What are the possibilities of mind? Minds, in my broad sense, may occur with and without learning, reason, a sense of self, or other features. How can each feature vary? Which features presume others? How to systematically define all branches of mind?
Past classifications were too anthropocentric: stages of development from infant to adult, object persistence without explaining objects.
I introduce a sort of Linnaean classification of the variety of mind, a tree of kinds of minds, climbing from thermostat to man, and later to kinds above man.
What use? With an existing mind, see its kind then deduce the mind's powers, limits and means of control. When building or improving a mind, the taxonomy exposes prerequisites of common kinds of intelligence.
The lowest class of mind: one end, one binary (having two states: true or false, 1 or 0) sense, one means with only one intended effect. Example: a thermostat.
Classes of Mind
The parenthetical letters offer shorthands for basic mind classes. Example: L-mind for a mind that learns from experience.
Mind
Above all, a mind must see something of its universe, which may include what an observer would consider the mind's self. An active mind bases its acts on these beliefs, and a passive learning “mind” at least sees how they change.
All but passive learning minds must act. Even if a mind doesn't know the effects of an act, it knows when an end is met.
Counter-examples: parts of the human brain when asleep, spam filters. (Passive P-minds)
Choose Means (V)
Does it have redundant means to the same ends? How well does it move between them? Counter-example: thermostat.
Mutate (M)
Can a mind naturally gain and lose new ideas in its lifetime? Counter-example: a thermostat can only believe one fixed idea of temperature.
Doubt (D)
Is it eventually free to lose some or all beliefs? Or is it wired to obey the implications of every sensation?
Sense Itself (I)
Does a mind have the senses to see the physical conditions of that mind?
Preserve Itself (A)
Does a mind also have the means to preserve or reproduce itself? Examples: all life because a living thing is, in part, defined by making and preserving itself for a time.
Sense Minds (N)
Does a mind understand mind, at least of lower classes, and how well does it apply that to itself, to others?
Sense Kin (K)
Can it recognize the redundant minds, or at least the bodies of minds, that it was designed to cooperate with?
Learn (L)
Does the mind's behavior change from experience? Does it learn associations? (LA-mind)
Feel (F)
We imagine that an equally intelligent machine would lack our conscious experience. Examples: yourself, presumably other humans.
Communicate (C)
Can it share beliefs with other minds?
Certain classes of mind can raise themselves to certain higher classes, or a mind can be in a class thanks to ideas formed and injected by another mind.
Are you above a problem or beneath it? Lower minds are incapable of certain errors. The more powerful the mind, the more kinds of problems it must defend against, and then defend the defenses.
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