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'13 HaMW 3 parts combined - ResearchGate working paper.pdf (1.11 MB)

How a mind works. Parts I, II and III

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posted on 2023-06-16, 09:47 authored by David A. Booth
This paper presents the simplest known theory of processes involved in a person’s unconscious and conscious achievements such as intending, perceiving, reacting and thinking. The basic principle is that an individual has mental states which possess quantitative causal powers and are susceptible to influences from other mental states. Mental performance discriminates the present level of a situational feature from its level in an individually acquired, multiple featured norm (exemplar, template, standard). The effect on output of a moderate disparity between input and norm is scaled in a universal unit of discrimination (Weber’s fraction), with the norm’s level being zero. When one process converts separate sources of input into an output, their discriminative distances from norm are summated. Distinct processes converging on an output combine their discriminations from norm orthogonally. An output may be influenced by other outputs as well as by inputs. Descriptive performance is the influence of one category of input on a verbal output. Reasoning is minimally the effect of one verbal process on another. In deeper mental processing, the influence on a response comes from a concept modulating a description: this process gives the meaning to an emotion or a motive. Descriptive modulation of stimulation corresponds to a bodily sensation or other conceptualized percept. When an output is explained solely by sources of input, that response to the stimulation may be mediated unconsciously. Development of a person within physical and communal environments embodies such mental causation within material causation and acculturates that mind to social causation.

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Publication status

  • Published

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  • Published version

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ResearchGate online archive

Pages

120.0

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  • Psychology Publications

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  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2016-10-17

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2016-10-17

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2016-10-07

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