The Anatomy of Mind

By Martijn Janssen

Dive into the essence of thought and the marvel of consciousness in The Anatomy of Mind. This book explores the intriguing questions of what constitutes a mind and how thinking operates, proposing a compelling hypothesis on what it means to be a thinker. Beyond theoretical exploration, it delves into the practical implications of understanding our mind’s mechanics, shedding light on how such knowledge can enrich our interactions with ourselves and the world around us. Embark on a riveting journey into the heart of cognition, unlocking a deeper understanding of the mind’s intricate landscape.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035845248

Martijn Janssen

Martijn Janssen was born in the Netherlands in 1996 and was diagnosed to be autistic there. In 2009 his family moved to Switzerland, where he attended a bilingual German-English schools. He obtained a bachelor at Harvard Extension School in 2020 and a Master of Science degree at Edinburgh University in 2022.

Book preview

About the Author

Martijn Janssen was born in the Netherlands in 1996 and was diagnosed to be autistic there. In 2009 his family moved to Switzerland, where he attended a bilingual German-English schools. He obtained a bachelor at Harvard Extension School in 2020 and a Master of Science degree at Edinburgh University in 2022.

Copyright Information ©

Martijn Janssen 2024

The right of Martijn Janssen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035844999 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035845231 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781035845248 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the many teachers and others who have provided me with the knowledge, the observations, and the interest to write this book. I also want to extend particular thanks to my teachers in biology for providing me with the background that produced the reasoning found in many parts of this work.

Preface

The greatest degree of self-mastery that is available to humans is to understand the workings of their own minds. To understand one’s own mind is the most direct path to understanding one’s own limits, along with ways to circumvent them. However, though very useful, it is also difficult to achieve. It is not easy to understand what a self is, and yet harder to understand how understanding itself works.

Yet, all the means to achieve this mastery are available to everyone, for everyone has their own mind into which to look. Introspection is the key to understanding one’s mind. However, it is also no more than a key—and a key is not yet an opened door. That part between key and door is the subject of this book.

Thus, one-half of the purpose of this work is to investigate in detail the inner workings of the mind and to construct a hypothesis on how the mind might work. The other, perhaps more important half is to construct a sufficient understanding to aid one in putting mind to actual use. That is, how might one circumvent the mind’s limitations and achieve further utility from it? How may one use one’s mind to help oneself? And how might such understanding help others?

It is simple to tell someone that they should think.

It is easy to tell someone what they should think.

It is not so easy to tell someone why they should think.

It is hard to tell someone how to go about thinking about a thing.

It is hardest to tell someone how thinking works.

Methods and Structure

Curiosity and experimentation are the parents of all science.

The method followed in this work is to look at the mind from the inside towards the outside, and from essential functions to extended functions.

Thus, the first volume examines the infrastructure of the mind, how matter hosts symbols, information-construct and finally, consciousness. It also looks at how consciousness works, and what its uses are. Finally, this volume includes comments on the origin and the purpose of the will or rather a part of it.

The second volume examines the most basic properties of Mind-self. Notably, this involves re-examining and expanding on the three essences—consciousness, thinking and existence—as previously pondered in the Mirror of Meditations. This volume also makes inroads pondering the will, and how will, influenced by the demands of its reality, is in fact a two-way process.

Volume three explores a selection of properties of the mind which are internal to it, things such as subjectivity, sentience, and emotion. It examines both how the mind creates and impacts these properties, and how those properties in turn can have a great impact on the mind.

The fourth, final volume explores more external properties that nevertheless have a great influence on the mind. Apart from the body itself, this includes the senses, instincts, and identities.

Volume I: The Makings of Mind

Mind exists, and computes. By computing itself it is conscious. Those are the fundamental aspects of Mind. The fundamental purpose of Mind is to interpret sense data.

To understand how the mind works, let us begin by seeing how it is created and why. This first volume begins by examining the mind’s nature as an information-construct. Second, it examines by parable what the use of a mind is to the body which hosts it. Third and most importantly, it examines the details of how minds come to be and how they operate.

Chapter I: Forms and Permutations of

Information

Mind-self is to information what life is to matter.

Let us here consider the foundations of mind in information, and in specific forms thereof. The main difference between the three types of information presented below is their scope. At first glance, the difference may seem inconsequential. However, the form that information takes is also relevant to the abstractions and references that it can contain or not. And this is the essential point and the reason why one must understand the intricacies of information: the mind is a structure surrounded by and created by information that in turn creates information. Thus, to understand the mind, one must first understand the information that passes through it.

Material Information

Material or physical information is that information which is directly and innately present in a thing. Material information describes itself by being itself, and its format is exclusively information that is directly and physically present.

Consider some examples: a molecule of sugar is that since it possesses the appropriate structure. By virtue of possessing two protons, helium is itself. Physical information of this sort is accurate at least on macroscopic scales but possesses no abstraction. Material information only refers to itself. A pan can be described as a pan, yet it’s being a pan is not inherent in its material structure.

Material information is inherent in objects, but does not extend beyond those objects.

Referential Information

Referential information is that information which is not directly present in a thing—it is information stored in one thing that refers to another thing. Referential information has undergone abstraction which makes it more versatile but less accurate. Furthermore, there are additional conditions to the existence of referential information as compared to material information. By virtue of existing, a material object contains all information about itself. However, to create referential information there is an additional condition. That condition is the storage of reference. Reference begins when information is stored.

Information as reference can exist only when there is a means to store it and is created when it is stored.

Referential information is the first step of abstraction away from bare matter. Forms of this information include names and symbols. To call something a pan or a bear is to assign a value of information to a physical thing which is not innate in that thing. That information may then in turn be stored away from the object to which it refers.

Twice Referential Information, or Meta-Information

Twice referential information is that information that refers to other information. It is data about data rather than about physical objects. Indeed, apart from its storage device, meta-information need not refer to the material world at all. As such it is the most versatile form of information, but there is no guarantee of its accuracy. Again, there is yet another condition to the existence of twice referential information. To create this, already existing referential has to be processed—that is computation has to be performed on referential information so as to produce a new state. That new state’s essential property is that it refers not to material objects but to information. Since meta-information can recursively reference whatever other information the computing entity can process, it is the most complex and versatile form of information.

Information that is stored is referential. Information that in turn refers to other information; this is the twice referential meta-information.

Twice referential information allows for the further manipulation of names and symbols, it allows the formation of ideas, concepts, and categories. It is also what allows complex thought. As seen before, to call a pan such is to create a name, referential information. By means of the second level of abstraction, one may now create the category of ‘pan’ and assign it to any object of similar utility. To call a bear such and to remember this: this is once referential. To compute the name of ‘bear,’ and to link to it concepts such as danger is meta-information.

As soon as referential information is used to refer to more referential information, it becomes meta-information. Meta-information in turn can be combined endlessly to produce higher levels of abstraction and to produce ideas. Twice referential information has one foot in material reality and one in a reality of its own making. The peculiar thing about the mind is that it begins entirely in that second reality. Yet before we ponder that new reality more deeply, let us consider the uses of a mind in such a reality to a body that inhabits the reality of matter.

Chapter II: The Parable of the Worm

This chapter examines the use of mind, and how that utility may favour its emergence. To this end, it investigates a sequence of progressively more complex organisms, and more specifically the demands complexity places on their neurology and what effects this might have at what points.

Beginnings

As a prelude, let us consider a single cell. A cell seems simple and small yet contains within itself a complex world that functions only thanks to vastly complex chemistry and biology. The cell, too, contains its own information storage and processing methods. However, cells do not contain circuitry capable of computation by themselves. As such, they are not able to sustain computation complex enough to produce thought.

See this too: a cell by itself does not refer to anything; it has no symbols. Despite its complexity, it operates according to the logic wired into its material frame. A cell is capable of many complex reactions to its environment, but the only symbol it uses is its genetics, and those operate entirely through matter. Thus, for a single-celled organism, its capability to host let alone use even singly referential information is doubtful.

When we look at larger aggregates of cells, as in multicellular organisms or perhaps even simple worms, there is no change, even if this worm possessed a light receptor linked to its motor organ. Such organisms too have little to do with referential information: material information and the logic engines it can sustain suffice for them. Yet what happens if we imagine a more complex worm?

The Creation of Symbols

Thus far, our worm does not use referential information. However, suppose that this worm evolves a simple neural net—a net that contains a map grid that can note where the light was received or no. Now the worm may alter parts of its neural map to represent the presence of light. As noted above, referential information can exist only when there is a means to store it, and it is created when it is stored.

Here the worm becomes able to store information—and as such it becomes able to use referential information. That is, the worm can now store in its map references to facts about the outside world. The worm can now use symbols, even if they be simple. As the complexity of the computing entity increases, so does the complexity of the symbols it may use increases too, but their essence is always like that of taking notes.

The Trouble with Senses

Suppose we imagine a more complex worm, granting it neural circuits for computation along with a sense organ or two. By themselves, neural circuits are useful: coordinated muscle movement, superior metabolism; the benefits are many. However, our worm is no supercomputer. And thus its new feature means a new problem.

That problem is that the amount of information the worm now receives from its senses is far too large to either store in its neural net or to translate into automatic actions. Algorithms to process this information would not help much either, since they would be unable to process all the information the worm might receive while letting the neural net remain smaller than the worm.

The Might of Interpretation

Of course, the worm is now larger and should be able to compute more too. However, the problem is fundamental—with senses that provide a constant flow of information appropriate to the size of the worm, the size of an automatic brain is not appropriate. Quite simply, this worm would be paralysed into inaction due to having too much information to compute.

Let it be granted, senses by themselves do not help the worm much. Thus, let us now say the worm gains the capability to automatically interpret its sense impressions to leave only the relevant parts. Provided with appropriate interpretation, the worm could function while still operating on material logic alone. However, the worm can now store referential information from its senses, which allows it to do many new things. For example, this worm can remember day-night cycles and avoid overtaxing its motile organs once night falls.

The Utility of Forgetting

Although the worm can now interpret and store information, it now runs into yet another problem. The worm originally began using the information in order to harvest instructions on how to engage with its environment from that environment. However, those instructions have now grown complex and abstract: the worm has too much information on which to base its decisions now.

Here, the worm may start forgetting. Say, the layout of its memory cells is such that they are chemically reset after some time, or perhaps their circuitry can purge itself after a period of inaction. Through forgetting, the worm may solve some of its problems, yet, it is just treating symptoms instead of causes. Note that thus far, the worm still operates on material logic.

The Second Step of Abstraction

The next development the worm might undergo to better solve its current problem is to stop only automatically using stored information and instead develop means to refer to it. That is, the worm may perform the second step of abstraction and begin using information to refer to information.

This is itself not a significant thing: the worm has for some time been able to manipulate the state of its neural net to various ends—finding light, forgetting, remembering, etc. However, there is one major implication to this—the worm becomes capable of abstracted computation, which presents a potentially significant increase in the efficiency of its neural net.

At this point, a new means of dealing with its increasingly complex environment becomes available to the worm. Now, instead of automatically doing this or that, it’s neural net can form decisions based on general principles stored within. For example, instead of going to light because it is there, the worm’s neural net might store what light levels are preferable, connected to circuitry that activates or deactivates its motile organs based on the state of that information.

Generalisation

Once the worm can perform abstraction such as that above, it may generalise. That is, rather than awkwardly managing every variable, it may store a representative value and discard the rest. Such a representative value is referential information internal to the worm. This information can now be used in addition to that obtained from the senses. For purposes of telling itself what to do, this is a vast improvement in efficiency over material logic.

Furthermore, this capability to use multiply referential information carries considerable further potential. In particular,