A Question for Physicalists
Once upon a time, disease/illness were thought of as having supernatural causes (evil spirits, demonic possession, sorcery, and witch's spells).
Physicalism settled the matter definitively: diseases are caused by microbial invasion of the body. Evidence poured in from all the research labs in the world via microscopes.
If I were a medical scientist back before microscopes were invented, I could have, with luck and imagination, hypothesized a purely physical explanation for diseases/illnesses thus: there exists disease/illness-causing agents that are too small for the eyes to see. In other words, before I actually discover the physical nature of sickness, I can construct a hypothesis of their physical nature. IE I have a picture of, I have an idea of, how illnesses could be physical.
That is to say, I know what a physicalist explanation for illnesses looks like (before I even find out whether that is the case or not).
Come now to the mind. Opinion is divided: is mind physical or nonphysical? This in no small part due to the fact that conclusive evidence is sorely lacking.
That out of the way, I have a question for physicalists:
What would a physicalist explanation of mind look like?
Physicalism settled the matter definitively: diseases are caused by microbial invasion of the body. Evidence poured in from all the research labs in the world via microscopes.
If I were a medical scientist back before microscopes were invented, I could have, with luck and imagination, hypothesized a purely physical explanation for diseases/illnesses thus: there exists disease/illness-causing agents that are too small for the eyes to see. In other words, before I actually discover the physical nature of sickness, I can construct a hypothesis of their physical nature. IE I have a picture of, I have an idea of, how illnesses could be physical.
That is to say, I know what a physicalist explanation for illnesses looks like (before I even find out whether that is the case or not).
Come now to the mind. Opinion is divided: is mind physical or nonphysical? This in no small part due to the fact that conclusive evidence is sorely lacking.
That out of the way, I have a question for physicalists:
What would a physicalist explanation of mind look like?
Comments (108)
I'll have a stab at it. We have an idea of what the proper functioning of various body parts and organs should be. Disease is, roughly, when there is a malfunction, for whatever reason. Physical intervention can redress the problem. It's the same with the mind. Someone's mind is not functioning properly. Let's hypothesise some physical cause and see whether we can fix it. When the mind is working ok, that is because the physical conditions are in place to allow it to do so. Also, as with the body, self-correction is possible. Just as I can mitigate back ache with physio exercises, so I can relieve mental distress with talking therapy. The effect of talking therapy is (under the physicalist hypothesis) to enable some self-correcting mechanism to start up and get my mind functioning normally again. As with physical disease, I may find interventions that work without knowing why. I don't know if any of the above is true. But I think it at least makes sense or is not wildly and obviously incoherent. But I've no skin in this game. If it turns out that physicalism is false then I can happily live with that.
We physicalists need to introduce a new ingredient with explanatory power. Let's call that ingredient X. Then what is X? Is it matter? No. Is it interaction. No. Is it X? Yes! But X alone won't do. We need an Y too. Then what is Y? Is it matter? No. Is it interaction? No. Is it Y? Yes!
There you go.
This is an oversimplification. Microscopes were invented in the early 1600s, but the germ theory of disease didn't become prevalent till the middle 1800s.
Quoting Agent Smith
Scientists in ancient Greece and India hypothesized organisms or other factors too small to be seen as the source of diseases.
Quoting Agent Smith
I think some clarification is needed. When people usually talk about this subject, they are talking about the experience of mind, or mind as experience. If, on the other hand, you are just talking about the mind as a mental process, I think the answer is pretty simple. Mind in that sense is an emergent property that arises from the interaction of the behaviors of neurons and other elements of the nervous system and other bodily systems.
This assumes that mind resides outside the neurons, like temperature resides outside particles. Emergence is not a fundamental. Interaction is an epiphenomenon. A reasonable position but it overlooks what's going on inside the neurons.
Gosh, won't this become another rehash of the hard problem of consciousness... a trip down the Dan Dennett superhighway?
John Searle says mind is to brain what digestion is to stomach. He's smarter than I am so he must be right... :wink:
Is it worth narrowing down the question further?
The stomach digests, the brain...minds??? That isn't right.
Temperature is a property of a large group of particles. A parallel would be if mind is a property of a large group of neurons. I'm not sure what to say about that. Mind is not a property, it's an entity, a phenomenon. Can you expand?
Quoting EugeneW
"Epiphenomenon" is not a word I've used. I looked up the definition, it has several related ones. This is the one that seems most relevant to this discussion - "A phenomenon which is secondary to another or others; a phenomenon which is a sort of by-product in no wise affecting other phenomena." Is that different from an emergent phenomenon? I'm not sure.
No kidding... when I said smarter than me/you I was being ironic. I thought that was obvious. Sorry. Maybe we need an irony font.
“Mind” is simply another word for the body. It’s about as physicalist as you can get.
"There is an overriding reason for my wanting to write a general introduction to the philosophy of mind. Almost all the works that I have read accept the same set of historically inherited categories for describing mental phenomena, especially consciousness, and with these categories a certain set of assumptions, about how consciousness and other mental phenomena relate to each other and to the rest of the world. It is this set of categories and the assumptions that the categories carry like heavy baggage, that is completely unchallenged and that keeps the discussion going. The different positions then are all taken within a set of mistaken assumptions. [...] I am thinking of dualism, materialism, physicalism, computationalism, functionalism, behaviourism, epiphenomenalism, cognitivism, eliminativism, panpsychism, dual-aspect theory and emergentism, as it is standardly conceived. To make the whole subject even more poignant, many of these theories, especially materialism and dualism, are trying to say something true."
I find the ideas in this book persuasive, and liberating.
I understand that's how quantum mechanics work. The theory, that is. If some phenomenon is unexplained, while others are, then they say "this phenomenon is different because it involves a particle (with a new, hitherto unused name, such as "squadrita")".
Then they throw themselves into math, until they "distil" the quantum "squadrita". Once that's done, onto the next.
I find this highly suspect for being prone to fantasy, but hey, if the math works out, you can't argue with quantum mechanics.
Since you referred to "Causation" several times, I'll propose a causal explanation for the Brain Function we know as "Mind" or "Consciousness". According to the definitions below, Causation is not a physical object or substance, but an external force acting on something, whether Matter or Mind. That "influence" is a causal relationship, and in Physics is usually called "Energy". Yet, energy per se is not a material object with physical properties, hence is known only by its effects on matter. So, it can't be distinguished from "Spirit" or "Ghost", except by noting who uses those terms. Spiritualists speak of "spiritual energy", while Materialists avoid any implications of an intentional Cause.
In world events, we observe both Natural and Cultural causes. The former are assumed to be mechanical, while the latter are implicitly mental. For example, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is obviously not a natural phenomenon. So we assume that some human mind imagined that future event, and set-up a series of intermediate causes & effects that were directed toward the result of Ukraine being re-absorbed into a resurrected Soviet Union, or Russian empire (i.e. intended to Make Russia Great Again, MRGA). In other words, the power-of-an-idea, imagining an ideal future state, was the initiating Cause of the invasion.*1
Likewise, Brain & Mind can be construed as Natural & Cultural sources of Causation. The primary distinction between those sources is local direct mechanical transmission of energy versus non-local (end-directed) communication of the power-of-an-idea. So, natural processes are Deontological (obeying natural laws), while cultural developments are Teleological ( obeying political or mental influences). The primary difference between "mechanical transmission" and "mental communication" is that the operator of the "machine" is included in the communication system. In philosophy, we label that initial force as the "First Cause" of a subsequent chain of causation.
Which raises the philosophical question, which is phenomenal (fundamental) and which epi-phenomenal (incidental) : the original Cause or the intermediate Effect? This could be interpreted as a "physical explanation" of the role of mind in the world, in that the mechanical system is completely physical, yet the Cause of the process is external to the machine. So, which more essential, the Teleological Intention, or the Local Mechanism -- the intentional ghost or the perfunctory machine -- the Programmer or the Program? :nerd:
Causality is influence by which one event, process, state, or object contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. ___Wikipedia
Note -- "Influence" is a graphic metaphor of something fluid flowing-in from outside, instead of internally generated.
Causation : the [i]relationship between cause and effect; causality[/i].
Note : "Relationship" is a mathematical metaphor indicating some invisible connection between two or more points or objects.
Epiphenomenalism is the view that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/
Note -- did the mind of Putin have any effect on his physical tanks & planes?
What is relationship between nature and culture? :
Nature provides the setting in which cultural processes, activities and belief systems develop, all of which feed back to shape biodiversity. There are four key bridges linking Nature with culture: beliefs and worldviews; livelihoods and practices; knowledge bases; and norms and institutions.
https://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2629-nature-and-culture.html
Note -- Materialist Science studies Nature, while Mentalist Philosophy studies Culture
*1. Some might give a technical label to that invisible energy : "Psychic Power". But on this forum, we'll do well to avoid such baggage-laden nomenclature, as a red-herring.
WHO'S RESPONSIBLE : MIND or MACHINE ?
False dichotomy, G. The uncoerced end-user that executes the, or which does not interrupt an automated, program is responsible.
It would just look like what modern neuroscience tells us it does. Current research suggests, and I mean all of it suggests, that consciousness is produced via the operation of 80 billion neurons across all of the sophisticated structures of the human brain, with a particular emphasis on the operations of the dorsolateral prefrontal, orbitofrontal, and medial prefrontal cortices. This network conducts operations in symphony with the main-brain and emotional processessing networks, which generally have pathways to the rest of the brain, to produce metacognitive functions such as:
"the ability to anticipate the consequencesof behavior, self-awareness, the temporality of behavior (i.e., understanding andusing time concepts), controlling cognition (metacognition), working memory,abstraction, problem solving, and similar complex intellectual processes."
Or, everything you one regards as "the mind." That's what such an argument would look, and there is plenty more research to go with it.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303502619_Is_Self-Consciousness_Equivalent_to_Executive_Function#:~:text=Consciousness%20can%20be%20understood%20as,consequences%20of%20one's%20own%20behavior.
I don't disagree that the processes you describe, or some like them, are the source of mind. That's different than saying that they are mind. The processes that make up the source of life are chemical, but biology is not chemistry. When I talk about mind, I talk about thoughts, emotions, knowledge, imagination, perception.... Just because I can pinpoint the locations in the brain that light up when I do those things, that doesn't mean they're the same thing.
That's precisely what it would indicate. That doesn't mean that thoughts 'aren't' something else, technically speaking. But, what exactly is on offer to describe what we think thoughts 'are,' technically speaking? If we know the brain gives rise to them, and we know executive function includes memory retrieval, pattern-recognition, and conceptual abstractions from recurrent data feedback loops, then it stands to reason that what we 'think' are thoughts, conceptually, are actually just neural computations that are being recognized and stored in memory, patterns, and recurrent analysis. Which would be 100% consistent with all known data on the subject. What's your postulate?
By your standard, talking about neurological phenomena as an explanation for mental processes is just as futile than talking about psychological phenomena. To get to the real answer, technically speaking, we should be talking about quantum mechanics and particle physics. Brain function is just as illusory as mental function.
No, if you read my post, you'll notice that my specific assertion was that brain functions are mental functions and psychological phenomena. There's no difference. The brains doing everything. Just like sight and smell.
Quoting T Clark
No, we shouldn't. We should be talking about the systems that produce these phenomena at the macroscopic level where they exist and abide by the laws of classical and relative mechanics. QM doesn't have a single place here in this conversation. And using quanta to derail discussions of science is not an approach that I'll be entertaining.
Quoting T Clark
No, the opposite is the truth, and is what all the evidence suggests.
As I indicate, I disagree.
Quoting Garrett Travers
You've misunderstood my argument. Don't worry about it. I don't think we have anything else to discuss.
You disagree based upon what evidence? And what does thie evidence suggest to you? Again, what exactly are you postulating and why?
Quoting T Clark
No, I understood your 'assertion' quite well. I'm still waiting on an argument. As it stands, I've just been told that someone disagrees without any idea of what it is that informs your opinion, or even what that opinion is. You can feel free to convey that information and we'll have a look.
Not according to the evidence.
The evidence that they don't explain it is that these processes miss a key ingredient.
No, they're pretty thorough. Anything here in this meta-analysis that they're missing? Appears to me that "consciousness" is merely a term, long in use, to describe the different areas of the brain that control emotion, wakefulness, sight, auditory sensation, and executive functions all working together. What's missing here?: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncel.2019.00302/full
Now here you're right. It appears to describe. But it's not consciousness itself residing in the process. So what is missing in the description is consciousness itself. I can give you a materialistic description of what happens when you recognize something, to the neurons level and even deeper but that excludes one thing. The conscious experience itself. So it can't be an explanation. A description of the material epiphenomenon at most.
If you read the meta-analysis, it covers this. Conscious experience is a matter of wakefulness, meaning "Neurological awareness is primarily anatomically located in the posterior cortical thermal region, including the sensory region, rather than the prefrontal network that is involved in task monitoring and reporting." Go read the paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncel.2019.00302/full
As I understand your point, you are drawing a distinction between a scientific model and a philosophical representation. Modern Science is methodologically Physicalist, and studies material Quanta (neurons). But Philosophy is methodologically Mentalist, and examines immaterial Qualia (e.g. Ideas). As far as Science is concerned, Mind is merely the function of the Brain. No argument there.
However, Philosophers are more interested in the intangibles of Qualia questions : not what Mind consists of (physical structure), but what it does (mental functions). A Biologist will describe what the Brain looks like physically (mechanism), while a Philosopher is more interested in what Mind feels like experientially (thoughts, emotions). So, the Mind/Brain identity presumption may be appropriate for a Science forum, but not for a Philosophy forum. Hence, as far as Philosophy is concerned, they're not the same thing. Therefore, the fallacy here is to equate Mechanism with Meaning. :smile:
The Mind/Brain Identity Theory :
It has commonly been thought that the identity theory has been superseded by a theory called ‘functionalism’.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/
It says that an important component of consciousness is wakefulness. But sleepfullness is just as important. In dreams consciousness is pretty present. The strange think with dreams is that you can be conscious while you don't remember a thing about it. Dreams don't leave that many memory traces. Which is understandable.
You can have a material picture of a depression, but that doesn't explain the feeling.
Well, a lot of argument, arguably . Wind is not the function, nor the functioning matter. That leaves out that what's to be explained. Consciousness.
Yes, and the problem here is, that's an anti-philosophical cop-out for disregarding the science that has been established, that people employ here almost every single time I bring this u on this website. There is no understanding consciousness without the understanding what it is that is producing it, and how it operates. If one is going to have philosophical deliberations on the nature of consciousness, the science has to be incorporated into that view. To do otherwise would be a disregarding known science fallacy. Besides, the OP was about the functionalist aspect of consciousness. So, literally anybody disagreeing with me here about this is going to need to bring some data, and at bare minimum contend with what I have already brought that dispels with the mind/body "distinction" that doesn't exist according to the data.
No, it clearly says more than that. And sleep is not an important component to consciousness in the regard we're talking about. Again, go back to what we were talking about.
This is incoherent. And nothing has gone unexplained, you just keep saying that and then proceeding to attempt to relate it to something irrelevant. Stick to what the science has demonstrated. Where are you seeing a disconnect between conscious experience, and provisions of brain functions?
There is no understanding consciousness without introspection either.
I'm tired of this circular reasoning. All that is known for certain is that the brain seems to have a correlation to objective, physical states of the body.
No, I'm talking about different levels of organization. When we talk about the nervous system, we talk about neurons and synapses. When we talk about the mind, we talk about thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. They're not the same thing whether we talk about them scientifically, philosophically, or just in an everyday manner.
No thanx.
Another function provided by the brain.
I didn't think you had it in you.
Yes, they are: "Thus, the persistent firing needed to sustain a mental representation without sensory stimulation arises from recurrent glutamate NMDAR pyramidal cell excitation, likely in deep layer III and possibly superficial layer V."
" This extended network, encompassing sensory, attentional, and emotional circuits, facilitates the rapid detection of emotionally-significant information."
https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/23/10/2269/297007
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00058/full
Time to put up some evidence that supports your claim, or admit you're just saying this stuff for no reason.
No, ALL the evidence that exists, that's every single bit of it, suggests that consciousness is the production of multiple complex regions of the brain working in sympohony. You guys can keep ignoring the research I've posted, but I'm going to keep walking away from this having to conclude you guys are not philosophically oriented, and are simply asserting things predicated upon your emotions.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2019.00302
https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/23/10/2269/297007
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00058/full
Quoting theRiddler
I'm tired of fabricated claims coming from all of you, that's what's circular. And this is one of the silliest things I've ever read. ALL that is known are these things you enumerated in your reductive and unsupoorted assertion? Unbelievable....
The function doesn't explain what is seen. If I dream about a bird flying, you can describe that by the shape of a bird flying around on my neural structure and the looking at it by pointing at structures surrounding that, but that still doesn't explain me seeing the bird. You might conclude I see a bird by seeing a correlated structure of a bird in my brain, but that still doesn't explain the visual experience of the bird I dream of, nor your visual experience of neurons you see firing collectively.
I'm not following this discussion closely but for my money what seems to happen is people have already made up their minds what is true about consciousness and will only engage with ideas or 'evidence' which can be utilized to prove their point. I agree that emotions and aesthetic choices inform this process. Some people 'feel' the world they live in is more attractive and relatable with a god or a Schopenhauerian Will at the heart of it.
You're gonna be dealing with it a while, at least until the in-depth analysis of how the brain produces awareness arrives.
There's no such thing. You're just wrong, and as you accuse others, speaking from emotion. It's an apparent inferiority complex.
Clever!
Data is there, left it for you when you're emotionally ready.
hehah
Which is fine, Tom. I'm all game for that. But, when an OP asks what such a theory would look like, and I relay the current standing data on the subject, and then I get argued with in a manner devoid of any evidence, any elaboration on what else could be going, and wholesale refusal to interact with me, I get a little suspicious that I'm the only philosopher speaking on the subject at present. You see what I'm saying here?
Evidence?
You accept only your own evidence. Such an explaining materialistic theory exists in the face of your theory only. Materialism can explain consciousness if you give matter a human face (or that of a canary). And add an extra ingredient. Of course I won't feel depressed if certain materials miss, needed in the processes going along with depression. Like consciousness is said to be epiphenomenal to the human brain, you can just as well say the material brain is the epiphenomenon and that the material brain needs an explanation on the basis of consciousness.
No, the evidence. You present something, I review.
Quoting EugeneW
This requires support. Why is this believed by you, what are you going off of?
Well, it depends what your emphasize. Matter or soul. There is also something inside of matter. The evidence is that I feel pain.
Ah
Do you deny my evidence? If I feel pain, depression, fear, despair, melancholy, and have a sense the end is near, you can explain these feelings rationally by pointing how these feelings might benefit your survival and how these feelings can stimulate me as an organism to take proper action to evade the bad situation giving me that bad feelings but it's exactly that rational approach and its impact on physical reality that caused that feelings in the first place. And the feelings an Sich can't be explained by definition if you leave feeling out in the first place. That is, looking at it as a byproduct of material processes to somehow ensure material survival.
You've made it clear that you interpret non-empirical philosophical interests as "anti-science". But some of us on this forum don't agree with that assessment. For me, Physics is the science of the Actual & even Probable, but Philosophy is the science the Possible. Scientists have been seeking an explanation of Consciousness for many years. But, due to the inherent limitations of their matter-based methods, they are no closer to understanding the transformation of matter into mind. Except that Claude Shannon's use of a mental term "information" --- to describe a new way to communicate ideas, beyond gestures, vocalizations, and writing --- opened-up a new direction in Science. Ironically, what is now labeled "Information Science" is based mostly on its material carriers, instead of its energetic power of transformation.
My personal understanding of the Qualia question is based on 21st century science, but is not limited to its atom-splitting methods. Instead, I take a Holistic or Systems approach. From that perspective, Mind is a recent innovation of evolution, in which novel forms emerged as Phase Transitions from lower to higher levels of complexity : mathematical singularity, energetic plasma, sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules, material objects, stars, galaxies, planets, plants, animals, minds. You may not agree, but I perceive an upward arc of complexification in that sequence of events. Building on the scientific notion of Phase Transitions, I have produced a Philosophical model of evolution, which is summarized below. This is not presented as a scientific model. But it is definitely not anti-science. There is no magic involved, unless you think of Holistic Emergence and Phase Transitions as magic. :smile:
Science as we know it can’t explain consciousness – but a revolution is coming :
We have made a great deal of progress in understanding brain activity, and how it contributes to human behaviour. But what no one has so far managed to explain is how all of this results in feelings, emotions and experiences. ___Phillip Goff
https://theconversation.com/science-as-we-know-it-cant-explain-consciousness-but-a-revolution-is-coming-126143
Emergence :
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own,
___Wiki
Emergence of Mind :
Each phase of cosmic emergence creates a new holistic system with unique properties. But the Cosmos is a nested system of systems that interpenetrate and interact to some degree. The Quantum Field is a world unto itself with weird phenomena, such as entanglement, not found in the classical real world. The Physical Phase has only mechanical properties, but from it emerged the Organic Phase with mental qualities.
BothAnd Blog
Phase Changes of Evolution :
[i]0. Omega Point :
Who knows?
9. Reiterate
Ongoing Emergences
8. Artificial Forms :
Machines, Computers
8. Metaphysical Forms
Reasoning & Designing
7. Organic Forms :
Life, Minds, Societies
6. Physical Forms :
Stars, Galaxies, Planets
5. Matter :
Primitive Particles
4. Energy :
Unformed Plasma
3. Quantum Field :
Statistical Possibilities
2. Big Bang :
Start the computation
Set initial conditions
1. Singularity :
Design, Codes, Laws[/i]
Emergence, Phase Transitions and Quantum Leaps :
[i]* The unprecedented appearance of Life & Mind from a 13.8 billion year process of inorganic physics and chemistry was impossible for scientists to account for in their materialistic worldview. But even before those non-physical features arose, there were similar puzzling gaps in development. Everyone is familar with the strange behavior of water, which changes form significantly, depending on its energy state : solid, liquid, gas, or plasma. The fact of Phase Change is undeniable ? you can feel snow melt on your tongue ? but explaining the mechanics of how it happened in terms of known physical laws proved impossible.
* So, in the early 20th century a few philosopher-scientists began to develop a theory of Emergence. The primary defining characteristic of emergent states of matter was that the properties of “higher” phases were impossible to predict from those of the lower phases. It was as-if matter on a macro scale made a quantum leap from one energy state to another, just like electrons jumping from orbit to orbit around an atom without passing through any of the intermediate possible states : like going from 5 to 10 without passing through 6-7-8-9. In a deterministic materialistic worldview, this just does not compute.
* Meanwhile the problem of mechanically unpredictable behavior was causing problems in other macro scale material phenomena. For example, within the random interactions of Chaotic Systems, stable form patterns, feedback loops, and fractal self-similarities appear out of nowhere as-if self-organized. These novel states of matter can be traced back to initial conditions, but again the intermediate steps are blurred by randomness. So, the novelty and discontinuity of those observed stable states seemed to emerge from nowhere.
* From Quantum Leaps to Phase Changes to Chaotic Structures, Nature seems hide some of its magic behind the smokescreen of Randomness. Which is why scientists working on the fuzzy fringes of their specialty ? like Einstein and Quantum Theorists ? are forced to think like artists or poets by leaping from Rigid Reasoning to Fluid Imagination without being able to explain the steps from problem to intuition. Because such leaps of Logic cannot be justified by tracing new ideas directly back to their source, they lend them-selves to cynical manipulations of credulity, which is anathema to the scientific method, but not necessarily to non-empirical philosophical methods.
* In any case, the unprecedented emergence of Life, Mind, and Self-Consciousness from a purely physical process may not be such a mystery, if the reality of Metaphysics can be taken seriously. We all know that mental processes follow different rules from those of Physics, with only a foundation of mathematical logic in common. Which is why EnFormAction theory posits a new kind of causality, involving un-scientific notions of Holism (versus Reductionism), Emergence (versus Determinism), and Teleology (versus Random Accidents). Those philosophical terms are attempts to explain the mysteries of physical transformations without resorting to smoke & mirrors. They are all subsumed under the concept of EnFormAction, which bears an uncanny resemblance to ancient pre-scientific notions of Divine Will, and Elan Vital. The difference that makes a difference, is that EFA does not need to hide behind artifacts of faith. It should be completely open to critical questioning and rational testing, even as it requires some tolerance for flights of fancy and leaps of Logic, to inject some freedom into the strait & narrow path of hard science. At the moment, it’s not Science, but Philosophy[/i]
BothAnd Blog, post 60
I'd be interested to know what you mean. I would take "brain function" to include for example patterns of neurons firing, and "mental function" to include for example me thinking now about what I'm going to write.
Neither of those is illusory. But perhaps you meant something different.
That is no proof that it's impossible. Non-equilibrium thermodynamics is still in infancy shoes.
I wouldn't say the brain alone generates consciousness, your whole body is involved, in particular your sense organs. And you need supplies like oxygen.
The brain is where it all comes together though. We could prove that by having your brain removed. Thank you for agreeing to take part in the project.
The material world is an illusion. Thus are brain functions.
I don't consider either brain function or mental function illusory. They are both useful ways of thinking and talking about human experience and behavior. Garrett Travers seems to believe that mental function is illusory. The point I was trying to make is that, if mental function is illusory, then brain function is too.
It's a question of level of organization. Saying that mental phenomena are fully explained by neurological phenomena is the old reductionist "nothing but" argument. Another example would be to say that biological phenomena are nothing but chemical phenomena. If you want to apply that standard comprehensively, then all phenomena are nothing but interactions between sub-atomic particles. At some level that's true, but it is not a very useful way of trying to understand the world.
That's OK. We're talking about the same thing, but using different terminology. Empirical scientists have a matter-based vocabulary to discuss "neurons & synapses". But Psychologists and Philosophers use a different terminology to describe "thoughts, feelings, and perceptions". As far as I'm concerned, "Psychology" is merely a sciencey-sounding label for the philosophical investigation of the human Mind *1. Likewise, "Sociology" is a narrower niche for the exploration of human Culture. Both of those sub-disciplines sometimes cross the line into such traditional philosophical topics as Ethics & Beliefs. By contrast, the ancient philosophers were generalists, and did not make such reductive distinctions. Ironically, some haughty empirical scientists disparage those theoretical fields as "soft" science, because they produce no material evidence, but merely statistical correlations.
In my personal philosophical worldview, Brain & Mind are on the same evolutionary continuum, but at "different levels of organization". As noted in my reply to GT above, each transitional phase of evolution is the emergence of a more complex system from a structure of lower complexity. Ultimately, everything in the world is a specific form of fundamental Energy. But physics is now discovering that Energy is a causal form of even more essential Information : the power to enform. Shannon defined "Information" in terms of Entropy, which is merely the disorganization of Energy. I still consider Philosophy to be a general-purpose science, that can synthesize the sub-divisions of Science into a whole system of Knowledge : a worldview or cosmology. :nerd:
*1. Behaviorism was a short-lived attempt to put Psychology on an empirical basis.
How is information related to energy in physics? :
Energy is the relationship between information regimes
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/22084/how-is-information-related-to-energy-in-physics
Is science a type of philosophy? "
Philosophy has its distinctive, traditional and more recent, sub-disciplines and themes: metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, political philosophy, etc., and also includes philosophy of science.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is-science-a-part-of-or-separate-from-philosophy
No, unless when we're talking about what kind of pie to have, we want to talk about the hypanthium, endocarp, and mesocarp of the pome.
FWIW, I meant it's impossible for reductive science. Non-reductive Systems Theory may be on the verge of an understanding of the nanoscale intermediate steps in a phase transition. In the link below, they conclude that different levels of organization play by different rules (parameters). That is the whole point of Holism. On the quantum scale, scientists have found that a particle can, under certain conditions, relocate on the other side of a solid barrier without passing through the space between. That may be a form of phase transition, and might be related to the holism of Entanglement. Stay tuned. :smile:
Phase transitions occur when order parameters change as a function of another parameter of the system, such as temperature. An order parameter is a measure of the degree of order across the boundaries in a phase transition system.
https://content.csbs.utah.edu/~butner/systems/DynamicalSystemsIntro.html
How Ghostly Quantum Particles Fly Through Barriers :
At the subatomic level, particles can fly through seemingly impassable barriers like ghosts. Particles can pass through solid objects not because they're very small (though they are), but because the rules of physics are different at the quantum level.
https://www.livescience.com/65043-tunneling-quantum-particles.html
Sorry! I thought you might agree with my non-reductive holistic perspective on the topic, I didn't realize you were talking about fruit pies. :joke:
See my reply to EugeneW above, for clarification of my Holistic approach. Do you equate Holism with Magic? I don't. :nerd:
Quoting T Clark
Yes! I agree holistically. :wink:
Let's do a comparison between the kidneys and the brain.
With kidneys, there's hardly anything controversial regarding the physicality of urine formation: we understand the physiology, the biochemistry of each and every molecule in our pee, quantitatively to boot.
With the mind, however, I haven't heard of any measurements done on thoughts: how much does a thought weigh? what is the concentration of a thought? Quantitave analysis of thinking seems impossible as the conceptual framework thereof is N/A.
Indeed, that we're lacking a go-between between the physical brain and the (apparently) nonphysical mind is the nub of the issue.
Thanks for lesson on the history of science, but I'm sure you know that the germ theory of disease is heavily reliant on microscopic evidence. Even if microscopes predated the theory in question, it's clear that micrsocopes were the X factor.
An emergent property, yes. The need for an additional idea/concept to connect the brain to the mind is what I find deeply intriguing. It bespeaks an admission by physicalists that there's something missing/incomplete in re a physical explanation for the mind.
Mind as the funtion of a (physical) brain just won't do. As I related to Cuthbert, wecan't neasure thoughts like we can, for instance, bilirubin, a product of the liver.
Interesting. However, it fails to satisfy me in the most basic sense - localization of brain function is not an explanation of how physical processes lead to thoughts. To illustrate, I know, very roughly, where the features in my smartphone are located, but the truth is I don't know how they actually work.
The mind is just the body, yep, that's what a physicalist would say, but dig a little deeper and such claims tend to fall apart. See my replies to Cuthbert and Tom Storm (vide supra).
Mind as an external force! Sounds interesting. I wonder if some conservation laws are violated if this were so.
What bothers me is that physicalists find it necessary to invent new concepts e.g. emergentism to bridge what then has to be a gap between the physical brain and the mind. The question is, is there any difference between emergentism and nonphysicalism?
Tiny organisms, too small to be seen, which grew to a visible size were said to originate in "spontaneous generation". That was an accepted theory. This is very similar to the modern conception of abiogenesis. It seems like the physicalist's reliance on "supernatural causes" hasn't waned.
That doesn't mean that physicalism explains consciousness. Consciousness is an integral part of reality without which there would be no life. Materialism excludes this quality from reality and call consciousness emergent, epiphenomenal, a contingency, accompanying, thriving on, or non-essential. Which is their good right. It can't explain though how a feeling comes about and can merely state, usually in an evolutionary gene/meme-centered structure, that it is a necessity for survival. By declaring it to be a byproduct of neutral and empty material processes it relocates consciousness to an imaginary domain. Because, if it's a byproduct, then where does it reside? If it's illusionary, then why do we feel it? Physicalism has no answer. It paints itself in a corner that's getting smaller and smaller, which can easily be resolved by breaking the physicalistical wall creating the corner, letting the materialistic paint dry, or just walk over it and leave the physical room.
Abiogenesis is not supernatural in character. It's an explanatory model that has at its heart, chance/luck/randomness. Quite possibly God is playing cards/dice with Himself (solitaire?) or :fear: with us. Realizing full well that we're but guests in the house of God, it'd do us good to not forget that the house always wins. :grin:
I don't think it's clear at all. John Snow is known as the father of epidemiology. His main claim to fame is that he traced a cholera epidemic in London in 1854 to a specific contaminated well. His methods were observational - he mapped occurrences of cholera and determined they centered around the well. He solved the problem by removing the handle from the well. No microscopes involved.
Do you have specific information that shows a connection?
That's more something a neurobiologist could explain, my expertise is limited to academic research. I can only tell what the scientists are find out, I can't explain the neuronal process. But, just as your Iphone works because of these process, so too does the brain.
How much does a jog weigh? When a man goes for his morning jog he’s not reaching for something like he would a morning cup of coffee. He’s just using a noun to describe a period of time that he’ll be jogging.
“Thoughts” are of the same nature. You’re just describing a period of time that you spent thinking.
I was following up on this and came across a discussion of Louis Pasteur's work, which took place at roughly the same time as Snow's. Pasteur did use microscopes extensively.
OK. Let's talk about an apple pie. There is an analytical vocabulary for describing the chemistry and physics of apples, sugar, spices & dough. But that reductive analysis cannot describe the taste of an apple pie. What it feels like to eat a slice of pie requires a Holistic & Synthetic vocabulary. Likewise, we can analyze physical neural nets all day, and never know the mental sensation of enjoying a sweet dessert. Same pie, different words.
That's why cookbooks may take advantage of physics & chemistry & biology (some may even mention the "hypanthium, endocarp, and mesocarp of the pome", but their focus is on the final product as experienced by the mind of the consumer. The cookbook is talking about the same pie, but using language that is more relevant to the gustatory Qualia than to the physical substance. In a similar manner, Philosophers have developed a different vocabulary (thoughts, feelings, cognition, reason) for describing the Mind, from that of scientists analyzing the Brain (see image below). :yum:
Words like "jogging" were post facto descriptions of certain bodily functions i.e. they were observed and then named.
Thinking is ex ante; the word "thinking" was coined before anyone had seen the brain (doing it).
What do you suppose this implies?
:ok:
:ok:
:up:
1. Urine is a product of the kidneys.
2. Jogging is a function of the legs.
3. Thoughts: product/function of the brain? :chin:
The problem being that chance/luck/randomness is not an explanation of anything, nor was spontaneous generation an explanation of anything.
Quoting Agent Smith
That's a mixed metaphor. The house wins in gambling. When you are a guest in someone else's house, you are the winner, by the graciousness of the other.
I remember making a similar statement a long time ago. Harry Hindu believes that chance is ignorance and ignorance simply doesn't qualify as an explanation.
The rest of your post :up: even though it's a tad bit more optimistic than I would've liked.
I wouldn't really say that chance is ignorance, but it's more like the way that we represent our ignorance. So for example, if I do not know the cause of something, I might say it was a chance occurrence. In this case, what "chance" represents is the fact that I do not know. But it's a misleading usage, because it creates the appearance that I do know the cause, and the cause is something called "chance".
Like it does today. There is no question that the mind is physical. Everything else is just wishful imagination. Look at all the medicines we use to alter the mind. Depression medication, anti-psychotics, not to mention drugs like alcohol and cocaine.
Surgery and brain damage have shown that the mind is activated by the physical brain. Stimulate a certain area of the brain during surgery and a flash of mind appears to the user. Carve out chunks and a part of a person's mind is gone. There are examples of people who have lost their short term memory due to brain damage and have their mind forever changed. There is an example of a person who had brain damage, and can no longer see colors, though there is nothing wrong with their eyes.
The evidence for a material mind isn't controversial, its an overwhelming deluge of reality. You brain is damaged or dies, your mind is damaged or dies. There is absolutely no viable alternative view point.
I haven't had much luck getting my point across on this issue, so I plan to start a new thread soon to discuss a broader application of my understanding in this area, but focused on the scientific hierarchy.
Seems there are running parallel threads on this. There is no material mind. There is only the approach to the brain as there is the approach to the physical world. And that approach leaves out an essential element. The noumenological giving rise to the phenomenal. Mind or consciousness are not epiphenomena, but noumena, and in this approach it's the material world the epiphenomenon or emergent property.
You mentioned "different levels of organization", and listed some different words that we apply to phenomena on those different levels : level A -- "neurons and synapses" (Quanta) or level B -- "thoughts, feelings, and perceptions" (Qualia). When I Googled "different levels of organization", the articles didn't mention level B phenomena specifically.
Are you talking about increasing physical complexity of evolved organisms over time (level A)? Or are you referring to the emergence of novel system behaviors as individual parts merge into a unified System (level B)? Level A is clearly concerned with physical properties that are detected by the 5 senses. But Level B qualities (feelings) are imperceptible to human senses, except what I call the "sixth sense" of Reason (not to be confused with proprioception).
I'm guessing that your "scientific hierarchy" is limited to Level A organization, which are clearly physical. But philosophy & psychology add another level to their hierarchy, which is emergent from or superposed upon a physical substrate, but lacks the usual material properties. By that I mean, "thoughts, feelings, and perceptions" are invisible, intangible, and odorless. Hence, they are not material substances, but mental qualities that we attribute to certain human, or human-like, behaviors. :nerd:
PS___In vernacular speech we often use "properties" and "qualities" interchangeably. But psychologists & philosophers have to make a clear distinction, to avoid category errors.
What are the 7 levels of organization in the human body? :
The major levels of organization in the body, from the simplest to the most complex are: atoms, molecules, organelles, cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, and the human organism.
Typical levels of organization that one finds in the literature include the atomic, molecular, cellular, tissue, organ, organismal, group, population, community, ecosystem, landscape, and biosphere levels
What is the difference between reason and sense? :
is that reason is to exercise the rational faculty; to deduce inferences from premises; to perform the process of deduction or of induction; to ratiocinate; to reach conclusions by a systematic comparison of facts while sense is to use biological senses: to either smell, watch, taste, hear or feel.
https://wikidiff.com/reason/sense
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between possibility and actuality. .
THE THINKER
That's exactly the question.
Possibly a digression - idealists - people like Bernando Kastrup - would not deny any of this and would maintain that matter is the illusion, not mind. For him and others, the brain and all matter is simply what mind looks like when viewed from a particular perspective.
Now to deal with this properly, we probably need to engage deeper with his ideas than this tiny fragment of his thinking, but the point I'm trying to make is that the question of brain is moot when we consider the metaphysical presupposition of idealism. It is the brain and physical things which need to be explained, not the other way around. I should add that I am not an idealist, but the argument is fascinating.
We often treat actions with noun phrases. Even the word “action” or “process” are nouns, but not persons, places or things. Maybe this confuses us—it confuses me. However in every scenario the thing is the one performing the action, and we can only observe the action by observing the thing. This is because the thing and the action are the same.
So it is with thought, I think. The physicalist can only measure the thing and it’s movements. Man and his thought are one and the same, at least until it is reified through some form of expression or other.
Well, I can think of chance as a legitimate explanation.
Here goes nothing. I'll use the genesis of life to illustrate.
The ingredients for life, all the necessary chemistry, were all present in the oceans of the earth roughly 4.5 Gya. These life molecules were randomly distributed in the water. It so happened that some of these biomolecules came to be at the same place, in each other's vicinity, and they interacted in the right proportions to produce the first life. The rest is history.
Note this is knowledge and not ignorance.
There is no question that chemistry is just particle physics.
There is no question that cell biology is just chemistry.
There is no question that neurology is just cell biology.
There is no question that the mind is just neurology.
Therefore - There is no question that the mind is just particle physics.
To me, your example looks like this: All the necessary ingredients for a cake were distributed around the kitchen. It so happened that they came to be in each other's vicinity, interacted, and produced a cake. Ignorance, not knowledge.
Are you familiar with the principle of plenitude? Roughly speaking, it states that if given enough time, all possibilities will be actualized. So if we assume an infinite amount of time, then everything possible will be real. Check out the infinite monkey theorem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
Interesting idea this principle of plenitude. It is a probabilistic argument from what I can tell, just like abiogenesis as I outlined it.
:up:
Quoting Apustimelogist
Descriptions differ from the subject described. Particles connected in the shape of a parabola are no parabole.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Says you. I don't think math structures contain consciousness. That's reversed to living beings. Which are no mathematical structures.
Quoting Apustimelogist
This just says you can't have complete self-knowledge , as the knowing part is part of yourself. You can know half of you, at most. You can't have an exact image of your brain running around on your neural network.
Every theory of consciousness, even including substance dualism, is consistent with the data. The science just doesn't rule much out.
Oops. My post was intended to be ironic. I reject a reductionist approach to understanding and I was trying to show the somewhat absurd consequences of taking it to an extreme.
Welcome to the forum.
I'm willing to concede such a thing, if you can support this. That sounds interesting as hell, but I need to see what you mean.
I can hold something classified as physical, say a cigarette, in my hands. I can manipulate (turn, twist, roll, bend, etc.) it quite easily and demonstrably so.
However, I can't do the same with a thought. I can't reach into my head, and pull out a thought; I can't pass it from one hand to the other; I can't turn or twist or roll or bend it in/with my hands, can I?
Are thoughts energy? Energy too isn't something I can handle, literally speaking. It's, in that respect, very thought-like, oui? Energy, however, can be converted into matter (E = mc[sup]2[/sup]) i.e. I can, using the right tools, transmute pure energy into matter and then move it around with my man-paws.
So, in theory, if thoughts are energy, we can change it into matter. I wonder how much my thoughts on physicalism would weigh? How much space would it occupy? :chin:
You pass your thoughts to another person by speaking them or writing them down. When they are spoken or written down they are "changed into matter".
:up: That's one way, yes!
However, I was hoping there was a more scientific way to do that. There doesn't seem to be anything mathematically precise about it. For example I could think about divine and write [sub]god[/sub], god, GOD; something's not quite right.
Very often, the sign is in no way similar to the thing which it signifies. That's an indication of the lack of necessity between the two, such that the relation may be random. It is important that we remember this, in order that we recognize that a theory, even though it is the correct theory, does not necessarily hold a relationship of semblance with the thing that it represents. This non-necessary nature of this relationship excludes the possibility that the relationship is scientific, or mathematically precise.
No. They are the contents of living beings. Their placeholders run around as patterned currents on the lightning shaped paths that neurons provide for. Because they are the content of these currents, you can't touch or weigh them. Neurons and currents have weight. Thoughts have not. You can calculate the weight/mass though of the placeholders involved. Or the equivalent energy.
I agree and disagree. Language (the written word) began their jounrey as pictograms (the letter resembled, physically so, the object it symbolized). For example the letter A, if inverted, looks like an ox/bull, the referent of A. The letter A looked more "oxy", but now, after multiple transformations (reflection, stretching, squeezing, etc.) it looks nothing like an ox/bull.
If physical symbols are thoughts materialized, my concern is there doesn't seem to be a mathematical law that governs/determines the transformation of thoughts into physical words (spoken/written), very uncharacteristic of matter & energy (the physical world).
I guess that's why philosophers often say that thoughts are not part of the physical world, not matter and energy, but something else.
But I wouldn't say that the physical symbols are actually thoughts materialized, explicitly, I'd say they are more like things created as representations of thoughts.