I am baffled, please explain

[PRmerger]

I cannot speak for those who assert that the mind has nothing to do with the brain. For myself I can say that the mind is the electro-chemical activity of the brain. If you “mess” with the brain, you mess with the mind.

That would mean that an EEG is a graphic display of the mind.

Does anyone here really want to espouse the idea that the mind is laid out graphically in this:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[mamlukman]

I’ve sat out the last 30 pages or so of this thread, and I see it’s taken several new turns.

As before, I find myself (as a conservative Catholic) finding Bradski the atheist’s views most similar to mine. Also I like the way he puts things. (By the way, Go Rabbit-ohs!)

The question in the last 5 pages or so has been “Can you willfully decide to believe something?” and “Is the brain separate from the mind?”

I almost hate to go in this direction, because philosophy tends to sub-divide everything and give the little parts fancy names, but it depends on what type of “belief” you’re talking about. And with Bradski, I would argue that a certain amount of information is necessary to believe in anything. So without information of any kind, you can’t have any kind of “belief.” I can’t “choose” to believe–I need information. But clearly you can choose to accumulate new information, which may well change your beliefs. So in that sense, yes, you can “choose” to believe something by gathering new information about it.

So, for example, I see a pen on my desk. I “believe” it’s on my desk. I needed information (from my eyes or touch) to come to that belief. I am also aware that there are a number of things that could affect my eyes: hallucinations from drugs, drink, mental illness, etc.; macular degeneration or other diseases that affect my eyesight; hypnotism; magic tricks; and I’m sure a host of other things that don’t spring to mind right now. Nevertheless, at this moment I believe the pen is on my desk.

But I could get new information–I see my wife come in and take the pen–and my “belief” changes because I got new information.

On a larger scale, use global warming. You could “believe” that it’s some kind of Commie plot and a hoax. As you get new information, you could change your mind, as Bradski did.

Now it seems to me that information is necessary for any sort of belief. The information could, of course, be not from your own senses, but from your trust in other people. I have never heard or seen God, but I believe in God. I guess in my own case I believe in God because so many intelligent people in the past have believed in God. I trust them, so I believe.

As for God, it seems to me that if you could prove the existence of God that would eliminate free will. If I logically have to believe in God, how can I deny God without denying the underlying logic? Thus no free will. God doesn’t want that; He wants us to have free will. Therefore He allows evidence of His existence to be found, but not proof. To me, this is simple logic. (Blatty used similar arguments in “The Exorcist.”) So to try and “prove” the existence of God is a fool’s errand (apologies to Aquinas).

So why do some people “believe” in God and others don’t? Because they accept some pieces of information and not others. If you recall Newman and his Apologia, he came to “believe” in the primacy of the Pope because he realized that the Donatists were considered heretics because the Pope at the time said so. That was good enough for him. However, that was meaningless to most other people. The same with “miracles”: apparently some woman’s cancer went into remission when she prayed to John Paul II. Some “believed” this was a miracle and an intervention of God into the world. Others (me included) looked at the same information and said, “Cancer goes into remission all the time from purely natural causes. I don’t see the hand of God in this.” Same information, different “beliefs.” Kierkegaard talked about the “leap of faith,” meaning the same thing–you could only go so far with the evidence for God; you couldn’t “prove” it. You could only come to a belief in God through a “leap of faith” (rather than pure reason). Sounds good to me.

And of course there are different degrees of belief. I have a stronger “belief” that I see the pen on my desk than I have a “belief” that Serena will win Wimbledon or that I will live to be 85–or that God exists.

Having said all that, science has now shown quite clearly that the brain is a marvelous thing. The purely physical aspect is undeniable and astounding: people who can remember every instant of their lives and are able to play it back; people who get hit on the head and turn into musicians or poets; autistic people who are geniuses at music or math; the list goes on. You can stimulate parts of the brain in animals or people and produce anger, fear, love, etc. And we know that what our eyes “see” is not necessarily “real”–watch any episode of “Brain Games” on National Geographic. A recent example was glasses that shifted everything 30 degrees right; the brain gradually adapted so that “reality” was reflected in the brain; when they took the glasses off, the brain had to adapt again–what the brain was interpreting was different from what the eyes were seeing.

But is there a “mind” separate from the physical brain? I doubt it–but I’m open to new information.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . For myself I can say that the mind is the electro-chemical activity of the brain. If you “mess” with the brain, you mess with the mind. . . .

What happens in nerve cells is that there is an exchange of sodium and potassium ions between the inside and outside of the cell membrane. This changes the polarity of the surrounding area. There is activity going on in the brain all the time and the cumulative effect of all thses charges can be read on the skin surface by an EEG. Along with this change are intracellular processes and the release of neurotransmitters between cells.

The summary of how the brain functions biochemically, that is described above, is clearly a mental phenomenon. It is a description, a set of ideas.

There are material processes taking place, but they do not descibe what is a thought, a feeling, a perception.

The brain is required for mental phenomena to take place. Brain can perhaps be understood as our interface (from a position outside of time), with space and time.

As messing the brain messes the mind, so too does messing the mind cause a messing of the brain.
It should be noted that what is a mess in the brain is determined by us by means of what we understand as happening within the person’s mind.
The brain of a person suffering from schizophrenia may differ from normal, but it is considered abnormal not because of the physiological reactions that are occurring, but because of the impact on the person’s functioning in the world; i.e. what happens mentally.

It is being a person that is at our core.
Being a person entails having a brain and a mind.
In the person they are one as the soul and body are joined as a unity.
We can relate to the person as mind and/or brain, as having thoughts and feelings and as a participant within the physical world
These are different approaches to the same one being in the world.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I cannot speak for those who assert that the mind has nothing to do with the brain.

I am not sure there is anyone who would claim the mind has nothing to do with the brain. However, there is a strong case to be made that the mind is not merely an epiphenomenon of the brain, i.e., that the mind affects the brain and the brain affects the mind, but that the relationship is two way, not just one.

To argue that this cannot be the case is to presume reductive materialism, which is precisely what needs to be shown.

Neither, by the way, does it entail Cartesian dualism, merely that reality in more than mere materialism, i.e, that physical reality is only one facet or limited manifestation of greater reality.

For myself I can say that the mind is the electro-chemical activity of the brain. If you “mess” with the brain, you mess with the mind.

The converse is also true. If you mess with the mind, you mess with the brain.

Since the “soul” is undefined I cannot comment on this.

Since the mind is “undefined” in much the same way as you claim the soul is undefined, perhaps - to be consistent - you shouldn’t comment on what mind is either.

To assert that the mind is merely the electrochemical activity of the brain is a bald assertion. It certainly doesn’t explain or really tell anything meaningful, at all, about what the mind is.

 

[Peter_Plato]

…apparently some woman’s cancer went into remission when she prayed to John Paul II. Some “believed” this was a miracle and an intervention of God into the world. Others (me included) looked at the same information and said, “Cancer goes into remission all the time from purely natural causes. I don’t see the hand of God in this.”

If you parse the meaning of “Cancer goes into remission all the time from purely natural causes,” it is not very clear that such a claim can be known. Sure, cancer goes into remission in nature and somehow “naturally,” but I sincerely doubt anyone can identify what the precise “cause” of the remission was in those cases where the remission occurred spontaneously from “purely natural causes.” As such, the claim is somewhat of a vacuous one - in the absence of knowing precisely what the cause was, we’ll chalk it up to “natural causes.”

 

[Peter_Plato]

That would mean that an EEG is a graphic display of the mind.

Does anyone here really want to espouse the idea that the mind is laid out graphically in this:

http://www.appliedneurotherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/ADHD-Childs-EEG.jpg

Yup, it perfectly depicts the state of my mind after trying to decipher all those squiggly lines.

 

[SonOfMan]

So what you have proved is the existence of the BRAIN. Not the mind.

Yet you believe in the mind.

This statement is nonsensical. The mind is proven the same way that the existence of running is proven. Running is a function of the legs. When the legs work properly toward running, they run, and thus running has been proven.

“But youve only proven the existence of the legs, not running”, would be an inaccurate statement here, just like the statement of the mind being unproven.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . But is there a “mind” separate from the physical brain? I doubt it–but I’m open to new information.

There are a gazillion things happening in the universe, defined by their place and time and the way they interact.
Here the tiniest portion is coming together as you in the world.
One way I have of describing this, although not entirely accurate (It is better just to be.) is that your soul “contains” these myriad of molecular and glandular processes - all this is joined together “within” your soul to produce you right here.

Your soul, like its Source is relational in nature; within the unity of yourself as a person you are able to relate, connect with, and love others, the world, and our Father.

Mind and brain describe different aspects of the person who is a unity.
While the person is one, these different “dimensions” belong to separate categories.

 

[Peter_Plato]

This statement is nonsensical. The mind is proven the same way that the existence of running is proven. Running is a function of the legs. When the legs work properly toward running, they run, and thus running has been proven.

“But youve only proven the existence of the legs, not running”, would be an inaccurate statement here, just like the statement of the mind being unproven.

The statement might be “nonsensical” if “running” could somehow take on a life of its own and become the active agent of determining for the legs what the legs will, henceforward, do.

No, “running” is nothing but the action of the legs, while the question of whether “mind” is merely the electrochemistry of the brain is an open question. Not one that is solved merely by declaring that to be the case - which is, essentially, what you are doing.

 

[St_Redemption]

The statement might be “nonsensical” if “running” could somehow take on a life of its own and become the active agent of determining for the legs what the legs will, henceforward, do.

No, “running” is nothing but the action of the legs, while the question of whether “mind” is merely the electrochemistry of the brain is an open question. Not one that is solved merely by declaring that to be the case - which is, essentially, what you are doing.

I agree with the logic of your statement regarding the quoted post in question. But I do want to relay my thoughts on the matter.

There’s a clear correlation between electrochemistry of the brain and thoughts and behavior but electrochemistry of the brain and thoughts and behavior do not equal each other. They aren’t the same thing. The correlation between the electrochemistry of the brain and my love for my wife could be more precise and stronger than we could ever imagine, but they would still not equal each other. Nobody would ever confuse an electrical pulse with an outburst of anger.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

What happens in nerve cells is that there is an exchange of sodium and potassium ions between the inside and outside of the cell membrane. This changes the polarity of the surrounding area. There is activity going on in the brain all the time and the cumulative effect of all thses charges can be read on the skin surface by an EEG. Along with this change are intracellular processes and the release of neurotransmitters between cells.

The summary of how the brain functions biochemically, that is described above, is clearly a mental phenomenon. It is a description, a set of ideas.

There are material processes taking place, but they do not descibe what is a thought, a feeling, a perception.

Do you mean that even if we could measure all the electro-chemical interactions that happen within the brain, then we still would not know what the “thoughts” they represented were all about?

If that is what you mean, then I agree with you.

But from this there is no “road” to some out-of-space-out-of-time supernatural. Suppose you were able to observe and record the states of all the elements of the microprocessors in a computer (CPU, memory, external storage, I/O devices, etc…). From that information there is no way to find out if the computer was processing a spreadsheet, or running a virtual reality program. The information is “encoded” in the electrical impulses, but many different type of information will result is similar, or even identical patterns.

And the amount of information processed even in a supercomputer is almost infinitesimally small compared to information processed by the billions of “cells” within the brain - and most of those cells reside in the white cells, which are subconscious, and not detectable.

As messing the brain messes the mind, so too does messing the mind cause a messing of the brain.

Absolutely. Any information we perceive via our senses creates some new neural pathways.

The brain is a huge neural and stochastic computer with cellular arrangement. Just like in a cellular computer there is no separate processor and memory. It is all one, huge system. We can analyze certain parts of the brain, we can figure out what specific part do, but that is all.

But just as there is no need to posit some supernatural entity to explain the working of a supercomputer, there is no need to assume it when the brain and its workings are contemplated.

 

[Peter_Plato]

But from this there is no “road” to some out-of-space-out-of-time supernatural. Suppose you were able to observe and record the states of all the elements of the microprocessors in a computer (CPU, memory, external storage, I/O devices, etc…). From that information there is no way to find out if the computer was processing a spreadsheet, or running a virtual reality program. The information is “encoded” in the electrical impulses, but many different type of information will result is similar, or even identical patterns.

Sure there is. Talk to the engineers and programmer(s) who constructed the computer and programmed the instructions into it.

Ergo it is not true that “there is NO WAY TO FIND OUT” what the computer was doing unless you willfully turn off the possibility that it was constructed and programmed to do a specific set of tasks AND those who constructed and programmed the computer would be a very good and, possibly, ONLY source for THAT information.

Extrapolate from there and you have the “road” to “some out-of-space-out-of-time supernatural.”

Of course, you don’t want to go there, but claiming there is “no road” when your own example demonstrates what you would rather it didn’t, is quite amusing, really.

 

[Bradski]

I can accept that many people, as a matter of fact, do act on reasons. That, however, does not mean every belief or action MUST be determined by reasons.

Then this should be easy for you. Give me an example of some information you have consciously rejected which nevertheless led you to believe something to be true. Or conversely, something you have consciously accepted which nevertheless led you to believe something to be false (or even weirder, something you believe about which you have received no information whatsoever).

By the way, Go Rabbit-ohs!

Oh no…a bloody Souths fan! I’ll try not to let that cloud my judgement of anything you say, Mamlukman.

But is there a “mind” separate from the physical brain? I doubt it–but I’m open to new information.

Check out Dennett’s talk on TED: ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness?language=en

I’d also recommend his book: ‘Consciousness Explained’.

 

[tonyrey]

**If we can’t think for ourselves how can we be sure we can’t think for ourselves? **
**I am quite sure **that question will not be answered satisfactorily!

Twenty-six hours have elapsed!

 

[tonyrey]

**If we can’t think for ourselves how can we be sure we can’t think for ourselves? **
**I am quite sure **that question will not be answered satisfactorily!

Of course “we” don’t even exist for those who reduce the mind to a set of neural impulses. So there’s nothing to think for itself! Bye bye, everyone…

 

[Aloysium]

We could never “measure all the electro-chemical interactions that happen within the brain”, it being more complex, I have read, than all the gravitational interactions between all the visible entities in this universe.

Whatever measurements of brain activity we obtain, even if we can guess at what sort of mental activities they represent, we clearly cannot know them in the sense that we know our own personal experience within ourselves.

As to an “out-of-space-out-of-time supernatural” quality that possesses us, one of the things that this means is that wherever and whenever we are, we are always here and now. The past-present-future structure of the moment is the manifestation of our free-willed soul, becoming itself as action changes potential into actuality.

The soul being transcendent to the matter it contains
and being aware of what is being perceived, understood and felt,
all occurring within the totality of the person,
it directs neuronal pathway development.
And, it is thereby that I am able to write this, however intelligible it turns out.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Then this should be easy for you. Give me an example of some information you have consciously rejected which nevertheless led you to believe something to be true.

Twenty five years ago my wife and I were awakened at about 1:00 in the morning by a phone call from someone claiming to be a Park Warden. The voice told us my parents were in a severe accident in the National Park. I questioned whether the call was authentic based on the fact that I assumed my parents were at home. After dismissing the insistent caller, I phoned my parents, and found that in accordance with those certain beliefs that led me to consciously reject the authenticity of the call, they were at home safe and sound.

Two years later, we got a call from a Park Warden in the middle of the night claiming that my parents were in a severe accident in the National Park. The details were very similar to the first call two years earlier that I had dismissed. This time, it turned out to be true.

I have no idea who made the first call, why or how it could possibly have foretold/foreshadowed the accident, but I now think “information” is not limited to space or time the way I had assumed it was.

I pay very close attention to what I attempt to dismiss as false and look for connections between any pieces of information purely as information and how these connect to past, present and subsequent events in my life. I also have become much more aware of the motivations I have for dismissing or accepting any information whatsoever. My position vis a vis information often reveals more about me than about the object the information purports to be about.

I tend to see past the obvious, superficial content carried in the information proper, to the significance or deeper meaning which might hold clues to

1. why the information has become known to me at that moment, and
2. what future meaning is “contained” and may be later revealed that lies within the current form the information takes.

I am learning to think outside of the temporal box, beyond superficial appearances, to the symbolic meaning that will eventually make itself known. It frequently provides what would have been, prior to the experience of the calls, completely novel kernels of insight.

My intellectual stance is not one of skepticism regarding information, but one of “looking through” it to the deeper meaning. I don’t accept or reject, but ponder and consider what the deeper significance of whatever happens might be.

Now you might have the impression that I get quite compulsively lost chasing rabbit trails, but it isn’t like that at all. Things kind of “open up” naturally and reveal themselves just by choosing to being open to reality rather than trying actively to decipher or control it.

Paradoxically, when we actively seek to know or understand, we impose what we “think” on what we are trying to find out, rather than letting reality reveal its pristine essence to us.

 

[Bradski]

I also have become much more aware of the motivations I have for dismissing or accepting any information whatsoever.

Good for you. We should all follow your example.

But as I’ve said, your motivations as to why you dismiss, or accept any information at all is IRRELEVANT. Your reasons for doing so are IRRELEVANT. Whether the information is true or not is IRRELEVANT. Nevertheless, as you quite plainly state, you actually go through the process of accepting or dismissing information which THEREFORE leads to a belief.

Otherwise, as I have asked, give me an example of where you have accepted something as being true yet did not believe it or where you have rejected something as being true and did believe it.

 

[PRmerger]

This statement is nonsensical. The mind is proven the same way that the existence of running is proven. Running is a function of the legs. When the legs work properly toward running, they run, and thus running has been proven.

Huh?

You prove running exists because you prove legs exist?

Is that your argument?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Good for you. We should all follow your example.

But as I’ve said, your motivations as to why you dismiss, or accept any information at all is IRRELEVANT. Your reasons for doing so are IRRELEVANT. Whether the information is true or not is IRRELEVANT. Nevertheless, as you quite plainly state, you actually go through the process of accepting or dismissing information which THEREFORE leads to a belief.

Otherwise, as I have asked, give me an example of where you have accepted something as being true yet did not believe it or where you have rejected something as being true and did believe it.

I accept everything you say above is true, but I still don’t believe it. There, happy?