Our mind after we die?

[Rhubarb]

I don’t need to. You’re making the suggestion.

I’ve told you why I think the way I think in this situation. You have said “that’s not how things work” and I have said “why is that?”. Now the ball is in your court.

 

[Benadam]

How did the brain become able to think rationally.? Therr is no other example. No process to account for it. The brain can be accountable for animal senses but not rational thought. To be able to abstract meaning from sensible objects.

 

[IWantGod]

You are the one who implied that the scientific evidence favors the belief that the mind ceases to exist when the brain dies on the basis that the mind depends on the brain in order to express itself. I have pointed out that a functional dependence is not evidence of an existential dependence which is pretty obvious really. I really shouldn’t have to explain that. Epistemologically speaking perhaps you are justified in being agnostic about the existence of an immortal soul. But don’t act like the evidence favors your materialistic viewpoint because it really doesn’t. Nobody knows whats going to happen at the point of death…

 

[Rhubarb]

Then give me evidence otherwise, that the mind doesn’t depend on the brain to exist. I don’t know why that is so hard, except perhaps that you can’t? I HAVE looked at a lot of theories in philosophy of mind. The one you’re proposing fails Occam’s Razor - you’re proposing an entity that doesn’t need to be there for it all to make sense.

Now I get, you want there to be a soul so you’re apt to accept it. But you keep repeating “how do you know.” I’ve explained step-by-step the abductive reasoning I’ve used - reasoning to the best explanation of the various observations we do in fact make. Let’s try some counterfactual reasoning - If the mind resides in the soul then damage to the brain wouldn’t hinder the mind. Now you will probably say something about functional rather than existential, but that’s entirely ad hoc - just something you need to make your idea float. That’s how how philosophy works. At least, when philosophy does go that way the theory gets savaged by other philosophers at the next philosophy conference. Your reply could easily be attached to anything - You can’t assume materalism in gravity! The World-Soul is where gravity resides. You can’t say the functional dependency of gravity on mass is the same thing as the existential dependency! Prove there’s a connection!

You’re speaking in ridiculous circles.

 

[IWantGod]

Then give me evidence otherwise, that the mind doesn’t depend on the brain to exist.

My only goal was to point out that the so called evidence that you provided was only evidence of a functional dependency…

I have no interest in explaining to you why materialism is an inadequate basis for understanding the nature and of the mind and its operations and why the destruction of the brain has no ontological consequences for the mind.

 

[Rhubarb]

Then your words are inconsequential, and I’m confused why you’re not interest in discussing philosophy on a philosophy sub-forum.

 

[IWantGod]

My words achieved what they set out to do which was to render your so called evidence as inconsequential to the qeustion of whether or not the mind survives the death of the body.

 

[BlackFriar]

The problem i see here is that you are equating a functional dependency with an existential dependency. The one does not follow from the other.

Aristotle would probably agree with you.
He never posited that the spiritual nature of the soul required it to survive death if that is what you are saying. That was Aquinas.

I believe he argued that a substantial spirit is not capable of dissolution.
The human soul is substantial because it has an intellect and intellection cannot be performed by matter alone.

The question these days I suppose is if abstract/universalised thought can be done in matter alone.
My camera can recognise faces with a square box. That seems like a rudimentary form of abstraction.

 

[pocaracas]

My camera can recognise faces with a square box. That seems like a rudimentary form of abstraction

There is a Ted talk that shows us that Capuchin monkeys understand the concept of fairness.
How are we different?

 

[BlackFriar]

Well the question is whether the quantitative difference effect is due to just a quantitative difference in causes…or maybe a qualitative difference in causes.

And if its a qualitative one … is matter able to be sophisticated enough to support that … or must we posit a spiritual cause as the ancients were forced to.

We just don’t know…though Ochkam points more and more towards a material “soul” with the rise of science.

 

[IWantGod]

My camera can recognise faces with a square box. That seems like a rudimentary form of abstraction.

This is interesting. But to be honest i doubt that it is doing anything more than something analogous to abstraction. Facial recognition is hardly evidence of a material intellect. Show me a material intellect performing abstraction then your on to something.

I don’t believe that true AI is possible because its based on the idea that blind physical processes can become self aware and self directing if they are placed in the correct organization without any substantial change to the nature of those processes, and i really have no reason to believe that other than the assumption that only physical things exist. Apart from that assumption, it is not self-evident that AI is possible because its not clear why the organization of matter should result in self awareness without adding something distinct to it…

For example if there was a giant self-ware clock capable of abstraction and we could go inside it, and inside it there was only cog wheels moving one another, it would be really difficult for me to conclude that the reason why the clock was self aware was because of the cog wheels and what they were doing. It doesn’t make sense of the effect.

In other-words blind natural processes by themselves do not make sense of self-awareness or self directing intellects. It really does seem as if the materialist is trying to equate two distinct natures based on his or her bias alone without any attention to reason. And that’s the most likeliest reason why it doesn’t make sense.

 

[pocaracas]

it is not self-evident that AI is possible because its not clear why the organization of matter should result in self awareness without adding something distinct to it…

How do you define “self awareness” that it would seem impossible for some AI to replicate it?

A mosquito will run away if I swat at it - and I just read today some research claiming that they learn to associate your smell with a threat and may avoid you later on.
This is a form of self awareness… at least to the extent of self preservation.

Most objective programming languages have the self construct in every class. The object thus instantiated from those classes will be “aware” of itself… an even more rudimentary form of self awareness.

 

[IWantGod]

How do you define “self awareness” that it would seem impossible for some AI to replicate it?

Obviously not in the same way that you define it.

 

[IWantGod]

A mosquito will run away if I swat at it - and I just read today some research claiming that they learn to associate your smell with a threat and may avoid you later on.

This is a form of self awareness… at least to the extent of self preservation.

This is evidence of goal direction i agree. Self awareness in the sense that we are self-ware i would have to say there is no reason to believe that.