Evolution and Mind/Body Dualism

[fantome profane]

The brain and the mind are intricately tied to one another. The brain gives rise to the mind.

But what exactly is 'the brain'. Is it just neurons and dendrites or is there more? The conscious experience is totally different from the physical substrates which give rise to it, thus the brain cannot only be physical. Which means there are other aspects at play here. Perhaps consciousness is a property of all matter and as such in certain configurations (like the brain) give rise to what we identify as human consciousness.

But this is speculation, as would be any other theories. Anyone who claims that we have figured out the hard problem of consciousness is either a liar or just plain ignorant about the philosophical hurdles the 'mind' poses. But one thing is for sure, for the mind to arise from the brain there are laws of nature and physics which go beyond what we know now and most definitely when discovered would sound a lot more like dualism than monism.

I am certainly not denying the hard problem of consciousness. But I don't see how the situation is helped by positing a "non-material" substance that cannot be shown to exist, much less studied. Can you show how a non-physical substance could give rise to consciousness? Can you provide a hypothesis for the mechanism behind this? Can you suggest a test, or way to research this "non-physical" aspect? For instance when analgesia is given to a patient to make them lose consciousness, how do these chemicals interact with the "non physical"?

 

[Willamena]

The evidence suggests that thoughts are some sort of byproduct of whatever is going on in that brain of ours in its various forms of matter and energy. There is still an interaction. The world producing stimulus in our brains.

That's an interesting thought.

 

[Nomen Nescio]

The computer monitor in front of you that you see is not the computer monitor that is composed of matter and energy. The one in front of you is composed of your thoughts about the monitor, including the thoughts of the sensorium and the thought that "the monitor is composed of matter and energy."

If this is a argument that the visual experience is more fundamental than physical reality then it’s a bad one because material interactions are the cause of that visual experience of that monitor. We can do lots of interesting things to the experience while altering, activating and damaging or disabling the parts of the brain that are constructing that experience - cortical blindness, color-blindness, visual anosognosia, hemianopsia/homonymous, visual agnosia, akinetopsia, micropsia or macropsia, various visual hallucinations, etc.

And in the same time it is somewhat accurate, a more precise interpretation is that it’s a neural internal model based on the received and processed information from the outside that the brain is then constantly and actively interpreting, so it’s basically a information construct that has a really intimate relationship with the outside world.

 

[Willamena]

If this is a argument that the visual experience is more fundamental than physical reality then it’s a bad one because material interactions are the cause of that visual experience of that monitor.

No, it's simply a reply to how one could imagine that there is more substance to the world than matter and energy.

We can do lots of interesting things to the experience while altering, activating and damaging or disabling the parts of the brain that are constructing that experience - cortical blindness, color-blindness, visual anosognosia, hemianopsia/homonymous, visual agnosia, akinetopsia, micropsia or macropsia, various visual hallucinations, etc.

Horrors have been done in the name of science, yes.

 

[fantome profane]

But the chemicals themselves are not happy. You are happy. The engine of the car isn't driving, the car is driving. The paper isn't printing, the printer is printing.

The car and the engine are two different things. The paper and the printer are two different things. The engine correlates with the car. The paper correlates with the printer. The origin of the engine has absolutely nothing to do with the origin of the car. The origin of the paper has nothing to do with the origin of the printer.

The origin of your brain has nothing to do with the origin of your mind

And music is not the same thing as a piano.

But I still see no evidence that the mind cannot be the result of the brain in the same way that the piano produces sounds. I see no reason to assume the existence of additional entities that have not been shown to exist.

So when you are happy, your brain is happy? So if someone took your brain out your skull, and sat it right next to your body...are you the brain, or are you the body?

Yes that is exactly what I believe, if your brain could be remove and put in a vat, where life support could be maintained, and signals could be input, your brain could be happy, or sad, or excited, or fascinated, or creative etc.

Then I'd like a point by point refutation of my post that was directed towards you when you asked for my evidence. Until then, keep on dodging.

See following post.

 

[fantome profane]

Then I'd like a point by point refutation of my post that was directed towards you when you asked for my evidence. Until then, keep on dodging.

Let's try to keep this civil. If there is something you think I missed I am happy to go back and take an other pass at it.

Listen to me very careful, fantome, because I think this point is being overlooked. You are claiming that this particular phenomena occurred naturally, correct? I am asking you to prove (or "demonstrate", whatever word you want to use) it naturally...and if you can't demonstrate it, at least be able to give some kind of thought provoking experiment at which it could occur. Give me a scenario at which it could occur...and so far, I am not seeing anything of the sort from ANYONE.

Earlier in this thread you used the example of "Animorphs" to explain the concept of the mind being independent of the brain. Now I am not actually familiar with this program but I understand the concept. Fantasy fiction is full of such examples, bodymorphs, mind transfers, disembodies minds etc. But let's be fair, if you can go to this well so can I. Fiction is also replete with examples of artificial intelligence (Lt. Commander Data comes to mind). And again I am not claiming to prove anything, but I think this qualifies as hypothetical scenario in which this could occur. And before you decide to mock me for using science fiction, remember you used "Animorphs". And there really is current work being done in the field of artificial intelligence. It is extremely crude, I think it holds much more promise than "Animorph" research does.

But this shows a correlation!!! God created the mind to correlate with the brain, so if there is a malfunction with the nervous system, this would throw the mind/brain relation out of whack...that is not a problem...the problem is how does the brain ITSELF become the very origin of consciousness itself...that is the problem.

Right, there is correlation. And this does not prove causation. I admit that, and I am not claiming to have proof. But I see no evidence to show that "God created the mind", I see no evidence of anything other than the brain that could cause the mind.

Your television remote control is correlated directly with your t.v....but the origin of your remote has absolutely NOTHING to do with the origin of your tv. Your remote and your flat screen (or tube lol) are two different entities but together they correlate to perform a function, together.

It is fine if you what to hypothesis the existence of an entity separate from the brain. And again I am not claiming that I can disprove the existence of such an entity. But I see no evidence of it, and it does not advance our understanding in anyway that I can see. As I see it you are multiplying entities beyond necessity.

Fantome, this is so easy to demonstrate. The law of identity...it can be used to demonstrate that your brain isn't you...it may be "yours", but it isn't "you"....there is an inner person...an inner "self".

So for example..when you are happy, your brain isn't happy...the neurons in your brain isn't happy...so how can "you" be happy, when your brain isn't happy...if there is something true about your brain that isn't true about "you", then obviously "you" are not identical with your brain. So what does that mean? It means that the inner "you" has absolutely nothing to do with your brain, as far as origins is concerned.

I think I have dealt with this, twice. But in brief, I do believe that happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, excitement etc are the result of neurological processes occurring within the brain. I see no evidence of any other entity that can create these experiences, and I see no mechanism that could make it possible for an non-physical entity to create these experiences.

Second, I can further emphasize the fact that the brain cannot be the origins of consciousness. The human body is made up of matter, right? So because of this, it is easy to imagine a scientist creating a human body from scratch...from preexisting matter.

Now, how will this scientist make this freshly created body a living and breathing "person". What will be the ignition from "nonliving" to "living"? How will you get consciousness in there? How will you plug thoughts into the brain?

I am not sure what you mean by "ignition". Our bodies are powered by an electro-chemical process. I cannot see how this is an obstacle to an artificial life form (Lt commander Data had a positronic brain)

Life and consciousness are not natural things...both are miracles...both require divine intervention.

Merely an assertion that I see no evidence for.

If you start off with a big bang, and there is absolutely no life or consciousness whatsoever...how do you wind up with something totally different than what you started with? What is the transitional stage from nonlife to life, or unconscious to conscious? But in order to be conscious, you have to have a brain, right? So just because you have a brain doesn't mean you have consciousness...so you have at least three options...

1. The brain developed naturally and preceded consciousness
2. Consciousness preceded the brain
3. Consciousness and the brain were created/developed simultaneously

So according to #1, we are right back where we started...how can the brain itself be the originator of consciousness? After all, just because the brain is inside the skull doesn't mean that it is conscious, right? You have to explain the ORIGIN of consciousness, and you have to look beyond the brain...because just having a brain doesn't mean that you have consciousness...it does not follow.

Conscious is something that could have developed in incredibly small increments. Few would claim that a single celled organism possesses consciousness. But it can detect changes in it's environment and react accordingly. And btw so can a thermostat, an artificial device that can detect changes in temperature and react. Insects can detect a much larger variety of sensory input and have a much wider variety of reactions. But are insects conscious? This is debatable, but certainly not on the level of human conscious that we are talking about, I don't believe insects are self-aware. So now we move on to reptiles and mammals. And here we see greater and increasing levels of consciousness.

So yes I believe the Brain did evolve naturally, and conscious did not proceed the brain, but was created by the brain.

Now I know that you will be tempted to just label all this "nonsense". But remember that I am not trying to prove this to you, I am asking if you can prove to me your assertion that this is not possible.

According to #2, consciousness preceded the brain, but that isn't possible, at least on your view. Thoughts weren't just floating around the cosmos without being attached to a person/a physical brain, right?

You are right, I don't see how this is possible.

So #3 makes more logical sense...otherwise, you have a chicken and egg problem that I don't think you can avoid.

Theism is the more rational worldview.

I don't think they were created simultaneously in the way you seem to think, but then again I admit that I am not sure what you mean by that. I believe the brain evolved naturally from very simple structures and developed more and more complexity, and along with that the mind became more and more complex. I am not going to argue theism with you, beyond the point that I still see no evidence or necessity for any non-physical cause for the brain or the mind.


Now I hope I have dealt with everything. I have put in more time than I frankly think this deserved. If there is something specific that you think I missed or did not deal with sufficiently please let me know.

 

[MD]

I've read it and found it to be rather pointlessly adding some redundant extra layer to a simple equation. Perhaps you should read some books on neurophyschology?

I'm not trying to 'explain anything away', all I am asking is why you would imagine that there needs to be anything more than matter and energy, when matter and energy are enough to form the entire universe and we have no evidence of any extra thingy so how could it be necessary?

I'm not saying that consciousness arises out of thin air - I am saying that it is a product of the physical brain. Where did you get the 'thin air' bit?


I cannot help but ask if YOU have read The hard problem of Consciousness yourself? Because unlike you Chalmers is not arguing that there must be some dimension other than matter and energy.

So just because you didn't understand it, it is a pointless argument? And then you tell me to read neuropsychology books? You sound no different from a young earth creationist. Bravo! :clap:clap

The physical substrates and the conscious experience are two completely different things. There is no explanation for qualia or intentionality.

Most physicalists believe in something called strong emergence. It means that consciousness just somehow poofs into existence when the brain works in a certain configuration. Philosophically sounds a lot like magic to me.

I have read and studied more about the Hard problem than you have, considering the poor arguments you have set forth.

 

[MD]

“It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does."

Just a little info, hope you don't mind. This is what D Chalmers actually had to say in HPoC, you will see it is quite different from what you imagined.

You seemed to have missed his point completely now didn't you? That paragraph actually is the reason why physical explanations don't make sense. I always find that atheists have a much harder time understanding the hard problem.

Chalmers is a dualist, a property dualist at that. Next time you try to put forth an argument, I suggest you read a little further before embarrassing yourself.

David Chalmers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Chalmers' 1996 book, The Conscious Mind, was described by The Sunday Times as "one of the best science books of the year".[4] In the book, Chalmers argues that all forms of physicalism (whether reductive or non-reductive) that have dominated modern philosophy and science fail to account for the existence (that is, presence in reality) of consciousness itself. He proposes an alternative dualistic view he calls naturalistic dualism (but which might also be characterized by more traditional formulations such as property dualism, neutral monism, or double-aspect theory)."

"Instead, Chalmers argues that consciousness is a fundamental property ontologically autonomous of any known (or even possible) physical properties, and that there may be lawlike rules which he terms "psychophysical laws" that determine which physical systems are associated with which types of qualia."

Here I'll even quote Sam Harris, die hard atheist and materialist. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-mystery-of-consciousness

"It seems to me that just as “something” and “nothing,” however juxtaposed, can do no explanatory work, an analysis of purely physical processes will never yield a picture of consciousness."

 

[MD]

I am certainly not denying the hard problem of consciousness. But I don't see how the situation is helped by positing a "non-material" substance that cannot be shown to exist, much less studied. Can you show how a non-physical substance could give rise to consciousness? Can you provide a hypothesis for the mechanism behind this? Can you suggest a test, or way to research this "non-physical" aspect? For instance when analgesia is given to a patient to make them lose consciousness, how do these chemicals interact with the "non physical"?

If you know the hard problem, you will know that consciousness is ontologically distinct and completely different from the physical substrates which give rise to it. It cannot be formalized because it is a subjective property. As such science as we now have it cannot fully explain consciousness and never will. Not everything can be explained under the current scientific paradigm. You cannot rationally or mathematically explain irrational, subjective experiences.

A theory which attempts to explain consciousness is IIT by Guilio Tononi and Christof Koch. I think it makes a dent towards explaining consciousness. Koch accepts that the conscious experience is ontologically distinct.

And btw analgesia is a pain killer, you meant to say anesthesia. When most philosophers are dealing with consciousness they are dealing with subjective experience and intentionality, not awareness. Your argument was about awareness.

 

[idav]

There is no explanation for qualia or intentionality.

Lets not pretend we don't have somewhat a handle on how the mind works and functions via the brain. Qualia is an issue, I understand that but like consciousness is dependent on so many things like memory and recall which we do understand. We understand most the parts and you take some of those parts out and cognition becomes much different often times hindered in various ways. There would appear to be some sort of central hub that we no little to nothing about but lets not just chalk it up to magic. If anything the 'I' is yet just another aspect of awareness that every living thing has degrees of including volition or intentions.

Yet when we see lesser organisms who appear to have volition we can easily trace the cause and effect and say that doesn't count. Well the basic idea is that brains don't count either if we had enough knowledge of the cause and effect chain reaction. Hiding in gaps is frustrating to me, more frustrating than taking educated guesses and being wrong.

 

[idav]

And btw analgesia is a pain killer, you meant to say anesthesia. When most philosophers are dealing with consciousness they are dealing with subjective experience and intentionality, not awareness. Your argument was about awareness.

Take out awareness and you end up without consciousness or qualia for that matter.

 

[MD]

Lets not pretend we don't have somewhat a handle on how the mind works and functions via the brain. Qualia is an issue, I understand that but like consciousness is dependent on so many things like memory and recall which we do understand. We understand most the parts and you take some of those parts out and cognition becomes much different often times hindered in various ways. There would appear to be some sort of central hub that we no little to nothing about but lets not just chalk it up to magic. If anything the 'I' is yet just another aspect of awareness that every living thing has degrees of including volition or intentions.

Yet when we see lesser organisms who appear to have volition we can easily trace the cause and effect and say that doesn't count. Well the basic idea is that brains don't count either if we had enough knowledge of the cause and effect chain reaction. Hiding in gaps is frustrating to me, more frustrating than taking educated guesses and being wrong.

We have a very very poor handle on how the brain works. Steven Pinker said that the easy problem of consciousness will take a 100 years to solve. That is the mechanistic correlations of consciousness. But the hard problem is more like the impossible problem.

What's frustrating to me is the leap of faith you physicalists take and then push your views onto everyone else. If big shot neuroscientists like Koch and Ramachandran don't ascribe to the philosophical views of physicalism, who are you to say I'm hiding? Maybe you just don't want to accept limitations and like to think we have explained everything.

 

[MD]

Take out awareness and you end up without consciousness or qualia for that matter.

True, but that's like saying you pull the plug out of a TV and thus it is only the TV which is responsible for the programs we view. In fact the programs are transmitted from other stations and will continue to do so once the TV is back on.

 

[idav]

What's frustrating to me is the leap of faith you physicalists take and then push your views onto everyone else. If big shot neuroscientists like Koch and Ramachandran don't ascribe to the philosophical views of physicalism, who are you to say I'm hiding? Maybe you just don't want to accept limitations and like to think we have explained everything.

Thing with Ramachandran is it's quite ironic that he is not a phsycialist cause he sounded like one when he described the difference between the qualia of a fruit fly and human. He knew every single mechanism involved and even purported to know where qualia was coming from in the human brain, knew the parts of the brain. But just keep believing we know nothing.

And then this whole "physicalist" thing is a strawman, nobody believes everything is literally physical, that is a misrepresentation of that view.

Besides I have found I cannot subscribe to material monism because lego blocks alone can't make thoughts, they need the other micro modes of reality for it to even be a possibility. I'm liking the neutral monism perspective.

 

[MD]

Thing with Ramachandran is it's quite ironic that he is not a phsycialist cause he sounded like one when he described the difference between the qualia of a fruit fly and human. He knew every single mechanism involved and even purported to know where qualia was coming from in the human. But just keep believing we know nothing.

And then this whole "physicalist" thing is a strawman, nobody believes everything is literally physical, that is a misrepresentation of that view.

Besides I have found I cannot subscribe to material monism because lego blocks alone can't make thoughts, they need the other micro modes of reality for it to even be a possibility. I'm liking the neutral monism perspective.

I'm not believing anything, I have studied neuroscience to know that our knowledge right now is more along a newtonian understanding of physics than say a quantum physics model.

If you believe in neutral monism then why do you continue to argue with me? Neutral monism posits that the mind and matter come from one source, yet they are both ontologically distinct in our reality.

 

[idav]

If you believe in neutral monism then why do you continue to argue with me? Neutral monism posits that the mind and matter come from one source, yet they are both ontologically distinct in our reality.

Cause we are arguing about what qualia is and nobody has a firm grasp.

Because monism means one source meaning both substance and mind or whatever are dependent on one source at which point they should no longer be considered distinct.

 

[idav]

yet they are both ontologically distinct in our reality.

I think that is illusory, reality does make us think that, yet they are one and the same.

 

[MD]

I think that is illusory, reality does make us think that, yet they are one and the same.

Reality itself can be argued as being illusory, since it is our conscious experiences which give rise to reality. As such you're right, it might all be one.

 

[fantome profane]

If you know the hard problem, you will know that consciousness is ontologically distinct and completely different from the physical substrates which give rise to it. It cannot be formalized because it is a subjective property. As such science as we now have it cannot fully explain consciousness and never will. Not everything can be explained under the current scientific paradigm. You cannot rationally or mathematically explain irrational, subjective experiences.

A theory which attempts to explain consciousness is IIT by Guilio Tononi and Christof Koch. I think it makes a dent towards explaining consciousness. Koch accepts that the conscious experience is ontologically distinct.

And btw analgesia is a pain killer, you meant to say anesthesia. When most philosophers are dealing with consciousness they are dealing with subjective experience and intentionality, not awareness. Your argument was about awareness.

Yes, thank you for the anesthesia correction.

But you didn't address the main point. Can you tell me how positing an additional "non-physical aspect" helps us to deal with the hard problem of consciousness?

 

[Bunyip]

The computer monitor in front of you that you see is not the computer monitor that is composed of matter and energy. The one in front of you is composed of your thoughts about the monitor, including the thoughts of the sensorium and the thought that "the monitor is composed of matter and energy."

No, the computer monitor infront of me is a real physical artifact. It is composed of plastic mostly.