causality we defined 4 types of causality. Mind is of the network causality kind, since smallest changes lead to change the final outcome, like weather and butterfly effect. In here psychologist explains how mind works by using chaos theory example. Just like a very complex system which is reflecting the chaos theory. In corporation of cause and effect, he explains that a small change in the childhood can cause a big change in the personality of the person. We will talk more about psycho-analysis and how personality shapes in the next sections.
Like weather, doesn't matter what kind of prediction or model we use, we can't have certainty for mind. One single event in childhood can change the outcome of our behavior in the current moment as it effects our personality.
I say unified entity to enhance the idea that interfaces, logic, feelings are not separate entities, but all are part of the same unified entity, exactly unlike the weather which is a combination of many entities like temperature, humidity, pressure, etc.
How inside of the mind works?
Brain contains 86 billion neurons, and each neuron has 7000 synaptic connections to other neurons. No need to say that brain is the most complex organ in the body. Because every neuron is connected to others, so everything effects on everything.
Why you should want to know these things?
We naturally don't know the causes of our emotions and the way we make decision we make based on which specific knowledge, as humans, we just intuitively do it. But if you crave to know how your mind works, you would have the key to the true freedom of understanding, not only external world, but also understanding our mind.
Understanding how emotions, imaginations, knowledge, errors, ideas, free will and memory all fit together and what are the differences and what are there origin. We also assert each kind of knowledge to find the way to free will and true freedom to see how it's related to understanding.
Idea as mode of mind
We know all attributes have mode. The mode of substance is a certain material form, our body or door for example. And the mode of mind is an idea, which itself causes another idea.
Causality in mind
There are 2 topics that confirm causality in brain
- Mind is material
- Since mind is inside physical world, and we know everything in the nature has radical order, and mind is not contingent to this rule, but it's conditioned.
- Internal cause and effect
- An idea is the cause of another idea
- Also from the science of phycology we know that specific unpredictable causes constitute our personality, which we will talk later on.
Mind as Substance/Matter
1A2: That which cannot be conceived through anything else must be conceived through itself.
- Nature cannot be conceived through anything else, so it must be conceived through itself.
- Mind can be conceived through nature, so it must be conceived through nature.
- But mind conceives nature because it's part of it as a substance/matter.
2P1: Thought is an attribute of God, or God is a thinking thing.
- Because our thoughts come from body(brain/head), and our body is in nature, and nature is God, so our thoughts are from God.
- This does not indicate that God is a thinking thing, but God is a substance that has thought as an attribute, and because our thoughts are inside God, then God is a thinking thing.
- God does not think, but God is a thinking thing, because God is a substance that has thought as an attribute, so nature has the characteristic of mind.
Realtime parallelism of mind and body
2P7: The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.
- For every physical event, there is a mental event.
- If a stone falls on someone's head, the mental event is the idea of the stone falling on someone's head.
- He says that the external cause will be the effect in the mind as an idea which is parallel to the physical event.
2P11: The first element, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is the idea of some particular thing actually existing.
So the first element of mind is the idea of some particular thing actually existing, and this is parallel to the physical event. Also, from this, the mode of mind is idea, just like the mode of our extension is body. And the first element that constitutes our mind is the idea of those modes of extension that actually exist.
Body is the object of mind
2P13: The object of the idea constituting the human mind is the body, in other words a certain mode of extension which actually exists, and nothing else.
- The idea of some particular things actually existing, shape our minds, like a container of body's objects.
- The object of our mind is the body as it exists, and nothing else
If we close eyes, and go into meditation, and also not thinking about anything, the only thing we get is the shape of our body as a mode of extension which actually exists. So therefore, the object of the idea constituting the human mind is the body.
The only object that we can actually feel to be exist as the mode of extension is our body.
2P14: The human mind is capable of perceiving a great number of things, and is so in proportion as its body is capable of receiving a great number of impressions.
- The mind does not work asynchronously, but it works in parallel with the body, also it can process a great number of things in proportion as its body is capable of receiving a great number of impressions.
2P15: The idea, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is not simple, but compounded of a great number of ideas.
Because of the network causality, mind is capable of perceiving a great number of things(ideas), and is so in proportion as its body is capable of receiving a great number of impressions(sensation). So it's not only one idea, but every sensor we have is an input of an idea, and the idea that constitutes our feeling of existence is the combination of all these ideas.
2P23: The mind does not know itself, except in so far as it perceives the ideas of the modifications of the body.
Mind knows itself in so far as it perceives the ideas of the modifications of the body. So mind knows itself by the ideas of the modifications of the body. He is persisting that mind and body has a very close relation of parallelism.
2P26: Inadequate and confused ideas follow by the same necessity, as adequate or clear and distinct ideas.
- Inadequate ideas are part of nature, nature itself is perfect, but the inadequacy of ideas come from the lack of knowledge of reality.
- All ideas, even thinking about the idea that all ideas are necessary, are necessary as much as adequate ideas.
Errors of mind:
Spinoza emphasizes that errors in mind happen at the time that mind imagine something that doesn't exist, but with thinking to them, we get the certain knowledge of their existence. Imagination without the idea of truth, is the cause of errors in mind, for example imagination of someone who does not exist anymore and we think that he is still alive, is an error in mind. Mind has designed to imagine similar realities with a flexibility regardless of conditions to reality, and this ability can lead to errors as we mismatch the imagination with reality because mind imagine things as in front of itself and get certainty of there existence, this will lead to distance from reality.
For example you might think of something tasty and you feel the taste in your mouth with sensors, but it's an error since there is no tasty thing in your mouth actually existing.
The idea of existence of someone by there own imagination is true, but the idea of existence of someone who does not exist anymore is false for us, because we know that he does not exist anymore. And with imagination, we get certain knowledge of their existence.
In other words, mind has the capability to believe it's own imagination with thinking to it.
A note on how our sensory ideas case errors and how Spinoza was imagining the sun is in the distance of 200 feet:
So, again, when we look at the sun, we imagine that it is distant from us about two hundred feet; this error does not lie solely in this fancy, but in the fact that, while we thus imagine, we do not know the sun's true distance or the cause of the fancy. For although we afterwards learn, that the sun is distant from us more than six hundred of the earth's diameters, we none the less shall fancy it to be near; for we do not imagine the sun as near us, because we are ignorant of its true distance, but because the modification of our body involves the essence of the sun, in so far as our said body is affected thereby.
More examples:
- You feel the taste of something that is not in your mouth, by imaginations.
- Hearing a song in your head that isn't playing externally, a common experience where the mind reproduces familiar tunes.
Memory:
2P18: If the human body has once been affected by two or more bodies at the same time, when the mind afterwards imagines any of them, it will straightway remember the others also.
- Body = any physical entity.
- Memory is simply certain association of ideas together.
- Memory is like a network of ideas that shaped from the past experience of affecting them by each other at the same time.
- When we think of an ideas as a network, we remember the other ideas which has linked to that specific idea by the neighbor linked idea/node.
- The order of remembering is tightly associated with the order of affecting by them for each individual, basically the order of ideas is the order we remember them, and the order of ideas shaped by the order of affecting by things. 2P7
- Each node/idea can be a idea, memory, feeling or the cause of what happened in the past, that's why each person's network memory is unique.
- Since memory is based on past bodily interactions and not based on rational understanding of causes that made effect happen, it will cause errors as it's misinterpretation of connecting similar memories together.
- As much as a path of nodes/ideas repeated, it will be more remembered and the possibility for that path to become more findable in the network of ideas will be higher.
Example from 2P18:
You hear the word of "apply", you would immediately think of apple with no processing on the word apple itself, because you have seen apple and called it at the same time.
A soldier and farmer see horse tracks in the road.
Solder will get to the idea of horseman, and from there will get the the idea of war, and so on.
- horse tracks -> horseman -> soldier -> war -> death
- This is because solder ideas in solder's mind associated from tracks -> horseman -> war. Since this process of seeing them together has happened many times in solder's past, the solder will remember them together.
Countryman/farmer will get to the idea of food and family.
- horse tracks -> horse -> plow -> field -> harvest -> food -> family -> love -> reproduction
- This is because the farmer's mind has associated the idea with something else and has not experienced war.
So we see that the unique network of ideas in each person's mind is shaped by the past experiences of affecting by them at the same time.
From these nodes, we can see that the mind might from node A, get to node B or F, and so on after that. This is an example of 1 to 2 node per each idea, in reality we remember more than 2 things with each other. We will talk about this concept more under memory later.
Sensory inadequate ideas of body
2P24: The human mind does not involve an adequate knowledge of the parts composing the human body.
2P28: The ideas of the modifications of the human body, in so far as they have reference only to the human mind, are not clear and distinct, but confused.
- Before he said that human body is composed of many complex serrated parts which each function differently.
- That's why the mind doesn't have an adequate knowledge of the parts and complexity of them.
- For example you feel your chest, but you don't know how your heart is working, or how your lungs are working, you don't feel those parts, but you feel the chest as a whole, so therefor, it's not a adequate knowledge.
Errors the result of inadequate ideas of reality(inadequate ideas):
2P35: Falsity consists in the privation of knowledge, which inadequate, fragmentary, or confused ideas involve.
Before this at [2P26] (that we said) and before this, he state that how mind's inadequate ideas are necessary as much as adequate ideas.
He states that ideas of nature are necessarily true and perfect as reality is, but the falsity and inadequacy of ideas come from where we do not have enough knowledge of reality. That's how you assume a knowledge or idea is falsy, with it's destination from truth. So the falsity is the privation of knowledge, which inadequate, fragmentary, or confused ideas involve.
In other words he's pointing out that everything in reality is perfect, it's our lack of knowledge that leads to inadequate ideas and errors in mind.
2P36: Inadequate and confused ideas follow by the same necessity, as adequate or clear and distinct ideas.
There is no good of bad. An inadequate idea is necessary as much as an adequate idea, and they follow by the same necessity. There is no good or bad for an ideas, because they all are in God/nature, so they are necessary. Idea is a mode of mind, and it follows necessity, just like how a substance follows necessity.
What is an adequate idea?
2P39: That, which is common to and a property of the human body and such other bodies as are wont to affect the human body, and which is present equally in each part of either, or in the whole, will be represented by an adequate idea in the mind.
Something common for all of us, for example, a triangle, triangle is the same for everyone. We all agree on triangle, I don't think if anyone wants to have an argue on triangle and there rules.
For every material thing, there is a specific idea of it in God. We know that things has been determined, and the specific idea of there determined nature is an adequate idea as it will happen. For example mixing 2 chemical matters, would produce to a specific result, adequate idea is to know the causes and effects in the process. Since he believed the idea of doing something, and doing it are the same, as the parallelism, he keeps the connection of idea and action.
The invention of airplanes was an idea that exist inside God, which will work as it's determined. Studying aerodynamics and understanding airflow and lots of other things of it is an adequate idea which will work as it's determined by nature rules. Adequate idea must lead to driven nature(aerodynamics) and understanding it by eternal laws.
Kinds of knowledge:
1.Knowledge of the first kind:
Also called as procedural knowledge, because it's the knowledge that we get from the procedures of the past, and it's the knowledge that we get from the past experiences.
2P41: Knowledge of the first kind is the only source of falsity, knowledge of the second and third kinds is necessarily true.
Having read or heard certain words we remember things and form certain ideas concerning them(assumption), similar to those through which we imagine things(imagination)
- Remembering things and forming ideas concerning them
- Imaginations (something that is not part of reality, but we imagine it)
- Assumptions or beliefs
- Words and Symbols
- Senses or feelings
- Memory
2.Knowledge of the second kind:
Also called as empirical knowledge which you are sure because of past experiments.
Notions common to all men, and adequate ideas of the properties of things
For example the idea of triangle, is an adequate idea because it's not contained bias of human mind and it's reflecting the reality as it will be, because the nature of triangle never changes.
3.Knowledge of the third kind (intuition):
I will hereafter show, a third kind of knowledge, which we will call intuition. This kind of knowledge proceeds from an adequate idea of the absolute essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things.
Later on in the page of knowledge I explain more on intuition.
2P42: Knowledge of the second and third kinds, not knowledge of the first kind, teaches us to distinguish the true from the false.
Validation of thoughts/emotions done by second and third, which looks for reason in them through the second and third kinds of knowledge, not the first kind.
Nature of reason and relation to knowledge
2P43: He, who has a true idea, simultaneously knows that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt of the truth of the thing perceived.
A true idea is the idea that would be unarguable, has no doubt and it's certain. It's correspond to the nature of objective. In a situation where we understand the idea and corresponding reality to it.
2P44: It is not in the nature of reason to regard things as contingent, but as necessary.
You cannot assume that something just happened and use that as the reason. Reason needs to be perfectly inline with reality. Ignoring true causes and calling them contingent will lead to falsy ideas which origin from first kind of knowledge.
2P44 Corollary.1: Hence it follows, that it is only through our imagination that we consider things, whether in respect to the future or the past, as contingent.
Reality only bends over in imaginations(that's a natural functionality of mind) You do not need to proof why Arthur is flying, because it's a sci-fi story, it's not real, it's the product of contingent imaginations where Arthur has been contingent to physics laws, unlike reality.
2P44 Corollary.2: It is in the nature of reason to perceive things under a certain form of eternity (sub quâdam æternitatis specie).
The nature of triangle has always been the same for eternity. Reasons regarding adequate ideas for triangle does not concern time. For the more complex reasons, we must look at things conditioned instead of contingent. When a country attacks another, it's rooted and related to strive for power of all nature, just like how we see a group of lions attach to another kind, we know that thats the way nature goes and we understand it, for our own wars we regard them as contingent of nature instead of conditioned to the facts of nature and how it's necessity. So in our example if we go back the cause and effect of any event, we see it as the form of eternity and how it's necessary.
Free will
2P48: In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity.
- Every decision or thought arise, has a cause, and as long as there is cause and effect in the nature, there are rules that govern the causes and effects of mind.
- Will explain this one more in free-will page.
2P49: There is in the mind no volition or affirmation and negation, save that which an idea, inasmuch as it is an idea, involves.
Your idea and will are not serrated, but they are part of the same process. Thinking of an idea and willing are the same. What we do in action is a direct result of our ideas, our action and ideas are the same.
Don't worry, will exist
and understanding are one and the same.
Now since our will is a direct result of our ideas, the true will is in understanding subject and having adequate ideas. I'll explain more on free-will and also more on knowledge
