Philosophy Now Forum

Hi Rusty, if you're still here: How about this: If mine is the only mind, then I must have brought myself into existence. I don't agree with this, because additionally your mind could either be eternal so it just was always in existence or it could have been created by something that was not a mind....

"A" ( consciousness ) must precede "B" ( the thought) if it caused "B". "A "cannot precede "B", ( because if "A" could precede "B" that would mean that you are aware of a thought before you think it ) therefore " A" can...

Living things have been dying and staying dead for the last four billion years on Earth so I have four billion years of history as evidence and you have precisely nothing. Seriously? You're giving the fact that a particular living organism remains dead as evidence against the possibility of reincar...

I see what you're getting at, but I think it's important to distinguish between thoughts as brain states representing information and the private, first person qualia that are associated with experiencing those thoughts. We also need to distinguish between thoughts and actions. In your example (with...

I think this is what you were looking for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_theater Dennett is saying that the Cartesian Theatre is a fallacy, consciousness is spread throughout the brain. In other words, there is no single spot in the brain where consciousness occurs. Did Dennett prove this...

Look i was born without asking for no reason. There is no evidence to suggest that it will not happen again. It happened once for no reason it can happen again. You've hit the nail on the head there. I don't understand why more people don't realize this! It doesn't matter whether knowledge is prese...

The voice of the philosopher is an artificially constructed ''ism'' of the 'mind brain body' mechanism believed to be real. It's a story told by no one signifying nothing. The self, the external environment and the philosopher's thoughts are all real enough to produce rich, interesting experiences....

surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 10:02 am

thought addict wrote:
You still havent explained why you believe the mind can only exist in a brain

Mind is a function of the brain so it can only exist within one and nowhere else

Then what is a brain? Can we build one out of microchips?

Cartesian dualism is definitely not real as the mind cannot exist outside of the body Substance dualism treats them as separate but from within the body. You still haven't explained why you believe the mind can only exist in a brain. Are you saying there's some law of nature to do with brains? What...

Also, I have no idea and not sure if the brain has an actual "Spot" in the brain where the neurons come into the Exact configuration that our eyes receive, ie. a "Tv screen" of the conscious mind. I remember Daniel Dennett saying that the "TV screen" existed, but I am ...

The restriction upon how much sensory information can be processed at any time by the brain does not automatically mean consciousness can exist outside of it. You're right that it doesn't automatically mean that. But your earlier claim was that "Without [a physical brain] consciousness could n...

I think the mental is merely a more subtle form of the physical so they should therefore not be treated as entirely separate from each other as thoughts are after all the product of the physical brain. Without which consciousness could not actually exist. So I think property dualism more valid as a...

Although we have that one famous line, the main theme in Descartes is 'I doubt therefore there is a doubter'. So, since he is starting from the position of doubting all perception (which might be a dream, or illusions sent by some demon), he could not accept your idea because he is not yet in the p...

I do not think this would be 'us' questioning our own existence, rather it would be drawing attention to the fact that our notion of what constitutes 'us' is not fixed. So in one sense the eye is part of 'me', in another it isn't. Both my mind and my body can be said to 'exist', together or separat...

It's only meaningless to the one who seeks meaning. From your user name and your statements, am I to assume that you do not seek meaning? Life has no meaning. Life is not in conflict with itself. It does not seek to agree or disagree as to what is right or wrong, real or unreal, true or false. It's...