Why are we (usually) reasonable?!

[Sair]

An analogy needs justification particularly when it implies that physically imperceptible thoughts and emotions are in the same category as physically perceptible heat…

Consider that thoughts are actually not physically imperceptible - your perception of thoughts is bound up in words and sensations, is it not? And can be communicated to others by means of words and actions?

A question requires an answer, not another question - to which the answer is an indivisible, rational, autonomous being. What is your answer?

The answer hinges upon your understanding of ‘indivisible’ - as I’ve been endeavouring to explain, apparently imperfectly, a person is a particular arrangement of matter and energy, by which is meant that if certain of those material aspects are missing, what you have is not a person but some other arrangement of matter and energy.

That is a problem for the materialist!

Why only for a materialist? You have never yet defined what you understand as the distinction between mental and physical events. You’ve yet to offer an explanation of precisely what you believe mental events to be, if they are not physical.

You’re confusing a mental event with what you suppose to be a completely different category of event, i.e. physical. Do you equate thoughts with electrical impulses? If not why not?

Thoughts are generated by electrical impulses in the brain; memories are stored as information within the structures of the brain and nervous system. Thus far, all this is physical. Again, what do you think thoughts are, and where do they come from? Do you even have a lexicon with which to speak of thoughts in a non-physical context?

There is every reason to suppose inanimate things are incapable of generating thought, or of being rational, or of being responsible for particular actions! The onus is on you to explain how that incredible feat is accomplished. Is it an everyday occurrence? Can you specify a time and location when and where it occurs? Can it be replicated in the laboratory? Or is it merely an unverifiable and unfalsifiable act of faith in the supreme power of physical energy?

The first mistake is to suppose that matter is necessarily inanimate - it is not. It is interactive, reactive and proactive. It has already been demonstrated that electrical impulses are both generated and transported by nerve cells. Of course this happens every day, throughout the body of any functioning sentient being. How else would you expect to function in the world? I’m afraid the onus is actually on you to explain - in the face of mounting evidence that thought, central control and information processing all happen within an animal’s nervous system - what else you need to add to the equation in order to produce what you suppose to be a ‘person’.

Conjunction in time and space is not an adequate reason for attributing ownership, agency or responsibility.

Why not? If processing of information happens in the brain situated in the body identified as me, who else should be supposed responsible for my actions - assuming I am conscious and not acting under coercion?

In addition “my” is an illegitimate use of the term in a world composed solely of impersonal objects where persons become redundant.

Persons only become redundant in this context if you presume persons are something that cannot be physically manifested. Why would you suppose such a thing?

Which do you prefer to have - a bodiless mind or a mindless body? Why do you think the terms “mind” and “person” exist? Why do you use those terms yourself if mind and brain are identical? Surely it is literally a case of self-deception because according to you there is no self to deceive! You can’t have it both ways - unless it is the brain deceiving itself but how could it do that?

Terms such as ‘mind’ and ‘person’ exist because language - particularly European languages - developed in the context of a dualistic understanding of reality. We presently lack the language that might adequately describe the integral phenomenon of personhood - dualists never came up with such a language, because they were determined to keep the two supposed realms separate. The more we understand of neuroscience, the more we can appreciate that everything that makes us what and who we are is contained within the physical realm; that our brains and the rest of our bodies interact not only with each other but with the world outside our skin, to create our perceptions of ourselves as individuals. The best we can do, with the tools we are given, is to refer to ‘me’ and ‘myself’ when what we really mean is the matter and energy (temporarily) contained within our skin; and if control or direction of our bodily impulses is generated from within this specific physical arrangement (whether incorporating some external influences or not), then we can still - with confidence and accuracy - say that we are exercising ‘self-control’.

To what, exactly, do you refer when you speak of your ‘self’?

 

[tonyrey]

So without brains there are no minds? And without nervous systems there are no persons?

The worthless, insignificant ** brain of the freak **of nature meaninglessly referred to as “you” is finally getting nowhere **by nervously **and **unsystematically **struggling to conjure up a REASON out of the **irrational **universe by extracting a **fortuitous **and absurd isomorphism from the mindless, impersonal and purposeless chaos in which it **happens **to find itself - entirely by Chance of course!

 

[tonyrey]

What is also extremely valuable is being able to redirect my thoughts from a negative spiral - acknowledging that my depressive thoughts don’t define who or what I am, but can be allowed to simply pass through as mental traffic, and give way to the possibility of more positive thoughts.

Precisely** where** is the power to redirect your thoughts located?

 

[tonyrey]

		 		 	 	 I had a bout of depression some years back, and in that state  feelings of love, beauty, happiness disappeared, and without them I  thought of myself as more thing-like than person-like. My doctor knew  what to do, a standard treatment to speed up the return of depleted  neurotransmitters, along with a (very gentle) lecture to work a lot less  and play a lot more so it doesn't happen again.

So when I say our mind is between our ears it’s not mere speculation, it’s from direct objective and subjective evidence.

I keenly await your explanation of why I should ignore the evidence of that experience in favor of your theory, whatever it may be.

No reasonable person questions the fact that a faulty guitar cannot play music as intended by the composer!

 

[tonyrey]

That would depend upon what you are seeking evidence of - if someone sees something, or otherwise senses something, that is most certainly evidence of something - though it may not be evidence that what this person believed they saw or sensed was actually what happened. Consider the art of sleight of hand, for a useful example of how our senses may be deceived.

Obviously I can’t speak for ThinkingSapien, but for myself, yes, I do. What’s more, I believe we consist of atomic particles, but in various molecular, structural, integral arrangements.

Fortuitous structural, integral arrangements?

What do you think we developed from?

I believe we have a rational origin, a discussion of which needs a separate thread because this one concerns us as we are…

Of what do we humans consist, in your view?

Certainly not purposeless permutations of particles! We have a rational mind with which we control our body and communicate our thoughts, beliefs, emotions, goals, values, desires, choices, principles and decisions.

In that case we’re not responsible for our thoughts or conclusions!

If we’re not, who is?

In your scheme of things no one! In my view we are responsible for not all but at least some of our thoughts, beliefs, emotions, goals, values, desires, choices, principles and decisions.

 

[Sair]

Precisely** where** is the power to redirect your thoughts located?

In the same brain that generates the thoughts, strangely enough - I’ve certainly never encountered any evidence of a supernatural soul that steps in to direct my thoughts. Don’t you think a complex brain would be capable of generating multiple and even contradictory thoughts? If it were a matter of a simple, unified, indivisible mind-stuff playing out such things, it seems it would be much more difficult to change one’s mental direction.

 

[tonyrey]

Precisely* where***

“strangely” is a perfect description of an absurd hypothesis.

1. Precisely** where** in the brain is the power to redirect your thoughts located?

2.** How **does the brain generate thoughts?

1. What are thoughts? Electrical impulses?

I’ve certainly never encountered any evidence of a supernatural soul that steps in to direct my thoughts.

1. Don’t you believe you direct your thoughts?

Don’t you think a complex brain would be capable of generating multiple and even contradictory thoughts?

I don’t believe a brain is capable of generating anything - apart from electrical impulses?

1. Where is the evidence that the brain generates anything intangible?

If it were a matter of a simple, unified, indivisible mind-stuff playing out such things, it seems it would be much more difficult to change one’s mental direction.

The term “mind-stuff” reveals an incorrigible mindset!

1. Do you translate everything and every**one **into “stuff”?
2. Do you regard yourself as divisible? If so what are the parts?

It would be much more difficult to change one’s mental direction.

I thought you believe it is impossible to change your mental direction…

1. What mechanism does the brain use to change its direction?

 

[inocente]

No reasonable person questions the fact that a faulty guitar cannot play music as intended by the composer!

Come on, don’t be bashful, do you think the human mind is in the brain, and if not where is it?

 

[inocente]

Depression is a real eye-opener, in some respects. The way I have defined it, for myself at least, is that it’s like completely forgetting how to be happy, and that you ever really were. All is numbness, and even the things that thrilled you before have virtually no effect.

Over the course of my life, since my first major bout of clinical depression as a teenager, I have learned how to recognise and manage the thought patterns that herald the onset of a depressive episode. What is particularly interesting is that I have found, more recently, that actually performing physical actions, be they as simple and mundane as housework or walking my dog, actually have positive effects upon my thought patterns. What is also extremely valuable is being able to redirect my thoughts from a negative spiral - acknowledging that my depressive thoughts don’t define who or what I am, but can be allowed to simply pass through as mental traffic, and give way to the possibility of more positive thoughts. I can’t think of anything in my life that has more clearly demonstrated that the physical is equivalent to the mental; that I am more than just what goes on in my brain - that the rest of my body is just as integral and important to my person.

I know exactly what you mean about wanting to recognize your thoughts and stand aside from them. Every so often I twig something is up, and drag everything in turn into consciousness, and that helps dissolve whatever is on my mind without necessarily discovering exactly what it is.

Still, I bleed for you, a single episode was more than enough for me. I think only those have not experienced it could possibly think the mind is supernatural, it seems so cavalier, they don’t realize how naked, how vulnerable we are.

And it’s OK to be vulnerable, to be alive is to be vulnerable.

 

[inocente]

1. Don’t you believe you direct your thoughts?

How can you exists separately from your thoughts? Is it not a thought that directs thoughts - if not then what?

 

[ThinkingSapien]

No reasonable person questions the fact that a faulty guitar cannot play music as intended by the composer!

Don’t be so sure of that. When I was in middle school one of the things our teacher had us do was adjust for an instrument that was out of tune. She would intentionally de-tune the string instruments and have us play them anyway enforcing that we play in tune. The reason for this is so that in the middle of a performance if an instrument came out of tune (which can occur from temperature change) it would not impact how we sounded.

So subjective evidence is generally as valuable as objective evidence?

That would depend on the scenario.

The criterion of sense perceptibility is currently popular. Do you accept it?

I’ve never had reason to describe something is being more real or less real. It’s not something that I accept or reject. If some one else used it I might ask for further clarification for what is being expressed. However, the concept of “truth value” , in which a proposition or belief may have varrying amounts of error may have some similarities.

Do you believe we have developed from atomic particles?

I certainly seem to be composed of matter, which is composed of various atoms. So atomic particles play a role in the narritive for my development.

So you’re uncertain?

I wouldn’t assert that one’s brain is completely mechanistic without further information on how it works, only that there are there are reasons to think it would be. There’s some level of uncertainty in anything that is considered “possible.”(ex: It’s possible I will leave work on time today,and there is some uncertainty that I will leave work on time today).

In that case we’re not responsible for our thoughts or conclusions!

You don’t think I have any choice! I’m just a spectator…

In some situations you may be less than a spectator. People run on autopilot a lot and are at times not even aware of their own actions.

If I control(influence) the information one receives (even if it is false information) and if I know something about the person’s response patters or reasoning then that could be used to steer the person. Whether from upbringing or some other type of training certain response patterns and reasoning can be imbued into a person and make possible stronger influence over that person. People generally don’t like being manipulated. So if this is done without the person knowing that manipulation is occurring one could be more effective at it. This could be done for reasons of exploitation or to the advantage of the one being manipulated.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I had a bout of depression some years back, and in that state feelings of love, beauty, happiness disappeared, and without them I thought of myself as more thing-like than person-like. .

You’re the second person that I’ve heard express this recently. There was a guy that left his faith and his church at the age of 21 and went through some bought of depression after it. His description:
prplfox:

Many people experience to varying degrees at least once in their life what is known as depersonalization. In what appears to be a defense mechanism of the brain in response to severe threat or anxiety the prefrontal cortex activates to inhibit the brain’s emotional regions. The result of this is the sensation of being in a dream and the loss of the ability to feel. The reason why this experience can be worst than the alternative is because of the way our sense of self is directly tied to our emotions. Without your feelingsit’s like there is no ‘you’. Put another way Descarte’s expression might more acurately describe our psychology if it said “I feel therefore I am.” Or in the words of my own journal “Hurting is so much better than not living”…

From video “What is supposed to be” time marker 7:50

 

[tonyrey]

Come on, don’t be bashful, do you think the human mind is in the brain, and if not where is it?

The mind is nowhere! It itranscends time or space. The ludicrous hypothesis that a lump of tissue inside the skull is the **sole source **of our consciousness, power of reason, beliefs, insights, intuitions, goals, values, ideals, principles, conclusions, aspirations, and **voluntary **decisions is hopelessly inadequate and unrealistic because it not only fails to correspond to the way we live and regard ourselves and others as rational, autonomous persons with a right to life and happiness but also implies we are freaks of nature which exist for no reason or purpose in an irrational universe where truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love are mere figments of the imagination.

 

[tonyrey]

.

Don’t you believe you

You don’t!
You are the source of your thoughts.

Is it not a thought that directs thoughts - if not then what?

How can a product direct itself? Only thinkers direct their thoughts and even they don’t always do that.

 

[Sair]

The mind is nowhere! It itranscends time or space.

The only thing more ludicrous than the notion that the mind arises from the brain would be this. How can you be in any position to assert this about the mind? And if the mind is nowhere - that is, nonlocalised in your body, for one thing - how does that give you any possibility of personhood or identity (both of which you appear to value)?

 

[Sair]

The ludicrous hypothesis that a lump of tissue inside the skull is the **sole source **of our consciousness, power of reason, beliefs, insights, intuitions, goals, values, ideals, principles, conclusions, aspirations, and **voluntary **decisions is hopelessly inadequate and unrealistic because it not only fails to correspond to the way we live and regard ourselves and others as rational, autonomous persons with a right to life and happiness but also implies we are freaks of nature which exist for no reason or purpose in an irrational universe where truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love are mere figments of the imagination.

Well, here’s the thing - the ‘lump of tissue’ in question is not the sole source of anything that makes us what we are. The whole point about our existence as open systems in an open system (the Earth) is that we interact with our environment. We receive and process information and stimuli, and generate thought and action on the basis of information and stimuli we receive. I’ve asked before, without ever receiving an adequate response, how we could possibly think about anything if we lacked anything to think about - that is where the external influences come in. If the mind is a completely independent entity - nonlocalised, transcendent - that merely ‘dips in’ to the world around it and the body it supposedly inhabits (temporarily, according to you), then it would seem that our reasoning about the world lacks any sort of solid, reliable basis. That really would make us ‘freaks’ of nature - lumps of flesh that (occasionally) play host to little packets of supernatural woo.

 

[tonyrey]

The ludicrous hypothesis that a lump of tissue inside the skull is the **sole source **

Please explain what else the brain consists of apart from tissue.

The whole point about our existence as open systems in an open system (the Earth) is that we interact with our environment.

Interaction that in your scheme of** things** is fortuitous, valueless and purposeless.
Persons don’t exist.

We receive and process information and stimuli, and generate thought and action on the basis of information and stimuli we receive.

“We” don’t even exist in your scheme of things. The physical organisms described as “we” are the hapless and helpless products of the information and stimuli they receive.

I’ve asked before, without ever receiving an adequate response, how we could possibly think about anything if we lacked anything to think about - that is where the external influences come in.

You have been informed several times that persons who are not idiots or lunatics have an abundant wealth of information and knowledge from their thoughts, emotions, intuitions, desires, goals, values, decisions and perceptions…

If the mind is a completely independent entity - nonlocalised, transcendent - that merely ‘dips in’ to the world around it and the body it supposedly inhabits (temporarily, according to you), then it would seem that our reasoning about the world lacks any sort of solid, reliable basis.

The embodied mind does not “dip” into the world but is an integrated whole with the body - a fact that is recognised in every court of law. Your distortion of the relation of the mind to the body does not alter the fact that **no civilised person treats others as animals or mindless machines. **

That really would make us ‘freaks’ of nature - lumps of flesh that (occasionally) play host to little packets of supernatural woo

Materialists are committed to the insane doctrine that we are no more than passive lumps of natural goo!

 

[tonyrey]

The mind is nowhere! It itranscends time or space.

Only ludicrous for some** body** who regards the mind as a fantasy produced by accidental juxtapositions of molecules…

How can you be in any position to assert this about the mind?

How can a mindless **body **be in a position to assert anything reasonable whatsoever?

And if the mind is nowhere - that is, nonlocalised in your body, for one thing - how does that give you any possibility of personhood or identity (both of which you appear to value)?

Personhood and identity don’t even exist in the materialist’s impersonal universe. They are meaningless myths in a meaningless universe.

Neither truth, goodness, freedom, justice, equality, purpose, personal fulfilment or love is affected by time or space. The most precious and significant aspects of life are intangible and indestructible - unlike the material objects on which materialists unrealistically stake everything.

 

[inocente]

You’re the second person that I’ve heard express this recently. There was a guy that left his faith and his church at the age of 21 and went through some bought of depression after it. His description:

*Originally Posted by prplfox

Thanks. I’d agree. Having thoughts makes us human but having feelings makes us alive.

 

[inocente]

For the sake of discussion:

The null hypothesis H0 is that the mind arises from the physical alone.
Alternative hypothesis H1 is that the mind arises from both the physical and the non-physical.
Alternative hypothesis H2 is that the mind arises from the non-physical alone.

The mind is nowhere! It itranscends time or space.

This suggests you’re proposing H2 …

*The ludicrous hypothesis that a lump of tissue inside the skull is the **sole source ***of our consciousness,

… while this suggests you’re proposing H1.

Which is it, H1 or H2 (or another)?

In practice H1 will appear exactly the same as H0 in all circumstances unless you have a testable prediction to tell them apart.

H2 would fail immediately as it can’t be tested and doesn’t even seem to make sense - for instance if your mind is non-physical, how come your thoughts emanate from wherever your body happens to be located?

*The ludicrous hypothesis that a lump of tissue inside the skull is the **sole source ***of our consciousness, power of reason, beliefs, insights, intuitions, goals, values, ideals, principles, conclusions, aspirations, and **voluntary **decisions is hopelessly inadequate and unrealistic because it not only fails to correspond to the way we live and regard ourselves and others as rational, autonomous persons with a right to life and happiness but also implies we are freaks of nature which exist for no reason or purpose in an irrational universe where truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love are mere figments of the imagination.

I can understand your fear that H0 could undermine values, but think actually it’s the opposite – the more we understand, the more we realize how unique and precious we are.