Philosophy of Mind/Epistemology: What do you know?

[Rave]

I'm honestly hoping there are other academics here aside from myself on these forums who are big on education, life and all that good stuff.

I've been in research for the past couple of years until this professor I used to work for took another job somewhere.

My background is in kinesiology/psychology, because I was really big on the mind/body problem that was mentioned in my philosophy class. My professor at the time specialized in epistemology and philosophy of mind, which was one of the most abstract stuff you can come across on the topics of the nature of the human mind.

Of course, I'm kind of regretting where I should've just majored in philosophy and math and got me the most abstract and pure kind of thought in terms of academia. Basically, I study thinking and learning a lot. My background in college mostly consisted of concentrating on learning theory and cognitive science. The procedures in gathering data and putting out a paper was a rather very fun and interesting thing for me to do and was something I was hoping I can do as I get my masters/Ph.D and maybe an MD.

But at least now I have an understanding of basic applied quantum physics/biomechanics of the human body and how to comply apply and manipulate forces in a way that makes it work in certain ways that people think don't work, but actually do lol So I did come out of college with a good knowledge of how the mind and body works to a certain degree. But I still want to become more knowledgeable and skilled in this area in all honesty.

Now, some of you are probably already aware that we've gone thru historical time periods of thought, such as behaviorism, functionalism, utilitarianism, and so forth. All of which have come and contributed towards the ever expanding literature on the nature of the human mind, that which cannot be coined or comprehended.

Infact, you can say that this subject, really borders along the lines of existentialism, as objectivists have a really hard time trying to define and comprehend the word to this phenomena and ask if "it" really is there or not. That's where metaphysics and epistemology come into play. Metaphysics asks what's there and tries to prove it, epistemology is the theory of knowledge, but tries to justify the evidence in the literature. So the question is, on this subject of mind: does it exist? What is it? What can you and can you not do with it? What are it's limits? Can we do more and go beyond more with it?

Sure, there are a lot of big key names and players who have all contributed towards the neural sciences and all that during the past 200 years we've had modern science and all, such as Pavlov, Thorndike, Hull, Hebb, Kahneman and Taversky and a lot of other scientists and philosophers who have all come and tested out their postulated constructs to see if their systems worked, were correct or not. A lot of these ideas come from people of western thought like Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and so forth, but the Pre-Socratics were where it's at in constructing things that we to this day, still come and use. The only thing that's changed is the language and chances are the expressions of and the actions of it. Of course, it never hurts to go a little more modern, like Descartes, Thomas Aquinas, Hilary Putnam, Emanuel Kant and other names that I can mention.

At the moment, I'm currently reading more of the subject from one big player whose book I really want to come and get thru. It's G.W.F. Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit" which is considered as one of the most difficult reads of all time. But people praise it and I'm still getting thru the first parts of the book. He's honestly not difficult to comprehend or understand, but he's very hell bent on getting his long winded postulations to go thru. Infact, he was noted as a predecessor to that of both Darwin's theory of evolution and Spence, who came and coined the concept "Survival of the Fittest."

But its stuff and concepts like these, that when people can finally take their heads out of the books and look and apply it in physical reality, do these things repeat themselves? Or are the authors limits of knowledge still subject to scrutiny? Personally, I believe the latter.

People like me have been coined and called a radical constructivist, who looks at the world thru constructs and break them down to their basic components to comprehend and understand what they are.

Stuff like language, the abstract constructs created through language to come and understand the concept of the event happening infront of then, etc. This goes for stuff like mathematical statements, the laws of gravity, sayings, etc. The question for these things are, as made up as they are, how accurate, true and limits do they all come and work?

Since philosophy/science has kept trying to comprehend the natural order of the universe/ metaphysics, and all that, what are the thoughts of the population group here on the nature of the human mind?

Why do you think it's easy/difficult to comprehend and understand? Any arguments and supportive data? What do you all think?

[Lynchenberg]