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

[Nakosis]

Well yeah if a position is inherently illogical we don't even really need to bother with evidence.

Enough said.

 

[Quagmire]

It begs the question, how can cutting the corpus calloseum result in two minds, if the mind is independent of the brain?

Maybe it's the same mind looking at the same topic from two different perspectives.

 

[1137]

About freaking time!


Your "honesty" rouses my pity.


But of course you've offered no evidence. There is zero by way of evidence to acknowledge. That's your tactic, to pretend you've somehow done so while you run away from answering direct questions about your position.

I do have a follow up question: if someone was to use this same logic on you, would you accept it? Like if you provided evidence for evolution to a creationist, and they just kept saying you hadn't provided any, would you accept creationism as valid? Or is it more a case of special pleading?

Not surprising.

I'm guessing unintentional then.

LOL you are still trying to say you have provided evidence, but you haven't. You gave a list of reasons why you hold your opinion, and don't understand why no one is buying them.

I have the same question for you as for Blu just above then.

Enough said.

Awesome! I'm not sure why you'd continue to try and believe in 3 sided circles but I'm glad we agree discussion on the matter is void.

 

[lukethethird]

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 isn't causation. And the conclusion doesn't even follow, for instance if I break my TV and can't watch the news anymore, my TV still doesn't create the news.

2. We cannot rely on a faith that one day science will show the brain creates the mind.

3. Matter and minds have mutually exclusive properties and so cannot be reduced to each other.

4. Matter is only known through mind so we cannot reduce mind to matter.

5. The existence of consciousness is undoubtable but matter's existence can be doubted, so the first cannot reduce to the second.

6. Consciousness also affects the body the same way the body affects consciousness.

7. If we were deterministic mechanical processes we could not have the free will we possess.

8. Evolution doesn't explain how something with properties mutually exclusive to matter can exist.

9. Emergence doesn't explain the relationship between mind and matter because emergent things share properties of what they emerged from. For instance you can both see legs and "running," feel a leg and feel the air as they run by you.

10. Physicalism does not account for the existence of logical or mathematical laws as they are immaterial.

Bonus: Physicalism isn't inherently safe from the problems of some theism, therefore is not socially/practically/etc superior to theism.

LOL

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I have the same question for you as for Blu just above then.

You must have forgotten. I told you I was perfectly willing to have a discussion with you. Just not the sort of discussion that results in posts that are novels. I make you the same offer as I did previously. Pick ONE of your arguments, the one you think is the very best one, and we can talk about that. Entirely up to you.

 

[blü 2]

I do have a follow up question:

As I said, your tactic is not to answer questions about your position.

So let's get back to the real issues.

In what manner do "minds" exist if not physically?

How do you know?

What repeatable experiment will demonstrate the correctness of your claims?

 

[danieldemol]

I would ask why but I forsee a preupposed answer.

Well can you link me to where you believe you demonstrate reincarnation, mediumship and hauntings for my review?

I'm not sure what you mean?

I mean that there seems to potentially be a way to test if your idea about split brains picking up different minds is true as opposed to simply picking up the one mind that has been separated into two at the seperation of the brain.

Very interesting theory.

Thank you.

I think you're confused on the metaphor at play here. A broken or severed radio would equate to a dead brain.

But the brain is not dead when we sever the link between the hemispheres

What we have here is more like being between stations which each alternatively fading in.

Each conciousness exists at the same time as far as I'm aware, did you read the first link on split brains posted earlier on in this thread?

Here it is again;

The split brain: A tale of two halves - Nature

Since the 1960s, researchers have been scrutinizing a handful of patients who underwent a radical kind of brain surgery. The cohort has been a boon to neuroscience — but soon it will be gone.

www.nature.com

In it you will note that the two consciousnesses are active at the same time to the point where they have conflicts such as trying to pull on different outfits at the same time.

Fair enough. How does X emerge from Y if X and Y have contradictory properties?

Well first of all not all properties are contradictory eg I can see what's in my mind and it is possible to see inside my brain. Second of all we don't need to know how it happens, only if it happens. If you can't show that it is impossible for an emergent thing to have some contradictory properties to the thing it emerges from then you should be at least open to the possibility that it can happen.

I'm not sure I understand your point.

My point is simply that you are deferring the constraint on free-will to a third party not eliminating it. Basically will or choice is either constrained by the nature of the brain, or it is constrained by the nature of whatever you defer decision making to (for example in this case consiousness, but equally true if you defer it to a spirit or anything else)

Then we agree here.

Good

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

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 isn't causation. And the conclusion doesn't even follow, for instance if I break my TV and can't watch the news anymore, my TV still doesn't create the news.

The difference is that there actually is demonstrable, independently verifiable evidence for news being created elsewhere and the TV being just a medium to recieve and play the broadcasting.

2. We cannot rely on a faith that one day science will show the brain creates the mind.

There is no such "faith". There is only a reasonable expectation. "reasonable", because all current evidence fits that idea and nothing contradicts it. Additionally, there are no alternative ideas that have any verifiable evidence (or even make any testable predictions which can be tested, at least in principle).

3. Matter and minds have mutually exclusive properties and so cannot be reduced to each other.

Such as? Claiming it is not enough. Explain it and demonstrate it.

4. Matter is only known through mind so we cannot reduce mind to matter.

What does that mean?

5. The existence of consciousness is undoubtable but matter's existence can be doubted, so the first cannot reduce to the second.

That makes no sense. Matter very demonstrably exists.

6. Consciousness also affects the body the same way the body affects consciousness.

If consciousness is brain activity, then that is no surprise to me since the brain pretty much regulates and "steers" the body in multiple ways.

7. If we were deterministic mechanical processes we could not have the free will we possess.

Why not?

8. Evolution doesn't explain how something with properties mutually exclusive to matter can exist.

First, evolution very much explains brain development.
Secondly, you only claimed that there are "mutually exclusive" properties. You have not demonstrated this to be the case at all.

9. Emergence doesn't explain the relationship between mind and matter because emergent things share properties of what they emerged from. For instance you can both see legs and "running," feel a leg and feel the air as they run by you.

Que?

10. Physicalism does not account for the existence of logical or mathematical laws as they are immaterial.

Logic / math are abstract and descriptive. They aren't a "thing" or "object". The words "material" and "immaterial" don't even apply to it.

Bonus: Physicalism isn't inherently safe from the problems of some theism, therefore is not socially/practically/etc superior to theism.

I don't know what that is supposed to mean.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Only if one restricts what "evidence" means to the narrow confines of physicalist assumptions. Which, naturally, physicalists do in order to rationalize their own position. It'd be funny if it wasn't so ironic and predictable.

How would you redefine what "evidence" is in order to be able to call something "evidence" that minds can exist absent living brains?
And what would that something be?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

This doesn't even make sense, how can you even be aware of brains without consciousness? And why should we presuppose atheism and anti-spirituality/paranormal/etc.

We aren't the ones "presupposing" things here....................
We are the ones that follow the evidence without presupposing anything.

YOU are the one that insists on considering things that have no evidence as "valid options" and "real possibilities". And I'm being lenient and accomodating here.... Because we all know that it goes much further then mere "valid options" / "real possibilites". You consider it as fact even before we even ask the question, don't you?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So feel free to reject the evidence based logic of the OP.

There's no such thing there.
Instead, there is just denial and bare assertion which you expect to be just accepted without reliable and verifiable evidence.


Bring me verifiable evidence of minds that exist absent brains and I'll be more then happy to accept it.
Until then, why would I?

That's why it's here . Surely you aren't asking us to engage in presuppositionalism...

Says the guy who is asking the presuppose that minds exists absent brains.

 

[Nakosis]

I do have a follow up question: if someone was to use this same logic on you, would you accept it? Like if you provided evidence for evolution to a creationist, and they just kept saying you hadn't provided any, would you accept creationism as valid? Or is it more a case of special pleading?

I'm guessing unintentional then.

I have the same question for you as for Blu just above then.

Awesome! I'm not sure why you'd continue to try and believe in 3 sided circles but I'm glad we agree discussion on the matter is void.

I could show you one.
It helps to think outside of the "straight line".

 

[Quintessence]

No, about what I expected. Attacks on physicality usually come from philosophy.

Attacks? Wh... what on earth are you talking about? Understanding the limitations of a particular worldview - or saying it isn't the One True Truth and Be All and End All - is attacking it? Really?

Yikes.

(this is also the moment where I point out that physicalism is in of itself a philosophical position, because I can't not do so)

How would you redefine what "evidence" is in order to be able to call something "evidence" that minds can exist absent living brains?
And what would that something be?

I wouldn't - 'tis not necessary. Standard dictionary definitions of "evidence" are more than sufficient to cover such things. No need to "redefine" anything. And honestly, I'm not even interested in this question of minds and brains.

 

[Fool]

So I take it that you believe in disemobied minds such as God, but you think the human mind cannot exist apart from the brain?

a body doesn't require a specific form. i don't believe in a non-physical something. consciousness, a mind, a spirit is still a physical thing.


a body can have a brain and not have consciousness. but a human can't have consciousness and not a brain. the form is identified with certain necessary and vital components; otherwise it's not human. when the consciousness separates from the human form, the human ceases to exist. a vital part has ceased to exist, the consciousness or mind is no longer part of that body. it's just a body of tissue.

so one has to ask, is the form more important or the consciousness that existed in it?

most people don't want a dead, lifeless, spiritless person even if there is a body.

you can have a body without consciousness

you can have consciousness without an exact form.

but both consciousness and/or a body are physical things

god is a thing, a physical thing even if it's a spirit, mind, consciousness. it's just not a thing of flesh

 

[1137]

As I said, your tactic is not to answer questions about your position.

Do you know what projection is? This thread isn't even about my position. It doesn't promote an alternative it questions physicalism.

So let's get back to the real issues.

In what manner do "minds" exist if not physically?

In the manner of... existing. This is only confusing because youve presupposed physiclaism without any evidence.

How do you know?

Logic and evidence, you should give them a try!

What repeatable experiment will demonstrate the correctness of your claims?

Anything. For instance placebos, cbt, etc have already done this. You can even test most of it yourself, like try to measure how much space consciousness takes up in a room.

 

[1137]

Well can you link me to where you believe you demonstrate reincarnation, mediumship and hauntings for my review?

Nope, I'm not presupposing either way, try it out!

I mean that there seems to potentially be a way to test if your idea about split brains picking up different minds is true as opposed to simply picking up the one mind that has been separated into two at the seperation of the brain.

Thank you.

But the brain is not dead when we sever the link between the hemispheres

Each conciousness exists at the same time as far as I'm aware, did you read the first link on split brains posted earlier on in this thread?

Here it is again;

The split brain: A tale of two halves - Nature

Since the 1960s, researchers have been scrutinizing a handful of patients who underwent a radical kind of brain surgery. The cohort has been a boon to neuroscience — but soon it will be gone.

www.nature.com

In it you will note that the two consciousnesses are active at the same time to the point where they have conflicts such as trying to pull on different outfits at the same time.

See the meta study that was posted above.

Well first of all not all properties are contradictory eg I can see what's in my mind and it is possible to see inside my brain.

You cannot see in anothers mind is the problem.

Second of all we don't need to know how it happens, only if it happens. If you can't show that it is impossible for an emergent thing to have some contradictory properties to the thing it emerges from then you should be at least open to the possibility that it can happen.

I am open thats why im asking physicalists to refute the point. Telling that nobody can.

My point is simply that you are deferring the constraint on free-will to a third party not eliminating it. Basically will or choice is either constrained by the nature of the brain, or it is constrained by the nature of whatever you defer decision making to (for example in this case consiousness, but equally true if you defer it to a spirit or anything else)

Constraint isn't determinism.

 

[1137]

The difference is that there actually is demonstrable, independently verifiable evidence for news being created elsewhere and the TV being just a medium to recieve and play the broadcasting.

Same with consciousness until we presuppose physicalism.

There is no such "faith". There is only a reasonable expectation. "reasonable", because all current evidence fits that idea and nothing contradicts it.

And yet pages and days in, with half a dozen physicalists, and not one of you has provided a shred of evidence. This is like watching creationists assure you all evidence fits creationism, then not providing any.

Additionally, there are no alternative ideas that have any verifiable evidence (or even make any testable predictions which can be tested, at least in principle).

So fideism. Ignoring the evidence provided doesn't make it vanish.

Such as? Claiming it is not enough. Explain it and demonstrate it.

Such as taking up space vs not, being deterministinc vs autonomous, being objectice vs subjective, being accessible to others vs private, and so on.

what does that mean?

It means if X is required to know Y, we cannot reduce X to Y.

That makes no sense. Matter very demonstrably exists.

See: brain in a vat, simulation theory, philosophical skepticism, solipsism...

If consciousness is brain activity, then that is no surprise to me since the brain pretty much regulates and "steers" the body in multiple ways.

Yes, if we presuppose physicalism then it will have to be explained by physicalism, of course. Sadly im not a presuppositionalist.

Why not?

Because free will can't coexist with determinism...

First, evolution very much explains brain development.

Right, and we should presuppose brain creates mind because.... why?

Secondly, you only claimed that there are "mutually exclusive" properties. You have not demonstrated this to be the case at all.

See above.

Que?

What do you not understand?

Logic / math are abstract and descriptive. They aren't a "thing" or "object". The words "material" and "immaterial" don't even apply to it.

The correlation between being a physicalist and rejecting logic is fascinating to me.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

What would the people on the island make of this? I think it would be fair to suggest that the people on the island might conclude that the radio is the source of the music. Turn the radio on, music comes out. Turn the radio off, the music stops. Try to use the radio to open a coconut, all activity ceases once and for all.

The problem with this metaphor is that unlike a conscious mind, this radio plays the same songs as all other radios. If these primitives had several radios wash ashore, they would see that unlike their minds, which generate a unique conscious experience. They all see the radios from a slightly different angle, and experience their sound more faintly when standing further back. But the radios themselves all play the same songs in the same key with the same lyrics and instruments beginning and ending at the same time.

That's how I know my consciousness is generated by my brain through my senses as well as the parade of memories, judgments, urges, intuitions, preferences, etc.. Their precise nature and evolution unique is to this brain. Nobody else "sees" the same show, which would be the case if the brain were merely a receiver of thought (like a radio) than its source.

Only if one restricts what "evidence" means to the narrow confines of physicalist assumptions.

Evidence is that which is evident to the senses. If your definition is larger than that, it isn't meaningful or useful except to excuse one from finding actual evidence by claiming that what he believes is based in this larger category of evidence that bypasses the senses.

Which, naturally, physicalists do in order to rationalize their own position.

Empiricism needs no rationalization. Adding supernaturalism to it does.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so ironic and predictable.

Yes, empiricists are predictable in their insistence on evidence, just as supernaturalists are predictable in their insistence that anything they believe by faith is evidenced according to an expanded definition of evidence that skips the part that it be evident to the senses.

folks will narrow the confines of what they consider evidence in to rationalize their perspective as true.

Fortunately, you've overcome that tendency by broadening the confines of what you call evidence to justify your perspective as true and mock and demean others using pejoratives like funny and ironic (and you even use the word predictable pejoratively).

This doesn't even make sense, how can you even be aware of brains without consciousness?

He wrote, "there is zero evidence that the "mind" can exist absent the brain." That didn't make sense to you? First, there's a bit of hyperbole there. I would have written that the evidence doesn't justify a belief in incorporeal minds. Your reply seems unresponsive. Of course he can only be aware of his brain if he's conscious, and it seems to many (likely him as well) like that he can only be conscious if he has a healthy brain.

feel free to reject the evidence based logic of the OP. So I provide an OP with evidence, you ignore it, and this means there is no evidence?

Like with many others here including me, your argument wasn't ignored, just found unconvincing.

physicalism being the latter.

You've got that backwards. You answered, "not all opinions are created equal. Some are based on sound evidence, and others are not." All available evidence is consistent with naturalism and none with supernaturalism. What you have is an intuition, a fervent desire, and that's enough for you, and so you concoct an argument like the OP, which at least four posters addressed point by point. They weren't convinced by your argument, and neither was I.

In my experience, only supernaturalists of some type make this argument that mind precedes or is independent of matter, because only they have a stake in being correct. It's tendentious (motivated) thinking, trying to make what is believed before examining the evidence seem to be supported by evidence. The empiricist has no such agenda. He just wants to know how reality is and works, whatever that might be, including the idea that mind is the fundamental substance from which the material world arises.

But absent sufficient evidence to support that belief, the critical thinker declines holding it - unless he expands his definition of evidence to include intuitions, which to me are just the mind delivering conclusions to consciousness without showing the mind its work, that is, how it came to that conclusion. The empiricist requires more. He requires evidence as I defined it above - that which is evident to the senses, like a sight, a sound, the warmth of the sun, a fly walking on your skin, a scent in the room, etc.

 

[1137]

How would you redefine what "evidence" is in order to be able to call something "evidence" that minds can exist absent living brains?

See we don't need to change any definition. Evidence here means what it always means, and the reason none of you provide any is you don't have any.

And what would that something be?

You believe X and don't even know what evidence for X would look like? Good lords...

We aren't the ones "presupposing" things here....................
We are the ones that follow the evidence without presupposing anything.

And yet still not ONE shred of evidence in six pages. Do you believe if you keep repeating there's evidence it will manifest or something?

YOU are the one that insists on considering things that have no evidence

So refute the provided evidence and provide your own.

as "valid options" and "real possibilities". And I'm being lenient and accomodating here.... Because we all know that it goes much further then mere "valid options" / "real possibilites". You consider it as fact even before we even ask the question, don't you?

Consider what a fact?

There's no such thing there.
Instead, there is just denial and bare assertion which you expect to be just accepted without reliable and verifiable evidence.

Again you guys are the ones who've failed to provide evidence in your favor or refute the evidence against you.

Bring me verifiable evidence of minds that exist absent brains and I'll be more then happy to accept it.
Until then, why would I?

See OP. Now can you return the favor? You say you won't believe without evidence, then believe physicalism without evidence haha. See the problem?

Says the guy who is asking the presuppose that minds exists absent brains.

Oh i don't think 10 arguments with evidence is presuppositionalism. I think coming in screaming "we know brain creates mind' without any is presuppositionalism.

 

[1137]

I could show you one.
It helps to think outside of the "straight line".

Yes please show me a 3 sided circles!