A challenge to the modern scientific view of the self.

[OuterLimits]

Yes, but I am an actual experiencer. It would be bizarre to believe that others are not brain-minds but are nothing but brains. Also I know from empirical scientific method + scientific theory that brains are in fact brain-minds. Brain-minds are such that they include that individuals are selves.

If individuals were not selves they would lack the conatus that is necessary for the social- individual dynamic that is peculiar to animals that have creative language i.e. excluding ants and bees whose language is not creative but solely social.
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I am not saying, like Descartes, that animals other than humans lack minds. Those other animals are brain-minds who have brain-minds that differ from humans' in degrees not in kind.

One must be willing to believe the bizarre when one applies scientific method with an open mind. The roundness of the earth was too bizarre to believe for most people. Quantum physics, relativity - all too bizarre to believe.

The ancients believed that an experiencer in the clouds was necessary for lightning bolts to appear. Nowadays, we don't imagine a sky god creates those weather behaviors, we say they happen spontaneously as a result of laws of physics. When we apply science to the universe, we don't imagine that an experiencer or an agent lies behind the formation of galaxies or solar systems.

If one set of physical laws underlies all phenomena, then to be consistent, I would regard my neighbor the same way. Electromagnetism and other forces lead to his walking and talking, like cause-and-effect dominoes going back to the big bang.

I see people as conscious, but regard it as a great mystery. Not something that science could ever explain at any rate.

The Problem of Other Minds
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/

Panpsychism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism

[Belinda]

Outer Limits wrote:

One must be willing to believe the bizarre when one applies scientific method with an open mind. The roundness of the earth was too bizarre to believe for most people.

True. However the modern scientific theory of brain-mind identity is so efficiently and ethically fertile that "bizarre" theories such as Cartesian dualism, or idealism(immaterialism) have a harder nut to crack.

[OuterLimits]

Outer Limits wrote:

One must be willing to believe the bizarre when one applies scientific method with an open mind. The roundness of the earth was too bizarre to believe for most people.

True. However the modern scientific theory of brain-mind identity is so efficiently and ethically fertile that "bizarre" theories such as Cartesian dualism, or idealism(immaterialism) have a harder nut to crack.

Can you link to particular experiments or authors with regard to "modern scientific theory of brain-mind identity" ?

Science can only correlate phenomena that can be measured. Where and what is "mind" ?

If I wake up in the morning, and go out to understand the world with the tools of science, I would never decide that other people had any minds, just behaviors. This is why people use the Turing test on AI - there is no direct test of "mind" - no way to see if it is "like" something to be a rock or a person or a bat or a computer program.

[Belinda]

Outer Limits wrote:

Can you link to particular experiments or authors with regard to "modern scientific theory of brain-mind identity" ?

Absolutely.

The Chemistry of Conscious States . Towards a Unified Model of the Brain and the Mind by J. Allan Hobson 1994 Little, Brown & Company ( Canada) Ltd.

ISBN 0-316-36762-1 (pb)

[OuterLimits]

Outer Limits wrote:

Can you link to particular experiments or authors with regard to "modern scientific theory of brain-mind identity" ?

Absolutely.

The Chemistry of Conscious States . Towards a Unified Model of the Brain and the Mind by J. Allan Hobson 1994 Little, Brown & Company ( Canada) Ltd.

ISBN 0-316-36762-1 (pb)

There is a widespread unrecognized circular reasoning at work. One must believe others are conscious (without proof), measure their brain chemistry, and then decide you have measured chemistry which correlates with consciousness. Circular reasoning. What you have done is measured the chemistry of a suite a behaviors which convinced someone that they were conscious.

But perhaps in the source you are citing, there is a definition of consciousness?

[Belinda]

Yes, OuterLimits, in the book that I cited consciousness is defined and discussed at length.

I doubt if there exists any modern biologist who does not believe in brain-mind identity in the sense of two aspects of the same natural entity.

Science does in fact lead to ideas change in philosophy. This is why AI, neuroscience, and physics are of interest to philosophers.

[OuterLimits]

I doubt if there exists any modern biologist who does not believe in brain-mind identity in the sense of two aspects of the same natural entity.

At one time, most scientists would have told you they believed in God. Still, many do today. This is a cultural artifact, or comes from personal intuition or feeling, rather than coming from science or empirical study. Scientists are people.

A scientist can study brains and properly call it science. When consciousness enters the discussion, it is no longer about science.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I doubt if there exists any modern biologist who does not believe in brain-mind identity in the sense of two aspects of the same natural entity.

At one time, most scientists would have told you they believed in God. Still, many do today. This is a cultural artifact, or comes from personal intuition or feeling, rather than coming from science or empirical study. Scientists are people.

A scientist can study brains and properly call it science. When consciousness enters the discussion, it is no longer about science.

Most scientists would distance their science from their consideration of god.
How do you think this is relevant to the question at hand?
You might as well counter the argument for or against mind-brain identity with the fact that some scientists do or do not like cheese.

Science is about observation and description. There is a scientific study of consciousness, because it, like other phenomena can be described. Science provides metaphor. Ultimately there is no explanation for anything.

[OuterLimits]

Most scientists would distance their science from their consideration of god.
How do you think this is relevant to the question at hand?
You might as well counter the argument for or against mind-brain identity with the fact that some scientists do or do not like cheese.

Science is about observation and description. There is a scientific study of consciousness, because it, like other phenomena can be described. Science provides metaphor. Ultimately there is no explanation for anything.

The question at hand is: "is there empirical evidence of mind - of sentience, like-ness, consciousness per se."

The answer is no. This is settled among people who have given it much thought.

Subjectivity is not a "phenomenon".

Stephen Pinker: "... in the study of the mind, sentience floats in its own plane, high above the causal chains of psychology and neuroscience."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Mind_Works

What is the Problem of Other Minds?
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/

[Hobbes' Choice]

Most scientists would distance their science from their consideration of god.
How do you think this is relevant to the question at hand?
You might as well counter the argument for or against mind-brain identity with the fact that some scientists do or do not like cheese.

Science is about observation and description. There is a scientific study of consciousness, because it, like other phenomena can be described. Science provides metaphor. Ultimately there is no explanation for anything.

The question at hand is: "is there empirical evidence of mind - of sentience, like-ness, consciousness per se."

The answer is no. This is settled among people who have given it much thought.

Subjectivity is not a "phenomenon".

Stephen Pinker: "... in the study of the mind, sentience floats in its own plane, high above the causal chains of psychology and neuroscience."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Mind_Works

What is the Problem of Other Minds?
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/

Most of what you say is sadly misconceived.

1) All phenomena are the subject of our perception. The work of science is to take that subjectivity and to make of them objective sounding statements.

2) If there were no empirical evidence of sentience we would not only not be talking about it, we would be unable to talk about anything. Science and the practice of it, is among the best evidence we have of it, but other evidence runs from babies pointing to a cat to elephants examining the bones of their dead loved ones.
No one is saying there is no evidence of sentience, to say so is bloody absurd. Even your post, lacking as it is, is evidence of sentience of some kind.

3) Do you like cheese?

[OuterLimits]

"Most of what you say is sadly misconceived."

Then by all means, don't waste your time reading the links.