Is the Mind Physical?: Dissecting Conscious Brain Tissue

[Dalek Prime]

Well, I have to say that I am impressed, once again, with your ability to created and sustain an argument. I find myself at a complete lost to find words to build a counter argument.

If the mind isn't the process created by the physical brain, and thus defined and dependant on it, what is it then? Some bullshit 'soul'? A ghost? I'm waiting.

Why are you trying to pretend I'm a dualist?

Did I call you a dualist, Hobbes? But if it quacks like a duck, well then, quack quack. Be proud of your 'duckness', and let it shine through.

[Dalek Prime]

Hobbesy. You have literally and physically experienced what I am talking about. This is not scary stuff. Tea is only tea.

Try waking from a 36 hour, non-drug induced fugue state in hospital, and wondering what the fuck happened besides searching for your deceased brother-in-law, cutting the lawn, and trying to figure out when you grew that goatee you feel on the end of your chin. That is scary, Leo.

[Obvious Leo]

Try waking from a 36 hour, non-drug induced fugue state in hospital, and wondering what the fuck happened besides searching for your deceased brother-in-law, cutting the lawn, and trying to figure out when you grew that goatee you feel on the end of your chin. That is scary, Leo.

It's not my place to tell you how to connect with your inner Dalek, mate, because your journey is your own to fathom. What I find scary is people who propose the unknowable as an explanation for the known. The mind is a Rumsfeldian merry-go-round of known knowns and known unknowns and in philosophy we can even accept the existence of the unknown unknown when we know so well that our information is far from complete. How the self emerges from the physical processes of an embodied mind is something which our science will never be able to tell us, any more than it can tell us about the wetness of water or the dogness of a dog. These are the emergent properties of matter and energy which have been configured in a particular way that allows us to describe them as physical entities of our own definition. At the fundamental level these properties are physically determined but at the emergent level these properties are abstract artefacts of our own creation and must always remain so. Trying to find the "seat" of human consciousness is such a rainbow-chasing exercise and it saddens me that many otherwise intelligent people will indulge themselves in such a Newtonian panpsychic illusion. Consciousness just IS and when the physical processes which encode for it cease to function then consciousness IS NOT.

May the bloody obvious be with you.

[Dalek Prime]

Try waking from a 36 hour, non-drug induced fugue state in hospital, and wondering what the fuck happened besides searching for your deceased brother-in-law, cutting the lawn, and trying to figure out when you grew that goatee you feel on the end of your chin. That is scary, Leo.

It's not my place to tell you how to connect with your inner Dalek, mate, because your journey is your own to fathom. What I find scary is people who propose the unknowable as an explanation for the known. The mind is a Rumsfeldian merry-go-round of known knowns and known unknowns and in philosophy we can even accept the existence of the unknown unknown when we know so well that our information is far from complete. How the self emerges from the physical processes of an embodied mind is something which our science will never be able to tell us, any more than it can tell us about the wetness of water or the dogness of a dog. These are the emergent properties of matter and energy which have been configured in a particular way that allows us to describe them as physical entities of our own definition. At the fundamental level these properties are physically determined but at the emergent level these properties are abstract artefacts of our own creation and must always remain so. Trying to find the "seat" of human consciousness is such a rainbow-chasing exercise and it saddens me that many otherwise intelligent people will indulge themselves in such a Newtonian panpsychic illusion. Consciousness just IS and when the physical processes which encode for it cease to function then consciousness IS NOT.

May the bloody obvious be with you.

Yeah. As the saying goes, "It's a funny ol' world, ain't it?"

[Hobbes' Choice]

If the mind isn't the process created by the physical brain, and thus defined and dependant on it, what is it then? Some bullshit 'soul'? A ghost? I'm waiting.

Why are you trying to pretend I'm a dualist?

Did I call you a dualist, Hobbes? But if it quacks like a duck, well then, quack quack. Be proud of your 'duckness', and let it shine through.

Moron.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Lol!

Hobbes, if I had the cure for cancer (and nonexistence is), I would consider refraining from discussing it with you, just to save myself frustration on both counts (having to explain it, and having to explain it to you.) Just saying.

SO you are going to fuck off.... no? I didn't think so.

[Dalek Prime]

Lol!

Hobbes, if I had the cure for cancer (and nonexistence is), I would consider refraining from discussing it with you, just to save myself frustration on both counts (having to explain it, and having to explain it to you.) Just saying.

SO you are going to fuck off.... no? I didn't think so.

Someday perhaps. It's not a lost cause.

[Jai]

As science has advanced recently, in psychology, physics and some schools of spirituality, the concept of energy is taking precedent over simple material existence; as in relativity, psycho-analysis and Aboriginal Toltec teachings. I think if we are trying to squeeze the existence of the mind into the physicality of brain, we push out the elements of energy that we experience in excitement, depression, and anxiety in general. We need to be able to use both the material definitions and tools along side of the ethereal energies for understanding, and making progress in understanding. The brain is a combination of matter and energy, and as such the energetic aspect in itself, defined as the mind, seems to a be a separate, foreign entity when in fact the brain and mind are a physical-energetic unity.

[bahman]

by Peter Lloyd

https://philosophynow.org/issues/6/Is_t ... ain_Tissue

It is absurd to say that the mind is a physical state being the result of physical activity. A physical state can never experience, decide and cause another physical state.

[jayjacobus]

A book is made of paper and ink but the text has a meaning that is not paper and ink. Likewise, the mind is made of ? and ?? but perceptions and thoughts have a meaning that is not ? and ??.

Since no one knows what the mind is made of, why is it important?

Besides if the mind is made of something physical, it doesn't function mechanically. Does it?

[jayjacobus]

Take this one step further:

The unknown is sometimes just accepted. Atoms are the basis of substances and substances have properties but how do atoms create properties of their substances? There is a correlation between atoms and properties without a known mechanism.

Perhaps the mind is a property without a known mechanism.

[attofishpi]

This is one of those 'things' that require definitions.

MIND: = Consciousness.?

BRAIN: Matter.

ergo Consciousness is NOT physical - but as far as we can comprehend requires the material brain.


...and while i'm here...fuck I miss obvious leo RIP.

[henry quirk]

Take this one step further:

The unknown is sometimes just accepted. Atoms are the basis of substances and substances have properties but how do atoms create properties of their substances? There is a correlation between atoms and properties without a known mechanism.

Perhaps the mind is a property without a known mechanism.

There's a subset of direct realism called (I think) property realism which asserts atoms, and the substances they comprise, are nuthin' but properties. Mind, then, could be an emergent property in the same way water could be an emergent property (or cluster of associated emergent properties).

[jayjacobus]

Is wet physical? Is Information? Is idea?

[henry quirk]

Is wet physical?

wet is real


Is Information?

information is real


Is idea?

well, thinking is real, so...