Philosophy Now Forum

New thread, continued from The Democrat Party Hates America thread...

First up: neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield.

I won't post a bio for him (he's not obscure, just google him).

He wrote Mystery of the Mind: A Critical Study of Consciousness and the Human Brain: https://ia801509.us.archive.org/33/item ... ind%20.pdf

"It will always be quite impossible to explain the mind on the basis of neuronal action within the brain.... Although the content of consciousness depends in large measure on neuronal activity, awareness itself does not....To me, it seems more and more reasonable to suggest that the mind may be a distinct and different essence"

Next post: neuroscientist John Eccles

the mind may not be entirely dependent on the brain; however, when portions of the brain are removed, parts of the mind disappear

lobotomies work

-Imp

The effect of lobotomies could be similar to a coma, or a big stroke, in which the essence of the person still exists but cannot communicate … and communicating the essence minus rational discourse counts as a deficiency, although of dubious definitive-ness.

An example of where I’m coming from here is an old uncle who died with dementia. In his prime he was a gentle person which kept his coal miner muscles in the service of kindness. When the trappings of civilization fell away and he was demented … he was still a kind, gentle person.

Fortunately, subtracting to the essence doesn't require a lobotomy, stroke or coma, as Patanjali scientifically mapped.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 2:13 pm New thread, continued from The Democrat Party Hates America thread...

First up: neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield.

I won't post a bio for him (he's not obscure, just google him).

He wrote Mystery of the Mind: A Critical Study of Consciousness and the Human Brain: https://ia801509.us.archive.org/33/item ... ind%20.pdf

"It will always be quite impossible to explain the mind on the basis of neuronal action within the brain.... Although the content of consciousness depends in large measure on neuronal activity, awareness itself does not....To me, it seems more and more reasonable to suggest that the mind may be a distinct and different essence"

Next post: neuroscientist John Eccles

Being an expert on removing tumors of the brain is not equivalent to having knowledge of the function of the brain.

I frequently know when my brain chemicals change from one to another because when I watch TV too late at night I can't stay awake for long.

Today I deliberately drank a great quantity of coffee as I was at an important social affair. It worked as predicted as it always does, making me alert and attentive. After lunch with wine my brain chemicals changed again and I kept falling into what in Scotland is called a dwam

How can anyone with ordinary commonsense believe brainmind is not unitary

Wilder Penfield's lyrical name must have been a burden to him at times.

"It will always be quite impossible to explain the mind on the basis of neuronal action within the brain.... Although the content of consciousness depends in large measure on neuronal activity, awareness itself does not....To me, it seems more and more reasonable to suggest that the mind may be a distinct and different essence"  Wilder Penfield

Okay, going back to all we still do not know regarding how and why the human condition fits into an explanation for the existence of existence itself, it may well be that human brains will never be able to grasp it...ontologically? teleologically? deontologically?

Instead, those like henry quirk simply aver -- assert, affirm, declare, state, allege, claim -- that a God, the God, their God implanted free will in our very souls at the point of conception. Or something along those lines.

For henry, it's the Deist God. 

Only he is long gone and may well never return to His...Creation?

Then this part...

'All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.'

Where's the link to an actual argument -- proof? -- that comes closest to a consensus "here and now" among philosophers, scientists [and theologians?] regarding the human brain/mind relationship.

Finally [for those of my own considerably more cynical, uncertain, ambiguous bent], it all comes back around to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... _eruptions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... l_cyclones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fires
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_e ... _pandemics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_diseases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events  

Okay, consciousness is finally pinned down. And, as well, in a world where it is determined [no pun intended]  that "somehow" we did acquire free will.

Someone or something "out there" either is or is not able to encompass human interactions given a font from which all that is Creation is encompassed. 

Which, of course, most call God.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 2:13 pm New thread, continued from The Democrat Party Hates America thread...

First up: neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield.

I won't post a bio for him (he's not obscure, just google him).

He wrote Mystery of the Mind: A Critical Study of Consciousness and the Human Brain: https://ia801509.us.archive.org/33/item ... ind%20.pdf

"It will always be quite impossible to explain the mind on the basis of neuronal action within the brain.... Although the content of consciousness depends in large measure on neuronal activity, awareness itself does not....To me, it seems more and more reasonable to suggest that the mind may be a distinct and different essence"

Next post: neuroscientist John Eccles

Got anyone in the C21st? That was another country. You know, anybody familiar with causal closure? Or Elisabeth of the Palatinate? These men were at their peak over half a century ago, and three centuries out of date then. Penfield, a surgeon, wrote the book at the age of 84.

Neuroscientist John Eccles.

I won't post a bio for him, or any to follow (none of them are obscure, just google 'em).

He co-wrote Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind

"We regard promissory materialism to be as superstition without rational foundation. The more we discover between mental phenomena and the more wonderful do both the brain events and the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply religious belief held by dogmatic materialism."

Next up: neuroscientist Roger Sperry

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 11:15 pm Neuroscientist John Eccles.

I won't post a bio for him, or any to follow (none of them are obscure, just google 'em).

He co-wrote Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind

"We regard promissory materialism to be as superstition without rational foundation. The more we discover between mental phenomena and the more wonderful do both the brain events and the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply religious belief held by dogmatic materialism."

Next up: neuroscientist Roger Sperry

He wrote that at the age of 81 in 1984. An old man's fallacious rhetoric, with zero authority. Again, got anyone familiar with C21st causal closure? Or Elisabeth of the Palatinate. C17th.

Sperry. 80 when he died. In '94.

They were all contemporary men of their time.

These three long dead old men are irrelevant apart from as part of the history of ideas from the early C20th, long superseded.

They ARE not prominent neuroscience folk who don't believe mind is just the product of brain activity. They WERE prominent neuroscience folk who DIDN'T believe mind is just the product of brain activity, from their youth in the 1900s-20s. Over a hundred years ago. Belief is always a problem. Incoherent, unwarranted, unjustified, untrue belief, as pointed out by a mere C17th woman.

Are you actually interested in this topic or do you just want to shove your political/religious dogma down everyone's throats? Rhetorical question.

Impenitent wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 3:12 pm lobotomies work

Sure. Question is: why?

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Walker wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 4:03 pm When the trappings of civilization fell away and he was demented … he was still a kind, gentle person.

Yes, his brain was malfunctioning, not his mind.

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LuckyR wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 5:59 pm Being an expert on removing tumors of the brain is not equivalent to having knowledge of the function of the brain.

Tell me you know nuthin' of the man without actually postin' I know nuthin' of the man.

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Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 7:23 pm How can anyone with ordinary commonsense believe brainmind is not unitary

You could read Penfield's book and see for yourself.

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iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 9:29 pm

As I told you elsewhere: I can't help you. You'll have to work out your own salvation.

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Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 10:57 pm Got anyone in the C21st?

We'll see.

Very sad. Very weak. And I don't want to hurt you. But you're impervious. Your old ignorance is superior to new knowledge. You can only dig deeper, double down. And even that wasn't good enough for Eccles was it? He tripled down. I remember seeing him trying to defend his grandiose bullshit in the '70s. Very sad. And I was desperate to believe him. Old men who were brilliant in their fields, like Hoyle, Freeman Dyson, Flew, lost it too.

I don't think you're a troll in the dark tetrad. You've stopped twisting my words. I'm grateful. Well done. Thank you. An apology is too much to expect. It would choke you. Shame. Because it would free you. Start the process. But we run to our shackles, their binding iron certainty is so comforting.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 11:50 pm

Yes, I know, Liza...

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 8:49 am Mind is a state of matter. If 99% of all known neuroscientists believe otherwise, then that's a private, un-transferable, subjective matter of faith; incoherent, unwarranted, unjustified, untrue belief. It has no epistemological weight whatsoever. Zero. Null.

...as I say: I disagree.

Please, feel free to post your own list of prominent neuroscience folk who believe mind is just the product of brain activity.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 12:04 am

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 11:50 pm

Yes, I know, Liza...

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Fri Jun 13, 2025 8:49 am Mind is a state of matter. If 99% of all known neuroscientists believe otherwise, then that's a private, un-transferable, subjective matter of faith; incoherent, unwarranted, unjustified, untrue belief. It has no epistemological weight whatsoever. Zero. Null.

...as I say: I disagree.

Please, feel free to post your own list of prominent neuroscience folk who believe mind is just the product of brain activity.

Your disagreement is with objective reality.