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The faith that the brain is the source of mind doesn't hold up
- Thread starter 1137
- Start date
I accept your abject surrender.
Well I'm a bit young to try out reincarnation but if you can suggest a particularly convincing medium to try or suggest any haunted places around Sydney for me to try out I could check them out I suppose, although I think hauntings are more suitable to be investigated by a team of skeptics qualified in areas such as illusion etc.
Yeah, it said that it may not have a simple yes or no answer and requires further study, so I guess I'll have to wait for further results prior to drawing any hard conclusions.
Irrelevant.
But it may be that more information is required to refute it, such as further research into split brain patients, it seems a little early to have decided what the outcome will be ahead of the further research.
If it turns out that conciousness can be split by splitting the brain this would seem to suggest that the brain is the source of conciousness if we could demonstrate that it is one conciousness split into two such as with a common pre-split memory and divergent post-split memory.
Then we could safely say that the part of the properties that are mutually exclusive between the mind and the brain are an example of some emergent properties being mutually exclusive even if we could not say how it is so in my view.
Also if you could please turn your attention to this possible refutation from the other thread;
Western Materialism
I too struggled to get anything useful out of that interview. To me, treating consciousness as an emergent phenomenon of brain activity seems the obvious way to look at it. Massimo Pigliucci has a critique of the "hard problem" of consciousness here: What Hard Problem? | Issue 99 | Philosophy...
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True, but a) to be constrained isn't to be free in my opinion and b) there is no mix of determinism and indeterminism which gives us free will that I know of.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Who are you talking to? All evidence is in agreement with the idea that the mind is an emergent property of a living brain.
We can see the brain activity on scanners.
We can alter the mind by altering the chemistry (through drugs, medicine, what-have-you)
We see the mind changing when brains are damaged.
We see the mind disappearing when the person is (brain)dead.
All these things are evidence FOR the thesis that the mind = emergent from the brain.
What evidence do you have that minds can exist absent any brains?
Do you even read? You are replying to a question where one is being asked to provide evidence that minds can exist absent any brains.
I'm not aware of any such evidence. I don't believe that minds can or could exist absent any brains. You do, right? So who's job is it to provide evidence for that idea?
I believe that minds = brain functions. And I have provided some examples above of evidence that supports that notion.
I just gave you evidence above. And I guarantee you that it wasn't the first time in this thread that this was provided.
Again, do you even read?
What evidence was provided for the claim that minds can exist absent any brains?
As for evidence for the claim that minds = brain functions, see above.
That minds are things independent of brains. That they can exist absent any brains. That they aren't emergent from brains; manifestation of brain functions.
I haven't seen any evidence for the claim that minds can exist absent of brains. That minds can exist independently of brains.
I don't need to refute what hasn't been provided.
Instead, what's asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
As for evidence for the claim that minds = brain functions, see above.
The OP has been dealt with extensively by multiple people.
For example,
by @Shadow Wolf :
The faith that the brain is the source of mind doesn't hold up
Precisely, with physicalism being the latter. I am not convinced of physicalism. Like I said, I am an agnostic on the brain/mind issue. I'm simply remarking that no evidence exists that shows the human mind can exist apart from the brain.
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By @Koldo :
The faith that the brain is the source of mind doesn't hold up
The truth is that there is zero evidence that the "mind" can exist absent the brain. I put mind in the same category as seeing is to the eye, as mind is to the brain.
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By @danieldemol :
The faith that the brain is the source of mind doesn't hold up
The truth is that there is zero evidence that the "mind" can exist absent the brain. I put mind in the same category as seeing is to the eye, as mind is to the brain.
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By @blü 2 :
The faith that the brain is the source of mind doesn't hold up
The truth is that there is zero evidence that the "mind" can exist absent the brain. I put mind in the same category as seeing is to the eye, as mind is to the brain.
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By Myself:
The faith that the brain is the source of mind doesn't hold up
Well yeah if a position is inherently illogical we don't even really need to bother with evidence. Enough said.
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...
And that's only the posts that dealt with the entire OP pretty much point by point. There are plenty others that only focused on specific aspects.
You've replied to some of them, which in turn have received replies as well.
It's pretty dishonest of you to say "see op" as if nobody has responded to it directly and instead just ignored everything it said.
See at the beginning of this post.
I have provided you with some evidence that supports the idea that mind = brain functions.
I have yet to see valid evidence that supports the idea that minds can exist absent any brains.
As you can read in all those replies posted above, those weren't "arguments". They were bare assertions and strawmen.
Well hopefully someone can provide this evidence.
Yes, brain and mind are connected.
Yes, brain and mind are connected.
Yes, brain and mind are connected.
Requires refutation of theism, the paranormal, etc.
None of them are actually, they are evidence mind and brain are connected, ending in a repetition of the claim.
See op. I know you don't like me saying that but when I post evidence, and yall ignore it, I'm just gonna direct you back.
The thread is addressing physicalism. Which alternative ends up right is irrelevant to physicalism being wrong.
But you haven't, like most others you're just showing mind and brain connect.
You gave me evidence mind and brain are connected as others have. Im asking for evidence brain creates mind. Do YOU read?
you've got to be kidding.
because you choose to ignore it.
perfect! Since there is no evidence for physicalism after 8 pages lets reject it. QED.
Because most materialists like to tell you none of what you are seeing is real so you shouldn't respond to it as if it were real, and thus sap the enjoyment out of it for you. "The experience of God is just the brain. Love is just a chemical response." And so forth. "As if" understandings of reality is downplayed to mere entertainment at best, but we are smarter than all that to really give it much substantial consideration. And that, is why physicalism is irrational as a philosophy of reality.
The point she was making that you appear to not be getting is that the rules of what qualifies as evidence, is set by those who first establish what can be real or not. The context is first defined by a worldview, not by evidence.
Here's the tricky little secret. Science does not evaluate things outside of what it feels it can establish through its toolsets. Science chooses to only look at things that it feels it can scientifically answer. And why shouldn't it? That is right and proper. But science doing that does not mean however, that the things it chooses not to look at are therefore fictions!
That's the entire problem right there in a nutshell. The belief that if science doesn't look at it, it's not anything real. That's a purely religious faith response. It's not based on evidence at all, but on an a priori belief in physicalism as the ultimate truth of reality, and co-opting the sciences in an attempt to support that belief. "It's not my words, but God's words", in other words. "It's not a belief! It's not faith! It's objective reality. Science says it's so".
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dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
There is evidence that the brain development is greatly hampered when children are in isolation. The question Im asking is: what is it that is missing when the child is isolated? Are they "brains" or is it something more, something called "minds"?
by implication,
IF minds develop the brain THEN the brain needs a mind outside itself inorder to be healthy.
IF the brain needs a mind outside itself inorder to be healthy THEN the mind came first ELSE the brain would not survive.
So how are you defining mind here? Since you indicate that if that if there is brain damage or something, that the "person is gone", and nothing more that and "automated husk remaining". Are you saying that mind = personhood, or personality? It appears you are from this comment.
Clearly the brain has a role in all of these autonomic systems, both prior to an beyond the "personhood" aspect of mind comes online. So if brain = mind, and mind = personality or personhood, then there is a problem in the logic of all of this. An infant does not have a mind until later ego development according to this, or they don't have brain.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
I've never, not once, knowk an infant who's body is an automated husk doing nothing more than bare minimum functions to keep the body alive. No, they are clearly thinking, have personalities and are fully aware and responsive to external stimuli. Someone who is braindead has none if that and is just a corpse with a beating heart as far as the individual and person who was is concerned.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
You linked to my post, but the bit you quoted me saying was someone else.
You didn't really address my question. You seem to be equating mind with personhood. Do you believe that dogs and cats have minds? Do they have personhood? You distinguished autonomic systems as a lack of mind, yet clearly the brain must be present in some fashion of these to work, doesn't it?
My point is how are you defining mind? Personality? Self-awareness? Cognitive thoughts? What of a tapeworm which has no brain at all. Are they not also "fully aware and responsive to external stimuli"?
It seems to me people are debating things that they have no clear understanding of the terms being used here. Is mind the same as brain? Is mind a higher function of brain? Is it associated with ego-development (which an infant has not developed yet)? Is mind the same as consciousness? What is consciousness defined as? And so forth. Is a tapeworm conscious? It is unconscious? Is it mindless? Or does it exhibit intentionality in its actions and basic descious processes, all without any brain in its body?
If the body is alive, then it's not a corpse. Is a tapeworm a corpse because it has no brain whatsoever?
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
I don't understand?
The link goes to your post, does it not?
It does for me at least?
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
The mind and brain aren't just connected. They are one and the same.
Dishonest on your part. I even linked you to all posts that dealth with it point by point.
Nobody is claiming "physicalism". That's just your strawman.
I have concluded that you aren't prepared to actually have a proper, honest and open conversation about this.
Clearly you have already made up your mind. You ignore any and all criticism of your bare claims, you handwave away any and all evidence provided and then just double down on your exposed strawman..
Oh well.
Can't say I expected anything else, tbh
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
No. What is irrational is saying "I'm not going to believe that because I don't like it".
Note also that none of the people you accuse of seeing it like that, actually see it like that.
That's all you.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
No. The rules are made by rationality and reason.
Evidence is supposed to be able to make a thing more probably true.
"True" are those things that match observations in reality.
So evidence must link back to reality one way or the other in independent ways.
If the "evidence" you provide doesn't succeed in doing that, then what you have isn't evidence at all.
This is why evidence needs to be independently verifiable. Otherwise, it is indistinguishable from mere belief. And evidence is exactly what it supposed to take a "mere belief" and uplift it to justified belief.
So yeah... Don't know what else to tell you.
Here's another little secret. Science doesn't "have" a toolset. Science IS a toolset. OUR toolset. The toolset we have and use to distinguish truth from fantasy in commonly observable reality.
Name me one thing that is demonstrably and objectively true that science can't establish as being so.
Disagree. Instead I would say that those things aren't demonstrably / objectively real.
Doesn't mean they aren't. Rather it means that they can't be established as such.
Are there aliens in a dimension that we can't detect? Is there even such a dimension? How would you propose to find out if our scientific toolset can't detect it?
False.
This whole "physicalism" is just a strawman. Nobody here is using that word or arguing for it. The only people that are using it, are using it as an "accusation" who are also claiming that minds can exist without living brains, and have no evidence at all to support it.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Newsflash: brains develop. Neural pathways form. Brain function expands.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
They do, yes. They have personalities, character. Just like in humans, their personality / character is formed though their life experiences.
Some are viscious, some are gentle, some are playful,...
To certain extent, it's determined at birth through physiology / dna. To another extent, it's determined by their "upbringing".
A cat that's grown up in the wild will have a very different personality as opposed to the same cat growing up domestically in a loving home where it is cared for.
Dogs aren't different.
A tapeworm has a neural network of around 300 neurons. Enough to respond to external stimuli.
Yes, that is irrational too. Materialism in effect does exactly that. If it doesn't fit in that worldview, it's just silliness and should not be taken seriously. That's as much denialism as the Creationist does when presented with real science.
It is not all me whatsoever. There has been countless minds that have observed this, and balked at philosophical materialism from it's very inception because of its myoptic perceptions of reality.
And, does that actual answer any of my questions? How are you defining mind? How do you define consciousness? Etc. I'm quite well aware of how the brain functions. What does that have to do with the questions?