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?

[dybmh]

Ah. @Copernicus , can you help? Do you have a working definition of "mind"?

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I think I might be fairly consistent in my belief that the brain is the seat / control interface of the mind, and that the concept of the mind is fairly analogous with the soul. The mind seems to work with the brain, and draw from it, in my general view. If you learn something new, the information is in the brain, and the mind can then use what you learned. The mind is still there, however, if you did not learn it. It still there, if you forget it. Even if you have brain damage, there is something still there, but the brain is not able to fully seat the signal that it would otherwise naturally seat.

 

[Copernicus]

Ah. @Copernicus , can you help? Do you have a working definition of "mind"?

I find dictionary definitions adequate, but you should recall that I treat word definitions as different from the concept they represent. Here is one usage definition from Google dictionary:

the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.

 

[Link]

Why must there be one?

Eh my brain is hurting now, maybe that's your proof that it's a brain not a soul.

 

[dybmh]

I find dictionary definitions adequate, but you should recall that I treat word definitions as different from the concept they represent. Here is one usage definition from Google dictionary:

the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.

Regarding the distinction between defintion and concept, do you think what's listed above is adaquate for identifying when and where a "mind" is present? If so, when you read the defintion above, are you looking for all of those qualities, some of them, or one of them?

The reason I'm asking is, there is scientific evidence that trees *might* qualify as having a "mind" without a brain. Maybe not one tree, but it's the network of trees. Then maybe there's a discussion about a hive mind, group-thiink, mob-mentality, neural networks, AI, etc...

 

[1137]

You asked for evidence, not absolute proof of anything.

I'm still not asking for proof, I never ask for metaphysical certainty.

The evidence you were given was that all known mental functions can be altered by physical effects on the brain.

But this wasnt the question. Do you see how I asked for evidence the brain creates the mind, and here you're arguing against "brain cannot effect the mind?" That's called a straw man.

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.

I dont believe in such a thing so why would i provide evidence for it? Straw man again.

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.

The only conclusion to be made is mind and brain effect each other. This was never in question.

Your request for evidence has been more than amply answered,

But not evidence for the position i asked about.

and you have not provided any evidence of a mental property or function that does not depend on a physically functioning brain.

I don't need to because I'm not making any claim, I'm asking for evidence for something.

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.

I agree the mind and brain are connected...

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:

Brain creating mind is 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.

what is there to refute??? The mind and brain are connected, how many times must I repeat myself? It's not the conclusion in question.

 

[Copernicus]

I find dictionary definitions adequate, but you should recall that I treat word definitions as different from the concept they represent. Here is one usage definition from Google dictionary:

the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.

Regarding the distinction between defintion and concept, do you think what's listed above is adaquate for identifying when and where a "mind" is present? If so, when you read the defintion above, are you looking for all of those qualities, some of them, or one of them?

Generally speaking, I take a concept to be an associated bundle of experiences, so a definition is never going to exactly capture all of the associations within that bundle. It's purpose is only to identify a specific usage that highlights some of them in the context of a discourse. The above just highlights some of them. There is a lot more to lexical semantics that I can't go into here. All words are ambiguous to a degree and have vague boundaries with words that express similar concepts. For example, the word restaurant can be associated with a physical structure, as in "The restaurant burned down", or it can be associated with a social function, as in "The restaurant serves Chinese food." The word "mind" can have similarly ambiguous usage in discourse contexts. In the present context, "mind" is being considered as an entity that is either an emergent property of physical brain activity or an entity that can exist independently of a physical substrate. It's a legitimate question. The author of the OP believes the latter. I and several others believe the former.

The reason I'm asking is, there is scientific evidence that trees *might* qualify as having a "mind" without a brain. Maybe not one tree, but it's the network of trees. Then maybe there's a discussion about a hive mind, group-thiink, mob-mentality, neural networks, AI, etc...

View attachment 82367

I don't think that trees have thoughts in the same sense that animals do. For one thing, they are sessile and don't move around. Nerves and brains evolved in animal bodies as guidance systems, but plants don't have anything like that kind of organ with a navigation function. A plant reacts to external stimuli, but not in a planned way that moving bodies need to in order to survive. One can use "mind" to describe some of the behaviors we observe in plants, but only metaphorically. Ultimately, the comparison breaks down very quickly.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Are you suggesting that the brain can't change itself? Muscles do that all the time.

I’m suggesting that the mind can influence the brain as much as the brain can influence the mind, and that it’s therefore far from clear that one is merely a product of the other.

You’ve heard the expression, ‘Mind over matter’, I presume? Yet it appears that the position of the materialists on this thread (many of them anyway) is that everything in the mind is subordinate to and reducible to physical activity in the brain. I don’t believe that; nor do I believe, as the idealist does, that there is no mind-independent reality - that reality is literally all in the mind. Both positions are equally coherent, and neither have been falsified, but they feel intuitively wrong to me. I don’t dismiss either, but I am unconvinced.

Both are equally extreme positions, but try to get the naïve materialist to recognise quite how radical his own position is, or to support it by reasoned argument. So far, the only argument I’ve seen advanced by materialists on this thread amounts to “there is a clear link between brain and mind, therefore the latter is a product of the former”. This does not logically follow, the reasoning is unsound.

 

[Copernicus]

I'm still not asking for proof, I never ask for metaphysical certainty.

That's why people have been describing evidence to support their belief that minds depend on a physical substrate to exist. It isn't clear to me why you don't consider the mind-body connection to be evidence of a causal connection. You keep calling it a "correlation", as if we shouldn't believe it to be a causally connected correlation. Why not? That would seem to be the simplest explanation.

The evidence you were given was that all known mental functions can be altered by physical effects on the brain.​

But this wasnt the question. Do you see how I asked for evidence the brain creates the mind, and here you're arguing against "brain cannot effect the mind?" That's called a straw man.

You asked three questions and said "etc." People have been addressing these questions, even the "etc." Still, you dismiss everything.

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.​

I dont believe in such a thing so why would i provide evidence for it? Straw man again.

A prima facie case was made for a causal connection, that's why. The burden of proof passes over to you. Why assume otherwise? You can't answer that, because you "...don't believe in such a thing." We can all draw conclusions from your inability to back up your skepticism.

The only conclusion to be made is mind and brain effect each other. This was never in question.

If there is no plausible alternative explanation, then the most reasonable one is what we are left with--that brain activity is what creates minds, sustains them, and ends with the cessation of brain activity. We find no evidence of any mental property or function that suggests or hints at a non-physical cause. You yourself can supply none when asked to do so. You ask everyone else for evidence but feel yourself absolved from the same obligation. That is what is known as special pleading.

I agree the mind and brain are connected...

In what way are they connected? Correlations do not prove a connection, but they are prima facie evidence for one. You seem to accept the prima facie evidence, but then you fall short of explaining what is wrong with the simplest, most reasonable explanation.

Brain creating mind is physicalism.

Utterly false. A creator god could have created a universe in which physical beings arise whose mental capacity is entirely dependent on physical brains. You really haven't thought this through. Physicalism is the philosophical position that reality consists entirely of physical interactions. IOW, no spiritual plane of existence. However, your OP does not pose that question. It is about what evidence there is for believing that human minds depend on a physical substrate for their existence. Disembodied minds, while a logical possibility, represent unnecessary hypotheses. They aren't needed to explain anything at all about the nature of minds, whose properties and functions correlate exhaustively with physical brain function.

 

[dybmh]

Ultimately, the comparison breaks down very quickly.

Understood. My intention is to use it as a starting point for uniting the two versions of mind which you mentioned.

In the present context, "mind" is being considered as an entity that is either an emergent property of physical brain activity or an entity that can exist independently of a physical substrate. It's a legitimate question. The author of the OP believes the latter. I and several others believe the former.

What if the mind is an emergent property of a network. The brain is a network of billions of cells with trillions of connections. The tree grove is a much simpler network but has enough similarities to maybe be used as the far end of a spectrum of "mind". If so, then a hive mind makes sense, also group think, also mob mentality, also mass hysteria, also eventually, AI.

Do you see what I mean? If the mind is an emergent property of the network of brain cells activity, then this has a lot of explanatory power because, theses other phenomena can be included in the category of mind.

Question: is it objectionable that there are multiple versions of mind and they're both true?

 

[Copernicus]

What if the mind is an emergent property of a network. The brain is a network of billions of cells with trillions of connections. The tree grove is a much simpler network but has enough similarities to maybe be used as the far end of a spectrum of "mind". If so, then a hive mind makes sense, also group think, also mob mentality, also mass hysteria, also eventually, AI.

Do you see what I mean? If the mind is an emergent property of the network of brain cells activity, then this has a lot of explanatory power because, theses other phenomena can be included in the category of mind.

Question: is it objectionable that there are multiple versions of mind and they're both true?

Not to me. I believe all of that to be the case--that simple physical interactions give rise to more complex emergent physical patterns that themselves give rise to more complex emergent physical patterns. Brain activity is just an extremely complex physical system, but we can engineer much simpler physical systems that mimic some of the properties of human and animal brains. That's what robotics and AI are all about.

BTW, I can recommend a book that you might (or might not) enjoy reading. I don't know whether you are familiar with it--Howard Bloom's The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates. If you can stick with it, it ends up going into great detail about the nature of emergence in chaotic systems. However, it is a real tour de force and packs a lot of other material into the work--for example, the historical roots of science, logic, and mathematics. I personally found much of it quite brilliant, but I have friends I've recommended it to who hate it. Bloom describes himself as a "stone cold atheist", but he criticizes atheists for not addressing the real problem--how we got here if God didn't do it. That's where chaos theory comes in. You probably won't be too turned off by all of his autobiographical stuff about his Jewish upbringing. Some of my friends found it unnecessary and off-putting.

 

[ChristineM]

So you acknowledge these were refuted as evidence for physicalism. Is there additional evidence? Or can we then discard physicalism?

They are evidence of ehat you asked for, changing goalposts is not an option

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I see the correlation between physicalism and fideism is strengthening.

That's neither here nor there. You are replying to a statement that isn't dealing with "physicalism" (whatever that is), but with the claim that minds can exist absent a living brain. And the fact that there is zero valid evidence presented for that.

I can only repeat myself: we do not need to refute things that aren't even on the table. There is nothing to refute. There is only a bare claim, which can be dismissed at face value. Because what is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

Perfect then we can dismiss physicalism, QED.

I didn't make any claims about "physicalism". That's just your strawman.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Yes, brain and mind are connected.

Yes, brain and mind are connected.

They aren't just "connected". They are one and the same.

Requires refutation of theism and the paranormal.

There's no need to refute things that are asserted without evidence.
There is nothing to refute.

Yes, brain and mind are connected.

Yes, brain and mind are connected.

They aren't just "connected". They are one and the same.

It would be a start, but we're still at zero.

No, we are at 5. Your handwaving doesn't change that.

The faith that the brain is the source of mind doesn't hold up

Updated to highlight the empirical facts. 1. The only evidence for physicalism is that doing things to the brain affects the mind. This is expected by everyone though, dualists for instance don't say the two aren't connected, it isn't exclusive to physicalism. It also forgets that correlation...

www.religiousforums.com

Already dealt with.

If you can't have an honest conversation and are just going to handwave away everything put you, then why even create the thread?

 

[Mock Turtle]

Yes, I know about cabbies and their enlarged hippocampus. Isn’t that a great example of mental exercise, consciously undertaken, altering the material structure of the brain? The mind processes information, producing a response in an organ of the body.

Perhaps more an indication of the mind being dependent upon the brain. If this wasn't so, why would the brain be altered by the memory demands?

And possibly quite easy to prove - as to getting some people to try to alter their brains by simple will-power over others, like the taxi-drivers, who do such from necessity and being a result of having to memorise so much information. That is, both trying to alter some specific area of the brain.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Perhaps more an indication of the mind being dependent upon the brain. If this wasn't so, why would the brain be altered by the memory demands?

I don't think anyone is arguing that the mind is independent of the brain. The point I'm trying to make, and don't think it's that subtke or obscure, is that we also have evidence of the brain being responsive to the mind. In such instances, it's the cognitive process which precedes the physical response, implying that it's the mind rather than the brain which initiates the process.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I don't think anyone is arguing that the mind is independent of the brain. The point I'm trying to make, and don't think it's that subtke or obscure, is that we also have evidence of the brain being responsive to the mind. In such instances, it's the cognitive process which precedes the physical response, implying that it's the mind rather than the brain which initiates the process.

How can one prove that?

 

[RestlessSoul]

How can one prove that?

One can begin by examining the evidence, which isn’t hard to find.

Neuroplasticity

 

[Mock Turtle]

One can begin by examining the evidence, which isn’t hard to find.

Neuroplasticity

I was interrupted and had more to say. I'm well aware of the interactions between brain and mind but can't find convincing arguments as to the mind not being a product of the brain rather than much else. But I haven't been following in any detail modern developments.

 

[McBell]

When the brain dies mind dies.

Evidence: ?????

Once the brain dies, there is absolutely no indication the mind is still there.


But then, the fact that you purposely avoid at all cost addressing this fact (in at least TWO separate threads) reveals you are not interested in honest discussion.