Lets try this another way: if you have faith the brain creates the mind, and that mind depends on brain, can we please see your logic and evidence?

[1137]

Which is of the brain.

Ah so just circular reasoning. Your conclusion is true because it is true.

 

[1137]

You missed the point. Causation is always a relationship between events, not things and events. To say that a brain "causes" the mind is something of a category mistake, because it is what the brain does that causes a mind to exist. Technically, it is brain activity not brain that you are referring to. So "brains cause minds" is just a shorthand way of saying that "brain activity causes thought activity" among other kinds of events in a physical human body (for example, movement of body parts).

Call it anything you want, is there evidence for it?

 

[Alien826]

I was trying to be careful not to equate brain activity with thought activity, because the word "thought" tends to denote very specific types of mental activity--calculation, volition, emotion, mood, perception (i.e. interpretation of sense data), etc. However, much of what the brain does is what we casually refer to as the "subconscious"--activity that we are not consciously aware of.

Yes. I spent some time trying to decide what might be the most general, non semantically loaded word to describe what a brain does when it functions. I came up with "thought". I agree that the brain does lots of different things (quite amazing really*), not all of which I can capture with a single word. I also realize that "brain" itself is not sufficient. I believe the spine is involved sometimes (reflexes) and other parts of the body regulate brain activity to various extents.

Your point about cars not actually creating transportation is interesting, because it focuses on the way 1137 has been describing the physicalist position as he sees it. There is a sense in which cars do create transportation, but I would say that that is just a kind of shorthand way of saying that car activity is transportation activity. That's what cars do. Thinking is what brains do. It's just that the way nouns, verbs, and phrases work to express meaning sometimes leads us to make logical mistakes in how we model reality. (Many years ago, I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on the expression of causation in linguistic expressions, and a paper I published on the subject briefly enjoyed some limited popularity.)

Again, yes. I'd like to read your dissertation if it is available online. It sounds fascinating.

 

[ChristineM]

Ah so just circular reasoning. Your conclusion is true because it is true.

Eh? Did you really say that?

 

[Alien826]

There are plenty of good reasons to neglect solipsism, sure. It’s nihilistic for a start, a doctrine of despair. I’m not a solipsist, for similar reasons I’m not an atheist; but the point I’m trying to make is twofold - first, that naive materialism is as extreme an interpretation of the mental/physical relationship as is idealism, and second, that there is a broad spectrum of interpretations between the two extremes, with dualism somewhere in the middle.

I agree that there is a spectrum of belief on this, but I would respond that the truth is somewhere on that spectrum, and that is what is to be determined. Just because something is at one end of the line doesn't make it wrong (or right, in itself). What we do in these case is to examine the evidence, conduct tests, and so on. I submit that the overwhelming correlation between brain activity and thoughts of all kinds, and the lack of hard evidence for other positions makes the material explanation much more likely than the others. There's enough going on to not dismiss other explanations totally out of hand, I feel, but in cases like this, what do you go with?

The physicalist who believes the mind is an output of the brain, gives priority to the latter with no more logic or reason than the idealist does the reverse. The argument that the mind is the brain seems to me the most absurd of all, for this is to deny completely, those qualitative experiences which are unique to consciousness. The fact that there is something that it is like to be human, surely implies that there are aspects of consciousness which are immaterial. After all, you cannot point to awareness, nor measure, weigh, or otherwise quantify it.

That is no problem if you define "awareness" (and "beauty" and all the other examples I hear) as our perception of various states of the brain. I note that "how it happens" may not be clear, but that's not a reason to invent whole other entities, like disembodied minds, which themselves have huge explanatory problems.

Regards Beethoven btw, one thing we can be sure of is that neither Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, nor Newton’s Law of Gravitation, would be possible without minds to conceive them, and other minds to receive and respond to them.

Yes. But that is true whatever is the nature of the mind.

 

[John D. Brey]

I never said the laws of physics are "violated." I said they're "transcended," which is a whole other thing.

Others see it as a distinction without a difference. As McBell pointed out, you need to explain the difference.

Quantum physics could be said to transcend the classical understanding of physics in some pronounced ways. Locality and the speed of light are parts and boundary conditions of the classical model that quantum physics shows can be transcended. What does it mean to say that communication can take place at speeds faster than the speed of light? Clearly, the classical understanding is intact to some extent, but it's been transcended (without actually violating any laws) since we now know faster than light communication takes place.

Every law is circumscribed within the context of the law. But if the law is part of the fabric of reality, the law isn't ever broken. It's just that we come to learn that a law thought to cover all bases and all of reality isn't as comprehensive a picture of reality as we once thought it was.

The idea that all human thought is produced by the brain is a typical misunderstanding of the laws of physics. Just as we now know faster than light communication takes place, we now know the human mind takes part in acts of cognition that are free from the restraints and laws which the biological brain always functions under.

Numerous atheist thinkers are aware that the last statement is true, and even make the statement themselves. But they couch their statements in grammar that gives them an out if someone calls them on the fact that they are saying the human mind transcends the laws of physics. They (say for instance Daniel Dennett) indeed say that. But they always say it in a way that allows them to deny they said it if called on to admit they've said it since it does serious damage to their underlying (with emphasis on lying) worldview.

Memes can be read off a page. They can be absorbed through a TV. A statue can be a meme. A Bible verse, or doctrine ("original sin"), can be a meme.

That doesn't get memes outside of minds. It just transfers them to other minds. The text is merely a medium by which memes can spread from one mind to others. Think of language as word-guided mental telepathy. In Bloom's Lucifer Principle, he just carries Dawkins' metaphor further by talking about groups of minds as "superorganisms" that can host memes.

Right. And the brain is itself, like the tangible text of a quotation, merely a medium by which the meme on the page gets transferred to the immaterial mind. If the letters on the page are the semen (as Professor Wolfson implies) then the eye linked to the brain is like the vagina that receives the semen such that a new idea/meme is produced once the seed on the page gets into the womb of the brain by means of the vaginal portal of the eyegate. Once it's produced in the womb of the brain, the new meme can pass through what a pen-is (in this kind of proliferation), so that having passed through what the pen-is in meme transfer and production it might enter into another brain to procreate and proliferate anew.

It is clear that the zoharic authorship, consistent with standard medieval views, reflecting in turn ancient Greco-Roman as well as Near Eastern cultural assumptions, identified the writing instrument (pen or chisel) with the phallus, on one hand, and the tablet or page with the female on the other. . . It may be concluded from these and other passages that in zoharic literature engraving letters, or more generally the process of writing or inscription, is a decidedly erotic activity: the active agent of writing is the male principle; the written letters are the semen virile, and the tablet or page upon which the writing is accomplished is the female principle. . . It is obvious, therefore, that the letters must be seen as the semen that the male imparts to the female.​

​

Elliot R. Wolfson, Circle in the Square, p. 62, 68.​

John

 

[1137]

Eh? Did you really say that?

View attachment 82412

I asked for evidence of your conclusion and you just repeated your conclusion.

 

[John D. Brey]

As I understand Dawkins' original idea, memes exist in the mind and, like genes, propagate themselves to other people. I'm not sure this is more than an entertaining fancy of Dawkins, but there is a similarity that ends when we consider the means of propagation. Genes, of course, propagate by sexual (and other forms of) reproduction. Memes do so by communication between humans, by speech, writing and so on. That doesn't make the means of communication the meme.

As I suggested, I don't think something so commonplace needed a new word, but it seems to have caught on.

I don't think the concept of the meme is commonplace or new.

In the Tanakh, Messiah is said to be born through, and procreate by means of, an asexual form of reproduction. All living things procreated asexually prior to the arrival of binary gender, and thus sex. The Tanakh implies the phallus that is the sign of binary gender caused the fall of humanity such that Messiah will return life to its pre-phallic, immortal, paradise.

Voila. The person billions of people alive right now consider Messiah, said, in John chapter six, that he was returning true life to its original, immortal, asexual, prototype. In the same chapter he says if you want to take part in this new, memetic, form of replication, you must cannibalize him rather than having phallic sex with him. In verse 53 this would-be Messiah says if you want immortality, and to enter paradise, you must cannibalize him like the pre-sexual organisms cannibalized each other to procreate (Margulis 2003).

When those who heard Messiah say this were as perplexed as those reading these words likely are today, he told them: "It is memes that give life . . . the words that I speak unto you they are spirit, they are life."

In a double-entendre fitting of its biblical proportions, Jesus said that the words "eat me" are actually a meme, the words saying to eat his flesh are memes, so that if his memes enter the vagina of ones ears or eyes, and make their brain pregnant with Him, they will never see true death. Only the facade gallivanting as their life, i.e., the material home of the immortal soul, will experience death. Consequently, only those who don't swallow that truth will die when the body they loved and believed was the end all be all dies.

But, I suppose, if at the time of its release the soul is tainted and impure, because it has always associated with the body and cared for it and loved it, and has been so beguiled by the body and its passions and pleasures that nothing seems real to it but those physical things which can be touched and seen and eaten and drunk and used for sexual enjoyment, and if it is accustomed to hate and fear and avoid what is invisible and hidden from our eyes, but intelligible and comprehensible by philosophy -- if the soul is in this state, do you think that it will escape independent and uncontaminated . . . It is indeed no trifling task, but very difficult to realize that there is in every soul an organ or instrument of knowledge that is purified and kindled afresh by such studies when it has been destroyed and blinded by our ordinary pursuits, a faculty whose preservation outweighs ten thousand eyes, for by it only is reality beheld.​

​

Plato (Phaedo 81 b; Republic 527e).​

The phallus is an eye-poker. It blinds the Platonic eye of the soul so that biological sex becomes the unbelievers only means of existence and procreation. In John chapter six, after telling his audience all these things, verse 666 speaks of those who don't believe. According to the text, they're all beasts, beastly offspring of the biological serpent; sons and daughter whose life will be forfeited when they forfeit the biological shell whose kernel they either carelessly lost or else sold for a mess of pottage believing the most valuable thing they will ever have possessed was worthless for its having been invisible. They want nothing but what they can see, tastes, and hump, like the horny dog many of them are.



John

 

[ChristineM]

I asked for evidence of your conclusion and you just repeated your conclusion.

I have provided it, that you choose to ignore is is not my problem

 

[Copernicus]

Yes. I spent some time trying to decide what might be the most general, non semantically loaded word to describe what a brain does when it functions. I came up with "thought". I agree that the brain does lots of different things (quite amazing really*), not all of which I can capture with a single word. I also realize that "brain" itself is not sufficient. I believe the spine is involved sometimes (reflexes) and other parts of the body regulate brain activity to various extents.

I agree with you that the entire nervous system is involved, not just the central nervous system, which we call the "brain". After all, we can focus attention on different parts of our bodies to the exclusion of other parts.

Again, yes. I'd like to read your dissertation if it is available online. It sounds fascinating.

Thanks, but I doubt you would want to wade through it. Unless you have an interest in arcane linguistic theories that were bandied about in 1973, most of it would probably not be of much use. I wasn't the only one at the time who was exploring causal expressions at the time, and a number of us were trying to figure out how to represent the semantic structure of such expressions. Some of it was inspired by the work of philosopher Zeno Vendler in Linguistics in Philosophy, although my analysis was grounded in ancient Hindu linguistic work, a Soviet work on the typology of causal expressions, and a now defunct school of syntax call Generative Semantics. So--pretty arcane stuff, but, if you are really interested, PM me for the link.

 

[Copernicus]

Quantum physics could be said to transcend the classical understanding of physics in some pronounced ways. Locality and the speed of light are parts and boundary conditions of the classical model that quantum physics shows can be transcended. What does it mean to say that communication can take place at speeds faster than the speed of light? Clearly, the classical understanding is intact to some extent, but it's been transcended (without actually violating any laws) since we now know faster than light communication takes place.

One could also claim that quantum effects violate classical mechanics, so I don't think that this analogy gets you anywhere useful. It is just extending the meaning of "transcend" in a way that obscures what we are discussing here--the question of evidence for the claim that physical brain activity creates and sustains mental activity. That would imply a non-physical force that interacts with physical forces--something for which there is no reasonable evidence and that is quite hard to explain--the proverbial "ghost in the machine".

Every law is circumscribed within the context of the law. But if the law is part of the fabric of reality, the law isn't ever broken. It's just that we come to learn that a law thought to cover all bases and all of reality isn't as comprehensive a picture of reality as we once thought it was.

Yes, all well and good, but you are talking about whether it makes sense to believe that there is some reason to posit a non-physical "fabric of reality". That would require evidence of physical phenomena that have non-physical causes. Let's try to stay focused on the topic.

The idea that all human thought is produced by the brain is a typical misunderstanding of the laws of physics. Just as we now know faster than light communication takes place, we now know the human mind takes part in acts of cognition that are free from the restraints and laws which the biological brain always functions under.

Actually, we don't know any of that. You are making bald claims here--claims without any grounding in evidence. AFAIK, it is far from certain that faster than light communication is possible, since some interpretations of quantum entanglement do not require it.

Numerous atheist thinkers are aware that the last statement is true, and even make the statement themselves. But they couch their statements in grammar that gives them an out if someone calls them on the fact that they are saying the human mind transcends the laws of physics. They (say for instance Daniel Dennett) indeed say that. But they always say it in a way that allows them to deny they said it if called on to admit they've said it since it does serious damage to their underlying (with emphasis on lying) worldview.

I've read a considerable amount of Dennett's work, and I've never seen anything to support what you are saying about him here. I'm afraid we'll have to disagree about that, since you are just making more unfounded generalizations about atheists.

Right. And the brain is itself, like the tangible text of a quotation, merely a medium by which the meme on the page gets transferred to the immaterial mind. If the letters on the page are the semen (as Professor Wolfson implies) then the eye linked to the brain is like the vagina that receives the semen such that a new idea/meme is produced once the seed on the page gets into the womb of the brain by means of the vaginal portal of the eyegate. Once it's produced in the womb of the brain, the new meme can pass through what a pen-is (in this kind of proliferation), so that having passed through what the pen-is in meme transfer and production it might enter into another brain to procreate and proliferate anew.

It is clear that the zoharic authorship, consistent with standard medieval views, reflecting in turn ancient Greco-Roman as well as Near Eastern cultural assumptions, identified the writing instrument (pen or chisel) with the phallus, on one hand, and the tablet or page with the female on the other. . . It may be concluded from these and other passages that in zoharic literature engraving letters, or more generally the process of writing or inscription, is a decidedly erotic activity: the active agent of writing is the male principle; the written letters are the semen virile, and the tablet or page upon which the writing is accomplished is the female principle. . . It is obvious, therefore, that the letters must be seen as the semen that the male imparts to the female.​

John, why is it that you always manage to steer the discussion around to memes evoking images of human genitalia? In any case, I don't consider the mind any more immaterial than any other physical phenomena we interact with. It is a very complex system of physical interactions, but that's why I bring in the concept of emergence from systems theory. Mental activity is often described as a case of emergent materialism by philosophers like Dennett.

 

[1137]

I have provided it, that you choose to ignore is is not my problem

I must have missed it, I only see your evidence for mind and brain being connected. Can you please repost?

 

[ChristineM]

I must have missed it, I only see your evidence for mind and brain being connected. Can you please repost?

Nope, check back and see if your blinders are removed

 

[RestlessSoul]

How is materialism naive? What is extreme in that view since it is the most humble approach, and does not assume there is more. Let's note that non-materialists can explain what exists that is not material.

Which category has the fewest assumptions? Which one is most consistent with what we understand of reality? That's the winner.

It's what we observe, what is there to believe? the belief comes in when theists want spirit, God, angels, soul, etc. to have some relevancy to life experience. Believers can't argue for what they think is true, only try to poke holes in what we observe that's evident. I'd like to see you guys actually try to argue for what you think is happening instead of dubious critique.

Why? Why assume an immaterial when the phenomenon is clearly a result of physical brains and physical brain activity? Observing brain activity and functions doesn't impy any such thing. I suggest you examine your motives to "see" that implication.

You can point to aware being versus sleeping beings. And there are degrees of consciousness.

And notice this didn't happen until human civiliztion evolved to a certain level of development. The brain had already evolved, but what humans could create was a slow evolution of modernity and advancement. Arguably what the human minds were capable of was dependent on existing knowledge and society, not pure imagination.

Naive materialism is a philosophical position which goes further than materialism or natural realism, in denying altogether the immaterial qualities of consciousness.

The ‘hard problem of consciousness’ can be summarised as the question, why it is that conscious beings have qualitative phenomenal experiences. While the functional and structural activities of cognition can, perhaps, one day be entirely understood in material terms, the question “how and why are these functions accompanied by experience” cannot.

 

[Kathryn]

There is a feedback loop here, and it’s a two way process; thus the mind can also affect the brain, enabling the rewiring of neural pathways through therapies such as CBT.

Well, I'll see if he's doing any CBT but I rather doubt it. He's very jacked up. Luck of the draw, I guess. I mean, I could be but I'm not. He is.

 

[Kathryn]

Why are some peoples' personalities affected when their brain experiences a stroke?

 

[McBell]

Why are some peoples' personalities affected when their brain experiences a stroke?

My first guess is that it is the same as the changes in people who are robbed at gun point, or those who nearly die in an accident.

 

[Kathryn]

My first guess is that it is the same as the changes in people who are robbed at gun point, or those who nearly die in an accident.

My guess is that a stroke physically affects the brain, which can alter one's mind/personality. Have you ever had someone very close to you whose personality you knew very well suffer a stroke which alters their personality? I mean, I haven't been robbed at gunpoint but I have nearly died in an accident and my personality wasn't significantly changed over time but my mom had a massive stroke at aged 65 and her personality was greatly changed. And it was changed in odd ways. My personality has changed a bit, but not significantly, since losing my spouse unexpectedly three years ago. It has taken me several years to regroup so to speak, but it's happened slowly.

 

[McBell]

My guess is that a stroke physically affects the brain, which can alter one's mind/personality. Have you ever had someone very close to you whose personality you knew very well suffer a stroke which alters their personality?

Yes I have.
And I agree that strokes can have devastating physical effects on the brain.
I also agree that said physical effects can effect personalities; along with mobility, clarity, etc.

 

[Kathryn]

Yes I have.
And I agree that strokes can have devastating physical effects on the brain.
I also agree that said physical effects can effect personalities; along with mobility, clarity, etc.

OK just looking for some clarification.