Mind

Abstract

Multilevel materialism contends that all mental processes are brain processes while allowing the importance of molecular, mental, and social mechanisms that complement neural ones. The Semantic Pointer Architecture provides a good candidate for explaining how the brain has thoughts and conscious feeling. Representation by patterns of firing in groups of neurons, binding of representations into more complex ones by convolution, and competition among semantic pointers serve to produce perception, inference, and consciousness. The conceivability of minds without brains and of mental processes without semantic pointers is of no relevance to how minds actually operate in this world. Because of their sensory-motor operations, semantic pointers naturally incorporate important aspects of embodiment and action embedded in the world, while also enabling minds to transcend the body in order to engage in abstract thought.