Mind as a Complex Adaptive System.
Thoughts and Overview of Complexity Research into Our Mind.
Genesis.
I am inspired by Diana Meresc’s story on an individual’s perception of their intelligence. I liked her clear writing and inciteful content. Her sixth sign concerning humour started me thinking. I know from long experience that thinking and problem solving puts me in a very good mood and at these happy times I can appreciate the humorous side of things.
Pythonesque describes my sense of humour and it’s not to everyone’s taste. When I am with one part of my family that shares my appreciation of Monty Python I’m considered very funny and I feel humorous. On the other hand, another section of my family doesn’t share my sense of humour and finds my attempts very unfunny, in these circumstances I feel as though I really don’t have a sense of humour.
Is my sense of humour something that can be switched on and off by my mind-brain when (and if) it adapts my persona to fit current social circumstances? Trying to answer this question led to more questions and I have tried to summarise my answers and observations in the story that follows.
Starting with The Mind-Brian Duality.
The mind–body dualism is closely associated with the thinking of René Descartes (1641). Essentially the dualism denotes a rigid separation between mind (nonphysical) and brain (physical matter). The implication is that the mind and body are not only distinct but also separable.
The problem of dualism is in how to describe the relationship between the mind and the brain. There has been no identifiable meeting point between the physical brain and its non-physical extension, the mind. Many philosophers of mind now maintain that the mind is not something separate from the body.
The Problem with Inner and Outer Minds.
The term inner-mind simply is a name applied to our spirit and the workings of our mind including dreams, fantasies, memories, ideas and our worldview. The term outer-mind covers our physical body and social connectivity within the human ecosystem. The outer mind is said to be the physical, social, and interactive environment of our lives.
Although these terms may be convenient in conversation they perpetuate the problem of dualism. Where is the meeting point between inner and outer minds?
Our Persona
Christina Sponias reminded me of Carl Jung’s work that I read many years ago. His work helped my understanding of the concept of a persona.
According to Carl Jung, the persona is the mask or appearance we present to the world. We can “wear” a persona to suit a social interaction and make ourselves more or less desirable. We can have multiple personas for use in various situations such as home and work. The persona is a creation of the mind. Carl Jung warned about using too many personas as he feared that a person might lose their own individuality to their personas. This simplifies thinking by resolving the problem of dualism. There is the mind and its created personas.
Complex Adaptive System.
The Wikipedia article on complex adaptive system explains that a “complex adaptive system is a system that is complex in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behavior of the ensemble (whole) may not be predictable according to the behavior of the components. It is adaptive in that the individual and collective behavior mutate and self-organize corresponding to the change-initiating micro-event or collection of events.”
We need to add the “social” element into the mix. In my view, human social behaviour is distinguished by the application of free-will decisions to our behaviours. For example, we can decide not to participate in a discussion, or we may change our decision and have that extra cup of coffee. A complex adaptive social system involves human free-will decisions.
The Human Brain/Mind as a Complex Adaptive System.
Complexity theory sees the human brain as a complex electro-chemical-biological organ that is the most complex system known to us. Currently there is a strong research focus on examining the brain’s emergent property that we call consciousness (the conscious mind). The brain can be understood in complexity terms as a complex system or network, in which mental states emerge from the interaction between multiple physical and functional levels.
Small world connections add to the mix. In this situation groups or clusters of neurones have multiple interconnections. It’s conjectured that these connections give the brain some resilience to damage as areas may be repurposed to augment damaged areas.
New research is looking at multiple levels of emergence that propagate through complex feedback loops. This implies that there could be mechanisms where consciousness interacts with the brain to cause further higher level emergence.
My take on the brain and mind acting as a complex adaptive system is that you can’t separate one from the other. We can now see a persona as emerging from a series of interactions involving free-will that determines how we interact with one another or a group. Furthermore, through the process of feedback from our interactions we adapt and modify the persona (more emergence). My thought is that we can consciously control these adaptations.
Some points to consider:
- Interactions are non-linear: small changes in inputs, physical interactions or stimuli can cause large effects or very significant changes in outputs.
- Depending on small world connections, interactions are primarily but not exclusively with immediate neighbours and the nature of the influence is actively modulated by our consciousness.
- Any interaction can feed back onto itself directly or after a number of intervening stages. Such feedback can vary in quality (recurrency).
- Overall behavior is not predicted by any single behavioral element.
- I think consciousness is an open system and it is difficult or impossible to define its boundaries. This thought is based on the extended mind thesis and some conjectural studies of the nervous system.
- Complex systems, like our brain, operate under far from equilibrium conditions. There has to be a constant flow of energy to maintain the organization of the system. In other words use your brain or loose it.
- Complex systems have a history. They evolve and their past is co-responsible for their present behaviour. This reflects the role of the worldview and causality. It also underlines that different processes take different times and processes are initiated by exceeding thresholds.
- Elements in the system may be ignorant of the behaviour of the system as a whole, responding only to the information or physical stimuli available to them locally. In other words, tasks like ideation can be performed as complex parallel processes.
Modelling Complexity.
When dealing with complexity I often experiment with a product called Netlogo, that is an Agent Based Modelling System. It is intuitive to use and can produce surprisingly informative 3d graphics showing the model in action.
I have used Netlogo to teach complex modelling. I highly recommend it if you want to get a feel for complexity in action. To start with, install Netlogo and try the “flocking model”. Then answer the (apparently) simple question: What is the emergence in the flocking model?
There is a Netlogo Community model called “SELF-AWARENESS” that examines (with some caveats) how self-awareness can be expected to arise in a conscious brain. This model can be extended (have-a-go) to experiment with concepts like ideation and memory.
No Final Thoughts
Coming back to Diana Meresc’s story that inspired me. I can see her story as a very good empirical observation of how we can discuss and learn about the manifestation of our intelligence.
I asked a question at the start of this story “Is my sense of humour something that can be switched on and off by my mind-brain when (and if) it adapts my persona to fit current social circumstances?” My answer is, that my sense of humour is an emergent property actioned when adapting to a social situation.
This story is incomplete and doesn’t even touch the surface of the research. I encourage you to explore and give me feedback please.
