Yet you continue to call it a straw man
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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?
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Yet you continue to call it a straw man
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
I would like to read the neuroscience definition of "mind".
Has it been posted yet?
Alien826
No religious beliefs
If you dismiss everything you have been told so far, I don't think you will ever get that evidence.
The problem is that just about everything we consider to be causation can be dismissed as mere correlation if we want to. Did you read my imaginary story of the light switch? Nobody seriously thinks that the switch doesn't control the light, but in the end we dismiss claims of mysterious forces acting on the bulb with very similar arguments that have been used to suggest that the brain causes/creates the mind.
In the end, though I know you reject this, the correlation becomes so close to total that when a contrary claim is made we can only ask for some evidence to support the claim, and if that proves to be unconvincing then we fall back to the previous conclusion.
Not that im aware of but Google is a mine of information
Example
A Neuroscience Levels of Explanation Approach to the Mind and the Brain
Alien826
No religious beliefs
Are you suggesting that the brain can't change itself? Muscles do that all the time.
In a video game, if you run out of health, you die.
Same with the brain and mind. It's part of the rules of the "life".
Does it create the mind? No more then your screen creates the program running right now on the web-browser. Of course, your screen changes with different programs, as does part of your brain react differently and light up differently, but it's not the source, and definitely not the source of electricity for it. Your screen displays and changes with programs but runs none. The soul worlds are where the programs run - the brain is but a display to interact with this world.
Yes, you arguing against the position "mind and brain are not connected" is a straw man, very good. Nobody says they aren't connected.
I've dismissed the evidence so far because it only shows mind and brain are connected. Nobody questions this.
Okay.
So can we have evidence to support the claim of Physicalism already please???????
I provided a short list of reasons used as evidence, you argued against them. Im content i did my job, you can play whatever games make you feel big and strong.
Copernicus
Industrial Strength Linguist
You have 7 pages of people presenting you with evidence that you rejected out of hand, but your position--that minds exist independently of brains--is an example of fideism. What we have so far is a concept of mind that has properties we can enumerate--memory, awareness of self, awareness of environment, emotion, mood, reasoning, etc. We also have evidence of physical changes to the brain that affect all of those properties, sometimes permanently. We can identify locations in the brain that affect those properties. What we would need to falsify the claim that brains create minds is the example of some mental property or function for which the connection to physical brain activity is undetectable. Can you name such a property or function? If you cannot, then you have your evidence. If you refuse to believe it, then your refusal is grounded in fideism, is it not?
The only syllogism I can think of:
A soul requires a supernatural Creator.
An evil Creator would not create goodness.
Only an evil Creator can create a high amount of evil and suffering.
There is a high amount of evil and suffering in this world.
There is goodness.
Therefore no soul exists
A soul requires a supernatural Creator.
An evil Creator would not create goodness.
Only an evil Creator can create a high amount of evil and suffering.
There is a high amount of evil and suffering in this world.
There is goodness.
Therefore no soul exists
So you acknowledge these were refuted as evidence for physicalism. Is there additional evidence? Or can we then discard physicalism?
Ive both acknowledged it and accept what they show: that mind and brain are connected to each other. Its not what I asked for evidence for.
My position is irrelevant. Me being wrong doesnt prove physicalism.
Yes, we have evidence the mind and brain are connected and influence each other.
Again alternatives are literally irrelevant to if physicalism is true or not.
Nope, because I accept the evidence and the conclusion they support. The conclusion just isn't physicalism, which we can safely conclude is fideism at this point.
Nobody is going to post it -- a book-length post isn't available yet. But you could do a lot worse (except for price, it's expensive) than:
Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind Hardcover – Oct. 19 2018
by Michael Gazzaniga (Author), Richard Ivry (Author), George Mangun (Author)
Why?
But why must there be some monotheistic creator?
I don't think I get it tbh.
We aren't talking about a monotheistic creator. Just a supernatural one.
Why must there be one?
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
Looks cool but:
"In this paper I reach as far as mental events, but do not deal with phenomenal consciousness, which I have considered elsewhere"
So, it seems this thread is still missing a definition of "mind". How can there be a claim of evidence about one thing producing another without even a rudimentary definition of the thing being produced?
I don't think anyone is going to argue that the brain doesn't produce mental states. That's what it does. The question is, does the brain create the mind? What is this "mind"? How do I know when and where it is present?
Copernicus
Industrial Strength Linguist
You asked for evidence, not absolute proof of anything. The evidence you were given was that all known mental functions can be altered by physical effects on the brain. You have been asked for evidence of any brain function that cannot be affected by physical changes to the brain and have declined to answer. So the most reasonable conclusion is that the brain causes those effects, that they depend on brain function to continue working, and that the death of the brain leads to their termination. Your request for evidence has been more than amply answered, and you have not provided any evidence of a mental property or function that does not depend on a physically functioning brain.
Nobody says it does. You didn't ask for that.
Right. That's what is called prima facie evidence. You need to refute it, but you seem to lack motivation do that.
Nobody but you is claiming that your OP called for anyone to prove physicalism. That's a straw man.
Look, here is the sum total of your OP, which does not mention physicalism:
If you are dissatisfied with the evidence you've been given and can't refute it, why not start another thread asking the exact same question with slightly different wording? People just love it when you do that.
FYI, it is possible to reject physicalism and still believe that the mind is created by the brain, depends on the brain, and dies when the brain dies. That doesn't mean that other minds don't exist in a disembodied state, just that ours do not.
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