Philosophy Now Forum

bahman wrote: As I said I can agree that consciousness can emerge from brain activity but that lead to epiphenomalism: Epiphenomalism is a mind–body philosophy marked by the belief that basic physical events (sense organs, neural impulses, and muscle contractions) are causal with respect to mental events (thought, consciousness, and cognition).

Consciousness doesn't emerge from brain activity, and it's not casused by brain activity. In other words, it's not something different than brain activity. It's IDENTICAL TO brain activity.

bahman wrote:

Dalek Prime wrote: Consiousness is inseparable from the brain. I shoot you in the head, your consciousness will be no more. Do you disagree? Let's not pigeonhole through labels, as I may not fit completely into a label, without my further reading on it. So I can't confirm or deny.

I agree with what you stated. I however was raising a point that consciousness is an illusion under materialism ([urlhttp://www.iep.utm.edu/epipheno/]epiphenomalism[/url]).

You can't equate all materialists with the Churchlands or Dennett, etc. That's part of the problem with getting so much of one's education via forums. Because the Churchlands and Dennett say things that seem outrageous, they get a lot more airtime in forums, and people wind up thinking that materialists necessarily have their views--because that's all they know from materialists, so to speak. But that's not the case. Plenty of materialists think that consciousness is not at all an illusion, AND they think this while not being epiphenomenalists.

Terrapin Station wrote:

bahman wrote:

Dalek Prime wrote: Consiousness is inseparable from the brain. I shoot you in the head, your consciousness will be no more. Do you disagree? Let's not pigeonhole through labels, as I may not fit completely into a label, without my further reading on it. So I can't confirm or deny.

I agree with what you stated. I however was raising a point that consciousness is an illusion under materialism ([urlhttp://www.iep.utm.edu/epipheno/]epiphenomalism[/url]).

You can't equate all materialists with the Churchlands or Dennett, etc. That's part of the problem with getting so much of one's education via forums. Because the Churchlands and Dennett say things that seem outrageous, they get a lot more airtime in forums, and people wind up thinking that materialists necessarily have their views--because that's all they know from materialists, so to speak. But that's not the case. Plenty of materialists think that consciousness is not at all an illusion, AND they think this while not being epiphenomenalists.

Yes, that was my point. I may have some views in common with materialists andepiphenomenalists, but I wouldn't call myself one or the other. A dog has lungs as I do. But I wouldn't go so far as to call myself one (though others might lol!)

Terrapin Station wrote:

bahman wrote: I was thinking about dualism recently and I find it problematic. Lets start with definition of dualism. Dualism is a system of belief which claims that both mind/soul and matter are real. Mind however is not material hence it does not have any location. The problem I am facing is how one can related one mind to one body.

There's a ton of literature on this--there's probably just about as much literature on this as there is about anything, with all sort of different ideas just what the connection, if any, might be between mind and body from a dualist perspective.

It's easy to find stuff about this online--just Google things like "dualism mind body connection" or "dualism mind body interaction" or "dualism mind body causality" etc.

As for me, I'm not a dualist, and I disagree with "Mind is not material." Mind is material. It has a location. Namely, it's a brain phenomenon.

I have read about dualism. Most people problems is mind body interaction. My problem is another. I am wondering that how I could relate a mind to a specific body when there are tons of mind and bodies.

bahman wrote: I have read about dualism. Most people problems is mind body interaction. My problem is another. I am wondering that how I could relate a mind to a specific body when there are tons of mind and bodies.

Ah, yes, that's a fairly unique problem that isn't usually addressed. I suppose for most dualists there's just some sort of identifying characterstic that makes particular minds/bodies uniquely Joe's mind and body, say, kind of like how there are identifying characteristics that make particular bank accounts/bodies uniquely Joe's bank account and body. What the details of that would be, who knows, but I don't know if it would have to be that complicated, and in general, not just about this topic, I don't see the lack of known details about x as an argument against x being true--as if something coudln't be true unless we knew the details of how it worked.

I'm going to add to the OP. Not only is mind immaterial, the brain is immaterial as well! There's no such thing as a solid. For those who skipped their science classes, we have the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as a cornerstone of QM. This means we can't pinpoint the location of any atom because they get scattered throughout the galaxy. So how can we talk about the mind being located inside the brain when we can't specify with 100% accuracy the location of the brain?

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:I'm going to add to the OP. Not only is mind immaterial, the brain is immaterial as well! There's no such thing as a solid. For those who skipped their science classes, we have the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as a cornerstone of QM. This means we can't pinpoint the location of any atom because they get scattered throughout the galaxy. So how can we talk about the mind being located inside the brain when we can't specify with 100% accuracy the location of the brain?

PhilX

It's in my skull, trust me on this. Why do people have to overcomplicate matters?

Dalek Prime wrote:

Philosophy Explorer wrote:I'm going to add to the OP. Not only is mind immaterial, the brain is immaterial as well! There's no such thing as a solid. For those who skipped their science classes, we have the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as a cornerstone of QM. This means we can't pinpoint the location of any atom because they get scattered throughout the galaxy. So how can we talk about the mind being located inside the brain when we can't specify with 100% accuracy the location of the brain?

PhilX

It's in my skull, trust me on this.

I trust the basic science DP.

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:

Dalek Prime wrote:

Philosophy Explorer wrote:I'm going to add to the OP. Not only is mind immaterial, the brain is immaterial as well! There's no such thing as a solid. For those who skipped their science classes, we have the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as a cornerstone of QM. This means we can't pinpoint the location of any atom because they get scattered throughout the galaxy. So how can we talk about the mind being located inside the brain when we can't specify with 100% accuracy the location of the brain?

PhilX

It's in my skull, trust me on this.

I trust the basic science DP.

PhilX

I trust where my brain is, Phil. Neuroscience backs me on this. As does basic anatomy.

Terrapin Station wrote:

bahman wrote: Materialism or any sort monism which claim that mind is emergent leads to epiphenomenalism.

<sigh> No it doesn't. I'm a physicalist (aka "materialist") and I'm not at all an epiphenomenalist.

This we have already discussed it. Epiphenomenalism is unavoidable under materialism. Why because state of matter evolves based on laws of nature so there is no room left for mind.

Terrapin Station wrote:

bahman wrote:
As I said I can agree that consciousness can emerge from brain activity but that lead to epiphenomalism: Epiphenomalism is a mind–body philosophy marked by the belief that basic physical events (sense organs, neural impulses, and muscle contractions) are causal with respect to mental events (thought, consciousness, and cognition).

Consciousness doesn't emerge from brain activity, and it's not casused by brain activity. In other words, it's not something different than brain activity. It's IDENTICAL TO brain activity.

Brain activity is merely neurons firing hence consciousness as we experience it is different from brain activity.

Philosophy Explorer wrote:I'm going to add to the OP. Not only is mind immaterial, the brain is immaterial as well! There's no such thing as a solid. For those who skipped their science classes, we have the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as a cornerstone of QM. This means we can't pinpoint the location of any atom because they get scattered throughout the galaxy. So how can we talk about the mind being located inside the brain when we can't specify with 100% accuracy the location of the brain?

PhilX

It looks like you're the one who skipped science class.

Dalek Prime wrote:

Philosophy Explorer wrote:

Dalek Prime wrote: It's in my skull, trust me on this.

I trust the basic science DP.

PhilX

I trust where my brain is, Phil. Neuroscience backs me on this. As does basic anatomy.

And physics backs me up even more which is taught in both high school and college.

PhilX

Terrapin Station wrote:

Philosophy Explorer wrote:I'm going to add to the OP. Not only is mind immaterial, the brain is immaterial as well! There's no such thing as a solid. For those who skipped their science classes, we have the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as a cornerstone of QM. This means we can't pinpoint the location of any atom because they get scattered throughout the galaxy. So how can we talk about the mind being located inside the brain when we can't specify with 100% accuracy the location of the brain?

PhilX

It looks like you're the one who skipped science class.

Explain.

PhilX

bahman wrote: Brain activity is merely neurons firing hence consciousness as we experience it is different from brain activity.

And the basis for saying that as we experience it, it is different from brain activity is?