Substances

[Falvlun]

Why are you putting words in my mouth? This isn't what I said.

Well, in her defense, I did have the same objection. The brain imaging studies demonstrate strong correlation, and indicate a causal link between brain and thoughts, but cannot confirm causation.

 

[Copernicus]

The idea that the mind and body are separate entities (or "substances" in Tonymai's terminology) is old and deeply ingrained in human thinking. We instinctively feel that the mind can exist independently of the brain, even though we have solid evidence that it cannot. We do not need MRI scanners to prove this. Even the ancients had enough evidence to figure that out. When you drink alcohol or sustain a head injury, your thought patterns can change suddenly and radically. In other words, changing the physical state of the brain changes mental processes. That fact is incontrovertible and obvious. On the other hand, there is no reliable evidence that mental function persists after serious brain injuries or death. The most straightforward explanation of that is that, contrary to Tonymai's claim, the brain does generate thoughts.

Notice that you do not have to give up philosophical dualism when you make the observation that minds (thought processes) depend on physical brain activities. Minds are not brains. What you give up is the unsupported idea that mental function naturally occurs independently of physical brain activity. That is, you take minds as "embodied". Religious belief, in most cases, depends crucially on the unwarranted assumption that disembodied minds can and do exist. There is no good reason to believe that.

 

[Copernicus]

Well, in her defense, I did have the same objection. The brain imaging studies demonstrate strong correlation, and indicate a causal link between brain and thoughts, but cannot confirm causation.

But all causal relationships are correlations. It is just the reverse that is not true, and I never made any such claim. Her same facile objection can be made to all scientific claims, since they crucially depend on correlations of that sort. It would be absurd to maintain that science establishes no causal correlations. I don't think that she was trying to make that point (at least, I hope not), so I don't think it is defensible for her to attribute that claim to me. I never said that correlations are always causal. In this case, there is too much correlation between thought and brain activity to dismiss it as acausal correlation.

 

[idav]

The idea that the mind and body are separate entities (or "substances" in Tonymai's terminology) is old and deeply ingrained in human thinking. We instinctively feel that the mind can exist independently of the brain, even though we have solid evidence that it cannot. We do not need MRI scanners to prove this. Even the ancients had enough evidence to figure that out. When you drink alcohol or sustain a head injury, your thought patterns can change suddenly and radically. In other words, changing the physical state of the brain changes mental processes. That fact is incontrovertible and obvious. On the other hand, there is no reliable evidence that mental function persists after serious brain injuries or death. The most straightforward explanation of that is that, contrary to Tonymai's claim, the brain does generate thoughts.

Notice that you do not have to give up philosophical dualism when you make the observation that minds (thought processes) depend on physical brain activities. Minds are not brains. What you give up is the unsupported idea that mental function naturally occurs independently of physical brain activity. That is, you take minds as "embodied". Religious belief, in most cases, depends crucially on the unwarranted assumption that disembodied minds can and do exist. There is no good reason to believe that.

^This

I like how spirituality likes to hide in the processes of the brain that are harder to understand while ignoring the evidence we do have. Amnesia is a great example of this as well. You think your personality is bad after blow to the head, well brain dead is even worse off and personality would go bye bye.

 

[Tonymai]

^This

I like how spirituality likes to hide in the processes of the brain that are harder to understand while ignoring the evidence we do have. Amnesia is a great example of this as well. You think your personality is bad after blow to the head, well brain dead is even worse off and personality would go bye bye.

Brain is a part of mind, just like the fuel line is a part of a car. If the line is cut, the car can not function. Since we are not the builder of the mind, we can not really fix the brain.

 

[Copernicus]

I like how spirituality likes to hide in the processes of the brain that are harder to understand while ignoring the evidence we do have. Amnesia is a great example of this as well. You think your personality is bad after blow to the head, well brain dead is even worse off and personality would go bye bye.

Tony, I'm having a little trouble making sense of what you are trying to say. The term "spirituality" has more than one meaning. Here's my point. If the mind could exist and operate independently of brains, then why do we have brains? And why do physical changes to brains produce predictable effects on thinking? All the evidence is that the physical brain is what causes thinking, and our type of thinking is associated with a much more highly developed prefrontal cortex than exists in most other animals. Those that do have a more highly developed prefrontal cortex exhibit more advanced mental development.

 

[idav]

Brain is a part of mind, just like the fuel line is a part of a car. If the line is cut, the car can not function. Since we are not the builder of the mind, we can not really fix the brain.

The problems with the brain is that brain cells do not grow back. Most our other organs are great healers. I know the brain is vital but it isn't independant of the rest of the body. The brain needs the other organs to stay healthy but even then we wouldn't function very well without our memories.

 

[ManTimeForgot]

The idea that the mind and body are separate entities (or "substances" in Tonymai's terminology) is old and deeply ingrained in human thinking. We instinctively feel that the mind can exist independently of the brain, even though we have solid evidence that it cannot. We do not need MRI scanners to prove this. Even the ancients had enough evidence to figure that out. When you drink alcohol or sustain a head injury, your thought patterns can change suddenly and radically. In other words, changing the physical state of the brain changes mental processes. That fact is incontrovertible and obvious. On the other hand, there is no reliable evidence that mental function persists after serious brain injuries or death. The most straightforward explanation of that is that, contrary to Tonymai's claim, the brain does generate thoughts.

Notice that you do not have to give up philosophical dualism when you make the observation that minds (thought processes) depend on physical brain activities. Minds are not brains. What you give up is the unsupported idea that mental function naturally occurs independently of physical brain activity. That is, you take minds as "embodied". Religious belief, in most cases, depends crucially on the unwarranted assumption that disembodied minds can and do exist. There is no good reason to believe that.

We do NOT have solid evidence that it cannot. We have precisely ZERO evidence about the nature of consciousness itself. We know that material features in the brain are NECESSARY, but NOT that they are SUFFICIENT.

Watch the Charlie Rose Brain series. It is rather informative (if a bit long). The point being is we do not actually know how the brain arrives at consciousness. We don't even know how meso-level processes work. Our "best" neural network approximations fail at doing tasks that the brain does easily. We don't actually have a clue what "level" of brain functionality to even begin looking for the "source of consciousness."

And without knowing how the brain arrives at consciousness it could very well be the case that the brain is an elaborate antenna for light or bosons or some particle we haven't even discovered yet. This doesn't even touch on quantum theories which do not require locality (in which case consciousness might exist outside the brain there again).

There are a baker's dozen of theories about how the brain arrives at consciousness. When anything is possible you know precisely nothing. Quantum physics is the same way. Baker's dozen of explanations --> No actual knowledge of what is going on.


Again, I am willing to grant that if someone, for whatever reason, had to bet on what explanation was likely to be true (like for some reason an alien came down and threatened humanity if we didn't give them an answer), then we would default to the gross materialism. We don't have any evidence period, so clearly we can't have any evidence which supports a strong claim to anything else.

MTF

 

[Tonymai]

The idea that the mind and body are separate entities (or "substances" in Tonymai's terminology) is old and deeply ingrained in human thinking. We instinctively feel that the mind can exist independently of the brain, even though we have solid evidence that it cannot. We do not need MRI scanners to prove this. Even the ancients had enough evidence to figure that out. When you drink alcohol or sustain a head injury, your thought patterns can change suddenly and radically. In other words, changing the physical state of the brain changes mental processes. That fact is incontrovertible and obvious. On the other hand, there is no reliable evidence that mental function persists after serious brain injuries or death. The most straightforward explanation of that is that, contrary to Tonymai's claim, the brain does generate thoughts.

Notice that you do not have to give up philosophical dualism when you make the observation that minds (thought processes) depend on physical brain activities. Minds are not brains. What you give up is the unsupported idea that mental function naturally occurs independently of physical brain activity. That is, you take minds as "embodied". Religious belief, in most cases, depends crucially on the unwarranted assumption that disembodied minds can and do exist. There is no good reason to believe that.

Human consciousness is a mind activity. It certainly depends on the normal function
of brain. However, we can not claim all mind functions are determined by brain, or physical reality. Nor we can claim there is no evidence of mind activities after brain death. We simply do not have material instruments to detect mind activities without normal functioning brain. We have to admit our inability, or we claim mind activity beyond death can not be proved by science.

Since mind function is alive, only a living instrument can really detect its activities. Current science can not do anything here because it only trust mathematically determinant dead instruments. How can a machine become conscious of its builder who is conscious? Only if the builder can endow the machine with consciousness.

There are three types of consciousnesses in human mind: consciousness of material substance, consciousness of consciousness (thought substance), and consciousness of spiritual substance. It is a triune reality, not dualism, nor monism.

In a crude way, material substance is subject to precise laws (facts), and is coarser than thought substance which is subject to choice based upon its interaction with spiritual substance and material substance. Spiritual substance is also subject to precise laws (Truth), and is finer than thought substance. So mind is the most unpredictable of all. Physical system subordinate, mind system coordinate, spirit system directive.

 

[idav]

Again, I am willing to grant that if someone, for whatever reason, had to bet on what explanation was likely to be true (like for some reason an alien came down and threatened humanity if we didn't give them an answer), then we would default to the gross materialism. We don't have any evidence period, so clearly we can't have any evidence which supports a strong claim to anything else.

MTF

It isn't that we have zero evidence its that all the evidence points to material and substance. How is that not sufficient? Just cause we have to go to the quantum level at some point doesn't mean we need to resort to non-material.

 

[idav]

Human consciousness is a mind activity. It certainly depends on the normal function
of brain. However, we can not claim all mind functions are determined by brain, or physical reality. Nor we can claim there is no evidence of mind activities after brain death. We simply do not have material instruments to detect mind activities without normal functioning brain. We have to admit our inability, or we claim mind activity beyond death can not be proved by science.

This simply isn't true. We are doing a fine job detecting mind function and even bringing people back from the dead(within limits of course). To say science can't detect this stuff puts science back to the dark ages.

The reason there is no activity beyond brain death is because of that 'dead' word so there is nothing to detect. Same as if you killed an animal or plant, the cells die until the whole organism cannot survive. If there is anything to detect, science will find it, and no need to think it is some undetectable substance otherwise our brain would never detect it either.

 

[krsnaraja]

Are thoughts substances of different kind that transcends material substances? If so, it is not possible to directly detect thoughts with material instruments. However, we can test whether thoughts have material correspondences. I will be wrong to take some thoughts as false when we are unable to find material substances that match them up.

If thought substances are real, then spiritual substances can also be real. But such substances can never be discovered without thought substances.

Religion works on spiritual substances which take expressions in thought substances. There is no material evidence to support spiritual evidence; therefore, science will fail absolutely if it ventures into religious territories.

The thought substance you are referring to is melatonin. It`s a hormone produce by the the pineal gland (also called the pineal body, epiphysis cerebri, epiphysis or the "third eye") is a small endocrine gland in the vertebrate brain. It affects the modulation of wake/sleep patterns and photoperiodic (seasonal) functions.

 

[ManTimeForgot]

It isn't that we have zero evidence its that all the evidence points to material and substance. How is that not sufficient? Just cause we have to go to the quantum level at some point doesn't mean we need to resort to non-material.

We don't actually have any evidence about consciousness itself. We have evidence about brain chemistry and nerve cells, but we don't actually know what to look for when it comes to looking for consciousness. The best we can do is look and see "Do we have consciousness or don't we?" This is a far cry from being able to identify what leads to creating consciousness or even what consciousness entails/is made out of.


When anything is possible, then you have zero knowledge. When you have zero knowledge, you by definition do not have enough to commit to a strong belief.

MTF

 

[PolyHedral]

This is a far cry from being able to identify what leads to creating consciousness or even what consciousness entails/is made out of.

This would seem to imply we haven't defined "conciousness" sufficiently well.

 

[krsnaraja]

This would seem to imply we haven't defined "conciousness" sufficiently well.

Consciousness in our dialect is " Nahigmata " meaning awake to reality.

 

[ManTimeForgot]

This would seem to imply we haven't defined "conciousness" sufficiently well.

You are right we haven't. Consciousness lacks definition (in both senses of the word). Try and define consciousness and you will get several different answers. Some people will tell you consciousness is defined as the emanations of the soul, others will tell you it is some horribly complicated neuro-mechanical algorithm, others still might tell you it is an "emergent property" of self-aware systems (abstract sufficient times and you eventually reach intelligence), etc etc.

The problem with any given definition is that it is probably too limited in scope. Like if I were to take the latter two examples and combine them I would probably arrive at something closer to the "the truth" about consciousness, but unfortunately for that particular action is that it also requires assuming roughly twice the unknowns (we don't know some things about neural networks and we also don't know some things about self-awareness and emergent properties usually means that you are unable to identify what potentials are combining to create the final property).

So consciousness has a more or less "vague" impression in our collective understanding, and we don't have enough evidence to trim the edges so to speak.

MTF

 

[Photonic]

You are right we haven't. Consciousness lacks definition (in both senses of the word). Try and define consciousness and you will get several different answers. Some people will tell you consciousness is defined as the emanations of the soul, others will tell you it is some horribly complicated neuro-mechanical algorithm, others still might tell you it is an "emergent property" of self-aware systems (abstract sufficient times and you eventually reach intelligence), etc etc.

The problem with any given definition is that it is probably too limited in scope. Like if I were to take the latter two examples and combine them I would probably arrive at something closer to the "the truth" about consciousness, but unfortunately for that particular action is that it also requires assuming roughly twice the unknowns (we don't know some things about neural networks and we also don't know some things about self-awareness and emergent properties usually means that you are unable to identify what potentials are combining to create the final property).

So consciousness has a more or less "vague" impression in our collective understanding, and we don't have enough evidence to trim the edges so to speak.

MTF

I personally define consciousness is the optional interaction or reaction with an environment.

 

[ManTimeForgot]

I personally define consciousness is the optional interaction or reaction with an environment.

Does a random number generator set to generate output at random intervals have consciousness because it has "optional interaction?" Does a computer program have consciousness because it has conditional reaction with the environment? (Obviously speaking rhetorically here, but it bares mentioning that problems like these are part of what illustrates just how lacking in definition as in clarity the term consciousness is).

If you are speaking of "volition" or "self-direction," then you also have to define these terms, and also how one might go about looking for them.

MTF

 

[idav]

If you are speaking of "volition" or "self-direction," then you also have to define these terms, and also how one might go about looking for them.

MTF

To make it easier what is missing from consciousness that can't be programmed or mimicked somehow? If anything the amount of memory potential is greater in brains and they are faster. What else is missing?

 

[cottage]

It is cosmic modelling. Scientific materialism grounds everything to material. Infinite Reality permits all possibilities including Experiential Deities, Existential Deities, Experiential- Existential Deities.

In other words, human experiences can be by-products of the experiences of a finite Experiential Deity who seeks to experience Reality Infinite. Parts of finite experiences are that finite individual selves experiencing via the potential of the Experiential Deity. And the finite Experiential Deity attempts to master the thought substance with spirit substance experientially and to subject material substance to thought substance. Therefore, unifying these three into one.

You are discussing metaphysical notions as if they were real, as in ‘Infinite Reality’ (your capitals), rather than mere speculation. And one doesn’t need to be a died-in-the-wool materialist to speak of experience in terms of the material world, since it from this world all arguments begin. If there are, supposedly, other-worldly experiences I’ll wager that those experiences will be expressed in terms compounded from general experience, i.e. what we understand to be the empirical world.

I’m afraid your second paragraph isn’t intelligible to me