Intellect is not a Property of Matter

[Moonstruck888]

That’s the point. It’s a potential infinite. Do you not understand the distinction? Do you think there is no distinction between a potential and actual infinite? If *you *do not understand the distinction, because you don’t understand what these basic concepts mean, you have no right to go around demeaning people with your sarcasm and mean rhetoric.

I’ll tell you what. Tell me how you understand the distinction between an actual and potential infinite, and I’ll continue to reply to your posts. If you do not understand the distinction, learn about it, give some constructive comments, and I’ll be happy to continue to reply. Otherwise, I’m not going to bother with your mockery just because of your unwillingness to understand.

I understand it fine. “Potential” infinte means an infinite which does not and cannot acutally exist.

As far as mockery goes, I am merely stating facts. If you find those facts unpallatable, then I’m sorry, but facts are facts.

 

[awatkins69]

I understand it fine. “Potential” infinte means an infinite which does not and cannot acutally exist.

As far as mockery goes, I am merely stating facts. If you find those facts unpallatable, then I’m sorry, but facts are facts.

Well, you did tell me what you thought a potential infinite means, so I’ll continue with our conversation

Now, your understanding is incorrect. That’s an actual infinite.

As on the Wikipedia page: “a potentially infinite sequence or a series is potentially endless; one element can always be added to the series after another, and this process of adding elements is never exhausted.”

This is how the intellect is. The intellect could keep comprehending comprehensible concepts, and this process would never be exhausted so long as the comprehensible concepts keep coming. You’re not going to come to some comprehensible concept, and the intellect’s going to go “nope, that’s number 1337 and that’s my limit”. Otherwise, that means some comprehensible concepts *are *incomprehensible.

Maybe that will make it more clear now.

As for courtesy, you don’t need to give me titles of fictional detectives, e.g. Sherlock. You could simply say, “I don’t think you’ve proven what you purport to have proven,” or something of the sort.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Well, you did tell me what you thought a potential infinite means, so I’ll continue with our conversation

Now, your understanding is incorrect. That’s an actual infinite.

As on the Wikipedia page: “a potentially infinite sequence or a series is potentially endless; one element can always be added to the series after another, and this process of adding elements is never exhausted.”

This is how the intellect is. The intellect could keep comprehending comprehensible concepts, and this process would never be exhausted so long as the comprehensible concepts keep coming. You’re not going to come to some comprehensible concept, and the intellect’s going to go “nope, that’s number 1337 and that’s my limit”. Otherwise, that means some comprehensible concepts *are *incomprehensible.

Maybe that will make it more clear now.

As for courtesy, you don’t need to give me titles of fictional detectives, e.g. Sherlock. You could simply say, “I don’t think you’ve proven what you purport to have proven,” or something of the sort.

Very well.

I don’t think you’ve proven what you purport to have proven.

To give a crude example, say I am downloading films onto a hard disk that I don’t know the capacity of. Because after a year I still haven’t filled the disk, does that mean I should assume the disk will never be filled?

As has been pointed out, I don’t have the capability to determine the storage capacity of the brain. No one does. If I had to guess, I’d say that the brain is very good at overlapping data. If I had to guess, I think the brain operates holographically, which is to say that it uses the same information to perform many different tasks, including memory formation.

The intellect doesn’t have to be infinite, for one thing the brain is very good at deprioritizing the storage and recall of information that is not important. You don’t have to ever store an infinite amount of data, comprehensible or otherwise, because a) You only live for a few decades and b) Most of the data assimilated every day isn’t important enough to matter.

Until we know what a memory is and the mechanism by how it is stored and recalled, I don’t see how this can ever be anything more than conjecture based on opinion.

 

[reggieM]

Exactly.

I can’t guess when a mind is half full, and neither can you, so you’re resorting to speculation based on wild surmise.

“I don’t know the capacity of the human mind, therefore the capacity of the human mind is infinite.”

That’s your argument, but for it to be any more than mere speculation, you must have evidence.

I did provide evidence on the immense amount of information that the mind stores over a lifetime. Even if we said that this wasn’t infinite (because my argument is not about the infinite storage capacity itself), where did the finite amount of matter of the brain obtain the capacity to store even the amount of information that we can observe?
This is evidence that there is something beyond mere physical matter at work in the brain.

Beyond that, it’s not merely the storage capacity, but the potential to generate an infinite number and kind of calculations, concepts, themes, meanings and expressions.

This is an inference, since an actual infinite is beyond what science can observe and evaluate.

The ability to generate an unlimited amount of information, as well as being able to store enough of that information to make comparisons, evaluations and calculations on that information means that the mind cannot be limited by the finite matter of the brain.

So, we do see the positive evidence.

The brain contains a finite number of cells. The amount of information that the brain can generate transcends that limit.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Even if we said that this wasn’t infinite (because my argument is not about the infinite storage capacity itself), where did the finite amount of matter of the brain obtain the capacity to store even the amount of information that we can observe?

If you’d done any reasearch at all into this subject, you’d know that there are more possible permutations in a single human brain than there are elementary particles in the entire Universe.

The brain can store an inconceivable amount of information.

 

[Leela]

You poor creature. If you’d done any reasearch at all into this subject, you’d know that there are more possible permutations in a single human brain than there are elementary particles in the entire Universe.

And that isn’t even what is needed here since thoughts are not digital but analog. Infinities are everywhere when you consider that there are an infinite number of locations in any finite amount of space.

 

[Touchstone]

And that isn’t even what is needed here since thoughts are not digital but analog. Infinities are everywhere when you consider that there are an infinite number of locations in any finite amount of space.

That’s a possibility, and it’s implicit in the nature of GR, but it’s not a given, by any means. Loop quantum gravity and other proposals (I think Lee Smolin has been advancing something called “Moving Dimensions Theory” that qualifies) that focus on the structure of spacetime at the Planck scale predict that space/time is fundamentally quantized. I don’t think any of the proposals that provide for quantized spacetime are particularly strong in relation to “analog” models, but it’s an open question, yet.

-TS

 

[tonyrey]

How do you explain the consciousness of cats and dogs?

Certainly not in terms of atomic particles! I believe there are degrees of consciousness in all living organisms which are linked with the scientifically inexplicable urge to survive. In other words - like the intellect - it is not a property of matter.

 

[awatkins69]

If you’d done any reasearch at all into this subject, you’d know that there are more possible permutations in a single human brain than there are elementary particles in the entire Universe.

The brain can store an inconceivable amount of information.

I don’t know what sources you use. I would like to know. But, according to Alex Martin and Linda L. Chao, “Clearly, it would be difficult, as well as unwise, to argue that there is a ‘chair area’ in the brain. There are simply too many categories, and too little neural space to accommodate discrete, category-specific modules for every category. In fact, there is no limit on the number of object categories.”(pg.3)

Your analogy again shows that you do not understand potential infinities vs actual infinities. For proving that the intellect can grasp a potential infinity of concepts, we need only point to the possibility of grasping a potentially infinite conjunction.

By the way, here’s another argument. So this makes the arguments I would use number up to three:

1. No body is wholly and non-formally self-reflexive.
2. Every intellect in act is wholly and non-formally self-reflexive.
3. Therefore, no intellect in act is a body.

 

[reggieM]

I don’t know what sources you use. I would like to know. But, according to Alex Martin and Linda L. Chao, “Clearly, it would be difficult, as well as unwise, to argue that there is a ‘chair area’ in the brain. There are simply too many categories, and too little neural space to accommodate discrete, category-specific modules for every category. In fact, there is no limit on the number of object categories.”(pg.3)

This seems to be saying that there is a potential infinite number of concepts and categories, while at the same time, “too little neural space to accomotate” those categories in physical reference points in the brain.

So, since the intellect can grasp a potential infinite number of concepts, and the physical brain can only accomodate a finite number, then the intellect must be immaterial.

For proving that the intellect can grasp a potential infinity of concepts, we need only point to the possibility of grasping a potentially infinite conjunction.

Could you explain the bolded part above? Or perhaps give an example?

Even at the very least, what we have is:

1. The intellect can generate a potentially infinite set of concepts and categories.
2. Finite physical matter cannot generate an infinite quantity.
3. Therefore, the intellect must be something which is non-physical and non-material.

The objection to the first premise is that the mind cannot generate an infinite set.
Aside from the scientific paper that awatkins just cited, the hypothesis that the mind has an infinite capacity has not been falsified. It is tested by observation – no limits have been found.

 

[awatkins69]

This seems to be saying that there is a potential infinite number of concepts and categories, while at the same time, “too little neural space to accomotate” those categories in physical reference points in the brain.

So, since the intellect can grasp a potential infinite number of concepts, and the physical brain can only accomodate a finite number, then the intellect must be immaterial.

Could you explain the bolded part above? Or perhaps give an example?

Even at the very least, what we have is:

1. The intellect can generate a potentially infinite set of concepts and categories.
2. Finite physical matter cannot generate an infinite quantity.
3. Therefore, the intellect must be something which is non-physical and non-material.

The objection to the first premise is that the mind cannot generate an infinite set.
Aside from the scientific paper that awatkins just cited, the hypothesis that the mind has an infinite capacity has not been falsified. It is tested by observation – no limits have been found.

Hi Reggie. I’m late for school but I’ll just answer real quick. You’re right about interpreting the evidence. Bolded part:a conjunction happens when we use the word “and” and add another concept to a clause. So I could go “I’m hungry and thirsty and wet and sick and…” potentially ad infinitum. I think your reformulation works as well. Take care.

 

[reggieM]

Hi Reggie. I’m late for school but I’ll just answer real quick. You’re right about interpreting the evidence. Bolded part:a conjunction happens when we use the word “and” and add another concept to a clause. So I could go “I’m hungry and thirsty and wet and sick and…” potentially ad infinitum. I think your reformulation works as well. Take care.

That’s a better explanation than anything I found on Google, but I’m not sure I get it.

If it’s just as simple as saying “we can always add something to the list of things”, that seems obviously true to infinity, but isn’t it like saying “we can always go to infinity with a list”?

I saw a formula – something like:

For all x - if x gets a cell phone, x is a subscriber.

If John rents a cell phone, then John is a subscriber.
If Cathy rents a cell phone, then Cathy is a subscriber.

I think what this means is that when there’s a universal variable, we can add a potential infinity of concepts. This capability for this cannot be located in the finite region of the brain.

Right?

 

[Moonstruck888]

1. No body is wholly and non-formally self-reflexive.
2. Every intellect in act is wholly and non-formally self-reflexive.
3. Therefore, no intellect in act is a body.

1. How do you know?
2. How do you know?
3. See (1) and (2).

 

[sidbrown]

1. How do you know?
2. How do you know?
3. See (1) and (2).

I don;t know about this syllogism and others, but there is something about consciousness which seems to be above dead rocks and chemicals. Humans have consciousness and reasoning powers, but to a much lesser extent, some animals such as cats and dogs have a weak form of this power.

 

[Moonstruck888]

I don;t know about this syllogism and others, but there is something about consciousness which seems to be above dead rocks and chemicals. Humans have consciousness and reasoning powers, but to a much lesser extent, some animals such as cats and dogs have a weak form of this power.

It doesn’t matter how it seems, it matters what you can prove.

 

[sidbrown]

It doesn’t matter how it seems, it matters what you can prove.

It is going to depend on what you mean by proof.

 

[Moonstruck888]

It is going to depend on what you mean by proof.

Yes. I very much doubt that our ideas on what constitutes proof will coincide.

 

[reggieM]

… and rocks and chemicals don’t seem to have any form of it.

 

[sidbrown]

Yes. I very much doubt that our ideas on what constitutes proof will coincide.

The fact is that there are several forms of proof and there is no one type of proof that will fit every circumstance that comes up in the real world.

 

[awatkins69]

1. How do you know?
2. How do you know?
3. See (1) and (2).

Ad (1) The intellect can reflect upon itself. Think about what you’re thinking right now.
Ad (2) All motion in an object can be explained in terms of lower parts ad infinitum. Thus there is no physical object that is wholly self-reflexive.