Cutting out irrelevancy and redundancy to keep this short, 'cause I think we both can agree that this is getting WAY too long. We'll reach the word limit in no time, and I don't want to deal with multiple posts.
Then thanks for making my point...what is your identity then? If it isn't your brain, then what the heck is it?? You tell me.
An aggregate of many things, accumulated over time from external stimuli, upon my specific brain unique among all humans.
Being sad is an emotional state...so when you are sad, what exactly is sad? You just said that your identity is not the same as your brain, so if "you" are sad, what exactly is sad? Your brain itself isn't sad, or happy...so what is?
As a matter of fact, if your brain is placed outside out of your body, where are "you"..or what is "you"? Are you the brain, or are you the body that the brain came out of??
Hahahaha. Tough questions buddy. I can't wait to hear the answer.
Tough for you, but not terribly so for me. 'Bout three minutes of thinking. (They may not be terribly "tough", but they are good questions).
What IS sad? Not one thing individually, but an aggregate of many things that make up the emotional state.
My body is part of the aggregate that makes "me". Without a body, I am not "me". But, then, what if parts of my body were replaced with mechanical parts? Would those parts still be "me"? Yes. What if my brain were placed in a robot? Would I still be "me"? Yes. However, the nature of that "me" would change somewhat.
Our identities are not static; they are constantly changing. A major part of my identity used to be "child". That no longer applies, however. Am I still me? Yes. But that part of "me" is now "adult". The "me" who's body was a child no longer exists.
So, without
A body, I am not "me", but without
THIS body, I can still be "me". That body doesn't even have to be humanoid; one thing I fear is that immortality will be attempted by uploading our consciousnesses into computers. (No, that's not a likely possibility any time soon, for the record). I don't want that, so when I die, I want my body either cremated, or left in the woods as food so my worldly consciousness can
stay dead.
Before you talk about what may or may not be plausible to exist without a brain, you have to explain how did consciousness naturally originate in the first place. I am arguing that there is a chicken and egg problem regarding the brain and consciousness, and I've yet to hear otherwise.
You have heard otherwise, you've just rejected what you've heard.
What consciousness has been empirically observed that lacks a brain? God/Gods have not been empirically demonstrated to exist. (Remember that I AM a theist).
When testing things logically,
negative until proven positive is the best way to figure out whether something is true. This is how scientists test their hypotheses. Just like in a court trial, the method used is innocent(negative presence of criminal activity) until proven guilty(positive presence of criminal activity).
Just because we can conceive of it doesn't mean it does, or even
can exist. Likewise, just because we can't conceive of it doesn't mean it doesn't, or cannot, exist.
We can't conceive of how other colors on the light spectrum "look" in their purest forms, because our eyes cannot detect them, and our brains cannot process them. Therefore, they have to be converted into colors on the spectrum that we CAN see. But they still exist.
Yes it has, in other areas of thought. The Modal Ontological argument makes a case for this, and I dedicated an entire thread about it and have since intellectually smashed any opposition that has dared to argue against it.
Ontology is a branch of philosophy, not science. Philosophy is not a good method of actual information gathering and calculation, because it largely relies on hypotheticals rather than actualities.
Just because something can even theoretically exist doesn't mean it actually does. Unicorns are a biological possibility, since horses are closely related to many horned animals, but they don't exist now, or anywhere in the fossil record.
I am talking about the absolute origin of consciousness, wolf.
If you want a specific time in the accepted division of Earth's ages, and a specific species that we can point to and say "this is the first animal that possesses consciousness", then as far as I know, we don't have one, yet, and probably never will.
And when something isn't known, that means it isn't known. It's a gap in our collective knowledge, and we shouldn't try filling it with our own speculations; even scientists don't do that, presenting their speculations in an appropriately speculative light.
Yeah, that is what you postulate, of course. That there was this "gradual" crap and that anything can happen in any lengthy amount of time. Gotcha. What I am saying is, on naturalism, whether gradual or otherwise...it can't happen.
And if you think it can happen, then please give me a scenario at which a scientist, after creating a brain, could get the brain to think about a black cat. Give me a naturalistic scenario at which this could happen..and if you can do that, then I will abandon my view on mind/body dualism.
Just because scientists are currently unable to replicate a natural phenomenon in a laboratory, doesn't mean it's something that can't happen. Scientists used to be completely unable to replicate lighting; now it's easy-peasy.
Besides, we still don't even know how to measure what someone is thinking. In your analogy, what would be required is literally telepathy. This is not yet possible, though it's likely to become possible in the next few decades. Also, the created brain won't function, anyway, without some kind of life support, and getting it to "think" about a cat would require some kind of light-sensitive receptors (aka, "eyes") that could be "shown" a cat, and several components capable of "remembering" the image...
Tell ya what. You want a brain that can think of a cat, because apparently the ability to do that is all that's required for consciousness? Computers have been able to do that for a few decades, now.
Well, I guess a good simple definition would be "to be aware"...the sense of "awareness".
So... what does it mean to be "aware"?
Well show me one, and I'll ask'em.
I don't know any. I'm sure there's some message board out there with a focus on neuroscience where you can pose the question. Perhaps ask the authors of those articles Alceste linked to?
fantôme profane;3807609 said:
Saying the brain is not the same thing as mind is much like saying vision is not the same thing as an eye, or hearing is not an ear.
Huh. Wish I'd thought of that. That's a good analogy. ^_^
