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]

Nope, check back and see if your blinders are removed

Disappointing.

 

[1137]

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

Because brain and mind are connected. This had been the problem with the entire 11 page thread. The question is if brain creates mind, but all the discussion and evidence is that brain and mind are connected.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

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.

Agreed.

The objection of the critical thinker is the tendency of many to understand that as evidence for gods and other disembodied minds, an ignorantium fallacy. There are so many people that want creator gods to exist that they that this thrust toward idealism exists to support that faith-based premise.

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

That's (unqualified) materialism, or as I prefer to call it, physicalism and naturalism, since matter is only one manifestation of physical reality, others being space, time, energy, and force. Physicalism doesn't deny that the substance consciousness isn't matter, assuming that that is what you mean by immaterial.

I couldn't find the term "naive materialism" in any academic resource. Naive realism is a thing from academic philosophy (two links below), but your term, naive materialism, only appears in other kinds of links. There was a reference in SpiritWiki and a few more listed below, including links from economics and Marxist philosophy:

The question is if brain creates mind

And it's been answered. The evidence for the yes position greatly outweighs the evidence against it. You didn't participate in its evaluation, instead, preferring to call all evidence of causality mere correlation while claiming that nobody can provide you any supporting evidence. I agree with that, but not because none exists and not because none was offered. The evidence was rejected out of hand without rebuttal stronger than that all you can see is connection, not causation. That's fine. It's not important that you or almost anybody else think differently.

Yours is a common approach on these threads. One represents himself as open-minded and amenable to evidence, then rejects all offered evidence as not convincing to him, as if he were a competent critical thinker whose rejection of evidence should be respected. But what we see is "see-if-you-can-teach-me-anything-without my cooperation." No, we can't, which is why I argued that there is no burden of "proof" here. You bring a closed mind to the process. Once again, that's fine with me.

 

[ChristineM]

Disappointing.

Yes you are

 

[Alien826]

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

I was talking about the word "meme", which was invented by Richard Dawkins. I have no doubt that the concept has been around for ever, as you say.

I'm not sure of the relevance of the rest, except to ask ...

The phallus is an eye-poker.

Is that the origin of the phrase "cock eyed"? Just kidding.

 

[Alien826]

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.

And there are creatures (admittedly primitive) that display purposeful activity with only a nervous system. Jellyfish for example.

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.

OK, you've convinced me!

 

[F1fan]

Naive materialism is a philosophical position which goes further than materialism or natural realism,

And how is it being declared "naive"? Based on what facts?

in denying altogether the immaterial qualities of consciousness.

There are no known "immaterial qualities" of consciousness. Feel free to correct me. There are assumptions, typically by theists who have a vested interest in an "immaterial" anything.

The ‘hard problem of consciousness’ can be summarised as the question, why it is that conscious beings have qualitative phenomenal experiences.

Give some examples. Then we can see if there is an actual problem in the facts, or you theists are just trying to create a dilemma that doesn't exist.

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.

It's like gravity, we may not understand how it works, but what we observe is natural processes, and we see no signs of supernaural or immaterial phenomenon. The burden is on you theists to show there is a "ghost in the machine" thing going on in our brains. Thus far you make claims, and no evidence.

 

[1137]

And it's been answered.

But it hasnt, the only evidence provided shows mind and brain are related and thay wasnt the question.

Imagine you asked for evidence the sky is red. I bring you a picture of a green bush and say, "look, the bush is obviously green, how stupid you are for not accepting that!" But you didn't ask if bushes are green, you asked if the sky was red. Do you see how my response would be embarrassingly fallacious? I don't doubt bushes are green or mind and brain are connected, I doubt the sky is red and that brain causes mind.

The evidence for the yes position greatly outweighs the evidence against it.

Really? I made a thread recently on 10 reasons physicalism doesn't work. You've presented zero reasons it does. Cmon now.

You didn't participate in its evaluation, instead, preferring to call all evidence of causality mere correlation while claiming that nobody can provide you any supporting evidence.

Blatant lie. Its true correlation isnt causation but I've also REPEATEDLY said mind and brain are connected and effect each other.

I agree with that, but not because none exists and not because none was offered. The evidence was rejected out of hand without rebuttal stronger than that all you can see is connection, not causation. That's fine. It's not important that you or almost anybody else think differently.

Same lie.

Yours is a common approach on these threads. One represents himself as open-minded and amenable to evidence, then rejects all offered evidence as not convincing to him, as if he were a competent critical thinker whose rejection of evidence should be respected. But what we see is "see-if-you-can-teach-me-anything-without my cooperation." No, we can't, which is why I argued that there is no burden of "proof" here. You bring a closed mind to the process. Once again, that's fine with me.

My openness to changing my view from evidence is not only an objective fact but one documented here in my 11+ years where I started with the same fideistic faith this thread has questioned. And yet every time I come back, I see the same user names with the same pictures and same ideas. This is projection.

 

[1137]

Yes you are

Wow there should be an age requirement here. Ignored.

 

[F1fan]

Because brain and mind are connected. This had been the problem with the entire 11 page thread. The question is if brain creates mind, but all the discussion and evidence is that brain and mind are connected.

Your ongoing assumption seems to be that "mind" is an independent phenomenon of the brain. You have gone on to claim that brains are like radio sets that receive "mind" from some source that you failed to explain. You also claimed that the differences between minds must be different signals being sent, which begs the question: how many minds do you think are being transmitted, perhaps 8 billion? How would this transmission claim make any better sense than individual brains being the cause of the minds that are expressed by them?

Your claims create more problems due to the lack of evidence.

 

[osgart]

About Aboutness | Issue 132 | Philosophy Now

Raymond Tallis has some thoughts about intentionality.

philosophynow.org

The invisible elephant in the room is aboutness. It cannot be accounted for physically or in any material sense.

 

[Copernicus]

About Aboutness | Issue 132 | Philosophy Now

Raymond Tallis has some thoughts about intentionality.

philosophynow.org

The invisible elephant in the room is aboutness. It cannot be accounted for physically or in any material sense.

I think that Raymond Tallis's argument is roughly that he can't think of how aboutness could be implemented in a thinking machine, and that boils down essentially to an argument from ignorance. Animals have bodies that record memories of experiences and use those memories to understand situations that they find themselves in. They survive by figuring out that what they are experiencing in real time is about specific past experiences and act accordingly.

Now, how would one go about implementing aboutness in a fully material robot? Robots can be given episodic memories on the basis of data from sensors that they use to map out environments. They can interpret real time data by relating it to stored experiences recorded as data structures stored in memory. In principle, they can acquire experiences and use the same processes that human brains do. Brains are essentially analog computing devices, after all. There is nothing obvious about flesh and blood machines that cannot also be implemented from other types of materials. Perhaps down the road we will discover some fundamental ingredient in biological structures that cannot be implemented in our mechanical devices, but we are not in a position now to know one way or the other. Until then, aboutness is not the problem it might appear to be from a philosopher's armchair.

 

[ChristineM]

Wow there should be an age requirement here. Ignored.

.if you ask nicely they may let you play

 

[Alien826]

I think that Raymond Tallis's argument is roughly that he can't think of how aboutness could be implemented in a thinking machine, and that boils down essentially to an argument from ignorance. Animals have bodies that record memories of experiences and use those memories to understand situations that they find themselves in. They survive by figuring out that what they are experiencing in real time is about specific past experiences and act accordingly.

Now, how would one go about implementing aboutness in a fully material robot? Robots can be given episodic memories on the basis of data from sensors that they use to map out environments. They can interpret real time data by relating it to stored experiences recorded as data structures stored in memory. In principle, they can acquire experiences and use the same processes that human brains do. Brains are essentially analog computing devices, after all. There is nothing obvious about flesh and blood machines that cannot also be implemented from other types of materials. Perhaps down the road we will discover some fundamental ingredient in biological structures that cannot be implemented in our mechanical devices, but we are not in a position now to know one way or the other. Until then, aboutness is not the problem it might appear to be from a philosopher's armchair.

I've often thought that a conscious computer would would put all this duality to bed finally.

Way off now I suspect, but how about if we could map an entire brain and build a computer that duplicated it using electronic (or other purely physical) components and just set it running. Would it have consciousness? And if so, would it be morally right to turn it off?

 

[dybmh]

Blatant lie.

yeah, this happened to me as well in another thread...

Same lie.

yeah, and it's repetitive. Maybe your time and energy are better directed on intellectually honest conversations. This appears to be a pattern, fyi.

 

[PearlSeeker]

The mind is a process running in the brain. It isn't created by the brain. It's a result of evolution (the brain also).

 

[RestlessSoul]

I've often thought that a conscious computer would would put all this duality to bed finally.

Way off now I suspect, but how about if we could map an entire brain and build a computer that duplicated it using electronic (or other purely physical) components and just set it running. Would it have consciousness? And if so, would it be morally right to turn it off?

Are you familiar with Integrated Information Theory?

Integrated information theory - Wikipedia

The basic premise is that consciousness is synonymous with information, and that since every entity carries a modicum of information, so every entity is conscious to a degree. A charged particle such as a photon, carries a quantum of consciousness, though not in the sense we generally understand consciousness - it isn’t self-aware.

The more information that is integrated into a particular system, the higher the level of consciousness, until you get to the human brain which has a high level of consciousness because it integrates, processes and interprets such a huge volume of information. The implications for AI in this scenario, you can contemplate for yourself.

 

[Kathryn]

Because brain and mind are connected. This had been the problem with the entire 11 page thread. The question is if brain creates mind, but all the discussion and evidence is that brain and mind are connected.

And personality.

 

[osgart]

I think that Raymond Tallis's argument is roughly that he can't think of how aboutness could be implemented in a thinking machine, and that boils down essentially to an argument from ignorance. Animals have bodies that record memories of experiences and use those memories to understand situations that they find themselves in. They survive by figuring out that what they are experiencing in real time is about specific past experiences and act accordingly.

Now, how would one go about implementing aboutness in a fully material robot? Robots can be given episodic memories on the basis of data from sensors that they use to map out environments. They can interpret real time data by relating it to stored experiences recorded as data structures stored in memory. In principle, they can acquire experiences and use the same processes that human brains do. Brains are essentially analog computing devices, after all. There is nothing obvious about flesh and blood machines that cannot also be implemented from other types of materials. Perhaps down the road we will discover some fundamental ingredient in biological structures that cannot be implemented in our mechanical devices, but we are not in a position now to know one way or the other. Until then, aboutness is not the problem it might appear to be from a philosopher's armchair.

I don't think this addresses the mental contents of aboutness. A thinking machine could imitate artificially the intentionality of being alive, but never produce the qualities of being alive. The subject, the experiencer, the selfhood identity that persists through time is not merely a computer making a calculation. It looks like you are artificially reducing aboutness to cold calculation. Science can tell you what behaves, and how a phenomena behaves, but it cannot tell you the intrinsic behaviour and qualities of conscious phenomena from mere third person observation. Science doesn't do why questions, it can only do natural processes and must limit itself to that.

Tallis is also a neuro scientist as well as a philosopher. No one escapes philosophy in the evaluation and interpretation of evidence.

Aboutness is the conscious observer seeing out through his/her eyes and not just taking in the light from the environment processed to the brain.

 

[Alien826]

I don't think this addresses the mental contents of aboutness. A thinking machine could imitate artificially the intentionality of being alive, but never produce the qualities of being alive. The subject, the experiencer, the selfhood identity that persists through time is not merely a computer making a calculation. It looks like you are artificially reducing aboutness to cold calculation. Science can tell you what behaves, and how a phenomena behaves, but it cannot tell you the intrinsic behaviour and qualities of conscious phenomena from mere third person observation. Science doesn't do why questions, it can only do natural processes and must limit itself to that.

How would you go about determining whether the robot had these qualities or not? We can't communicate with it to the extent of directly experiencing what it experiences. And that's no different from asking the question about another person. The big difference is that we have our own experience to study. I know that I have certain mental "states" or feelings, because I directly experience them (though the accuracy of that experience remains a question), and I imply that other people have similar feelings.

What concerns me about your conclusions is that you seem to be saying something like "the machine is not like me, so it can't behave as I do". That was something that people claimed years ago about non-human animals and it has been shown to be generally incorrect.

Of course it's all speculation at this point. We don't have this machine to examine.