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“Mind” isn’t a material object. It is brain material doing its thing.
Irrelevant. You can’t weigh coking dinner either. Minds aren’t objects. It is the result of brains functioning.
The output of your mind are your posts. These can be measured. Thus far: irrational.
Consciousness is a state that is only observed in living brains.
You are right, the mind is immaterial. But @F1fan is also right in so far as there is no mind when there is no "brain".
Believers have some ulterior motive about this issue. Notice they don't go on about how other porcesses are immaterial, only how the brain functions. We also see believers trying to separate what we call the mind from brains, much like they want to separate consciousness from living brains. Why this obsession?
Really? So neuroscientists claim that what we call minds are not related to living brains? Let's see that clearly explained by the consensus of experts.
That might explain why many believers avoid observing what is evident, they aren't consciously aware.
You didn't address the question. Which is, if the mind is in charge, why do we need a brain, the most complex example of biology known?
It's not about "who's in charge". It's about what MATTERS the most, existentially. What matters is cognition, and ideation, not the biological mechanics. The biology is not even the original source. It's just the physical mechanism. And there may be more to that, even, than we know.
You haven't addressed the question.
Why does a person need a body? I don't know. To become a person, perhaps. What I do know is that a body without a person in it is just dead meat. Soon to return to the disparate materials from which it came, to become something else. So clrarly, it's not the materials that matter, it's the (life) form being manifested through those materials.
That makes zero sense.
Yes, consciousness is complex and its mechanism isn't properly understood.
Abiogenesis is a work in process, but we know it happened at least once, so we know it's out there.
No, the same isn't true of the human mind. Your first statement covers all of biology. But with the second we're talking about the unique features of humans, particularly the largest and most expensive biological organ there is.
Minds (and ideas) fit my definition of real (and physical as I define it below). They manifest in time and space and affect and are affected by other real objects and processes.
Matter is only one manifestation of the substance of reality. Energy and force are others. Altogether with space and time, these are basic elements of physical reality, which is why physicalism (or naturalism) is a better description of the philosophy also called materialism. We see the problem with that in this thread. Mind isn't material, but may well be physical.
I think you know how philosophers use the term (neutral, descriptive), but in these discussions, the phrase is often meant derogatorily by those who want to assert the transcendence of a god - a mind - over physical reality.
Yes, bingo. And I think your last question is rhetorical. If mind is an epiphenomenon of matter, where does that leave creator gods that are disembodied minds? It makes them derivative of matter rather than its author.
Here's another claim of a problem, failure, or crisis with no problem described. There is no failure of materialism and no success for idealism, and that's the crisis, problem, and failure of materialism, but for the believer, not the critical thinker.
Brains preceded consciousness in evolution, meaning they conferred a selective advantage in those creatures that had them before cognition. There is no value of cognition except to the cognizant, and that sense of value is an intuition generated by the brains as well. Your thinking is teleological - purpose-oriented. You seem to see mind as the reason brains evolved, as if the future were shaping matter into brains in order to manifest as minds. Maybe, but we have no evidence that reality works that way, meaning that that idea isn't useful now and maybe never.
Here's that tendency to prioritize mind over matter and a false claim about philosophy and philosophers. This is how faith motivates thought.
That was definately a bias against gays, but as we understand about science, it adjusts to new data and better understanding over time. This is something theology and philosophy don't necessarily do.
I would sya it is. When I was in college many years ago I was in a waiting room and saw a copy of Cell magazine. I didn't know there was a monthy that was only about cells. I was curious so I flipped through it. Jeez, I couldn't make sense of any of it. The articles covered tolpics I didn't know existed, all about cells. I kept wondering what level of education a person had to have ti understand any of this. It told me that science knows way more than the average person undestands, and this applies the most to those who have bias against science, not just the edjucated like me who isn't aware of what I don't know.
Well the hypothesis and test is weak because it often doesn't have adequate data, like a car wreck, a road closure due to a water main break, etc. We can't control for these variables. As a cyclist who meets groups for group rides at certain places at certain times I can say that it is quite arbitrary navigating through town due to traffic and light sequences. There have been rides where we hit lights at almost every intersection and others times where it's almost all green lights. There are routes I take on the bike that are faster than others because I'm on the bike and not driving. Is it science?
I'd say the terms are very specific, it is the application that is loose, like in your example. In actual studies that can control variables the method is quite accurate and specific.
So you don't understand that without a body there is no person?
What do you mean by "person"? It sounds like you are referring to the products of them being alive, and that means a body is necessary, including a brain. No biology, no identity. No person.
You seem to be stuck in some archaic 19th century explanation. Do you also ride a horse to work?
Exactly. We don't see them keep saying that "cooking a meal" is immaterial, and they are correct because it is an action, not an object. They ignore that the "mind" and cooking are results of material brains doing it's thing. They have some ulterior motive to target the "mind" and "thoughts" as immaterial, and as we have seen in other debates they are doing this as a gap for God.
