Does thinking take place in the human brain?
The term "thinking" is used here basically as "The process of considering or reasoning about something" (Oxford LEXICO).
I would like though to include in it all the possible complex functions of the human mind: computation, problem analysis and solving, creative imagination, etc.
I would like though to include in it all the possible complex functions of the human mind: computation, problem analysis and solving, creative imagination, etc.
Comments (253)
The rock that Samuel Johnson kicked?
What's the problem? Thinking? Is that a burden? The OP poses a question, not a problem. One answers a question and solves a problem. Is this really the Philosophy Forum? :roll:
I am a poor representative of whatever the Philosophy Forum might be.
The question is a problem for me. If I am asked to locate a process in one place or another, does that mean it is not happening in other places?
How would one go about checking if such was the case?
An affirmative or positive claim is easier to prove than a negative claim.
A negative claim is harder to prove. If your position is that thought might exist in other places, than a brain, then some burden of proof may fall on you.
Fair enough.
The brain finds itself in a not brain place. So the argument that it is where it is all happening is mostly supported by noting the circumstances where the activity of other things are brought into question.
There are attempts to present the matter in other ways. Give it your best shot.
OK. Sorry. Carry on.
The prevailing model is of course that thought is caused by brain tissue, and the natural conclusion is that these thoughts are within this tissue somehow or to some extent. Intuition makes this claim nebulous however, so do any models (as opposed to spiritual ideas) exist that account for how thought might happen beyond the brain, or is this uncharted territory?
Is there any alternative?
Can a thought be up or down? Or to the left or the right? No, these are not properties thoughts can have. But they are properties of brain states.
Those who think that mental states are brain states either have no argument whatsoever - they just assume it and then proceed to wonder 'but how....' (that's most contemporary philosophy of mind.....it involves assuming that the mind is the brain and then noting that this makes no sense and then trying to make sense of it....it's the modern equivalent of discussing how many angels can be fit on a pinhead). Or they do have an argument, but it's a really shit one. It goes like this: doing things to my brain has effects on my mind...therefore my mind is my brain and that's where my thinking happens.
West Cupcake is not a server farm--it doesn't house individual thinking. There is no such thing as individual thinking, All thought happens in one place alone, West Cupcake produces all thinking. It's THE thought provider.
How long has this been going on? Hmmm, let me check... ... ... ...
Ah, here: for 97,000 years, 9 hours, 43 minutes, and 7 seconds. Before that, there was no real thinking. It was just slack-jawed Neanderthals, Denikovians, and Homo sapiens muttering, groping, and doing stuff like they were in some kind of a fog. Let me tell you, it was QUITE A SHOCK when West Cupcake began operations that Monday morning.
I hope this clarifies things.
Good one! :lol:
Transmission from West Cupcake was interrupted twice, 1914-1918 (WW I) and 1939-1945 (WW II), and h. sapiens for some years reverted to their true selves - troglodytes but now, fortunately or not, armed not with just some rocks and clubs but with guns, machine guns, cannons, and, later, nukes. I wonder when the next transmission blackout will occur? The way things are going, probably sooner than later. :smile:
There is the theory of embodied cognition, which suggests that cognitive processes are not limited to the brain but draw from aspects of the entire body.
I'm not too involved with the topic but I know there are a good few studies in the field. Maybe someone is a bit more familiar and knows some prominent ones to showcase?
Chemical processes throughout the body certainly affect the brain to some degree. Yet it seems clear to me that "The process of considering or reasoning about something" takes place in the brain. I'd put it that way: Actions that rely on words (like computation, problem analysis, etc.) are formulated as thoughts within our head.
As far as embodied cognition goes, I'd account it for certain types of "thinking" that are more subtle. Muscle memory or the moving of the diaphragm come to mind.
Thanks for your response but I will not comment on it because this is just a poll.
Thanks for your sharing your position and I would like to respond to it but this is just a poll.
Thanks for your response and the sharing of your position, but I won't comment on it because this is just a poll.
Thanks for your response but I won't comment on it because this is just a poll.
Though it could be the case that brains are immersed in a field within which thoughts are transmitted beyond the skull, and maybe brains generate aspects of this field. All kinds of new agey concepts such as auras and astral projection suggest so. Is there anything to it, pure hokum, or somewhere in between?
Yes, it does, but where the "ideas" that make up the whole process of "Thinking" from its conception to its conclusion come from, that is another discussion.
I've never seen a brain think, or reflect or cognize. But people, on the other hand, do all these things.
So thinking takes place in a person's brain, not a brain itself.
Something like brain state expanded to a physical brain that has the capability to fully support an observed state of mind.
Firstly, Human thought requires the approximately 86 billion neurons that the brain contains. However, we have to ask what created this brilliant arrangement such that we can have such complex thought?
As we dig down to the source of thinking we get to the source of life, and from the point of view of biology, chemistry, geophysics astrobiology, biochemistry, biophysics, geochemistry, molecular biology, oceanography and paleontology, self organization created life. The only exception to this point of view would be God, but when we ask who created God, then it seems God too would have had to self organize into existence. So, self organization does the thinking.
Life is the evolution of self organization, and it is a process that from it's very begging integrates information to some form. The simplest of conceptions exists as information in some form. And the form of our understanding interacts with the form of the simplest conception, to create information about what does the thinking.
BRAIN(a specific thought) = a specific brain state
and,
A specific thought unsupported would not exist.
So the existence of specific thought is proof that brain state is supporting this specific thought.
Quoting Mark Nyquist
A second storey can't exist without a first storey. That does not imply that the second storey 'is' the first storey. So, even if your unsupported claim that a mental state can't exist absent a brain state is true - and I stress, it isn't true and you have not supported it in anyway - that would not be evidence that the mental state 'is' the brain state.
Thanks for your response and sharing your views, but I won't comment on them because this is just a poll.
You might be right about brain state causing mental state being fallacy. I was giving an overview, not cause and effect. My second attempt was that thought can only exist if supported by brains state. That's how I approach it
Mental state(as non-physical thought) is subsidiary to brain state, not equal to. But mental state cannot exist unsupported so (in the state it exists) it is brain state.
Quoting Bartricks
I'm not trying to do a full proof here but trying to outline a posible relation.
Your line of reasoning has merit, however, I don't know how we could validate that thinking happens anywhere besides in our brains. We can validate that thinking happens in our brains by measuring brain waves and MRI imaging, and being to prove with the imaging that the process of thinking causes the area of the brain that is activated to grow. How could we validate thinking outside of the brain?
One approach has been to view exchanges of information as a network of the mind which includes all the different component of the experienced world. That is the premise of Gregory Bateson's Evolution of the Mind. The idea has a lot of problems but the "brain" versus "not brain" issue is not one of them.
Another system approach to consider is that of Lev Vygostky. He (and his study group) said that focus on individual outcomes of any organism is looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Here is a paragraph from a brutally concise summary:
Quoting Olga Basileva and Natalia Balyasnikova
There are groups of people talking about "brains-in-vats" and ranges of inputs and outputs but I fall into a coma when I try to read any of it.
I think this is an excellent preliminary question to ask before asking how. It identifies where to start looking if you answer it correctly. And we don't know the solution before we get there. I do U-turns if I need to.
Mary: When I was studying Philosophy at the University of Sunset.
Therefore, in this situation, thinking took place at a university.
I don't understand your point. There's no evidence your mind is your brain. There's lots of evidence your mind is not your brain. That's the actual situation. So, if we're interested in what's true, that's what's most likely true: your mind is not your brain.
Again: if you try and argue that your mind is your brain, you are almost certainly going to argue badly. For instance, you are now implying that if mental states 'depend' on brain states - a thesis for which you have provided no evidence - this somehow shows that they 'are' brain states. How? That same reasoning would lead you to conclude that the second storey of my house 'is' the first storey of my house.
Do you have any evidence that your mind is your brain? If you do, present it.
Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to present a valid argument that has this conclusion: 'therefore, my mind is my brain'.
This is a valid argument form:
1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
Q is the proposition "my mind is my brain".
The argument will be a good one to the extent that 1 and 2 are self-evident to reason or else are themselves teh conclusions of arguments that have premises that are self-evident to reason.
So, here is the argument that most of those who believe the mind is the brain provide, if they have wit enough to be able to provide any at all:
1. If brain states cause mental states, then brain states are mental states (and my brain is my mind).
2. Brain states cause mental states
3. Therefore, brain states are mental states (and my brain is my mind).
That argument is shit. Why? Because premise 1 is obviously false: if A causes B, that does not mean A 'is' B.
So that's a rubbish argument. And that's the beauty of arguments: when you're forced to make one, you can discover that your view is based on assumptions that are self-evidently false. Perhaps there's a good argument out there that has "therefore, my mind is my brain" as its conclusion - but if there is, I haven't heard it yet.
Or you can just wrap yourself in a big cloak of your own ignorance. You decide.
I agree. Just so you know, I'm not classically trained.
1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
And that this one is not:
1. P
2. Therefore Q
When asked to provide evidence that the mind is the brain, most will provide the second argument. That is, they will say "mental states are caused by brain states" (or something equivalent - doing something to the brain affects what goes in in the mind, etc).
That's not a valid argument. It's this:
1. Brain states cause mental states
2. Therefore brain states are mental states
That's
1. P
2. Therefore Q
So to make it valid, we need to add a premise saying "if P, then Q".
But what does that mean in this context? It means adding "if brain states cause mental states, then brain states are mental states"
Yet that premise is obviously false. Our reason tells us this as clearly as it tells us that the argument is valid. For instance, I am affecting you right now - so things I am doing are affecting you. That doesn't mean I am you.
Anyway, that's 'reasoning' and it is the only way to figure out what's true. For otherwise one is just making shit up or listening to yourself.
Quoting Bartricks
I don't know what you mean.
'My method' is 'philosophy'. That is, using reason to figure out what's the case.
Focus! The issue here is whether the mind is the brain, right? Well, do you have any evidence that it is?
What. Are. You. On. About?
That's a conclusion: what are your premises?
No, this thread is about the mind and whether it is the brain. And no, that's not how it works. Why are you sure about things that you know nothing about? You're not classically trained, remember?
And what, pray, are you thinking that with, Murk?
You might want to look up 'embellished' next.
The mind needs no defense. You can't be wrong about whether it exists or not. You can be wrong about whether your brain exists.
The brain appears to exist outside the mind. Injuries to the brain appear to affect thinking.
What? That you can be wrong your brain exists? That's trivially easy to demonstrate. Do you think you can doubt whether your mind exists? That requires having a mind.
This model shows mind as an imagined thought.
Murk's brain( Murk's jumbled thoughts )
No, Murk. With your 'mind'. Baby steps. Minds think. Thoughts are 'mental states'. A mental state is, by definition, a 'state of mind'.
So, you thought those silly things with your 'mind'. And you have then just assumed that your mind is your brain.
Your mind exists more certainly than your brain. You could just be dreaming brains - every time you think you've seen a brain could have been a dream. You are not dreaming you're thinking when you're thinking, and so not dreaming that you've got a mind.
Murk----->confused------>very
Yah, I should take a course in formal logic so I think straight like you.
:lol: Don't be to sure of that tim wood!
Shall we review your brilliant thoughts. From what I can tell, you think that the brain exists more certainly than your own mind. You have no argument for that, and it's obviously false. But that's what you think. And then you think that your brain - which exists more certainly than you, you think - causes your thoughts. Which is something that would only be possible if your mind exists, given that thoughts are states of mind. And then you think that this somehow shows your mind to be imaginary, even though imaginings require a mind to be having them (you think this because of dashes and arrows, from what I can tell). That's straight thinking, yes?
Just giving back what I'm getting.
Indeed! This is the essence of the problem for physicalism - matter & energy, that includes brains, could be an illusion.
[quote=Some Wiseguy]Something is better than nothing.[/quote]
Quoting Mark Nyquist
Not even rabbit droppings for me! :lol:
Whether brains are physical objects or the mental activity of another mind (as, say, Berkeley would maintain) is left open by their existence being potentially illusory. That is, we could be dreaming brains exist and there are none in reality consistent with Berkelian idealism. As such, I don't see how physicalism per se is challenged by what I have said.
My point was that one's mind exists with the utmost certainty, whereas one's brain does not. And thus it is the height of silliness to suppose the mind to be illusory and one's brain not.
Oh! Thank god you read my post. My point is that the only thing anyone can be certain of is that they have minds (the thinker); everything else, the material/physical world, could be an illusion à la Cartesian deus deceptor and brains in vats.
I don't think that's true - we can be certain of more than that.
Quoting TheMadFool
But you said that this was the essence of the problem for physicalism (which I take to be equivalent to materialism). That was the bit I didn't understand. How is it the essence of the problem for physicalism? Does physicalism, to be plausible, need to be indubitable?
Like what?
Quoting Bartricks
Yes, it affirms that all is physical, a statement of absolute certainty. It has no room for doubt but that's exactly what's introduced with Descartes' deus deceptor and Harmann's brain in a vat.
Reasons. I think I have reason to believe I am thinking, and that I have reason to believe that thoughts cannot exist absent a mind to think them, and reason to think that I, a mind, exist. But then if I have reason to think those things, and reason to think them true with certainty, then I have as much if not more reason to think reasons exist. And thus reasons exist with complete certainty.
Quoting TheMadFool
No, a view can be true and not believed. And a view can be true and not believed with certainty.
I do not believe materialism is true. But the fact that we can doubt the reports of our senses is not evidence that materialism is false. For we can doubt the reports of our senses even if materialism is false, and there's no special reason to think our senses would be indubitable if materialism were true (I mean, why would they be?).
But anyway, this is now getting off topic. The mind is not the brain regardless of whether brains are material objects or something else. If they are material objects - that is, if they are extended in space - then our minds are clearly not identical with them, for our minds seem to have no properties in common and thus are about as far from being them as it is possible to be. And if they are not extended in space - that is, if brains are not material substances, but bundles of ideas in the mind of God (as Berkeley believed), then our minds are not them either, for our minds are not bundles of ideas, but objects that have ideas.
Those who believe that our minds are our brains invariably have no argument for that view - they just assume it because they are fashion victims and that is the current intellectual fashion - or they have appalling arguments (see Murky above).
Reasons are mind-stuff. To be certain that reasons exist entails that you be certain that you have/are a mind.
Quoting Bartricks
:ok:
Bartricks is an annoying fuck, but I think he is basically right about this.
EDIT: however, the question of where thinking happens remains. And I think 'in the brain' remains a possibility, even if thoughts are not identical with some brain functions.
Of one thing we can't be certain - matter & energy. They could be illusions generated by the mind. There's no contradiction if we assume matter & energy are illusory.
Certain: mind; Uncertain: matter & energy
I'm sure now: minds don't exist. Disproving a mind doesn't require a mind.
Quoting TheMadFool
You know when you comment you self document your own ineptitude. It's just ridiculous.
And how did you and Bartricks get sucked into Bishop Berkeley's world of ass-backwardism? Maybe that was your wrong turn.
Perhaps you'll feel more comfortable with the physicalist version of the skepticism advocated by René Descartes :point: Gilbert Harman's brain in a vat.
Remember, you're getting closer to the truth - you've taken the physical world save your brain out of the equation. Take one step more and you're in Cartesian wonderland. Good luck!
I don't have an appropriate response to that.
Usually people say “mental states are brain states” not “my mind is my brain”.
Here’s an attempt at the former:
1- Every physical effect has sufficient physical cause (can be derived from conservation laws)
2- Mental states are not physical
3- Therefore of the two, only brain states can bring about physical effects
4- Mental states bring about physical effects
5- Therefore, Mental states are brain states
There are comments of the kind "Where else?" or just indicating obvious things, like e.g. respiration takes place in the lungs, or showing some sarcasm, or just saying nothing, actually. Just voting "Yes" in these cases, would be enough.
On the other hand, there are some responses, much fewer unfortunately, that show a thinking about the subject. These are worth mentioning. I bring them all together in here, in order of appearance, so that they can be easily examined and compared. (Note that I still don't comment on them. I only acknowledge them as valuable, i.e. as viewpoints, as having something to say. Also, I don't always include whole posts but only parts of them. You know what to do to read a whole post. (Just click on the person's name.)
***
Quoting RogueAI
Quoting Enrique
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting TheMadFool
Quoting Hermeticus
Quoting Gus Lamarch
***
These only are the responses to the topic --not parts of discussions between persons on the subject-- up to now, which contained a viewpoint ...
***
Aditional responses after Sep 8, 2021:
Quoting Constance
Quoting Mark Nyquist
Dumbo thinks it's the feather that makes him fly but no, it isn't. Likewise, we think it's the brain that thinks but...
But what? Please copmplete your thought. I like to know your opinion. BTW, in your first comment (which I quoted in my "collection" of responses) you stated "So, I guess, the brain inside our skulls does the thinking." Are you revising or questioning your view?
Minds causally interact with the sensible world. That much seems clear to everyone. But if the sensible world is physical and the mental realm is not, then that interaction demonstrates that the non physical can and does causally interact with the physical.
So you need first to establish that the mind is physical otherwise you have no non question begging evidence that physical events can only have physical causes.
Incidentally, the more basic claim that you are appealing to is that causation only occurs between objects of the same kind. That claim, if true - and I am sceptical - would still not show minds to be brains. Rather, it would show brains to be mental. That is, it would get you to idealism about the sensible realm, not materialism about the mental realm. Why? Because minds and their contents exist with the utmost certainty and it would be irrational to reduce the more certain to the less.
But anyway, you are clearly bound in a little nut of naturalism and won't be able to follow reason out of it.
No, Bartricks, you are obviously wrong. The mind you identify as non-physical is clearly physical or it couldn't interact with the physical. So we are back to brain (and not mind) and the burden of proof for mind is still on you. Maybe more so since mind as you described appears to be a fallacy.
The issue is whether the mind is a physical thing or not. So that means one is not entitled to just assume it is one or the other at the outset. Arguments are needed. And this:
The mind is physical.
Therefore the mind is physical
is shit. (And it would be shit even if one put in lots of ---- and >s, which i say because I know you think they do important work). Valid. But shit.
So, until a positive case is provided, it is an open question whether the mind is physical or not. And thus the fact that there appears to be causation between the mind and the sensible (I say 'sensible' rather than 'physical' because whether the sensible is physical is also debatable and this issue - the issue of what the mind is and what it can interact with - can bear on it) cannot be taken to constitute evidence that the mind is a sensible object until we have established that the mind is sensible rather than immaterial. For if the mind is immaterial - a possibility that has not been foreclosed - then the evidence of interaction would be evidence of interaction between immaterial and sensible.
Is there evidence that the mind is immaterial? Yes.
Is there any countervailing evidence that the mind is material? No.
Is there causal interaction between the mind and the sensible world? Manifestly
Therefore, there is evidence that the immaterial causally interacts with the sensible world.
Is the sensible world a physical world?
Well, if one kind of object can only causally interact with objects of the same kind, then no - the sensible world must be a mental world, not a physical world.
On the other hand, if one kind of object can causally interact with objects of a different kind, then possibly the sensible world is physical and causal interaction is taking place between the immaterial and the physical.
There. That's called reasoning. It's what I'm trained to do
It takes place in the nose, of course.
So your objection is premise 1.
Quoting Bartricks
If it affects the physical it had to be physical. Because that’s how people define “physical”. Not by mass, not by velocity, but by being able to cause a physical change. If it causes a physical effect it falls in the domain of physics. That’s why it’s called physics.
Electromagnetic waves don’t have mass and are physical for example.
That’s if you think the mind is some sort of substance.
Quoting Bartricks
I’m not reducing minds to brains. I’m reducing mental states to brain states.
Anger is a state your brain is in, not a state your mind is in. Mind doesn’t need to be a substance for its uses to make sense. “He stormed out because he was angry” makes sense when “angry” is treated as a physical state. Anger doesn’t need to be a magical non physical event pushing anything.
It’s when you treat “angry” as a state of another thing, “mind” then you run into the issue of how all of these scientists seemed to have completely missed this magical thing that affects the physical world so strongly. If there existed a thing called a “mind” that had causal impact then surely we would’ve detected it by now no? It wouldn’t be a first for us to infer the existence of things without mass (electromagnetic waves for example) based purely on their effects.
But it seems there is no need for an extra thing called a mind, as our bodies seem to follow the same rules as the rest of the universe without any anomalous physical observations that can be attributed to a mind doing something. So either minds don’t exist, or they’re some combination of physical things we discovered (an electromagnetic wave, etc).
This seems like it’ll just be another round of a whole lot of vitriol, since we’re treading the same ground again. If I don’t see anything original in the reply I’m not responding.
The epistemological process, that is, the act of developing a conceptual perception about existence, needs a substantiation through another field composed only of ideas - metaphysics - which are captured by the Ego - the "belonging to oneself", therefore , that which makes Man take for himself an idea - Eigenheit - transl. "Ownness" - - - of "Being", therefore, ideas are "the epistemological power of "belonging" to Being, in the perception of the limitation of existence, and awareness of the infinity of metaphysics".
Something can only be "real", if, beforehand, it was "Ideal", but something can only be "ideal", if it has become part of the "Ownness" of existence.
I didn't mention any of the premises of your argument as your argument is poorly formed, semi gibberish. It also contains a premise that contradicts the conclusion (you assert that mental states are not physical and then conclude that they are! Jeez). My advice, which you will ignore of course, is to stick to this form:
1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
And then simply pile them up.
I'll just do it for you, as that'll save time. Here's what you should have said:
1. If an event is physical, then it has a physical cause
2. Mental events are physical
3. Therefore, mental events have physical causes
Now that it has been properly laid out - and of course, the confusion that infects your 'argument' is such that you can deny that any proper argument I lay out on your behalf was not the argument you were trying to express - it is clear that premise 2 is question begging. That is, it presupposes that minds are physical and so renders the argument impotent to 'show' that minds are physical.
Alternatively one might argue like this (this argument, at least, is not question begging):
1. Events of one kind have causes of the same kind
2. Mental events cause sensible events
3. Therefore, mental events and sensible events are events of the same kind
Now I think premise 1 of that argument is false, but I am willing to accept that it might be true as some undoubtedly have the rational intuition that it is, else the so-called problem of interaction would never have been considered a problem. So, for the sake of argument alone, I am willing to accept premise 1 of that argument. And premise 2 is clearly true.
However, in order to get from the conclusion of that argument to the conclusion that mental events are physical events (and thus that minds are physical things), one would need to stipulate that sensible events are physical events. And the problem with that is that, in light of the conclusion of the above argument, we now have no evidence they are, and stunningly good evidence they are not.
For this argument is a good one:
4. Mental events are immaterial events
5. Therefore, sensible events are immaterial events
Why do I say that it is a good one? Because there's evidence minds are immaterial - and thus that mental events are immaterial events - and no evidence that minds are material. Not that I know of, anyway. In other words, you need to deny 4 and insist that sensible events are physical events (which will then get you to the conclusion that mental events are physical events). But to do that you'd need evidence that mental events are not immaterial events - that is, you'd need evidence that minds are physical and not immaterial. You don't have any of those. I, by contrast, have a ton of arguments that 4 is true. 14 on the last count.
So, to be clear: I see no reason to think that events of one kind cannot cause events of a differnt kind. But even if there was reason to think that dubious premise true, it would not show that minds are physical, rather it would show that the sensible is mental.
Quoting khaled
Oh boo hoo. There's nothing original in it, because there was nothing original in what you said and you just committed the same old mistakes.
So basically, whether we define the mind as physical or nonphysical is arbitrary from a structural standpoint. Whatever the mind's substance is somehow affects a world at least partially comprised of sensible features. So what we seem to be lacking is an objective "ownness" that would mechanistically clarify the mind's substance, which is why the debate never seems to enter the domain of sciencelike thinking.
Are any of the posters at this forum capable of rendering intuitions about the nonphysical mind in scientific or more pointedly objective terms, or is this hopelessly elusive and futuristic at our stage of knowledge? Does phenomenology have anything to say about the subject that borders on objectivity?
The scientific endeavor has taken a "linear" and "arbitrary" turn that does not appeal to me at all, and in large part is the cause of its never being taken as a fundamental basis of knowledge in all of human history - since the ancient Greeks - known as Pre-Socratics - to the moderns -. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way taking a stand against scientific research and its methods; I simply criticize the arbitrary need of modern science to take on an air of quasi-religious dogma to all its theories and hypotheses.
The objectivity of science in essence has only shown us that subjectivity is the nature of the Universe.
I don't follow you. Our minds clearly causally interact with the sensible world. That, by itself, doesn't tell us anything about what kind of a thing minds are.
Some assume - and I think that's all it is, an assumption, not a self-evident truth of reason - that things of one kind can only causally interact with things of the same kind.
But that too tells us nothing about what kind of a thing minds are. It just tells us that they can only causally interact with things of the same kind, and thus as our minds are causally interacting with a sensible world, it tells us only that the world is the causal product of a thing or things of the same kind as our own mind. But it does not tell us 'what' kind of thing that may be.
But if you consult your reason - and it is by consulting our reason that we find out about things - your reason will tell you things such as the following:
a) that your mind cannot be divided
b) that it makes no sense to wonder what your mind smells or tastes like, or what colour it has or what shape it has
c) that it makes no sense to wonder, in respect of a sensible thing - such as a mug or piece of cheese - what it thinks like (though it does make sense to wonder what it might taste like, or smell like, or what shape it has).
d) that your mind exists with certainty, whereas no sensible thing exists with the same certainty
e) that you are the same person - the same mind - you were when you were a child, even if every particle of your sensible body has changed in the interim
f) that you are morally valuable irrespective of any and all of your sensible features, and irrespective of whether you have any sensible features at all
g) that the wholesale destruction of your sensible body is something that will harm you, and at the same time to be harmed one needs to exist at the time of the harm
f) that you have free will, yet at the same time your reason tells you (does it not?) that you would lack free will if everything you thought desired and intended was the causal product of causes external to yourself.
These things and more besides our reason tells us. Tells me, anyway, and tells countless others for all such claims have been appealed to as premises in published arguments.
Yet consider: given what one's reason is saying about one's own mind, is it telling you that it is a sensible thing, or something else entirely? THe latter surely?
For just take divisibility for starters. Sensible things can be divided. Or at least, they can if they are physical things - that is, if they take up space. For anything that takes up some space can be divided in two. One can have half a mug, half a piece of cheese, half a molecule, and so on. But not half a mind. Well, if all things that are extended in space can, by their very nature, be divided and one's mind cannot be divided, then one's mind is not extended in space and is thus not a sensible object. (This venerable argument, versions of which can be found in Plato, Descartes and Berkeley among others, seems by itself sufficient to establish that the mind is immaterial, not material).
Maybe the mind is not obviously divisible, but it is clearly distinguished into parts, which makes it in a sense divided. Perhaps one day it might be possible to reverse engineer this structure of mind and simulate it in a computer or some technological medium, even treat it medically via nonexclusively brain-centric models of its substance. The mind could become physical as the physical is redefined by advancing science, in fact this seems a probable outcome to me. Whether we can explain what that model will entail at this stage of knowledge is the conceptual difficulty, and what my posts in this thread have tried to get at.
To see this, just consider me. Do you attribute a mind to me, or half of one? What would attributing half a mind to me even mean? It makes no sense, right? Half a mind is incoherent.
So minds are positively indivisible. Or so says our reason. And simply to ignore such a representation of our reason is, well, irrational. That way dogma lies.
They don't have parts and talk of parts has to be treated very carefully (Plato, who also recognized that the mind is indivisible, nevertheless talked of parts of the mind, but he did not mean by this that the mind has parts in the way that an apple does or a building does, but rather that the mind has different faculties - faculties of reason, appetite and spirit. These are not 'parts' of the mind, but aspects of the mind).
Take an ice sculpture and a lump of ice. Both are made of the same stuff, but one is very complex. It does not, however, have more parts than the lump.
Minds can differ, one from another, much as the ice sculpture differs from the lump. Yet just as the ice sculpture and the lump of ice are made of the same kind of substance (in this case a divisible substance), so too minds are made of the same kind of substance, no matter how great the difference in their aspects (in this case an indivisible substance).
Anyway, what you say about reverse engineering simply assumes right at the get go that the mind is material, or that some kind of functionalism about the mind is true, and is not any kind of evidence in support of such views. Indeed, there is no evidence - none - that such views are true and plenty that they are false. One being the obvious indivisibility of the mind! So you are begging the question. You are taking it for granted that the mind is material and then speculating on that, not offering any positive evidence that the mind is material. The mind is 'not' material - all of the evidence is that it is immaterial. All of it.
If you organize all the materials required to make a brain in the shape of a straight line, I assure you, you will have no mind. If you mix these materials randomly and shape them like a brain, I assure you the same thing will happen, there would be no mind. However, if you organize these materials in the shape of an actual brain [at the micro- (quantum?) and macroscopic levels], I am confident you would obtain a fully functioning brain (one with a mind like mine or yours). So, the mind does not depend only on the materials that make the brain (cells, ions, extracellular molecules) but also on their arrangement in 4d space. The first floor is not a first floor if you use the roof as a door, and a window as a wall (or if you use concrete for the windows and glass for the walls - it would be a really weird floor; or if you use foam for your walls). There is no second floor, the mind and the brain are the same thing (or the mind is a process occurring to brain components inside the brain itself). Think about this, the mind changes; the brain changes; why could the mind not be the result of change occurring to brain components (where the rate of change changes with time)?
The point of the example was to show that one cannot conclude from 'A depends on B' that 'A is B'. Dependency and identity are not the same relation.
Question begging. Your assurance counts for nothing at all. Show me that Reason assures us of this and I'll believe it.
And there's that argument again. Same one. A change in the brain causes a change in the mind. That does not show that the brain is the mind. Christ.
Without simply assuming that the mind is the brain, show me that the mind is the brain.
Don't tell me you're confident it is. That's no kind of evidence.
Show me how the proposition "the mind is the brain" can be derived, validly, from a set of assumptions each one of which is self-evident to reason or can itself be derived from some self-evident truths of reason.
I can show you how "the mind is immaterial" can be derived, validly, from a set of assumptions each one of which is self-evident to reason 14 times.
Show me how the negation can be so derived. Just once.
A lobotomy might change your mind about this. :chin:
But you could say that subjective color is an aspect of the mind, and all the colors grouped together but nonetheless separate constitute parts of the mind. The distinctions between the feeling of touching an object, the hearing of a sound, the seeing of a mental image etc. also amount to a division into parts. When we're talking about percepts insofar as they are located within the mind and not in the associated objects, it is evident that the mind can be divided into various structural parts, not merely functionally meaningful aspects delineated only for conceptual conveniences such as approximately defining the discrepancy between classes of species and such.
Again, doing things to the brain - such as removing a bit - clearly affects what goes on in the mind.
That's not evidence that the mind 'is' the brain.
You think it is.
Some clear thinking might change your mind about this.
Is there a name for an operation that adds material to your brain, thus enhancing one's ability to reason well? I will coin one: a topupobotomy. A topupobotomy would change your mind about this.
What bit?
Are you arguing that a lobotomy would not change your mind?
:ok:
I think you need one indeed
Point. Missed.
Did yours change yours?
No. I changed mine.
Just like Dumbo is certain that the magic feather makes him fly, we too are completely convinced that it's the brain that thinks. The feather isn't magical, it doesn't make Dumbo fly; likewise, it's possible that the brain doesn't think, we just believe it does.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Yes, I'm revising my position. Yes, when our brain is out of commission, we stop thinking - any boxer worth his salt will attest to that. However, the brain could be an illusion - remember that anything we perceive with our senses is, according to Cartesian skepticism, unreliable - and getting knocked out by a blow to the head quite possibly is part of the magic show. :chin:
But I am arguing that.
What then does make Dumbo fly?
Definitely NOT the magic feather.
This is very offensive against motherfuckers! I might flag you!
:rofl:
Fair enough.
Quoting TheMadFool
Come again? :smile: Are you talking about that spongy organ inside the skull?
Quoting TheMadFool
It might well be so. But I still trust my senses! :grin:
I don't mean to burst your bubble and I know this is hard but, take a look at the following:
Can you really rely on your senses when,
A. Your mind can auto-generate all-modality sensory perceptions like in
1. Hallucination
B. Your mind can alter the perceptions themselves and make you come to false conclusions like in
2. Mirage
3. Optical Illusion
4. Tactile Illusion
5. Formication
6. Auditory Illusion
?
No problem, go ahead please, you cannot "burst my bubble"! :smile:
Quoting TheMadFool
No, you really don't! :smile:
Hallucination, mirage, optical/auditory/tactile Illusion, ... You can bring dozens of such states. They all have this in common: they are abnormal and refer to physical or mental sickness.
But don't go that far! Having some drinks can be enough to make you behave abnormally and alter your perception.
And you don't even have to go that far: Anger, fear, grief and all sort of negative emotions can all alter your perception.
And you don't even have to go that far: Just beign absent-minded, lost in some thoght, imagination and other temporary things related to mental states can alter your perception.
When one knows well what is his normal mental state (under healthy condictions), he can differentiate it from states he may get in after being influenced by one or more of the above mentioned conditions. Only a madman does not know he is mad. (Well, figuratively speaking, of course.)
See? You shouldn't have worried. You didn't burst my bubble and nothing of all that was the least hard for me! :grin:
Nothing counterintuitive in it then? All your life you've depended on your senses, never doubted them in any way and now, when someone like me tells you to think twice about how truly reliable your senses are, it doesn't even register. I'm most amused. I'm like you - nothing seems to surprise me anymore. Good/bad that, no idea.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
How do we know that we are normal? I remember watching an old horror short film where the patients in an asylum have escaped and confined the resident psychiatrists and nurses in the same cells the patients were confined in and in a twist of fate, the patients are treating the doctors. I dunno!
TheMadFool makes a good point and they can all happen to an entirely healthy person. The most likely scenario would be environments that are at the limits of discernment such as chaotic, noisy, dirty, dark, time limited, physically constrained or unfamiliar conditions.
Anyone know the name of TheMadFool's short film? That would be tons of fun to watch.
It sounds like a modern version of the Haman's gallows story from the Bible. One of my favorites
I can't remember the film's name. Sorry, my memory isn't what it used to be. I'll check out Haman's gallows.
Significantly, both mug and mind are concepts. They are not actual things that exists independently and each have various aspects. Depending on how you cut a mug in half it may more retain or lose its ‘mugness’. If you cut it vertically it will no longer be able to function as a mug. It you cut it horizontally it can still function as a mug, though a shorter one with less capacity. In a very real sense the vertically cut mug is no longer a mug.
Moving on to minds, it just so happens that there are brains that have been medically split.
According to Lizzie Schechter, assistant professor of philosophy and philosophy-neuroscience-psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, “The impression that a split-brain subject has two minds is correct”. I won’t bother posting the evidence for her conclusion. If split-brain research interests you it’s easy to look up. Cutting the corpus callosum doesn’t produce two identities, however, so if your concept of a mind requires a human self-identity this example may be inadequate. Of course that would mean that you don’t regard most species as having minds because they don’t possess human minds with our sense of self.
Of course. What else could I do? These were and are my senses. What's the use or purpose doubting them? What could I gain from such a thing? In fact, if I did such a thing, on a constant basis, I wouldn't be able to write these lines, or any lines, for that matter. I would be living in an asylum! :smile:
Quoting TheMadFool
What's there not to undestand?
Normal = "Conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected" (Oxford LEXICO)
And I talked about our normal state, not normal state in general. Our personality, the basic characteristics of our behaviour and all that depend on and are dictated by our mental state. Which, i a sane person, is stable in general and under normal conditions. Not only ourselves but also others can recognize it. (I warn you: Don't ask me what do I mean by "normal conditions" because I won't answer it! :grin:)
Certainly they can. But then, these indicate an abnormal condition, as I said. And certainly, one cannot trust his senses in such a condition. (I have already explained all that. Most probably you have not read my whole post ...)
I think this is on topic and a little study on how thoughts can go wrong.
Philosophy might have something to add as far as insights into troubleshooting psychosis. Maybe just a little off topic.
No they're not. 'Concept' is another word for 'idea'. Mugs are not ideas. We have the idea of a mug. But the mug itself is not an idea. Likewise for the mind. We have the idea of a mind. And minds have ideas. But minds are not ideas.
Quoting praxis
Er, no. Brains have been split. Minds, no. Again, what the hell do you mean by half a mind?
Those brain splitting cases actually underline - if underlining it needed - that minds cannot be split. If your brain is split and both hemispheres hooked up to waiting empty heads, where would 'you' go?
These are the options:
You'd sense or in some other way acquire information about the world through both. But there's still one 'you' right.
You'd go with one hemisphere and not the other. Still, only you.
You'd go with neither.
Those are the only conceivable options, yes?
I mean, here's a thought experiment for you. Let's say I owe you $1m. I then go and have half my brain removed and destroyed. Do I now owe you half a million?
No, right? I owe you $1m still. And that's because I haven't been split.
Two points:
1. Skepticism (Are you sure?)
2. Plato's allegory of the cave (Who is normal?)
Correct, the “mug itself” is not a mug without the idea of a mug.
Quoting Bartricks
I wrote that ‘mind’ is a concept.
Quoting Bartricks
I didn’t say anything about half a mind.
Quoting Bartricks
That’s about it, apparently. You seem to believe that a mind is only a mind if it possesses human self-awareness and identity.
Quoting Bartricks
Under the circumstances $500k seems fair to me.
The word 'concept' and the word 'idea' are synonyms. And mugs are not ideas. Think of a mug. That thought is an idea. It's not a mug. If you don't believe me, try and pour some tea in it.
Quoting praxis
So be clear then: do you think minds can be divided? If you accept that they cannot be, then my argument goes through and you should agree that minds are not extended entities (and thus are not our brains - and so everything you said about dividing brains was irrelevant).
If you think they can be divided, then explain to me what the hell half a mind is.
Quoting praxis
Er, where did I say that? What are you on about?
Quoting praxis
So I can reduce my debts by having bits of my brain removed. Okaay. What about a haircut?
If my concept of a mug is not a mug then how can I reliably recognize mugs? I assure you I’m quite good at recognizing mugs. Maybe you don’t think I can tell the difference between a mug and an idea? Or perhaps you’re confusing my mental representation of a mug with my mental representation of an idea?
Quoting Bartricks
I can appreciate Lizzie Schechter’s conclusion about split-brains, that “The impression that a split-brain subject has two minds is correct”, because I don’t think that a mind requires human self-awareness and identity. Please don’t ask me to repeat this again.
So if I recognize Tim because I've got a photo of him, Tim must be a photo?!? There's how one grasps and uses a concept and then there's what the concept is 'of'. These should not be confused. You are confusing them. The concept of a mug is not a mug. Have you tried pouring tea into it yet?
Quoting praxis
Yes, that is exactly what I think - and it is demonstrably true. You have stated several times now that mugs are concepts - ideas. They're not. We have the idea of a mug, but a mug is not an idea.
I have a photo of Tim. But Tim is not a photo. I have the concept of a mug. But a mug is not a concept.
You think it is, right? It isn't.
Quoting praxis
Be clear: do you think minds can be divided?
How do these points answer my question "Should I be in a constant doubt of my senses"? Sould I doubt that I see a tree in front of me? Should I doubt about the existence of these exact words I am writing just now? I can't make it simpler than that. Sorry.
***
Re "Skepticism (Are you sure?)": Wouldn't that get into an endless questioning: "Are you sure you are sure?", "Are you sure you are sure you are sure?" ... :grin:
Re Plato's allegory: A very good allegory indeed. But Socrates talks here about higher levels of reality. The persons in the cave use the senses they have. They don't have other ones to chose from. That's all they have. To trust them or not makes absolutely no sense. (All of us have jumped to a lot of levels of reality in our life. But in each new level, and for the period it lasts, that's all we have. We can't do otherwise. Except continuing our way up to higher levels ... )
BTW, both your points, esp. skepticism, refer to knowlegde, in general. Nothing to do with senses, which is our subject! (This is what can happen when one gets trapped into a position that he cannot defend anymore: he changes subject! And, honestly, I don't like that. It's not fair, esp. for thinking people and in philosophical discussions.)
That's why :point:
Quoting TheMadFool
Well, you still didn't burst my bubble and it was still not hard! (Or maybe, did it turn as a boomerang against yourself? :smile:)
For me, this is just a discussion, which, besides other things, makes me know you better! :smile:
You contradict yourself, a telltale sign that it is beyond your ken. Don't worry, we're in the same boat. It's extremely difficult to break a habit that we've developed even before we could think properly i.e. from infancy and reinforced over a lifetime.
A simple question should get the point across: Is depression really an illness? Is there joy enough in this world to be happy, let's even lower the bar, content or is it the other way round? Think about it. Either this shocks or it won't. If it does, I've done my job and if it doesn't then, too bad, you're like some of those folks who had only seen white swans in their life and come to the conclusion there are no black swans.
Slight digression, but a similar thought experiment. Suppose someone gave you a bunch of shit, then said you liked it so you owe them, then destroyed half your brain as repayment, then tortured you until you die from it, would you owe them half a million dollars? Certainly not $1m! (Bonus question: what if this was all caused before you were born?)
This is clearly the right starting point. (I don't agree that it answers the question, but I'm not sure the question is a good one.)
Quoting Bartricks
No it does not.
I, a person who has a mind, causally interact with the sensible world. You, another person with a mind, causally interact with the sensible world. @Manuel has this right. We can do so because we also have bodies, each a particular body that is ours and no one else's. But "my mind" and "my body" are me considered only in certain aspects -- that is, they are abstractions. I, a person, am the concrete particular. A body without a mind is not a person; a mind without a body is at best an hypothesis, at worst a superstition.
I have a good mental representation of a mug, if I may say so myself, and I can assure you that it’s a mug and not a piano or whatever.
Quoting Bartricks
I’ve imagined it, just as you are now imagining it.
Quoting Bartricks
You talk about half a mind and a divided mind. Split-brains, to my mind, are a good example of a divided mind. It just so happens that there are also people with half a brain.
Going back to your mug, if I cut it in half horizontally the bottom half will still be a functional mug, though it will have half the capacity and the handle won’t work so great.
You talk too much! :smile:
Clearing up the issue may help formulate the question. :wink:
Yes, I've often been told that.
Which is similar to half a mug. Half a mug is a diminished (loss of capacity & function) mug, right? Half a brain is a diminished (loss of capacity & function) mind, is it not?
It's a long story lol
A mug half full is not half a mug. You think less than I do. That doesn't mean you're less of a mind than I am.
Now, if my sensations are giving me an awareness of a physical world, then causation is taking place between my mind and a physical realm. Which, as my mind appears in numerous ways demonstrably to be immaterial and not physical,would be evidence that causal transactions are possible between radically different kinds of thing.
On the other hand, if we have independent reason to think no causal transactions can take place between radically different kinds of thing, then the fact my mind interacts with the world my sensations are telling me about constitutes evidence that such a place is mental and that I am interacting with another mind rather than with a realm of extended objects.
It is only the narrow minded and dumb who think causal interaction is evidence of the mind's physicality. And I case Praxis reads this, minds cannot actually be narrow.
No need to repeat the entire argument. This was plenty.
What does it mean? Is it English?
If you are your mind, then I can substitute "Bartricks's mind" for "Bartricks", salva veritate.
"Bartricks's mind has just made another post in this thread."
I take it you believe that is a reasonable thing to say.
Slam dunk.
Strapon: So, if I say "I am going to Florence to see the David, I can substitute 'large marble sculpture' for 'the David' saliva vajayjay"
Dummo: owned!
Christ. I am my mind. I am the one who does things. I am the agent. And yes, I, a mind, wrote this.
Stop trying to belittle everyone you speak to, unless you only want to talk to newbies who don't know that this is the level of discussion they can expect from you.
And yes, if the David is a large marble statue in Florence, then when you go to see the David, you are going to see a large marble statue in Florence. If you do in fact see the David, you have seen a large marble statue in Florence.
It's an interesting case though. "Going [in order] to see ..." is an intensional context, and that means substitution is not guaranteed to work. (You can look for the Pieta in Florence, mistakenly, without looking for a statue that's in the Vatican in Florence, which would be crazy, or at least confused about cities.) In this case, there's at least some ambiguity because we might take "a large marble statue in Florence" to mean any such statue, and that's not what we want. It's interesting. I'm glad you brought it up.
Now a question for you: if you're in what I presume is an oak-paneled study, sitting beside a roaring fire, as you write these posts, and if you are your mind, then your mind is in that oak-paneled study, sitting beside a roaring fire, as it (?) writes. But a mind is not spatial. How can it have a location? How can it sit? Or should I instead conclude that you, @Bartricks, do not have a location and cannot sit?
So you’ve said, and I’ve been attempting expand your apparently rather limited concept of what a mind is. The mind is generally regarded set of faculties responsible for mental phenomena. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will and sensation. Much of these faculties operate subconsciously. It is not a binary process that is either all on or all off. A mind can be chipped away by degrees, just like a mug can be chipped away. Minor damage causes little loss of function or capacity. Major damage causes significant loss of function or capacity. You more than anyone should appreciate that a severely degenerated mind can still get by.
Irrelevant. I mean, what are you trying to do? I have said that I am a mind. You've then said that this means a mind wrote my posts. Yes, it did - mine. The one I call 'me'.
There's a philosophical question about what my mind is - is it a material thing or an immaterial thing. And I am arguing - not asserting - that my mind is an immaterial thing.
Here's one argument (I have 14). My mind is indivisible. Material things are divisible. Therefore my mind is not a material thing.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
My sensible body - which if it is a material thing (that is, if idealism is false - which it isn't) - is in a study; but my mind is not 'in' any place, as it is not in the business of having a location.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, as pointed out by @Srap Tasmaner, yes; if you are going to see David, then you are going to see a large marble statue.
But substitution salva veritate is more about individuals than kinds. That is, "large marble sculpture" is not a definite description, picking out one individual.
A better example might be "Bart smells; Bart is his mind; hence Bart's mind smells".
Anyway, I wanted to thank you for raising inconsistent logics in our previous discussion. I enjoyed following up on the topic, which resulted in several interesting exchanges with other folk.
It is not a 'set of faculties' - what does that even mean? Whose faculties are they?
I have sight. I am not sight. I have touch. I am not touch. I have smell. I am not smell. And so on. Minds 'have' faculties, but they are not 'made of' them.
That which sees is the mind; that which smells is the mind; that which tastes is the mind. You recognize this at some level, for you are not less of a mind when you're not smelling anything or seeing anything.
No, I pointed that out.
Quoting Banno
Blah di blah - irrelevant. Do try and focus.
Quoting Banno
That's an incredibly rubbish example (and example of 'what' exactly? What are you trying to do?) and is not implied by anything I have said. First, 'Bart smells' is ambiguous - what do you mean? That I, Bart, am in the business of smelling things? Or that I have an odour? If the former, then yes, I am in that business. Minds smell things, or they do - or can do - if they have a faulty of smell. If the latter, then "Bart smells" is elliptical for "the sensible body associated with the mind that is Bart has an odour". And that's true too (I smell of sandalwood and cigars)
Actually a good portion of your brain is devoted to mapping your body parts and keeping track of their location in relation to other objects. If you don’t actually know where you are, no worries, cell phones work in the ideal realm.
Your body is in the study, but your mind isn't. And you are your mind. So you are not in the study but your body is. Then you have died. We'll miss you.
If you're lying in bed dreaming of crossing the street, where are you?
This seems indisputable.
Relevance?
Er, no. My mind is not a material thing - so it is not located in space. It is not my body. Not my brain, not my hands, not my spine.
Body is in study (or it is if materialism is true, which it isn't). Mind is not. Mind is seeing, touching, smelling, tasting and hearing the study via the body (if the body is material, that is). Body is not mind.
Now, do you have a point? I've presented an argument - a well known one - for the immateriality of the mind. You haven't addressed it. All you've done is point out that if I am a mind, then a mind has written my posts.
There’s no point to disputing poetry.
Are you less of a mind if you're not smelling or seeing anything? That seems easy to answer: no. Do you think the answer is yes?
Mind is not material. Black is not white. And so on. Point being that this seems more about grammar/usage than obscure immaterial entities. Wouldn't most people talk as if one's mind stayed with one's body, on a flight to Iceland perhaps? Doesn't mean they are right, or that there is such a thing as a mind, but it might be more useful than other insights about 'mind.'
Quoting praxis
:up:
Right, we can just critique it as hackneyed.
Quoting RogueAI
Maybe 'mind' is just a noise/mark that we use in innumerable ways. It doesn't have to correspond to some definite entity. The temptation is to understand mere arguing about appropriate usage for some kind of science of obscure entities like The Mind.
If it's not an empirical issue, it's a usage issue? Or poetry?
I have an answer I'm satisfied with.
Cheers!
How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg?
No. It's squarely about entities, namely what kind of entity a mind is.
Philosophy is about using reasoned reflection to figure out what's true (as opposed to just making stuff up or just believing whatever there's a tradition of believing).
Reasoned reflection will tell you that your mind is immaterial in all manner of ways. You just have to listen to it and not decide in advance that you already know what your mind is.
One way it tells us this is it tells us our minds are indivisible. All material objects are divisible - which you can recognize just by thinking (material objects are extended in space - well, any region of space is capable of infinite division, and thus any and all material objects are capable of infinite division).
Thus our minds are not material, or at least not if what our reason is telling us is accurate.
We would have some grounds for doubting the accuracy of our reason on this if our reason told us other things that appear to contradict it. But it doesn't.
You can't answer my question?
I can somewhat understand how all these features of this proposed mind-stuff were cooked up. IMV, a casual and basically useful way of talking is transformed by philosophers into something rigid. Is a toothache immaterial? I guess one might say so, but is this science of some kind? 'Immaterial' is a negation. And yeah, intentions aren't like apples. Dreams aren't like shovels.
Quoting Bartricks
Do we all imagine 'pure' space in the same way? Who knows? If we are locked in private minds, I don't see how we could ever check. Why should imaginary pure space correspond to practical material reality? Maybe some things can't be sliced. Or maybe there is a way to slice dreams that we haven't discovered. Or maybe this is more about usage than reality.
Quoting Bartricks
I guess I agree with that. We might say 'science' or 'critical thinking' or 'rationality.' Indeed, the word 'philosophy' doesn't have the old magic. Allowing for exceptions, I'd be more inclined to trust an engineer than a philosopher on matters of fact. In some fields it's fine to be wrong...as long as you are seductively and creatively wrong. Question: would you trust the average poster here to manage your affairs? Even assuming their goodwill?
If you have one bucket that holds two gallons, and another bucket that holds five gallons, how many buckets do you have?
You can't answer that last one? You think there's a word game going on? Aren't you still in bed?
you are not less of a mind when you're not smelling anything or seeing anything.
Are you disputing this? Isn't the answer obvious?
To me its proposed obviousness is a hint that it's just 'grammar' (the way we tend to use the word 'mind'). What I object to is taking a vague, casual way of talking ('what's on your mind, buddy?') and trying to be scientific or serious about this 'mind' thing. In math, one really can just make up definitions and crank out theorems, but I don't think metaphysics gets anywhere.
'I am a mind.' Is this something I can check? Or is too obvious to be checkable? If so, it might be a hop-on. Or to quote another wag: when does a child discover that there are physical objects? When he gets the nipple that first time? Or as a college freshman in Philosophy 101?
I don't think you need to overthink this. I don't think blind people have lesser minds than sighted.
Well I guess none of us need to overthink this. I take it for granted that we can all use 'mind' in everyday chitchat. 'I don't mind if you smoke.' 'Have you made up your mind?' 'Mind your manners.'
In second quote, is it the mind making itself up? So is mind self-created? Or is this a silly inference? Maybe the mind is more like a bed, since beds are also made. But then so are mobsters.
Sounds to me like you've already decided you know what's what.
Are toothache's immaterial? That's a confused question. An 'ache' is a sensation - it is something felt - and feelings are states of mind, not things. Minds are immaterial and feelings are states of minds. But you weren't actually asking, were you?
Quoting Zugzwang
What the blue blazes are you blithering on about??
Confused question indeed. Consider it a parody of metaphysics. Is it a discovery that 'feelings are states of immaterial minds.' Who figured it out? Is there an experiment I can perform to doublecheck?
Quoting Bartricks
Several things at once. 1. The 'private mind' theory tosses its own salad. 2. You used imaginary divisibility ('immaterial') as an indicator of the 'material. '
My favorite thing about your posts is your jokes and insults. Seriously. That's where the artist in you can be free. Philosophy is no longer a serious matter, if it ever was.
That made me smile. I think you were chastising me for valuing the wrong aspect of your posts, but you couldn't help being funny.
Hey, speak for yourself. Your mind might be obscure, but mine isn't.
I like @Bartricks's jokes too.
Is 'being funny' material? Can humour be weighted or measured in any way? We don't even know what humour is, and yet we couldn't live without it.
Begs the question: Where is a human brain? If thinking "takes place" in it, it must be somewhere, but to be somehere presupposes meaningful spatial designations and these are groundless, every one, in the final determination. AFter all, a concept is only as good as its meaningful, explanatory underpinning. If there is no underpinning, then the concept loses its meaning. A spatial concept like, under the bed presupposes a "where" such that something can be under relative to it. But this "where", it too must be spatially determined, and this in turn the same, and so on. We all know where this goes: eternity, and this is wholly indeterminate.
So, at the level of philosophical assumptions, the "in the human brain" is spatially indeterminate. But this does raise the quesiton of infinity's indeterminacy. Is it? Indeterminate, that is? Why? If it is a quantitative indeterminacy, then there is no indeterminacy at all, for it is easily quantifiably divided. But this is a trivial infinity. Then there is the qualitative infinity, and all things are coextensive spatially; and thought being "in" something loses its meaning.
Okay then, let’s put the poetry aside and take the question seriously, or rather, realistically. What do you think would happen to a mind if all sensory input were blocked, if it were possible to keep the body sufficiently healthy in this condition? The mind would begin to degenerate, right? Brain cells and/or their connections would atrophy. We know this is true from studying people who’ve lost senses. The mind would slowly fade away.
That's a very good start, Constance! For one thing, it shows thinking! :smile: (Most responses I read to this topic lacked such a thing! :smile:)
Quoting Constance
Quoting Constance
Of course.
Quoting Constance
In a way yes. But I wouldn't involve the concepts of 'infinity' and indeterminacy in this. They are too abstract, and we have already other abstract concepts like 'thought', 'mind' etc.! :smile:
Quoting Constance
In physical terms, you are right. Thought cannot be within something physical. But we must not involve physicality here, otherwise we get back to the spongy brain, with its neurons and all.
On the other hand, that the thinking process takes place is something certain, isn't it? So, if it cannot take place in the physical universe. as we have established, i.e. its location is indeterminate, as you correctly said, this must be done in a different way.
I have presented my views on the subject at https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/586700.
I don't want to repeat things here but only to state that although thought is not part of the physical universe, its functions and characteristics can be explained and understood.
***
BTW, I added your response to the topic in the list of worth mentioning responses that I have created at https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/590743
If you are asking semi-seriously, then I'd say that we don't tend to paste the word 'material' on funny stuff. We use the word for things like old tired, an egg sandwich. Then 'immaterial' is used for other cases...something like that. For me there's the first issue of what we want to call which and the second issue how seriously we take this labeling game. 'Anti-metaphysical' philosophy, as I see it, is not focused on calling this or that metaphysical claim incorrect. Instead it tries to show the entire game of such claims in a new light. Just because we have a noun, doesn't mean we have a new entity we can be quasi-scientific about. It's all too easy to be arguing about appropriate usage as if some profound investigation of hidden things is involved.
:smile:
I mean that the concept of mind has allowed philosophers to generate centuries of argument without obtaining consensus as to what, if anything, they are even talking about.
I remember some philosopher being described as "asking ordinary questions about peculiar things and peculiar questions about ordinary things." I aspire to be so described.
And you know a concept, any concept, that has NOT allowed philosophers to generate centuries of argument without obtaining consensus as to what, if anything, they are even talking about?
We all have some sense of what a mind is, enough to communicate about it every day. If you have some idea of what it may be already, it's probably something like that. If you don't, then we can try dictionaries...?
In general, I agree, but in this case there is no science possible without some faith in the capacities of the human mind to understand the world.
I'd say that, yes, we manifest something like faith in our ability to adapt as we try to make sense of things. This 'faith' seems innate. Perhaps 'need' also works. We are thrown into this mess, with needs/motives we didn't choose. I need to eat something that won't make me sick and that will stop the hunger. I need to figure out how to chew my food without chewing my tongue. Eventually I need to program a satellite so that calls don't drop, so that I don't lose my job, etc.
I like that. I also like the idea of philosophy as a way to cut through the fog, be less confused, or, when confusion is inevitable, to be aware that one is confused. Calcified confusion can sound like common sense, as long as everyone is confused together.
I agree that there's a vague 'background' notion of 'mind' that we pick up from all the uses of the word. It's like the metaphysics of ordinary language. It's like a tangle of metaphors. A mind is the something that a thing can be in, like a container. It can be made up. It can be sliced in two. It can be lost, fed, wasted, blown. Then philosophers take over and try to do the job seriously, clean up and organize the metaphors, practice a new kind of science of entities like knowledge, truth, being, and so on. A science not of the words (that would be too banal, mere linguistics) but rather of the supposed referents of these words in their crystalline splendor. The whole enterprise should be logical, like math, but the 'theorems' should be of cosmic significance, as if religion and science had a baby.
As a descriptive metaphor, I like to think of it as a space for ideas, the field our ideas play in. As a functional metaphor, I see the mind as the pilot in the plane. Animals can move around, and mobility requires piloting.
Quoting Zugzwang
That poses a problem, which is that the essence of a word's meaning -- in all its crystalline splendor :-) -- can be meditated about, contemplated in silence within one's mind, but for some odd reason, it is extremely difficult to express such an essence in words. Thus good definitions are much harder to come by than most people think. Some people even conclude from that to the inexistence of essential meanings, which I think is going to far.
Sorry about the delay of my response. Philosophy of mind has certainly a lot to say about all mental illnesses! It's only off-topic because the subject here is the brain.
My view is brain supports mental content and mental content is a sort of virtual world that you might call mind. So if psychosis is brain based then a physical treatment might work. However, if psychosis is mental content based, then the brain could be perfectly healthy and you could only suppress symptoms and damage the brain/body by the use of antipsychotic medications. These often are prescribed for long time spans or for life. An example would be the belief in conspiracy theories which are likely a mind disorder not a brain disorder.
In what way does brain support mental content, i.e. mind? Is mind a product of and contained in the brain? Or does the brain react to stimuli created by the mind, which is independent of, separate from it?
I hope that I didn't say something bad or that offended you ...
Not at all. I am behind in responses. Was there a question I missed?
I'm glad to hear this! :smile: (Not that you are "behind in responses!" :smile:)
Quoting Constance
No. No explicit questions.
Anyway, my intention was not to get a response on the things I said, but only to know that your lack of response was not due to something I said that offended you.
So thanks. Mission accomplished! :smile:
I have to say yes, but I offer you to see for yourself that the answer is no. Yes, the brain is active, but that is not the "place" or cause of thinking, anymore than it is the "cause" of, say, us, everything of a human being. Thinned out that much, how does it matter to everything?
As Cicero and Heidegger (and Wittgenstein @Luke, even Austin @Banno) would say, thinking is the kind of act that is ethical, in the sense it matters how you do it, who "you" are, your interests (your voice, Cavell says).
Quoting Alkis Piskas
So thinking (as an ethical epistimology, say) is in pursuit of the criteria, the way of reasoning, of every different type of thing, action, expression. It "takes place" in our listening, explicating, considering, waiting, strategizing, experimenting, reserving, judging, accepting, receiving, contextualizing, etc., etc. In our striving to do those well, to think better, say, more thoroughly, patiently, creatively, reflectively, imaginatively, concretely, etc., etc.
[quote="Alkis Piskas;d11739"]The term "thinking" is used here basically as "The process of considering or reasoning about something[/Quote]
I would say: considering the process of each individual thing's rationale (taking in the expression of what is essential about that thing). But this is not a "use" of thinking, that is a definition of thinking. I can think, in the sense of: mull over, find and learn about options, study its history, draw out the implications of a type of action., etc., etc. ("In the sense of" is the same as "in the use here of"--as (in the sense of) which option of--here: thinking--are we talking about? which use of the expression or action; in the sense of entertaining, or pondering? And you can tell yourself the difference if you think about it.
But I don't have to see anything ... I already know! :smile:
Quoting Antony Nickles
Aren't these conflicting statements? You say "yes" (i.e. thinking takes place in the human brain) and then you say "the answer is no"! And then, "the brain is active, but that is not the 'place' or cause of thinking".
Maybe I miss something ... Can you please clear that for me? Thanks.
It's a trick question, or loaded. You can't say no, because it begs the question: the body doesn't have anything to do with thinking? (preposterous!) then where does thinking take place? (in the "mind"? Ha!) So, yes, one must say thinking involves the brain, as everything human does, which means it doesn't particularly matter to thinking anymore to anything else, say, any movement (which are not particular "actions" without our history of acts). We could say, "I can't think straight" and the answer could be I'm hungry; my brain is affecting my thinking because I'm hungover.
But to say the body is necessary (a threshold requirement) does not make it important/relevant--it means little to finding out what thinking consists of at all (which acts compared to others); or to the fact that thinking involves thinking well (as opposed to something like pointing); that thinking "takes place" in doing certain things, and, categorically, Kant says, grammatically, Wittgenstein says, in doing them closer to the manner we judge them being done well). To focus on the brain as part of thinking is to confuse science with/for philosophy, that science has an answer for everything, is important simply because of its ability to be certain (not seeing philosophy can be specific and rigorous and rational, just without the same force or ability for conclusion). This also goes the other way, in that science does not consider its knee-jerk framework of an ancient (self-serving?) picture of causality (as the basis and measure of everything).
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Some measures of thinking well are keeping an open mind, not jumping to conclusions, seeing things from another's point of view, finding common ground, not prejudging, imposing our interests, etc., etc.
All that is unnecessarily too complicated! You could just answer, "Indeed, they are conflicting statements." And make some correction or something.
Anyway, the question is very straight: "Does thinking take place in the human brain?". The basic answer should be "Yes" or "No". One could then proceed to an expanation why. With your answer however, I really cannot be sure if it's "Yes" or "No" ...
Quoting Antony Nickles
I am open to all kind of views and I have stressed this point a lot of times. I always like to hear things that challenge my reality. In this case, however, you said "to see for yourself that the answer is no". But I already know and have answered "No" on this subject! What then do I have to see? ... See? :smile:
I certainly agree with this!
Welcome to the club! I feel better "hearing" such things, not so much because they are congruent with my views, but mainly because I am totally disappointed to see that most people in here, i.e. philosophical "thinkers", not only believe that thinking is produced and takes place in the brain, but even that they are just bodies. I find this quite sad ...
But yeah thinking certainly has a physical presence/existence.
I don't use this expression. I normally specify "Descartes' dualism", because "mind-body dualism" is attributed to various philosophers since ancient Greece and I don't know what did this term mean to each of them.
Quoting Cidat
Well, I find this a little ambiguous ... What kind of presence/existence. For one thing, thought is not part of the physical universe and thus it has no mass or location. But it can produce energy and mass in the body. This is what we talked about previously. That is it can have a physical effect. It can produce emotional energy and emotion can produce mass (e.g. fear can produce adrenaline).
So, the nature of thought/thinking is a subject that constitutes an illusion for most people.
No offense, it's just not a straight question; it asks for a straight answer. Logically (technically, definitionally) this is a loaded question because it includes hidden assumptions and then limits the possible answers to only “yes” or “no” forcing an answer within the limits of a specific conclusion.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Okay, I see that I could "make some correction or something" with this definition of the assumption of what thinking is.
The question thus would be: "Does the process of considering and reasoning about something take place in the human brain?"
Unfortunately, this assumes what a "process" is, so we are back in the same (a similar) boat. However, let's try to give the benefit of attempting to move past whatever doubts we may have (we could say this is part of the process of thinking), which is I take it the gist of accusing me of overcomplicating this, perhaps in the vein of my not being constructive. I get it, so let's try to help.
A given is that "take place" limits the answer to a location, and specifically: in or out of the brain. So maybe we can solve for: what processes take place inside the brain? and what processes take place outside the brain?
Science!! It can not only tell you that thinking takes places in the brain, it can tell you where in the brain those (thinking) processes take place.
Quoting Paraphrase of Parts of the Brain Associated With Thinking Skills by Dr. Heidi Moawad
The "process of considering and reasoning about something" sounds an awful lot like: the use of baseline knowledge combined with innovation, speaking, understanding, attention control, memory, reading, hearing, analysis, geometric perception, manipulation, and emotional memory.
So thinking takes place in the brain. Game over. Who needs philosophy?
Actually, if you ask where any of the processes of thinking I mentioned take place, and the answer is: yes, they take place in the brain (or can be said to). Considering, reasoning. listening, explicating, waiting, strategizing, experimenting, reserving, judging, accepting, receiving, contextualizing, mulling over, finding and learning about options, studying history, drawing out the implications of a type of action, and being thorough, patient, creative, reflective, imaginative, concrete, etc., etc.
So what processes of "considering and reasoning about something" take place outside the brain? Let's say "outside" is a physical location (not in us), with other actors, changes in time to an external situation; we could call that, a context. This would include experimenting, focusing on an object (seeing a person in a different aspect); attending to what changes happen; problem-solving by manipulating physical objects, a conversation (bouncing ideas off a sounding-board), being understanding to another's thoughts/hearing them (there's that benefit-of-the-doubt thing), knowing how long to be patient for, not jumping at a first impression, leaving a thought and coming back to it, avoiding dichotomies, etc., etc., ???
Doing more science is not going to tell us anything about what is essential to thinking (why we care about it), nor how to think better. What part does our interest play? being attracted? desiring an outcome? how does it go wrong? what temptations? how is it faked? how does a goal fit in? an expectation? how does (must) thinking change based on the object of thought?
The brain allows for thinking, or, put another way, for us, at all. Any examination into the brain is not going to find out how/if it determines or causes our thoughts or intentions. Those concepts just do not work that way (determination, cause, intention, thought), as neither do: currency, fairness, believing, knowing, etc., etc.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Eeeeeerrrrrr, whoops. That's on me; that's my bad.
None taken. I wonder why you don't find the question "Does thinking take place in the human brain?" straight ... There are 3 words/phrases that could make it ambiguous: thinking, "takes place" or "human brain"? I guess it's "takes place" (occur, happen). Well the meaning of the question is not different than "digestion takes place in the small intestine". The difference lies in the process, since thought (thinking) is something much more complicated than digestion.
And yes, "it asks for a straight answer": Yes or No. But this doesn't mean that the "how" (explanation, proof, etc.) is simple. In fact, it's quite complicated and proof might be missing, but at least it must make sense logically, i.e. include sound arguments and statements that appeal to logic.
Quoting Antony Nickles
1) Re "it includes hidden assumptions": What are the "hidden assumptions"? Since you mentioned this and esp. w/o offering an explanation, isn't this statement an assumtion iself? :smile:
2) Re "limits the possible answers to only 'yes' or 'no'”: Right, I already mentioned this above.
3) Re "forcing an answer within the limits of a specific conclusion": Not necessarily. As I also explained above, the answer can be quite complicated, etc.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This is fine, only that thinking is much more than a process of considering and reasoning. A thought can be an ideas, an opinion, a decision, a simple or complex computation, a remembrance, ... Yet, your version would do the job! :smile: In fact, you made me kind of regretting using the "loaded" term "thought". I should better use the more specific and much less "loaded" term, "reasoning"! Indeed, this might make people actually wonder! :simle:
Quoting Antony Nickles
Well, I can confirm here that you make the whole issue too complicated. If we start questioning such common terms as process, idea, logic, and so on, we could never complete a discussion! :roll:
Quoting Antony Nickles
The question and subhect of the topic is "Does thinking take place in the human brain?". "In" means inside, not outside! :smile: Oh, come on now, this is too simple!
OK, I can undestand why this is happening. Making things complicated creates confusion about simple and too evident things.
No offense (my turn now! :smile:), and I am really sorry about this, but the discussion has been reduced into clearing very simple and evident points. Let's put an end to it. OK?
I was pleased to "talk" with you! :smile:
If we do not draw out the options and the implications of what, say, a "process" is, it's possibilities, we do not understand what we are getting ourselves into when we say it, put it in an expression. That a word can have a specific definition does not make it clear even what that is here (between the options of what a process can be), much less the impact on this question as a whole, which is not clear and not subject to definition. The idea of some common sense for ordinary words hides the assumption that our confidence in an expression dictates what it means or that the way it has meaning is "simple". Taking the time to make this unexamined structure explicit I would argue is the basic nature of philosophy from its beginning. Skipping understanding the question is what makes the answers "complicated".
No offense (my turn now! :smile:), and I am really sorry about this, but the discussion has been reduced into clearing very simple and evident points. Let's put an end to it. OK?
I was pleased to "talk" with you! :smile:[/quote]
I'm not sure you understand how being rude works. I pointed out a fact that was not personal, but I still apologized because I knew the embarrassing nature of calling it out, even granting that it actually was up to me to make it intelligible rather than dismiss the matter out of hand before we got started.
You have ignored the bulk of what I took the time to go through to set up and then actually answer your question, and then you are cutting off the conversation right before it could begin. Your implied characterization that I am being obtuse to what you feel are "very simple and evident points" is both condescending and dismissive; that I am (unnecessarily) making this complicated is belittling and vaguely slanderous. And then you want to be cute and passive aggressive at the same time, implying that, because of me, we didn't even get to a conversation you are ending! Apology not accepted. If you don't have the interest to discuss anything that doesn't fit into your self-defined simple world then don't get on a philosophy forum and ask a question. I was going to actually take the time to read your other post answering this question, but, yeah, we're done.
What a superb question. I wouldn't say it's a definite NO!, but have you considered Revelations - these being, in a sense, divine transmissions via prophets (recievers).
Too, we might need to work backwards here - do a thorough analysis of the human brain (its substance, construction, architecture, and so on) and try to figure out the nature of the signal it's meant to pick up/receive?
I mean, if I see a radio antenna and study it, can't I somehow come to know it's for radio. Intriguingly, are insects tuned in on some kind of frequency arthropoda antennae (biology)?
Basically, the song on your radio is not generated by the radio.
Please, don't geive me homework to do! :grin: I don't have that much spare time! (But I will note down these refs for the future.)
Quoting TheMadFool
Well, there's much literature about the subject in the Web to satisfy even the most demaning minds! I have read and watch already enough --I don't ident to become an expett!-- through time to know what the brain is mainly composed of and how it functions. Of course, among the stuff I read there were indications regarding the location in the brain of the hyman memory, human consciousness, and all that. This is not only ridiculous and irresponsible from the part of the scientists or, more correctly, those who try ro popularize science.
The bare fact and truth is: a system that is composed of neurons and based on a stimulous-response mechanism cannot be responsible for such higher human faculties as thought, reasoning, consciousness etc. This the first and basic fact Another one is that they work with the brain in laboratories for too many years, to have most probably found almost whatever is there to find. Yet, they continue to talk about "The future will reveal this and that", "This and that is still a mystery" etc. They cannot simply accept the fact thet there is a part of the human being that is non-physical and which Science, as it stands at present and with the tools it can use, is not able to explore.
Quoting TheMadFool
Exactly! Well put! :up: