The Soul and the Brain

[NowAgnostic]

Your comparison between machines and intellect is superficial at best and has nothing to do with real science.

Machines can be trained to classify. That is “real science”.

There isn’t a machine created that possesses conscious awareness of anything, including classification.

You are moving the goalposts. We weren’t talking about conscious awareness here.

There is no real relation between a machine that classifies and the intellect that abstracts the universal elements from particular things.

Well that’s the point of contention, now, isn’t it, if “abstraction” is merely a fancy name for classification.

You object to what I said about universals, but then proceed to demonstrate that you do not understand the nature of universals, how they exist in the mind, and what about particular things in nature have universal characteristics. You should understand a position before you argue against it. So, I must wait until you to get up to speed on the subject.

The old “you don’t understand” ploy. You are aware, are you not, that Aristotle and Aquinas are not the absolute last word on the nature of universals in philosophy?

Being in the computer field myself, I have never met a machine that exhibits intentionality.

Again moving the goalposts. This was about “abstraction” and classification.

 

[NowAgnostic]

This is an unproven, and I maintain *unprovable *assumption.

Ever heard of neural network classifiers? It’s certainly possible the brain acts in a similar fashion. The burden of proof is on you to show this to be impossible. But we know how neural network classifiers work.

Answer to your first question: No
Answer to your second question: No

OK, then a “material” thing can perform a classification with no need for an “immaterial intellect”. Glad we’re agreed on that.

To argue that the brain is trained in the same way a computer is programmed is to understand neither computers or brains.

IOW, they can’t be trained in the same way because they just can’t, and anything who says otherwise “just doesn’t understand”. Boy that’s a convincing argument.

It is also to argue from your conclusion, which in the end proves nothing whatsoever.

No, you are the one doing that. You just keep repeating “brains are different than computers”.

There is no a priori assumption. Your explantion does not account for the nature of mathematical ideas in themselves, only the fact that they exist.

??? I honestly have no idea what you are talking about here.

Again, this is your unproven, and I maintain *unprovable *assumption.

Well, then you are likely not familiar with the wealth of neuroscience literature on the topic.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Ever heard of neural network classifiers? It’s certainly possible the brain acts in a similar fashion. The burden of proof is on you to show this to be impossible. But we know how neural network classifiers work…

So, neural classifeirs are concious?

OK, then a “material” thing can perform a classification with no need for an “immaterial intellect”. Glad we’re agreed on that…

There is a diference between performance and knowledge of ones performance. Picturing something with the mind is different from the blind processing of zeros and ones.

No, you are the one doing that. You just keep repeating “brains are different than computers”…

If you take abstraction to a high enough degree, you will find a simerlarity between many things that you wouldn’t other wise see the point of considering given a more immanent comparison. There is only one simerlarity between a brain and a computor. They both process information.

Well, then you are likely not familiar with the wealth of neuroscience literature on the topic.

I just want to point out that one can both be a neuroscientist and still have good reason to believe that people have an immaterial nature. I know people that are atheists and they are honest enough to point out that their experiences, along with the evidence such as the “placibo effect”, gives us good reason to think that there is in fact an immaterial non-physical aspect to the nature of human thought, since the mind believes before the body reacts. How can one even consider freewill if the mind is just determined by physical events alone. If the brain wills the mind, then what ever the mind thinks is just the mindless outcome of procecess; not genuine individual thought. What would it mean to even speak of a “mind” in that respect? Purpose requires a cuase that transcends the blind deterministic or inderterministic processes of nature. It is true, or it at least seems, that many neuroscientists are atheists, but thats not suprising given their naturalist pressumptions which have nothing to do with their work, but is everything to do with their philosophical world veiw. The fact is, correlation doesn’t explain immaterial ideas or subjective experience in general, other then to say that human beings need a brain in order to think and process information in respect of the material body. That we need a brain to “function” is evident to me, and hasn’t been an issue for intelectual christians as far as i know. Perhaps i am missing something? Or perhaps i am just pointing out the the big blue elephant that you decided to dump in the middle of the forum?

There is a book called “The Spiritual Brain”. I suggest you read it. Google it. And then come back and tell us what you think about it.

 

[Fran65]

Neural networks have to programmed with algorithms, brains do not. They have to be trained, brains do not (as shown by neonatal perceptual abilities). They make mistakes significantly more frequently than brains, and they have a significantly smaller capacity for parallel processing than brains.

In addition, demonstrating a similar ability e.g. the ability to discriminate between a circle and a square, does not mean that they have similar processes underlying them. My husband has just given me a cup of tea. The tea appearing tells you nothing about how it was made.

Just a thought.

 

[liquidpele]

Neural networks have to programmed with algorithms, brains do not. They have to be trained, brains do not (as shown by neonatal perceptual abilities). They make mistakes significantly more frequently than brains, and they have a significantly smaller capacity for parallel processing than brains.

In addition, demonstrating a similar ability e.g. the ability to discriminate between a circle and a square, does not mean that they have similar processes underlying them. My husband has just given me a cup of tea. The tea appearing tells you nothing about how it was made.

Just a thought.

That’s not true. Our brains do get trained quite a bit over time, and you could look at the genetics around that as an algorithm that builds the brain’s capabilities over time. I mean, saying our brains don’t need training is ridiculous… have you never had kids?? I mean, I realize there are parts that don’t such as sight and consciousness to an extent, but a lot of who we are is trained into our brains from experience and environment.

 

[Reji]

Hi guys, just browsing through, and thinking that the brain as part of the body is purely physical, it does most of our logical processing, but when i look at things like faith, miracles, visions and such, i can’t help thinking that the brain and our ability to resonate does not answer everything, there are many things outside the realm of material existence that we experience everyday in our lives outside the reach of our brain capacity.

 

[liquidpele]

Hi guys, just browsing through, and thinking that the brain as part of the body is purely physical, it does most of our logical processing, but when i look at things like faith, miracles, visions and such, i can’t help thinking that the brain and our ability to resonate does not answer everything, there are many things outside the realm of material existence that we experience everyday in our lives outside the reach of our brain capacity.

How can you tell if it answers everything or not? Done any experiments? What kinds of things outside the material realm do you experience every day?

 

[Fran65]

Hi pele,
if you had read the post that I was replying to, then you would have known that we were discussing neural net classifiers. The brain does not need training to discriminate and classify at the level at which neural nets work.

As for the analogy you refer to, didn’t you read my last point? Here’s another example. There are more than eight routes that I can take to work. Therefore, my arrival at work tells my colleagues nothing about which route I took. John Searle’s book ‘Minds, Brains, and Programs’ is particularly good on this.

I clearly need to explicate each point more thoroughly, rather than assuming that people can infer the full meaning.

 

[itinerant1]

??? I honestly have no idea what you are talking about here.

I knew beforehand that you did not see this, yet it is key to understanding the mind-body problem.

Well, then you are likely not familiar with the wealth of neuroscience literature on the topic.

I have some familiarity with neuroscience literature. One of the problems is that results from experiments are sometimes interpreted along the lines of the researchers pre-investigative assumptions but don’t actually prove what the researcher thinks it does. Other interpretations of the same data are possible, even more compelling interpretations. So, it won’t do any good here to claim neuroscience research proves that thought is a function of brain.

The conclusion of the famous researcher, Sir Charles Sherrington, still holds today. He said that science “stands powerless to deal with or to describe mind…Mind, for anything perception can compose, goes in our spatial world more ghostly than a ghost. Invisible, intangible, it is a thing not even in outline, it is not a thing.” Sherrington got it right.

As far as the sci fi notion that computers can think is concerned, that idea began when the first calculating machines were created in the 1600’s. There were those at that time who said the new math calculators were performing brain functions.

I have worked closely with all kinds of computers, main system, powerful servers, and so on, and if any one of those contraptions could think, I’m sure I would be the first to know. Yet, there is the AI pseudo-science fad that claims computers can think. Well, if a computer gets sluggish, maybe its just a sign of depression, and we should send it to a computer psychologist for some cognitive therapy. Perhaps the computer is just over-worked and needs some R & R. Maybe it would be therapeutic for a depressed computer to entertain itself by playing a few computer games.

 

[Fran65]

I’m a psychologist with some familiarity with neuroscience and AI research. Itinerant has it right. The general public and polemicists make far more of the research than the researchers themselves!

I,Robot,The Matrix, AI, and Surrogates are *not *documentaries.

 

[itinerant1]

I’m a psychologist with some familiarity with neuroscience and AI research. Itinerant has it right. The general public and polemicists make far more of the research than the researchers themselves!

I,Robot,The Matrix, AI, and Surrogates are *not *documentaries.

 

[liquidpele]

I’m a psychologist with some familiarity with neuroscience and AI research. Itinerant has it right. The general public and polemicists make far more of the research than the researchers themselves!

I,Robot,The Matrix, AI, and Surrogates are *not *documentaries.

So… I’m not going to get an AI capable flying car made of nanobots that can create wormholes to go back in time to warn myself that I’m in the Matrix?

 

[liquidpele]

Hi pele,
if you had read the post that I was replying to, then you would have known that we were discussing neural net classifiers. The brain does not need training to discriminate and classify at the level at which neural nets work.

As for the analogy you refer to, didn’t you read my last point? Here’s another example. There are more than eight routes that I can take to work. Therefore, my arrival at work tells my colleagues nothing about which route I took. John Searle’s book ‘Minds, Brains, and Programs’ is particularly good on this.

I clearly need to explicate each point more thoroughly, rather than assuming that people can infer the full meaning.

Ah, my bad. I didn’t know you discussing something so specific.

 

[Reji]

I don’t think science hold all the answers because i have submitted a few question to scientist and done in depth research into Out of body experience, visions and miracles, as much as they try to explain they always come short of explanations it fully because they simply don’t know. Some things can’t measure but can be felt.

 

[Reji]

On the subject of the relation between the soul and the brain, I was watching a documentary that happened to mention that scientists have tried to find the soul in the brain they found the region of the brain that controls laughter, others that controlled movement in different areas, region that control speech etc … but they could not find the region that was the home of the soul or the observer like they called it, “the region that is your spirit” if I may put it this way, and I could help but think that the reason is that what they are looking for is intangible … just a thought.

 

[itinerant1]

On the subject of the relation between the soul and the brain, I was watching a documentary that happened to mention that scientists have tried to find the soul in the brain they found the region of the brain that controls laughter, others that controlled movement in different areas, region that control speech etc … but they could not find the region that was the home of the soul or the observer like they called it, “the region that is your spirit” if I may put it this way, and I could help but think that the reason is that what they are looking for is intangible … just a thought.

That’s correct. The observer, mind or soul is intangible and thus cannot be located in the brain. Brain and mind interact, but consciousness is not localized. For all its endeavors, science cannot even tell us what goes on in the brain when we add 2 + 2 = 4. Much less are scientists capable us telling us what happens in the brain when we make a mistake in mathematical calculations. The neurophysiological processes don’t make a mistake. Go figure!

 

[GEddie]

On the subject of the relation between the soul and the brain, I was watching a documentary that happened to mention that scientists have tried to find the soul in the brain they found the region of the brain that controls laughter, others that controlled movement in different areas, region that control speech etc … but they could not find the region that was the home of the soul or the observer like they called it, “the region that is your spirit” if I may put it this way, and I could help but think that the reason is that what they are looking for is intangible … just a thought.

Of course they could not find the “region” that was home to the soul, or mind; because mind/soul is not a function of the brain like laughing or talking or limb movement, rather is a process whose home is the entire head, indeed, the whole body.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[GEddie]

That’s correct. The observer, mind or soul is intangible and thus cannot be located in the brain. Brain and mind interact, but consciousness is not localized. For all its endeavors, science cannot even tell us what goes on in the brain when we add 2 + 2 = 4. Much less are scientists capable us telling us what happens in the brain when we make a mistake in mathematical calculations. The neurophysiological processes don’t make a mistake. Go figure!

Actually, the cerebral underpinnings of mathematics are being closely zeroed in on; (pun intended) see the recent issue of DISCOVER magazine. Not only do infants and even some apes seem to have an innate sense of number and the ability to learn number symbols, but 2 brain regions have been identified via MRI as being involved in these operations (at the front and the top of the cerebral cortex; sorry, haven’t committed the names to my mind).

No doubt the cerebral activity in mental arithmetic is now or will soon be studied in the same manner. As to making mistakes, well, that will probably take longer. It will be hard to experimentally control the making of mathematical errors

ICXC NIKA.

 

[GEddie]

2 brain regions have been identified via MRI as being involved in these operations (at the front and the top of the cerebral cortex;

…OOPS…

I meant at the top and the SIDES of the cerebral cortex.

Still other areas are used when number symbols are being learnt.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Fran65]

Locating areas of cortical specialisation still does not tell us how consciousness (including processes such as carrying out mathematical procedures) occurs.

For example, neuroscientists can confidently state that visual processes are associated with activity in the visual cortex (hence its name!). However, they are unable to explain how the conscious experience of ‘seeing’ colour, shape, movement, and distance occurs.

In addition, all we are doing when looking at fMRI scans and the like is seeing areas of relatively increased activity. This does not mean that this is where the function takes place. We can only say that there appears to be an association between an increase in glucose use in that area and the function we are interested in. The real test is deliberate destruction of particular areas, and even then we can only say that area is involved, as other areas of the brain can and sometimes do take over the function of that region.

Neuroscienc is a fascinating area.