Is mind non spatial

Reply to Quickquestion1233457
I think a physicalist would say it's an 'activity' of brain. Activities are non-spatial because they don't have a position, they are motions/movements of an underlying substrate.

Quoting aporiap

I think a physicalist would say it's an 'activity' of brain. Activities are non-spatial because they don't have a position, they are motions/movements of an underlying substrate.

Is memory an activity of the brain? When we record/ document things we usually require a physical and stable substrate to code it/ write it into. But I would say memory is a facet of the “mind” and yet I couldn’t conceive or how a memory would not have a position/ location on which it is stored

The simple physicalist answer is: Electricity pulsing through our brain, caused by chemical reactions, causing further chemical reactions.

The brain is spatial. Is the mind the same thing as the brain?

We could say so, for the time being; until and unless we discover some kind of evidence that points in the other direction, the most rational course of action is to stick to physicalism, no?

Quoting Quickquestion1233457

I realize physicalist believe the mind is caused/emerges from matter but do they believe the mind is non spatial. ?f yes than how is that monism ? there are still 2 “substances”. The only main difference is that spatial matter(brain) is primary and the non spatial mind(mental states) is secondary.

As a model for philosophical analysis, I would compare spatial Matter with non-spatial Energy. The current understanding of Energy is that it is an all-pervasive mathematical, immaterial, field of Potential. Only, when it is condensed into a material form can we say that Energy is embodied. Likewise, if Mind is like a field, our senses could only interact with it in some material form. So I would say that the Brain is the embodied form of Mind. Also, the field of energy Potential is not real until the virtual photons are actualized into real photons that our eyes can detect, in the form of a chemical change in the material Visual Purple. So, in Einstein's equation of E = MC^2, each side is a different "substance" in the sense that one is Real (material) and the other is Ideal (mind).

To be clear, there are no virtual photons cruising around in 3D space. Instead, they are virtual figments of scientists' imagination as the massless matter we call photons-on-the-move. Only when they come to a halt do photons have a "rest mass", as they convert into material structure. Energy is a "substance, only in the definition of Aristotle : the logical (Potential) Form of a thing. And Matter is a different "form" of the same potential "substance", which exists in the commonsense "form" of ordinary sensible stuff. Potential only exists in the mind, including the potential Voltage of a battery that is not connected into a material circuit.. The meaningful difference between the two substances is that one is exists as non-spatial Potentiality (imaginary), and the other as spatial Actuality (sensible stuff).

So, to answer your implicit question : No, there is no Actual Mind out there in space, thinking cosmic thoughts. Of course, there may be Potential Mind out there as a field of Universal Logic, that could be parceled-out into embodied particles of Mind. But, we'll never know for sure, except in our non-space-bound imagination. :joke:

Massless Particles of Pure Energy :
Since photons (particles of light) have no mass, they must obey E = pc and therefore get all of their energy from their momentum. ... Therefore, if an object with no mass is to physically exist, it can never be at rest. Such is the case with light.
https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2014/04/01/light-has-no-mass-so-it-also-has-no-energy-according-to-einstein-but-how-can-sunlight-warm-the-earth-without-energy/
Note -- when light particles are on the move, at light speed, they are only Potential Energy. Yet, when that Energetic Potential comes to a rest, it converts into Actual Matter, and we call that conversion "Energy". This is my personal interpretation of the paradoxical relativity theories.


Voltage is the electromotive force, or the electric tension. Potential difference is a measure of stored energy of any form.
https://socratic.org/questions/what-is-the-difference-between-potential-difference-and-voltage

Reply to TheMadFool Weren't you arguing against it yesterday?

Quoting khaled

Weren't you arguing against it yesterday?

:blush: I haven't made up my mind...yet. Thank you for noticing. We usually lack insight into our own condition. Good day Khaled.

For a number of reasons, I do think that consciousness is continuous and spatially extended. I don't see how it could not be and still be affected by spatial events. That would make consciousness a property of space, and therefore ubiquitous, and spatial. I'm not sure if fields can be conceived as separate from one another, and separate from space, I rather think that if you have two fields which are co-extensive, they are ontologically inseparable and only separable in aspect, by focusing on its/their various modes of influence. But I'm not a physicist.

Reply to Quickquestion1233457
Quoting Quickquestion1233457

physicalist(s) believe the mind is caused/emerges from matter but do they believe the mind is non spatial.

Physicalists, by definition, and also according to my experience in discussing with them, believe that mind is totally a material thing, "spatial" and everything. They don't move an inch from that belief. They don't have room in their ... minds, for anything non-physical and don't dare or try to make any "allowances". Otherwise,, they would stop being physicalists and they will lose either their job or their mind or both!

Quoting Quickquestion1233457

?f yes than how is that monism? Tere are still 2 “substances”. The only main difference is that spatial matter(brain) is primary and the non spatial mind(mental states) is secondary

So, there's no question about of dualism. It's only monism. No "primary" and "secondary". It's all one.

And all this makes me become a fully fledged anti-physicalist! :grin:
(... Never used this term before!)

Reply to Quickquestion1233457

It's hard to say but, I don't believe it would be possible to think absent space. I mean, if someone chops our head off with a guillotine, we tend to become a little stupider and we don't quite think too well.

So unless thinking occurs absent brains, I don't see how mind could be non-spatial.

Reply to Benj96

Is memory an activity of the brain? When we record/ document things we usually require a physical and stable substrate to code it/ write it into. But I would say memory is a facet of the “mind” and yet I couldn’t conceive or how a memory would not have a position/ location on which it is stored

I think so. In essence, it's an active communication between specific neurons.

The mind is material and, like all of matter it exists in space and has mass.

The mind is a pattern or arrangement of brain cells. Brain cells, like all matter, exist in space and have mass that can be weighed. Minds or brain cells are enclosed by bone and look like bloody lard. The bloody look is caused by hundreds of small veins and arteries that feed the brain oxygen and water and food and remove carbon dioxide.

Brain cells generate electricity and the on-off currents of electricity can easily be detected.